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At the Dakar Rally to begin the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship, Austin Jones beat his Red Bull team-mate Seth Quintero for victory in the T3 category. Slightly less than two months later, Quintero got to return the favour at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

Quintero won three stages including the Prologue to score his second W2RC victory after the 2022 Rallye du Maroc. His total time of 16:58:31 was the third best among all FIA entries regardless of class, only behind the T1 cars of Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Martin Prokop by half an hour.

Jones ran directly behind Quintero in the first two legs before mechanical issues caused him to lose time in the midway point, including an eighth-place finish in Stage #3. He would finish over twenty-seven minutes behind his fellow American Red Bull driver. Jones finished eighth overall for FIA cars.

While he and Jones are split in overall victories and Dakar has a bigger points payout, Quintero holds the edge by five in the standings thanks to his five combined stage wins across the first two rounds. Jones’ lone segment victory of 2023 so far came in the third day at Dakar.

“Really tough race with a few issues but good times as always in the sand out there,” said Jones, who along with Quintero and their co-drivers will return to the United States this weekend for the legendary Mint 400. “Happy to finish on the podium.”

Toto Wolff certainly didn’t hold back when reflecting on Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s start to the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, describing his team’s outing at the Bahrain Grand Prix as one of their ‘worst days in racing’.

Lewis Hamilton finished fifth for Mercedes while George Russell came home in seventh but the W14’s overall lack of pace and competitiveness displayed at the Bahrain International Circuit left the team boss in a downbeat mood.

Hamilton’s race got off to a positive start, overtaking both his team-mate and Fernando Alonso before turn one but by time of the second round of pitstops Mercedes would go onto pit Hamilton earlier than they perhaps would have wanted to in an attempt to deny Alonso and Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team the chance of an undercut.

Despite successfully denying the undercut, the sheer pace of the AMR23 was evident when matched up against the W14. Hamilton’s best effort to fend off Alonso would only take the seven-time world champion so far as the Spaniard made a bold move at turn ten to execute an exquisite overtake.

After losing out to his teammate on the opening lap, Russell’s attention turned to defending both Aston Martin drivers. Russell’s resistance was broken on lap thirteen as Alonso battled his way past the British driver at turn six. While Lance Stroll would make his way past by virtue of a successful undercut deployed by the Aston Martin pit wall.

After a fifth place finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton admitted that both he and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team have a ‘lot of work to do’ if they are to contend for race victories in 2023.

Starting from seventh on the grid, the seven-time world champion got off to a hot start, jumping ahead of both George Russell and Fernando Alonso by turn four to claim fifth place on the track.

The British driver would undertake a two-stop strategy, with his second stop coming a little earlier than planned as the Mercedes pit-wall wanted to avoid allowing Alonso the chance of a possible undercut.

By the time Alonso had pitted for a second time, the Spaniard was on the charge and Hamilton’s resistance would only last so long as the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team driver made a gutsy, late-breaking overtake.

Encouragingly for Mercedes, Hamilton managed to hang onto the SF-23 of Carlos Sainz Jr. until the end of the race but ultimately never got close enough to attempt an overtaking manoeuvre on the Scuderia Ferrari driver, leaving Hamilton having to settle for a fifth place finish.

The start of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season was not one that Scuderia Ferrari and newly appointed Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur would have been hoping for, with the Championship hopefuls finishing with just twelve points and having only one car finishing the race.

Carlos Sainz Jr. struggled for pace throughout the weekend and failed to make an impression on the two Oracle Red Bull Racing drivers out front and failed to defend from Fernando Alonso, with the veteran Spaniard ending up finishing on the podium for the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team.

Meanwhile, for Charles Leclerc it was yet another disappointing race weekend and similarly to 2022, he failed to finish the race, that he was almost guaranteed a podium in, due to a reliability issue that saw him lose power in the second half of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Vasseur, who joined Ferrari after leaving Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake at the end of 2022 to replace Mattia Binotto, admitted it was not the best of starts for the Maranello-based team in Bahrain, and it will be important to understand what caused Leclerc’s failure so they can prevent it from happening again.

“Of course we are disappointed, how could we not be. We knew we’d have to deal with tyre degradation, but we had not expected reliability problems.

