25/10/2007
RallyRACC Catalunya-COSTA DAURADA 2008: The 44th edition, from 2 to 5 October

The World Motor Sport Council met yesterday to take several decisions affecting most of the FIA Championships in 2008. As regards the WRC, the Council decided on the calendar of the FIA World Rally Championship for next season, according to which the 44 RallyRACC Catalunya-COSTA DAURADA, Rally de España, will be held from 2 to 5 October. Just like this year, the Spanish round of the World Championship will be staged one week before the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse and will be the final round of the Junior Rally Championship. The 2008 WRC calendar is made up by 15 rounds.

The 2008 FIA WRC does not bring significant changes compared to 2007. The calendar has one round less (15 instead of 16) and three measures of general compliance were introduced: The running order for each Day will be based on the event classification; the term “Leg” will be replaced by “Day”; and the regulations will provide for a 10 minute final service prior to the finish podium. It is intended to create the opportunity for the Service Park to be an attraction until the finish of the event.

2008 FIA WRC Calendar
24 to 27 January – 76 Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo
8 to 10 February – 57 Uddeholm Swedish Rally (Production)
28 February to 2 March – 9 Rally México (Production)
27 to 30 March – 28 Rally Argentina (Production)
24 to 27 April – 5 Jordan Rally WRC (Junior)
16 to 18 May – 50 Rally d’Italia-Sardegna (Junior)
29 May to 1 June – 55 BP Ultimate Acrópolis Rally (Production)
13 to 15 June – 9 Rally of Turkey (Junior)
31 July to 3 August – 58 Neste Oil Rally Finland (Junior)
15 to 17 August – 27 ADAC Rallye Deutschland (Junior)
28 to 31 August – 38 Rally of New Zealand (Production)
2 to 5 October – 44 RallyRACC Catalunya-COSTA DAURADA, Rally de España (Junior)
10 to 12 October – 52 Rallye de France-Tour de Corse
24 to 26 October – 8 Rally Japan (Production)
28 to 30 November – 64 Wales Rally GB (Production)

As regards the following years, the World Council decided that from 2009 onwards, the events will be allowed to run mixed surfaces (i.e. asphalt and gravel surface), on the condition that a surface will be used on two consecutive days (i.e. only one change of surface during the rally). From 2009 as well, the total length of the special stages will be increased from 360km to 400km.

The projects for the 2009 and 2010 calendars, which are currently under discussion, will include the novelty that each of the seasons will be made up by 12 scoring rounds, with all of the current rounds skipping one year and including new ones such as Poland and Russia or non-scoring rounds of the 2007 season, such as Australia and Cyprus (they were scoring rounds in 2006), Portugal (scoring round in 2007 after five years and non-scoring round in 2008), Norway and Ireland (they had their WRC debut in 2007 but will not be included in 2008) and Indonesia (scoring round in 1996 and 1997), among other possibilities.