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The NEOM McLaren Formula E Team produced a solid debut at the Mexico City E-Prix last weekend, to kickstart Gen3 and the 2022/23 season of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Formula E’s newest team were already tipped as an outfit to watch ahead of the weekend at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, after performing strongly at the official pre-season test. Jake Hughes was one of the fastest drivers during pre-season testing and started the season in fine fashion, after making it to the Semi-Final duels in qualifying. The rookie driver was sadly knocked out by eventual race winner Jake Dennis; however, his lap-time against his fellow ‘Jake’ was the second fastest in qualifying.

Hughes started the first race of the year from third and maintained the position for the majority of the race, before being overtaken by Pascal Wehrlein whilst trying to activate his second Attack Mode. The rookie driver was then caught napping by André Lotterer on the last-lap, who snatched fourth from the Brit. Hughes’ unawareness resulted in him finishing fifth rather than fourth; however, it was still an impressive result given that it was his debut.

For the returning René Rast it was a disappointing weekend, after qualifying in fifteenth. The German’s race wasn’t much better despite having made up some places, after retiring in the closing laps of the race following a collision with Oliver Rowland, breaking his suspension.

Whilst Rast’s result wasn’t what was hoped for, McLaren certainly have a car that can challenge for the points, as proven by Hughes. With that in mind, Team Principal Ian James has labelled the team’s first weekend in the sport as “solid”, with the McLaren boss being “massively proud” of what the team have achieved so quickly.

Jake Hughes delivered a strong performance on his debut weekend in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, after having been towards the top in virtually every session at the Mexico City E-Prix.

Whilst the NEOM McLaren Formula E Team driver had to settle for fifth at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, he cemented his place as a driver to watch this season, despite his rookie title. The British driver was one of the only drivers to be consistently quick all weekend in Mexico City and even made it to the Semi-Finals of the duels, where he was knocked out by eventual race winner Jake Dennis. Despite having been knocked out prior to the final, Hughes actually set the second-fastest time during qualifying, further highlighting his potential.

Hughes performed strongly in the race after starting third, and remained there for the bulk of the race after failing to find a way past Lucas di Grassi. He did get overtaken by Pascal Wehrlein, though, in the latter stages of the race whilst activating his second Attack Mode. Hughes failed to reclaim third from Wehrlein and was then overtake by André Lotterer on the last-lap, after the McLaren driver was caught completely unaware at the Turn Nine/Ten chicane.

Nevertheless, claiming fifth on his debut was an impressive result, with the British driver having admitted that he was “happy with my performance” but that there are certainly “things we can improve on”.

“It’s been a good weekend! I finished with a really good result and I’m really impressed with the team and how well we’re working together. It’s been such a short turnaround for us, we haven’t had much time with the car, so to deliver what we have is very impressive. We have things we can improve on, but I’m happy with my performance this weekend and we’ve learned some lessons to take away.” 

Avalanche Andretti Formula E Team Principal Roger Griffiths has “every confidence” that his team can perform at the highest-level consistently this season, after Jake Dennis dominated the season-opening race of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Dennis stormed to victory at the Mexico City E-Prix by almost eight seconds, after being unbeatable at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. After disappointingly losing the duels Final to Lucas di Grassi, the British driver was well and truly fired-up for the race, and he certainly didn’t disappoint. He pounced on a mistake by di Grassi in the opening phase of the race and never looked back, with the Andretti driver having built a sizeable lead almost instantly.

Whilst he did have to deal with a Safety Car restart, Dennis never looked troubled, as he started the new season and Gen3 in perfect fashion. On the other side of the Andretti garage, the newly-signed André Lotterer managed to claim fourth on the final lap, after completing a great move on an unaware Jake Hughes. Lotterer arguably had the pace for the podium, but couldn’t find a way past di Grassi, who defended superbly.

The team have certainly gotten themselves an excellent package for Gen3, with their Porsche powertrain having performed wonders despite having struggled during pre-season. Griffiths hailed the work done by the team to make the car “super competitive” as “impressive”, with the result being a “massive” achievement for the team in their first race as a Porsche customer team.

