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Upon completing Stage #8 of the 2023 Dakar Rally, competitors were granted a day of R&R before preparing for the second half. On the other hand, FIA stewards were busy handing out penalties for infractions found during neutralisation and post-stage checks.

Neutralisation takes place in a certain area of a Special Stage where cars undergo routine inspections and drivers can make minor repairs or take a break before resuming the race. Introduced in 2022, neutralisation was tweaked for 2023 to require the inspection process to discourage racers from exploiting the break.

As most penalties for car-related violations were accounted for during and immediately after the stages, most of those handed out during the rest day were for driver-specific conduct. Of those released as of this article’s publishing, many were dinged for their navigators simply wearing wristwatches that were not the approved Rebellion Edition Dakar model.

The Rebellion Edition Dakar is produced by Swiss watchmaker Rebellion Timepieces and given to all Rally participants for timekeeping purposes. Under Article 9.6.1 of the FIA Cross Country Rally Sporting Regulations, this is the only model that racers can use while inside the cockpit as “[w]atches of any kind are not permitted in the competition vehicle, with the exception of the model provided by the Promoter.” Besides plugging the Rally’s partnership with Rebellion, the rule extends to most electronics for safety and competition reasons like to forbid external GPS tracking. Those who are caught receive a thirty-minute time penalty for the stage that it occurred as well as a suspended disqualification from the Rally entirely provided there is “no further breach of similar nature committed by the competitor during this period.”

Yasir Seaidan, who finished runner-up in T4 in Stage #8, received the penalty shortly after the fourth leg when co-driver Alexey Kuzmich was busted. Multiple of their peers suffered the same fate during the rest day for doing the same in Stage #5. Fellow T4 driver Juan Miguel Fidel Medero of the #423 was penalised for co-driver Javier Ventaja‘s oversight, as were class colleagues Sebastian Guayasamin and Ricardo Torlaschi (#430), Xavier de Soultrait and Matin Bonnet (#415), Cristiano Batista and Fausto Mota (#427), Oscar Ral Verdu and Carlos Jimenez Vals, and Toomas Triisa and Mart Meeru (#443). From the T1 category, the #241 of Andrea Lafarja and Ashley García Chávez, #251 of Alexandre Pesci and Stephan Kuhni, #253 of Jean-Pierre Strugo and Christophe Crespom, and #267 of Roger Audas and Patrick Prot were slapped with the watch penalty. The T3 and T5 classes had one violation apiece in the #319 of Helder Rodrigues and Gonçalo Reis (#319) and the #503 of Martin Šoltys, Roman Krejčí, and David Hoffman, respectively.

The 25-year-old Irishman William Crieghton has reveals he has plans to continue in the FIA Junior World Rally Championship this season which will also mark the third year in a row he is doing so.

Creighton revealed a couple of weeks ago that he will attend the season-opener at Rallye Monte-Carlo in the WRC2 class, however, that appearance will be only a one-off for this time as he will swap the Motorsport Ireland Rally Acedemy backed Hyundai i20 N Rally2 car for a M-Sport Poland built Ford Fiesta Rally3 in Rally Sweden next month.

Last year Creighton claimed two podium finishes in Sweden and in Greece which made him to end up fifth overall in the standings come the end of the season.

“I didn’t finish last year thinking, right, I need to work to get towards Monte. It wasn’t really on my radar. It’s a bucket-list event and something I’m really looking forward to, as you can imagine.” Creighton said.

“Never did I think I’d be going into my third year in the Junior WRC, or starting off in Monte-Carlo with a Rally2 car. It’s crazy where things take you and I owe a huge thanks to all the people who’ve supported me – especially the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy but Sweden is, let’s say, a lot more simple,” he explained, referencing his previous experience on the snowy speed tests around Umeå.”

The entry list for the season-opener of the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship season is now officially published, featuring 75 cars that will be taking on the icy and tricky twisted roads in the mountains nearby Monte-Carlo.

The event organizer Automobile Club de Monaco released the entry list today (Monday) and for the headlining Rally1 hybrid class there will only be 10 cars but the premier support category WRC2 has got a strong field for the 91st running of the world-famous Rallye Monte-Carlo.

The defending champions Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT will be fielding four Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 for the opener where the 2022 champion Kalle Rovanperä headlining the team. Joining beside him will be the Monte-Carlo specialist and eight-time champion Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans. Takamoto Katsuta will be driving the fourth car but for this year he is entered under the main factory team but running outside of the points scoring.

Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT sees two familiar faces in the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 for Monte-Carlo with Thierry Neuville who is a long-term driver for the team, joining beside him will be Dani Sordo who is going for another year in the shared third car, and newcomer Esapekka Lappi, who switched from Toyota to Hyundai at the end of last season.

