Rally

The Ford squad had planned to field four Ford Pumas for New Zealand’s return to the WRC schedule, with Fourmaux rejoining regulars Craig Breen and Gus Greensmith, alongside a privateer entry for Lorenzo Bertelli, on his return to the WRC. However, the British squad has today confirmed that it will no longer field an entry to be driven by Fourmaux and co-driver Alexandre Coria. The ...Keep readingView the full article

The eight-time world champion has been conducting a partial WRC campaign with Toyota this year after electing to scale back his rallying commitments to spend more time with his family, and to explore opportunities racing sportscars in the World Endurance Championship. As a result, Ogier has shared Toyota's third GR Yaris this season with Esapekka Lappi across the 2022 season with the latter ...Keep readingView the full article

The ASO has revised the technical regulations for the next year's Dakar, with the minimum weight of hybrid or electric cars entered in the T1U division increased from 2000kg to 2100kg. No such change has been made to petrol-powered cars that dominate the T1+ category and fight with T1U vehicles for overall wins, with their minimum weight remaining at 2,000kg. This means that ...Keep readingView the full article

Top Performer - Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe It had been almost a year since Thierry Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe last tasted victory, on Rally Spain October last year to be precise. So climbing the top step of the podium in Greece last weekend was described as a "relief". Neuville has been knocking on the door on several occasions this season, but has often been let down ...Keep readingView the full article

Hyundai has already started to look to 2023, with deputy team director Julien Moncet confirming to Motorsport.com that the team was assessing its options for next year before last weekend's maiden 1-2-3 at the Acropolis Rally Greece. This season the South Korean marque has fielded full-season cars for Thierry Neuville and Tanak, with a third i20 N entry shared by Oliver Solberg and Dani ...Keep readingView the full article

The Finn faced a second opportunity to become the youngest ever world rally champion if he could outscore Hyundai's Ott Tanak by 18 points in Greece last weekend. However, Rovanpera found himself more than a minute adrift of the front runners on Friday, as the effects of cleaning the road were much greater than expected. Coupled with a poor road position, Rovanpera and his Toyota teammates ...Keep readingView the full article

Hyundai has been forced to play catch-up to its rivals this season following a late decision to commit to the WRC's new-for-2022 Rally1 hybrid regulations. The squad was further hampered by an upheaval of its structure following Andrea Adamo's decision to leave the team principal role for personal reasons in December last year. The delay in developing the i20 N left the team on the back ...Keep readingView the full article

Hyundai management elected to impose orders on its drivers Thierry Neuville, Tanak and Dani Sordo to hold positions on Sunday's final day to safeguard a historic first World Rally Championship 1-2-3 podium lockout for the South Korean marque. The decision to secure Neuville a first win of the year wasn’t met favourably by Tanak, the team's best-placed driver to overhaul Toyota’s Kalle ...Keep readingView the full article

Neuville and co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe were able to cruise to the finish 15.0s ahead of Ott Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja, after the Hyundai motorsport president Sean Kim told its drivers to hold positions to safeguard a first WRC 1-2-3. Despite the order preventing Tanak from claiming the maximum points to boost his slim championship hopes, the Estonian won the final powerstage to ...Keep readingView the full article

Neuville started the final service of the rally with a 29.3s lead over Tanak after Hyundai management told its drivers to hold positions ahead of the morning’s second stage. Hyundai’s Dani Sordo completed a solid drive to remain third with the position further cemented after Toyota’s difficult Acropolis continued when Elfyn Evans was forced to retire from fourth. Evans demise elevated ...Keep readingView the full article

The Ford squad appeared set to challenge for a second win of the World Rally Championship season with nine-time world champion and 2022 Monte Carlo winner Loeb leading team-mate Pierre-Louis Loubet, after the pair shared the spoils in Friday’s six stages. However, the team’s victory and podium hopes unravelled on Saturday as four of its five cars hit trouble during the day’s six ...Keep readingView the full article

Tanak heads into final day of the Greek gravel rally sitting 27.9s behind team-mate and rally leader Neuville following an eventful Saturday that shook up the leaderboard. Neuville, Tanak and team-mate Dani Sordo started the day sitting fourth, fifth and sixth overall, but now lockout the podium places after drama struck the overnight top three of Sebastien Loeb, Pierre-Louis Loubet and ...Keep readingView the full article

After starting the day in fourth, Neuville survived Saturday’s six stages to hold a 27.9s margin over teammate Tanak, who inherited second following Esapekka Lappi’s retirement on the penultimate stage. A mechanical issue for Lappi’s Toyota handed Hyundai a 1-2-3 with Dani Sordo 52.9s back in third, as the South Korean marque clean swept Saturday’s stages. The leaderboard suffered a ...Keep readingView the full article

Loeb started the morning with a 1.7s lead over Loubet after the pair shared the spoils across Friday's six stages. The rally leader and nine-time world champion made a strong start to the day by posting the second fastest time on the morning's 33.2km test (Stage 8) to maintain his lead. That advantage extended to 19.0s over Hyundai's Thierry Neuville, who managed to leapfrog Loubet. However ...Keep readingView the full article

The Kiwi will continue his association with Hyundai New Zealand for his home World Rally Championship round, while the car also features increased backing from Repco. The automotive parts retailer is also the naming rights backer of what will be the first WRC round in New Zealand in a decade. Paddon and long-time co-driver John Kennard are part of a 12-car WRC2 field that also includes ...Keep readingView the full article

Nine-time world champion Loeb found himself locked in a fight with his younger team-mate Loubet across Friday’s six stages as the rally lead swung between the two Ford Puma drivers. A hat-trick of stages wins in the morning pushed Loeb into the lead before Loubet capitalised on an error from his rival to claim a maiden WRC stage win on Stage 5. The victory elevated the Frenchman to the rally ...Keep readingView the full article

The nine-time world champion, making a return to the World Rally Championship this weekend, ended the day with a 1.7s advantage as fellow Ford Puma driver Loubet produced the best performance of his WRC career to date. Loeb claimed a hat-trick of stage wins during the morning stages to move into the rally lead, but an error in the afternoon helped open the door for Loubet to claim a maiden WRC ...Keep readingView the full article

The nine-time world champion benefitted from an advantageous road position on the dusty gravel stages, but once again showed his class to win all three stages of the morning loop. The 48-year-old, partnered by Isabelle Galmiche, became the oldest driver to lead a WRC event eclipsing the record perviously held by 1979 world champion Bjorn Waldegard set in 1991. Sitting seventh overnight, the ...Keep readingView the full article

Neuville blitzed the 1.95km side-by-side tarmac test in front of a bumper 60,000 crowd on Thursday night, seeing off Toyota’s Elfyn Evans in their head-to-head contest to post a time 0.1s faster than WRC2 star Teemu Suninen, who set the early benchmark. The return of the Olympic Stadium super special for the first time since 2006 proved to be a hit with the drivers and particularly ...Keep readingView the full article

The nine-time world rally champion returned to the WRC this year with M-Sport Ford for what was initially a one-off appearance at Monte Carlo in January, which he subsequently won alongside Isabelle Galmiche to net an 80th career WRC win. Since the triumph, Loeb has made appearances in Portugal and Kenya with this weekend’s outing at the Acropolis Rally his fourth for the British team. It is ...Keep readingView the full article