One of the all time classic Rally events took place during the week. The Monte Carlo rally is, to many the most iconic of the international rallies, but this year it is not part of the World Rally Championship (WRC). It is instead part of the Intercontinental Rally Championship (IRC)

As the novelty of the new year begins to wear off, motorsport begins to come back with a vengeance. Weekends once again feature top class racing, rallying and much more. This particular weekend saw the finale of the first major international motorsport event of 2009, with the Dakar Rally.

2008 has provided some top class racing action throughout all forms of motorsport. Here is a run down of some of the championship winners of selected series.

Subaru have today announced their intentions to withdraw from the World Rally Championship with immediate effect. Stating problems with the global economy as their reason, they follow Suzuki out of the competition. Prodrive, the motorsport engineering firm that has prepared the Subaru World Rally cars for sometime, announced that they will try and restructure their business in order to save mass redundancies. Additionally, they said that they would support existing customers with regards to rally engineering. Please visit www.swrt.com for more information.

Oran Park played host to what would be an emotional 2008 Grand Finale. Not only would the 2008 driver's championship be decided, but the series would bid farewell to the Oran Park circuit, and multiple Australian Car Champion Mark Skaife. Oran Park will cease to host top class racing, as it winds down its operations in preparation for re-developing the circuit in the next two years.

The final round of the World Rally Championship headed to Wales. This year's running of the event would feature some of the classic Mid-Wales stages, which had previously featured on the RAC Rally of old. The weather which greeted the teams was a mixture of ice, snow, mist and dampness – meaning that the 2008 running of the event would provide some top class rally action.

Team Vodafone driver Jamie Whincup has secured the Driver's Championship in the opening race of the final round of the season. He did it in the best possible way, by securing the race win, whilst the only realistic challenger, Mark Winterbottom, fell away with problems.

Anything but three wins for Garth Tander would almost certainly see him had his Driver's title over to one of Jamie Whincup or Mark Winterbottom for 2008. The Toll Holden Racing Team driver would be hoping that along with a strong qualifying he could convert it into victories, and hope that Whincup and Winterbottom hit problems through the race weekend.

The first-ever Superleague Formula season drew to a close in Spain, at the Jerez circuit. Beijing Gu'aon were favourites to claim the inaugural title, with Italian driver Davide Rigon at the wheel. Liverpool FC, AC Milan and PSV Eindhoven were all able to win, but it would take a large amount of fortune to make to happen for them ahead of Beijing.

Italian driver Davide Rigon has won the inaugural Superleague Formula title for Chinese football team Beijing Gu'aon. Given the state of the championship prior to the final round in Spain, he had been expected to claim the title, and duly delivered.