rally cars use sequential manual gearboxes.
what kind of gearbox do rally cars use?
sequential manual gearboxes
beyond the ease of use from a driver's standpoint, an additional benefit of sequential manual gearboxes is that use of the clutch via foot pedal or hand control can be minimized or completely obviated, with the clutch used only for starting from a complete stop. formula one cars of the 1990s made the most high-profile debut of this technology in motor sports, and enhanced variations on this theme are still in use in many forms of road racing and drag racing today. the simple push-pull action of the shift mechanism also lends itself to semi-automatic control using either hydraulic or pneumatic actuators—a system often referred to as paddle-shift. instead of a manual gear lever, the driver is provided with (usually) a pair of flipper paddles on the steering wheel. rally cars often utilize just a double-acting single paddle: pulling on the right-hand paddle makes an up-shift and pulling on the left-hand paddle makes a down-shift. the paddle-shift system will use a sophisticated electronic control unit to provide the necessary logic to operate the shift mechanism. this type of paddle-shift system fitted to race and rally cars should not be confused with most of the current crop of paddle-shift systems fitted to some high-end road cars. these systems often use a dual-clutch transmission or a conventional torque converter automatic transmission which allow driver input to select the gears.
sequential manual transmission
the wrc trophy was created in 2017 as a response to widespread technical changes in the world rally car category. these changes, which made the 2017 generation of world rally cars significantly faster than their predecessors meant that world rally cars built between 2011 and 2016 would be unable to directly compete with the newer models. conversely, world rally cars built before 2017 would be faster than the group r5 cars competing in the world rally championship-2. with further changes to the sporting regulations restricting the ability of privateer teams to enter 2017-specification world rally cars, the wrc trophy was created to encourage privateer entries and enable older-model world rally cars to continue competing without threatening the position of the world rally championship-2 as the sport's premier feeder category. under the wrc trophy regulations, crews are eligible to enter up to seven rounds of the world rally championship, with their best six results counting towards their final points tally. wrc trophy entrants were still eligible to score world rally championship points separately to the wrc trophy.
world rally championship support categories