Catalunya packs out a high-quality entry list

The organisers of RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada Rally de Espana have issued a strong entry for next week’s penultimate round of the World Rally Championship, featuring all the main players.

The Salou-based event is the final round of the Junior World Rally Championship which has come down to a fascinating fight between Suzuki man Aaron Burkart (Germany) and Dutchman Hans Weijs Jr (Citroen).

Beyond the two title hopefuls, Renault drivers Todor Slavov and Alessandro Broccoli will be hoping to end their J-WRC campaigns on the highest of notes.

At the front of the field, all eyes are likely to be on recently crowned (for the seventh time) World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb and his fellow Citroen Total World Rally Team driver Dani Sordo. Local hero Sordo has finished second to Loeb for the last four years, will this be the season he goes one better?

Ford’s two Finns run the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team colours, while Ken Block joins Matthew Wilson in the Stobart team for the second event in succession.

Formula 1 star Kimi Raikkonen makes his first visit to the roads around Salou, with the Citroen Junior Team driver likely to make a real impression on the all-asphalt stages over the weekend. With Friday’s mixed surfaces out of the way, the super-cool Finn will be able to exploit his asphalt experience on the wide, fast, racetrack-like roads on Saturday and Sunday.

Twenty-four countries are represented on the 53-strong entry list - a good number considering the event runs only as a J-WRC round, rather than with the support of Production and Super 2000 World Rally Championships.

Despite the event starts not qualifying for P-WRC and S-WRC, Production frontrunner Hermann Gassner starts in his Mitsubishi Lancer and three front-running Ford Fiesta S2000s will be present for Henning Solberg, Xevi Pons and Dennis Kuipers. Albert Llovera starts his first event with Sordo’s former co-driver Marc Marti alongside him in his Abarth Grande Punto S2000.