Rally Estonia will join the Junior FIA World Rally Championship at the beginning of September as the championship restarts it’s 2020 season.
Estonia, as like with the FIA World Rally Championship, has been added to the calendar following the COVID-19 pandemic and will help make up a four-round JWRC season, with round one in Sweden having already been completed before the global crisis hit.
Although Estonia replaces Rally Finland in the schedule, the 2020 championship does drop from five rounds to four following the cancellation of Wales Rally GB. The calendar has also been adjusted due to Italy’s move to a late October date.
Round three on the asphalt stages of Germany stays in its scheduled mid-October slot with the now final round of the year in Italy completing the season. Potentially the final round will see what would have been a double-points season finale reduced to 1.5x the number of usually scored points, although this is yet to be confirmed.
M-Sport Ford have also confirmed that its prize on offer to the champion in the class of a brand-new MK2 Ford Fiesta R5, along with 200 Pirelli tyres and entry into the 2021 WRC3 series remains unaffected despite the changes.
Team Director of the Junior WRC Maciej Woda said on the revamped calendar: “This is the news that we have all been hoping for and working very hard towards in recent months. Members from all corners of the FIA Junior WRC team have been affected by the global pandemic and I feel it is safe to say that life has changed for all of us.”
“I think this announcement will be very, very welcome to our crews and the team. I cannot express enough my relief and excitement that we have been able to make it possible to maintain the prize package for the 2020 champion despite reducing the length of the calendar by one round. I must take this time to thank our partners, team and crews for their support and commitment to this very important championship, it is greatly appreciated.”
He added: “We are proposing to amend the double points on offer for the final round to one and half points to reflect our points counting rounds reducing by 25 percent from four to three.”
Currently the 2020 Junior WRC is being led by Swedish driver Tom Kristensson, who has a nine-point lead over Marins Sesks.
