Sebastien Loeb trounced the opposition on the opening round of the 2005 World Rally Championship when he beat the opposition by almost three minutes in his Citroen Xsara WRC. It was his and Citroen’s third successive win on this event and the fourth Monte Carlo on which they had been fastest on the stages. Despite his domination, the championship points saw four manufacturers separated by just one point. Many regulations were new for the 2005 season, but none so significant or unexpectedly so far reaching as the new “five-minute” rule, originally intended to replace the inadequate “SupeRally” system, in reality struck at the heart of the sport.

This was the first event in which the 2005 rules apply. These concerned top drivers using HANS devices, reduced competitive distances, different service systems, reduced number of mechanics, a revolutionary “five-minute” penalty for missing a stage, the welcome end of SupeRally, the end of the five-day format, new testing rules and increased tyre limitations. On technical matters, there were changes which permitted wider track World Rally Cars of which only two cars (Mitsubishi and Peugeot) availed themselves. There was engine event pairing (the same engines used at Monte Carlo have to be used in Sweden), and increased limits on replacing parts at service. In addition to these general changes, this year’s Monte Carlo Rally saw major route changes. It was to be the shortest and most compact Monte Carlo Rally ever! The furthest away in a straight line from the Principality for the rally route was 50km. All servicing was to be carried out in Monte Carlo and for the first time ever, the cars were going to be back in the Principality every night. This was expected to be the only event in 2005 in which traditional gravel note crews (“safety crews”) would be allowed to operate. The tyre rules had changed: instead of four alternative tread patterns from which teams could select, as in recent years for this event, this year there were only three patterns available and for this event all tyres had to be mounted on 18 inch rims.

Main pre-event debate however was about the small entry. Only 34 were received, entries being accepted only for World Rally Cars or Super 1600s by special regulation. 12 entries came from registered world championship teams, four Priority 2 entries in World Rally Cars, 12 (out of 13 registered contenders) from Junior World Rally Championship, four privateers in World Rally Cars and two privateers in Super 1600 cars. Once again Monte had fallen prey to the rules which demand central servicing with, in this case, an inherent limit on available space. Also the calendar date constrained the organisers accepting entries until the full required number of WCR and JWRC entries were known, by which time it was too late to invite anyone else to fill the gaps.

There were many novelties amongst the teams. Although this was to be the final season planned for both them and their stablemates Peugeot, Citroen started favourite, the actual winners for the last two years and moral winner for one year more before that. Francois Duval made his debut although codriver Stephane Prevot was returning five years since his Citroen programme with Bruno Thiry. Ford began their marking-time season with two new drivers and engines for the M-Sport team being prepared in-house. This was the team debut at Mitsubishi for Harri Rovanpera and for Pirelli tyres. Rovanpera’s place at Peugeot was taken by Markko Martin, they also had Pirelli tyres for the first time on a WRC event. It was the last foreseeable challenge by Peugeot against their curious Monte Carlo jinx: they had not won this event for 20 years and only once in over 70 years! Skoda started the season with no fewer than six works drivers, though only Armin Schwarz and Alex Bengue were entered here. At Subaru Stephane Sarrazin made his debut appearance in any works entry, though his intended codriver Jacques-Julien Renucci was ill and his former codriver Patrick Pivato stood in. Final novelty at works level was the appearance of Suzuki who for the first time were in a full world championship programme. Even if the two-car rule continued, there were six registered and a total of seven teams in all which would be present at every event, quite an encouragement after the four teams which were still active at the end of the championship in 2004.

Thirteen drivers were registered for the JWRC, now in its fifth season. New this year was the increase in events to eight, of which drivers had to declare which one event they would miss. Only one driver (Conrad Rautenbach) opted to miss Monte Carlo. The championship has changed in its driver profile as well. Only two drivers (Daniel Sordo and Martin Prokop) had not entered the series before, two drivers (Kosti Katajamaki and Mirco Baldacci) were entered for their fourth successive year. Sordo accompanied for the first time by Marc Marti, Carlos Sainz’s ex-codriver. For the first time a reigning champion (Per-Gunnar Andersson) had come back to defend his title. Once again there was a maximum age limit, drivers must have been born on or after 1st January 1976, but none of the drivers is on their final eligible season in this category. At the other end, Rautenbach is 20. Although drivers need not nominate which make of car they will drive, Suzuki looked like being easily the most popular car but the total range of cars was small: only Citroens, Fiats and Renaults were also present. Peugeot, Ford and Opel were not expected to be represented this year. There are no registered French drivers in the JWRC this year.

