Rally

Latvala had been engaged in a tight scrap for a podium place with his teammate Esapekka Lappi, initially losing time before recouping several seconds late on.However, a hurried arrival at time control and constant engine revving indicated something was amiss aboard his Yaris WRC, which pulled away at racing speed before parking up on a road section between stage 16 and service in ... Keep reading View the full article

Reigning champion Ogier’s gap over Neuville had been cut down significantly before midday service, and he lost a further two seconds with a start-line stall in Saturday’s first afternoon test.Neuville then sustained a slow front right puncture, which him double what he had gained from Ogier’s earlier stall. He responded soon after, winning Saturday’s remaining two tests to claw back ... Keep reading View the full article

As has been the case for most of the season so far, Kristoffersson was handed a less-than-ideal outside grid slot from the Q1 draw, but made the best launch in his race and took the lead from the start to set the best time, the rear bodywork on his Volkswagen Polo smoking after contact to the rear in the first corner.Starting from pole position in the final race of the day ... Keep reading View the full article

Ogier held an 18.9s lead overnight and increased that gap to 19.5s after the second stage of the day, but lost 14.6s to Hyundai’s Neuville in the Monte Lerno test.Championship leader Neuville confessed he was pushing hard to catch Ogier, but was surprised to see that he had whittled the Frenchman's lead down to less than five seconds.Behind the leading pair, there’s an intense fight ... Keep reading View the full article

Kristoffersson’s Polo R Supercar was thrown onto two wheels at the first corner of the final in Belgium last month, following side-by-side contact with Solberg’s sister car that forced him into the barrier.Two weeks later, the pair made heavy wheel-to-wheel contact in the braking area for Turn 1 in the semi-finals at Silverstone, sending Kristoffersson’s car hard into the inside tyre ... Keep reading View the full article

Reigning world champion Ogier made light work of his opponents through stage six, their first test following midday service.Amid slippery conditions with standing water throughout, Ogier went 12.2 seconds faster than his next quickest opponent Esapekka Lappi, immediately moving into first place after restarting fifth.Andreas Mikkelsen had led after midday service but signs of trouble ... Keep reading View the full article

Mikkelsen took six soft tyres aboard his i20 Coupe WRC and made the most of them in the damp conditions to win SS2 by 9.1 seconds.Finally feeling at home in the car after a difficult season so far, the Norwegian also won SS3 to complete the morning at the head of the field.Neuville was the first man on the road, but the overnight rain eradicated the disadvantage of sweeping away the ... Keep reading View the full article

Meeke lost his Citroen seat after he crashed heavily on last month's Rally of Portugal.Prior to the Meeke decision, there had already been a question mark over Citroen's continued WRC participation, following speculation about potential budget cuts at the firm.Citroen has not won a WRC title since the end of Sebastien Loeb's run of nine straight championships in 2012.But team ... Keep reading View the full article

Latvala, who set the pace on Thursday's shakedown in Sardinia, damaged the suspension on his Toyota Yaris WRC early in both Mexico and Portugal, and crashed out of the asphalt round in Corsica between them.He plans a more conservative approach with style and set-up in Italy this week, and says he even stopped to clear stones from stages himself during the pre-rally recce."What I need ... Keep reading View the full article

The series will maintain the existing sporting format and a similar number of events each year, with both manufacturers and privateers eligible to take part.The WMSC has announced that privateer entrants will be able to homologate their own cars, using the same common battery and chassis that every constructor in the series will use, but instead of using an existing road car body ... Keep reading View the full article

Mikkelsen has struggled to find confidence and grip from his Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC so far this year - but he believes last month’s Rally of Portugal marked a turning point.In the pre-event test for round six, the Norwegian found a transmission set-up which worked for him. Unfortunately for Mikkelsen, power-steering and engine problems intervened before he was able to demonstrate his ... Keep reading View the full article

Ogier was a Citroen protege but left at the end of 2011 as tensions between himself and nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb grew.He then signed for Volkswagen and, after a development season driving a Skoda Fabia S2000, started his unbroken run of five WRC titles in 2013 that continued when he joined M-Sport last season after Volkswagen's exit.Kris Meeke's departure has left ... Keep reading View the full article

Nine-time WRC champion Loeb has contested two WRC events for Citroen so far this year - his first in three years - and is scheduled to make one further appearance on Rally Catalunya in October.Loeb, who is a factory Peugeot World Rallycross Championship driver, previously shot down suggestions he could contest August's Rally Germany and reiterated he would not reconsider his WRC ... Keep reading View the full article

Kris Meeke's departure from the World Rally Championship was long overdue. He'd crashed, crashed and crashed again. In between times, he'd won some rallies from a favourable place on the road, set some times and said some stuff. But ultimately, when push came to shove, he came up short.Looking back through Meeke's stats, it wouldn't be hard to make the argument in that first sentence ... Keep reading View the full article

After dominating APRC for several several seasons, MRF is stepping up to WRC2 this year for a partial campaign, starting with this weekend’s Rally Sardegna.The Indian tyre manufacturer has partnered with leading rally squad M-Sport, which will run a single R5-spec Fiesta for Gill.The 36-year-old, who is widely considered as the greatest four-wheel rally driver to emerge out of India ... Keep reading View the full article

The Northern Irishman was dropped by Citroen last week for what the team described as an "excessively high number of crashes", in the wake of a violent shunt on Rally Portugal.Meeke was unavailable for comment when contacted by Motorsport.com earlier this week, but sources close to the 38-year-old have said he is angry and upset at Citroen's decision.His chances of finding a way back ... Keep reading View the full article

Raikkonen competed in the WRC for two years in 2010 and '11 after he was dropped by Ferrari at the end of the '09 F1 season.The Finn contested the full 2010 season with Citroen's Junior Team before he tackled a select programme with his own Ice 1 Racing outfit a year later.He then returned to F1 with Lotus, and is now in his fifth year of a second spell at Ferrari, but previously ... Keep reading View the full article

The Volkswagen pair started side-by-side in semi-final one but on the entry to the first corner, Kristoffersson’s Polo made contact with the left-right wheel of Solberg’s sister car, throwing the reigning champion’s machine into the air and then the tyre barrier on the inside. The incident moved the tyre wall onto the circuit which forced the race to be stopped, Kristoffersson able to ... Keep reading View the full article

Fastest in Q1 on a drying circuit, the PSRX driver set the fastest lap of the weekend until that point on his third tour to beat former World Rally rival Sebastien Loeb on track, the Peugeot driver having hassled Solberg’s Polo in the opening laps of the race.Solberg then raced Audi driver Mattias Ekstrom for victory in Q2 but was just pipped by the former DTM driver, who had taken an ... Keep reading View the full article

Explaining his decision to terminate Meeke and co-driver Paul Nagle's contracts with immediate effect, Budar told Motorsport.com his priority had to be turning Citroen's troubled season around as well as looking after the welfare of his crews.Meeke, who sits eighth in the championship, crashed heavily out of last week's Rally of Portugal.The violent nature of that crash was the final ... Keep reading View the full article