Rally Australia was held on October 26-29, based in Perth.

World Rally Championship Round 14

This was the final Rally Australia edition held in Western Australia. The event moved to a slightly earlier date and was now the third last round of the 2006 WRC, with New Zealand and Wales to follow. It was an unusual championship because Sébastien Loeb, who had dominated the season in his Citroën, had been injured in a mountain biking accident prior to the previous round in Turkey. As a result, he was unable to compete in the final four rounds. Coming to Australia, Marcus Grönholm trailed Loeb 87 to 112, so needed 26 points from the final three rounds to become champion. That meant a minimum of third place (6 points) here, even if he won in NZ and Wales (which he did).

The event attracted a field of 56 cars with ten Group A, but only three works teams. Citroën had Xevi Pons in Loeb’s car, supported by Dani Sordo. Ford had Grönholm supported by Hirvonen in his first full year at the top level, and yet to win a WRC event. The Subaru World Rally Team had Solberg together with Chris Atkinson who had high hopes of winning his home event. Despite the withdrawal of Peugeot, the private team of OMV Peugeot Norway was there with Manfred Stohl and Henning Solberg. Another private team had Ford Focuses for Matthew Wilson (son of Malcolm) and Argentinian driver Luis Perez Companc.

Grönholm’s title chances all but evaporated on the first forest stage on Friday morning when he rolled off the road and lost over 10 minutes. He struggled back to 18th by day end, then up to seventh after Day Two and finally finished fifth, two places below what he needed to keep the championship alive. Sébastien Loeb had won the title while watching the event from his home in France! Sordo also retired on the first full stage with a broken transmission, but rejoined under super-rally rules.

Chris Atkinson lead his home event for the first two stages but on SS6 he ran wide, beached the car and started a fire on the dry grass. They were forced to retire for the day but rejoined on Day Two under super-rally rules with 30 minutes of further time penalties (5 minutes per stage missed, half for the two super specials). This placed them 36th at day end. They recovered to 17th by the end of Day Two and eventually finished ninth. Henning Solberg also crashed out on SS6.

So at the end of an exciting first day that had claimed a victim from each of the main teams, Hirvonen lead by 26 seconds from Solberg, then Pons, Stohl and local Dean Herridge in an impressive fifth place in a  Group N Subaru.

Stohl overtook Pons early on Day Two, while Herridge was overtaken by Toshi Arai before he crashed out. It was very tight among the top Group N runners and by the end of Day Two Herridge had been overtaken by Ligato, Latvala and Teiskonen, as well as Grönholm. Herridge eventually finished a fine eighth after Ligato’s engine failed on the third last stage. Positions at the top remained largely unchanged on the final day except for Grönholm’s climb to fifth, good but not good enough. It was Hirvonen’s first WRC round win.