Andreas Mikkelsen has taken an early lead on Rally Mexico over World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier, while Mikkelsen’s Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville suffered a puncture and is only ninth. Stage wins on both El Chocolate, the longest stage of the rally, and the short Leon city stage handed Mikkelsen a 1.6-second advantage over second-placed Ogier,

Toyota chief engineer Tom Fowler says the sensor failure which spoiled Ott Tanak’s Rally Mexico shakedown on Thursday is not related to the overheating problems experienced previously by the team. Tanak’s Yaris WRC was halted on his first run at the three-mile shakedown stage, but because the championship leader was not blocking the road, the

World Rally Championship crews have been left fuming about a “dangerous” jump on the opening stage of Rally Mexico on Thursday. A jump was added near the end of Thursday night’s Guanajuato street stage – the severity of which threw the rear of the cars into the air, with organisers later calling a halt to

Esapekka Lappi currently holds a 0.1-second lead over his World Rally Championship rivals on Rally Mexico, but the opening Guanajuato superspecial was curtailed early due to a damaged jump. An aggressively angled artificial jump was placed by organisers just before the flying finish of the 0.7 mile city sprint, but several drivers had violent nose-heavy

Canada’s return to the World Rally Championship could be fast-tracked in an effort to find FIA rally director Yves Matton’s medium-term solution to the series’ winter rally headache. 
Matton told Autosport last month that he favoured two winter rallies on the WRC calendar and a Canadian event is seen as part of that solution. A

World Rally Championship leader Ott Tanak is confident there will not be a return of the cooling issues which have plagued Toyota’s last two trips to Rally Mexico. The Yaris WRC has struggled to acclimatise to the combination of the altitude and heat in Guanajuato, with two factory cars finishing sixth and seventh in 2017.

Toyota driver Takamoto Katsuta has admitted he still has a lot to learn about getting the maximum out of a Yaris WRC following a debut win in the car on Saturday’s Itaralli in Finland. Katsuta won the final winter round of this year’s Finnish Rally Championship by edging Emil Lindholm’s Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 by

Ex-Hyundai driver Jari Huttunen’s Rally Sweden drive has landed him firmly back in the running for a World Rally Championship factory seat. The Skoda Fabia R5 driver’s efforts were one of the talking points of last month’s Torsby-based event. The 25-year-old went off the road while fighting for the lead with WRC 2 winner Ole

The FIA has implemented its biggest step yet in safeguarding rallying’s future with the publication of its Rally Safety Guidelines – and warned reckless fans their days are numbered. Following the delivery of the guidelines, the FIA’s rally director Yves Matton described spectator safety as the key to a sustainable future for the sport. The

Hyundai team principal Andrea Adamo says his decision to bench Andreas Mikkelsen was based solely on fielding the strongest World Rally Championship squad possible for the Tour of Corsica. Mikkelsen was originally scheduled to contest the complete WRC season with Hyundai – with his management team going to great lengths to ensure every aspect of

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Rally Sweden’s defiance at FIA recommendations not to run historic cars in the middle of its World Rally Championship round could jeopardise the event’s future in the series. In an effort to balance its books, the second round of the

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. M-Sport has proved to itself and its World Rally Championship opposition that it is still a team to be feared, says boss Rich Millener. After a fraught winter in which the team’s participation in the 2019 WRC was in doubt,

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Three-time European Rally champion Kajetan Kajetanowicz is set to contest his first full season in the World Rally Championship’s WRC2 class in 2019, switching from Ford to Volkswagen machinery. Following a hat-trick of ERC titles between 2015 and ’17, Kajetanowicz

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The Junior World Rally Championship opener in Sweden last weekend could have been cancelled but for an overnight effort by M-Sport Poland to rectify a technical problem. M-Sport Poland, which prepares the cars for the full JWRC field, discovered an

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Mads Ostberg admitted he felt afraid and uncomfortable on his Citroen C3 R5 debut at Rally Sweden last week. With Citroen having slimmed its World Rally Championship factory line-up down to two cars, Ostberg has moved down to the WRC’s

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Rally Sweden looks set to ignore the advice of the FIA and World Rally Championship drivers and continue to run its historic category between first and second runnings of stages. The WRC drivers have long complained that the different lines

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Hyundai has dropped Andreas Mikkelsen from its Tour of Corsica World Rally Championship line-up, leaving him on the sidelines in favour of Thierry Neuville, Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo. Mikkelsen had expected, and some sources have reported he was contracted,

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Marcus Gronholm has called time on his World Rally Championship career after a disappointing Rally Sweden outing last weekend. The two-time world champion retired from full-time driving at the end of 2007 but has made three additional WRC appearances since

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ott Tanak leads the World Rally Championship standings for the first time in his career after winning Rally Sweden, scoring maximum points with victory on the powerstage too. The Toyota driver had established an unassailable lead on Saturday thanks to

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ott Tanak remains in the Rally Sweden lead with one stage remaining, while Andreas Mikkelsen lost ground and Esapekka Lappi took charge of the second place battle. Mikkelsen and Lappi headed to the first running of the Likenas stage tied

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Andreas Mikkelsen and Esapekka Lappi are tied for second place on Rally Sweden behind Ott Tanak with three stages remaining, with Thierry Neuville only 2.3 seconds behind them in fourth. Runaway leader Tanak managed his gap across Saturday’s final two

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ott Tanak has extended his Rally Sweden lead to nearly a minute, while a three-way fight for second place has developed between Andreas Mikkelsen, Esapekka Lappi and Thierry Neuville. Following main rival Teemu Suninen’s off into a snowbank in the

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ott Tanak now leads the World Rally Championship’s Rally Sweden by over half a minute, after his main rival for victory Teemu Suninen went off into a snowbank. Toyota driver Tanak took the lead from Suninen by going 3.8 seconds

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Rally Sweden leader Teemu Suninen will have the full backing of the M-Sport team to risk everything in his pursuit of a maiden World Rally Championship win this weekend. Suninen starts day two with a two-second advantage over Toyota man

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Ogier will resume Rally Sweden on Saturday after his crash, but the World Rally Championship leader feels he has “nothing to play for” as he rejoins in 46th position. Ogier’s Citroen C3 WRC was not damaged when he went

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Teemu Suninen leads a World Rally Championship event for the first time on Rally Sweden, while nearest rival Jari-Matti Latvala and points leader Sebastien Ogier have both crashed. Both M-Sport’s Suninen and Toyota driver Latvala had risen quickly through the

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ott Tanak scored two stage wins on the World Rally Championship’s opening morning of Rally Sweden, the Toyota driver establishing a 5.5s lead over a tight battle for second place. Running third on the road, Tanak took wins on Hof-Finnskog

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville posted the fastest time on Rally Sweden’s opening superspecial, edging out World Rally Championship rival Sebastien Ogier by 0.8 seconds. Neuville and Ogier were engaged in a final-stage battle for victory on the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. World Rally Championship drivers have expressed more concerns about warming temperatures affecting this weekend’s second round of the season in Sweden. The Torsby-based event gets underway in Karlstad on Thursday night, with no sign of the deep-freeze needed to combat

Get unlimited access for free You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Oliver Solberg will contest six rounds of this year’s American Rally Association series with Subaru Motorsports USA in a deal that brings two of rallying’s biggest names back together. Solberg’s father Petter won his 2003 World Rally Championship title in