WRC

For three decades, the annual GTI-Treffen held at the Austrian Lake Wörthersee’ has been one of the highlights of the European calendar for Volkswagen enthusiasts. It is increasingly a venue where Volkswagen communes with its closest fans and presents an array of concepts to assess market viability. This year it showed five new cars: the Golf GTI Cabriolet which had debuted at Geneva International Motor Show, plus four completely new concepts - the Polo R-WRC, Polo WRC Street, Golf GTI Black Dynamic and Golf GTI White Concept.  Read More

The DS4 Racing concept from Citroen promises much - a light stytlish 256 bhp turbocharged pocket rocket with a decade of WRC domination behind its design.  Read More

WRC is the closest of all world class motorsport competition to the genuine road environment, though conditions vary considerably across the 13 race, five continent series from last weekend’s first round in Sweden where blizzards and -28ºC temperatures necessitated tungsten-tipped studded Michelin tyres, through to the gravel and rocks and 40ºC temperatures the cars will encounter a fortnight from now in Mexico. New “environmentally aware” regulations were introduced this year based around 1600cc turbocharged, 4WD cars, and Ford's all-new Fiesta RS made a dream debut with a 1-2-3 finish. Snow plough duty on day one and a puncture on day two stopped seven-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb from getting near the podium but Loeb’s new Citroen DS3 challenger proved fast and reliable and recorded more fastest stage times than rally winner Hirvonen.  Read More

The world’s longest ever WRC rally jump took place during April’s Rally of Turkey, when Sebastien Loeb's Citroen C4 left terra firma for an incredible 85 metres during the ultra-fast Ballica stage. Citroen has now chosen ten of its most spectacular gravity defying jumps ahead of next weekend’s Rally Finland – the home of the big YUMP. A pic of Loeb's world record jump is inside, but look at what he had to beat.  Read More

Despite being arguably one of the most well-rounded athletes in history, Michael Jordan's exploits on the baseball diamond didn't go close to matching the heights he achieved on the basketball court. Indeed, it's so uncommon to achieve world competitiveness in more than one sport, there's no word to describe (polysport?) such notables as Jim Thorpe, Lionel Conacher, Babe Didrikson, John Surtees and Denis Compton. World 2007 F1 champ Kimi Raikkonen is the latest to achieve international success in two sports, finishing eighth in the Jordan Round of the World Rally Championship this weekend, scoring world championship points in his second sport and just his third WRC rally.  Read More

Citroen will take the wraps of the hot version of its new premium model, the DS3 when it reveals the 147 kW Citroen DS3 Racing at the Geneva International Motor Show on March 2. Developed by Citroën Racing - the dominant team behind five World Rally Championship manufacturer’s titles and six driver’s titles for over the past six years - leaves little doubt that the French car maker has the ability to take its already critically lauded DS3 and turn it into a real performance machine. Planned for the second half of 2010, the exclusive DS3 Racing will be limited to just 1000 production units.  Read More

It is interesting to note that the three biggest stories in Formula One right now concern a driver who competed in 2010 but not in 2009 (the Michael Schumacher comeback), a driver who competed in 2009 but not 2010 (Raikkonen loses his drive and goes WRC) and a driver who has never competed in F1 and quite possibly never will – Valentino Rossi. Indeed, Rossi has only ever driven an F1 car six times, but his status as one of motorcycling’s all-time greats and one of the most popular and media-savvy sportspeople of all time make the possibility an incredibly enticing prospect. For Ferrari, Rossi brings a global army of fans and the possibility of a rare Italian driver-car title combination that hasn’t happened since Alberto Ascari in 1953, despite 15 drivers titles and 16 constructors titles for the marque since then. This week Rossi tested in a Ferrari F1 car again, and was so fast that the possibility might now be approaching a probability.  Read More

Just two years ago, Finn Kimi Raikkonen was the reigning (2007) World Champion in the world’s most prominent television sport, and the number one driver for the world’s most famous racing marque, Ferrari. Forbes rated him the 26th highest paid celebrity in the world, the fifth highest paid sportsperson and the highest paid driver in the world with a weekly pay cheque of US$1,000,000. Late last year he lost his job in the cutthroat game of musical chairs played by the top half dozen drivers in the world and decided to sit out 2010 by driving rally cars. This weekend he starts his new job in a town made famous by none other than Father Christmas – could there be a belated Christmas Gift in the offing?  Read More

With the World Rally Championship (WRC) switching over to S2000-based cars next year, we thought it may be a good time to have a closer look at what has proved to be the fastest S2000 rally car so far, the Mellors Elliott Motorsport (MEM) build Proton Satria Neo Super 2000. In the hands of Irish driver Niall McShea, the Proton caused quite a stir on the first WRC event earlier this year, Rally Ireland, when it stormed into a podium position on day one, ahead of a full field of WRC machinery.  Read More