79th Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo

In stark contrast to the 2010 Intercontinental Rally Challenge series finale (in Cyprus) 120 crews are entered to start the spectacular opening round of the IRC, held in Monte Carlo.

The rally will be celebrating it’s 100th birthday and to prove how popular this historical test of skill has become, organisers received a bumper amount of applications. In fact the last time such a high rate of applicants were received was in 1982.

World Rally Championship driver and 2003 world champion Petter Solberg is the biggest name on the entry list and has quickly become the favourite to take the win. Unlike his WRC car Solberg will be piloting a Peugeot 207 S2000. Having tested extensively in the south of France earlier this week Solberg, who has participated in the Monte 8 times previously, will be using the weekend as a chance to prepare for the 2011 WRC season – in which he will be looking to halt Citroën’s Sébastien Loeb’s championship winning run.

However tough competition will come in the form of current IRC champion Juho Hänninen who will be on top form after a truly stunning 2010 season. The Skoda Fabia driver will be making the switch to the SWRC this season so the Monte looks to be the only IRC event he will be contesting this year.

There will be ‘new team’ debuts from Guy Wilks (taking Kris Meeke’s vacant seat at Peugeot UK) and Andreas Mikkelsen who controversially snapped up Wilks’s seat at Skoda UK. Both drivers will continue to participate throughout the IRC season.

Formula One star Robert Kubica was scheduled to take part however a lack of car and contractual obligations seem to have put his IRC plans on the back burner – for the second Monte in a row.

In total 39 S2000 cars will be competing. The likes of P.G Andersson, Chris Atkinson, Freddy Loix and Bryan Bouffier are among the ranks of many talented drivers preparing to tackle this rally of attrition.

Over three days a total of 1341.75km will be covered, 337.06km of this being competitive. Day one will see the longest stage of the rally – SS2 Burzet – St-Martial – at a length of 41.06 km.

However it’s leg three that should provide some of the most thrilling viewing as the drivers pass through the Moulinet – La Bollène-Vésubie stage which runs through the infamous Col De Turini. The road known for its tight hairpins will be a huge challenge for all taking part. And if the weather seen in pre-rally tests is anything to go by, chances are that snow and ice will make it even more difficult and that’s as well as running in the dark! Further hazards could come from over-zealous fans renowned for throwing snow/ice on the road which has caught many of the best out over the years.As is tradition, only the top 60 drivers will be eligible to compete on these stages.

The rally will benefit from 14 hours of live Eurosport coverage – the details of which can be found on their website.

Last year only 57% of the field made it to the finish line, with almost double the amount of entrants this year I think yet again we will be in for an incredible rally.

Rally stats:

Date: 19th-22nd January 2011
Round: 1 of 13, FIA Intercontinental Rally Challenge
Stage surface: Asphalt – possible ice/snow also to be expected
Longest stage: SS2 Burzet – St-Martial. 41.06km
Service park: Valence, France

Rally Jordan Preview

Four long weeks they ask us to wait for Rally Jordan. Four weeks!

It wasn’t all bad though, the IRC brought a lot of excitement into my month (where Bahrain’s Formula One race couldn’t) and the Australian GP yesterday was also incredible.

I always think the same when watching IRC on Eurosport, half an hour of coverage a night never seems to be enough to do the event justice. But on the brightside it would appear more live IRC stages will be appearing on our TV screens when we get back to Europe. Thanks to Total Rally for that information.

Huge congratulations to Hänninen who owned the event even with the disadvantage (not that you’d know) of running first on the road during day 2. While I’m on an IRC roll what a complete gutter for Meeke. One stage to go but it just wasn’t to be. But I digress. This was supposed to be a Rally Jordan preview!

Last seen on the WRC calendar in 2008 this is a far cry from the gravel tracks of Mexico and the ice of Sweden. With no real features to define the route, Jordan’s stages offer a massive challenge to any brave enough to take them on.

Jordan enjoys a long history with rallying. The Middle Eastern Rally Championship has been held there almost every year since 1983 with it featuring on the WRC calendar for the first time in 2008 when it was won by Mikko Hirvonen.

