Volkswagen rallying refugee, Andreas Mikkelsen, is to return to the Skoda R5 team for the Tour de Corse, after his successful WRC2 winning run in Monte Carlo Rally.
Andreas Mikkelsen in action in the Monte Carlo rally.Both Andreas and his agents, Even Management, deny media reports that Mikkelsen claims the FIA “blocked” the homologation of the 2017 version Polo WRC.
Even’s Erik Veiby stated: “Neither Andreas or we blame FIA for not homologating the Polo. We all know the reason why VW didn’t get a waiver to use the car. Andreas meant to say that it was ‘a punch in the face’ not to be able to race with the Polo, because he was hoping to do so.”
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The proposed Rally of Queensland (26-28 May), qualifying round of the Australian and the FIA Asia Pacific championship, has been cancelled without official reasons being given.
The APRC fixture has been changed and their event will now be held 1200km further south in Canberra, while the Australian federation CAMS are reported to be seeking an alternative solution for their lost event.
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M-Sport driver Elfyn Evans goes to Mexico with DMack tyres which feature a new run-flat construction and upgraded soft and hard compounds to cope with the huge range of gravel conditions experienced across the WRC season.
Notable that DMack’s tyre manager Fiorenzo Brivio worked earlier in his career at Pirelli, who with Dunlop, explored run-flat rallying solutions in the ‘seventies.
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The Saarland Pfalz Rally was the first event in the 14 event R5 programme for Hyundai’s trainee driver Chewon Lim. His programme has been outsourced by Hyundai Motorsport to “an experienced private team”.
Hyundai’s German-based Customer Racing department is currently developing a TCR circuit racing project, as well as continuing to build the New Generation i20 R5 and support for their customers.
It has been reported that the HMI team based at Predosa, who have been running Corrado Fontana’s IRC championship winning i20 WRC, are connected.
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GiIl takes to water. FIA Asia Pacific champion Gaurav Gill and C S Santosh, India’s most accomplished supercross and rally-raid champion, competed this weekend in the Nexa P1 Powerboat Indian Grand Prix of the Seas at Mumbai.
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The FIA Rally Director, Jarmo Mahonen, is reported to have said recently that plans to accommodate hybrid cars in the WRC would not come into effect for at least another five years.
Shortly after coming into office, the FIA President, Jean Todt, had said on the topic of electric and hybrid cars that “new technology” would be in place in the WRC by 2015 ...
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A third extra event for Paddon this year! In addition to his two recently announced extra-curriculum events in New Zealand, Hyundai’s WRC driver is also to compete on the Sanremo Rally.
This event, formerly Italy’s iconic round of the WRC, is now a qualifying round of the FIA’s European Rally Trophy. This is to be part of Paddon’s pre-Corsica training programme for asphalt rallying. Also due to compete on this event will be Chewon Lim.
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Fabian Kreim (Skoda Fabia R5) won the Saarland-Pfalz Rally, beating Christian Riedemann’s Peugeot 208 T16. Korean driver Lim finished eighth, behind seven other R5s.
Marcus Gronholm’s protege Jari Huttunen’s Opel Adam R2 finished tenth, best two-wheel drive.
- Martin Holmes