The 29-year-old Belgian driver will be competing at the wheel of a Ford Focus RS World Rally Car and will be nominated for points in the ninth round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC).

In 2008, Duval joined Ford to complete four WRC rounds with the Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team and two further rounds with the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team.

Duval has contested the German round of the WRC seven times and has finished second on three occasions. His last outing at the Trier-based event was with the Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team in 2008 where he finished fourth overall.

François Duval commented:
“It is of great credit to Malcolm [Wilson] and Christian [Loriaux] at M-Sport that I have been given this opportunity to drive for the Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team once again. I hope that I will have a good test in the weeks before Germany and that I will be able to get a good result for the team. Germany is a very nice rally and each year I have competed I’ve had very good results so I am confident I will be able to do well again this year.”

Ford Team Principal Malcolm Wilson commented:
“I’m delighted to see François back behind the wheel of a Ford Focus RS WRC again. He will strengthen the Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team at a crucial part of the season so we are very much looking forward to welcoming him on board. We really enjoyed working with François in 2008 and I have little doubt that he will continue to impress us when he joins us in Germany next month.”

Photo: M-Sport

Via | RallyBuzz

First Bulgarian WRC event ahead for teams
Teams in the 2010 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) move into unfamiliar territory when they tackle the asphalt roads of Rally Bulgaria for this weekend’s seventh round of the season from 8 to 11 July.

Rally Bulgaria celebrates its 41st year in 2010, yet is making its debut on this year’s 13-round WRC calendar. The new ‘world rally’ marks the end of the WRC’s six week summer break and is also the first of four upcoming tarmac rallies so several teams have spent time near the Balkan region during the break to prepare for the second half of the season.

Six-time WRC champion Sebastién Loeb currently heads the WRC driver’s standings, with the Citroen Total World Rally Team tarmac ace having established a comfortable 38-point lead in the six rounds to date. Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena have the statistical privilege of having never been beaten on a tarmac surface event since 2004 and are scheduled to start ahead of Citroen Junior Team colleague Sebastién Ogier who’s second on the leader-board.

“It’s true that we’ve always been pretty successful on asphalt,” said the 36-year-old Loeb. “Asphalt is our favourite hunting ground, but we have to tackle this rally in a humble state of mind. We’re going to discover a new route which will certainly have its own specific character. We’ll have to cope with the weather as stages at 2,000 metres above sea level can be upset by storms, and also there’s the choice between the Pirelli P-Zero softs and hards.”

Europe’s 16th largest nation, Bulgaria’s 7.5 million people occupy 110,994 sq km in south-east Europe beside the Black Sea [NB. New Zealand is 268,680 sq km]. The rally headquarters are in the ski resort of Borovets, while the service park is located 25 km to the east in the spa town of Dolna Banya. Following Thursday evening’s ceremonial start in another ski resort, Samokov, Friday’s four special stages feature a double run through 59 km of twisting tarmac south-east of Dolna Banya. Saturday sees a 140 km run through the same area, with Sunday’s stages taking competitors to the north-east of Dolna Banya for a further 94 km of super-twisty asphalt mountain roads before the event wraps up in Borovets at 2pm.

A total of 49 teams have entered with some significant changes: Great Britain’s Chris Patterson joins Petter Solberg to replace co-driver Phil Mills who announced his retirement from the Solberg team just a month ago, and Henning Solberg switches to a Ford Fiesta S2000 having started the season in the Ford Focus RS WRC.

BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team pairing Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen, currently third, had success earlier this month when they won the Serbian Rally. The two-day tarmac rally in Serbia uses similar stages to those scheduled in Bulgaria and Hirvonen described the event as “the perfect way to warm-up for the forthcoming asphalt events in the WRC”.

Former Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen and co-driver Kaj Lindstrom are looking for their best placing of the season in Bulgaria. The 30-year-old narrowly missed his first rally win when competing against Citroen team-mate Sebastién Ogier at the recent Rally della Lanterna in Italy.

Rally Bulgaria is also a round of the Junior World Rally Championship (JWRC) which currently has Dutch driver Kevin Abbring and Germany’s Aaron Burkart sharing the top of the leader-board after two of the six JWRC events. Concerned about his lack of asphalt experience prior to Bulgaria, Abbring has just placed top of the two-wheel-drive class in his Renault Clio R3 in the recent Ypres Rally in Belgium. Alongside Abbring and Burkart in a Suzuki Swift, Belgian Thierry Neuville, in a Citroen C2 S1600, is expected to be a top runner in the ten-strong JWRC class in Bulgaria.

FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers (after 6 of 13 rounds)
1,  S Loeb, 126pts
2,  S Ogier, 88pts
3, M Hirvonen, 76pts
4, J-M Latvala, 72pts
5, P Solberg, 63pts
6, D Sordo, 49pts

Via | RallyBuzz

FIA

FIA World Council met Wednesday in Geneva to establish technical regulations for the latest details of World Rally Championship.

The most important novelty refers to the possibility that any tire manufacturer to participate in the 2011 edition of the WRC. Initially, the FIA launched a public tender for the supply of tires WRC from 2011-2013, but only bid came from those of Pirelli, which are already competing, so far the only known Italians in this of view.

Also confirmed that the FIA World Rally Championship 2011 will have 13 stages, despite the fact that several countries had hoped to secure 14th place. World Forum has not provided any justification for the decision not to include an additional step in the calendar.

In addition, from the Rally Bulgaria seats name will appear on the side windows of cars behind. Furthermore, the FIA has tried to choose a single vendor gear at the WRC cars for 2011 and 2012 seasons, but was not satisfied with any of the proposals.

WRC 2010 Game

Black Bean Games has unveiled a new screenshot of the game dedicated to the World Rally Championship, which will occur in September.

At the biggest show in the world games held these days in Los Angeles, producer Black Bean Games has released a new game screenshots for the WRC in 2010, dedicated to the World Rally Championship.

Figure presents the champion Sebastien Loeb driving a Citroen C4 WRC car, which a Frenchman and piloted this season.

The new game will include all 13 stages of the 2010 season and one of the most interesting feature will be able to compete in real time competition mounts pilots on GPS technology.

WRC 2010 game will be released in September this year and will be available for PC, but also for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Kimi Raikkonen

Autosprint Italian newspaper claims that Renault is keen to replace Vitaly Petrov with Kimi Raikkonen in the 2011 season.

Kimi Raikkonen this season competing in the World Rally Championship, chose to leave Formula 1 after termination of the contract with Scuderia Ferrari.

Finnish pilot said several times that not yet decided how competition will operate next year, but Autosprint Italian newspaper claims that former world champion is still wanted in Formula 1.

Cited source revealed that Renault is interested in his services for 2011 to replace Vitaly Petrov with Raikkonen, in order to form a strong line pilots with Robert Kubica. The French also have a backup option, according to Adrian Sutil was another viable Renault, especially that Germany is tempted to step into a great team.

Earlier, Raikkonen was credited with the chance to go to Red Bull Racing next year, as producer of energy drinks is the sponsor asutriac Citroen Junior team working in the WRC. However, such speculation ended when Mark Webber has extended his contract with Red Bull next year.

The Finn held a two second lead heading into the final stage, but he just couldn’t do enough to fend off the rapid Frenchman who won by 5.7 seconds.

Ogier had been 30 seconds behind Raikkonen after four stages, but reeled him in during the afternoon and evening loops.

At the finish, Raikkonen said: “It was a great rally. Unfortunately we lost the first place in the last stage, but for us it was the first time we drove the car on tarmac and we gained a lot of experience.

“We didn’t lose to such a bad guy [Ogier],” Raikkonen joked. “It was a nice rally and good learning.”

Ogier said: “Kimi was very fast today and it was very difficult to catch him because this morning we made a wrong tyre choice and lost 30 seconds.

“I can complement him [Raikkonen] because he did a very good rally for his first time on tarmac [in the Citroen C4 WRC].”

The Lanterna Rally was the first asphalt event that Kimi Raikkonen had contested in a World Rally Car, it also marked the first time he had posted a stage win, led a rally outright and finished on the podium.

The Citroen Junior Team were contesting the Genoa based event as preparation for the upcoming tarmac surfaced WRC Rally Bulgaria.

