2009 Rally Ireland

2009 Rally Ireland 2nd Rally Ireland
Round 1 of the 2009 World Rally Championship Next event →
An aerial view of Sligo, where Rally Ireland's headquarters located.
Host country	Ireland/Northern Ireland
Rally base	Sligo, Ireland
Dates run	30 January – 1 February 2009
Stages	19 (366.94 km; 228.01 miles)
Stage surface	Tarmac/Mud
Overall distance	1,407.68 km (874.69 miles)
Statistics
Crews	36 at start, 28 at finish
Overall results
Overall winner	Sébastien Loeb Citroën Total World Rally Team

The 2009 Rally Ireland, officially 2nd Rally Ireland, was the first round of the 2009 World Rally Championship season and was held between 30 January and 1 February 2009. It was also the opening round of the Junior World Rally Championship this season. Sligo was once again the rally base with the special stages being held on agricultural tarmac roads and major tarmac roads in the north west of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The rally returned after a year's absence as to hold the opening round of the World Rally Championship after the Monte Carlo Rally was absent on the year's calendar due to the FIA's Round Rotation calendar system. This happens every two years, so the rally was out for 2010 in favour of Monte Carlo resuming its traditional place as the season opener, but returned in 2011 in the same position.^[1]

During Friday, heavy rain dominated the weekend and drivers found it difficult to compete in this kind of torrential weather, also mud became a feature, especially on broken tarmac roads. But Sébastien Loeb took the win second time in the row with Dani Sordo sealing a Citroën 1–2, two events in succession since the inaugural Rally Ireland held in 2007. Mikko Hirvonen once again settled for third place against the Citroën's tarmac wizards, with 2:07.8 minutes behind Loeb. Norway's Henning Solberg was the only of the Solberg brothers present after the no-show of 2003 WRC Champion Petter Solberg. He finished fourth, his best result on tarmac, but he was almost beaten by Citroën's newbie Chris Atkinson who finished in fifth overall despite some big scary moments, including hitting a telegraph pole on Leg 1 and spinning on Stage 18. Sébastien Ogier finished in sixth ahead of Matthew Wilson in a tight battle, while Khalid al-Qassimi became the first Arab rally driver since 1993 by compatriot Mohammed Bin Sulayem.^[2] But some drivers such as Jari Matti Latvala, who leads after Stage 1 broke his drive shaft after a puncture on two wheels, Ford's new driver Urmo Aava who leads after Stages 2 and 3, slid off the road and crashing without heavy impact at the Aughnasheelan Stage 6, and Conrad Rautenbach slid off at Stage 9 at Sloughan Glen and got his Citroën C4 deeply stuck at the mud, were all able to restart under the SuperRally rules to finish 10th by Aava, 14th by Latvala, and Rautenbach crossed the line in 18th place, and all of them score manufacturer's points for their respective teams.

The JWRC drivers suffered in this torrential weather as well in the rally during the course of the weekend as eight JWRC drivers competed. Aaron Burkart who switch from his longtime associates Citroën to Suzuki this year was confident of the decision,^[3] just won his first JWRC rally in his debut with the team, ahead of the Czech driver Martin Prokop, unlike Burkart stayed with Citroën. While a distant third place for Italian Suzuki driver Simone Bertolotti, who previously drove for Renault. But worst thing happened that Dutchman Hans Weijs jr. who crash heavily at Stage 14 at Tempo under heavy rain that cause to stop some times by rally drivers such as Yoann Bonato and countryman Kevin Abbring, both had activated the SuperRally rules after retiring at Leg 1, had to start their runs all over again because of the incident, but both he and his co-driver were uninjured and the car was not badly damaged.

