Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season is just around the corner, with the opening race of the year to take place next Saturday at the Bahrain International Circuit, and all twenty drivers were able to take to the same track last week for three days of testing.

The Checkered Flag looks over the three days in Bahrain to see who’s hot and who’s not going into the new season, and whether anyone has it in them to challenge Oracle Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen for the titles.

Day 1 – Verstappen Leads the Way for Red Bull

Reigning World Drivers’ Champion set an ominous statement on the opening day of testing in Bahrain, with the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver ending the day more than a second clear of the field as everyone had their first running with their 2024 machinery.

Verstappen, the winner of nineteen of the twenty-two races in 2023, set a best time of 1:31.344 to pace the field, which saw eighteen of the twenty drivers have their first runs in their new cars.  Only Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton did not take part across the two sessions.

Lando Norris ended the day an encouraging second fastest for the McLaren F1 Team, with the Woking-based outfit aiming to start the 2024 season the way they ended 2023.  Norris’ 1:32.484 was a tenth ahead of Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr., while Daniel Ricciardo put his Visa CashApp RB into fourth.

With national motorsport championships still unable to be safely held as the Russian invasion continues, the Automobile Federation of Ukraine will still pitch the support of its personnel and racers for the military. In particular, drivers will now be encouraged to lead safe driving courses for members of the Ukrainian military, teaching them how to drive effectively in times of emergency such as combat and medevacking.

On 10 February, the FAU’s constitution enshrined a new clause approved a week prior that allows the association to “promote the defence capability of the state, ensure the sustainable development of motorsport, strengthen the safety and quality of motorsport competitions, and development of mass motorsport disciplines under martial law.” This further synchronises the federation’s wartime activities, which have included events like a seminar in November with the 112th Territorial Defence Brigade to teach first aid and safety around land mines, the creation of the FAU Solidarity Fund on Christmas to allocate part of the annual budget to racers serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and partnering with its counterpart in Spain to invite wounded Ukrainian soldiers to compete in the Rallye TT Cuenca.

As part of the new policy, the FAU reorganised the Commission for Emergency Training of Drivers into the Commission for Safe Driving and Emergency Training (КБВКП FAU). Serhii Budnyk, the FAU’s Vice President of Road Safety, will serve as its Chairman. The commission’s primary goal is to “establish systemic interaction” with the AFU, the most notable method being to organise driving lessons guided by interested racing drivers and others in the motorsport industry for troops.

While anyone can qualify, the FAU wants to find those with impressive racing résumés such as champions in domestic series, especially in rally as driving on the frontline is typically off-road, or with prior military experience. Mechanics and officials are also encouraged to take part.

The FAU first experimented with the idea in January, partnering with the Pilot Safe Driving Center and the regional military administrations of Cherkasy and Poltava Oblasts. Each course consisted of four to six lessons that focused on teaching soldiers how to navigate through winter environments without getting into accidents. Members of the Territorial Defence Forces, National Guard, and State Emergency Service were in attendance.

As Israel’s invasion of Gaza continues, Palestinian racers hoped to bring a glimmer of light. The brightest so far came on Friday when Palestinians swept the top four overall in the Jordan 4×4 Championship‘s season opener at Wasfi Al-Tal Forest in Amman.

Emad Khabeis, with Basel Nawasha as co-driver, won the Pro category with the fastest time outright. Hazem Foudeh and Hamzeh Masarweh finished second followed by Wisam Khalileh and Serri Handal. All three drivers raced Jeep Wranglers.

Khalileh just beat out Muhammed Hananah for the last step on the podium, while Hussein Sheyoukhi finished eighth to mark four Palestinians in the top ten. Two other Palestinians, Mahmoud Hafez and Amjad Hanana, retired with mechanical issues.

Twenty-one drivers from Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates took part in Friday’s race. The Palestinian Motor Sport & Motorcycle Federation worked with Jordan Motorsport to bring competitors from Palestine’s West Bank, where the PMSMF is headquartered, to Amman.

Jordan shares a border with Israel and the West Bank; although the latter is not the primary focus of Israel’s operations in their war with Hamas, various skirmishes and air strikes have still occurred with civilian casualties. Various American military bases in Jordan have also been targeted as part of the war’s spillover. With the conflict so close to home, JMS cancelled last November’s Jordan Baja which would have concluded the FIA and FIM Bajas World Cups.

Wolverine has partnered with the Red Bull Scramble Series for a collaboration ahead of the 2024 season, producing a limited-edition work boot, hat, and hoodie.

