Rally

Kristoffersson won 11 of 12 rounds in 2018 in the defence of his first World RX crown, but was left without a rallycross seat when the PSRX Volkswagen team withdrew from the series at the end of that season. The Swede raced in the World Touring Car Cup last year, but his plans of continuing in the series were cut short when Volkswagen ended its works internal combustion engine motorsport ...Keep readingView the full article

The squad will run under the Team Hansen banner for 2020 and continue to field its ex-works Peugeot 208s. While the programme remains similar to last year, it will be run completely from Hansen Motorsport’s Swedish workshops in Gotene, rather than being based partially in France, for the first time since 2013. “Of course I’m happy to be back, I like to drive rallycross,” reigning ...Keep reading View the full article

Larsson, son of two-time European Champion Lars, has previously contested three full World RX campaigns, both with his own privately-run Audi A1 and an OlsbergsMSE-prepared Ford Fiesta, but stepped back to the European championship last season and dominated. He will now return to World RX with the same team that he won the European crown with last year, racing one of the latest Audi S1s built ...Keep reading View the full article

Swedish driver Marklund will drive a GC Kompetition-run Renault Megane for a third straight season this year, having joined the squad in the latter stages of the 2018 campaign, while also racing in the European Championship with his own team. Last season he briefly claimed a maiden World RX victory at Hell in Norway before being stripped of the result by a post-race technical infringement, but ...Keep reading View the full article

For its third year running the WRC-derived i20, the SET Promotion-operated GRX outfit has switched to French firm BOS Suspension as damper supplier, as part of a number of changes to the car. The team completed multi-day tests at Riga in Latvia and Loheac in France recently. Niclas Gronholm was forced to miss two rounds of World RX last season through illness, but won twice and finished fourth ...Keep reading View the full article

Two-time DTM champion and World RX podium finisher Timo Scheider has been retained by the squad for the preceding 2020 season, and will be joined in a full campaign by team owner Rene Munnich in a second Seat Ibiza RX. 2020 will be the last year that World RX’s top Supercar division is run for only conventional internal combustion engine [ICE] cars. Next year, steel-bodied, four-wheel drive ...Keep reading View the full article

A consensus to prioritise four-wheel drive vehicles was first reached in 2017, with the view of implementing the ruling the following year, but the FIA and other parties eventually agreed to delay the decision. The governing body has now officially declared that two-wheel drive vehicles will not be able to contest the top class of Dakar and other international cross-country rally from 2023 ...Keep reading View the full article

The World RX series will now run over 10 rounds in 2020, it has been confirmed by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in Geneva. While the FIA has only published a revised 2020 World RX calendar, with the planned sixth round on July 18-19 at the new Saint Petersburg track, the Russian Automobile Federation (RAF), has stated ‘lengthy negotiations with the promoter of the series and the ...Keep reading View the full article

While motor racing’s governing body has long stated it was monitoring the situation, it has stepped up its efforts with a committee that will get together every other day to discuss matters regarding the virus. In a statement issued by the World Motor Sport Council on Friday, it said the decision to create the cell was in response to feedback from Professor Gerard Saillant, who is president ...Keep reading View the full article

GC Kompetition owner and founder Chicherit has raced a Renault Megane RS RX for the last two years in World RX, originally developed by British firm Prodrive, and while he drove alongside Swede Anton Marklund in the GCK squad full-time last year, 2018 Super1600 champion Baciuska joined the effort in a third Megane part way through the season. Chicherit and Baciuska will now switch to driving ...Keep reading View the full article

Evans' tenure at Toyota has got off to a near-perfect start, as he followed up third place in Monte Carlo with victory in Sweden, his first triumph in rallying's top flight since 2017. It means he jointly leads the championship along with Hyundai man Thierry Neuville, five points clear of Evans' teammate Sebastien Ogier. Back in 2017, the Welsh driver was the understudy to Ogier at M-Sport ...Keep reading View the full article

The mixed-surface route is in the Mullenbachsleife amphitheatre section of the Formula 1 lap, the same area that the circuit’s original rallycross track was located to host the FIA Inter-Nations Cup in 1992 and 1993. The Nurburgring’s new design runs anti-clockwise and includes a start straight that doesn’t get used after the opening lap. Like former World RX venues at Franciacorta ...Keep reading View the full article

Hansen won his first FIA world crown in a dramatic season finale in South Africa last year, which included a clash with nearest rival Andreas Bakkerud in the last race of the campaign. The pair finished level on points, but Hansen secured the crown as his family’s Team Hansen MJP team scooped teams’ honours. “We are still working on everything, it’s all looking good, but if it was ...Keep reading View the full article

The Swede told Motorsport.com last month that he would make a decision on his 2020 programme after Rally Sweden had taken place, and having finished third overall in WRC3 driving a Volkswagen Polo R5 two weeks ago, Kristoffersson says he is now close to finalising plans for the rest of his campaign. While the former WTCR driver is still assessing rally and circuit racing outings, he is working ...Keep reading View the full article

The Spaniard will line up alongside Hyundai's regular drivers Ott Tanak and Thierry Neuville for the Leon-based event on March 12-15, the first proper gravel rally of the season. He takes over the third i20 Coupe WRC that was driven by Sebastien Loeb in Monte Carlo and Craig Breen in Sweden after a surprise call-up for the Irishman. Hyundai had originally announced its third car would be ...Keep reading View the full article

Welshman Evans went into Sunday's final stage of the shortened rally, the 21.19km Likenas test, with 17 seconds in hand over Hyundai's Ott Tanak. Giving away only 4.5s of his advantage, Evans duly navigated the test to score his first WRC victory since he triumphed on Rally GB in 2017. Tanak secured second, marking his first podium as a Hyundai driver, while Kalle Rovanpera topped the Power ...Keep reading View the full article

Toyota’s Evans set the fastest time in all three of Saturday morning’s stages and although he was only fourth on the afternoon’s Torsby Sprint stage, he beat reigning world champion Tanak to extend his advantage yet further over the Hyundai driver. If Evans stays ahead on Sunday, it will be the Welshman’s first victory since Rally GB in 2017 - where he triumphed with the M-Sport ...Keep reading View the full article

Evans started the day with an 8.5s advantage over the Hyundai of Ott Tanak but managed to double the gap, capitalising on the tricky terrain in the warmer weather. With confirmation that Sunday’s first running of the Likenas stage will not go ahead due to the unusually temperate conditions, Tanak has less than 25 kilometres to catch Sweden’s runaway leader. Behind the leading duo ...Keep reading View the full article

Evans dominated proceedings in the morning, winning two of the first three stages to take an eight-second lead into service over his teammate Kalle Rovanpera. The teenager had kept in touch with Evans heading into the final stage of the day, but a spin and a stall at a hairpin allowed defending World Rally champion Ott Tanak to move into second. Evans is now 8.5s ahead of Tanak heading into ...Keep reading View the full article

The Welshman won two of the morning’s three stages in changing road conditions to hold a lead of 7.9s over Rovanpera, who impressed in the second Yaris WRC. Reigning WRC champion Ott Tanak sits just under a second further back from Ravanpera in third, having lost time on the first pass of Nyckelvattnet (SS4). Friday morning’s opening test at Hof-Finnskog became the effective first stage ...Keep reading View the full article