Monte Carlo, home of the rich, the famous and the Malaco Grand Prix, F1's most iconic motor race. As the cars complete a lap of this circuit they'll pass by another significant landmark, Casino Square. This is also a key location in the world of motorsport, as the traditional starting point of the most varied, demanding and fearsome competition you'll ever see, the world rally championship. If you've not watched rallying before, you're in for a treat, and today we'll cover the basics so that you know what to expect when the cars go off road. Let's start with the basics. Rallying is a form of motorsport where drivers compete against the clock, and is unlike anything you've seen before. In Formula 1 you see cars battling against each other on a racetrack, but in rally the cars compete on the public roads in a point to point format. Drivers don't battle and overtake one another as that would be too dangerous, instead they race against the clock. Each driver sits off a butter minute or two apart, giving each other enough space to go flat out through the narrow roads. Every rally is split up into a number of stages, and your time across all of them is added up and compared against the rest of the field. A rally will often take place across a number of days, instead of a few hours like in Formula 1. Another thing that's different to Formula 1 are the cars, which are both simple and complex at the same time. The key takeaway here is that rally cars are highly modified versions of the road cars you see at home. That's always been a core part of rallying for well over 50 years. More often than not, the only component that carries over from the road car is the shell. Everything else is toughened up, lightened, or swapped out entirely to improve performance. The most obvious change from the outside of course are those massive rear wings, as well as the widened bodywork. This all helps with the car's air dynamics, giving it more downforce for cornering and better control over jumps. Under the hood there's a lot going on too. WRC cars use very tough suspension systems to deal with all of the bumps in the road, and are converted to all wheel drive for better performance in low grip situations. In 2022, the top class of WRC also introduced hybrid power, just like in Formula 1. When the car's break, they store energy into a battery, and the driver uses that energy to go faster. Despite all this fancy technology and incredible performance, however, the cars are still road legal, and if you're in a country where they're racing, you may even see them in traffic between stages. In most forms of motorsport, the racing happens in a contained and dedicated area. While the layouts may change, most racetracks come in two flavors, closed off circuits and street courses. WRC is far more varied, however, touring the world and giving drivers new and unique challenges with every event. The season starts at Monte Carlo, but not on the streets of the Grand Prix. Instead, the rally cars head up the mountains to tackle narrow roads full of snow and ice. From there, the crews head to the high-speed snowy forests of Sweden, the patchy concrete and tarmac of Croatia, and then the brutally tough gravel of Portugal, Serdenia, and the Safari rally of Kenya. Throughout the season, the drivers will have faced every condition there is to offer, taking on tight hairpins, massive jumps, dense fog, heavy rain, dark nights, and so much more. It takes a special kind of talent to succeed in such a challenging environment, which is why the best are the ones who are brave, adaptable, and true masters of driving. Throughout the WRC's 50-year history, many legends have taken to the wheel. Kalamakre is an Emmy-made heard of, Tommy Macchinan too. Going further back, you've drivers like Walter Rol and Hanumikola who tame the wild beasts of the 1980s, and the modern era has its fair share of talent too. Sebastian Loeb is the most successful rally driver of all time, winning nine world championships. In recent years, he's tried his hand at Rallycross, Dacar, Extreme E, and many other things, and in 2022, he makes a return to rally with the M-Sport Four team. He'll be competing part-time, but expect him to be fighting for victories. If Sebastian Loeb is like the Michael Schumacher of WRC, Sebastian Oje can be considered the sports Lewis Hamilton. An eight-time world champion Oje is considered a complete package, somebody who rarely makes mistakes and knows the right balance between risk and reward. Like Loeb, he'll also be racing part-time, but expect his tires to be on the podium whenever he competes. Behind these two heroes lie several other drivers who are equally as brave and talented behind the wheel. The field as a whole is incredibly close, with days of rallying often decided by seconds. Some drivers would be experts on gravel, orders on tarmac, and some are all rounders who will take on anything you throw at them. These drivers are not alone on the road, however, with their co-drivers playing just as big a role in their success. Every motor sport is a team effort, however in most there's only one person in the car. Rallying is different as you have two drivers, each with an important role to play. While the main driver does the obvious, the co-driver has their eyes on the road ahead, using a complicated language of commands to allow the driver to go flat out. Corners go by so quickly on these narrow roads that drivers need a fast and clear way of understanding what's ahead of them, and unlike in circuit racing, you can't learn hundreds of kilometers of public road that easily. Together with a co-driver they develop a pace note system, which describes every upcoming corner with only two to three words. Let's look at an example. 