Since its inaugural season in

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: ...

, the

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 ...

has been supported by a series of additional categories. These categories, created and endorsed by 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)—the governing body of motorsport—were created to encourage participation from entries in classes that would otherwise be ineligible to score points in the World Championship or its primary feeder series, the

World Rally Championship-2 The FIA WRC2 (previously also known as World Rally Championship 2 and WRC 2), is a support championship of the World Rally Championship. The calendar consists of the same rallies and stages as the main class and crews usually compete immediately ...

and

World Rally Championship-3 The FIA WRC3 is a support championship of the World Rally Championship. The calendar consists of the same rallies and stages as the parent series and crews usually compete immediately after WRC2 entrants. Entry into WRC3 is limited to cars th ...

. Over time, these support categories were created and changed in line with trends within the sport itself and motorsport as a whole.

Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy

The Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy was a series run between

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

and

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

. It was created after Citroën won the bid to supply cars for the

Junior World Rally Championship The FIA Junior WRC, also known as JWRC and previously known as Junior World Rally Championship, is an international rallying competition restricted to drivers under 29 years old. The championship currently consists of five select rallies of th ...

from

M-Sport M-Sport is an auto racing team and motorsport engineering company headquartered at Dovenby Hall near Cockermouth, Cumbria, England, United Kingdom. Formed in 1979 by the World Rally Championship driver Malcolm Wilson, and originally known as ...

. The M-Sport prepared

Ford Fiesta R2 The Ford Fiesta Rally4 is a rally car developed and built by M-Sport to Group Rally4 regulations and designed for competition in the fourth tier of the Rally Pyramid. It is based upon the Ford Fiesta road car and is the updated version of the For ...

s that had been used for the Junior World Rally Championship were made available to crews, with tyres supplied by

DMACK DMACK, the parent company of DMACK Holdings Ltd., is a Rovereto, Italy, based tyre manufacturer which started as a company based in Carlisle, United Kingdom. History DMACK was founded in 2008 by Dick Cormack to deliver smaller tyre sizes t ...

. The winner of the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy was entered in

with DMACK World Rally Team the following season. The competition was discontinued in

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, with the restructured Junior World Rally Championship adopting a prize structure similar to the one used by the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy.

R-GT Cup

The R-GT Cup was first created in 2015 to allow GT cars to compete in rallying. With the FIA streamlining the classes of eligible cars by creating

Group R In relation to motorsport governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, Group R refers to a set of regulations providing production-derived vehicles for rally competition. The Group R regulations were created in 2008 as a gradual ...

, provisions were made to allow for GT cars to be entered, with the category known as R-GT. While the R-GT Cup was initially run in support of the World Rally Championship at selected events, later editions expanded the R-GT calendar to include rounds of the

European Rally Championship The European Rally Championship (officially FIA European Rally Championship) is an automobile rally competition held annually on the European continent and organized by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship has b ...

WRC Trophy

The WRC Trophy was created in

as a response to widespread technical changes in the

World Rally Car A World Rally Car is a racing automobile built to the specific regulations set by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and designed for competition in the World Rally Championship (WRC). The cars were introduced in 1997 as a repl ...

category. These changes, which made the 2017 generation of World Rally Cars significantly faster than their predecessors meant that World Rally Cars built between 2011 and

would be unable to directly compete with the newer models. Conversely, World Rally Cars built before 2017 would be faster than the Group R5 cars competing in the World Rally Championship-2. With further changes to the sporting regulations restricting the ability of privateer teams to enter 2017-specification World Rally Cars, the WRC Trophy was created to encourage privateer entries and enable older-model World Rally Cars to continue competing without threatening the position of the World Rally Championship-2 as the sport's premier feeder category. Under the WRC Trophy regulations, crews are eligible to enter up to seven rounds of the World Rally Championship, with their best six results counting towards their final points tally. WRC Trophy entrants were still eligible to score World Rally Championship points separately to the WRC Trophy. The Trophy was discontinued after the 2017 season.

References

{{World Rally Championship results +