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Despite having faced plenty of criticism from the drivers this season, ABB FIA Formula E World Championship tyre supplier Hankook have confirmed that changes won’t be made to the tyres for Season Ten, which will be the South Korean manufacturer’s second season as the all-electric championship’s tyre supplier.

Hankook replaced Michelin this season for the start of Gen3 and have certainly endured a challenging start to life in the series, following several complaints at every round so far this season. Drivers have often complained about how little grip Hankook’s compound gives them, with the general consensus amongst the field being that the tyre is too hard.

This has been evident most notably during the opening minutes of any session this year, with the tyre squeal in particular having been deathening. As a result of the tyres being so hard, the Gen3 cars are currently unable to perform to their maximum. Softer tyres would improve lap times considerably, given that the drivers would be able to take several corners much faster than they have done this season, due to the lack of grip.

Hankook’s European Motorsport Director Manfred Sandbichler isn’t currently too concerned with the criticism being directed at the tyres, and was pleased to confirm that “next year’s season will be the same tyre”.

“It’s always easy to say the tyre is hard, the grip level is not enough,” Sandbichler told Autosport. 

The Rally3 class, which is intended for production bikes with limitations not imposed on the higher RallyGP and Rally2 categories, made its 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship début at the Sonora Rally.

Only three riders were entered, guaranteeing everyone a medal provided they reach the finish. Massimo Camurri led the way by a wide margin as he won all six days, consisting of the Prologue and five stages; he was one of three class winners at Sonora to achieve the feat alongside Rokas Baciuška in T4 and Romain Dumontier in Rally2, though Dumontier did not win the Prologue.

Camurri set the tone from the get-go when he won the Prologue by over sixteen minutes on the field. Stage #2 saw the closest margin of victory when he won by 4:22, though it came after he crashed twenty-three kilometres into the stage due to an obstacle on the road that was not reported. Two days later, he recorded a stage win so lopsided as it totalled nearly one and a hour hours at 1:28:49.

Although he entered the last day with a very convincing advantage of 1:28:49, Camurri elected to take a conservative approach for the stage to avoid disaster. This strategy allowed Ardit Kurtaj scoring his first stage victory while Camurri finished 2:06 back.

“Psychologically I knew I had a good lead but I also knew that it was possible to ruin everything with little,” Camurri explained. “I decided to play defence and not take any risks. I achieved a second-place class finish about two minutes behind the first, but I managed to secure the race victory.

Romain Dumontier elected to skip the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, but the Dakar Rally champion still has a 100% win percentage on the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship season after dominating the Sonora Rally in Rally2.

After finishing second in the Prologue, Dumontier did not take long to show he has no signs of rust from missing the ADDC as he won all five stages of the main rally. He also had moments of running in the top ten overall, which meant competing alongside riders from the premier RallyGP category, but backed off in Stage #2 due to the dust. Even Dumontier’s most tumultuous day in the third leg, during which cactus thorns got stuck in his arm and he had to stop to repair his torn roadbook, still ended with him winning by two minutes and twenty-one seconds.

By the end, Dumontier had over seventeen minutes on Jacob Argubright and was thirty-six clear of points leader Paolo Lucci.

Although the victory tightens Lucci’s points lead to just three with Dumontier second, the latter is skeptical on if he will run the next race, the Desafío Ruta 40, in August. What is certain, however, is that the Frenchman will run the season-ending Rallye du Maroc.

“A great experience this rally is, beautiful sand tracks, around the cactus, and sometimes super fast,” remarked Dumontier. “I didn’t really know how to position myself at the start of this rally. I hadn’t had the opportunity to train with the rally bike and a roadbook since the Dakar in January, but the automatisms came back well!”

Daniel Sanders‘ World Rally-Raid Championship hopes took a hit when he was forced to sit out the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge due to an elbow injury he re-aggravated at the Dakar Rally, but he did not need long to re-insert himself back into the RallyGP battle as he won his first race back at the Sonora Rally.

After finishing runner-up to Tosha Schareina in Stage #1 by six seconds, Sanders responded by beating him the next day by a bigger margin of over a minute. Sanders went on to win two more stages to increase his lead, though Schareina continued to keep it close as the only competition within six minutes entering the final day. Sanders instead hit the final nail into the coffin by taking Stage #5 and increasing that margin to eight minutes.

