Sébastien Loeb crashes out of Rally de Portugal on opening day

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Mar 302012

• World championship leader careers off track
• Jari-Matti Latvala wins third special stage

The world championship leader, Sébastien Loeb, crashed out of the Rally de Portugal on the race’s opening day. Loeb careered off track shortly into the third special stage and will not restart the rally.

Loeb, eight times the world champion, had been expected to challenge in Portugal after wins in Monte Carlo and Mexico but appeared to misinterpret a navigational instruction.

Finland’s Jari-Matti Latvala won the third special stage by over three seconds to snatch the overall lead away from his Ford team-mate Petter Solberg.

Solberg won both the Lisbon time trial and the second special stage to take an early lead but Latvala wiped it out to lead by half a second. Citroen’s remaining hope, Mikko Hirvonen, was third fastest, 3.5 seconds behind Latvala.


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Ayrton Senna Rally car test day1986

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Jan 262012

Full 22 min approx For sale on ebay @ Ayrton Senna – home video of him driving rally cars in 86
Video Rating: 4 / 5

A documentary from a while ago, not long after his death.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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Sébastien Loeb begins title defence with win in Monte Carlo Rally

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Jan 232012

• Citroën driver bidding for a record ninth world title
• Spain’s Daniel Sordo second, Petter Solberg third

Sébastien Loeb of France got off to a strong start in his bid for a record ninth world title by winning the season‑opening Monte Carlo Rally. The eight-times world champion completed the 18-stage race in 4hr 32min 39.9sec. Daniel Sordo of Spain took second place, 28.6sec ahead of Petter Solberg of Norway.

Loeb went into the final day with a lead of 2min 41.6sec over Sordo and looked to secure the maximum number of points by winning the last stage.

The Citroën driver finished the power stage 1.2sec ahead of his team‑mate Mikko Hirvonen of Finland to earn three bonus points and lead the Mini driver Sordo by 10 points in the standings.

“It’s always a great moment to start the season like this, especially in front of so many fans,” Loeb said. “Full points in the first race is incredible and for sure it’s the perfect start [to my title defence]. But Monte Carlo is my rally and for the others we will have to see.”

Loeb won the Monte Carlo Rally for the sixth time to clinch his 68th career victory. The drivers next compete at the Swedish Rally in Karlstad on 9-12 February.


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Stéphane Peterhansel closes on 10th victory in Dakar Rally

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Jan 152012

• Frenchman is 42 minutes ahead going into final stage
• Rivals lose time in tough penultimate stage

Stéphane Peterhansel is on the verge of a 10th Dakar Rally victory – and his fourth in the car category – after winning the penultimate stage and stretching his overall lead to 42 minutes with Sunday’s short finale stage to go.

With a 20-minute cushion despite getting stuck in sand dunes on Friday, the Frenchman had not intended to push hard on the run from Nasca to Pisco in Peru, but ended up winning the stage almost by accident as all his nearest rivals became bogged down in the terrain.

“It was not a stage we were trying to win,” Peterhansel said. “First and foremost, we wanted to avoid falling into traps, especially after getting stuck in the sand yesterday. It was the toughest stage of the entire Dakar with regard to the dunes.”


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Sébastien Coué in critical condition after Dakar Rally crash

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Jan 042012

• Motorcyclist exposed to temperatures above 40°C after crash
• French rider’s condition is critical, says hospital director

A French motorcyclist was in critical condition on Tuesday after being found unconscious in remote sand dunes during the Dakar Rally in western Argentina.

Officials at Teodoro J Schestakow Hospital said that Sébastien Coué crashed during the second stage of the rally and was exposed to temperatures above 40°C before he was found. His body temperature went above 40°C, officials said. It is unclear how long he had been exposed to the extreme heat.

“He entered in critical condition,” the hospital director, Armando Dauverne, said. “We don’t know how long he was exposed to the sun. Right now he is in intensive care.”

The Dakar Rally, considered one of the most dangerous races in motor sports, has already claimed three lives this year. The Argentinian bike rider Jorge Martínez Boero died in a crash in Sunday’s first stage. On the same day the pilot of an ultralight plane and his son died when the aircraft went down while following the race.

Joan Roma of Spain won the third stage on Tuesday while Krzysztof Holowczyc of Poland led overall. The Frenchman Cyril Despres won the motorcycle stage to claim first place overall.

This is the fourth consecutive year the event is being held in South America. The rally was held in Europe and Africa until the 2008 race was cancelled because of fears of terrorism. It was moved to South America the next year.

The route this year is different from the first three, which were loop courses from Buenos Aires to Chile, and then back to Buenos Aires. This year the race begins in Argentina, passes through Chile, and finishes in Lima, Peru, on 15 January.


