Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

As the 2023 Belgium Grand Prix approaches with the looming possibility of a wet race weekend at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps after a very wet first practice session earlier today. Despite the dangers Daniel Ricciardo remains unconcerned about the potential dangers and concentrated on the task at hand.

The Australian driver recently made his return to Scuderia AlphaTauri at the Hungarian Grand Prix where he secured a respectable thirteenth place finish. Despite a Lap One collision that was beyond his control, his performance was commendable, and he was on the verge of achieving valuable points for his team, and also managed to finish ahead of his teammate.

As Ricciardo gears up for his second race weekend, one would think he might have hoped for an event-free weekend on the track. Unfortunately, the weather forecast indicates that rain is expected to grace the circuit from Thursday all the way through to Sunday. Such conditions promise to create a potentially tricky situation for all drivers, requiring heightened skill and focus behind the wheel, but above all full concentration.

Nevertheless, Ricciardo displays a calm and composed mindset, seemingly unfazed by the prospect of racing in the rain and the inherent risks it brings. The treacherous nature of Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is renowned, but his confidence remains unshaken, and he remains concentrated on the task at hand.

“As a race car driver, we’re aware of this from a young age,” Ricciardo told the media at the track ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was the fastest driver in the first and only practice session of the Belgian Grand Prix Sprint weekend. The session took place in heavy rain at Spa-Francorchamps, with Sainz leading the way in his Ferrari, followed by McLaren F1 Team duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

The practice session was crucial for the drivers as it was the only opportunity to get a feel for the track conditions before the qualifying session later in the day. Initially, only six drivers set a lap time within the first ten minutes, with Alex Albon eventually posting the fastest time even after suffering a lock-up at the bus stop chicane.

However, the rain intensified, and all drivers chose to stay in the pit lane, waiting for an improvement in weather conditions. After the conditions didn’t improve but stabilised, some drivers, including Sainz, ventured back onto the track. Sainz set the fastest lap on intermediate tires, outpacing Piastri’s McLaren by over half a second.

The weekend saw its first red flag when Williams Racing’s Logan Sargeant crashed into the barrier at Les Combes. As the rain intensified during the red flag period, no drivers opted to continue running once the session resumed. This meant Sainz’s lap time of 2:03.207s remained the fastest, with Piastri in second place, trailing by 0.585 seconds.

Lando Norris secured the third position, more than six-tenths behind his teammate Piastri, while Charles Leclerc finished in fourth place, ahead of Sérgio Perez.

After five years, Katherine Legge will return to the NASCAR Xfinity Series as she joins SS-Green Light Racing for a four-race schedule starting Saturday at Road America. Additional races are planned at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on 12 August, Watkins Glen International on 19 August, and the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval on 7 October.

Legge ran four Xfinity races in 2018 as a road course ringer for JD Motorsports, though she also did an oval start at Richmond, with a best run of fourteenth at Road America.

Since then, Legge has focused primarily on sports car racing, finishing second in the 2018 IMSA GTD championship by just four points. She and the Gradient Racing team currently sixth in the 2023 standings, barely missing the podium in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona where she had stood second to kick off her 2018 campaign. Legge also raced for the all-female Iron Lynx in the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship.

In May, she returned to the NTT IndyCar Series for the first time in a decade as she entered the Indianapolis 500 for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. However, the month was plagued by misfortune as she outqualified her team-mates before being involved in a massive practice crash that resulted in Stefan Wilson fracturing a vertebrae and sitting out the race. Her 500 ended after spinning as she came to pit road and brushing the wall.

“The Indy 500 made me realise that life and racing careers are too short not to go for it,” Legge said. “My interest and passion are to continue to break new ground in motorsports. I’ve been proactive over the last year in thinking about what I want to do in my career and how I can accomplish those things.”

Pirelli is set to bring the same tyre compound step to the Belgian Grand Prix as last year, which Motorsport Director Mario Isola said will give teams a variety of possible routes when it comes to strategy across the Sprint weekend. 

“After just a couple of days off, there’s another Formula 1 race this weekend: the last before the summer break. The Belgian Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious races on the calendar, held on a track that’s particularly challenging for drivers, cars, and tyres. We’ve nominated the same line-up of compounds as last year – C2, C3, and C4 – to offer a wide range of strategy options; at least if the rain holds off.”

Forecasts have shown the possibility of rain on all three days of running, which would add another layer of variability from session to session. Isola also highlighted the likelihood of varied conditions in different parts of Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, which is the spans the longest distance of any venue on the calendar. 

