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The 2019 FIA World Rally Championship was the forty-seventh season of the World Rally Championship, an auto racing championship recognised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) as the highest class of international rallying. Teams and crews competed in fourteen events for the World Rally Championships for Drivers, Co-drivers and Manufacturers. Crews were free to compete in cars complying with World Rally Car and Group R 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 series was once again supported by the World Rally Championship-2 category at every round, which was split into 2 classifications: the World Rally Championship-2 Pro for manufacturer entries and the World Rally Championship-2 for private entries, and by the Junior World Rally Championship at selected events. The World Rally Championship-3 was discontinued in 2018.

At the conclusion of the championship, Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja won their maiden drivers' and co-drivers' championships, taking an unassailable lead of thirty-six points over Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul. Defending champions Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia finished third. In the manufacturers' championship, Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT won their first title since they first participated in the championship. Defending manufacturers' champions Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT were second, with Citroën Total WRT in third.

Entries
The following teams and crews competed in the 2019 FIA World Rally Championship. Citroën, Ford, Hyundai and Toyota were all represented by manufacturer teams and eligible to score points in the FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers.

Team changes
Citroën will only enter two cars for the entire season. The team had two full-time entries in 2018, with a third car run on a part-time basis. Citroën cited a change in sponsorship arrangements as being the reason behind the decision to forgo a third car. M-Sport Ford will also scale back to two full-time entries, with a third car entered on a round-by-round basis. Malcolm Wilson stepped down from his role as M-Sport Ford's team principal to oversee the company's wider commercial operations. Richard Millener was appointed as his replacement. Hyundai also replaced their team principal Michel Nandan with their customer racing manager Andrea Adamo. Toyota expanded to four cars, adding an additional car on a part-time basis. The fourth car will be run by Toyota's factory team, but entered under Marcus Grönholm's GRX Team banner.

Crew changes
Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia left M-Sport Ford and returned to Citroën. Ogier and Ingrassia had previously competed with the French manufacturer in 2011 before moving to Volkswagen Motorsport. Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm also joined the team after two years with Toyota. Craig Breen and Scott Martin left the team when Citroën announced that they would scale back their involvement in the championship to two full-time entries for Ogier and Lappi. They were unable to secure seats for the start of the championship, but Breen represented Hyundai to compete in Finland and Wales. Mads Østberg and Torstein Eriksen remained with the Citroën team, agreeing to a full-time factory campaign in the WRC-2 class in R5 version of the C3. Later, they got an opportunity to drive a third Citroën C3 WRC in Australia to boost Ogier's title bid, but they withdrew before the rally starts as Ogier's title chance was over in Spain. Teemu Suninen was promoted to a full-time drive with M-Sport Ford, effectively replacing Ogier. Pontus Tidemand and Ola Fløene will contest selected rounds with M-Sport Ford. Tidemand and Fløene will share the third car with Gus Greensmith.

Two-time World Drivers' and Co-drivers' Champions Marcus Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen returned to the championship for the first time since 2010, making one-off appearance with Toyota. Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena signed a contract to contest six rounds with Hyundai, sharing an i20 with the crew of Dani Sordo and Carlos del Barrio. Hayden Paddon was set to enter the Rally Finland with M-Sport Ford after he left without a drive for the season, but a heavy crash during testing forced M-Sport to delay his planned return to Australia. Unfortunately, things did not work as planned as the rally was cancelled due to bushfires. Paddon's co-driver Sebastian Marshall moved to Toyota. He partnered Kris Meeke, who returned to full-time competition after being fired by Citroën halfway through the 2018 championship. Meeke's former co-driver Paul Nagle is due to cooperate with Crag Breen in Finland. Teemu Suninen also changed co-drivers, with Marko Salminen replacing Mikko Markkula. However, they ended their partnership before Sardegna as Jarmo Lehtinen took over Salminen's position. Daniel Barritt split with Elfyn Evans to partner Takamoto Katsuta in the World Rally Championship-2; Evans instead was joined by Scott Martin. Katsuta and Barritt were later entered into Rallye Deutschland in a fourth Toyota.

