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After closely fought 2009 season and with Hirvonen winning the first round of the 2010 season, it seemed like Loeb's crown could be threatened. Not so, Mikko's fortunes took a dive from then on and he finished sixth in the championship, his worst performance since joining Ford. Instead, it was Latvala's and more importantly Sebastien Ogier's season. Both won two events and fought fiercely for the second place in the championship.
Driving the almost-latest specification Citroen C4 was Petter Solberg in his privately run and funded team for the second year running. Armed with a competitive car he was expected to give factory teams a run for their money and perhaps even win an event. In the end, win was out of reach but with eight podiums 2010 was Petter's best season in five years.
But ahead of these three revelations stood the old master, Sebastien Loeb. He won every tarmac event of the season, including the two new ones in Bulgaria and Alsace. And actually, his win in Alsace - in front of the home crowd - was the one that made sure of the seventh title for him.
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Calendar was expanded by one rally to total of 13 events and rounds were heavily shuffled around (again), with only four rallies from 2009 retaining their place in the calendar. Bulgaria was the new rally of the season, though French round switched from island of Corsica to Loeb's home ground in Alsace.
New championship was introduced as drivers of Super2000 cars got their own series while a new title was formed for teams, though only at a cup level. Championship points scoring was altered, increasing win to 25 points and 2nd place to 18 points. In terms of competition, that theoretically should increase the appeal of the victory and give incentive to fight for the win (read more about that theory).
Potentially the farthest reaching change was increase in rally lengths up to 500 kilometers, an increase of whopping 25%. Curiously enough, only one rally exceeded the old limit of 400 kilometers. It remains to be seen whether trend of shrinking events will be reversed in the future.
In driver market the news was co-driver switch galore. Petter Solberg parted with long time partner Phil Mills and joined with Chris Patterson. His brother Henning switched from Cato Menkerud to Ilka Minor and Dani Sordo from Marc Marti to Diego Vallejo.
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No new homologations were permitted on World Rally Cars, so all year was run with 2009 spec cars. As testing and setup changes were allowed, it seemed that Citroen continued this work with better success than Ford.
The work on new breed of 1600cc turbocharged World Rally Cars intensified towards the end of the year and cars were unveiled by all three teams intending to compete in 2011 season. Those cars will be covered later, 2010 was a farewell to old WRCar rules that had been effect from 1997 till 2010.
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2010 FIA World Rally Champions, Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena
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Drivers scoring their
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first win
S. Ogier (Portugal)
first drivers' point
A. Araujo (Mexico)
M. Prokop (Mexico)
K. Raikkonen (Jordan)
A. Burkart (Turkey)
D. Kuipers (Turkey)
F. Turan (Bulgaria)
P. Sandell (Deutschland)
M. van Eldik (Deutschland)
K. Block (Catalunya)
first stage win
M. Prokop (Sweden)
K. Raikkonen (Deutschland)
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