The FIA World Rally Championship roars back into action This week with the oldest and most famous event of them all, Rallye Monte-Carlo (24-27 January). While classed as an asphalt event, its winter slot in the calendar almost certainly guarantees unpredictable conditions, and a tricky mix of dry and wet asphalt, snow and ice in the French mountains can be expected.
Gambling on tyre choices that provide the best compromise for all these conditions – potentially all in the same stage – is an art form that also tests drivers’ abilities to read the road and manage pace and tyre wear throughout an entire stage, or loop of stages.
Citroën, Hyundai, M-Sport Ford and Toyota are once again set to do battle on the world’s stages and while their state-of-the-art world rally cars remain largely the same, changes in driver line-ups could shuffle the pack. Reigning FIA World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier moves back to Citroën with a new team-mate in Esapekka Lappi. The sport’s most successful driver, Sébastien Loeb, makes another exciting comeback and kicks off a six-round campaign with Hyundai, joining regulars Thierry Neuville and Andreas Mikkelsen in i20 Coupe WRCs. Elfyn Evans remains with M-Sport Ford for a fifth season but with a new co-driver, while team-mate Teemu Suninen kicks off a full season in a top specification world rally car for the first time, also with a new co-driver. The squad will also be supported by former FIA WRC 2 Champion Pontus Tidemand in Monte-Carlo. Kris Meeke is back in the Championship with reigning champions Toyota, team-mate to Ott Tänak and Jari-Matti Latvala.
Citroën, M-Sport and Škoda have already registered for the newly created FIA WRC 2 Pro Championship for manufacturers of R5 cars and will be fielding entries on the opening round of the 2019 series. The Volkswagen Polo GTI R5, which made its competitive debut at the end of last year, is back on the WRC stages in the FIA WRC 2 Championship amid a field of other competitors in the category. Rallye Monte-Carlo is also the first round of the FIA RGT Cup.
THE 2019 ROUTE
The 87th edition of Rallye Monte-Carlo sees the start ceremony move to Place Desmichels in Gap on Thursday evening and the competition immediately gets underway with two new night stages. More fresh challenges await on Friday’s longest day with two loops of three stages; SS3/6 is also completely new, SS4/7 is largely unchanged and SS5/8 has never been driven in this direction. Saturday’s route, which ultimately takes the crews to Monaco, takes in two repeated loops of two stages covering 93.38 competitive kilometres, both of which are virtually the same as 2018. On Bank Holiday Sunday, the top 60 crews will take in two runs over the iconic Col de Turini and La Cabanette-Col de Braus stages, the latter hosting the all-important Power Stage. In a change to recent tradition, and due to the Bank Holiday celebrating St Devote, the Patron Saint of the Principality, the Prize-Giving ceremony will take place on Quai Albert 1er.
Three stages will be broadcast live on television; the opening 20 kilometre night stage La Breole-Selonnet (Thursday), SS12 (St Leger les Melezes-La Batie Neuve 2) on Saturday and the closing Power Stage on Sunday (La Cabanette-Col de Braus). All stages are however available live on WRC All Live on the WRC+ platform.
RALLY DATA
| Total distance: | 1,366.43 km |
| Stage distance: | 323.83 km (23.7%) |
| Number of stages: | 16 |
Source: FIA