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The World Rally Championship is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and teams. The series currently consists of 12 three to four-day rally events driven on surfaces ranging from gravel and tarmac to snow and ice. Each rally is usually split into 15–25 special stages which are run against the clock on up to 350 kilometres of closed roads.
Drivers Sébastien Loeb, Sébastien Ogier, Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen and Colin McRae all became WRC champions. Other drivers who became well known primarily through their WRC careers include Michèle Mouton, Henri Toivonen, Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen. Rallies that have frequently appeared in the championship have included Monte Carlo Rally, Tour de Corse, Sanremo, Acropolis, Safari Rally, and national rallies of Great Britain, Finland, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina.
Hyundai, Toyota and M-Sport Ford are the current competing manufacturers. Amongst their leading drivers are Loeb, Ogier, Thierry Neuville, Ott Tänak, Dani Sordo, Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä.
The WRC also features two support championships, the World Rally Championship-2 and the World Rally Championship-3 which are contested on the same events and stages as the WRC, but with progressively lower performance and running costs of the cars permitted.