74 crews set for 50th Rally de Espana

Seventy-four cars will start the 50th anniversary edition of the RallyRACC Rally de España, the penultimate round of this year’s World Championship, which gets underway on 23 October.

The bumper entry, an increase of 10 from last year, includes competitors in the WRC, WRC2 and Drive DMACK Trophy categories.

Sixteen crews are registered in the top-flight world rally car class, including American X-Games and online stunt-driving star Ken Block, who will make his sole championship appearance this season in his Fiesta RS.

WRC entries are spread across four manufacturers, with a total of seven Ford Fiesta RS cars (Hirvonen, Evans, Kubica, Protasov, Block, Solberg, Prokop), three Volkswagen Polo Rs (Ogier, Latvala, Mikkelsen), three Citroën DS3s (Meeke, Østberg, Al Qassimi) and three Hyundai i20s (Neuville, Sordo, Paddon).

Dani Sordo is the leading Spanish entry and will hope to give the home crowd something to cheer about in one of the works Hyundais. Sordo, who will be co-driven by Marc Marti, has tackled the rally eleven times before, finishing on the podium on five occasions.

Eighteen crews will contest the highly competitive WRC2 class, including Nasser Al Attiyah, who has won three rounds so far this season. Former PWRC champion Benito Guerra returns to WRC2 after his world rally car outing on his home round in Mexico. He will drive a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X in the Production Cup.

The rally is the last scoring round towards the single-make Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy, with nine Ford Fiesta R2 drivers deciding the title.

The rally will start from Salou on Thursday 23 October and will run its first special stage in Barcelona. Three complete days will run from 24 to 26 October, with a total of 17 special stages.