Following an expanded 2022 event, the FIA Motorsport Games is being scaled up again for the 2024 edition, which kicks off this week. It will be the third iteration of what’s colloquially known as the ‘Olympics for motorsport’ – an FIA-run competition in which teams compete for their country in a diverse mix of motorsport events.
Much of the 2024 event will take place at Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo. It’s a track that’s perhaps better known for motorcycling than cars – it has hosted MotoGP annually since 1999 – but until 27 October it’ll play host to many of the 26 categories (up from just six in the first iteration and 16 for the second). Among the regulars, such as Formula 4, GT and TCR, new events include Single Make GT (basically a one-off event of the Ferrari Challenge), plus a new F4-specific Esports race.
The 2022 Games catered for Rally2, Rally4, and Historic Rally categories. All three return, but this time there are asphalt and gravel-specific contests for each category (along with the combined), offering drivers more avenues in which to compete.
These will take place in and around the Ricardo Tormo circuit, with gravel taking in six stages, a Super Special Stage and a medal stage for the top three, while Tarmac will have eight stages, a Super Special Stage and the medal stage. This makes it 14 for the combined rally, with an additional two Super Special Stages and a seven-mile medal stage, adding up to a maximum of nearly 140 miles.
The Esports category has also been expanded with the new F4 competition. The FIA already runs the FIA F4 Esports Global Championship within iRacing, but its F4 contest at the Games will use the Spa layout because iRacing does not have a model of the Valencia track. Meanwhile, Esports GT, which runs on Assetto Corsa Competizione, will be racing at a virtual Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Two other changes come in Off-Road and Karting, where new Mini classes have been added for drivers aged from eight to 12. The inclusion of much younger drivers in these two arrive-and-drive categories is important to the Games, according to Stephane Ratel, founder and boss of promoter SRO.
“We want to promote youth and diversity, and to go down to a younger age exactly embodies what the Motorsport Games is about,” he says. “We want as many countries represented, we want as many categories represented. Motorsport is very often perceived as very expensive, with all the luxury and sparkles of Formula 1. For the general public, it seems not accessible, while the FIA and motorsport has to be for everyone.”
And that highlights another aspect of the Games – accessibility and equality are behind a lot of the decisions made.
“We started with GT [in the 2018 FIA GT Nations Cup] with these big expensive cars, but as the Games is developing it’s more successful in the grassroots categories,” adds Ratel. “And if you’re talking grassroots, it needs to be affordable.”
From an initial 20 in the 2018 Nations Cup, 49 entered the 2019 Motorsport Games, 72 entered in 2022 and a whopping 85 will be featuring in 2024
Entry fees are surprisingly low – it’s €800 (around £670) to enter either of the Esports categories, while the four-hour Karting Endurance category costs less than €4000 for a team of three – and Mercedes will partner the games, with the Mercedes AMG GT3 becoming the exclusive car for the Esports GT category.
It’s all part of that push towards the grassroots of motorsport, with F4, Karting, Karting and Auto Slalom, and Cross Car Mini all being arrive-and-drive. This helps smaller countries or competitors with modest budgets, since the cost of shipping cars, mechanics and everything else a race team needs is removed. Ratel believes this also means that running the events themselves costs less, and encourages more people to join the Games.
“The cost of organisation is lower than organising the cost of the bigger categories, where you need track rental, marshals – it’s a far bigger organisation to organise circuit racing than it is to organise karting, or Auto Slalom, or Esports,” he says. “It’s essential. We want youth, we want diversity, we have quite a lot of female drivers. It’s exactly what the Games were designed for.”
This push for equality extends to the nations. In a departure from the Olympics, ASNs (national sporting authorities) can only send one entry per event, with mixed-gender squads mandatory for team events such as Karting Endurance or Slalom. This not only keeps costs down but allows smaller countries to compete more fairly with larger ones – no stacking the deck with multiple people from the same ASN to increase their odds.
Encouragingly, this approach is enticing even more countries to enter the Games. From an initial 20 in the 2018 Nations Cup, 49 entered the 2019 Motorsport Games, 72 entered in 2022 and a whopping 85 will be featuring in 2024. Of these, 114 drivers and 70 nations will be taking part in Esports, while there will be 136 Karting competitors. Far from being a struggle to get smaller countries involved, it’s getting countries with a richer motorsport heritage involved that is a challenge.
“I would say that the large ASNs are often a bit blase,” reckons Ratel. “They have a lot of motorsport, and they have not completely embraced the FIA Motorsport Games yet. Some of them did – the UK, Germany, some of them are very active. Spain of course is hosting the games. But some others are still not very into it, while many smaller motorsport countries that you would never imagine would even be present with two drivers are coming with 10, and that is a great satisfaction for us.”
The UK is one of the most active ASNs at the Games. It had the third-largest delegation in 2022 with 19 drivers (Belgium sent 22, while Spain sent 26 and hosts France 14 – this year they’re only sending eight). This time 25 competitors from the UK will be taking part in 16 categories, with team captain Chris Froggatt leading the charge.
It all points towards an event that’s growing. There’s still room to expand, with Cross-Country Rally a potential event for 2026. It’s not to say that everything has had such an emphatic response, though: Truck Racing and a Rally All-Stars category were both slated for 2024 but dropped due to lack of interest.
