ISC, Promoter for the World Rally Championship and charged with proposing a revised structure to the 2010 WRC calendar, has reacted to the withdrawal of three of the nominated rounds authorised by the FIA by adding four new names. They propose that Portugal, Spain, Corsica and Britain are added to the series. A fourth name has been added, as the nominated round in Bulgaria has yet to be official Observed. No dates have yet been decided, because ISC are now suggesting certain rallies change their dates, so that the Calendar ends up with three week gaps between each championship round, and a longer gap in the summer, because of the World Cup football tournament. The draft proposals have been shown to the teams, and will in final form then be presented to the FIA’s World Council meeting on 24 June. A major compromise in the FIA’s polices is already evident. The policy of strict rotation approved in 2007 has been abandoned.

The proposed calendar still seriously unbalanced. Although there are six events in first half of the season and six in the autumn, there are four long-haul rallies in the first half (and a fifth in the second) the first event is still to be Sweden but then all the events will be gravel, half of the season are gravel while four of the final seven events will be on asphalt. Comments from the teams are cautious. Olivier Quesnel of Citroen Racing, “The calendar could have been worse!” though Mark Deans of Ford, who earlier strongly advocated a change to a winter calendar, nevertheless says that “The new calendar is encouraging, we have a group of organisers who really want to be part of the series”.

3mmm

Latest draft list for 2010 WCR Calendar

Sweden
Mexico
Portugal
Jordan
Turkey
New Zealand
Bulgaria
Finland
Germany
Japan
Spain
Corsica
Great Britain