Forty teams have entered the WRC2 category at the 57th Vodafone Rally of Portugal and all but two of the top 10 in the championship standings after four rounds are present on the Iberian Peninsula.
Picking a potential winner, especially with a favourable weather forecast for the weekend, is an impossible task.
The opening four rounds in Monte-Carlo, Sweden, Kenya and Croatia saw four different event winners: series leader Yohan Rossel prevailed on the icy tarmac roads in the south of France, Oliver Solberg (tied with Rossel on 43 points) won between the snow banks in Sweden, Gus Greensmith sealed a vital win on the muddy tracks of the Safari in Kenya and third-placed Nikolay Gryazin snatched success on the most recent round over the demanding tarmac roads around Zagreb. Gryazin also holds third in the WRC2 Challenger series.
Greensmith held off a ferocious challenge from Solberg on the final Power Stage in Portugal last year to seal the win by just 1.2 seconds. The Swede had been the leader on Saturday evening, only to be awarded a one-minute time penalty in the early hours of Sunday morning for entertaining the spectators at Lousada with doughnuts in his Škoda Fabia.
With the Fabia RS Rally2 known to be competitive on gravel surfaces, Solberg and Greensmith may well start as two of the favourites to prevail in WRC2. But competition is immense, even from drivers entered with the Czech manufacturer. Potential front-runners in Fabias include the talented Frenchman Pierre-Louis Loubet in a Toksport car, Finland’s Lauri Joona, Irishman Josh McErlean and former Rally of Portugal winner Armindo Araújo.
DG Sport Competition has entered a pair of Citroën C3s for series leader Rossel and Gryazin, while Bolivia’s Marco Bulacia and local driver José Pedro Fontes also drive C3s from the French manufacturer’s stable.
The Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 will undergo its first real examination of competitiveness on gravel in the hands of Sami Pajari, Georg Linnamäe, Roope Korhonen and Jan Solans, while Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT NG has entered two additional machines for the Japanese duo of Yuki Yamamoto and Hikaru Kogure.
The talented Finn Teemu Suninen begins his WRC2 programme at the wheel of a Hyundai i20 N Rally2 with the Korean manufacturer also represented on the gravel tracks in Portugal by former event winner Kris Meeke and local star and reigning Portuguese champion Ricardo Teodósio.
Meeke is tackling the Portuguese Rally Championship this season with Hyundai Team Portugal, as part of a varied programme of events across several sporting disciplines. He recovered from a spectacular shakedown crash to win the recent Rali Terras d’Aboboreira and has already secured wins in February’s Ralli Serras de Fafe and March’s Rallye Casinos do Algarve.
Pepe López is fifth in WRC2 and second behind the absent Nicolas Ciamin in the WRC2 Challenger category. The Spaniard has swapped his Škoda for a Past-Racing Ford Fiesta Rally2 for the remainder of the WRC2 season – starting in Portugal - while the Irish reigning JWRC champion Will Creighton also drives one of the M-Sport-built machines.
The massive WRC2 field also includes Czech veteran Martin Prokop and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zaldivar in a pair of Škodas, Australian Lewis Bates in a Toyota and Spain’s Daniel Alonso in a Past Racing Ford.
2024 FIA WRC2 Championship – positions after round 4:
1. Yohan Rossel (FRA) 43pts
2. Oliver Solberg (SWE) 43pts
3. Nikolay Gryazin (BGR) 40pts
4. Nicolas Ciamin (FRA) 36pts
5. Pepe López (ESP) 33pts
6. Gus Greensmith (GBR) 25pts
7. Sami Pajari (FIN) 18pts
8. Lauri Joona (FIN) 16pts
9. Georg Linnamäe (EST) 15pts
10. Kajetan Kajetanowicz (POL) 15pts, etc
2024 FIA WRC2 Challenger Championship – positions after round 4:
1. Nicolas Ciamin (FRA) 48pts
2. Pepe López (ESP) 43pts
3. Nikolay Gryazin (BGR) 43pts
4. Sami Pajari (FIN) 25pts
5. Kajetan Kajetanowicz (POL) 25pts
6. Lauri Joona (FIN) 20pts
7. Georg Linnamäe (EST) 18pts
8. Roope Korhonen (FIN) 15pts
9. Charles Munster (LUX) 15pts
10. Jan Solans (ESP) 13pts, etc