World Rally Championship 2026

[CurtEgerer]

Rally Monte-Carlo started yesterday with shakedown. While Toyota had the top 5 times, many other cars were running studded tires on dry pavement to get a feel for them and were 10 seconds off the pace. As always, unless you subscribe to the WRC's Rally.TV, it takes a bit of effort to follow along Best to use a combination of WRC YouTube, Dirtfish YouTube and Redbull TV.

Notable this year is Oliver Solberg (Petter's son) stepping up to Rally 1 in a Toyota, Sebastien Ogier going for a 10th WRC title and the return of Lancia! They are running in Rally 2 category. lancia-returns-to-the-rallye-monte-carlo-world-debut-in-wrc2-for-the-ypsilon-rally2-hf-integrale

[Deschodt]

RedbullTV is back? last year they seemed to have dropped WRC daily summaries... might have to reinstall that..

[CurtEgerer]

^^^ I haven't looked this year but they're doing a one-off sponsorship of Ogier's Toyota so it seems like they would want to promote that. Classic Monte Carlo with changing road conditions up the mountain - dry, wet, ice, snow, slush. And Solberg leads by 44 seconds!

[onewhippedpuppy]

I used to watch WRC religiously when it was on Speedvision back in the day. At the time Petter Solberg was one of the dominant drivers, crazy it’s now his son!

[CurtEgerer]

^^^ same here. The early 2000s was the golden age of the WRC. Petter Solberg still having fun ....

[CurtEgerer]

Absolutely treacherous ice/snow conditions this Saturday morning on Stages 10 & 11 coming back down the mountain. The Monte Carlo has not had these conditions in years. They use the small street studs here, not the spikes used in Sweden, so traction is sketchy at best. Solberg still leading by over a minute He's got 1 previous overall win (Estonia last year on a one-off outing for Toyota) but that was a fast gravel event. This is entirely different and will set him up as an instant superstar if he can pull off the win. There's a Super Special on the 'Monaco Circuit' tonight.