Round 1 of the 2014 World Rally Championship, Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo, runs this year as a three day event from Thursday through Saturday with a strange format. It begins with the Ceremonial Start in Monte Carlo on the Monday evening before the event moves up to Gap, the region of Haute-Alpes that the event has not visited for the last ten years, where the competition starts later that week! It is one of only two rallies this year allowed to finish on a Saturday. There is a special fever of excitement at Gap which is the home town of the world rally champion, Sebastien Ogier. Entries stand at 72 compared with 73 that started in 2013 with all the stages familiar in recent or in earlier years except for the new stage venue 13/15 used on the final leg.
There are eleven registered full world championship drivers (from the four full manufacturer teams and three one-car WRC teams), seven entries in WRC2 and only one in WRC3. In WRC2 only one RRC (Maurin’s Fiesta) is there to take on the might of five Fiesta R5s and the motorsport promoter from Rome, Massimiliano Rendina in a Mitsubishi R 4. Top seeded R5 is the Fiesta of Yuriy Protasov for whom Evgeniy Novikov is making his ice notes. The only entrant in WRC3 is Quentin Gilbert, second in the Citroen Top Driver programme in 2013.
The published entry list shows that the new FIA car class system has produced an interesting balance of entries - with 14 World Rally Cars (RC1s), 17 in RC2 (quite a mixture – 4 in R5 cars, 1 in RRC, 9 in the old N4 or R4 cars and 3 normally-aspirated S2000s), 12 in RC3 (DS3s, Clios and Fiat 500 Turbos), 18 in RC4 (mainly Twingos, C2s and 208s) and 8 in RC5. The event will see the first entry in the WRC for an R-GT car, a Porsche 996 RS GT3 for Marc Duez. Also significant is the almost complete disappearance of cars homologated in the old two-wheel-drive Group N categories, with only three Suzuki Swifts entered. There are Fiesta WRC entries for two special drivers, Bryan Bouffier and Francois Delecour, who share a special record of being previous winners of both Monte Carlo Rally and the Tour de Corse, while Slovakian privateer Jaroslav Melicharek makes his world rally car WRC debut in a Fiesta WRC rented from Prokop. This will be Delecour’s 100th actual start in full WRC or 2-Litre WRC rallies.
The event carries its usual specialities, for instance a special range of tyres including studded tyres are required, which cannot be used on any other event in the series. Like last year this is the only rally in the WRC in which Rally2 (SupeRally) procedures allowing retired competitors to rejoin the next day are not allowed and as usual on asphalt events ice note crews are allowed to inspect the rote and advise the team drivers about conditions.
Round 1 of the 2014 World Rally Championship, Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo, runs this year as a three day event from Thursday through Saturday with a strange format. It begins with the Ceremonial Start in Monte Carlo on the Monday evening before the event moves up to Gap, the region of Haute-Alpes that the event has not visited for the last ten years, where the competition starts later that week! It is one of only two rallies this year allowed to finish on a Saturday. There is a special fever of excitement at Gap which is the home town of the world rally champion, Sebastien Ogier. Entries stand at 72 compared with 73 that started in 2013 with all the stages familiar in recent or in earlier years except for the new stage venue 13/15 used on the final leg.
There are eleven registered full world championship drivers (from the four full manufacturer teams and three one-car WRC teams), seven entries in WRC2 and only one in WRC3. In WRC2 only one RRC (Maurin’s Fiesta) is there to take on the might of five Fiesta R5s and the motorsport promoter from Rome, Massimiliano Rendina in a Mitsubishi R 4. Top seeded R5 is the Fiesta of Yuriy Protasov for whom Evgeniy Novikov is making his ice notes. The only entrant in WRC3 is Quentin Gilbert, second in the Citroen Top Driver programme in 2013.
The published entry list shows that the new FIA car class system has produced an interesting balance of entries - with 14 World Rally Cars (RC1s), 17 in RC2 (quite a mixture – 4 in R5 cars, 1 in RRC, 9 in the old N4 or R4 cars and 3 normally-aspirated S2000s), 12 in RC3 (DS3s, Clios and Fiat 500 Turbos), 18 in RC4 (mainly Twingos, C2s and 208s) and 8 in RC5. The event will see the first entry in the WRC for an R-GT car, a Porsche 996 RS GT3 for Marc Duez. Also significant is the almost complete disappearance of cars homologated in the old two-wheel-drive Group N categories, with only three Suzuki Swifts entered. There are Fiesta WRC entries for two special drivers, Bryan Bouffier and Francois Delecour, who share a special record of being previous winners of both Monte Carlo Rally and the Tour de Corse, while Slovakian privateer Jaroslav Melicharek makes his world rally car WRC debut in a Fiesta WRC rented from Prokop. This will be Delecour’s 100th actual start in full WRC or 2-Litre WRC rallies.
The event carries its usual specialities, for instance a special range of tyres including studded tyres are required, which cannot be used on any other event in the series. Like last year this is the only rally in the WRC in which Rally2 (SupeRally) procedures allowing retired competitors to rejoin the next day are not allowed and as usual on asphalt events ice note crews are allowed to inspect the rote and advise the team drivers about conditions.