Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Stage #1 of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge was supposed to be the toughest of the five legs, but Stage #2 on Wednesday ended up being the gauntlet that claimed many contenders.

It did not take long for competitors to fall when Michael Docherty, the first Rally2 rider to win a World Rally-Raid Championship bike stage outright since 2021 under its predecessor, crashed just five kilometres after the start and fractured his pelvis. Aaron Marè and Konrad Dąbrowski stopped to provide assistance, respectively earning them 29:48 and 24:39 in time credits. This came in handy for both as they locked out the top two positions, with Marè leapfrogging from sixth to first.

“One of my best friends Michael Docherty suffered a big crash and I stopped to help him out along the medics and the helicopter support. It was quite tough for me to continue the day as my mind was heavy and worried about him,” Marè, a fellow South African who finished behind Docherty in Stage #1, commented. “However, I tried my best to focus on the roadbook and getting back into a good rhythm, avoiding any mistakes. Thankfully the stage went well, and I’m happy with my result.”

Marè’s team-mate Ross Branch set the fastest time but officially finished fourth due to a fifteen-minute penalty for changing engines between stages.

Dąbrowski’s runner-up and Docherty’s exit also moves the former into the Rally2 overall lead. Tobias Ebster, another Rally2 favourite, also retired from the race after hurting his right arm in a crash on Tuesday; while initial evaluations did not indicate any breaks, he struggled to hold the throttle handle while on the Stage #3 liaison section.

The first round of the highly anticipated 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) is almost upon us. The 2024 Qatar Airways Qatar 1812km takes place on Saturday 2 March. With an astonishing 19 Hypercars, 18 LMGT3 cars, and a record breaking 14 manufacturers taking part, it promises to be a spectacular opener to the new golden age of endurance sportscar racing.

The Lusail International Circuit in Qatar hosted the season Prologue event on 26/27 February. This gave the teams their first chance to test their 2024 machinery against each other around the 5.4km long track. Featuring 16 corners and a start/finish straight over a kilometre in length, the circuit is a fine venue for the opening of such a spectacular series.

Hypercar – Returning Teams

Toyota Gazoo Racing are back for 2024, aiming to continue their extraordinary run of success in 2024. The undisputed Hypercar champions since the category’s inception in 2021, the team’s striking new black livery is designed to encapsulate their mantra of “speed” and their hatred of losing. The Japanese team won six out of seven rounds of the 2023 season, missing out only at Le Mans.

The line-up of the championship-winning #8 car remains the same, with Sébastian Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa back to defend their title. In the #7 car, Mike Conway and team principal Kamui Kobayashi are joined by ex-F1 driver and WEC newcomer Nyck de Vries.

2023 Le Mans winners Ferrari AF Corse return with an unchanged driver line-up for the Qatar 1812km. What is new for the Scuderia in 2024, and what has set the pulses of many motorsport fans racing, is the addition of a third car with a stunning new livery. Behind the wheel of the third Ferrari 499P are LMP2 champion Robert Kubica, Robert Schwartzmann and former Porsche driver Yifei Ye. With the 499P proving very competitive in 2023 and with three cars contending this year, Ferrari will be expecting great things from this season.

Team Audi Sport‘s rally raid effort finally achieved their main goal when they won the Dakar Rally in January, but it came at a cost as parts shortages forced them to shut down sooner than expected, unable to race the rest of the World Rally-Raid Championship. To add insult to injury, the FIA announced Tuesday that they have been given a €750,000 fine for not appearing at the ongoing Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge despite being registered for the manufacturer’s championship.

2024 was already going to be Audi’s final year in rally raid before they focus on their new Formula One arm, which will début in 2026, but they still planned to run the entire W2RC season before shuttering. After winning the Dakar with Carlos Sainz, they led the manufacturer’s standings with 76 points, thirteen ahead of Toyota.

In spite of the Dakar victory, heavy attrition over the past two years of racing meant they did not have enough components left to continue the season. As the only electric vehicle in the W2RC’s Ultimate class, the Audi RS Q e-tron E2 uses specialised parts that only a select list of suppliers provide, and some require as long as two years to be produced. Audi consequently folded the division in mid-February and the FIA was informed of the news on 23 February, two days before the start of the ADDC. Sven Quant, who runs Audi’s technical partner Q Motorsport, also told the FIA that Audi AG’s new CEO Gernot Döllner did not wish to continue the programme following Dakar.

