Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Lukas Lauda is the oldest son of Formula One legend Niki Lauda, but did not follow in his father’s footsteps of pursuing racing. Instead, he entered a managerial career for his younger brother Mathias‘ own driving career as he competed in sports cars, touring cars, and even NASCAR before becoming an F1 television analyst.

While big brother Lukas was happy in the offices of Lauda Sport Management, it would be inaccurate to say he did not have the urge to get behind the driver’s seat himself. In fact, he seems to have found his own calling in a completely separate discipline from his family.

Since 2022, Lukas has dabbled in cross-country rallies with strong results despite his lack of experience. On Friday, he will make his World Rally-Raid Championship début at the Rallye du Maroc, driving the #332 Can-Am Maverick X3 for South Racing in the T3 category with Stefan Henken as co-driver.

Lauda first entered a rally in May 2022 when he raced a Can-Am Maverick at the Hellas Rally Raid in Greece. The effort was supported by motocross legend and Dakar Rally veteran Heinz Kinigadner, who currently works as a consultant for W2RC bike team Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, and his Kini Adventure Tours programme. He impressed as he finished third overall among all SSVs.

In March, he got his first taste of Morocco desert when he and Henken won the SSV class at the Tuareg Rallye.

McLaren F1 Team’s Oscar Piastri came in second at the physically demanding Qatar Grand Prix and took his second Grand Prix podium of the season. 

Starting from sixth after losing his best lap to a track limits violation, the Australian driver made up four positions in the first turn in the scramble resulting from Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s collision. 

Piastri was able to keep second place secured through the race, which was defined by treacherously hot conditions and a rule imposed that limited new tyre usage to eighteen laps due to durability concerns at Lusail International Circuit. 

The tyre life limitations set allowed drivers to push to the limit throughout the race, which Piastri said made the race feel like equivalent to “57 qualifying laps.”

“Very, very happy. Turn 1 was nice. That was in the game-plan before the race. We had a really impressive pace. It was definitely the hardest race I’ve had in my life. It was hot and basically flat-out the entire time. It was 57 qualifying laps, which I definitely feel that I’ve done. A really good race.

André Thewessen will enter his second career Dakar Rally in 2024, once again driving a Can-Am Maverick X3 in the T4 category. Dmytro Tsyro will serve as co-driver.

Thewessen made his Dakar Rally début in 2022 with Stijn Bastings as his navigator in the Can-Am T4. Despite rolling his SSV thrice due to a collision with another competitor in Stage #11, he was able to reach the finish in thirty-seventh overall.

To prepare for the start, he had raced cross-country events such as the Tunisia Desert Challenge, Baja Portalegre 500, and Andalucía Rally. Andalucía was a leg on the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies (the predecessor to the World Rally-Raid Championship), and he finished thirteenth in T4 to earn a point towards the standings.

His interest in Dakar was piqued after attending the race when it took place in South America. He eventually became a photographer for the race before sponsoring various rally raid teams through his air conditioning and refrigeration company ATS Koudetechniek. The ATS name is also used for his team ATS Rally.

The team did not enter the 2023 Dakar Rally to focus on building a more cohesive programme for 2024. As such, Thewessen’s schedule consisted of amateur races such as the Morocco Desert Challenge and all three rallies overseen by RBI Sport—the Fenix Rally, Rallye Breslau, and Balkan Offroad Rallye. After the Fenix Rally, he finished twenty-first in SSV at Morocco and seventeenth in Breslau. The Balkan Offroad Rallye, which concluded last weekend, ended with another seventeenth among SSVs.

Henk Lategan dislocated his shoulder after rolling his Toyota Hilux during Saturday’s Renergen 400. With the 2024 Dakar Rally three months away, he will turn his focus towards recovering for the event.

Lategan was the top driver to begin the Renergen 400 when he set the fastest overall time on Friday, beating Gareth Woolridge by thirteen seconds. The next day, however, his Hilux hit a ditch while approaching a closed gate and rolled. His co-driver Brett Cummings was not injured.

With Lategan out, Woolridge went on to win the event.

