The FIA has announced it will launch a ‘Global Rally Ranking’ (GRR) in 2022 which will place all drivers and co-drivers competing at a national level or higher in a results-based order.
Motorsport’s global governing body has already put the infrastructure in place for such a ranking to come into existence having worked on the FIA Rally Pyramid to put the series below the World Rally Championship on an international, regional and national level in a value-based order.
Most series will be given a coefficient, with the WRC being x1.0, the European Rally Championship being x0.5 and all other series being worth less than that. Each class of machinery gets a coefficient too, with Rally1 being x1.0 (and including World Rally Cars homologated before 2013 that would have eligible to compete in the WRC this year), Rally2 and R-GT being worth x0.7 and then the other FIA-spec classes being worth incrementally less below that.
The series coefficient will be put to a sum of a driver or co-driver’s overall points in a championship (multiplied by 10) and their points in their class within the championship (multiplied by 0.3 and then multiplied by the number of starters from one to 20 and then multiplied again by the class coefficient) to get them a score from a single event they have competed in.
Rather than award points using the WRC system, all championships will award overall and class points within this GRR using the FIA’s Regional Rally sporting regulations. That means the top 15 finishers earn points, bonus points can be awarded for the two longest legs of each rally (on a 5-4-3-2-1 scale) and completing an event under SuperRally regulations will make that result void of eligibility for the GRR.
October 15 of this year will mark the first day from which competitors can record international rally results from for the GRR, while no points can be earned from national-level rallies until the start of 2022. Only the 12 highest-scoring results can be included for an individual at any one time, and with the GRR being published every Wednesday at 6pm in Central European Time (1pm ET, 10am PST) it means a result can only be included for 365 days from when it is first featured in a published ranking.
Not all national championships will be eligible for the GRR, as the ASNs can only designate two series. That means countries like Italy where there is a wide array of national-level rally series will have to be selective in which are most relevant to the FIA Rally Pyramid. However the ASNs have the option of being able to change their selection of which series should be eligible multiple times through the year as long as notice is given to the FIA.
There is no prize for being atop the rankings on any given week, beyond the recognition that such status delivers. It is a system that is also used in sports such as golf and tennis, and has increased consumer interest due to the additional competitive element.
