Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe is an iconic and historic race car that holds a special place in motorsports history. It was designed by Peter Brock and built by Shelby American in the early 1960s specifically for international endurance racing.

Here are some key features and highlights of the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe:

1. Purpose-Built for Racing: The Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe was purpose-built to compete in the FIA GT class, particularly in international endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

2. Aerodynamic Design: One of the most distinctive features of the Daytona Coupe is its aerodynamic design. Peter Brock's innovative design included a sleek and streamlined shape, a Kammback tail, and a rounded front end. These aerodynamic enhancements significantly improved the car's performance and top speed.

3. Success in Racing: The Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe made its debut in the 1964 season. It quickly showcased its capabilities by securing a class win at the 12 Hours of Sebring in the same year. In 1965, it achieved remarkable success by winning the GT class of the FIA World Sportscar Championship, beating strong competitors like Ferrari.

Juraj Šebalj is the king of the Croatian Rally Championship, having won the title nine times including seven in a row in the 2010s and the 2022 edition. In 2024, he will see if his rally skills can translate to the deserts of Saudi Arabia when he enters the Dakar Classic.

Šebalj won four times in 2022 to clinch his ninth domestic rally crown. His first came in 2007, followed by dominating from 2010 through 2016. After coming up short in 2017, he slugged through a pair of winless seasons before regaining his footing in 2020.

For 2023, Šebalj scaled back to a limited slate. He retired from the season-opening Quattro River Rally before winning the Croatian Rally Championship side of the Zagreb Delta Rally in June by finishing second overall.

He is a three-time winner of the Croatia Rally, going back-to-back in 2004 and 2005 and adding his third in 2014. Šebalj is the last Croatian driver to win the race, which has been a leg on the World Rally Championship since 2021.

In 2003, he competed in the Junior World Rally Championship for the first time at the Monte Carlo Rally, finishing sixth among JWRC competitors and twenty-second including the main WRC, followed by retiring from the Rally of Turkey. He returned to Monte Carlo three years later and placed twenty-eighth overall and seventh in the N4 category.

Daniel Ricciardo returns to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship this weekend with Scuderia AlphaTauri, with the Australian ready for his first race since the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the end of the 2022 season.

Ricciardo was drafted in after the British Grand Prix after Nyck de Vries was sacked, the Dutchman paying for a poor start to the season that saw him fail to score points in any of the first ten races of the season with his seat.

He was given a triumphant welcome back to the Faenza factory last week, and he cannot wait to get started this weekend at the Hungaroring.

“I’m stoked to be back,” said Ricciardo. “As always with the Red Bull family, you have to be ready for a call and when it came I jumped at the opportunity.

“The transition to AlphaTauri has gone smoothly. Last week, I was back in Faenza, the factory has changed a lot since I last raced for the team a decade ago, but there were still plenty of familiar faces and I felt at home as we prepare for the upcoming race.”

Throughout its history, the Dakar Rally has run through deserts, jungles, and along coasts. Next February, a contingent from the first Argentinian Dakar Rally team will drive on a much different terrain as they head to Antarctica as part of the “Expedición Antártida Argentina 2024” (Argentine Antarctic Expedition 2024).

In 1987, the first Misión Argentina al Dakar (Argentine Mission to Dakar) took place with Oscar Safar and Daniel Buteler driving the #237 and #238 Renault 18 Break 4×4s. Both cars were assembled in Argentina, making the team an all-Argentine effort; other team members included José Bordas, Daniel Gil, Oscar Gómez Comelli, Alberto González Virgili, Luis Romero, and Carlos Sarthe. The #238 retired after the right front axle shaft came apart and destroyed the wheel while racing through Algeria, and a debate between the team members eventually settled on bowing out of the rally entirely by also withdrawing the #237.

After returning home, the #237 was temporarily put on display at the Museo Juan Manuel Fangio; Fangio, a Formula One legend, was one of the lead ambassadors for the Dakar project. Neither vehicle exists in their original form as one was re-converted into a civilian car before getting stolen in 1990 while the other was decommissioned in 1999. Consequently, the car heading to Antarctica will not be the original Renault but a tribute restoration that will briefly drive on Marambio Island (also known as Seymour Island); Marambio is the site of an Argentine research station, one of thirteen operated by the country in Antarctica.

To survive in the Antarctic environment, the Renault 18 will have snow tracks and a modified transmission system. Testing will take place beforehand to ensure carbon and noise emissions do not disrupt the continent’s ecosystem. The Argentine Air Force will fly the crew and car in via Hercules C-130.

