Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Mattias Ekström might not be an Audi driver anymore, but he will still have a familiar face as a team-mate in Carlos Sainz. On Tuesday, Ford Performance and M-Sport announced Ekström as the fourth and final driver of their Ford Raptor T1+ for the 2025 Dakar Rally. Emil Bergkvist will continue as his navigator.

Although he was the last to be announced, a source said Ekström was actually the second driver to be signed. He had been discreetly testing the car in Morocco in the weeks prior.

“Ford and M-Sport have built a vehicle that looks, sounds, and drives awesome and we all have a common ambition to win the Dakar Rally,” Ekström stated. “I have had four tries at Dakar so far and now I can say that I have some experience to be able to aim for the top.

“There is also a lot of knowledge and experience in the team to back up the ambition, starting with the long motorsport heritage of Ford, proven track record of M-Sport, very impressive driver line-up, smart engineers, technicians, and the rest of the team. I look forward to the first competitive outing with the Ford Raptor T1+ at Rallye du Maroc and later at the Dakar Rally. I am in it to win it and I hope we will have very successful and great years ahead of us. I will do everything in my power to make it happen.”

Ekström spent the last three years with Team Audi Sport, where he had Sainz and Stéphane Peterhansel as colleagues. After finishing ninth in the team’s maiden Dakar in 2022, mechanical issues and accidents plagued his next two starts. The 2024 Dakar saw him win the Prologue and Stage #8, but was set back by breakdowns that relegated him to twenty-sixth. He pressed on nonetheless by accompanying Sainz en route to his fourth Dakar win.

In a race that epitomised the intensity of endurance racing, Iron Lynx-Proton secured their maiden LMP2 victory at the 4 Hours of Mugello, with Jonas Ried, Macéo Capietto, and Matteo Cairoli mastering a race that saw five Safety Car periods and a Red Flag interruption.

The 43-car field roared into action under perfect Italian skies, with early drama unfolding as Clément Novalak in the #34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca carved his way through the field. Starting from fourth, Novalak executed two identical manoeuvres at Turn 1 on consecutive laps, first dispatching Manuel Maldonado’s #65 Panis Racing before repeating the feat against Jonas Ried in the #9 Iron Lynx-Proton to seize the lead.

The LMP2 Pro/Am category saw 2021 champion John Falb make an impressive start in the #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca, jumping ahead of Giorgio Roda’s #77 Proton Competition and Rodrigo Sales in the #29 Richard Mille by TDS. However, their early promise would later be undone by an untimely puncture after the driver change to Colin Noble.

The LMGT3 battle provided intense entertainment in the opening stages, with Derek Deboer’s pole-sitting #59 Racing Spirit of Léman Aston Martin engaging in a thrilling duel with Sarah Bovy’s #85 Iron Dames Porsche. Bovy eventually prevailed on lap 5 after a spectacular side-by-side battle through Turns 1 and 2, showcasing the close racing that would characterise the entire event.

The first of many Safety Car interventions came after Andres Latorre Canon’s #3 DKR Engineering Oreca found the tyre wall at Turn 15. This would set the tone for a stop-start race that tested teams’ strategic prowess as much as their drivers’ skill.

Fausto Mota will give up his hopes of winning the World Rally-Raid Championship to help Rokas Baciuška earn his own title. On Tuesday, Baciuška announced Mota will be his co-driver for the season-ending Rallye du Maroc, marking Mota’s début in the Challenger class in relief duty for the injured Oriol Vidal.

Entering Morocco, Mota was leading the W2RC’s SSV co-driver’s standings, holding an eleven-point advantage over Fernando Acosta with back-to-back. Mota began the 2024 season as the partner for Cristiano de Sousa Batista, who finished seventh at the Dakar Rally. He partnered up with Ricardo Ramilo for the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge onwards, finishing eleventh there before stringing back-to-back wins at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid and Desafío Ruta 40 (he and Ramilo finished runner-up at the former, but were the highest placing points-eligible competitors and earned the maximum fifty points).

Acosta is the navigator for SSV driver’s championship leader Sebastián Guayasamín, meaning he will win the co-driver title unless they have an extremely poor showing or retire before they can make up the points gap. Besides Mota, he is the only other co-driver in mathematical contention as third-placed Sergio Lafuente is fifty-two points back.

