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The opening day of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix brought plenty of action, with both Free Practice One and Two taking place on Thursday, due to the race taking place on Saturday.

The first practice session was topped by three-time world champion Max Verstappen – the perfect start to the weekend for the Dutchman as he aims to make it two wins from two races. The following practice session in the evening saw a strong performance from Fernando Alonso, topping the timesheets by more than two tenths.

There were certainly some talking points from both sessions, with things looking very open ahead of Friday, both in the midfield and at the front.

Verstappen Meets Expectations in First Practice

Verstappen was quick out of the blocks and set the pace during Thursday afternoon’s hour of free practice, ahead of Alonso and his Oracle Red Bull Racing teammate, Sergio Pérez.

The Dutchman finished the session just under two-tenths ahead of Alonso, thanks to an impressive lap time on the soft compound tyre. Pérez managed to get some good running for Red Bull, but the Mexican will be aiming to be closer to his teammate by qualifying. 

Jon Nelson, one of the greatest fabricators and masterminds of off-road truck racing, passed away Tuesday after a long battle with cancer.

Nelson began working for desert racing great Walker Evans in the late 1970s before being hired by Larry Minor in 1983. With Nelson’s expertise, Minor’s Class 8 trucks quickly enjoyed success with drivers like Steve Kelley, who won in his debut with the team at the 1984 HDRA Frontier 250 followed by the 1985 class championship. Minor and Parnelli Jones also raced the Miller American-sponsored truck, though Kelley was effectively the team’s star en route to his induction into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame.

In 1986, he and his brother Eric founded Nelson & Nelson Racing Products. Chevrolet enlisted the company to oversee their Class 8 and short course programmes, the latter of which entailed racing in the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group‘s stadium trucks with Ricky and Jimmie Johnson, unrelated motocross riders who later became legends in off-road and stock car racing, respectively.

Jimmie Johnson got his start in four-wheeled racing thanks to Nelson and excelled in MTEG before going on to compete in SCORE International with Nelson & Nelson support. For the NASCAR Cup Series’ 2019 throwback race at Darlington, Johnson’s car was adorned with a livery emulating the “Butch” truck that Nelson prepared for him.

“When I got into the stadium trucks, I tore up plenty of equipment and drove Jon Nelson crazy by destroying his race trucks,” quipped Johnson at a press conference in 2003. “But I learned some hard lessons through that. Rick Johnson has influenced me through a lot of my career and so has my dad. I had some hard knocks along with way with Jon Nelson in particular being frustrated with some of his equipment that I tore up.”

The FIA Formula 1 World Championship is back in Jeddah this weekend for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, for the second part of the season opening double header.

Five teams are yet to score points, after missing out at Bahrain. With the likes of Oracle Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Ferrari and McLaren F1 Team competing at the front and in the top ten, it’s likely that only a handful of positions in the points will be available to teams in the midfield. Amongst others, Visa Cash App RB will be wanting to get their first points on the board after showing promise at the Bahrain Grand Prix – Daniel Ricciardo topped the first practice session on Thursday morning.

Read what the teams in the bottom half of the championship had to say, as well as Aston Martin Armaco F1 Team’s driver ambassador, Jessica Hawkins!

#24 – Guanyu Zhou – Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber

“Last week’s performance has been a big confidence boost for everyone in the team. We know the basis of our car is solid and that we can fight at the front of our group of teams, but we also know that we have to keep pushing to understand how to extract its potential and set it up in the most effective way.

The FIA Formula 1 World Championship arrives in Jeddah this weekend for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with Oracle Red Bull Racing touted as favourites to take victory on Saturday.

The return of Formula 1 last weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix saw Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez secure a Red Bull 1-2 finish, with the Scuderia Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr. behind in third. As expected, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, McLaren F1 Team and Aston Martin Armaco F1 Team secured points and their position as the top five constructors.

Red Bull may look like they are a long way ahead, but the four teams behind them will be battling for the places behind. Read what top four teams had to say ahead of the first practice session in Jeddah.

