Kalle Rovanperä has chosen to retain his number 69 for the 2023 World Rally Championship season as he starts his first ever WRC title defense.
Ever since 2019, drivers have had personalized numbers in WRC which they keep throughout their top-line careers – just like in Formula 1.
The #1 plates however are off limits to anybody but the reigning world champion, but haven’t always been used as Ott Tänak demonstrated when he stuck with his #8 to defend his crown into the 2020 season.
Rovanperä has followed suit, passing up the opportunity to run #1 as Sébastien Ogier has and favoring his own #69. Ogier will return to running #17 in 2023.
Rovanperä’s choice has been disclosed via the publication of the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally publishing its entry list, which also confirms that Dani Sordo will start the season in the third Hyundai i20 N Rally1.
Sordo is seat-sharing for a sixth consecutive season in 2023 but will contest his first Monte since 2021 when he was also sharing the drive with Craig Breen.
Ten Rally1 cars are on the entry list for round one, with Toyota fielding the most machines with four. Rovanperä, Elfyn Evans and Ogier are all nominated for manufacturer points while Takamoto Katsuta will drive a fourth GR Yaris Rally1.
Thierry Neuville, new signing Esapekka Lappi and Sordo complete Hyundai’s lineup while Tänak leads the line for M-Sport Ford where he’ll be joined all season by Pierre-Louis Loubet.
Jourdan Serderidis will drive a third Puma Rally1 but has not been nominated to score manufacturer points.
Adrien Fourmaux heads a 27-strong field of WRC2 cars for the opening round of what’s being touted as potentially the best season ever in the WRC’s premier support category.
M-Sport is running both of its contenders on round one, led by former Rally1 driver and recent Jänner Rally winner Adrien Fourmaux and supported by promising talent Grégoire Munster – the winner of the most recent WRC2 round in Japan behind the wheel of a Hyundai.
All eyes will be on Toksport’s new fleet of Škoda Fabia RS Rally2s though, with Oliver Solberg, Nikolay Gryazin, Sami Pajari and Marco Bulacia each driving one next week.
However only Gryazin and Bulacia have nominated the Monte as a points-scoring round though. Erik Cais will also drive a new Fabia on the Monte Carlo Rally as he makes the switch from M-Sport power this season.
But perhaps the highest-profile entrant in a new Škoda is 1994 Monte Carlo winner François Delecour. Chris Ingram ensures the old Fabia Rally2 evo remains part of the equation too as he begins his quest to become WRC2 champion.
Citroën will be represented by 2022 Belgian Rally champion Stéphane Lefebvre, 2021 WRC3 champion Yohan Rossel, rising Spaniard Alejandro Cachón and American ace Sean Johnston.
There will be four Hyundai i20 N Rally2s competing in WRC2 on round one, with Irish drivers Josh McErlean – who’ll be co-driven by John Rowan this year after James Fulton moved alongside Breen – and William Creighton the top seeds.
Both reigning WRC2 champion Emil Lindholm and ex M-Sport driver Gus Greensmith will be title contenders in Toksport Škodas, but their seasons won’t get underway until Rally Sweden and México respectively.