The boot is based on Wolverine’s Rush UltraSpring line, which the company touts as “one of the lightest work boots we’ve ever made.” It is coloured in Red Bull’s blue with red trim, while the Red Bull Scramble Series logo is featured on the tongue. The colour palette also extends to the laces.

“Our partnership with the Red Bull Scramble Series was built on our shared values of resilience and the pursuit of ultimate performance,” said Wolverine’s brand marketing director Lauren King. “We’re confident this collection will inspire individuals to push their limits like never before, no matter what conditions or terrain they’re facing.”

The Checkered Flag received a sample of the boot prior to the collaboration’s official reveal on Thursday. After taking some time to let them break in, they’re found to be quite comfortable.

Work boots are obviously not typically built for just casual wear like other footwear, but Wolverine seems to find the right balance between comfort and durability. It features a composite toe that still provides protection at the front, but is lighter than boots with steel toes. The boot’s leather is also waterproof, which comes at a premium for the Scramble Series when visiting muddier and wet locations by letting out moisture.

Mason Klein is back for more in Brazil, this time on a Honda CRF450X as he enters the 2024 Brazilian Cross-Country Rally Championship and Sertões Series for Honda Racing Brasil.

Klein first raced in the country last August when he won the Rally dos Sertões on début. Despite being one of rally raid’s top prospects as the 2022 World Rally-Raid Champion in Rally2, he struggled to find funding to continue his career in the series and the Sertões entry came after he lost his W2RC ride with KTM midseason.

He partnered with Kove to race a Kove 450 Rally EX at the 2024 Dakar Rally, which granted him access to the team’s resources equivalent to those of their factory riders though he was officially still a privateer competing for his family team. Klein showed speed in Kove’s maiden race in the RallyGP class, finishing as high as third in the opening stage, but struggled with a rash of mechanical issues that forced him to retire halfway. While he remains friendly with Kove, he was allowed to talk with other teams for the rest of the year and 2025.

Rumours about moving to Honda circulated in the month since the Dakar, and he also conducted rally training on a Honda CRF450X before heading to Brazil to formally join the programme on Thursday. His younger brother and 2023 Baja 1000 winner Carter Klein will also race a Honda in the 2024 SCORE International World Desert Championship.

“This is my first time being part of an official factory team, so it definitely makes a big change for myself and my family as far as the racing career goes,” said Klein. “Being able to go to a new country and follow the series and have the best chance possible at being competitive is really nice for me. Growing up, it’s always been myself, my father, my brother, my mom always doing the work on our own. Now, I get to basically fly and ride. Makes for a much less stressful season and I hope it also brings results for me.”

Trophy Trucks will have to earn their starting spot at all four SCORE International World Desert Championship rounds in 2024. On Tuesday, the sanctioning body announced qualifying has been expanded to the entire calendar after previously taking place exclusively at the San Felipe 250 and Baja 400, meaning the Baja 500 and Baja 1000 will also set their TT starting lineups days before race time.

Each of the three Trophy Truck categories—the headlining eponymous class, Trophy Truck Legends, and Trophy Truck Spec—will go Each class will go out at a time in single-truck qualifying. Trophy Truck and Legends will combine their final qualifying results to set the starting order, meaning a Legends truck can start ahead of a regular TT, while all TT Specs begin the race behind both categories and Class 1.

To incentivise running the full season, trucks must race the previous event to be eligible for qualifying; for example, everyone who is allowed to qualify for the Baja 500 would have already raced at San Felipe. Non-qualifiers will have their starting spots set by random draw if they have already paid their mandatory fees, while those who fail to complete the payments start at the back.

The remaining categories will have their starting positions determined by where they finished in the previous race. A draw is used for those who did not run said round or pay off their fees in time.

Team Australia’s Toby Price and Paul Weel swept the two qualifying sessions in 2023 at the San Felipe 250 and Baja 400.

Although the World Rally-Raid Championship is set for its second round of 2024 with the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge beginning Sunday, some regulars will be in Argentina instead. Defending champion Luciano Benavides and Adrien Van Beveren plan to race this weekend’s Enduro del Verano, while Kevin Benavides will also be present for an exhibition alongside his younger brother.

Although Luciano won the W2RC in 2023, his Husqvarna Racing team as well as Kevin’s Red Bull KTM Factory Racing did not sign up for the 2024 championship as part of increasing budget cuts. The brothers, who hail from Argentina, make every effort to show up to national enduro events like the Enduro del Verano though they have mostly hosted exhibition shows on their rally bikes rather than actually taking part. Their exhibition will take place before the main race on Sunday afternoon, the same day as the ADDC’s Prologue stage.

