Next week’s World Motor Sport Council meeting is expected to confirm radically new 2027 regulations based around Rally2 cars.
In a proposal senior sources described to DirtFish as “sport-saving”, the World Rally Championship’s top-class cars will utilize Rally2 engines, transmission and brakes installed in a spaceframe chassis.
Labelled ‘WRC Future Technical 2027+’ the FIA Road Sport Department document will be debated at Wednesday’s world council meeting in Kigali.
The document outlines cars given a working title of WRC27 costing no more than €345,000 – the same as the 2012-2016 generation of World Rally Cars. As well as slashing the cost of the cars, there will be further sporting regulation changes to reduce the number of team personnel travelling to events, while aiming to double the current return on investment from a manufacturer.
The 2027 proposal would mean reducing the cost of top-flight cars to 2012-2016 levels
The new cars, which have a target weight of 1230kg, will retain the current Rally1 chassis philosophy, with SUV as well as scalable B and C segment models to be used. Current Rally1 cars will not be permitted to compete beyond the end of 2026.
One source told DirtFish: “There will be people for and against what’s proposed here, but if we’re honest is this going to worsen the current situation? Not at all. What we have now is a real opportunity to bring close competition – more than 1500 current Rally2 cars around the world will be able to compete on relatively equal terms for outright WRC wins in 2027. How’s that not a good thing?
“I wouldn’t say it’s too much of a stretch to say these are potentially sport-saving regulations, it’s that big of a deal.”
