Calendar
The 1997 championship was contested over fourteen rounds in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and Oceania. The event rotation system used in previous three seasons was dropped.
Events also became shorter and more compact, and
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The 1997 World Rally Championship was the 25th season of the FIA World Rally Championship. Registered manufacturers were required to contest the expanded 14 event calendar for the first time.
The Drivers' championship was very tightly contested and in the end Tommi Mäkinen won his second drivers' world championship in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV by a single point ahead of Subaru Impreza WRC driver Colin McRae after the final round in Great Britain. Carlos Sainz was third in the leading Ford Escort WRC. The Manufacturers' title was won by Subaru, with Ford second and Mitsubishi third.
For the 1997 season, Group A was partially replaced by the World Rally Car, with manufacturers given the option which regulations to construct to. One inherent benefit to manufacturers by adopting WRC regulations was removing the need to mass-produce road-going versions of the cars that they competed with, under the previous rules for homologation. This meant that vehicles such as the Escort RS Cosworth and Subaru Impreza Turbo no longer had to be mass-produced for general sale in order to compete at World Championship level, and thus acting as a means of attracting increased competition and involvement by manufacturers.
In due course the World Rally Car rules would bring new manufacturs into the sport, but the start of 1997 featured the same three manufacturers as the previous season. Both Ford and Subaru switched to WRC in 1997, whereas Mitsubishi stayed with Group A to maintain the links to their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution road cars. Subaru's transition was much more gradual for similar reasons, with the early Subaru Impreza WRCs still largely Group A in nature. By mid season Toyota Team Europe were back with the new Corolla World Rally Car.
In the few years that follow, the Championship saw the added presence of WRC cars from companies such as Hyundai, Seat, Citroën, and Peugeot, who would all compete under WRC regulations without having to manufacture equivalent specialised road cars for public sale.
One major flaw in the new class system was exposed by the increasing speed of the naturally aspirated front-wheel-drive FIA 2-Litre World Rally Cup cars. The tarmac specification cars built by Peugeot and Renault that competed in the all-tarmac French and Spanish championships became major threats on WRC tarmac events Rallye Catalunya and the Tour de Corse with Gilles Panizzi defeating all but two of the WRC four-wheel-drive turbos in his Peugeot 306 Maxi, taking third place in both events.
The 1997 championship was contested over fourteen rounds in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and Oceania. The event rotation system used in previous three seasons was dropped.
Events also became shorter and more compact, and
| Team | Manufacturer | Car | Tyre | No. | Driver | Co-Driver | Rounds |
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 Mitsubishi Ralliart | Mitsubishi | Lancer Evo IV | M | 1 |  Tommi Mäkinen | Seppo Harjanne | All |
| Lancer Evo III | 2 |  Uwe Nittel |  Tina Thörner | 1–2, 5–6, 10, 12 | |||
| Carisma GT Evo IV |  Richard Burns | Robert Reid | 3–4, 7–9, 11, 13–14 | ||||
| Lancer Evo III | Y | 11 |  Ed Ordynski | Mark Stacey | 13 | ||
| 13 | Kenjiro Shinozuka |  Fred Gocentas | 13 | ||||
| 555 Subaru WRT | Subaru | Impreza S5 WRC '97 | P | 3 | Colin McRae | Nicky Grist | All |
| 4 |  Piero Liatti | Fabrizia Pons | 1, 5–6, 12 | ||||
| Kenneth Eriksson | Staffan Parmander | 2–4, 7–11, 13–14 | |||||
| 8 | Piero Liatti | Fabrizia Pons | 14 | ||||
| Impreza 555 | 10 |  Peter 'Possum' Bourne | Craig Vincent | 9 | |||
 Ford Motor Co. Ltd. | Ford | Ford Escort WRC | M | 5 |  Carlos Sainz | Luis Moya | All |
| 6 | Armin Schwarz |  Denis Giraudet | 1–5 | ||||
| Phil Mills | 6 | ||||||
| Juha Kankkunen | Juha Repo | 7–14 | |||||
| 16 | Angelo Medeghini | Barbara Medeghini | 14 | ||||
| Toyota Castrol Team | Toyota | Corolla WRC | M | 7 | Didier Auriol | Denis Giraudet | 10–14 |
| 8 | Marcus Grönholm | Timo Rautiainen | 10 | ||||
| 9 | 14 | ||||||
| 9 | Neal Bates | Coral Taylor | 11 | ||||
| 8 | 13 | ||||||
| 10 |  Freddy Loix | Sven Smeets | 12 |
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| Black = Tarmac | Brown = Gravel | Blue = Ice/Snow | Red = Mixed Surface |
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| Rally Name | Dates Run | Podium Drivers (Finishing Time) | Podium Cars |
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 Monte Carlo Rally | 19 January–22 January |
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| Swedish Rally | 7 February–10 February |
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 Safari Rally | 1 March–3 March |
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 Rally Portugal | 23 March–26 March |
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| Rally Catalunya | 14 April–16 April |
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| Tour de Corse | 5 May–7 May |
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 Rally Argentina | 22 May–24 May |
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 Acropolis Rally | 8 June–10 June |
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| Rally New Zealand | 2 August–5 August |
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| Rally Finland | 29 August–31 August |
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 Rally Indonesia | 19 September–21 September |
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| Rally Sanremo | 13 October–15 October |
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| Rally Australia | 30 October–2 November |
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| RAC Rally | 23 November–25 November |
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| Source: [1] | |||