At M-Sport Ford WRT there will be a completely new line-up for 2023 as the 2019 champion Ott Tänak is returning for the team and he will be joined by Pierre-Louis Loubet, who has signed a full-time contract with the British outfit while the Greek privateer Jourdan Serderidis is going with a privateer Ford Puma Rally1.

The two M-Sport Ford WRT drivers Ott Tänak and Pierre-Louis Loubet have now begun their first pre-event testing ahead of the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship season-opener in Rallye Monte-Carlo and over this weekend the duo has been spotted testing the Ford Puma Rally1 around the mountains west of the town of Gap in Monaco.

On Saturday, M-Sport become the first manufacturer out of the three to carry out tests ahead of the first round of the season and there are only 10 days left until the cars are on the start line ready to launch away on the annual first stage at La Bollène-Vésubie / Col de Turini 1 starting on Thursday evening.

Tänak, who left Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT at the end of last year, shared the seat with Loubet on the first testing day and it was also the first time Tänak was seen driving the Puma Rally1 in the public outside of M-Sport´s testing area in Cumbria, United Kingdom.

According to some reports coming from fans watching, the testing went smoothly and without problems. Loubet was the first to have a go and later Tänak took over until the evening. Yesterday (Sunday) it was Loubet´s turn to do a full day of testing before Tänak continues with it today (Monday).

Garrett Smithley will add 21 to his original number for the 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. After initially planning to race the #78 for B.J. McLeod Motorsports, he announced Saturday that he will instead drive their #99.

“Number swap for 2023! 99 has been a cool number for me, so I’m definitely excited to bring it back full time in @XfinityRacing,” tweeted Smithley.

Smithley joined BJMM in early November, marking his first full Xfinity season since 2019, his fourth such campaign for JD Motorsports en route to a nineteenth-place points finish. He recorded four top tens and a best standing of eighteenth during his stint with JDM.

After focusing on the Cup Series from 2020 onwards, he joined BJMM for the Kansas race in September as a replacement for Matt Mills in the #5. He ran two more races in the #78 at Texas and Las Vegas.

The #99 has been used by BJMM since 2016. It was a full-time car from 2019 through 2021, finishing twenty-ninth in the 2019 owner points. Stefan Parsons was to run the full 2022 season in the car but downsized and departed after ten races. Nick Sanchez and Mills made an entry each in it at Charlotte and Nashville, respectively. Smithley will be the #99’s first permanent driver, marking the first time the number was used by a single driver for much of the Xfinity calendar since James Buescher finished fourteenth in points in 2014 with RAB Racing.

The Italian Lorenzo Bertelli has confirmed that he will be joining the second round of the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship in Rally Sweden in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, the rich Italian and part of the famous Prada family become the first pure privateer driver in a Toyota together with co-driver Simone Scattolin.

In the past, Marcus Grönholm and Jari-Matti Latvala have driven cars privately from the team, but they had a strong relationship with the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT and the Italian will now be the first to actually buy a drive since Toyota returned to WRC in 2017.

In last year’s Rally New Zealand, the Italian drove a Ford Puma Rally1 under his own Fuckmatie World Rally Team and it is the only start in a Rally1 car since the new regulations. Earlier in his career, he has competed in the older spec and 2017 spec Ford Fiesta WRC and Ford Fiesta R5, and he was loyal to M-Sport Ford WRT since 2016 and had over 60 starts with a Ford but now it will be a new chapter to test a proven WRC winning car for the Italian.

Team principal Latvala confirmed in late autumn that it intends to lease a car for several events, the third car in the factory team will be shared by Takamoto Katsuta and the seven-time world champion Sebastien Ogier. In the races Ogier competes in, such as the Rallye Monte Carlo, Katsuta will drive a fourth car like previously but when Ogier is not entered to start, then a fourth car is possible to be rented out for customers.

Erik van Loon hoped to end his Dakar Rally career on a strong note in 2023, but it instead ended with his Toyota Hilux Overdrive overturned after seven stages. Despite the abrupt and disappointing finish, he is adamant with it being his final start in the legendary race.

Van Loon has raced at Dakar since 2009, and he set 2023 as his last try in what was to be a sweet comeback and swan song after missing 2022 due to a positive COVID-19 test. He scored his best overall finish of fifth in 2015.

His 2023 Rally got off to a positive start when he finished second overall to fellow Hilux racer Nasser Al-Attiyah in Stage #2. Five legs later, however, his Stage #7 ended with his truck rolling multiple times. While he and co-driver Sébastien Delaunay were not seriously injured, van Loon was taken to hospital after reporting back pain.

