Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The Audi Quattro is a legendary rally car that had a significant impact on the world of motorsports. Here are some key details about the Audi Quattro:

1. Introduction: The Audi Quattro was introduced in 1980 as a rally car based on the Audi Coupe. It was a pioneering vehicle in rally racing due to its revolutionary all-wheel drive (AWD) system, which gave it a competitive edge on various terrains.

2. AWD Innovation: The most notable feature of the Audi Quattro was its innovative AWD system. This allowed power to be distributed to all four wheels, providing superior traction and stability compared to traditional rear-wheel-drive rally cars.

3. Dominance: The Audi Quattro quickly gained a reputation for its dominance in rally racing. It made its World Rally Championship (WRC) debut in 1981 and secured its first victory at the 1981 Austrian Rally.

4. Driver Lineup: The Audi Quattro was driven by notable rally drivers, including Hannu Mikkola, Stig Blomqvist, and Michèle Mouton. Their skill behind the wheel, combined with the car's performance, led to numerous victories.

Logan Sargeant has yet to secure his first top ten finish of his rookie FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, but the young American believes he is getting closer with every race he participates in.

Sargeant joined Williams Racing at the start of the 2023 campaign but has often failed to make the performance of more experienced team-mate Alexander Albon, with his best result being an eleventh-place finish in the British Grand Prix.

Despite his lack of points, Sargeant feels he has made good progress with his driving in recent events, and he knows he will need to focus on improving this further in the second half of the year if he wants to score points.

“Ups and downs, [I’m] not where I want to be,” Sargeant is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. 

“Over the last few rounds, I feel like I’m much closer. I feel like I’ve seen really good progression as of late and that’s the most important thing.

For the first time in a decade, Brodie Kostecki was behind the wheel of a stock car in NASCAR competition when he made his Cup Series début at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday. Although it began on a disastrous note when he crashed in qualifying, he fought his way through the order from last to finish twenty-second.

The Supercars Championship leader had shown decent pace prior to his qualifying accident when he set the sixth best time in Group B—the same group as fellow Supercars driver Shane van Gisbergen—and eleventh overall during the session’s first round. However, he overdrove the car exiting turn eleven and spun into the outside wall, resulting in damage that forced him into a backup vehicle.

Although a caution came out on lap three, it ended up being the only one of the day. Without yellow flags to bunch up the field, the field was generally strung out though Kostecki kept up by riding with those like William Byron in the late teens and early twenties.

“It was a pretty interesting race starting last and missing the havoc at the start,” he recapped. “We got a yellow pretty early in the race and it happened to go green flag the rest of the ways onwards. I think we drove up to around fourteenth or fifteenth, we’re following William Byron through and coming through the field. We were hoping for a light yellow and my team-mate (Kyle Busch) was blowing up and it didn’t quite come, so we pitted and ended up finishing P22. All in all, a fantastic experience.

“Hopefully we get to do it again. We’ll see what happens.”

Pierre Gasly believes the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season has been his unluckiest of his career to date, with the Frenchman also admitting the BWT Alpine F1 Team have not been as competitive as they would have liked.

Gasly joined Alpine at the start of 2023 after leaving Scuderia AlphaTauri, and in the opening twelve races, he has scored only twenty-two points to sit twelfth in the Drivers’ Championship.  His best Sunday result was seventh in Monaco, although he has taken a third place in the wet/dry Sprint race in Belgium.

The Frenchman knows there have been times during the season where luck has seemingly deserted them, such as the Australian Grand Prix where he and team-mate Esteban Ocon collided accidentally at the chaotic final restart, while he was also heavily compromised on the opening lap of the main race in Belgium after being caught up behind the slow-moving Oscar Piastri heading towards Eau Rouge that saw him lose several positions.

The lack of luck, coupled with a car that has not been as strong as they hoped it would be means that Alpine are currently adrift in the Constructors’ Championship having lost ground to the McLaren F1 Team having already fallen behind the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team.

“I think it’s been quite tricky for many different reasons,” Gasly is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.  “I think, overall, we’ve been probably the most unlucky I’ve been in Formula 1 compared to all other seasons.  

The FIM Bajas World Cup summer stretch was not too kind to Jonathan Finn. After entering July second in the overall 450cc championship, he left last weekend in fifth after a string of challenging runs at the Baja España Aragón and Hungarian Baja.

Hungary marked his first time back on the bike after hurting his hand in Aragón, effectively throwing him into the deep end right from the start as he had to navigate through rocky terrain in the Prologue and “you try to avoid them, but there’s just more to the left and the right of you.”

After placing tenth in the first stage, he began to find his stride by the second leg with a ninth amid water-based sections that he felt “worked out in my favour,” which he attributed to it being “350 kilometres since my accident in Aragón. Really, I’m just getting the feeling back and getting faster and faster each kilometre.”

