It’s often said that you should never meet your heroes. The fear being they can never live up to your massive expectations. We’re not sure if your hero is an inanimate object if the the same can be said or not. What we do know is if we were ever offered the chance to drive [...]
Jari-Matti Latvala has answered Loeb’s opening win of the year by guiding his Ford Fiesta RS WRC to victory at Rally Sweden on the weekend. It’s the sixth time in a row Ford has won the event. The 26-year-old Finn took the lead on the opening day and enjoyed strong competition at times from former [...]
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 [...]
Sebastien Loeb has opened the defence of his eighth world title in grand style with a comfortable win in the Rallye Monte Carlo. The French maestro, who turns 38 next month, and his co-driver Daniel Elena showed no signs of slowing down winning the rally by almost three minutes from Dani Sordo (MINI). The tricky [...]
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 [...]
MINI WRC driver pairing of Kris Meeke (pictured left) and his co-driver Paul Nagle have been dropped, Autocar reports. At this stage the shock decision has not been officially confirmed and Prodrive chairman Dave Richards has been unavailable for comment. It’s understood MINI and Prodrive have struggled to find enough sponsorship to keep Meeke/Nagle in [...]
MINI has missed the deadline for official entry into the 2012 WRC series, Autosport reports. It’s not immediately clear who is to blame for the oversight, but it seems to be the Munich side of the BMW–Prodrive relationship. As you would expect both parties are now desperately trying to come to a new agreement with [...]
It doesn’t seem all that long ago we were telling you about Sebastien Loeb’s eighth world championship. But already he’s back at work testing for next month’s Monte Carlo Rally (17–22 January). After the break we bring you two videos of the Citroën DS3 WRC in action, first it’s Loeb at the wheel, then his [...]
MINI and Prodrive returned to the world rally stage with their Countryman WRC this year. In a staged re-introduction to the sport they took part in only six of the 13 events. Dani Sordo still managed to make quite an impact, with a third place finish in Germany and coming within 6.3 seconds of a [...]
French duo Sebastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia have quickly moved on from the disappointment of their dismissal from the Citroën WRC team by signing a three-year deal with Volkswagen Motorsport. The pair will spend 2012 fine tuning the Polo R WRC in preparation for Volkswagen’s debut WRC season in 2013. With seven WRC victories under [...]
We bring you the rather intriguing news that Mikko Hirvonen will be racing alongside Sebastien Loeb at the Citroën WRC team in 2012. Hirvonen leaves Ford after six years with a record of 14 wins and twice being runner up to Loeb in the championship (2009 and 2011). Hirvonen switching camps isn’t the real story [...]
In the end it was good fortune that handed Sebastien Loeb his eighth WRC title. Loeb was forced out of Wales Rally GB following a low-impact collision with a tourist on a non-competitive stage. Thankfully, for Loeb, his closest rival, Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen, had already retired from the event. “It’s proof that a rally [...]
Ford began the Wales Rally GB with high hopes, Mikko Hirvonen was still a mathematical chance to win the championship. Alas, an accident and the subsequent damage forced Hirvonen out at the end of Day 2. That handed the 2011 WRC drivers’ title to Sebastien Loeb. Ironically a bizarre accident on a liaison stage with [...]