The 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season got underway this weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix, which meant Scuderia Ferrari started their challenge for both championships after missing out to Oracle Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen last season.

Carlos Sainz Jr. had a difficult race weekend and looked to be really struggling for pace. Friday practice saw a real lack of confidence in the car and a spin in FP2, while he could only manage fourth on the grid at the Bahrain International Circuit on Saturday.

He kept that fourth place for large parts of the race, failing to challenge his team-mate or the two Oracle Red Bull Racing drivers up ahead. A podium looked likely for the Spaniard once his team-mate retired but fellow countryman Fernando Alonso had too much pace for Sainz, passing him with ease in his first race for the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team leaving Sainz to finish in fourth position after defending from Lewis Hamilton.

“It was a challenging Sunday. We knew already from testing that it was going to be tough here in Bahrain and now we need to focus on improving for the upcoming races. Time to put our heads down, work hard and see how we can close the gap to the top. It’s only race one, so we’ll keep pushing no matter what.”

Charles Leclerc – “We had a great start and everything felt good.”

The 2023 season got underway for Charles Leclerc and despite new found hopes for a championship challenge, the Bahrain Grand Prix ended like many races did in 2022, with retirement for the Monegasque driver due to an engine failure.

The FIA Formula 1 World Championship returned for 2023 this weekend for the Bahrain Grand Prix and for Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, it was a perfect return to racing.

Fernando Alonso started his first race for Aston Martin after replacing the retiring Sebastian Vettel and it couldn’t have gone much better for the two time world champion. After showing good pace on Friday, topping free practice two and qualifying well in fifth on Saturday, the Spaniard raced exceptionally well and managed to secure just a second ever podium for Aston Martin.

While Alonso got all the plaudits, Lance Stroll also raced really well, especially considering he was involved in a major cycling accident just over two weeks ago injuring his wrists and breaking his toe. The Canadian driver climbed up to sixth from his starting position of eighth, managing to overtake George Russell and take advantage of the retirement of Charles Leclerc.

Team Principal Mike Krack couldn’t have been happier after the opening day of the season and credited the effort of everyone including Alonso and Stroll on track but ensured that everyone will remain grounded and not get carried away with the result.

“Today’s fantastic result is the culmination of the hard work over many months from the team. To bring home a podium and sixth place in the first race of the season is a wonderful achievement and the team should be extremely proud. Both Fernando and Lance raced well, showing the race pace we knew was possible and making well-judged overtaking moves when it mattered.

The 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season kicked off this weekend with the Bahrain Grand Prix with all ten teams heading into the unknown with newly developed cars and a potential change in the running order.

Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team’s rise in pace has been one of the biggest surprises of the season so far. The team swooped in for the services of veteran and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso to replace Sebastian Vettel after his retirement, and it seems as if Alonso made the right choice joining the Silverstone based team. The Spaniard showed good pace throughout testing and during the weekend, topping free practice two on Friday night, despite all that though, they could only qualify fifth in the all important qualifying session on Saturday at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Alonso had an action packed first race with his new team making a number of overtakes against the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz Jr. Alonso had the pace on track to overtake one Scuderia Ferrari but he didn’t need to overtake the other, with Charles Leclerc suffering another engine problem costing him a podium, Alonso took the opportunity and became Aston Martin’s second podium sitter on their F1 tenure.

“This is an incredible result from the entire team and we must enjoy this moment. I am very proud of the job everybody has done. We did not have the best start, but the race pace was strong. The car has been very predictable from day one [of testing] and I have felt very comfortable throughout the whole weekend. I really enjoyed the race and, even after the chequered flag, I felt like I could have driven for another hour!

“We had some great fights out there today, especially with [Carlos] Sainz and [Lewis] Hamilton. Lewis is a legend of the sport and it was great to have so much respect between us out there. It was also an incredible effort from Lance, who was a hero today for driving so well so soon after his injury to pick up some great points. You can feel the energy in the team: everybody is working flat out at the moment and we are all very motivated.

With Chase Elliott out as he begins his recovery from a broken left tibia, his Hendrick Motorsports team-mates decided to give him a get-well-soon present in the form of a 1–2–3 finish in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. William Byron led Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman in overtime to his fifth career NASCAR Cup Series win.

