The World Rally Championship returns to Australia next week with a typically strong World Rally Car entry for the New South Wales event.
Australia missed out on WRC action last season, rotating its calendar slot with Rally New Zealand, but it’s back for this year. The event has moved south in the state of New South Wales, with its new home in Coffs Harbour, meaning all of the roads will be new to all of the WRC regulars.
The area is, however, no stranger to top-drawer rally action with the International Southern Cross – one of Australia’s biggest rallies – having run down the same gravel tracks.
Seven-time world champion Sebastien Loeb leads the entry and will be the first to show the potential of the new-generation World Rally Cars to the Australian fans when he heads the field away in his Citroen DS3 WRC on the opening day as world championship leader.
Right behind Loeb will be his Citroen team-mate and countryman Sebastien Ogier. The Frenchman arrives Down Under on a high, having ended Loeb’s nine-year domination of ADAC Rallye Deutschland. Unlike Loeb, Ogier has never won in Australia, the 2009 event being his first time competing in the country.
Loeb, Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen and Citroen privateer Petter Solberg are the three former Rally Australia winners on the entry list. Hirvonen will be keen to bag his first gravel win of the year in his factory Ford Fiesta RS WRC, having made the perfect start to 2011 with an opening round win in the snow of Sweden.
Hirvonen’s fellow Ford man Jari-Matti Latvala has been on solid form this year and is certain to feature at the front of the next round of the WRC.
M-Sport Stobart Ford drivers Matthew Wilson and Evgeny Novikov are both hunting for their first WRC podiums, while the World Rally Car numbers are further boosted with the inclusion of Team Abu Dhabi’s Khalid Al Qassimi (Ford), Peter van Merksteijn Jr (Citroen), Henning Solberg and Ken Block (both Fords).
While the official MINI WRC Team won’t be in Australia to build on their podium result last time out in Germany, the Brazil World Rally Team John Cooper Works WRC of Daniel Oliveira will be on hand to delight the legions of MINI fans in Australia.
Away from the main WRC field, the rally is also a round of the Production Car World Rally Championship, where New Zealander Hayden Paddon will be looking to further extend his winning run to four rallies this year. The Subaru-driving Kiwi will face competition from PWRC regulars Michal Kosciuszko and Jukka Ketomaki, both in Mitsubishis.
The 26-stage event starts from Coffs Harbour on Thursday 8 September.
– Credit: www.wrc.com.