Sébastien Ogier has revived one of rallying's longest-running arguments, and this time he has a fresh reason to make it. With the World Rally Championship's 2027 technical overhaul looming and only Toyota so far committed to building a car to the new rules, the eight-time champion says the sport will need to bring back qualifying to keep starting order fair.
Ogier's concern, aired ahead of this weekend's Rally Estonia, is about grip rather than politics. The 2027 formula is expected to mix full WRC27 cars with cheaper Rally2-based machinery, and on loose gravel the running order can hand a decisive advantage to crews starting deep in the field, on a cleaner, faster surface.
"Then, secondly, in rally, think about starting order when you're going to come on gravel," Ogier said. "Imagine you have a Rally2 kit starting 25th on the loose gravel; they're going to have a massive grip advantage and obviously going to be much quicker than the Rally1."
His solution is the one he has pushed for years. "So I think, yeah, if you go back to that, for me, you will need to reintroduce qualifying and find a way for a more fair starting order position," he said, adding: "Everybody knows my opinion on that. I mentioned that since 15 years. But qualifying for me was always a great thing."
He is not the only frontrunner uneasy about how road position shapes results. Championship leader Elfyn Evans, who has spent much of the season managing the disadvantage of sweeping gravel as the man on top of the standings, favours a different fix — rebalancing the calendar rather than the format.
"For me, if none of the other alternatives work, then probably the fairest way is to have a more equal split between the Tarmac and the gravel rallies in the championship – then you don't have so much of an issue," Evans said. He argues the current points structure compounds the problem: "I still think Sunday has too many points on offer... maybe the points for Sunday should be a maximum of seven or eight in total."
The debate is not new, and the sport's rule-makers have so far resisted a wholesale change. When the WRC Commission weighed a qualifying system ahead of 2025 — one that would have let the top championship contenders run in reverse order at shakedown and then pick their Friday road position — the proposal was voted down, including a vote against from the drivers' representative.
FIA road sport director Andrew Wheatley signalled at the time that any tweaks would be modest. "There is big discussion about the whole process of the weekend from the first flag to the end," Wheatley said. "I don't believe there will be a dramatic difference, we won't go to a full qualifying activity or something radically different, but there is work around the edges to see if we can make it slightly different."
The frustration is easy to understand. Thierry Neuville, reflecting on the issue after one of his title campaigns, complained that leading the championship brought "no reward" given the penalty of opening the road on gravel.
For now, the running order stays as it is: the leader sweeps on Thursday and Friday, with the field reversing on Saturday and Sunday. But with 2027's mixed grid on the horizon, Ogier's argument has a sharper edge than it did the last time the sport shrugged it off. Rally Estonia, another fast gravel event where road position matters, will only underline the point.
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