the forests of Conwy and Snowdonia. The third leg was the shortest of the rally at long and featured Elsi, a brand new stage, and two passes of Gwydir. The Gwydir stage was doubled in length from previous years before the rally concludes with two passes over a spectator stage around the Great Orme headland and the streets of Llandudno. A shortened version of the Great Orme stage had previously been used in 2011 when it was run in the opposite direction. Organisers of the event had a dispute with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) over the planned route. The original proposal featured the Great Orme stage—which had previously featured in the route of the 2013 event—as the event's Power Stage. However, the FIA rejected the route as the proposed stage was not representative of the rally; the route primarily consisted of gravel stages, but the proposed stage was tarmac. The dispute was resolved when the organisers agreed to run the first pass over Gwydir as the Power Stage, allowing the event to finish in Llandudno as originally planned. The inclusion of public roads in the route was made possible with the passage of the Deregulation Act 2015 by the British government, which amended parts of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to make it possible for events to close public roads to be used for motor racing events in the United Kingdom. In February 2018, the National Assembly for Wales passed the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Motor Racing) (Wales) Regulations 2018, a piece of secondary legislation that enabled motor racing events to take place on public roads in Wales. Itinerary Reception The new route was received positively by drivers—particularly former Citroën driver Kris Meeke—who appreciated the inclusion of challenging stages. Thierry Neuville and Craig Breen also applauded the route as the best route used by the rally since it moved from Cardiff to Deeside. Defending rally winner Elfyn Evans had a more muted response, expressing disappointment that organisers had not taken full advantage of road closures to create a more demanding route, such as merging the Dyfi and Gartheiniog stages. Rally organisers revealed that they had considered many of the suggestions Evans had raised, but chose a more conservative approach to road closures as the legislation that allowed them to close roads had only been passed in February 2018 and they wanted to ensure that the protocol had been