Group B

This article is about motor racing regulations. For other uses, see Group B (disambiguation).

An Audi Sport Quattro S1 E2, one of the most powerful Group B cars

Group B was a set of regulations for grand touring (GT) vehicles used in sports car racing and rallying introduced in 1982 by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Although permitted to enter a GT class of the World Sportscar Championship alongside the more popular racing prototypes of Group C, Group B are commonly associated with the international rallying scene during 1982 to 1986 in popular culture, when they were the highest class used across rallying, including the World Rally Championship, regional and national championships.

The Group B regulations fostered some of the fastest, most powerful, and most sophisticated rally cars ever built and their era is commonly referred to as the golden era of rallying.[1] However, a series of major accidents, some fatal, were blamed on their outright speed with lack of crowd control at events.[2] After the death of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto in the 1986 Tour de Corse, the FIA banned the group from competing in the WRC from the following season, dropped its prior plans to introduce Group S, and designated Group A as the top-line formula with engine limits of 2000 cc and 300 bhp.[3]

In the following years, ex-rally Group B cars found a niche in the European Rallycross Championship until being dropped in 1993. By 1991 the World Sportscar Championship had moved on from Group B and C, with the GT championships formed in the nineties preferring other classes such as the new Group GT. The last cars were homologated in Group B in 1993, though the FIA made provisions for national championships and domestic racing until as late as 2011.[4][5]

  1. ^ Top Gear website: The corner that killed Group B Archived 7 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Magazines, Hearst (1 August 1987). Popular Mechanics. Hearst Magazines.
  3. ^ "FISA Makes Changes To Improve Car Safety". Schenectady Gazette / AP.
  4. ^ "FIA Historic Database".
  5. ^ "Article 251 – 2011 Classification and Definitions" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 May 2014.