At the W2RC season-opening Dakar Rally in January, Kevin finished fourth overall while Luciano was seventh. Kevin, the 2021 and 2023 Dakar victor, claimed three stage wins.

KTM’s absence from the W2RC also means Kevin’s team-mates Toby Price and Matthias Walkner are not in Abu Dhabi. Walkner was not going to race anyway as he continues to recover from a severe foot injury he sustained while testing for the Dakar in December, while Price is preparing for SCORE International’s San Felipe 250 in March.

Unlike KTM and Husqvarna, Van Beveren’s Monster Energy Honda Rally Team is eligible for W2RC points but has opted to skip Abu Dhabi as their six riders are “fully deserving of some rest and recuperation” after Dakar. Honda dominated the Dakar, winning seven of twelve stages and Ricky Brabec won the overall; Van Beveren won two stages and placed third. While Honda hoped to give the riders a break before returning at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid in April, many are still staying busy in the meantime like Van Beveren, who is seeking his third EDV title after 2013 and 2015. Last weekend, his team-mate Tosha Schareina won the FIM E-Xplorer World Cup season opener in Osaka, Japan.

ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team‘s Desert X Prix got off to a rough start when Fraser McConnell rolled on the last lap of the Grand Final on Saturday. Fortunately, Sunday was a new day and McConnell got to end his maiden weekend with the team on top.

After qualifying for the second Grand Final with the help of a heat win, McConnell and Laia Sanz dominated from start to finish as they never lost the lead. With Saturday winner Rosberg X Racing finishing last in the Grand Final, the Sainz outfit narrowed the early championship gap between the two to three points.

“Stepping into this team was such a huge step for me,” said McConnell. “So many other people could have had the opportunity, but I was chosen by Carlos (Sainz) and the team to be here. They saw something in me, they believed in me, and this gave me so much confidence to dig as deep as I could. I am living this opportunity as if it is my last, making sure I can make a name for myself and the team. Carlos has been a hero of mine growing up, so racing for him is such a feeling. It has been a very good first weekend.

“Yesterday we didn’t get what we wanted, but these things can happen when you push. We are here to win, not to be second or third, and everyone in ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team is doing everything they can to fulfill this goal. I am going to enjoy this win as much as I can. It is a long break now until the next round, but we will go through everything to analyze what we did right and what we did wrong. We will carry the positives and work on the negatives. Awesome feeling and ready to go for it again.”

McLaren XE won the Redemption Race after passing Legacy Motor Club in the final lap, spoiling Travis Pastrana‘s hopes of finally beating his close friend and longtime rallycross rival Mattias Ekström. Pastrana even arrived in Saudi Arabia with a t-shirt listing items such as winning the Nitrocross championship and qualifying for the Daytona 500, and at the top was “beat Mattias Ekström”.

Rosberg X Racing‘s quest for a third Extreme E title is off to a good start after winning the first race of 2024 at the Desert X Prix on Saturday, though it was probably too close for comfort.

RXR and McLaren XE scrapped for the Grand Final victory, beginning with a battle of the Swedes as the former’s Johan Kristoffersson squared off with Mattias Ekström. Kristoffersson held the two-second edge as the two swapped out for Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky and Cristina Gutiérrez.

Gutiérrez found an opening on the final lap but Åhlin-Kottulinsky managed to close it in time and score the win by just .167 of a second. The win wrapped up a Saturday clean sweep for the reigning champion, who won both of their heat races.

“Johan handed over the car in a good position, but the competition was intense, especially my battle with Cristina,” said Åhlin-Kottulinsky. “I was very happy to make the overtake and take the win.”

Although coming up short, second is still nothing to scoff at for Ekström and Gutiérrez in their maiden race for McLaren. Veloce Racing joined them on the podium while last year’s championship runner-up ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team rolled on the final lap.

The Sonora Rally might not be on the World Rally-Raid Championship anymore, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be involved with the championship in some form. Like it was prior to its one-year inclusion on the schedule, the rally will remain a Road to Dakar leg in which the top motorcycle and side-by-side finishers with no prior Dakar Rally experience can earn free registration to the 2025 or 2026 edition.

While the Sonora Rally traditionally takes place in the spring, it will be moved to 21–25 October for 2024 to celebrate the ten-year anniversary.

