FIA announced new guidelines for the WRC in its meeting in February 2025. Most of the big things were related to the technical regulations and car classes, but there were also new things for the events and routes, so let’s look at them more closer and with practical examples. And while we’re at it, let’s dream a bit, won’t we?
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Events with variable length
– FIA Meeting notes
- Event organisers will be given more freedom when developing the route of their rally. However, while the starting day of an event and the number of stage kilometres can vary, all rallies should finish on a Sunday with the Power Stage.
- The global calendar may include a small number of shorter sprint-style and longer endurance events in addition to the rallies that follow the existing format. Nevertheless, the overall timed kilometres covered during a season will remain largely unchanged with events still organised on a mix of asphalt, gravel and snow
I have already written years ago about having a mix of short and long events in the WRC, but now we have the possibility to have short, normal and extra long ones. So needless to say, I’m excited about these opportunities to make the calendar more versatile and give more personality to events.
I could see Monte, Acropolis or Safari being an extra long event with special stages already on Thursday, whereas rallies like Poland, Latvia and Estonia could adopt a short format. I could see the short format working also for Sweden, who seems to struggle at finding stage material, or Croatia, with a possibility to have several stages on Friday evening on a tight area. And obviously, Sardinia this year already will be a sprint event, maybe Latvia as well.
Movable service
– FIA Meeting Notes
- The service park set-up will follow a new model with manufacturers allocated locally sourced structures as a working space. As well as saving costs and reducing the amount of transportation required, the move provides more flexibility, should the service park location change during an event. It also reduces the total area required for the service park by event organisers.
- To allow organisers to adopt less rigid formats, reduce liaison section distances and spread the reach of events, remote service opportunities will be encouraged with teams permitted to carry limited parts in a small support vehicle.
Little did I know when I wrote my piece on remote servicing just weeks ago, that it would soon be reality, but with a possibility to even change the service park location.
Again I’m taking Monte as an example where they could take the event to all the classic regions. Go from Monaco to Gap on Thursday, take a trip to Valence for Burzet and St. Bonnet on Friday, do some Gap stages and return to Monaco on Saturday (Sisteron on the way), and then end the rally on a leg around Col de Turini.
Central Europe Rally, Acropolis and Croatia could also benefit greatly from remote servicing as they already rely on tyre fitting zones on covering a vaster geographic area. It could also spice up many other rallies to go to areas which haven’t been in use for some while, like my hometown in Tampere for Rally Finland.
And maybe something even better? Imagine Rally GB coming back with Thursday on some park stages, Friday in Wales, Saturday in Lake District/Kielder and Sunday in Scotland. It would be now possible with the extended length and possibility to relocate the service park. GB Rally people, please make this happen!
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