Byron dominated on Sunday as he led 176 of 271 laps, the most of his career on an intermediate track, and won both stages with either Larson or Bowman in tow. The win nearly slipped away for him in the final stage as pit strategies meant the lead traded hands between multiple drivers before settling on Larson. Things took a turn when Aric Almirola hit the wall with two laps remaining to trigger overtime, from which Martin Truex Jr. elected to gamble by staying out on older tyres.

The move seemed to work at first for Truex before Byron and his team-mates quickly coasted ahead to lead both overtime laps.

“If you can somehow get a good restart, get to the white flag and they crash, then you win the thing,” Truex explained. “It almost happened. We were second at the white, we were second going into turn one on the last lap and just got tight and got in a bad spot coming off of turn two and lost momentum down the back.”

The Hendrick podium sweep marked the team’s strongest outing since all four cars were atop the leaderboard in the 2021 Drydene 400. Elliott’s substitute driver Josh Berry led 1–2–3 finishes for Hendrick affiliate JR Motorsports in his two Xfinity Series wins at Las Vegas in 2021 and 2022. Hendrick also notched a 1–2 with Bowman and Larson in last year’s Pennzoil 400.

Austin Hill could not have asked for a better start to the 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. Two weeks after winning the opener in Daytona, he passed pole sitter Chandler Smith on the penultimate lap to win the Alsco Uniforms 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Smith had dominated the race from the pole, winning the first stage and leading 118 of 200 laps. However, he found understeer start to affect his car in the closing laps which allowed Hill to close in before making his move. Hill scored his fourth career Xfinity win and first in a “non-superspeedway” environment; while his victory at Atlanta in 2022 came on a 1.5-mile course like Las Vegas, it now behaves like a plate track akin to Daytona.

He is also the first driver to win two of the first three races of an Xfinity season since Kyle Busch in 2016, though Busch was a Cup Series regular at the time (and still is). The most recent person to achieve the feat while not being known as a Cup contender was Todd Bodine in 2001, while Chad Little in 1995 was the last instance from a driver who did not race weekly in NASCAR’s highest level.

“When the #16 (Smith) got by me, I got really, really loose off of (turn) three,” said Hill. “Almost wrecked it, saved it. The #16 got really far out. I just knew I had to not abuse the tyres and try to methodically just work my way through traffic. The track was really tough today. Had a really thin line between three and four. If you missed it by, it seemed like a half of an inch, you paid for it through the whole lap.”

Despite “retiring” from the Xfinity Series in 2021 upon crossing 100 victories in the division, Busch finished fourth in his return, ruining his hopes of sweeping the weekend after claiming the Craftsman Truck Series race on Friday. Busch’s entry with Kaulig Racing was his first Xfinity start in a Chevrolet since 2007; he currently races for Hill’s team Richard Childress Racing in the Cup Series.

Since the inaugural season in 2021, Extreme E has employed “Championship Drivers”—one male and female each—who serve as advisors to the series and last-minute reserves in the event of a full-timer being unable to race. For 2023, Tamara Molinaro will return to that post while Andreas Bakkerud joins the series as one.

Molinaro became Extreme E’s Championship Driver in mid-2021 after the original reserve Jutta Kleinschmidt was hired to finish out the year with ABT CUPRA XE. The replacement duties were quickly carried out the following year when she subbed for Klara Andersson, who tested positive for COVID-19, at XITE Energy Racing for the season-opening Desert X Prix. After she and team owner Oliver Bennett nearly reached the Final, Bennett elected to keep her in the seat for the rest of the season while also replacing himself with Timo Scheider, the male Championship Driver; the duo scored a second-place finish in their maiden start together at the first Island X Prix. Scheider returned to his reserve role at the finale in Uruguay, and Molinaro and Ezequiel Pérez Companc closed out 2022 by placing eighth in the championship.

Bakkerud was one of the first drivers picked up by Extreme E shortly after its reveal in 2019, being part of the “Drivers’ Programme” for interested competitors and testing the Spark ODYSSEY 21 a year later. Although Bakkerud was ultimately not signed by any teams, he has long been positive about the series’ blueprint. The 31-year-old Norwegian has competed in a variety of rallycross series including the FIA World Rallycross Championship, in which he finished runner-up in 2019, and Nitro Rallycross where he currently sits second in the Group E standings. He won the FIA European Rallycross Championship in 2021.

