Rally Japan will host a round of the World Rally Championship until at least 2028 after signing a new agreement with WRC Promoter.

The new three-year agreement is set to begin from 2026 and ensures the asphalt rally will continue to be based out of Toyota City, which has hosted the event since 2022. 

The announcement was made at this weekend’s Hyundai N and Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival at Everland Speedway, Yong-in, South Korea.

Japan made its WRC debut in 2004 as a gravel rally held in the Tokachi region before moving to Hokkaido in 2008 and 2010. 

The nation was due to return to the WRC after a 10-year hiatus in 2020, utilising asphalt roads around Toyota City and Nagoya. However, that event and the following in 2021 were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The challenging asphalt roads around Nagoya have hosted the WRC’s final round since 2022 with next month’s edition set to decide both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles. It has proved to be a favourite among the teams and fans.  

Rally Japan will however relinquish its season finale status next year which will be taken by the new Rally Saudi Arabia round that signed a 10-year-deal agreement with WRC that begins in 2025.

Dani Sordo, Candido Carrera, Hyundai World Rally Team Hyundai i20 N Rally1, Adrien Fourmaux, Alexandre Coria, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1 after the crash

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Advertisement

“I am thrilled that the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) has decided to continue to hold a Japan round for the 2026-2028 seasons,” said Toyota City mayor Ota.

“Rally Japan has been highly acclaimed both in Japan and overseas for its backdrop of iconic Japanese scenery that includes beautiful mountains, lakes and Shinto shrine gates.

“We hope to use this acclaim to foster a strong rally culture and expand the fan base at home and abroad. We look forward to delivering excitement and thrills to fans through intense competition between the world’s top drivers.”

WRC Promoter managing director Jona Siebel added: “Toyota City has been incredibly welcoming to the WRC since we returned to Japan. The centralised service park results in an amazing fan experience in the heart of the city.

“We have an excellent partner in Toyota City that shares our values in sustainability and clearly sees the benefit that we bring to the city by extending our agreement there.”

Continue reading with advertising …

… or with a subscription

Visit motorsport.com as usual with advertising and tracking. You can revoke your consent at any time via the data protection page.¹

Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee.

Accept and continue

More information about advertising and tracking in our Data protection notice, the List of our partners and in Data protection information center.

Already a subscriber?

Log in here

Brodie Kostecki took a second Supercars win in a fortnight with a dominant performance on the streets of Gold Coast.

Kostecki led away from pole position in his Erebus Chevrolet Camaro, holding out Triple Eight’s Will Brown and Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw Andretti United Ford Mustang).

The man who looked out of position was Broc Feeney, who started from fifth on the grid in his Triple Eight Chevrolet and who started the first pitstop cycle when his crew short-filled him so he could get track position.

Most of the leaders followed that strategy and pitted on consecutive laps but the man who did not was Cam Waters, the winner of Saturday’s race. While the leading six cars followed a similar strategy – pitting between laps 24 and 29 and taking on similar amounts of fuel – the Tickford Ford driver alone ran longer and was stationary for almost twice as long.

As a result he came out in ninth place, right behind Team18 Chevrolet of David Reynolds and it was vital he got past promptly.

He did and in the following 20 laps Waters passed four cars. By the time that the second pit cycle played out he resumed in fourth, right behind the T8s and looking threatening.

But any hope he had of getting past the Camaros was compromised by a damaged front splitter and he had to settle for fourth, even though Brown had a steering problem for half the race.

“These guys pushed me once again,” grinned Kostecki after taking Erebus’s first Gold Coast win by 3.47s.

“It really come to life at the end there. A really fast pace, it was great execution by the team and the strategy was great.”

Brown was a satisfied man after extending his points lead.

“It was cool to see them [after leaving the pitlane], I had a steering drama there, left-hand down,” he explained.

“It came on about lap 40, the steering was changing and it was a little bit nerve-wracking through the chicanes, too keep it off the walls.

“I am glad to get through this weekend, heading to Adelaide and we’ll see what happens there.”

Feeney rued his qualifying position: “It was hard work, the story of our last few races is that we haven’t qualified high enough up,” he said.

“We are focused on a couple of wins [in Adelaide]. [I had] a win there a couple of years ago and second last year.”

Fifth place went to the second Tickford Mustang of Thomas Randle, ahead of Erebus’s Jack Le Brocq, who was stung with a five-second time penalty for an unsafe release from his second stop. As a result he dropped to eighth place.

