The first round of the 2001 World Rally Championship, the Monte Carlo Rally, starts from Monaco on Thursday 18th January. This historic event, which has been run since 1911, is the traditional curtain raiser to the season, and will see the debut of Subaru’s eagerly anticipated new Impreza, the WRC2001, and a young and dynamic Subaru World Rally Team driver line-up.

The Monte Carlo Rally is made up of 15 stages that total 385kms and take the crews north west of Monaco to the twisty tarmac roads that snake through the Ardeche. In a change to last year’s event, there are no overnight stops and teams will start and finish each leg back in Monte Carlo. In other changes for 2001, a maximum of 60 cars will take part, and the rally route is more compact that ever before.

The Subaru World Rally Team will be running three cars in Monte Carlo, for the youngest and most exciting driver line-up in the Championship. Richard Burns and recent signing Markko Märtin will pilot the team’s two nominated cars, while young gun Petter Solberg will contest the event in a third factory Impreza WRC2001.

Level of grip on the event's narrow tarmac stages is notoriously difficult to predict, due to the changeable mountain weather conditions, and drivers are likely to encounter a mixture of ice and snow as well as the more usual dry and wet tarmac. The Subaru team spent a total of two weeks testing for the rally, travelling to France and Spain to find a complete spectrum of road conditions. The tests gave the drivers experience of the new car and, working together with tyre partners Pirelli, helped determine the optimum tyre choices and driving style for such demanding terrain. This testing was especially valuable as new FIA regulations limit tyre choices to just two asphalt tread patterns and two ice and snow patterns.

For Estonia’s Markko Märtin, Monte Carlo will be a completely new experience: “I’ve never done the event before - so it’s going to be a fresh challenge. I suppose it’s a difficult one to attempt for the first time and I’m sure I’ll find a couple of surprises, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes and will concentrate on doing as good a job as possible for the team. My pre-event testing went well, and included some sessions driving the car on snow with tarmac tyres - that was an incredible experience, but with this rally you have to practice everything just in case…”

According to Richard Burns, who will celebrate his 30th birthday on Wednesday 17th, the biggest challenge of Monte Carlo is the variable stage surface: “Conditions in Monte Carlo vary enormously and making the correct tyre choice to cope with ice, snow or dry tarmac can make the difference between winning and losing. The new regulations concerning tyres mean we’ll have to compromise more and that’s likely to make driving on mixed-surface sections more tricky. Although there’s been a bit of a break since the last rally I’ve been doing a lot of testing with the new car, and I’m very pleased with the results. My goal for Monte is to continue where I left off last year and get a good start to the season.”

After a ceremonial start in the evening on Thursday 18th the real action starts on Friday when the teams will tackle six stages, two of which are run twice. On Saturday there are a further five stages including the longest test of the rally, the famous 36km stage at Sisteron, which is run twice. Sunday’s four final stages are located close to Monaco in the roads around Sospel and the winning car is expected across the finish ramp back in Monaco at 15:15hrs.