Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Toyota Gazoo Racing have taken victory at the 6 Hours of São Paulo. The #8 car, driven by Sebastian Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Ryo Hirakawa, put on a dominant display at the 5th round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship taking their first podium of the year in triumphant style. The championship leading #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 claimed 2nd, returning to the podium once again, ahead of the sister #5 Porsche, completing another very strong result for the German team.

The Japanese team looked dominant in qualifying, locking out the front row of the grid. Drama early on in the race for the #7 car knocked them out of contention for the win, but they achieved a remarkable comeback, finishing 4th after a daring late lunge against the #51 Ferrari AF Corse in the dying moments of the race.

In LMGT3, Manthey PureRxcing continued their dominant run of form, claiming another victory and extending their championship lead. The Heart of Racing Team took another 2nd position, followed by a great performance by the United Autosports McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo car.

Driver Reaction

Buemi, the man who brought the winning car over the line, said after the race “we had a good weekend with the 1-2 in qualifying and now winning the race. It’s a shame for the #7 car. They had a great car and were fast today. It was still good that they managed to recover to p4. For us, it was good to finally nail the weekend with no issues. One of the strengths of the car is that we are quite kind on the tyres which meant we could use the mediums throughout the race which helped for sure.“

“We haven’t had the best start to the year” agreed fellow #8 driver Brendon Hartley. “We led a lot of Le Mans but only ended up with 5th, the way it fell in the end. This victory feels nice. We came here going we’re going for p1 or nothing! We ended with first place and right now that’s all that matters.“

As Formula 1 goes past the half way stage and heads into the final two races before the summer break there’s plenty of narratives to watch, and one of the most interesting ones is the battle commencing between Visa Cash App RB and MoneyGram Haas F1 Team for sixth in the Constructors Championship.

RB are currently sixth in the Championship with 31 points, while two back-to-back six place finishes for Nico Hülkenberg and Haas has lifted them to 27 points, which leaves them just four behind RB. Since the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, Haas have been firmly ahead of RB after the latter introduced an upgrade package that they’ve failed to understand – this was clear to see with Daniel Ricciardo being knocked out in Q1 in Barcelona just two weeks after qualifying fifth at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix.

We’ve looked at a few different factors that affect the battle and also predicted what the battle may look like in the second half of the season.

Triple Header Damaged RB’s Lead

Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda have been driving well during the triple header, but it simply hasn’t been enough to keep up with Haas. Ricciardo described his performance in Barcelona as one of his best of the season, but the performance of the car limited him to just fifteenth, with Tsunoda further behind. Moving into the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix, RB found some of their issues and were better, but Ricciardo had to pull out on of his best drives of the season to finish ninth, while Hülkenberg and Magnussen both finished inside the points for the first time since the 2024 Australian Grand Prix.

The most recent race was another poor one for RB, despite Tsunoda scoring a point. While the Japanese driver did manage to keep hold of a point, his teammate finished fourteenth and raced with old engine components after his car was taken apart due to a start up issue on the morning of race day. Haas on the other hand finished sixth once again, with Hülkenberg bringing them to just four points behind the Italian outfit.

Adrien Van Beveren has agreed to a two-year contract with Monster Energy Honda Rally Team, keeping him on a Honda CRF450 Rally for the 2025 and 2026 World Rally-Raid Championships and Dakar Rallies. He announced the news on Saturday.

Van Beveren is currently third in the W2RC RallyGP standings with one race remaining. He kicked off the season with a career-best finish of third at the Dakar Rally, notching two stage wins and finally breaking onto the podium after coming up short in his previous eight tries. Honda skipped the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge before returning for the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid, where he won the final stage but narrowly missed the podium in fourth (though he was third among points-eligible riders), followed by another third at the Desafío Ruta 40.

He trails points leader Ross Branch by sixteen points and Honda team-mate Ricky Brabec by seven going into the season-ending Rallye du Maroc. Van Beveren finished seventh at the 2023 edition.

The Frenchman joined Honda in June 2022 after Yamaha shuttered their factory rally raid programme following that year’s Dakar Rally. He finished fourth overall in his maiden W2RC start at the Rallye du Maroc before winning the season-ending Andalucía Rally. 2023 saw him win at Abu Dhabi en route to a third in the championship, the highest finishing Honda rider.