The victory is Sanders’ first in W2RC after missing much of the inaugural season in 2022 the aforementioned elbow injury sustained in that year’s Dakar Rally. He made his return at the following edition but medical problems plagued his run before sidelining him at Abu Dhabi.

“It’s great to get my first rally win. It feels like it’s been a long time coming,” said Sanders. “Obviously after a year off, it’s great to be back where I want to be. Dakar’s the big one but getting wins in the world championship is also super important.

“I’ve had some bad luck with speed penalties and things like that in some events, so to finally get a world championship win means a lot to me. I feel like I’ve ridden well this event, leading out on several days, and generally having a good run through the event. After a year out and then getting sick at Dakar, it’s all heading in the right direction. I’m improving still, and thanks to the team who always give me a great bike I feel like things are really coming together now.”

Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner was pleased to see the team achieve its third one-two result of the season, making for twenty-five since the team’s debut. Horner praised Sergio Perez for his stellar victory at Baku City Circuit, leading the pack from the time of his well-timed pit-stop during the lap eleven safety car until the checkered flag. 

“Checo absolutely excelled today. He had the pace and really controlled the race, he benefited from the timing of the safety car but it was a phenomenal performance from him today and all weekend. Hats off to him.”

On the other side of the garage, Max Verstappen was disadvantaged by the safety car deployment, having elected to pit for hard tyres the lap prior– resulting in him losing the lead to Perez. He would cross the line in second, unable to make up time to his team-mate.

“We were unlucky with the safety car and the pit stop for Max. Sometimes things like that don’t go your way but that is racing and we will learn from it. Other than that it was an excellent performance from the whole team, another 1-2, our 25th!”

Horner said that the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has given them great knowledge and momentum going into next week’s Miami Grand Prix, where the team will be hoping to replicate their dominant performance. 

Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez claimed victory at Baku City Circuit, rounding out an incredible weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Having started in third place, the Mexican driver bested pole-sitter Charles Leclerc and team-mate Max Verstappen to secure his second win of the season.

Perez overtook Leclerc on lap six of the fifty-one lap race, with RB19 showing its pace on the high-speed streets of Baku. A safety car on lap eleven allowed him to take a strategic tyre change that saw him move ahead of Verstappen, who pitted in the lap before the safety car was deployed. From then on, Perez was able to keep Verstappen at bay for the remainder of the race, ultimately finishing just over two seconds ahead. 

Having won both the sprint race and the Grand Prix, Perez described his weekend as “perfect” and praised the team for their efforts and execution on race day. 

“It has been an unbelievable weekend, I am super pleased and I cannot say more about the Team, it has been a tremendous day for us and I am so proud of everyone. I want to say a big thanks to Thibaut, he is one of my mechanics who is at home for personal reasons, but he is still a very big part of our Team.

“The Team enjoy calling me the King of the Streets, I am super happy for them all. They have been tremendous all weekend, from the sprint race yesterday through to the way we executed the race today, it was perfect.”

The last time a NASCAR Cup Series spring race at Dover Motor Speedway was not impacted by nature or a global pandemic was in 2017. That streak will continue for another year as Sunday’s Würth 400 was rained out and pushed to Monday at 12 PM Eastern Time.

The weather had been inconsistent all weekend. The Cup Series was able to squeeze in practice on Friday, albeit after a delay for track drying, but could not conduct qualifying as the rain returned. On the other hand, the Xfinity Series successfully raced on Saturday without much issue, though its qualifying session was also lost to Mother Nature.

While NASCAR has often tried to look for an opening to get some laps in, the sanctioning body pulled the plug three hours before the scheduled green flag at 1 PM.

The 2022 race managed to get seventy-eight laps in before being pushed to Monday. The same fate had struck the 2019 edition, marking the first time a Dover Cup race was postponed since 2007. 2018’s spring race ran to its completion on a Sunday, though it was impacted by a forty-one-minute rain delay in Stage #3.

Dover is the first Cup race of 2023 to be postponed due to weather and the second in any national series after the Xfinity Fontana event in February. The Craftsman Truck Series races at Daytona and Martinsville were shortened by rain.

