Rally Ireland

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Rally Ireland was a new addition to the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) calendar in 2007. It will not be part of the 2008 schedule, but will return as the First round of the championship in 2009.The North-South event is the largest sporting occasion on the island of Ireland with over 250,000 spectators and a TV audience in 180 countries.

1 Stage locations
2 Organisation structure
3 2007 results
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Stage locations

Marcus Grönholm crashes out at Lough Gill, County Sligo, 2007

The 2007 event took place between 15 and 18 November 2007, starting with the Super Special Stage in the grounds of the Stormont Parliament Buildings on the outskirts of Belfast, County Down.

The remainder of the event was based in the north-west of Ireland in the counties of Sligo, Fermanagh, Donegal, Leitrim, Tyrone, Roscommon and Cavan.

[edit] Organisation structure

Rally Ireland was managed on a day-to-day basis by the co-founders Sean O'Connor and Ronan Morgan who have many years of WRC and other sporting experience between them^[1]. The Chief Executive is David Marren, who has extensive experience in Formula 1. The Board of Directors is chaired by Eddie Jordan, founder of Jordan Grand Prix Formula 1 team, and the deputy chairman is Trevor Ringland, the former Lions Rugby International player who has 34 caps for Ireland.

A steering committee which is charged with developing the event is in place. This committee is chaired by Austin Frazer and includes representative of Motorsport Ireland (MI) and The Association of Northern Ireland Car Clubs (ANICC).

Rally Ireland received strong government support from both sides of the border^[2] . It continues a long tradition of cross-border rallying in Ireland, which dates back to the early years of the Circuit of Ireland Rally in the 1930s^[3].

[edit] 2007 results

Main article: 2007 Rally Ireland

The first Rally Ireland was the 15th and penultimate round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 2007. This was the first time that the WRC had visited the island of Ireland. Sligo was the headquarters for Rally Ireland. Rally Headquarters was at The Clarion Hotel in Sligo and the Service Park, where all necessary mechanical work on competing vehicles is carried out, was at the nearby Institute of Technology, Sligo. After the full 20 stages the top 10 finishers are as follows:

Position	Car No.	Driver	Time
1	1	Sébastien Loeb	3:01:39.2
2	2	Dani Sordo	3:02:32.6
3	9	Jari-Matti Latvala	3:03:27.4
4	4	Mikko Hirvonen	3:03:56.9
5	7	Petter Solberg	3:04:35.0
6	18	Guy Wilks	3:07:37.1
7	16	Matthew Wilson	3:11:44.1
8	20	Gareth McHale	3:12:47.5
9	21	Andreas Mikkelsen	3:14:47.4
10	53	Niall McShea	3:18:11.3