The 2017 FIA World Rally Championship was the 45th season of the World Rally Championship, a rallying championship recognised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) as the highest class of international rallying. Teams and crews contested in thirteen events—starting in Monte Carlo on 19 January and ending in Australia on 19 November—for the World Rally Championships for Drivers, Co-drivers and Manufacturers. Drivers were free to compete in cars complying with World Rally Car and Group R regulations; however, only Manufacturers competing with 2017-specification World Rally Cars were eligible to score points in the Manufacturers' championship. The series were supported by the WRC-2 and WRC-3 championships and the newly created WRC Trophy at every round, and by the Junior WRC at selected rounds.
The 2017 season saw substantial revisions to the technical regulations aimed at improving the performance of the cars and offering teams a greater degree of technical and design freedom. Toyota returned to the sport as a full manufacturer team, entering the Toyota Yaris WRC, as did Citroën, who returned to full-time competition after contesting a partial campaign in 2016. Conversely, Volkswagen formally withdrew from the sport at the end of the 2016 championship.
Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia started the season as the defending World Drivers' and Co-drivers' Champions after securing their fourth World Championship titles at the 2016 Rally Catalunya. Volkswagen Motorsport, the team Ogier and Ingrassia won their 2016 titles with, were the reigning World Manufacturers' Champions, having secured their fourth title at the 2016 Wales Rally GB. However, the team did not return to defend their title after parent company Volkswagen's withdrawal from the sport.
At the conclusion of the championship, Ogier and Ingrassia successfully defended their championship titles, becoming the second most-successful crew in the sport's history behind Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena and only the third crew to win multiple titles with more than one manufacturer. Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul finished second, thirty-two points behind Ogier and Ingrassia, while Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja placed third. In the World Championship for Manufacturers, M-Sport World Rally Team won their first World Championship title since 2007. Hyundai Motorsport finished second overall ninety-three points behind M-Sport, with Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT in third.
Calendar
The season was contested over thirteen rounds in Europe, the Americas and Oceania. Round Dates Rally name Rally headquarters Rally details Start Finish Surface Stages Distance 1 Monte Carlo Rally Gap, Hautes-Alpes, France Mixed 15 2 Rally Sweden Torsby, Värmland Snow 17 305.83 km 3 9 March 12 March Rally Mexico León, Guanajuato Gravel 17 231.25 km 4 7 April 9 April Bastia, Haute-Corse Tarmac 10 316.76 km 5 27 April 30 April Rally Argentina Villa Carlos Paz, Córdoba Gravel 18 356.49 km 6 18 May 21 May Rally de Portugal Matosinhos, Porto Gravel 19 349.17 km 7 8 June 11 June Alghero, Sardinia Gravel 19 312.66 km 8 29 June 2 July Rally Poland Mikołajki, Warmia-Masuria Gravel 22 338.34 km 9 27 July 30 July Rally Finland Jyväskylä, Keski-Suomi Gravel 25 315.62 km 10 17 August 20 August Tarmac 21 309.17 km 11 6 October 8 October Salou, Tarragona Mixed 19 312.02 km 12 26 October 29 October Gravel 20 306.13 km 13 Rally Australia Gravel 19 287.68 kmSource:
Calendar changes The FIA re-organised the calendar for the 2017 season to include a greater variation in surfaces between events, bringing the Tour de Corse forward from October to April. The decision was made after concerns were expressed about the 2016 calendar, which originally contained six consecutive gravel events followed by four tarmac rallies.
The Rally of China was removed from the calendar. The event had been included on the 2016 calendar before storm damage to the proposed route forced its cancellation. The round was removed from the 2017 calendar to give event organisers more time to prepare for a future bid to rejoin the calendar. Similarly, the FIA put the Rallies of Argentina and Poland on notice regarding safety concerns, threatening to rescind their World Championship status for the 2017 season unless safety standards were improved in 2016, with drivers citing a lack of safety marshalls and expressing concerns over spectators getting too close to the cars as the main areas to be addressed. Both events were subsequently included on the calendar.
The Rallies of Sweden and Germany changed their headquarters. The Rally of Sweden stayed within Värmland County, but relocated from Karlstad to Torsby. The Rally of Germany moved from Trier in Rhineland-Palatine to Saarbrücken in the neighbouring state of Saarland.
Route changes The Rallye Monte-Carlo introduced a heavily revised itinerary, with eighty-five percent of the route used in 2016 being revised for the 2017 event, which saw the competitive distance increase from 337.59 km to 382.65 km and included the Col de Turini as part of the Power Stage. Rally Sweden adjusted its route to remove the emphasis on purpose-built stages that had filled out the event itinerary in previous years. The new route raised the average speed of the rally and introduced more competitive mileage in Hedmark County in neighbouring Norway.
Rally Mexico also featured route revisions, with the eighty-kilometre Guanajuato stage—the longest in the championship in 2016—removed from the schedule; however, the addition of new stages and further changes to existing ones meant that the overall competitive distance of the 2017 rally was only six kilometres shorter than the route used in the 2016 event. The rally started in Mexico City with a spectator-friendly stage before moving to its traditional headquarters in León. The Tour de Corse shortened its route by seventy-four kilometres, from 390.92 km in 2016 down to 316.76 km in 2017, with most of the changes coming from shortening each of the individual stages used in 2016. Rally Portugal shortened its route by twenty kilometres, reintroducing stages that had not been used for several years and reconfiguring stages from the 2016 event. Rally Poland also revised its route, introducing a series of brand-new stages close to the Russian border. The changes saw the crews compete on a wider ranges of surfaces—including tarmac and cobblestones—within individual stages, although the rally was still officially classified as a gravel surface event.
