Hi, Steemers!
Ice-note crews or gravel crews are crews that go on the stage just before road closing up to see what's going on on the road, they are looking for ice and snow patches that were not on the road when crews had recce (making marks of the road) and writing it on the radar.
Then they call or find crew on road just before the special stage and driver and co-driver put the additional notes with the original. So, that way they know where are the snowy patches or black ice etc.
So, ice-note crews are very experienced drivers and co-drivers with lots of experience.
Let we see the names:
(left is a driver and on the right is a ice/gravel-note driver)
M-Sport Ford:
Sebastien Ogier – Simon Jean Joseph
Elfyn Evans – Gwyndaf Evans
Bryan Bouffier - Pascal Enjolras
Hyundai:
Andreas Mikkelsen - Bernt Kollevold
Thierry Neuville – Bruno Thiry
Dani Sordo - Enrique Ojeda
Toyota:
Jari-Matti Latvala - Toni Gardemeister
Esapekka Lappi - Juho Hänninen
Ott Tänak - Martin Kangur
Citroën:
Kris Meeke - Stephen Whitford
Craig Breen – Mikko Hirvonen
From all this drivers from ice/gravel note crews only Bernt Kollevold and Stephen Whitford are less known. All the others are/were top drivers at that time with Hirvonen as a driver with lots of WRC wins.
Let the best win - as always...