Although Bakkerud has noted driving Extreme E cars require a different style than rallycross, there is heavy crossover between the two disciplines. Much of the eighteen drivers currently confirmed for the 2023 season have competed in rallycross including Bakkerud’s World RX rivals Timmy Hansen (for Andretti) and Johan Kristoffersson (2021 XE champion with Rosberg). Molinaro also has rallycross experience, though spent much of her career in rallying.

As part of their responsibilities, Bakkerud and Molinaro are also assisting in developing the course for this weekend’s Desert X Prix opener in Saudi Arabia.

As Andretti’s Extreme E programme begins a new era as Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E, the team’s Spark ODYSSEY 21 will sport a different look to reflect their new identity. The 2023 car, which will be piloted by Timmy Hansen and Catie Munnings, was revealed on Monday.

Under their previous name of Andretti United XE, the team’s #23 car was primarily orange and black as Genesys served as title sponsor. Prior to Genesys’ arrival, however, the team had planned to sport a navy blue, white, and red palette as the colours used by Andretti Autosport and United Autosports, who co-own the outfit.

“Great to see the inclusion of the Andretti blue that is tied so famously to the Andretti legacy, while also keeping the topographical theme that we have had since Season 1 in our Extreme E journey,” Munnings commented. “The livery design really speaks to the terrains and environments we race in as part of this off-road championship.”

While ALTAWKILAT does not use a certain colour in its branding, the new partnership allowed Andretti and United to restore the original trio. The car features a blue base that runs from the hood to the back, while the sides and roof are white. The new team logo is adorned on the doors and below the front windscreen.

“The new livery looks great with the blue and white,” said Hansen. “We are really excited to go into Season 3 with a new look but the same great team underneath us. The calendar looks great for this season, and I’m excited to get to the first race and get out on track with ALTAWKILAT Andretti XE.”

Abdulaziz Ahli continued to solidify himself as the best FIM rider on four wheels at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge when he dominated the 2023 edition to win for an unprecedented third year in a row.

Ahli entered as the obvious favourite with his 2021 and 2022 ADDC victories—the only Quad rider with consecutive wins—and being the twice reigning Dubai Endurocross champion. He would score the most stage wins across all classes by taking five of the six legs including the Prologue.

The lone leg he failed to win was Stage #2 when Laisvydas Kancius beat him by just 1:55. However, Kancius and the other four riders in the class had already fallen behind after Ahli beat runner-up Rodolfo Guillioli by 24:24 after the first stage and they were unable to recover as Ahli rode off to more stage victories. Kancius had lost momentum in Stage #1 after receiving a penalty and running out of fuel.

Nevertheless, Kancius left Abu Dhabi as the World Rally-Raid Championship Quad points leader. Ahli, who did not run the season-opening Dakar Rally like Kancius, sits fourth.

“In general, I would evaluate the competition positively: I won one speed section, there was a fairly close fight on the track with Abdulaziz Ahli, who won the overall, when there were no disturbances, the pace was good, the four-wheeler was patient and reliable,” wrote Kancius on social media.

In 1995, Heinz Kinigadner won the inaugural Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge Bike overall. Twenty-eight years later, his nephew Tobias Ebster can call himself an ADDC champion too.

Despite not racing for the World Rally-Raid Championship and being rather new to the sport of rally raid, Ebster is already a winner after beating back W2RC contenders Jean-Loup Lepan and Paolo Lucci for the ADDC’s Rally2 overall. Ebster, a motocross and enduro rider whose most recent cross-country foray was the 2022 FIM Bajas World Cup finale in Dubai, is now eligible for the 2024 Dakar Rally as the best finisher of nine riders in the Road to Dakar programme intended for amateur hoping to run the legendary event for the first time.

The Austrian set the tone from the get-go by winning his class in the Prologue, and continued his momentum through the five stages as he was never outside the podium; even a crash and clutch failure in Stage #1 still ended with a third-place finish. Although Lucci quickly took the overall lead by winning three legs in a row, a dislocated wrist and wiring problem in Stage #4 virtually doomed his prospects. Lepan won that stage to become the new leader entering the final day with Ebster breathing down his neck as the two were separated by just forty-three seconds.

