The 2020 FIA World Rally Championship was the forty-eighth season of the World Rally Championship, an auto racing competition recognised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) as the highest class of international rallying. Teams and crews competed in seven rallies for the World Rally Championships for Drivers, Co-drivers and Manufacturers. Crews were free to compete in cars complying with Rally1 and Rally2 regulations; however, only manufacturers competing with World Rally Cars homologated under regulations introduced in 2017 were eligible to score points in the Manufacturers' championship. The championship began in January 2020 with the Rallye Monte-Carlo and concluded in December 2020 with Rally Monza. The series was supported by the World Rally Championship-2, World Rally Championship-3 and Junior World Rally Championship categories at selected events.
The championship was heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirteen events were planned prior to the pandemic, but with several events being cancelled due to the pandemic, and some new ones added as replacements, eventually seven events were held.
Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja were the defending Drivers' and Co-drivers' Champions, having secured their maiden titles at the 2019 Rally Catalunya. Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT, the team Tänak and Järveoja compete for, were the defending Manufacturers' Champions. Hyundai won their maiden manufacturers' title when the final round of the 2019 championship was cancelled.
At the conclusion of the championship, Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia won their seventh world titles after winning the 2020 Rally Monza. In doing so, Ogier and Ingrassia became the first crew to win the championship with three different manufacturers. Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin finished second, trailing Ogier and Ingrassia by eight points. Defending World Champions Tänak and Järveoja were third, a further nine points behind. In the manufacturers' championship, Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT successfully defended their title, five points cleared of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, with M-Sport Ford WRT in third.
Calendar
The 2020 championship was due to be contested over thirteen rounds in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North and South America and Oceania, but the calendar was reduced to seven rounds due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following rounds were included on the original calendar published by WRC Promoter GmbH, but were later cancelled:
Calendar changes
With the addition of Rally Chile to the calendar in 2019, the FIA opened the tender process for new events to join the championship in 2020. Bids to revive Rally Japan and the Safari Rally were received, and candidate events were run in 2019. Both events were accepted to the 2020 calendar, as was a proposal to revive Rally New Zealand. However, none of the aforementioned events were run due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Safari Rally was scheduled to be run as a World Championship event for the first time since 2002. The event was to be based in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and feature stages around Lake Naivasha. In contrast to the event's traditional endurance format, which featured stages hundreds of kilometres long, the 2020 Safari Rally was planned to follow a compact route to comply with FIA regulations mandating the maximum route distance. Rally Japan was scheduled to return to the calendar for the first time since 2010, replacing Rally Australia as the final round of the championship. The rally was scheduled to move away from its original headquarters in Hokkaidō to a new base in Nagoya and was to be run on tarmac rather than gravel. Rally New Zealand was scheduled to return to the calendar for the first time since 2012. The event was planned to return to Auckland. The addition of these events saw the Tour de Corse and the Rallies of Catalunya and Australia removed from the calendar. Organisers of Rally Catalunya agreed to forfeit their place on the 2020 calendar as part of a rotation system that will see European events host rallies in two out of three calendar years. The Tour de Corse was removed in response to concerns from teams about the logistics of visiting Corsica, while Rally Australia was removed as the event's base in a regional centre rather than a major metropolitan area meant that the rally struggled to attract spectators. Rally Chile was included on the original calendar, but was later removed in the face of ongoing political unrest in the country. The FIA sought a replacement event to ensure that the calendar retained its planned fourteen rounds, but were unable to do so.