“What an amazing first race of Season 9 and the start of the GEN3 era. After a little bit of disappointment coming out of Valencia in terms of our pace, the efforts from the team over the Christmas break to turn it around and put a super competitive car on the racetrack has been impressive. It’s massive for Avalanche Andretti. It’s massive for our first competitive race with Porsche Motorsport.”

André Lotterer enjoyed a solid start to life at the Avalanche Andretti Formula E outfit, after leaving the Mexico City E-Prix with fourth place to his name following an impressive last-lap move on rookie Jake Hughes.

The former TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team driver has seemingly fitted into Andretti beautifully, with the German having shown good pace all weekend at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. His pace was so good in fact, that he managed to get all the way to the Semi-Finals of the duels, where he was comfortably beaten by polesitter Lucas di Grassi. A mistake by Lotterer at the hairpin allowed di Grassi to make it to the Final with ease, whilst the German driver had to settle for fourth on the grid.

Lotterer had a very good race on the whole, but did slip to fifth behind Pascal Wehrlein, who was faster than the bulk of the top five. He had been in podium contention for the entire race, with di Grassi having held up a gaggle of cars for the majority of the race; however, there was nothing Lotterer could do about the former Champion. Ultimately, a last-lap lunge on Hughes promoted the new Andretti driver to fourth, where he went on to finish the season-opening round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

His result secured a tremendous one-four for Andretti, with Jake Dennis having claimed the first victory of the Gen3 era. Reflecting on the race, Lotterer admits that being on the podium with Dennis “would have been nice”, but that he simply got a “bit stuck” behind di Grassi and Hughes.

“Great result for the team and congratulations to Jake. It’s amazing for the Avalanche Andretti team to start the season with a win and a P4 for me. I’m happy for the points, but it would have been nice to be on the podium together. I was trying hard, but I couldn’t get past. The way the race was I was just a bit stuck behind the two cars with di Grassi backing up.

The T2 category of the Dakar Rally is for production vehicles with certain modifications to make them suitable for racing. Since 2014, the class has been a playground for the Toyota Land Cruisers of Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body, and Ronald Basso and twice-defending champion Akira Miura were eager to be the one to get them to ten straight wins.

After fourteen gruelling stages, Basso got the honour as he and co-driver Jean-Michel Polato set a total time of 107:39;42, over seven hours better than Miura and Laurent Lichleuchter‘s 114:49:08. It is Basso’s first Dakar win after finishing second to Miura in 2022.

“Fifteen days were not easy at all with a few scares,” wrote Basso. “Thank you to everyone following me on this journey! A very nice gift for my tenth Dakar! See you very soon!”

The Land Cruiser is known for its reliability and durability, so much so that militant groups frequently convert the vehicle into “technicals” for use in warfare; this usage also looms over the Toyota Hilux, the rally raid model of which won the T1 category with Nasser Al-Attiyah. The aforementioned strengths were tested by Toyota Auto Body’s two Land Cruisers—a new 300 GR Sport model—in the rigors of the Saudi desert almost immediately from the start when Miura rolled in the opening stage and could not be righted despite Basso’s help.

Upon getting back on his wheels, Miura rejoined the race for the second stage after repairs but steering issues nailed Basso, prompting team director Yuji Kadoya to comment the Rally had already “taken a toll on our team’s stamina.” The crews got a brief reprieve as problems were mostly limited to punctures over until Stage #5, when Miura’s three-stage win streak ended on a drivetrain failure 135 kilometres in. The issue effectively knocked him out of overall contention due to a penalty for leaving the Special Stage mid-race.

Perhaps foreshadowing a frustrating World Rally-Raid Championship campaign, Kevin Benavides‘ Dakar Rally Bikes defence in 2022 did not go as hoped as he suffered multiple mechanical failures. Fortunately for him, 2023 was far kinder, a rather ironic twist considering it presented the most difficult route since the Rally’s arrival in Saudi Arabia.

