2012 World Rally Championship

The 2012 championship was contested over thirteen rounds in Europe, North America, South America and Oceania. The 2012 calendar was announced at a meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Singapore on 26 September 2011. } (Monte Carlo, Monaco) Calendar changes • Early plans to run the Rally Argentina over an "endurance" format with stages in neighbouring Uruguay and Chile were abandoned in favour of a new route which featured over of competitive stages and made it the longest rally in the modern era of the sport. The rally also featured the longest stage of the championship, the El Durzano–Ambul stage. The extended rally route has been promoted as a prototype of a format proposed by FIA President Jean Todt. • The Rally Italia Sardegna was moved back from May to October. • The Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo returned to the calendar after a three-year absence. • The Rally New Zealand replaced Rally Australia, in keeping with their event-sharing arrangement. == Teams and drivers ==

World Rally Championship entries Notes: • – The Mini WRC Team lost Mini's support as a manufacturer team after the Monte Carlo Rally, making them ineligible to score points in the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers. The Mini WRC Team became known as the Prodrive WRC Team from the Rally de Portugal. • – The Armindo Araújo World Rally Team and Palmeirinha Rally were merged to form WRC Team Mini Portugal with the support of Mini for the Rally of Sweden; however, the FIA ruled that they were not eligible to score points in the FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers. Team and driver changes returned to the Ford factory team. drives for M-Sport Ford. • Chris Atkinson returned to the WRC to contest the Rally of Mexico with the Monster World Rally Team. and later joined WRC Team Mini Portugal in the place of Armindo Araújo for the Rally of Germany. However, Al-Attiyah was selected to represent his native Qatar at the London Olympics in skeet shooting and was forced to miss the Rally of New Zealand and the Rally of Finland. • François Delecour returned to the WRC to compete in the 80ème Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo. He was replaced by Dani Sordo for the event. The Lotus Exige R-GT was Lotus' first entry in the World Rally Championship since the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus in 1983 Rally of Portugal, but the team later changed their plans and the team made its debut appearance at the Rali Vinho da Madeira, a round of the European Rally Championship instead of the WRC. • Mini WRC Team will only enter one works driver in selected events of 2012, after the team was unable to find the budget for two full-time entries. and run by PH Sport, which was re-opened after being closed down for the 2011 season. Ogier later joined Volkswagen to develop the Polo R WRC for their 2013 WRC entry, while contesting the full 2012 WRC schedule in a Škoda Fabia S2000 with regular co-driver Julien Ingrassia. • Martin Prokop, who previously competed in the Super 2000 World Rally Championship, will take part in ten rallies driving a Ford Fiesta RS WRC. The WRC arm of his Ice 1 Racing team was subsequently shut down. • Former M-Sport drivers Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson joined the newly formed non-manufacturer Go Fast Energy World Rally Team with the intention of completing the season, but the team only appeared at the Rally Monte Carlo and the Rally of Sweden. Wilson later re-joined M-Sport for a one-off appearance at the Wales Rally GB. • 2003 World Champion Petter Solberg secured a seat with the Ford World Rally Team. ==Results and standings==

Results and statistics ;Notes • † – Event was shortened after stages were cancelled. Standings Drivers' championship Points are awarded to the top 10 classified finishers. • Sébastien Loeb secured the drivers' championship title in France. Notes: • 1 2 3 refers to the classification of the drivers on the 'Power Stage', where bonus points are awarded 3–2–1 for the fastest three drivers on the stage. Co-drivers' championship Manufacturers' championship • Citroën secured the manufacturers' championship in France. Notes: • † — The Mini WRC Team lost its manufacturer status in February when parent company BMW withdrew works support from the team, demoting them to customer team status. SWRC Drivers' championship Co-drivers PWRC Drivers' championship Co-drivers WRC Academy Drivers' championship Notes: • 1 refers to the number of stages won, where a bonus point is awarded per stage win. Co-drivers ==Changes==

• In November 2011, Europol issued an arrest warrant for Russian banker Vladimir Antonov at the request of Lithuanian prosecutors as part of an investigation into asset-stripping at Antonov's commercial banks, Snoras and Latvijas Krājbanka. Antonov, who held the commercial rights to the sport through Convers Sports Initiatives, was arrested in London two days later and charged with fraud and embezzlement. Convers Sports Initiatives initially claimed to be unaffected by the arrest, Promoter North One Sport issued a statement clarifying the situation, confirming that they were unaffected by Antonov's arrest and parent company Convers Sports Initiatives entering into receivership and that they would co-operate with the investigation into Bank Snoras. However, North One Sport were subsequently forced to find new investors, with bids from Qatar and French broadcaster Eurosport. It was later reported that negotiations with the Qatari bidders had collapsed, forcing the closure of North One Sport. • The FIA World Motor Sport Council permitted tyre suppliers to provide teams and drivers with a second tyre compound, following several complaints from drivers about a lack of grip at the 2011 Rally Australia. • On gravel rallies, shakedown stage will be used as a qualifying stage for P1 and P2 drivers. According to the results of qualifying, P1 and P2 crews – in order of fastest to slowest – will then select their start positions for the first day of the rally. On day two and three, P1 and P2 drivers will restart in reverse order according to their provisional overall classification. On asphalt rallies, regulations in previous years still apply. • Organisers of WRC events will be allowed to specify whether cars failed to complete a section are permitted to restart the event on the next day. Restart after retirement, formerly known as SupeRally, will now be called "Rally 2". ==References==