Ireland may return to the calendar in 2026 as WRC wants to add an extra tarmac rally



The WRC event director, Simon Larkin, says that WRC Promoter wants to add one more tarmac rally to the calendar from 2026 and believes that Rally Ireland is the best candidate.

Motorsport Ireland failed to secure the funding from the Irish government in order to reach an agreement with FIA and WRC Promoter and to find a place on the next year's calendar. In addition to that, they wanted Rally Ireland to return back to the sport with a three-year deal and had already decided a host rotation system in which three cities would be the rally center for each year. The WRC calendar of 2025 has been confirmed a month ago and includes 14 events, but the tarmac rounds remain four with Canary Islands replacing Croatia while Rallye Monte Carlo, Central European Rally and Rally Japan hold their positions. Finally, WRC Promoter aims to keep running 14 events after the end of 2025, but the question mark is which gravel event will be dropped from the WRC calendar with the view of adding one more asphalt rally to the championship.

"We are working in cooperation with Motorsport Ireland and in particular their president Aiden Harper, who is doing a fantastic job", Larkin said.

"He is night and day on this and we are working with them as hard as we can to realise their ambition as well.

"I think the championship would love to go to Ireland and we also want to add another tarmac event by one event just to balance it out one more. Ireland is a fantastic candidate for that".


Source: Motorsport.com


Photo Credits: ewrc

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