While we have known for sometime that Dani Sordo probably would not return to Citroen, the real question we had to ask ourselves is where IS he going? The Spanish driver appears to be on the verge of a deal with either Ford or Prodrive MINI. Autosport ran a story this morning that had Prodrive technical director David Lapworth talking about a potential future for Sordo at the team. It does look at this moment anyways that Marcus Gronholm will not be making a return to competition full time this year.…
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Sunday Service Park – 11/27/10
Welcome to the newest column at Openpaddock.net! As the rally season takes its short break they call an off season, the Sunday Service Park will be my time to give some opinion on the week’s news and address rumors within the WRC and Rally America blogs. This week has seen the driver market get kicked up a notch and Petter Solberg is trapped in the middle. Petter Solberg Last week during the podcast I had made the argument that Petter would be a reasonable fit at the Prodrive MINI operation.…
Read MoreRally – Solberg’s Future TBD in 2011
The last man to win the World Rally Championship that was not Sebastien Loeb is questioning his future in the sport for 2011. The 2003 champion has revealed that he does not have the budget to continue his privateer efforts when the new S2000T cars come on line next season. Solberg has been piloting a Citroen C4 the last couple seasons after offered a really good deal. This budget issue however may make Solberg a key player in the driver market if sponsorship cannot be found. Petter said he has…
Read MoreRally – Ostberg to Compete in Fiesta for 2011
News broke today on Autosport that has Mads Ostberg collaborating with M-Sport for the 2011 campaign in the new Fiesta RS WRC. Big news for Ford as Ostberg will bring his Adapta Motorsport rally team into the M-Sport fold. The Norweigian driver has competed in select rounds of the championship this year in a Subaru WRC car and has put together great performances for the technology. A move to a better drive was in order and must be considered a welcome addition to the team. One thing that we need…
Read MoreRally – Pastrana/Subaru Part ways
Travis Pastrana will no longer be a part of the Subaru USA team that participates in the Rally America Championship. An announcement was made today that stated the two would part ways effective immediately. There had been some rumor that this was going to come about with extreme speculation indicating his Red Bull money may take him to the Citroen Junior squad. Take that bit for what it is as there is absolutely no facts at the moment to support that. We talked to Travis this summer at the 100…
Read MoreRally – Rallycross Promotional Video and Highlights
Rally – FiA Shuts Block Down
Ken Block has brought his American arrogance to the WRC and today he was told to stop…well sort of. The highly popular Gymkahna 3 part 2 video has a segway vehicle that has a bumper sticker on it. On the sticker it says “Obama can’t Gymkhana”. There is nothing derogatory about it but it is funny! That sticker happened to make it onto the very bottom of Ken Block’s Ford Focus WRC and the FIA was not impressed. Block was made to remove the sticker from the car. I’m sorry,…
Read MoreRally – Leg 1 in Spain
Sebastien Loeb has taken it easy this weekend and is still leading Rally Spain by 3.8secs over future teammate and Citroen Junior driver Sebastien Ogier. Loeb’s lead does come as a surprise as the first leg has a mixture of both tarmac and gravel. The Frenchman was first on the roads and sacrificed little time because of it. Jari-Matti Latvala is currently in third which is slightly below what the team were hoping. The idea was to have JML utilize his fast gravel pace to put a lead over the…
Read MoreRally – Kimi DNFs Spain Before it Starts
Kimi Raikkonen has put on a rather embarrassing performance in Spain already. The Finn has crashed out of the rally during the shakedown stage and will not make the start for Day 1. Citroen explained that the roll cage had suffered terminal damage and would not be ready in time to start the event. In my opinion this is yet another pathetic showing in a year that Kimi will want to forget period. Citroen have made it very clear they will not pay Kimi to drive and he needs sponsorship…
Read MoreRally – MINI Looking for More?
The big buzz heading into 2011 has been MINI and Prodrive collaborating for a WRC program. Two fantastic names in the lore of the WRC coming together to mount a challenge against the giants Ford and Citroen. Originally scheduled to miss the first four rounds of the next years championship, some words dropped by Technical Director David Lapworth on autosport.com may see the new team up its original 2011 commitment. “We’ve got a good idea of where we’re going,” said Lapworth. “It’s going to be a minimum of six rallies,…
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