The 1989 World Rally Championship was the 17th season of the

Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; en, International Automobile Federation) is an association established on 20 June 1904 to represent the interests of motoring organisations and motor car users. It is the governing body for ...

(FIA)

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...

(WRC). The season consisted of 13 rallies, with some adjustments to the schedule versus the previous season. The WRC ended its participation in North America by removing the

Olympus Rally The Olympus Rally is an event in the motorsport of rallying. While it has usually been run as a national rally, in 1986–1988, it was a round in the FIA World Rally Championship, the most recent time a WRC rally has been run in the United State ...

from the schedule, implementing in its place

Rally Australia Rally Australia is an automobile rally event which was held in Coffs Harbour as the final leg of the World Rally Championship (WRC) until 2018. First run in 1988, the rally was held in and around Perth, Western Australia until 2006. It was par ...

. An anomaly in the schedule was that 1989 was the only year in which the

Swedish Rally The Rally Sweden ( sv, Svenska rallyt), formerly the International Swedish Rally, and later the Uddeholm Swedish Rally, is an automobile rally competition held in February in Värmland, Sweden and relocated to Umeå in 2022. First held in 1950, ...

and the Rallye de Monte Carlo were switched in place, with the Swedish event taking place to start the year. This made it the second and last time that Monte Carlo would not mark the first event of the WRC season until the 2009 season. Martini Lancia continued their domination of the sport for a third year in 1989, winning the first six rallies in which manufacturer points were awarded, and ultimately winning the title with plenty of room to spare. Italian

Miki Biasion Massimo "Miki" Biasion (born 7 January 1958) is an Italian rally driver, two-time World Rally champion. Career Biasion was born in Bassano del Grappa, Veneto. Biasion came to prominence in the early 1980s, winning both the Italian and European ...

, Finn

Markku Alén Markku Allan Alén (born 15 February 1951) is a Finnish former rally and race car driver. He drove for Fiat, Lancia, Subaru and Toyota in the World Rally Championship, and held the record for most stage wins (801) in the series, until Sébastie ...

and Frenchman

Bruno Saby Bruno Saby (born 23 February 1949 in Grenoble) is a rally driver from France. In 1981, Saby became French Rally Champion in a Renault 5 Turbo. He drove for the works teams of Renault, Peugeot, Volkswagen and Lancia during his career in the Worl ...

returned to the team, while other successful drivers employed by the team through the year included French native

Didier Auriol Didier Auriol (born 18 August 1958) is a French former rally driver. Born in Montpellier, and initially an ambulance driver, he competed in the World Rally Championship throughout the 1990s. He became World Rally Champion in 1994, the first driv ...

, Swede

Mikael Ericsson Mikael Ericsson (born February 28, 1960) is a Swedish former rally driver. During his career he competed in 40 events in the World Rally Championship, including two victories consecutively in 1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clock ...

, and Argentine driver Jorge Recalde. The team drove the Lancia Delta Integrale through the year. The car also remained the one of choice for the

Jolly Club Jolly Club was an Italian motor racing team, which competed in the World Rally Championship, the Sportscar World Championship, the European Touring Car Championship and briefly in the Formula One World Championship, along with several domestic cha ...

team's main drivers, Italians Alex Fiorio and

Dario Cerrato Dario Cerrato, (born 2 September 1951) is a former Italian rally driver three times on the podium in World Rally Championship races. He won five times the Italian Rally Championship. WRC podium Other results *European Rally Championship The E ...

. Complementing the manufacturer's success in the standings, Lancia drivers placed well throughout the top ranks in the drivers championship as well. Biasion seized the championship handily, becoming the WRC's second repeat champion, while Fiorio settled for a distant second, a position fought for through the year against Toyota's driver, Kankkunen. Other successful Lancia pilots included Mikael Ericsson in fourth and Auriol behind him in fifth place.