Honda currently fields five bikes in RallyGP for Van Beveren, Brabec, Skyler Howes, Pablo Quintanilla, and Tosha Schareina. Save for their absence at Abu Dhabi, the marque has won all three of their entered rounds in 2024 including a 1–2–3–4 at the DR 40 led by Brabec; Brabec also won the Dakar Rally while Schareina claimed the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid. Enetering Morocco, Honda leads Hero in the manufacturer’s standings by twenty-two points.

Toyota Gazoo Racing have achieved a front row Hypercar lockout on the grid for the 6 Hours of São Paolo. Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 Toyota secured pole in the 5th round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), with the sister #8 car in second, just 0.122 seconds slower around the legendary Interlagos circuit, officially the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

In LMGT3, it was the Iron Dames who came out on top, with Sarah Bovy at the helm of her Lamborghini Huracan LMGT3 Evo2 putting on another dominant qualifying display. Championship leaders Manthey PureRxcing came in second, followed by the two United Autosports McLarens locking out the second row.

Hypercar

Toyota were not the dominant force in the first qualifying session at Interlagos, which determines which 10 cars will head through to the top 10 Hyperpole shootout. That honour went to the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport car, a team who have been strong in qualifying since the start of the season. The top ten were separated by less than half a second, setting up an enticing Hyperpole session.

With two minutes to go in the session, Toyota had asserted their dominance. They secured those top two grid positions, with #7 scoring the Japanese team’s first pole position of the season with a fastest time of 1:23.140. The very rapid #5 Porsche came third, just 0.069 seconds behind the second Toyota, alongside the #2 Cadillac Racing car with Alex Lynn at the wheel. The American team have shown real development and race strength in recent rounds, so could be one to watch in the race on Sunday.

The third row is home to two titans of the 2024 season. The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport car, currently leading the championship and winners in Qatar, starts in fifth alongside the winners of the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, the #50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P. Hertz Team JOTA lock out the fourth row in their Porsche 963s, with the #12 car edging out their sister #38 car by 0.062 seconds, but with both of them around half a second off the fastest time set by Toyota. The final Hyperpole positions went to the #51 Ferrari and the #20 BMW M Team WRT cars, roughly one second behind Kobayashi.

Veloce Racing was near perfect on Saturday as they won both of their heat races and the Hydro X Prix‘s first Grand Final to secure their maiden win of the 2024 Extreme E season.

After sweeping Friday’s practices, the racing itself started on a sour note for Veloce when Molly Taylor was spun by Timo Scheider early in the first heat and falling to last. She managed to recover and catch the top two by the time she swapped out with Kevin Hansen, who passed Andreas Bakkerud and Scheider. The duo then won the second heat despite a five-second penalty for Hansen colliding with Bakkerud.

Taylor launched to the lead in the Grand Final and never relinquished it for Veloce’s second Hydro X Prix win after claiming the Sunday event in 2023. ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team followed. Andretti XE rounded out the podium after escaping contact with points leader Rosberg X Racing that knocked the latter out.

“In our first race we had to work really hard for it after an unlucky start, and again in the second race we had to do some overtaking to get through to the front, but that is where we really showed our pace,” said Hansen. “In the Final, Molly secured a mega start to get the lead, which made my life a lot easier. From there we both just tried to manage the race and manage the gap to the ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team behind.

“All of last year I ended up starting in the Finals, so to actually cross the finish line to win today was an amazing feeling, and hopefully we can do the same tomorrow.”

The Ford Raptor T1+ is certainly a far cry from its production pickup truck counterpart and its Ford Ranger T1+ predecessor. Ford Performance and M-Sport revealed their newest rally raider on Friday at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where Carlos Sainz eventually drove it up the Hillclimb stage.

Sainz and Nani Roma, along with two other drivers who have yet to be announced, will pilot the Raptor at the 2025 Dakar Rally. Beforehand, it will make its competition début with Roma at the Hungarian Baja in August, though it will not be classified, followed by the Rallye du Maroc in October as a final dress rehearsal for the Dakar.

“This is the kind of opportunity that comes once in a lifetime,” began M-Sport head Matt Wilson. “To support Ford Performance as they head to Dakar with this new Ford Raptor T1+ is going to be an incredible adventure. We have already completed ten thousand kilometres of testing in some of the harshest conditions we could find so we feel ready to take on this ultimate challenge starting at Baja Hungary next month.”

