Following swiftly on from the World Rally Championship’s first pure asphalt round of 2024 comes the opening conventional gravel event: Rally Portugal.
A rally steeped in history, it was ranked fourth among DirtFish readers’ favorite events when we ran our poll at the end of last year. It should offer the best indication yet of this year’s pecking order on the loose – ultimately, where championships are won and lost.
So here is all the key information you need ahead of this crucial event.
Rally Portugal Entry List
Total 69 crews
9 Rally1 crews
40 Rally2 crews (39 WRC2)
9 Rally3 crews (9 WRC3)
Dani Sordo finished second in Portugal in 2023 and returns for his first WRC appearance of 2024
Rally1
Nearly half of the nine-car Rally1 entry is made up of Toyotas as Toyota Gazoo Racing fields four entries for the first time this season. When Kalle Rovanperä opted to take a part-time role this year, Toyota noted that it could field both the reigning world champion and his predecessor Sébastien Ogier on some events – and that has now come to fruition.
Rovanperä, winner of the event for the past two years, and Ogier will each contest their third WRC rally of 2024, alongside team regulars Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta. It is Katsuta who is not on point-scoring duty this weekend, as Ogier and Rovanperä will look to take advantage of starting back in fifth and seventh on the road, respectively.
In the Hyundai camp, full-timers Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak are joined by Dani Sordo. Making his first WRC start of the year, Sordo arrives on the back of taking in some stages of last month’s Rali Terras d’Aboboreira as a test, and has been on the podium in Portugal for each of the past three years. While Neuville is set to suffer from opening the road, Tänak’s fourth position should offer some advantage, while Sordo will have the benefit of the rest of the Rally1 field sweeping the road for him.
The top-class field is completed by M-Sport’s regular pairing of Adrien Fourmaux and Grégoire Munster. Fourmaux has to endure a start-position of fourth on the road, with Munster back in eighth.
Takamoto Katsuta will not score points in portugal, as Toyota fields four Yaris Rally1s for the first time in 2024
WRC2
Among the 40-car entry of Rally2 machinery are an incredible 39 drivers looking to score points in WRC2. Of the current top 10 in the WRC2 standings, only two are not competing this weekend so those points are going to be harder than ever to come by.
All four 2024 WRC2 round winners to date will be in action. In the green corner, Toksport Škoda pairing Oliver Solberg, who won in Sweden, and Safari winner Gus Greensmith may start as favorites, given the Fabia RS Rally2’s prowess on gravel and their own liking for the loose. Indeed, they finished one-two on the event, in Greensmith’s favor, last year.
In the red corner, DG Sport Citroën duo Yohan Rossel (who won Monte Carlo) and Nikolay Gryazin (Croatia) will be putting Citroën’s gravel development work to the test. Rossel won in WRC2 on this rally two years ago, but the competition is stronger now.
Toyota is well represented, as Sami Pajari, Georg Linnamäe, Roope Korhonen and Jan Solans will all pilot the GR Yaris Rally2. The car will get its first examination at world level on a gravel rally after none were entered for the Safari in March.
Among those at the wheel of a Hyundai i20 N Rally2, Teemu Suninen is finally getting his 2024 WRC2 campaign under way. Five time WRC rally winner Kris Meeke will be in a similar car, fresh from winning the Rali Terras d’Aboboreira warm-up event. One driver who won’t be in a Hyundai is one-time WRC2 champion Emil Lindholm, who is skipping this event.
Pepe López switches from ŠkodaFabia to Ford Fiesta in WRC2 for Portugal
There will be a new name competing in a Ford Fiesta Rally2 on this event. Pepe López, who already has two WRC2 podiums to his name this year and lies fifth in the standings, has swapped his Škoda for the M-Sport-built machine. Reigning JWRC champion Will Creighton makes his third WRC2 start of the season in another example.
Elsewhere on the bulging entry list, the Toksport Škoda line-up also includes Pierre-Louis Loubet, who makes his first start in the WRC since leaving M-Sport’s Rally1 squad last year. Lauri Joona, Martin Prokop and Josh McErlean will also be piloting Fabia RS Rally2s, while Marco Bulacia is at the wheel of a Citroën.
Among the locals, two-time PWRC champion and Portuguese great Armindo Araújo leads the way in a Škoda. Reigning Portuguese champion Ricardo Teodósio drives a Hyundai, and José Pedro Fontes is Citroën-mounted.
WRC3
As Portugal is not a round of the Junior World Rally Championship, there are only nine WRC3 entries for the event.
Czech driver Jan Černý, the Monte Carlo class winner, leads the largely Ford Fiesta Rally3-equipped field. Mexican Diego Domínguez Jr is back in action after a difficult start to the season, while Bruno Balacia, younger brother of Marco, is another JWRC driver getting some extra miles in on this event.
There are a trio of Renault Clio Rally3s entered into the class, headed by Frenchman Mattéo Chatillon, who has already finished second in class on both the Monte Carlo and Croatia Rallies this year.
Rally Portugal itinerary
A busy itinerary for this year’s Rally Portugal takes in more than 200 miles of competitive action, although the changes from last year are generally relatively small.
The action begins with a blast through the 1.8-mile Figueira da Foz superspecial stage on Thursday night before nearly 80 miles of tests on Friday. There are two loops of repeated stages – although not all in the same order – with only a tire-fitting zone in between as, just like Croatia Rally, crews will have to contend with there being no midday service.
Starting fifth on the road will do Kalle Rovanperä's victory chances no harm at all
The 11-mile Mortágua test bookends the day’s running (last year it was only run once). The crews will then tackle each of Lousã, a shortened version of Góis and the challenging Arganil twice, either side of fitting a new set of boots.
Saturday is the longest leg of the rally, at some 90 miles. It comprises two loops of four stages, with lunchtime service in between, before the Lousada superspecial ends the day’s running. The day starts with two 5.5-mile runs, through Felguieras and Montim, the latter returning to the schedule having not featured last year. Amarante, the longest stage of the rally at 23 miles, is next, followed by the 10-mile Paredes, which last year ran on Sunday.
With Paredes switching to Saturday, Sunday’s itinerary is tweaked so that both Cabeceiras de Basto and Fafe, with its ever-popular jumps, are run twice. They combine to make nearly 40 miles of ‘Super Sunday’ running (only 18% of the total mileage), with the second pass of Fafe doubling up as the powerstage.
