As talks of WRC Promoter’s new owner intensify, DirtFish asked the promoter of one of rallying’s most popular new championships – Rally Series – how he would shape the future of the WRC.
Here, André Lavadinho shares his thoughts:
The problem is not rallying. The problem is how we present rallying to the world. The same DNA. A better experience for the world we live in today.
I don’t believe the WRC needs a revolution. It already has one of the greatest sporting products on the planet. The challenge, the unpredictability, the different surfaces, the changing conditions and the level of skill required make rallying unique. The drivers are extraordinary athletes capable of things very few people in the world can do.
What I do believe is that the sport must evolve. Not by changing its competitive DNA, but by improving the way people experience it.
Protect what makes rallying special
The first thing I would do is protect the essence of the sport. Rallying is special because it is unpredictable.
Drivers compete on real roads. Conditions constantly change. Mistakes matter. Nothing is guaranteed. That competitive DNA should never be sacrificed for spectacle. It should never be simplified or artificially transformed. The competition itself is not the problem.
The opportunity lies in making more people understand it, follow it and fall in love with it.
For decades, rallies were designed primarily for people who already loved rallying. Today, we compete for attention in a completely different world. We are competing against Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, gaming and countless other forms of entertainment.
The question is no longer: How do we organize a rally? The question is: Why should someone choose to spend their weekend with us? That is where I believe the WRC can make a major step forward.
When a family arrives at an event, they should find more than a few minutes of cars passing through a stage. They should find an experience. They should find entertainment, activities, food, competitions, driver appearances, sponsor activations and reasons to stay engaged throughout the day. The future is not about replacing traditional stages.
It is about building a complete experience around them.
Rethinking fan zones and spectator areas
This is an area where I believe rallying still has significant untapped potential.
Many rallies have spectator arenas or dedicated viewing areas, but too often the action itself lasts only a few moments before long periods of inactivity. That creates challenges not only for fans but also for brands and sponsors.
A company cannot justify a major activation around a single pass of cars. Sponsors need opportunities to engage with visitors throughout the day but with action of cars there or, it will be empty during the day.
Fans need reasons to stay longer and become part of the event experience.
The most successful future events will be those that create true rally festivals, where the competition remains the centrepiece but where entertainment, interaction and community keep people engaged from morning until evening.
This is one of the reasons why, with the Rally Series, we chose to build a different model like this as a puzzle of ideas.
The rally itself remains exactly the same. The competitive DNA is untouched. Drivers still compete against the clock. The challenge remains identical. What changed was the experience around the rally.
We created a central arena concept where fans can spend an entire day, or even an entire weekend, enjoying activities, sponsor activations, entertainment, competitions, food areas and direct interaction with the sport.
The result is simple: Fans stay longer and brands stay longer.
Instead of attracting people for a single stage pass, the event becomes a destination where spectators remain engaged throughout the weekend.
Not every WRC event currently has the infrastructure or space to immediately adopt this type of concept, but I strongly believe it could be introduced progressively.
A standardized WRC fan zone concept, adapted to each rally but sharing the same identity and objectives, could also introduce a dedicated brand activation area, a more structured and visually consistent service park layout, and standardized team hospitality and service units, creating a cleaner and more immersive environment inspired by the presentation standards seen in other championships, while relocating support vehicles and operational logistics outside the spectator-facing zone.
The goal is not to change rallying. The goal is to create more reasons for people to experience it.
Rallying’s greatest advantage
Rallying already possesses something many sports would love to have. Proximity.
Very few sports allow fans to get so close to the competitors, the machinery and the action. We should be using that advantage far more effectively.
People do not fall in love with sports because of statistics alone. They fall in love with people. They follow personalities. They connect with stories.
The WRC has incredible drivers, but many fans only know them through stage times and championship standings.
We need to tell more stories. The sacrifices. The challenges. The personalities. The journeys that brought them to the top.
Modern sport is built on emotional connection, and rallying has all the ingredients needed to create it.
Communication is part of the product
Today, communication is no longer separate from the sport. It is part of the sport. Fans expect to follow events in real time. They expect stories before, during and after rallies.
They expect content that helps them understand what they are watching and why it matters. Championships need dedicated teams capable of creating that connection every day, not only during events. The same applies to live coverage.
I strongly believe in live broadcasting, but the challenge is no longer simply producing more hours of coverage.
The challenge is capturing attention, building narratives and creating memorable moments. Perhaps there is room for both models.
The traditional long-form coverage for engineers, teams, media professionals and hardcore fans who want to follow every stage, every split time and every strategic decision. And alongside it, a shorter, more dynamic product designed for mainstream audiences. A format that feels more accessible. More emotional. More story-driven.
Almost a motorsport reality show for people who cannot attend the event. Less purely technical coverage.More authentic and informal content. More behind-the-scenes access. More personalities. More stories.
More reasons for someone who has never watched rallying before to become interested in the sport. Both audiences matter. Both should be served.
Looking ahead
If I had to summarize my vision for the future of the WRC in one sentence, it would be this: The same competitive DNA; a much better experience.
Because the competition is already extraordinary. The challenge now is making more people fall in love with it.
I don’t believe rallying needs to become something different. I believe it needs to become easier to experience, easier to understand and easier to share.
The sport already has everything it needs: Great drivers. Great cars. Great events. Great stories. Now the opportunity is to connect those stories with more people than ever before.
Because the future growth of rallying will depend as much on storytelling, fan engagement and accessibility as it does on the cars themselves.
