Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Lewis Hamilton is hoping for a wet qualifying at Spa Francorchamps as he believes the W15 performs better in difficult conditions.

Hamilton wasn’t too pleased after Free Practice One and Free Practice Two with how the car was performing. The seven time world champion was fifth in the first hour of practice, tenth in the second and also found himself behind his teammate, George Russell, in both sessions.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team have been looking much improved lately, winning two of the last three races at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring, but their pace at the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix so far isn’t looking likely to challenge Oracle Red Bull Racing and McLaren F1 Team.

Speaking to F1TV, Hamilton said: “It’s a pretty bad day, I don’t really know what to say! It’s been feeling great in the past couple of races, it just felt completely different today. 

“We worked on it , the first session was not great but then in the second session, it started off great but when we got onto the soft tyre it just didn’t improve. There was a bunch of balance issues we had through the lap but it was better in FP2 but everyone else just went better. To be 1.2 seconds behind isn’t great.”

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri set the pace in Free Practice Two for the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, ahead of Max Verstappen, who dominated the first session earlier in the day.

The drivers got onto track for a second hour of running at Circuit de Spa Francochamps and the weekend is set to get even better with rain expected on Saturday and Championship leader Verstappen set to take a 10-place grid penalty, potentially giving Norris and McLaren F1 Team the chance to move closer to Verstappen in both Championships. 

Norris, Piastri and Verstappen rounded out the top three and it was Scuderia Ferrari that looked like the third quickest team, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. rounding out the top five. George Russell was the lead Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team driver in sixth, ahead of Esteban Ocon, who recently announced he’ll be driving for MoneyGram Haas F1 Team in 2025 after his departure BWT Alpine F1 Team at the end of 2024.

Kevin Magnussen, who is without a race seat in 2025 as it stands, popped up in eight for Haas, ahead of Sergio Pérez. The Mexican has almost a second off Verstappen in Free Practice One and it was the same story in the second practice session on a weekend where he needs to perform or he may potentially be replaced in the second half of the 2024 season.

Lewis Hamilton was the last driver inside the top ten, ahead of Lance Stroll, who was just +0.006s quicker than his teammate, Fernando Alonso.

Nani Roma will get a swan song in the Ford Ranger T1+ before taking over the Ford Raptor T1+ for good starting in August. Due to an injury sustained by his friend Daniel Alonso, Roma was a last-second addition to the Baja España Aragón that began Friday.

Roma helped test the Ford Ranger in 2023, then a collaboration between M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport that had been in the works since 2022. The car then made its competition début at that year’s Baja Aragón with Roma and Gareth Woolridge, the former finishing ninth, followed by a third at the World Rally-Raid Championship’s Rallye du Maroc. At the Dakar Rally in January, Roma scored a best stage finish of ninth in Stage #11 but was at the bottom of the overall due to mechanical failures.

M-Sport and NWM ended their relationship afterwards as the former, whom Roma and Ford Performance are tied to, focused on developing the Raptor. NWM elected to continue with the Ranger, building an upgraded model for competition in the South African Rally-Raid Championship with Past-Racing as a global partner.

Unveiled in mid-July at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Raptor’s first race will be the Hungarian Baja on 8–11 August. As he’ll have to wait a fortnight until then, Roma was asked by Alonso and Past-Racing to fill in at Aragón. M-Sport gave their blessngs, allowing him and co-driver Alex Haro to return to their old confines.

“Daniel Alonso called me and asked me if I was willing to do the Baja, as he is not fully recovered from the injury he suffered a few days ago,” Roma explained. “The objective is to continue to develop the Ranger T1+, which I know very well as it is identical to the one I drove until the last Dakar. Matthew Wilson (M-Sport boss) authorised me to drive, and here we are. It will be a good preparation for both Alex and me ahead of the Hungarian Baja in two weeks’ time, where we will be using the Raptor T1+ for the first time.”