Although Mota is so close to the title, he opted to make the switch to gain experience in a higher category; a week prior, the Spaniard entered his maiden race in the premier Ultimate category at the FIA European Baja Cup’s Baja TT Sharish Gin, where he and Helder Oliveira finished second. Mota will also work to secure Baciuška’s Challenger championship as he is currently ahead of Nicolás Cavigliasso by forty-four points.

Before co-driving, Mota did five Dakar Rallies on a bike.

Hurricane Helene was one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the Southeastern United States, resulting in severe flooding, the loss of power, and at least 130 deaths to date. With so many people stranded without assistance or ability to communicate with the outside, various figures including Greg Biffle and Cleetus McFarland have stepped up to provide assistance.

Both former Stadium Super Trucks competitors, Biffle and McFarland—real name Garrett Mitchell—have been flying helicopters across North Carolina with supplies. While McFarland lives in Florida, Biffle offered his home in Leicester as a place to stay while they work on airlifting donations.

McFarland’s helicopter, an MD 500 nicknamed Consuela, coordinated with locals on the ground to create landing zones in cities like Asheville, one of the most severely affected locations. McFarland described the devastation as “Take what you’re seeing on the news and multiply it 10x.”

Pace Offroad, a UTV shop owned by Biffle in Mooresville, serves as the main hub for accumulating supplies before flying them out. According to Biffle on Monday, Polaris sent “a full thing of generators” while Interstate Cycle donated “all the fuel containers they have in their inventory.” Starlink has also sent 300 units of their satellites to re-establish an Internet connection.

“Lots of things happening for these stranded people up in the mountains,” Biffle continued. “We’re going to keep the effort going. We’re getting all these messages. Newborns, one week old, need formula, gasoline, chains and chainsaws, bar oil, two-stroke oil, that is the most important thing people are requesting now. We’re going to keep flying this stuff in.

Barring catastrophe for both of them, the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship‘s SSV category will be a duel between Sebastián Guayasamín and Yasir Seaidan at the season-ending Rallye du Maroc. The two are separated by just six points in the closest points battle of the seven W2RC classes.

Seaidan had led the standings during the first half of the season by being the highest-finishing SSV driver at the Dakar Rally and Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge who was registered for points. He was third at Dakar behind Xavier de Soultrait and Jérôme de Sadeleer followed by runner-up in Abu Dhabi to Mansour Al-Helei, none of whom are signed up for the championship which therefore earned him the maximum 50 points for winning among W2RC drivers.

Guayasamín was 59 points back following Abu Dhabi, but rapidly closed the gap over the next two rounds as Seaidan was knocked out of both by mechanical failures. This comes despite not being the W2RC winner in either event, finishing twelfth (fourth among points drivers) at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid due to his own vehicle problems and second at the Desafío Ruta 40. Reaching the end while Seaidan did not erased the margin entirely, leaving Guayasamín with 161 points to Seaidan’s 155 entering Morocco.

Naturally, Guayasamín can secure the championship by simply beating Seaidan. On the other hand, Seaidan will need a bit of luck; even if he wins to get 30 points, Guayasamín finishing second nets him 25 points. This also applies if they finish second and third, while the gap is even slimmer between third and fourth at three points, and so on. Thus, Seaidan would also need to bank on winning stages while other points-earning drivers finish between him and his rival.

One thing Seaidan has going his way is that the Rallye du Maroc mainly takes place in a desert, which the Saudi star is more than familiar with despite not running the 2023 race. At Dakar, which has a similar profile to Morocco, he finished second to Guayasamín’s sixth. Moroccan outlet Sport7 described Seaidan as “one of the top contenders” owing to his “previous experience and knowledge of the terrain, particularly the challenging sand dunes of Erg Chebbi in Merzouga and Erg Chigaga in M’Hamid El Ghizlane.”

With fighting between Israel and Hezbollah expected to escalate, the Automobile et Touring Club du Liban announced last Wednesday that all racing series in Lebanon have been put on hold.

The ATCL is Lebanon’s FIA member club, overseeing auto racing events in the country, with its most popular disciplines being drifitng and time attack. The most recent event held under ATCL sanction was the Lebanese Speed Test Championship in Ballouneh, located near the capital of Beirut, roughly a week before the suspension of activities.