“Truck Racing was a bit complicated, in terms of the number of participants, so we have postponed it,” explains Ratel. “We’ll see next edition if it will be possible to get enough competitors from enough nationalities.”
It’s perhaps little surprise that Truck Racing has had to be delayed given that the European Truck Racing Championship has drivers from just five countries, with two of those – Hungary and Portugal – only having one driver each in the field. Five of the seven circuits the series visits have no home drivers, and the cost of renting or transporting trucks, not to mention running them, will also have been considerable.
While Truck Racing may not have a large following in Spain, the Games are very open to the idea of adding events that fit the host country’s passion for sport. “I would say a bit like the Olympics, which have a number of categories that are selected by the host city or host country – it could be the same with the Motorsport Games,” says Ratel.
So far, the games have all been held in Europe – first Rome with Vallelunga, then Marseille with Paul Ricard, and now Valencia with Ricardo Tormo. As the event draws an increasingly global interest, moving away from Europe must be seen as the next step.
The Race of Champions – which has held just seven of its 33 events outside of Europe – announced recently that Sydney will be its host in 2025. That the not-too-dissimilarly-run ROC, where teams of professional drivers compete for their country, is still running more than 30 years after its inaugural event will surely provide some measure of confidence to the Games. Ratel is confident that the Games will become an intrinsic event in motorsport.
“Nothing comes overnight,” he says. “In motorsport, when you launch something new, completely new, it takes time. I think the progress in only three editions is there, and I believe that it will become a very major event in the motorsport calendar.”
With more than 700 competitors from 85 countries, plus partnerships with Mercedes and Hyundai, that “major event” status Ratel and the FIA are after seems to be on the way.
Circuit
GT
In the GT class teams of two will take to the track in hour-long races. Drivers will use GT3 machinery and conduct a driver swap midway through the race. Team UK scored one of its two medals in the class in 2022, with Sam Neary and Ian Loggie behind the wheel of a Mercedes-AMG GT3. This time Chris Froggatt and James Cottingham will represent the UK, driving a Ferrari 296 GT3.
Single Make GT
New for 2024, Single Make GT is essentially the Ferrari Challenge category. Bronze-rated drivers will take part in a 30-minute-plus-one-lap race around Ricardo Tormo in a Ferrari 296 Challenge car, with Welshman James Owen taking part for the UK.
GT Sprint
Single drivers will take to the track in a GT3 car for the sprint, which will last at least 40 minutes. Eight drivers, including Spaniard Daniel Juncadella and Turkey’s Ayhancan Guven, will compete, while 2023 British GT champion Darren Leung represents the UK.
Formula 4
One of the most popular classes, drivers compete in identical Tatuus F4 chassis around Circuit Ricardo Tormo. Future Mercedes F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli won last time around, showcasing the competitiveness of the field.
Touring Car
TCR returns after a successful run in 2022. Brit Jenson Brickley looks to be in a good place for a medal – he’s currently leading the TCR Spain standings and took a first and a third at Ricardo Tormo just three weeks before the Games.
Drifting
The most-subscribed car class of 2022, drifting once again features in the Games. Last year’s Motorsport UK Drift Pro Champion Lwi Edwards will be the UK’s entrant, behind the wheel of his BMW E36 LSX.
Rally
Rally2 and Rally4
Both Rally2 and Rally4 have three options for drivers to compete in – just gravel, just asphalt, or a mixture of the two. Stages will take place in and around Circuit Ricardo Tormo, for 100km (gravel), 110km (Tarmac), and an additional 11km medal stage for the top three drivers.
Historic Rally
Historic Rally has two categories – for cars produced between 1970 and 1975, and between 1976 and 1981. As with Rally2 and Rally4, drivers can compete on gravel, Tarmac, or both.
Off-Road
Cross Car (Sr/Jr/Mini)
Cross Cars are bike-engined off-road buggies, with races taking place on a purpose-built facility next to the Aspar circuit where the karting will take place. The addition of the Mini category offers drivers as young as eight the chance to compete.
Karting
Sprint (Sr/Jr/Mini)
The Karting element expands, with Senior, Junior and – new for this year – Mini classes, again offering a race for drivers between eight and 12 years old. Races are 15km (Mini), 25km (Junior) or 30km (Senior).
Endurance
Twenty-four teams of three drivers will take on the four-hour endurance karting race at the Aspar Circuit in Valencia. Karts are supplied by the FIA, allowing for an arrive-and-drive approach to determine the best team.
Electric Street
Auto Slalom
Mixed-gender teams will take part in an event similar to auto solo in an FIA-supplied FWD electric street car. This year that’ll be the Hyundai KONA Electric N Line.
Karting Slalom
Also open for mixed-gender teams, drivers aged between 14 and 16 will compete in 20kW electric karts. Two teams race simultaneously on identical courses.
Esports
GT
Easily the most popular class of 2024, the Esports GT class will use Assetto Corsa Competizione. British racer Kieran Prendergast will fly the flag, hoping to follow the gold medal scored by James Baldwin last time around.
F4
Another new category, the F4 Esports category will use iRacing. British sim racer Matt Caruana will represent the UK. The FIA and iRacing launched a Global Esports championship earlier in 2024.
