Classic Monte teaser before longest leg

The basic layout of the first leg is a transfer from Monte Carlo to Valence in the Ardeche region. Without the WRC style layout of clover leaf service, the service crews packed in and travelled to Valence into a different region for the rally. Although in the last 2 years the Rallye Monte Carlo also visited the Ardeche, the stages in the region were limited. En route to Valence the rally teams contested 2 stages, the first one just after Monaco, the second after a longer road section before Valence. This means – unusual for a non-clover leaf layout – the crews had to tackle a longer road section and the second stage before they could visit service. Such they had to find a suitable tyre for both far apart stages.

 

Leg2 will be entirely north of Valence. On leg3 on Friday morning the teams travel back 160km to Monaco with a sole stage half way along the route. Basically as leg4 we will then have the most fantastic showdown on the Col de Turini at night!

 

SS1 Tourette du Château – St. Antonin:

 

Having the layout explained, extraordinary today was that the first stage nearer the south and not so high in the mountains was full of snow and ice, while the second stage nearer Valence was completely dry. This was difficult to predict, and more even has to be taken into account here. As this leg turned out, who looked like superstars in the morning were bound to be penalised on the next stage. The same vice versa, who believed he had the wrong tyres and looked like an idiot, turned into a favourite a few hours later.

 

On the opening stage of the IRC season 2009 Peugeot 207 driver Nicolas Vouilloz carried on where he left the season before. The 2008 IRC World Champion turned the first stage winner and first leader of the IRC season 2009. However where on this stage there was no snow, it became even worse: ice! One would have thought these are conditions more suitable to Finnish drivers rather than asphalt specialists. And so it was. Interesting to note that after SS1 we have an IRC Champion leader, but he is followed by 3 Finns, 2 of them newcomers to the series! Juho Hänninen in the Skoda was 2^nd, Toni Gardemeister in the Abarth 3^rd and Abarth’s longer term youngster driver Anton Alen 4^th. Tyre gamble issues however were so big, that Freddy Loix in 6^th place was already 50 seconds down after only the 1^st stage!

 

Amazing start then for Hänninen and the new Skoda. However for Skoda it was a mixed debut. Most important of course that the car is competitive. But SS1 has barely started and Jan Kopecky had an argument with his power steering, leading to a time loss of 4 minutes! It seemed like a strike of genius when Abarth managed to steal Luca Rossetti, who won 4 IRC rallies for Peugeot so far. But is Rossetti still a Peugeot fan? The move did not pay off when Rossetti destroyed his Abarth Grande Punto just 10km into the 1^st stage!

 

And former WRChampion Didier Auriol would not agree with my earlier words that the changeable Monte as today was more tactics and less of a lottery. Auriol managed to find a patch of black ice on the first stage. Impossible to see the black ice, he was actually slow, but he skidded virtually in slow motion into a bank and damaged the front right suspension beyond repair. It really was slow and looked simply like wet road. This is actually the type of stuff that I personally don’t want to see, as this is luck and not skill. Didi Auriol was accordingly fuming and – probably in the heat of the moment – announced this was the last rally of his career, as this is simply stupid. Strange though, that out of all people this hits a 3 times Rallye Monte Carlo winner.

 

So this leaves us with 3 Finns chasing a Peugeot. What about the other Peugeots? Interestingly of the Peugeot drivers only stage winner Nicolas Vouilloz went out on studded tyres. Loix went for an interesting mixture of studded tyres front and snow tyres rear, which would give him good turn in and oversteering on snow and ice, but an understeering car in the dry corners. With this trick he was not much quicker than his team mates on slicks. And they all were on slicks, which Auriol paid dearly, but we had Meeke 7^th and Sarrazin 8^th. Disappointing for Meeke and Sarrazin, promising for Vouilloz? Wait for SS2!

 

SS2 La Motte Chalancon – St. Nazaire le Desert:

 

This fast-ish stage is generally at an altitude just above 1000metres, but mid stage crosses a valley with the according descent and climb. The stage is all dry. Generally the Valence stages are faster and less typical for this rally than the narrow, twisty cliff hangers in the hills behind Monaco. But the change of conditions is shown when the winners average speed climbed from 66km/h in SS1 to 96km/h here!

 

And indeed different conditions. In SS1 Stéphane Sarrazin in the full works Peugeot may have disappointed with 8^th fastest time only, but now turned a stage winner in SS2, climbing from 8^th to 2^nd in the overall standings! In return Nicolas Vouilloz, the only Peugeot driver on studded tyres all round, as the rally leader lost a whole minute and dropped to 3^rd behind Sarrazin in the overall ranking.

