It’s been a long time coming but a calendar for the 2016 FIA World Rally Championship has been announced today.
As had been mooted earlier the inclusion of a Chinese event will increase the championship calendar from 13 to 14 rallies in 2016 while Rally Australia shifts away from the early-September date it has had in recent years to become the championship finale in November.
The new Chinese event is set to fill the early-September slot in the calendar and Rally Great Britain will move forward three weeks to run as the penultimate round in late-October. In all other respects the series follows the same event sequence as 2015.
However the calendar announced today is marked with three asterisk.
Rally China is listed subject to fulfilment of FIA requirements following the candidate event in August 2015 while the WRC promoter and the FIA have yet to agree terms with the organisers of the Monte Carlo Rally in January and the French round which returned to Corsica this year.
2015 FIA World Rally Championship:
| January 22-24 | Rally Monte Carlo* |
| February 12-14 | Rally Sweden |
| March 4-6 | Rally Mexico |
| April 22-24 | Rally Argentina |
| May 20-22 | Rally Portugal |
| June 10-12 | Rally Italy |
| July 1-3 | Rally Poland |
| July 29-31 | Rally Finland |
| August 19-21 | Rally Germany |
| September 9-11 | Rally China* |
| Sept 30-Oct 2 | Rally France* |
| October 14-16 | Rally Spain |
| October 28-30 | Rally Great Britain |
| November 18-20 | Rally Australia |
*To be confirmed