Rally Monte Carlo Kicks Off IRC Season

Tony CastaneiraJan 23, 2009

The 2009 Rally season kicked off with a familiar event but under a new series banner. For years the Monte Carlo Rally was a fixture of the World Rally Championship (WRC) but for some reason the FIA decided to institute a revolving series schedule which left the Rally Monet Carlo of this year’s schedule.

The WRC’s loss was the fledgling Intercontinental Rally Challenge’s (IRC) gain as they quickly filled the vacuum and add it to kick off their 2009 season. This year also saw a return to having some of the stages at night including the famous Col de Turini stages. The return of night stages combined with a magical atmosphere, challenging stages and typical weather, assured that this year's Monte Carlo Rally well and truly lived up to its reputation as the oldest and most prestigious event in the sport.

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Not only did the IRC step in and take over Rally’s marquee event but it even poached one of the WRC’s best young prospects as reigning Junior World Rally Champion Sebastien Ogier won the 77th Monte Carlo Rally despite having no experience of Super 2000 machinery prior to a short test before his very first Monte Carlo Rally. Ogier took the win driving for the BFGoodrich Drivers' Team. This marks the first time that the program, which chooses a different local driver for the five rounds of the IRC on which it operates, has resulted in a rally winner.

Last year's IRC series runner-up, Peugeot Belgium's Freddy Loix got his 2009 campaign off to a solid start by finishing in a fault-free second on the Monte Carlo Rally, ahead of the Peugeot Total 207 S2000 entry driven by Le Mans star Stephane Sarrazin.

The other story of the weekend was the first appearance of Skoda as an official manufacturer’s participant. The Finn, Juho Hanninen, gave Skoda's new Fabia S2000 a spectacular IRC competition debut by claiming the lead on the opening morning, which he extended to more than a minute and a half before Special Stage 9 (SS9), the final stage of day two. Hanninen then picked up a front tire puncture just five kilometers into the stage but chose to drive to the end; losing two minutes and dropping to third allowing Ogier took the lead. He was confident that he could make the time back up, but crashed out on the very first corner of SS10: the first stage of the last day.

The same stage also claimed Irishman Kris Meeke, making his IRC debut along with Peugeot UK. On Friday morning he lost control of his Peugeot 207 S2000 after it slid onto a patch of slush. The car left the road in fifth gear and rolled five times, demolishing part of a bridge, but both Meeke and co-driver Paul Nagle emerged uninjured.

A less dramatic but noteworthy early retirement was that of Peugeot Belgium driver and reigning IRC champion Nicolas Vouilloz, who broke a steering arm on SS7 after a small impact.

Tire choice has always been the key to the Monte Carlo Rally and this year was no different. With most stages containing a very wide variety of conditions it was normally a question of just finding the best compromise. One of the best examples was displayed by Peugeot driver Stephane Sarrazin during the final four stages through the Col de Turini this evening, which formed a dramatic climax to the 77th Monte Carlo Rally. The French Sportscar ace gambled on his choice of tires for the first loop of Col de Turini stages, selecting normal rain tires instead of the snow tires favored by most people. This enabled him to claim third place by just one second from the other factory Skoda driver Jan Kopecky. A storming run on the penultimate stage of the rally enabled him to claim fastest time by half a minute from Kopecky and seal his podium place.

The factory Abarth team of Giandomenico Basso, Anton Alen and Luca Rossetti suffered mixed fortunes. Rossetti was out on the very first stage after sliding into a snowbank. While Basso and Alen salvaged the event with 5^th and 6^th place finishes respectively.

IRC OFFICIAL RESULTS AFTER SS14, MONTE CARLO RALLY (MONACO)