Hyundai World Rally team boss Andrea Adamo wants to apologise to Sebastien Loeb for letting him down on Rally Portugal, feeling the nine-time champion’s time was wasted. Portugal was Loeb’s penultimate outing in his current part-time Hyundai deal, but fuel problems on stage three wrecked his weekend. Dani Sordo ran into similar issues. Is Loeb’s

M-Sport Ford World Rally Championship driver Teemu Suninen has switched co-driver, with Jarmo Lehtinen returning to rallying’s top flight to join his Finnish compatriot. Suninen said the switch had come as he sought a more experienced co-driver for the rest of the season, starting with Rally Italy next weekend. Lehtinen, who has 169 WRC starts

M-Sport has revealed the successor to its best-selling Ford Fiesta R5 rally car. The new car is a ground-up overhaul of the original Fiesta which, launched in 2013, was the world’s first R5 car to break cover. Since then, the Cumbrian-built machine has become the world’s best-selling car in the category with close to 300

Volkswagen Motorsport is confident it has found the cause of the fires that have hit its Polo GTI R5 cars recently. Three Polos caught fire last weekend; two on the Rally Portugal round of the World Rally championship – although Volkswagen said a fire that affected Ole Christian Veiby’s car there was unrelated – and

Citroen’s Sebastien Ogier fired strong accusations at Hyundai World Rally Championship team principal Andrea Adamo in the immediate aftermath of last weekend’s Rally Portugal. The six-time world champion accepted Hyundai ordering Dani Sordo and Sebastian Loeb to check in late to stages on Saturday and Sunday in order to give team leader Thierry Neuville a

Nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb will contest a pair of upcoming national rallies in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC, starting with next week’s Rallye Vosges French Rally Championship round. Vosges was the basis of France’s WRC round for five years, with Loeb celebrating a memorable seventh title on his home roads in the Alsace

The World Rally Championship will not be any less competitive or cost effective when it moves into its hybrid era in 2022, insists FIA rally director Yves Matton. Further details of the next generation of World Rally Cars will be revealed following next week’s meeting of the World Motor Sport Council. Costs were a key

Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville has defended his team using a tactical approach during the World Rally Championship’s Rally Portugal, but did not comment on Sebastien Ogier’s accusations. The Hyundai squad ordered Dani Sordo and Sebastien Loeb to check in late ahead of stages so that it would sweep the road and benefit Neuville in his fight

World Rally Championship leader Sebastien Ogier has accused Hyundai team principal Andrea Adamo of taking a tactical approach too far on Rally of Portugal. After fuel-related problems on the opening day left Hyundai drivers Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo down the order, Adamo used the regulations to manipulate those cars into a starting position which

Volkswagen Motorsport is working with fire analysis experts to help identify the cause of the fires which have claimed five Polo GTI R5s. Three Polos have caught fire this weekend, with two during the World Rally Championship’s Rally of Portugal and one on the Chablais Rally in Switzerland. The cars have caught fire on a

Toyota’s Ott Tanak won his second successive World Rally Championship round with victory on Rally Portugal ahead of Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, as team-mate Kris Meeke retired on the final stage. Meeke was running third heading into the powerstage, but clipped an object on the inside of a right-hander that instantly broke the front-right corner of

Toyota’s Ott Tanak is within touching distance of victory on Rally Portugal, as Kris Meeke dropped behind World Rally Championship rival Thierry Neuville with a costly spin. Meeke grabbed 1.9s from Tanak’s overnight 4.3s lead on the opening stage of the day but Tanak responded on the next two stages to rebuild an 8.1s advantage.

Toyota’s Ott Tanak clung onto the lead of Rally Portugal over Kris Meeke and Thierry Neuville, as both he and team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala suffered damper issues. Latvala had carved 12.2 seconds out of Tanak’s lead on Saturday morning after selecting a harder tyre compound than his immediate rivals, but his work was undone on the

Toyota’s dominance of the World Rally Championship on Rally Portugal continued on Saturday morning, but Jari-Matti Latvala has sliced rally leader Ott Tanak’s advantage to just 5.1 seconds. Tanak’s morning was not plain-sailing, as the Estonian “f*cked” the brakes aboard his Yaris to lose nine seconds to stage eight winner Kris Meeke. Tanak’s lead gap

Toyota World Rally Championship driver Ott Tanak leads Rally Portugal after Friday’s seven stages, holding a 17.3 second advantage over team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala. Tanak hit the front on stage three when Hyundai driver Dani Sordo was slowed with fuel related issues, and didn’t look back as others suffered minor woes. The Estonian finished the leg