The car measures out at 2.3 metres in width and 2,010 kilograms in weight. Most characteristics comply with FIA T1+ regulations such as the use of 37-inch tyres and 350 millimetres of wheel travel, aided by the use of 8.5-inch by 17-inch wheels and 355-mm ventilated brake discs from Alcon and six piston calipres. The Raptor features double wishbone suspension on both sides with coil-over three- and four-way adjustable external bypass dampers courtesy of FOX.

The engine is a 5.0-litre V8 that comes from Ford’s Coyote line. It also has a dry sump oil system and tuned exhaust.

A month after earning his Sports Management bachelor’s degree from Lithuanian Sports University, Rokas Baciuška will have another go in the Toyota Hilux on 26–28 July when he enters the Baja España Aragón in Spain. It will be his third time competing in the premier Ultimate category, incidentally a year after making his début at Aragón.

Overdrive Racing will prepare his Hilux again, while Oriol Vidal returns as his co-driver. Vidal missed the Desafío Ruta 40 in June due to a back injury he sustained at the Dakar Rally.

Baciuška is the World Rally-Raid Championship leader in the Challenger category with one round remaining, riding a two-race win streak after claiming the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid and Desafío Ruta 40. He won the SSV (then T4) title in 2023, during which he dabbled in a Hilux for the first time at Aragón. Although he finished a still-solid ninth overall, he would have set the third best time outright if not for an eight-minute penalty for missing a waypoint and a flat tyre. At the end of the 2023 season, he picked up some desert driving experience in the Hilux as part of the W2RC Next Gen Tryouts.

In February, a month after placing third in Challenger at the Dakar Rally, Baciuška returned to the Hilux for the FIA World Baja Cup-opening Saudi Baja. He finished third in Ultimate, just a minute behind winner and Overdrive colleague Yazeed Al-Rajhi while holding off his other team-mate Juan Cruz Yacopini for the final spot on the class podium.

The Lithuanian hopes to graduate to Ultimate full time in 2025.

After five months, the 2024 Extreme E season will resume at Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland with the Hydro X Prix. Although the course, located at the site of the former Glenmuckloch coal mine, is relatively the same as it was last year, some changes have been made.

The track is slightly longer at 2.7 kilometres, edging out the 2.67 km of 2023 that made it the shortest course in series history. The overall design is mostly similar, beginning with the starting location that will take teams into a righthand turn and uphill. From there, however, it deviates from 2023 with elevation changes and mostly grassy terrain.

Jumps are located along the second half of the course, including a series that goes over a river channel. A lap ends with a drop back into the mine.

“I think it is going to be a very fun track for the drivers,” said Championship Driver Tamara Molinaro, who is working alongside Tommi Hallman as reserves and test drivers for the weekend. “The changeable weather in Scotland is definitely going to add a different dynamic this weekend and that should make it very interesting. There are different terrains, including grass, so there are sections which could get quite muddy during the Hydro X Prix and the drivers will have to be wary of making mistakes in those conditions when pushing hard.

“The jump sections will be really exciting behind the wheel and overall, I think it is a great layout. You have to nail the opening corners, otherwise you will be compromised all the way up the steep climb into the grassy section of the course. You really have to focus on putting a strong lap together. After heading uphill, you are immediately into a technical part of the course and also still climbing. There is a lot to get right on multiple terrains and will be crucial to overall lap time.

Gonçalo Guerreiro knows how to race and win in forests as the 2022 Portuguese Cross-Country Champion in the T4 category. He will now see if his prowess translates to dunes and sand when he makes his desert rally début at the Baja Morocco in September. Like at home, JB Racing will prepare his Polaris RZR Pro R.

“For the first time, I’ll tackle the dunes, and there’s no better place, race, or organization for this debut,” wrote Guerreiro. “A huge thank you to everyone who made this dream a reality: my team Jbracing, EDD’s, the BAJA Morocco organization, Christophe Armelin, and the PSR service team.

“These five days of racing will be intense, full of new experiences, and a lot to learn. Let’s do this!”

Guerreiro claimed the 2022 CPTT T4 title after clinching the title at the Baja Portalegre 500. He also won Portalegre, a round on the FIA World Baja Cup, the year before.

In April, he entered his first World Rally-Raid Championship event when the series arrived in his home country for the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid (also part of the CPTT). Guerreiro immediately made an impact when he won the SSV class in the Prologue, but was knocked out by a mechanical failure in Stage #3.