 

These dryer conditions were also not what the Finns traditionally excel in. Had we 3 Finns chasing a Peugeot after SS1, now we had 3 French Peugeot drivers chasing a Finn!!!!

 

Indeed, while Gardemeister and Alen dropped down the order a little, Juho Hänninen in the brand new Skoda stayed out of trouble, and through more consistancy than Vouilloz and Sarrazin, found himself in the lead. In the Abarth camp, the Finns could not convince in SS2, but here it was Basso on the “wrong” tyre choice for SS1, now moving up from 10^th to 6^th in one go.

 

SS3 St. Jean en Royans – Col de Gaudissart:

 

St. Jean en Royans is a Monte Carlo classic that has not been done in this layout for a while. This time the drivers were more united on the tyre question, they all were on snow tyres – except Anton Alen for some mystery reason that is. Who saw EuroSport’s live TV may have wondered if Alen wasn’t the only one on the good tyres. The EuroSport live TV coverage was absolutely excellent, the only minor point of criticism maybe that you did not see the full stage and such you did not get a picture just how much snow there was. The stage started on fast roads through a valley and only in the second half climbs the Col de Gaudissart, where the finish line comes just after the peak of the Col. The stage starts around 330metres above sea level only, and from mid stage we are at 1000metres, climbing to 1150, before a descent to around 900metres just at the end. Of course all the first bit, starting at 330metres, it was raining, not an onze of snow in sight. What you did not really see on TV is that this stage was near exactly 30km long and the road was completely covered in fresh snow from km 20 to km 27! To make matters worse, the unique layout of the stage meant that absolutely all of these 7km full snow was uphill!

 

What looked silly to use studded tyres in the first 20 minutes on TV, in the first 5 minutes each car would do after the start of the stage, the climb between 20-27kms of this stage meant studded snow tyres were absolutely vital to survive! Actually the last 3km descent was also not entirely free of snow and ice, meaning a third of the stage demanded the snow tyres, just to make the tyre issue for the next days more obvious. Had the uphill and downhill sections been more evenly spread over this stage, teams would really have had a headache about the tyre choice with 1/3^rd snow, 2/3^rd clean road!

 

Congratulations to IRC newcomer Kris Meeke winning his first stage. He was however only 0.7sec faster than team mate Sarrazin over 30km! Both were on studded snow tyres, as were all Peugeots this time round. All other teams were on unstudded snow tyres, except Alen.

 

This fact should actually make Peugeot – and maybe more so even Abarth – worry about Skoda. In leg1 the 3 stages were won by 3 different Peugeot drivers Vouilloz-Sarrazin-Meeke, but their tactics mean that it is Skoda and Juho Hänninen to lead the rally with 2^nd, 4^th and 4^th stage times. Abarth in return somehow has the same ill-luck they booked for most of last season. They lost Rossetti on SS1, Basso’s tyre choice was completely off for SS1, Alen’s was completely off for SS3 and Gardemeister suffered a puncture on SS3 (as did Vouilloz). Now it is no less than 5 Peugeots chasing the leading Skoda, with the best Abarths coming only in 7^th and 8^th in the order Basso-Gardemeister.

 

What should cause head scratching not only at Peugeot, is that in SS1 and SS3 studded tyres were clearly the best choice. Peugeot proved this with their tactics rather clearly! However Juho Hänninen in the new Skoda was 2^nd fastest in SS1 and 4^th fastest in SS3 – and he did so on unstudded snow tyres! This tyre choice was not completely odd, but looking at the results of Peugeot’s gambles – ignoring for a moment that this would not have worked for SS2 – the Skoda would have been faster in these stages with studded tyres! Kudos to Skoda, one can only wonder how fast this car really is, as in these two stages Hänninen posted 2^nd and 4^th fastest stage times NOT on the most ideal tyres! This theory is even underlined further by the fact that after SS1 powersteering dramas Kopecky climbed from 24^th to 10^th within 2 stages! Unlike Hänninen, Kopecky had the ideal dry tyre for SS2, but he also climbed the SS3 snow with unstudded tyres!

 

We also must drag attention to Sébastien Ogier and Toni Gardemeister. On our forum there have been interesting discussions how competitive the IRC really is compared to WRC. I have seen other forums and even rally journalists even looking at the IRC as 2^nd league rallying, nothing beats WRC. These two drivers in Monte Carlo give us the best comparison since Portugal 2008. And even by my personal enthusiasm for IRC, I am surprised!

