Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The Morocco Desert Challenge returns for a ninth edition from 11 to 20 April, and organisers hope it will be both an exciting and safe adventure following tragic events that overshadowed the 2023 race.

After co-driver Laurent Lichtleuchter and rider Bram van der Wouden died during the 2023 MDC, the former in a fiery accident when his side-by-side was hit by another car and the latter from heat stroke, the 2024 edition has increased measures to ensure competitor safety. All registrants are required to pass a cardiac evaluation within the past year, while riders must wear an airbag vest and undergo medical tests while refuelling during each stage. The Malle Moto class for riders competing without teams, which van der Wouden was in, has been dropped. To mitigate the risk of another crash like Lichtleuchter’s, side-by-side vehicles are now limited to a top speed of 135 km/h.

Although the entry list has been capped at 200 from the usual 300, the race still expects to see roughly 850 to 900 people in the bivouac. Race days will start earlier than usual at 7 AM, which gives teams more time to work on their vehicles in the evening and for rally officials to check on the course.

To reflect these new policies, MDC general director Gert Duson told The Checkered Flag that the race’s goals for 2024 are to promote “fun, safety, and 200% adrenaline.”

155 teams across six categories are signed up, with fifty-three SSVs leading the fray ahead of forty-four cars, thirty-five bikes, and nine trucks. The other sixteen are in the non-competitive Raid classes, which run on an adjacent route from the Rally side.

After being one of the top Truck racers at the Dakar Rally during the 2000s and 2010s, Hans Stacey is interested in heading back in a car. The Dutchman spent Thursday in southern France, where he tested an Audi Quattro prepared by Audi Sport Veghel to hopefully compete in the 2025 Dakar Classic.

“The first shakedown of my Dakar Audi Quattro in South France for Dakar 2025 went well,” wrote Stacey. “Of course, we still have some things to adjust and improve.”

In 2007, Stacey won the final Dakar Rally to run along the original Europe to Senegal route in the Truck category, scoring five stage wins in a TGA 18.531BB. He made his début in a DAF in 2004 before switching to MAN the following year, and finished second in the 2006 edition. Stacey remains the latest Dakar Truck champion who did not race for KAMAZ or IVECO as of 2024.

The 2008 Dakar was cancelled and a replacement event dubbed the Central Europe Rally took its place for that year, where he won six stages en route to another Truck overall victory. After taking two years off, he returned to the race in an IVECO in 2012 and finished second. His most recent Dakar was a ninth-place effort in 2017.

Stacey hoped to race in 2022 with Team de Rooy, but was replaced by Victor Versteijnen for medical reasons.

One of rallycross’s most successful teams has revealed their hand ahead of the 2024 FIA World Rallycross Championship.

Building on a competitive season in 2023, Hansen World RX Team remains unchanged heading into the new year. 2019 champion Timmy Hansen will drive one of the two Peugeot 208 RX1e cars alongside his brother, 2016 European rallycross champion Kevin Hansen.

In 2024, these electric cars will face a new adversary, with the “Battle of Technologies” concept appearing for the first time. Electric rallycross cars will line up on the grid alongside their sustainably fuelled internal combustion engine counterparts.

The decision to stay with all-electric machinery is definitely unsurprising, with both brothers having been huge advocates for electric rallycross cars since their introduction. Speaking to The Checkered Flag in July 2023, Timmy Hansen had some musings about how to make electric rallycross more popular.

“Maybe the mistake has been not putting these cars side by side,” he suggested. “If people would have seen how fast these cars are, you can cheer for anybody out on track but the electric cars would win nine out of ten races, mainly because we would be miles out ahead right from the start. People haven’t seen how fast the car is in a side by side comparison, and I think, if they had seen it, the attitude would have been very different.”

In 2022, Pol Tarrés and his Yamaha Ténéré 700 set the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude reached by a motorcycle when he climbed 6,157.5 metres up Cerro Mercedario in Argentina. Two years later, on 7 March, he returned to the Andes to crush his own record, this time ascending the Nevado Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile to a height of 6,677 metres on the Ténéré World Raid.