“Traditionally, the weather at Spa is a key factor throughout the weekend; the fact that the grand prix has moved dates – from the first race after the summer break to the last race before it – should make little difference, as the forecast is always variable anyway. 

“The length of the track, with Spa being the longest lap of the year, and the variation in elevation – which is also the biggest of the whole season – means that it’s easy to find wet conditions on one part of the track while it’s completely dry elsewhere.”

Bristol Motor Speedway, located in Bristol, Tennessee, is one of the most iconic and well-known tracks in NASCAR. Here are some key facts and features about Bristol Motor Speedway:

1. Track Configuration: Bristol is a short track with a length of 0.533 miles (0.858 kilometers). It is shaped like an oval and has high-banked concrete turns, which make for fast and exciting racing.

2. Seating Capacity: The speedway has a seating capacity of approximately 162,000 spectators, making it one of the largest sports venues in the United States.

3. NASCAR Events: Bristol hosts two major NASCAR Cup Series races each year, which are among the most anticipated events on the NASCAR calendar. These races are the Food City Dirt Race in the spring and the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race in the late summer.

4. Night Racing: The Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race is a particularly popular event as it takes place under the lights, creating a unique and electric atmosphere for fans and drivers.

As T1 is the highest class in rally raid, Nasser Al-Attiyah would prefer if youngsters and drivers new to the discipline take it one step at a time by first competing in the side-by-side categories like T3 or T4. This belief was solidified on Sunday when he tested a T3 car shortly after winning the Baja España Aragón.

Al-Attiyah drove an MCE-5 T3M owned by Wevers Sport in his test, which he called “fantastic. The T3 was an amazing car and really nice machine.

“I think for young drivers and new generation, it’d be much better for them. I know everyone’s dream is to be in T1+; this is wrong to jump immediately. I think you need to win and you need to compete in T3 and then you can (move up), step by step, but this is a good machine to start.”

While T3 and T4 are both for SSVs, the former is reserved for Light Prototypes that are specifically built for racing whereas T4 is for production cars. Generally, upstart drivers enter the World Rally-Raid Championship (or any similar series) from T4 before graduating to T3 as is the case with Dakar Rally T4 winner Eryk Goczał; current T4 points leader and defending class champion Rokas Baciuška is also prioritising a move to T3 for 2024 despite racing a T1+ at the Baja Aragón and being competitive. Success in T3 can lead to an opportunity in T1 (T2 is a production class that rarely gets more than a handful of entries) such as Aliyyah Koloc, who despite her youth is the reigning FIA Middle East Cup for Cross-Country Bajas champion and already drives a T1+ in the South Africa Rally-Raid Championship.

The T3M is a Light Prototype car by MCE-5 Development, with Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team’s Mitch Guthrie being its lead W2RC driver as he ranks third in T3. Wevers will field two T3Ms at the next W2RC round in Argentina while BBR Motorsport will start doing so at the Rallye du Maroc in October. Guthrie and Laia Sanz raced T3Ms at the Baja Aragón, both prepared by Wevers.

Matt Brabham was just coming off testing an LMP2 car in Spain when Juncos Hollinger Racing called to look for someone to drive the #75 car in Saturday’s Indy NXT race at Iowa Speedway. Despite starting at the back of the field and not having raced in the series all year, Brabham quickly showed why he was one of the top drivers in 2022 as he sliced his way from eleventh to fourth.

The opportunity arose after JHR released Matteo Nannini prior to Iowa in what was stated as a “team decision”. Despite dominating and winning Indianapolis in just his third NXT start, Nannini had struggled otherwise as he failed to score a top ten in any of the other races. Brabham returned to the United States from his European test on Wednesday and arrived at Iowa the following day. He started at the back after struggling in practice and being more conservative in qualifying, but quickly worked his way up on race day. JHR colleague Rasmus Lindh beat him for the final spot on the podium by slightly over a second.

“So much fun passing and making our way up into contention for the podium after the final restart,” wrote Brabham. “Had a great time being back in an open wheel on a short oval. Some of the best racing out there for sure.”

Brabham finished third in the 2022 Indy NXT (then Indy Lights) standings with two wins in his first season back since 2015, but departed Andretti Autosport as sponsorship dried up and the team overturned their lineup for 2023. He eventually committed to the Trans-Am Series, where he had impressed in select starts over recent years, and currently sits second in the TA standings behind team-mate Chris Dyson with victories at Sebring and Indianapolis. In April, he returned to the Stadium Super Trucks—a series he has compared to Trans-Am vehicle-wise despite being a different discipline—and swept the season opener in Long Beach, adding to a loaded trophy case that includes three SST titles; Jacob Abel, who finished second in the Iowa NXT race, also has stadium truck experience.