The Sonora Rally‘s Quad category was barren compared to the first two World Rally-Raid Championship rounds as only Laisvydas Kancius and Rodolfo Guillioli were entered, tying T2 at January’s Dakar Rally for the fewest entries in a W2RC class. Still, a two-man race was a race nonetheless as the pair renewed their battle from Abu Dhabi, with Kancius coming out on top and strengthening his W2RC points lead.

Kancius won four of the six legs while Guillioli took two. Guillioli was the first entry to start the rally by kicking off the Prologue, which he called “a rare honour”, but fell behind quickly after an error sent him off course and he placed seven minutes after Kancius.

The margin grew in Stage #1 after Kancius won by nine minutes, though Guillioli returned the favour as he edged out his rival in Stage #2 by just thirty-seven seconds in a “very inconsistent and dangerous” course due to multiple riders crashing out in the early sectors. Kancius’ Yamaha Raptor had suffered an electrical failure coming to the Selective Section, which he discovered was due to faulty wiring insulation.

While Kancius rectified his issue for the third stage, Guillioli encountered a very familiar problem when the coil connecting the spark plug to the engine broke just ten kilometres into the liaison route heading to the speed section; he replaced the spark plug in time to start the stage, only for his Raptor to break down again. Such an issue had denied him a shot at the overall podium in Abu Dhabi. By the time Guillioli reached the finish, he had to pause and adjust the plug approximately twenty-five times and was over twenty-two minutes back of Kancius.

With Guillioli trying to re-find his groove in Stage #4, Kancius solidified his advantage by beating him to the win by 10:26. Trailing by 49:32 entering the fifth and final day, Guillioli won by three minutes. Although not an overall win, Guillioli cherished the rally since “when I reached the finish line, I had passed thinking that the only thing that mattered to me was to bring a stage winner’s medal to each of my daughters. The one from two days ago, and today. I did it!!! Happy day, very happy!!! and in one piece…”

Jānis Baumanis has stated his intent for the 2023 FIA European Rallycross Championship by winning the opening round with a superb race at Nyirád in Hungary. The Latvian driver overcame a weekend-long illness to storm to victory just ahead of reigning champion Anton Marklund and Patrick O’Donovan, who secured a podium in only his second EuroRX outing.

Baumanis was in total control of the final. A perfect launch saw him out of the first corner first, while O’Donovan slithered past Belgian Enzo Ide into second, a position which he subsequently lost later that lap. O’Donovan battled with Andreas Bakkerud for most of the race before the latter retired, with the young Brit demonstrating superb defensive driving skills as he gets to grip with the ex-Hansen Motorsport Peugeot 208. However, it was a case of almost forgetting about Baumanis out front, he’d been so far in the lead. After the final lap joker, the RX Team Latvia driver had enough of an advantage to take a crucial victory.

Speaking after the race, Baumanis said “today and yesterday my neck was so sore that I could not normally breathe…but we are here and we win the race!” He dedicated the race win to everyone involved in the project, especially RX Team Latvia back in Riga who put in extremely long hours to rebuild the car at the start of the season, and, of course, his mother: “she had a birthday on Friday so this is a gift for you!”

Marklund’s second place is a remarkable come back from a big shunt in heat 3. After a great launch, he was tagged sideways while trying to get past Tamás Kárai at the first corner. Sat sideways on the track, he was nothing but a passenger as Sivert Svardal seemed not to notice the extent of the damage and accelerated hard into the Ford’s front-left corner.

From that point, it looked like Marklund would be out of action for the rest of the weekend. However, the SET Promotion team worked wonders and got the car ready for the semi-finals, where Marklund did exactly what he had to do and managed to progress to the back row of the final grid. From there, he went for an early joker lap, giving himself the clear air he needed to finish less than a second behind Baumanis.

Brendan Crow wasn’t planning to run the Sonora Rally at first but changed his mind in early April just weeks before the race. That turned out to be one of the best choices he could have ever made as he won the National Enduro class and was the best finishing bike in general of the National entries.

While the decision to take part came on short notice, leaving him with just three weeks to prepare compared to the roughly seven months in 2022, Crow played a masterful performance as he won by nearly an hour and twenty minutes over Francisco Alvarez. He also minimised errors to just ten minutes of penalties for speeding.

