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2023 WRC Calendar Gets Green-Lit by FIA and Teams Will Face a 13-Round Challenge

The FIA's World Motor Sport Council has approved the 2023 WRC schedule, which will have 13 rounds next year. Out of those 13 rallies, five have been selected for the FIA Junior WRC Championship, which is the sport's feeder series for younger drivers who want to compete on the world stage, but cannot obtain the budget to enter every race in the season.
2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage 13 photos
Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing
2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2023 World Rally Championship Calendar (provisional, but approved)2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage2022 Toyota Yaris WRC Rally1 during a world championship rally stage
The members of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council have cast an electronic vote this week that led to the approval of a calendar with three tarmac events, one snow event, one mixed event, and eight gravel events. It would not be rallying if gravel, snow, inclement weather, or both were not involved, right?

The season-opener is Rallye Monte Carlo, which is in the third week of January and is the only one on the calendar to be classified as a mixed event. Depending on weather conditions, crews may face snow, ice, tarmac, black ice, and everything that comes between these conditions.

The second race of the 2023 WRC season is the only snow event of the year, held in Sweden, and it is the first selected for Junior WRC competitors. The competition moves on to Mexico's gravel in March, then to Croatia's tarmac in April, which is also a Junior WRC stage.

May will take the racing back on gravel in Portugal, then it's all gravel in Italy, Kenya, Estonia, Finland, Greece, and Chile. The first tarmac event after so many consecutive gravel races is the Central Europe Rally, held in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany in late October 2023. The season will conclude in the second half of November at Rally Japan, which made its return to the WRC after a long hiatus.

As you can observe, while most of the series takes place in Europe, competitors will travel to both North and South America, as well as Africa and Japan. Rally New Zealand is not happening in 2023, though.

This year's Central Europe rally is a unique cross-border event that will take competitors and their crew's logistics in three countries, while also being the second-to-last race of the season, so everyone looking for their best classification will want to finish the event as high as possible in the rankings.

With the WRC calendar complete, the FIA has also green-lit the FIA European Rally Championship's 2023 calendar, as well as the African Rally Championship's and the Middle East Rally Championship's schedule next year. Other national rally championships are expected to plan their temporary schedules in the coming weeks.

As for the FIA and its World Motor Sport Council, they will soon consider the Asia-Pacific, CODASUR, NACAM, and R-GT calendars next, but these will only get their schedules at the next meeting, held in December.
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Editor's note: For illustration purposes, the photo gallery shows images of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT's Rally1 cars on some of the stages from the 2022 WRC.

About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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