The backlash against revamped Rally GB

Citroen team principal Pierre Budar didn't look quite ready for a Saturday night shaking it down at Broadway Boulevard. Which is a shame, given that he spent the larger part of last week right on the doorstep of Llandudno's number one nightclub.

It's fair to say Budar didn't see Citroen's next-to-a-nightclub location in Rally GB's new home as a selling point.

It did, in fact, make him cross. Very cross, which was understandable. Citroen and its six-time World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier were hidden away in the service park when Rally GB moved to Llandudno last week.

There was, unfortunately, very little alternative.

Moving the event north out of Cardiff saved its very existence in 2013 and the Deeside service park used until last year was a means to that end.

But Deeside was never the long-term answer. A wide expanse of open space next to a car factory on an industrial estate within spitting distance of the English-Welsh border almost made a few folk clamour for a return to Rally GB's sometime Swansea base in Felindre. Well, almost...

Lots of noise was made about significant change being brought in for this year's Rally GB route. Even more noise was made about last week being 'A World Apart' - the chosen marketing slogan.

Beneath that fluff the guts of the route remained pretty much identical - utilising the very best woods in the middle and north of Wales. The changes actually involved taking the start to Liverpool and the service park to Llandudno, with the addition of an Oulton Park stage as a Thursday night loosener along the way.

Putting the WRC into Llandudno was a square peg and round hole situation. But even with much chiseling from service park maestros Steve Cridge and Alun Pritchard, the thing still didn't fit.

M-Sport and Toyota were in the car park of the town's swimming pool, Hyundai was next door in the coach park and Citroen was round the corner in... well, we know where Citroen was. The town's foremost nightspot.

So, what about the seafront, the prime service park real estate? That went to the privateers, the national runners, WRC 2 and the Junior cars.

To the uninitiated, that made absolutely no sense. What the heck were Cridge and Pritchard thinking? OK, Skoda, the Solbergs and the JWRC village brought a chunk of cool to the promenade, but some sections were very much more national clubman rally championship than WRC. Personally, I loved being able to watch the amateurs' army land rovers being sledgehammered-back into roadworthiness, but this wasn't necessarily the vision of world championship-standard service park punters had expected.

Sources within WRC Promoter have said in no uncertain terms that Rally GB's standing has slipped as low as it was in 2012

But unfortunately, the seafront simply wasn't wide enough to accommodate the manufacturer service areas. Cridge and Pritchard had no choice but to put the big guns elsewhere.

During the event, tongues were held and people made do. But, since Sunday, I've been surprised by the strength of the anti-GB backlash. In the eyes of the WRC's stakeholders, Rally GB was not good enough. One official within the governing body told me: "It's [gone] back 15 years."

Hmm, not sure I'd go back that far, but certainly Llandudno wasn't exactly what we'd hoped for. Motorsport UK CEO Hugh Chambers described the move as a step in the right direction, and I'd agree with that.

In fact, the whole service park agreed with that. The philosophy of the job was absolutely right. Taking rallying to the people is a drum that's been banged for a very long time. But, here's the thing: what's the point of taking the service park to the people, only to run service when there are no people around?

Friday at midday was the only sensible service time on last week's itinerary. Saturday, the manufacturers cried out, was the perfect lunchtime appointment for the cars in town. In all honesty, the families and folk the event had come to Llandudno to entertain were probably in bed at 0540 when the cars came in for morning service. And, quite likely to be bound for Broadway Boulevard when they returned 14 hours later. Where were the WRC stars at lunchtime? Newtown.

Route co-ordinator Andrew Kellitt and clerk of the course Iain Campbell have my sympathy here. Saturday is the busiest day for punters and Dyfi and Sweet Lamb are the stages that can take the most spectators. But if the rally goes there to satisfy the hardcore, it makes it very difficult to get back to Llandudno to do something for the wider population in the middle of the day.

My sympathy for those on the sporting side of the event was shared universally between the WRC stakeholders.

Returning to Chambers' suggestion of a step in the right direction. I'm afraid there's very little room for mere 'steps' these days when it comes to the WRC calendar.

When events as efficient as Rally Spain are being lost from next year's schedule (Yes, there will be rotation, it's back in 2021 - but Salou's not on the list next year) and Germany appears bound to be dropped in '21, steps just don't cut it.

