Rally

The Japanese manufacturer shuffled its driver roster this season after eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier elected to scale back his WRC commitments to a partial campaign to spend more time with family and explore opportunities in sportscar racing. The decision resulted in Toyota signing Lappi to share the third GR Yaris with Ogier for the 2022 campaign. It was a move that brought Lappi ...Keep readingView the full article

The Toyota star has dominated the 2022 season, earning the 21-year-old the opportunity to become the WRC's youngest-ever world champion. Rovanpera can eclipse the record set in 1995 by Colin McRae, who was aged 27 when he claimed the title for Subaru if the Finn can outscore Hyundai rival Ott Tanak by 18 points on the Acropolis rally's rough gravel stages. Such has been Rovanpera's dominance ...Keep readingView the full article

Sebastiens Loeb and Ogier have re-written most of the World Rally Championship’s record book over the last 20 years. But when it comes to the Acropolis Rally the pair remain in the dust trail of Colin McRae, who remains the Acropolis master. Twenty years ago, the 1995 world champion conquered Europe’s toughest and most gruelling rally for a record fifth time in seven years to firmly stamp ...Keep readingView the full article

Audi became the first major manufacturer to embrace Dakar's new T1U regulations for electric and hybrid cars earlier this year when it entered a trio of RS Q e-trons for Stephane Peterhansel, Carlos Sainz and Mattias Ekstrom. Despite the scale of challenge involved, Audi's maiden outing the Saudi Arabia-based rally-raid was largely a success, yielding four stage wins and a spot inside the ...Keep readingView the full article

Ogier will once again pilot the third factory Toyota GR Yaris, which he has been sharing with Esapekka Lappi, for New Zealand's return to the WRC for the first time since 2012. The Frenchman had previously told Motorsport.com that New Zealand was on his wish list of events to contest this season in his partial WRC campaign this year. Event organisers have confirmed this morning that Ogier ...Keep readingView the full article

Christened the Audi RS Q e-tron E2, the name now incorporates the E2 abbreviation that previously featured on the legendary Audi Quattro in its Group B derivation in the 1980s. The entire body of the vehicle has been redesigned since it made its debut in this year’s Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia, with chief designer Axel Loffler stating “not a single body part from its predecessor” has been ...Keep readingView the full article

As previously reported, the WRC is aiming to deliver an expanded 14-event championship next year, comprising eight European rallies and six flyaway rounds, as the series wishes to re-establish a more familiar structure before the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK, which hasn’t held a round since Wales Rally GB in 2019, had been among the contenders to fill a slot on the calendar in the ...Keep readingView the full article

The inaugural Extreme E champion and former Australian Rally Champion made a first Dakar start in the SSV class in a South Racing-run Can-Am this year. Her and co-driver Dale Moscatt finished 14th in class with a best stage result of fifth. Taylor has now sealed a return to Dakar as part of a new deal with South Racing that also includes the Rally Du Maroc this October. According to ...Keep readingView the full article

The 20-year-old is set to sit out next month’s Acropolis Rally in Greece in favour of Dani Sordo as part of the team’s split driver roster for its third I20 N entry. However, the South Korean marque has today confirmed that Solberg will return to the wheel of the i20 N for the following gravel event in New Zealand (29 September - 2 October). New Zealand is set to return to the WRC this ...Keep readingView the full article

The Japanese marque has invested heavily in hydrogen power as an alternative fuel for motorsport, having recently entered a hydrogen- powered GR Corolla into the Fuji 24 Hours in June, which was driven by Toyota CEO and president Akio Toyoda and Toyota’s WRC boss Jari-Matti Latvala. Last weekend Toyota used the hydrogen powertrain it has developed in an upgraded GR Yaris, which took on a ...Keep readingView the full article

The team had planned to field a record six Rally1 cars for the Greek gravel event from 8-11 September, with the entry headlined by nine-time world champion Sebastien Loeb, who will make his fourth appearance of the season. Full-time driver Fourmaux and co-driver Alexandre Coria were listed among its six entries, but the duo’s heavy crash during the penultimate stage of last weekend’s Ypres ...Keep readingView the full article

Norris has carved a out a successful single-seater racing career that has seen him climb through the UK national ranks before landing a seat at McLaren in 2019, and is currently seventh in the championship standings ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. While his career has been centred around circuit racing, Norris declared an interest in rallying in an Motorsport.com interview last ...Keep readingView the full article

Top Performer - Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja For the second consecutive rally, Hyundai's Ott Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja deserve the Top Performer Award after coming through a particularly challenging Ypres Rally Belgium to claim their third victory of 2022. Ypres' tricky narrow tarmac roads can catch out the best of drivers, as championship leader Kalle Rovanpera and 2021 winner ...Keep readingView the full article

The father of reigning F1 world champion Max Verstappen turned heads on his WRC debut, running as high as 25th overall and leading the Masters Cup class at the wheel of a DG Sport Competition-prepared Citroen C3 Rally2 car. Verstappen and co-driver Harm van Koppen eventually finished the rally 60th after running off the road during Stage 13, but the Dutchman did finish ahead of WRC championship ...Keep readingView the full article

The runaway championship leader made the first costly error of the season on the Belgian asphalt roads when he crashed out of Stage 2 while leading the rally. The accident was the 21-year-old's first since Rally Finland in October last year, and since then he's finished in the points at every WRC event that has followed. Heading into Belgium, the Finn had built up a 94-point lead after ...Keep readingView the full article

The 2019 world champion claimed back-to-back WRC victories for the first time since his championship-winning season after fending off Toyota’s Elfyn Evans in an attritional Ypres Rally. Tanak’s win arrived two weeks after scoring an against-the-odds triumph in Finland, but the Estonian admitted it was a “big surprise” to win on tarmac in Belgium. The rally wasn’t without its ...Keep readingView the full article

The Ford squad has struggled for results in recent months with its last podium arriving in June, courtesy of Craig Breen’s second-place finish in Sardinia. This weekend in Belgium the team’s fortunes failed to improve as all three drivers Breen, Gus Greensmith and Adrien Fourmaux were involved in costly incidents. Breen was running fifth when a mistake in Stage 10 of the asphalt rally ...Keep readingView the full article

The 2019 world champion came under pressure from Evans early on Sunday morning’s asphalt stages before going on to seal the win by 5.0s. The victory arrived just two weeks after his triumph in Rally Finland. Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja produced a faultless drive from start to finish. The Estonian was in contention from the beginning after ending Friday 2.5s shy of teammate Thierry ...Keep readingView the full article

Evans emerged fastest on the pair of stages that kicked off the rally’s final day to close to within 6.7s of leader Tanak, who started Sunday with an 8.2s advantage. Toyota’s Esapekka Lappi completed the loop in a comfortable third, 1m29.8s adrift, while Hyundai’s Oliver Solberg hung onto fourth, but saw his gap to M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux cut 10.1s. Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta ...Keep readingView the full article

The M-Sport Ford driver found himself caught in spectator traffic on a road section before the day’s penultimate stage. Fourmaux elected to overtake the queue of cars but was stopped by local police. Fourmaux eventually arrived at the stage start two minutes late which resulted in a 20 second penalty and dropped the Frenchman from fourth to fifth position heading into Sunday’s final four ...Keep readingView the full article