When the teams arrived at Monte Carlo most had their own private press conferences. A media cocktail invitation from Citroen turned out to be a full press conference, outlining their plans for their last season in world championship rallying. Team Director Guy Frequelin confirmed that the two PSA companies were interested to continue in motorsport, but it was the world championship level they were going to leave. He also confirmed that the Team’s Chief Engineer, Jean-Claude Vaucaud, will retire at the end of February and introduced Xavier Mestelan as his replacement. All 34 entries turned up at the start of the rally and behind the WCR and JWRC entries there were several interesting names, not the least was Didier Auriol back again in a Peugeot 206 from Bozian Team, “I thought I had retired from rallying but my codriver Denis Giraudet persuaded me to make one last appearance and I am really happy to be here.” Another really interesting entry came from Jose Barbara, a driver in his ‘60s, who announced that he had won his first rally 40 years ago. He is the Subaru dealer in Le Touquet and his various ex-codrivers teamed together to help him make his entry. He drove a very old, original specification Impreza WRC. At shakedown the main curiosity was to what extent the new tyre limit rules were going to influence how the teams handled their testing. The effect was not as extreme as expected. In fact, Markko Martin and Armin Schwarz both made five runs through a long special stage. Interesting to note was that the fastest was Francois Duval in front of his new teammate Sebastien Loeb at Citroen. Peugeot’s Marcus Gronholm was third fastest, the first time they had done world level competition using Pirelli tyres. The fastest non-French car was the Ford in the hands of Toni Gardemeister on his debut with the team.

Leg 1

The first leg started in good conditions. On the first stage there were some icy damp patches but on the second stage it was virtually dry throughout. The first stage was one that had never been used on the rally before. It was most unpleasant with narrow roads, some hairpins which were almost too difficult to drive round, and the effect of earlier winter snows were still on the road. It was a stage on which to be careful rather than take any risks and Sebastien Loeb went into the lead ahead of his teammate Francois Duval after Duval lost four or five seconds in mysterious circumstances. In the middle of the stage he found tape across the road and braked heavily, alarmed that he might have been driving on a part of a road which was not a stage at all, but in fact he was on the right road and continued on his way, it seemed like sabotage. Behind the two Citroens the two Peugeots were going well, Markko Martin was the best non-Citroen on the first stage, while Marcus Gronholm was the leading non-Citroen after the second. Gronholm was gradually learning his way with the Pirelli tyres and Martin was learning the Peugeot altogether. The main technical troubles which affected the first two stages were brake problems for both Petter Solberg and Stephane Sarrazin, particularly at the end of the first stage which was downhill for some way. Solberg went off the road a kilometre from the end when his brakes failed completely and lost about 20 seconds before he could return to the road. Sarrazin was more careful when he realised his brakes were giving difficulty but also had to go slowly as well. Team Director David Lapworth said this was more a question of adjustment than a technical failure, and that there was no reason why this should recur later on in the rally... Going well at Ford was Toni Gardemeister. He said he was going carefully and he was still learning his way round the Focus while his teammate Roman Kresta was finding the roads very difficult but taking no risks at all. Best non-works entry was Didier Auriol enjoying every moment of the occasion, saying how much he missed the rally scene in general. The team with a lot of difficulties at this moment were Skoda. Armin Schwarz reported a problem related to the hydraulics and differentials. He stalled the engine and had to reverse around the sharp hairpins in stage 1 and then on stage 2 had a problem with a sticking throttle cable. His teammate Alex Bengue had similar types of problems, stalling at the start of stage 1, spun on 2, the handbrake did not work and the whole transmission system was most inconsistent in operation. Manfred Stohl was cautiously driving the Xsara. Before the rally he commented “It is a car which demands quite a different driving style compared with Ford or the Peugeot” to which he has recently been accustomed but gradually it looked like he was going to be coming good. On his first drive in a World Rally Car Xavier Pons (Auriol’s Bozian teammate in a Peugeot 206 WRC) went off the road on stage 2 and lost over quarter hour but got back to service with a bent steering arm.

