Curious about the all-new Central European Rally? Want to know more than just the date? DirtFish has the answers.
The all-asphalt penultimate round of the 2023 World Rally Championship will run from October 26-29 and be based out of a service park on the banks of the River Danube in Passau. The Lower Bavarian city is on the border with Austria and close to the border with Czech Republic.
While the teams will head for Passau to establish their usual base, the crews will head north-east to Prague. The ceremonial start will take place outside Prague Castle on Thursday October 29, but the WRC fever will have been building with a festival of rallying in the Czech capital in the days ahead of the start.
As well as the start ramp, Prague will run the Strahov spectator stage. Used as recently as Saturday for the Prazsky Rallysprint, Strahov is a hugely popular venue which can take as many as 250,000 fans.
On Friday morning, the crews tackle classic Czech stages similar to those used on the 3-Städte-Rallye on the roads around Waldkirchen. The 3-Städte-Rallye is well known to competitors in both the Czech and German championships.
After an end of day service in Passau, Saturday is all about Austria and the heart of Jännerrallye territory around Freistadt – again, more challenging asphalt stages.
Sunday runs around Passau, with the ceremonial finish close to the service park.
In terms of sporting logistics, the event is based out of Munich with ADAC taking the lead, courtesy of its previous experience of running Rallye Deutschland 17 times between 2002 and 2019.
The location and the date of the event has already raised questions regarding the tire allocation for next year; late October in Prague and Freistadt in particular can mean snow and ice at times.
Tickets are expected to be priced below €100 for the event and will be available from the event’s own website.
