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1981 World Rally Championship
The 1981 World Rally Championship was the ninth season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Rally Championship (WRC). The season consisted of 12 rallies. While this number was the same as the previous year, one change was made to the schedule, replacing New Zealand with the Brazil. The 1981 World Rally Championship for Drivers was won by Ari Vatanen driving a Rothmans Rally Team Ford Escort RS1800, the only time a privateer team has won the Drivers' Championship until 2017. The Makes' Championship was won by Talbot with their Sunbeam Lotus. It also saw the beginning of a new era in the sport with the arrival of the Audi Quattro, the first four-wheel drive rally car. Initially regarded as too heavy and complex for rally stages, it proved its worth with three wins in its debut season, including a maiden victory for Michèle Mouton at the Rallye Sanremo, the only woman to win a WRC event. __TOC__ Teams and drivers Championships Events ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and teams. The series currently consists of 13 three to four-day rally events driven on surfaces ranging from gravel and tarmac to snow and ice. Each rally is usually split into 15–25 special stages which are run against the clock on up to 350 kilometres of closed roads. Drivers Sébastien Loeb, Sébastien Ogier, Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen and Colin McRae all became WRC champions. Other drivers who became well known primarily through their WRC careers include Michèle Mouton, Henri Toivonen, Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen. Rallies that have frequently appeared in the championship have included Monte Carlo Rally, Tour de Corse, Sanremo, Acropolis, Safari Rally, and national rallies of Great Britain, Finland, New Zealand, Au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiat
Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division Stellantis Italy. Fiat Automobiles was formed in January 2007 when Fiat S.p.A. reorganized its automobile business, and traces its history back to 1899 when the first Fiat automobile, the Fiat 4 HP, was produced. Fiat Automobiles is the largest automobile manufacturer in Italy. During its more than century-long history, it remained the largest automobile manufacturer in Europe and the third in the world after General Motors and Ford for over 20 years, until the car industry crisis in the late 1980s. In 2013, Fiat S.p.A. was the second largest European automaker by volumes produced and the seventh in the world, while FCA was the world's eighth-largest automaker. In 1970, Fiat Automobiles em ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malcolm Wilson (rally Driver)
Malcolm Irving Wilson, OBE (born 17 February 1956) is a British former rally driver and current owner of team and constructor M-Sport. He is the father of former World Rally Championship driver Matthew Wilson. He has been married to Elaine Wilson since 1982. Biography He has over 20 years experience of rallying at world championship level, much of it with Ford. He drove for three factory teams in the world championship, including MG, in whose Group B Metro 6R4, he shared driving duties with fellow Briton, Tony Pond. He spent several years as Ford's chief test driver, developing new rally cars, including the short lived RS1700T and RS200 models. As a driver, he won two British national titles in the late 1970s and achieved a long-held ambition by winning the British Rally Championship in 1994, all at the wheel of Ford Escorts. He crashed during the 1980 Scottish Rally whilst chasing Hannu Mikkola and Ari Vatanen for the lead, breaking both his ankles and almost endi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentti Airikkala
Pentti Airikkala (4 September 1945 – 30 September 2009) was one of the "Flying Finns" who dominated world rallying in the past four decades.Pentti Airikkala 'Flying Finns' website His career was more sporadic than many of his contemporaries, and he competed in only three (WRC) events regularly; the two n rallies (the 1000 Lakes and the |
Ford Escort (Europe)
The Ford Escort is a small family car that was manufactured by Ford of Europe from 1968 until 2000. In total there were six generations, spread across three basic platforms beginning with the original rear-wheel drive Mk.1/Mk.2 (1968–1980), the "Erika" front wheel drive Mk.3/Mk.4 (1980–1990), and the final CE-14 Mk.5/Mk.6 (1990–2002) version. Its successor - the Ford Focus - was released in 1998, but the final generation of Escort was gradually phased out, with the panel van version ending production in 2002 in favour of the Ford Transit Connect. The Escort was frequently the best selling car in Britain during the 1980s and 1990s. A total of more than 4.1 million Escorts of all generations were sold there over a period of 33 years. In 2014, Ford revived the Escort name for a car based on the second-generation Ford Focus sold on the Chinese market. Naming Convention Whilst the Escort designation existed three basic platforms (and officially, the canon does not incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand, and luxury cars under its Lincoln luxury brand. Ford also owns Brazilian SUV manufacturer Troller, an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom and a 32% stake in China's Jiangling Motors. It also has joint ventures in China (Changan Ford), Taiwan (Ford Lio Ho), Thailand ( AutoAlliance Thailand), and Turkey ( Ford Otosan). The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is controlled by the Ford family; they have minority ownership but the majority of the voting power. Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines; by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rothmans Rally Team
