Cosmobolis, an Eric Boullier-led contingent, has emerged as the leading candidate to buy WRC Promoter
The sale of WRC Promoter remains an ongoing process.
Cosmobolis, an Eric Boullier-led contingent, has emerged as the leading candidate, but negotiations between it, WRC Promoter and the FIA remain private.
We’ve explained everything you need to know about WRC Promoter’s impending sale in our latest YouTube video, but what would the drivers like to see from the championship in the future?
If they were in charge, what would be their one key priority or area to focus on?
Thierry Neuville
“I mean we have said already most of the things but generally I believe that we need to redo the format of the WRC and we need to find a way to have some specific events during the year which we maybe highlight during the season.
“I think that the championship needs to have endurance races such as also shorter races and sprint races. I believe that it’s a big job to do in a way to attract manufacturers, but that’s also part of the FIA to make a regulation, taking a regulation which attracts manufacturers. The cost cap is obviously something very important to discuss as well.
“And then just go to the public as well, you know. Interest new and young public to rallying. I think we need to make the drivers great again. They are the stars together with obviously the manufacturers who are investing the money, but there are so many different characters and we are not able to showcase them. We haven’t ever really been able to showcase them.
“Yes, there were some fights between Ogier and Loeb, there were some fights between me and Ogier, and Tänak had his character, but I think there was much more to make out of it.
“I think the WRC round needs several days of rallying, but like I said, the Monte Carlo for me, four days format, is very good,” Neuville added. “Kenya for me needs a five or six days format with only one or two stages per day and longer stages. But we need to adapt the cars to the conditions. That’s storytelling, you know?
“Maybe we need some moving assistance for service for some of the rallies, like back in the old times. But we can also have rallies like Estoni and Finland, which are already somehow now a little bit more sprint race. At least Estonia is trying to do the job.
“Where time gaps are so small, it makes no sense to run for five days or four days. We’re fighting for one tenth here and there. So make it shorter, more intense. Maybe do a long Saturday and a short Sunday or something like that.”
Oliver Solberg
“I would probably first of all, give the sport maybe to all TV channels around the world so we can actually show it. I don’t know… I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t have them in my head right now.
“But maybe plan the weeks a bit better to modernize it a little bit more to give more access to us drivers, access to media, create more media days and create more action to show what rallying is actually about. But you need to create those days to give people the opportunity to also experience it and do more things like this, I think, to show what we are all about.
“Then the race weekend, it is what it is. If it’s two days or three days, it doesn’t matter to me. If it’s 250 kilometers or 300 kilometers, it doesn’t also matter. So I think I’m more open-minded to make rallying a bit more variable to a 2026 world and show it more to the world and make it more open for people and go places where people are, I think.”
Elfyn Evans
“Because I’m a driver, I’m going to sort the itineraries out. I think they have to be better thought out, more compact. We have to accept that we can have two stages running at the same time.
“[And] in a way, we have to change for the times. I think we’ve been doing most of the same things for probably 10 years. Of course there’s loads of different ideas that people have kicked about, but somehow we have to make the sport interactive again. We have to make it interesting for people to come.
“There has to be more to do than just sit in a forest for two hours waiting for some cars to pass and then nothing else. I think we have to increase the level of entertainment somehow, whatever the answer is for that. We could go on and on, but it has to be more attractive and I think it has to be easier to follow.”
Takamoto Katsuta
“[There’s] so many jobs to do, [but I’d] increase the publicity, I mean more TV or Netflix or whatever kind of documentary to show the drivers. Because for people who are not fans motorsport, how they get interested about rally is the people.
“Even for me, if i’m not interested in some sports or some kind of competition but if some documentary focuses on the people, then I start to be interested. I think that’s also one of the points that the car is cool, the car is fast, interesting, exciting, but if you are not a fan of the car or motorsport, then how do you get more fans? Then, the human being is most important.
“There are a lot of people, not only drivers, co-drivers, mechanics, engineers. These kind of things are quite important. I think you guys [DirtFish] are doing quite well on this topic, so I really appreciate that. That’s important to get more people [interested] but it’s not easy, I know.”
Jon Armstrong
“It’s difficult because I feel like us as drivers, we always want more promotion but we never really have the full answers on how to get that. I think it’s just trying to get people involved from a young age, whatever way we can do that with the promotion, with more initiatives to get people out marshalling, to get involved at all levels in the sport. That’s what I believe brings the passion from a young age.
“OK, from the media side, if there’s more ways that we can get the younger generation interested… it’s great what we’re doing with More Than Machine. That’s the type of things that we need to understand, like if it’s working for F1…
“OK, it might not work fully for us, but there’s definitely ways that we can learn from other sports and try to incorporate some of that in.”
Andreas Mikkelsen
“I think you need profiles, you need much more competitors being able to fight. At the moment with Rally1 with three teams or two and a half, it’s not big enough. You need more profiles, you need more cars to the start line.
“But not only that, I think it’s a long weekend, you know, three, four days. If you want to be a spectator, you want to follow rally, you have to put away four days. So I would compromise, make it much, much shorter, one to two days, but it’s flat out speed and change it a little bit, so it’s suited a little bit more to the younger generation of spectators.
“When you look over at America, all the big sports doing well are stadium sports. They like to sit in that place, eat popcorn and I think the young generation they are not as active to go out on stages, so you need a little bit of a mix: maybe very spectacular stages like like when you see Portugal, Fafe, the last stage there, to have that stage run three or four times where you really have to push to the very limit, where you gather all the people and all the action is in one place.
“Something like this would be interesting to try out. I don’t think I have the right say in everything, but at least it’s an idea. I do believe and I think our sport is pretty unique and incredible. We just have to show it correctly and in the right way.”
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Cosmobolis, Eric Boullier, WRC, WRC Promoter
Publish Date April 22, 2026 DirtFish
https://dirtfish-editorial.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/2026/04/YVW3GbDu-SI202604080369-780x520.jpg April 22, 2026
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