Regardless of the circumstances, the FIA deemed their absence a violation of Article 3.4.3 of the Cross-Country Rally Sporting Regulations, which states a marque who has registered for points “undertakes to participate in all the Rallies of the Championship with at least one vehicle of Groups Ultimate, Stock, Challenger or SSV complying with the technical regulations in force.” In 2023, BAIC ORV had all of their points deducted and were fined €10,000 when they entered the manufacturer’s championship but skipped the final two rounds. Competing for points is such a major commitment that FIA manufacturers must pay €55,000 to be eligible.

€562,500 of Audi’s fine is applied on a suspended sentence if they do not repeat it, though the team’s demise obviously renders it pointless unless someone else manages to takes their place. Quandt has expressed interest in acquiring the RS Q e-trons for Q Motorsport, though low parts remains an issue even if Audi approves the transfer.

With only two riders in the premier RallyGP category at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the lower Rally2 was guaranteed to appear on the overall bike podium at every stage. But Michael Docherty was not content with just being on the podium; he wanted to stand on the top.

Docherty lost to RallyGP rider Ross Branch by just two seconds in the Prologue, and he continued to chase Branch for the first half of Tuesday’s Stage #1. However, mechanical issues including an engine issue struck Branch’s Hero 450 Rally, causing him to drop to fourth through the fourth checkpoint.

Upon inheriting the lead, Docherty simply had to stave off fellow South African and Branch’s Hero team-mate Aaron Marè. Marè admitted he made “a few mistakes towards the end in the soft sand and lost a bit of time,” which Docherty capitalised upon to beat him by two minutes and fifty-two seconds.

He is the first Rally2 rider to win a bike stage outright since the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s formation in 2022, and the first to do so in any international rally raid since Mason Klein beat Daniel Sanders by a minute in Stage #4 of the 2021 Rallye du Maroc. Docherty also set the fastest raw time in the fourth stage of last year’s Desafío Ruta 40, but was classified fourth due to three RallyGP riders getting starter’s bonuses.

“It was quite a difficult stage in the beginning. It was very soft sand and a lot of drop offs that were catching me out quite a bit,” said Docherty. “I just had to try and maintain my fuel as much as I could until halfway, because I was using a lot more than I should have. After refuel, I got into a better flow and managed to put in a little bit more of a charge towards the front. I passed a few riders. I think I got into second for opening the stage.

Nasser Al-Attiyah entered the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge hoping to find a spark after a frustrating start to 2024. While a Prologue stage usually means little in the big picture as FIA times do not count towards the overall, topping the order should still provide some confidence going into the rest of the week.

Al-Attiyah, now with Édouard Boulanger as his co-driver, edged out Guillaume de Mévius by four seconds for the fastest time among FIA entrants in Monday’s Prologue. Martin Prokop, who missed much of private testing when his Ford Raptor RS was stuck in customs between the Saudi-Emirati border (the car stayed in Saudi Arabia following January’s Dakar Rally), was third.

Cristina Gutiérrez, winner of the Dakar in Challenger, led the class while Mansour Al-Helei was the best in the SSV category. Laia Sanz, Gutiérrez’s new colleague at the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team, was fifth to start her second Challenger start. Rebecca Busi had a moment when she briefly overshot her Can-Am Maverick on a downward slope, briefly coasting along her front wheels before landing safely; she finished ninth in SSV.

Tenth-placed Seth Quintero will kick off Stage #1 as the first car on track. Al-Attiyah opted to start at the back in tenth.

Dakar bike runner-up Ross Branch topped the two-wheelers with just two seconds on Michael Docherty. Reigning ADDC Rally2 winner Tobias Ebster was third and five seconds back of Docherty, and one ahead of the RallyGP of Branch’s new team-mate Aaron Marè. Branch and Marè were the only riders in the top class to race as Mohammed Al-Balooshi‘s bike was not approved in time.

