Prodrive hosts WRC Promoter bosses as Richards eyes a return

Photo: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool

WRC Promoter's leadership visited Prodrive's headquarters on Wednesday to discuss a possible return by the British company to the top class of the FIA World Rally Championship. David Richards wants Prodrive back in the WRC, but he has conditions. No decision has been announced. Speaking to DirtFish, Richards set out plainly what he expects from the promoter.

What we know after the meeting

Éric Boullier, chief executive of WRC Promoter, and Julien Vial, the promoter's chief operating officer, were Prodrive's guests on Wednesday. The meeting was scheduled for three hours, and Richards prepared a packed agenda for it.

The meeting had been expected. On October 5, 2026, Reuters reported that Richards would meet Boullier in the coming weeks to see where he could help and how Prodrive might become involved in the championship.

The visit came as the WRC prepares for a new regulation era from 2027 and looks for new entrants.

Richards's conditions

The Prodrive chairman is open about the decision depending on the direction the promoter takes. "We need to be convinced that they're taking the right approach and that the investment will be there in the championship," Richards told DirtFish.

"We have only so many resources we can apply to different championships and different things we're doing, [but] I would like to see us back in the World Rally Championship," he added.

"We've done all the technical assessments [of the new technical regulations]. We've done all the background work. We know what it will cost us to do it. We know how we go about it. And this is an interesting discussion to find out if we're all aligned," Richards said.

Prodrive's WRC record

Prodrive and Subaru dominated the WRC in the mid-1990s, winning three consecutive manufacturers' titles from 1995 to 1997. Colin McRae became world drivers' champion in 1995.

Richard Burns in 2001 and Petter Solberg in 2003 also won titles driving Prodrive-run Subarus. Subaru withdrew from the championship at the end of 2008, and three years later Prodrive returned with a Mini program.

According to DirtFish, the Banbury company has been absent from the WRC since 2012. Richards also knows the championship from the business side: in 2000 he bought the WRC's commercial rights from Bernie Ecclestone, in a deal estimated at $50 million.

Richards's ideas for the championship

In Richards's view, the real challenge for Boullier as promoter is to win back the media and television channels around the world.

"The mistake that Red Bull made in the latter years was purely talking to the converted. That's an easy target: selling subscriptions to people who love rallying? Great. It'll be a quietly diminishing marketplace," the Prodrive boss said.

Richards wants to open rallying up to the wider public. He said he will propose a return to more linear routes and time controls in town centers, "getting back among the people instead of hiding ourselves away in the forests."

"It's the most spectacular form of motorsport ever. And we don't see it anywhere," he said. He acknowledged that this will take investment: in his view, rally footage has to be made available online and to TV channels to rebuild the audience.

Richards also wants to reach younger fans, partly through the kind of computer games that were once very popular. He is reviving an idea from 20 years ago, when the technology could not support it: real-time virtual participation by fans in rallies.

He used the Monte Carlo Rally as an example. A fan anywhere in the world signs up for the event and lines up at the start of the first special stage alongside everyone else, driving the same car on the same tires in the same conditions. "You then have a virtual winner alongside the real winner," Richards explained.