“Deu to unforeseen circumstances / safety concerns, the national motorsport calendar is hereby suspended until further notice,” begins a 25 September letter from ATCL board of directors member Imad Lahoud, who also serves as president of the FIA Rally Commission. “We will provide updates as soon as possible.

“Thank you for your understanding.”

The announcement came a week after a wave of pager explosions orchestrated by Israel targeting Hezbollah members, killing forty-two people. A wave of Israeli airstrikes followed, one of which killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah two days after the ATCL release. Since Monday, the Israeli Defense Forces has launched raids across the border ahead of a potential invasion.

Nicolás Cavigliasso will need all the help he can get if he wants to sneak by Rokas Baciuška for the World Rally-Raid Championship in the Challenger class. This includes familiarising himself with the Moroccan desert in advance.

A week before the W2RC’s season-ending Rallye du Maroc, Cavigliasso showed up to Merzouga to compete in the Baja Morocco. He battled with fellow Taurus T3 Max driver Gonçalo Guerreiro, taking the early lead before Guerreiro briefly held it at Stage #3, then securing it the next day and pulling away.

While the race is an amateur rally not under FIA sanction, it provides him with additional track time before the Rallye du Maroc. His chances of passing Baciuška for the title are rather slim as he is 44 points back, but he remains mathematically in contention. His navigator and wife Valentina Pertegarini currently leads the co-drivers’ standings, and has a 35-point advantage on Carlos Sachs; Baciuška’s co-driver Oriol Vidal trails Pertegarini by five but is not racing Morocco due to injury.

With Baja Morocco out of the way, BBR Motorsport will now focus on getting the Taurus prepared for the Rallye du Maroc. The team is also testing the 2025 Taurus ahead of its début at the Dakar Rally.

“Even though there’s a lot of sand in Morocco, there are also a lot of rocks, so the wear and tear is greater here,” said Cavigliasso. “It’s kind of like the terrain in Argentina. We’re also all working on the cables and connectors, cleaning everything so that everything is in better condition.

The 2024 FIA Motorsport Games in Valencia is set to witness a thrilling display of talent as four second-generation racing stars prepare to compete for gold medal glory. Luca Magnussen, Oscar Wurz, Rocco Coronel, and Eric Gene, each hailing from families with illustrious racing backgrounds, will represent their respective nations in various categories.

Luca Magnussen, the 15-year-old brother of current Haas Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen, will be flying the Danish flag in the Karting Senior category. Following in the footsteps of his father Jan, a former World Karting Champion and Formula 1 driver, Luca is eager to make his mark. “Representing Denmark is an amazing opportunity,” Luca enthused. “I’ve been fortunate to lean on my Dad and brother’s experience, but once on track, it’s all up to me.”

Austria’s hopes in the Formula 4 category rest on Oscar Wurz, fresh from his victory in the FIA CEZ Formula 4 championship. Son of F1 star and Le Mans winner Alex Wurz, Oscar is no stranger to the FIA Motorsport Games, having competed in Karting Senior in 2022. “I’m super happy to represent Austria in Formula 4,” Oscar stated, determined to improve on his brother Charlie’s sixth-place finish in 2022.

The Netherlands’ Rocco Coronel is set to continue his family’s legacy in the Karting Junior category. Son of touring car champion Tom Coronel, Rocco has already caught the eye of Red Bull’s junior programme. The 13-year-old expressed his excitement, saying, “I will be working hard to follow in Dad’s footsteps and chase a gold medal for Team Netherlands.”

Representing the host nation, Eric Gene will compete in the Touring Car category. Currently racing in TCR Europe and TCR Spain, Gene follows in the footsteps of his father Jordi and uncle Marc, both accomplished racers. “I’m very proud to represent Spain,” Eric declared, looking forward to the support of local fans at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.

Łukasz Zoll and his twin brother Michał Zoll will trade in a Porsche 924 for a Can-Am Maverick X3 in 2025 when they switch from the Dakar Classic to the main Dakar Rally. They will race in the SSV class with support from South Racing Can-Am, with Łukasz as driver and Michał being his navigator.

The twins raced the Dakar for the first time in January, where they entered the Classic in a Porsche 924 Turbo from P-Rally. They finished fifty-fourth overall and third in the H2.A class after a tumultuous race in which they dealt with a rash of electrical problems. Their team-mate Tomasz Staniszewski was also plagued by vehicle gremlins as he finished forty-third.

