Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Teemu Suninen believes he has a chance to expand his part-time M-Sport Ford World Rally Championship programme beyond the currently planned eight 2018 rounds. After impressing with top-six finishes on his first two outings in the WRC’s top class in an

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Stephane Peterhansel has given up on taking a 14th Dakar Rally victory this year, conceding that Peugeot team-mate Carlos Sainz can’t be caught over the final three stages. Peterhansel looked set to add to his remarkable tally of Dakar wins at

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Dakar Rally leader Carlos Sainz has had his 10-minute penalty rescinded, after Peugeot presented new evidence regarding his earlier run-in with quad bike rider Kees Koolen. Koolen had lodged a complaint to Dakar in the aftermath of the La Paz –

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Toyota driver Bernhard ten Brinke topped the 11th stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally, as Carlos Sainz marginally extended his overall lead ahead of Peugeot team-mate Stephane Peterhansel. Ten Brinke was the pacesetter for most of the day’s running en route

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ott Tanak says he needed to move to Toyota for the 2018 World Rally Championship season because he felt stuck as a number two behind Sebastien Ogier at M-Sport. Tanak left M-Sport at the end of 2017 after six WRC seasons

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The 2019 World Rally Championship launch could move to one of Autosport International’s public days and involve a Live Action Arena element following the success of the ’18 event. Moving the WRC launch from its previous slot on the Thursday morning

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Peugeot’s Stephane Peterhansel topped the 10th stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally, overhauling Toyota driver Nasser Al-Attiyah for second place behind Carlos Sainz in the general classification. Peterhansel recorded his third – and Peugeot’s seventh – stage win of the event,

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Mads Ostberg could keep his private Ford Fiesta World Rally Car as a “back-up plan” if he cannot extend his Citroen deal beyond his Rally Sweden appearance. Citroen revealed during the 2018 WRC launch at Autosport International last week that it

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The quad rider involved in Carlos Sainz’s Dakar Rally controversy has threatened criminal action against the Peugeot driver. Dakar leader Sainz received a 10-minute penalty for what he saw as a near-miss with Kees Koolen’s quad on the La Paz-Uyuni stage.

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Dakar Rally leader Carlos Sainz has been penalised for an alleged collision with quad racer Kees Koolen. Peugeot driver Sainz, who led by over an hour in the general classification prior to the sanction, found himself under investigation in the aftermath

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Dakar Rally leader Carlos Sainz is facing an investigation after a rider accused the Peugeot driver of having hit his quad during Saturday’s stage. Dutch rider Kees Koolen said Sainz hit his quad during the first half of the marathon stage

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Former Citroen Racing World Rally Championship team principal Yves Matton has been confirmed as the FIA’s new rally director. Matton will take over from Jarmo Mahonen at the head of the governing body’s rally department, while his job at Citroen will

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Stephane Peterhansel began his Dakar Rally fightback by beating Peugeot team-mate Cyril Despres to top the eighth stage, while Carlos Sainz consolidated his substantial lead. Peterhansel was lower than usual in the starting order, having lost his overall lead on Saturday

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The organisers of the 2018 Dakar Rally have cancelled Monday’s stage due to poor weather conditions. The Tupiza-Salta test, ninth of the 14 scheduled for this year’s marathon, was to feature a 150-mile timed special across classes and was to mark

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Peugeot’s Stephane Peterhansel was left “pissed off” after the accident that took him out of the lead in the 2018 Dakar Rally but admitted he was “probably going too fast”. Peterhansel, a 13-time Dakar winner, had emerged as a runaway leader

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Carlos Sainz has taken the lead of the 2018 Dakar Rally from Peugeot team-mate Stephane Peterhansel, becoming the first driver to claim back-to-back stage wins in the event’s car category. Sainz recorded his first stage win of this year’s Dakar in

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Peugeot driver Stephane Peterhansel has lost the lead of the 2018 Dakar Rally after a suspension problem caused him to stop during the seventh stage of the event. Peterhansel, a 13-time winner of the Dakar, had entered the La Paz –

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Hyundai World Rally Championship driver Andreas Mikkelsen says the manufacturer’s i20 reminds him of Volkswagen’s all-conquering Polo. Sebastien Ogier dominated the WRC with VW from 2013 until its shock exit at the end of the ’16 season, which left Ogier and

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. M-Sport has announced that Teemu Suninen will drive its third Ford Fiesta for the majority of the 2018 World Rally Championship. Alongside his WRC2 campaign last year, Suninen contested Poland and Finland in an extra M-Sport WRC car and finished in

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Peugeot driver Carlos Sainz won the Arequipa – La Paz stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally, as the marathon held its final test before the mid-event rest day. Sainz beat team-mate and rally leader Stephane Peterhansel by four minutes and six

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ott Tanak says moving from M-Sport Ford to Toyota for the 2018 World Rally Championship was his “best option” to become champion. Tanak finished third in the drivers’ championship last year – driving alongside five-time champion Sebastien Ogier at M-Sport –

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Citroen will bring Mads Ostberg back into its World Rally Championship team for the second round in Sweden next month. Ostberg was part of Citroen’s factory line-up in the 2014 and ’15 seasons but has spent the last two years in

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Ford will take its support of M-Sport’s World Rally Championship programme “up another level” in 2018, says its new motorsport chief. Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport continued to run Ford’s WRC programme independently after the firm ended its full factory effort at the

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Loeb has explained the incident that ended what he believes will be his last ever Dakar Rally and left co-driver Daniel Elena injured. Before the start of his third Dakar Rally, Loeb had hailed it as a ‘now or never’

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson and 2017 Rally GB winner Elfyn Evans are the guests on the first edition of The Autosport Podcast of this year. The duo join David Evans and Edd Straw both to look back at their successes, and

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Loeb retired from the 2018 Dakar Rally on day five, as his Peugeot team-mate Stephane Peterhansel went fastest and stretched his lead. Nine-time World Rally champion Loeb, first on the road after recording his 10th Dakar stage win on Tuesday,

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Toyota drivers Nasser Al-Attiyah and Giniel de Villiers have blamed a regulation prohibiting them for using an on-board tyre inflation/deflation system for their drop down the Dakar Rally order. Both of the Hilux drivers struggled through the soft sand on Tuesday’s

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Loeb held off Peugeot team-mate Carlos Sainz to win his first stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally, as Stephane Peterhansel held on to lead overall after the fourth stage. Nine-time World Rally champion Loeb was fourth heading into Tuesday and

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Citroen World Rally Championship team principal Yves Matton is in discussion with the FIA to replace Jarmo Mahonen as head of the governing body’s rally department. Matton has declined to comment on speculation he will leave Citroen but sources at the

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. X-raid Mini driver Nani Roma has sustained head and neck injuries in a crash at the end of the third stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally. Roma, a two-time Dakar champion, rolled his Mini John Cooper Works Rally car one kilometre