About // World Rally Championships
The FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) is one of the most demanding and challenging motor sport competitions in the world. Sanctioned by the Féderation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the WRC is home to the world’s elite rallying talent.
Drivers and co-drivers travel at speeds of up to 200 kph on tarmac, gravel, snow and mud in temperatures than can plummet to -30°C and soar to over 40°C, in ice storms, dust clouds and in different countries around the world. And they’re up against the most unforgiving adversary of them all – the clock.
This is motor racing as it should be; a championship to find the world’s greatest driver, over some of the most visually compelling sporting arenas the globe has to offer. All this action takes place in modified road cars that spectators can directly relate to.
The WRC consists of 16 rounds which take place in five continents. Each Rally is competed over three days; each day is known as a leg and drivers and co-drivers compete over Special Stages, which are varying distances of terrain. A typical WRC rally will have between 15 and 25 Special Stages and the crew with the fastest cumulative time over these is the winner.
Points are accumulated based on the position finished in on each round and the World Champion is the crew or manufacturer with the highest number of points at the end of the season.
The reigning World Champion is France’s Sébastian Loeb, competing for Citroen. Ford, Subaru and Mitsubishi are represented in the Championships, with new manufacturers due to come on-stream next year.
In addition to the WRC, there are two support Championships. The Production World Rally Championship (P-WRC) is run in near-standard road cars (ie the ones you buy in your local dealership) with the only modifications allowed being those which are necessary for driver and co-driver safety. The FIA Junior Rally Championship is open to competitors under 28 years of age and competing in cars with and engine capacity of up to 1,600 CC.
The World Rally Championship is an exciting visual spectacle which WRC is broadcast in over 200 territories around the world and has a global television audience of over 807 million people. The global rights-holders for are International Sportsworld Communicators (ISC), who broadcast over 4,500 hours of programming in the 2006 Season, with the total number of broadcasts increasing by 27% on the previous season.