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With Oriol Vidal unavailable as he nurses a back injury, Rokas Baciuška entrusted his co-driver’s seat to Sébastien Delaunay for the Desafío Ruta 40. Regardless of who was his navigator, Baciuška still knows how to win.

The Challenger points leader got off to a hot start as he won the first two stages, though World Rally-Raid Championship rivals Nicolás Cavigliasso and Marcelo Gastaldi were right on his tail. Nazareno López and Cavigliasso retaliated with an Argentine 1–2 in Stage #3 while Baciuška finished off the podium, losing the top three to Dania Akeel by nineteen seconds; it was not for a lack of trying either as Baciuška admitted the locals were too good on their home soil.

He struck back by winning the fourth leg, giving him a nine-and-a-half-minute advantage over Cavigliasso going into Stage #5. While Baciuška raced more conservatively on the last day and finished fifth to Cavigliasso’s third, the latter only beat him by thirty-four seconds.

The win, his second in a row, increased Baciuška’s advantage in the championship as he goes from leading Cavigliasso by 34 to 44 points with one round remaining. Cavigliasso is the only other driver with a mathematical shot at the title, but he would need to win both the Rallye du Maroc’s overall and at least three stages while Baciuška struggles. On the other hand, Cavigliasso’s wife Valentina Pertegarini is now the Challenger leader in the co-driver’s standings as she moves past the absent Vidal and leads by five points.

“It’s our first time winning this rally and it was a pleasure to race in front of these fans,” said Baciuška. He skipped the 2023 edition for logistical reasons and being so far ahead in the T4 (now SSV) championship that he could afford to not take part. “We’re still missing some points to be world champion and we’ll be back to finish the job in Morocco.”

After racing with Husqvarna, Romain Dumontier made the switch to Honda for the Desafío Ruta 40. But whether on a Husqvarna 450 Rally Replica or a Honda CRF450 Rally, the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Rally2 points leader only knows how to win.

Dumontier traded blows with championship rival and defending race winner Bradley Cox throughout all five stages, the former claiming three straight stages with the latter’s two sandwiching them. Cox’s Stage #1 victory gave him the early edge over Dumontier by 1:23 before the Frenchman came to life with his back-to-back-to-back wins. Although this allowed him to build up some space between them, Cox never finished outside the podium to keep the margin.

Nineteen-year-old Edgar Canet, who impressed at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid in April, was also part of the conversation as he and Cox swapped second and third place during the three days. Entering the fifth and final day, the top three were separated by just 13:30. Although Cox won the stage, he failed to make up the seven-minute deficit to Dumontier as he only won by twenty-nine seconds.

The victory provides only the slightest of breathing room in the championship with one round remaining as Dumontier increases his lead over Cox from three to eight points.

“It’s my second time here and my first win with a new bike, a Honda,” said Dumontier. Coupled with Ricky Brabec in RallyGP, Honda was the first manufacturer of 2024 to win two class overalls in a given rally. “Very happy with the new team; the bike is fantastic. The rally was great with three stage wins. Stages #3 and #4 were the most complicated; I had to stay very focused on the roadbook, and it went very well for me.”

With the Dakar Rally axeing the Quad category for 2025, Manuel Andújar hoped to end his career in the class on a strong note when the World Rally-Raid Championship visited his native Argentina for the Desafío Ruta 40. Not only did he and his countrymen dominate from start to finish, Andújar clinched the Quad title a round early in his final start as he does not intend to run the finale in Morocco.

Andújar, the reigning Dakar and DR 40 winner for Quads, was near perfect as he won four stages-including one on his twenty-eighth birthday-and beat all but Facundo Viel by nearly two hours. Argentines swept the top four with Andújar ahead of Viel, Giuliano Giordana, and Juan Carlos Carignani.

Viel drew first blood with an impressive Prologue as he finished seventh among all FIM riders, faster than everyone in Rally3 and just behind a single Rally2 competitor with his brother Mariano second in class. It was entirely Andújar after that, however, en route to the overall win, his second international rally title after claiming the 2021 FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship (predecessor to the W2RC), and the inaugural Ibero-American Cross Country Rally Championship as the best performing Quad rider from Latin America.

Although he has expressed interest in switching to driving a side-by-side vehicle (a common avenue for former Quad riders), Andújar will settle down for a while before figuring out his future plans in the sport.

“Now I’m going to go fishing,” he remarked to Somos Dakar. “I’m going to fish in peace and then we’ll see what the future holds for us. But the truth is that for now I’m going to be away from rally raid for a while. It’s a shame because it’s what I’m passionate about, but until we find new horizons and a new goal, I’m going to stay out of this.”

The World Rally-Raid Championship‘s SSV title will come down to the season finale in Morocco.

