...apart from the fact the season opener is in France.

Sardegna's slot in the calendar would be a nice time of year to go to NZ and, realistically, who has been making more noise about running their event as part of the WRC? Some of those 13 events 'ready' to host a round of the WRC are a total surprise.

Croatia, for example, has a long established event (though no longer part of the ERC anymore) and others are part of ERC/APRC but where in the hell did Canada, Chile and Korea come from? I was surprised when I looked at the MERC calendar that there is no Abu Dhabi event but there's so much money spilling out of UAE I'm sure they would be able to put on a rally to WRC Commission/FIA/Red Bull's standards at the first attempt.