Rally Australia was held on September 8-11 in the Coffs Harbour region of NSW. Clerk of Course was Michelle Gatton. assisted by Peter Macneall, Errol Bailey and others.

World Rally Championship Round 10

This year, with continued sponsorship from Repco, Rally Australia took up its new home in Coffs Harbour. It was again Round 10 of the WRC but this year there were thirteen rounds and so three to follow. There was also a new points system with 25 for first and 3-2-1 points on the final power stage, so up to 28 points available on each round. Sébastien Loeb came to Australia with a modest lead, 182 points, over team-mate Sébastien Ogier on 167 and leading Ford driver, Mikko Hirvonen on 156. There was plenty in play for among the three title contenders. This was also the first year for the new World Rally Car regulations, an upgrade of S2000 cars.

While only the Citroën and Ford works teams were present, twelve WRC cars were entered including from second level teams such as Petter Solberg in a privately entered Citroën. Citroën had Loeb and Ogier. The Ford Abu Dhabi team had Hirvonen, Latvala and Al-Qassimi, supported by the Stobart M-Sport team with Matthew Wilson, Henning Solberg, and the wild Russian, Evgeniy Novikov. There was also American ace, Ken Block, in a Fiesta. It was a somewhat disappointing field of 29 cars

The event started on Thursday night with two runs around a super special on the Coffs Harbour foreshore, repeated on Friday and Saturday evenings. The first full day had three stages out towards Dorrigo, repeated morning and afternoon. Conditions were wet and challenging. Loeb uncharacteristically rolled on SS4 along the old Dorrigo Road. He would super-rally to finally finish tenth, as well as winning the final Power Stage. It was nevertheless meant his points lead in the championship would be severely dented. Ogier took over the lead from Hirvonen and Latvala, but on the first afternoon stage he also slid off the road and was unable to continue. He super-rallied back into eleventh place but took no points from the round. Novikov then went off on the next stage but would super-rally only to roll again on the final day.

At the end of the first full day the two Fords were well in command, Hirvonen 7 seconds ahead of Latvala. The Solberg brothers were third and fourth. Latvala took over the lead early on Day Two and widened the gap back to Hirvonen to almost 23 seconds. Despite the improving conditions, the generally fast stages down around Nambucca Heads caught out a few drivers, including Henning Solberg who rolled out for the day on SS15.

The final day had three stages repeated in the forests west and north of Coffs and saw Hirvonen gradually peg back Latvala. On the second last stage, Latvala stopped to allow Hirvonen to win as he needed the championship points. Loeb won the power stage to claim 3 extra valuable points and would go on to win the title after Hirvonen had engine failure in Wales and failed to finish.

The best of the non World Rally Cars was Hayden Paddon in a  Subaru. The top Australian was Queenslander John Spencer, in a Lancer Evo9.