Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Toyota driver Nasser Al-Attiyah picked up his second stage win of the 2018 Dakar Rally, as Mikko Hirvonen joined his fellow X-raid Mini buggy drivers in dropping out of contention. Hirvonen was the highest-profile entrant to hit trouble in the 184-mile

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. M-Sport has recruited 2011 Monte Carlo Rally winner Bryan Bouffier to drive its third Ford Fiesta on two rounds of this year’s World Rally Championship. The 39-year-old will join Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans at M-Sport for the 2018 WRC opener

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Cyril Despres moved into the 2018 Dakar Rally lead by leading an all-Peugeot top three on the second stage. After Saturday’s 19-mile opener, the second timed stage – a 166-mile loop that started and concluded near small Peruvian town Pisco –

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Loeb has described his start to the 2018 Dakar Rally as “terrible” after brake problems left the Peugeot driver down in 29th place overall. The nine-time World Rally champion lost his brakes in the first two miles of the short

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Two-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah topped the opening Lima-Pisco stage of the 2018 event, as Sebastien Loeb struggled with an early brake problem. Al-Attiyah completed the timed section of the stage in 21m51s in his four-wheel-drive Toyota Hilux car, and

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Toyota can beat Peugeot to 2018 Dakar Rally victory if it keeps up during the opening stages in Peru, reckons Toyota Gazoo Racing team principal Glyn Hall. The South Africa-based team is fielding the latest version of its four-wheel drive Toyota

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Peugeot Sport director Bruno Famin says Dakar Rally rule changes banning maps in the cars are “unsportsmanlike” and a ploy to derail the pre-event favourite. Drivers were previously only prohibited from carrying ‘photographic satellite maps’, but are now banned from having

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Kris Meeke says his Citroen team is wrong to drop Craig Breen for the three World Rally Championship rounds Sebastien Loeb will contest in 2018. Nine-time WRC champion Loeb, who tested twice with Citroen last season, returns to drive the factory

Two-day rallies are an increasing possibility if the World Rally Championship’s expansion brings it back to a 16-round calendar. Chile and Japan are among countries interested in WRC dates, and series promoter Oliver Ciesla wants the calendar to grow from its current 13-round mark to 15/16. The WRC featured 16 rounds from 2004-07 but then

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Loeb fears the Dakar Rally’s route changes will count against him in what he admits will be his “last chance” to win the event due to Peugeot’s pull-out. Peugeot announced last year that the 2018 edition of the Dakar –

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Chile is close to agreeing terms to join the World Rally Championship calendar for the 2019 season. The South American country will run a candidate event a week before next year’s Rally Argentina, after which WRC Promoter and the FIA will

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Five-time World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier says the Le Mans 24 Hours is high on his list for when he retires from the WRC. Ogier already has significant racing experience, having competed in two Porsche Supercup races as well as GT

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Volkswagen Motorsport director Sven Smeets says M-Sport’s 2017 title success is payback for keeping the World Rally Championship afloat when most manufacturers deserted it. Malcolm Wilson’s independent M-Sport team took ex-VW driver Sebastien Ogier to the title this year and also

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Ogier says winning the 2017 World Rally Championship title with privateer outfit M-Sport has brought him more recognition than any of the four crowns he scored with Volkswagen Motorsport. Though Ogier underlined that all five of his WRC titles meant

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Volkswagen has targeted Rally Germany in August 2018 for its return to the World Rally Championship with its new Polo GTI R5 in the WRC2 class. The R5 car marks VW’s first rally programme since the emissions scandal led to it

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The Ford name will return to the World Rally Championship for the first time since 2012 next season, as part of a commitment of greater support to the M-Sport team. It was announced on Friday by the FIA that four manufacturers

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Citroen’s troubled C3 World Rally Car has become “more compliant” and will be in better shape for the 2018 World Rally Championship, reckons Craig Breen after recent testing. All four factory WRC teams tested in France in mid-December in preparation for

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Carlos Sainz Sr has admitted the 2018 Dakar Rally could mark the end of his professional career, but insists he will not think about the future until after the event. Sainz’s Peugeot team will end its cross-country rallying programme after next

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Loeb will return to the World Rally Championship in 2018 for a three-round programme with Citroen. The 43-year-old nine-time champion tested a C3 WRC on asphalt and gravel this year and will make his comeback on Rally Mexico next March

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Mads Ostberg says he would be prepared to step down to the World Rally Championship’s WRC2 class next year in order to get his career back on track. The former Citroen and M-Sport factory driver started the 2017 season late and

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Seventeen-year-old Kalle Rovanpera has been confirmed as the youngest factory driver in the World Rally Championship and will drive for Skoda in WRC2 in 2018. Skoda’s squad will be one of the youngest teams around next season with Ole Christian Veiby

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Volkswagen’s Polo GTi R5 World Rally Championship WRC2 car has been seen testing in public for the first time, with the German machine running in Wales through this week. The world’s latest R5 car, launched in Spain on Monday, was given

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. A French teenager known as TX3_NEXL won the second season of the World Rally Championship eSports Grand Final, despite using a simple PS4 controller setup instead of a wheel configuration. The 18-year-old, who was narrowly denied a spot in the grand

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The 2017 eSports WRC Powered by Hyundai Grand Final will be live streamed by Motorsport.tv today, with the coverage also available on autosport.com. eSports WRC has run rounds in tandem with the 13 real-world World Rally Championship events, with each driver’s

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. FIA rally director Jarmo Mahonen says the World Rally Championship’s endurance element is over and its future should be stages around six miles long. Mahonen wants a return to more formulaic itineraries, with two loops of short stages and a lunchtime

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. The World Rally Championship should consider adopting shorter stages if it wants to build a greater social media following in the future, according to FIA rally director Jarmo Mahonen. Toyota team principal Tommi Makinen has advocated shorter, more centralised routes for

French firm PH Sport has agreed a deal with Citroen Racing to offer a 2017 C3 WRC to privateers, but it will be choosey about who it hires the car to. One of the FIA’s stipulations about the new generation 2017 Word Rally Cars was that they could not be driven by everybody. On a

Jari-Matti Latvala says he is determined to keep the Toyota World Rally team centred around him even as Ott Tanak arrives in 2018. Latvala joined Tommi Makinen’s new Toyota team late in 2016 after Volkswagen’s WRC exit, and played a big role in making the Yaris into a winner in only its second start. Tanak

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Increased Ford commitment to M-Sport’s 2018 programme was at the heart of Sebastien Ogier’s decision to remain in the World Rally Championship, according to the Frenchman. Ogier first talked of the need for Ford to step up its commitment in WRC

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Andre Villas-Boas, former manager of English Premier League football teams Chelsea and Tottenham, will compete in the 2018 Dakar Rally. The Portuguese, aged 40, will compete behind the wheel of a Toyota Hilux in the car category, with former motorcycle class