200, four right into three left long, here pin right, rocks outside. The 200 is the distance to the next set of turns, usually in meters. Each corner is given a rating depending on how tight it is, a one would be a fairly tight turn to take, or as a six would be a bit faster. In this case we have a four which isn't too tricky and goes to the right. Into tells the driver that the next turn comes up straight away, so they need to be ready while taking the four right. This is a longer corner followed by tight hairpin. There's rocks on the outside so the driver needs to be careful. Even with a set of detailed notes, crashes can happen, big ones. A driver can push too hard, miss here a note, or the co-driver could call out the wrong number by mistake. The cars are very strong and driver safety is pretty good these days, but there's a good chance that car won't be moving after a big shot. If a car takes damage, however, the rally isn't over. Some damage might be fixed upon the road, or the car can impome to the service park. When they get there a team of mechanics work quickly to repair as much as they can. A damaged car can still compete, and even if it can't win the overall rally, some teams will try to win the power stage at the end of the rally, more on that later. Each rally is a week long event with multiple challenges presented every day. Tuesday and Wednesday is normally when the wrecky happens. Here, the crews will head out to the stages in normal roadcars and map out each route. This is where they have come up with their pace notes, or improve their ones from last year if the roads are the same. On Thursday you have the shakedown where teams can warm up on a short stage and refine their setups. This is like free practice in Formula One. In the evening you didn't have the ceremonial start, and maybe one or two stages of the actual rally. The rally proper begins on Friday. Each day has a number of stages where the teams will go flat out to set the best times. In between these stages, the drivers will take the cars on public roads to get to the next destination. They're not racing here though, just getting from A to B. This repeats on Saturday and Sunday, with the final stage of the rally being a power stage, giving up bonus points for the fastest times. After a few stages, the rally cars head back to the service park for repairs and setup changes, but on the road, the crews are on their own. If there's an issue with the car, they'll have to fix it themselves, meaning both the driver and co-driver need to be expert mechanics as well. They'll also need to do quick tire changes if there's a puncture, which leads into the overall strategy of a rally. A point to point seems simple in theory, but look beneath the surface and there's a lot to think about. First off, the road evolves over time, and what you drive on the wrecky may feel different when you compete for the best time. At the start of a rally, the roads can be dusty as nobody's raced on them yet. The first few cars will essentially sweep the road during the runs, making it a bit faster for the cars behind. After a while, the roads will then start to deteriorate. Drivers will kick up mud, dirt and stones from clipping the edges of the road, and on gravel and snow rallies, they'll form deep ruts as everyone tries to find the fastest line. Learning to read the road ahead is a key skill, with drivers adjusting on the fly and deciding how much of a risk they're willing to take. This also plays into the tire strategy. Tires aren't as sensitive as they are in Formula 1, as they need to do hundreds of kilometers a day on both the stages and the public roads. You have tire compounds of course, where you choose between performance and durability, but you also need to consider how many spare tires you bring. Do you go safe with two and deal with the extra weight on the car, or take a risk and only bring one? There's a lot to think about as you try to gain valuable championship points. The lowest combined time across all of the stages determines the winner, and the point system is fairly straightforward. You get 25 for a win, 18 for a second, and so on, same as in Formula 1. On top of this, there are bonus points given out for the power stage, 5 for the winner, and more for the rest of the top 5. The manufacturer's championship is a little more complicated. Teams know in a three-year-to-three before an event, and the fastest two of the last score points. Some drivers are full-time and some are part-time, whereas in Formula 1, the same two drivers enter every race. Now that you know the basics, I'm sure you're excited to get involved. Every day's action is live on WRC Plus, their official streaming service. You get live maps, on boards, and commentary all the way through. rallies are also shown on various TV networks across the world. Here's a list, and I'll link it in the description. Due to the long nature of a WRC event, highlights are often a great way to catch up. Red Bull TV is my go-to place for this. They have a 30-minute show every day that rounds up all the action. WRC also have a lot of content on their YouTube channel. It's a great place to visit if you want the basics, or want to know more about the sports rich history. Speaking of YouTube, if you have any questions about WRC, or just want a chat about the sport, hit me up in the comments below. It's a great series to follow, and complete these different Formula 1. World weren't checking out. Thanks for watching, see you soon!