Tarrés was joined by Yamaha’s Javi Echevarria (project manager), Miguel Echevarria (film crew), Ahikar Azcona (Yamaha ambassador), and Joan Espasa (film crew) for the adventure. Gerardo Bauty, Thomas Caballero, Juan León, and Cristian Órdenes served as his guides on the mountain. His crew, dubbed the Trece Racing Society, also had support from RAM Trucks.

After spending two weeks getting used to the mountain atmosphere, Tarrés and the team battled through snow and impassible routes from Refugio Murray to the volcano’s summit and main crater. They successfully achieved the goal in fifty minutes.

His Ténéré was equipped with the GYTR competition kit, which replaces the stock ECU with a rally raid-style setup and has more fuel capacity, the latter of which was a concern during the 2022 effort. He also brought a Yamaha YZ450FX with rally trim, which climbed to 6,767 metres while scouting out the route.

“Above six thousand metres, everything seems to go super slow,” said Tarrés. “The physical exhaustion is indescribable and there is no room for mistakes. Even walking is a challenge, let alone riding a Ténéré at this altitude.”

MING Racing Sports has upgraded their Ford F-150 EVO to T1+ specs, with which they intend to run select cross-country rallies in Europe and hopefully the Middle East before eventually bringing it to the 2025 Dakar Rally. The T1+ was revealed on Sunday with František Brutovský and Petr Hauptmann as driver and navigator, respectively.

Although it is a Ford, it takes some inspiration from the Audi RS Q e-tron that won the Dakar in January with Carlos Sainz. In an interview with Foto-Moto, Brutovský admitted that while he dislikes electric vehicles, the Audi has a “nice design”. This is reflected in the Ford’s rear, which has a curved rear cab similar to what is seen on the Audi sitting atop the truck bed. It uses a Ford 5.8-litre engine and goes up to 395 horsepower with over 600 newton-metres of torque.

The gear setup has been modified due to the larger wheels; T1+ cars are required to have 37-inch (93.98 cm) wheels, compared to 32 inches (81.28) on a T1.1 model. The subcategory also has higher standards in suspension travel at 350 millimetres versus 280 mm and a larger tread width at 320 mm over 245 mm. Naturally, these regulations make T1+ vehicles the best in rally raid today as they dominate the World Rally-Raid Championship and various domestic series to the point where some national series like the Spanish Cross-Country Rally Championship have split it off from T1 into a separate class.

To focus on developing the car, MING Racing opted to skip the Hungarian Cross-Country Rally Championship’s season-opening Desert Express 300 over the weekend. The car is expected to make its competition début at the Baja Drawsko Pomorskie in Poland in April. After conducting follow-up tests in Tunisia, the team will ramp up their racing schedule over the summer with the Baja España Aragón in Spain in July followed by the Baja Poland and Hungarian Baja in August. If those work out, they will then head to the Middle East for the Dubai International Baja and Qatar International Baja in November. Aragón, Poland, Qatar, and Dubai are rounds on the FIA World Baja Cup while the Hungarian Baja is part of the European Baja Cup.

However, Brutovský noted the team will likely also enter more races in Poland and their native Czech Republic to further provide the Ford with racing experience. Eventually, this will culminate in his and the team’s maiden Dakar Rally in 2025.

Clayton Roberts suffered a serious spinal cord injury in a massive crash at the start of Sunday’s AMA National Hare and Hound Championship race in Murphy, Idaho. The accident resulted in fractures to his T11 and T12 vertebrae, multiple broken ribs, and a broken clavicle, and doctors state it is “highly unlikely” he will be able to walk again.

The crash occurred roughly 300 yards into the Pro race. Roberts quickly moved up to second and was chasing Preston Campbell for the lead when he hit a dirt mound at 70 miles per hour (112.65 km/h), throwing him off his bike. Defending national champion Dalton Shirey, who was running third, quickly stopped and got off his bike, raised his hands to notify the oncoming rush of riders to avoid the scene, before going to Roberts to check on him.