“Unfortunate end to the weekend for us, we hit a ditch at the wrong angle, which ended in a crash and my shoulder getting dislocated again,” said Lategan. “Sorry to the team who worked hard to give us a good car all weekend. Thanks to my trusted co-driver for doing such a good job opening the road and sorry for the mishap.

“The race now is on to recover in time for Dakar 2024. We will do everything we can to be fit and ready.”

Sheldon Creed will not return to Richard Childress Racing for a third season in 2024, the team announced Wednesday.

“We will make an announcement regarding the driver of the #2 Whelen Chevrolet in the near future,” reads an RCR statement.

Currently in his second full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series campaign with the team, Creed has displayed promise with thirteen top tens—already equalling his total from his rookie season—to go with five top tens and a pole. However, he has yet to win a race as his time in the series has been plagued by bad luck that ranged from losing in mad dashes on the final lap (examples include Darlington in 2022 and Portland and Watkins Glen in 2023), getting spun while leading (as was the case at COTA in March), being defeated by just .005 (Daytona in August), and even topping qualifying only to crash from overdriving his car and having his rally cut short by flooding (Chicago in July).

He is seventh in points after narrowly qualifying for the Round of 8 in the Xfinity playoffs, beating former series champion Daniel Hemric in Saturday’s elimination race in Charlotte by just two points.

Despite his improving performance, Creed has mostly lived in the shadow of his team-mate and fellow Xfinity sophomore Austin Hill, who won 2022 Rookie of the Year and is second in points with four victories. Both drivers have had similarly timed NASCAR national series career progressions, being Truck Series colleagues during which Creed won the 2020 championship and eventually making Cup Series starts.

The NASCAR Whelen Euro Series will be going in circles yet again in 2024. Released Wednesday, the seven-circuit schedule will retain the 2023 calendar while also adding Raceway Venray.

Located in the Netherlands, Raceway Venray is a half-mile oval that welcomed the series form 2015 to 2017 and again in 2019. Venray was initially on the 2020 schedule as well before being impacted by COVID-19, which forced it from returning for the next three seasons. Partly owing to Europe not being a hotbed for oval racing, it and Tours Speedway in France are the only ovals to have hosted an NWES race.

Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Spain will remain the season opener for the tenth year, followed by Italy’s Autodromo di Vallelunga. The latter was the third date in 2023 ahead of Brands Hatch, which takes its spot for 2024.

Venray will be the midway point in June.

The second half of the season remains the same with dates at Autodrom Most, Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, and Circuit Zolder. Oschersleben and Zolder are playoff rounds that award double points; the former made its début in 2023

Mario Isola was thankful to the FIA, all ten FIA Formula 1 World Championship teams, and to the drivers for allowing an emergency solution to be found to solve the safety issue that affected Pirelli Motorsport during the Qatar Grand Prix weekend.

Issues on Friday highlighted problems with the tyres due to the demands put into them across the kerbing around the Lusail International Circuit, and changes were made to the track before Saturday’s Sprint shootout session.

Limitations to maximum tyre life was implemented for the main race on Sunday, with maximum stints of eighteen laps – including any laps already run on those tyres – mandated.

Isola felt the show was still interesting despite all drivers being forced to make at least three pit stops, but Pirelli will now analyse just went wrong so they can share the findings with the FIA and find a solution going forward.

“This was a very demanding weekend on many fronts, which ended with a race that, given the circumstances, was interesting and closely contested,” said Isola, the Motorsport Director at Pirelli.  

Sergio Pérez endured a tough weekend in Qatar, with a retirement from the sprint race on Saturday being followed by a tenth place finish – and three penalties for exceeding track limits – on Sunday.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver was looking to recover from a poor grid slot on Saturday and was making gains until he collided with both Esteban Ocon and Nico Hülkenberg around mid-distance, meaning his race ended up in the gravel with a lot of damage to his RB19.

Pérez required a new chassis to be built for him overnight, and he started the race from the pit lane as a result.  He opted to start on the hard tyres which he felt, with hindsight, was the wrong call, particularly with the restriction implemented by Pirelli on the stint lengths around the Lusail International Circuit.

