World Rally Championship Skipping North America For 2026

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But there have likewise been some rumors that the FIA wants to make sure that the Americans will be doing things by the book, as written by them. This is according to a report from Motorsport.

"We're still working on delivering the candidate event so the discussion is certainly ongoing. However, it could have also meant that the calendar would have been a 15-event calendar," FIA's Road Sport Director Emilia Abel was quoted as saying at Rally Finland. "So it has been decided for now that we still work together with the organisers [sic] and the ASN and the promoter to make sure of that once we are entering the new continent."

"As we all know, rallying is a slightly different discipline and perceived slightly different [in the USA] than in Europe," Abel continued. "We have decided that we want to be 100 [percent] confident that they are following exactly the same requirements as the FIA, and just need another year to be prepared and trained for the event, just purely from the organisational [sic] point of view."

When asked if the FIA was confident the USA would appear on the WRC calendar in 2027, Abel added: "Yes, confident, 100 [percent]. We see some very good progress already over the last month. We see a dedicated team, so it's certainly on a good path."

Details regarding the candidate event for Rally USA are yet to be defined, although it has been potentially earmarked for September.

"It [the candidate event] is in progress. There is no official application yet, but it is in progress, and it's considered to be at the moment at the end of September, but there is no official application. So until the official application is there, I can't say that it is 100 [percent] happening," said Abel, referring to the candidate event that is needed before a rally formally joins the WRC calendar.