A total of 19 crews will battle for the World Rally Championship’s Junior WRC crown this year, marking the largest entry list during the series’ single-make era.
Junior WRC will run an updated ‘Evo’ version of the Ford Fiesta Rally3 that was debuted midway through last year, and feature a gravel-heavy calendar: Sweden starts the season in February, followed by Croatian asphalt in April before three gravel rounds in a row in Italy, Finland and Greece.
The series’ prize package remains the same, with the Junior WRC champion given four European outings in WRC2 the following season in a Ford Fiesta Rally2, plus an additional two available at a discounted rate.
Double points for the season finale in Greece have also been retained, as has the awarding of one point for each stage win.
Who are the Junior WRC competitors in 2024?
This year's JWRC features a record entry
As reigning champion, Will Creighton won’t be back in the Junior WRC field this season. Nor will Laurent Pellier, another of last year’s title contenders; the one-time ERC4 Junior and French junior champion is now too old to be eligible for the series.
That leaves a mixture of other returning drivers from last season, graduates from the FIA Rally Star system and newcomers from elsewhere in rallying to make up the field: in all, 13 of the crews are series newcomers.
The returning crews
Diego Domínguez Jr was last year’s championship runner-up, scoring four podiums. A trio of drivers separated by a single point in last year’s championship are also returning: Spanish Junior champion Roberto Blach, Belgian Junior champion Tom Rensonnet and British Junior champion Eamonn Kelly.
Preparations for the season ahead have begun in earnest for two of them, competing in rallies elsewhere to ready themselves for Sweden. Kelly claimed fifth in class at last week’s Riihimäki Rally, the Finnish championship season opener, while Blach will at the next round of the Finnish series, the Arctic Lapland Rally.
Raúl Hernández, who did three rounds last year, is also returning to the field. Nataniel Bruun made his Junior WRC debut at least year’s season finale and is the reigning Photo class champion of the Bolivian national series.
Last year's runner up Diego Domínguez Jr returns
The potential title favorite?
Bruno Bulacia starts the year in a position of envy for the other crews. With two seasons of WRC2 competition under his belt, the younger Bulacia brother has competed in all of this year’s Junior rounds, bar Croatia, in more powerful Škoda Fabia Rally2 machines compared to the Rally3 cars featured it the Junior series.
The continental graduates
Abdullah Al-Rawahi was at the center of one of the oddest finishes to a rallying season in 2023: he finished the Middle East Rally Championship in a dead heat with Nasser Al-Attiyah, scoring the same results and thus ending with the same points as the Middle East’s most successful rally driver ever.
The JWRC drivers will pilot Ford Fiesta Rally3s once again
In the end, a tie was declared and both Al-Attiyah and Al-Rawahi were declared champions. Now Al-Rawahi, who has several years of experience in four-wheel-drive machinery under his belt, is moving up from MERC to the world stage for the first time.
Norbert Maior won himself a ticket to Junior WRC by clinching the ERC Junior title last year, a victory on the season-ending Rally Hungary enough to pip Ola Nore Jr and Roberto Daprà to the title. Instead of following Maior into Junior WRC, Daprà has instead made the bold decision to skip directly to WRC2 this year.
Jakub Matulka arrives from the ERC3 class, where he piloted a Fiesta Rally3. There were no wins but a trio of second places were enough to finish as runner-up in ERC3 last year; this will be his first time on the world stage.
Mille Johansson also graduates from ERC Juniors, having driven a Rally4-spec Fiesta both there and in the Slovenian championship.
Norbert Maior won last year's ERC Junior title
The FIA Rally Stars
A quartet of drivers from the FIA’s Rally Star talent development system have graduated from its ‘training’ season to Junior WRC.
One of the four, Romet Jürgenson is not a total novice to the WRC, though. In addition to his rallies in a Fiesta Rally3, he also ran in Croatia and Estonia last year with a Rally4-spec Fiesta, giving him valuable stage mileage for the only asphalt round of the championship.
Former motocross rider Max Smart, the winner of the African regional finals, has switched co-drivers for this season, pairing up with Jon Armstrong’s former navigator Cameron Fair; that duo won the ERC3 title together last year.
Romet Jürgenson is one the FIA Rally Star graduates
Taylor Gill, the Oceanian representative, and Jose ‘Abito’ Caparó from the Americas, have also progressed from the Rally Star training season to Junior WRC.
The national graduates
Fabio Schwarz, son of former Toyota, Ford and Škoda WRC driver Armin, is finally making his anticipated step up to the world level.
At 18 years old he’s one of the youngest drivers in the field but already has plenty of experience elsewhere in rallying: several seasons spent in the Baltic region, plus appearances at German events, in a mixture of Rally2, Rally3 and Rally4 machinery offer a solid foundation.
But Schwarz also has four WRC events in a Rally3 car under his belt already: he completed Croatia, Italy and the Central European Rally in a Fiesta, though rolled on shakedown and missed Estonia, which he was entered for in the WRC3 category rather than as a junior.
Petr Borodin did not enter Junior WRC last year but did compete in Finland as a WRC3 crew with a Fiesta Rally3 and has been rallying nationally there too, after several seasons in his native Kazakhstan; his season has already begun as, like Kelly, he entered last week’s Riihimäki Rally.
Andre Martinez made his WRC debut last year in a Hyundai i20 N Rally2 on Rally Chile and has two seasons of rallying under his belt in Peru. Gerardo Rosselot made his WRC debut on the same event and moves up from the Chilean championship, in which he clinched a first podium finish last year.
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January 19, 2024 at 04:43PM
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Record entry for 2024 JWRC revealed – DirtFish - DirtFish
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