The teams from the FIA World Rally Championship make their first journey to Jordan Rally this weekend, a new addition to this year’s 15-round calendar. The rally is the first WRC event in an Arab country since 1976 and represents a step into the unknown for most of the crews.
In contrast to the last two events of the championship, Mexico and Argentina, where stages reached altitudes of more than 2000 metres above sea level, Rally Jordan’s base is located 420 metres below sea level, on the shores of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth.
The stages will be held in west and north of the country, 22 in total, and are characterized by fast, flat roads on a sandy gravel which is expected to heat up quite substantially as temperatures could rise well above the 30 degree centigrade mark.
Like the rest of the WRC crews, championship leader Sebastien Loeb has never contested this event before and he will be first on the road on day one. His goal will be to increase his lead in the drivers’ championship and enable Citroen to stay in the fight for top spot in the manufacturers’ standings. If he wins, it would be his 40th WRC victory of his career and his fourth of the season.
Trying to stop the Frenchman once again will be BP Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen who has already shaken his Argentine blues and is ready to make another attack at the win to recuperate his championship lead. The fast and flowing roads of Jordan should fit the Finn’s driving style and could help him gain advantage on the first day of competition.
Compatriot and team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala should be another driver benefiting from the fast stages in Jordan. The 22-year-old comes from a two-day test in Spain and has now found a base set-up on his Focus RS that should suit the rest of the rallies left in the calendar.
Third man in the drivers’ standings is Subaru’s Chris Atkinson who has had a great start to the season so far. The Australian has climbed the podium three times already this year and is ready to do it again this weekend. However, he has not done the recce last year like his team-mate Petter Solberg.
Solberg took the trip to Jordan in 2007 to do the reconnaissance of 18 of the stages. He not only hopes to benefit from this slight advantage but also from his co-driver’s experience on this event where he scored his first international win with Middle East Champion Mohammed Bin Sulayem in 1994.
The boys from Stobart will also be stepping into the unknown with Gigi Galli and Henning Solberg as nominated drivers to score manufacturers points. Despite his bad luck during the last two rallies, Galli is getting used to driving the Focus RS and is eager to prove his pace once again in Jordan.
Solberg was another Stobart driver who suffered from the conditions in Argentina, however, the Norwegian remains positive and confident that his engineer’s prior experience in the Middle East Championship could prove advantageous to him during the event.
Britain’s Matthew Wilson will drive a third Stobart car. He and co-driver Scott Martin have been training hard to be able to cope with the potential high temperatures in the cockpit and look to benefit from the levelled playing field and finish in the top eight.
Loeb’s team-mate, Dani Sordo, is another driver who did the recce last year. The Spaniard predicts that the pace will be quick this weekend but that it will be vital to watch out for the top coating of loose gravel, which could produce changes in grip. Like in Argentina, Sordo’s goal is to finish in a podium position and help Citroen gain maximum points in the manufacturers’ fight.
Making the long trip from home will be Argentina’s Federico Villagra and Luis Perez Companc from the Munchi’s team. Villagra scored his best ever WRC result in his home event, finishing sixth overall, and has win the latest round of the Argentine championship. As a result, he goes to this weekend’s round confident that he will be able to score points for the third event in a row.
Meanwhile, Perez Companc will start his 30th WRC event this weekend, his penultimate rally for the 2008 season after he announced his intentions for a reduced calendar this year due to business and family commitments. His plans for Jordan will be to finish in the top-eight and help the team stay ahead of Suzuki in the manufacturers’ championship.
New kids on the block, Suzuki, should be glad to know that they won’t be the only ones going into this event without no experience. Neither Toni Gardemeister nor P-G Andersson have ever even set foot in the country before, but, they hope to score driver and manufacturer points after having proved their potential to finish in the top-six on every rally held so far this year.
Abu Dhabi's Khalid Al Qassimi will drive a third BP Ford Focus RS this weekend on his first outing since February's Swedish Rally, and his first gravel event since Rally Finland in August. Al Qassimi’s background is in the FIA Middle East Rally Championship and he won the Jordan Rally last year when it was a candidate WRC round. He is the only leading driver with previous competitive experience of these roads.
Two privately entered Citroen C4s run by PH-Sport will also make the trip to Jordan for Conrad Rautenbach who finished fourth in Argentina and Urmo Aava who finished runner-up in the Junior championship last year.
The rally gets underway with a ceremonial start at Emaar South Park, next to the famous Dead Sea, on Thursday evening. However, the real action kicks off on Friday morning with competitors covering a total of 359.26 competitive kilometres before they reach the finish on Sunday.
