The 2020 FIA WRC2 Championship was the eighth season of WRC2, a rallying championship organised and governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile as the second-highest tier of international rallying. The category was open to cars entered by manufacturers and complying with R5 regulations.[1]
At the conclusion of the championship, Mads Østberg and Torstein Eriksen won the Drivers' and Co-Drivers' championships, while Toksport WRT won the teams' title.
Calendar
A map showing the locations of the rallies in the 2020 championship. Contested events are in green, while cancelled events are in blue. Event headquarters are marked with a black dot.
The 2020 championship was due to be contested over thirteen rounds in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North and South America, and Oceania,[3][4] but the calendar was reduced to seven rounds due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[5]
With the addition of Rally Chile to the calendar in 2019, the FIA opened the tender process for new events to join the championship in 2020.[34] Bids to revive Rally Japan and the Safari Rally were received, and candidate events were run in 2019.[35][36] Both events were accepted to the 2020 calendar, as was a proposal to revive Rally New Zealand.[3] However, none of the aforementioned events were run due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[24][27][31]
The Safari Rally was scheduled to be run as a World Championship event for the first time since 2002. The event was to be based in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and feature stages around Lake Naivasha.[37] In contrast to the event's traditional endurance format, which featured stages hundreds of kilometres long, the 2020 Safari Rally was planned to follow a compact route to comply with FIA regulations mandating the maximum route distance.[23]
Rally Japan was scheduled to return to the calendar for the first time since 2010, replacing Rally Australia as the final round of the championship. The rally was scheduled to move away from its original headquarters in Hokkaidō to a new base in Nagoya and was to be run on tarmac rather than gravel.[38]
Rally New Zealand was scheduled to return to the calendar for the first time since 2012. The event was planned to return to Auckland.[3]
The addition of these events saw the Tour de Corse and the Rallies of Catalunya and Australia removed from the calendar.[4] Organisers of Rally Catalunya agreed to forfeit their place on the 2020 calendar as part of a rotation system that will see European events host rallies in two out of three calendar years. The Tour de Corse was removed in response to concerns from teams about the logistics of visiting Corsica, while Rally Australia was removed as the event's base in a regional centre rather than a major metropolitan area meant that the rally struggled to attract spectators.[4] Rally Chile was included on the original calendar, but was later removed in the face of ongoing political unrest in the country.[17] The FIA sought a replacement event to ensure that the calendar retained its planned fourteen rounds,[39] but were unable to do so.[18]
The running date of Rally Turkey was moved forward by a week, which facilitated the opportunity for additional rounds.[43] Further calendar options included Ypres Rally and Croatia Rally.[40] Following the cancellation of Rallye Deutschland, the running date of Rally Sardegna moved forward by three weeks.[44] This decision was intended to avoid the clash with the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix of Formula One.[28]
On 2 July 2020, it was announced that the season would return with an updated calendar. The season restarted with newcomers Rally Estonia hosting the resuming round between 4 and 6 September. The country became the thirty-third nation to stage a championship round in the WRC.[45]
Calendar newcomer Rally Monza was the season's finale.
Rally Monza was announced to be the final round of the season on 9 October. This meant Italy staged two WRC events in one season as the country also stages the Sardinia rally.[48] The rally was based in the famous Autodromo Nazionale di Monza circuit near Milan, where the Italian Grand Prix is held every year.[49]
Route changes
Prior to the Rally Sweden, it was confirmed that the route for the rally had to be shortened due to a lack of snow.[7] The route of Rally Mexico was shortened to allow teams time to pack up and return to their headquarters before several European nations imposed travel bans in a bid to manage the pandemic.[9]
Entries
The following teams and crews that entered in the 2020 WRC2:
Škoda announced that they would not enter a works team, arguing that Škoda Motorsport had proven themselves as a team and that the company would instead turn to supporting independent teams and drivers in 2020.[62] Similarly, Volkswagen did not enter a works team. The company cancelled all of its petrol-powered motorsport programmes to focus on electric racing, but would allow development of the Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 to continue.[63]
Changes
In 2019, the existing WRC2 championship was split into two championships for manufacturer teams and privateers. However, this structure was found to be too confusing,[64] and so the category was re-structured for the 2020 season. Professional crews contested WRC2 and privateers in WRC3.[64]
Points are awarded to the top ten classified finishers in each event. Unlike the World Rally Championship, extra points are not awarded for the Power Stage.
^The route of Rally Sweden was shortened from 301.26 km over 19 stages to 9 stages totalling 148.55 km. The route was shortened due to a lack of snow and bad weather conditions.[7]
^Coch, Mat (23 November 2019). "Volkswagen ends TCR program amid electric focus". speedcafe.com. Speedcafe. Retrieved 14 January 2020. While development of the forthcoming TCR car has now been scrapped, the company will continue to support the Polo GTI R5, though will not run the car in a factory-backed capacity.
