The FIA World Rally Championship journeys to North America this week for the first of seven consecutive gravel events.

Loose surface roads are the dominant terrain in the series, hosting 10 of the 15 rounds, and so Rally Mexico will offer the best guideline to date for the season ahead.

Mexico is the first traditional gravel rally of the year and it is also the first long-haul event, and the only time the crews will visit the North American continent.

Based in the city of Leon in the Guanajuato region of Mexico’s central highlands, the event promises very different conditions to any seen so far this year in either Monte Carlo or Sweden.

Crews will compete for the first time on Pirelli’s new Scorpion gravel championship control tyre, available in only one compound and tread pattern.

It will be the third different tyre design crews have used in the first three events of the year.

Crews are banned from cutting the tread of their tyres this year, which on gravel typically meant opening up the tread pattern to maximise the tyre’s ability to cut through the loose surface.

This will mean road position is crucial as those further down the order will benefit from road cleaning, meaning a smoothing of the loose surface that will afford the standard tread better traction.

The route is much the same as last year with only minor additions to sections of the Ortega and El Cubilete speed tests. Mexico is the most compact route in the WRC, and this year is even more so than last with a total distance of just 830 kilometres. The 354 competitive kilometres of gravel roads traverse the mountains of the Sierra de Lobos and Sierra de Guanajuato to the east of Leon, reaching a peak altitude of just over 2700 metres where the oxygen is thin and engines struggle to develop power.