While P-Rally has since upgraded their Porsche for the 2025 Classic, the Zolls opted to switch to the Rally. While the Classic is a regularity race, the Dakar Rally uses a traditional time-speed format. In mid-September, the brothers went to Morocco to test the Maverick as part of DUUST Rally Team’s Rally Training Center.

“Participants of the Dakar Rally can be divided into two groups: those who never want to return, and those who can’t forget it and think about nothing else but starting in the next editions of this desert marathon,” wrote Łukasz. “We belong to the second group, the one that will do everything to be able to return to the Dakar starting line!

“Even during this year’s edition, we were already thinking ahead and dreaming about starting next year in the toughest race in the world! Dreams are meant to be fulfilled! So, we are officially announcing that in January 2025, we will be at the start line of the Dakar Rally!”

After a chaotic début in January, P-Rally hopes to have a stronger sophomore Dakar Classic in 2025. The team unveiled their programme for the upcoming Dakar at Automechanika in Frankfurt, where they stated their plans to field the Porsche 924 once more.

The Porsche 924 was used only once at the Paris–Dakar Rally in 1981, which Guy Chasseuil and Olivier Gauvain failed to finish after their suspension broke just three days in. Forty-three years later, P-Rally brought two models dubbed the Porsche 924 Turbo to the Classic with Tomasz Staniszewski and Łukasz Zoll as drivers.

Both cars were plagued by mechanical problems throughout such as Staniszewski’s engine mount breaking in Stage #3 while electrical failures repeatedly bit at Zoll’s machine. A damaged rear suspension in the sixth leg forced Staniszewski to be towed to the finish by another competitor. By the end, Staniszewski was forty-third overall while Zoll was fifty-fourth outright.

After Dakar, P-Rally went back to the drawing board to figure out their 2025 gameplan. They unveiled their new 1985 Porsche 924 at Automechanika, which uses a 2.5-litre engine without a turbo as opposed to the two-litre turbo motor of its predecessor. The roll cage has been pushed back by ten centimetres to improve the centre of gravity.

The cooling system was also completely rebuilt with what Staniszewski called “the largest possible radiator, with special cutouts beneath it and special ducts.” Two additional fans were also installed to improve air quality. With such an emphasis on driver comfort, cooling aftermarket vendor NRF became a cotitle sponsor for the team and dubbed them NRF DEXT P-Rally Team, joined by Diverse Extreme Team.

Kees Koolen will continue to work with MM Technology for the Rallye du Maroc as the driver of their new IVECO PowerStar EVO 4 truck. Keeping in line with team boss Martin Macík Jr.‘s pattern of naming his trucks, Koolen’s EVO 4 is called “Tony”.

“Together with Benny, we are currently taking it to Morocco, where we will put it through its first real test in the desert,” reads a team statement.

Koolen won the inaugural World Rally-Raid Championship in the Truck category in 2022 ahead of Macík, driving an IVECO from MM under the Project 2030 banner and called “Nicias”. Three of his fourteen Dakar Rally starts have also come in a truck in 2014, 2022, and 2023, including the last two with Nicias.

While successful in the large warhorses, the Dutchman typically races a side-by-side in the Challenger or SSV categories. He scored a sixth at the 2021 Dakar in SSV with a Can-Am Maverick, and was due to drive an OT3 in Challenger for the 2024 edition when he was called away by other obligations. Kris Meeke took over his car and won the Prologue before crashing out halfway.

In February, he made his W2RC début on a bike at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, where he was twenty-eighth in Rally2 with a best run of twelfth in Stage #3.

Jeffrey Otten and his Gaia Motorsports will not be back in Saudi Arabi for a fourth Dakar Rally in 2025.

“Unfortunately, our Gaia Motorsports team will not be racing in Dakar 2025,” wrote Otten on Sunday. “We will soon announce our plans for 2025.”

Otten was a former bike racer who switched to driving after breaking his vertebrae in a rally crash in 2018. After dabbling in various amateur rallies like the Fenix Rally and Rallye Breslau, he made his Dakar début in 2022, where he finished twenty-seventh in what is now the SSV category. The following year, he suffered a broken wrist on the penultimate stage but managed to improve his overall finish to twenty-second.

