The WRC points leader feels the current calendar would benefit by having more breaks
Photography by Toyota
Words by Alasdair Lindsay & David Evans
World Rally Championship points leader, Elfyn Evans, is a man of measured responses. But he still has concerns.
The calendar – in terms of its length and cadence – is one.
Ott Tänak cited one of his reasons for stepping back from full-time competition as giving him the opportunity to spend more time with family. Kalle Rovanperä, in a question and answer session with our Club DirtFish members, highlighted that he hadn’t seen his pet dog in 10 weeks from non-stop travelling.
In isolation, they might sound like minor issues. But rinse and repeat and the effects start to build up – both physical and mental.
“I think it [the calendar] needs a longer break at some point in the year,” Evans told DirtFish. “With all the travel and everything… you reach a certain point of fitness at some points in the year and it’s difficult even to just maintain that because the schedule is so tight.
“At the moment, it’s missing a few key breaks to look after yourself and I think it’s going to make quite a few of our careers shorter than they potentially could have been had the championship featured a few more breaks in it, I would say.”
Would the WRC benefit from a longer off-season, or a summer break? Evans thinks so
Evans wants to be clear, though: he’s not necessarily advocating for fewer rallies. But what he does believe is that the status quo no longer works.
“If the schedule of the rallies can be a bit more forgiving, then it wouldn’t necessarily have to be less [events],” he added. “But something has to give somewhere, whether that be in the number of events or the timescale of the events.”
A calendar of 14 rounds, at first glance, may not seem especially laborious. Formula 1, after all, has 24 rounds a year. A typical professional soccer team’s season is typically made up of 38 league matches plus additional cup and continental fixtures, often breaking the 50+ mark.
But Evans points out it’s not about that. Those disciplines have a clear off-season where rest, recovery and training can be conducted without interruption. Rallying’s current calendar does not afford this opportunity.
“What’s very different in rallying to most other sports is I don’t think anybody has a season as long as we do,” said Evans. “We barely have a summer break and we definitely don’t have an off-season break.
“If you look at mountain biking, they have them from the end of October until March. Even Formula 1 has from the start of December until March. We seem to finish at the end of November and already we’re winter testing before Christmas.”
The 2026 season then begins with the Monte Carlo Rally in mid-January. While there is a 50-day gap between the final wheel being turned at this year’s season finale in Saudi and recce beginning for the Monte, there is pre-event testing conducted in between.
By comparison, Formula 1 has an uninterrupted 48-day gap between the post-season Pirelli tire test in Abu Dhabi on December 9 and the first pre-season test in Barcelona that begins on January 26, 2026.
“I think it’s quite a unique sport from that point of view,” concluded Evans. “A lot of travelling and a lot of time away.”
Whether to keep pressing on or wind back your commitment to rallying is a decision Sébastien Ogier knows well. He took the decision to step back from full-time competition in 2021 – and being able to focus more keenly on fewer events has helped him rediscover why rallying is a dream job.
“I didn’t have enough motivation to really carry on full-time, for sure,” Ogier said of his decision to stop at the end of 2021.
Ogier has thrived without contesting the entire 14-round championship
“I found some joy doing it less but more intensively and going to rallies with more of a wish to do it and not feeling forced. You should never have that feeling because it’s a dream, what we do; it’s a fantastic job. When I was a kid I always dreamed of doing that.
“It’s nice to find a way to really appreciate it again; with me, it worked perfectly.”
Ogier feels the calendar is a topic “to look at”, but didn’t want to “really say too much on that topic”.
He said: “I think there’s a lot of discussion going on now with a new promoter coming soon, which should be announced soon. And that, for sure, will be one of the parameters we look at. And I understood that’s actually part of their plan. So, I mean, I don’t know yet which one is coming. But I had a discussion actually with two of the tenders.
“We will know soon, but I’m sure everybody is aware that there needs to be some deeper thinking and remodeling of the sport to maybe create something, a stronger product again for the audience and for, I don’t know, maybe a new new audience that we’re looking for.”
Words:Alasdair Lindsay
Tags: Elfyn Evans, Sébastien Ogier, WRC, WRC calendar
Publish Date November 17, 2025 DirtFish 
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2025/11/O0b35dLw-EVANS13JPN25TB425-1-780x520.jpg November 17, 2025
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