Amen to that ;)
I believe Catalunya organizers already admitted that 2019 would be their last mix rally.
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i wont miss Corsica (alhtough this year it awesome and step into the right direction with the new stages) but i will definitely miss Germany, sad to hear its out, ive always liked this event with its unique stages in vineyard and military area, good challenge for drivers IMO. Especially if it rains.
with that being said, im also sure that now Rally Spain will be full tarmac rally from 2020, but IMO it isnt enough. Like er88 says, its an absolute disgrace for the championship. Only 2 pure tarmac rallies ?
And together with Monte kinda 3, but we know Monte is in its own category.
If New Zealand makes it then i would be a lot happier.
A little bit more info about the Rally GB situation in this BBC article. If it goes to Northern Ireland in 2020, it'd be back in Wales in 2021, according to Motorsport UK chief executive Hugh Chambers. No mention of Scotland or elsewhere.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48292439
Yes. In a way those roads work when the idea is to drive 1000 km in one day - you need to keep up the speed on the smooth sections and know when to slow down for the bad places not to break the car. But it doesn't work for a rally where you fight for tenths of seconds. The average speeds on the national private R5's has been as high as 120 km/h - the WRC's could probably go up to 140 km/h. Let's see if they start putting chicanes on those stages...
It's about time for mr. Rilli to check whether his export licence is still valid...
On a more serious note, in some twisted way I almost like the idea of 500kms of these roads that don't seemingly make any sense to be used in WRC rally. In a way that would make the championship's return to Africa even more unique, i.e. to make the rally differ as much as possible from other events. Maybe we'll end up having the most boring rally ever, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
With the drivers attacking the stages at full, the rally could be decided on a puncture roulette.
I just did a search on the two main UK sports sites, BBC Sport & Sky Sports, and there isnt one single mention of rallying (WRC or national).
This shows how invisible the sport is here and so how unlikely it is for anywhere other than NI is to take on Rally GB.
Do you think you're the only one with internet, and no one has the ability to check your bullshit?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/motorsport/48248493
One small page, well done on finding that ! Probably from the N.Ireland Section seeing as they only mention Meeke, and not fellow Brit Elfyn Evans...
I just looked at the main page https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/motorsport where there is nothing about WRC.
Anything on the Sky Sports site - probably the most popular sports news site in the UK, especially with younger people ?