The FIA World Rally Championship returns to Europe this week for round five of the series - Rally de Portugal, which is back on the calendar after a break of six years.

Portugal was first included on the WRC calendar in 1973, but took a break after the 2001 running of the event. Non-championship trials in 2005 and 2006 were observed by the sport's governing body, the FIA, and the rally was promoted back to the schedule for this year.

The 'old' WRC event used to be based in the north of the country, but now it is in the south, and the special stages will be unfamiliar to most of the leading crews until they drive them for the first time during their route reconnaissance.

The rally opens with the Algarve Stadium Superspecial at 1800hrs on Thursday 29 March, and the competitive action ends in the same location on Sunday 1 April, with the final stage due to start at 1345hrs. In total, the rally route covers 1008.70km, which includes 357.10km of special stages and 651.60km of road sections.


Special notes:

Formerly a mixed asphalt and gravel rally that covered much of the country, Portugal was named best rally in the championship on six occasions. However, it lost its place in 2002 and has been reborn in the Algarve, an area which has seen little national or international rallying.

The service area is at the Algarve Stadium, a spectacular sports venue not far from the city of Faro, on the south coast.

For the competitive sections of the event, the crews will travel into the hills of the Algarve, a popular destination for tourists and golf enthusiasts, and also head north across the border into a province known as Baixo Alentejo, famed for vast, undulating plains which are home to much of the country's agriculture industry.

In general, the roads which make up the special stages for this event have a smooth topping of gravel but a very compact, hard base. This means that if it rains, the roads could become very slippery. There are some narrow mountain tracks included in the route, but fast sections are predominant and the average speed is likely to be very high, particularly on the first day of the event.

As well as the 16 gravel stages, the rally starts and finishes with a fan-friendly Superspecial inside the Algarve Stadium. More than 20,000 spectators are expected at the events, which will run to a head-to-head format


FIA World Rally Championship news:

Marcus Gronholm remains top in the race for the 2007 FIA World Rally drivers' championship. Gronholm finished second in Mexico to take his points tally to 32.