Michel Hardy, who was on hand for the first ever Dakar Rally in 1979, died on 10 July at the age of 68.

At the inaugural Paris–Dakar Rally, Hardy was the mechanic on the #137 Range Rover V8 piloted by Patrick Barbier with Jean-Louis Dieude as co-driver. However, they failed to reach the finish.

He did not compete at the race again until 1986, when he teamed up with Alain Piatek and Serge Samson to drive the #636 Tatra 815; it was imported in 1985, initially with a 300-horsepower V10 engine that was upgraded to a 550-hp V12 capable of 170 kilometres per hour. Although it was rapid assistance truck, the entry marked the first time a Tatra appeared at the Dakar as the Czech manufacturer began sale to foreign customers. Hardy continued in the role through the decade, working with competitors like a Bosset and Ragot.

Piatek wrote on social media Friday, “Michel Hardy, companion on Tatra and first Dakar, has gone ahead on his last journey…”

His service took place on 16 July in Vence.

Max Verstappen dominated Free Practice One at the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, as the Dutchman was half a second quicker than Oscar Piastri in second place. Alex Albon showed some surprising pace, going third quickest.

Esteban Ocon was told to pit after they spotted a water leak issue on his out-lap, and he failed to get back onto track for the rest of the session

Daniel Ricciardo had a spin at La Source after touching the kerb on the exit of the corner. The Australian managed to avoid the barrier and get going on the hard tyre. 

After ten minutes of the session, Max Verstappen was at the top of the timesheets ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, with Lewis Hamilton just behind in fourth. The Scuderia Ferrari drivers then went fourth and fifth as they look to try and challenge at the front again after a difficult few race weekends. 

George Russell was the first soft tyre runner and went top of the times, before Verstappen moved back to the top. Pérez was the next driver to set a quick lap but the Mexican was almost a second behind his teammate. Ricciardo went seventh fastest, setting a purple sector one and almost seven tenths quicker than Yuki Tsunoda, who will start from the back of the grid on Sunday. 

Barring a sudden development on the frontlines in the coming months, 2025 will be the third year that the Dakar Rally does not feature Russian or Belarusian teams. Although Truck powerhouse KAMAZ-master is still barred from contending for a twentieth Dakar victory, team boss Eduard Nikolaev believes sentiment in Europe is leaning towards letting them back.

“We are not against returning (to Dakar),” Nikolaev told state-owned media outlet RIA Novosti. “The Europeans really want us to return. We are constantly in communication and talking with them. The team is in shape and ready to fight for the title.”

The FIA implemented restrictions on Russian teams following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a month after Dmitry Sotnikov led a KAMAZ podium sweep of the Truck class at Dakar. Under the policy, Russian and Belarusian racers must agree to condemn the invasion and to not sport their respective nation’s insignia; KAMAZ, whose parent company is partly owned by the Russian government and provides vehicles for the Russian military, unsurprisingly rejected the terms.

The team lost many of their foreign backers in the wake of the invasion, most notably Red Bull, prompting the switch to domestic suppliers. Since then, KAMAZ has focused exclusively on the Russian Rally-Raid Championship.

Earlier in July, Sotnikov won the Silk Way Rally, the premier rally raid in the country, in a 1–2 finish for KAMAZ with Nikolaev in tow. The latter held off 2023 winner Siarhei Viazovich of rival MAZ-SPORTauto, a Belarusian outfit also prohibited from racing the Dakar; the two had nearly collided head-on during the third stage. Nikolaev won four stages.

Esteban Ocon is delighted to be joining MoneyGram Haas F1 Team from the start of the 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season after the news was confirmed on Thursday morning.

Ocon’s departure from BWT Alpine F1 Team was announced earlier in the season, and the announcement came after an incident with his teammate, Pierre Gasly, at the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix, which left team principal Bruno Famin unhappy with the Frenchman. 