While the likes of Skyler Howes, Toby Price, and even younger brother Luciano Benavides usually headlined the RallyGP stage results, Benavides lurked in podium range. As the Rally entered its closing days, he tailed Howes and Price with 2:40 separating him and the leader Price after the Empty Quarter Marathon. Benavides slipped into second after a dramatic Stage #13 in which he waited to assist his injured Red Bull KTM team-mate Matthias Walkner before rallying to win the leg, following Price by just twelve seconds. He then held off Price in the fourteenth and final stage to win by fifty-five seconds, giving him a forty-three-second edge in the overall.

Benavides joins a small group of riders who won multiple Dakar Rally Bike overalls with different manufacturers, having won in 2021 with Honda before moving to KTM. Cyril Neveu (Yamaha in 1979 and 1980, Honda in 1983, 1986, 1987) and Edi Orioli (Honda in 1988, Cagiva in 1990 and 1994, Yamaha in 1996) are the only others to achieve the feat.

“This was my challenge when I agreed to come to KTM, today I managed to fulfill it. Endless thanks to all the people who support me,” posted Benavides on social media. “I haven’t fallen from the sky yet. […] A kiss to heaven for my friend Paulo (Gonçalves) forever, who I know will always follow me.”

Despite failing to win a stage for the first time in his Dakar career, Price now has six podiums in nine total tries including wins in 2016 and 2019.

After fifteen days and over 5,000 kilometres, the 2023 Dakar Rally wrapped up Sunday in Dammam on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia. The longest Rally since its move to the Middle East in 2020, it presented a challenging route that knocked multiple frontrunners out of the overall.

Yet the more things change, the more they also stay the same. While Guerlain Chicherit scored his second stage win, the results of Stage #14 did little to affect the T1 overall as Nasser Al-Attiyah won his fifth Dakar Rally by 1:20:49 over Chicherit’s fellow Prodrive Hunter Sébastien Loeb. Hunters won nine of the fourteen legs including seven by Loeb, but technical problems during the first half doomed them from vying for the overall.

Chicherit’s win moved him into tenth overall and third in T1 of the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship behind Al-Attiyah and Loeb.

“Congratulations to Nasser and Mathieu (Baumel) for their victory and to Sébastien and Fabian (Lurquin) for their fantastic remontada. Alex (Winocq) and I are finishing with the satisfaction of being able to remobilise after a frustrating second leg by the end of which we’d already lost any chance of winning the Rally,” said Chicherit. “The car suffered, and so did I. Cars have become so efficient that they take us to the limits of our bodies. This even went as far as a brief loss of consciousness on landing a jump. Despite the pain, we managed to score several top five finishes in the second half of the Rally, allowing us to made a solid start in the context of the championship. We know what we still have to do to improve the Prodrive Hunter and we’ve gathered a lot of precious data to develop our e-Blast H2.”

The final stage was also the last chance for winless drivers to try for the stage victory: indeed, three FIA classes had new victors. Cristina Gutiérrez won in T3 to become the lone female stage victor of 2023; she also won the Prologue but it did not count towards the final classification. Privateer Carlos Vento Sanchez claimed T4 ahead of Cristiano Batista and Michal Goczał. In T5, Vaidotas Paškevičius was the lone driver not of Czech or Dutch nationality to win a stage as the Lithuanian defeated Mitchel van den Brink, who recently turned 21, by just seven seconds.

It was a dream start to life at Mahindra Racing for Lucas Di Grassi and newly-appointed CEO Frederic Bertrand, with the Brazilian having put in a stellar performance at the season-opening round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

The former Mexico City E-Prix winner was seemingly a man on a mission at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, with Di Grassi having claimed the first pole position of the Gen3 era of the all-electric series. To say his pole position was a shock would be an understatement, with no one having predicted that a Mahindra-powered car would make it into the duels, let alone all the way to the Final. This was due to Mahindra’s four M9Electro’s having shown poor pace during the bulk of pre-season testing and during Free Practice in Mexico City.

