IRC Monte Carlo preview : The challenges

Two months after the curtain came down on the 2009 Intercontinental Rally Challenge season in Scotland, the series bursts back into life on one of motorsport’s showpiece events: Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo. And to befit a rally of such magnitude, an exciting driver line-up, including world rally star Mikko Hirvonen, Renault F1’s Robert Kubica, IRC aces Kris Meeke and Jan Kopecky, plus several leading amateurs, will take the start in the French city of Valence on Tuesday January 19.

For the second season in a row, the Monte Carlo Rally will open the 12-event IRC schedule. Just as in 2009, a demanding route has been plotted with the 63 crews expected to tackle the 405 competitive kilometres over 15 special stages prior to the finish in Monaco in the early hours of Saturday January 23.

The event will continue to be based in Valence, the capital of the department of Drome, in the Valentinois region of France. As well as the ceremonial start, the main service park will also be located in the city before the event heads south to Monaco for the final quartet of stages on the night of Friday January 22.

But it’s the narrow mountainous roads in the Ardeche region that will provide the backdrop for the bulk of the competitive action on Wednesday January 20 and Thursday January 21. On Wednesday the itinerary will consist of the Burzet-Lachamp Raphael and St Pierreville-Antraigues stages run twice with remote service in the town of Vals les Bains, where crucial tyre changes will be permitted. On Thursday the route heads to the north of Drome for three repeated stages split by service in Valence.

Friday’s final leg starts in Valence. Following a stage from Montauban sur l’Ouveze to Eygalayes, crews continue south to Monaco where they will service before the first run over the famous Col de Turini, which is included on the Peira-Cava to La Bollene Vesubie stage. After three more stages, including a second run over Col de Turini, the surviving competitors head back to Monaco and the finish just after 01:00hrs on Saturday.

In a change to the format for this year’s rally, a nine-kilometre prologue stage will get the action underway on January 19 following the ceremonial start in the Champ de Mars in Valence. The run between Lente and Col de Gaudissart will determine the starting order of the rally, which gets underway with leg one on January 20. Although the standings won’t influence the final outcome, they could be pivotal in the event of the inclement weather synonymous with the rally.

Given the rally’s mountainous location the weather is notoriously changeable and that means a stage could start in dry conditions but finish on ice-coated roads. Because opportunities to change tyres are restricted, drivers regularly have to compromise when selecting their choice of rubber for a loop of stages. The result is drivers frequently having to adopt a cautious approach on one stage if their tyres are not suited to the conditions, but then being able to push on the next test if their tyres are ideal for the stage surface.

It can lead to drivers losing chunks of time on one stage but then quickly regaining any lost ground on the subsequent run. Even in dry conditions, the varying quality of the road surface means grip levels often change.

Crews will prepare for the event with a three-day reconnaissance of the stages from Saturday January 16 to Monday January 18. They will also be able to use additional stage information gathered by their safety crews, who are authorised to pass through the stages shortly before they are used competitively to give up-to-date information on the road surface and any potential hazards that might lie in store.