Pos.	Driver	Co-driver	Car	Time	Difference	Points
WRC
1.	Sébastien Loeb	Daniel Elena	Citroën C4 WRC	2:48:25.7		10
2.	Dani Sordo	Marc Marti	Citroën C4 WRC	2:49:53.6	+1:27.9	8
3.	Mikko Hirvonen	Jarmo Lehtinen	Ford Focus RS WRC 08	2:50:33.5	+2:07.8	6
4.	Henning Solberg	Cato Menkerud	Ford Focus RS WRC 08	2:54:58.1	+6:32.4	5
5.	Chris Atkinson	Stéphane Prévot	Citroën C4 WRC	2:56:17.6	+7:51.9	4
6.	Sébastien Ogier	Julien Ingrassia	Citroën C4 WRC	2:59:09.7	+10:44.0	3
7.	Matthew Wilson	Scott Martin	Ford Focus RS WRC 08	2:59:49.5	+11:23.8	2
8.	Khalid al-Qassimi	Michael Orr	Ford Focus RS WRC 08	3:02:33.6	+14:07.9	1
JWRC
1. (16.)	Aaron Burkart	Michael Kölbach	Suzuki Swift S1600	3:16:41.5		10
2. (17.)	Martin Prokop	Jan Tománek	Citroën C2 S1600	3:17:28.8	+47.3	8
3. (19.)	Simone Bertolotti	Luca Celestini	Suzuki Swift S1600	3:25:41.6	+9:00.1	6
4. (20.)	Yoann Bonato	Benjamin Boulloud	Suzuki Swift S1600	3:29:47.7	+13:06.2	5
5. (22.)	Kevin Abbring	Erwin Mombaerts	Renault Clio S1600	3:34:19.5	+17:38.0	4
6. (25.)	Luca Griotti	Corrado Bonato	Renault Clio S1600	3:43:49.9	+27:08.4	3

Day	Stage	Time (GMT)	Name	Length	Winner	Time	Avg. spd.	Rally leader
1 (30 JAN)	SS1	08:13	Glenboy 1	22.25 km	Jari-Matti Latvala	12:44.0	104.8 km/h	Jari-Matti Latvala
	SS2	09:01	Cavan 1	15.09 km	Sébastien Loeb	8:31.5	106.2 km/h	Urmo Aava
	SS3	09:42	Aughnasheelan 1	25.19 km	Sébastien Loeb	14:35.2	103.6 km/h
	SS4	13:02	Glenboy 2	22.25 km	Sébastien Loeb	11:37.4	114.9 km/h	Sébastien Loeb
	SS5	13:50	Cavan 2	15.09 km	Sébastien Loeb	7:40.5	118.0 km/h
	SS6	14:31	Aughnasheelan 2	25.19 km	Sébastien Loeb	13:44.6	110.0 km/h
	SS7	18:54	Murley	24.70 km	Stage cancelled
	SS8	19:39	Fardross	14.77 km	Stage cancelled
2 (31 JAN)	SS9	08:13	Sloughan Glen 1	27.76 km	Sébastien Loeb	14:43.3	113.1 km/h
	SS10	09:06	Ballinamallard 1	25.46 km	Sébastien Loeb	13:02.1	117.2 km/h
	SS11	09:49	Tempo 1	13.46 km	Sébastien Loeb	7:33.1	106.9 km/h
	SS12	13:57	Sloughan Glen 2	27.76 km	Mikko Hirvonen	14:33.9	114.4 km/h
	SS13	14:50	Ballinamallard 2	25.46 km	Sébastien Loeb	12:51.4	118.8 km/h
	SS14	15:33	Tempo 2	13.46 km	Sébastien Loeb	7:30.1	107.7 km/h
3 (1 FEB)	SS15	08:35	Geevagh	11.48 km	Mikko Hirvonen	6:11.3	111.3 km/h
	SS16	09:00	Arigna	10.88 km	Sébastien Loeb	6:03.6	107.7 km/h
	SS17	09:51	Lough Gill	13.51 km	Mikko Hirvonen	6:27.0	125.7 km/h
	SS18	12:09	Donegal Bay	14.47 km	Mikko Hirvonen	8:09.7	106.4 km/h
	SS19	13:10	Donegal Town	1.50 km	Mikko Hirvonen	1:08.1	79.3 km/h

Pos Driver IRL NOR CYP POR ARG ITA GRC POL FIN AUS ESP GBR  Pts  1 Sébastien Loeb 1 10 2 Dani Sordo 2 8 3 Mikko Hirvonen 3 6 4 Henning Solberg 4 5 5 Chris Atkinson 5 4 6 Sébastien Ogier 6 3 7 Matthew Wilson 7 2 8 Khalid al-Qassimi 8 1 Pos Driver IRL NOR CYP POR ARG ITA GRC POL FIN AUS ESP GBR Pts

Key Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Points finish Blue Non-points finish Non-classified finish (NC) Purple Did not finish (Ret) Black Excluded (EX) Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Cancelled (C) Blank Withdrew entry from the event (WD)

Rank	Driver	Event												Total points
		IRL	NOR	CYP	POR	ARG	ITA	GRC	POL	FIN	AUS	ESP	GBR
1	Citroën Total World Rally Team	18												18
2	BP Ford World Rally Team	8												8
	Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team	8												8
4	Citroën Junior Team	5												5

• [1] at official page WRC.com