MOTORSPORT: A very different WRC

The Dakar’s debut in the Middle East came and went quickly and hot on its heels the new-look World Rally Championship now begins.

The 2020 WRC kicks off with the 88th Monte Carlo Rally from next Thursday until Sunday.

Ott Tänak, the Estonian driver who won the world title last season for Toyota, will front up with Hyundai’s factory team, while French superstar Sebastian Ogier has taken Tanak’s place with the Japanese manufacturer as he tries to regain the crown he had for six years in what may be his last campaign.

Kenya’s Safari Rally returns to the championship in July after a long absence, Australia is not on this year’s calendar with our round having gone to New Zealand in September, and the season finale will be a new event in November.

Hyundai is the defending champion manufacturer and - bringing in Tänak as a teammate to perennial ‘bridesmaid’ Thierry Neuville, the Belgian who has been runner-up in the drivers’ championship the past four years - is now eyeing both titles.

Toyota team boss and multiple world champion driver of the 1990s, Tommi Makinen, smarting from the loss of Tänak just as he landed the crown, was quick to snap up Ogier when Citroen withdrew from world rallying.

Ogier has won the Monte Carlo Rally the past six years and, while he says just getting comfortable in his Yaris is his priority this week, a seventh victory is every chance on the roads and in the tricky conditions he knows so well.

Although ‘The Monte’ has long been a tourism promotion for the rich Mediterranean principality, the event is run almost entirely in the French Alps, with the base for servicing the cars at Gap, Ogier’s home town.

“Monte is an event where you don’t always need to take 100 per cent of the performance from the car,” Ogier says.

“On this one it can be more about being clever with the tyres (often studded for the snow and ice) and understanding the conditions and how they will evolve.

“When you are starting with a new [make of] car it’s not so easy – and we [he and co-driver Julien Ingrassia] have been practising at this in the last few years! (They have switched from Citroen to Volkswagen to M-Sport Ford, then back to Citroen and now Toyota).

“I’ve been able to adapt pretty quickly in the new environment, so I hope I can do this again this year.”

Tänak has opted not to carry the No.1 he earned at Toyota across to Hyundai, instead sticking with his familiar No.8 on his new i20.

He is anticipating “a very big fight” with teammate Neuville as well as Ogier, who has been chastened by dropping to third in last year’s WRC after his six straight titles.

On The Monte the Korean manufacturer also has the benefit of rallying’s most successful driver, Sebastian Loeb, who begins his second year as a Hyundai part-timer after his long association with Citroen and diversions into circuit racing and rallycross.

Loeb and Spaniard Dani Sordo, winner of Rally Italy on the island of Sardinia last year, are scheduled to alternate in a third i20 Coupe most of this season, although the WRC organisers will allow manufacturers to run a fourth car if they want following Citroen’s departure.

Ogier’s regular teammates will be Welshman Elfyn Evans and young Finn Kalle Rovanpera, who steps up after having won the WRC2 title with Skoda, while underdog M-Sport Ford has pinned its hopes on two other Finns younger than 30 – Esapekka Lappi, winner of the WRC’s Rally Finland in 2017, and Teemu Suninen.

Ogier’s victory in The Monte last year was the narrowest in the event’s long history – 2.2 seconds over Neuville – and, despite the driver switches this season and a substantially revised route, the 2020 edition could produce something similar.

Formula E is loaded with ex-Formula 1 drivers, but its latest winner is its youngest competitor who has never been around F1.

Max Guenther, a 22-year-old German, triumphed for BMW i Andretti in the third race of the sixth season of the electric open-wheel series in Santiago, the capital of Chile, at the weekend.

Guenther took the chequered flag ahead of Portugal’s Antonio Felix da Costa, who felt he would have won if not for wrong information about his battery from the crew of reigning champion team, DS Techeetah run by Australian engineer Mark Preston.

Guenther is in his second season of Formula E after finishing only 17th in his debut season with American team Dragon.

He is the youngest driver in the field.

New Zealander Mitch Evans was third in Santiago’s scorching heat for Jaguar Racing after starting from pole position.

Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne was sixth in Chile but leads the standings for debutant team Mercedes with 38 points, having finished third in each of the first two races at Diriyah in Saudi Arabia late last year.

BMW i Andretti leads the teams championship with 60 points to Mercedes’ 56, Virgin Racing’s 38 and Audi’s 32.

The next event is in Mexico on February 15.