VALENCIA, SPAIN (Thursday, October 24, 2024) – The 2024 FIA Motorsport Games is officially underway, with participants from the Rally, Electric Street and Esports disciplines beginning their preparations today in Spain.
The shift to track activity followed Wednesday night’s opening ceremony in Valencia, which brought 646 athletes representing 82 nations to the City of Arts & Sciences to launch the event’s third edition.
With the festivities complete, Thursday saw engines fired up for the first time at Circuit Ricardo Tormo, where a selection of Rally hopefuls staged their Shakedown, Practice and Qualifying.
Though no engines were fired, the Esports competitors were also busy at the City of Arts & Sciences. Esports GT and Esports F4 were both in action with a series of Qualifying sessions ahead of Quarter-Final contests on Friday. Karting Slalom also kicked off today with Qualifying on a bespoke course at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Friday marks a significant uptick in activity. Five of the six Circuit categories and Auto Slalom will be on-track, while the Rally contenders will also be busy at a number of locations. All Karting and Off Road categories will run at Aspar Circuit, while the Esports contenders will compete at the City of Arts & Sciences.
The first action at Circuit Ricardo Tormo will be Free Practice 1 for GT, which kicks off at 08:30. Live coverage begins with Qualifying for the same category at 16:15, which can be viewed via the official FIA Motorsport Games website, YouTube channel and social media accounts.
Esports GT
Teams from Czechia, Brazil and Germany shared the pole positions for the trio of Quarter Finals on the first day of competition at Valencia.
The full field of 57 nations took to the fleet of Fanatec-supplied sim rigs situated in the city’s spectacular City of Arts & Sciences across Thursday morning. Team Czechia took control of the opening session thanks to Vojtech Fiala, who pulled a 0.28s gap on Team Malaysia’s Naquib Azlan. Team Morocco driver Ahmed Erquizi was third ahead of Kieran Prendergast from Team United Kingdom.
Igor De Oliveira Rodrigues set the fastest time in session two for Team Brazil and will share the front row of the second Quarter Final with Philippa Boquida of Team Australia. Team Japan’s Sota Muto was third, with Ho Cheung Chan of Team Hong Kong, China Special Administrative Region fourth.
Niklas Houben secured top spot for the last Quarter Final for Team Germany, but only just. Only 0.06s separated him and Team France’s Mathys Leitao, while Youngchan Kim (Team South Korea) and Grantas Kareckas (Team Lithuania) will occupy the second row.
Qualifying 1 Results
Qualifying 2 Results
Qualifying 3 Results
Esports F4
Brazil, Republic of South Korea and India hit the front in the three Esports F4 qualifying sessions of the day, with a total of 55 different nations turning out for the category’s debut at the FIA Motorsport Games.
With a real-world FIA Formula 4 test in the offering for the overall winner, the pressure was on the Esports F4 competitors from the start. Luis Felipe de Sá Tavares was the fastest around iRacing’s recently updated Spa-Francorchamps layout in qualifying for the first Quarter-Final, but only by 0.04s from Alexander Spetz (Team Sweden). Team United Kingdom and Team Malaysia rounded out the top four, with Matt Caruana and Nabil Azlan driving respectively.
Gyumin Kim led the way for Team South Korea in Q2, Jarl Teien (Team Norway) was second ahead of both Jimmy Antunes (Team Switzerland) and Isaac Lennert Gillissen (Team Netherlands).
The final session of the day also produced the fastest time so far, with Team India’s Muhammad Ibrahim finishing out front with a 2:22:520s. Martin Kadlečik was second for Team Czechia ahead of Team Singapore’s Ar Muhammad Aleef Mohamed Rafik and Team Türkiye’s Ulaș Özyildirim.
The Quarter-Finals get underway tomorrow from 12:50 CEST.
Qualifying Results 1
Qualifying Results 2
Qualifying Results 3
Karting Slalom
Karting Slalom kicked off on Thursday with testing, qualifying sessions, and the opening races, with Team Hungary and Team Germany among those enjoying a stellar first day of action.
The category – part of the Electric Street discipline alongside Auto Slalom – offers an accessible and affordable entry point to motorsport for junior participants aged 14-16 years who hold a National Karting licence.
With participants driving identical electric karts through a parallel slalom course in a relay format, the fastest teams progress through to a knock-out phase of head-to-head time trials, culminating in the Final to determine the gold medal winners.
When the dust settled on the opening day of the Karting Slalom competition Team Hungary’s Balázs Sturcz and Anna Benedek set the pace in qualifying. Their combined time, with penalties taken into account, was a little over three seconds clear of Germany (Louis Stange / Maja Braun), with Lithuania (Linas Volungevi / Meda Mickeliūna) slotting into third.
The top 16 from today’s sessions will progress to the next phase on Saturday morning. This will be whittled down to eight for the afternoon’s Quarter-Final, followed by Semi-Finals and the medal-deciding contests on Sunday.
Germany is the defending gold medallist, having triumphed over Belgium at the 2022 edition.
Rallying
Host nation Spain set the Qualifying pace on Thursday to top the Rally2 contenders in Valencia, as Slovakia led the Rally4 pack and Italy headed the Historic Rally times.
Entrants from the three classes took to Circuit Ricardo Tormo to determine the running order for the first competitive stage, with the quickest crews able to select their starting position.
Team Spain threw down the gauntlet among the protagonists in Rally2, which caters for four-wheel-drive cars with turbocharged 1600cc engines. José Antonio Suárez and co-driver Alberto Iglesias, who will specialise in the Gravel category, proved fastest as the Škoda Fabia RS crew delivered an unmatched 2:39.315s effort.
Compatriots Alejandro Cachon / Borja Rozada were best out of those vying for gold medals in the mixed-surface and Rally2 Tarmac classes. Next in the times was Team Türkiye’s Ali Türkkan / Burak Erdene aboard their Ford Fiesta.
In the front-wheel-drive Rally4 field, Team Slovakia’s Martin Koči / Petr Těšínský earned a Qualifying clean sweep. Taking part in each of the mixed-surface, Gravel, and Tarmac classes, the Peugeot 208 pair topped the leaderboard courtesy of their 2:56.600s benchmark.
That placed them ahead of Portugal representatives Hugo Lopes / Valter Cardoso in Rally4 Tarmac. Tom Kässer / Stephan Schneeweiß were second out of the mixed-surface crews as Argentina duo Luciano Bonomi and Miguel Recalt ranked as runners-up in Rally4 Gravel.
With a gold medal from 2022 to defend, Italy set the pace in the Historic Rally contest for cars homologated between 1971 and 1980. Competing in all three classes, Andrea Zivian / Nicola Arena steered their Audi quattro round in 3:05.728s.
They pipped the United Kingdom’s mixed-surface crew of Ben Mellors / Alex Lee (1979 Toyota Celica RA45), while the country’s dedicated Historic Rally Gravel line-up of Ernie and Anna Graham (1975 Ford Escort RS) will be third to take on the opening stage on Friday morning, having completed the top three.
