Rally

The Peugeot team’s 208 WRX had been fastest away from the start line all weekend and it was no different in the final, rally legend Loeb taking the lead as pole sitter and points leader Johan Kristoffersson narrowly avoided rolling his Volkswagen Polo Supercar in the run to turn one.Squeezed into the barriers on the inside, Kristoffersson’s car was then saved from rolling by leaning ... Keep reading View the full article

The Norwegian set the fastest time on a drying track in Q1, half a second faster than Sebastien Loeb to claim pole position for the final race in Q2.From fourth on the grid it was Solberg's teammate Johan Kristroffersson who made the best start in the Q2 encounter.Solberg attempted to tuck into the inside of the track for the tight right-hand first corner and touched the barrier ... Keep reading View the full article

The Manxman will campaign Albatec Racing’s latest-specification Peugeot 208 Supercar at the event, the same squad with which he is contesting the British Rallycross Championship this season. Higgins won the second round of British RX at Lydden Hill on Easter Monday and lies second in the standings, but knows he will face stiff opposition against the works-run cars on his World RX ... Keep reading View the full article

A proposal to replace the 2017-specification cars' 36mm turbo restrictor with a 34mm version for non-factory entrants was discussed at the FIA's World Rally Car vision meeting in Geneva last month.There is also a desire for the new-generation World Rally Cars to be used outside the WRC.WRC Promoter and the event organisers are concerned at the lack of privateer participation, with ... Keep reading View the full article

Tanak remains third in the championship race, having closed the gap on Thierry Neuville and Sebastien Ogier to 18 and 28 points respectively – but he is 32 and 41 ahead of Lappi and Latvala.Despite that position, Makinen is not keen on dictating finishing positions, particularly with Rally Finland coming up.Makinen told Motorsport.com: "Personally, my feeling is to let the drivers do ... Keep reading View the full article

The Skoda factory driver was leading the WRC2 category when he crashed off the road in the second stage on Sunday morning. His Fabia R5 got out of shape on a fast left-right section, was pitched u ... Keep reading View the full article

The event will remain rooted in the Deeside service park, but the organisers have used road-closing powers to deliver a schedule which it feels will answer questions raised by both the teams and crews last season.Instead of two days in mid-Wales and a day in the north, the October 4-7 event will reverse that and include two days in north Wales and one long Saturday through the forests ... Keep reading View the full article

Tanak, who joined Toyota from M-Sport this year, took his first win with the Japanese brand, and his third in the WRC.His lead was 46.5 seconds as the day started and, despite not topping any of the three stages, he still won by a comfortable margin of 37.7s.Thierry Neuville topped the last two stages of the day, including the Power Stage, and took second overall, nearly doubling his ... Keep reading View the full article

Having climbed from third on the grid in the first semi-final to take the lead at turn one and secure a front row slot for the final, Kristoffersson made the best start to take the lead from final pole-sitter Timmy Hansen in the run to the first corner.Snow had threatened the circuit in the Vila Real mountains for the entire final day of the event, and it started blizzarding in the ... Keep reading View the full article

Tanak continued his streak of stage wins on the first two parts of the loop, but was only fourth quickest on the long Cuchilla Nevada stage.He briefly lost power steering during the early miles, and had also shed all the oil from one of his car's dampers.Tanak was still able to stay comfortably clear of a podium battle shaken up by drama for Meeke on the same stage.Meeke tumbled ... Keep reading View the full article

Loeb stopped the clocks first in Q1, beating the previous best time set by Mattias Ekstrom by two tenths of a second, before Hansen then beat Petter Solberg to race victory with a mixed joker lap strategy in Q2. As he had in Q1, Loeb won the last race of the Q2 session but the time wasn’t enough to take a day one clean sweep, missing his teammate’s benchmark by 0.034s.The pair hold ... Keep reading View the full article

Tanak, who joined Toyota from M-Sport Ford this season, extended his streak of stage wins on a foggy loop to six in a row as no one had the pace to live with him aboard his Yaris WRC.For most of the loop, Neuville trailed Citroen’s Kris Meeke until the penultimate stage, where the Belgian jumped ahead for second.Meeke described that test, Chuchilla Nevada - Rio Pintos, as “one of the ... Keep reading View the full article

Tanak won all but one of Friday’s gravel stages, only losing the opener after clobbering a rock and damaging the steering on his Yaris WRC.Former Rally Argentina winner Meeke, who is 22.7s behind Tanak, said: “It’s been impossible to follow Ott today."I think the only thing that can make a difference is the weather tomorrow; if the rain comes and the fog comes down in places like Los ... Keep reading View the full article

MRF announced its decision to step up to the second-tier World Rally Championship category with Gill earlier this month, but refused to go into details about its programme.However, it is now understood that MRF will field a single Fiesta R5 for Gill, ending the Indian tyre manufacturer’s long-standing relationship with Skoda. MRF and the Czech car maker together swept the last six ... Keep reading View the full article

Having spent the morning charging from ninth to second following an early mistake, Tanak quickly deposed Mikkelsen from first place on the super special that preceded the lunchtime service.Tanak then went quickest on all three of the afternoon's full-length stages with a pace the rest of the field could not match, despite being third in the running order on roads where the ... Keep reading View the full article

A impact with a rock on the day's opening Las Bajadas stage caused Tanak to spin and left his Toyota with minor steering damage, leaving him running ninth.Despite the steering not being right for the following two stages, Tanak won both and surged back up the order. That brought him to within a second of Mikkelsen, who hit the front for Hyundai on SS3.Reigning WRC champion Sebastien ... Keep reading View the full article

Neuville's time of 1m54.4s around the 1.1-mile mostly asphalt stage put him three-tenths of a second clear of Ott Tanak's Toyota in second place.For much of the evening, the lead changed hands with every new car through the flying finish, but World Rally Championship leader - and last frontrunner on the road - Sebastien Ogier could not depose Neuville and had to settle for ... Keep reading View the full article

The governing body was unhappy at the proposed use of a combined Great Orme and Llandudno all-asphalt test for the final points-paying, live television powerstage on Sunday October 7.After lengthy discussions with the FIA and WRC Promoter, Motorsport.com understands a route proposal will be issued to the teams this week.That proposal is to keep the Orme as the finale with live ... Keep reading View the full article

Driving a Ford Fiesta Supercar, the 2013 BTCC champion will partner Finn Toomas Heikkinen in privateer Austrian team MJP Racing at Silverstone, Loheac in France and Estering in Germany.Having started his career in rallycross, Jordan has made selected World RX appearances in recent seasons. He finished on the podium at Lydden Hill in 2014 and qualified for the semi-finals at the same ... Keep reading View the full article

Increasing financial pressures, along with the exit of the series' Supercars teams, are believed to have led to the Red Bull-backed GRC's demise.Lancaster Speedway in New York, which had become the 2018 season opener as the previously-slated curtain-raiser in Louisville was cancelled, publicly confirmed the news via a Twitter post."We received notification from the Red Bull Global ... Keep reading View the full article