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Rally superstar Sébastien Loeb has told Autosport he was keen on taking part someday in the famous Dakar Rally.

Frenchman Loeb recently won a ninth consecutive title in the World Rally Championship (WRC), and already announced he would compete in only four WRC events next year.

Instead of defending his title, he will focus on circuit racing with his private team Loeb Racing, and eventually a World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) bid with Citroën.

Photo: Facebook@Loeb Racing

He recently announced he might also squeeze a participation in the famous Dakar rally-raid into his agenda.

"One day maybe, I would like to go and do Dakar," he told Autosport's website. "This would be a private thing, it would not be something with Citroën."

"But I wouldn't do it with (my wife) Severine, and not with Daniel (Elena, WRC co-driver)... for sure we would be lost," he laughed.

Former BMW Motorsport boss Dr. Mario Theissen revealed in an interview with France's AutoHebdo that he was confident the foundations he had laid down for the DTM program could bear fruits rapidly.

Theissen stopped working in 2011, when he stepped down to be replaced by Jens Marquardt.

In 2012, BMW came back to the German DTM touring car series, after 20 years of absence.

At the end of the season, Marquardt tasted the champaign when Bruno Spengler and Team Schnitzer took the driver and team titles.

Bruno Spengler proved Mario Theissen was right to bring BMW back to DTM (Photo: DTM.com)

But it was Theissen who, before retiring, pushed for BMW's comeback to the DTM and put everything together for the project to start on the right foot.

"2009 was very tough, as we were pulling out of F1. I had to restructure the whole of BMW Motorsport according to Peter Sauber's needs for his F1 team," Theissen is quoted saying by AutoHebdo.fr.

"I presented the DTM project to the board in 2010, and they agreed to the comeback under two conditions: making the DTM more international, and win right from year one," he added.

Theissen knew both conditions could be met. He did not fear the same kind of  difficulties to win he faced during his F1 days.

"Everything was in place, including the drivers we had secretly hired. The result was almost beyond expectations, but we knew we had the tools to race at the front.

"We had five or six chassis engineers left from F1, and the whole engine department to ourselves."

Details of the racing track where the 2014 Russian Grand Prix is to be held have been released.

According to Motorsport.com, the track is expected to host 13,600 fans. It will boast 12 right turns and 6 left, giving it a conventional clockwise direction.

Top speed achieved by F1 cars is estimated at 320km/h. Over a lap, drivers should average 215km/h.

Also, the circuit's width ranges from 13 to 15 metres, over 5.85km.

"The circuit is going to be very fast and technical," Hermann Tilke, who designed the Sochi circuit and many other tracks on the F1 calendars, is quoted saying by ESPNF1.com.

"It is a fantastic facility."

Fisker Automotive has sued XL Group Plc after being denied insurance coverage over flooding from Superstorm Sandy that destroyed 338 of its Karma plug-in hybrids, worth about $33 million, at a Port Newark, N.J., shipping facility.

Toyota and lawyers suing the company won preliminary court approval of a $1.1. billion settlement of claims that recalls for unintended acceleration hurt the value of U.S. customers' vehicles. The terms of the settlement filed Dec.

Hanukkah's passed us by. Christmas Eve slipped into Christmas morning and the denouement of Boxing Day. The most pressing decision right now is when one might pull down the lights and dispense with the tree.

It won't be as tough to find a fun-to-drive fuel-efficient car as automakers introduce a variety of ways to increase fuel economy.

Also in this episode: Kia designer Peter Schreyer becomes the automaker's first non-Korean president.

U.S. auto sales are expected to show a rise of 9 percent for December, capping off the best year for the industry since 2007, fueled by easier access to credit, rising home prices and pent-up demand.

Dockworkers and their employers reached a tentative agreement on royalty payments, averting a strike that would have shut down eastern U.S. ports, possibly disrupting auto parts shipments, for the first time in 35 years.

No one can make members of a certain sci-fi fandom geek out quite like Sir Patrick Stewart. But when Stewart himself wants to indulge in a bit of hero-worship, he turns to none other than renowned racer

Porsche shares surged on Friday after it won a dismissal of a U.S. lawsuit by 26 hedge funds but analysts warned the German company's triumph in court hinged on a legal formality rather than the substance of the case.

Kia Motors Corp. has promoted design chief Peter Schreyer to president. He's the first non-Korean to attain the position at Kia.

Nissan Motor Co. plans to bolster the warranty of the battery module in its electric

U.S. automobile parts maker Tower International Inc. sold its South Korean operations to Seco, a privately owned Korean auto parts supplier, for about $47 million in cash.

NEWS EDITOR GREG MIGLIORE: The

Toyota eliminated a huge obstacle with a U.S. settlement over unintended acceleration in its cars and trucks, leaving it to fight smaller cases that will be harder for plaintiffs to prove and less likely to damage the company's growing sales.

Kia promoted its chief designer Peter Schreyer to the role of president, the first foreigner to attain the position at the company, as the South Korean automaker seeks to elevate its global profile.

Industry sales continued to rebound, VW completed its acquisition of Porsche, and Honda and Toyota staged impressive comebacks. Names and faces came and went, as well, in 2012.

Nissan's new low-cost Datsun cars will be based on a Lada, executive vice president Colin Dodge said. "Datsuns will be built off the new Lada Kalina platform," Dodge, who is Nissan's top executive for Europe.