Rally Estonia

The inaugural event, known as Mad-Croc Rally Estonia for sponsorship reasons, was held in 2010 as a part of the Estonian Rally Championship. It was won by Markko Märtin who won all the special stages. In the following year, the rally became known as the auto24 Rally Estonia. Mads Østberg took back-to-back wins in 2011 and 2012 driving a Ford Fiesta RS WRC thus becoming the first two-time winner of Rally Estonia. Local driver Georg Gross won the rally in 2013.

In 2014 Rally Estonia became a round of the European Rally Championship.[1] Ott Tänak won the rally driving a Ford Fiesta R5. The 2014 edition was awarded with the ERC Rally of the Year Award.[2][3] In 2015 Aleksey Lukyanuk made history as he took the overall win driving a R4 spec (ERC-2 category) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X against more powerful R5 spec Ford Fiesta driven by Kajetan Kajetanowicz.[4] In 2016 Lukyanuk was on the verge of defending his win, but crashed out from the lead on the penultimate stage, allowing Ralfs Sirmacis to take victory in his Škoda Fabia R5.[5]

The event was put on hiatus in 2017 and returned in 2018, when it became known as Shell Helix Rally Estonia for sponsorship reasons. The rally became a popular event with World Rally Championship works teams preparing for Rally Finland. The 2018 edition marked the first time the new Toyota Yaris WRC entered a competition outside the WRC series.[6] Ott Tänak won eleven stages out of sixteen and took his second Rally Estonia win. In 2019 the rally organisers signed an agreement with WRC Promoter and Rally Estonia became the first ever official WRC Promotional Event,[7][8] and revealed ambitions to become part of the World Rally Championship from 2022.[9] Every WRC manufacturer team entered the event, making Rally Estonia the largest rally outside the World Rally Championship. Ott Tänak took his third Rally Estonia win in dominant style winning all but two special stages.[10] The 2019 rally attracted more than 52,000 fans, a 25 per cent rise on 2018. More than 100 countries screened the event on television and it also proved a big hit on social media, with 25.8 million impressions and 2.7 million video views on WRC and event channels.

The 2020 edition of the non-championship rally and the second as a WRC Promotional Rally was scheduled to slot into the WRC calendar a week after Kenya’s Safari Rally, round eight of the series, and two weeks ahead of the following fixture at Rally Finland.[11] However, it was announced in February that the 2020 edition has been cancelled after the event organizers were unable to find agreement with the national governing body, the Estonian Autosport Union (EASU).[12] Principal issue in the dispute was the competition registration fee, which the EASU raised 5,000 percent from €2,000 to €100,000 in January, just six months before the scheduled start of the rally in July. Paying that level of a fee was not possible, both legally and budget-wise, as stated by the organizers.[13][14]

In March the spreading COVID-19 pandemic led to cancellation of six World Rally Championship rounds. Organizers of the championship announced that they were considering adding events to the schedule that had not been part of the original calendar.[15] Estonia was among the countries who had expressed interest in hosting the event.[16] On July 2, 2020 WRC Promoter announced that the season would return with an updated calendar with newcomers Rally Estonia hosting the resuming round between 4 and 6 September[17][18] making Estonia the thirty-third nation to stage a championship round in the WRC.[19]

The rally marked the return of the World Rally Championship after a half-year hiatus by the COVID-19 pandemic and was the 600th event since the championship was founded back to 1973.[20][21] Winning the warm-up event, local favourites Tänak and Järveoja were determined to vanquish their home soil for the third straight year.[22] The reigning world champions showed an impressive speed throughout the weekend, leading almost the entire rally to win their first victory for Hyundai in their motherland.[23] Teammates Craig Breen and Paul Nagle finished second after a consistent performance to complete a Hyundai 1–2.[23] The event was widely praised and considered by some of the FIA members as one of the best WRC events of all-time. The 2020 edition was awarded with the WRC Team Spirit Award by successfully executing a Covid-safe maiden WRC event in just 63 days.[24]

Rally Estonia was also included in the 2021 WRC calendar as round seven of the twelve-round championship.[25]