Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Max Verstappen converted his impressive Friday performance into a Sprint race victory to return to winning ways at the 2024 United States Grand Prix.

Verstappen made a strong start, getting off the line well alongside George Russell. Lando Norris had a good launch, getting ahead of both Scuderia Ferrari drivers and then Russell to get into second. Despite Norris looking like he could’ve reeled Verstappen in at points, the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver wasn’t challenged throughout 19 laps. 

Nico Hulkenberg slipped back from sixth into ninth, while Lewis Hamilton gained a position on the start. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. delighted the fans in Austin with a thrilling intra-team battle for fourth, with both swapping around and even almost making contact with each other. 

Fernando Alonso and Liam Lawson engaged in a battle, with the former frustrated on the radio with the newly promoted Visa Cash App RB driver.

Sergio Pérez didn’t make an impression on the point positions, spending a frustrating amount of time behind Yuki Tsunoda, who may be a threat to the Mexican’s position at Red Bull in 2025.

Amid concerns about competitor retention, the FIA and FIM have expanded their points allocations for the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship.

On the FIM side, riders registering for any of the five W2RC rounds in the Rally2, Rally3, or Quad categories will automatically be signed up for their respective class championship as well. Previously, Rally2 and Quad registrants had to pay both the race’s entry fee as well as the season-long €2,500 fee if they wished to compete for the title. Consequently, while Rally2 is consistently the largest class since it is for amateurs and aspiring rally raiders, only eighteen riders earned points in 2024.

RallyGP, which is for factory riders, will continue to charge €11,000 for standings eligibility.

Meanwhile, the FIA plans to award points to all competitors even if they finish poorly or don’t finish at all. Until 2024, only the top fifteen earned points with fifteenth getting two in standard rallies while marathons like the Dakar Rally provided four.

From 2025 onwards, everyone who placed sixteenth or lower will receive two points while those who fail to finish get a single point. Both numbers are doubled for marathons.

After competing in a wide variety of cross-country rallies, Souad Mouktadiri will get to finally add the Dakar Rally to her portfolio in 2025. She will be the first Moroccan driver to compete in the SSV category at the Dakar.

Naturally, much of Mouktadiri’s rally experience has come in races held in her home country including the Morocco Desert Challenge, the M’Hamid Express, and the Rallye du Maroc. The lattermost, which she has entered five times, is part of the World Rally-Raid Championship with her latest entry in 2023.

In 2021, she ran her first European rally at the Andalucía Rally in Spain (a former W2RC round), driving a Nissan Patrol as an Open entry.

Mouktadiri returned to Europe for the starting leg of the Africa Eco Race in January, a race that runs through Morocco and neighbouring countries before ending in Senegal along the original Dakar Rally route. Racing a Can-Am Maverick with Frederic Villers d’Arbouet as co-driver, she finished thirteenth overall and second in the T4 class.

“Thank you to those who shared the information today, very moved by your comments and messages on the announcement,” wrote Mouktadiri on Rally Raid Spirit‘s report about her début. “I hope to live up to it and go all the way, onto the podium of Dakar Rally and raise our flag high.”

Yes, Sarge, a puma is a real animal. It’s a big cat, like a lion.

A red puma will grace the side of Juan Cruz Yacopini‘s Toyota Hilux at the 2025 Dakar Rally after acquiring backing from Puma Energy Rally Team. He announced his move on Wednesday.

“I am very happy to join this great team,” said Yacopini. “For me, it’s a dream come true to be part of such an important and prestigious structure. This will be my fifth Dakar, and I feel like I have the tools and experience to make it a great race. I am immensely grateful to Puma Energy for trusting me to represent their brand.

“This news is a huge motivation to keep working at 100% and give everything I have to make it a great Dakar and an excellent 2025 season. I will continue working hard with my team to achieve the results we are aiming for.

“With the support of Puma Energy, I’m sure we will achieve great things together. I hope more brands join us in continuing along this exciting Dakar journey, which has brought us so much joy over the years.”

Sanjay Takale has partnered with Compagnie Saharienne to race a Toyota Land Cruiser HZJ78 at the 2025 Dakar Classic. He will be the first Indian to race the Dakar, Classic or Rally, as a car driver.

