After years of the question being asked "Why is motor racing not in the Olympics?", the global motorsport governing body said "Fine, we'll do it ourselves". The result is the FIA Motorsport Games, held for the third time from October 24 to 27, 2024.
The Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain will be playing host to athletes from 49 different countries for the third edition of the FIA Motorsport Games. Throughout the event, drivers will attempt to earn a medal for their country in their respective discipline.
In 2024, there will be 26 of them, and they include everything from circuit racing, off-road and karting to sim racing. Here is what you can expect if you tune in to the FIA Motorsport Games.
If you love GT3 cars, you are very well catered for. There are two sets of competitions with all the kinds of GT3 cars we have become accustomed to, GT and GT Sprint. The former will have its qualifying and main races on the Saturday and will consist of two driver entries, whilst Sprint will be in action on Sunday and only has one driver per car. Additionally, new for this year is GT Single Make made up solely of Ferrari Challenge cars.
For single seater enthusiasts, you will be represented by Formula 4 which last time out at Paul Ricard, was won by now-F1 bound Kimi Antonelli for Italy. Touring Cars are also on the menu, and even Drifting which is set up in a tournament tree format with drivers in one-on-one duels.
There are events for Rally2 cars which are traditionally found racing in the WRC2 championship and Rally4 which are raced in Junior WRC. Historic Rally will have cars that raced in competition from 1970 to 1981 and currently compete in the FIA Historic Rally Championship.
But that is not all. Crosscar also features with Senior (for drivers aged 16+), Junior (13-16 years of age) and Mini (8-12 years of age) categories. These will be held at the nearby Aspar Circuit on their dedicated dirt track. Also at the Aspar Circuit is a karting track, which is where the next set of categories are taking place.
The sprint disciplines consist of races that are mainly 15 minutes in length, but if you fancied something a bit longer then there is Karting Endurance. Teams of three drivers aged 15 and older will drive 4-stroke karts in a four hour long race.
Karting did feature in the inaugural games, albeit not in the way many of you may expect. Which brings us on swiftly to our next category.
Competitors will be given three laps to navigate their way around a course, the first being a practice run and the remaining two being timed. Teams will get penalised three seconds for every cone hit and ten for failing to stop within the designated zone. The event will be ran in a tournament tree format with teams going up against each other.
Again, it probably will not be the most interesting to watch but undoubtedly it requires great skill so do not dismiss it so quickly. Much like the final set of events which may be of interest to us sim racers.
For this year's games, there were plans to introduce an Esports Rally discipline (most likely on EA Sports WRC) but plans changed to include an additional circuit-based racing title. iRacing has joined the fold with the Esports F4 category alongside ACC in the newly renamed Esports GT.
Competitors will be based at the City of Arts & Sciences Museum, and whilst the GT drivers will be tackling the Ricardo Tormo circuit as it was added to ACC in April 2023, the F4 drivers will not be doing so. iRacing have confirmed that Ricardo Tormo is under contract, but they perhaps could not finish creating the track in time for the event so instead, the racing will be on Spa-Francorchamps.
There is truly something for everyone in this, the ultimate competitive motoring variety show. You can view the event timetable and as entry lists are published in the lead-up to the beginning of the event, you can view those here.
Are you planning on following in the FIA Motorsport Games this weekend and what disciplines would you hope get added in future editions? Let us know in the comments below!
The Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain will be playing host to athletes from 49 different countries for the third edition of the FIA Motorsport Games. Throughout the event, drivers will attempt to earn a medal for their country in their respective discipline.
In 2024, there will be 26 of them, and they include everything from circuit racing, off-road and karting to sim racing. Here is what you can expect if you tune in to the FIA Motorsport Games.
Circuit Racing: GT, F4 & More
There are six categories in action on the main Ricardo Tormo track, but a seventh was meant to be included. Truck Racing was supposed to make its debut, but it appears that this will not happen due to a lack of entries, the same thing that happened to the planned LMP3 event at the 2022 games. But there are plenty of categories to make up for it.If you love GT3 cars, you are very well catered for. There are two sets of competitions with all the kinds of GT3 cars we have become accustomed to, GT and GT Sprint. The former will have its qualifying and main races on the Saturday and will consist of two driver entries, whilst Sprint will be in action on Sunday and only has one driver per car. Additionally, new for this year is GT Single Make made up solely of Ferrari Challenge cars.
