Rally Estonia

The inaugural event, known as Mad-Croc Rally Estonia for sponsorship reasons, was held in 2010 as a part of the Estonian Rally Championship. It was won by Markko Märtin who won all the special stages. In the following year, the rally became known as the auto24 Rally Estonia. Mads Østberg took back-to-back wins in 2011 and 2012 driving a Ford Fiesta RS WRC thus becoming the first two-time winner of Rally Estonia. Local driver Georg Gross won the rally in 2013.

In 2014 Rally Estonia became a round of the European Rally Championship.[1] Ott Tänak won the rally driving a Ford Fiesta R5. The 2014 edition was awarded with the ERC Rally of the Year Award.[2][3] In 2015 Aleksey Lukyanuk made history as he took the overall win driving a R4 spec (ERC-2 category) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X against more powerful R5 spec Ford Fiesta driven by Kajetan Kajetanowicz.[4] In 2016 Lukyanuk was on the verge of defending his win, but crashed out from the lead on the penultimate stage, allowing Ralfs Sirmacis to take victory in his Škoda Fabia R5.[5]

The event was put on hiatus in 2017 and returned in 2018, when it became known as Shell Helix Rally Estonia for sponsorship reasons. The 2018 edition marked the first time the new Toyota Yaris WRC entered a competition outside the WRC series.[6] The rally became a popular event with World Rally Championship works teams preparing for Rally Finland. Ott Tänak won eleven stages out of sixteen and took his second Rally Estonia win. In 2019, every WRC manufacturer team entered the event, making Rally Estonia the largest rally outside the World Rally Championship. The rally organisers signed an agreement with WRC Promoter and Rally Estonia became the first ever official WRC Promotional Event,[7][8] and revealed ambitions to become part of the World Rally Championship from 2022.[9] Ott Tänak took his third Rally Estonia win in dominant style winning all but two special stages.[10] The 2019 rally attracted more than 52,000 fans, a 25 per cent rise on 2018. More than 100 countries screened the event on television and it also proved a big hit on social media, with 25.8 million impressions and 2.7 million video views on WRC and event channels.

Shell Helix Rally Estonia was set to celebrate its 10th edition in 2020 and its second as a WRC Promotional Rally following the huge success of the inaugural event in 2019. The 2020 edition of the non-championship rally was schedueled to slot into the WRC calendar a week after Kenya’s Safari Rally, round eight of the series, and two weeks ahead of the following fixture at Rally Finland.[11] However, it was announced in February that the 2020 edition has been cancelled after the event organizers were unable to find agreement with the national governing body, the Estonian Autosport Union (EASU).[12] Principal issue in the dispute was the competition registration fee, which the EASU raised 5,000 percent from €2,000 to €100,000 in January, just six months before the scheduled start of the rally in July. Paying that level of a fee was not possible, both legally and budget-wise, as stated by the organizers.[13][14]