Sam Moffett and Keith Moriarty winners of the 2021 British Rally Championship opener at Oulton Park.
The Motorsport Vision Racing Circuit in the Cheshire countryside is perhaps one of the more picturesque race circuits in the UK and has been hosting rounds of the Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championships in the form of the Neil Howard Stages for a number of years.
Following the cancellation of the whole British Rally Championships season last year due to COVID, the Championships was itching to get going again this year. Up steps, the Neil Howard Stages
The FIA World Rally Championship first visited the stunningly beautiful Mediterranean island of Sardinia back in 2004, where the Subaru Impreza of Petter Solberg battled with the Citreon Xsara of Sebastian Loeb. Petter triumphed to go down in the WRC history books as the first winner of a World Rally on the sun-kissed Italian island.
Whizz forward to 2021 and Petters son Oliver was due to compete for his second outing in a full-blown Hyundai i20 WRC; however, since the last round of the championship in Portugal, Petter had contracted COVID, which has unfortunately forced the young Olivers hands.
Rosberg X Racing go back-to-back with second Extreme E victory after red flagged final.
Molly Taylor avoided first lap chaos before Johan Kristoffersson brought the car home to win the Senegal Ocean X-Prix for Rosberg X Racing. They were followed by Veloce Racing, the only other car to come out unscathed after incidents down the beach straight towards Turn 2.
JBXE Racing claimed the final podium position by virtue of travelling a few hundred yards further than Team X44, after both teams had to retire their cars.
The result means RXR mark themselves as the team to beat, after winning both of the first two races of Extreme E.
Extreme E Ocean X-Prix Saturday Round-Up: Team X44 set early pace and take Top Qualifier.
Sebastian Loeb and Cristina Gutierrez adapted best to the sand dunes of Senegal, seeing them take the top spot in qualifying by nearly 30 seconds.
They were the only team to post sub-11-minute times in both qualifying sessions, with a 10:47.3 in Q1, followed by a 10:57.6 in Q2.
They will be joined in Semi-Final 1 tomorrow by Rosberg X Racing (+27.6) and ABT Cupra (+36.0).
After sitting out of the calendar last year due to COVID, Round 4 of the 2021 FIA World Rally Championships, the 54th Vodafone Rally de Portugal not only sees a return for one of the original legendary World Rallies but also sees the return to gravel rallying for the first of four full gravel events this year.
The opening leg of the rally proved a challenging one, with limited numbers of allocated tyres and a total of 122km over 8 stages there was no service, so making it back to the end of day service park in one piece was going to be important.
For the fourth stop on the 2021 FIA World Rally Championship tour, it’s a return to a European favourite, The Vodafone Rally De Portugal who has been hosting top-level rallying since 1973.
With its Porto base in the North of the country, Rally Portugal also sees a welcomed return to gravel rallying, some 221 days since the previous gravel event in Sardinia last year. Featuring 20 stages over 337km, rally Portugal will prove a tough one to predict a winner. From the past 5 World Rallies in Portugal, there has been 5 different winners and 5 different teams.
So we saw Hamilton and Verstappen go wheel-to-wheel once again with Verstappen managing to barge his way into the lead at Turn 1, after making a better start than Hamilton. After the race Hamilton said he gave Max Verstappen room, stating he was thinking of the long game; if he hadn’t we may have seen both cars in the gravel at turn 1. We also saw Bottas lose a place to Leclerc who moved his Ferrari up to 3rd.
The BTCC returned this weekend for the start of the 2021 season, throwing the drivers in at the deep end at the quickest track on the calendar at Thruxton. Add in the mix some inclement weather and it didn’t disappoint in regards to talking points and good racing.
Bottas was starting on pole in Portugal after a great qualifying lap, a mistake from Max Verstappen gave the Mercedes 1st and 2nd on the grid and the Redbulls 3rd and 4th.
In 5th Sainz started on the softs with everyone in front on the mediums. In the opening lap, we saw Stroll move up to 16th and Norris up two 6th with Sainz passing Perez. A blistering start from Ricciardo saw him eat up 3 places into 13th. Bottas held onto 1st with Hamilton a few seconds adrift, and Max close to the gearbox of Hamilton.
There is a new season to look forward to and plenty of changes with a few departures, some old faces re-joining and new deals, drivers and cars to look forward to and hopefully spectators too.
One of the biggest departures from the series sees Matt Neal leaving the BTCC after making his debut in 1991, along with his teammate from last season Dan Cammish who makes a return to the Porsche Carrera Cup.