Not much has changed for 2010.  21 stages will be run totalling 339.48 competitive kilometres and most of these will be driven well below sea-level – some lower than 400 metres. This not only makes the service park the lowest of the season but the Dead Sea area is also the lowest on Earth, on land at least!

So what can we expect to see this year? Well, a lack of visual points will mean many a car making an ‘off-road’ excursion due to a wrong pacenote or just pure inexperience.
It will also be a swelteringly hot event with temperatures regularly reaching 40 degrees Celsius. Expect many red and sweaty faces and the odd phased look from those struggling the most!

Day two (Friday) will feature ‘Jordan River’ the longest stage of the weekend which at 41.45km will be run as ss10/13 and judging by last year’s times it will take the crews just over 28 minutes to complete.

However it is day three which will have the most historic stage of the weekend. Whether you are religious or not you cannot deny the fascination that remains over this part of the world. Believed to be the place of Christ’s baptism the rally will come to a magnificent end after a second stage run near this area, which is held sacred to, so many.

In 2008 it was Sébastien Loeb who looked the strongest throughout until a freak head-on accident with Conrad Rautenbach put them both out of the rally. When asked recently how Loeb felt about his chances for this year’s Jordan Rally he (fantastically) replied,

It should be OK. Conrad is not taking part in the rally!

Well, how can you reply back to that? He’s obviously feeling pretty confident and thinking he’s got something to prove too.
The Ford drivers will be fighting him all the way though as they aim to recover from a terrible Rally Mexico in which their cars let them down.

It will be a tough battle of the fittest in Jordan so make sure you keep up to date with all the action this Thursday onwards on wrc.com.

Event Information
Date: April 1-3, 2010
Round: 3 of 13 FIA World Rally Championship
Based: Dead Sea, Jordan
Stage surface: Gravel
Total stage distance: 339.48kms
Number of stages: 21
Longest stage: 41.45km Jordan River (SS10/SS13)
Service Park: Dead Sea Centre, Jordan

Picture from www.eurosport.fr

Event info table from Stobart motorsport.

Rally Mexico Preview

Rally Mexico. A world away from the opening round of the 2010 WRC season. The drivers and teams will be swapping sub-zero temperatures for heat and altitude.

Sharing a border with the United States this rally first appeared on the calendar in 2004 and has become a firm favourite among the fans.
Since then it has been won by three different drivers with two competing this coming weekend (Petter Solberg and Sébastien Loeb) both of whom will be hoping for the win for different reasons.
Rally Sweden was an utter disaster for Solberg from start to finish – the exact opposite to what he was telling the media he was going to produce.
As for Loeb, he resigned himself to second place something that is pretty much unheard of from him. He’ll be determined to put everyone in their places this weekend, and having won here three times in a row previously you’d certainly tip him as favourite.

After a ceremonial start Thursday night in Guanajuato City (to coincide with the 100^th anniversary of the Mexican revoultion) the crews will be tackling 354.60 competitive kilometres over 22 stages many of which are at a height of over 2000m above sea level – a tall order for cars a personnel alike to overcome.

Saturday will see the Ibaarrilla stage, the longest of the weekend, totalling 29.90km – this will be run as ss10/14. A short blast through a Super Special stage will be run twice an evening.  Almost all the stages are the same as 2008 with the exception of a few including one brand new one and another which will be run back to front.

But the talk of the town is the arrival of American rally superstar Ken Block who, unlike Kimi Räikkönen and his disiasterous Arctic Rally, comes off the back of an incredible 100 acre Rally America win. Block has become an internet sensation thanks to his Youtube stunt videos (brought to a mainstream British audience by Top Gear). He certainly has the pace to feature in the top 10 on a regular basis but having little experience in a WRC spec car may hold him back some – although this guy seems to relish challenges so don’t discount him quite yet!

And it’s that time of year again when Sport Relief enters our conscious and asks us to do our sporty best at raising money for charity. The Ford team will be swapping engine power for their own two feet when they charge through the streets of León on Thursday afternoon. The 1.5km Coca Cola stage will be part of the rally on Friday however it will first see the likes of Mikko Hirvonen, Jari-Matti Latvala and Henning Solberg, as well as many other members of the team, as they run in an effort to reduce child poverty at home and around the world.

