The American continent was left out of the official calendar of the World Rally Championship (WRC, for its acronym in English) for the year 2022 and with it, Guanajuato will not have a date for the second consecutive year.
“The main reasons for this decision is that due to component shortages and transportation problems, the new generation equipment that would have to go to the events in America in the first half of the year will not be ready in time,” said Jona Siebel Managing , WRC Promotion Director.
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The World Rally Championship had three dates to run in the American continent, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, but none of the countries will have an event next year.
As a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, this 2021 no country kept its date within the calendar.
The 2020 Rally Mexico was the last date that was run in the country before the Covid-19 pandemic and was won by the pilots Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia, in its 17th edition in Aztec lands.
This rally was attended by more than 500 thousand people and left an economic loss estimated at more than 760 million pesos, according to the Guanajuato Tourism Secretariat.
The World Rally Championship brought hotel occupancy to 59% in different destinations in Guanajuato, with 22,715 rooms occupied. This represented an increase of 2% compared to 2019.
Guanajuato was before the eyes of the world because the World Rally Championship was broadcast on television in more than 160 countries and was watched by 1.4 billion people.
In 2021, the automakers General Motors, Stellantis, Volkswagen, Mazda, Audi, Toyota, Nissan and Ford have had millionaire losses due to the shortage of semiconductors used to make luxury cars and trucks at their plants in Sonora, Guanajuato, Baja California, Puebla , Aguascalientes, State of Mexico and San Luis Potosí.
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“It is estimated that the effects of the automotive industry already observed between January and July imply a loss in the growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product of 2021, as a whole of 0.58 percentage points,” reported the Bank of Mexico (Banxico).
The 439 days of technical stoppages declared by US, Japanese, battlements and Korean automakers caused the production of more than 383,000 light vehicles to stop, representing 10% of the vehicles assembled in 2019, the central bank added.
The semiconductor crisis began hand in hand with the health emergency of Covid-19, since the producers of the automotive sector reduced their sales projects due to an expectation of a lower sale of vehicles worldwide, recalls Banxico.
“As a result, their orders for inputs, including semiconductors, also decreased. In parallel, the confinement measures to stop the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide triggered the demand for computer, mobile phone and electronic products, which are intensive in the use of semiconductors, “he added.