FIA World Rally Championship

Renault was the most represented brand at the opening round of the 2024 FIA World Rally Championship season on Rallye Monte-Carlo, with 17 of the 68 entries.

Matteo Chatillon and Maxence Cornuau put in a spectacular showing on their World Rally Championship debut. For their first start on this legendary event, the best Juniors of the 2023 Clio France Trophy Terre finished runner-up in RC3 with Clio Rally3, only 1.9s behind the winner. With four fastest times in their class, the Frenchmen finished 19th overall, ahead of several competitors in the higher categories. Behind them, Pierre Lafay and Benjamin Aubeuf completed Clio Rally3’s first double podium in RC3 on the international scene. Meanwhile, the Corsican duo Ghjuvanni Rossi and Kylian Sarmezan scored Clio Rally3’s first podium result, finishing second in WRC3.

In parallel, Clio Rally5 scored its 22nd victory in RC5. All nine models at the start reached the finish, monopolising the top nine places in their group led by Jérémy Jamet and Marine Journet, followed by Julien Charnay - Maxime Gomez and Julien Arnaud - Marion Renchet. Lastly, Clio Rally4 finished just off the RC4 podium with Rémy Rota and Nil Gendraud.

Clio Cup Middle East

The title battles intensified this weekend in the Clio Cup Middle East. Stanislav Novikov (Continental Racing) set the fastest time in practice at the Dubai Autodrome, then dominated Q1 before being edged out by Eduardo Miranda (Uniq Racing) in Q2. However, the Russian regained the advantage over his rival, winning race one by just over half a second before repeating the feat with a more than five-second margin of victory in race two. Ilya Sidorov (Continental Racing) and Youssef Gaber (Uniq Racing) completed the podiums. With his pair of wins, Stanislav Novikov is now 26 points adrift of Eduardo Miranda, who has already sewn up the Challengers title, while taking the lead in the Gentlemen Drivers category from his compatriot Ilya Sidorov heading into the final round of the season at Yas Marina (9-11 February).

Watch the races here et here.

And elsewhere…

Clio Rally3 finished on the overall podium, on the snow, of JMK-Ralli (Finland) in the hands of Jooa Iivari and Jaakko Jäntti. The pair finished second in round one of the Finnish Rally Cup, winning the four-wheel drive class and Class 12. Meanwhile, Clio Rally4 finished third in the R3 category with Yuriy Arshanskiy and Maxim Belyukov on Rally Karelia, round one of the Russian Rally Championship.

Coming up

Scheduled for Saturday, round three of the Clio Ice Trophy has been postponed a week due to high temperatures causing a lack of snow and ice on the Circuit du Pas de la Case. The competitors will gather on Saturday, 10 February. The season finale is now scheduled for Saturday, 17 February. In parallel, several customers will be present at the start of several rallies, including the Arctic Lapland Rally (Finland) and the Rallye Pays des Maures (France).

Pictures : Damien Saulnier / DPPI (1), Clio Cup Middle East (2), Taneli Niinimäki - Loudlife Media / AKK (3) & ASMG (4)