Before the start of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship, it became clear that one of the 14 scheduled events would disappear. The Copec Rally Chile event was cancelled due to the country’s political situation.
Rallye Monte-Carlo marked the start of the WRC season without any major problems, as the championship headed to Sweden for the second round mild weather almost completely stopped the competition. But the Rally Sweden organizer made the event to go ahead even without the snow, but the event was drastically shortened.
As the teams then shipped their containers to Mexico, the outbreak of the Coronavirus began to increase. In connection with the competition, the decision came that the Argentina WRC rally could not be run because of the outbreak.
As the outbreak increased sharply during the rally weekend in Mexico, countries around the world began to close down airports and borders. It was something that forced the organizer to cancel Sunday’s stages so that the drivers and teams could come home.
Then came the message that both Rallye de Portugal and Rally Italia Sardegna are cancelled. This means that there are currently seven rounds of the championship remaining.
Another event that faced problems is Rally Estonia which would have been used by the WRC Promoter as a competition for marketing, but the organiser chose early to cancel the event after failing to agree funding terms with the Estonian union.
In July, the Safari Rally Kenya is scheduled to make a comeback, the competition is back in the championship and makes its first appearance in “modern times”. But even here the competition is facing problems, the spread of the Coronavirus is a threat along with another… locusts.
For some time now Kenya and the rally event area, has been invaded by locusts, however, the problems with the locusts are expected to be over when the event starts, but they are causing problems for preparation of the event.
