Teams and Drivers
20 different manufacturers have won a World Rally Championship event, and a further ten have finished on the podium.
Suzuki and Subaru pulled out of the WRC at the end of the 2008 championship, both citing the economic downturn then affecting the automotive industry for their withdrawal. Mini and Ford both pulled out of the WRC at the end of the 2012 championship, due to a similar economic downturn affecting the European market for their withdrawal.
A typical WRC team will consist of about 40 people on the events, with a further 60–100 at the team base.
Manufacturers and manufacturer-backed teams usually have two or three drivers participating in each rally and eligible to score points. The total number of crews (driver and his co-driver) in the rallies varied from 47 (Monte Carlo and Mexico) to 108 (Great Britain) during the 2007 season.
In 2012, The Ford World Rally Team and The Mini WRC Team both announced their departure from the World Rally Championships for the 2013 season. Both teams will be replaced by Volkswagen in 2013 and by Hyundai, which will make their return to the championship in 2014.
Read more about this topic: World Rally Championship
Famous quotes containing the word teams:
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)