The 2011 IRC season review

Andreas Mikkelsen didn't look like a man destined to be the 2011 Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion when he smacked his Skoda into a barrier within yards of the start of the Monte Carlo Rally in January. But just as his title-winning predecessors Kris Meeke and Juho Hanninen had done before him, Mikkelsen used a full campaign in rallying's burgeoning second-tier category to out-grow his predilection for calamity without losing his blistering speed, and proved he is ready for a big future at world championship level.

In 2011 the IRC boasted greater season-long strength in depth than the still-young series had mustered before and produced its closest action yet. Four rallies included victory margins of under two seconds, and five drivers went into the season finale with a title shot (six on paper, had Bryan Bouffier been present). And while the scoring system put greater emphasis on the concluding rounds in Scotland and Cyprus, even without the bonus points the fight would have been subject to a five-way battle.

Bouffier took a shock Monte Carlo victory by taking the right tyres when it snowed

Ironically the only man who would have been ruled out under a standard scoring plan was Mikkelsen; a reflection of how he came on ever stronger as the season progressed. A total of 38 stages wins - 14 more than anyone else - emphasised that the Norwegian was the year's fastest driver too.

Of the men he defeated, Skoda's favoured son Jan Kopecky, veteran Freddy Loix and shock Monte victor Bouffier were too often filed under 'steady' rather than 'spectacular' to be worthy title-winners. Reigning champion Hanninen was extraordinary at times, but a poor end to the season cost him as he focused on winning the S2000 World Rally title. But Thierry Neuville, in many ways the breakthrough star of the year, would've been just as deserving a champion as Mikkelsen. If, as is entirely possible, the pair reprise their fight in world title level in years to come, the 2011 IRC should be remembered as the series that really launched them into rallying's stratosphere.

The IRC top 10 in focus

1. Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda UK)
Points: 153.5
Wins: 2
Other podiums: 2
Stage wins: 38

There were plenty of people sceptical about Mikkelsen's appointment to the Skoda UK seat vacated by Peugeot-bound Guy Wilks. Nobody doubted Mikkelsen's speed, but his campaign in the Hankook Ford in 2010 had featured an awful lot of early retirements - many his own fault - and he was a conspicuously Norwegian choice for an ostensibly British team, albeit one actually based in Italy.

Crashing before Monte Carlo had barely begun didn't help Mikkelsen's cause, and a chastened sixth in the Canaries hardly wowed either. But helped by extensive non-IRC mileage in Italian events plus parity of equipment with the factory Skodas, Mikkelsen soon found his feet - fighting for podiums in Corsica and Ukraine. Another early accident on the Ypres Rally was just a blip, and he was a victory threat at every event thereafter. It was no surprise to see him fly on the Azores gravel - where only team orders halted his pursuit of winner Hanninen - but he was equally rapid on asphalt.

When he crashed with a maiden win in sight in Hungary, and then saw Neuville steal Sanremo from him by a tiny margin, it started to look like Mikkelsen was destined to always fall just short. But commanding triumphs in the key Scotland and Cyprus events completed both a remarkable championship turnaround for a man who had been seventh in the standings, and a deserved rehabilitation of his reputation as one of rallying's most exciting future stars.

2. Jan Kopecky (Skoda)
Points: 152
Wins: 2
Other podiums: 5
Stage wins: 19

According to Skoda's script for 2011, home hero Kopecky was going to win the title. He had the full might of the IRC's leading factory team behind him, the best car and a complete 11-round programme, plus after overshadowing the Czech in 2010, Hanninen had been moved on to the S-WRC, in theory leaving the IRC path clear for Kopecky.

Had drivers been able to count all their results - not just their best seven - Kopecky would've been champion, and even under the IRC's quirky system he missed out by just 1.5 points. But ultimately, just as in 2010, there were too many rallies where he simply wasn't quick enough, often by some distance.

There were fewer mistakes than last year, though his main one - crashing and injuring co-driver Petr Stary on the Ypres shakedown - was costly. And he was a threat for victory in Canarias and Corsica, drove very well to defeat Freddy Loix and Hanninen on Rally Zlin, and beat Neuville in Hungary once Mikkelsen had crashed.

But everywhere else he was a long way off the pace, losing far more time than any other frontrunner in the same position when he got his tyre choice wrong amid the Monte Carlo snow, for instance. Had he become champion, it would've been largely by virtue of staying out of trouble at key times when faster drivers made errors.

3. Juho Hanninen (Skoda)
Points: 125
Wins: 3
Other podiums: 2
Stage wins: 21

With the IRC ticked off in 2010, Skoda and Hanninen decided his focus for 2011 should be the S-WRC, which he duly won. But he also squeezed in enough IRC rounds to almost become a double champion, even though he rarely knew until the eve of rallies whether he would be in the field or not.

