Rally Poland makes major changes

Last year's Lithuanian stages - two of which were cancelled - were deeply unpopular with the WRC drivers, who were critical of a 250-mile round trip that ultimately featured only 18 of the intended 55 competitive miles.

The problem with the stages run around the town of Druskininkai was the soft, sandy nature of the surface.

Citroen's Kris Meeke commented at the time: "What pisses me off is the people who went to inspect the stages in Lithuania; what did they do? Go for a night's holiday?

"All they needed to do was tap a metal rod into the ground to know it wasn't suitable, but they ruined it for us, the spectators and for the people of Lithuania."

As well as switching to a route run entirely in Poland, the July 2-5 event will also scrap plans to run the Mikolajki superspecial stage at night - another point of criticism from last season.

Clerk of the course Jaroslaw Noworol said: "The schedule is arranged so that there are no stages run in the dark.

"Last year's stages, in most cases, appealed to drivers, fans and media representatives, but we paid attention to their suggestions and opinions.

"This year's rally will be held in Poland solely. The route has undergone very big changes and only the superspecial at the Mikolajki Arena will have the same course as last season.

"In other cases, we use well-known pieces of special stages, tests run in the opposite direction or sections used many years ago, but not in the World Rally Championship.

"There will also be completely new special stages, among which there will be the longest one in the rally."

The route for 2015 is 90 per cent new and runs to 206 competitive miles.

Friday will provide a tough opener, with 100 competitive miles, more than half of which comes courtesy of a brace of runs at the event's 26-mile longest stage - which is also the longest stage ever run in Polish rally history.