Powerslide Blog

M-Sport are in a bit of a pickle for 2024. With Ott Tanak gone, M-Sport are going back to survival mode, not dissimilar to their situation in 2021 and 2022. M-Sport are not going to sign drivers like Mikkelsen, Lappi, Paddon etc etc, they’re going to take a bet on young drivers (preferably with some backing so that they don’t have to spend that much money) and hope they can snatch the odd podium. And M-Sports dilemmas don’t only apply to the main class, but to WRC2 as well. They want to have a driver who is fast and can show that the upgraded Fiesta Rally2 can be competitive in the right hands, in order to sell them to privateers. So, let’s see what M-Sport’s options are for next season. Adrien Fourmaux is all but confirmed to be in M-Sport’s WRC driver lineup for next year. The Frenchman showed great speed in the Fiesta Rally2 in both gravel and tarmac, was consistent and less crash prone than he was in the past. He deserves a Rally1 program for next year and I am sure he will g...

The first ever Central European Rally was certainly a rally to remember. It was the first ever WRC rally held in 3 different countries, and it was also the rally where the 2023 Drivers’ championship was decided, as Kalle Rovanpera finished 2 nd and claimed his second successive drivers’ crown. But apart from the Finn, there were more drivers that can leave the service park in Passau with their heads high and feel like winners, and similarly there’s some that can only wonder what could have been. So here are our winners and losers from the inaugural Central European Rally.   Winners Kalle Rovanpera Where do we even begin with Kalle’s 2023 season. I think the rally where it all clicked for him was Rally Portugal. In the first 4 rallies of the season, Kalle was there or thereabouts, but he was not quite the Kalle we saw in 2022. Sure, he was hampered by road cleaning in Sweden and Mexico and a tyre change in Croatia, but something was missing. And whatever was missing came...

  With the Central European Rally coming up this week, Estonia being axed from the 2024 calendar and Rally Latvia being on the calendar confirmed, got me thinking. What if both Estonia and Latvia could get spots in the calendar by combining forces for one rally in the Baltics? Like the Central European Rally, another cross-border event would be quite unique to the WRC. I think both Rally Estonia and Rally Latvia could benefit from this, with both sides getting more of the other’s fans. Kalle Rovanperä won the last WRC event in Estonia for the near future I think the idea of having the host city of the rally being in 2 countries at once is an extremely cool idea and that’s exactly why I have chosen the hosts to be Valga/Valka. The area around the town(s) has remained largely unexplored by rallying, but I believe that some of the roads there are quite cool and are an untapped market so to say. Huge thanks to @iespraudins on Twitter for sparking this idea for me. Enough waffle, let's ...