It was very much a season of two halves for Hanninen, though. Early on, he was breathtaking. It wasn't so long ago that his lack of asphalt experience was seen as a weakness, yet he absolutely blitzed the field on Monte Carlo's dry roads before being caught on the wrong tyres amid the surprise snowstorm. His first asphalt win came by defeating Kopecky, Neuville and Loix in the Canarias, and he won again in Ukraine and the Azores.

At that stage his 2011 IRC tally stood at three wins in four appearances and the thought of anyone else winning the title seemed a travesty. But as his S-WRC title fight with Ott Tanak intensified and his IRC outings became last frequent, Hanninen started to look a little more human. Zlin delivered only a muted third and he took a long time to find his feet in Scotland. He still made it to second, making him the title favourite heading for Cyprus, only to bizarrely crash out at the start of the first proper stage and end his chance of an S-WRC/IRC title double.

4. Freddy Loix (BFO Skoda)
Points: 123
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 4
Stage wins: 18

Last year Loix managed three wins from four IRC appearances. Yet with an enhanced eight-round schedule and additional Skoda support, that score dropped to just one victory.

It wasn't that Loix's performances tailed off, more that the IRC stepped up another gear and his rivals threw away fewer chances than they had in 2010 - which meant his late-rally surges (after habitual slow starts that Loix often put down to his age making him sleepy) delivered podiums but few wins this time.

He still dominated on home turf in Ypres for a seventh win in the classic event, but his title bid stumbled with an uncharacteristic crash while leading in Sanremo. Given his lack of recent gravel mileage, entering Cyprus was commendably bold, though sure enough he didn't have the pace to fight for the rally win that his championship challenge required.

5. Thierry Neuville (Peugeot Belux)
Points: 115
Wins: 2
Other podiums: 2
Stage wins: 24

Ignore the fact he was only fifth in the points, Neuville was the most impressive driver of the IRC season in many ways. The quiet promise he showed in 2010 gave no hint of the superlative progression he would demonstrate this year. Team boss Marc van Dalen, who ran Sebastien Loeb to the 2006 WRC title, rates Neuville extraordnarily highly, and the young Belgian goes into the winter as a very hot property on the driver market.

Part of the reason Neuville's achievements were given so much credit was the underdog element; his Peugeot was not as quick a car as the Skoda and he still lacked top-level experience, especially on gravel. Putting his far more established team-mate Guy Wilks firmly in the shade didn't hurt either.

After the false start of an early crash in Monte Carlo, Neuville declared his intentions for 2011 by fighting for victory in the Canaries, then followed that up with a consummate win in Corsica. Early disasters in Yalta and Ypres were a reminder of his inexperience and a big factor in his championship defeat, but he got his season back on course with blistering late charges in Hungary and Sanremo that delivered a close second and another win.

With the title run-in on gravel, few expected Neuville to really feature. Yet he fought for the lead in both Scotland and Cyprus, salvaging sixth in the former despite two long visits to the scenery as he pushed harder than his experience level really allowed. He was neck and neck with Mikkelsen in Cyprus too, until a puncture and then an alternator failure halted him. Dominating the following day's non-championship Golden Stage Rally showed what might have been, but Neuville will clearly have many more chances to win major rally titles in the future.

6. Bryan Bouffier (Skoda France)
Points: 110.5
Wins: 1
Other podiums: 3
Stage wins: 9

Prior to Monte Carlo, Bouffier had not even scored an IRC point, though national titles in Poland and France and some rapid times on luckless previous IRC outings suggested he was worth watching. And until the snow came, he was a relatively distant seventh, looking at fifth place at best.

A perfect tyre choice in the changing conditions dramatically vaulted Bouffier into the lead, and he then kept his cool to take by far the biggest win of his career.

Whether it proves to be an anomaly in the record books or the start of something big remains to be seen. Bouffier thrived when confident in his car's set-up, and there were too many occasions later in 2011 when he was not sufficiently at one with his PH Sport-run Peugeot to join the victory fight.

He was relatively error-free and rarely far from the pace, but his modest stage win tally underlined that others could tap into their raw speed more readily. But ultimately when Peugeot decided it only had the resources to send one of its title contenders to Cyprus, it picked Neuville. The Belgian was a handful of points ahead of Bouffier, but more importantly had the momentum that the Monte winner had lost since his shock season-opening triumph.

7. Guy Wilks (Peugeot UK)
Points: 47
Wins: 0
Podiums: 1
Stage wins: 10

When Peugeot ordered Stephane Sarrazin to hand third to Wilks in Monte Carlo, it did so in the expectation that the Englishman was going to be its main title challenger this year. It never would have imagined that this retrospectively contrived result would be Wilks' only visit to the podium all season.

There were several reasons why what should have been the biggest opportunity of Wilks' career to date ended in such disappointment. Bad luck - in the form of both punctures and mechanical failures - was key among them.