#1 – Max Verstappen – Oracle Red Bull Racing

“The team had a great first race of the season and I am looking forward to Jeddah, which is a proper high speed semi street circuit, seeing less degradation on the tyres.

After months of speculation and near-radio silence from the team, Dale Coyne Racing announced its 2024 driver lineup on Tuesday, just three days before cars appear on track in St. Petersburg for the first race of the IndyCar Series season.

Series veteran Jack Harvey will join the team for 14 races in the No. 18 car driven by David Malukas in 2023. Harvey’s season will start in St. Petersburg this weekend. The 30-year-old’s return marks his first race since being dropped by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing before the final three rounds of the ’23 schedule. Just one top-10 finish has been scored by the Englishman in the past two years.

Reigning Indy NXT (formerly Indy Lights) Rookie of the Year Nolan Siegel will pilot the No. 18 in Harvey’s weekends off, with the California native set to make starts at Long Beach, Toronto and at the Indianapolis 500 in May. Siegel won two races with HMD Motorsports on his way to a third-place finish in the championship during the 2023 Indy NXT season and will run another full schedule with HMD in 2024. With that, the 19-year-old becomes the first driver to run multiple races in both series in one year since Carlos Munoz in 2013.

Team owner Dale Coyne praised those two newcomers in a Tuesday press release: “Jack (Harvey) brings a lot of experience to the team and he immediately fit right in when he tested with us. Nolan (Siegel), like Jack, is a pleasure to work with. He impressed us at the Homestead test with how quickly he was up to speed for his first time in the car. We look forward to seeing what both will do this season aboard our 18 car.”

Although Zhang Xue has stepped down as CEO of Kove Moto, the company will press on with his blueprint of competing in the Dakar Rally and Supersport 300 World Championship.

Zhang founded Kove in 2017 but submitted his resignation last Friday due to differences in vision with other company executives, and intends to start another motorcycle business. Nonetheless, he is still an owner in Kove.

“It is with regret that we inform you of Mr. Zhang Xue’s resignation from the position of General Manager, officially departing from Kove as of February 28th,” begins a letter from owner Tibet New Summit Motorcycle Co.

“In 2017, the Kove project was officially launched. Together with a team of six entrepreneurial individuals, including Mr. Zhang Xue, we faced challenges and made strides forward. Over these 2,500 days and nights, we collectively achieved the success that defines Kove today.

“Mr. Zhang Xue has decided to temporarily step away from the Kove management team to pursue his dreams. However, he remains a member of the Kove shareholder team, and we will continue to support Mr. Zhang’s decisions.

After a month off, the World Rally-Raid Championship roared back to life this past week with the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

Missed The Checkered Flag‘s daily coverage? We’ve got you covered with a nifty archive of our stories below.

Pre-race stories

Mid-race stories

Stage winners

Overall winners

With only two riders competing in the premier RallyGP class at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the Rally2 division had their best opportunity to shine in a long time, if not ever as one of their own was guaranteed to be on the overall podium. DUUST Rally Team went beyond that by placing two riders in the top three with Konrad Dąbrowski and Jean-Loup Lepan.

Dąbrowski could have very well won the ADDC outright, coming up just four minutes and fifty-six seconds short of RallyGP’s Aaron Marè. While Marè led the overall from the second stage onwards, his team-mate Ross Branch’s early mechanical issues prevented him from cracking the podium himself and left two spots up for grabs for Rally2.

In fact, the Rally2 party began as early as Stage #1 when Michael Docherty held off Marè by three minutes for the overall win, becoming the first rider from the class to win a stage among all bikes since Mason Klein beat Daniel Sanders for the 2021 Rallye du Maroc’s Stage #4 victory. However, his ADDC came to an end the next day when he crashed just five kilometres after starting the leg, resulting in a fractured pelvis.

