Era: five of five, and onward
2017 to today · Three rulebooks in ten seasons
This era is still moving. Facts below are current as of . Anything that has not happened yet is either labelled as confirmed-but-future or left out. The game marks its post-2026 seasons as designed rather than recorded, and so does this page.
A deliberate performance step, and visually the most aggressive rally cars since Group B.
For 2017 the air restrictor went from 33 mm to 36 mm, lifting the 1.6-litre direct-injection turbo from around 315-320 bhp to 380+ bhp. Minimum weight came down 25 kg to 1,175 kg. The active centre differential, banned since 2010, came back. Aerodynamic freedom opened up: a defined free zone around the shell, extended overhangs, large rear wings, splitters and deregulated diffusers.
The Power Stage, which had paid 3-2-1 since 2011, widened to 5-4-3-2-1 for the top five from 2017. Michelin supplied the top entries through 2020; Pirelli took over as control supplier for 2021.
Approved in June 2018 as part of the FIA's rally pyramid overhaul and introduced in 2022. A Rally1 car is a purpose-built machine: a tubular spaceframe with a common FIA-designed safety cell permitted, and bodywork that only has to be identifiable with a production model, with scaled bodies allowed.
The reversal took a year and changed direction twice. An FIA working group formed in November 2023; a decision to drop hybrid came in February 2024; it was reinstated in June 2024; final removal was confirmed on for the 2025 season.
The 2025 Rally1 car deletes the hybrid kit, drops 80 kg to a 1,180 kg minimum, reduces the restrictor from 36 mm to 35 mm and settles at about 380 bhp, keeping a similar power-to-weight feel. Sustainable fuel stays. The FIA framed it explicitly as cost reduction. Hankook took over as control tyre supplier from 2025.
Scoring wobbled in the same period. A 2024 experiment split the weekend into a Saturday classification paying 18 down to 1, banked only if you reached the finish, plus a separate Sunday award, and produced results in which a rally winner could be outscored. The 2025 reset restored a full-weekend award of 25-17-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1, trimmed Super Sunday to the fastest five, and left the Power Stage alone, for a maximum of 35 points across a weekend.
Confirmed by the FIA on . The top class keeps the Rally1 name and runs a new technical cycle from 2027:
| Cost cap | €345,000 per car, ready to compete, enforced by specifying component costs rather than by accounting rules |
|---|---|
| Concept | Common FIA safety cell, spaceframe chassis, double-wishbone suspension, Rally2 engine, transmission and brakes, around 300 hp, about 1,230 kg |
| Bodywork | Total silhouette freedom, no homologated road-going equivalent required |
| Cycle | Ten years, 2027-2036, double the usual homologation life |
| Power | Sustainably fuelled combustion at launch, with hybrid or full electric permitted later |
Anything beyond the confirmed rulebook is left as designed continuation, both here and in the game. A calendar the sport has not published is not a fact, and the game labels its own invented seasons as invented.
Thursday shakedown and a ceremonial start, then Friday to Sunday of competition: 15 to 22 special stages, 250-340 competitive kilometres, a total route with road sections of roughly 900-1,500 km, one central service park, remote mid-day tyre-fitting zones, and the live-television Power Stage last on Sunday. Stages run from two-kilometre super specials to thirty-kilometre classics.
Calendar churn is the era's signature. Events rotate in and out constantly, and a management game that treats the world calendar as fixed has misunderstood the decade.
One era detail this period forces on a management game: from 2027 the FIA counts test days, capped at 21 a year for a manufacturer entrant. That makes pre-event testing at a lower-level round, a normal and opportunistic thing to do in 1985, a rule question rather than a budget question, and the game treats it as one.
The modern game is the least chaotic and the most expensive. Events are short, service is fixed, tyres are handed to you, and the difference between winning and finishing fourth is measured in tenths across three days. What you are actually managing is money, people and the calendar. If you arrive here having started in 1973, you arrive with a century-old team name, a museum of cars nobody can drive any more, and a great-grandchild who wants a seat.