After growing up in motocross, Takale has competed in rallies since 2009 with focus on various national series in Asia like the Indiana and Malaysian championships. A regular in the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship, he won the Production class title in 2013. In 2018, he made his World Rally Championship-3 début at Rally Finland, finishing fourteenth in class and eventually repeating it at the 2019 edition. In 2022, he represented India at the FIA Motorsport Games and finished eighth in his first tarmac rally.

Takale is also a regular at the Asia Cross-Country Rally, winning the T2 category in an Isuzu D-Max in 2011. At the latest edition in August, he drove a Toyota Hilux Revo to a twenty-third overall and thirteenth in the T1D class.

Outside of racing, he is the chief advisory officer of aerpace, an Indian transportation company.

Maxime Raud will serve as his co-driver in the Land Cruiser.

Hedda Hosås will be the latest Extreme E driver to try her hand at cross-country rally when she races an SSV at the Dubai International Baja in November.

“My first ever rally raid. I still can’t believe it’s happening,” said Hosås. “This is something I’ve dreamed about for years and it hasn’t been easy but every single step has been worth it. I’m so grateful to everyone who helped make this dream a reality.”

The Norwegian has been involved with Extreme E since the inaugural season in 2021, originally as a reserve driver for Veloce Racing before taking the same role for the series as a whole the following year. After being called up by Veloce for the season opener in injury relief for Christine GZ (also a rally raider), she ended up running the full season with JBXE and scored a third-place finish at the first Island X Prix.

Hosås continued with JBXE for much of the 2023 season, scoring a best finish of fifth in the Sunday races of both Island X Prix events. She moved to McLaren XE for that year’s season finale at the Copper X Prix as a substitute for the injured Emma Gilmour, where she and Tanner Foust won a heat and qualified for the Grand Final on both days. She finished ninth in the driver’s championship.

McLaren opted to sign two more rally raiders in Mattias Ekström and 2024 Dakar Rally Challenger winner Cristina Gutiérrez for the 2024 XE season. Hosås remained with the series, albeit as the test driver for their successor Extreme H’s new hydrogen-powered Pioneer 25, which is set to début in 2025.

Championship Off-Road will continue to visit Dirt City Motorplex in Lena, Wisconsin, through the 2027 season after signing a three-year contract extension with the Lena Motorsport Club.

The Dirt City Off-Road National was first held in 2019 and has been part of the COR calendar since the inaugural season the following year. The track also hosts Mayhem at the Motorplex, which was originally intended for Sportsman classes before expanding to include all categories for 2024 when it became the COR season opener.

“The Champ Off-Road race has a significant economic impact on our area,” said club president Troy Schaden. “The community comes together to ensure the event is a success. We are very proud of that, and all the volunteers that make it happen.”

While the 2025 schedule has not been revealed, tracks like Lena that hosted a 2024 round are expected to return. New additions include Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland and Deadwood, South Dakota: Wheatland will serve as the first round of the calendar while Deadwood was originally slated to be the last race for 2024 until it was postponed.

The 2025 Dirt City Off-Road National will take place on 26/27 July, retaining the same late July slot as in 2024.

After five rounds, the third season of the World Rally-Raid Championship has reached its conclusion in Morocco.

Missed The Checkered Flag‘s live coverage of the Rallye du Maroc? We’ve got you covered with the archive below.

