Stéphane Sarrazin
The rally started in Valence on Wednesday 19 January and covered over 1341 km including 337 km in thirteen special stages. Stages were run both in daylight and at night and included two passes through the famous Col de Turini on the Friday night. A full capacity 120 entries were registered for the event including Le Mans 24 Hours star Stéphane Sarrazin and WRC brothers Petter and Henning Solberg. This was in addition to the regular IRC participants; Jan Kopecký, Freddy Loix, Bruno Magalhães, Thierry Neuville, Guy Wilks and reigning champion Juho Hänninen.