Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team from Trio to Quartet

This weekend the newly created Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team announced the rest of their driver lineup for 2013.  As we already knew, Mads Østberg was picked as the number one driver, and Nasser Al-Attiyah will of course be on board but only attend some of the championship rounds while also competing in the Middle East Rally Championship.  The surprise announcement was a decision to draft both Evgeny Novikov and Thierry Neuville to attend all 13 rounds of the 2013 World Rally Championship under the Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team banner.…

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Episode 163 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadShaun makes his last appearence on OpenPaddock Live before being shipped out to Qatar to pound sand and watch MotoGP racing. Joining Shaun are Mike (as always), Doug, and the new Shaun, Kevin Neely. On the docket this week: Rally WRC – the future of M-Sport. Will Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Qatar money be the team’s saving grace? WRC – Sistemas Integrales de Telecomunicacion (SIT) slated to take over timing duties for 2013. Kubica will drive the WRC Citroen C4 in two rallies this month. Back…

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Rally – Could M-Sport be saved by Qatar?

You might remember rumors back in August that Qatari native Nasser Al-Attiyah was planning to buy the 8 times manufacturer championship title holder Citroen World Rally Team. Nasser has already competing this season in a Citroen prepared DS3 under the Qatar World Rally Team banner which gave some weight to the rumor. However Citroen Team Principal, Yves Matton politely laughed such an idea. As with many rumors though, there is often a grain of truth. Maybe Nasser wasn’t going to buy Citroen, but maybe he was putting out feelers with…

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Rally – Skoda Dominates Argentina

The third round of the IRC championship was held this weekend in the beautiful settings of Argentina. The stages that usually play host to the WRC would be ran with names like Meeke, Hanninen, and al-Attiyah and cars like Peugeot and Skoda. All eyes would be on Kris Meeke after a dominant win in Brazil a couple weeks ago, but it was not to be for the British star. Skoda, who has put together a very formidable effort would take a dominating 1-2-3 in the event and further strengthen their…

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