Roberts was airlifted to the hospital in Boise for emergency surgery to stabilise the spine. He had eight 1.5-inch titanium screws and two rods inserted into his spine on Monday, and surgery for his clavicle is scheduled for Wednesday. According to his family, he is able to sit up with some assistance as of Tuesday, and they hope he can be moved to a rehabilitation facility in Southern California by the weekend.

The reigning Pro 250 Hare and Hound class champion, Roberts had been rapidly establishing himself as one of the top off-road riders in North America. He won the SCORE International Baja 400 in 2022 as the team-mate to Juan Carlos Salvatierra alongside Arturo Salas Jr. and Shane Logan, then shared a bike with Salas en route to claiming the 2023 Baja 500. Two weeks before the accident, he and Jesse Canepa and Ryan Marshall finished runner-up in the Mint 400.

His 2023 Pro 250 NHHA title campaign saw him win four of five races. He moved up to the Pro division for the 2024 season, finishing twelfth at the season opener in Lucerne Valley, California, in January.

Fans disappointed with the entry list for the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge should be cheered up by the grid for the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s return to Europe for the inaugural BP Ultimate Rally-Raid. 169 teams, the largest field for a W2RC round outside of the Dakar Rally, comprise the provisional entry list with 87 in FIA categories, 64 for the FIM, 17 in the non-FIA National division for Portuguese Cross-Country Championship competitors, and a single Open car.

The Ultimate class leads the way on the FIA side with 35 cars ahead of Challenger’s 32, SSV’s 19, and the lone Stock entrant. Rally2 also has 35 for the most in FIM followed by eleven Quads and nine apiece in RallyGP and Rally3.

Many who did not race Abu Dhabi will return for Portugal, most notably Dakar champion Carlos Sainz and third-placed Sébastien Loeb, albeit in different rides from what they ran in the season opener. With Team Audi Sport shutting down their rally division weeks before the ADDC due to a lack of parts (and getting fined for it), Sainz has opted to reunite with X-raid Team and race a Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus, with which he won the Dakar in 2020; X-raid’s manager Sven Quandt previously oversaw Audi’s operations via Q Motorsport. Despite not racing the ADDC, Sainz remains the points leader by nine over winner Nasser Al-Attiyah.

While the Prodrive Hunter is still being raced post-Dakar, Loeb has opted to drop down to the Challenger class where he will race a Taurus T3 Max for Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team. Opposite his switch, João Ferreira trades in his Can-Am SSV for a Mini and will team up with Sainz at X-raid. Ferreira is more than familiar with the Mini as he currently races it in the World and European Baja Cups, but this will be just his second time entering a W2RC event in it after his début at the 2022 Andalucía Rally. Eduard Pons is also moving from SSV to Ultimate and will race a Ford Ranger for Past-Racing.

With Pau Navarro unavailable as he focuses on the Rallye Sierra Morena, Sainz’s arrival means X-raid will still have an all-Iberian driver lineup. Vaidotas Žala, another Mini driver, returns though his car is being prepared by Unique Racing Team rather than X-raid; Unique previously did the same for his Mini début at the 2022 Baja Aragón in neighbouring Spain.

A dramatic race saw Carlos Sainz Jr. victory at the Australian Grand Prix, with his Scuderia Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc joining him on the podium in second place. Max Verstappen’s early retirement opened the door for a Scuderia Ferrari one-two, with the Dutchman not finishing a race for the first time since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix.

During this piece, we will take a look at the top three performers from an action packed few days down under, with TheCheckeredFlag Drivers of the Weekend podium. The top performer will take our Driver of the Weekend award.

3rd – Nico Hülkenberg

Nico Hülkenberg enjoyed a fantastic race in Australia, securing a second consecutive points finish for MoneyGram Haas F1 Team. The German driver started sixteenth on the grid after a difficult qualifying on Friday but took advantage of multiple factors in the race, including a VSC and multiple retirements, to come up the order and end up in ninth. 

His performance combined with Kevin Magnussen’s tenth place mean Haas gain three points, and move up to seventh in the Constructors’ Championship, ahead of most of their midfield rivals. 

