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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.
The final stage of the rally circles the Great Orme headland (top) and finishes on the Llandudno Promenade (bottom).
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.
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.
The Power Stage was a stage run on the final day of the rally. Additional World Drivers' and Co-drivers' Championship points were awarded to the five fastest crews.
Pos.
Driver
Co-driver
Car
Time
Diff.
Pts.
1
0.0
5
2
4
3
3
4
2
5
1
Retirements
The following crews retired from the event. Under Rally2 regulations, they were eligible to re-enter the event starting from the next leg. Crews that re-entered were given an additional time penalty.
Stage
No.
Driver
Co-driver
Entrant
Car
Class
Cause
Re-entry
Championship standings after the event
World Rally Championship
World Rally Championship for Drivers
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship for Co-drivers
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship for Manufacturers
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship-2
World Rally Championship-2 for Drivers
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship-2 for Co-drivers
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship-2 for Teams
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship-3
World Rally Championship-3 for Drivers
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship-3 for Co-drivers
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
World Rally Championship-3 for Teams
Pos.
Driver
Points
1
2
3
4
5
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Notes
Although some stages contain tarmac sections, the rally is classified as a gravel event and tyre suppliers only provide crews with gravel-specification tyres.
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.
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.
"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.
The rally takes place on gravel forest roads in Conwy, Ceredigion and Snowdonia in Wales.
United Kingdom
TBA
Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT
Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT
The final stage of the rally circles the Great Orme headland (top) and finishes on the Llandudno Promenade (bottom).