But there were also a lot of errors, as he crashed out in Corsica, the Azores and Sanremo. Frustration seemed to be a factor - not only did misfortune keep intervening, but all the time Wilks struggled, his much less experienced team-mate Neuville was getting better and better. And the harder Wilks tried to make amends, the more awry things went. Take Ypres, where he was the only man vaguely near runaway winner Loix, but ended up with no fewer than three punctures and finished only fifth. Or Scotland, where he was in the thick of the lead fight before a suspension issue contributed to an accident that dropped him to 23rd.

8. Patrik Sandell (Skoda Sweden)
Points: 44
Wins: 0
Podiums: 1
Stage wins: 3

Sandell, the 2006 Junior WRC champion, often seemed taken aback by how hard it was to make an immediate impact in the IRC. But amid the series' strongest year yet, armed with a Skoda some way shy of the four factory-backed cars' spec, and given his lack of experience of most events, the Swede probably did as much as could be expected.

His form improved as the year progressed, and though a strong run in Scotland ended with a late error, he was able to round off 2011 on a high with a maiden IRC podium in Cyprus.

9. Toni Gardemeister (TGS Skoda)
Points: 43
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Stage wins: 0

Long-time factory WRC driver Gardemeister never looked like a frontrunner in his first full IRC campaign. But unlike fellow 1990s WRC star Loix, Gardemeister did not have top-level equipment; his Skoda, like Sandell's, not a match for the works cars. Both Gardemeister and his brand new TGS team also faced an experience deficit on the established IRC rounds, and he was using the still-developing Hankook tyres. His luck wasn't often fantastic either. All that added up to a season generally in the lower reaches of the top 10 for a driver who had looked capable of far more on his one-off Monte outings in preceding years.

10. Karl Kruuda (ME3 Skoda)
Points: 39
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Stage wins: 0

J-WRC convert Kruuda had an eventful first season in S2000 equipment and the IRC. Running from the same JB stable as his fellow Skoda privateer Sandell, he faced the same machinery disparity as the other customer Fabia runners, and his rallies tended to feature a wide variety of mechanical and driving adventures - all handled with good humour and positivity.

But when all ran relatively smoothly, he made it to the top five in both Ypres and Cyprus. His season is best seen as one of experience gathering ahead of bigger things to come.

Any other business?

Points system - The best seven scores count rule had always made the IRC accessible to those who couldn't afford the full season, but too often led to top names missing rallies. By 2010, the IRC's sheer competitiveness meant most were doing longer programmes, but still too many wandered off once the title battle seemed settled, leaving Scotland and Cyprus with poor entries. Making Scotland worth points-and-a-half and Cyprus a double scoring round was therefore pragmatic wisdom, not a gimmick, even though the battle was ultimately so close it was unnecessary. It did at least redress the balance a little for gravel specialists by giving added weight to two dirt rounds, for the eventual shape of the calendar meant the series was nearly all-asphalt up to October.

The 'Monte' is sadly off the calendar in 2012

Calendar - That asphalt bias was partly unintentional, as the late cancellation of the Argentine round and Hungary's Mecsek Rally dropping its gravel sections meant that Monte Carlo's snow and the Azores' loose surface were the only non-sealed surface moments in the first nine months of the schedule. Next year's calendar will also be without two of the IRC's established highlights, as the legendary Monte returns to the world championship fold, and Scotland falls by the wayside. Both will be sadly missed.

Monte Carlo guests - The Monte's three-year stint under the IRC's flag will be remembered for the galaxy of stars from around world motorsport who turned up for cameo appearances. After interlopers Sebastien Ogier and Mikko Hirvonen's 2009 and '10 triumphs, this year the IRC regulars kept the guests under control. Petter Solberg was a distant second to Hanninen before both made disastrously wrong tyre calls when snow hit, Sarrazin was a strong third prior to the team orders that required him to give the spot to Wilks, and ex-Formula 1 man Alex Caffi entertained on the way to 12th. But the hero was Francois Delecour, who judged the conditions perfectly and emerged in an amazing second in his first top-level rally for eight years, before sliding back to finish a still praiseworthy fifth.

The Protons often came unstuck, despite the quality of Andersson, seen here

Proton - It was another season of strife for the IRC's third big supporter, as the MEM-run team gallantly pushed on with dual IRC and Asia Pacific programmes despite lacking the resources of rival manufacturer squads. An extremely strong driver line-up of Per-Gunnar Andersson and Giandomenico Basso as regulars, supplemented by Proton's APRC men Chris Atkinson and Alister McRae on occasion, did their utmost, but every time they had a chance to show the car's potential, its fragility intervened. The most heartbreaking moment was in Scotland, where Andersson was in the podium hunt until his Satria declined to start at a regroup.