Subaru out of WRC

lads this is the biggest balls all year was so looking forward to rally ireland and the team etc.duffman i have to agree with you it probably was coming a long time it will be a big loss to rallying cause for me subaru made rallying if it wasnt for them and colin and richard i would have never got into a subaru.this is a bad day for subaru and rallying r i p subaru 1993-2008
 
Dare i say it this is the end of an era,Rallying as we know it is dead.The iconic impreza is being diminished into nothing more than a family hatch back.WRC has been in steady decline since the early 2000's.Great shame.
 
Fcuk sake. Im ragin. Better buy a Citreon jacket for Rally Ireland :new_puppy_dog_eyes: I've no doubt they;ll be back though. Hope they dont stay away like Mitsibskfjsfhkj :subaru:
 
ericsti said:
No one to blaim but themselves really.

They Killed the Impreza their biggest seller. Have only seen three Sti's and one or two lesser models since its Launch early in the year.
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Here, here! Fooking idiots ruieed there best seller and left themselves fooked! Not surprised they had to drop out!
 
Heard it this morning, and it's hard to work today. Prodrive have gotten 90 million, year on year, and no silverware, then a financial crisis. I have seen this coming, as Subaru are not very happy with there investment. The new car is a very good package to start with, but Prodrive have not used there resources correctly. Petter Solberg has been in contention for title's, and won 1 against, Sianz, McRae, Burns, Gronholm, Makinen, etc. The decline of SWRT started when Prodrive got involved in F1, with BAR/Honda, and then onto endurance racing with Aston Martin and Ferarri. Dave Richards took his eye off the ball. If some company is giving you £90 million/year, you expect to win. Prodrive took Atkinson over Meek, because Atkinson brought £5 million/year for 3 years. Taking money instead of talent is a slippery slope.
I'll bet Subaru returns in a few year's run by Tommi Makinen. He's been waiting for a while for this chance


Angry John
 
If Citroen pull the plug then it has to be the end of the WRC as surely Ford wouldn't bother then.

Given the fact that between Citroen and Loeb they have done a virtual Ferrari and Schumacker on the sport there's got to be a serious risk to the WRC next year now. There were rumours that VW would enter the WRC but I think they were talking about the 2010 season. Can't see that happening now.

The S2000 cars use 2,000 cc naturally aspirated engines. I'm not certain about having awd but I think they're rwd. They are actually quite fast and entertaining to watch but absolutely nothing like the WRC cars. I'ts the difference between F1 and Formula 3000 :sad:

What killed Subaru, Japan's smallest car maker, was the fact that they came to the diesel party too late in Europe and missed the whole need to cut emissions to survive. Even Porsche are going to introduce diesel engines and the latest 911 Carrera 2 produces 225 co2s bringing it under the top tax bracket and still manages 28mpg which is impressive for a 340bhp car.

The fact that the latest Impreza looks like the offspring of a Daewoo Mazda one night stand didn't help either and what were they thinking with the new Forrester. It is now a proper SUV and competes with the RAV4 unlike the old Forrester which invented its own sub SUV market niche and virtually had it to itself until the new model came along and Subaru decided to try to compete with the established marques in the huge market for SUV's.

The less said about the Tribecca the better. Next years new Legacy will not be enough to save Subaru. They need an entirely new model range of clean, high performance cars that people can afford and want to buy, two things you couldn't say about it's present flagship STI :icon_rolleyes:

I've said it before and as unpopular as it may seem, Toyota may just be Subaru's savour in the long term. They are market leaders in clean engine technology and know a thing or two about making great sports cars that look as well as they go. Lets hope some of it rubs off on Subaru quickly otherwise the WRC will go the way of the way of the Group B cars.

Frawls
 
well johnny if makkinen does take over with a bit of luck he will bring the company back to its former glory i dont think these s2000 cars will be as entertaining as wrc motors and if/when they do come back kris meeke for no.1
 
"Prodrive took Atkinson over Meek, because Atkinson brought £5 million/year for 3 years"

What's that all about? I remember at the time they tested 3 or 4 drivers (including Hirvonan) over a few rallies and then offered the gig to Atkinson.

