Dani Sordo

This name uses Spanish naming customs; the first or paternal family name is Sordo and the second or maternal family name is Castillo.

Dani Sordo

Sordo at the 2010 Rally Bulgaria.
Personal information
Nationality	Spanish
Born	May 2, 1983 (1983-05-02) (age 28) Torrelavega, Cantabria
World Rally Championship record
Active years	2003–present
Teams	Citroën, Mini
Rallies	90
Championships	0
Rally wins	0
Podiums	31
Stage wins	107
Total points	452
First rally	2003 Rally Catalunya

Daniel "Dani" Sordo Castillo (born May 2, 1983 in Torrelavega, Cantabria) is a Spanish rally driver. He competes in the World Rally Championship for the Mini WRC Team. He has yet to claim his maiden victory in the WRC despite having raced in one of the best teams for four years.

Career

Sordo began in motocross when he was 12 years old, but also experienced success with hillclimbing, karting and touring cars. He first drove in a World Rally Championship event at the Rally Catalunya, the Spanish round of the series, in 2003 in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII, finishing 18th overall. He won the Spanish Junior Championship that year, and retained the title in 2004, while also accumulating further international experience at the WRC events in Argentina (retired), France (13th) and Spain (20th).

In this last event, he switched from the Lancer Evo to a Citroën C2 S1600, and for 2005 he committed to a full season driving the C2 in the Junior World Rally Championship (JWRC) with Belgium's Kronos Racing team. He also switched co-drivers, now being paired with Marc Martí, the former co-driver of double World Champion Carlos Sainz. Victories in Sardinia, Finland, Germany and Spain brought him the junior world title.

Sordo driving a Citroën Xsara WRC at the 2006 Rally Japan.

These showings earned Sordo a subsequent drive in a Kronos Total Citroën-prepared Xsara World Rally Car as the team's third driver in the 2006 season, although the initial plan - latterly dropped - was for the Spaniard to combine a piecemeal World Rally Car programme with a simultaneous defence of the JWRC title in the C2.

His early results though, including successive podiums at the Rally Catalunya and the Rallye de France, proved sufficient to not only expand his complement of contested events, but also ensure promotion to the second driver berth from the Rallye Deutschland onwards, alongside Sébastien Loeb and ahead of team-mate Xavier Pons. Sordo finished the 2006 season with four podium places, 49 points and a fifth overall in the drivers' world championship.

Sordo driving a Citroën C4 WRC at the 2010 Rally Finland.

Citroën Sport then announced that Sordo will be their second driver for their 2007 season works team return. Sébastien Loeb would lead the team's push to win another title, this time using the C4 instead of Xsara.^[1] Sordo started the season with a second place at the 2007 Monte Carlo Rally and went on to finish on the podium six more times; in Portugal, Italy, Spain, where he also led a WRC event for the first time in his career, France, Japan and Ireland. With 65 points, he placed fourth overall in the drivers' championship, behind his teammate Loeb and BP Ford World Rally Team's Marcus Grönholm and Mikko Hirvonen.

In the 2008 season, after only three points in the first three events, Sordo finished third in Argentina and second in Jordan. On July 12, Sordo won the SM O.K. Auto-Ralli, the fifth round of the Finnish Rally Championship. Initially, he only planned to use the event as a test session when Citroën decided to competitively enroll him in the event to build confidence in preparation for the 2008 Rally Finland. Sordo's win marks his first in a WRC car.^[2] Citroën is also believed to have been testing out new parts at this event as a few slight modifications could be noticed in a few cars.