“It was my thirteenth Dakar and I was going for my tenth finish. I had many beautiful moments, experienced great adventures and had special friendships from them. The Dakar Rally has often been hard for me, but has also given me a lot. It shaped me into who I am. Tackling, persevering, and achieving something together,” said van Loon.

“I think it’s a fantastic sport, but I now have more fun with the other rallies. These two weeks are extremely difficult and the risk is extremely high at this level. If you experience such a heavy crash, you will think about it carefully.

Valtteri Bottas has heaped praise on his Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN team-mate Zhou Guanyu’s rookie season in Formula 1 and believes his knowledge and understanding of the sport keeps getting better and better.

In an end-of-season interview with Autosport/Motorsport.com, Bottas spoke about a key attribute to his team-mate’s success in his debut season was his lack of mistakes.

“The biggest strength this year has been that he really hasn’t made any mistakes. It’s not guaranteed as a rookie, and it’s a sport where it’s easy to try too much and too hard and make silly mistakes.“

“Zhou has been good on giving himself some time to develop and not wanting things too quickly. He’s been able to progress step by step, both in qualifying pace and then in race pace.”

Alfa Romeo scored fifty-five points across the 2022 F1 season as they secured sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Even though Bottas scored forty-nine of those points, with Zhou only scoring six points in his rookie season, the Finish driver believes his knowledge and understanding of the sport continue to grow and get better.

After not racing Stage #7 for weather reasons, the Bikes returned to the Dakar Rally with a bang as the overall and stage battles stole the show from the four-wheelers in Stage #8.

Perhaps the biggest story of the run from Dawadmi back to Riyadh came in RallyGP as Ross Branch scored the stage victory ahead of former overall leader Daniel Sanders by three minutes and fifteen seconds. The win is Branch’s second at Dakar and first since Stage #2 in 2020, as well as the second for Hero MotoSports after Joaquim Rodrigues claimed the third leg in 2022. Hero is the first Indian manufacturer to claim a Dakar stage victory.

“It has been a tough week, and I’m really happy to go into the rest day with a stage win,” said Branch. “This morning I felt really good, the bike was excellent, and I decided to push as hard as I could. It was a good stage, the navigation was fine, and I horoughly enjoyed it as I went all out and raced the whole thing.”

Overall leader Skyler Howes was a distant twentieth; he and many of the frontrunners like Toby Price and Stage #6 winner Luciano Benavides finished outside the top ten as the rest of the field, who started their race after them, quickly caught up to them. Mason Klein initially leapfrogged Howes for the general lead after finishing runner-up, but received a two-minute speeding penalty that relegated him by one position in the stage. Nevertheless, Klein and Kevin Benavides (finished tenth) are both only thirteen seconds behind Howes in the overall, compared to the previous stage when Price was second and trailed Howes by 3:31.

Hero was not the only manufacturer celebrating after the stage as the Prodrive Hunters placed all three remaining entries in the top ten, with Sébastien Loeb taking his second win of the Rally ahead of leader Nasser Al-Attiyah. Guerlain Chicherit was sixth while Stage #7 runner-up Vaidotas Žala squeezed into tenth after overcoming an early tyre puncture. The Hunters have been plagued by bad luck throughout the race, though Loeb’s victory upgrades him to fourth overall.

Nasser Al-Attiyah entered Stage #7 of the Dakar Rally leading the Cars overall by well over an hour. It was such a large gap that he was still ahead by more than one hour despite a stage finish outside the top ten.

Al-Attiyah finished the seventh leg in fourteenth, his worst run since he was thirteenth in a rain-shortened Stage #3. However, he was in no rush in the big picture: fellow Toyota Gazoo Racing driver Henk Lategen was second in the T1 classification by 1:06:50 prior to the leg, but the gap only decreased by three minutes and forty-six seconds afterwards.

With Al-Attiyah playing it safe, Yazeed Al-Rajhi avenged his Stage #6 retirement to win with a nearly nine-minute gap on Vaidotas Žala. It was Al-Rajhi’s first Dakar leg win since Stage #10 in 2021 while Žala enjoyed his best run in a rollercoaster of a Rally in which he has either finished at least eleventh or retired.

While the Toyotas continued their strong Dakar, the Team Audi Sport trio’s woes persisted. As Stéphane Peterhansel and Carlos Sainz were still reeling from their wreck in the sixth leg, Audi’s third driver Mattias Ekström suffered mechanical failure while leading.

“It’s so disappointing to be out of the race,” said Peterhansel. “Even with some small issues we were still fighting for the lead. If I had won this Dakar the plan was to then retire. To go out on a high.”

