Rally Poland has been proposed as the opening round of next year's World Rally Championship, should series promoter North One Sport fail to reach agreement with the Automobile Club de Monaco for the return of the Monte Carlo Rally.
It was initially believed that Rally Norway was one of the candidates for that position but it has now been confirmed that the Mikolajki-based Rally Poland will step in as the season opener if required next year.
The other reserve event on the schedule is Rally New Zealand, which would take the place of the Abu Dhabi Rally, should the all-new Middle East event fail to reach the required FIA standards when it runs as a candidate event in December.
These are the proposals which will go forward to March's World Motor Sport Council meeting in Bahrain.
A source close to the FIA said: "Poland is a rally with a lot of heritage, and it did an exceptional job last year. The organization was good and the spectator numbers were incredible. The event would be running to a similar style as Monte Carlo, with the ever-changing levels of grip expected from a winter rally."
Talking about the Monte Carlo Rally, North One Sport's CEO Simon Long said: "There is no shortage of events which want to be on the calendar, but we're very keen to have Monte Carlo as our curtain-raiser next season. We have proposed a way we could work with the Automobile Club [de Monaco] for next year."