Sébastien Loeb has won his third Monte Carlo Rally. The French driver’s success brings Michelin’s total to 20 wins in the principality since the creation of the World Rally Championship in 1973. In a repeat of last year’s Monte Carlo classification, Citroën and Ford secured first and second places. Sébastien Loeb and the Michelin-shod Citroën Xsara WRC dominated the season’s opening round from start to finish and Michelin’s tyres were competitive from the very first group of stages, which saw Loeb pull out a significant early lead.

This year’s Monte Carlo Rally also marked the introduction a new tyre regulation which, for this event, allowed drivers to use a maximum of 55 tyres from their allocated quota of 80 asphalt tyres and 50 snow tyres (although the latter weren’t actually fitted given the conditions). After consultation with their engineers and Michelin technicians, the drivers had to finalise their choice on the Monday before the event. The 80 asphalt tyres included the three or four compounds they believed would be competitive but the difficulty was determining the ideal quantity of each option for the three-day event. According to Michelin, its one-two finish in Monaco shows that the work put in by its technicians and partner teams and drivers in pre-event testing paid dividends.