The opening round of the 2024 FIA World Rally Championship at Rallye Monte-Carlo boasts a maximum 70-car entry.
The full entry list, released on Monday, January 8 is headlined by eight Rally 1 machines fielded by Toyota Gazoo Racing, Hyundai Motorsport and M-Sport Ford.
Leading the charge for reigning Manufacturers’ Champions Toyota is last year’s runner-up in the Drivers’ standings Elfyn Evans, with the GR Yaris Rally1’s other full-time occupant Takamoto Katsuta also set to tackle the stages of Monte-Carlo.
Evans won rallies in Croatia, Finland and Japan during the 2023 season, whilst Katsuta achieved a fine podium in the fast forest stages of Finland also.
This year’s event will be based in the town of Gap, the birthplace of record nine-time Monte-Carlo winner Sébastien Ogier, who will contest the rally as one of his select rounds behind the wheel of the GR Yaris Rally1 in 2024.
Absent from the Toyota lineup is reigning champion Kalle Rovanperä who has stepped back to contest select rounds in 2024 – his campaign will commence at a later event.
Hyundai Motorsports is also fielding three Rally1 machines in this year’s WRC curtain-raiser with Belgian Thierry Neuville leading the lineup of i20N Rally1 entrants.
Neuville enters 2024 after adding a further two WRC wins to his tally last year with victory in Italy and the Central European Rally.
2019 World Champion Ott Tänak also features, back with the team after a year with M-Sport which saw him win rallies in Sweden and Chile.
Tänak and Neuville will be joined by part-time entrant Andreas Mikkelsen with the reigning WRC2 Champion returning to top-level WRC competition for the first time since 2019.
Mikkelsen will share the third i20N Rally1 with Dani Sordo and Esapekka Lappi throughout 2024.
Unlike its WRC rivals, M-Sport Ford will enter just two Puma Rally1 machines in this year’s Rallye Monte-Carlo, piloted by Adrien Fourmaux and Gregoire Munster respectively.
Fourmaux and Munster competed in both Rally1 and WRC2 Ford machinery in 2023, with both making the step up to full-time WRC competition in 2024.
Fourmaux will look to build on an impressive campaign which saw him claim last year’s British Rally Championship title and a victory in the WRC2 category in the Central European Rally.
Munster’s 2023 achievements included a WRC2 Challenger win in Greece and victory behind the wheel of a Fiesta Rally3 in the Junior WRC in Estonia.
With Mikkelsen absent from WRC2, the likes of Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin will be looking to battle it out for supremacy aboard their works Citroën C3 Rally2 machines.
Fresh off the back of its recent homologation, several competitors have entered with the new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 machine.
Taking part behind the wheel of the new Yaris are the likes of Sami Pajari (competing with Printsport Racing), Stéphane Lefebvre, Jan Solans and Bryan Bouffier.
As ever, there will be a strong showing of Skodas in WRC2, with Oliver Solberg competing in a factory-supported Fabia RS.
Rallye Monte-Carlo gets underway on January 25, concluding on January 28 – the event is the first round of 13 in the 2024 WRC season.