Yasir Seaidan went into the Desafío Ruta 40 hoping to build upon his advantage over Sebastián Guayasamín, Ricardo Ramilo, and Rebecca Busi. However, a mechanical issue on the first stage made him the category’s lone retirement instead while the three rivals occupied the podium to insert themselves into the championship fight.

With Seaidan out, Ramilo won three stages en route to his maiden W2RC outright victory; he was the class’ highest-finishing W2RC driver at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid in April, finishing second overall behind non-points driver João Monteiro. The stage wins—which netted fifteen bonus points alongside thirty for the overall triumph—gave him a much needed boost as he whittled the margin to Seaidan from 63 to 20 points.

The remaining trio along with Enrico Gaspari, fifth in points prior to Argentina, were separated by just ten minutes through the first half of the rally. An especially egregious standings shuffle occurred in Stage #2 when the four received speeding penalties, Ramilo’s costing him over three minutes while the others were less than half a minute at most, dropping him to fourth while Gaspari won the leg. Ramilo proceeded to reclaim the lead the next day from Gaspari when a rock punctured the latter’s tyre fifty kilometres from the finish.

Gaspari was taken out of contention following a disastrous Stage #4 that began with another puncture at KM 20 which dropped him and fellow competitors Puck Klaassen, Nazareno López, and Oscar Santos into a metre-deep fesh fesh hole. After helping them out, Gaspari’s wheel came off and destroyed the brakes. He and Cesare Rickler attempted to put together an improvised system but was unable to make the finish in time. They rejoined the race for the last day but finished a distant fifth.

Max Verstappen took an outstanding victory at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix in an action packed wet-to-dry race, which saw three different drivers lead the way and challenge for a spot on the top step of the podium.

George Russell was unable to convert his pole position to victory but did secures Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team’s first podium of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season. Lance Stroll secured points at his home Grand Prix, while Daniel Ricciardo scored points for the first time in a full race format in 2024. It was a disappointing race for both Scuderia Ferrari drivers and Sergio Pérez, as they failed to finish.

Read what the drivers had to say following 70 laps of racing:

Max Verstappen — Oracle Red Bull Racing — 1st

“It was a really rewarding victory today, these kind of races are a lot of fun as you don’t know what is going to be thrown at you and I enjoyed racing today. With the weather so bad it was so easy to make a mistake; we had to be really focused as one tiny move off the racing line could result in us going off the track into the wall. 

Fernando Hernández looked like the favourite to win the Desafío Ruta 40 in the Rally3 class when he led John Medina by half an hour and had over two hours on Eduardo Alan after three stages. However, that was only halfway and a lot could—and did—happen in the second half.

After winning the Prologue and finishing second to Medina in Stage #1, Hernández quickly built an advantage via back-to-back stage wins, propelling him to a 28:30 lead by the end of the third leg. The margin was further increased by twenty-two minutes of penalties for Medina, who got six minutes in Stage #2 for being late to the bivouac and eight total on the first and third days for leaving the neutralisation zone too soon. All of this was ultimately for naught when Hernández crashed eighty-five kilometres into Stage #4 and hurt his forehead; he was conscious when medical help arrived and transported him to hospital in San Juan, but he was eliminated from the rally.

Medina inherited the lead as a result and won the stage. With Alan two hours and eleven minutes behind him whereas Marcelo Miti was well out of contention, he simply needed to safely reach the finish on the fifth and final day to seal the win. He achieved this with a third stage win ahead of Alan by nine minutes.

Alan finished runner-up in his return to international rally raid, saying he “owed it to myself” to take part in his home country. He previously raced the Dakar Rally when it ran through South America from 2009 to 2013.

Miti, another Dakar veteran, retired with a mechanical issue on the very first day. After being sidelined for most of the rally as he worked to get the bike fixed, he rejoined the race for the final day and finished 16:43 behind Medina. As he completed the race, he joined Medina and Alan on the final podium.

The Desafío Ansenuza is a navigation-based rally series that partners with the World Rally-Raid Championship whenever it arrives in Argentina for the Desafío Ruta 40. This continued for 2024 as twelve competitors across four categories took to the mountains.

2023 Ansenuza bike champion Ariel Budassi was the top dog on the two-wheel side, setting the fastest time for four of five stages and beating Nicolas Vaschetto by over six hours. Most of this margin was built in Stage #4, when Budassi finished within six hours while Vaschetto was second with a time of over nine and a half hours.

Prologue winner Juan Nimo finished third. A paraplegic rider who races with a special frame that keeps him upright while saddled, he had Eduardo Parra and Agustín Pedersen race alongside him as shadow riders; although Parra and Pedersen had their own numbers, the three are classified together as a single entity.

Three of the four Quad riders won a stage with Juan José Alcorta finishing ahead by an hour.

