The Marque has a Grand tradition in Rallying

Volkswagen is not the only major car name being tossed about as a possible debutant in the ‘new’ World Rally Championship next year. Sources at Mini confirmed that the British brand will make a decision this May on whether to follow its German rival into next year’s Super 2000-based WRC.

The marque has a grand tradition in rallying, with the original Cooper?S winning consecutive Monte Carlo rallies in the late 1960s, and inside Mini it is felt that the time is right to push the brand back into motorsport. ‘The cost and the time could be right for us,’ we were told. ‘We just have some hurdles to clear here and we will get started on it.’

Insiders at Mini have also confirmed that the company has been negotiating with Dave Richards’ Prodrive outfit to design and build the rally cars and to run the team as well.

While the WRC has continued with its high-torque, low-revving WRC turbo cars, the slower Super 2000 cars have dominated the rival Intercontinental Rally Championship, with Peugeot, Skoda and Fiat dominating the results. Unlike current WRC or Group?N rally cars, the Super 2000 formula doesn’t demand that car companies build their rally machines around road-car technology or suspension pick-up points. Instead it is essentially a silhouette formula, with the cars running standardised high-revving four-cylinder, non-turbo engines. The idea is to make the cars cheaper to build, repair and maintain and to make the sights and sounds of the sport more spectacular.

While the technical specifications of the WRC Mini – which will be branded Mini Cooper S – are said to have been finalised, the commercial side of the deal is still being worked out. It is understood the Mini team would need to find a major sponsor, as BMW is not keen to fully fund the team out of Mini’s own cash reserves.

Prodrive already runs the FPR V8 Supercar team in Australia, Aston Martin’s Le Mans sports cars and it ran Subaru’s WRC efforts for nearly 20 years. With former WRC champion Petter Solberg and quick Australian Chris Atkinson as its last drivers before Subaru pulled out at the end of 2008, Prodrive could even bring Mini a full complement of WRC-qualified drivers as well, though company insiders insist a decision on driving personnel has not been made.