CYPRUS RETURNS TO FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP

FIA WRC Cyprus Rally 13-15 March 2009; Organisers confirm: “We’re back!”

Good news for rally fans as the FIA World Motorsport Council confirmed in Paris this morning that the ever-popular Cyprus Rally will return to the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) next year.

The 2009 FIA Cyprus Rally will be round 3 of next year’s WRC calendar and will take place between the 13th and 15th March. Antonis Michaelides, Chairman of the Cyprus Automobile Association (CAA) - the organisers of the event, responded positively to the news: “This is great news. I speak for everyone on the organising committee when I say how pleased and proud I am that our rally is again part of the WRC. We’re already working towards next year’s event and fans can rest assured that the 2009 Cyprus Rally will be an event to remember. We’re back!”

An FIA observer was on the island for this year’s Cyprus Rally to assess the event’s readiness for inclusion in the 2009 WRC calendar. In the subsequent report, the 2008 Cyprus Rally scored highly for its overall organisation, which led directly to the inclusion of the event in the next year’s Championship.

It has also been confirmed that the Cyprus Rally will be one of 4 events rewarding points for the Junior and Production WRC championships for 2009. So spectators at the Cyprus event will get the chance to see the top WRC, J-WRC and P-WRC drivers in action. A Cyprus Rally featuring WRC, J-WRC and P-WRC drivers is a mouth-watering prospect for rally fans everywhere.

The FIA World Motorsport Council also voted to approve a major change regarding the future shape of the WRC. This is the adoption of a new ‘rotation’ system, where each event will take place every two years, thus increasing the total number of WRC rallies to 24. With this new system, 12 rallies will take place in a year, rather than the current 15, which will reduce costs and attract new manufacturers’ teams.