Other major entries
The following teams and crews competed in selected rounds of the 2019 FIA World Rally Championship. These crews were not eligible to score points in the manufacturers' championship. Crews were permitted to compete with World Rally Cars that were homologated under the regulations introduced prior to 2017. [Prose would then detail who these crews are and why they are considered "other major entires" &mdash; i.e., that they are notable enough for inclusion in this article.]

Calendar
The championship was contested over thirteen rounds in Europe, the Middle East, North and South America and Australia.

Calendar expansion
Following the return of Rally Turkey to the championship in 2018, the FIA announced plans to expand the calendar to fourteen rounds in 2019 with the long-term objective of running sixteen championship events. Twelve prospective bids for events were put together, including candidate events in New Zealand, Japan and Chile. Prospective events in Kenya, Croatia, Canada and Estonia expressed interest in joining the calendar within five years.

The planned expansion put pressure on European rounds to maintain their position on the calendar as teams were unwilling to contest sixteen events immediately. The Tour de Corse and Rally Italia Sardegna proved to be unpopular among teams for the logistical difficulties of travelling to Corsica and Sardinia and low spectator attendance at the events. Organisers of Rally Japan reached an agreement with the sport's promoter to host a rally in 2019, with the proposed event moving from Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido to Toyota City in Honshu. However, plans to return to Japan were abandoned when the promoter came under pressure to retain the Tour de Corse.

The proposed events in Japan and Kenya ran candidate events in 2019 in a bid to join the championship in 2020. Both were successful in secure a place on the 2020 calendar. The calendar published in October 2018 included Rally Chile as part of the expansion to fourteen rounds. The event was based in Concepción and ran on gravel roads.

Route changes
The route of Rallye Monte Carlo was shortened by 70.91 km compared to the 2018 route. The route was revised after rule changes that were introduced for the 2019 championship limited the maximum distance of a route to 350 km. Organisers of the Tour de Corse announced plans for a new route, with up to three-quarters of the 2019 route being revised from the 2018 rally. Rally de Portugal was also shortened by 46.72 km compared to the 2018 route.

Rule changes
The maximum total distance of special stages per event was reduced from 500 km to 350 km.

Drivers were permitted to choose a permanent number, similar to the numbering systems used in Formula 1, MotoGP and DTM. Prior to the 2019 championship, the numbering system was based on the manufacturers' championship standings from the previous year. The reigning world champions still competed with the number 1 and their permanent teammates were assigned the number 2.

The number of test days were reduced from 55, with teams permitted to test for 42 days per year.

The championship's support categories were restructured. The World Rally Championship-3 was discontinued and a new class was created within the World Rally Championship-2. The class, known as World Rally Championship-2 Pro, is open to manufacturer-supported teams entering cars complying with Group R5 regulations. Two-wheel drive cars and Group R2 and R3 cars are still eligible to enter rallies.

Scoring system
[This might need to be merged into the key that goes alongside the results matrix.] Points were awarded to the top ten classified finishers in each event. In the manufacturers' championship, teams were eligible to nominate three crews to score points, but these points were only awarded to the top two classified finishers representing a manufacturer and driving a 2017-specification World Rally Car. There were also five bonus points awarded to the winners of the Power Stage, four points for second place, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth. Power Stage points were only awarded in the drivers' and co-drivers' championships.

FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers
'[The season report would be moved to this section. Rather than focus on each round as a separate sub-section, it would instead take a broad view of the championship and how the season played out.]'

FIA World Rally Championship for Co-Drivers
'[The season report would be moved to this section. Rather than focus on each round as a separate sub-section, it would instead take a broad view of the championship and how the season played out. It would probably be shorter than the drivers' championship report.]'

FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers
'[The season report would be moved to this section. Rather than focus on each round as a separate sub-section, it would instead take a broad view of the championship and how the season played out.]'

In detail
[These would be arranged based on the results that each crew scored.]