The World Rally Championship looks set to return to the Far East for the first time since 2010 with a new round in China tipped for inclusion next season.
Rally Japan five years ago was the last time the world championship visited Asia, but WRC Promoter’s Oliver Ciesla is confident that will change with an event running 80 kilometres north of Beijing in 2016 – with a Japanese return likely the following season.
“China is one of our objectives and we have invested quite a lot in making this happen,” Ciesla told British newspaper Motorsport News. “What we have achieved so far is that we see the sporting federation is very much prepared to have a WRC round in 2016. We are supporting the federation in making this event commercially viable. There is a venue 60 or 80km north, north-east of Beijing. Our objective is to do a candidate event this year, which allows us to propose it for the 2016 calendar, this is an ambitious timeframe, but this is one of our priorities.”
Ciesla added that Rally Japan’s return was more likely following Toyota’s announcement of a WRC campaign starting from 2017.
Ciesla said: “We are in contact [with Japan] and, with Toyota joining us, a Japanese round is very attractive and absolutely on our radar. The earliest moment this will happen is when Toyota is back on board, that’s when it makes sense to be back. This [Japan’s WRC return] is looking like 2017 or 2018.”
Published by: Maxrally