The WRC event director, Simon Larkin, says that the proposed rotated location system of Ireland is complex, but FIA and WRC Promoter are excited with this country's offer and he reveals that a meeting was held between the first two parties and the Motorsport Ireland last week.
The last time that World Rally Championship visited Ireland was 2009 where Sebastien Loeb was the winner of that year's version with Citroen and C4 WRC. Motorsport Ireland is in talks with FIA and WRC Promoter for their return to the calendar from 2025 and want to sign a three-year contract with them. In addition to that, they have proposed a rotation system in which three different cities (Kerry, Limerick and Waterford) have been suggested to be the rally center each year. The authorities of Waterford, Kerry and Limerick must come in communication between them to decide the year when one of the above cities will be the rally center, otherwise it will be chosen randomly. Finally, a 15 million funding must be secured and be approved by the Irish government with the view of Ireland rejoining the World Rally Championship in 2025.
"It’s a concept we’re not normally in favour of because these events are quite complicated, so to move from one region to the other year after year is an additional complexity", Larkin said.
"We’re being convinced that we think this is the way to go.
"We think we can make it a really good national event.
"The fact that this one country has three amazingly prepared, ready, resourced and experienced regions to run a WRC event is a compliment to rallying in Ireland and it makes it more exciting for us.
"We think it would be a fantastic event.
"We met with the board.
"There’s an entity that’s being set up by Motorsport Ireland to essentially run the event, that’s at arm’s length from ASN Itself.
"They’ve got five members and myself, so we met with the three regions and we evaluated all of the opportunities and we hope to make a quick decision on what order the three events would run.
"And that will then be notified to them it hasn’t yet.
"It’s a decision that ourselves and that board want to make clearly, strategically and reasonably transparently.
"That will happen soon and now this is all subject to government funding".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: ewrc
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