Sport News

The Martinique Rallye Tour (July 24-27) will be added to the calendar for the 2025 Barbados Rally2 Championship, which opens with the Barbados Rally Club’s (BRC) Shakedown Stages on Sunday (April 6). The Championship is inscribed on the National Calendar of the FIA for the first time, following a recent agreement with the French governing body, the FFSA.
  Support for island charities remains a keystone of the Barbados Motoring Federation (BMF) championship, with Bds $18,000 already distributed over the past three seasons. Drivers each nominate a charity and must include signage in their car’s livery, with Bds $5,000, $1,000 and $500 awarded to the chosen charities of the top three finishers.
  Since first run in 2016, the Martinique Rallye Tour (MRT) has steadily grown its entry, in terms of both quality and quantity. It has been won four times by Simon Jean-Joseph, who last week confirmed his participation in BCIC Rally Barbados 2025 in a Porsche 991; also entered in a Skoda Fabia R5 is Willy Nallamoutou-Sancho, the driving force behind MRT through his company WNS Racing.
  Jamaica’s Jeff Panton, who won the BMF’s R5 Championship in 2023, has finished second three times and third once in Martinique, while Britain’s Rob Swann and fellow Barbados regular Paul Horton of the Turks & Caicos Islands Rally Team finished third and fourth in 2023.
  BMF President Senator Andrew Mallalieu said: “Thanks to the co-operation of the FFSA, our counterparts in France, the BMF is delighted to welcome the Martinique Rallye Tour to our championship. It has always been our intention to increase its scope and therefore increase the challenge to our competitors, also to foster greater links between competitors in the islands and help grow the fan base in the region.”
  In his capacity as President of the Martinique Automobile League, Jean-Joseph said: "It is really great for Caribbean motor sport that our French island and Barbados can co-operate together. As we share our passion for the sport, there is work to do to increase the opportunities to make our sport better in the region."
  Nallamoutou-Sancho added: “This collaboration represents an opportunity to strengthen ties between our two islands, benefit our drivers, and contribute to the rally community as a whole. We are confident that this partnership will add value and dynamism to our competition.”
  Since 2022, 14 drivers from six nations including Barbados have scored championship points, while another eight from overseas have competed in the FIA R5 class as non-scoring guests, along with ‘The Boy from Barbados’ Zane Maloney, who became the youngest winner of King of the Hill in 2022 in a Skoda Fabia R5. Those visitors have included British regulars Roger Duckworth and Tom Preston and New Zealand’s Hayden Paddon, who won Rally Barbados 2023 in a Hyundai i20 R5.
  A trophy for the highest-placed driver of a car homologated under the original FIA R5 regulations was introduced in 2024 – Champion Josh Read was the recipient – while the parallel E-Sports series, administered by BMF affiliate Caribbean Sim Motorsport (CSM), has been won each season by Mark-Anthony Hinkson.

Barbados Rally2 Championship: Rd 1, Apr 6 – BRC Shakedown Stages; Rd 2, May 25 – First Citizens King of the Hill; Rds 3 & 4, May 30–Jun 1 – BCIC Rally Barbados 2025; Rd 5, Jul 24-27 – Martinique Rallye Tour; Rd 6, Sep 12/13 – MCBI Rally of the Sun & Stars; Rd 7, Oct 26 – BRC Winter Rally

For media information only. No regulatory value.

For further information:
please contact BMF Vice-President – Sport & Barbados Rally2 Championship Manager, David Williams - e-mail: vicepresident@bmf-fia.com
web site: https://bmf-fia.com/