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2018 Wales Rally GB 74. Dayinsure Wales Rally GB
Round 11 of 13 in the 2018 FIA World Rally Championship ← Previous event Next event →
The rally takes place on gravel forest roads in Conwy, Ceredigion and Snowdonia in Wales.
Host country	United Kingdom
Rally base	Deeside, Flintshire
Dates run	4 – 7 October 2018
Start location	Tir Prince Raceway
Finish location	Llandudno Promenade
Stages	23 (319.34 km; 198.43 miles)
Stage surface	Gravel
Transport distance	1,091.53 km (678.25 miles)
Overall distance	1,410.87 km (876.67 miles)

The 2018 Wales Rally GB (formally known as the 74. Dayinsure Wales Rally GB) is a motor racing event for rally cars that will be held over four days between 4 and 7 October 2018. The event is open to entries competing in World Rally Cars and cars complying with Group R regulations. It marks the seventy-fourth running of Rally Great Britain and is the eleventh round of the 2018 FIA World Rally Championship, the highest class of competition in international rallying. It will also feature entries competing in the FIA World Rally Championship-2 and FIA World Rally Championship-3 support categories and the MSA British Rally Championship. The 2018 event is based in Deeside in Flintshire and consists of twenty-three special stages throughout North and Mid-Wales. The rally covers a total competitive distance of a 319.34 km (198.43 miles) and 1,091.53 km (678.25 miles) in transport stages.

The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team crew of Elfyn Evans and Daniel Barritt are the defending rally winners. Pontus Tidemand and Jonas Andersson of Škoda Motorsport are the defending winners of the World Rally Championship-2, and French privateers Raphaël Astier and Frédéric Vauclare are the defending winners in the World Rally Championship-3 category.

Background

Entry list

The following teams and crews are under contract to compete in the rally:

No.	Entrant	Driver	Co-Driver	Car	Tyre
World Rally Car entries
1	M-Sport Ford WRT	TBA	TBA	Ford Fiesta WRC	M
2	M-Sport Ford WRT	TBA	TBA	Ford Fiesta WRC	M
3	M-Sport Ford WRT	TBA	TBA	Ford Fiesta WRC	M
4	Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT	TBA	TBA	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	M
5	Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT	TBA	TBA	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	M
6	Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT	TBA	TBA	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	M
7	Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT	TBA	TBA	Toyota Yaris WRC	M
8	Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT	TBA	TBA	Toyota Yaris WRC	M
9	Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT	TBA	TBA	Toyota Yaris WRC	M
10	Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT	TBA	TBA	Citroën C3 WRC	M
11	Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT	TBA	TBA	Citroën C3 WRC	M
12	Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT	TBA	TBA	Citroën C3 WRC	M
Source:

Calendar changes

The event swapped places on the calendar with the Rally Catalunya de España. Where the 2017 rally was run as the penultimate round of the championship, the 2018 event was brought forward from the last week of October to the first week in the expectation of better weather conditions for the event. Further changes to the calendar saw the revival of Rally Turkey as a replacement for Rally Poland. The Turkish event was named as the tenth round of the championship and in light of the distance crews needed to travel from Turkey to Wales, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)—the governing body of international motorsport—gave entrants an additional week to prepare for Rally GB compared to previous years.

Route

The 2018 event will feature a heavily revised route from the 2017 rally. The changes were introduced in response to criticism from crews and teams over the lengthy transport route, or the route taken on public roads to travel between special stages. The final route features an additional 14.98 km (9.31 miles) in competitive kilometres compared to the 2017 route and the transport distance was shortened. The changes to the route allow the crews to return to the service park in Deeside at the end of the first day of competition as the omission of the return to the service park had been one of the teams' criticisms of the 2017 event.

The rally is made up of gravel roads through forests and moors. Many of these roads receive little commercial traffic through the year aside from forestry maintenance and logging projects. Unlike events such as Rally Italia Sardegna and Rally Australia where loose gravel on the road surface creates dust, the road surface in Wales is made up of heavier gravel on a hard-packed road base. This creates more grip for crews in the dry, but the roads can become muddy and rutted in wet weather, particularly when a stage is used multiple times.