He moved up to the Challenger class for the 2024 edition, racing a Can-Am Maverick prepared by Jorge Blanco‘s JB Racing. Olaf Harmsen, who also used to race rally bikes including two Dakars, took over as co-driver. Otten finished twenty-third in class with a best outing of sixteenth in Stage #6. Gaia also fielded a Can-Am for Edwin Opstelten, a Dakar newcomer competing under the Thunder Camels banner, who retired after halfway due to a spinal injury sustained in a crash.

After Dakar, Gaia Motorsports mostly focused on events in their native Netherlands such as the Peelrandrit in Gemert-Bakel in March with Otten and Marco Bouman. Bouman, a close friend of Otten, served as his navigator before transitioning to a crew role for the 2024 Dakar after Harmsen’s arrival.

After a difficult 2024 season, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing has successfully replenished their ranks ahead of the Rallye du Maroc and 2025 Dakar Rally. On Sunday, the team announced they have signed Luciano Benavides and Daniel Sanders, who will make their débuts in Morocco before being joined by the returning Kevin Benavides at Dakar.

The team switch is a lateral move of sorts for the newcomers. Luciano comes over from Husqvarna Factory Racing while Sanders was previously with Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing, both of whom are owned by Pierer Mobility Group as is KTM. KTM AG rally general manager Andreas Hölzl also serves in the same position for Husqvarna and GasGas.

All three manufacturers opted for a similar, downscaled approach to 2024 due to concerns from Pierer about costs and media exposure. Although Luciano won the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship with Husqvarna, none of the marques’ riders declared for 2024 points and only entered select races like the Dakar. Their absences ended up being enforced when KTM’s Matthias Walkner suffered a serious leg injury in a testing crash before the 2024 Dakar that has kept him off the bike since, his team-mate Toby Price left the outfit in March to focus on four-wheeled racing, and GasGas’ Sam Sunderland retired from full-time racing in July.

Kevin and his younger brother Luciano were slated to return to the W2RC with their respective teams at their home rally, the Desafío Ruta 40 in June, when the former sustained a diffuse axonal injury to his brain in an accident weeks prior. Luciano was then knocked out by a broken right femur on the opening stage of the race.

While Luciano has recovered in time for Morocco, Kevin will continue to heal up until Dakar next January. He never finished worse than second in four of the five rounds in 2023 en route to the title, including a second to Price at the Rallye du Maroc and being the highest finishing points-eligible rider at DR 40. At the Dakar in January, he finished seventh.

Sometimes, the slightest adjustment can trigger major changes.

Rainbow Truck Team found this out for themselves when they were ensuring their MAN TGA truck complied with new FIA regulations ahead of the Rallye du Maroc. It was a simple change on paper: the fuel tank needed to be moved slightly further back.

As it turned out, the team had to rearrange quite a decent amount on the rear to accommodate. While they noted the changes were not “too major,” it still demanded “some brainpower and puzzling.”

“Any change to a rally truck triggers a sort of chain reaction,” quipped the team.

One notable change is that the tyre rack has been repositioned so that spares stand upright rather than laying flat on their side. The toolboxes had to be relocated to the rear for better weight distribution; to reach them, two doors have been installed.

Guerlain Chicherit and Guillaume de Mévius surprised many when they departed Overdrive Racing to join X-raid Team for the Rallye du Maroc. Abrupt as it might be, both believe signing with a team that has factory support from Mini give them the best opportunity to be competitive, especially at the Dakar Rally in 2025 and beyond.

Reports of de Mévius’ defection surfaced on Tuesday, which were corroborated by Overdrive boss Jean-Marc Fortin. According to Fortin, the team had been prepared to give de Mévius a two-year contract extension when Fortin was suddenly told by the driver that he had joined X-raid instead.

De Mévius gave his side of the story in an interview with Autosportwereld on Friday. Although he confirmed he had an offer to continue with Overdrive and Toyota in 2025, he stressed he was merely “a client of Overdrive Racing. […] I was never an official Toyota driver.” Unlike Toyota Gazoo Racing, Overdrive is a private operation.

“I have an opportunity to win races with X-raid, and they will help me reach the highest level,” he continued. “This is my first official contract, the first time I’ve signed with a manufacturer, and I’m happy about that.”

Chicherit shared similar sentiment, though he is no stranger to X-raid or Mini. He raced the Dakar Rally for the German outfit from 2006 to 2010 and again in 2015 and 2016, scoring a best finish of fifth in 2010 with two total stage wins.