Sixth went to Andre Heimgartner, who not only started from a lowly 17th on the grid but managed to tip-toe through a 10-car pileup at Turn 8 on the opening lap, which put Anton De Pasquale’s Dick Johnson Racing Ford out on the spot, and delayed several other drivers.

Grove Racing Ford’s Richie Stanaway was seventh ahead of Le Brocq, team-mate Matt Payne and Reynolds.

Mostert’s hopes of a top-six result were ruined after his Walkinshaw Andretti United crew under-filled his Ford at his second stop and he had to pit for a third time. By the end of the race he was back in 11th and as a result, fell out of mathematical title contention.

As a result, Brown’s championship lead, which was 171 points after Saturday, is now 180 over Feeney, 2772-2592. Mostert remains in third place on 2463 ahead of Waters (2344), Payne (1863) and James Golding (1841).

The title will go to one of the Triple Eight pilots and will be decided on the streets of Adelaide, over two 250km races, on 16-18 November.

Continue reading with advertising …

… or with a subscription

Visit motorsport.com as usual with advertising and tracking. You can revoke your consent at any time via the data protection page.¹

Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee.

Accept and continue

More information about advertising and tracking in our Data protection notice, the List of our partners and in Data protection information center.

Already a subscriber?

Log in here

Oscar Piastri has conceded the error that saw him eliminated from Q1 for Formula 1’s Mexican Grand Prix was a “very poor mistake”.

The McLaren driver went off the track at Turn 12 in the opening phase of qualifying, with his car bottoming out over the kerbs. His lap time was deleted for crossing the track limits, but the time he lost by getting out of shape would not have been good enough to secure a spot in Q2 anyway.

Up until that point the Australian had been over a second up on his previous best, leaving him to rue the error that saw him dumped out of Q1 for the first time this season.

“I just went off in the Turn 12, got beached on the kerb there, and that was it,” Piastri told Sky Sports F1. “My lap was easily going to be enough, so it’s very frustrating to make that mistake. I lost about a second.

“It’s just a tricky circuit but I don’t think today was down to it being tricky. It was just I made a very poor mistake, and that was it.”

Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Piastri’s Q1 exit mirrors team-mate Lando Norris‘ last year, when Norris saw his best lap deleted for track limits and was forced to start from the back of the field.

Despite qualifying 19th – and starting from 17th due to grid penalties for others – Norris moved up to finish fifth in the race, with Piastri hoping to emulate his team-mate on Sunday afternoon.

“We had a similar kind of position for Lando last year,” Piastri added. “So I’ll make sure I do my homework on how he went through the field and try and do the same.”

Piastri will be joined at the rear of the field by home hero Sergio Perez, who was eliminated in 18th. Perez is facing a similar comeback race in front of his ardent Mexican fans on another challenging weekend for the under-pressure Red Bull man.

Sergio Perez says braking issues were behind his painful Q1 elimination at his Mexican Grand Prix home race, explaining he “could not stop the car” at the end of the straights.

Perez only managed the 18th-fastest time in Q1 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, missing the cutoff by two tenths and joining McLaren driver Oscar Piastri in the drop zone.

Perez had been struggling all weekend with the front of his Red Bull RB20 and unresolved braking issues, which made him unable to attack corners.

“I’ve been struggling quite a bit with braking. Every time I try attack the braking, I just put too much energy through the tyres and that makes it very tricky for me to stop the car,” he said.

“It’s been there for the last three races where I cannot stop the car. I’m having to modulate my braking quite a lot and that’s something we can see in the data, but we are not able to fix it at the moment. It’s mainly on the straight line I cannot stop the car. I just slide too much and given that it’s all surface sensitivity here, it makes it a lot harder.”

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Perez crashed out of the race at the first corner last year and is desperate for a morale boosting result in front of his home fans after a tough run of results. 

But with his braking issues also occurring on longer runs, Perez is pessimistic over his chances of a strong comeback race. Given the severity of his handling issues, it is not out of the question the team may opt to make parc ferme changes and let him start from the pitlane instead.

“We will discuss all the options,” he said. “The problem is that we are also very tight on parts that we have available. We don’t have the spec of floor that we would like to go on to. I don’t know, we will discuss it for sure with the team.

“It’s going to be hard because it’s also present there in the long run, so I will try everything. I will try and see what we are able to do with the team and see what solutions we are able to find.

“It’s obviously very disappointing. If there’s a grand prix that I want to do really well, it’s this one. Unfortunately, this event has been really difficult and tricky.”