On this day 15 years ago, Richard Burns sadly passed away due to cancer, exactly four years after claiming the 2001 World Rally crown. In an article originally published in Autosport magazine on 1 December 2005, David Evans recounts his incredible career along with tributes from those who knew him best Diagnosed with an astrocytoma

Toyota’s Elfyn Evans says the importance of this week’s pre-Rally Monza test cannot be underestimated ahead of next month’s final round of the World Rally Championship season. Evans holds a 14-point lead over Toyota team-mate and six-time champion Sebastien Ogier heading into Rally Monza, which is set to go ahead despite Italy’s ongoing coronavirus restrictions.

25 years ago today, Colin McRae became Britain’s first World Rally champion. In an interview published by Autosport magazine on 30 November 1995, he reflects on that famous triumph on the RAC and explains why F1 won’t tempt him away from the WRC The look says it all. Two hours into his reign as Britain’s

Three-time MotoGP race winner Franco Morbidelli will take part in next month’s World Rally Championship finale at Rally Monza with Hyundai Rally Team Italia. WRC organisers announced earlier this year its coronavirus-affected 2020 season would be brought to a close on 3-6 December with the ACI Rally Monza event. Rally Monza has typically featured MotoGP

Sebastien Ogier will stay with Toyota in the World Rally Championship in 2021, deferring his plans to retire from the top echelon of rallying for at least another year. Autosport revealed back in July that Ogier had expressed his intention to contest the 2021 WRC season to Toyota, and the Japanese marque was also not

Hyundai boss Andrea Adamo suggested Dani Sordo is better equipped to help the team retain its World Rally Championship manufacturers’ crown after choosing him over Craig Breen for Rally Monza. The Alzenau-based squad clinched its first makes’ title last year and Hyundai currently sits at the top of the standings by just seven points over

Sebastien Loeb has conducted his first test with Prodrive’s new BRX T1 machine ahead of next year’s Dakar Rally, believing he and the team “will do something quite good”. The nine-time World Rally champion will compete with the Prodrive-run Bahrain Raid Xtreme team in next year’s off-road endurance event, which takes place on 3-15 January

Andreas Mikkelsen has said he does not expect an easy ride on his return to Rally Islas Canarias next week. Mikkelsen will drive the same Topp-Cars-run Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo that carried him to victory on Rally Hungary earlier this month. Having dominated on his first competitive outing of the season to record a straightforward

A special documentary marking 25 years since Colin McRae became the first British driver to win the World Rally title will be broadcast later this week. Called ‘Colin McRae: 25 Years A Champion’, the programme features interviews with McRae’s team boss at the time Dave Richards and McRae’s father Jimmy, who is reunited with the

M-Sport has completed its Ladder of Opportunity strategy with the new Fiesta Rally3, meaning it now builds a car for each of the World Rally Championship’s five-tier class structure. Designed and engineered at the Cumbrian team’s Krakow facilities in Poland, order books for the four-wheel-drive supermini – which costs £89,875 excluding VAT – are set

Andreas Mikkelsen has reiterated his desire to find a path back to the World Rally Championship for the final round of the season next month in Italy. A three-time winner in the series, Mikkelsen has been without a drive in the WRC’s top division since he was released by Hyundai at the end of last

Andreas Mikkelsen recorded a comfortable victory at Rally Hungary and believes the performance should go a long way to silencing those who doubt him. On his first competitive outing in almost a year, the Norwegian led the European Rally Championship tarmac event for all but one stage to finish over 90 seconds clear of top

Former Hyundai WRC driver Hayden Paddon has warned rallying runs the risk of being “left behind” the longer it takes to embrace less polluting renewable energies. Paddon made the comments at the official unveiling of his new electric car at Hyundai Motors in New Zealand, a project that has taken only eighteen months and just

Reigning World Rally Champion Ott Tanak believes the series faces the threat of being mothballed in 2021 unless organisers can establish how to run events safely during the coronavirus pandemic. Only five of the rallies that made up the original World Rally Championship calendar for this year went ahead as planned, with these far outweighed

FIA Rally Director Yves Matton thinks Ypres Rally organisers have “proven” their case for hosting future World Rally Championship events even though it failed to go ahead because of coronavirus. Just three weeks before the rally was due to make its bow as the series’ penultimate round, it had to be abandoned as the number

