In July, Latvia becomes the 37th country to host a World Rally Championship event—if we count the Czech Republic as a rally host based on last year’s Central European Rally.
Familiar from the European Rally Championship, Latvia’s rally roads have been training grounds for drivers like Kalle Rovanperä and Oliver Solberg, mainly because they were allowed to drive rally cars before reaching legal driving age.
Latvian roads, in character, resemble those of Estonia. The main roads are extremely fast, while the smaller ones are softer. In Estonia, however, the roads are spiced up by spectator areas and artificial jumps constructed by the organizers.
In the ERC Rally Liepaja, chicanes have often been used to control speeds, although in recent years more technical sections have been introduced.
As evidence, only one stage last year had an average speed over 120 km/h, and just barely at that. Previously, half of the stages might average around 125 km/h, with the fastest nearing 140 km/h—and this with Rally2 cars!
Partially repeated stages
The ERC Rally Latvia is accustomed to unique solutions, some of which have been incorporated into the WRC event. One such feature is offering two different versions of the same stage.
Two stages may nominally be one-time-only different stages, but they share some of the same route. The beginning or end may be entirely different, or one version may take a detour and then rejoin the original route.
There are three such pairs in the Latvian WRC rally. Practically, this increases the number of challenging one-time-only sections while also reducing road wear issues. However, this solution can complicate arrangements, such as parking along the stage for spectators, and increases the number of kilometers to be noted.
In addition to these pairs, there are also two genuinely one-time-only forest stages. Almost all other WRC events run all forest stages twice.
Distributed route
What’s special about the Latvian WRC rally is also the route’s distribution across different parts of the country. The rally headquarters and service park are in the city of Liepaja on the west coast, where the Thursday morning shakedown takes place. From there, the action moves to the capital city Riga for a 10-kilometer spectator stage in the evening.
The night break is also in Riga, after which Friday’s action takes place in the Talsi and Tukums areas in the northwestern part of the country. The day accumulates 121 stage kilometers, but no service is planned, only a midday tyre change.
The day starts with the rally’s shortest and longest forest stages, the under-five-kilometer Milzkalne and the 27-kilometer Tukums. The day’s last stage starts in the city of Talsi but continues as a normal forest stage.
Saturday’s stages are northeast of Liepaja, heading towards the central part of the country. Only 105 kilometers of stages are run, but now with a midday service break. The evening ends with a city special stage in Liepaja.
Sunday’s stages are east of Liepaja. The Super Sunday stages compete for points over 62 kilometers. The Power Stage, called Mazilmaja, ends at a rallycross track.
Overall, the rally features 20 special stages totaling 300 kilometers. Notably, each day ends with a spectator-friendly special stage.
The Rally Latvia will be held from July 18-21.