Di Grassi found some performance at the right time, though, and went on to claim a well-deserved third-place finish in the race, after defending magnificently for two-thirds of the E-Prix. The former Champion used his wealth of experience to keep the likes of rookie Jake Hughes and André Lotterer behind; however, he had no answer to race winner Jake Dennis and Pascal Wehrlein.

Whilst the year started strongly for Di Grassi, the same couldn’t be said for Oliver Rowland or Mahindra’s customer team the ABT CUPRA Formula E Team. Rowland qualified last on the grid whilst the two ABT Cupra drivers qualified eighteenth and nineteenth, meaning three of the last five cars on the grid were powered by the Indian manufacturer. The race wasn’t much better for Rowland, who finished the race outside the points and collided with René Rast, whilst ABT Cupra driver Robin Frijns was sent to hospital for surgery after fracturing his wrist and hand in an opening lap crash.

With all of that in mind, it was certainly a mixed weekend for the powertrain supplier; however, Di Grassi’s surprise performance left Bertrand to hail the season opener as a “dream weekend”.

Robin Frijns endured a season opener to forget at the Mexico City E-Prix, with the Dutchman having ended the weekend in hospital, following a nasty crash on the opening lap of the race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

The ABT CUPRA Formula E Team driver struggled all weekend in Mexico City, with the former Envision Racing driver having languished towards the back throughout Free Practice and Qualifying. Frijns attempted to make up some places on the opening lap of the race; however, his M9Electro weirdly went straight into the back of Norman Nato at the Turn Nine/Ten chicane, resulting in Frijns’ steering snapping on him incredibly harshly.

Frijns’ left hand remained on the steering wheel as it began to snap on him, as his car uncontrollably slammed straight into the barrier on the outside of Turn Ten. It was shortly announced during the race that’d he been sent to hospital after fracturing his hand and would require surgery. Frijns has since revealed himself that the five-hour operation has been successfully completed, after sharing an update of his condition via his Instagram account.

“Hello everyone!” Frijns wrote.

“Little update: Unfortunately I suffered a fractured hand and fractured wrist. Had a five hour operation as my hand was fractured in several places. Will travel home soon and will start my recovery. Early days to say when I am back but I will be back soon. Wanted to thank medical team of @fiaformulae for their great work. And my team @abtmotorsport for their support.

After his wreck on the ninth leg of the Dakar Rally, Carlos Sainz revealed Monday that he had fractured his T5 and T6 vertebrae in the impact. He did not give a specific timetable for his recovery.

“On my return to Madrid from the Dakar Rally, the back pain I suffered after the incident of this year’s event persisted longer than usual,” said Sainz. “Following medical advice, I underwent further checks to assess in detail the extent of the injury. Unfortunately, the results haven’t brought good news because I fractured the T5 and T6 vertebrae. The good thing is that both vertebrae are stable and from this day on my priority will be to recover as soon as possible. Thank you all for the love and support I have received over the last days. I will keep you updated.”

The accident occurred after Sainz overshot a dune just five kilometres into Stage #9, causing him to roll his Audi RS Q e-tron E2. While his co-driver Lucas Cruz got out unharmed, Sainz reported pain in his torso that prompted an airlift to hospital. Sainz requested and was granted to be flown back to continue racing, which was granted as FIA Gold and Platinum drivers receive two chances to rejoin the Rally without impacting their overall standing, but the car was too damaged to continue.

He used his first re-entry after a disastrous Stage #6 for Team Audi Sport when he and team-mate Stéphane Peterhansel crashed in the same area on KM 261. Peterhansel was briefly knocked out in the wreck but ultimately not injured, though navigator Édouard Boulanger was airlifted out for what also turned out to be a broken vertebrae.