“This year marks a special race for us,” begins an announcement from rally officials. “It’s been a decade since we first set off in the beautiful Sonoran Desert, so to commemorate, we’re ‘going back to basics.’ It’s going to be a classic competition with several surprises in store to celebrate our ‘birthday’.”

Created in 2014 by Darren Skilton and Scott Whitney, the rally is designed to provide rally raid-style racing in North America, which the Mexican state of Sonora satisfies with its ergs similar to those in other major desert rallies. It was already part of the Road to Dakar before being included in the W2RC in 2023, becoming the series’ first race in the Americas. Nasser Al-Attiyah and Daniel Sanders respectively won the FIA and FIM overalls while Sara Price (SSV) and Francisco Álvarez (bike) topped the race’s Road to Dakar. The 2023 race was held in partnership with NORRA’s Mexican 1000 in neighbouring Baja California, which took place a week later and also features a rally-style format.

The rally did not return to the W2RC in 2024 as Skilton, who serves as race director, hopes to support local competitors though he did not rule out rekindling the partnership. The October date is a week after the W2RC’s season-ending Rallye du Maroc.

Despite only being the second round of the World Rally-Raid Championship, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge will be missing some major star power as Dakar Rally overall winners Team Audi Sport and Monster Energy Honda Rally Team are absent. Forty-five drivers and fifty-six riders will hope to step it up in their place.

While Dakar bike winner Honda will return for the BP Ultimate Rally Raid in April, Audi is gone entirely: although Audi finally won the Dakar on the FIA side with Carlos Sainz and had plans of racing for the championship, a lack of suitable parts expedited their intended shutdown at the end of 2024 to Tuesday. Sainz, Mattias Ekström, and Stéphane Peterhansel are permitted to race for other teams and classes, though none are taking part. Peterhansel’s co-driver Édouard Boulanger will still show up to Abu Dhabi as the new navigator for Nasser Al-Attiyah, who parted ways with Mathieu Baumel after a successful decade in rally raid.

After his Dakar defence ended in disaster, Al-Attiyah hopes to make up lost ground with Prodrive. His ally Sébastien Loeb and Bahrain Raid Xtreme, who won five stages at Dakar, are not entered, though brothers Cristian and Marcos Baumgart will fill the void. With Audi and Loeb gone, the eighteen-driver Ultimate class is all the more up for grabs. Sainz’s absence means Toyota will have an opportunity to take the points lead courtesy of Overdrive Racing’s Guillaume de Mévius and Guerlain Chicherit, who respectively trail Sainz by eighteen and twenty points. Fellow Toyota driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi, fresh off winning the FIA Baja World Cup’s Saudi Baja, is aiming to go back-to-back in the ADDC.

A championship lead change is also guaranteed in Challenger as Mitch Guthrie is not racing either, which Rokas Baciuška hopes to capitalise on; Baciuška exited Dakar seventeen points behind Guthrie. Dakar winner Cristina Gutiérrez is entered but not competing for the championship.

Yasir Seaidan finished third in SSV at Dakar, which gave him the category’s points lead as Xavier de Soultrait and Jérôme de Sadeleer were not eligible for points. He will have a new co-driver for Abu Dhabi in Michaël Metge, who replaces his younger brother Adrien.

The Desafío Ruta 40 has received a slight schedule tweak, moving up a day from its original 2–8 June date to 1–7 June. Of course, such a minute change means it retains its slot as the fourth round of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship.

Race officials justified the change as to better “welcome the fans who are expecting the arrival of the best competitors in the world.”

“There is no doubt that the Desafío Ruta 40 is one of the most awaited events in the rally-raid calendar,” reads a statement. “In this sense, the Argentinean public is a key part of the essence of DR40. The passion and enthusiasm of the fans have created a special atmosphere in each edition of this prestigious rally competition. Regardless of the difficulty of the terrain where the race takes place, the Argentinean fans have already shown that there are no limits to wait in large numbers for the competitors on their way, making this event truly unique.”

With the adjustment, the Prologue stage will take place on a Sunday, 2 June, while the day before is used for final scrutineering. The race ends with the fifth and final stage on Friday. Racing in the 2023 edition also ran from Sunday to Friday, though it was held in August.

Aside from the two-week Dakar Rally, W2RC races are five stages long (not including the Prologue) so some organisers find it reasonable for those legs to take place on all five weekdays. Not every round follows this pattern such as the upcoming Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, whose Prologue is on Monday, 26 February, while Stage #5 is on Saturday, 2 March.

