Motorsport Roundup: Harith Noah Makes History At Dakar 2021, Toyota LeMans Hypercar Debuts, Jehan Daruvala To Stay With Red Bull And More

Dakar 2021 

This week saw the prestigious Dakar Rally come to its conclusion after a grueling 12 stages in Saudi Arabia. Twenty seven year old Harith Noah made history by becoming the first Indian to finish in the overall top 20 of the event. The Hero MotoSports squad, the sole Indian manufacturer in the rally had Joaquim Rodrigues finishing 11th overall with teammate Sebastian Buhler taking 14th position.  

Some positive news for CS Santosh as the team reported that he was removed from the induced coma successfully, and was transferred by Air Ambulance from Riyadh to Bengaluru. He will continue to be in CCU and receive treatment for the time being As for Ashish Raorane, he did manage to finish the rally under the Dakar Experience category.  

In the overall standings it was Mr. Dakar, Stephane Peterhansel in the car category who took his 14th Dakar triumph, piloting the X-Raid Mini. Kevin Benavides in the motorcycle category took top honors in the motorcycle category, with teammate Ricky Brabec, to make it Monster Energy Honda 1-2 and two straight Dakar triumphs.

Formula One

Pre-season news continued to make the rounds ahead of the 2021 season with some changes to the 2021 calendar due to concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes include Bahrain now being the season opener on March 28, Imola being the second round of the season and Melbourne being postponed to November 21.  This week also saw the Renault F1 team being officially rebranded as Alpine and ex-Suzuki team boss Davide Brivio joining Alpine as Racing Director.

WEC

After an extensive teaser campaign, Toyota finally took the wraps off its new GR010 Hybrid Le Mans hypercar it will field in the LMH class for the  2021 FIA World Endurance Championship. Combining a 3.5litre V6 twin turbo engine, an electric motor generator unit, and a four-wheel drivetrain, the hypercar will produce a regulation capped 680PS of outright grunt with a four-wheel drivetrain. 

 

Toyota Gazoo Racing will retain the reigning champion squad of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López for the No. 7 car, with Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley piloting the No. 8 sister car. The hypercar is set to make its racing debut at the scheduled season opener at Sebring on March 19.

Indian motorsport

Jehan Daruvala, confirmed what was pretty much a badly kept secret by being retained for the Red Bull Junior program and continuing with Carlin for the 2021 Formula 2 season. Daruvala also confirmed that he will join Mumbai Falcons along with Kush Maini to form an all-Indian lineup for the 2021 F3 Asian Championship.  The season commences on January 29 and will conclude in round five on February 19-20. 

MotoGP

With the Sepang preseason tests being cancelled due to COVID-19, it was decided that Qatar would host two official test days and a shakedown test starting from March 5 in order to make up the track time lost with the loss of the Sepang preseason test. This would be just a few weeks before the season kicks off at the same circuit on March 28.