Ford Puma's ready for JWRC.

Four Ford Puma Super 1600 cars will tackle the Rallye Monte Carlo this weekend, as the first of seven rounds of the Junior World Rally Championship gets underway.

Chris Birkbeck Rallysport, the team that prepared the Puma which carried Francois Duval to JWRC victory on this rally last year, will run cars for former British Championship contender Guy Wilks and Phil Pugh and Norway's Martin Stenshorne with co-driver Clive Jenkins, who finished sixth in the series in 2001.

Italian team Astra Racing will be represented by rising young Lebanese star Abdo Feghali and co-driver Joseph Matar and Austrian Beppo Harrach with partner Michael Kolbach.

Wilks has progressed through Ford's Ladder of Opportunity programme and views his maiden season in the JWRC as one of learning.

"My confidence will improve as the year progresses as I haven't done any JWRC rounds apart from Great Britain. Monte Carlo will be about getting experience and fighting the rate of attrition to score some points. If you drive at 100 percent all the time, you won't finish. It's about finding the right balance between speed and staying on the road," said the 21-year-old.

Although Stenshorne has tackled the rally before, he only completed six stages before retiring. "It's a gamblers' rally. I'll drive carefully, try and be fast on the dry stages and easy on the others and if I can end up in the top three I'll be happy. I haven't had much time to prepare. I'm competing in the Norwegian Group N Championship this year as well so in January and February I have rallies every weekend," he explained.

Twenty-five-year-old Feghali said it was 'like a dream' when his 2003 drive was confirmed. "I'll aim to finish in the points in Monte Carlo by taking it slowly and making no mistakes. This is one of the hardest rallies in the world. I have no proper experience on ice or snow and I don't know how I will tackle it until I get there," he said.

Harrach's JWRC programme came as a surprise to the Austrian. "I wasn't expecting to be competing at all. The deal with Astra happened very quickly and it's all been a bit of a blur as I only finished the Austrian Group N Championship two days before the Rally of Great Britain last year. Swapping to a two-wheel drive car will be difficult. I've only driven heavy, long, four-wheel drive cars before," said the 23-year-old.