Pre-race stories

22 October 2023: TCF‘s 2023 Rallye du Maroc newsroom9 October 2023: Road to Dakar returns for 202426 January: TCF‘s 2024 Dakar Rally newsroom5 March: TCF‘s 2024 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge newsroom1 April: TCF‘s 2024 BP Ultimate Rally-Raid newsroom11 June:  2,492 kilometres from Marrakesh to Mengoub11 June: TCF‘s Desafío Ruta 40 newsroom13 June: Laisvydas Kancius to navigate for Gintas Petrus at 2025 Dakar Rally11 July: Sébastien Loeb on Sandrider Morocco test: “Everything is going well in the car except temperature management”12 July: Ford, M-Sport unveil Ford Raptor T1+1 August: Sam Sunderland retiring from racing12 August: Tomás de Gavardo joins Fantic Rally Team22 August: Manuel Andújar to race Morocco, 2025 Dakar Rally in SSV28 August: EnergyLandia Taurus Factory Team formed28 August: Route distance tweaked down to 2,468 km7 September: Tomáš Vrátný on Tatra FF7: “I believe the ‘Seven’ in the name will bring us good luck”10 September: Aleš Loprais partners with Team de Rooy, to race IVECO14 September: Despite flooding, Baja Morocco to proceed as scheduled17 September: Pau Navarro to race Ford Ranger T1+ at Morocco, 2025 Dakar Rally19 September: Concussion forces Saood Variawa to miss Rallye du Maroc19 September: Fesh Fesh’s Tatra FF7 skipping Rallye du Maroc due to flooding20 September: Sandra Gómez becomes Fantic factory rally rider20 September: Carter Klein to make W2RC debut in Morocco24 September: Oriol Vidal sidelined by back injury again24 September: MM Technology reveals EVO 4 truck25 September: Guillaume de Mévius switching to Mini25 September: Erik Van Loon set to début Audi S1, Maverick R in Morocco25 September: X-raid reveals petrol-powered Mini JCW Rally 3.0i25 September: Alexandre Giroud, Charan Moore join GRallyTeam, to race OT3s26 September: Ndoki Racing Team set to be first Congolese W2RC team27 September: 271 on entry list28 September: Organisers working to prepare route following floods28 September: Martin Macík Jr. christens EVO 4 truck “Benny the Big Guy”28 September: “Conditions at Dakar are very specific and cannot be simulated in Czech Republic” – Martin Šoltys28 September: Guillaume de Mévius on Mini switch: “I was never an official Toyota driver”28 September: Rainbow Truck Team tweaks end of the rainbow29 September: Luciano Benavides, Daniel Sanders migrate to KTM30 September: Kees Koolen to race MM EVO 4, dubbed “Tony”30 September: Nicolás Cavigliasso wins Baja Morocco ahead of Rallye du Maroc30 September: Guayasamín, Seaidan set for SSV final showdown1 October: Fausto Mota to serve as Baciuška’s navigator1 October: Mattias Ekström joins Ford for 2025 Dakar Rally1 October: Guillaume Chollet withdraws due to funding2 October: Aliyyah and Martin Koloc to race together for first time2 October: “All the main tracks, which used to be visible, have disappeared” – Isidre Esteve2 October: Amine Echiguer sidelined by injury3 October: Carla Scaglioni to make rally raid debut in Morocco3 October: Nunzio Coffaro returns to rally raid4 October: Cooling system failure forces Loprais, de Rooy withdrawal4 October: Tjeerd van Ballegooij filling in for Gerrit Zuurmond5 October: G Rally Team reveals G-ECKO6 October: FIM to deliberate on adding W2RC team trophy6 October: Álex Haro, Mirko Brun step up for co-driver relief duties

Mid-race stories

7 October: Flooding forces Stage 1, 2 route swap7 October: Frédéric Baudry dies in Stage 1 crash8 October: Mathieu Serradori disqualified for wheel infractions9 October: João Ferreira gets time restored after GPS failures in Stage 19 October: Manuel Andújar gets 20 minutes slashed for assisting Baudry10 October: EnergyLandia Team fined for liquid waste dumping11 October: Jean-Loup Lepan undergoing treatment for haemopneumothorax

Stage winners

Stage	Date	Overall Cars Winner	Overall Bikes Winner	Recap
Prologue	6 October	Guerlain Chicherit	Tosha Schareina	Recap
Stage #1	7 October	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Ross Branch	Recap
Stage #2	8 October	Lucas Moraes	Tosha Schareina	Recap
Stage #3	9 October	Sébastien Loeb*	Daniel Sanders	Recap
Stage #4	10 October	Carlos Sainz*	Daniel Sanders	Recap
Stage #5	11 October	Sébastien Loeb*	Tosha Schareina	Recap

* – Not competing for World Rally-Raid Championship points

Overall winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time	Recap
Ultimate	200	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	14:26:34	Recap
Challenger	307	Eryk Goczał	EnergyLandia Taurus Factory Team	15:14:11	Recap
SSV	401	Yasir Seaidan	Race World Team	17:19:00	Recap
Stock	500	Ronald Basso*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	21:34:10	Recap
Truck	600	Martin Macík Jr.*	MM Technology	16:28:25	Recap
Experimental Car	N/A	No Finishers	N/A	N/A	Recap
Experimental UTV	406	Francisco López Contardo*	Can-Am Factory Team	16:05:07	Recap
RallyGP	5	Daniel Sanders*	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	15:45:06	Recap
Rally2	18	Bradley Cox	BAS World KTM Racing Team	16:30:11	Recap
Junior Trophy	37	Edgar Canet*	BAS World KTM Racing Team	16:34:13	Recap
Veteran Trophy	32	David Casteu*	Team Casteu Trophy	18:28:36	Recap
Women Trophy	62	Sandra Gómez*	Fantic Rally Team	21:17:26	Recap
Rally3	163	Souleymane Addahri	Africa Rallye Team	21:25:42	Recap
Quad	182	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	22:44:50	Recap
Open Car	701	Akira Miura*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	21:00:37	Recap
Open SSV	723	Ali Oubassidi*	Africa Rally Team	22:29:39	Recap
Open Truck	752	Kay Huzink*	Jongbloed Dakar Team	21:47:45	Recap