The World Rally Championship’s inaugural visit to Belgium for the Ypres Rally is off due to restrictions in the wake of an increase in COVID-19 cases in the country. Added to the heavily-disrupted 2020 WRC schedule in August as a replacement for the cancelled Rally Japan, the Ypres Rally had been set to take place

Former Volkswagen and Hyundai World Rally Championship driver Andreas Mikkelsen is set to make his first rally appearance of 2020 on next month’s Rally Hungary. Mikkelsen will start the European Rally Championship round in a Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo owned by the Topp-Cars Rally Team. The Norwegian will be eligible to score ERC points as

The first examples of Hyundai Motorsport’s newly-unveiled World Rally Championship support series challenger are set to be delivered to customers next summer once an “extensive testing” programme has been completed. The Alzenau-based squad claims the new Rally2 car will continue the success enjoyed by its R5 predecessor, with key development work to be overseen by

Sebastien Ogier is confident a change in fortunes in this season’s World Rally Championship will allow him to reel in Toyota team-mate and current leader of the competition, Elfyn Evans. With two rounds remaining – the Ypres and Monza rallies – Ogier is still in the hunt for a seventh WRC drivers’ crown after trimming

The next generation of World Rally Car will adopt a bespoke 100kW plug-in hybrid system after the final ‘Rally1’ technical regulations were agreed by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council. As well as giving crews a power boost on the stages, the technology is set to be used on road sections – as outlined by

Fresh from victory in Argentina, Carlos Sainz Sr’s World Rally Championship future was under serious consideration in 2004 as bigger priorities emerged. In Autosport’s 29 July issue, the Spaniard hints at what was to come both for himself and the WRC Up on the podium after Rally Argentina, Carlos Sainz’s face was a picture of

Senior government and tourism bosses in Northern Ireland are considering “in detail” a fresh business case for moving the UK World Rally Championship round across the Irish Sea in 2021. Having refused to entertain the idea for many months on the grounds it did not represent good value for money in the current climate, the

Sebastien Ogier believes the decision to extend this year’s World Rally Championship season with the late addition of December’s Rally Monza is “great news” for fans. Monza becomes the third entirely new event to join rallying’s top flight after Rally Estonia – the home round of defending World Rally champions Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja

World Rally Championship leader Elfyn Evans has said a top-five performance in last weekend’s Rally Italy was what he expected to come away with because of his road opening responsibilities. Evans finished fourth on the antepenultimate round of the championship to retain top spot in the WRC drivers’ standings despite his lead over Toyota team-mate

Dani Sordo will hold on to his Rally Italy win despite his Hyundai failing post-event scrutiny checks. An inspection of the Spaniard’s Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC showed the rear subframe to be underweight. The part in question was shown to total 9112g with the minimum permissible weight being 9136.5g. Checks were also carried out on

Hyundai’s Dani Sordo claimed his third World Rally Championship victory and his second in a row on Rally Italy, finishing just 5.1 seconds ahead of team-mate Thierry Neuville. Cooler conditions greeted the runners on Sunday morning where a loop of just two stages awaited which was to be run twice through the day. Toyota’s six-time

Dani Sordo has maintained his lead over Sebastien Ogier on a dramatic second day of Rally Italy, with World Rally Championship standings leader Elfyn Evans up to fourth place. After being forced to sweep the stages on Friday, the championship-leading Toyotas of Sebastien Ogier and Evans were released from their burden in Saturday’s road order

The boss of Motorsport UK is “grateful” Rally GB will return to the World Rally Championship next year despite total funding required for the event not being currently in place. Yesterday the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council rubber stamped the calendar for 2021 with Britain one of 12 countries listed alongside Monte Carlo, newcomer Croatia,

Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship has moved to an August date next year following a virtual meeting of the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) members on Friday. The decision to include Rally GB in the Eurocentric twelve-round calendar ends months of speculation and means that the event will continue its long-held association

Hyundai ‘super-sub’ Dani Sordo holds the overnight lead after Day 1 of the World Rally Championship’s Rally Italy, as standings leader Elfyn Evans ended the day fifth. Many of the front-runners elected to take a cautious approach on the opening stage of the day, which allowed M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen to shine. The Finn, who has