WRC cars on show in the centre of Milan

The World Rally Championship will return to mainland Italy for the first time in 15 years next month, when the four manufacturers take part in a WRC roadshow in Milan.

All four cars will be on show in the city’s Piazza del Duomo before moving over to take part in the Monza Rally Show.

The WRC hasn’t been back in northern Italy since its WRC counter departed Sanremo bound for Sardinia in 2003.

A second WRC roadshow will run in Estonia next year, where all four works teams will run a car at Rally Estonia.

WRC Promoter managing director Oliver Ciesla told Motorsport News the roadshows were part of a new initiative to increase awareness of the series.

“We started this kind of thing when we began with the [WRC] Gala evening in Sydney a few years ago,” he said, “and then we have the launch at Autosport International which is such an important step in waking up the community to the start of the new season. But now we have two more, one in Italy and one in Estonia.

“Having the four cars in the Piazza del Duomo on December 6 will be very, very special. We will put the cars in the middle of the big crowd of Christmas shoppers – through this we will get in touch with tens of thousands of people. After this, the cars will go on to Monza to take part in that event.”

Estonia’s inclusion is no surprise given WRC demand in Ott Tanak’s home country.

“We saw some of the teams go to Estonia for the rally last year and the interest was very strong,” said Ciesla. “As you can imagine, Estonia is tremendous with Ott’s success. Having the rally just a couple of weeks before Finland is a perfect chance to show off the cars and the championship.”

M-sport was the only team not running a car on the Otepaa-based event last year. Tanak won in a Toyota with Hayden Paddon (Hyundai) and Craig Breen (Citroen) second and third.