Last week the world motorsport governing body announced a raft of proposals as part of its extensive roadmap to address the future of top-level rallying.
This concept included changes to technical regulations, the abandonment of hybrid technology and the introduction of new Rally1 rules from 2026. In addition to the technical overhaul, there are plans to revamp the sporting side of the championship.
Under current regulations, events must comprise at least 300 kilometres of timed stages. But from next year event organisers will now be offered more freedoms when developing the route and format of rallies as the championship aims to put together a global calendar featuring a mix of endurance and sprint-style rallies.
All events must culminate on Sundays with an end-of-rally Power Stage, while the amount of timed stage kilometres over a season will remain at its current level.
A move to less rigid formats could see the introduction of more remote services and less dependability on a central service park. The move could see some events move away from the traditional cloverleaf format that was introduced by former WRC team owner David Richards, when in charge of the WRC, 20 years ago.
The service park set-up will also undergo a change, with team structures to be locally sourced to cut costs and provide flexibility, alongside a plan to cap the amount of personnel sent to events by teams.
Sardinia will offer a glimpse as to how sprint-style rallies will operate this year, with its 48-hour concept revealed earlier this year.
More widespread changes to events and service parks are expected to take effect from next year, according to Richards, part of the FIA taskforce behind the concept for the future. Plans to cap staff at events will be conducted in a staged process over the next two years.
“It comes into effect as soon as possible, next year,” Richards told media including Motorsport.com.
David Richards
Photo by: FIA
“The personnel [cap] side of it we haven’t looked at the enforcement of that, but I hope we can bring that in for next year. It is common in other categories in motorsport, so I don’t see it as a big problem to enforce and it will help.
“As far as the service parks are concerned, straight away we can bring that in for next year. It is about freeing up the organisers in order for them to manage events without the controls that have been put on them in recent years.”
Richards explained that the…
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