The 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship’s Rally2 battle was effectively a two-man fight as Romain Dumontier fought to protect his crown whereas Bradley Cox hoped to usurp the throne.

Dumontier entered the Rallye du Maroc clinging to an eight-point lead over Cox after narrowly beating him at the Desafío Ruta 40. After coming up short in Argentina, Cox seemed to have a fire light up inside him at Morocco.

The South African already had plenty of momentum as the Rallye du Maroc’s defending Rally2 winner, and it carried over into the 2024 edition as he was the fastest points-eligible rider in each of the first four legs. Three straight outright stage wins from Monday through Wednesday allowed him to surge to a nearly fifteen-minute advantage on non-points rider Edgar Canet after Stage #3, and over forty-four minutes on Dumontier.

Although Dumontier had finished second in 2023 to secure the championship, he struggled to recapture the magic. A disastrous Stage #4 in which he made multiple navigation mistakes ultimately doomed his chances, leaving him over an hour back of Cox going into the final day.

Dumontier managed to save some face by finishing Stage #5 in third and tops among W2RC riders, though it hardly made a dent in the overall as Cox finished just thirty-one seconds behind him. As such, Dumontier settled for seventh and off the podium among points-earning riders in his worst career W2RC finish.

For those not competing for the World Rally-Raid Championship, the Rallye du Maroc is often a final practice before the following year’s Dakar Rally. While this usually includes drivers with new teams or in different classes, Morocco is also a testing ground for manufacturers who have new vehicles for Dakar.

M-Sport and Ford Performance arrived in Morocco with their much anticipated Ford Raptor T1+, while South Racing Can-Am brought the highly anticipated Can-Am Maverick R. Neither have been homologated by the FIA, a process that won’t be completed until 2025, meaning they were deemed “Experimental” cars and are ineligible for the race win.

Even if they could not win win any trophies, both parties left the race satisfied with how their machines fared in racing conditions.

The Ford Raptor T1+, revealed in July as the successor to the Ford Ranger T1+, had won in its competition début at the Hungarian Baja in August. Reigning Dakar winner Carlos Sainz and Mattias Ekström, both coming over from Audi, continued to show off its pace as the former was third quickest in the Prologue among all FIA cars before both placed top five in Stage #1.

However, “an issue with the data” in the engine prompted Sainz to sit out the second leg; Ekström, meanwhile, was eleventh. Sainz rejoind the race for Stage #3 and continued to impress with a third before setting the fastest time outright in Stage #4. The fifth and final day saw Sainz place fifth while Ekström retired after hitting a hole, though neither driver officially set a time in Stage #5.

Akira Miura is used to competing against fellow Toyota Land Cruiser driver Ronald Basso, so the Rallye du Maroc was a change of pace when his classmates instead included a Red-Lined REVO+ GT-R and even a Century CR7-T.

Miura’s Toyota Land Cruiser 300 GR Sport differed from the one used by Basso, featuring air intakes on the bonnet and an Emirati-designed engine. Since the car had not been homologated by the FIA, Miura was consigned to the Open class while Basso’s Land Cruiser was allowed to compete in the Stock category.

As such, his production-based Land Cruiser was grouped in with those that ordinarily race in the premier Ultimate class. Martin Koloc piloted a Red-Lined REVO GT-R while Sam Heyvaert was in a Nissan Red-Lined T1.1; the GT-R is the successor to the REVO T1+, using a detuned Nissan R35 GT-R engine and introduced in April.

Predictably, Koloc’s REVO was faster than the Land Cruiser as he set the quickest time among Open cars across the first two stages. While his Land Cruiser would usually be outclassed by an Ultimate machine, Miura kept pace with the second fastest times, roughly fifteen minutes behind, even if neither’s goal was to beat the other.

