Rally Australia was held on September 12-15 in the Coffs Harbour region of NSW. Clerk of Course was Adrian Stafford.

World Rally Championship Round 10

Australian Rally Championship Round 5

It was a big field of almost 100 cars for 2013 Coates Hire Rally Australia, with 29 cars entered in the WRC event and 69 cars entered in the various categories of the ARC. The size of the field combined with the dry and dusty conditions presented some challenges for the organisers, with extended gaps and the different categories having to compete in different combinations of stages.

Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia (VW Polo) came to Australia with a commanding lead in the WRC with four rounds remaining. There nearest rivals were Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul (Ford Fiesta) fully 75 points adrift, or the equivalent of three wins. Jar-Matti Latvala and Miika Anttila (VW Polo) were 11 points further behind. While any of the three could mathematically still win the title, a solid victory in Australia would all but confirm the title for the Volkswagen pair.

Three works teams came to Australia with nine WRC1 cars. VW brought Ogier, Latvala and Mikkelsen, Ford brought Neuville, Østberg and Novikov, while Citroën brought Hirvonen, Meeke and Al-Qassimi. Local Nathan Quinn with Glenn Macneall were the only other WRC1 car, a Mini John Cooper Works. A solid list of WRC2 entrants made up the remainder of the WRC field.

Ogier was dominant, and by the end of the first full day had a 20 second lead on Hirvonen, followed by Neuville, Meek and Latvala. Ogioer won all the Day Two stages to extend his lead to 46 seconds. On the second run of the monster Nambucca stage, Meeke had a big off and retired. Positions remained the same until the final Power Stage, which Ogier won by 2.8 seconds from Neuville. Hirvonen punctured and dropped almost a mute, falling back to third place.

This was the first year of the 2WD ARC and it was being dominated by Eli Evans and Glen Weston in the G2 Honda Jazz. They took the first day (heat) by 30 seconds from Brendan Reeves and Rhianon Smyth in the G2 Mazda 2. Reeves struck back taking Day Two by just 1.5 seconds. Scott Pedder and Dale Moscatt took Day 3 in a Renault Clio R3 by 9 seconds from Reeves, with Evans 11 seconds back in third. Evans took the overall points from Reeves, with Tom Wilde and Bill Hayes third in another Renault Clio.

The East Coast Bullbars 4WD ARC round was won by John Mitchell and Jo Cadman in a Lancer Evo7 and the Classic Challenge by Neal Bates and Coral Taylor in the Celica RA40. Honours in the SidexSide Challene were shared between Cody Crocker/Greg Foletta who won the Friday heat, and Michael Guest and David Green who won the Saturday and Sunday heats.