Similar projects were previously undertaken using Turismo Carretera stock touring cars in 2011 and 2022.

Dave Robson says the Hungaroring will be another good test for Williams Racing and their FW45, with the high downforce levels required a very different challenge to what they faced two weeks ago at Silverstone.

Williams enjoyed one of their strongest weekends of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season last time out, with Alexander Albon scoring four points for eighth place and Logan Sargeant only just missing out on his maiden top ten in eleventh.

And Robson, the Head of Vehicle Performance at Williams, admits this weekend will see a big contrast in aero set-up compared to Silverstone, but it will be a good test to see how well the FW45 can perform in a high-downforce setup.

“The Hungaroring is an interesting contrast to Silverstone and will be another good test of the car and drivers,” said Robson.  “Most cars will run maximum downforce at this short twisty track, which will provide an interesting comparison across the field.

“As is often the case in Budapest in July, the weather is forecast to be hot with a risk of thunderstorms. We will keep an eye on this as we approach the sessions, but hopefully the rain will only fall in the evening.”

Alexander Albon says it is important that Williams Racing ‘manage expectations’ going into this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix despite good results in the past three events.

The Thai driver secured an excellent eighth place at Silverstone two weeks ago to help the team move up to seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship.  That came after two more impressive weekends in Canada and Austria where the FW45 has shown itself to be a good little car.

However, the Hungaroring is a very different circuit to any of the previous three tracks and requires a high downforce setup, and as a result Albon believes it could be a more difficult weekend for Williams.

“Hungary is a great circuit and one that we all love to drive around, as it has a great flow to it,” Albon said.  “We’ve just come off the back of three strong races, however I think going into this week, we need to manage expectations slightly, as it’s not necessarily a track that should suit us.

“Nevertheless, we’ll see how the upgrades perform around a high downforce track, which is something that hasn’t been the case in the previous three races.”

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team head to the Hungaroring this weekend for the Hungarian Grand Prix with an eye on extending their advantage over the other teams fighting over second place in the Constructors’ Championship.

Toto Wolff, the Team Principal at Mercedes, says Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have had an ‘up-and-down’ first ten races of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, and the teams behind Oracle Red Bull Racing have been fluctuating almost race-by-race.

Mercedes extended their advantage over the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team thanks to a strong result last time out at Silverstone, but with Scuderia Ferrari and the resurgent McLaren F1 Team now also looking strong, Wolff says it is important for his team to continue to push to find gains to ensure they come out on top.

“We head to Hungary looking forward to tackling the double-header before the summer shutdown,” said Wolff.  “It has been an up-and-down first half of the year, but we can take several positives.

“At Silverstone, we outscored our closest competitors. We executed well on race day. We were able to race to the podium and extend our P2 advantage in the championship. However, the order is fluctuating almost every weekend.

For the first time in its all-electric era, the FIA World Rallycross Championship is coming home. Lydden Hill, UK, the track where rallycross was born on 4 February, 1967, plays host to the fourth round of the 2023 season on 22/23 July.

Britain has been conspicuously absent from the calendar since 2019, with Lydden Hill having an even longer absence since being replaced by Silverstone for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. The track has undergone some changes, most notably with the first corner, formerly known as Chessun’s Drift, which is now significantly wider and banked, encouraging more overtaking and battling throughout the turn. The Joker section has also been reworked. But the bones of the track remain the same, including iconic sections like Devil’s Elbow and the cars charging up Hairy Hill.

Several of the faces on the grid will be familiar to the crowd. However, none of the drivers on this year’s grid have won a round of world championship at Lydden Hill. Championship leader Johan Kristoffersson is still very much the man to beat, having won every round of the 2023 championship so far. He will be hoping to add Lydden to his impressive list of tracks he has conquered.

However, competition for the win will be coming from all sides, including within his own team. Teammate Ole Christian Veiby has been looking very aggressive so far, and came within a tenth of a second of causing upset last time out at Höljes, Sweden. Reviewing his performance after Höljes, he set his stall out, saying “I’m reducing the gap at each round – maybe next time I’ll get him…“

Adding to the challenge is Norway’s Sondre Evjen, who joins the KMS team for the first time. Evjen secured a spectacular victory in Latvia in the 2022 FIA European Rallycross Championship, pulling off a superb strategy against eventual champion Anton Marklund. He is eager to step up to the highest level: “I have long wanted to drive one of the electric cars in World RX. I’m really looking forward to it, although I’m of course also a bit nervous. I can’t set my hopes too high for my first time, but I want to get a feel for the car and try to find the flow.” With such experienced teammates as Kristoffersson and Veiby, it surely won’t be long before he is on the pace.