Ocon will now move onto a new chapter in his Formula 1 career with Haas in a completely new lineup alongside Ollie Bearman. 

After confirmation of the move, Ocon said: “I am thrilled to embark on this new chapter in my Formula 1 career and join MoneyGram Haas F1 Team from the start of the 2025 season.” 

“I’ll be joining a very ambitious racing team, whose spirit, work ethic, and undeniable upward trajectory has really impressed me. I’d like to thank Gene Haas and Ayao Komatsu for their trust and support, and for our honest and fruitful discussions these last few months. 

Zhou Guanyu thinks the updates introduced by Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber are a step in the right direction despite the team still not getting off the mark in the Constructors Championship. 

Despite Valtteri Bottas being the only drive at Sauber to receive the upgrades, Zhou is pleased with the progress that the team have made after they introduced a new set of updates at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix. Heading into the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix Sauber are set to introduce more upgrades and despite not receiving them, Zhou is hoping it’ll be another step in the right direction. 

Speaking to F1TV, Zhou said: “It was only Valtteri’s car [that had the upgrades] so I’ve had the same car from Silverstone. 

“He’s making another further upgrade this weekend, and we need to see if that makes another step because clearly it was a step in the right direction as we can see some gain throughout the entire weekend with everything in place.”

Zhou is under pressure to keep his place in Formula 1 with options on the 2025 grid continuing to fall away from him. Despite neither driver scoring points, Bottas has certainly got the better of the Chinese driver, and that’s the reason that its unlikely he’ll be kept on at Sauber in 2025 alongside Nico Hülkenberg.

Much like Nasser Al-Attiyah, Yasir Seaidan will race in the Challenger category for the first time at this weekend’s Baja España Aragón. In fact, Al-Attiyah’s crew will be with Seaidan every step of the way as his #357 Taurus T3 Max will be prepared by Nasser Racing Camp.

Seaidan is currently second in the World Rally-Raid Championship’s SSV standings with one race to go. He had led the points for much of the season before a Stage #1 retirement at the Desafío Ruta 40 in June dropped him behind Sebastián Guayasamín by six. The top three, with DR 40 winner Ricardo Ramilo in third, are separated by just twenty points.

Aragón will be his first FIA World Baja Cup start since 2021 when he finished second in the championship to fellow Saudi driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi. Afterwards, Seaidan turned his focus to the FIA’s Middle East Baja Cup, placing fourth in the 2023 standings, as well as the national Saudi Toyota Rally Championship. In January, he finished third in SSV at the Dakar Rally.

Seaidan will be one of twelve Taurus T3 Max cars entered at Aragón, including Al-Attiyah, and among fifty-eight Challengers; a Challenger car is a race-spec version of an SSV. By entering the class, Seaidan will have experience in four of five FIA categories as he previously competed in the premier Ultimate class (then T1) and Stock (T2). His 2021 vice-champion run came in a Mini JCW Rally T1.

Omar Allahim will be his co-driver. The two first worked together at the 2020 Andalucía Rally, also in Spain, where their Mini finished tenth.

For a group of college kids, the students at Chuoh Technical School sure know how to create a rally raid winner. The school has long been a partner of the Asia Cross Country Rally, which allows students to build vehicles for interested competitors as well as being crew members. For the 2024 edition, CTS General Automobile Maintenance Department students designed a Suzuki Jimny Sierra that Roslyn Shen and Nada Simaraks will pilot.

Although the Jimny Sierra is a legitimate SUV, the CTS version is instead a pickup-style truck created by taking a standard Sierra then modifying it. The body was cut at the B-pillar while the body-on-frame was sliced at the centre, allowing the creation of a “truck bed” that extended the vehicle length by thirty centimetres. The “bed” will be used to store spare tyres and tools; a bar was implemented to keep the parts inside when in motion. Over fenders have also been installed so that the Yokohama Geolandar M/T G003 tyres could be fitted on, while two hooks are attached at the rear fender. At the front is a new automatic transmission oil cooler.