It can be fair to say that Max Verstappen was pretty much unbeatable in 2023, with the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver taking victory in nineteen of the twenty-two races, there is hope that the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship will be more closely contested.  However, pre-season testing and the evolution/revolution of the RB19 into the RB20 may scupper those hopes.

Taking at least some inspiration from the failed aerodynamic package from the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team that the Brackley/Banbury based team discarded midway through last year, Red Bull’s design appears to have moved them forward.  Apparently twenty-one wins out of twenty-two is just not enough for Adrian Newey and his design team, and they want to be just as dominant in 2024 than last year.

Verstappen’s imperious form last year had a dramatic effect on his team-mate Sergio Perez, and the Mexican, although he brought Red Bull their first ever one-two championship finish in 2023, will need to get closer to his Dutch team-mate this season if he has any real hope of staying with the team beyond this year.  He has both Daniel Ricciardo and the ever-improving Yuki Tsunoda breathing down his neck in the sister Visa CashApp RB Team, formerly known as Scuderia AlphaTauri.

Taking of VCARB, their new car appears to be a dramatic step forward compared to last year’s AT04, mainly down to a lot of its design appearing to be seemingly copied from the dominant RB19. Of course, it’s not identical, but the team will be hoping that the struggles they had just breaking into the top ten last year have been at least lessened, although it will still be difficult with several other teams appearing to have made significant steps forward themselves.

One of those is Scuderia Ferrari, the only other team aside from Red Bull to win a race last year when Carlos Sainz Jr. won in Singapore.  Sainz already knows 2024 will be his final year at the Maranello-based team after the shock news that Lewis Hamilton will join Charles Leclerc in red next season.

Laia Sanz will be back in a Challenger car starting Monday when she kicks off the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, piloting the #311 Taurus T3 Max for Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team with Maurizio Gerini as co-driver.

Sanz usually races in the top Ultimate category, having made the switch to four-wheeled rally from bikes at the 2022 Dakar Rally. At the 2024 edition in January, her third attempt in a car, she finished fifteenth in the Astara 02 Concept (a variant of the Century CR6) for Astara Team with a best daily performance of fourteenth in Stage #4.

She began dabbling in Light Prototypes at the Baja España Aragón last July. Racing a Taurus T3 fielded by Wevers Sport, who co-operates the Taurus project alongside MCE-5 Development, she placed eighth after suffering a gearbox failure twenty kilometres into the final stage.

“It was such a shame because we had very good pace and we adapted very quickly to a car I had never driven before and a class (T3) that was new for me,” Sanz commented after that race. “The best thing was seeing we’re competitive.”

For Abu Dhabi, she will partner up with Cristina Gutiérrez at the Junior Team, formerly an American-only programme that has since become Red Bull’s Taurus division. A fellow Spaniard, Gutiérrez won the Dakar’s Challenger class ahead of Red Bull and Taurus colleague Mitch Guthrie, who is skipping the ADDC; Tauruses dominated the Dakar by winning nine of twelve stages.

Forty-seven teams make up the grid for the eighth edition of the Carta Rallye, consisting of nineteen SSVs, fifteen bikes, nine cars, and four trucks.

2023 champions Benoit Fretin (car) and Valentin Serthilanges (bike) will not defend their wins, opening the door for those like Simon Vitse and Amine Echiguer, two major names who are hoping to rebound after being forced to retire from two major rallies in January. Vitse competed in the Dakar Rally that month but exited after the penultimate stage; he is bringing the new MD Optimus EVO 5 with him. The navigating couple of Max and Delphine Delfino also raced the Dakar and will now tackle the Carta with Gilles Lallement and Hugues Lacam, respectively.

Echiguer, the 2022 World Rally-Raid Championship in Rally3, returns after making his Carta Rallye début in 2023. He competed in the Africa Eco Race, held concurrently with the Dakar and following its old route that included legs in Morocco, but did not finish. Carlos Vento headlines the SSV entries after placing third in the AER.

Steff Rowe heads back to Morocco after competing in the W2RC’s Rallye du Maroc in October.