Sainz had started the 2023 Rally on a positive note by winning Stage #1, but mechanical issues two days later caused him to sink in the order. Although he managed to climb back onto the podium in Stages #4 and #5, the crash the next day ended any hope of him winning a fourth Dakar. Sainz and Peterhansel’s exits were the main stories in a frustrating Rally for Audi. Despite fanfare about their new RS Q e-tron E2 and being eligible for the World Rally-Raid Championship, they were overshadowed by controversy surrounding their Equivalence of Technology power boost after the fifth stage. Sainz was also subject to FIA investigation when his son Carlos Sainz Jr. helped close his door following a brake repair in Stage #3, though neither Sainz was disciplined beyond a warning. Mattias Ekström was the lone Audi driver to see the finish in fourteenth overall.

As the defending Dakar Rally winner, Nasser Al-Attiyah was the man to beat on four wheels entering the 2023 edition. Unfortunately for the field, nobody could beat the man.

Al-Attiyah won his fifth Dakar Rally in dominating fashion with over an hour and twenty minutes on the field, scoring a trio of stage wins in the second, fifth, and sixth. Despite finishing outside the top ten in the rain-shortened Stage #3, he assumed the overall lead after Carlos Sainz was struck by a mechanical issue, and never relinquished it from there. The margin was so side, maxing out at 1:27:10 after Stage #12, that Al-Attiyah could afford to lay off the throttle as he did in Stage #7 where he was fourteenth.

Previous victories came in 2011, 2015, and 2019 followed by his back-to-back wins. He first won with Toyota Gazoo Racing in 2019.

“This is an amazing feeling,” said Al-Attiyah. “I have to thank so many people, starting with every member of our team. It was a tough two weeks, but to be able to come back and defend our title is fantastic. I’m really proud of our GR DKR Hilux T1+, and to win the race three times with Toyota Gazoo Racing is truly something special.”

Sébastien Loeb finished runner-up for the second straight year, marking the first time that back-to-back Dakar Rallies had the same finishers in the top two. Although Loeb officially placed 1:20:49 behind Al-Attiyah in the overall, he was the star of the Rally’s second half as he won a record six consecutive stages from #8 through #13. Loeb ended the race with seven total wins, the most since Sainz in 2011.

With just three days left until the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship season opener will be held in Rallye Monte-Carlo, the organizers of the following round in Rally Sweden 9-12 February have now published the entry list that sees a total of 52 cars taking on the snowy roads of the Umeå region in northeastern Sweden.

Out of the 52 cars entered, there will only be nine Rally1 cars on the start line, eight of them going under factory efforts while one is private. Topping the list is last year´s Rally Sweden winner and 2022 WRC champion Kalle Rovanperä, he will be joined by his Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT teammates Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta, who is taking a step up in the factory team for the first time in his career at this round as Sébastien Ogier will be sitting out in Sweden.

Over at Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT, Craig Breen is returning to the team after one year absent as he takes the seat in the third Hyundai i20 N Rally1 and joins Thierry Neuville and Esapekka Lappi. M-Sport Ford WRT who normally brings the most cars to a rally will only field two Ford Puma Rally1 in Sweden for Ott Tänak and Pierre-Louis Loubet.

Lorenzo Bertelli from Italy will be switching over from M-Sport to Toyota for this season, he will be renting a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 as he becomes the first privateer to drive a Toyota.

Over at the WRC2 support category, the defending champion Emil Lindholm is joining back for Toksport WRT in a brand-new Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 and he will have fellow Finn Sami Pajari alongside him in the team. Also joining the Toksport WRT outfit for the rally will be the home hero Oliver Solberg, Marco Bulacia and Nikolay Gryazin.

Teemu Suninen from Finland and Fabrizio Zaldivar from Paraguay will continue to drive in the 2023 WRC2 season for Hyundai Motorsport N, the team presented their venture on Monday, and after finishing second in the team´s championship, they will be building on that for the season start that will take place in Rally Sweden next month with the full entry list to be published later on Monday afternoon.

Suninen demonstrated the capabilities of the Hyundai i20 N Rally2 by winning the final round of the season he participated in at RallyRACC Catalunya – Costa Daurada 2022 and also finished on the podium on two occasions in Estonia and Japan.