BTW, gutted about the news. I suspect however if they were up there with Citroen this might not have happened. They have a perfect excuse.
 
they took money over talent fookin muppets and if they were as high up as sh1troen they probably wouldnt have made this decision :angry1:
 
Subaru haven't given a sh*t about winning over the last few years as they only care about finihsing events to back up their reliablity reputation... that info came direct from the head technician at Prodrive when I went over to the open day. They don't need to win... they just want to be near enough to the best and to finish! Prodrive haven't taken their eye off the ball in the last while... they've just had an up hill battle to try and reactify the handling issues that came to light when the governing body banned active diffs due to costs! This created a problem Prodrive had never been aware of that, had been masked by ther active diffs. None of the previous Scoobs could be developed further to fix this. The new car partially solved these handling issues and Prodrive where very positve they were on their way to being big contenders again.... all prior to Subaru making the stupidest decision ever by pulling out. Subaru built their reputation and fortune through rallying.... and by walking away and not showing brand loyalty to their customers , as shown by us to them over many years of buying Rally bread road cars... they have basically killed off a great brand!

:angry1: SUBARU :angry1: SUBARU :angry1:
 
Sorry Jamie, but if your paid that amount of money, you fix the problem yourself. It's hard to believe that Citroen have such a good car on the same regs.

John
 
well said lads its strange citroens road cars have a bad name but their rally cars are top class and the cars with rally heritage and pedigree cant come close
 
Subaru hopeful of future return

By Steven English
Tuesday, December 16th 2008, 13:18 GMT

Subaru boss Ikuo Mori says he would like the marque to return to the World Rally Championship in the future.

Mori, who is the president of Subaru's parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries, explained that the manufacturer had to be withdrawn from the sport due to the current financial crisis, but expressed his desire for the brand to return in future.

"We have achieved our initial objective to improve the brand recognition and given the unprecedented economic deterioration, it was necessary to review our investments, these are the main reasons (for the withdrawal)," said Mori.

"The possibility of a Subaru car back in the top category of the WRC in the future is not zero, however for this moment there can be no assumption of a comeback. (But) if we can be allowed, we want to continue - especially for the fans.

"Reaching the decision has been an extremely difficult task, not least because of the countless Subaru fans that have supported our cars for so many years. We would like to express our sincere appreciation for our fans' strong and loyal support worldwide."

The revised WRC regulations that will come into force in 2010 with the switch to Super 2000 machinary is expected to dramatically cut teams' budgets and more manufacturers are believed to be considering joining the championship.

Subaru will still be represented in the WRC next season with independent Norwegian team Adapta running two cars. Mads Ostberg has been confirmed as one of the drivers and the team is still looking for a second.

Prodrive could still work with a customer team to field a two car Subaru entry in the manufacturer teams' class, although no confirmation has been made by the team.

Taken from autosport.com

So hopefully soon

John
 
johnny99 said:
Sorry Jamie, but if your paid that amount of money, you fix the problem yourself. It's hard to believe that Citroen have such a good car on the same regs.

John
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Citroen have 5 times the budget though and 4 development cars to Subaru's 1 that Marko Martin tests!! Nobody has a hope in hell of competing with that... especailly with Loeb behind the wheel too! Subaru insist on relaiblility... so where Citroen recycle parts.... Prodrive bin everything under 250 sterling on a re-build... that destroys their budget in an aim to be reliable on Subaru's request.

You can't always fix problmes. The boxer layout force Subaru to fit the stering rack in an orthodox place on their cars which meant that handling issues where always masked by the active diffs on the Rally cars..... you can't change that or fix that regardless of money as the production car comes like that and Prodrive just had to use what they where given. The banning of active diffs coz Citroen had a big old winge regardling the cost of em (funny from a company with 5 times the budget).... meant Prodrive could do nothing about being competetive until the new shape car came along!
 
Given that Mitsubishi have been out of the WRC for so long and Subaru are a far far smaller company than Mitsubishi motors I would say there's a better chance of Elvis coming back than Subaru for the forseeable future.

The handling problem Prodrive had after the active diffs were removed was already there before the FIA banned active diffs and Prodrive knew it! The reason they couldn't fix it back then was because they had an even bigger problem with the car....the gearbox which wouldn't last more than a few stages before converting itself into cogs and oil trifle. Between the gearbox and the handling problem Prodrive were under serious pressure. Also, Citroen's budget was estimated to be almost twice that of Prodrive so along with the greatest driver in the history of the sport it is easy to see why Citroen cleaned up.

The big difference between Citroen's participation in the WRC and Subaru's is that Citroen are unable to convert its massive WRC success into actual sales of its cars whereas the WRC helped Subaru to sell thousands of cars worldwide and launched the Impreza Turbo, the reason this site exists. I don't think Subaru pulling out of the WRC is the end of the world as long as it uses the money saved to launch desirable cars we can afford. Mitsubishi have made some great EVOs since pulling out of the WRC so there's no reason Subaru can't do the same :icon_pidu:

FRawls
 
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