Lappi wins in New Zealand

Another great victory for Esapekka and Janne, congratulations! Their amazing track record from the past year in international rallies now include wins in the World, European, Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian series.

Lappi leading the pack in New Zealand

Esapekka Lappi has stepped in a completely new territory by chasing victory in the International Rally of Whangarei in New Zealand. Lappi leads the rally after 8 stages. Live results are available here.

2 Finns to enter the JWRC battle in Portugal

Young Finnish drivers Andreas Amberg and Niko-Pekka Nieminen will start their JWRC battle today in Portugal. Both these drivers have got the potential for podium finish, but they want to make a controlled start to this veru challenging event. They acknowledge the nature of this rally and the risks of narrow Algarvian roads on which too fast pace can end the drivers journey too early. There will be a total of 10 drivers in JWRC, which includes Pontus Tidemand of Sweden. After his outrageous performance in Rally Sweden earlier this year in the WRC class, Tidemand will without doubt be the first candidate to take the JWRC title.

Hänninen and Lappi to start in Portugal

Juho Hänninen (WRC) and Esapekka Lappi (WRC2) have been confirmed to start in the next event of WRC in Portugal (11-14th Apr). Lappi will be heavily challenged in WRC2 when Robert Kubica will make his entry to the World Championship series in Portugal.

Amberg signed for Junior WRC in 2013

The Junior WRC battle got one highly potential champion candidate when Finnish driver Andreas Amberg was signed in this series. He is known to be very fast on Finnish gravel roads so the challenge will be learning to drive fast on tarmac. Andreas will be co-driven by experienced Mikko Lukka. Participation to the first two events in JWRC have been secured so far, and the objective is to complete the whole series this year with nothing less than championship as the ultimate goal.

More WRC events for Nikara

According to the Finnish on-line media yle.fi Jarkko Nikara will compete in WRC event Rally d'Italia Sardegna in June and also in Neste Oil Rally Finland later this summer, driving a ProDrive Mini. Former Formula 1 driver Mika Salo has joined Nikara's forces to promote his career and get financial backing during his journey towards WRC. This hopefully means that we can expect some more brilliant performances by this highly talented driver.

Bonnefis to race with Team Renault in ERC

According to FIAERC website, one of the rising French stars of rally, Germain Bonnefis, has signed a contract with Team Renault Sport Technologies for 7 events in ERC series. He will be driving the new Megane RS teaming with another French driver Robert Consani.

Al Rajhi praised for performance in Sweden

The winner of WRC2 in Rally Sweden, Yazeed Al Rajhi from Saudi-Arabia was voted "Driver of the rally" by readers of wrc.com. This is by far the best runner-up performance we've seen in a long-time in WRC rallies. Rally Talent wishes Yazeed best of luck and good performances for upcoming events!

VW's got the package for WRC title

The start of Rally Sweden is proving that Team VW has got everything to fight for WRC victory this year. Period.

Loeb to lead the pack for the first full day of Rally Sweden

Sebastien Loeb was quickest on yesterday's short opener and will start as the leader of Rally Sweden for today's 8 demanding stages. Rally Talent is most excited to see how the young and rising Scandinavian talents will do in the competition with WRC cars. The names to watch are: Jarkko Nikana, Pontus Tidemand, Jari Ketomaa and Juho Hänninen. We are also excited to see how Al Rajhi Yazeed is doing with a less familiar soil to him, snow.

Rally Sweden kicks off

Rally Sweden 2013 has kicked off by shakedown which was dominated by VW drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Sebastien Ogier. Latvala was fastest on shakedown with Ogier only 0.1s slower.

An excellent live feed is available here for followers of the rally.

First FIAERC win for Ketomaa, Immonen doubles victory for Finns

Jari Ketomaa and his co-driver Kaj Lindström have won their first ever FIA European Rally Championship event in Latvia this weekend. The next overall positions went to Craig Breen and Francois Delecour. Alexey Lukyanuk who was in brilliant pace with his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X production car over the weekend broke his car on the 2nd last stage of the day and was forced to retire from the 3rd place before Delecour.

The event was a great success for Finnish drivers. In ERC 2wd class, Risto Immonen (Citroen C2 R2 Max) took home victory after an exciting battle with French rising star Stephane Lefevre.

FIAERC series continues in Mid-March with Rally Canarias.

Lukyanuk and Lefevre shine in Latvia, Ketomaa leads

Alexey Lukyanuk, driving a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X production car has done amazing job in ERC round 2 event in Latvia. This young Russian driver was able to climb on 3rd place overall ahead of former WRC star Francois Delecour (Peugeot 207 S2000). After the 2nd day, Lukyanuk is leading the production car class with by more than a minute. In ERC 2wd, Stephane Lefevre of France leads the pack by a very narrow 10s gap over Risto Immonen of Finland. Both Lukyanuk and Lefevre are young rising drivers with very little experience (Lefevre driving his first rally on snow!).

Jari Ketomaa, driving a Ford Fiesta RRC, kept his overall lead in the rally with Craig Breen (Peugeot 207 S2000) of Ireland on second place.

The 2nd round of FIAERC starts in Latvia

Rally Liepāja-Ventspils - the 2nd round of FIAERC series launches today in Latvia. A total of 240 kms of power stages will be driven during the next 3 days. Live results will be available via FIAERC website.