A new Light Prototype side-by-side vehicle developed by Nicolás Etchamendi will make its début at the Desafío Ruta 40 in August, competing in the T3 category.

Etchamendi is an engineer who runs Juan Pedro Etchamendi S.A, an import auto parts store in Montevideo, Uruguay. He began building two prototypes in December 2022, completing the chassis by March and submitting it to the FIA for approval. With the blessing of Uruguay’s motoring federation Automóvil Club del Uruguay, the chassis passed homologation last week.

A teams for the car was not immediately revealed, though reports have suggested Luis Henderson as the top candidate to drive with Sergio Lafuente as navigator. Both have competed at the Dakar Rally on quads before switching to cars, with Henderson having raced for both the FIA and FIM Bajas World Cups. Lafuente won the Desafío Ruta 40 on a quad in 2014 and the DR 40 Sur in 2017, along with the 2016 edition as the co-driver for Sebastián Halpern; he called the shots for the T3 of Diego Martinez at the most recent World Rally-Raid Championship round in Sonora, finishing sixth in class.

If things go as planned, the car will be the fourth T3 manufacturer to race in 2023. While the Can-Am Maverick X3 is the most popular vehicle in both T3 and the production-based T4, the Yamaha YXZ1000R Turbo Prototype and MCE-5 T3M are also used; the latter will also increase from one to three entries at the DR 40.

The Desafío Ruta 40 takes place in neighbouring Argentina, making it the ideal location for the SSV to run its first race. However, despite the FIA’s thumbs up, the project is currently incomplete as Etchamendi tries to finish the vehicle in time. The race will begin on 27 August and run through 1 September.

Lando Norris has said he is looking forward to getting back on track following his impressive performance and podium finish at the British Grand Prix.

The Briton started on the front row at Silverstone after a stellar qualifying performance and managed to jump Max Verstappen on the start. Although he couldn’t keep the two-time world champion behind, Norris put in a valiant performance to finish second ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

“Hungary up next, the start of the last doubleheader before the summer break. Getting on the podium in Silverstone felt really good. It’s great to be in that position, but we’ll keep working hard for the rest of the season as we keep improving our performance.”

Norris described the Hungaroring as a challenging but fun track and claimed that he is looking forward to returning to Hungary and in particular the city of Budapest. The circuit will be a good test for McLaren F1 Team, with the track having completely different characteristics to Silverstone, with more slow-speed corners.

“Last week I was back at the MTC with my engineers working in preparation for Hungary. I look forward to getting back in the car and seeing what we can do. The Hungaroring is a challenging but fun track and Budapest is a great city, I’m really looking forward to getting back on track.”

3F Racing has hired Ryan Vargas to serve as their Director of Team and Driver Development ahead of their planned NASCAR Cup Series début.

Vargas arrives at 3F with some familiarity in team administration, working in the Xfinity Series for CHK Racing as a consultant. He has also raced for the team as well as a part-time Craftsman Truck Series slate for On Point Motorsports.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join 3F Racing and assist in the development of their drivers coming in from overseas,” said Vargas. “In the last year, I’ve gotten to know both Dennis (Hirtz) and Paul (Wiedeler) as good friends and I’m excited to join them in the early stages of their growth. With Dennis’ expertise coming from the European racing scene, such as DTM Touring Car and GT World Challenge Series, I’m excited to work alongside him in welcoming drivers from different disciplines to the world of stock car racing.”

3F Racing aims to be the first German-owned team to compete in the Cup Series. Hirtz previously worked as the marketing director for European GT team Phoenix Racing. The team already has a late model programme with Christopher Tate as driver, and they intend to expand it by partnering with Lee Faulk Racing. NASCAR Whelen Euro Series driver Max Mason will test for the team at Hickory later in the summer.

Besides his personnel position, Vargas will serve as 3F’s reserve driver if necessary and make occasional late model starts.

Simon Pagenaud‘s return to racing following a scary crash earlier this month at Mid-Ohio will have to wait another week. According to Meyer Shank Racing‘s website, Pagenaud has yet to be cleared by the IndyCar Medical Team in time for this weekend’s doubleheader at Iowa Speedway.

The 2019 Indy 500 winner suffered a brake failure during Practice 2 at Mid-Ohio, causing his #60 Honda to barrel roll six times through the gravel before coming to rest against the outside barrier in Turn 4.