Other aspects like the width and engine have been left untouched. The latter stems from the Sierra being a two-year development process, so CTS would like to gauge the stock engine’s capabilities in 2024 before making changes for 2025.

The car complies with T1 (Ultimate) regulation and will compete in the T1G subcategory. Satoshi Takeno and Tadamune Nakai are also racing Sierras in T1G, though theirs are still the production models.

Fourth-year students Ue Sugawara, Keigo Tanimoto, and Shun Yamamoto will work as mechanics for the Sierra. Sugawara was responsible for building the body-on-frame, Tanimoto previously worked at Rally Hokkaido. Yamamoto, who did not have much interest in cars prior to CTS, described the build as a “trial and error period” that was “intense.”

The 2024 FIA World Rallycross Championship heads to Hungary for the first time on 27/28 July. The third and fourth rounds of the “Battle of Technologies” will take place at the Nyirád Racing Centre, with the usual suspects competing for glory against a Hungarian home hero.

Nicknamed the “Red Cauldron” due do the distinctive colour of the unsealed surface sections of the track, Nyirád is often referred to as one of the most “old-school” circuits on the calendar. The technical curves and turns combined with dramatic elevation changes present an enticing challenge for drivers and guarantee a great spectacle for the fans.

The first weekend of world rallycross action in the new “Battle of Technologies” era saw victory head the way of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. Indeed, six-time world rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson asserted his dominance early on, throwing down the gauntlet by winning both events in Sweden. However, team principal Tommy Kristoffersson will not be easing off any time soon. “We know what we are good at, and I think the double victory was well-deserved” Kristoffersson Sr explained, before adding “there are still areas for improvement and it will get tougher. We will come to tracks where we cannot dominate, so we must continue to work on our development potential. We should celebrate this success, absolutely, but we must also stay humble.”

Kristoffersson may have been untouchable in the wet, but in the dry conditions on Saturday he was put under pressure by the chasing pack. Meanwhile teammate Ole Christian Veiby struggled with launching his car off the line, denying him the potential to attack at the very top.

Hoping to capitalise on this are the two CE Dealer Team drivers, Niclas Grönholm and Klara Andersson, who are tied on points in second in the championship. Both could have taken at least one victory in Sweden, with Grönholm showing excellent pace in his electric PWR RX1e before events out of his control snatched those chances away from him. Andersson came within a whisker of taking victory from Kristoffersson on the first day of action, and will be hoping to go one better than second in Hungary.

Mykolas Paulavičius‘ effort to make the Dakar Rally is one step closer to completion. On Wednesday, he confirmed he has received his acceptance letter from the Amaury Sport Organisation to take part in the 2025 race.

While 2025 will be his first time competing at Dakar, he previously ran the 2022 edition as a crew member for the SSV of fellow Lithuanian Tomas Jančys who finished sixteenth in class. The experience inspired Paulavičius to set racing it on a bike as his next goal, already well established on two wheels as a three-time Lithuanian Enduro Champion who has competed in events like the Red Bull Erzbergrodeo and Red Bull Romaniacs.

Paulavičius made his rally raid début at the 2022 Fenix Rally in Tunisia, where he finished sixth. The following year, he entered the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Rallye du Maroc and finished forty-third in Rally2 (twenty-third among Road to Dakar registrants) with a best stage run of thirty-fourth on the opening leg; he fell twice during the second stage and unknowingly ran the full distance with COVID-19, which a team member also tested positive for though neither realised until after their return to Lithuania.

He effectivel yclinched his Dakar ticket with a sixteenth in class at the W2RC’s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge in February and March. Riding for DUUST Rally Team, he notched three top-twenty stage finishes including a fifteenth on the final day despite a malfunctioning gearbox.

In early July, shortly before the ASO began accepting Dakar riders, Paulavičius was the co-driver for Ignas Udra at the Rallye Breslau in Poland. The duo finished twelfth in SSV.

