Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Rokas Baciuška has dominated the World Rally-Raid Championship in the T4 category, but will trade in his side-by-side for a Toyota Hilux T1+ on 21/22 July when he makes his T1 début at the Baja España Aragón. His Hilux will be prepared by Overdrive Racing, while co-driver Oriol Vidal Montijano retains his post.

The Hilux is considered the top vehicle in rally raid today, having won the last two Dakar Rallies and the 2022 W2RC with Nasser Al-Attiyah, who currently leads the standings. Overdrive Racing’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi won the last two FIA World Cups for Cross-Country Bajas as well as the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

“Having time between other important starts and having received an unexpected but very attractive offer from the Overdrive Racing team, I will start in the most famous stage of the Spanish rally raid Baja Aragón,” said Baciuška. “Oriol Vidal, who has been successfully assisting in the buggy until now, will be my navigator. I will believe the fact myself, probably only next week, when I see a car ready. I am happy, impatient and at the same time excited to understand that I have a unique opportunity to tame T1+. When testing Toyota Hilux, I will not concentrate on the result, but I will try to feel the speed and finish successfully. I am grateful to everyone who appreciates my perspective.”

Baciuška won the T4 championship in 2022 as the only driver with podiums in all four rounds and a win at the Rallye du Maroc, holding off Marek Goczał by just six points. Ironically, his title defence began with a defeat at the hands of Goczał’s son Eryk at the Dakar Rally due to a broken driveshaft on the final stage. With the younger Goczał not pursuing the championship due to academics, Baciuška has been the stud of the class in the two races since, winning the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and Sonora Rally including every stage at the latter.

With two rounds to go, he has a 103-point edge over Goczał while Shinsuke Umeda, the next highest driver running the full season, is 110 points back.

The FIA Formula 3 championship’s visit to Silverstone started its running with practice and qualifying on a sunny British day. Luke Browning for Hitech GP finished first during practice with a lap time of 1.45.794 on a dry but green track due the series being the first track action of a packed weekend.

However, in qualifying it was Leonardo Fornaroli who set the pole time with a lap time of 1.45.520, ahead of Oliver Goethe in second and Josep Maria Marti in third. The Sprint race saw Sebastian Montoya on the reverse grid pole with Jonny Edgar alongside, and Taylor Barnard in third.

On Saturday morning showers littered the team’s radar including the rain hitting the track at the scheduled start time for the Sprint race. Playing it safe, the officials delayed the start to 9:30 BST to allow the teams to change tires, however Gregor Saucy took the gamble to start on wets.

At the start of the Sprint race, the front row got away evenly with Montoya leading the first lap; Taylor Barnard went around the outside of Abbey overtaking Edgar and slotting into second. Marti overtook his teammate Mansell going into the Maggots-Becketts complex, but other than the moves at the front, it was an uneventful start.

On lap six, championship leader Gabriele Bortoleto overtook the Hitech of Luke Browning going into Stowe and finishing the move into Vale. However, more showers started to appear on the radar and by lap nine they arrived with such intensity that the safety car was deployed until the shower passed.

Sondre Evjen from Norway will make his debut in the FIA World Rallycross Championship as he sits in for Gustav Bergström due to other commitments in the third Volkswagen Dealerteam BAUHAUS World RX run Volkswagen Polo RX1e all-electric Supercar in Lydden Hill, United Kingdom on 22/23 July.

The 25-year-old Norwegian will return to the world championship title-winning team for the first time since the pandemic. He used to race for Kristoffersson Motorsport for two seasons in 2019-2020 in the FIA European Rallycross Championship in a Volkswagen Polo but he only had the chance to shine in 2019 when the 2020 got cut short due to COVID-19.

Evjen only managed to claim one podium while he was driving for them in Euro RX and that was in Höljes, Sweden 2020 where he clinched the second place. After his time at KMS, he went over to JC Raceteknik for the 2021 RallyX Nordic series season where he ended third overall. He continued for JC in 2022 with a part-time program in Euro RX and another full-time campaign in RallyX. He took his maiden Supercar win in Euro RX in Latvia last season and rounded up his last season in an Audi S1 EKS Quattro with yet another third place overall in RallyX.