WRC Promoter will not tolerate this next season - wherever Rally GB ends up. Sources within the organisation told me in no uncertain terms that Rally GB's standing has slipped as low as it was in 2012. That's bad.

For the first couple of calls from disgruntled WRC folk, I stoutly defended Rally GB. And Llandudno. And when mention of the cancellation of the Great Orme stage - because safety divers couldn't get close because of rough seas near the route - came up, I pointed out the dangers of the swell beneath the surface. A swell that would have clattered the divers against the rocks.

But what I couldn't defend was the treatment of spectators on Sunday. The organisers told folk they could take their Orme tickets to the Brenig stage and get in there for free.

Here's one fan's experience: "We got up on the Orme early and walked for an hour to find an amazing place. We saw Esapekka Lappi come by at about 10mph, found out the stage was cancelled and walked the hour back.

"We then queued for half an hour to get off the Great Orme, drove an hour to Brenig, only to be told we weren't allowed in. But we could park the car and walk for another hour to the stage. Instead, we drove back to Llandudno to watch the finish, couldn't find anywhere to park, and when we finally got to the podium, we couldn't see a thing anyway.

"We won't be coming back."

As one of the Rally GB organisers said: "Petter Solberg won't be there to save us next season"

Ouch.

One stage Chambers holds up as a beacon of accomplishment is Oulton Park. And he's not wrong. It was superb. It sold out and delivered a great atmosphere. But shouldn't that credit be bound for circuit owner Jonathan Palmer and MotorSport Vision? Granted, there was no end of Motorsport UK input, but it was the MSV infrastructure that made it fly.

It would be great to see Oulton back next year, but if we go back to Liverpool, the event simply can't go there without a superspecial stage in the city.

Talking of Liverpool, last week was a case of right place, wrong time. Rally cars rolling onto the city's waterfront between 3pm and 4pm on a Thursday was, undoubtedly a source of much frustration to the office workers looking down from their desks. If the £200,000 needed to run a superspecial in Liverpool can't be found, then let's not bother having a token presence there.

Chambers has acknowledged this and is on the case, which is good. But, the more digging I did and the more calls I made, the more concerned I became about last week.

The last line of my defence of the event was to point out how much GB had evolved since 2013 and how much the administration had listened, taken criticism onboard and moved forward with it.

That brings me to quite possibly the biggest concern. Since former Rally GB managing director Ben Taylor's exit, it seems there's very little goodwill towards UK motorsport's governing body from the rallying world.

I walked the service parks - national and WRC - to gauge opinion last week and the overriding adjectives offered regarding UK motorsport chiefs wouldn't make for great reading.

The objects of such criticism may well blame Autosport for spreading negativity. In fairness, there's been no criticism of the event in the national media. As far as I could see, the event largely passed national newspapers by - although The Daily Telegraph did manage to squeeze the results of the event in between American ice hockey and the US Open Squash in Philadelphia.

And the objects of my criticism could point me in the direction of packed car parks and ticket sales 50% up on last year. That's a great achievement. But, as one of the organisers said: "Petter Solberg won't be there to save us next season."

The hike in sales when Solberg announced his participation spoke volumes. As did the movement of spectators out of stages once the 2003 world champion had passed by.

Now, I fully expect to be ostracised by some (again) for voicing an opinion shared by the WRC stakeholders, not to mention legions of fans and competitors out there.

I don't care. Call me a trouble-causer, call me what you want. But once you've done that, take a look in the mirror. And don't even think about a communal burying of heads in the sand.

Without getting all leftie, Rally GB doesn't belong to any individual in the UK motorsport hierarchy. It belongs to the thousands of rally fans out there. And we owe it to those people to make sure any steps we take are very big ones. Let's look for leaps - leaps would be good here.

Frustratingly, I've got all the way down here and I haven't even had time to talk about the increasingly toxic atmosphere among the teams, an atmosphere that is unnecessary and far from conducive to driving the world championship forward. But there's plenty of time, we'll come to that soon enough.

Like we'll come to the Rally GB sums and the challenge of balancing the books with diminishing investment from Wales and growing bills from WRC Promoter. Look out for rudimentary rally economics in the coming weeks.

For now, am I too late for last orders at the Broadway Boulevard? Pint, Pierre?