The Dutch Broomans Rally Team will celebrate their tenth anniversary in Morocco after competing in Tunisia. On the truck side, Truck Team Müller enters their maiden desert rally after tearing up the forests of Europe.

Aaron Marè was originally supposed to race the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge on a KTM 450 Rally Replica, but will instead be on a Hero 450 Rally in a reunion with Hero MotoSports.

Marè previously raced for Hero at the 2022 Dakar Rally, filling in for the injured Franco Caimi. He finished fifteenth overall in his second career Dakar, two years after crashing out of his début as a member of Monster Energy Honda Rally Team. The start was his latest in the World Rally-Raid Championship as he did not take part 2023. Since then, he has mainly overseen and done rally training in his hometown of Dubai.

He finished fourth in the 2021 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, then a round on the W2RC’s predecessor FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship. Ironically, he narrowly lost to Hero’s Joaquim Rodrigues in the battle for the final podium spot.

“Looking forward to Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge,” Marè commented. “It’s going to be a great honour and really happy to be alongside fellow African Ross Branch. Stay tuned for the rest of the week. Hopefully looking forward to a good race and thanks to Waffi (Wolfgang Fischer, Hero manager) for this opportunity.”

Hailing from South Africa, Marè began his career in motocross and competed in the FIM World Junior Motocross Championship before starting a career in rally.

The three-day pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit concluded last week, and the next track action will come at the same track this coming weekend for the first Grand Prix of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

It was a pretty uneventful test for Formula 1 – aside from a couple of stoppages due to loose drain covers – with the majority of teams getting through their programmes.  Aside from Williams Racing on the opening day and McLaren F1 Team on Day 2, everyone broke the one hundred lap barrier on each day, with the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team the busiest of all.

But what have the drivers made of pre-season testing and their new 2024 machinery.  Who will go into the new season with confidence and who will be feeling they are on the back foot?  Here is part two!

#10 – Pierre Gasly – BWT Alpine F1 Team

“We did a lot of testing this week and now we have an important week coming up where we will go through all the data and continue our understanding of this new car concept. It’s vital to learn all about the entire package and understanding how we can optimise it.

The three-day pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit concluded last week, and the next track action will come at the same track this coming weekend for the first Grand Prix of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

It was a pretty uneventful test for Formula 1 – aside from a couple of stoppages due to loose drain covers – with the majority of teams getting through their programmes.  Aside from Williams Racing on the opening day and McLaren F1 Team on Day 2, everyone broke the one hundred lap barrier on each day, with the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team the busiest of all.

But what have the drivers made of pre-season testing and their new 2024 machinery.  Who will go into the new season with confidence and who will be feeling they are on the back foot?

#1 – Max Verstappen – Oracle Red Bull Racing

“Overall it was a very good Friday. We focused on the long running to get more of an understanding of the car and it was good to see the performance of the car was very strong.

The 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season is just around the corner, with the opening race of the year to take place next Saturday at the Bahrain International Circuit, and all twenty drivers were able to take to the same track last week for three days of testing.

The Checkered Flag looks over the three days in Bahrain to see who’s hot and who’s not going into the new season, and whether anyone has it in them to challenge Oracle Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen for the titles.

Day 1 – Verstappen Leads the Way for Red Bull

Reigning World Drivers’ Champion set an ominous statement on the opening day of testing in Bahrain, with the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver ending the day more than a second clear of the field as everyone had their first running with their 2024 machinery.

Verstappen, the winner of nineteen of the twenty-two races in 2023, set a best time of 1:31.344 to pace the field, which saw eighteen of the twenty drivers have their first runs in their new cars.  Only Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton did not take part across the two sessions.

Lando Norris ended the day an encouraging second fastest for the McLaren F1 Team, with the Woking-based outfit aiming to start the 2024 season the way they ended 2023.  Norris’ 1:32.484 was a tenth ahead of Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr., while Daniel Ricciardo put his Visa CashApp RB into fourth.

With national motorsport championships still unable to be safely held as the Russian invasion continues, the Automobile Federation of Ukraine will still pitch the support of its personnel and racers for the military. In particular, drivers will now be encouraged to lead safe driving courses for members of the Ukrainian military, teaching them how to drive effectively in times of emergency such as combat and medevacking.

