From the FIA…..Wales Rally GB organisers have announced that the twelfth round of the FIA World Rally Championship, due to take place at the end of October in and around Deeside, has been called off due to ongoing uncertainties surrounding travel and mass gatherings caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year’s 76th staging of the motor sport event, due to run from 29 October to 1 November as the penultimate round on the 2020 WRC schedule, was additionally the concluding round of the FIA Junior World Rally Championship. Wales Rally GB typically attracts numerous top-class entries from around the globe and 100,000 spectators to competitive speed tests set in the spectacular forests of mid and north Wales.
However, with continuing concerns over the evolution of Covid-19 and the safety restrictions it has imposed on large-scale gatherings and international travel, the Wales Rally GB organisation has made the decision to cancel the event for 2020.
“This is not a decision that we have taken lightly but, in close consultation with our chief funding partner the Welsh Government, it is sadly one we are obliged to make in light of the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic,” explained David Richards CBE, Chairman of Motorsport UK, governing body of UK motorsport and organiser of Wales Rally GB.
“Our overriding responsibility and absolute priority is always the safety of all involved whether they be competitors, officials, spectators or the many thousands of volunteers who share our passion for this sport, and we thank them all for their ongoing support and enthusiasm in these difficult times. While significant progress is being made to combat the virus, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding mass gatherings, social distancing and travel restrictions, plus the possibility of a resurgence of viral transmission later in the year.”
“We have been closely monitoring the guidance issued by Government and it is becoming increasingly clear that it is impossible to make plans with any certainty for such major events in the autumn. We therefore have to accept, with an incredibly heavy heart, that cancelling this year’s event is the only responsible and prudent option,” he concluded.
Wales Rally GB organisers will strive to deliver an ‘even bigger and better’ Wales Rally GB in 2021*.
First run in 1932, Rally GB is one of just two rounds to have been a permanent fixture in the annual FIA World Rally Championship since the series’ inauguration back in 1973. Before the advent of the WRC, the UK’s premier rally had only been stopped by World War 2 in 1940, the Suez Crisis and resultant petrol rationing in 1957 and the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in 1967. The event has been set in Wales since 2000; initially based in the south of the country, it moved to a new home in the north in 2013.
Mark Baker
Sitting cosy and cossetted in (apparently) Covid-free New Zealand, it’s easy to forget that other nations are not as fortunate. By accident of location, by an inability to resource their health systems properly, by tardy response or even refusal to believe the virus was real, countries like the UK, USA, Sweden, Brazil and Chile have watched as tens of thousands of their people die of Covid 19.
From an opinion piece on Stuff about Brazil’s response: “When Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll passed China’s last week, a local reporter asked Jair Bolsonaro for his thoughts on the morbid figures. The president’s first answer, “E daí?” (“So what?” in Portuguese), shocked even those who thought they had become numb to the divisive public statements so characteristic of his first months in office.”
The UK WRC round should have been feasible – in New Zealand it would maybe have run.
Instead it’s yet another mark in the ledger of the plague year.