If you would like to support the team you can donate to their specifically set-up Sport Relief page here
If not, you can always donate on the night of the live show broadcast in the UK.

Selected quotes…

Ken Block

This weekend I’ll be up against the greatest rally drivers on earth and, believe me, I will be truly humbled because I am basically a novice in the WRC…I’m on a good development process to get to the top level and its going to take a while but I’m going to do my best. It’s going to an incredible experience… Success for me would be to finish the event and not embarrass myself too much!

Sébastien Loeb

Is probably the most exotic of the rally championship, with the exception of Japan. The race takes place at an average altitude of 2000m, which means we loose a little horsepower: about 20% less power from the motor. The special stages are interesting and varied. It’s a recent rally and the population are becoming more and more interested. Over there they don’t do things by halves, when they are fans of something, they are real fans! A little like Argentina.

Event Information
Date: March 4-7, 2010
Round: 2 of 13 FIA World Rally Championship
Based: León, Mexico
Stage surface: Gravel
Total stage distance: 354.60kms
Number of stages: 22
Service Park: Poliforum, León

Picture from Monster World Rally Team
Quotes from www.wrc.com and www.sebastienloeb.com
Event breakdown information from www.stobartmotorsport.com

Rally Sweden Preview

The 2010 WRC season kicks off in style this week with the opening round returning to the snow and ice covered stages of Sweden.

The winter break has left little time for relaxing for many drivers in the field. Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen and Citroen’s Sebastien Ogier participated in Rally Monte Carlo last month – the former of the pair winning by a huge margin in the new Ford Fiesta S2000.

They weren’t the only one’s competing over winter. Kimi Räikkönen and Dani Sordo were in Finland for the opening round of the Finnish Rally Championship. Sordo annihilated the field while Räikkönen, who was still getting to grips with his C4, crashed on only the second stage.

In fact most drivers have been polishing up their skills ready for what could be a season to remember with big names bringing in unprecedented media attention – it still remains to be seen whether a rise in popularity will lead to live televised coverage which many fans, myself included, would love to see.

So back to Sweden. Judging by pictures I’ve seen of the country this week there is certainly a lot of snow around and although, unlike the IRC, tyre choices are not a strategic move a good road position will preserve the rubber on what could be changing stages as the snow is cleared.

Temperatures are expected to drop to a bone chilling –20C, so those who can handle these true wintery conditions will certainly be the ones to watch out for. With Hirvonen and Sordo’s recent snow/ice wins, Loeb’s massive experience combined with Jari-Matti Latvala’s flashes of excellence (and a win here in 2008) this is definitely a rally to watch.

Feel as though you can’t handle any more excitement? Brace yourself… Marcus Grönholm will be driving for Stobart Ford. The double world champion, who has won Rally Sweden 5 times, is also looking incredibly strong to bring the fight to the Citroen boys.

Marcus Grönholm said:
“I’m really happy to be driving the Ford Focus again; it still feels really good to drive. All the stages on this rally will be quite difficult but I hear that there has been a lot of snow so there should be some big snow banks which will make the conditions good. Realistically my aim is for a podium, yes it would be fantastic to be challenging for the win but that is going to be difficult after having such a long break from the WRC; I will just need to wait and see how my speed is.”

And just a quick heads up for you all – keep an eye out for Latvala’s Ford which has been incredibly restored by the M-Sport guys in Cumbria after that horrific crash in Portugal which you can watch below.

Jari-Matti Latvala said:

“When I saw the car being rebuilt, I could see some places where the welding was new. That made me think back to the crash, but I really have no problems about climbing into the car again. The team has done an amazing job to rebuild it and I can’t wait to be back out competing again in Sweden,”

Event Information
Date: February 12-14, 2010
Round: 1 of 13 FIA World Rally Championship
Based: Karlstad, Sweden
Stage surface: Snow covered gravel
Total stage distance: 345.15kms
Number of stages: 21
Longest stage: 24.63km Vargåsen (SS9/SS13)
Service Park: Hagfors

–Event Information and Grönholm quote from www.stobartmotorsport.com

-Latvala quote from www.wrc.com

-Clip from ‘youtube’