Photo Credit: M-Sport After what felt like years of waiting, the brand new and exciting era of the FIA World Rally Championship burst into life on the oldest and most prestigious rally in the world: Rallye Monte-Carlo.
Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia took their fourth consecutive Monte-Carlo win, extending their tally of rally wins to 39 and in the process gifting M-Sport and Ford their first win since Wales Rally GB in 2012. This landmark result continues a strong run for the British firm with debuting new cars, with Marcus Gronholm winning the Monte in 2006 on the new Focus WRC's debut and Mikko Hirvonen claiming the Fiesta WRC's first win on its maiden outing. However, it wasn't plain sailing for the Frenchman, who chucked his Fiesta RS WRC into a ditch on SS3, losing him 40 seconds. Playing catch-up to the flying Thierry Neuville, he was looking uncharacteristically ragged in his pursuit of the Belgian as he adapted to the car he doesn't know well at all, but when Neuville's challenge faltered Ogier was there to scoop up the spoils and deliver a dream result for Malcolm Wilson and his team. Neuville really was the commanding force over the first two and a half days of the 2017 Rallye Monte-Carlo. As others struggled in the challenging grip, Neuville was in a class of one as he threw caution to the wind and opened up a lead of over a minute. However, on the final stage of Saturday he picked up a slow puncture, ran wide and hit some concrete and severely damaged his i20 Coupe's suspension. He limped through to pick up 5 Power Stage points for the fastest time, but he deserved so much more. His pace though bodes very well indeed for the rest of the season. Neuville's demise promoted everybody up the leaderboard, and after Ott Tanak fell short of delivering M-Sport the perfect result with a 1-2 with engine problems, Jari-Matti Latvala sensationally grabbed second overall on his debut in the Toyota Yaris WRC. This is a fantastic result for Toyota Gazoo Racing that matches VW's debut in the WRC, although Latvala was not on the stage winning pace Ogier was back in 2013. Tanak did incredibly well to maintain third place with his engine issues, and showed great maturity to master the conditions without making any mistakes. The reliability issues will be a cause for concern for M-Sport and indeed Citroen who struggled with various issues on both C3's, with Toyota and Hyundai enjoying nigh on faultless runs. Dani Sordo put in a fairly anonymous performance as he cautiously approached the Monte stages, but was almost handed a podium with Tanak's misfortune. He battled Irishman Craig Breen throughout the rally, with the Irish driver only just missing out in last year's DS3. It was a very mature and impressive drive from Breen, especially considering it was in the less powerful and aerodynamic DS3. Sixth was a solid result for the returning Elfyn Evans in the DMACK Fiesta, who had a difficult first day in the third of three M-Sport cars. However, the Welshman set some blinding times claiming DMACK's first ever tarmac stage win on his way to sixth overall. Seventh overall and scoring more points than season favourites Thierry Neuville, Hayden Paddon and Kris Meeke was Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen, despite being at the wheel of an R5 Skoda. He obliterated his opposition in WRC2, and will definitely be on the radar of the WRC team managers after another impressive performance. Mikkelsen's Skoda team mate Jan Kopecky came eighth, with Stephane Lefebvre the highest placed Citroen in ninth and previous winner of the event when it was part of the iRC, Bryan Bouffier, tenth in a Fiesta R5. Juho Hanninen started his Monte-Carlo strongly, lying third after Thursday's action but he misjudged the conditions and hit a tree head on on Friday. Kris Meeke, hotly tipped as a contender for this year's championship, had a nightmare of a rally. He approached a left hander too fast on Friday and slid wide, with a hard impact breaking his suspension. Then his C3 WRC suffered mechanical issues on Saturday before a road accident after the competitive action on Saturday put his weekend to an end. It was a disappointing weekend for Citroen, who had conducted the most rigorous testing programme prior to the start of the rally. Lefebvre did salvage something however with a fastest stage time but we were expecting more. Breen finishing as their highest finisher in the now defunct DS3 is not a good showing. Hyundai's car looked very fast and reliable, while Ogier proved M-Sport have always had the ability to create a rally winning car, but just needed the right driver at the wheel. It didn't take long for Ogier to deliver. Toyota had an encouraging run too, a podium on this event was not the target. There is definitely a lot of potential in the Yaris WRC. Another new addition to the 2017 WRC season was the Red Bull TV coverage, which featured live presenting and analysis from Mike Chen, Matthew Wilson and Mark Webber. The coverage received plenty of positive feedback from fans, but although I did enjoy it, I still prefer WRC+'s service principally because it features more highlights from the day's action which I think is the most important part of the TV package. Hayden Paddon is the only top line driver I haven't mentioned yet in this piece, and that's because he was involved in a tragic accident on Thursday. On the very first stage, the Kiwi lost the rear of his i20 Coupe on black ice and crashed into the cliff face, unfortunately striking a spectator. The spectator was rushed to hospital but sadly succumbed to his injuries. My thoughts are with the friends and family of the deceased, Hayden Paddon, John Kennard and the Hyundai Motorsport team.
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Photo Credit: M-Sport The waiting is almost over. The new era is upon us. Round 1 of the all new 2017 World Rally Championship begins next weekend with the oldest rally of them all: Rallye Monte-Carlo.
