WRC LOOKING TO EXPAND ITS CALENDAR
Rush for new events as series looks to broad en its horizons
WRC Promoter is working on a two-year plan to overhaul the World Rally Championship calendar – with two new rounds to be put forward for next season.
Chile and Japan are expected to feature on a provisional 14-round 2019 WRC calendar to be delivered to the FIA in the early autumn. But to make that happen, one current round will have to be dropped and that event, according to the manufacturers, has to be and is looking increasingly likely to be the Tour de Corse.
While there was disquiet among the team principals about the lack of fans in Sardinia last month, it is the French island – which has even fewer fans – that is set to be sacrificed for a return to the Far East.
Rally Japan will run a candidate WRC round on its main island in November but, according to sources close to the Japanese event, it will be included on the calendar, but with an asterisk until the outcome of the candidate event is known. This will be Japan’s first return to the WRC since the Sapporo-based event in 2010. It will also be Japan’s first WRC round to run outside of Hokkaido, the country’s northernmost island.
Toyota team principal Tommi Makinen admitted a home event for the WRC’S newest team would be very welcome in Toyota City.
“To take a Japanese manufacturer to its home round of the world championship would be very special,” Makinen told Motorsport News. “This is something we are very happy to hear is possible.”
Japan is also keen to raise its sporting profile ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
With Turkey returning to the WRC this year, Chile and Japan coming next season, the final part of the two-year plan is to implement a Safari Rally return in 2020 – but again this will come at the cost of one of the existing rounds after the teams were cold on plans to move up to 15 rallies.
One source said: “Fifteen rallies will be coming in the future, but it’s too soon for now. What we need now is for everybody to be getting something from the championship. The teams have been by paid by the promoter for Turkey; it’s part of the agreement [with Turkey] that there’s a fee for them to cover some of the logistics.
“That’s a multi-year agreement as well, so the teams will be paid as long as we’re going to Turkey. The promoter has to make that happen; it’s keen to make a new funding model work where rallies have to pay their way – just as they do in Formula 1. It will be the same agreement with Chile, Japan and Safari when they arrive on the roster. The promoter has to have the ability to make a business out of the championship. Without that, what’s in it for them and what do they have to promote? But it’s a balance – a fine line that they’re treading well now.
“The guys at WRC Promoter really understand the sport now and they understand the importance of the iconic events: the Montes, the Finlands, the GBS; these are the rallies which lead the television coverage and provide the historical backbone to the series.”
MN understands 11 rallies – of which eight are outside Europe – have an active interest in landing rounds of the WRC, placing more pressure than ever on the existing rallies of the championship.
As part of its two-year review, WRC Promoter has put every event under the microscope, and MN understands the results have revealed events like Corsica and Rally Germany are struggling to make the strongest financial case moving forward.
FIA president Jean Todt was joined by WRC Promoter managing director Oliver Ciesla n Paris to sign a promotion agreement with the organisers of the Safari Rally late last month. Ciesla said: “This agreement reflects our determination to restore a legendary rally to the championship and reinstate Africa to the top table of world rallying.”
A Nairobi-based candidate event will run in March or April next season, attended by the FIA, the promoter and representatives from the teams.
Croatia is busy rebuilding a case for a WRC round, with government funding, but a planned Zagreb-based event is not understood to be on the list of 11 and its case is not going to be helped by the fact that it falls within Europe.
Todt has long-held a belief that the world needs to be put back into the World Rally Championship and that is now coming high on the promoter’s agenda.