The World Rally Championship is inviting aspiring feminine drivers to participate in a brand new initiative that can supply a fully-funded drive in subsequent yr’s Junior World Rally Championship.
The launch of the scheme, run below the championship’s Past Rally platform, goals to extend feminine participation in rallying’s top-flight.
Lately girls have loved success in co-driving with Reeta Hamalainen and Enni Malkonen profitable world titles in WRC2 and WRC3 respectively in 2022, however 1982 title runner-up Michele Mouton stays the final lady to win a spherical of the championship as a driver, 42 years in the past.
To assist discover the subsequent star the WRC Promoter is inviting drivers aged 27 and below to apply to join a new programme.
The 15 most suited candidates will participate in an intensive coaching camp to be held on the M-Sport Poland headquarters in Krakow.
This camp will embrace a day of gravel and a day of tarmac testing in a Ford Fiesta Rally3 in addition to simulator testing, pace-note and reconnaissance competence, PR coaching and an analysis of mechanical data.
Michele Mouton – FIA Girls Drivers Evaluation Programme
Picture by: FIA
A jury of top-level WRC stakeholders will then choose three individuals who will transfer to the second step: competing at this October’s WRC Central European Rally in an M-Sport Poland-run Ford Fiesta Rally3.
Following this WRC occasion, the identical jury will determine the winner of the final word prize: the supported 2025 Junior WRC programme, together with testing.
“WRC has a storied historical past of feminine participation,” stated Peter Thul, WRC Promoter senior director sport.
“Michele Mouton is likely one of the biggest motorsport legends, interval, whereas prior to now three years now we have topped feminine world champion co-drivers in WRC3 and WRC2.
“However it has been a while since now we have had feminine drivers constantly competing on the prime ranges of our sport and we hope this programme will go a way in serving to to bridge this hole.
“Now we have a long-term imaginative and prescient with this venture and we are going to regularly consider the method to make sure that elevated feminine participation is lasting.
“We’re focusing primarily within the preliminary phases of choice – together with Central European Rally – on being on Tarmac, creating a neater transition for entrants with a background in karting and circuit racing.”
Burcu Cetinkaya, chair of the FIA Girls in Motorsport Fee, added: “I applaud the WRC Promoter for the alternatives they’re affording younger up-and-coming feminine drivers. We see so many feminine co-drivers succeeding within the WRC and within the coming years, we wish to see simply as many feminine drivers having fun with the identical successes.”