“It’s going to be really fun, 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.” Evjen said.

“I have spoken to Johan a bit and he says it’s a very fun car to drive. When I competed for KMS in the European Championship, I ran with a similar set-up to him so let’s hope it works that way with the electric car as well! He and Ole Christian will certainly be getting a few questions from me this weekend…”

Guenther Steiner says the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team will need to regroup after a disappointing British Grand Prix weekend saw them finish thirteenth with one car and retire with the other.

Kevin Magnussen was forced out after encountering an engine issue, with his stoppage on the Wellington Straight bringing out the safety car.  It was the third engine related problem in three races for the team, and they will be looking into the cause to prevent more issues going forward.

Nico Hülkenberg started eleventh but was an early visitor to the pit lane after picking up front wing damage after colliding with Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Pérez, with the German falling to the back of the pack as a result.

The safety car enabled him to catch up with the pack, and a pit stop for soft tyres enabled him to push forward and finish the race fourteenth, which became thirteenth after a time penalty was applied to Lance Stroll.

Steiner, the Team Principal at Haas, says the team did not have the pace to be a contender for points at Silverstone, and everyone at the team will be working hard to understand why and come back with a stronger performance in Hungary in two weeks time.

Nico Hülkenberg felt his British Grand Prix was compromised early after contact with Sergio Pérez broke his front wing and necessitated an early pit stop.

The MoneyGram Haas F1 Team driver fell to the back of the field at Silverstone as a result of his early pit stop after his front wing clipped the RB14 of Pérez, and from there on he was always fighting to come through the pack.

The safety car brought him back into contention but he couldn’t better fourteenth at the chequered flag, although this became thirteenth once Lance Stroll was handed a five-second penalty for avoidable contact.

“The race was badly impacted early on when Checo (Perez) came through on the exit of Turn 4 and we made contact,” said Hülkenberg.  “A big piece of the front wing fell off one lap later and that forced us to pit early, we had to change the front wing and that cost a lot of time, and we were just behind.

“The safety car got us back onto the train of cars but then in traffic, we didn’t have enough pace to come through.”

Despite missing out on points at Silverstone, Alessandro Alunni Bravi says the Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake can take confidence from their performance, particularly on Sunday when both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu gained positions from their starting spots.

Bottas gained eight positions from the back of the grid, the Finn moving up after being disqualified after Qualifying, to finish twelfth, while Zhou finished fifteenth after starting seventeenth.

Alfa Romeo brought updates to their C43-Ferrari ahead of the British Grand Prix, and Alunni Bravi, the Team Representative of the Hinwil-based outfit, says they can be happy with the progress, both on the car and in the race.

“Today, we must pay tribute to our team and drivers for the job done, in a race that wasn’t set to be easy for us: overall, we have recovered ten positions, eight with Valtteri and two with Zhou, as proof that if we carry out a perfect race, we can get into the fight for points,” said Alunni Bravi.

“Yesterday was not our day, and of course, starting from the back is never easy, but today we showed an improvement in the race pace compared to previous events, which gives us confidence for the next two races before the summer break.

Valtteri Bottas believed he did as much as he could during the British Grand Prix on Sunday, with the Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake driver climbing from twentieth and last on the grid to finish twelfth.

The Finn was disqualified from Qualifying on Saturday afternoon after his car did not have enough fuel in its tank to provide a sample post-session, meaning he was forced to start at the back of the pack, but Bottas made good progress throughout the race.

Bottas knew he profited from the timing of the safety car, meaning he could make his mandatory pit stop without losing too much time, but making eight places from where he started was a good result.

“I think, taking into consideration where we were starting from, we maximised everything we had today,” said Bottas.  “The Virtual Safety Car and the Safety Car both came out in a favourable moment for us, allowing us to pit and save some time.

“Of course, it is never easy when starting P20, but we gave it all and got the best out of our package.”

Frédéric Vasseur admitted the timing of the safety car did not help Scuderia Ferrari at all at Silverstone, but this alone can not explain why the team could only finish ninth and tenth.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. had lined up fourth and fifth on the grid for the British Grand Prix, but the timing of the safety car, which came after both drivers had just switched from the medium compound tyre to the hard tyre, left them a little lower down the field.

