Mikkelsen does the IRC with a Fiesta

This had been expected for a while, but now it’s confirmed. The young norwegian driver Andreas Mikkelsen, a driver with WRC experience already despite being 20 years old, will do the IRC calendar with the new Ford Fiesta S2000. The bad news are, while he’ll do every round from June onwards, he’ll skip Madeira and Azores. Damn. I was really hoping to see him here at the Rali Vinho da Madeira.

This is Mikkelsen.

Freddy Loix has also been recently confirmed to do some rounds of the championship later on the season, in a Skoda Fabia S2000 and I’m hoping that will include Madeira somehow. We need at least some Skodas here to get some excitement going on, and a Ford wouldn’t be bad neither. Meanwhile,on the short term, Rally Argentina will have just that, with the illustrious entries of Federico Villagra (hardly unsurprising, being a local driver) in a Ford; and Nasser Al-Attiyah, of P-WRC and Dakar fame, in a Skoda. I remind that the official Skoda team has already confirmed entries for the south american rounds of Brazil and Argentina, with Hanninen and Kopecky.

It’s a shame that only Kris Meeke seems to want to do the full calendar, but we are guaranteed to have a great field in almost every round of the championship anyway.

Get ready for the Monte!

This year’s rallying season kicks-off next Tuesday with the much anticipated Rally of Monte Carlo, a legendary event that tests the drivers with an unpredictable surface combination of asphalt, ice and snow. It will have a great lineup with no less than 20 S2000 cars, most of them ran by world class drivers, plus a spectacular TV coverage in Eurosport that will broadcast almost every special stage live. IRC are betting big again on their jewel of the calendar even if it is only the first event of a long season.

The rally’s headliner is the reigning WRC vice-champion Mikko Hirvonen, who will make a rare IRC appearance to test the brand new Ford Fiesta S2000. The car hasn’t run competitively yet and this will be an important test to check its performance, although the rumour around is that it is fast. Here is a video of Mikko preparing himself for the rally:

Mikko is a bit of an unknown variable into the mix, because apart from him the story of the event should be the Skoda vs Peugeot battle. Skoda brings 3 official entries – 2 for last year’s stars Jan Kopecky, who fought for the championship, and Juno Hanninen who was very quick on the 2009 Monte before crashing out; and 1 for the former IRC champion Nicolas Vouilloz who is their new signing. Another quick contender will be the Skoda UK car of Guy Wilks, who will be keen to continue his good form for Skoda after winning the Rally of Scotland on debut for them.

Finnish Skoda driver Juno Hanninen should fight for a podium place. This is a photo from last year

Peugeot meanwhile will put 10(!!) 207 S2000s on the road. Reigning champion Kris Meeke will be #1 on the road, and willing to show again the same surprising pace he had on last year’s Monte. There’s 2 french Pug drivers: Sebastien Ogier will again be here in an one-off IRC appearance and a major contender for victory given he was last year’s winner; former F1 driver Stephane Sarrazin will surely mix with the front-runners as well. Portuguese champion Bruno Magalhães will finally get his big international break as he’ll contest several rounds of the IRC this year with a very well-prepared car, but the Monte should be difficult for him as he’s never ran a rally on snow! The remaining other 6 207 S2000s will be ran by the lesser known Franz Wittmann, Jean-Sébastien Vigion, Luca Betti, Daniel Oliveira, Andrej Jereb and Franck Phillips.

Bruno Magalhães' Peugeot Total car will sport this stunning livery

Finally, it is worth mentioning that former WRC star Toni Gardemeister will be back in the Monte, with an Abarth Punto S2000 – there’s another main contender. Also, frenchman Julien Maurin will be Hirvonen’s team-mate for M-Sport in a 2nd Ford Fiesta. Another driver worth mentioning is Renault F1′s new signing Robert Kubica, who will make his Monte debut in a Renault Clio R3 – notice that this car can’t compete with the lead pack of S2000s, but it will still be very interesting to check how the pole will go against the other folks in his car’s class.

Toni Gardemeister on his Suzuki WRC days

Despite all these stars, some are still missing. Abarth ain’t quite with their full lineup here, as I believe they have abandoned the IRC due to bad results (although this hasn’t been confirmed officially yet?) – Giandomenico Basso’s name does not feature on the entry list. Neither does Freddy Loix and Andreas Mikkelsen who are expected to contest several rounds of the IRC this year. Malaysian manufacturer Proton is also on hold until later in the year.

Now, time to drool at this PDF with the TV coverage list – you’ve read that right, the Monte will have 13 stages live on Eurosport!!