It took place between 2-5 April 2009 and consisted of 18 special stages.

The event was won by Citroën's Sébastien Loeb ahead of Ford's Mikko Hirvonen and Loeb's teammate Dani Sordo.

The last point-scoring places went to Federico Villagra and Khalid al-Qassimi, after Evgeny Novikov crashed out from eighth place on stage 15, and fifth-placed Matthew Wilson and now eighth-placed Conrad Rautenbach both retired on the penultimate stage.

The early leader Jari-Matti Latvala had a big crash on the fourth stage, rolling his Ford Focus WRC 17 times over a distance of 150 metres.

Marcus Grönholm, who came out of retirement to contest the rally in a Prodrive-prepared Subaru Impreza WRC, crashed out from fourth place on stage eight.