Marmaris, October 18: Competitors are making their final preparations for the three-day Marmaris Rally Turkey, the official candidate event for the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) which begins on Thursday (October 20).

Thirty-six Turkish crews, two teams from Cyprus and one from Bulgaria will be able to pass through the gravel special stages in two reconnaissance sessions on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

#Turkish drivers dominate 37-car entry for #Marmaris #RallyTurkey @OfficialWRC candidate event on October 20-22. @TOSFED pic.twitter.com/iTR9nXuDHM

— Lord N Perkins (@LordPerkins) October 12, 2017

The event then gets underway with a ceremonial start in the centre of the tourist town of Marmaris.

Turkey's exciting new rally in the Mugla region will then return to the WRC calendar in September 2018 after a seven-year absence.

Officials will be looking closely at spectator safety, rally timing, road books, security and many other vital aspects of the event for when the world's finest teams, drivers and thousands of spectators head to Turkey's spectacular Turquoise Coast in 2018.

To support the event's Serbian FIA Observer Branislav Pijevic and his three nominated Stewards from Romania, Serbia and Turkey, a four-strong FIA delegation will work closely with rally officials from TOSFED to polish the event to the exacting standards required by the FIA and WRC Promoter GmbH.

Former WRC driver Michèle Mouton is the WRC's safety delegate. The French lady will drive the special stages, assess the safety of the road books and offer advice to route co-ordinators, both before and during the rally, and also spend time looking at potential new stages for 2018. Mouton drives the stages when events are live to ensure that spectators are positioned in safe locations and signage is accurate.

WRC rally director Jarmo Mahonen will also visit Marmaris to oversee the candidate rally, check on the sporting implementation and get a feel for what the event may look like in September 2018.

Candidate rally action gets underway with a shakedown stage of 4.25km to the west of Marmaris (3.74km from the service park) at Degírmenyani from Friday afternoon.