Vasseur, the Team Principal at Ferrari, said they were planning prior to the race to run a medium-hard strategy, but the degradation levels were not as harsh as expected, and the soft tyre became the better option for the second half of the race.

The team were not ready for this, mainly down to Leclerc losing out on valuable track time on Friday afternoon when a problem prevented him from taking to the track, and Vasseur admits they could have been less conservative with their tyre choices had they had more data.

“Our plan was to do a one-stop race, running Medium then Hard,” said Vasseur.  “We pitted both drivers before the Safety Car, which definitely put us in a bad situation. However, we cannot just blame this episode to explain our finishing positions.

Scuderia Ferrari went into Grand Prix Sunday at Silverstone with high hopes of a strong result as Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. started fourth and fifth on the grid, but it was not the day they envisaged as they could only finish ninth and tenth.

It was evident early that the pace of the two SF-23’s was not as good as the team would have liked, with Leclerc dropping off the back of the leading trio up front.  It got worse for the Monegasque driver, who pitted for new hard compound tyres just a handful of laps before the safety car was deployed to retrieve the stranded car of Kevin Magnussen from the Wellington Straight.

An additional pit stop under the safety car to switch to the medium tyre meant he was fighting at the bottom end of the top ten, and he ultimately ended the British Grand Prix in ninth place.

“We lacked pace today and it was a tough race,” said Leclerc.  “We stopped early and lost some positions as I struggled to get a good rhythm on the Hards.

“Then we stopped again, for a new set of Mediums, and I made up a couple of positions at the restart, but then got stuck in a DRS train behind Alex (Albon).”

Matias Innocente dreams of racing the Dakar Rally, and will take another step closer to that dream in August when he competes in the Desafío Ruta 40. He will race a Can-Am Renegade in the Quad category.

Innocente has aspired to compete at Dakar since it ran through South America. His father Lucas Innocente took part on a quad from 2015 to 2017, finishing. The elder Innocente has also competed in the Desafío Ruta 40 and Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, finishing runner-up in class at the 2014 DR 40.

“Since I was ten years old, I’ve been crazy about it and I’m passionate about it,” said Innocente about the Dakar Rally. “Since 2009, when it came here for the first time, it was an unforgettable experience and when my father raced his first Dakar, I fell in love with it. I realised that it runs in my blood and that I was born for it, and I am willing to go all the way for it.”

The 20-year-old has raced in the Campeonato Argentino de Rally y Navegación (CaNav), Argentina’s main rally raid series, since his teen years.

“For me, the Ruta 40 means the beginning of everything,” he continued. “The Ruta 40 was the first important race that I saw. My father’s second place was the first trophy I was able to hold in my hand, my father’s second place. We no longer have that trophy today because of life, but I would like to be able to give back to my dad that joy of being able to have lifted his first trophy. I was very young and it represents something very important to me.”

Diego José Blas Lopez will be one of the higher profile names representing host country Argentina when the World Rally-Raid Championship arrives for the Desafío Ruta 40.

Despite it being his first time there, Blas finished second among UTVs at the South American Rally Race in February to win the T3.2 subcategory. Racing a Can-Am Maverick, he won the opening stage in the class and carried the momentum into three more victories to beat Allan Cestari by over twenty-six minutes.

After SARR, the Tucumán native has focused on the Campeonato Argentino de Rally y Navegación (CaNav) where he leads the T3.2 standings. He retired from the most recent round in General Alvear.

His SARR-winning Can-Am, nicknamed “El León” (“The Lion”), will also be used for the DR 40 and prepared by GM Motorsport. Conrado Azategui remains his navigator.

“I am happy and motivated to have the car as it should be for the Desafío Ruta 40,” he told Campeones. “We call it León, so León returns for the Ruta 40 and we will continue to enjoy this.”

Williams Racing’s Alex Albon converted his stunning qualifying result of eighth place into a season-best race finish at the British Grand Prix, holding onto eighth against strong competition from Scuderia Ferrari behind. 

Albon expected an intense race considering his high qualifying position, which set him up to have to hold off the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sergio Pérez to remain in the points positions. 