While a strong showing, Brabham’s deal with JHR is only for one race. Unless JHR retains him for the next round in Nashville in early August, he will likely run the SST races there that weekend, where he won in 2022. Brabham told The Checkered Flag in March 2022 that the trucks provide another source of income as it is “hard to make a living and pay the bills” in Indy NXT due to the latter’s nature as a developmental series. It is impractical for him to race both series in the same weekend as NXT has too many obligations, though he ironically pulled it off at Nashville last year as there were large enough gaps between NXT and SST sessions and inclement weather cancelled NXT’s qualifying session that otherwise would have run too close to SST Race #1.

On the back of one of the trickiest weekends of the season for the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team at the Hungaroring, Fernando Alonso hopes they can analyse just what caused them to struggle so they can rectify that this weekend in Belgium.

Alonso could only finish ninth in Hungary, his worst result of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season so far, with the team finishing behind both Oracle Red Bull Racing, McLaren F1 Team, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team and Scuderia Ferrari drivers on Sunday.

The two-time World Champion has always enjoyed racing at Spa-Francorchamps, and he is eager to turn around his recent form and secure a good result for Aston Martin as they look to maintain their third place in the Constructors’ Championship.

“We didn’t have the easiest weekend in Budapest and ninth was the maximum from Sunday with three points in total collected for the team,” said Alonso. 

“Belgium is up next and we’ve had a few days to analyse everything from Hungary. It’s a very different challenge here with the high-speed nature of this circuit and I’ve always enjoyed racing at Spa.

George Russell believes the recent resurgence from the McLaren F1 Team has made them genuine contenders to be the second fastest team this season, but it also gives his Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team hope that they are still big gains to be found with its own development programme.

McLaren introduced a new aerodynamic package ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix in June, and since then, the team have scored two podium finishes with Lando Norris at Silverstone and the Hungaroring, while rookie Oscar Piastri has finished inside the top five in the same two events.

Mercedes secured their first pole position of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season with Lewis Hamilton in Hungary last weekend, while Russell proved the pace of the W14 by moving from eighteenth on the grid to sixth after being compromised by traffic during Qualifying.

Russell says he would have been satisfied with the progress made by Mercedes since they introduced their own updates earlier in the season, but the gains made by McLaren have brought them firmly into the mix to be the best of the rest behind the dominant Oracle Red Bull Racing team.

“It’s absolutely clear they are true contenders for the second fastest team,” Russell is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.  “It’s very odd how Aston Martin were clearly that second-best at the start of the year.

Toto Wolff felt the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team did not maximise their potential across the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, and he is hoping for better consistency across this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton secured his first pole position since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix last weekend but was unable to better fourth at the chequered flag, while a compromised Qualifying for George Russell left him eighteenth on the grid, from where he recovered to sixth at the chequered flag.

Wolff, the Team Principal at Mercedes, admitted it was a weekend of highs and lows at the Hungaroring, although he still maintains that they were the second fastest team in Hungary despite finishing behind both Oracle Red Bull Racing drivers and McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris.

“Hungary was a weekend of highs and lows,” said Wolff.  “Our pace was strong on Saturday and Sunday, but we didn’t maximise that across the weekend.

“Lewis produced a brilliant lap to take pole position. However, on Sunday, we were too conservative with some of our decisions and ultimately missed out on a podium. George meanwhile was compromised in qualifying but drove a strong race from P18 to take P6.

Daniel Ricciardo said he felt ‘physically fine’ after this first race distance since the end of 2022 last weekend, with the Australian finishing an encouraging thirteenth in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Ricciardo, an eight-time Grand Prix winner within the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, returned to the grid at Scuderia AlphaTauri after replacing Nyck de Vries, and he felt an even better result could have been possible had he not been tagged by Zhou Guanyu at turn one on lap one.

He took on an aggressive strategy thereafter to recover a handful of positions, but he was happy to have a mistake-free race, with Ricciardo delighted to be back racing after losing his drive with the McLaren F1 Team at the end of the 2022 campaign.

“My whole weekend in Budapest was really good, making me feel all the things I missed, like the adrenalin and being on the starting grid,those emotions are really powerful,” said Ricciardo.

“I felt our pace wasn’t bad and there was maybe even a chance of points if I hadn’t had to start again from the back after being hit on the first lap. It was good the car wasn’t damaged, so I was able to do the 70 laps and I felt physically fine at the end of it.