Stage #3 was run in reverse of the previous day, giving him a familiar route. Still, there were his off moments like trying to go over a trench only to hit his face into his bike’s navigation tower, though he managed to stay on his wheels and recorded another ninth. He improved a spot in Stage #4 to eighth.

Much like in Aragón, however, things unravelled on the final stage. In Hungary’s case, he speculated it was a rock that did him in as his bike’s chain guide detached and he struggled to keep it affixed throughout the leg. By the end, he finished eleventh in the stage to be classified thirteenth overall of sixteen FIM riders and ninth of eleven bikes with a total time of 7:51:36.4. Winner Stefan Svitko was ahead by over two hours.

Usually known for its close, frenetic racing, the BTCC showed that on Sunday but also showed why Ash Sutton is a class apart with the NAPA Racing UK driver winning Race Three at Knockhill by nearly 10 seconds.

Starting the weekend provisionally losing his Drivers’ Championship lead, he has firmly further towards the title leading by 37 points. Starting sixth, he battled his way through to second before easing past home hero, Ronan Pearson who later on had his first podium taken away (albeit not for ride height or track infringements).

He led home from there with Josh Cook carving his way into second to seal a superb turnaround, but he did so too late to even get near Sutton. The podium was completed by Ingram who switched places on the last lap with his teammate in a conflicting battle between a first for Pearson or points for Ingram in a day which saw his Race One snatched away for ride height.

Ricky Collard as ever with his aggressive racing style had some superb battles in fifth ahead of Dexter Patterson in his best ever display to finish sixth. Aiden Moffat similarly gained Scottish honour rounding out the top ten alongside Dan Lloyd, George Gamble and Dan Cammish.

“I’m ecstatic I won’t lie. After race one I thought we were going to have a tough task on our hands in terms of the Championship, but with the disqualification of Tom [Ingram] and the performance in race two. Then finish it off with a win, I couldn’t ask for much more than that,” said Sutton.

Jenson Button was one of two Formula One alumni in the NASCAR Cup Series field on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway alongside newcomer Kamui Kobayashi, while his 24 Hours of Le Mans team-mate Mike Rockenfeller was also taking part. Unfortunately, familiar faces did not translate into an easier third career Cup race as penalties and a shunt relegated him to twenty-eighth and a lap behind winner Michael McDowell.

“It’d be nice just to get a finish,” said Button. “The pace is there. It’s just that I made mistakes today. The car was working well.”

After qualifying thirty-first, which he described as “frustrating just because we didn’t have any pace,” his Rick Ware Racing team “did a really good job of finding a setup that worked for me.” However, he sped on pit road after completing his first stop on lap fourteen, forcing him to serve a drive-through penalty. It was his second straight race with a pit gaffe after getting spun by Chris Buescher while preparing for his stop in Chicago.

On lap 59, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun Button in the turn thirteen chicane. Button repaid the favour by bumping him aside going into turn seven six laps later. While that was the last of their clashes, Stenhouse got into Kobayashi moments later after missing the braking zone and punting him wide into turn one to complete a sweep of the F1 drivers in the field.

He later tried to pass Kevin Harvick in turn one, but locked up his brakes and missed the corner, receiving another penalty.

Kamui Kobayashi certainly hoped his NASCAR Cup Series début could have gone better, but it did not leave him with a bitter taste.

The two-time FIA World Endurance Champion ran his maiden NASCAR race on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but found himself running off course or in the wrong direction more times than he’d like due to circumstances beyond his control. He was spun by fellow sports car racer Andy Lally in turn one after just two laps, which placed him on the Damaged Vehicle Policy shortly after the caution came out for Justin Haley‘s wreck.

Kobayashi’s team was able to get the car back out in time, only for him to be the victim of yet another shunt courtesy of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on lap 66. He spent the final sixteen laps trying to make up lost ground and finished thirty-third, one lap behind winner Michael McDowell.

Despite the disappointing finish, Kobayashi felt his #67 Toyota Camry showed solid pace. After qualifying twenty-eighth, he generally ran in that position but he believed further progress was hindered by the lack of cautions. The race only had a single yellow flag for the aforementioned Haley crash, the fewest for a full-length Cup race since 2002.

“I was waiting for a caution. It never happened,” said Kobayashi. “I definitely enjoyed it. 77 laps, no caution is pretty long. I think I learned a lot. We had some good speed, as well. I got hit by someone, but this is NASCAR.”