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Argentina's Jorge Martínez Boero dies after crash in Dakar Rally

F1 News No Responses »
Jan 012012

• 38-year-old fell and suffered a cardiac arrest
• Fatal accident on first stage of event

The Argentinian motorcyclist Jorge Martínez Boero has died after a crash in Sunday’s opening stage of the Dakar Rally.

The 38-year-old, who was competing in the event for only the second time, fell during the stage between the Argentinian cities of Mar del Plata and Santa Rosa and suffered a cardiac arrest.

A statement on the rally’s official website confirmed that medical staff reached him by helicopter five minutes later but Boero died on his way to hospital. “The organisers of the rally offer their heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones,” read the statement.

Chile’s Francisco López heads the motorcycle standings after the first stage, having had to battle back from multiple fractures sustained in the Rally of Tunisia even to take the start line. Marc Coma and Javier Pizzolito come next in the two-wheel category.

Leonid Novitskiy leads the car category ahead of Mini team-mates Krzysztof Holowczyc and Stéphane Peterhansel, while Sergio La Fuente leads the quad standings and Marcel van Vliet the truck category.


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Sébastien Ogier holds off Daniel Sordo to win Rally of France

F1 News No Responses »
Oct 032011

• Frenchman finishes 6.3sec ahead of Spain’s Sordo
• Ogier cuts Sébastien Loeb’s world championship lead

Sébastien Ogier held off a strong challenge from Daniel Sordo of Spain to win the Rally of France and cut the defending champion Sébastien Loeb’s lead in the overall standings to three points.

The Frenchman completed the 23 stages in 3hr 6min 20.4sec – just 6.3sec ahead of Sordo. Mikko Hirvonen of Finland also got back in the World Rally Championship race by finishing fourth to go level on 193 points with Ogier.

Loeb retired on Friday because of an engine failure and did not score any points in his native Alsace region.

Sordo started the day 9.5sec behind Ogier and won stage 19 to Haganeau to pull within 4.9sec of the lead. But Ogier responded by winning stage 22 to get some breathing room. Petter Solberg of Norway spun in stage 19 to fall out of contention and finish third.

Jari-Matti Latvala of Finland took four of the six stages on Sunday, but helped his team‑mate Hirvonen to leapfrog him into fourth place by starting the last stage with a two-minute time penalty for checking in early at the pre-stage regroup.

The drivers next compete at the Rally of Spain in Salou from 20 to 23 October before the season ends with the Wales Rally in Cardiff from 10 to 13 November.


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Nasser Al-Attiyah wins the seventh stage of the Dakar rally

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Jan 122011

• Qatari’s victory keeps up pressure on Carlos Sainz
• Volkswagens finish 1-2-3 in stage to Antofagasta

Nasser Al-Attiyah kept up the pressure on his team-mate and the defending champion Carlos Sainz by sealing victory in stage seven of the Dakar Rally today.

The Qatari headed a Volkswagen 1-2-3 in the 252-km stage from Arica to Antofagasta, coming home one minute and 20 seconds ahead of Sainz. His South African team-mate Giniel de Villiers finished a further 1min 36secs behind.

It was Al-Attiyah’s second stage win this year and his 10th overall and moved him to one minute 36 seconds behind the leader Sainz in the overall standings.


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Sébastien Loeb wins German rally to extend world championship lead

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Aug 262010

• Loeb wins in Germany for record eighth consecutive time
• Victory puts Frenchman in sight of seventh world title

The defending world champion, Sébastien Loeb, won the German rally for a record eighth consecutive time to extend his lead in the standings to 58 points.

The six-times world title winner led the event from start to finish to win by 51.3 seconds from his Citroën C4 WRC team-mate Dani Sordo. The Citroën junior team driver Sébastien Ogier made it a clean sweep for the French manufacturer after finishing one minute and 22 seconds behind Sordo.

The Ford works team driver Jari-Matti Latvala was fourth, with the privateer Citroën entrant Petter Solberg fifth.

The win, Loeb’s fifth of the season, made it 59 at world championship level for him and his co-driver, Daniel Elena, and took his points tally for the season to 191 compared with 133 for Ogier. With four rounds of the series to go Loeb could clinch the world title in Japan next month ahead of races in France, Spain and Wales.

Loeb was delighted to have continued his dominance of the German race.

“[It was] a very good victory for me again, the eighth one in a row,” he said. “It’s incredible, I really have a good feeling on this rally. I wouldn’t like to be beaten here and this time it’s all OK again.”

Sordo, on his first outing in the event in a factory Citroën, kept Loeb in sight until his team-mate pulled clear yesterday morning. It was a good result for Sordo as it was the first time he had competed with Diego Vallejo as his co-driver.

Ogier made up for a low-key start by passing Mikko Hirvonen for fourth and then claiming third from Latvala when the Finn spun.

Tyre damage on Friday meant Solberg had to be content with fifth when a place on the podium had been possible, with the main battle of the weekend going on over sixth place. Stobart Ford’s Matthew Wilson eventually won that fight from the former Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen.


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