Thierry Neuville and Elfyn Evans will use next weekend’s European Rally Championship season opener as seat time ahead of the next round of the World Rally Championship.
Rally Sierra Morena is the perfect warm-up for Rally Islas Canarias later in the same month (April), as the latter moves from the ERC to the WRC this term.
Neuville and Evans will drive non-competitively on the roads around the Spanish city of Córdoba. Both will benefit from the extra mileage and further understanding of the Hankook tires before the event in Gran Canaria.
The Sierra Morena entry itself is topped by 2022 ERC champion Efrén Llarena, with neither of last year’s top two in the ERC present.
Double champion Hayden Paddon is concentrating on the Australian Rally Championship, while last year’s runner-up Mathieu Franceschi is heading for WRC2 instead.
Switching to a Citroën C3 Rally2 (run by his own team) for the first time since 2020, Llarena faces competition from Miko Marczyk (Škoda), Andrea Mabellini (Škoda) and Jon Armstrong (M-Sport Ford) who all return with the title in mind this year, and are seeding at two, three and four.
Former WRC driver Mads Østberg is also back in a Citroën, and co-driven by his old navigator Torstein Eriksen who has more recently been in with Andreas Mikkelsen. Eriksen will do at least the first half of the season, before a new co-driver comes in.
Jose Suarez (Škoda) leads the local charge along with Pepe Lopez (Hyundai), while Tarmac ace Yoann Bonato (Citroën) and Jos Verstappen (Škoda) are other intriguing entrants.
WRC2 regulars Nikolay Gryazin (who’ll do select ERC rounds in a Škoda) and Robert Virves (Škoda) will also be in action in Spain, while other notable names include Junior WRC contender and reigning Junior ERC champion Mille Johansson (Škoda) who is out for a full campaign, and Stéphane Lefebvre who will do the Tarmac rounds in an MRF Hyundai.
Junior ERC contenders will also be in action, with DirtFish Women in Motorsport Driver Aoife Raftery among the contenders in a Peugeot 208 Rally4.
Rally Sierra Morena (April 4-6) is the first of eight ERC rounds and is brand-new to the championship.
A tweak to ERC regulations also means all eight rounds will count towards a drivers’ championship tally in 2025. In previous years, one dropped score has been afforded.
