Japan hoping for return to WRC as soon as possible

Rally Japan chief Dmitry Krivtsov says the event’s best hopes of a return to the World Rally Championship calendar rest with the return of a Japanese car manufacturer.

The Sapporo-based event is not on the WRC schedule for next season, but with the increased speculation surrounding a return to the sport for Toyota, there are hopes the series could be back on the island of Hokkaido in the near future.

Krivtsov said: “Our hopes are with Toyota. In July, all of a sudden, there was an article in a major Japanese car magazine that specialises in rumours that do become a reality. They had a feature on Toyota saying they are planning to come back. That was the only lead and got carried around the world big time. Toyota never confirmed anything but never said they are not doing this. I’m sure when they come back, I’m sure we’re back in business.”

Krivtsov said the organising team would focus its attentions on the Obihiro-based round of the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship next season. But he added that the WRC was where he wanted to be.

“Japan deserves a WRC event just from the point of view of being in Asia,” he said. “If you have a world championship you must have at least one event in Asia. Now that Mini is going to be joining, I think for BMW, Japan is a far more important market than for Citroen, for example. I’ve also heard that Mazda could be joining and if that happens, we’d be very happy.

“It’s not like we’ve lost all hope and we’re not giving up on it. We’re definitely missing a year next year but it’s not like we don’t want to come back in 2012, we do and very much so,” he added.

Rally Japan first ran in the WRC in 2004, when Subaru, Mitsubishi and Suzuki were all involved in the series, either as full manufacturers or - in Suzuki’s case - with a Junior car.