Original interviews by Racer Views
Since the early conclusion to Rally México, Hyundai Motorsport’s travelling workforce has returned to Europe as the company undertakes a period of remote working in line with the Government’s efforts to manage the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Although there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among Hyundai Motorsport employees, under government advice to limit the spread […]
Finnish WRC driver talks Ogier, Rovanperä and his life in motorsports. Esapekka Lappi will not forget the recent Rally Mexico in a hurry after the driver was forced to retire when the Ford he was driving unexpectedly caught fire. The 29-year-old from Pieksämäki and co-driver Janne Ferm escaped the blaze unhurt but had to withdraw from the race. […]
It was an unexpected performance from Ghislain de Mevuis on the Rally van Haspengouw. Not for the fact that he lacks pace. Far from it, he demonstrated his ability last year with several podiums. But to defeat the Haspengouw specialist – Kris Princen and the defending Champion, Adrian Fernémont was unexpected. He had a little […]
The start of a new Belgian Rally Championship season sees new cars for the past three Champions with two switching brands and another upgrading. In a way, it is absolute proof of the strength of the Championship, something further underlined by the fact there are 17 R5 cars taking the start of the Rally van […]
The World Rally Championship is at a crossroads. As is pretty much every major motorsport category in the world. There are three major issues to get to grips with 1) the cars (i.e. decreasing the ecological footprint of the sport; matching the marketing and tech demands of manufacturers; and fending off environmental activists); 2) reaching […]
“Everybody’s supporting us from family to friends, fans and Lithuanian Federation.” Deividas Jocius isn’t a name that many people know in the rallying world. Before WRC Monte-Carlo, we hadn’t heard of him. But the Lithuanian came to Rallye Monte-Carlo in a M-Sport Ford Fiesta WRC – and didn’t do too badly. In sportscars we would […]
It was almost a fairytale start at Toyota for Welshman Elfyn Evans. He led through the first two days of running of the WRC Rallye Monte Carlo. In the end, his efforts on Sunday would see him finish third after inspired drives from Thierry Neuville and teammate Sébastien Ogier. It was a very good result […]
It was not quite the off season that Esapekka Lappi had expected. After Spain (and Australia), the Finn still had another year on his contract. Sure it was a hard year with Citroen but the French squad had been preparing updates for 2020 to return to the top. But it never happened. Ogier left and […]
If Thierry Neuville feels pressure he certainly doesn’t show it. Coming into the 2020 WRC season at Rallye Monte Carlo, he finds himself as now, equal number 1 alongside the current world champion, pressure from Korea to go one better than he has the last few seasons and to add to it all, his ice […]
There is little doubt that Toyota Gazoo WRT didn’t have the off season they quite expected. Having taken the Driver’s Championship in Spain, with Ott Tanak finally overcoming the dominance of the ‘French Sebs’, Tanak almost immediately announced his move to Hyundai, leaving the Japanese squad without their champion. But team boss Tommi Makkinen was […]