Nicolas Stratico, who won the 2024 Desafío Ansenuza’s season opener in Villa Mercedes in May, continued his hot streak in his new Toyota Hilux to win the Cars.

Max Verstappen took victory at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix in a thrilling wet-to-dry race that delivered across all seventy laps. Lando Norris lost the lead because of a safety car, while George Russell was just a few tenths behind his fellow countryman at the line after having to play catchup after a few mistakes in the wet from pole position. 

Lewis Hamilton missed out on a podium to his teammate but secured fastest lap in what was Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team’s strongest showing of the season, while Lance Stroll scored points at his home Grand Prix, finishing behind his teammate, Fernando Alonso. It was a bad day for Scuderia Ferrari, with both cars retiring while Sergio Pérez was unable to celebrate his contract extension with any sort of points, also retiring from the race. Read all about the action below:

Russell managed to keep his lead going into turn one, ahead of Verstappen. Alonso and Hamilton also managed to get ahead of Daniel Ricciardo on lap one, with Visa Cash App RB once again having trouble getting off the line. 

Pierre Gasly and Pérez came together at Turn One, but the stewards thought it required no further investigation. The two Haas F1 Team cars were flying during the opening few laps, starting on the wet weather tyres with everyone else on the intermediates, Kevin Magnussen got himself into fourth but his pit stop onto the intermediates was eight seconds long on lap eight, because the tyres weren’t ready.

Leclerc was having issues with his engine – his engineer was reporting a loss of half a second on the straight. Carlos Sainz Jr. also lost positions. On Lap Six, Logan Sargeant went off track at Turn Six, but the American managed to get back running

The Can-Am Maverick R will not be approved for FIA competition until 2025 at the soonest, but it has technically already won a race on the World Rally-Raid Championship.

For the second year in a row, Jeremías González Ferioli won the Desafío Ruta 40‘s Open Cars class for vehicles that do not meet FIA or FIM regulation and/or competitors without full licences from either sanctioning body. This time, he did so in the new Maverick R, which was unveiled last August and has enjoyed great success in American desert racing; although its rally experience is relatively limited due to a lack of homologation, the side-by-side vehicle has already proven to be quick in regional cross-country rallies like the Morocco Desert Challenge and MudEST RallyRaid in Estonia.

Ferioli dominated the Open Cars, setting the fastest time in all five stages as well as the Prologue. The closest margin of victory was 1:25 in Stage #1 with Pablo Macua trailing, but ballooned to over half an hour by the fourth leg. Runner-up Nicolas Gagliardi, the lone non-Can-Am as a Polaris RZR driver, finished nearly an hour and a half back; by comparison, Ferioli won in 2023 by one hour and six minutes.

Leandro López was third overall and second in the T4 class (SSV) to win the Road to Dakar, qualifying him for the 2025 Dakar Rally.

In contrast to the four-wheelers, the Open Bikes battle was slightly closer as Julián Sánchez Dabin and Baltazar Frezze Pissoni were separated by less than eight minutes, albeit the former still had the obvious advantage. Matías Felippa won the first stage but lost his momentum over the next three days before retiring on the final day.

George Russell took pole position for the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix after a dead heat with current FIA Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship leader Max Verstappen.

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team driver will be searching for his first win since the 2022 São Paulo Grand Prix, and race day on Sunday will present him with an excellent chance to do so if he navigates his way through potential difficult conditions with rain expected.

Qualifying brought a number of impressive performances, including Daniel Ricciardo, who secured his best qualifying result of the season, while Lance Stroll qualified in the top ten for the first time at his home circuit.

Read what the drivers had to say below:

George Russell — Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team — 1st

Daniel Ricciardo has sent a message to Jacques Villeneuve after the Formula 1 world champion questioned why the Australian is still racing in Formula 1.

Ricciardo secured an impressive fifth place start in qualifying on Saturday afternoon in Montreal – a much needed result after the criticism from Villeneuve and a difficult start to 2024 in terms of consistency. The eight time race winner will start ahead of his teammate for the first time since the Chinese Grand Prix, and will be hoping to convert this exceptional result into points on race day at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix.

Villeneuve went on a live television rant during Sky Sports F1’s coverage, asking why Ricciardo was still in the sport and questioning his achievements since leaving Oracle Red Bull Racing in 2018.

“Why’s he still in F1? Why?”

“We are hearing the same thing now for the last four or five years. ‘We have to make the car better for him’. Sorry, it’s been five years of that. No, you are in F1. Maybe you make that effort for Lewis Hamilton whose won multiple championships. You don’t make that effort for a driver who can’t cut it.

George Russell secured an incredible pole position for the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix, ahead of Max Verstappen, who put in an identical time but will start second due to Briton setting his time earlier.