For single seater enthusiasts, you will be represented by Formula 4 which last time out at Paul Ricard, was won by now-F1 bound Kimi Antonelli for Italy. Touring Cars are also on the menu, and even Drifting which is set up in a tournament tree format with drivers in one-on-one duels.
Rally and Off-Road
Taking place on stages 60 kilometres from Ricardo Tormo, there is a whole bunch of categories to appease rally enthusiasts. There are three types of rally car and they will all run on three different sets of surface: Gravel, Tarmac and a mix of the two.There are events for Rally2 cars which are traditionally found racing in the WRC2 championship and Rally4 which are raced in Junior WRC. Historic Rally will have cars that raced in competition from 1970 to 1981 and currently compete in the FIA Historic Rally Championship.
But that is not all. Crosscar also features with Senior (for drivers aged 16+), Junior (13-16 years of age) and Mini (8-12 years of age) categories. These will be held at the nearby Aspar Circuit on their dedicated dirt track. Also at the Aspar Circuit is a karting track, which is where the next set of categories are taking place.
Karting
There are four karting disciplines to account for in this year's games. New for this year is the Karting Sprint Mini category (for drivers ages 8-11) with 60cc 2-stroke engine karts, joining Karting Sprint Junior (11-14 years of age) and Karting Sprint Senior (14+ years of age) both with karts powered by 125cc 2-stroke engines.The sprint disciplines consist of races that are mainly 15 minutes in length, but if you fancied something a bit longer then there is Karting Endurance. Teams of three drivers aged 15 and older will drive 4-stroke karts in a four hour long race.
Karting did feature in the inaugural games, albeit not in the way many of you may expect. Which brings us on swiftly to our next category.
Slalom: Karting and Auto
Whilst it may not be many people's idea of thrilling motorsport competition for a multitude of reasons, it is still worth mentioning. In electric karts and street cars, teams of one man and one woman will perform slaloms in a nearby open space close to the Ricardo Tormo circuit.Competitors will be given three laps to navigate their way around a course, the first being a practice run and the remaining two being timed. Teams will get penalised three seconds for every cone hit and ten for failing to stop within the designated zone. The event will be ran in a tournament tree format with teams going up against each other.
Again, it probably will not be the most interesting to watch but undoubtedly it requires great skill so do not dismiss it so quickly. Much like the final set of events which may be of interest to us sim racers.
Esports: GT and F4
Sim racing was one of the foundational events in the inaugural games. Back then it was just the single discipline with competitors tackling Gran Turismo Sport in a variety of cars across a multitude of tracks. For the second edition, GT Sport was switched out in favour of event organiser SRO's preferred platform Assetto Corsa Competizione.For this year's games, there were plans to introduce an Esports Rally discipline (most likely on EA Sports WRC) but plans changed to include an additional circuit-based racing title. iRacing has joined the fold with the Esports F4 category alongside ACC in the newly renamed Esports GT.
Competitors will be based at the City of Arts & Sciences Museum, and whilst the GT drivers will be tackling the Ricardo Tormo circuit as it was added to ACC in April 2023, the F4 drivers will not be doing so. iRacing have confirmed that Ricardo Tormo is under contract, but they perhaps could not finish creating the track in time for the event so instead, the racing will be on Spa-Francorchamps.
How To Watch
The action across all four days will be streamed to the GTWorld and dedicated FIA Motorsport Games YouTube channels, with a primary broadcast and also individual streams for all events. Whether to support your compatriots or just to see a racing discipline that you like, give this event a watch.There is truly something for everyone in this, the ultimate competitive motoring variety show. You can view the event timetable and as entry lists are published in the lead-up to the beginning of the event, you can view those here.
Are you planning on following in the FIA Motorsport Games this weekend and what disciplines would you hope get added in future editions? Let us know in the comments below!
