The technical part of the season is done for now. It’s time to crank up the anti-lag, tighten the belts and head flat out for the high-speed portion of the World Rally Championship – beginning with this week’s Rally Estonia.
Largely thanks to the mania that surrounds home hero Ott Tänak, Estonia has rapidly developed into one of the highlights of the WRC tour.
This year, it will provide the competitive testbed for the latest generation of rally car – the Rally1 – in terms of just how fast they can fly.
Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s Rally Estonia:
Entry breakdown
Total 42 crews
11 Priority 1 crews
19 Priority 2 crews (WRC2)
7 Priority 3 crews (WRC3)
5 Non-priority crews
Rally1
Hyundai’s lineup remains unchanged from the last round in Kenya, as it fields young hotshot Oliver Solberg alongside Thierry Neuville and, the star attraction, Tänak.
But both M-Sport Ford and Toyota have different personnel in their Rally1 machines with neither of the Sébastiens traveling to Tartu.
Gus Greensmith returns to score manufacturer points for M-Sport in Loeb’s absence, while the team’s service park presence will be boosted by Pierre-Louis Loubet who’s back after skipping the Safari.
At Toyota, Esapekka Lappi is back in action in place of Ogier.
WRC2
Teemu Suninen is the top seed in WRC2 this weekend, but it’s a quality lineup that includes Hayden Paddon for the first time in nearly three years.
Like Suninen, Paddon will pilot a Hyundai i20 N Rally2 but he’ll drive for his own private team rather than Hyundai’s works concern.
Andreas Mikkelsen has won two rounds this season and led both of the others before the engine in his Škoda expired. That puts him under immense pressure to score big for the rest of the season as he now has to carry a non-point score towards his final championship total.
WRC2 leader Kajetan Kajetanowicz, and Finns Emil Lindholm and Jari Huttunen are other certain victory contenders, while Egon Kaur and Georg Linnamäe can count on local support in their Volkswagen Polo GTI R5s.
WRC3/Junior WRC
For the first time since Portugal, the Junior WRC is back in action and it couldn’t be closer in the race to be the first champion in a four-wheel-drive car.
Last year’s runner-up Jon Armstrong leads the standings after the first three of five rounds, but has just one point in hand over Lauri Joona with reigning champion Sami Pajari only another 10 points back thanks to victory in Portugal.
All three will be in the fight this week, but Robert Virves could be the one to usurp them all on home ground. William Creighton has won at least one stage on every round so far this year too, so certainly can’t be ruled out.
In WRC3, Pajari has a chance to extend his overall lead but faces competition from fellow Finn Roope Korhonen as well as JWRC rivals Joona, Creighton and McRae Kimathi.
Itinerary
Just under 200 competitive miles of fast, flowing stages lie ahead of the WRC’s finest in Estonia this week.
The route is largely unchanged from last year. Thursday begins with the short ERM superspecial before the meaty stuff begins on Friday – eight stages in a loop that’s very similar to Saturday’s leg 12 months ago.
And it won’t be an easy way into the rally as the longest test, Peipisääre, is up first on Friday.
The action moves south on Saturday for eight more stages before six stages on the final day – more than the average WRC Sunday. Kambja will host the powerstage.