“It was a difficult afternoon, starting on the hard tyre really complicated things for us, especially with the early Safety Car,” said Pérez.  “It meant we couldn’t warm up the tyres and then we ended up losing positions and couldn’t make progress quickly enough, and as much as we should have.

“By the time I got the temperature in the tyres we had to pit, due to the mandatory pit stops. We lost our car yesterday due to the incident in the Sprint and we had a completely new car for today. It was therefore very difficult to draw conclusions with the car we had, we had to revert on the specifications.”

Max Verstappen became a three-time FIA Formula 1 World Championship Drivers’ Champion during the Qatar Grand Prix weekend, with second place in Saturday’s Sprint race enough for him to clinch the title.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver recovered to second after sliding to sixth on the opening lap of Saturday’s nineteen lap sprint, with good passes being made on Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz Jr. and George Russell on his way back up the order despite three safety car interventions.

Verstappen said it was a ‘fantastic’ feeling to add the 2023 title to his 2021 and 2022 championships, and with five race weekends still to come, he says he will continue pushing until the end of the season.

“It’s a fantastic feeling,” Verstappen said on Saturday evening. “It’s been an incredible year, with a lot of great races, and so enjoyable to be part of it with that group of people.

“We’ll keep on pushing and try to do the best we can. It was an exciting race today – a shame about the Safety Cars, but it was fun out there.”

The FIA have said they will ensure a repeat of the Qatar Grand Prix, where multiple drivers were noticeably unwell post-race, does not happen amid high temperatures and humidity last Sunday.

Drivers were taken to their physical limit at the Lusail International Circuit, with Logan Sargeant withdrawing citing being unwell midway through the race, while the likes of Alexander Albon and Lance Stroll struggled to extract themselves from their cars. Esteban Ocon also revealed that he was sick early on during the event, while Valtteri Bottas called the race ‘torture’.

Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri, who finished first and second, took plenty of fluids and sat down as they waited for post-race interviews to start, with both also sitting on the floor in the cool-down room as well.

The FIA released a statement indicating that they were concerned about the welfare of the drivers, believing they should not have been put under such conditions so to impact their health and safety, and that they will look into solutions to prevent a repeat happening in the future.

“The FIA notes with concern that the extreme temperature and humidity during the 2023 FIA Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix had an impact on the wellbeing of the drivers,” said the statement.

Carson Hocevar is currently pursuing a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship, which he will follow by pursuing a NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year in 2024. On Tuesday, Spire Motorsports announced Hocevar has signed a multi-year deal to drive the #77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 full-time starting in 2024, replacing Ty Dillon.

Now in his third full-time season in the Trucks, Hocevar finished tenth in points in his first two campaigns. He finally broke through in 2023 by winning three races at Texas, Nashville, and Richmond, and he sits second in the championship entering the final race of the penultimate playoff round.

Touted as one of Chevrolet’s top prospects, Hocevar has made select starts in the Xfinity Series for Spire Motorsports and scored a pair of top tens in his first two starts for the team. He also made his Cup début in Spire’s #7 at Gateway as a subtitute for Corey LaJoie, who was at Hendrick Motorsports for the race, though he retired due to a crash.

Since the start of the Cup playoffs, he has also been in the #42 for Legacy Motor Club for every race save for the Charlotte Roval. He came close to a top ten at Bristol where he placed eleventh, and had scored top twenties in every race save for being the victim of a multi-car wreck at Talladega.

“Anybody in my position wants to be a Cup Series driver,” said Hocevar. “That’s what you dream about when you’re young. You want to race on Sundays. My opportunity to run a few times this year, to run on Sunday and get ready, I feel more than prepared to get in the #77 car with Spire. That team is growing exponentially and I’m just excited for everything.

Legacy Motor Club‘s brass now has a combined fifteen NASCAR Cup Series driver’s championships. On Tuesday, the team announced Matt Kenseth has joined the organisation as a competition advisor, where he will serve as a mentor for Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek from 2024 onwards.

Kenseth and team co-owner Jimmie Johnson are contemporaries, the former winning the 2003 Cup championship when the latter—a future seven-time champion—was in his sophomore year. He scored thirty-nine career Cup wins across over two decades of competition, including a pair of Daytona 500s, and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2023 for his success.