Crow scored the most stage wins with three, taking the Prologue and Stages #1 and #4, while Alvarez claimed the last. Ashley Thixton, the only other multi-time victor, placed fifth overall after having to overcome penalties and a Stage #4 crash.

“Funny that it was completely different from last year even though it was only 6 months ago,” wrote Crow. “Learned even more this year and lookin forward for more!”

Although not winning, Alvarez still claimed the Road to Dakar to receive free registration for the 2024 Dakar Rally. Crow had won Sonora’s RtD in 2022 by finishing third overall; while he did not redeem the spot to race at Dakar 2023, he is ineligible to repeat as a former winner.

Francisco Alvarez will cross off a bucket list item next January when he competes in the 2024 Dakar Rally. He earned his ticket to the race by winning the Road to Dakar at this week’s Sonora Rally.

Competing in the National Enduro class, Alvarez finished runner-up overall to Brendan Crow with a time of 17:56:38, good enough to beat Malle Moto winner Matt Sutherland by slightly under half an hour. Crow had won Sonora’s Road to Dakar in 2022, making him ineligible for a repeat even if he did not race Dakar the following year.

Alvarez won the final stage while fellow RtD competitor and Freedom Rally Racing team-mate Ashley Thixton claimed two. Thixton, one of six FRR Malle Moto riders and pursuing a Dakar berth on his own, finished in third and nearly two hours back after having to overcome seventy minutes of penalties in Stage #1 and a crash in the fourth leg.

“You have to be careful with what you dream of because it can come true,” wrote Alvarez on social media. “Over ten years ago I began to shape my dream of the Dakar and here I am after having run one of the best races of my life with a direct entrance to that dream! I won the Road to Dakar at the Sonora Rally, still having a hard time taking it in, but it’s real! Thank you very much to everyone who followed the race and to all who have always supported me! I finished in the best way possible, winning stage 5 and gaining direct entry to that Dakar dream!”

Sutherland, who is also running the following week’s Mexican 1000 as part of the Ultimate Ironman Challenge, was one of five Malle Moto riders in the Road to Dakar. Hector Guerrero was the second-best finisher in eighth overall; his time ranked fourth in the traditional Malle Moto results.

The last time Ryan Truex stood in a NASCAR Victory Lane, he was an 18-year-old prospect wrapping up his second straight championship in what is now the ARCA Menards Series East. Now 31, he is finally back on top, but in one of the top three divisions.

Truex dominated Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Dover Motor Speedway, leading 124 of 200 laps and sweeping the stages. He took the lead from Sheldon Creed, who was operating on an alternate pit strategy that allowed him to stretch his fuel as much as possible before pitting, with eleven laps remaining and stomped the field in the process. Only the top ten finished on the lead lap while Truex beat Josh Berry by over four seconds.

“I was waiting for the caution,” Truex commented. “I think I held my breath for thirty laps there at the end. When I got out (of the car), I was completely out of breath because I was just like, ‘What is going to happen this time? What is going to be the flat tyre or two guys run into each other? What was going to happen to bring that late caution out?’ I knew we were in control of the race, and I knew we had a big lead and I was trying to just manage the gap really, but I was definitely waiting for something to happen and luckily, it didn’t.”

He has been racing in the Xfinity Series—and by extension the national tiers—since 2010, mainly as a part-timer save for a full campaign in 2018. Despite his pedigree and regional success, he always came just short of winning; infamously, he started on the pole at the 2012 Dover Xfinity race for Joe Gibbs Racing but was passed late and finished second.

He rejoined JGR for a limited slate a decade later, and the move has ultimately paid off.

Sara Price is one of the top female racers in off-road, having medalled in the 2010 X Games in motocross and becoming the first woman to complete the Baja 1000 on her own. In 2024, she will add another legendary off-road race to her résumé when she makes her début in the Dakar Rally.

She earned the slot after winning the National Car/UTV class at the Sonora Rally, fending off Jorge Antonio Cano Félix by less than an hour. The two, along with Carlos Castro and reigning Sonora winner Daniel Gonzalez Reina, were entered in the Road to Dakar, a programme that rewards outstanding performers at World Rally-Raid Championship rounds with free admission to Dakar.

