Prodrive: “We cannot talk to sponsors in this situation”

This week’s edition of The Rally Show by iRally featured a string of interesting interviews with Dani Sordo, Dave Wilcock and David Richards – basically, Prodrive’s A team.

Among many interesting topics covering past, present and future there was one thing that totally shocked me personally, although I can hardly say it came as a surprise. It’s just I was sort of hoping it wasn’t so bad.

Basically, David Richards was talking to Neil Cloughley of World Rally Radio and iRally about some ideas on how to solve current crisis in the WRC and the way he decided to paint the picture of what the WRC is like at the moment is just a true wake up call.

“We stopped looking for sponsors two months ago. It’s simply impossible at the moment. Even if you do find a sponsor and he is happy with your programme he will eventually ask about the TV coverage, media presence, audience figures and we just don’t have these kind of answers at the moment”, said Richards.

Just to remind you guys, Prodrive is currently running their own WRC team with limited amount of WRC outings this year and it’s everyone’s hope they will be able to secure sponsorship for proper season next year. Also after listening to Richards in The Rally Show I cannot help but feeling NOS and WRC crisis at the end of 2011 and start of 2012 probably played a significant role in Prodrive’s failure to secure sponsor for full 2012 season as manufacturer team for the Mini.

If you missed The Rally Show by any chance, you can listen to it being rerun later on worldrallyradio.com, irallylive.com or iRally Apps.

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