Power Stage opener for Rally France- Alsace

This year’s Rally France-Alsace is guaranteed to start with a bang, after organisers confirmed they will run the bonus point deciding Power Stage as the opening test of the rally.

Nicolas Deschaux, President of the French Motor Sports Federation, and Dominique Serieys, the director of the Rally France-Alsace, made the announcement today along with further details of the 2013 itinerary.

Rally France-Alsace is the eleventh round of the 2013 WRC season and will start on Thursday 3rd October. The four day event will consist of 20 stages over a competitive distance of 313,09 kilometres - down from 22 stages and 404km in 2012.

The action kicks off on Thursday with the Power Stage; a revised 5.5km Super Special through the streets of Strasbourg which takes cars past the European Parliament building. Organisers expect that awarding the bonus championship points here will lead to an intense competition right from the start.

The order of days two and three has been reversed compared to last year. On Friday the crews will set out on the roads in the Bas-Rhin to tackle 116,08 km of timed stages. The ‘Vosges-Pays d’Ormont’ stage (SS4 / SS7) has been shortened by almost ten kilometers and the crews will cover a completely new first section passing through the Raids pass.

The third day in the Haut-Rhin is the leg with the most timed kilometers (134,93 km) with the town of Colmar again as the hub. The “Vallée de Munster” stage (SS8 / SS12) has been shortened to 16,73 km.

The fourth and final leg on Sunday 6th October includes 56,58 stage kilometres and will be run in the same order as last year. Sebastien Loeb’s former hometown Haguenau will again host the event-closing Super Special stage.

The Power Stage, and the rest of the rally, will be shown live on the Sport + television network in France.