Following the cancellation of stages in Rally Sweden when the front-running cars exceeded the maximum average speed mandated by the FIA, Rally Finland was forced to revise its route to find ways of keeping the average stage speed down—with some estimates predicting that the 2017 generation of cars could exceed —to avoid stage cancellations. This was achieved by installing artificial chicanes into all but two of the stages, which proved to be controversial as drivers complained that they were too narrow and thus had the potential to damage cars, and were poorly-positioned with little regulatory oversight from rally organisers. With Rallye Deutschland moving to a new headquarters, the rally routed was revised. The vineyard and military proving ground stages in the Baumholder region were retained, but the final leg of the route was changed to introduce high-speed stages based on country lanes.
Rally Catalunya introduced several new and returning stages to its route, focusing on the tarmac legs of the event. Organisers of the Wales Rally GB retained the event route used in 2016, but revised the itinerary to increase its difficulty, with the route featuring earlier start times, later finishes and the reintroduction of night stages. Rally Australia underwent route revisions, introducing a new loop of stages north of the rally headquarters in Coffs Harbour. The new stages were designed to be faster and more technical than in previous events.
Entries The following teams and drivers were entered for the rallies in the 2017 World Rally Championship: +ManufacturerEntrantCarTyreDriversRoundsFord M-Sport World Rally TeamFord Fiesta WRC1 Sébastien OgierAll2 Ott Tänak Martin JärveojaAll3 Elfyn Evans Daniel BarrittAll Hyundai 4 John Kennard 1–5 6–10, 12–13 Andreas Mikkelsen Anders Jæger 11 5 Thierry Neuville All 6 Dani Sordo Marc Martí 1–11 Andreas Mikkelsen Anders Jæger 12–13 Citroën Citroën C3 WRC 7 Kris Meeke Paul Nagle Anders Jæger 8 Khalid Al Qassimi Chris Patterson12 Gabin Moreau138 Gabin Moreau1, 3, 11 Craig Breen Scott Martin Khalid Al Qassimi Chris Patterson99 Stéphane Lefebvre Gabin Moreau4, 6, 8 Anders Jæger7, 10 Craig Breen Scott Martin9 Khalid Al Qassimi Chris Patterson11 Kris Meeke Paul Nagle12–13ToyotaToyota Yaris WRC 10 Jari-Matti Latvala Miikka Anttila All 11 Juho Hänninen Kaj Lindström 1–12 Esapekka Lappi Janne Ferm 13 12 Esapekka Lappi Janne Ferm 6–12Source:
+ Manufacturer Entrant Car Tyre Drivers Co-drivers Rounds Citroën Citroën DS3 WRC 14 Craig Breen Scott Martin 1 15 2 15 12 20 1 21 13 22 8 11 2310 21 11 22 7, 9–10 23 8 6 Citroën C3 WRC 15 Chris Patterson 6 Ford Ford Fiesta WRC 14 9, 11 12 6 10 15 8–9 37 3, 5 Ford Fiesta RS WRC 20 7, 12 21 6–7 37 2 81 4 82 4 7 86 12 99 7Hyundai Hyundai MotorsportHyundai i20 Coupe WRC 16 Dani Sordo Marc Martí 12 Mini Eurolamp World Rally Team 12 Valeriy Gorban Sergei Larens 3 15 5 16 2 20 11 21 8–9 22 6Source:
Team and crew changes
M-Sport entered the Ford Fiesta WRC, based on the Fiesta RS WRC and updated to fit the 2017 regulation. The team secured Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia to drive one car, and re-hired Ott Tänak, who returned to the team after contesting the 2016 season with DMACK World Rally Team. Tänak changed co-drivers, with Martin Järveoja replacing Raigo Mõlder. Elfyn Evans and Daniel Barritt returned to the premier class after contesting the 2016 season in the WRC-2 category, swapping places Eric Camilli and Benjamin Veillas, who stayed with M-Sport and were entered in the WRC-2.
M-Sport resumed their practice of promoting their junior drivers for guest appearances, starting with Teemu Suninen at the Rally of Poland. Suninen will be partnered by his regular WRC2 co-driver, Mikko Markkula. The team also continued to operate their customer programme, with Adapta World Rally Team returning to the sport and merging with Jipocar Czech National Team to form the OneBet Jipocar World Rally Team, starting the season from the 65th Rally Sweden. Mads Østberg and Ola Fløene competed in a Fiesta WRC, with the team expanding to two cars later in the season; the second, an older-model Fiesta RS WRC, will be driven by Martin Prokop and Jan Tománek, who return to the World Rally Championship after missing the second half of the 2016 season. Lorenzo Bertelli, Simone Scattolin and their FWRT team acquired a Fiesta for the Rally Mexico, which like the OneBet Jipocar entry, was run by M-Sport. DMACK World Rally Team will no longer operate as a customer team, instead becoming a partner and supplier of M-Sport, providing tyres and sponsorship for Elfyn Evans' entry.
Hyundai entered a three-door variant of the i20 WRC, known as the i20 Coupe WRC, having used the five-door model in competition throughout the 2016 season. The team had previously used a three-door model in 2014 and 2015 before being forced to adopt the five-door model in 2016 for logistical reasons. However, the team considered the three-door model to be better-suited to competition, and developed the i20 Coupe WRC around it. Hyundai elected to retain the three crews—Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul, Hayden Paddon and John Kennard, and Dani Sordo and Marc Martí—who drove for the team in 2016 to contest their 2017 campaign. Following the Rally of Mexico, Hyundai announced that Paddon and Kennard would part ways after a twelve-year partnership, with Sebastian Marshall becoming Paddon's new co-driver.