However, the organizers cannot ban Russians from participating. The only way they can be stopped is through a decision from the Finnish Migration Agency.
— This is a disgusting situation. It is an international competition, and then you follow Fia (the International Motor Sports Federation) rules. If it had been a national competition, we would have acted differently, says Riku Bitter, CEO of the Finnish Motorsport Association to Iltalehti.
FIA allows Russian drivers to drive as neutral actives.
Nowadays, the WC rally is named after the main sponsor Secto Automotive. A company that they also chose to put down with only days left until the competition.
In a statement, the company states that Russian drivers should not be allowed to drive in Finland.
“The war is seriously close to us. If we had the power to make a decision in this matter, we would,” the company writes on its website.
The Russians in Jyväskylä are Nikolaj Grjazin and map reader Konstantin Aleksandrov in the RC2 class, as well as Vitali Antonov in the RC5 series.
Russian drivers have participated in several rallies this season, but not in the latest one in Estonia. This after the Estonian Ministry of the Interior stopped Grjazin and Aleksandrov from entering the country.