“It was a great weekend. When you think about the speed of the car, P8 this week is the worst position from all of our sessions this weekend. We expected the race to be a bit more difficult with Fernando [Alonso] and Checo [Perez] behind us.”

In recounting the events of the Grand Prix, Albon said that he was comfortable and pleased with the car in general, though the lack of grip on the start was difficult. Good fortune came around for him when the safety car was brought out at the “perfect” moment in the race to allow him to leap-frog Carlos Sainz.

“I struggled a little at the start as I didn’t have much grip. Once I was in the rhythm of the race, we were ok, we actually felt quite good with the car. The Safety Car came out at a perfect time. The Ferraris were on the hard compounds and I was able to get past Carlos [Sainz].”

Lucas Moraes is one of the top prospects in rally raid, and he lived up to the hype in his Dakar Rally début when he finished third in a Toyota Hilux T1+. As he prepares to race the pickup again, he will do so in the colours of Toyota Gazoo Racing.

On Tuesday, Moraes announced he has signed with Toyota Gazoo Racing Brasil, receiving formal factory support from Toyota whenever he races the Hilux. His first start as a TGRB driver will be the Baja España Aragón on 21/22 July with Kaique Bentivoglio as his co-driver.

Overdrive Racing will continue to provide technical support as they did in Dakar.

Moraes arrived at Dakar as the top rally raider in Brazil, having won the Campeonato Brasileiro de Rally Baja (Brazilian Baja Rally Championship) three times and the Rally dos Sertões twice. While Brazil’s rallies are typically through forests and mountains unlike the deserts of Saudi Arabia, he continued to impress in his pre-Dakar races by finishing third at the 2022 Baja Aragón and fifth at the Dubai International Baja. He carried that momentum into Dakar as ran as high as second before finishing third overall.

When not racing a Hilux, Moraes races a Polaris in the Brazilian Baja Rally series.

Drag racing has seen many legends who have made a significant impact on the sport. Here are a few notable drag racing legends:

1. Don "The Snake" Prudhomme: Don Prudhomme is regarded as one of the greatest drag racers of all time. He achieved success in both Funny Car and Top Fuel categories. Prudhomme won multiple NHRA championships and had intense rivalries with other legends like Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen.

2. John Force: John Force is a legendary drag racer and the most successful driver in NHRA history. He has won an unprecedented number of NHRA Funny Car championships and holds numerous records. Force is known for his larger-than-life personality and his dominant presence in the sport.

3. Shirley Muldowney: Shirley Muldowney is considered a pioneer for women in drag racing. She became the first woman to earn an NHRA professional drag racing license and achieved great success in the Top Fuel category. Muldowney's career was filled with groundbreaking accomplishments and she became an inspiration to many female drag racers.

4. "Big Daddy" Don Garlits: Don Garlits is an iconic figure in drag racing, known for his innovations and record-breaking performances. He revolutionized the sport with his rear-engine dragster design, which enhanced safety and performance. Garlits won multiple NHRA championships and holds numerous records in the Top Fuel category.

Hendrick Motorsports‘ part-time NASCAR Xfinity Series arm will field the #17 Chevrolet Camaro for all four of their Cup Series drivers in 2023. On Wednesday, the team announced Chase Elliott will pilot the car at Pocono Raceway on 22 July.

The 2014 Xfinity Series champion, Elliott last entered a race in the series in 2022 at Darlington with Hendrick affiliate JR Motorsports, where he missed the show after qualifying was rained out. Barring a repeat or a disastrous qualifying effort, Pocono will be his first Xfinity start since finishing fourth at the 2021 Indianapolis event with JRM.

Nearly all of his Xfinity starts have come for JRM, the exception being a seven-race stint in 2018 for GMS Racing that included a runner-up finish at Pocono. He has five wins and sixty-six top tens in eighty-two career starts.

At the Cup level, Elliott is trying to make up lost ground after missing six races due to injury and a seventh to serve a suspension. He is currently twenty-third in points with seven top tens and needs to either win a race or reach the top sixteen within the next seven races if he wants to make the playoffs.

Elliott recorded his first Cup win at Pocono in 2022, albeit circumstantial as he finished third only for the top two to be disqualified.