Before heading to the desert for the 2025 Dakar Rally, M-Sport and Ford Performance‘s new Ford Raptor will tackle the forests of Hungary when Nani Roma enters the Hungarian Baja in August.

He is a two-time winner of the Hungarian Baja, claiming the 2013 and 2018 editions in a Mini, but cannot add a third in 2024 even if he sets the fastest time. Since the car has not been homologated for FIA European Baja Cup regulation at the moment as M-Sport continues to iron out the details, it will be classified as an Open entry and is ineligible for ranking. Nevertheless, he will be grouped with the European Cup rather than the national championship.

Roma has been M-Sport’s lead rally raid pilot since the programme’s launch. He was the test driver of the Ford Ranger T1+ before débuting it at the Baja Aragón last year alongside Gareth Woolridge, where he finished ninth, then built upon that with a third in its maiden World Rally-Raid Championship start at the Rallye du Maroc. At the Dakar Rally in January, Roma and Woolridge were both set back by mechanical issues that ruined their overall finishes, though the former notched a ninth in Stage #11.

Woolridge, who was part of the team via partnership with Neil Woolridge Motorsport, is no longer involved with the project as NWM focuses on the Ranger whereas M-Sport develops the Raptor. Reigning Dakar winner Carlos Sainz joined the Raptor programme in May and will help unveil the truck at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

“Taking on such an enormous challenge requires the best engineers, designers, team members, navigators and drivers, and in Nani Roma and Carlos Sainz Sr., we have two of the most experienced and successful drivers in Dakar history,” said Ford Performance racing global director Mark Rushbrook in May. “The Ford Raptor is already showing promising signs in testing and having two of the best drivers in the world with us for the ride gives us confidence for the continued development of the truck.”

Juan Santiago Rostan will challenge the Dakar Rally for a second time in 2025.

“I wanted to tell you that I am going to be in one of the most difficult competitions in the world again,” he wrote on Tuesday. “Neuquén will once again have a representative in the Dakar.”

Racing a GasGas for Xraids Experience at his Dakar début in January, Rostan finished twenty-sixth overall in Rally2 and eighth among rookie riders with a best outing of twenty-second in Stage #4. Save for briefly getting lost at the start of the following leg, he was able to stay out of trouble for the most part to safely reach the finish.

Rostan had qualified for the 2024 Dakar after winning the Road to Dakar at the 2023 Desafío Ruta 40 in his native Argentina. Despite using a borrowed airbag vest from eventual World Rally-Raid Champion Luciano Benavides, he finished the race sixth in Rally2 and best among RtD riders to earn free registration for Dakar.

After Dakar, he returned to the DR 40 in June and scored a ninth in class with a pair of eighths in Stages #1 and #5. His father Santiago Rostan competed in the Quad class and finished twelfth.

The new Dacia Sandrider needs to be able to survive in hot deserts in order to complete the 2025 Dakar Rally. Sébastien Loeb feels it performs well in such conditions, at least provided the air conditioning does not malfunction.

From 28 June to 5 July, the Sandrider conducted its first desert test in Morocco after spending the last two months testing in Europe. As with previous tests, Loeb worked alongside his future Dacia team-mates Nasser Al-Attiyah and Cristina Gutiérrez to take turns in the dunes. The team arrived in Erfoud before Loeb went out for three days of test driving.

Speaking with L’Équipe, Loeb was receptive to the Sandrider’s performance but it was far from an entirely smooth session as the AC broke. With temperatures in Morocco going over forty degrees Celsius (104° F), it made driving a bit of a nightmare.

“Overall, it’s fine, but it’s when the air conditioning stops that it’s shit,” Loeb candidly admitted. “If it’s the same temperature outside during the race and that happens to us, we can’t drive. Everything is going well in the car except temperature management. We’re sweating, so that shows that there are plenty of cooling parameters to work on. It’s good to do these tests and put our finger on them.”

The Dakar Rally takes place in Saudi Arabia, meaning teams often head to desert-rich countries like Morocco to see if their vehicles can handle the hot environment. The Rallye du Maroc, the final round of the World Rally-Raid Championship, is frequently used as a dress rehearsal for Dakar-bound teams.

Team Mitsubishi Ralliart struggled to keep up with the rival Toyota Fortuners at the 2023 Asia Cross Country Rally, preventing them from repeating their victory with Chayapon Yotha. For 2024, the team will upgrade their Mitsubishi Triton to better withstand Thailand’s elements to bounce back.