Back in the World Rally Championship, Sordo took fourth place in Finland and went on to drive his C4 WRC to three consecutive runner-up finishes behind his teammate Loeb; in Germany, New Zealand and Spain. With these results, Citroën passed Ford and took a 27-point lead in the manufacturers' world championship. At the season-ending Wales Rally GB, Loeb and Sordo secured the team their fourth manufacturers' crown by finishing first and third, respectively. Sordo finished a career-best third in the drivers' standings. In the 2010 WRC season Dani Sordo scored a 4th place in the opening round Rally Sweden, while he scored no points in the following round in Rally Mexico. In the third round in Rally Jordan he scored another 4th place, in the Turkish Rally he was forced to retire, while in Rally New Zealand he scored 5th place and in the Rally of Portugal he scored his first podium finish of the year, while in Rally Bulgaria, Sordo finished in second place behind his team leader Loeb, giving his Citroen team their first one-two finish of the season. However, he will be replaced by Sebastien Ogier for the remaining gravel events of the season in the works team, and will be demoted to the Citroen Junior Team alongside Kimi Räikkönen. In Rally Finland Sordo finished 4th and from Rally Deutschland onwards Dani Sordo swapped his co-driver to Diego Vallejo. In Rally Deutschland itself Dani Scored another 2nd place podium. In the following Rally in Japan he finished 4th and in Rally Alsace 2nd again. He is currently 5th in the standings and has 53 points if using the old scoring system with 2 rounds remaining until the end of the season. At the end of the season he has 63 points using the old scoring system in 5th place.

Complete WRC results

Year	Entrant	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	WDC	Points
2003	Dani Sordo	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII	MON	SWE	TUR	NZL	ARG	GRC	CYP	GER	FIN	AUS	ITA	FRA	ESP 18	GBR			-	0
2004	Dani Sordo	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII	MON	SWE	MEX	NZL	CYP	GRE	TUR	ARG Ret	FIN	GER 19	JPN	GBR	ITA	FRA 13			-	0
		Citroën C2 S1600															ESP 20
2005	Dani Sordo	Citroën C2 S1600	MON 15	SWE	MEX	NZL	ITA 17	CYP	TUR	GRE Ret	ARG	FIN 15	GER 13	GBR	JPN	FRA 15	ESP 12	AUS	-	0
2006	Kronos Total Citroën WRT	Citroën Xsara WRC	MON 8	SWE 16	MEX 4	ESP 2	FRA 3	ARG 5	ITA 3	GRE 6	GER 2	FIN Ret	JPN DSQ	CYP Ret	TUR 7	AUS 23	NZL 5	GBR 7	5th	49
2007	Citroën Total WRT	Citroën C4 WRC	MON 2	SWE 12	NOR 25	MEX 4	POR 3	ARG 6	ITA 3	GRE 24	FIN Ret	GER Ret	NZL 6	ESP 2	FRA 3	JPN 2	IRE 2	GBR 5	4th	65
2008	Citroën Total WRT	Citroën C4 WRC	MON 11	SWE 6	MEX 16	ARG 3	JOR 2	ITA 5	GRE 5	TUR 4	FIN 4	GER 2	NZL 2	ESP 2	FRA Ret	JPN DSQ	GBR 3		3rd	65
2009	Citroën Total WRT	Citroën C4 WRC	IRE 2	NOR 5	CYP 4	POR 3	ARG 2	ITA 22	GRE 11	POL 2	FIN 4	AUS 3	ESP 2	GBR 3					3rd	64
2010	Citroën Total WRT	Citroën C4 WRC	SWE 4	MEX 14	JOR 4	TUR Ret	NZL 5	POR 3	BUL 2		DEU 2		FRA 2	ESP 3					5th	150
	Citroën Junior Team									FIN 5		JPN 4			GBR 5
2011	Mini WRC Team	Mini John Cooper Works WRC	SWE	MEX	POR	JOR	ITA 6	ARG	GRE	FIN Ret	DEU 3	AUS	FRA 2	ESP 4	GBR 20				8th	59

JWRC results

Year	Entrant	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Pos.	Points
2005	Dani Sordo	Citroën C2 S1600	MON 4	MEX	ITA 1	GRE Ret	FIN 1	DEU 1	FRA 2	ESP 1	1st	53

Footnotes

1. ^ "Citroën reward rising star Sordo". BBC Motorsport News. 2006-09-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/world_rally/5318368.stm. Retrieved 6 September 2006. 
2. ^ "Sordo takes first win with C4 in Finland". Crash.net. http://www.crash.net/motorsport/wrc/news/166131-0/sordo_takes_first_win_with_c4_in_finland.html. Retrieved 10 December 2008. 

External links

• Official website

Sporting positions
Preceded by Per-Gunnar Andersson	Junior World Rally Champion 2005	Succeeded by Patrik Sandell

Persondata
Name	Sordo, Dani
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	May 2, 1983
Place of birth	Torrelavega, Cantabria
Date of death
Place of death