Rally

The Estonian’s teammate Thierry Neuville posted an electrifying time on the final stage of the day, 12.3 seconds faster than Tanak, to close within 2s of the Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera, who holds second place overall. Three stages were run in morning loop and in repeated the afternoon, with a service at the midway point. Tyre wear and preserving the Pirelli studded rubber was the major ...Keep reading View the full article

The Estonian now holds a 23.6-second advantage over the Toyota of Kalle Rovanpera, who has passed the Hyundai of Craig Breen for second place overall. Britain’s Elfyn Evans, lying fifth, won the second stage of the day in his Toyota to keep the pressure on the fourth place Hyundai of Thierry Neuville. Teenage Swedish driver Oliver Solberg holds sixth place in his first-ever appearance at ...Keep reading View the full article

Despite retiring in the early 1990s, Mikkola’s 18 World Rally Championship victories keeps him in the Top 10 most successful rally drivers in history. He won the 1983 World Rally Championship in an Audi Quattro, but also three times finished runner-up and three times finished third. Seven of Mikkola’s triumphs came in the famously daunting and fast 1000 Lakes rally in his Finnish homeland ...Keep reading View the full article

Although it is one of Europe’s oldest rallies – with a roll of honour dating back to 1966 and featuring names such as Hannu Mikkola, Ari Vatanen, Henri Toivonen and Tommi Makinen – the Arctic Rally is making its debut on the WRC schedule. Lapland made a late substitution in place of the traditional Rally Sweden, which was originally scheduled for this weekend. The Swedish event was ...Keep reading View the full article

The squad already finds itself twenty-two points adrift of Toyota in the manufacturers’ championship after last month’s opening Monte Carlo Rally which Sebastien Ogier won for a record eighth occasion. Adamo publicly criticised the performance via the team’s post-event communication, his anger fuelled by the retirement of Ott Tanak who subsequently picked up a suspended rally ban for a ...Keep reading View the full article

The snow-based event is a new addition to the WRC calendar and replaces Rally Sweden, which was cancelled in December due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rovanpera, whose father Harri took his only WRC win on the Swedish snow 20 years ago this month, has previous experience of the event having won the Arctic Lapland Rally last season. He shone on his only previous WRC outing on snow, pipping Ogier to ...Keep reading View the full article

Confirmation of the drive in a Ford Fiesta WRC car coincides with the news that Red Bull has finalised terms to support the 25-year-old going forward. Last month, M-Sport said Fourmaux would be handed selected WRC Car outings in 2021 on top of a full WRC2 campaign in a Ford Fiesta Rally 2 alongside co-driver Renaud Jamoul. M-Sport Ford Team Principal Richard Millener has said that recent ...Keep reading View the full article

Running as KYB Team JC, the Joel Christoffersson-owned JC Raceteknik squad used EKS-built Audi S1s in World RX last season, having won the European series with Swede Robin Larsson and another EKS-built car in 2019. Double DTM Champion and 2016 World RX Drivers' title-winner Ekstrom set up his EKS World RX squad in 2014, and claimed both the Drivers' and Teams' titles in 2016. The outfit ...Keep reading View the full article

While Toyota and M-Sport are inching closer to running their Rally1 test mules in the open for the first time, work on Hyundai's new challenger has not yet been given the go-ahead, team principal Andrea Adamo confirmed. From next season, the WRC's top tier cars will adopt plug-in hybrid technology. As well as giving crews a power boost on the stages, the power pack can also be used on road ...Keep reading View the full article

Tanak crushed the competition in the Otepaa Winter Rally, going fastest on every stage to win by 33.4 seconds from Hyundai teammate Thierry Neuville. The result was Tanak’s fifth win on home soil with the Korean marque since last summer and arguably the most important as the 2019 World Champion tries to bounce back from his Rally Monte Carlo disappointment. For the second year running, he ...Keep reading View the full article

The 2016 WRC2 champion is currently without a seat in the WRC following his departure from the M-Sport Ford squad in December. Following his title success with Skoda, Lappi won the 2017 Rally Finland in only his fourth event for Toyota, but switched to Citroen in 2019 just before it withdrew from the WRC. His single season with M-Sport was a struggle, with two fourth places on the Monte ...Keep reading View the full article

WRC Promotor and the FIA will collaborate to run the 2021 World RX season, and are working on finalising a multi-year promoter agreement for the German-based company to hold the commercial and media rights for the series. A tender process was opened in October to find a new promotor for World RX, after previous commercial rights holder IMG, who took over the discipline’s highest level from ...Keep reading View the full article

The 2016 World RX champion is contesting selected events in preparation for his 2021 programme with the ABT Cupra team in the new Extreme E series, and drove in the Dakar Rally last month. He will compete in the second round of the 2021 WRC with a car run by Ekstrom's co-owned EKS JC squad, and will be co-driven by former FIA Junior WRC champion Emil Bergkvist, who also navigated for Ekstrom in ...Keep reading View the full article

The Swede experienced Hyundai Motorsport's i20 Coupe WRC for the first time at a test in Finland on Sunday, after confirmation came last week of his top tier WRC debut this month. Solberg spent the best part of a day driving the supermini ahead of the Arctic Finland Rally later this month. He should have been joined by regular co-driver Aaron Johnston at the test near Rovaniemi ...Keep reading View the full article

The drive is seen by Hyundai as part of the "ongoing learning curve" for the promising 19-year-old, with Solberg sharing the i20 Coupe WRC with Aaron Johnston. The car will be serviced by French team 2C Competition. However, team principal Andrea Adamo is keen for Solberg to work closely with Ott Tanak and Thierry Neuville, and Irishman Craig Breen, who will make the first of several planed ...Keep reading View the full article

The two-time Dakar Rally winner has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, "for service to motorsport, particularly to cross countrymotorcycle racing". Price is the only Australian to have won the world's most famous rally raid. He joins the likes of Craig Lowndes, Mark Webber, Mark Skaife, Jack Brabham, Peter Brock and the late John Harvey in the Order of Australia ...Keep reading View the full article

The Welshman finished the season opener just over 32 seconds behind reigning world champion Ogier after struggling to maximise the potential of Pirelli's snow and studded compounds. This season sees the Italian manufacturer become the official tyre supplier of the WRC taking over from Michelin. Evans' struggles with the new rubber were apparent on Sunday's stages as Ogier managed to ...Keep reading View the full article

Ogier conquered last weekend's Monte Carlo event for an eighth time, surpassing the seven event victories he shared with his former Citroen teammate and countryman, Sebastien Loeb. The 37-year-old has achieved the feat with five different manufacturers across three decades, his first coming as an Intercontinental Rally Challenge driver in 2009 with Peugeot and the rest as a World Rally ...Keep reading View the full article

The defending drivers’ champion broke the record of seven Monte Carlo wins set by his former nemesis, Sebastien Loeb, and also equalled Walter Rohrl’s 37-year-old record of winning the WRC’s blue riband event with four different manufacturers during his career. Toyota driver Ogier claimed victory on three of the four stages held on Sunday, including the Power Stage with its five ...Keep reading View the full article

The Frenchman drove an Alpine A110S on the first two stages of the Monte Carlo Rally as the official VIP course car, carrying his regular race number, 31. Ocon admitted that driving the sportscar on the slippery wet roads, while being fed information by a co-driver, took some getting used to. His only previous experience of an Alpine came when he lapped the Nurburgring during the ...Keep reading View the full article