The 2024 Triton features a new six-speed sequential transmission, unlike the manual of the previous model. The tread size has been increased from 1,570 millimetres at the front and 1,565 mm at the rear to 1,730 mm on both sides. Although both the 2023 and 2024 cars have the same 4N16 intercooled turbocharged engine and surrounding system, it has slightly less displacement at 2,439 cubic centimetres, lower by three. The four-wheel-drive system is upgraded from Mitsubishi’s Super-Select II 4WD System to a full-time 4WD. Rigid leaf springs no longer make up the rear suspension as the truck now uses rigid four-link coil springs, which is intended to help the vehicle better absorb hits on dirt roads.

Other elements remain unchanged such as the overall dimensions of 5.32 m long by 1.995 m wide with a 3,130 mm wheelbase. ENDLESS is providing ventilated brake discs with monoblock calipers and pads, operating alongside the seventeen-inch wheels from WORK and Yokohama’s GEOLANDAR M/T G003 tyres.

The truck underwent approximately 800 kilometres of testing at Khao Yai National Park in late June.

“Last year, we tried for a second consecutive victory with the all-new Triton, which had just gone on sale, but we were unable to bring out its full potential, ending in third place,” said team director and two-time Dakar winner Hiroshi Masuoka. “With this year’s Triton, we have made major improvements primarily to driving performance and rough road handling, further enhancing our four-vehicle team as we aim to reclaim our position as champions.

Tibau Team will enter the Baja España Aragón with a trio of countrywomen in the cockpit of one of their IVECO PowerStars. María Helena Tarruell Tibau will lead the first Spanish all-woman truck team as driver, while Jaqueline Ricci and Rebeca Aramburu will respectively serve as navigator and mechanic.

Tibau is the niece of team owner Rafael Tibau, a longtime Dakar Rally veteran who has driven both competition and assistance trucks at the race. 2023, where he retired in a truck, marked his seventh Dakar as a competitor but thirty-second at the event as a whole. He continued his support role for the 2024 edition as the team fielded three trucks for Manuel Borrero, Jordi Eseve, and Pep Sabaté.

Helena entered the adjacent Dakar Classic in 2021 as the co-driver of a Toyota HDJ80 Land Cruiser driven by Pere Barrios, a metallurgist and Tibau family friend. The duo finished tenth overall, seventh in the H1 category, and fourth in H1.5. While it is her only Dakar as a competitor to date (though she has continued as part of a crew with TH-Trucks Team), she hopes the new truck programme will eventually compete in the Dakar Rally proper.

Ricci has called the shots in both the FIA European Baja Cup, the larger FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies (predecessor to the current World Rally-Raid Championship), and even the premier Silk Way Rally in Russia for drivers like Enrique Reyes, Toto Ramos, Miguel Angel Valero, and David Spranger. In 2020, she finished runner-up in the Spanish Cross-Country Rally Championship’s side-by-side class, which she followed up with another second the following year in Bajas.

Aramburu is primarily a drift competitor. In 2018, she became the first woman to win an event in the Spanish Drifting Championship.

Everyone arrived in Italy with hopes of building more momentum towards the FIA European Baja Cup. Many left more drenched than an Olympic swimmer.

The Italian Baja, second round of the 2024 season, took competitors through a multitude of river beds and muddy water crossings. Consequently, attrition was especially high with only four of the ten Ultimate cars and just three of six SSVs reaching the finish.

Although it is the premier subcategory, T1+ cars struggled with only one reaching the finish. Benediktas Vanagas had a hydrolock in his Toyota Hilux’s engine after water got into the system, leaving him stranded on an eyot until his team could pull him out. Stefan Carmans‘ Red-Lined REVO T1+, a new vehicle to the European Cup, suffered a litany of issues that began with the starter failing on the first stage, then the power steering the next, and time expiring on the last.

João Ferreira‘s Mini was the only T1+ to complete the race in second, nearly six minutes behind Manuele Mengozzi. While this entrenched him atop the points standings, he certainly would have liked to close that gap or even leave with the win instead. Ferreira won both Selective Sections on the final day but lost too much time during the first leg to a battery problem.

Andrea Schiumarini‘s rear-wheel-drive Century CR6 also experienced setbacks but managed to join Mengozzi and Ferreira on the class podium. Magdalena Zajac was the only other Ultimate finisher.