The Africa Rally Championship is likely to have several changes next year.
Over the years, the championship has been surviving by the thread; because of fewer entries and countries withdrawing their hosting status.
The increasing costs of rallying on the continent have not attracted more numbers to the championship.
FIA Rally Director Yves Matton now warns that the Africa championship must find new solutions to improve its status.
“For sure ARC is not an easy championship. The logistics remain the main difficulties because the events are far from each other.
“There some things we want to improve on next year to try and attract more contenders,” explains Matton.
The 2020 season will start in February with the opening round scheduled to be hosted in the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire.
Another new points scoring system is being mooted as one of the changes for the new season.
“The idea behind the current system was that the level of the retirement in African rallies is quite high.
“So they wanted to give a chance to people who retire to take points and also motivate them to continue with the event because without points it was not something interesting.
“A new proposal is to be sure the winners of the rally do not take too much advantage in comparison with the second.
“With the current 25, 18. It gives a big advantage, that is something that will be modified.
“But still the point system would not cause a big revolution,” he asserted.
Granting more type of cars for ARC will be another proposal for inclusion next year.
“We have proposals that will go to motorsport council to try and allow some different cars to be accepted in the championship.
“We are also on a new project to have low cost category for four-wheel drives. It would help replace the go open cars which were quite successfull in the past,” said Matton.
Matton also believes that the division of the championship into caps will greatly impact the championship.
“There is a system we tried in the Asia Pacific championship this year. We changed the approach drastically going through caps where your selected to go to the final.
“We introduced the idea for ARC but it has not been adopted because the African stakeholders requested to first see how it works in other countries.
“But it has worked in Asia were the number of drivers participating in the finals is really big than before. We believe it can check logistics issues and a solution to the championship.
“The only problem will again be Ivory Coast which is far from all other countries. That is one part to be thought about.”
The 2020 African Championship will have seven rounds.