Ebster delivered the finishing blow when he won the last stage by 3:20 on Lepan. While short of the overall, Lepan was top performer among W2RC competitors and also claimed the Junior Trophy for riders under twenty-five years of age for the second straight round. Alex McInnes and Justin Gerlach, the latter a newcomer to the W2RC, also completed the race in the Junior Trophy.

“To stand on the top step of the podium today is simply incredible when you consider that this is my first world championship, first official desert rally, and I have been on a rally bike exactly five times before I started this race,” said Ebster.

Max Verstappen has taken a dominant victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix, ahead of team-mate, Sergio Pérez, in the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season opener. The Dutchman took pole position on Saturday evening in the desert, and was left relatively interrupted throughout the entire race. Fernando Alonso would also finish on the podium in what is a fantastic start to the season for Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team, while team-mate Lance Stroll would also put in a great effort to finish sixth.

Disaster for the Scuderia

Scuderia Ferrari looked set to score at least one podium place following a successful three-four qualifying position on Saturday night, with Charles Leclerc even passing Pérez on the run down to Turn 1 on the opening lap. Pérez would eventually return to second place after opting to switch to the Soft tyre in the second stint (locking him into a two-stop strategy) in an attempt to reclaim the position. Leclerc would then retire from the third in the race on lap forty-one as a result of the engine completely cutting out in the third sector.

Carlos Sainz would inherit the third place, but soon started to struggle with aging tyres while Lewis Hamilton battled Alonso behind. After clearing Hamilton, Alonso would soon catch up to his fellow Spaniard and overtake him in a fantastic fashion, taking advantage of his extra grip in the Turn 9 and Turn 10 complex. Alonso would soon pull away, as Hamilton started to apply pressure to the remaining Ferrari, but the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team driver would fail to make it past before his tyres started to wear.

Sainz would cross the line in fourth, while Leclerc failed to finish, in what was a disastrous opening event for Ferrari.

Mercedes will be smiling (slightly)

After being sandwiched between the two Aston Martin cars in qualifying, the team at Mercedes can leave Bahrain with something to be happy about, having out-scored the Ferrari team. However, this will only be a slight smile, as the performance gap between the top teams is still a large one to close.

A shake-up in the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s RallyGP standings was inevitable when leader Kevin Benavides broke his femur days before the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, and Toby Price and Adrien Van Beveren were more than ready to take advantage. While Van Beveren rode off to win the ADDC for the first time, Price edged out José Ignacio Cornejo by just two seconds to take third and the top spot in the standings.

In a quirk that also affected the FIA’s top-level T1 category, the overall winner did not score a single stage win; for RallyGP, where the finishers were ultimately separated by just over ten minutes, this meant consistency and not making mistakes were of utmost importance. For example, Van Beveren’s Monster Energy Honda team-mate Pablo Quintanilla won the Prologue and Stage #1 but lost the overall lead to Van Beveren after struggling as the Stage #2 opener and finishing ninth. Quintanilla was later knocked out of the rally when his bike broke down in the penultimate leg.

Van Beveren never lost the lead after taking it from Quintanilla but faced direct resistance from Luciano Benavides, who won two stages including the fourth to close the gap to the leader by just 2:58 entering the final day with Van Beveren’s other Honda colleague Cornejo in closing distance of six minutes. Unfortunately for Benavides, the natural disadvantages of being the first bike to start the stage bit him as well and he finished seventh. Van Beveren was fifth to seal his second victory as a Honda rider after winning the Andalucía Rally to end the 2022 season.

The Frenchman is the second Honda to win the ADDC Bikes overall after the late Paulo Gonçalves in 2014. The Japanese manufacturer also has four victories in the Quads with Atif Al Zarouni (2006), Obaid Al Kitbe (2010 and 2012), and Rafal Sonik (2016).

“It was a bit frustrating not to be in the podium in the last Dakar being so close,” said Van Beveren. “Coming here and winning the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge just some weeks after the Dakar is a great feeling. This is very important for me and for the team to keep the motivation. For sure I will keep on working to get more victories but now is time to taste and enjoy the moment. Really happy with the atmosphere and spirit in the team, it is fantastic when you can win and have fun at the same time.”