Ott Tanak continues to lead the World Rally Championship’s Rally Portugal ahead of his Toyota team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Kris Meeke, as Teemu Suninen’s podium challenge for M-Sport faded. Latvala reduced Tanak’s advantage from 6.9 seconds to 5.4s on the first stage of the afternoon, but immediately fell back again on stage five as he

Toyota World Rally Championship driver Ott Tanak leads team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Kris Meeke after the opening morning of Rally Portugal, as drama befell early leader Dani Sordo. Hyundai’s Sordo was 4.2 seconds faster than Tanak’s Toyota on the opening Lousa stage, with both M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen and Tanak’s team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala within 0.6s of

The Dakar Rally hopes to expand the event beyond Saudi Arabia and into other countries for 2021, according to the event’s director David Castera. In April it was confirmed that the 2020 edition of the Dakar will take place in Saudi Arabia after a five-year deal was signed and began a move that takes it

Leading World Rally Championship crews have called on Rally Portugal’s organisers to increase the gaps between cars on safety grounds. Recent hot weather has caused significant dust problems and, following the pre-event recce, drivers spoke of visibility problems, especially on the stages running south of the event’s Matosinhos base. The current start list for Friday’s

Gus Greensmith says he has now got his head around M-Sport’s Ford Fiesta ahead of his World Rally Car debut on this weekend’s Rally Portugal World Rally Championship round. The 22-year-old drove on Rally Portugal last year in the WRC2 category, although the majority of the opening part of this year’s event takes place on

Hyundai driver Thierry Neuville has called on the FIA to give the World Rally Championship a permanent rally officiator, along the lines of Formula 1’s race director role. Neuville has requested the change following the decision to give him a notional time on the second stage of Rally Chile. In that event, Neuville’s SS2 El

Defending European Rally champion Alexey Lukyanuk has been handed 10 days of community service as punishment for two speeding offences on last weekend’s Rally Liepaja. Both incidents were captured via the GPS safety system fitted to all rally cars in the ERC. Lukyanuk’s Citroen C3 R5 was found doing 124.9km/h (78mph) in a 50km/h (31mph)

Oliver Solberg, the son of 2003 World Rally champion Petter, has won the European Rally Championship’s Rally Liepaja on his debut in the category’s top class. The 17-year-old beat reigning ERC champion Alexey Lukyanuk by 22.7 seconds after winning 10 of the 13 stages in Latvia. The result made Solberg the youngest rally winner in

The Hyundai World Rally Championship team faces a driver shortage for Rally Finland, with Dani Sordo and Sebastien Loeb reluctant to contest the event and concerns over Andreas Mikkelsen’s form. Hyundai began 2019 intending to field Thierry Neuville and Mikkelsen full-time, with Loeb and Sordo sharing the third entry. But it benched Mikkelsen for Corsica

Juho Hanninen will drive a fourth Toyota Yaris WRC on next month’s Rally Italy World Rally Championship round. Hanninen has not competed in the WRC since he was dropped from the Tommi Makinen Racing-run squad’s line-up at the end of 2017, after finishing ninth in the standings that year. But he has remained on Makinen’s

Ex-Citroen World Rally Championship driver Craig Breen will contest this year’s Ypres Rally in Belgium, driving a new Volkswagen Polo R5 for the first time. Breen has contested the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship in a Ford Fiesta R5 and he currently leads the standings having won all four 2019 rounds. He has also competed in

Britain’s World Rally Championship round will start in England for the first time in 20 years, with Wales Rally GB flagged away from Liverpool into an opening Oulton Park stage. The confirmation of Liverpool as a start venue and Oulton Park as the opener are the highlights of the main revisions to the 2019 route.

Sebastien Loeb will replace beleaguered Hyundai World Rally Championship driver Andreas Mikkelsen on next week’s Rally Portugal. Hyundai announced its decision to bench the Norwegian in favour of nine-time WRC champion Loeb for the second time in four rallies on Tuesday. Mikkelsen, who was previous dropped for April’s Corsica round, is due to return to

Thierry Neuville has completed his first test in a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC six days after crashing out of Rally Chile. Neuville completed a planned single day of running in Sardinia as his pre-event test for next month’s Rally of Italy. The test ran on roads close to the route for the Alghero-based event throughout

Wales Rally GB should make a short-term move to Northern Ireland for 2020 and then rotate around Britain to safeguard its World Rally Championship future, says the WRC Promoter. The 2020 calendar will be discussed at Friday’s meeting of the WRC Commission in Geneva. Corsica and Germany are expected to drop off the calendar to