It’s going to be a slow ride in parts of the World Rally Championship’s Rallye Monte Carlo this year, with recce videos showing nice, fast dry sections interrupted by sheets of straight-up ice. Fun!
Recce is where competitors check out the stage roads before the event, and that often happens in a road car instead of the car they’ll race in. Citroën team director Yves Matton posted this onboard from one of his team’s recce cars, and it looks exactly like the kind of stage that sends someone hatch-forward into a tree, or perhaps sliding right off the hillside.
As Matton mentions, they’re also going to have to pick a single set of tires for this somehow—never mind that “dry” and “ice” are at the opposite ends of traction. It’s an impossible choice that leaves a driver compromised one way or the other.
You hear that sound? That’s the sound of a thousand rally butts clenching in worry. Welcome back to Rallye Monte Carlo!