Dąbrowski and Marè stopped their races to help Docherty, earning the former nearly twenty-five minutes in time credits that he parlayed into the Rally2 stage win and bike runner-up. Lepan and Dąbrowski traded 1–2 finishes every stage for the rest of the rally.

Entering the final day, Lepan trailed Dąbrowski by 11:51. Despite his best efforts, his team-mate was too quick and instead beat him by 2:40 to secure his maiden Rally2 victory under World Rally-Raid Championship sanction. Dąbrowski also won the Junior Trophy for riders under the age of twenty-five.

The last time the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge‘s Quad category was won by someone besides Abdulaziz Ahli, COVID-19 had yet to exist. Ahli, who has won every edition since its resumption in 2021, found himself in a very easy position to score a fourth consecutive win with just two rivals, both of whom experienced mechanical trouble that knocked them out of contention.

After winning all but one stage in 2023 against five other riders, Ahli completed a clean sweep as he claimed all five legs (excluding the five-kilometre Prologue) in 2024. He joins Marc Coma as the only competitors to win the ADDC at least four times in a row; Coma achieved a five-peat from 2009 to 2013 in the bike category.

Kamil Wiśniewski, who missed the season-opening Dakar Rally due to injury, seemed poised for a strong rebound when he was the fastest Quad in the Prologue, edging out Ahli by three seconds. However, he quickly fell an hour behind Ahli in Stage #1 due to overheating temperatures on his Yamaha Raptor. Two days later, he was forced to retire from the race altogether when he crashed in the dunes, destroying the electronics on the vehicle.

Hani Al-Noumesi, the only rider of the three to run the Dakar Rally in January, never stood a chance against Ahli as he finished at least an hour behind Ahli in all five legs. He inherited second after Wiśniewski’s exit, but the closest margin between him and Ahli was 1:06:34 in Stage #5.

Hans Brehmer and Paweł Otwinowski were originally entered, the latter finishing sixth in the 2023 ADDC, but withdrew before the start. CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team, who made their World Rally-Raid Championship début in last year’s race, skipped Abu Dhabi due to shipping concerns related to the crisis in the Red Sea. Although he did not race, Dakar winner Manuel Andújar remains the class points leader while Al-Noumesi jumps from seventh to second; Ahli inserted himself in fourth, though he traditionally only runs the ADDC. Had Wiśniewski reached the finish, he would have earned twenty points to tie with defending champion Laisvydas Kancius for sixth.

In a stunning debut performance, Callum Ilott clinched second place at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar, marking his first outing with Hertz Team JOTA in the Hypercar category.

The near-1,200-mile race, illuminated by the glow of floodlights in its final stages, saw Ilott, alongside teammates Will Stevens and Norman Nato, secure not only the team’s inaugural Hypercar podium but also an 11-point lead in the FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams.

The #12 Porsche 963, piloted by the talented trio, remained in podium contention throughout the grueling 10-hour race, showcasing impressive consistency and pace against formidable competition.

Reflecting on the achievement, Ilott expressed his elation at the strong start to the season, emphasizing the significance of securing the lead in the FIA World Cup standings for Hypercar Teams. He commended the exceptional efforts of Hertz Team JOTA, highlighting the seamless transition into the Hypercar category and praising the performance of his teammates.

Ilott said, “What a start to the year! I’m delighted with second place overall and the first ‘privateer’ team home which gives us the lead in the FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams standings. Hertz Team JOTA did an amazing job and the team was incredible to work with. They made it super easy for me on my Hypercar debut as did my team-mates Norman [Nato] and Will [Stevens] who were both fast and did solid jobs.”

Heading into the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, the BWT Alpine F1 Team were worried they were going to start the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season on the back foot, and their concerns were soon proven to be correct.

Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly qualified nineteenth and twentieth at the Bahrain International Circuit and finished seventeenth and eighteenth, ahead only of the heavily delayed Valtteri Bottas and Logan Sargeant, both of whom had technical issues.

The car is supposedly overweight and unstable, and with the power unit already underpowered compared to their rivals, and the pain was evident across the board in Bahrain.