 

Sébastien Ogier is very much a new hero. Some people argue it is his first Monte and his first drive in an S2000 car. True, but when he led Wales Rally GB from the start, proving he can be as fast as the best, Loeb included, this was Ogier’s first start on Wales Rally GB and first drive in a WRCar car – so same difference! OK, he crashed in GB and after one event it's difficult to tell about consistancy, though he certainly had consistency in the JWRC. But after all he won the first stage and kept this lead until after SS5, against the entire WRC field. In Monte Carlo by all tactics he must have had ideal tyres for at least one of the first two stages and he certainly did for SS3. But after 3 stages of IRC rallying he was in the stages 24.6s, then 40.5s and 29.3s off the pace. Even if he had tyre problems, even if he goes for a finish, if IRC was that much 2^nd league to WRC, these gaps should not be repeatedly that big!

 

Toni Gardemeister is already an old fox in WRC and he likes the Monte. Alone in Rallye Monte Carlo Toni was an F2 winner in 1999, came 5^th in a private, older 206 WRC in 2001, 2^nd as a Ford works driver in 2005 and another podium, 3^rd in 2006 driving the apparently not so brilliant 307 WRC. If the WRC is that much more competitive than the supposed to be 2^nd league IRC, than a podium position for Toni should be dead easy and nothing less will do! Following a strong start and giving his puncture in SS3, Toni was 1m11s off the pace in SS3 (puncture), but also 52sec off the pace in SS2, and if SS2 was because of a wrong tyre choice, then he was one of the few drivers with the perfect tyre for SS1 and his 16sec gap there is not that brilliant either in that light. Not trying to take anything away from Toni, in contrary he is one of my favourite drivers, the rally is still long too, but for a WRC star to dominate an IRC round does not seem as easy as people make out!

 

To be honest, looking at Toni, and maybe more even Séb Ogier, I get the feeling had Loeb started Monte 2009 with a front line car, a win would be less easy for him than in recent years WRC editions!

 

Leg2

 

With the overnight stop in Valence, we will have a whole day in the area with another overnight stop in Valence and the transit (via a stage) back to Monaco only on Friday morning.

 

The Ardeche stages are hilly and twisty alright, but are much wider than the typical Monte stages and such not as slow and technical, partly going through forests. It is such a contrast like comparing Ardeche with Rallye du Valais and the stages above Monaco with rocky Tour de Corse and putting them in one rally. Indeed therefore for many fans the Ardeche stages do not deliver the pictures one has in his mind thinking of Monte Carlo. However they are classics by any means. In fact when in the 1970s/80s and throughout the groupB days the Rallye Monte Carlo started in Aix les Bains heading to the famous night halt in Gap, they used exactly the stages we cover on leg2.  

 

SS4-7 Labatie d’Andaure – St. Pierre sur Doux:

 

The stage goes most of the time along a valley. First parts go through open, agricultural land, which often is windy and allows the snow to be blown across the road in places, if there was snow.

 

SS5-8 St.Bonnet – St. Julien Molhesabate – St. Bonnet

 

One of the absolute classics. The official stage name shows the route and that it returns U-shaped back to the starting point. However generally this legend is known as “St. Bonnet le Froid”, the small town near the start and finish line.

 

The stage starts at 1100metres altitude along a valley with a brook. By the time the far end of the “U” is reached, we have descended 300metres to 800m above sea level. The return goes first over open fields, then forest in which a tight valley has to be crossed and back up to 1100metres at St. Bonnet.

 

It is reported this is the leg2 stage most likely to be covered in snow. If we do have mixed conditions – as in SS3 on live TV – this stage would be the classic layout vice versa, aka starting and finishing in snow with the centre bit dry and grippy.

 

This classic 25km stage will be shown live as SS5 on EuroSport2 at 10:30 CET (9:30 GMT) and as SS8 on EuroSport main at 15:45 CET (14:45 GMT).

 

SS6-9 Lamastre – Gilhoc sur Ormèze – Alboussière:

 

This stage is like a direct route line back to Valence. To say more twisty than the other stages of the day would be wrong, but this one is constantly twisty. Equally strange to explain the altitude situation. This stage is probably the one least likely to have snow, as the altitude is by far not as high as the two previous stages. One can also not clearly say it is uphill until then and downhill for the rest. This stage is permanently up and down all the time with altitudes drastically varying between 450metres and 700metres above sea level!

 

This hilly and twisty stage at comparatively low altitudes may have extra excitement added as these loops of 3 stages are without service. If snow is likely in St. Bonnet, it is unlikely in this following SS6-9, so it is your choice for which stage you want the less suitable tyres.

 

Weather reports from the area are that tonight it is actually snowing and lying! But temperatures are not far below freezing point, so there is a good chance that on the lower areas of the stages the snow may melt again once the sun comes out!