11 World Champions at the 47 RallyRACC Catalunya-COSTA DAURADA

(28/09/2011)

RallyRACC 2010

The official entry list of the 47 RallyRACC Catalunya-COSTA DAURADA, Rally de España 2011, penultimate round of the FIA World Rally Championship, to be staged from 20 to 23 October, based as usual in the city of Salou and the PortAventura theme park, has been published today. A total of 62 cars, 9 more than in 2010, and more than the average number of participants in the world championship this season, have been accepted by the organiser, and the proposed list has been confirmed by the FIA. 20 of these vehicles are WRC, 17 Super 2000 and 19 Production. In contrast to last year, the RallyRACC 2011 will be a scoring round for both support championships of the WRC, i.e. PWRC (Production Cars) and SWRC (Super 2000), being the penultimate and last round, respectively.

This excellent number of entries is backed by its quality, with the presence of all drivers registered in the world championship both in the overall class, as well as in the Production and Super 2000 championships. Three overall world champions are part of the list (Sébastien Loeb, Kimi Räikkönen and Petter Solberg), as well as eight drivers who have won the Junior world championship (Daniel Sordo, Sébastien Ogier, Martin Prokop and Aaron Burkart, in addition to the already mentioned Sébastien Loeb), the Production world championship (Nasser Al-Attiyah, Armindo Araújo and Hayden Paddon) or the Super 2000 world championship (Xevi Pons). There are also the two last IRC champions, Juho Hänninen and Kris Meeke, as well as the winners of the FIA Middle East championship, the already-mentioned Nasser Al-Attiyah and Khalid Al Qassimi.

Among the WRC participants there are 6 Citroën DS3, 9 Ford Fiesta RS and 5 Mini John Cooper Works. Citröen has entered the two vehicles of the works team (Citroën Total) with the 7-times world champion Sébastian Loeb and Sébastien Ogier, as well as other four cars that will be driven by private drivers Petter Solberg, Kimi Räikkönen, Peter Van Merksteijn and Evgeny Novikov.

Ford will be taking part with the three works machines (Ford Abu Dhabi) of Mikko Hirvonen, Jari-Matti Latvala and Khalid Al Qassimi, and other six cars driven by Matthew Wilson, Mads Ostberg and Henning Solberg (M-Sport Stobart Ford), Federico Villagra (Munchi’s Ford), Dennis Kuipers (Ferm Powertools) and Ken Block (Monster).

Last but not least, recently arrived Mini will be represented by the two official John Cooper Works vehicles, driven by Daniel Sordo and Kris Meeke, and three private cars driven by Armindo Araújo (Motorsport Italia), Daniel Oliveira (Brazil WRT) and Pierre Campana (Drive-Pro/Équipe de France).

Full house in the support championships
The Rally de España will be the last scoring round of the SWRC with the participation of the 10 registered drivers, the highlight being the three drivers who are currently fighting for the title that will be decided in Spain: Juho Hänninen from Finland (Skoda no. 25), Ott Tänak from Estonia (Ford no. 22) and Czech driver Martin Prokop (Ford no. 21). Albert Llovera from Andorra (Fiat no. 30) is participating once again in this class. Another participant of the SWRC, although without scoring for the class, is the current Junior World Champion, Aaron Burkhardt from Germany (Ford no. 58).

Special mention in this class for the Volkswagen Motorsport works team which has chosen the RallyRACC because of its mixed condition, to carry out a new test session for their sports and technical team with a view to a future entry in the overall world championship. Two Skoda Fabia S2000 will be racing for this team, driven by Christian Riedemann from Germany and Spaniard Yeray Lemes, who will be another excellent point of interest for Spanish fans.

The PWRC, has already a crowned 2011 world champion, namely Hayden Paddon from New Zealand (Subaru no. 138) who will have to show his quality in the only race on asphalt of this support championship. The runner-up title is at the reach of Czech driver Martin Semerád (Mitsubishi no. 126), who is the only one with a victory in addition to Paddon, but there are no less than half a dozen participants looking forward to achieving a good result, showing their ability to race on an asphalted surface. Catalan driver Carles Llinás (Mitsubishi no. 124) will also be racing in this class.

The 124 entered drivers and co-drivers come from a total of 31 countries; Spain having the largest number of representatives with 17 drivers/co-drivers, followed by Finland with 10, Great Britain and France with 8, Italy with 7, and Ireland, Germany and Poland with 6. This edition does also include drivers from different non-European countries such as the US, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Russia, Ukraine and several countries from the Middle East. 

Given its condition as host country, Spain has obviously the largest number of representatives (7 drivers and 10 co-drivers), including Mini WRC Team works driver Dani Sordo (Mini no. 37), Yeray Lemes, who will be having his debut in this race with VW Motorsport (Skoda no. 57), Xevi Pons (Mitsubishi no. 59) in his only world championship participation in 2011 after his SWRC world title in 2010, Carles Llinás (Mitsubishi no. 124) in the PWRC, and the Ford Fiesta R2 drivers Ferran Pujol, Borja García and José Antonio Lodeiro. They will be joined by two drivers from Andorra, with the prestige of Albert Llovera (Fiat no. 30) and Ferran Font (Mitsubishi no. 62); the first of them in the SWRC.

As regards the makes, and just like in the previous season, there are 9 makes represented either as works or private machines, Ford being the make with the largest number (22 cars), followed by Mitsubishi (14), Citroën (7), Subaru (69) and Skoda and Mini (5).

Complete information and the entry list of the 47 RallyRACC are available at www.rallyracc.com and twitter.com/rallyRACC.

RACC Prensa