2010 Rally della Lanterna – Results (top five)

1 Sébastien Ogier Citroën C4 WRC 1.32.16,7
2 Kimi Raikkonen Citroën C4 WRC +5,7
3 Ferrecchi Maurizio Ford Focus WRC +1.56,0
4 Luca Pedersoli Ford Focus WRC +3.27,8
5 Marco Strata Peugeot 206 WRC +4.48,9

Via | RallyBuzz

He and recent Rally of Portugal winner Sebastien Ogier will contest the Rally della Lanterna, which starts with a superspecial stage close to Genoa in northern Italy this evening. The Citroen pair will then tackle eight stages and 124 kilometers tomorrow. The event ends tomorrow tomorrow night. Prior to this rally, Raikkonen has only ever competed on one asphalt rally – last year’s Rally della Marca, also in Italy – where he failed to finish after damaging his own Abarth Grande Punto early in the event.

With four of the final seven remaining rounds of this year’s World Rally Championship running on asphalt, getting to grips with the Citroen on sealed surfaces is vital for the driver known as ‘Iceman.’

“I’m really happy to get this opportunity to drive in Italy,” he said. “I’ve still got many fans there and I’m sure that there will be a really nice atmosphere. Since the very start of the season, I’ve always been really keen to try out the Citroen C4 WRC on asphalt – I’ve never actually driven it on this surface yet. We’re going to treat this rally as a life-sized test session.”

Having spent much of his career pounding the world’s finest racetracks, Raikkonen concedes that he is likely to feel more at home on asphalt than on gravel – where he has still only competed six times in the Citroen.

“I think it should take less time for me to be competitive on asphalt than gravel,” added Raikkonen. “And there are a lot of asphalt rallies at the end of the season.”

In addition to the two Citroen Junior Team drivers, a further C4 WRC will be driven by local expert Felice Re. With such a comprehensive knowledge of the stages and surroundings, Re’s input for the Citroen Junior Team could be very valuable for the two regular drivers.

Full reports, videos and more on www.wrc.com

Photo: Red Bull

Via | RallyBuzz

Sebastien Loeb

Even if this year will not participate in the famous 24 hour race at Le Mans, Sebastien Loeb is determined to make the most of a month and a half break in the World Rally Championship and experience sports cars.

The world champion has confirmed that it will align the start of next round of the French GT3 Championship, which will take place in Val de Vienne circuit this weekend June 26 to 27.

On this occasion, the Frenchman will be driving a Ferrari F430 with Jean-Pierre Champ, which has already been paired in other stages of this championship.

Loeb argues that participating in this event for fun, but the stage will be a good workout for Rally Bulgaria in mid-July, which will take place on asphalt.

Rally Ireland Clerk of the Course Gordon Noble and Motorsport Ireland President Joe Corcoran visited the recent Rally Portugal with a view to securing their event’s return to the WRC calendar for 2012, according to maxrally.com.

The pair met with the main movers and shakers within the World Rally Championship, as they discussed a possible summer slot.

“We want to get Rally Ireland back onto the WRC calendar and we were disappointed not to have made it for 2011,” said Noble. “We’re here to see what needs to be done because it’s our aim to be on the 2012 calendar.”

The trend towards remote servicing and a greater geographical spread, could be ideal for the next Rally Ireland.

“It would allow us to be much more flexible and go to different areas,” said Noble. “Although Ireland is known as a Tarmac rallying country, we wouldn’t rule out a mixed surface event [like we did for the pilot rally in 2005].”

Rally Ireland wants to remain within the World Rally Championship and not pursue the Intercontinental Rally Challenge route.

“Technically our rally is very good with lots of very good and experienced people involved,” said Noble. “We had the fourth most TV coverage of any round of the WRC in 2009 and I’m convinced we can offer a lot to the WRC again. A date in January or November does us no favours because inevitably it rains and there is less daylight so a summer date would definitely be our preference.”

source: maxrally.com

Photo: Willy Weyens ©willyweyens-rallyworld

Via | Rallybuzz

Block wanted to add a little bit of spice to the fight, so the guy bets Raikkonen 100 euros that he’ll take the win. From the instant the flag drops, the two were neck and neck through the entire course. Who took the win? You’ll can hit the jump to see for yourself. Surprisingly, Block managed to stay with Raikkonen for a tie time of 2:11.0.

We will say that by the end of Rally Portugal, Raikkonen was still lodged 10th with 15 points, while Block had to retire before crossing the finish line at the last stage.

[Source: Monster World Rally Team]

Via | AutoBlog