2nd – Yuki Tsunoda

There’s been lots of pressure on Yuki Tsunoda to perform in 2024. After out-performing Nyck de Vries in the first half of 2024, the Dutchman lost his seat and was replaced by vastly experienced eight-time grand prix winner, Daniel Ricciardo and many expected Tsunoda to be dominated by the Australian.

Although the upcoming anime HIGHSPEED Étoile takes place in the future, race fans will easily recognise the tracks that the NEX Race competes on. Six real life modern circuits around the world will appear in the show, all with slight tweaks to their layouts to “accommodate” the futuristic NEX Race cars and new names, before it concludes at a fictional raceway.

Fuji Speedway is the only track of the seven that is currently used by the Super Formula Championship, who has a partnership with the HSE project. Known as Neo Fuji Speedway in the anime, its design is based on the original six-kilometre configuration used from its opening in 1965 to 1974. The most notable feature of this layout is the infamous “Daiichi” corner, a NASCAR oval-inspired banked turn that was depicted in HSE‘s first promotional teaser last March. Neo Fuji Speedway is also the lone circuit that will appear in multiple episodes starting with the pilot.

Episode 2 will star Bahrain International Circuit as Shangri-La Desert Circuit, its course almost identical to its current Grand Prix counterpart used by Formula One. The only notable difference lies in the addition of a kink on the straightaway between turns thirteen and fourteen.

The iconic Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo will be in Episode 5 as Circuit de Plancipote. The street circuit, particularly the Mirabeau corner and Nouvelle Chicane, appears in the show’s second PV released in early March.

Circuit of the Americas, host of a wide variety of motorsport including F1 and NASCAR, becomes Wilderness Frontier Circuit for Episode 7. While much of its design remains, the final two turns have been replaced by an oval-like corner. Interlagos’ Autódromo José Carlos Pace, home of the São Paulo Grand Prix, will also appear in this episode with the name La Pa Ortiz Circuit.

If horseshoes, incense, and the power of prayer aren’t turning around their luck, Toby Price, Paul Weel, and Kellon Walch should probably try hiring an exorcist to finally slay their Baja demons.

Team Australia has more than proven to be one of the fastest trucks in SCORE International, but do not have the results to show for it as mechanical failures plague them virtually every race. The San Felipe 250 was just another addition to their string of miserable luck as Price battled with Alan Ampudia for the win throughout the day—going as far as to bypass swapping him out for Weel as scheduled—and eventually took the lead with twenty miles to go, only for a bolt on the right front control arm to break. Unable to get it repaired in time, the team was forced to retire yet again; since their début in 2022, they have only completed two of seven races.

With Price out of the picture, Ampudia simply had to hold off twice defending race winner Luke McMillin for the win, which he easily pulled off by nine minutes after topping qualifying on Thursday. Joined by his brothers Aaron and Rodrigo and navigator Kyle Craft, Rodrigo the overall UTV victor in 2023, he scored his maiden SF 250 triumph and became the first Mexican driver of record to win a SCORE Four-Wheeler overall race since he and his family triumphed at the 2019 Baja 1000.

“Feels good. It feels good to win this, what an incredible feeling,” said Ampudia at the finish. “No problems except at the last part, a tyre started to go down and we decided to take a chance and go flat for the last twenty miles.

“The plan for the race was to keep the car going without stopping and so we did it, taking care of the car so we didn’t have to push it too much. At the end, we knew the lead we had was still a minute away and we decided to step on it, and here we are.”

Round three of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season is in the books, and for the first time this year, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Scuderia Ferrari found their way to victory, who took his third career win just two weeks after surgery for appendicitis.

Max Verstappen’s dominant start to the season came to an end after brake issues saw the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver retire after just three laps, while the podium was rounded out by Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.

Perhaps the biggest talking point came on the penultimate lap, with Fernando Alonso being given a time penalty equivalent to a drive-through penalty after stewards deemed that he was the reason why George Russell crashed out at turn six.

Here what those from the pit wall and garages had to say after the conclusion of the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park.

