After the conclusion of Rally Sweden 2 weeks ago, there were some rumblings about the deteriorating road conditions on the stages, especially on the 2nd pass for the WRC cars. Last week, it came out that a few of the WRC drivers and team managers were laying the blame squarely on the historic rally that...
Over the past few years, the WRC silly season has left one or two drivers out in the cold. In 2016, it was Elfyn Evans. In 2017, it was Andreas Mikkelsen. In 2018, it was Mads Ostberg, and now in 2019, it’s Hayden Paddon and Craig Breen (and still, Mads Ostberg). At first glance it...
This is the week. It’s almost time. The teams have arrived in Gap, the service park is built, and recce has begun. We are just a day away from the start of the 2019 WRC season with Rallye Monte Carlo. To help us all get ready, I decided to put together a little video playlist...
A few months back, I wrote a piece making the case that Sebastien Ogier, moving to Citroen would be a win-win. If he is successful, then he further cements his place in the “greatest of all time” conversation. On the flip side, Ogier’s presence within Citroen places the pressure squarely on the team. If they...
Over the next week or so, I’m going to take a look at what I believe will be some of the biggest storylines moving through the 2019 WRC season. Today, we look at the new-for-2019 WRC2 Pro class. For years now, I’ve been hoping a professional division of the WRC2 class would be developed and when...
In a variety of sports, when things aren’t going a team’s way, it’s not uncommon to see the manager or coach get canned regardless of whether it is deserved or not. Over the past few years in rallying, we’ve seen some managers step aside, (think Jost Capito and Yves Matton) but I’m struggling to recall...
When the news broke about a month ago about the possible introduction of “virtual chicanes”, my first instinct was to tear into the WRC with a strongly worded piece about how they were destroying the essence of rallying. In reality, however, it would have ended up being an angry tirade that offered little more than...
So this is pretty cool news… we are going to see another high profile name from Formula 1 dipping his toes into the world of rallying. Yesterday, Valtteri Bottas announced that he would be throwing one of M-Sport’s Fiesta WRC cars around the frozen stages of Arctic Lapland Rally this upcoming January. I’m very interested...
