27 entries are FIA championship contenders, only four are non-championship contenders.
There are 11 World Rally Cars, including a third M-Sport entry for Pontus Tidemand (partnered by Ola Floene) and only Citroen will have a two-car entry. Among the 18 car R5 cars (well over half the total entry) are three Mark II Fiestas for Greensmith, “Pedro” and Gaurav Gill, and two Skoda Fabia Evos for Rovanpera and Kopecky.
For Gill this is the start of a new international competition project for the Indian company JK Tyres.
The two Skoda Evos and only Greensmith have been entered in WRC2 Pro. Six entries on the event come from Turkey, and after Gryazin’s withdrawal only three competitors are not registered for an FIA championship. Only two entries are for two-wheel drive cars.
In addition, 23 cars have been entered in the National Rally category, all in familiar types of car, but there are also five examples of Fiat Egea, local versions of the Fiat Tipo, which are due only to run on the Friday.
Disappointing late news: Elfyn Evans is to miss his third successive WRC event because of his back injury in the non-championship Rally Estonia in July, which means that M-Sport WRC entry is down to two cars.
Also, the FIA’s WRC2 Amateur championship leader, Nikolay Gryazin, was planning to compete in a non-championship category this year but cancelled his entry. The pre-Evo Skoda Fabia R5 which he had planned to drive was too badly damaged on the ECR Barum Czech Rally Zlin and the time will now be taken preparing his new Evo version car.
He will go instead for a test rally one week after Turkey at Nova Gorica in Slovenia. These withdrawals mean that the total entries for the WRC event are now down to 29.
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