| World Rally Championship | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Category |
World Rally Car |
|
Country or region |
International |
|
Inaugural season |
1973 |
|
Drivers |
17 (manufacturer teams) |
|
Teams |
12 (manufacturer teams) |
|
Drivers' champion |
Sébastien Loeb |
|
Makes' champion |
Citroën |
- For the current season, see 2012 World Rally Championship season.
The World Rally Championship (WRC) is a rallying series organised by the FIA, culminating with a champion driver and manufacturer. The driver's world championship and manufacturer's world championship are seperate championships, but uses the same point system. The series currently consists of 13 three-day events driven on surfaces ranging from gravel and tarmac to snow and ice. Each rally is split into 15-25 special stages which are run against the clock on closed roads.
The WRC was formed from well-known and popular international rallies, most of them previously part of the European Rally Championship and/or the International Championship for Manufacturers, and the series was first contested in 1973. The World Rally Car is the current car specifiation in the series. It evolved from Group A cars which replaced the banned Group B supercars. World Rally Cars are built on producted 1.6-litre four-cylinder cars, but feature turbochargers, anti-lag systems, four-wheel-drive, sequential gearboxes, aerodynamic parts and other enhancements bring the price of a WRC car to around US$1 million.
The WRC features three support championships, the WRC Academy (which replaced the Junior World Rally Championship), the Production World Rally Championship (PWRC), and the Super 2000 World Rally Championship (SWRC) which are contested on the same events and stages as the WRC, but have different regulations. The support stages race through the stages after the WRC drivers.