Jyväskylä’s fate as World Rally event organiser about to be determined

FIA announces ISC as promoter of World Rally Series

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The organisers of the Finnish World Rally Championship event have been tormented for months with uncertainty over what level of rallying, if any, will take place in Jyväskylä in 2010. Now the answer is finally beginning to loom on the horizon.
     
On Thursday the FIA, the governing body for world motor sports, made an announcement, according to which it had chosen the ISC organisation as the promoter of the World Rally series.
      After the promoter decision the World Rally committee can finally start going through next year’s calendar.
      “The calendar will be discussed toward the end of February”, says AKK Motorsport ry managing director Jarmo Mahonen. Mahonen is Finland’s representative on the FIA World Rally committee.
     
”We have already informed Russia and Indonesia that their substantiation is still inadequate for them to make it into the 2010 calendar, as was originally believed. Therefore, in the 12-race calendar for 2010 there are still two slots to be filled”, Mahonen clarifies.
      “I hope and believe that Finland will get one of the slots. In my personal opinion the remaining one should go to Great Britain, which has traditionally ended the rally season.”
     
Jyväskylä’s possible omission from the World Rally circuit in 2010 is based on the rotation system of rally organisers introduced this year, according to which 24 countries will take turns in organising 12 rallies per year.
      The reason for the reform is the fact that in recent years many new countries have expressed their willingness to host a World Rally Championship race, and organising for example 24 races per season would be totally impossible.
     
This year the rotation system has already seen the dropping out of the traditional season opening race, the Monte Carlo Rally, where an IRC (Intercontinental Rally Challenge) competition was raced instead. Sweden has also been given a sabbatical year, and the season proper starts today in Ireland.
      In addition to Finland and Great Britain, also Greece, Argentina, Italy, and Spain were originally axed from the 2010 World Rally calendar. Hence a tight battle may yet emerge in the committee chamber over the two places that have now become vacant.
     
According to Mahonen, of the involved parties of the World Rally circuit the car manufacturers and the event organisers were against the revolving series schedule, but the FIA government hammered the renewal through by force.
      A similar system was briefly in use in the mid 1990s, but it was soon abandoned.
      “I believe the same will happen this time as well, and the rotation system will be dropped after 2010”, Mahonen says.
      In Mahonen’s view the rally organisers, who were bickering with each other, only have themselves to blame that FIA ordered the introduction of the rotation system.
     
Everything may change in the future, now that FIA has rendered the economic rights of the World Rally Series to ISC (International Sportsworld Communicators), the owner of North One Television, who have already held the TV-rights to the series.
      The promoter leads the series and negotiates the rules and other issues with the organisers, car manufacturers, and the FIA. The promoter will also be responsible of the series’ television and commercial contracts from the year 2011 onwards.
      The promoter further takes an interest in the make-up of the competition calendar.


Links:
  International Sportsworld Communicators (Wikipedia)
  FIA
  World Rally Championship
  Neste Oil Rally Finland

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