Motorsport Roundup: CS Santosh and Harith Noah ready for Andalucia Rally, Honda To Quit F1, MotoGP Rider Announcements And More

Andalucia Rally 2020

After a long gap from rally riding due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CS Santosh and Harith Noah are set to compete at the Andalucia Rally 2020 starting from October 6. The former will be running with Hero MotoSports Team Rally, alongside Joaquim Rodrigues and Sebastian Buhler. Noah will be part of the Sherco Rally team (TVS Racing's partners) along with Lorenzo Santolino and Rui Goncalves. 

The Andalucia Rally is actually a new event created due to the postponement of the Rally du Maroc to 2021. It will run near the town of Villamartín with racing action kicking off with a special stage of around 10km setting up the starting order for stage 1. The rally will run till October 10, covering 4 stages worth of around 1000km overall. While stage 1, 2 and 4 will run in two loops, the third stage will be a single special stage running 300km. 

Formula One

Honda dropped a major bombshell within the paddock by announcing its exit from Formula One at the end of the 2021 season. This leaves Red Bull Racing and Alpha Tauri without an engine supplier for 2022 at the moment. As things stand, Renault will be obligated to supply engines to the two teams if they don’t find an alternative engine supplier. 

MotoGP

 

The 2021 MotoGP rider market is taking shape as Francesco Bagnaia will join teammate Jack Miller in making the step up to the factory Ducati squad next season. As a result, Moto2’s Jorge Martin and current Esponsorama Racing rider Johann Zarco will join Pragmac Ducati in 2021. This leaves only three seats left for the taking for 2021.

French GT4

Akhil Rabindra’s consistent run  with AGS Events Racing team at the French FFSA GT4 Championship continued with top 10 finishes at round 3 in Paul Ricard. Partnered with Gilles Vannelet in the Pro-am category, the duo qualified 10th overall and finished 8th in the category at Race 1. The duo were running 3rd early on but a drive-through penalty dropped them down the field. They did make up for it with a 5th in Race 2 and then 6th in the final race of the weekend.

Indian Motorsport

Racing action back home is set to resume soon as JK Tyre has released a provisional calendar for the 23rd JK Tyre FMSCI National Racing Championship  and the JK TYRE Suzuki Gixxer Cup 2020. The season is currently slated for 4 rounds with all of them being held at the recently renovated Kari Motor Speedway, Coimbatore. The first half of the season will be held from December 09-13 , whereas the latter half is scheduled to run from January 20-24.