New World Rally Championship constructor Project Rally One will enter the Belgian Rally Championship in 2027 – and potentially other series and events – to develop the car.
The machine, which was publicly unveiled last Friday in Belgium, is yet to be named, but is set for FIA homologation on November 1 ahead of a planned debut at the Monte Carlo Rally in January.
Project Rally One has already stated it will concentrate on Tarmac WRC events first before pivoting to gravel, and it will extend that running beyond the world championship.
Technical leader Lionel Hansen told DirtFish: “We will do the Belgian Championship to develop the car on Tarmac. If you look at a few events in Belgium, it’s very close to Croatia, for example.
“It’s also a part of this project to go to the national championships in the future,” Hansen added.
“For example if in Scotland, or in the UK, next year they will have some open category, I think it’s better to develop for us in the national championship to do some races and to compare what’s our real level of performance than go to only a test place and go backwards and forwards over the same road.
“I think my main goal is to do a maximum of races in the national championships, even if it’s not for scoring points.”
Why test on Tarmac first?
Project Rally One’s testing program is already well underway, with 10 days on Tarmac first before switching to 10 days of gravel running.
Most manufacturers would start on gravel as it’s a stronger reliability test than Tarmac, so why has Project Rally One done the opposite?
Hansen explained: “If you work for a manufacturer, you start from gravel, you can break everything every day [because] you have a second car, third car. I think Toyota, already has three different projects.
“If I can start on Tarmac a bit early, if I can already know that the reliability on Tarmac is great, which was the case now with almost 1,000 kilometers end of this week, without any technical problems, you can be confident to start gravel. But the gravel spec is ready.”
Hansen estimated that “85% of the parts are designed and ready for homologation”.
He continued: “The exchanges are almost every day with the FIA for sure, but you need to understand that we have the same target and the same, I would say, things as the other manufacturers.
“Toyota does the same homologation. We need to present at the same moment, the same target and the same rules as Toyota. And we are not the same [size of] team, that we know.
“We have never expected to be so close to the final homologation, to be honest. But that’s the power of the team, which is a small team, but I think we are so motivated that we know we will do it.”