When Michael McDowell scored his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at the 2021 Daytona 500, it came after slipping through a massive wreck on the final lap and holding a narrow advantage over Chase Elliott when the caution came out. Over two years later, McDowell beat Elliott and the field on raw speed alone as he navigated Indianapolis Motor Speedway‘s infield road course at a blistering pace to clinch a playoff spot.

McDowell led a race-high 54 of 82 laps, beginning the day with his maiden stage victory followed by runner-up in Stage #2 to Denny Hamlin. With road courses not having cautions between stages and the race being clean for the most part, pit strategy played a major role as McDowell opted to pit fifteen laps before Hamlin which allowed him to cycle back into the lead after Hamlin made his stop.

Although Elliott tried to catch up, he could not get anywhere near McDowell’s #34. The win is Front Row Motorsports‘ fourth and second outside of a superspeedway, but the only other non-plate win (Pocono in 2016 with Chris Buescher) was due to the race being shortened by fog.

“To win the Daytona 500, there’s not a lot of things that can top that. But this is a close second, and to have my family here with me, it’s very special,” said McDowell. “Obviously they couldn’t be there at Daytona (due to COVID-19 policies), and that was tough. But at the same time, we’ve been building and building at Front Row Motorsports and felt like we would have another opportunity to win a race, and I’m not going to lie, we cherry pick as a family which races we go to. We go to the ones that we think we can win, and we talk about it. We do, we talk about it as a family, like all right, we’re all going to be there, this is the weekend.

“If it didn’t happen this weekend, we’d go to Watkins Glen and say, ‘Aright, guys, this is the weekend.’ To have it all come together, it’s super special.”

Last-lap scrambles, wrecks that took out frontrunners, a drag race to the finish, and even the water truck used to put moisture on the track rolling over were among the film reel of moments in a very eventful Championship Off-Road weekend at Bark River International Raceway.

In the top-flight Pro 4, C.J. Greaves, Adrian Cenni, and Cole Mamer all suffered flat tyres or mechanical issues on Saturday, but Greaves was able to rebound after pitting and capitalised on the other two’s problems to win. Greaves’ luck ran out on Sunday, however, after contact with Jimmy Henderson sent him spinning into the wall. Henderson received a penalty shortly after, which cycled the top spot back to Cenni who scored his first Pro 4 win under COR sanction.

“It’s a culmination of teamwork that’s finally coming together,” said Cenni. “We got some really good guys and once the setup’s right, then it’s hopefully I don’t make too many mistakes and just be patient.

“It was tough out there to see. There was a lot of dust. They didn’t prep a couple of the turns after Pro 2 so very slippery. If you didn’t get turned on entry, you kind of got pushed out to the side and it was hopefully wait for the guys in front of you to do that and try to sneak in front.”

Behind Cenni, Mamer suffered another mechanical failure on the final lap that allowed Andrew Carlson to take third despite going off course and falling to last on the opening circuit. Mamer’s issue was not the only time a driver went from taking the white flag in prime points position only to walk away penniless, nor was it the lone instance of Carlson capitalising upon said misfortune: Carlson spun on the last lap in the Sunday Pro Turbo SxS race while chasing down Kyle Chaney for the win, dropping him to third; Greaves passed Carlson for the spot, only for the former’s car to break down just meters from the finish line.

Kyle Larson has a lot of work ahead of him before he becomes the first driver since 2014 to attempt to complete IndyCar‘s Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR‘s Coca-Cola 600 on the same day. But according to the 2021 Cup Series champion, things have been surprisingly easy so far before he steps into the join McLaren-Hendrick entry next year. “I thought it would be a full day process, and it was like an hour,” said Larson, explaining his introduction to IndyCar and the seat fitting process. “It’s like really? We’re done?”.

Reality set in more for Larson, McLaren, and Hendrick on Sunday morning in Indianapolis as the two parties revealed the two liveries set to race in their respective races, showing off the blue and papaya orange #17 entry for the 108th edition of the Indy 500. Larson’s usual NASCAR ride, the #5 Chevy for Hendrick Motorsports, will don a revised blue and orange scheme for the second half of the double at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Of course, it isn’t all easy goings for the 31-year-old. Larson faced a fair amount of trouble when trying out an IndyCar on a simulator for the first time, specifically with applying the brakes. When testing on the virtual version of Mid-Ohio, the engineers in attendance told him he needed “…a thousand more pounds of brake pressure.”, adding on that full-time McLaren IndyCar driver Felix Rosenqvist showed up later and put up a much faster time.

Racing in series besides NASCAR is nothing new for Kyle Larson. In fact, he may be even better racing on dirt in sprint cars, midgets, and late models, making a name for himself as recently as this weekend with a win on the dirt at the Knoxville Nationals in Iowa the night before Sunday’s Cup race at Indianapolis. But with all of his experience, driving an IndyCar around the oval at Indianapolis is an entirely new animal for Larson.

