The Sanremo Rally in Italy, which will run as round eight of the IRC from 25-27 September, has revealed a special route to mark its 50th anniversary.

As usual, the event will run entirely on asphalt through the mountains surrounding the Italian coastal resort. In total there will be 12 special stages making up 256 competitive kilometres, with the service park and media centre located near the old railway station on the seafront.

Entries will open for the 50th anniversary event on Tuesday 26th August and close on Tuesday September 16th. The recce will take place on the Tuesday and Wednesday prior to the rally start, before the proper action gets underway at 17:00 on Thursday September 25th.

The cars will drive an opening loop of three stages before a parade through the town centre at 20:00 and a service halt.

The crews will then go on to tackle a mammoth 59-kilometre stage in the dark, which has been specially designed to celebrate 50 years of Sanremo and will be the longest stage in the IRC by some margin. The crews will return to parc ferme in Sanremo at 00:45 on Friday morning.

They have an early start again on Friday with two stages starting at 07:25, before repeating the same loop to conclude leg two. Finally, four more stages on Saturday (split into two loops of two) will conclude the action before the finish at 15:08.