KEY POINTS:
It doesn't seem that long ago we were witnessing the closet finish in world rally history when Marcus Gronholm held off Sebastien Loeb to win Rally New Zealand by 0.3 of a second.
Minus the recently retired Gronholm, the 2008 World Rally Championships start this weekend with the traditional season opener Rally Monte Carlo.
Defending world champion Loeb starts in an unchanged team at Citroen who are looking to win another manufacturer's title to go alongside Loeb's four world titles.
Jari-Matti Latvala replaces Gronholm at defending manufacturer champions Ford, and the team will be looking to their other driver, Mikko Hironen, the only driver to beat Loeb and Gronholm to a rally win in 2007.
Subaru will persevere with their 2007 car until the new one is ready mid-season and drivers Petter Solberg and Aussie Chris Atkinson remain with the team. The new car should be in action at Rally New Zealand in August.
The new manufacturer on the block is Suzuki headed by Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima, a man known to Kiwis as the king of the annual Race to the Sky event. They won the Junior World Rally championships, presenting with the experienced Toni Gardemeister and youngster Per-Gunnar Andersson.
For the first time New Zealand will have a full PWRC team, Ralliart NZ, run by Neil Allport Motorsport. Juho Hanninen - who won 32 special stages last year, 11 more than the eventual champion Toshi Arai - with Kiwi co-driver Tony Sircombe will drive for the first season. Ralliart NZ have announced their intention to run a home-grown driver as soon as practical, possibly by 2009.
New Zealand has being confirmed as being part of the recently introduced alternating years system and as such after this year the rally will not return to our shores until May 14-17, 2010.
