Full Throttle

It has been 15 years since the last WRC event was held in North America. Mexico will present unique challenge due to rules preventing teams from testing outside Europe. Drivers will also face a peak altitude of 2,700 metres above sea level, the highest of any event this year.

In other notes:

• The latest evolution of the Subaru Impreza World Rally Car, the WRC2004, will make its competitive debut inMexico.
• Harri Rovanpera will again partner with Marcus Gronholm for the Marlboro Peugeot team. Rovanpera replaces Freddy Loix.
• Mitsubishi hopes to rebound after both team cars retired early in Sweden.

Citroen driver and current points leader Sebastien Loeb describes the Mexican stages.

Citroen have had a storming start to the 2004 WRC, winning the first two events thanks to Sebastien Loeb. The Frenchman also took part in the recce last year in Mexico, to get a feel of the event, as it was rumoured back then it might gain WRC status.

“I effectively did the recce last year and that enabled me to discover the rally’s basic setting, namely the hilly region between Le?n and Guanajuato,” explained Loeb, “The stages themselves were varied, with a mixture of slow and quick portions, very quick even in places.

“The width of the roads was also variable according to their importance and there was a big altitude difference, but the hard surface of the stages shouldn’t cut up. The slowest parts are remininscent of Cyprus, but overall the rally is more like Argentina where the stages are very varied too. The 2004 route seems fairly similar to last year’s, although a number of stages will be run in the opposite direction.”