Skoda Changes Championships
Skoda will make the competition debut of the Fabia S2000 at the 2009 Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo and have announced their programme next year will comprise "selected competitions, primarily in the IRC series". Skoda Motorsport will run a two-car team, for Jan Kopecky and Juho Hanninen, and will also seek the chance for using the car on national level events in countries of the company's importers. Skoda were last officially active in 2005 in the FIA's World Rally Championship, before their cars were run semi-officially in world championship rallies in 2006. The Skoda, along with the VW, Proton and MG, features a long stroke engine, and like MG, Opel and Proton an Xtrac gearbox. Announced before the start of Gilles Panizzi at Monte Carlo Rally for Skoda is yet uncertain.

Four Kronos Cars in 2009
The IRC championship winning Kronos team from Belgium are planning to run four Peugeot 207 Super 2000 cars in the 2009 IRC series, starting from Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo. Kronos chief Marc van Dalen confirms that the team will run reigning IRC champion Nicolas Vouilloz and Freddy Loix on a regular basis, their sponsor BF Goodrich will again run a series of entries for celebrity drivers on individual rallies, while Peugeot UK are to run a car on the majority of IRC events for Kris Meeke. Three of the cars will be completely new but in the same specification as the cars which ran in 2008, although uprated specifications are due to be available in mid season. These are expected to include changes to gearbox ratios, evolutions to the engine and changes to the differential specifications. The support of Peugeot UK , who were instrumental in supporting world champions Colin McRae and Richard Burns in their early careers, is a major and encouraging breakthrough in international motorsport. It is also happy news after the withdrawal of Patrik Sandell's Peugeot Sweden team from PCWRC activities.

Other news
Abarth has announced the driver lineup: Giandomenico Basso, Anton Alen, Umberto Scandola and new signing, ERC and CIR 2008 champ, Luca Rossetti. They will all drive Abarth Grande Punto S2000's during 2009. Alen and Basso will again contest the IRC in '09. Scandola and Rossetti will compete in next season's CIR with the possibility of doing some IRC events starting with Rallye Monte Carlo. From Jan 1 the 2009 Punto will be homologated featuring some new revisions to the current car. The most major change to the car being the use of an Xtrac gearbox which replaces the Sadev unit previously used by Abarth.

Gareth MacHale plans to contest selected events in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge in '09, driving the Motor Sport Developments prepared Opel Corsa Super 2000.

MEM World Rally Team boss Chris Mellors wants to enter two Proton S2000's on the Rallye Monte Carlo in January to compete against the Punto's and 207's. One of the drivers should be Brian Bouffier who took the car to his debut in Rallye Antibes while the second car should be driven by PG Andersson recently free of contract since the retirement of Suzuki from WRC.

Eurosport have officially confirmed that Auriol, at 50 years of age, will compete on the IRC Rallye Monte Carlo in the Grifone 207. Auriol contested several IRC events last year in a Grifone Punto but suffered numerous reliability problems.

3mmm

2009 IRC Schedule
21-24.01.2009 Rallye de Monte-Carlo
05-07.03.2009 Rally Internacional de Curitiba - Brazilia
03-05.04.2009 Safari Rally - Kenya
08-10.05.2009 SATA Rally Açores - Portugalia
19-21.06.2009 Belgium Ypres Westhoek Rally
09-11.07.2009 Rally Russia
31-02.08.2009 Rali Vinho da Madeira – Portugalia
21-23.08.2009 Barum Rally Zlin - Cehia
11-13.09.2009 Rally Principe de Asturias - Spania
24-26.09.2009 Rallye Sanremo - Italia
22-24.10.2009 Rally Japan
19-21.11.2009 RAC MSA Rally of Scotland