After the first service the rally headed north into the hills behind Monte Carlo for stage 3, which was 32km long. It was 95% dry with some ice and snow patches. Loeb found one special place where spectators had thrown a lot of snow on to the road which caused him to spin and stall the engine. He still managed to make fastest time on the stage however, ahead of teammate Duval who had also spun and stalled at the same place. Coming up in fourth place was Gardemeister and in a surprisingly good time came from Didier Auriol in the privately prepared Peugeot who was sixth on the stage. Martin dropped back to fifth place after stalling at a hairpin. Solberg had more brake problems, not so dramatic as on stage 1 but the brakes failed completely with ten kilometres to go. Rovanpera, for whom this was his first Monte Carlo for three years, stalled at the start of the stage and continued to find conditions difficult. Gilles Panizzi had more problems, the gearshift system had failed and he had to use manual control to change gear. He had the ride-height of the car raised and this made the car’s handling much more precise. The differential on Schwarz’s Skoda was now much better. He had kept the same tyres as used on the first two stages on account of the fact that the car had not been driven hard during that period. Teammate Bengue had stalled at the start of each of the first three stages and also had two punctures: one on the front and one on the rear, but both times ATS mousses inserts had saved the day.

On the final stage of the day, which was a repeat of stage 3, Solberg was going better although still he had very long pedal travel and was not happy with his brakes. Rovanpera had a clutch problem five kilometres from the end of the stage and had to revert to manual gearshift, like his teammate Panizzi had done. Panizzi started the stage in semi-automatic mode but again had to change to manual and also had handbrake failure on that stage. Gardemeister dropped a place. After ten kilometres of the stage he found he had started to lose confidence in the car and he finished the day in fifth position. Schwarz and Bengue were happier. The Frenchman had handbrake problems and also had a spin. Warmbold continued his learning progress, not only a new co-driver in Damien Connolly but for the first time in a 2003 specification Focus. Pons had a spin and stalled the engine.

In JWRC, the leader was Per-Gunnar Andersson with no great problems to report. Guy Wilks completely lost his brakes on the first stage and lost 40 seconds to Andersson and on the second stage he found the rear tyres went off and the car was oversteering very badly. Many people were reporting difficulties with brakes. Baldacci was fastest on the second stage, but after the stage he had problems with an engine sensor. Andersson retained his lead. Kris Meeke was lucky not to lose much time but then he had problems with the tyres on the second stage. Sordo had no brakes at all for the whole of the first stage and the second stage he also had understeering which was connected to his choice of tyres. He lost two minutes penalty at service. First retirement of the rally and the scene came when Urmo Aava withdrew after taking the start, explaining he had an illness, whether medical or financial was not specified, and was in no fit state to tackle the stages. Katajamaki reported power steering problems on the first two stages. Baldacci left the service control after stage 2, 12 minutes late incurring two minute penalty and started to go towards stage 3 but then the sensor failed again and the car was taken back to service and he became the first driver to volunteer to start the next day with a special time penalty. He missed stages 3 and 4 incurring ten minutes extra penalty (over and above time taken by comparable competitors) as well as the two minutes from service. Three different drivers had made fastest times on the first three stages, Andersson (Suzuki), Baldacci (Fiat) and on stage 3 the fastest driver was Daniel Sordo (in his C2). Katajamaki suffered power steering failure again, but luckily after the end of the stage, and also started to lose engine performance. On the fourth, and final stage of the day Andersson made best time again and finished the day just over a minute in front of Katajamaki, whose engine was now working better. Meeke was a further ten seconds behind while Wilks was a little bit depressed in fourth place, 4.7 seconds behind Meeke.

Leg 2

It was interesting at the end of the first day to study the effect of the new five minute rule. Baldacci had done half (two out of four stages) of the first day’s event so that two stages were missed. This meant ten minutes of penalty (stage 3 Sordo fastest 25m49.4s/Baldacci was given 30m49.4s, stage 4 Andersson fastest 25m59.2s/Baldacci = 30m59.2s) in addition to two minutes for service time penalty. Yet he was still in front of a World Rally Car (that of Pons) which had done all the stages but had spent a quarter-hour off the road. It was becoming apparent that the “five-minute” rule was not working as well as intended.

Weather conditions on the stages were sunny and fair. The first stage (a repeat of stages 3 and 4 but run in the opposite direction) was mostly dry with a few damp patches, a few icy patches and a few areas where snow had been thrown on the road from the previous day. Solberg’s engine was overheating, but basically he felt that this morning the stages did not suit his driving or his set-up or his car or something, and in fact Gardemeister had risen in front of him to fourth place. Panizzi was unsettled in his driving even though he had risen one place, in front of Auriol, because he was disconcerted by the effect of the HANS which was shifting between him and the seat. He had again given up trying to use the semi-automatic gearshift and was in manual mode for the moment, although he reverted back to semi-automatic later. No problems for the rally leaders. Gronholm went carefully and lost a half minute to the rally leader “In one five kilometre stretch, where I did not completely trust the conditions, I found afterwards I had lost nine seconds.” Auriol was now starting to notice the relative performance of his car compared with the current WRCars and his initial enjoyment was turning to frustration. Sarrazin had a spin at the beginning of the first stage (5) then he had to reverse round a corner as well. Stohl stalled three times but Kresta was progressively getting happier.

