Newly married Mikko Hirvonen has been approached by Tommi Makinen Racing to help development test work on the 2017 World Rally car “this autumn” (spring in the Southern Hemisphere).
The newly married Mikko and Linda Hirvonen on their wedding day.Mikko’s lucky lady is Linda Martins, formerly with the Citroen PR team.
Another driver to have tested the new Toyota recently is Jarkko Nikara, formerly a World Rally Car driver and this year entered in the Clubman’s category of Neste Rally Finland with his old Lancer Evo IX.
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Leftover news after Poland. Osian Pryce became the first winner of two R5 WRC drives next year under the new prize system in which results of the first two events in the season’s Drive DMack Fiesta Trophy events were taken into account.
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Shock retirement for championship leader David Higgins on the New England Forest Rally when a strut damaged its mounting point on his Subaru. The winner was Seamus Burke (Evo IX).
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Fabian Kreim won the German DRM championship Thuringen Rallye. Second place went to former Skoda driver, Sepp Weigand, making a welcome return to the sport, this time with a Fiesta R5.
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More chicane trouble. Thierry Neuville’s brother, Yannick (Fabia R5), lost his third place on the Sachsen Rally in Germany for a chicane offence.
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Quentin Giordano has withdrawn his Peugeot 208 T16 from Neste Rally Finland in order to prepare better for the asphalt Deutschland Rally three weeks later.
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Geronimo Padilla won the Argentine championship Rally Tafi del Valle based at Tucuman in his Peugeot 208 Maxi Rally. Marcos Ligato led the event until he punctured on the final stage of Day 1.
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Stefano Albertini won the Italian Italian Rally Cup championship Rally Casentino by exactly one second from Luca Rossetti’s Fabia R5, with Felice Re third in a Focus WRC.
- Martin Holmes
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