“…our goal is just to build up and get as much prep and seat time as we can, just to hit the ground running and be as prepared as possible come May.”

It has been a good weekend so far for drivers named Ty in Indianapolis. On Friday, Ty Majeski dominated the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoff opener at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. The following day, Ty Gibbs did the same in the Xfinity Series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Majeski started second at IRP but took the lead from pole sitter Christian Eckes on lap 4. After Corey Heim took the lead shortly after a restart on lap 22 for Greg Van Alst‘s wreck, Majeski claimed the spot on lap 40 and never looked back. Van Alst’s retirement in his Truck début continues a dubious national series entry for the ARCA Daytona winner, havin galso finished last due to a crash in his maiden Xfinity race at Atlanta in June; on the bright side, he is racing for Young’s Motorsports for the rest of the Truck season and thus has plenty of chances to rebound.

At the front, Majeski led 179 of 200 laps and won both stages. Besides a strong way to begin the playoffs, Majeski also redeemed himself after a late tyre failure doomed him in the 2022 race. Fittingly, the race is sponsored by TSport, owned by Majeski’s team ThorSport Racing.

“We’re peaking at the right time. This is exactly when we peaked last year, and it looks like we’re trending in the same direction,” said Majeski. “Hopefully, this is just the start of our playoff run. We want to go and win Milwaukee, that’s my home race, go win Kansas. We’ve had great trucks at all those places. Milwaukee, we’re going back to for the first time, but Kansas, it’s been a good track for us. Bristol and Homestead we’ve won, and Phoenix we’re in the mix to the end. That’s the end goal.”

About a twenty-minute drive away, Gibbs and fellow Cup regular A.J. Allmendinger dominated the IMS road course as they combined to lead all but thirteen laps. Allmendinger won Stages #1 and #2 but Gibbs took the lead on the final restart, set up by a caution for Andre Castro, with seventeen laps remaining. The win is the reigning Xfinity champion’s seventh in the series and fourth on a road course.

Jake Hill took his second double win of the season adding Knockhill to Croft in his race wins column to go second in the championship albeit 30 points behind Ash Sutton who finished second in an enthralling BTCC battle.

Hill led from start to finish, as Sutton showed his true raw pace once again as he romped from sixth on the grid with the duo leaving Stephen Jelley who at times was 12 seconds back in the dust with the Team BMW driver completing the podium.

Andrew Watson in particular off his best ever position of second had a poor start off the line and this allowed multiple cars to ease through including Sutton who tagged on and found his way into second. After a brief safety car period due to Jade Edwards going into the gravel, Hill controlled it expertly with Jelley acting as a rear gunner to hold Sutton off.

Albeit the restart was under investigation during the race meaning a penalty could be coming the way of Hill or Jelley potentially. But as Sutton gradually reeled Hill in, he only had small opportunities to pass and eventually when he did end up on the tail, it was too little too late.

Aron Taylor-Smith, Dan Lloyd, Ricky Collard and Dexter Patterson in particular also performed superbly further down the top 10, with Ronan Pearson potentially set for a home win in his debut season. He starts on reverse grid pole with opportunities for all but Patterson with the first three occupying the first two rows.

As ever with the wet weather, it provided drama as conditions at Knockhill saw a BTCC classic unfold in Race One with Jake Hill coming out on top.

Hill did not finish first on the road but inherited it from the third position on the podium as both Tom Ingram and Tom Chilton were disqualified for post race ride height infringements.

Initially though, it looked like Ash Sutton would resume his dominance from pole as he went side by side with Josh Cook for the lead after the One Motorsport driver took it from him initially. But a tap saw the latter crash out into the barrier.

Rain started to lash down and Ingram decided to pit for the wet tyres and it played into his hands as Sutton initially stayed out as did Aiden Moffat and Rory Butcher who led but inevitably crashed out.

Sutton pitted and Ingram looked to have it in his hands as he took the win on the road and with it a standings lead from the former. But him and Chilton failed as Hill inherited the win and Andrew Watson who has shown himself to be one of the best rookies in a while in the championship took a career-best second. Stephen Jelley rounded out the podium, with Sutton who finished eighth bumped up to fifth.

How does Bubba Wallace feel about being on the bubble just three races away from the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs?

“…I just want to get back to having fun.”

Sitting 58 points above the cutline, not as excited as some may think.

“I’m a damn good person overthinking things, especially when it comes to road course racing, taking the fun right out of it.”

Wallace’s point is understandable, as he has yet to make the playoffs since he started running full-time in the Cup Series in 2018. The 29-year-old’s highest finish in the championship is a 19th-place finish at the conclusion of 2022, despite a win apiece in both ’21 and ’22.