Andrew Houlihan is set to make his return to the Dakar Rally in 2025 after three years away from the race. He received his acceptance letter from the Amaury Sport Organisation last week.

Houlihan intends to compete in the Original by Motul class, a subcategory of Rally2 for riders without assistance from teams.

He made his Dakar début in 2021, where he finished fiftieth overall. He returned in 2022 following a tumultuous year in which many of his scheduled races and even his trip to Saudi Arabia for the race were impacted by COVID-19; however, his second attempt ended halfway.

Despite hopes to run the Dakar for five straight years, Houlihan did not take part in the 2023 edition. Nevertheless, he remained involved by competing in the FIM Bajas World Cup where he finished sixth in points and runner-up for the Veterans Trophy; he had led the latter, reserved for riders over the age of 45, before a ruptured quadricep tendon sidelined him for the final two races which allowed Pedro Bianchi Prata to leapfrog him for the title.

He began the 2024 season by finishing ninth at the Saudi Baja; Houlihan elected to enter the race at the last minute after being cleared by doctors. This was followed by a seventeenth at the Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura.

The AG Dakar School in Lithuania has produced another Dakar Rally-bound graduate. On Wednesday, Gediminas Satkus confirmed he has been accepted for the 2025 edition, marking his first foray into the legendary race.

Satkus qualified with a nineteenth in Rally2 at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge in March, where he overcame a battery failure at the midway point to notch a best run of sixteenth in Stage #4. It was his second time running the ADDC after an eighteenth in class in the 2023 edition.

Between ADDCs, he entered the fellow World Rally-Raid Championship round Rallye du Maroc but retired after crashing in Stage #3. 2023 also saw him compete in the Rallye Breslau in Poland, where fell off his bike early on yet managed to reach the finish.

Outside of rally raid, Satkus competes in enduro including the Red Bull Romaniacs in 2022 He also works as a managing director for mineral supplier Minterra FZE in the United Arab Emirates.

AG Dakar School is run by Arūnas Gelažninkas, a two-time winner of the Dakar’s Original by Motul (Malle Moto) subcategory. At the 2024 Dakar in January, he was the co-driver for his wife Emilija Gelažninkienė in the SSV category. The school also prepared a bike for Modestas Siliunas in the race, but his maiden Dakar ended after eight legs.

Although he and his Palestinian compatriots did not repeat the domination of the season opener in February, Hussein Sheiokhi was still more than happy to secure a third-place overall finish in the second round of the Jordan 4×4 Championship. The race was held Friday at Wasfi Al-Tal Forest in Amman.

He and co-driver Mohammed Baghdadi piloted a Jeep Wrangler, finishing third outright and in the Pro category behind Thabet and Mohammed Mheirat and Raad Azmaf and Islam Al-Dawaimeh. The Mheirats and Azmaf/Al-Dawaimeh raced Toyota Hiluxes, making Sheiokhi the best performing non-Hilux and one of two non-Toyotas to score a podium that day alongside the Jeep Grand Cherokee of Amateur class winner Khaled Sowan.

The twenty-eight teams were naturally heavily Jordanian, with Sheiokhi and Baghdadi representing Palestine alongside the Kia Sorento of Amjad and Imad Hanneh, Mohammed Hananah and Mohammed Abu Al-Asal (Toyota Land Cruiser), and Yousef and Samer Qaraira (Jeep Wrangler). Kuwait also had a team courtesy of Suleiman Al-Khudairi and Rakan Hammad.

Palestinians swept the top four at the championship’s first race in February when Emad Khabeis led Hazem Foudeh, Wisam Khalileh, and Hananah. Sheyoukhi finished eighth in that race.

“Alhamdulillah (‘Praise be to God’), we got third place in the race in the second round of the 4×4 Challenge,” said Sheiokhi. “It was more than a wonderful race.