Motorsport: Rule changes alter face of rally

World champ Sebastien Loeb and his predecessors Marcus Gronholm and Petter Solberg will all be competing, but the Monte Carlo Rally, which begins the championship season next week, will herald a huge change in the sport.

Only Ford and Subaru of the full manufacturer teams remain as Citroen, Peugeot, Mitsubishi and Skoda all pull out and no new marque joins the fray.

But, following a change to the rules, most of the defecting firms will be represented by privateer teams, some of which can be eligible for championship points with drivers who are going to be real threats in the drivers' championship.

Loeb, for instance, was left without a drive as Citroen decided to take a season out of the championship while a new car was developed for 2007. But he will be at the wheel of a Citroen run by the Kronos team and eligible for manufacturer and driver points.

The Frenchman won the championship with a round to spare last season, dominating the series from the time he won in New Zealand in April.

He has won in Monte Carlo for the past three years and must be favoured to continue that streak even if his car will not have been updated since the end of the season.

Subaru returns with Solberg and young Australian Chris Atkinson as its top pairing, but at Monte Carlo tarmac specialist Stephane Sarrazin will drive a third car and be eligible for manufacturer points. Solberg failed to finish last year, and this is Atkinson's debut in the event.

Gronholm, who finished equal second with Solberg in the championship last season, moves to Ford after his long association with Peugeot ended with the firm's withdrawal at the end of 2005.

He is teamed with fellow Finn Mikko Hirvonen in a new Focus.

Ford has leaped at the chance to run more cars under the new rules, and team boss Malcolm Wilson will have his son Matthew in one of last season's cars for the whole 16 rounds. A second car in this junior team will be shared by a number of drivers.

Stars left without championship seats by the withdrawals have been shopping around for deals with mixed success.

Belgian Francois Duval, who won the last round of the championship in Australia in November with Citroen, will drive a privateer Skoda Fabia run by First Motorsport at Monte Carlo.

Toni Gardemeister, who finished second in a Ford at Monte last year, will be reunited with his former Astra team in a privateer Peugeot 307.

Gigi Galli and Harri Rovanpera, who were cast adrift by Mitsubishi's late withdrawal, are lining up privateer entries for the early rounds and seeking sponsorship to extend their season elsewhere.

Galli will have a 2005-specification Mitsubishi run by RalliArt for the first two rounds. Rovanpera has entered for Sweden without nominating a car. Another Mitsubishi refugee, Gilles Panizzi, will be seen in a Red Bull team Skoda Fabia.

Manfred Stohl will become the first Austrian to compete in every round of the World Rally Championship, after finalising a deal with his OMV Peugeot team. The team will compete in the second-division manufacturer class, and Henning Solberg will also drive in 12 of the 16 events. Stohl scored two podium finishes in 2005 in a privateer Citroen Xsara WRC.

The entry for Monte Carlo is a marked improvement on last year's lacklustre field for one of the series' showpiece events, with 52 cars having been registered to take the start on January 20. Last year there were 34.


World Rally Championship

* Monte Carlo, January 20-23.
* Sweden, February 3-5.
* Mexico, March 3-5.
* Spain, March 24-27.
* France, April 7-9.
* Argentina, April 28-30.
* Italy, May 18-21.
* Greece, June 2-4.
* Germany, August 11-13.
* Finland, August 18-20.
* Japan, September 1-3.
* Cyprus, September 22-24.
* Turkey, October 13-15.
* Australia, October 27-29.
* New Zealand, November 17-19.
* Britain, December 1-3.