The event will now feature two days in northern Wales and one day in the middle of the country. The first leg is 111.20 km (69.10 miles) long and starts with a spectator stage at Tir Prince Raceway on the evening of 4 October. It then moves into the forests of Conwy and Gwynedd on 5 October and is made up of two passes over Clocaenog Forest, Penmachno Forest and a new stage formed by merging the Brenig reservoir stage—which was run as the Power Stage between 2014 and 2017—with the Alwen stage using parts of the B4501 to connect them. Now known as Brenig, it is the longest stage of the rally at 29.19 km (18.14 miles). Penmachno Forest will be run in its full length by using public roads. The Cholmondeley Castle spectator stage in England was removed and replaced by a new spectator stage called Slate Mountain. The rally moves to Powys and Ceredigion on 6 October for the longest day of the rally, totalling 146.45 km (91.00 miles) competitive kilometres. It is made up of two passes over the Myherin, Hafren, Dyfi and Gartheiniog stages and a single running of Dyfnant. The Hafren stage will be extended to include the Sweet Lamb spectator arena. The 2018 event marks the first time since 1997 that these five stages have been run on the same day. The rally returns to northern Wales on 7 October and the forests of Conwy and Snowdonia. The third leg is the shortest of the rally at 60.20 km (37.41 miles) long and features Elsi, a brand new stage, and two passes of Gwydir. The Gwydir stage will be doubled in length from previous years before the rally concludes with two passes over a spectator stage around the Great Orme headland and the streets of Llandudno.

Organisers of the event had a dispute with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) over the planned route. The original proposal featured the Great Orme stage—which had previously featured in the route of the 2013 event—as the event's Power Stage. However, the FIA rejected the route as the proposed stage was not representative of the rally; the route primarily consisted of gravel stages, but the proposed stage was tarmac. The dispute was resolved when the organisers agreed to run the first pass over Gwydir as the Power Stage, allowing the event to finish in Llandudno as originally planned.

The inclusion of public roads in the route was made possible with the passage of the Deregulation Act 2015 by the British government, which amended parts of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to make it possible for events to close public roads to be used for motor racing events in the United Kingdom. In February 2018, the National Assembly for Wales passed the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Motor Racing) (Wales) Regulations 2018, a piece of secondary legislation that enabled motor racing events to take place on public roads in Wales.

Itinerary

Date	No.	Stage name	Distance	Location
Leg 1 — North Wales — 111.20 km
4 Oct.		Service park – Deeside Rally Village	—	Deeside, Flintshire
	—	Clocaenog	3.32 km	Clocaenog Forest, Conwy
		Service park – Deeside Rally Village	—	Deeside, Flintshire
	—	Ceremonial start – Tir Prince Raceway	—	Towyn, Conwy
	SS1	Tir Prince	1.49 km	Towyn, Conwy
5 Oct.	SS2	Clocaenog 1	7.70 km	Clocaenog Forest, Conwy
	SS3	Brenig 1	29.10 km	Llyn Brenig, Conwy
	SS4	Penmachno 1	17.50 km	Penmachno, Conwy
	SS5	Slate Mountain 1	1.30 km	Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd
	SS6	Slate Mountain 2	1.30 km	Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd
		Service park – Deeside Rally Village	—	Deeside, Flintshire
	SS7	Clocaenog 2	7.79 km	Clocaenog Forest, Conwy
	SS8	Brenig 2	29.10 km	Llyn Brenig, Conwy
	SS9	Penmachno 2	17.50 km	Penmachno, Conwy
		Service park – Deeside Rally Village	—	Deeside, Flintshire
Leg 2 — Mid-Wales — 146.45 km
6 Oct.	SS10	Myherin 1	20.28 km	River Wye, Powys
	SS11	Sweet Lamb Hafren 1	15.00 km	Hafren Forest, Powys
	SS12	Dyfi 1	19.48 km	River Dovey, Ceredigion
	SS13	Gartheiniog 1	11.26 km	Afon Dulas, Ceredigion
	SS14	Dyfnant	14.41 km	Dyfnant Forest, Powys
		Regroup – Newtown	—	Newtown, Powys
	SS15	Myherin 2	20.28 km	River Wye, Powys
	SS16	Sweet Lamb Hafren 2	15.00 km	Hafren Forest, Powys
	SS17	Dyfi 2	19.48 km	River Dovey, Ceredigion
	SS18	Gartheiniog 2	11.26 km	Afon Dulas, Ceredigion
		Service park – Deeside Rally Village	—	Deeside, Flintshire
Leg 3 — North Wales — 60.20 km
7 Oct.	SS19	Elsi	10.50 km	Llyn Elsi, Snowdonia
	SS20	Gwydir 1	16.80 km	Gwydir Forest, Snowdonia
	SS21	Great Orme Llandudno 1	8.05 km	Llandudno, Conwy
	SS22	Gwydir 2	16.80 km	Gwydir Forest, Snowdonia
	SS23	Great Orme Llandudno 2	8.05 km	Llandudno, Conwy
		Ceremonial finish – Llandudno Promenade	—	Llandudno, Conwy
Source:

