The organisers of the Rally Japan have announced the creation of a monster stage for this year's event, after combining the Kunneywa and🍒 Niueo tests, which were run separately in 2004.

As such the Kunneywa-Niueo test will be 50 kilometres in length - o🍨ne of the longest stages in the WRC.

"Running them as one will enable us to decrease the overall leg time significantly," read a statement from the organisers. "This reduction is of vital importance, giv✱en 🍌that this year the Rally Japan will be run almost one month later and will therefore have less daylight hours."

Kunneywa-Niueo will be conducted twice during the opening day and accounts for almost two-thirds of that leg's competitive distance. As such, drivers will no doubt be torn between using both opportunities to build a rally-winning lead in a single stage and the need to conserve their ꦯmachinery. Fortunately, Rally Japan's roads are not hard on tyres.

In contrast to leg one's marathon test, leg 2 will feature twelve mainly short stages. The longest, at 16kms, is the new stage, Menan. It twists and turns through 🌸a river gorge and should provide drivers with their stiffest challenge of the day.

The final leg returns to last year's high-speed stage🔯s northweജst of Obihiro. These are fast and flowing, though with little room for error as Francois Duval discovered on the penultimate Panke-Nikorpet stage in 2004.

The popular Satsunai Super Special St𝕴age is largely unchanged from 2004 and again will be run at the conclusion of legs 1 and 2 and in the middle of Leg 3.

Rally Japan, round 1📖3 of the WRC, 🌳runs from September 29 until October 2.