The World Championship arrives in Spain tied in the lead

(18/10/2011)

Sébastien Loeb-Mikko Hirvonen

With 62 teams entered, i.e. 9 more than in 2010, and more than the average number of entrants in this season's championship, the 47 RallyRACC Catalunya-COSTA DAURADA, Rally de España 2011, will be featuring 20 WRCars, 17 Super 2000 and 19 production vehicles, which is obviously a good proof of the large popularity of the event and the fact that it is a scoring round for both WRC support championships: PWRC (Production) and SWRC (Super 2000).

Technical and human quality, uncertainty in all the championship titles still at stake, and presence of all drivers registered in the world championship both in the premier class, as well as in the Production and Super 2000 championships. Three overall world champions are part of the entry 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.

As a consequence of the results at the preceding scoring round of the championship, the WRC arrives in Spain with two drivers tied in points in the lead, namely Sébastien Loeb (Citroën DS3) and Mikko Hirvonen (Ford Fiesta), who will with no doubt be fighting hand to hand for the title. For the Frenchman, a true missile on asphalt, the Finnish driver will probably not be the strongest rival, but both in Germany and especially in France, the current world champion experienced the bitterness of unforeseen problems. Moreover, Sébastien Ogier (Citroën DS3), is on third place, but only 3 points behind the two leaders, so that the positions on top of the sheet are closer than ever at the RallyRACC.

Among the WRC entrants there are 6 Citroën DS3, 9 Ford Fiesta RS and 5 Mini John Cooper Works. The Citroën machines will be driven by both drivers of the works team Citroën Total, i.e. 7-times world champion and 6-times RallyRACC winner, Sébastien Loeb, and Sébastien Ogier, while the private machines will be in the hands of Petter Solberg, Kimi Räikkönen (Ice 1), Peter Van Merksteijn and Evgeny Novikov.

Ford will be taking part with the three works machines of the Ford Abu Dhabi team with 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 (no. 56) from Germany and Spaniard Yeray Lemes (no. 57), who will be an 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 assert 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. 

Spain has 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 (6) and Skoda and Mini (5).

19 titles for 11 World Champions

Sébastien Loeb (Citroën)
•World Rally Champion in 2004-05-06-07-08-09-10
•66 victories in scoring rounds
•Junior World Champion in 2001

Kimi Räikkönen (Citroën)
•Formula 1 World Champion in 2007
•18 victories in scoring rounds of the F1 World Championship

Petter Solberg (Citroën)
•World Rally Champion in 2003
•13 victories in scoring rounds

Sébastien Ogier (Citroën)
•Junior World Champion in 2008
•7 victories in scoring rounds

Daniel Sordo (Mini)
•Junior World Champion in 2005

Martin Prokop (Ford)
•Junior World Champion in 2009

Aaron Burkart (Ford)
•Junior World Champion in 2010

Xevi Pons (Mitsubishi)
•Super 2000 World Champion in 2010

Nasser Al-Attiyah (Ford)
•Production World Champion in 2006
•Middle-East Champion in 2003-05-06-07-08-09
•Winner of the 2011 Dakar Rally

Armindo Araújo (Mini)
•Production World Champion in 2009-10

Hayden Paddon (Subaru)
•Production World Champion in 2011

And also...

Mikko Hirvonen (Ford)
•14 victories in scoring rounds; WRC runner-up in 2008-09

Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford)
•4 victories in scoring rounds; WRC runner-up in 2010

Khalid Al Qassimi (Ford)
•Middle-East Champion 2004

Kris Meeke (Mini)
•IRC Champion in 2009

Juho Hänninen (Skoda)
•IRC Champion in 2010