Northern News

Northern Racers Head to Valencia to Represent UK in FIA Motorsport Games

The third FIA Motorsport Games is taking place in Valencia this coming weekend, and there’s a strong northern contingent among the team selected by Motorsport UK to represent our national hopes.

A unique, multidisciplinary tournament organised by the FIA, the Motorsport Games event has grown considerably since its first staging in 2019. That was a relatively compact, six-event championship held at Vallelunga, Italy, while the current format features some 28 different categories from across 11 different disciplines.

For 2024 the classes include four karting categories, two esports events, nine different rally groupings, four classes of GT and touring car racing, drifting, auto-slalom, and F4. Each event awards a gold medal to the winner, silver to the runner-up, and bronze to third, with the nation that scores the most golds coming out as the overall winner.

In 2019 that was Russia, which tied on golds with five other nations but won overall based on the number of bronzes it scored. Italy took the 2022 title at Circuit Paul Ricard, after tying host nation France on three golds but scoring one silver to France’s none. The UK team has only scored two medals thus far, with a gold for James Baldwin in the esports class and a bronze for Ian Loggie and Sam Neary in the GT category.

Among the 24 competitors that Motorsport UK is taking to represent the UK in Valencia, in 15 disciplines, there’s six who are from or are based in the UK — including two future talents in the karting categories.

Austin Gibson (10) of Macclesfield will compete in the Karting Mini category, while Jorge Edgar (14) from Ennerdale in Cumbria will take part in the Karting Sprint Jr class. Edgar is the second member of his family to race in the category at the Motorsport Games, as Jessica Edgar — now an F1 Academy driver — raced in 2018.

Drifter and movie stunt driver Tessa Whittock will be racing in the Auto Slalom class. Whittock owns and runs the RDX Drift Academy, based at Three Sisters near Wigan, and was featured as a stunt-driving stand-in for Pom Klementieff in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One.

Two co-drivers in the rally events are also from our region, with Hull’s Alex Lee co-driving for Ben Mellors in Historic Rally and Ian Windress on the notes for Ollie Mellors in Rally2. Finally there’s Darren Leung from Leeds racing in GT Sprint, fresh from winning the 2024 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup Bronze title.

The full team representing the UK in the third FIA Motorsport Games is as follows:

  • Auto Slalom: Mark King & Tessa Whittock
  • Drifting: Lwi Edwards
  • Esports F4: Matt Caruana
  • Esports GT: Kieran Prendergast
  • F4: Reza Seewooruthun
  • GT: Christoper Froggatt and James Cottingham
  • GT Sprint: Darren Leung
  • Historic Rally: Ben Mellors and Alex Lee
  • Historic Rally Gravel: Ernie and Anna Graham (Team Flexify)
  • Historic Rally Tarmac: James Potter & Tim Sayer (Team Flexify)
  • Karting Sprint Jr: Jorge Edgar
  • Karting Endurance: Team Titan – Rhianna Purcocks, Jack O’Neill, Andy O’Neill
  • Karting Mini: Austin Gibson
  • Single Make GT – Ferrari: James Owen
  • Rally 2: Ollie Mellors and Ian Windress
  • Touring Car: Jenson Brickley

All the action begins this Wednesday, with the 2024 FIA Motorsport Games running from October 23-27.