Conor Daly raced the car in place of Pagenaud for the race in Mid-Ohio, bringing it home in on the lead lap in 20th. MSR IMSA driver Tom Blomqvist was called in to drive the #60 last weekend in Toronto but was collected in a race-ending accident just two corners in. Since Daly has oval experience in IndyCar, he’ll step back into the car for the time being in Iowa.

“Iowa has definitely become one of my favorite tracks in the last couple of years.” said Daly. “Obviously I have qualified really well there – qualified on the pole and started in the top three the last two years. Hopefully we can replicate that qualifying performance, but also deliver in the race. The team does an incredible job to prepare the car, so we’re going to do our best for Simon again.”

After Shane van Gisbergen lit up the NASCAR Cup Series in his first career stock car race, Brodie Kostecki hopes to do the same on 13 August when he makes his series début at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, driving the #33 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Richard Childress Racing. MobileX, owned by Boost Mobile founder and his Supercars sponsor Peter Adderton, will provide branding for the car.

“I am thrilled to be making my NASCAR Cup Series début at the Brickyard,” said Kostecki. “It’s an honour to compete at such an iconic venue and against some of the biggest names in motorsports. I’m incredibly grateful to RCR for giving me this opportunity, and I’m determined to make the most of it.

“Racing is at the core of everything I do, and competing in the NASCAR Cup Series has been a lifelong goal of mine after spending years growing up in the sport’s heartland in North Carolina. It’s a whole different world over there, and any additional time I can spend racing is only going to help me try and win my first Supercars Championship. It means a lot to me to have my long-time personal sponsor, Boost Mobile founder Peter Adderton, supporting me with his new telco brand, MobileX. I can’t thank MobileX, VAILO, Erebus, and all of my supporting partners enough for coming on board.”

Unlike van Gisbergen, Kostecki already has a background in stock cars. As a teenager, he raced and won in the UARA Late Model Series before competing in what is now the ARCA Menards Series West in 2013 and 2014. He placed eighteenth in the 2013 standings with four top tens, a pair of poles, and a best finish of fifth.

Kostecki eventually returned to Australia to begin his ascent through the Supercars ladder. After a pair of modest introductory seasons in 2021 and 2022, he has blossomed into one of the series’ top drivers in 2023 with two wins and podiums in all but two of the first twelve races. He is currently second in points behind Erebus Motorsport team-mate Will Brown.

Monday Night Football and Monday Night RAW have nothing on Monday Afternoon Martin Truex Jr.

After winning a rain-delayed Dover race on Monday, 1 May, Truex repeated the feat on Monday, 17 July, at sister track New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He put on a masterclass by leading 254 of 301 laps to notch his first victory at a track regarded as one of his home circuits (though it was still a long drive from his hometown in New Jersey).

“I think it’s no secret that I’ve been after this one for a long time,” said Truex. “It’s always been one that I wanted so bad, and maybe I think too bad at times.

“But it was well worth the wait to be able to do it here today finally, take home the lobster and put another win at Loudon with the name Truex on it. Very special.”

Joe Gibbs Racing also dominated Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Loudon as John Hunter Nemechek won while he, Sammy Smith, and Joe Graf Jr. conbined to lead 163 of 200 laps. In total, along with Christopher Bell‘s single lap led on Monday, JGR drivers had 418 laps in first at Loudon of a possible 507.

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team enters the Hungarian Grand Prix after a “tough” double header for the team, with two retirements between Austria and Great Britain and difficulty finding long run pace. Team Principal Günther Steiner feels that it is important to focus on what’s to come rather than past troubles, and said that they are conceptualizing post-shutdown updates. 

“Obviously, the last two races were tough for us, but we need to think forward. These things in racing happen in general, that sometimes instead of going forward everybody else moves forward, and you stay put. 

“The only thing we can do and what we will be doing, is work hard with the whole team pushing whatever we can, to move forward. It will take a little bit of time, but we already have things in mind we want to bring after the summer races to fix our problems. We need to keep our heads up, which we will do, and keep going.” 

With improvement at the front of mind, Steiner said that the practice opportunity that Hungary will provide will be beneficial for the team, as they continue to process the issues they are having with translating Saturday pace to Sunday performance. 

“I think we just go into Hungary with what we know, and know that we need to learn more as well. The best way to learn about a race car is by running it and opportunities to run them are not big these days because there’s no testing, so Friday practice will be good for us.