Russell’s pole position is Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team’s first since the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix, where Lewis Hamilton secured the top spot. Lando Norris was just +0.021s back from Russell’s time of 1:12.000s and will lineup third on the grid for Sunday’s race.

Q1: Sergio Pérez out of qualifying again, more disappointment for Sauber

Q1 got underway quickly, with all the drivers getting out on track with an 80% chance of rain in the session according to the FIA. Many used two sets of the soft compound tyres to get through to the next part of qualifying with track evolution also playing a big part.

It was more disappointment for Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber. Their performance at the Monaco Grand Prix last time out was nothing short of a disaster and while this weekend they’ve improved, they still struggled for pace, with both cars being knocked out in Q1. Zhou Guanyu’s time was the slowest, and that no surprise, as the Chinese driver’s Free Practice sessions were interrupted with two hits to the barriers in Free Practice One and Free Practice Two. The only positive for Zhou from Saturday in Montreal is that he’ll start one place above where he qualified due to Esteban Ocon’s 5-place grid penalty. Valtteri Bottas was also knocked out and will start seventeenth.

Pack your bags, Leandro López, because you are heading to Saudi Arabia.

After a third-place finish in the Desafío Ruta 40‘s Open Cars category, López clinched free registration for the 2025 Dakar Rally as part of the Road to Dakar.

Driving a Can-Am Maverick for Héctor Vische‘s HV Racing Team with Daniel Alberto López as navigator, López set a total time of 22:27:03. He was over two hours back of Open Cars winner Jeremías Gonzalez Ferioli and forty-seven minutes behind Nicolas Gagliardi, but good for runner-up in the T4 (SSV) category behind Ferioli.

Fellow RtD entrant Alfredo Olmedo finished fifth in Open and over twenty hours behind López after suffering a rash of mechanical issues. Despite a rollover in Stage #1, López set better times than Olmedo across all but said leg. He also finished directly behind Ferioli among all Open cars in the Prologue and Stage #5.

López primarily competes in the La Encrucijada Rally-Raid Championship (Campeonato Mendocino de Rally Raid de la Encrucijada), winning the 2023 title.

Yuki Tsunoda will drive for Visa Cash App RB in 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, after an option was taken on his current contract, the team officially confirmed on Saturday.

It has been confirmed ahead of qualifying for the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix that the Japanese driver will stay with the Oracle Red Bull Racing junior team for at least one more season, after three years with the team.

The announcement comes following an impressive season so far for Tsunoda, consistently scoring points and statistically outperforming his more experienced teammate, Daniel Ricciardo. Going into Round 9 this weekend in Montreal, Tsunoda has already outscored his points total from the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, and will be aiming for more this weekend.

There had been conversations of Tsunoda looking outside of the Red Bull family, potentially to Aston Martin Armaco F1 Team, but this announcement has ended those rumours and the attention turns to who he’ll be driving alongside next season. Will it be Ricciardo? Or will it be a junior driver such as Liam Lawson or Isack Hadjar?

Tsunoda said: “I’m very happy to be staying with Visa Cash App RB and it’s a good feeling to have my future decided so early in the year. For that, I want to thank everyone at Red Bull and Honda who have played such an important role in my career and will continue to do so. The team has a big development project ahead and I’m excited to be part of it. It’s great to know that everyone appreciates all the hard work I have put in and that the team believes I can help it move further up the grid.

Lewis Hamilton topped Free Practice Three with an excellent lap that was almost four tenths quicker than Max Verstappen’s best effort, ahead of qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Due to an action packed Friday practice, with plenty of changeable conditions, the drivers were eager to get out on track quickly and get as many laps in ahead of the all important qualifying session later in the day. Most drivers ventured out on the medium tyres, and with 5 minutes gone, Pierre Gasly was leading the timesheets ahead of Esteban Ocon and Zhou Guanyu.

Straight after his lap to put him third, Zhou brought out a red flag for a second time after crashing out in Free Practice One. The Chinese driver span coming out on Turn One – he complained on the radio saying the rears were locking causing him to crash. Following the delay, the drivers got back out on track and Verstappen went top of the timesheets with a 1:15.495s.

Alex Albon had a trip off circuit with around fifteen minutes gone, with Verstappen still on top but Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo joining him in the top three. Alonso then went top of the times, on the hard compound tyre, going +0.112s ahead of Verstappen, who also improved his time further. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri then pushed themselves into the top five, with the Brit ahead of the Australian.

Norris moved himself into second, with a strong time in sector one especially. Ricciardo then replaced his former teammate in second, going +0.335s behind Alonso’s hard tyre time from earlier in the session. Logan Sargeant was the first driver to put on the soft compound tyres, and went top of the timesheets by less than a tenth. Carlos Sainz Jr. did his first lap on the softs, but it was only good enough for go third, behind the Aston Martin Armaco F1 Team of Alonso.