Toyota Team Europe Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe GmbH (TGR-E), formerly Andersson Motorsport GmbH and Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG), is a fully-owned and controlled entity of Toyota Motor Corporation, based in Cologne, Germany, which provides motorsport and automotiv ...

represented the only serious challenge to Martini and the Lancias with it

Toyota Celica GT-Four The Toyota Celica GT-Four is a high performance model of the Celica Liftback that was produced from 1986 to 1999, with a turbocharged '' 3S-GTE'' engine, and full-time AWD. It was created to compete in the World Rally Championship, whose regul ...

and a stable of drivers that included former world champion Finn

Juha Kankkunen Juha Matti Pellervo Kankkunen (; born 2 April 1959) is a Finnish former rally driver. His factory team career in the World Rally Championship lasted from 1983 to 2002. He won 23 world rallies and four drivers' world championship titles, which we ...

and the only Group A winner, Swede

Kenneth Eriksson Kenneth Eriksson (born 13 May 1956 in Äppelbo, in the kommun of Vansbro) is a now retired World Rally Championship rally driver. He drove for several manufacturer teams, including the Subaru World Rally Team, Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Škoda. He ...

, as well as a rising star from Spain,

Carlos Sainz Carlos Sainz may refer to: People * Carlos Sainz Sr. (born 1962), Spanish rally driver world champion, father of Jr. * Carlos Sainz Jr. (born 1994), Spanish Formula One driver, son of Sr. Other uses * '' Carlos Sainz: World Rally Championship'', 1 ...

. All three had successes during the year, though the team was never able to overcome Lancia's early domination of the manufacturer title race. Kankkunen challenged for second overall, but ultimately had to settle for third place, while Kenneth Eriksson took sixth and Sainz finished in eighth. After an initial win in Sweden by its main driver, Swede

Ingvar Carlsson Gösta Ingvar Carlsson (born 9 November 1934) is a Swedish politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Sweden, first from 1986 to 1991 and again from 1994 to 1996. He was leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1986 to 1996. He ...

Mazda Rally Team Europe The Mazda Rally Team Europe was a rally team created by Achim Warmbold that competed in the World Rally Championship from 1985 to 1991. History The Mazda Rally Team Europe was created by Achim Warmbold as European Mazda preparation business bas ...

was unable to repeat their success, yet still captured third overall amongst manufacturers while Carlsson took seventh in the driver championship standings. Mitsubishi's competitive team

Ralliart Ralliart is the high-performance and motorsports division of Mitsubishi Motors. It was responsible for development and preparation of the company's rally racing and off-road racing vehicles, as well as the development of high-performance models ...

made its entrance to the WRC scene, taking two rally wins with its

Galant VR-4 The Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 (Viscous Realtime 4WD) was the range-topping version of Mitsubishi Motors' Galant model, available in the sixth (1987–93), seventh (1993–96) and eighth (1996–2002) generations of the vehicle. Originally introduced to ...

car, one by Swede

in Finland and a second by Finn

Pentti Airikkala Pentti Airikkala (4 September 1945 – 30 September 2009) was one of the "Flying Finns" who dominated world rallying in the past four decades.

in England. Ericsson's victory in Finland followed his win in the previous round in Argentina driving a Lancia, giving him the distinction of being the first winner of consecutive WRC events for different manufacturers. Mitsubishi was able to obtain fourth place overall in the standings. The

Audi Quattro The Audi Quattro is a road and rally car, produced by the German automobile manufacturer Audi, part of the Volkswagen Group. It was first shown at the 1980 Geneva Motor Show on 3 March. Production continued through 1991. Background The wo ...

continued to be competitive in the hands of privateers during the early part of the season, garnering the maker with enough points for fifth, while Simon Racing's

Renault 5 GT Turbo The Renault 5 is a four-passenger, three or five-door, front-engine, front-wheel drive hatchback supermini manufactured and marketed by the French automaker Renault over two generations: 1972–1985 (also called R5) and 1984–1996 (also called Su ...

powered their driver, Frenchman

Alain Oreille Alain Oreille (born 22 April 1953 in Sarre-Union) is a former French rally driver, who won the Rallye Côte d'Ivoire in 1989, a round of the World Rally Championship. He won the FIA Cup for Drivers of Production Cars in 1989 and 1990. Career Ore ...

to victory in the Ivory Coast and 10th place in the driver standings while securing sixth for the manufacturer. For 1989, the number of rallies for which manufacturer points would be awarded was reduced to ten of the thirteen events, with events in Sweden, the Ivory Coast, and New Zealand only counting towards the driver titles. __TOC__

Teams and Drivers

Events

Championship for manufacturers

Schedule of points by place:

Championship for drivers

Schedule of points by place:

Cup for production car drivers

External links

FIA World Rally Championship 1989
at ewrc-results.com {{World Rally Championship results