Twelve months ago the prospect of a career in the World Rally Championship was a pipe dream for a quartet of youngsters from all four corners of the globe. But now these inexperienced drivers are daring to turn their dreams into reality thanks to the FIA Rally Star initiative.
The brainchild of Jerome Roussel, one of the figures that worked on the Rallye Jeunes programme that discovered the likes of WRC legends Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier, Rally Star is designed to unearth the champions of tomorrow and offer a chance to those who perhaps would never have a shot at competing in rallying.
Earlier this month, four aspiring drivers – some of whom had given up on a rallying career – uncovered by the scheme took the first step on the WRC ladder by competing in the opening round of the Junior WRC on Rally Sweden. Not only did they compete on the same stages as the likes of Kalle Rovanpera and Ott Tanak, they turned heads in the process.
There have been talent-finding initiatives in rallying before; think of the Pirelli Star Driver and WRC Academy that helped develop Tanak, Hayden Paddon and the late Craig Breen more than 10 years ago. But the new FIA Rally Star initiative has taken this idea to the next level, finding candidates aged 17-26 that will take advantage of a fully funded four-year programme (including two JWRC campaigns) driving an M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally3 car. Should one of the drivers win the JWRC title, they will receive a funded programme in WRC2 in 2026.
A global search that featured 7,000 hopefuls has resulted in four pairings Romet Jurgenson/Oja Siim [Estonia], Taylor Gill/Daniel Brkic [Australia], Max Smart/Cameron Fair [South Africa/Great Britain] and Jose Abito Caparo/Esther Gutierrez [Peru/Spain], each of them receiving a golden opportunity to forge a career in the WRC. The quartet were whittled down from a group of six that contested last year’s six-rally training season, conducted to prepare them for the rigours of the five-round Junior WRC season that began on the snow and ice of Sweden.
For Smart, the challenge was enormous given this was just the former motocross rider’s seventh rally event and the first time he’d ever seen snow and ice. This, on top of the opportunity to compete in a WRC event, was not lost on the 21-year-old South African either.
South African Smart was tackling snow for the first time
Photo by: M-Sport
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