Central European Rally drops off the WRC calendar next year - some were a fan of the event, others weren't
Photography by M-Sport, Toyota & Hyundai
Words by Luke Barry
World Rally Championship drivers and personnel are split in their verdict of the success of Central European Rally.
Last weekend marked the final of a three-year deal for the tri-nation event to be part of the world championship.
CER broke new ground in holding stages in Germany, Austria and Czechia with the service park based in the Bavarian city of Passau. But that often meant some very long road sections and logistical challenges that didn’t always prove popular.
DirtFish canvassed opinion across the service park about whether the event would be missed – and there were two clear camps.
Eight-time World Rally champion Sébastien Ogier feels it’s important for the WRC to visit regions where there are passionate fans, and CER certainly did that.
Ogier was as popular as ever in CER, and feels WRC should keep visiting Central Europe
“You cannot be happy that there is not a race anymore in this geographic position,” Ogier told DirtFish. “But the only thing we can say is there is always some kind of turnaround in this championship and I hope that it will come back.
“But there are many places we are missing,” Ogier added. “GB, to say the least, as a final [round], it’s definitely missing a lot in the championship. A lot of parameters are involved for choosing or for those rallies to happen. So that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
The Toyota driver praised the organizing team for ‘improving a lot’ in 2025 with the itinerary, too. Liaison mileage has come down each year from 858 miles in ’23 to 715 last weekend.
“At least it was not as exhausting as the last year for us physically,” Ogier said. “And the recce timing was really correct. Honestly, I slept… OK, even with my retirement yesterday [Saturday], of course, I could even sleep a lot yesterday night, but after three years, somehow, it was nicely done.”
Another element of that, Ogier believes, is that the sporting contest was fair.
He explained: “What they’ve done with the anti-cuts, it’s not liked by everybody, but at the end of the day, on a rally like this, it keeps the rally so much more fair and gives much more chance to everybody. If you keep it open like it was three years ago, and especially it was raining, only the first car and maybe the second have a chance and the other ones are just trying to survive.
“It’s a bit untypical to drive around this pole but you know that I’ve always been an advocate of fairness so that’s something I can only say well done to them, even if this weekend I could have had a much bigger advantage than I had [if there weren’t so many anti-cuts].
M-Sport Ford team principal Richard Millener joined Ogier in the positive camp, although feels the first two editions shaped negative opinions.
Millener told DirtFish: “I think the event does offer a lot. I like the concept of three countries, I think it shows what’s possible. I think it gives you very different stage conditions [and] the opportunity to see a lot of different fans.
“But OK, the last two years have been marred I guess with some negativity towards itinerary, from myself as well, but operating on five to six hours sleep a night for three days, it’s not much fun. And the last two years when we had to drive all the way to Prague and back; when we’re operating on the scale of what the big teams are with 60 to 100 people it’s massive work, huge work. And it’s so much extra work compared to a simple itinerary rally.
“It doesn’t help when we want to try and reduce costs and things like that because you’re double booking hotel rooms because you can’t cancel a couple of nights here whilst you want to go somewhere else. You either get the whole way through or nothing. It’s just a waste of cost and whether the benefit is there enough to say that it justifies that, I’m not sure.
“Because as I said to you guys before, you watch a Tarmac rally right now and unless you’re told you’re in Germany,, you don’t really know where you are. It’s probably the same for Japan, probably the same for all rallies. All gravel rallies. If you don’t tell someone where they are and ask a fan to say what country is that from a video, it’s quite hard to do.
“There has to be a balance in terms of where we go, that it works for the event, financially and economically, but it also works the same for the teams. So the organizers have done a good job.
They tried to do an ambitious project, they pulled it off, but I think the itinerary we’ve had this year is the most sensible one so far.
“But it’s always nice to have an event in mainland Europe because you get a lot of fans and a lot of people visiting and I think that’s also important. I’m not too fussed where we go. The more we get to central Europe, the more you can pull the fans from all over and I think that’s important.”
M-Sport driver Grégoire Munster, however, is not a fan of Central European Rally.
Munster’s main gripe was the itinerary, feeling that keeping the rally in Czechia only would be a better solution.
“Honestly, for me, the format is not so good,” he told DirtFish. “I mean, the stages as well in Austria and Germany are a bit atypical, like really straightforward, a lot of anti-cut devices and so on. But I think for the fans, even for TV, it’s maybe not the nicest to watch.
“As soon as we were in the Czech Republic, it was much more things happening. Everyone was scared of that stage [Col de Jan] where we had the bad jump landing. But that’s, I think, what rally is about as well. Surely on Tarmac, a bit like Rally Croatia and so on, or Monte.
“So that’s one aspect. And then the other is that we do crazy mileage to go over different countries. Like yesterday [Saturday], we had a three hour road section. And I think not only for us it’s annoying, but for people watching TV, you suddenly have a three hour break or something. I don’t know if that’s ideal. And it also doesn’t allow us to have much time with the fans and so on.
“It’s strange the huge amount of kilometers we’ve done in the road section or traveling and so on for the low amount of stage kilometers. So yeah, I don’t know if logistically, and even environmentally, you can say it’s a great thing.
“I cannot tell you what the perfect recipe is, but I think we’ve had better events.”
Fourmaux doesn't have a passionate opinion, but prefers other Tarmac rallies like Croatia
Munster’s old M-Sport team-mate Adrien Fourmaux was less scathing but, when asked by DirtFish if he’d miss CER, the Hyundai pilot pledged his allegiance towards Croatia which effectively replaces Central Europe in 2026.
“No,” Fourmaux said. “I do prefer Croatia. It’s much more technical and demanding stages than Central Europe. We don’t need the anti-cuts to avoid, we can cut everywhere, so for me Croatia is better looking.
“I like the rally, but if I need to choose I will choose another one.”
World championship leader Elfyn Evans was tight-lipped on his thoughts; instead simply shook his head when DirtFish asked if he was a fan of the rally.
Germany could return to the WRC soon however, with discussions ongoing about a Nürburgring-based event for 2027.
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Adrien Fourmaux, Central European Rally, Central European Rally 2025, Elfyn Evans, Gregoire Munster, Richard Millener, Sébastien Ogier, WRC
Publish Date October 21, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/10/hQ4zEHEB-WRC_CER_25_J_MCERLEAN_1253-780x520.jpg October 21, 2025
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