And heading into the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Alpine has announced a shuffle in its technical department, with technical director Matt Harman and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer leaving their positions.

Team Principal Bruno Famin now has a new technical team beneath him, with Joe Burnell announced as technical director (engineering), David Wheater as technical director (aerodynamics) and Ciaron Pilbeam as technical director (performance).  Eric Meignan remains in his position as technical director (power unit), although his focus is on developing the new engine for the 2026 season.

Mansour Al-Helei might not be competing for the World Rally-Raid Championship, but he was more than happy to put on a show for his fellow Emiratis on his home soil. Al-Helei and Yasir Seaidan, from neighbouring Saudi Arabia, squared off for the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge SSV victory, with Al-Helei narrowly coming out on top.

The margin between the two was as close as eighteen seconds at one point, when Seaidan won Stage #3 to take the overall lead from Al-Helei. Entering the final day, Al-Helei was clinging onto a 1:22 edge over Seaidan, a margin that could have been even closer had the latter not received seventy seconds in time penalties. Despite Seaidan’s efforts, he was unable to catch Al-Helei in Stage #5 as the gap nearly doubled. The 2:42 separating them was the closest final margin of victory among all six categories.

While coming up short, Seaidan being the top finisher among W2RC-eligible drivers gives him more of an advantage in the standings. He had also left the season-opening Dakar Rally as the best finishing championship competitor despite finishing third overall, and repeating this feat puts him nearly sixty points ahead of Sebastián Guayasamín, who joined him and Al-Helei on the outright podium. Rebecca Busi, who missed the 2023 ADDC due to logistical issues, notched her first career W2RC podium finish.

Abu Dhabi was the first race for Seaidan with Michaël Metge as navigator. He worked with his younger brother Adrien Metge at Dakar while Michaël finished runner-up there as the co-driver for Jérôme de Sadeleer, meaning the elder Metge is riding a two-race SSV runner-up streak.

Father and son duo Michele and Pietro Cinotto respectively finished fifth and ninth, the latter entering his first championship race outside of Dakar. Unlike his son, Michele is registered for points.

The Dakar Rally was a disappointment for Can-Am Factory Team, who went from reigning champion to only winning a single stage. Hoping to put the opener behind them, Rokas Baciuška and Austin Jones bounced back in style at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge as the former finished second in all but one stage while the latter claimed three stages en route to his third World Rally-Raid Championship win and first outside of Dakar.

Jones, now with Oriol Mena as his co-driver following Gustavo Gugelmin‘s exit from the sport, set the tone early by winning the first two stages, then added a third on the penultimate day. They were Jones’ first stage victories since Stage #3 at the 2023 Dakar Rally en route to winning the race’s T3 (now Challenger) overall.

Although his three wins led all Challenger drivers in Abu Dhabi, Jones was never able to build a comfortable lead due to Baciuška’s consistency. While third place was over forty minutes behind Jones by Stage #4, Baciuška’s four consecutive runner-up finishes from Stages #1 to #4 meant he never trailed by more than seven minutes. Nonetheless, Baciuška still faced a tough task entering the final day when he needed to make up 6:37. Although he finished ahead of Jones in the stage, he was only able to shave 1:59 off the gap and finished 4:38 back.

“Isn’t easy to have a good feeling from the first minute inside the car and I think we have had it,” said Mena, who joined Jones’ team after previously working with Eryk Goczał; Mena and Goczał, the 2023 Dakar SSV victors, won five Challenger stages in the 2024 edition prior to being disqualified. “A great experience at your side and a well-deserved victory.”

Hernán Garcés finished third to complete a Can-Am top three sweep, though Dania Akeel joined Jones and Baciuška on the podium for those earning points in the W2RC.

Aaron Marè was going to race a KTM 450 Rally for SRG Motorsports at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge when Wolfgang Fischer, just days before the start, asked him to rejoin Hero MotoSports in place of the injured Sebastian Bühler. One week later, Marè led the charge to Hero’s maiden World Rally-Raid Championship win.