Max Verstappen is eyeing an eighth consecutive victory this weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, a track that he feels is favourite circuit on the FIA Formula 1 World Championship calendar.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver is in sublime form and has won nine of the opening eleven races of the 2023 season to sit an incredible one hundred and ten points clear of his nearest rival in the Drivers’ Championship.

The team has also won the past twelve races, which is a new record in Formula 1, but Verstappen is looking to further extend that run in the final race before the summer break and the third of six sprint race weekends this season.

“I’m looking forward to the Sprint race in Belgium,” said Verstappen.  “It looks like it’s going to be quite a rainy weekend so we’ll see what impact that’ll have as it always makes it a bit more interesting and chaotic.

“Spa is of course my favourite track on the calendar so I’m looking forward to racing there and seeing the fans, it should be a fun weekend. It will be interesting to see how our car will perform in the higher speed corners too.

Derek Lemke will make his NASCAR début in the Craftsman Truck Series at Richmond Raceway on Saturday, driving the #33 Ford F-150 for Reaume Brothers Racing.

Lemke was a regular in late models in the Midwestern United States, being named the NASCAR Minnesota Rookie of the Year in 2013 and doing a one-off in the CARS Late Model Tour. Due to a lack of funding, he scaled back his driving duties but remained in the sport as a public relations and marketing manager.

He currently serves in such a position for Natalie Decker, to whom he is currently engaged. In 2021, Decker opened a super late model team with Lemke as driver.

Decker has raced for RBR in the Xfinity and Truck Series, though she failed to qualify in her lone attempt with them in the Trucks at the 2022 Talladega race. The effort was facilitated with Lemke as the liaison between Decker and RBR.

“I’ve spent time with the team at the track racing with Natalie and I’m glad I get to make my first NASCAR experience as a driver with RBR,” said Lemke. “Going into this with no expectations but to just enjoy this time because you never know if you get another chance like this.”

The Lotus 49 is indeed one of the most iconic and legendary racing cars in motorsport history. Designed by Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe, the Lotus 49 was a revolutionary Formula 1 car that made its debut in the 1967 season. It introduced several groundbreaking innovations that have since become standard in Formula 1 car design.

Key Features and Achievements:

1. First Commercial Use of the Cosworth DFV Engine: The Lotus 49 was the first Formula 1 car to be powered by the Cosworth DFV (Double Four Valve) engine. This V8 engine became a game-changer in Formula 1 and was used in various cars for many years to come.

2. Innovative Monocoque Chassis: The car's chassis was made from aluminum and formed the outer skin of the car, known as a monocoque. This design provided increased rigidity and strength while reducing weight, improving the car's performance.

3. Inboard Brakes: The Lotus 49 featured inboard brakes, where the brake components were mounted inside the chassis, near the gearbox. This design allowed for better weight distribution and improved aerodynamics.

A T1+ represents the best of the best in rally raid while a T4 is a production side-by-side vehicle. Despite the disparity between vehicles, T4 star Rokas Baciuška looked like a natural in his first race piloting a T1 car at the Baja España Aragón; if not for “just a few slip ups,” he could have been on the podium on début.

Driving a Toyota Hilux T1+ prepared by Overdrive Racing, Baciuška finished ninth overall with a total time of 6:34:31, fifteen minutes back of winner and Hilux driver Nasser Al-Attiyah.

However, context-less box scores can be deceiving as Baciuška received an eight-minute time penalty for missing a waypoint in the first stage dropped him from what would have been the third fastest overall time. Consequently, he completed the day in eleventh whereas a penalty-less run ranked him fourth. Baciuška rebounded in Stage #2 on Saturday by leading for much of the day only to suffer a tyre puncture that relegated him to sixth.

“This was a great training session.Top ten on our first try, I think this is a really good result for us,” he recapped. “If we removed that eight-minute penalty and that puncture, we would be third overall. We actually got used to the car really fast with only 600 kilometres on our belts, it’s almost nothing. Legends and elite drivers have already done many Dakars and uncountable thousands of kilometres. The team is really happy and surprised by the pace.”

Baciuška currently leads the World Rally-Raid Championship in the T4 category by a wide margin, having won the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and Sonora Rally after finishing runner-up at the Dakar Rally. The reigning T4 champion is eyeing a move up to T3 for Light Prototype SSVs in 2024, while the start in the T1+ was intended to give him more experience in different equipment and is not necessarily foreshadowing a graduation to that high of a class so soon. Nonetheless, he is open to doing more races in the Hilux if the opportunity arises.