On 10 February, the FAU’s constitution enshrined a new clause approved a week prior that allows the association to “promote the defence capability of the state, ensure the sustainable development of motorsport, strengthen the safety and quality of motorsport competitions, and development of mass motorsport disciplines under martial law.” This further synchronises the federation’s wartime activities, which have included events like a seminar in November with the 112th Territorial Defence Brigade to teach first aid and safety around land mines, the creation of the FAU Solidarity Fund on Christmas to allocate part of the annual budget to racers serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and partnering with its counterpart in Spain to invite wounded Ukrainian soldiers to compete in the Rallye TT Cuenca.

As part of the new policy, the FAU reorganised the Commission for Emergency Training of Drivers into the Commission for Safe Driving and Emergency Training (КБВКП FAU). Serhii Budnyk, the FAU’s Vice President of Road Safety, will serve as its Chairman. The commission’s primary goal is to “establish systemic interaction” with the AFU, the most notable method being to organise driving lessons guided by interested racing drivers and others in the motorsport industry for troops.

While anyone can qualify, the FAU wants to find those with impressive racing résumés such as champions in domestic series, especially in rally as driving on the frontline is typically off-road, or with prior military experience. Mechanics and officials are also encouraged to take part.

The FAU first experimented with the idea in January, partnering with the Pilot Safe Driving Center and the regional military administrations of Cherkasy and Poltava Oblasts. Each course consisted of four to six lessons that focused on teaching soldiers how to navigate through winter environments without getting into accidents. Members of the Territorial Defence Forces, National Guard, and State Emergency Service were in attendance.

As Israel’s invasion of Gaza continues, Palestinian racers hoped to bring a glimmer of light. The brightest so far came on Friday when Palestinians swept the top four overall in the Jordan 4×4 Championship‘s season opener at Wasfi Al-Tal Forest in Amman.

Emad Khabeis, with Basel Nawasha as co-driver, won the Pro category with the fastest time outright. Hazem Foudeh and Hamzeh Masarweh finished second followed by Wisam Khalileh and Serri Handal. All three drivers raced Jeep Wranglers.

Khalileh just beat out Muhammed Hananah for the last step on the podium, while Hussein Sheyoukhi finished eighth to mark four Palestinians in the top ten. Two other Palestinians, Mahmoud Hafez and Amjad Hanana, retired with mechanical issues.

Twenty-one drivers from Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates took part in Friday’s race. The Palestinian Motor Sport & Motorcycle Federation worked with Jordan Motorsport to bring competitors from Palestine’s West Bank, where the PMSMF is headquartered, to Amman.

Jordan shares a border with Israel and the West Bank; although the latter is not the primary focus of Israel’s operations in their war with Hamas, various skirmishes and air strikes have still occurred with civilian casualties. Various American military bases in Jordan have also been targeted as part of the war’s spillover. With the conflict so close to home, JMS cancelled last November’s Jordan Baja which would have concluded the FIA and FIM Bajas World Cups.

Wolverine has partnered with the Red Bull Scramble Series for a collaboration ahead of the 2024 season, producing a limited-edition work boot, hat, and hoodie.

The boot is based on Wolverine’s Rush UltraSpring line, which the company touts as “one of the lightest work boots we’ve ever made.” It is coloured in Red Bull’s blue with red trim, while the Red Bull Scramble Series logo is featured on the tongue. The colour palette also extends to the laces.

“Our partnership with the Red Bull Scramble Series was built on our shared values of resilience and the pursuit of ultimate performance,” said Wolverine’s brand marketing director Lauren King. “We’re confident this collection will inspire individuals to push their limits like never before, no matter what conditions or terrain they’re facing.”

The Checkered Flag received a sample of the boot prior to the collaboration’s official reveal on Thursday. After taking some time to let them break in, they’re found to be quite comfortable.

Work boots are obviously not typically built for just casual wear like other footwear, but Wolverine seems to find the right balance between comfort and durability. It features a composite toe that still provides protection at the front, but is lighter than boots with steel toes. The boot’s leather is also waterproof, which comes at a premium for the Scramble Series when visiting muddier and wet locations by letting out moisture.