Rally

Al-Attiyah, who previously won the Dakar with Volkswagen in 2011 and Mini four years after that, switched to driving a Toyota Hilux ahead of the 2017 race. He retired early from his first attempt with the Japanese manufacturer, before finishing second to Peugeot's Carlos Sainz in 2018 and then dominating this year's event in the works Peugeot team's absence. Al-Attiyah led the general ...Keep reading View the full article

Nikolaev led Dmitry Sotnikov in a Kamaz 1-2, securing the Russian manufacturer's 16th Dakar crown, and taking his own tally to five titles – four as a driver, and one as mechanic to seven-time champion Vladimir Chagin. Gerard de Rooy, returning to the marathon after he contested and won the Africa Eco Race instead last year, completed the podium. Having inflicted upon Kamaz its two most ...Keep reading View the full article

Battling with a broken wrist he sustained while training before the event, Price became the first two-time champion to emerge since the rivalry of Marc Coma and Cyril Despres ended in 2015. Price's success means Richard Sainct's 2000 title on a BMW remains the last time KTM hasn't won the bike class at the Dakar. The Austrian manufacturer was subdued for much of the event, with Honda riders ...Keep reading View the full article

With Sergey Karyakin and Ignacio Casale, quad champions of the past two years, moving to the SxS category, Cavigliasso, who was second and top rookie in 2018, became the favourite for the title. Cavigliasso delivered on that promise, topping nine of the 10 stages - including the final 112 km run, which he led by 5m22s over Alexandre Giroud. On four occasions, he was over 10 minutes faster ...Keep reading View the full article

Fourth in the overall standings, Villagra's Iveco was on its side on the penultimate stage, and needed teammate Gerard de Rooy's help to get back on track. Despite trailing the leader by almost six hours, Villagra is set to hold on to fourth place. What was the key moment of your race?“My race was compromised when I had the issue with the exhaust on the marathon stage Arequipa-Tacna. I was ...Keep reading View the full article

Peterhansel and Castera endured a heavy landing over a dune 26 kilometres into today's test, a suspected back injury meaning Castera needed to be transported directly to hospital in Lima. It was the second bad landing on the event for the Mini pair, Peterhansel claiming they were left with whiplash due to a drop off a dune earlier in the week. There's since been good news from the Peruvian ...Keep reading View the full article

The Qatari bagged his third stage win of the even on a day which caused major problems for Sebastien Loeb, Stephane Peterhansel and Cyril Despres – three drivers that were within the top five in the general classification heading into the special. Peterhansel was ruled out shortly after the start, as a crash 26 kilometres in consigned him to a first Dakar retirement in a decade. The ...Keep reading View the full article

The penultimate stage of the Peru-based rally, a loop which started and ended at Pisco, featured a mass start format in which riders commenced the stage in groups of 10. That meant the top 10 from Wednesday's stage all started simultaneously, and the gaps between them all stayed relatively small until the latter stages of the 313km test. However, they were surpassed by two riders from the ...Keep reading View the full article

Peterhansel, who entered Wednesday's test in fourth place overall, had an incident shortly after the start of the 312km test. His co-driver David Castera, who was teaming up with Peterhansel in place of his long-time partner Jean-Paul Cottret in this year's marathon, is reported to have sustained a back injury. Peterhansel was piloting one of the three X-raid Mini buggies entered into Dakar ...Keep reading View the full article

Benavides' teammate Ricky Brabec had retired from the lead with an engine failure on Tuesday and this, coupled with early exits for Joan Barreda and Paulo Goncalves, had left the Argentine as Honda's chief hope. However, Benavides then picked up a hefty penalty in the aftermath of Tuesday's stage for carrying route notes on his bike, which took him out of victory contention. “We have ...Keep reading View the full article

A small detail tells a lot about Henk van Leuven’s passion for motorsport is that his WhatsApp profile picture is Scuderia Ferrari's Prancing Horse. Team manager of the Petronas De Rooy Iveco Team since 2015, Henk has been involved with De Rooy and his Dakar adventure for over a decade. As Iveco’s Northern European boss, he was the man who created the link between the Dutch team owner ...Keep reading View the full article

The engine has to be reliable. In this regard, the engine development and preparation before the rally become vital, as well as the daily engine maintenance at the bivouac. The Dutch team counts on the reliability of the Cursor 13L developed at the FPT headquarters in Arbon. In the past, after two seasons, the engines of the race trucks were sent to Arbon for a complete check-up before being ...Keep reading View the full article

The 2016 Dakar champ broke his right scaphoid during pre-event training midway through December, the injury requiring surgery and leaving him under a fitness cloud for the gruelling Dakar. Having battled through the discomfort thus far, Price reckons today's push to take over the overall lead of the event in the wake of Ricky Brabec's engine failure was a huge test for the injury. And while ...Keep reading View the full article

PH Sport Peugeot driver Loeb began the eighth stage of the event over two hours later than his main rivals, as Dakar organisers opted to group together the top 10 in the cars running order with the top 10 bikes and top five trucks. After dropping three minutes to Al-Attiyah in the opening portion of the 361km San Juan de Marcona-Pisco test, Loeb seized the advantage in the latter part of the ...Keep reading View the full article

Brabec had a 7m47s advantage as Stage 8 kicked off, but his Honda bike had an engine failure only 56 kilometres into the 361km San Juan de Marcona-Pisco run, forcing the American to retire. He is the third retirement in the factory Honda camp, with Joan Barreda getting terminally stuck on the third day and Paulo Goncalves falling and injured himself two days later. With that, KTM rider Price ...Keep reading View the full article

The car, privately entered by Gronholm, will be run by Toyota Gazoo Racing, but not as part of the factory effort. Gronholm is the joint-most successful driver in the history of Sweden’s WRC round, but he has laughed off suggestions that he is chasing a sixth win which would put him one ahead of Swedish legend Stig Blomqvist. As Motorsport.com reported in September, Gronholm came close to ...Keep reading View the full article

Ostberg, who contested eight WRC rounds with the Citroen factory team last season, was left without a seat for this year with the French manufacturer slimming down to two cars for Sebastien Ogier and Esapekka Lappi. The Norwegian has elected to drop down to WRC2 level rather than sit the season out entirely, and will drive a C3 R5 prepared by the Belgian DG Sport team. “I was disappointed ...Keep reading View the full article

The Mini driver made decent headway on leader Nasser Al-Attiyah by winning today's stage, as he moved back into second outright thanks to problems for Sebastian Loeb. However it wasn't a painless day for the 13-time Dakar winner, a nasty landing off a dune early in the stage leaving he and co-driver David Castera rattled. Peterhansel later confirmed to the official Dakar website that he ...Keep reading View the full article

Loeb gave up over half an hour around 50km into the stage to fix an electrical fault, and while his pace was unmatched from then on, it wasn't enough to mitigate the damage to his victory hopes. The start of Monday's stage, which looped around San Juan de Marcona and featured 331 timed kilometres, was postponed by nearly an hour due to fog in the morning. Peterhansel ran neck and neck with ...Keep reading View the full article

Sunderland was struggling with his rear brake in Stage 6 and was 23 minutes off the pace, but the 2016 champion dominated the proceedings in the subsequent 331 timed kilometres of Monday's route, which both started and ended at San Juan de Marcona. Brabec led in the early stages of the test - which was delayed and then suspended due to fog - but Sunderland took over at the third of six ...Keep reading View the full article