MINI has announced it will abandon its factory support for WRC Team MINI Portugal at the end of the current season. That means Australia’s Chris Atkinson , contracted only for the final five races of the 2012 season, will enter another WRC off-season in limbo. BMW Motorsport has left the explanation to Dr Kay Segler, […]
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News has emerged that an announcement from MINI and Prodrive confirming a WRC entry is imminent. As the rendering above shows the rally car will be based on MINI’s new four-door Countryman model and will derive its engine from the 1.6 litre John Cooper Works range. It is expected the announcement will be made before […]
First MINI, now Ford. In a matter of days two manufacturers have withdrawn their factory support from the world’s premier rally category. Ford has offered factory support to the M-Sport team since 1997. That support will cease at the end of the 2012 season. Ford of Europe confirmed their exit on Monday with Roelant de […]
Well, we were expecting Chris Atkinson to drive a MINI in Rallye Deutschland, but we weren’t expecting this! In exchange for posing like a prat in the above pic Atko will be the lead driver for WRC Team MINI Portugal for the remaining five races of the 2012 season. It’s been a roller coaster year […]
Chris Atkinson’s wandering 2012 season could continue with a third team if the latest rumours of one-race deal with MINI prove correct. Having already driven for Ford and Citroën this year, ‘Atko’ hopes to make it a trifecta with MINI at Rally Deutschland (24–26 August). At this stage the rumours are light on detail and […]
Further signs of decay within the WRC have been revealed by Prodrive executives in an interview on The Rally Show by iRally. No surprise the root of the problems boil down to the lack of television coverage for the world’s premier rally category, as Dave Richards explained. “We stopped looking for sponsors two months ago. […]
Prior to last weekend’s Rally Portugal event Prodrive were talking up their chances of securing a top three finish. Well, things didn’t quite go to plan with exhaust problems on the opening day putting lead driver Dani Sordo out of contention. However, the Prodrive MINIs did recover to show good pace during the rally. Dani […]
The Prodrive MINI WRC returns to action this weekend at Rally de Portugal and they have high hopes. It’ll be their first event since the BMW decided to shift their manufacturer alliance elsewhere and we rather hope Dani Sordo has a cracker of a race and sticks it up ’em, so to speak. Pleasingly, the […]
BMW has today released a statement confirming what we already knew; they will be cutting full factory support from Prodrive for its MINI WRC program. However, Prodrive will continue as a factory-supported privateer team—Dani Sordo in the lead car, with the second car sold on a pay-per-drive basis. They will also continue to build customer […]
It’s one week until Rally Sweden and Autosport brings word that the BMW Group is expected to terminate its contract with Prodrive later today. This news brings the future of the MINI WRC program into question. A BMW Group source has allegedly revealed, “There was a chance this might have happened last year, but in […]
The Monte Carlo Rally, fondly referred to as ‘The Monte’, is resuming its rightful and traditional position as the first WRC event of the year. Yesterday the top WRC teams were out in Valence giving their machines a final shakedown before taking on the full rally. You can read previews from Citroën, Ford, MINI and […]
After something of a false start when they missed the registration deadline for the 2012 WRC season, MINI will be ready to field two cars at this week’s Monte Carlo Rally (17–22 January). There’s no good news for Kris Meeke, though, who will miss the first two races, at least, to cashed up drivers able […]