Waterford set to host World Rally Championship
Members of the South East regional group at the Tower Hotel on Friday last where they presented to representatives of Motorsport Ireland and the WRC in their bid to bring the WRC to Waterford. Photo: Joe Cashin.
All eyes were on Dawson Street in Dublin City this morning and the headquarters of Motorsport Ireland as Motorsport Ireland President, Aiden Harper, announced which location, between Waterford, Limerick and Tralee, had been chosen as the preferred venue to host a round of the World Rally Championship in Ireland in 2025, 2026 and 2027.
After going through their visits to each three locations last week and highlighting the pros of each of the venues, Mr. Harper admitted that they had been 'blown away' by the quality of the presentations and facilities in each of three locations. He also said that they had used several different ways of scoring the three venues and little if anything separated the three. After further consultation with the WRC, they took the unprecedented decision to allocate each of the three locations one year of hosting the event instead of one location hosting the event for the three years.
Mr. Harper said that they will speak to the three locations and see if they have a preferred year and if agreement cannot be reached they will do a lottery to decide.
It may not be what we were hoping for entirely, this is still great news for the South East region and especially Waterford as it will host the event with the service area being set up on the South Quays.
This will be the largest event ever to be staged in the region, with the base camp being specially erected in Waterford, attracting thousands of visitors to Waterford and surrounding counties, as well as 841 million TV viewers across the world.
The World Rally Championship 2025 is expected to take place in late August/early September, with similar dates in 2026 and 2027 and is subject to Government funding. The South East event will take in several counties including, Waterford, Kilkenny, Wexford, Carlow and Tipperary and includes nine Motor Clubs as well as massive collaboration between the various councils, elected representatives, Fáilte Ireland and many more groups who came together to make this happen.
