Hyundai heads for the full Monte.

The Hyundai Castrol World Rally Team heads to the affluent tax-haven of Monaco next week to contest its first ever Rallye Monte Carlo.

Having begun its 2000 season in Sweden, omitting the first round, the team completed an optimistic inaugural year with the Accent WRC, and finished sixth in the Manufacturers' Championship. Following the recent signing of Piero Liatti to assist Alister McRae with its assault on tarmac rounds of the championship, Hyundai is optimistic about the new season.

Testing in the cold temperatures in the south of France has left the crew of McRae and co-driver David Senior, and the Italian pairing of Liatti and Carlo Cassina, looking forward to the first event of the year.

"The car has definitely improved over last year - the new active front diff is working well and the engine has improved a bit, so I'm looking forward to seeing if we can set slightly quicker times," McRae said, "Testing went well, but it is a pity we didn't get to test in snow or icy conditions as we haven't done the event before and the experience would have been useful. But it will help having Piero there, as he knows the rally very well. We'll be able to learn a lot from him, especially when it comes to advice on tyre choice."

Liatti, looking forward to his first season with Hyundai, is hoping for a Monte Carlo rally with difficult weather conditions.

"I think our best performance in Monte Carlo will be if the weather provides a variety of road conditions" commented the likeable Italian, "Unfortunately, the conditions I have been testing in have been wet. I always feel that setting the car up in the rain is more difficult than in the dry - if the car feels good in the dry then it will be good in all conditions. But, if we have a stage that covers dry, ice and snow, for example, then all competitors are in the same situation where tyre choice is difficult and everyone can either gain or lose time depending on their tyre choice."

Beginning the Korean manufacturer's second year in the World Rally Championship, team principal David Whitehead is optimistic.

"We are now in a position where all the lessons learnt in 2000 should put us in good stead to continue our ever-improving performance going into our second season," he said, "We are now armed with more experience and we hope for our first podium to not be too far away."

According to David Senior, most issues on the rally will revolve around the weather.

"The hardest thing with Monte Carlo is the weather," he explained, "Each stage can cover different altitudes and that means the roads surfaces will be different. You might begin one stage on dry tarmac and encounter ice and snow later in the stage. This makes tyre choice crucial as you might begin the stage on tyres suitable for one surface, that are not so suitable for another surface. The information given to us by the ice note crew is invaluable for choosing a tyre that is good for the predominant road surface of any given stage."

The Rallye Monte Carlo, the most famous of all World Rally Championship rounds, begins with a ceremonial start at the Monaco Place du Casino, on the evening of Thursday 18 January. The rally proper begins at 0700 the following day, for the longest leg of the rally, traversing a total of 142 kilometres. Leg two takes the crews further west to the Sisteron environs, for another 134 competitive kilometres, over challenging stages at higher altitude. The last four special stages totalling 112 kilometres on Leg Three, reaching an altitude of 1500 metres above sea level, before the crews wind their way back down into Monte Carlo for the finish at 1515 hours.