The German Skoda Motorsport backed Toksport WRT team has now unveiled its line-up for the factory team in the 2023 WRC2 series. They also showed a video of what the year car will look like for the factory colors.

Just like last season, there will be two teams entered by the outfit to compete in the WRC2 championship and it is now clear that last year’s champion Emil Lindholm from Finland will continue, he will also have his fellow compatriot Sami Pajari, who won the 2021 Junior WRC title by his side in his team.

In the second team, the Russian Nikolay Gryazin also continues together with Marquito “Marco” Bulacia from Bolivia. Alongside the two teams supported by Skoda Motorsport and Toksport WRT, the team will also run several cars under private management for customers such as Oliver Solberg and Gus Greensmith.

As it stands now the team will field a total of six brand-new Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 cars at the season-opener of Rallye Monte-Carlo in two weeks where the 2022 WRC Masters champion Mauro Miele from Italy and the French legend Francois Delecour will join beside the two factory teams and Briton Chris Ingram will join in an older spec Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo

The former European Rally Champion Chris Ingram from United Kingdom is the next driver to be presented for the Skoda Motorsport backed Toksport WRT team for the season-opener in Rallye Monte-Carlo in two weeks time.

Ingram is currently fighting hard to secure a budget for the 2023 WRC2 season, he is aiming to challenge for the main title this year after finishing third overall in the WRC2 Junior class last year.

For Rallye Monte-Carlo, he will be renting a Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo car and he is looking to switch to a new car later this season.

During this week, one of the sponsors for Ingram dropped out and he was in doubt if he could enter the first round or not but he has confirmed he will be attending

“I’ve been in this position before and there’s only one way to deal with it and that’s to fight. That’s exactly what I’m doing right now, I’m pushing like crazy to find a way. I’m so close to Monte, I can almost touch it. I’m talking to potential backers and trying to find the resource to be there, fighting for WRC2 honours.” Ingram said.

Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner praised 2022’s extensive regulation update, which not only saw the team achieve great success with a double championship, but also allowed for more overtaking opportunities and on-track battles. 

According to PlanetF1.com, Horner said that the technical regulations led to an increase in passing by about twenty-five percent, with aerodynamic changes allowing drivers to follow competitors more closely than before, when dirty air produced by the complex aerodynamic features of the car ahead would disrupt their ability to challenge for position. 

“From a personal point of view, it’s been an amazing season for our team. And I think for Formula 1, I think the racing has been better.

“I think that there’s been 25% more passes this year than previous years, I think the regulations are delivering in enabling the drivers to follow more closely.”

Horner said that Red Bull made the most of the technical regulations in spite of the fact that they were on the back foot development-wise, after putting their efforts into securing the 2021 driver’s championship with Max Verstappen.  

Guenther Steiner says Kevin Magnussen returned to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship in 2022 ‘mentally a lot stronger’ than he was during his first spell in the sport.

The Dane returned to the Haas F1 Team after a year away from Formula 1 after the team had opted to replace both himself and Romain Grosjean with Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin in 2021.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spelled the end of Mazepin’s stay with the team ahead of the 2022 season, and Haas opted to call upon the experience of Magnussen, who had spent four years with the team previously after previous spells with the McLaren F1 Team and Renault F1 Team.

The Dane had been set to race in the FIA World Endurance Championship with Peugeot Sport prior to the phone call from Haas, and he had also made his NTT IndyCar Series debut in 2021.

Magnussen took advantage of the opportunity and a much-improved Haas car – the team put all their focus in 2021 on their 2022 VF-22 – to secure an excellent fifth place in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, and he ended the year with a maiden pole position for the São Paulo Grand Prix.

Laurent Rossi hopes Pierre Gasly is going to bring what the BWT Alpine F1 Team needs in 2023, with the Frenchman joining the Enstone-based outfit after leaving Scuderia AlphaTauri.

Gasly has come in to replace the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team bound Fernando Alonso this year alongside his fellow Frenchman Esteban Ocon, with the team looking to build on their strong 2022 season that saw them edge out the McLaren F1 Team and finish fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.

Rossi, the CEO of Alpine, says Gasly showed himself to be a technical leader during his time at AlphaTauri, and he believes this will continue during his time with Alpine. 

And Rossi hopes this will enable the team to further develop and move onto the next level of performance in 2023 as they look to maintain their advantage at the front of the midfield and close the gap on the leading three teams.

“Hopefully he’s going to bring what we need, which is to continue developing the car, because at the moment, we are still pretty much in the midfield and we need to take the car a notch up,” Rossi is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.