Salo wins Arctic Rally Lapland, Mikkelsen 2nd

Juha Salo, driving an R4 classified Mitsubishi Lancer has won Arctic Rally Lapland – the first event of the Finnish Rally Championship series in 2013. Juha was heavily challenged by visiting star Andreas Mikkelsen of Norway who was also signed for the VW WRC Team for this season. The fact that Mikkelsen was driving an S2000 classified Skoda Fabia with significant power advantage compared to Salo's Mitsubishi, shows how much Salo has improved his driving.

Juha Salo takes the lead in Arctic Lapland Rally

On the second stage of Arctic Lapland Rally (the first event of the Finnish National Rally Championship series), visiting star Andreas Mikkelsen took charge of the rally by winning the rest of yesterday's stages. According to FRC Online Results site, Juha Salo is back in the lead after the first stage of today. Mikkelsen has had some action on the stage resulting in a loss of nearly 5 minutes in time to Salo who was fastest. Joni Nikko is currently on the 2nd and Ari Vihavainen on the 3rd place.

Ketomaa and Delecour to start in Latvia's FIAERC event

Rally Liepāja-Ventspils is scheduled to start on the first of February in Latvia. This event is part of the FIA European Rally Championship Round. Jari Ketomaa will participate in the rally behind the wheel of a Ford Fiesta Regional Rally Car. Rally veteran Francois Delecour will also be among the potential champions, driving a Peugeot 207 S2000.
 

Chardonnet flying in Monte

Sebastien Chardonnet of France, driving a Citroen DS3 in WRC 3 class, did an excellent job in Rally Monte Carlo by being fastest after the WRC cars and beating all WRC 2 drivers on SS12 (ST NAZAIRE LE DESERT - LA MOTT).

The 2nd day of Monte completed

The 2nd day of Rally Monte Carlo has been completed and Sebastien Loeb continues in the lead showing the fastest pace overall today. The real highlights of the day were Evgeni Novikov's 2 stage wins and Juho Hänninen's first ever stage win on SS9. Currently on 4th place, Novikov is expected to continue his rise towards the podium while Juho is still learning the new car and will most likely take it more carefully tomorrow.

Lappi retires from Monte due to puncture on stage 1

Esapekka Lappi was unfortunate today on Monte Carlo Rally's first stage and hit a rock which resulted in swingarm failure. Driving the rest 20kms of the stage with an injured car he was still fastest in his class, but the failure forced him to finish the rally on the 2nd stage.

Finnish drivers rated Hirvonen and Ogier as the most potential champions

Four Finnish rally stars who will be participating in WRC and WRC2 series during the upcoming season (Jari-Matti Latvala, Juho Hänninen, Esapekka Lappi and Jarkko Nikara) were asked who in their opinion will take the WRC championship this year. Votes go even between Mikko Hirvonen and Sebastien Ogier. Three potential rivals in the battle for WRC championship were named – Mads Ostberg, Dani Sordo and Juho Hänninen. Read the article by Ilta-Sanomat (in Finnish only).

The new season in WRC launches today

The 2013 season in WRC starts today with Rally Monte Carlo shake down. It's time for speculations about podium candidates. The startlist for this year's Monte seems wonderful with about ten WRC drivers who have got the potential for podium finish. In addition to self-evident candidates Loeb and Hirvonen, the rest of the list is interesting.

Here's my hot picks for potential challengers this year (in no specific order):

Mads Ostberg - This young Norwegian showed extreme potential last season and is boosting with confidence to show that he has earned his seat in WRC. If he can keep his head calm, he will be high in the results.

Juho Hänninen - Juho has got everything to make it to the top of WRC this year. Compared to other runners up, he has got a lot of experience from Monte and similar conditions when rallying in S2000 over the recent years. The only potential barrier on his way to success is the new car and tires which he may not be very used to yet.

Dani Sordo - Returning to Citroen, Dani is very experienced and has shown last season that he still has got the potential to take the last and most important step towards WRC championship. No real weaknesses when Monte is considered.

Sebastien Ogier - During his last season, before retiring from WRC to the VW WRC development programme, "Seb the 2nd" was constantly challenging his team mate Loeb. He made a few appearances with S2000 Skoda last season and proved he's still got it. Ogier is my vote of the two VW drivers who are both fast but the big question mark is whether the new Polo is yet competitive and most importantly, reliable enough to make it through the long and very demanding event.

Ketomaa confirmed for Latvia ERC event in February

The brand new FIA ERC web portal reports about Jari Ketomaa's decision to participate in the Latvian event of ERC series in February. Jari will pilot an Autotek Motorsport tuned Fiesta with DMACK tires.

5 Finnish drivers signed for WRC in 2013

Finnish media reported today about Jarkko Nikara's and Jari Ketomaa's participation in the WRC series during the upcoming season. These young talents will both compete in Rally Sweden - Jarkko driving a Prodrive Mini and Jari an Autotek Fiesta WRC (sponsored by DMACK). There's no confirmation about other events yet, but since both drivers have been showing extremely promising performances in their earlier WRC entries, the hopes are high. It seems that season 2013 in WRC will turn exceptional in many ways - particularly from the Finnish perspective with now 5 participants confirmed to compete in the series.