Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Hyundai is now ready to win the World Rally Championship having shuffled a driver line-up that turned out to be “too weak”, say team bosses. Andreas Mikkelsen was brought in by Hyundai for the final three rounds of the 2017 WRC

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Ogier will stay with M-Sport to defend his World Rally Championship title in 2018. M-Sport announced Ogier and Elfyn Evans as its frontline drivers on Tuesday. Five-time WRC champion Ogier said he had known for some time that he wanted

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Volkswagen Motorsport has conducted the first test of its new Polo GTi R5 that will be campaigned in the World Rally Championship’s WRC2 class next year. The manufacturer completed three days of running in the Fontjoncouse region in Southern France –

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Rally Australia’s Coffs Harbour base found itself under fire from World Rally Championship teams and WRC promoter this week. ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN explains what lessons Supercars can offer the WRC Rally Australia organisers are facing a difficult task when it comes

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Toyota’s senior management preferred to pick Ott Tanak for the 2018 World Rally Championship over five-time WRC champion Sebastien Ogier, team principal Tommi Makinen has revealed. Ogier tested the Yaris WRC at the end of 2016, but elected to go to

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Citroen says it could not match Sebastien Ogier’s other offers for the 2018 World Rally Championship season. Five-time WRC champion Ogier was originally a Citroen protege but left the team at the end of the 2011 season amid a fractious relationship

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. X-raid has unveiled an all-new Mini John Cooper Works Buggy that will contest the 2018 Dakar Rally alongside its regular four-wheel-drive machine. Three of the buggies will be entered in the January 6-20 event across Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Former World

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Rally Australia is under pressure to shift away from its Coffs Harbour base and from its position as the final round on the World Rally Championship calendar. Despite improved spectator numbers for the New South Wales event, the teams and WRC

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Loeb’s return to the World Rally Championship now looks likely to begin with Rally Mexico 2018. The nine-time WRC champion has been linked to a part-time programme in the series since testing a Citroen C3 WRC on asphalt and gravel

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Toyota-bound M-Sport driver Ott Tanak has admitted focusing too much on getting his first World Rally Championship event win cost him a 2017 title shot. Tanak has promised to adopt a fresh approach when he joins Toyota in 2018. He feels

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Thierry Neuville won the final round of the 2017 World Rally Championship as his closest challenger, Jari-Matti Latvala, crashed out of second place on Rally Australia’s Power Stage. Neuville beat Ott Tanak, who jumped into second place after Latvala’s error, by

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Thierry Neuville survived the elements to hold his Rally Australia lead after the morning’s first three stages, which were all rain-affected. Neuville headed into the last day of the World Rally Championship’s finale with a 20.1-second lead over Latvala. But while

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Thierry Neuville will go into the final day of Rally Australia with a commanding 20.1 second lead over Jari-Matti Latvala, as his main rivals suffered problems. Neuville won three of Saturday’s first five stages, including the mammoth Nambucca test, one of

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Thierry Neuville tightened his grip on the final round of the World Rally Championship season in Australia, with a dominant display on the shortened Saturday afternoon loop. Neuville, who scooped up the rally lead on Saturday morning after his Hyundai team-mate

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Thierry Neuville leads the final round of the World Rally Championship season in Australia after his Hyundai team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen crashed on the second stage of the Saturday morning loop. Mikkelsen, who was the overnight leader in only his third rally

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Andreas Mikkelsen will take a 20.1-second lead into day two of Rally Australia after a commanding Friday performance. Leading for the second time in his three World Rally Championship appearances with Hyundai, Mikkelsen made the most of running ninth on the

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Andreas Mikkelsen finished Rally Australia’s opening day’s forest stages with a 20-second lead, as Kris Meeke and Thierry Neuville scrapped over second place. Mikkelsen kicked off the second loop by pulling another 0.7s over the field on the short Pilbara stage,

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Andreas Mikkelsen stormed into an early lead on the 2017 World Rally Championship finale in Australia with a clean sweep of Friday morning stage wins for Hyundai. At first Kris Meeke’s Citroen was able to tag along with Mikkelsen as they

Upgrade for free today You have only 5 articles remaining to view this month. Sebastien Ogier says his mind is “99%” made up about his future in the World Rally Championship. The WRC champion had hoped to deliver news of his 2018 plans at this week’s Rally Australia, but Autosport understands any firm direction is

Rally GB winner DMACK will step back from a full-time World Rally Championship commitment in 2018. The Cumbrian tyre firm has been Michelin’s only rival at the WRC’s top level in recent years and took its first victory with Elfyn Evans in Wales last month. For the past two years it has entered a third

Esapekka Lappi is hoping for a cleaner first full season in the World Rally Championship in 2018, the Toyota driver admitting he has made too many mistakes this year. The reigning WRC2 champion stepped up with Toyota from the sixth round in Portugal, and won Rally Finland. But he crashed in Germany and Spain, and

Rally GB winner Elfyn Evans says he will need a monsoon to have a hope of taking another victory on this week’s World Rally Championship finale in Australia. The last time a British driver won back-to-back WRC rounds was 15 years ago, when Colin McRae triumphed on the Acropolis and Safari rallies for Ford. Asked

World Rally Championship drivers Thierry Neuville and Andreas Mikkelsen will share driving and co-driving duties in a Hyundai i20 WRC at the Monza Rally next month. Neuville and Mikkelsen will swap seats in a 2016-spec New Generation i20 between stages on the December 1-3 event. Both are well acquainted with the left-hand seat in a

Citroen team principal Yves Matton has told Craig Breen and Stephane Lefebvre he wants faster times and more risks from them on the 2017 World Rally Championship finale in Australia. Breen has led Citroen’s charge for much of the season, and is just six points behind team leader Kris Meeke in ninth in the WRC

Citroen’s new C3 R5 for the World Rally Championship’s WRC2 class and the European Rally Championship will make its public debut at the Rallye du Var in late November. French champion Yoann Bonato will drive the car, which has completed more than 2500 miles of testing on gravel and asphalt since the start of September.

Rally GB winner Elfyn Evans has urged World Rally champion team-mate Sebastien Ogier to stick with M-Sport for the 2018 season. Evans is set to move back into M-Sport’s ‘works’ squad next year from its DMACK-branded entry but the rest of the team’s line-up is unclear. Ott Tanak has already committed to leaving M-Sport for

Volkswagen Motorsport has offered a first glimpse of its all-new Polo GTI R5 with which it will return to the World Rally Championship in WRC2. Unlike its Volkswagen Group stablemate Skoda, VW does not intend to run a factory team in WRC2 but it will provide technical support and back up to its customers. The

World Rally Championship teams have backed the inclusion of Rally Turkey on the 2018 schedule after observing the country’s candidate event last month. WRC Promoter confirmed Turkey’s return to the calendar after an eight-year absence – which had been dependent on the success and safety of last week’s two-day preparation event – last Thursday. M-Sport’s

Two-time World Rally champion Marcus Gronholm tested Proton’s new Iriz R5 car for WRC2 in Wales late last month. Gronholm had already driven Skoda’s factory Fabia R5, which Pontus Tidemand used to win WRC2 this season, and is understood to be Volkswagen’s test driver of choice when its Polo R5 arrives. Gronholm declined to offer

Hyundai team principal Michel Nandan has admitted his World Rally Championship line-up could be further shuffled for 2018, with none of its four drivers currently guaranteed a full season. Nandan confirmed there would be three factory i20 Coupe WRCs on the vast majority of rallies next season, forcing Hyundai to rotate its drivers within the