KEY POINTS:
While Italian MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi is not back for the 38th Rally of New Zealand, fans of rallying get a perfect replacement in world champion Sebastien Loeb.
Loeb, who missed last year's three-day race through Waikato because he broke his collarbone mountain-biking, has arrived in Hamilton focused
on staying within an arm's length of current World Rally Championship leader Marcus Gronholm.
Despite acknowledging gravel is not his specialist surface, Loeb is primed to reel in the flying Finn.
Almost without peer on tarseal, Loeb is eight points behind the reigning Rally of New Zealand champion - hardly an insurmountable gap with six rounds of the global circuit to be played out.
While the points differential between two of rallying's standard bearers is slight, Loeb has already had to make up significant ground on Gronholm, for whom New Zealand's highly cambered surfaces have become something of a second home.
Since Loeb last drove - and won here - in 2005, the rally's route has changed so markedly he has only competed over the coastal stages featured on Sunday's climactic day.
"Missing last year's event clearly doesn't play in our favour," he said. "We lack a little experience here but I'm pleased with the notes we took last year - and that's better than starting completely from scratch."
Citroen's spearhead took a relaxed drive around the preceding 11 stages on a reconnaissance mission before Gronholm swept all before him, though his pace notes required some revision after a couple of stages were fractionally shortened.
A switch to a winter slot on the calendar also means the hard and fast road conditions Loeb assessed last summer will doubtless be more sluggish and slippery. Gronholm's pedigree also poses a substantial obstacle for the Frenchman, considering he is gunning for a record fifth victory here.
Should the 2002 world champion top the podium at Mystery Creek, he will overtake Carlos Sainz as the rally's most successful driver. "I know Marcus is really fast here so it will not be easy to win," Loeb said.
Indeed, he admitted finishing, not necessarily winning, was his imperative. "There are still five events after New Zealand so there are still plenty of points up for grabs.
"I want to pass Marcus so we will do what we can to win. That said, we cannot afford to leave Hamilton with a blank scorecard. So my objective will be to win, but not at all costs."
Loeb's relaxed demeanour is understandable considering three of the remaining five rallies are on tarmac. That ratio ensures there will be no let-off from Gronholm, who is still cursing a minute concentration lapse in Germany 11 days ago that cost him second place - and four points - when a crash damaged his suspension.
"I need to score the highest points possible. Losing second place on the final stage in Germany has increased my determination for New Zealand," a flu-ridden Gronholm said yesterday, after the traditional shakedown test.
Gronholm, the marquee driver for the BP-Ford World Rally Team, will be first away in today's five special stages in the Otorohanga-Waitomo region before returning for the super stage at Mystery Creek.
Other than Loeb, Gronholm's compatriot and teammate Mikko Hirvonen - currently third in the championship - is considered the other candidate for the dais.
Local interest is confined to the second-tier Production Car World Rally Championship (PWRC) class where reigning national champion Richard Mason plus wildcards Emma Gilmour and South Canterbury teenager Hayden Paddon are entered.
Mason was second in the PWRC division last year and hopes to go one better to strengthen his bid to raise $1 million - the budget required to enter the six-leg circuit next year.
Paddon, meanwhile, is seeking to protect his 18-point lead in the national championship while Gilmour is continuing her rehabilitation from a serious crash at Whangarei in May.
- NZPA