World champion Neuville joins WRC stars for Monza Rally Show

Newly crowned world rally champion Thierry Neuville will headline a host of World Rally Championship stars set to compete at the Monza Rally Show next month.

The event has returned this year to celebrate Pirelli’s four-year stint as the WRC’s sole tyre supplier with the championship set to welcome South Korean tyre manufacturer Hankook to provide its control tyre from next season.

Event organisers have confirmed that Neuville, who lifted a maiden WRC title at last weekend’s Rally Japan season finale, will pilot a Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car.

Neuville will be joined at the 5-8 December event by two-time WRC champion Kalle Rovanpera, eight-time title winner Sebastien Ogier, M-Sport-Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux (piloting a Ford Puma Rally1), Hyundai driver Dani Sordo and newly crowned WRC2 champion and Toyota Rally1 signing Sami Pajari.

Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala is also set to be in action across the weekend.

The WRC drivers will take turns over the three days to tackle the Monza Rally Show course with guests in the passenger seat. Then, on Sunday, Neuville, Ogier, (Pajari in a Rally2 car), Sordo and Fourmaux will compete in the Masters’ Show on the main straight.

The Monza Rally Show gets under way with the shakedown on the Friday. The programme features nine special stages, covering a total of 154.38 timed kilometres.

“We are delighted to bring the World Rally Championship back to Monza, which we consider our home,” said Terenzio Testoni, Pirelli Rally activity manager.

“For us, it will be an opportunity to look back at our time as sole supplier to the WRC, four successful years, during which we learned a great deal.

“It will also be the occasion to say goodbye to the world championship while reiterating that rallying is still an important activity for us.”

The event began in 1978 and has largely been held annually attracting some of rallying’s biggest names. However, MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi is the event’s most successful driver recording seven wins.

Monza has previously hosted the final round of the WRC during the COVID-19-affected 2020 and 2021 seasons. Toyota’s Ogier won both editions to secure his seventh and eighth WRC titles.