Marè, who last raced a W2RC round at the 2022 Dakar Rally with Hero (also as an injury substitute), and team-mate Ross Branch were the only entrants in the RallyGP category as many factory teams like Honda and KTM scaled back their rally efforts due to funding or their riders competing somewhere else. Even if this meant a two-man battle in the class, the lower Rally2 category still provided more than enough competition for the duo as eventual Rally2 winner Konrad Dąbrowski and Jean-Loup Lepan kept pace.

Branch, the Dakar runner-up, hoped to be the man to deliver Hero’s first victory and set the stage early by winning the Prologue while Marè finished behind Rally2 riders Michael Docherty and Tobias Ebster. His momentum continued early into Stage #1 before mechanical issues like an engine problem struck, dropping him to sixth and 25:28 behind Marè. Marè, still getting re-acclimated to the Hero 450 Rally, narrowly lost to Docherty, a fellow South African.

An engine change, which comes with a fifteen-minute time penalty, effectively ruined Branch’s hopes of winning the overall barring a dramatic comeback or disaster for Marè. Both split the final four stages as Marè rode off to win by nearly nearly forty minutes. With Branch so far back in the RallyGP overall, Marè’s main focus was on staving off the Rally2 onslaught; Docherty had retired after crashing in Stage #2, leaving Dąbrowski and Lepan in hot pursuit.

Marè led Dąbrowski by ten minutes entering the final day. Dąbrowski finished second in Stage #5, but only beat him by six minutes and Marè held on with a 4:56 margin of victory.

In 2023, Nasser Al-Attiyah was dominating the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge until he rolled his Toyota Hilux in Stage #3, marking his first retirement from an international rally raid in nearly a decade. One year later, now in a Prodrive Hunter, he held off his old Toyota colleagues for the victory.

After a frustrating start to the World Rally-Raid Championship when he was forced to retire from the Dakar Rally, Al-Attiyah quickly regained his footing in Abu Dhabi when he won the Prologue and Stage #1. His former team Toyota Gazoo Racing quickly put the pressure on him from there as his successors Lucas Moraes and Seth Quintero and Overdrive Racing‘s Guerlain Chicherit and reigning winner Yazeed Al-Rajhi gave chase, with Chicherit and Quintero scoring stage wins of their own.

The third stage once again proved to be an unlucky number for Al-Attiyah in the ADDC as he lost the overall lead to Quintero, who enjoyed his first win in the Ultimate category, albeit a bittersweet victory for TGR as Moraes retired after his Hilux caught fire at the finish. Al-Attiyah responded with back-to-back stage wins to close out the rally, the first of which forced Quintero to make up 9:21 on the final day to catch him. A fifteen-minute penalty for missing a waypoint ended Quintero’s pursuit and he lost a spot to Al-Rajhi in the overall.

Unlike at Dakar, where he was joined by six, Al-Attiyah had few allies in Abu Dhabi as Marcos and Cristian Baumgart were the only other Hunters on the grid. Marcos finished fourth, too far back to make the podium, while Cristian retired after a rollover in Stage #1. Although without the strength in numbers, which helped propel Toyota to the lead in the manufacturer’s championship, Al-Attiyah’s Hunter did not let him down like it did in the opener as he scored his fourth ADDC triumph alongside 2008, 2016, and 2021. Prodrive also enjoyed their third W2RC win after Chicherit and Sébastien Loeb at the 2022 Rallye du Maroc and Andalucía Rally, respectively.

The triumph moves Al-Attiyah up to second in the championship behind Carlos Sainz, whose Team Audi Sport shut down after the Dakar due to a lack of parts. The FIA fined the team for their absence as they had registered for the full season. Édouard Boulanger, the navigator for Audi driver and 2022 ADDC champion Stéphane Peterhansel, joined Al-Attiyah for the rest of the season starting in Abu Dhabi.