Koloc eventually withdrew from the classification after his daughter Aliyyah Koloc, who was racing a REVO T1+ in Ultimate, rolled into a ditch in Stage #3. Unofficially, he stayed with the race to continue developing the GT-R for the 2025 season.

Max Verstappen will start the 2024 United States Grand Prix Sprint race on pole ahead of George Russell after a mighty performance in Texas.

There was shocks throughout with Oscar Piastri and Sergio Pérez getting knocked out early on as well as an impressive showing from Nico Húlkenberg and MoneyGram Haas F1 Team.

In this piece, we’ll take a look at what we learned from Sprint Qualifying.

Max Verstappen Back on Top

It may only be Sprint Qualifying but Verstappen has come out of the blocks flying this weekend in Texas – in similar fashion to what Lando Norris did in Zandvoort. Many would’ve had Norris as their favourite for the Drivers Championship after a dominant Singapore victory but this session has certainly shown that Verstappen can pull out a good performance when it matters.

It will be very interesting to see what Verstappen can do in the Sprint race on Saturday and if Oracle Red Bull Racing can continue to be competitive in race trim. 

Martin Macík Jr. will enter the 2025 Dakar Rally with more than enough confidence that “Benny the Big Guy” can help him defend his Truck title.

MM Technology‘s IVECO EVO 4 made its début at the Rallye du Maroc, replacing the EVO 3 that helped Macík win the latest Dakar in January. His new truck, affectionately nicknamed Benny (Bohouš in its native Czech), dominated by winning the Prologue and all five stages. Kees Koolen, in his own EVO 4 dubbed “Tony”, completed a 1–2 finish by placing roughly fifty-five minutes back.

“I trusted Benny from the beginning, but I didn’t dare to assume that he would carry us to victory,” Macík remarked. “Besides the joy of the first place, we are taking home a lot of knowledge that we will use to fine-tune the truck a bit more before the Dakar.”

The win marked a rebound for Macík after being disqualified while leading the 2023 race. It was not entirely smooth sailing despite winning every stage, with his co-driver František Tomášek recalling when they “took a wrong turn and were overtaken by Kees Koolen” during Stage #4 while mechanic David Švanda commented they “were jumping and landing quite hard at times, especially in the dunes and riverbeds, which were very rough after the heavy rains. So occasionally I was worried about Benny. But he pulled it off very well.”

Tjeerd van Ballegooij joined the MM trucks on the class podium, an impressive finish in his driving début. Van Ballegooij was originally slated to be the co-driver of Rainbow Truck Team‘s MAN TGA before Gerrit Zuurmond opted to stay home to be with his wife Erica, who was dealing with medical concerns. Zuurmond’s brother Dick Zuurmond took over as mechanic.

Max Verstappen took pole position in the 2024 United States Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying just +0.012s ahead of George Russell.

The drivers will take to track for the Sprint race on Saturday following an action packed Qualifying, which you can catch up on below.

SQ1

With a limited timeframe to get their lap times on the board, most of the drivers queued at the end of the pitlane to get as much time on track as possible.

Verstappen was the first driver to get onto track, going top of the timesheets before a particularly impressive lap from Kevin Magnussen displaced him. Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson also showed good pace on their first runs.

Of the seven World Rally-Raid Championship categories that awarded a title in 2024, SSV featured the closest points battle entering the final race at the Rallye du Maroc. Sebastián Guayasamín was hanging on to a six-point advantage over Yasir Seaidan, though factoring in stage points meant the latter needed some help from his fellow rivals to throw a wrench into Guayasamín’s lead in order to pass him.

Fortunately for the Saudi, the desert profile of Morocco worked perfectly in his favour and the large SSV grid did some interference. Seaidan was the only points-earning SSV driver to win a stage outright in Morocco, and was the best finisher among such competitors in four of five legs to maximise his points.

Although Guayasamín kept pace with W2RC driver podiums in every stage, Seaidan’s bonus points sliced the gap enough until he simply had to beat Guayasamín in the overall to win the title. This was made all the easier as he went into the last stage leading him by 14:38.

Seaidan delivered the coup de grâce with a runner-up finish outright and tops among W2RC racers in Stage #5. Although Guayasamín finished second for such drivers, Seaidan nipped him for the title by just two points.

The title is his first at the international level after claiming the 2013 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies in the T3 (now Challenger) category. He is also the first Saudi driver to win a W2RC trophy since its inception in 2022.