Less than 20 days before the start of the Rallye Monte-Carlo, prologue to the 2024 WRC, the official entry list of the Monegasque event has been released. All the crews of the three teams that will fight for victories and titles have already announced their crews for the new season, but it is interesting to see those lined up for the first stage of 2024, the event of greatest interest and international pedigree
Toyota Gazoo Racing, the reigning world champion team, will not have the world drivers' champion. Kalle Rovanpera, who will only race part-time this season to try to recover energy for the future, will not be at the start in Monte-Carlo.
On the other hand, Sébastien Ogier cannot be missing who, needless to say, will be chasing yet another success in the Principality, a rally he loves more than anyone and who this year will return to offer the Service Park in his hometown, Gap.
There will be no shortage of the two regular drivers for the entire season, Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta. Both will have to start the season in the best possible way in what, for them, will be very important having neither Ogier nor Rovanpera as delegates in the chase for the title.
Hyundai Motorsport returns to the starting gates with renewed ambitions and two attacking starting drivers. In addition to Thierry Neuville, who has a multi-year contract with the Alzenau team, Ott Tanak also returns to defend the colors of the Korean team after just one season of separation.
The real surprise, as far as the team directed by Cyril Abiteboul is concerned, is the crew that will race on the third i20 N Rally1. Despite having Dani Sordo still under contract, Hyundai will race with Andreas Mikkelsen – also back in Hyundai – navigated by Torstein Eriksen. The Norwegian has done well in Monte-Carlo over the last few seasons, but always behind the wheel of R5 or Rally2 cars.
M-Sport, however, will deploy its two standard bearers, without the possibility of rotating them as Toyota and Hyundai do and will do. On the two Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrids there will be Adrien Fourmaux and Gregoire Munster.
As regards the WRC2, the presence of the two official Citroen C3 Rally2s driven by Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin stands out, but also of the two obligatory favourites, namely the Skoda Fabia RS Rally2s of Oliver Solberg and the new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2s driven by Sami Pajari, Bryan Bouffier, Stéphane Lefebvre and Jan Solans.
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