Rothmans International plc was a British tobacco manufacturer. Its brands included Rothmans, Player's and Dunhill. Its international headquarters were in Hill Street, London and its international operations were run from Denham Place in Denham Village, Buckinghamshire. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, but it was acquired by British American Tobacco in 1999. Its business was strongest in Europe and it specialised in premium brands. History The company was founded by Louis Rothman in 1890 as a small kiosk on Fleet Street in London. In 1900 Rothman opened a small showroom in Pall Mall, from where he launched his famous ''Pall Mall'' cigarette brand. His reputation was such that King Edward VII granted Rothmans a royal warrant in 1905. Rothmans was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1929. In 1954 the Rembrandt Tobacco Company acquired a controlling interest in Rothmans. Rembrandt was expandin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stig Blomqvist
Stig Lennart Blomqvist (born 29 July 1946) is a retired Swedish rally driver. He made his international breakthrough in 1971. Driving an Audi Quattro for the Audi factory team, Blomqvist won the World Rally Championship drivers' title in 1984 and finished runner-up in 1985. He won his home event, the Swedish Rally, seven times. Outside the WRC, he won the British Rally Championship in 1983 and the Swedish Rally Championship several times. At the Race of Champions, Blomqvist took the title "Champion of Champions" in 1989 and 1990. Career Stig Blomqvist acquired his driving licence at the age of 18, and immediately took second place in a 1964 local rally event near the Swedish town of Karlstad, behind the wheel of a Saab 96. After his education as a driving instructor, together with later teammate Per Eklund at the ''Kvinnersta Folkhögskola'' outside of Örebro, he proceeded to drive with the Saab team, and achieved his first international victories in 1971; first winning th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Toivonen
Henri Pauli Toivonen (25 August 1956 – 2 May 1986) was a Finnish rally driver born in Jyväskylä, the home of Rally Finland. His father, Pauli, was the 1968 European Rally Champion for Porsche and his brother, Harri, became a professional circuit racer. Toivonen's first World Rally Championship victory came with a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus at the 1980 Lombard RAC Rally in Great Britain, just after his 24th birthday. He had the record of being the youngest driver ever to win a world rally until his countryman Jari-Matti Latvala won the 2008 Swedish Rally at the age of 22. After driving for Opel and Porsche, Toivonen was signed by Lancia. Despite nearly ending up paralysed at the Rally Costa Smeralda early in 1985, he returned to rallying later that year. He won the last event of the season, the RAC Rally, as well as the 1986 season opener, the Monte Carlo Rally, which his father had won exactly 20 years earlier. Toivonen died in a crash on 2 May 1986 while ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guy Fréquelin
Guy Fréquelin (born 2 April 1945 at Langres) is a French former rally and sports car driver. Biography Perhaps Fréquelin's finest hour as a driver came when he finished runner-up only to Ari Vatanen, alongside then-navigator Jean Todt, at the wheel of a briefly competitive Sunbeam Lotus Talbot in the driver's classification of the 1981 World Rally Championship. It was during that year that he collected his only individual rally victory in the series, in Rally Argentina. Fréquelin was also part of a four-car Renault assault on the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1977 with their highly successful Alpine Renault A442B. As part of a team which included the French racing drivers, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Jacques Laffite, Patrick Depailler, Patrick Tambay, Jean-Pierre Jaussaud, René Arnoux and Didier Pironi, as well as the English long distance expert Derek Bell, Fréquelin was named as the third driver for both the #7 Tambay/Jaussaud and the #16 Arnoux/Pironi machines. Neither cars w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Talbot Sunbeam Lotus
The Chrysler Sunbeam is a small supermini three-door hatchback manufactured by Chrysler Europe at the former Rootes Group factory in Linwood in Scotland, from 1977-81. The Sunbeam's development was funded by a UK Government grant with the aim of keeping the Linwood plant running, and the small car was based on the larger Hillman Avenger, also manufactured there. After the takeover of Chrysler's European operations by PSA, the model was renamed Talbot Sunbeam and continued in production until 1981. A Talbot Sunbeam Lotus version was successful in rallying and won the World Rally Championship manufacturers' title for Talbot in 1981. Background In the mid-1970s, the British automotive industry was in crisis, marred by bad management, frequent strikes and decreasing competitiveness compared to the increasingly successful French and Japanese automakers. It took its toll on Chrysler UK, which was the name given to the former Rootes Group after its takeover by the American-based Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dario Cerrato
Dario Cerrato, (born 2 September 1951) is a former Italian rally driver three times on the podium in World Rally Championship races. He won five times the Italian Rally Championship. WRC podium Other results *European Rally Championship The European Rally Championship (officially FIA European Rally Championship) is an automobile rally competition held annually on the European continent and organized by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship has b ... **2 wins (1985, 1987) * Italian Rally Championship **5 wins (1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991) References External links Driver profile at Rallye-info.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Cerrato, dario 1951 births Italian rally drivers Living people World Rally Championship drivers European Rally Championship drivers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
