In the opening rally of the 2025 World Championship, the crews with Škoda cars demonstrated their speed. Two crews with Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 cars finished in the TOP 5 of the Rally2 class, and a total of three crews with Škoda cars scored points in the WRC2 category.
The traditional season opener in Monte Carlo is a competition that is difficult for a variety of reasons. The unpredictable track surface, where asphalt alternates with snow and ice, poses a challenge, and for the crews, it also marks a full return to the racing pace of the World Championship after a short Christmas and New Year break. For this reason, many drivers treat Monte Carlo as a kind of a warm-up event, and crews do not typically nominate this rally as one of their seven scoring events in the WRC2 category.
This was the case this year for the Bulgarian Kyrgyz crew Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov, who also competed outside of the points. However, they still demonstrated their speed throughout the event. They fought for the win among the Rally2-spec cars, but in the overall rally classification, they ultimately finished in second place in the RC2 category, with a tire puncture on Sunday morning ruining their chances of victory for this Delta Rally Team crew.
Greensmith, who also didn’t score points, finished fifth overall in the RC2 category, even fighting for third place towards the end of the rally. He lost that position in the final power stage.
I wish I had taken one more studded tire,” admitted Greensmith. “But overall, it wasn’t bad. Transitioning to a new team takes some time to get used to, but they did a good job,” commented the driver, who is racing with the RaceSeven team this year.
Greensmith also described another piece of the puzzle regarding the difficulty of Rally Monte Carlo that drivers faced this year. All all-wheel-drive cars entered in the FIA World Rally Championship were required to use tires from a new supplier, Hankook, for the first time. “Of course, we tested them before the rally. But some of the conditions during the rally were completely new to us,” explained Greensmith.
The most successful of the point-scoring crews were the Italians Roberto Daprà and Luca Guglielmetti (Delta Rally Team), who brought their Fabia RS Rally2 to the finish in fifth place in the WRC2 category. The eighth position went to the Belgians Maxime Potty/Renaud Herman (Team PTR), while the tenth spot was claimed by Czech rally hope Filip Kohn, with British co-driver Ross Whittock assisting him in the Baumschlager Rallye&Racing team.
Crews with Škoda cars also succeeded in the WRC Masters Cup category, which is reserved for drivers over fifty years old. Italians Maurizio Chiarani and Flavio Zanella won the category ahead of their compatriots Enrico Brazzoli and Martina Musiari.
