MOTORSPORT: Rally Oz signs sponsor, ambassador

Australia's round of the World Rally Championship has received a significant shot in the arm less than three months out from this year's event at Coffs Harbour on September 10-13 with the signing of a naming rights sponsor and official ambassador.

Coates Hire has signed up as the chief sponsor for the third consecutive year, while the event's official ambassador will be three-time Australian Ironwoman Champion, Courtney Hancock, who grew up in Sawtell on the Coffs Coast.

“I’m so excited to be representing the biggest sporting event that has ever come to my home region and having the opportunity to help showcase the Coffs Coast, the rally and my own sport of Ironwoman racing to the WRC’s huge global following,” said Hancock (pictured).

Meantime, the marketing group manager of the equipment hire company, Jeremy Hill, said Coates Hire Rally Australia, which will host both round four of the five-round 2015 Australian Rally Championship and round 10 of the 13-round 2015 World Rally Championship, was an ideal fit for the Australian firm.

“Our company has a long association with rallying and to be the naming sponsor of one of only two FIA world championship motorsport events in the country is a great privilege," he said.

The factory Volkswagen team has dominated this year's WRC after claiming the title in 2013 and 2014, taking five of the six WRC events run so far in 2015 with its Polo R WRC.

Two-time champion Sebastien Ogier has won four of those, despite having to run in the first car on the road as a result of his championship lead. This is a disadvantage on gravel, as the lead cars effectively ‘clean’ off the slippery top gravel layer, leaving the best road conditions to the lower runners.

Ogier’s VW team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala took the top step in Rally Portugal and third driver Andreas Mikkelsen, who recently resigned with Wolfsburg for a long-term deal, has also been a consistent podium finisher,.

The talented Kris Meeke broke the VW stranglehold (and his run of off-track adventures in potentially inning positions) in Argentina, giving the Citroen DS 3 WRC car its first victory since Rally Germany in 2013. Meeke led team-mate Ostberg home in a Citroen one-two, but it has otherwise been slim pickings for anyone not in a VW Polo R WRC.

One good news story to emerge out of 2015 has been the performance of young Kiwi Hayden Paddon in his first full WRC season in a Hyundai i20 WRC. In the most recent round — Rally Sardinia — Paddon was in the box seat to take his maiden victory before a spin and mechanical issues slowed his pace.

Still he was able to finish second behind the inevitable Ogier and ahead of his talented team-mate Thierry Neuville. It was Paddon’s first run in the paddle-shift i20 WRC, and he heads into the next round, Rally Portugal, with upgraded components designed to prevent the gearbox mounting failure that nearly sidelined him on the rough Sardinian surface.

Another shining light has been the increased pace of the latest-specification Ford Fiesta RS WRC, which debuted at Rally Portugal’s fifth round and helped young-gun Ott Tanak begin to show consistent podium pace, despite a titanic misadventure in Rally Mexico.

M-Sport, who builds and runs the Fiestas, will also come to the next round of the WRC with upgrades designed to further aid reliability after recent gear selector issues for Tanak and team-mate Elfyn Evans.

WRC crews will tackle the gravel of Poland over July 2-5 before heading to the jumps of Finland over July 30-August 2. They then move to the first tarmac surface event of the year in Germany (the Monte is classed as ‘mixed’ surface with snow and ice on the roads), before arriving in Australia in early September.

Ogier won Down Under in both 2013 and 2014; can the current crop step up to the plate?