The Rally World Series starts in the Maritime Alps.
Sami Pajar had a wild situation in the shakedown of the Monte Carlo rally. PASI LEISMA
The traditional Monte Carlo Rally will once again start the Rally World Series.
The first special test, 19 kilometers long Digne-les-Bains / Chaudon-Norante, awaits on Thursday evening, but already the drivers got a feel for the road of the traditional rally.
There are no hopes for snow and ice this year either, but at least in Wednesday’s shakedown we already saw how difficult it is to control the car on wet asphalt.
Of course, there were no huge differences on the three-kilometer training section of the Route de la Garden.
Kalle Rovanperä hit the road full of energy after his sabbatical. The Finn was second fastest in the shakedown, 0.7 seconds behind Ott Tänak too from the “foundation period”.
– The road gets really dirty quickly. Time is not a very bad starting point, Rovanperä said.
– Now the asphalt was full of mud. Thursday and Friday can be difficult because of the starting point.
Kalle Rovanperä returns to fight for the rally world championship again. ZumaWire / MVPHOTOS
Sami Pajari took his first shakedown bet really carefully. He was more than eight seconds behind Tänak.
However, the Lahti resident had a good reason.
– I don’t know if you saw it, but there were probably five deer on the road. I was close to hitting them and my concentration was disturbed by it.