Kris Meeke leads Rally Catalunya overnight, as a double Hyundai crash harmed its World Rally Championship manufacturers’ bid and left a pair of M-Sport Ford Fiestas on the podium. In SS12 both Dani Sordo, second overall, and Andreas Mikkelsen, sixth, crashed their Hyundais out of the event by hitting the same rock. Sordo had remained

Kris Meeke rocketed into the lead on Rally Spain’s Saturday morning loop, as World Rally Championship contender Thierry Neuville crashed on the road section before stage nine. Meeke started the day in third after Friday’s gravel stages but a push on SS7 El Montmell, a stage he and co-driver Paul Nagle identified as one to

Andreas Mikkelsen completed a fine first day as a Hyundai World Rally Championship driver by completing Friday’s Rally Catalunya gravel stages at the top of the times. Mikkelsen lost the lead briefly after the opening test of the afternoon – when he slipped 0.3 seconds behind the privateer Ford Focus of Mads Ostberg – but

Hyundai’s latest World Rally Championship signing Andreas Mikkelsen made a dream start with his new employer by taking the Rally Catalunya lead on Friday morning’s first loop of stages. The WRC’s only mixed-surface event of the season was blessed with sunshine and blue skies – the sort of conditions championship leader Sebastien Ogier feared the

Sebastien Loeb looks increasingly likely to make his World Rally Championship return on the 2018 Monte Carlo Rally. Though Loeb’s focus next year will be a ramped-up Peugeot-Hansen World Rallycross Championship campaign and he will also contest the Dakar Rally again, he has made clear he would be open to occasional WRC outings. Citroen team

Kris Meeke insists he would welcome Sebastien Ogier as his Citroen team-mate for the 2018 World Rally Championship. Though Ogier and Meeke have clashed in the past – notably over running order rules last season – and Meeke was originally signed as Citroen’s lead title hope, he believes the team would benefit hugely from having

Andreas Mikkelsen says he joins Hyundai ready to fight for the World Rally Championship title for the first time. The three-time WRC event winner makes his Hyundai debut at Rally Catalunya this weekend at the start of a deal that runs through to the 2019 season. The only Volkswagen driver who could not get a

Nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb says next year’s Dakar Rally could be his last chance to win the South American marathon, with Peugeot expected to quit its off-road programme. The French manufacturer became embroiled in a row about the regulations for Dakar, with series officials ready to handicap the rear-wheel drive, buggy-style car Peugeot

Hyundai will run four cars on Rally GB in a bid to keep its World Rally Championship title hopes alive. Its lead driver Thierry Neuville is 17 adrift of Sebastien Ogier in the standings, while the team trails M-Sport by 64 points in the manufacturers’ standings going into the final three rounds. After missing this

Citroen technical director Christophe Besse says an all-time confidence low is a bigger problem for its World Rally Championship programme than any technical issues on the C3 WRC. The firm amassed 17 WRC titles in a decade, but has struggled to find form in its return this season. Kris Meeke’s Mexico success in March is

Rally Poland clerk of the course Jaroslaw Noworol has blamed “human error” for his event losing World Rally Championship status and is working to get it back on the calendar. The Mikolajki-based event has been replaced on the 2018 WRC schedule by Rally Turkey, with the FIA and WRC Promoter pointing to repeated breaches of

Andreas Mikkelsen has secured a two-year deal with Hyundai that keeps him at the team through the 2018 and ’19 World Rally Championships. Mikkelsen is making his debut for Hyundai at next week’s Rally Catalunya, having made a late-season switch from Citroen. Autosport understands that was always intended as the precursor to a full-season drive

Ott Tanak is likely to stay with M-Sport for the 2018 World Rally Championship despite Toyota’s efforts to sign him. The two-time WRC event winner is being chased hard by Tommi Makinen’s Toyota team. But Tanak said he was willing to reject the potentially favourable financial package on offer from Toyota as he thinks the

Sebastien Loeb feels he still has the pace to compete in the World Rally Championship despite the five years that have passed since his last full-time rally programme in 2012. Loeb tested Citroen’s C3 WRC on gravel for the first time in Spain last week and after that day of running – his first on

Hyundai has selected 23-year-old Finn Jari Huttunen for its World Rally Championship driver development programme and will enter him in a programme of 2018 WRC2 rounds in an i20 R5. Huttunen edged Emil Bergkvist, Gus Greensmith, Karl Kruuda, Pepe Lopez, Pierre-Louis Loubet, Rene Mandel and Kalle Rovanpera for the prize after impressing Hyundai representatives on