Reception

The new route was received positively by drivers—particularly former Citroën driver Kris Meeke—who appreciated the inclusion of challenging stages. Defending rally winner Elfyn Evans had a more muted response, expressing disappointment that organisers had not taken full advantage of road closures to create a more demanding route, such as merging the Dyfi and Gartheiniog stages. Rally organisers revealed that they had considered many of the suggestions Evans had raised, but chose a more conservative approach to road closures as the legislation that allowed them to close roads had only been passed in February 2018 and they wanted to ensure that the protocol had been followed properly.

Notes

1. Although some stages contain tarmac sections, the rally is classified as a gravel event and tyre suppliers only provide crews with gravel-specification tyres.
2. The first leg of the rally forms the penultimate round of the British national championship and the second leg is the final round. The third leg does not count towards the championship.
3. Kris Meeke had been scheduled to contest the rally with Citroën when the route was published, but was fired by the team before the rally.

References

1. ^ "Taking it to the streets ..." walesrallygb.com. Wales Rally GB. 30 April 2018. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
2. ^ Evans, David (16 April 2018). "FIA blocks 'radical final stage plan for 2018 WRC Rally GB". autosport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
3. ^ "Rally Aus retains WRC finale in 2018". speedcafe.com. Speedcafe. 22 September 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
4. ^ "2018 Prestone MSA British Rally Championship calendar announced". msabrc.com. Motor Sports Association. 16 August 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
5. ^ "2018 Dayinsure Wales Rally GB" (PDF). walesrallygb.com. Wales Rally GB. 25 April 2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
6. ^ "Final Results Rally Wales 2017". ewrc-results.com. 29 October 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
7. "Evans: 'Nobody was getting in the way'". wrc.com. WRC Promoter GmbH. 29 October 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
8. "Ford returns as official WRC manufacturer". speedcafe.com. Speedcafe. 23 December 2017. Retrieved 29 May 2018. The other 2018 manufacturers are unchanged with the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team up against Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT and Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT.
9. Coch, Mat (22 March 2018). "Organisers confirm extended route for Rally GB". speedcafe.com. Speedcafe. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
10. ^ Evans, David (30 April 2018). "Rally GB to unveil major route revamp for 2018 World Rally round". autosport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
11. Dale, Will (20 November 2016). "WRC: Andreas Mikkelsen wins 2016 Kennards Hire Rally Australia". foxsports.com.au. Coffs Harbour: Fox Sports. Retrieved 22 May 2018.
12. "Closed Roads (England)" (PDF). msauk.org. Motor Sports Association. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
13. "Wales gives green light to closed-road motorsport". msauk.org. Motor Sports Association. 2 February 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
14. Beer, Matt (24 May 2018). "Citroen axes Kris Meeke due to 'excessively high number of crashes'". autosport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
15. Evans, David (25 May 2018). "Citroen WRC team explains decision to axe 'not under control' Meeke". autosport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
16. Evans, David (9 May 2018). "New route for 2018 WRC Rally GB a missed opportunity - Elfyn Evans". autosport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 10 May 2018.

External links

• The official website of the World Rally Championship

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