The Mini has returned to the World Rally Championship stages after more than 40 years after its last victory.
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Dani Sordo jumps the WRC Mini in Italy Image: WRC Team Mini |
Spain's Dani Sordo took his Prodrive-run WRC Mini Cooper S to sixth place overall in the Rally d'Italia in Sardinia, the new team's World Championship debut and the first Mini to be seen in the World Championship since the end of the 1960s.
Although Sordo's team-mate, Northern Ireland's Kris Meeke, failed to finish the first day after a mechanical problem in his 1.6 litre, turbocharged car, the team won the Spirit of the Rally Award and are confident of being competitive for the rest of the year.
The orginal Mini, designed by Sir Alec Issigonis, scored its first rally victory in 1959 on the Mini Miglia National Rally driven by Pat Moss, one of the World's most successful female rally stars.
The car, upgraded from a Mini 850 to the Mini Cooper S, then went on to to dominate the Monte Carlo Rally in the 1960s with four victories as well as wins in Greece, the UK, Finland and the overal European Rally Championship.
The marque was saved by BMW after Rover Group failed in the late '90s, and undertook a complete re-design, return to it's iconic status as a small, trendy car-about-town.
The WRC Mini Team returns to the stages for the Rally Argentina with a single car driven by Brazilian Daniel Oliveira and co-driver Carlos Magalhaes.