Croatia’s asphalt is retained in an expanded 13-round schedule after the central European country hosted a widely-praised debut in April.
New Zealand will also make an exciting return to an enlarged FIA World Rally Championship in 2022 after the sport’s first hybrid-era calendar was unveiled on Friday.
The 2022 championship in detail
The season kicks off with January’s fiendishly difficult Rallye Monte-Carlo in the French Alps, which is based solely in Monaco for the first time since 2006.
It is followed by the spectacular snow and ice of Rally Sweden, the series’ only pure winter fixture, which also has a new home as it relocates north to the east coast city of Umeå. Croatia is the opening pure asphalt encounter and will again be based in Zagreb in late April.
The gravel fixtures begin in Portugal in late May, the first of a string of gruelling hot weather dirt road rounds. It is followed in June by Italy and Kenya, one of global motorsport’s legendary contests which made a stunning return to the WRC this year.
Blisteringly fast roads in Estonia, which marks the midpoint of the championship, and Finland precede round nine in mid-August at a venue to be confirmed.
Greece, another championship stalwart, returns in September after its successful WRC comeback last month, before the final gravel encounter in New Zealand. The closing two rounds take place on asphalt. Spain’s late October fixture leads into the finale in Japan, mainstream Asia’s first appearance in the WRC since it last visited the country in 2010.
Next year brings some of the biggest and most far-reaching changes in the sport’s history as the WRC enters a more sustainable age.
Exciting top-tier hybrid Rally1 cars will blend 100kW electric motors and the existing combustion engine, while a hydrocarbon-based fossil-free fuel will be 100 per cent sustainable. The calendar was approved at the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in Paris and WRC Promoter managing director Jona Siebel said the mix of classic fixtures and newer events would provide a mouth-watering schedule in a landmark season.
With Kenya’s iconic Safari Rally and Japan also listed, the season covers four continents – Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia – as the pandemic eases and commercial rights owner WRC Promoter rebuilds towards its target of a 50-50 split between European and long-haul rounds.
Find out more at WRC’s official website.
