Five Reasons You Should Be Watching the British Rally Championship in 2026
- therookiereporters
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
With the 2026 BRC season just around the corner, we’ve compiled five reasons you don’t want to miss this year’s action.
The British Rally championship (BRC) is the UK’s leading rally series. First started in 1958, the series typically features six races across England, Wales, and Scotland, combining gravel and tarmac stages to simultaneously challenge competitors and entertain fans. The series, which is supported by Motorsport UK, also includes a junior category which is open to drivers under the age of 27 who are competing in Two-wheel-drive Rally4, Rally5 and R2 cars. With the 2026 BRC season due to commence on the 11th of April with the Severn Rally Stages in Wales, here are 5 reasons why you should be keeping an eye (or both) on this series.
1. Lots of information available about the championship online
To begin, a great motivator for watching the British Rally Championship is all to do with their website and social media. We all know the feeling of trying to get into a new form or series of motorsport, and finding it simply impossible to find out just what is going on: Things like where to watch, when the events are, and even how to get tickets can prove to be elusive details. The British Rally Championship’s informative website and consistent social media presence eliminate these barriers, with easy to access information about upcoming rallies, news from previous events, and results from stages easily found online.
They even provide live updates and commentary on social media channels throughout events. This makes it easier for newer fans to stay connected, catch up on past seasons, get involved with the current one, and stay up to date with the action throughout the year.
2. Free ITV coverage
Another great aspect of the BRC package is their partnership with ITV, which allows viewers to watch the action from all around the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The deal, which was reintroduced in 2024 to provide the first over-the-air television coverage of the series since 2018, provides an hour long highlight show which is aired after each event on ITV4. As a bonus, it also includes an exclusive end of season review programme, which recaps all the stages and key moments which defined the championship. The coverage is also available on ITVX, extending its reach to streaming customers to access after the event. This broadcast makes the series really accessible to stay up to date with, even if you are not able to tune in right away.
3. Accessible events all around the UK
The 2026 BRC package visits six locations over the year, with two each in England, Scotland, and Wales. The stages are spread out over dozens of miles, meaning there is plenty of choice on where to set up to view the racing. At rallies, fans are given almost unrestricted access to the cars and action in real life, a luxury for which many other forms of motorsport demand hefty fees.
As BRC events take place over such a large area, they are mostly unticketed, meaning you can just look up the stage maps online and go! There are normally designated spectator areas, but some more experienced fans simply pitch up somewhere along the stage route to enjoy the action. Stage maps and schedules can be found on the BRC website and social media, making it relatively easy to plan your days and catch all the best moments of the rally. It’s important to research properly, stay safe around the stages, and to be prepared for long days in the unpredictable British weather!
4. Fast paced enticing action
The overall undeniable appeal of rallying is the ruthless driving, the wild and unpredictable racing conditions, and the high octane, adrenaline pumping action which never fails to amaze fans the world over. The British Rally championship is certainly no exception to this rule, with Britain’s top drivers battling it out in state of the art Rally2 machines. These agile cars can reach top speeds of between 110 and 120 mph, although the real power is seen in the rapid acceleration which the drivers use to navigate through all the challenging twists and turns which the stages have to offer.
While the physical racing alone is hard to look away from, the results and championship standings also offer their fair share of excitement: Last year’s championship fight went right down to the wire, with the winner not clear until the closing stage of the final rally due to a close three-way battle between championship winner William Creighton, his team mate Meirion Evans, and M-Sport’s Romet Jürgenson. A combination of the daredevil driving and the extremely close standings never fail to provide unmissable action all season long.
5. Interesting points system
A fifth and final reason why the BRC lineup should be marked on your calendar this year is their points system. Competitors in the BRC may nominate one event of the season as their ‘joker’. For a joker round, competitors will score additional points, with five extra points on offer for a first place finish, four for a second place finish, all the way down to one extra point for a fifth place finish. This makes a successful round all the more crucial, and introduces another strategic element: each crew must register their ‘joker’ prior to the event, meaning that they do not yet know how they will perform in the rally when they decide to play for the extra points. They must guess where they will finish best, and they do not always get it right! In addition to the ‘joker’ element, points scored on the last round of the championship will be multiplied by 1.5x, meaning there are even more points up for grabs as the season reaches its end, making championship battles even closer, and more unpredictable. Finally, only five scores will count out of the total six rounds, with the lowest scoring round in which they participated being dropped from competitors' final tally.
The British Rally championship proves to be one of Britain's most accessible forms of motorsport, with free access to events and coverage removing financial barriers to getting involved, and an abundance of information online making it easy to get to grips with how the championship works. The rally action is nothing short of spectacular, and the community surrounding the British Rally Championship is welcoming and inclusive, making it a great championship to start watching in 2026.
Article written by Miranda Brown