The World Motor Sport Council has ratified a 13-round World Rally Championship calendar for the 2018 season, with Turkey returning for the first time since 2010. Thursday’s WMSC meeting confirmed the Marmaris-based Rally Turkey will replace Rally Poland on next year’s schedule, but will be held in September to close up the current five-week gap

Sebastien Loeb took another step towards a potential World Rally Championship return by testing a Citroen WRC car on gravel for the first time in more than four years today. The potential for Loeb to return to the world championship is understood to hinge on the outcome of today’s loose surface test, which took place

Kalle Rovanpera will contest the final two rounds of this year’s World Rally Championship in an M-Sport-run Ford Fiesta R5. The 16-year-old drove a Peugeot 208 T16 on last weekend’s Rally di Roma Capitale, which looks likely to be his last outing in the car before he switches to a Fiesta R5 for next month’s

Sebastien Loeb will test Citroen’s 2017 World Rally Car on gravel for the first time on Wednesday. The nine-time WRC champion returned to Citroen last month to try its C3 WRC on asphalt. Now he will spend a day on gravel close to Barcelona as part of Citroen’s pre-Rally of Spain testing. Citroen team principal

A decade ago today (September 15) Colin McRae died and the world lost arguably its most charismatic rally driver ever. Undoubtedly it lost one of the quickest and most committed. From a rally career that spanned 22 of his 38 years, we look back and pick 10 of the biggest, best and most influential results

To mark the 10th anniversary of the loss of 1995 World Rally champion Colin McRae on Friday, a special edition of The Autosport Podcast looks back at his life. With contributions from Prodrive boss David Richards, former Subaru technical director David Lapworth, brother Alister McRae, rival co-driver Robert Reid and four-time WRC title winner Sebastien

Citroen insists a potential reunion of Sebastien Ogier and Sebastien Loeb will not produce a repeat of the pair’s volatile relationship during their previous stint as World Rally Championship team-mates. Team Principal Yves Matton said last week that signing M-Sport driver and current championship leader Ogier was now Citroen’s priority for the 2018 season, while

Citroen team principal Yves Matton says signing Sebastien Ogier is now his priority for the 2018 World Rally Championship. Four-time WRC champion Ogier has been in discussion with his former employer over the last month and Matton can now see no major obstacles to a deal to bring Ogier back to the team he left

Kris Meeke will keep his Citroen seat and lead the team for the next round of the World Rally Championship in Spain next month. Meeke’s team-mates for Rally Catalunya will be Stephane Lefebvre and Khalid Al Qassimi, leaving no space for Craig Breen. Andreas Mikkelsen, who has contested three rallies for the manufacturer this season,

Andreas Mikkelsen has switched from Citroen to Hyundai for the remainder of the 2017 World Rally Championship, ahead of an expected full 2018 campaign with the Korean manufacturer. Mikkelsen will replace Hayden Paddon at the Rally of Spain next month and is expected to take Dani Sordo’s i20 Coupe for Rally GB and Rally Australia.

Citroen’s all-new C3 R5 for categories such as the World Rally Championship’s WRC2 class and the European Rally Championship will test for the first time this week. Team principal Yves Matton said Citroen wants the car, which will not be homologated until 2018, to “set new standards in the category”. Citroen WRC drivers Craig Breen

Hayden Paddon has written off the remainder of his World Rally Championship campaign and says he is focusing his attention on a 2018 title challenge instead. The Hyundai driver has struggled to get comfortable with the marque’s i20 Coupe WRC, with a number of teething troubles with the new car coinciding with a dip in

Citroen has started gambling on the development of its C3 WRC to ensure it can fight to win the 2018 World Rally Championship opener in Monte Carlo next January. The French manufacturer withdrew its works entry for the 2016 WRC, focusing on a year-long development programme with the C3 built to the new-for-2017 rules. Citroen

German driver Marijan Griebel has won a World Rally Championship outing in 2018 by clinching the European Rally Championship’s Junior Under 28 title at Rally Zlin. The ERC revamped its Junior category for 2017 and created the U28 element for drivers under 28 driving R5 cars, with the rebranded U27 strand catering for the R2-based

Thierry Neuville says he will stop focusing on World Rally Champonship title rival Sebastien Ogier’s position and take a “much more aggressive” strategy. Neuville had arrived at the last WRC round in Germany leading the standings on countback over Ogier, but damaged his suspension and transmission and failed to score. Ogier finished third and reopened