Next season’s Monte Carlo Rally will undergo a major change compared to the 2018 running of the event.
A much more compact event has been planned, focusing increasingly on its Alpine base and cutting out the traditional starting point from outside the Monaco Casino. The re-modelled four-day event will debut several new speed tests in a route that is 40 per cent different from this season.
In addition the traditional Thursday evening start ceremony will switch to the centre of Gap. It will lead straight into two late evening stages of the sort that have so often been the cause of dramas in previous seasons. La Bréole/Selonnet and Avançon/Notre-Dame-du-Laus are both new, each 20 kilometres long, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Hautes-Alpes regions.
The event’s Friday section is long and testing for crews. The route journeys south-west of Gap for 124.38km of stages, with two loops of three tests, all tackled twice. The opening 20km Valdrôme/Sigottier stage is followed by the 24 km Roussieux/Laborel and then Curbans/Piégut, an 18km stage not used for many years.
Saturday goes north of Gap and includes a double pass over the familiar Agnières-en-Dévoluy/Corps stage, at almost 30km the longest of the weekend, and Saint-Léger-les-Mélèzes/La Bâtie-Neuve.
After a final service in Gap, competitors then trek south to Monaco for Sunday’s finale. That is identical to this year, comprising two passes over two tests in the mountains above the Principality, with no opportunity for service. La Bollène-Vésubie/Peïra-Cava includes the legendary Col de Turini while La Cabanette/Col de Braus will form the rally-closing Power Stage. The event’s 16 stages total 322.81km.
