Inaugural Rally Scotland scheduled for October in 2027 WRC calendar

The inaugural Rally Scotland will take place from 3-7 October in an extended 2027 World Rally Championship (WRC) calendar released by the FIA and the sport's promoters. The gravel event in Aberdeenshire is listed as the 12th round of a 15-event schedule and will be a home round for new World Rally champion Elfyn Evans.

The 2027 calendar adds Rally Scotland and the USA as new events and represents the first time the United Kingdom has hosted a WRC round since 2019. BBC Sport will provide extensive live coverage of the rally, including five live stages plus the Power Stage on all WRC rounds, highlights programmes and digital content across its platforms.

Evans secured his first World Rally Championship title in Italy on Sunday, winning the championship in Sardinia after rival Oliver Solberg crashed at the end of the final stage. In doing so Evans became the first WRC champion from the UK in 25 years and joined the late Colin McRae and Richard Burns as the sport's top-level title winners.

Northern Ireland drivers Josh McErlean and Jon Armstrong both competed at the top level of the sport in 2026 and will be aiming to return in 2027. The calendar release notes the season will start in Monte Carlo from 21-24 January, followed by rounds in Sweden and the Safari Rally Kenya.

The schedule features three consecutive tarmac events in Croatia, the Canary Islands and Japan before the Acropolis Rally in Greece, and the Italian round moves from September to July with a switch from Sardinia gravel to tarmac in Rome. High-speed events in Estonia and Finland retain their back-to-back summer slots, the organisers said.

The USA will host its first WRC round in 39 years from 26-29 August, with the championship returning as a gravel round after a successful candidate event in June; the WRC last held a points-paying round in the USA at the Olympus Rally in 1988. Rally de Portugal will not feature in the 2027 calendar but is in talks to return in 2028, the release adds.

The organisers said the upcoming season will introduce a new promoter and WRC27 regulations intended to limit costs and reduce the horsepower of the top cars, and it will also mark the return of Ford as a manufacturer in collaboration with the M-Sport banner. The published calendar itself lists Rally Scotland as 30 September-3 October, with a South American double-header in Paraguay and Chile to follow and Rally Saudi Arabia rounding out the season.