The Monte is a fantastic setting to get this new era of the WRC underway, with its mountain top roads, incredibly unpredictable weather conditions and demanding challenges, not least the choice of tyres. The traditional season opener has been dominated of late by Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, taking over the mantle from Sebastien Loeb and Tommi Makinen as the one to beat on the Monte. And as World Champion, the man who considers Monte-Carlo his home event will lead the drivers into the 2017 season at the wheel of his Ford Fiesta RS WRC. Ogier would have been widely considered the pre-event favourite if that sentence had read "at the wheel of his Polo R WRC" but a change in team and with it an all-new car to learn has put him on the back foot in many people's eyes. But writing him off may just be the daftest thing you could possibly do. Joining Ogier in the M-Sport factory squad for 2017 is Ott Tanak Photo Credit: M-Sport Malcolm Wilson and his M-Sport team have long been known for bringing young drivers into the World Rally Championship. Mikko Hirvonen, Markko Martin, Francois Duval, Jari-Matti Latvala, Ott Tanak, Elfyn Evans and Eric Camilli are just a few names to have been picked up by the blue oval, and now the British based team have signed another young driver in the shape of Teemu Suninen.
The young Finn was ultra impressive in 2016 as he contested WRC2 in a privately entered Skoda Fabia R5. The 22 year old finished level on points with the 2016 British Rally Champion Elfyn Evans, and will now take over the seat vacated by the Welshman in a works Fiesta R5 Evo. Suninen's aims are to better his 2016 season which ultimately means winning the WRC2 championship in 2017, but that isn't the news he and his fans are getting excited about. As well as the campaing in an R5 Fiesta, Teemu has been handed 3 drives in a 2017 specification Fiesta RS WRC in Poland, Finland and at least one other round. Sponsors of the Finnish spectacular, Neste, will back the Finn as he quite literally leaps into the sports' top league. This was an important strategic move from Malcolm Wilson as Teemu Suninen is one of the hottest prospects in world rallying and was on pretty much everybody's radar. The young Finn has even tested a Yaris WRC, but will make his WRC debut in a Fiesta. It was a similar situation for French driver Eric Camilli last year when he was lured away from Toyota with the offer of a full time factory drive in 2016. However, due to the great performances of Ott Tanak and the sudden availability of Sebastien Ogier Camilli finds himself pushed out of the factory squad, much like Elfyn Evans was the year before him. And like Evans, Camilli will partake in a WRC2 campaign for M-Sport starting in Monte-Carlo, sharing responsibilities with Suninen. Eric is expected to be behind the wheel of a 2017 Fiesta RS WRC at some point throughout the year. Elfyn Evans has signed for DMACK and will run as M-Sport's third manufacturer entry in 2017, so can Camilli do the same and break back into the WRC in 2018? It'll be more difficult for him as he only had one season to prove himself not two, but winning WRC2 would be a timely reminder of his talents. But might he now be regretting leaving the Toyota team at the end of 2015 with the benefit of hindsight? For me I think Camilli was plunged into the WRC one season too early and that has hurt him. But one thing is for sure, M-Sport have one hell of a group of drivers at their disposal, not least the World Rally Champion. The trick now is keeping hold of them all. Photo Credit: Citroen Racing It's another day, and time for another blog post on here because I enjoy writing and frankly, as you are probably well aware by now, I am buzzing for the dawn of the latest era of the WRC which begins this month. Besides from the obvious changes for 2017 with the new cars and shake-up of the driver line-ups, there have been a few revised tweaks to the WRC rulebook that will be introduced when the 2017 FIA World Rally Championship kicks off in the French Alps in under 2 weeks time. The first major change comes in response to one of 2016's most talked about topics: the road order rules. Last season, the running order on the stages for each rally was determined by the championship classification prior to the event for the first two days, meaning whoever was leading the championship (in 2016 it was always Sebastien Ogier) would start at the front for two days and would predominantly be disadvantaged by having to clean the stages of all the loose gravel, costing performance. Day 3 saw the reversal of the rally order, so whoever was leading the rally after Saturday would start as the last WRC car on the final leg. Ogier felt he was being unfairly targeted and disadvantaged by the FIA, and after lots of discussion the rules have been relaxed for the championship leader with day 1's order being determined by championship classification and day's 2 and 3 being the reversal of the rally standings for this season. Overall, this seems quite a logical and fair system, and to be honest if this rule hadn't been tweaked in 2017 coupled with VW's withdrawal, I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen our champion walk away from the WRC. The second major and important rule change is related to the manufacturers championship. In 2016, Volkswagen and Hyundai ran three works cars all season, with two of their drivers scoring for the constructor in the championship and the third which was Mikkelsen at VW and Neuville, Sordo and Paddon on occasion at Hyundai would score points for the make's second team, Volkswagen Motorsport II and Hyundai Motorsport N respectively. For this year, the second teams have been ditched as now each manufacturer is allowed three works cars, with the two highest placed cars on each event bagging the manufacturers points. M-Sport have Sebastien Ogier, Ott Tanak and Elfyn Evans; Hyundai Hayden Paddon, Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo; Citroen Kris Meeke, Craig Breen and Stephane Lefebvre; and Toyota Jari-Matti Latvala, Juho Hanninen and on occasion Esapekka Lappi. A manufacturer can enter just two cars if they wish, with Citroen and Toyota both jumping on this ship for Rallye Monte-Carlo at least. This rule makes complete logical sense. The third and final major rule change involves the end-of-rally Power Stage. Since its induction in 2011, bonus points have been awarded for the three fastest drivers through the nominated stage which more often than not is the final stage of the rally. The fastest man gets 3 bonus championship points, 2 points are awarded for second and a solitary point is earned by the third fastest man. In 2017 however there will be more points available, with the top 5 positions in the stage now eligible for championship points. The points system is more or less the same, with the stage winner receiving 5 bonus points, second place earning 4th and so on. This however should make the final stage shoot-outs more exciting and could prove pivotal in the title race which is expected to be close this year. And on that note, I have another good omen to further stimulate the excitement levels. The last time the World Rally Championship saw a re-write of its technical regulations was 2011. The last time the World Rally Championship saw a proper title fight was 2011. Just saying... Photo Credit: Ford WRC
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