The middle section of the second day was full of drama. First of all Stephane Sarrazin stopped three kilometres from the end of stage 6, having hit a guard-rail and damaged the suspension and the steering. In the end he was able to drive the Subaru out of the stage but well beyond the permitted time limit for reaching the next control. In order to remain in the rally the team registered that he wished to restart the following day, effectively missing four special stages incurring an extra 20 minutes of penalty and thereby by-passing the fact that he would otherwise be excluded. This led to more debate. The “five minute” rule was obviously becoming a license to ignore regulations of the rally at will. More drama was quick to follow on the same stage when Francois Duval crashed sideways into a concrete power pole which then came tumbling down onto the road pulling with it high-tension cables. The first problem was that although codriver Stephane Prevot was able to climb out of the wreckage, he had a pain in his leg so a helicopter was summoned to take him to hospital for a checkup. The problem was now what to do with the rally itself. Eventually the power through the cables was turned off so the cables could be moved and the rally proceed. Meanwhile the first car blocked behind the wreckage was - under the reverse order system - rally leader Loeb. Then followed the very delicate question of what time to allocate to him. The interruption rules can not operate when cars run in reverse order so for the first time the Stewards relied principally on the recording of split-timings earlier in the stage, in which Loeb was on the same time as the fastest driver to complete the stage which was Alex Bengue. So they gave Loeb the notional time of Bengue. So far as Bengue is concerned it was a major achievement. It was only the second time a Fabia driver had scored such a scratch time on a world championship rally, and it was his first ever works drive. The drama had not finished. On stage 7 Armin Schwarz crashed. The crews following him had seen no sign of any crash or wreckage or car stopped by the side of the road. It transpired that Schwarz had just clipped a rock which had overturned him on the road and down the edge of road. Schwarz in turn had a pain in his shoulder and he was airlifted to hospital for a checkup. In the middle of all this the Stewards were again busy working out what interruption times to give but in any case Loeb had acquired a lead of over one and half minutes ahead of the next driver Marcus Gronholm. Other incidents on stages 6 and 7 were that Antony Warmbold spun, Harri Rovanpera was slowed on stage 7 by a bad vibration, Martin spun the car and said the suspension was too hard and the car was jumping around a lot. From Gardemeister onwards yellow flags were shown on stage 6 and everybody from that moment on had an interruption time. The rally was now running 49 minutes late, which meant the last two stages were going to run in darkness. Meanwhile coming into the rest halt slowly was Auriol having stopped on the road section with overheating problems.

The day of the “five-minute madness” continued with a vengeance as the rally continued through the afternoon. There was a repeat of the previous two stages. Because of the delays on the rally these were held at night, which presented completely different challenges not only for the world championship drivers, who were unaccustomed to driving at night, but also because of dropping temperatures made conditions much more unpredictable. In the meantime Auriol did not restart the loop, because of engine trouble which had caused overheating. Loeb continued safely with a lead of just under two minutes through the evening. The cause of the continued “five-minute” madness was an icy bridge that very few competitors seemed to know about in advance. First car on the road, under the reverse-running order system, was Warmbold and he said that he was extremely lucky not to hit anything, and that it “completely cooled me down for the rest of the stage”. Stohl survived without incident but then came a series of other problems. Bengue knocked a wheel off, although he reached the end of the stage it became clear it would be impossible for him to reach Monaco. He duly declared a “five-minute” penalty, giving his mechanics the chance to repair the car and to restart in the morning. The next person to have a problem was Kresta. Again he reached the end of the stage and tried to drive back to Monaco but to make this easier he removed a driveshaft. In the end the gearbox seized on the road section and he made his “five-minute” declaration in order to allow his mechanics to carry out repairs at their leisure so he could also reappear in the morning. Rovanpera hit the bridge with the back of his car and was again having problems with his manual gearbox. The biggest story came from stage 8 where Panizzi made fastest time, which was an amazing encouragement for the MMSP team. Martin was struggling, explaining that he still does not like driving in the dark or with restricted visibility conditions. Solberg hit the bridge as well but had no serious problem. Loeb stalled at the start of stage 8 (which made Panizzi’s chance of a fastest time more easy) and he declared that he knew that the bridge was going to be extremely treacherous.

