Rally

Fourmaux is set to begin a second attempt as a full-time Rally1 driver this season - starting in Monte Carlo this weekend - with the the Frenchman drafted in to lead the Ford team following Ott Tanak’s departure to Hyundai.Last season the team opted to demote Fourmaux to its Rally2 squad after an eventful 2022 Rally1 campaign that was littered with crashes.The move appears to have benefitted the ...Keep readingView the full article

This weekend will see the WRC debut its new points-scoring structure, ratified by the FIA, which is designed to spice up rallies and in particular the action on Sundays. Under the new system, a sliding scale of 18-15-13-10-8-6-4-3-2-1 points will be awarded at the end of Saturday, but only if a crew reaches Sunday’s final classification. If a crew fails to finish on Sunday, the Saturday ...Keep readingView the full article

Audi has faced heavy backlash over the way its motorsport division has been managed over the last few years. The decision to phase out all its sportscar racing programmes and go all-in on Formula 1 has aggrieved even the most loyal fans of the German marque. Even former teams and drivers haven’t shied away from levying criticism at some board-level changes that they feel have damaged the very ...Keep readingView the full article

Toyota is set to field a pair of GR Yaris Rally1 cars for the duo for the snow rally, which will host the second round of the Finnish Rally Championship in Rovaniemi, Finland from 2-3 February.The outing will mark the first rally for Rovanpera since last year’s WRC season finale in Japan, his last event before announcing plans to scale back to a partial WRC campaign this year. Last week it was ...Keep readingView the full article

A Rally2-based alternative top tier, that has been dubbed as Rally2 Plus, is understood to be among a number of options on the table being discussed by the FIA’s new working group.Headed by FIA Deputy President Robert Reid, the 2001 World Rally Championship title-winning co-driver, and the 1981 WRC co-driver champion David Richards, the group was devised late last year to evaluate and recommend ...Keep readingView the full article

Sainz Sr led nearly the entirety of the 12-stage, two-week marathon in Saudi Arabia to score his fourth career victory in Dakar, cementing his position as one of the greatest rally drivers of all time.Intriguingly, the Audi driver didn’t win a single stage on his 17th appearance in Dakar, with consistency, and not outright speed, helping him beat the likes of Sebastien Loeb, Nasser Al-Attiyah ...Keep readingView the full article

Winning the Dakar Rally is one of the things that every driver in the world dreams of, but it is something that very few can achieve. Whether by quality or luck, you also need the support of a great team, such as Toyota, which, with Nasser Al Attiyah, has won three Touareg trophies in the last six editions.However, the Japanese manufacturer no longer has the Qatari in its ranks, so it decided to ...Keep readingView the full article

Rally Sweden has released a 56-car entry list for the WRC’s only snow round of the championship that marks the second round of the season (15-18 February).Rovanpera has opted to scale back his WRC commitments this year to “recharge his batteries” ahead of a full-time return with Toyota in 2025.The 23-year-old was tipped to start his half-season in Sweden having been absent from the entry ...Keep readingView the full article

Sainz staved off a fierce challenge from Prodrive’s Sebastien Loeb to claim top honours in the 46th edition of Dakar Rally, beating Overdrive’s Guillaume de Mevius by 1h20m as Loeb slipped to third in the final classification.The result marked the Spaniard’s fourth triumph in the world’s most prestigious rally-raid after previous successes with Volkswagen, Peugeot and Mini, and puts him ...Keep readingView the full article

Although scoring only a single individual stage win during the two-week contest in Saudi Arabia, Brabec took overall honours with an impressive margin of 10m53s as he put Honda back on the victory lane in Dakar.10m53s was almost exactly the time Brabec lost to Branch on the opening test between Al-Ula and Al-Henankiya, putting the American rider immediately on the back foot on his ninth ...Keep readingView the full article

Sainz led almost the entire way in the 46th edition of Dakar in Saudi Arabia, eventually claiming the overall victory by 1hr20m25s over the Overdrive Toyota of Guillaume de Mevius.The Spaniard didn’t win a single individual stage for only the third time in his Dakar career, which dates back to his first outing with Volkswagen in 2006, but he was able to outshine his rivals with a series of ...Keep readingView the full article

Thursday’s 420km test between Al-’Ula and Yanbu marked Loeb’s last real chance of overhauling Audi’s Carlos Sainz Sr in the overall standings, with Friday’s final stage being too short to make a serious impact.The Prodrive star had a 13-minute deficit to overcome in one of the most treacherous stages of 2024 Dakar, but his hopes of a maiden victory in the marathon were crushed when he ...Keep readingView the full article

The new generation of drivers is now ready to take the next step, and Toyota has put its money on two very fast drivers who hope to follow in the footsteps of five-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah. They are Seth Quintero and Lucas Moraes, who spoke to Motorsport.com and gave their views on how they hope to reap the rewards of what the Qatari has done. The American finished second in the ...Keep readingView the full article

The rocky Al-’Ula to Yanbu 420km test, won by Guerlain Chicherit for Overdrive Toyota, appears to be the deciding stage for overall victory at this year’s Dakar with Sainz moving into a healthy 1h27m06s lead. Loeb, who cut Sainz’s lead to under 14 minutes yesterday, was on the attack during the opening running but at 132km he suffered a broken front right A-arm on his Provide Hunter in a ...Keep readingView the full article

The 420km test between Al-'Ula and Yanbu was expected to be one of the toughest stages of 2024, as it ran through some of the areas that caused so many punctures in last year's edition of the rally-raid.Loeb had been trying to overhaul Audi's Carlos Sainz for the lead when a problem developed on the right-front triangle of his Hunter after a stone hit, leaving him stranded 132km into the ...Keep readingView the full article

The Dakar Rally is a merciless race, and not even the world champions are spared from all the things and problems that happen day after day. One of them is Oriol Vidal, who co-drives Rokas Baciuska, with whom he is in fourth place in the overall standings in a category as competitive and new as that of the Challengers, formerly known as T3. Although the Spanish-Lithuanian duo is not giving up ...Keep readingView the full article

Rovanpera has declared an interest in taking part in circuit racing events this year after announcing plans to contest a part-time WRC campaign this season to “recharge his batteries”, before making a full-time return in 2025.The 23-year-old double WRC champion revealed at last month’s FIA Prize Gala that he would like to test a GT car, and now he has been presented with an opportunity to ...Keep readingView the full article

Loeb began the 371km Alula loop stage on the back foot as he briefly stopped at 53km, but fought back to gain five minutes on overall leader Sainz at the 225km checkpoint. Drama struck the Audi driver as he stopped for around 10 minutes at around 248km, and required assistance from team-mate Mattias Ekstrom and Stephane Peterhansel, which Loeb pounced on to cut the deficit in the overall ...Keep readingView the full article

Al-Attiyah has endured a torrid run in the 46th edition of Dakar following his switch from Toyota to Prodrive, with a combination of accidents and reliability problems forcing him out of the event.The Qatari driver had been on the back foot since he dropped 25 minutes to the leaders on the opening stage, and his hopes of securing a sixth career victory formally ended when his Prodrive Hunter took ...Keep readingView the full article

Sainz holds a lead of just over 20 minutes over Loeb following Tuesday's 417km test between Ha'il and Al-'Ula, making him the favourite for overall victory with just three stages to run in the 46th edition of the rally-raid.However, Loeb has arguably been quicker of the two on outright pace in the second half of the rally, winning three of the last four stages in his Prodrive Hunter. The Frenchman ...Keep readingView the full article