This was debunked as fake news ;)
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The 5 year plan they had: https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/rally...-championship/
Spain out?
Catalunya -> ERC
Both. Canarias still have contract.
Jeezz... F1 is probably having 24 races next year, MotoGP just added Kazahkistan to the calendar (???) and they are talking about having India and Saudi too for the next years. WRC will probably increase its calendar too and go to shitty places with lots of money and no tradition. Thats how things work nowadays.
....tho Safari, Acropolis, NZ and Japan are back so...
So is there really only two tarmac events next season? Croatia and Japan? What a joke that would be.
I'd lose Estonia and Sardinia before losing any more tarmac events. In a 14 round championship you'd at least want 4 tarmac events surely.
This was published just 3 weeks ago so hopefully we do get an August slot for another tarmac event, and if they do at the end decide to have NZ in August, hopefully we'll have the 3rd (real) tarmac event in October like we have for the past 20 odd years? (excluding 2020 of course).
"Germany is among the new candidates in the mix to secure a spot on the calendar. The tarmac event made its WRC debut in 2002 and had been mainstay on the schedule, before hosting its last WRC round in 2019."
That was from the Autosport article I attached, whether it will happen or not, I find that hard to believe, with so many events outside of Europe fighting for a spot, they'll have to drop at least one European event to achieve 14 rounds.
If I had to guess, they'll drop Catalunya & instead we'll have Japan in it's October slot with Saudi Arabia 2 months later in December. So it will go something like:
Monte Carlo, Sweden, Mexico, Croatia, Chile, Portugal, Sardegna, Kenya, Estonia, Finland, NZ, Greece, Japan, Saudi Arabia.
Hopefully I'm wrong and we'll get to keep one of our current tarmac (August/October) slots, whether it's Germany, Spain or another. Would be horrendous to have 3 (ish) tarmac events out of 14, they did that in the past (2009 comes to mind) and they quickly took a U-turn with it, hope this won't be the case here but this is the FIA & promoter we're talking about, making logical or clever decisions isn't exactly at the top of their priorities to put it lightly.
There was a regular pre event rally podcast where they had one of the Rally Estonia's organizer there and looking at the body language when they asked about the dates of next year rally, then I feel quite positive that it will happen. Of course he couldn't say anything but there wasn't anything like we are not sure about the funding etc. Looked like he really wanted to say and confirm :D
Speaking of the devil(s): https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/r...slot/10375708/
Not only we're getting Saudi Arabia for next year (if we're to believe the rumours) but now also NZ is out, probably didn't have enough cash to bribe the FIA.
Now left with 5 fly-away events, apparently South America is in the mix, I wonder which European event will come instead, hope it's a good one and not Latvia or something like that.
Real shame losing NZ before it's had the chance to put on a proper itinerary. Hopefully it will be back every few yrs at least on a rotational basis.
I liked 2019 when they had Chile and Argentina back to back. Both rallies have fantastic stages and scenery, hugely passionate fanbases and Argentina had the history. Guess it's just Chile for next year though.
Return of Germany for the extra European round? Otherwise the FIA might have to backtrack and keep Spain or Ypres (which I'd much rather than some other new gravel rally or a return to somewhere like Cyprus)
Losing NZ is just poor management.....And just proves what we already knew - all they care about is $$$$$$$.
The sport is going nowhere with these idiots in charge.
USA or Oz in for NZ.
Canada for North America.
US has Rally2/ R5 and R3 cars etc. Invite the FIA cars north of the US border.
Agreed. I also think the promoter and the dimwits in charge should respect the importance of historical events more. If blood/oil money countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar want to chuck insane money at the WRC to host an event, I guess we have to accept that (like every other sport is doing).
However, those countries have enough finance to pay for all the costs involved for the teams to get there. The promoter should then do what it can to help events like NZ, Argentina etc stay a part of the calendar, rather than making it financially impossible for them to make a yearly rally work. S£udi Ar£bia should be an addition to the championship, not at the expense of a better event or country that can't chuck endless oil money around . But no doubt the Saudi blood money will just line the pockets of the promoters instead etc.
Next year we will have no Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, no forest rally in the UK, and we still haven't added an American, Canadian or Chinese event yet. At least Greece and Safari are back, along with Japan.
Please move Safari to April ;)
What about the Azores? :cool:
So to summarize, we're losing Catalunya, Belgium, New-Zealand to bring back Chile, Mexico, Central Europe and add Saudi Arabia....good luck to all involved, wonder what they'll do there, a prologue to Dakar 2024? Would easily swap it out to keep New-Zealand for another year (with longer itinerary).
Assuming it goes ahead, and I'll also try to stop mentioning it once I've said this, if Saudi turns out be a minnie-mouse imitation monza-in-the-desert-in-the-middle-of-an-industrial-estate, I will cancel my subscription. There are some stunning regions with beautiful black ribbons ripe for everything that rallying should be about. What of this is actually usable for a rally, whether it's accessible and if there's enough of it in one area, I just don't know. But given they have a rally-raid championship and Dakar, only a handful of asphalt hillclimbs, drags, drifts and autotests; and whatever they create will be new and ideally a sustainable event to develop the national industry, asphalt has to be the goal for me.