As SCORE International legalises rally raid bikes for the 2024 season with the creation of the Pro Moto Adventure category, one manufacturer of such bikes is stepping up to provide support. Kove Moto will offer USD$1,000 (€933.40) to the first five riders who enter the season-opening San Felipe 250 in March, as well as prize money for the top three finishers in the class at each of the four SCORE World Desert Championship races.

The Pro Moto Adventure race winner, regardless of their bike’s brand, will earn $2,500 (€2333.50). Second place receives $1,000 and third gets $500 (€466.70).

Kove has been eager to expand its footprint in off-road racing, spearheaded by its rally raid programme that competes at the Dakar Rally and World Rally-Raid Championship. In January, the Chinese marque fielded six bikes at Dakar and made their début in the W2RC’s top RallyGP division with Mason Klein, whose younger brother Carter won the 2023 Baja 1000 for bikes.

Pro Moto Adventure is open to bikes with single-cylinder engines that displace between 250cc and 650cc. Cross-country rally bikes are required to be 450cc under current FIM regulation, well within that threshold, while the FIM Bajas World Cup has a new Trail class that allows vehicles over 600cc. SCORE also mandates bikes in the class to have a windscreen and navigation tower, the latter used in rally raid to attach roadbooks and other navigation equipment though those are not required here. As such, W2RC bikes like the Kove 450 Rally are eligible for SCORE competition.

In December, Baja 500 Sportsman Moto winner Javier Rubio announced he will run the full 2024 SCORE season on a Kove 450 Rally. While the class had not been unveiled at the time, Rubio effectively became the first confirmed rider in Pro Moto Adventure, and is its only entrant for San Felipe as of this article’s publication.

The swan song season for Team Audi Sport‘s rally raid programme has come to a sooner end than planned. Despite winning the Dakar Rally in January, a lack of suitable parts for the Audi RS Q e-tron E2 have forced them to shut down after just one round of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship.

The RS Q e-tron, the only electric vehicle in the W2RC’s premier Ultimate category, relies on intricate components that are sourced from a very limited pool of vendors, some of which take as long as two years to produce. Much of the parts were used up during a disastrous 2023 Dakar Rally in which all three Audi drivers crashed out or suffered severe mechanical failures, followed by an intensive testing regimen to diagnose what went wrong. Although Audi finally broke through to win the 2024 Dakar with Carlos Sainz, attrition took its toll on his team-mates Mattias Ekström and Stéphane Peterhansel and further depleted their resources.

Audi was already set to close the team after 2024 to focus on Formula One, where they are set to supply engines for Sauber in 2026, but hoped to go out by winning the W2RC as well. Sainz’s Dakar win, the fourth of his career, gave Audi a thirteen-point edge in the manufacturer’s standings over twice reigning champion Toyota.

Q Motorsport, who provides technical support, has expressed interest in racing the RS Q e-trons following Audi’s exit.

“We have made history with this success and attracted a lot of attention worldwide,” Audi racing boss Rolf Michl stated. “It was a hard-earned and extremely emotional victory for a highly motivated team. Team Audi Sport and Q Motorsport showed exemplary team spirit in a particularly tough edition of this challenging motorsport event. After setbacks last season, we managed to turn the tide and prevailed this time around against a number of strong teams and very good drivers. My thanks go to everyone involved, whose hard work made this successful conclusion to the programme possible.”

Yazeed Al-Rajhi‘s hopes of winning the Dakar Rally on his home soil evapourated when he crashed halfway. A month later, while not the World Rally-Raid Championship, he began the FIA World Baja Cup on a strong note when he won the Saudi Baja for the seventh time.

Al-Rajhi set the tone when he won the first stage, but had an off performance in the second stage as he finished fourth, five and a half minutes behind winner João Ferreira. Despite Al-Rajhi’s stumble, Ferreira just narrowly missed out on closing the gap entirely as Al-Rajhi beat him by just thirty-eight seconds.

“It’s always nice to win here,” commented Al-Rajhi. “I never expected that I would become a Baja or a cross-country specialist but my first win here opened my eyes to this kind of racing. I enjoy it a lot.”

Juan Cruz Yacopini lost out to Ferreira in Stage #2 by forty-seven seconds, and was too far back to catch Rokas Baciuška for the final spot on the overall podium. Baciuška, the Stage #1 runner-up, was running his second race in the top-level Ultimate class after the Baja Aragón last summer, improving upon his ninth in that race.

Dania Akeel was sixth in her Ultimate début behind Aliyyah Koloc. Unlike the quartet ahead of them, the two are competing for FIA Middle East Baja Cup points.