Frédéric Vasseur – Team Principal, Scuderia Ferrari

The trip to Albert Park saw the dominant run of Max Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing come to an end, with Carlos Sainz Jr. claiming his and Scuderia Ferrari’s first victory of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Just two weeks after appendicitis that ruled him out of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Sainz was in sublime form and was in a class of his own throughout the afternoon in Melbourne, and he led home a Ferrari one-two ahead of Charles Leclerc.

It was also a good day for the McLaren F1 Team as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished third and fourth, while the sole Red Bull at the chequered flag, Sergio Perez, was a distant fifth.

There was also drama late on as George Russell crashed out, with Fernando Alonso being handed a penalty for braking erratically that the stewards deemed was the reason the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver hit the barriers.

In part two, here is what those who missed out on points in Albert Park had to say about their days in the Australian sunshine.

The trip to Albert Park saw the dominant run of Max Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing come to an end, with Carlos Sainz Jr. claiming his and Scuderia Ferrari’s first victory of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Just two weeks after appendicitis that ruled him out of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Sainz was in sublime form and was in a class of his own throughout the afternoon in Melbourne, and he led home a Ferrari one-two ahead of Charles Leclerc.

It was also a good day for the McLaren F1 Team as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished third and fourth, while the sole Red Bull at the chequered flag, Sergio Perez, was a distant fifth.

There was also drama late on as George Russell crashed out, with Fernando Alonso being handed a penalty for braking erratically that the stewards deemed was the reason the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver hit the barriers.

In part one, here is what the top ten finishes in Albert Park had to say about their days in the Australian sunshine.

Just two weeks after surgery for appendicitis, Carlos Sainz Jr. took victory in the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park as Max Verstappen saw his chance of a tenth consecutive race win go up in smoke on just the third lap.

The 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season had started with two races dominated by Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing, but once the Dutchman was troubled by a locking rear brake, it was game over for the championship leader, and he pulled into the pits with his right rear corner in flames.

Sainz, from second on the grid, took over the lead heading into turn nine on lap two, with the Spaniard showing the kind of form that Scuderia Ferrari will miss in 2025 as the team will replace the twenty-nine-year-old with Lewis Hamilton.

It seemed that Sainz had the race under control, with firstly Lando Norris and then Charles Leclerc chasing him, neither of which could put him under any real pressure as he charged to a third career victory.

Ferrari and McLaren at the Front

With Verstappen out of the way, it was initially Sainz, Norris, Leclerc and Oscar Piastri inside the top four, with George Russell leading the chasing pack for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

In the wake of a botched police raid on Monday morning that claimed the life of Federal Police Special Units (DSU) agent and rally raid competitor Jonathan Savel, three police officers were arrested and charged by the Charleroi Public Prosecutor’s Office for various offences including some in connection to the case.

All three were charged with forgery of documents and embezzlement, breach of trust, violation of professional secrecy, unlawful access of police databases, and weapons violations. One of them also received a criminal conspiracy charge; he was named by two separate investigations by different departments, prompting them to unify their operations, though the office did not confirm if he had any ties to the suspect.

Savel was killed when he and his DSU POSA (“Protection, Observation, Support, Arrest”) team were leading a house raid in Lodelinsart, pursuing a suspect wanted for trafficking arms and drugs. After entering, the fifteen-man group spotted a woman and began interacting with her when the assailant—whom the office said was awakened by the police’s arrival—began firing at them from behind a door. Savel and two other agents were hit five times in the armpits, collarbones, and legs, all body parts that were not protected by bulletproof armour; one officer suffered critical injuries but his condition has improved since, while the other received minor wounds. Reinforcements circled the building and entered from behind, where they discovered the shooter was injured, and he died in hospital.

He was the fifth DSU member to die in the line of duty after Paul Peeters (died 1987), Jozef Grauwels (1990), Marcel Coopmans (1996), and Pierre Goblet (1999), and the first in such a mission.

Three weeks before the operation, Savel competed in the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, where he finished twenty-third in Rally2 and fifth among Malle Moto riders. It was his second start in the series after placing fifty-fourth at the 2023 Rallye du Maroc. Both races were part of his quest to make the Dakar Rally in 2025.