Besides working with the drivers, Kenseth will also support the team throughout their switch from Chevrolet to Toyota. While much of his career was spent with Ford, he enjoyed a successful five-year tenure with Toyota from 2013 to 2017 with fifteen wins and a runner-up championship finish to Johnson in 2013.

The move also reunites him with team vice president of racing operations Joey Cohen. Kenseth and Cohen previously worked together at what is now RFK Racing.

“Jimmie and I have so much respect for each other as both competitors and friends; we are alike in many ways and at similar points in our careers,” said Kenseth. “This is a great opportunity for me to be a resource for two extremely talented drivers and help on the racing operations side with this transition to Toyota. I’m really looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish together.”

Five years after his last NASCAR Xfinity Series start, Ryan Reed will make his return on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, driving the #66 Chevrolet Camaro for MBM Motorsports in partnership with Alpha Prime Racing.

Reed was an Xfinity full-timer for what is now RFK Racing from 2014 to 2018, winning the season opener at Daytona twice with a best points finish of sixth in 2016. He departed the team after the Xfinity programme was shut down due to lost sponsorship, leaving Reed to make sporadic Truck Series starts in 2019 and 2021.

His twelfth-place finish at the 2021 Darlington Truck race was his last national series start.

In six career Xfinity races at Las Vegas, his best finish is ninth in 2017. He recorded the same finish two years later in the Truck Series.

“It is so cool to be able to make my return to Xfinity racing,” said Reed. “The Xfinity Series was my home for many years, so it just feels right to be back.”

On 5 October, João Ferreira spoke with The Checkered Flag about his move to South Racing Can-Am for the 2024 Dakar Rally and World Rally-Raid Championship.

The full transcript of the interview is available below. Some text has been altered from the actual dialogue to improve readability.

An article on the interview can be read here.

Transcript

TCF: Can you explain how the deal to race for Can-Am came together?

JF: After the 2023 season, we have to start thinking in the next season in 2024 and in the next Dakar. We were looking for all the options that we have in the market and South Racing was one of them. Together with my co-driver, with our sponsors, we finally made a good deal, let’s say like that. We changed from the T3 category to the T4. I’m really, really looking forward to it because Can-Am and South Racing have been dominating the side-by-side class in the last couple of years.

The Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan culminated in the latter’s victory following an offensive on 19/20 September, resulting in the impending dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh and a mass exodus of Armenians in the region to avoid ethnic cleansing. Although Azerbaijan publicly gave reassurances of their safety, alarms have been raised by both Armenia and international observers, and over 100 thousand have fled Nagorno-Karabakh since.

The Azerbaijani offensive took place just days after the Armenian Automobile Federation (FAA) received an invitation from the FIA to attend the annual FIA General Assembly and Prize Giving Ceremony, the latter being where the champions of FIA-sanctioned series such as Formula One and the World Rally-Raid Championship are honoured. Both events will be held in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, which was selected in April during F1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.

While the timing of the invitation and offensive are coincidental, FAA president Arsen Manukyan lobbied to the FIA to use its platform to raise awareness for the crisis.

“The FIA is the pinnacle of motorsport governance, orchestrating an extensive array of racing disciplines,” begins a letter he wrote to the FIA on 20 September shortly after the start of the offensive. “Beyond the racetracks, our Big Sister Organization has tirelessly advocated to save lives and create safer mobility for billions of people for over a century. It is a powerful and unifying force to promote worldwide peace, social justice, equality, and inclusion and combat racism, discrimination, harassment, and aggressions.

“Just a couple of days ago, we received the Invitation to 2023 FIA General Assemblies Week, which will take place from 5 to 8 December in the stunning city of Baku, Azerbaijan. A country that, after the unjustified war in 2020, continuously targeted violence against Armenian civilians, implemented destruction of their homes and places of worship, and provoked the displacement of tens of thousands of families. Over the last eight months, their government forced a total blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, cutting electricity, water, food, and any supply, including humanitarian help, thus subjecting them to starvation and humiliation. Today, they launched a new war targeting civilians with a clear intention to escalate further into a full-scale ethnical cleansing of 120,000 Armenians in their ancestral lands.