In JWRC, Meeke had risen to second place in front of Katajamaki whose engine was still down on power, like the day before. Andersson still held his lead but had a spin. Wilks was still in fourth, unhappy with his brakes. As a result of the problems for those at the head of the rally on stages 6 and 7 none of the JWRC drivers tackled these stages competitively. On the final loop of stages (8 and 9) Per-Gunnar Andersson retired, reportedly having gone off at a hairpin and his teammate Guy Wilks similarly retired from the event after hitting the bridge. Whether they had cars which were repairable in time for the morning was not yet known. Kris Meeke was in line to inherit the lead of JWRC but then he had a spin and lost 20 seconds, and this allowed Katajamaki, who had also hit the same bridge as Wilks and bent the steering, to take the overnight lead instead. Luca Betti was very happy to survive the last few kilometres of stage 9, which he said were very, very dangerous. Alan Scorcioni in the JM Engineering team Suzuki had a curious incident in which a spotlight became detached and smashed into his windscreen. Martin Prokop crashed, so nine cars were still running in JWRC but whether either of the two retirements would come back to the rally in the morning was still not known.

Leg 3

The adventures of Kresta, trying to return to the service park the previous evening were incredible. What started off as a simple suspension problem after hitting a wall on stage 9, turned into a collapsed suspension followed by the sumpguard running on the ground which then destroyed the sump. The oil fell out of the transmission and the gearbox finally broke. Kresta said “Today is a whole new day. Yesterday’s mistake had huge consequences, but today it is like I am beginning the rally again.” Skoda had far less damage to repair on Bengue’s car but it was very late before the car could be bought back to Monaco as the mechanics worked through the night to repair the damage.

The final day of the Monte Carlo Rally was becoming a mixture of curiosity and excitement. Curiosity about how cars were being repaired under the “five-minute” rule the night before. The cars of Sarrazin, Bengue, Kresta, Andersson and Wilks all returned to the rally, so 28 cars were ready for the morning. The main excitement was the battle for second place after Petter Solberg took third place from Toni Gardemeister on the second stage of the day, when Gardemeister was delayed with a broken anti-roll bar. Solberg then set out after Gronholm for second place. At the beginning of stage 12, the first run over Turini, Solberg was now 9.3 seconds behind Marcus Gronholm. Two corners after the top of Turini there was the usual problem of snow thrown on the roads by spectators and both Solberg and Marcus Gronholm crashed. Marcus was able to continue down to Monaco with a missing front left wheel (other drivers reported that they had to try and avoid the suspension unit left lying in the middle of the road) losing about five minutes and dropping him to fifth place but Solberg was not able to continue. Gardemeister was then blocked by the stationary car of Solberg and the engine stalled before he could get going again. So Loeb was lying nearly two and half minutes in front of Gardemeister, with three more stages to go. When all the accidents were happening, Kresta made fastest time on the first Turini stage. In third place was Panizzi ahead of Markko Martin and Marcus Gronholm. The next remarkable incident was when Gronholm and Kresta made fastest time on the first Turini stage. Sarrazin was running with a slipping clutch which was evidently damaged yesterday but it was not thought necessary to repair. Rovanpera had tyres which were too hard and lost time during the morning. Daniel Elena, Loeb’s codriver, confirmed that the Solberg and Gronholm incident was caused by snow from spectators. On the final loop of three stages Xavier Pons retired, the second Bozian driver with overheating just like Didier.

In JWRC Meeke got ahead of Katajamaki, who had spun off backwards into a wall on stage 12. Andersson and Wilks had both restarted with Andersson suffering some brake trouble and at the end of Turini he had to use his handbrake to spin off backwards into the wall. He arrived at Monte Carlo with a lot of rear damage. Cecchettini got caught on oil that was left on the road from the Solberg and Gronholm incident, and two corners further on he crashed into a wall. Marshals then slowed Sordo and Betti down while they cleared a path for them to continue. Meeke held the lead to the finish and gained his first JWRC victory for the Citroen C2.

At the finish there were four drivers who scored points without completing the route, having availed themselves of the “five-minute” rule at some point: Kresta, Bengue, Wilks and Andersson. In the case of Kresta he scored both Manufacturers and Drivers points. This was the big unexpected result of the rally. It created a completely different aspect to the sport, and was nothing like the intended compromise designed to help get rid of “SupeRally”. About the event itself, what was worrying was the three minute lead which Loeb had. Not boding well for a closely fought season...

Martin Holmes 23rd January 2005