Price switched from Polaris to rival manufacturer Can-Am for 2023, and the move has paid off in a huge way as she was the only driver to win multiple stages, claiming the Prologue and Stages #2 and #3, and was fifty-two minutes ahead of Cano. It was a strong rebound after retiring from the 2022 edition following a massive crash. Can-Ams also won the Sonora’s W2RC-sanctioned T3 and T4 categories, while a Maverick X3 driven by Rodrigo Ampudia claimed the San Felipe 250 in neighbouring Baja California earlier in the month.

She and Francisco Alvarez both clinched Dakar 2024 slots at Sonora, with the latter doing so in National Moto.

“We are going to Dakar Rally!!! After Stage 5 of Sonora Rally we came to the finish first overall to win #SonoraRally to get the golden ticket to get a entry to #Dakar,” wrote Price on social media. “This has been a dream of mine since 2015 and words can’t describe the fact it’s now happening!”

Anton Marklund displayed no sign of slowing down as the 2023 FIA European Rallycross Championship gets underway. The three-time and reigning champion is top of the leaderboard after the first heat at at Nyirád, Hungary.

Due to minimal time to become familiar with his Ford Fiesta RX, having only unveiled it on Tuesday, Marklund is quoted as saying that it is “the worst car I have ever driven” after the first practice session. The new car, being raced in honour of Ken Block who passed away earlier this year, has only been tested in Latvia so far, where the smooth track did not prepare the SET Promotion team for the gruelling undulations and distinctive red gravel of the so-called “Red Cauldron” at Nyirád.

Despite this, Marklund and the team showed their class. There is, after all, a reason why they were so dominant in 2022. By the time of their first heat race, Marklund was fired up and ready for action. After taking an early joker, he stormed to victory a full 2.5 seconds ahead of his nearest on track rival, Tamás Kárai.

Alarmingly for his rivals, the Swedish superstar has much more to extract from his car. Commenting after his race, he said “I almost lost the Fiesta a few times – twice on the run downhill, which was a bit sketchy – but that’s just the way it is sometimes when you are getting used to a different car”. Once he gets those issues under control, he may prove to be unstoppable.

Elsewhere in the field, there were familiar faces making up the closest competitors. Enzo Ide once again demonstrated scintillating pace and excellent racecraft, managing to finish the day just shy of Marklund in second. Jānis Baumanis, driving for a new team this year, finished in third ahead of Andreas Bakkerud. Reigning British rallycross champion Patrick O’Donovan impressed with a clean run in his heat race, slotting his Peugeot 208 into fifth, with Hungarian Kárai delighting the local fans by finishing sixth.

Perhaps the busiest two weeks in Matt Sutherland‘s racing career is off to a good start as he won the National Malle Moto class at the Sonora Rally, but he will not have much time to cherish the triumph as he boards a van for a four-hour trip from San Luis Río Colorado to Ensenada to compete in the Mexican 1000.

Sutherland is competing in the Ultimate Ironman Challenge, a new programme created by the overseers of the Sonora Rally and Mexican 1000 for bike riders doing both events on their own without assistance from teams (help from other riders is permitted). Only Sutherland and Matthew Glade are attempting it, for which they will receive a commemorative plaque from Mexican 1000 organiser NORRA.

Already the reigning Mexican 1000 champion, the challenge began on a strong note as Sutherland finished fourth among all National Moto riders in the Prologue and first in his class. While National Enduro entrants, who have outside support and crews unlike Malle Moto, were the top finishers overall across the six days, Sutherland placed as high as second in Stages #1 and #4.

While not a perfectly flawless outing as he received fifty-one minutes in penalties including thirty in the fifth and final stage for missing a waypoint (relegating him to eleventh), the time added was still significantly less than his competitors as the second fewest by runner-up Paul Mumford added up to ten hours and forty-five minutes.

When Malle Moto and Enduro are combined together for the overall results, Sutherland’s run of 18:24:08 is good for third behind Brendan Crow’s 16:37:36 and Francisco Alvarez’s 17:56:38. Alvarez edged out Sutherland for the Road to Dakar, which grants the winner free admission to the 2024 Dakar Rally; five of the eight Malle Moto riders were RtD hopefuls.