Well at least we get to keep most of our tarmac rounds on the calendar, still annoyed by the fact that Saudi Arabia didn’t even have a candidate event, even though Mexico did host the rally of nations.
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Mexico has arranged a WRC event for almost 20 years, they don't even really need a candidate event. But Rally of Nations was a nice way of saying "we still want to host WRC"
But nice to hear the European events remain as they are. Latvia and Cyprus aren't as good as Portugal and Spain (which were rumored to be dropped)
I honestly have no idea why Latvia needs to be in the WRC when you have Estonia there, tbh, no offense to Rally Estonia but I'd rather have Rally Argentina & if that's not possible another tarmac round instead, considering the fact we're losing our August tarmac slot.
Definitely need more tarmac rounds. Such a pity Rally Northern Ireland seems to be dead.
Rally Ireland which ran in 2007/2009 did not show the island's true potential, we really have fantastic and totally unique roads but running the event in the winter did not help.
If it was in the August slot it would be a great event even if it was confined to Northern Ireland.
Imagine Torr's Head with Rally1 cars tearing down it!
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Anyway.....not to be
The article also says that Corsica is looking forward to arrange a rally again in addition to Latvia, Cyprus and Czech(!)
For me the number of tarmac rallies is not that important, more about the variety of events. Croatia and Catalunya are totally different events, and Ypres is also different to them.
With that said, you still wouldn't want a calendar that had 2-3/14 events on tarmac right? MC is something else entirely although it’s on tarmac, you could also argue Croatia has a different character to Corsica & nothing (yet) on the calendar is quite like Catalunya or Ireland. By the way, saw some footage on twitter from this year’s Rally Japan’s stages, they are in for a challenge & the roads look absolutely beautiful in the mountains over there.
I think Monte + 2 tarmac rounds is the minimum if the total number of rallies is 14, but assuming there's also two fast gravel rallies and one snow event, so it's not just technical gravel all over the season
For me there should be 4 or 5 tarmac rallys. Monte, Croatia, Japan. And than Germany, would prefer again in the winefields around the Mosel, agree that Ireland deserves a spot.
They should make some alterneting system between ERC and WRC, that way every rally can run a top event each year. Take Spain, Croatia, Germany, Ireland, Ypres in to that rotation. But keep the real big classics like Monte in wrc each year.
The calendar would be a bit refreshed every year. Also good for younger pilots, easyer to take on the fight whit expierensd drivers on fresh roads.
The Classics;
Monte
Sweden
Mexico
Italy
Portugal
Finland
Greece
Japan
Alternating asfalt rallys could be;
Croatia and Corsica
Germany and Ypres
Spain and Ireland
Gravel could be
Latvia and Estonia
New Zealand and Australia
Argentina and chili
Jordan and Saudi Arabia
Turkey and Cyprus
Just my thoughts, probably never will happen, but i think most rallys could benefit from this system.