“I’m thrilled to be returning to Hyundai Motorsport for another season in WRC2. 2023 will be challenging, but we definitely have a lot of potential in the Hyundai i20 N Rally2. I’m confident we can win more rallies and be a serious contender for the title this year. We need to push ourselves and the car in order to be competing at the front in every event, but I can see everyone in the team is willing to do that to achieve the results we deserve. We know the car much better this year than last, so it’s exciting to think where we can take it.” Suninen said.

Zaldivar´s did his first season in the WRC2 last year and it was used as a learning season to gain some experience. The Paraguayan native managed to take two stage wins and finished four rallies within the top ten.

“This season I hope to improve my results as well as continue the good practices we built as a team last year. I know the Hyundai i20 Rally2 very well now, which will help put us on the front foot as we start a new season. The gravel events are the ones that come more naturally to me, however I made some good progress on tarmac last year too. It will be interesting to start on snow this season, but it is a challenge I am looking forward to. I believe this season will be my best to date, and I’m really hoping for some standout results to help the team win the title.” Zaldivar said.

M-Sport Ford WRT was expected to bring a significantly redesigned livery to the team’s Ford Puma Rally1, when the team announced it on Monday morning it showed the cars have no major differences compared to last season. There were small changes in which the lightning strikes were removed and more navy blue added, albeit bigger than those seen at Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT and Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT.

The 2019 champion Ott Tänak returns to the British outfit for the first time since 2017 where he started his WRC career back in 2012, he drove two seasons for Toyota and after winning the crown he went to Hyundai for three seasons in 2020.

Pierre-Louis Loubet will pilot the second car, the young Frenchman did seven rounds for the team last season after he switched from the Hyundai Motorsport backed 2C Competition at the end of 2021. This season he will be going for his first full-time season at the top level and he has teamed up with Nicholas Gilsoul as the new co-driver after Vincent Landais went to partner up with the eight-time champion Sébastien Ogier over at Toyota.

The energy drink giant Red Bull enters as a major partner, cars that are in factory colors will be driven by Tänak and Loubet in Rallye Monte-Carlo this weekend and the rest of the season. At the same time, a third driver may appear, and negotiations with Sébastien Loeb about a few starts also in 2023 are ongoing. In the season-opener Jourdan Serderidis will also drive with the same design on his car but without the Red Bull logos on the side.

As the Stadium Super Trucks sit dormant in the winter offseason, Zoey Edenholm got to try her hand at another racing series known for durable vehicles but otherwise stays glued to the surface (usually). On Saturday, she participated in the ARCA Menards Series‘ preseason testing at Daytona International Speedway, driving the #42 for Fast Track Enterprises with support from Cook Racing Technologies.

Of the forty drivers who practiced on the second day of testing on Saturday, Edenholm clocked the thirty-fifth best time of 51.720 seconds at 174.014 mph. The performance ranked fifty-fourth among the sixty-one total runs—including some drivers who tested both days—across the two-day session.

“Incredibly grateful to have been able to attend the [ARCA] Pre Race Practice in Daytona,” posted Edenholm on social media. “First time on an oval track! Wasn’t out long but still managed to clock in 174.014 mph. Very proud of myself and itching to get back out! Special thank you to my team and the Fast Track Racing and Cook Racing teams for making sure the entire 5’1″ of me gets into a fitted car quickly!”

Edenholm was one of seven female drivers to test. Toni Breidinger and Amber Balcaen, racing for top-flight Venturini Motorsports, respectively held the two best times of 49.119 (183.228 mph) and 49.123 (183.214 mph). Logan Misuraca was twenty-fourth overall at 50.112 and 179.598 mph ahead of Kayla Surles (50.307, 178.902 mph), Amber Slagle (50.858, 176.963 mph), and Mandy Chick (50.904, 176.803 mph). Surles was thirty-third while Slagle and Chick placed next to each other in fortieth and forty-first.

Fast Track Enterprises, owned by Andy Hillenberg, fielded multiple cars in the test with Christopher Tate posting the best time in twelfth. Cook Racing Technologies led by Bruce Cook also has a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series programme to complement their ARCA operations.