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After contesting much of the NASCAR Xfinity Series calendar in 2022, Mason Massey will run his first Xfinity race of the year on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway for SS-Green Light Racing. He will drive the #08 Ford Mustang with sponsorship from BRUNT Workwear.

“Couldn’t be more excited to be back in @NASCAR_Xfinity, and to work with Bobby, Jason (Miller), and all of the @SSGLR0708 guys,” tweeted Massey. “Thanks to our partner @bruntworkwear for coming on board, excited to have them at the track this weekend. Thanks to Bobby Dotter for the opportunity to get on the track this weekend! Bobby is a racers racer, looking forward to piloting the 08.”

Massey entered all but six Xfinity races in 2022 for DGM Racing, scoring a pair of top tens at Atlanta and Loudon to finish twenty-eighth in points. He returned to the Craftsman Truck Series the following year with plans to run the full schedule for Reaume Brothers Racing, but departed the organisation after seven races with a best finish of eleventh at Texas.

He made his Xfinity début in 2020 with B.J. McLeod Motorsports, on the heels of his first part-time slate in the Trucks, running twenty-three races over the next two years. He also did a one-off for SS-Green Light in 2021 at Darlington, where he finished eighteenth.

Saturday hopes to bring better fortune for Massey as he failed to qualify there in 2022.

Mahindra Racing Team Principal Frederic Bertrand is aware how important qualifying is this weekend at the inaugural Portland E-Prix, with one lap pace having been his side’s biggest issue in the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

It’s been a miserable season for the Indian manufacturer, who’ve only scored one point since the Hyderabad E-Prix mostly due to their poor qualifying performances. Remarkably, Mahindra haven’t progressed to the duels since the second round of the season in Diriyah, meaning they’re on a nine race streak without qualifying in the top-eight.

This has really cost the side this season, as Lucas Di Grassi hasn’t been able to progress through to the points places. He does though, often make significant progress. Di Grassi has often found himself this year finishing races seven or eight places higher than where he started, but it hasn’t been enough for points when he’s been starting on the last row of the grid.

If he can qualify in the top fifteen, then the Formula E veteran could certainly score his first points of the season since Mexico City this weekend, at the Portland International Raceway. Any hopes of a points finish on the West Coast ultimately depend on Di Grassi, given that he’s joined by Roberto Merhi once again. Merhi made his FE debut recently in Jakarta, meaning he’s still very new to the sport and the Gen3 machinery.

Bertrand recognises that if Di Grassi can qualify well, then he’ll be able to “show his improvements on energy management”, something which’ll be massively important in Portland.

Lucas Di Grassi is expecting Formula E’s inaugural trip to the Portland International Raceway this weekend to be “slipstream” central, with the Brazilian having admitted that the venue is like an “extreme version of Valencia”.

After a couple of weeks away, the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship is back this weekend for the first ever Portland E-Prix, as the all-electric series heads to the West Coast of the United States. It’s set to be a rapid weekend, mostly due to the venue being the “fastest track” on the calendar. Energy management is expected to be incredibly difficult, meaning the race on Saturday (Sunday 01:00 GMT) will likely see well over a hundred overtakes.

Di Grassi heads to Portland after another point-less couple of races in Jakarta, where Mahindra Racing once again had the weakest powertrain. The FE veteran has now gone ten races without a points finish, a streak he’d love to end.

Should Mahindra find a way to manage their energy well, then points could be on the cards this weekend, especially with Di Grassi expecting a “lot of overtaking and lead changes”.

“Portland will be the fastest track of the season, with very long straights and high speed corners – a bit like an extreme version of Valencia, so we expect the races to have a lot of overtaking and lead changes. I think the drivers will also be making the most of the slipstream too. It is very important for us to go racing in the US and I’m very happy to be going to Portland. I’m definitely looking forward to the race.” 

Max Verstappen took the win at the Canadian Grand Prix this afternoon by a big margin equaling Ayrton Senna’s win record and achieving Oracle Red Bull Racing’s one-hundredth win in Formula 1 ahead of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen converted his impressive pole position into victory, leading all seventy laps and driving with confidence as ever, but the real interesting battle was between Alonso and Hamilton.

What Happened in the Race?

Verstappen stayed ahead at the race start, but it was Hamilton who got the best start. The seven-time World Champion got an excellent start and was ahead of Alonso going into turn one, with the Spaniard unable to defend the Briton.

Carlos Sainz Jr. and Sergio Pérez had a battle on the first lap, with the Spaniard and the Mexican swapping positions multiple times, but it was Sainz who came out on top, regaining the position at the end of lap one down the main straight.

Lap eight saw the first retirement already with Sargeant ordered to park his Williams at turn six, bringing out the virtual safety for a short period.

Team BMW‘s Colin Turkington completed an almighty comeback from the back of the grid at the start of the day to seal Race Three honours at Oulton Park on Sunday afternoon in one of the best series of the season.

Turkington was disqualified from qualifying for failing post-session scrutineering checks and started from the back. He charged from 27th to ninth in the first race and then moved up to fourth in Race Two before saving his best for last to seal a 65th BTCC career win.

It was also a weekend to save for Dick Bennetts’ WSR squad with a BMW 1-2-3 with stablemates Jake Hill and Adam Morgan rounding off the podium. The former in particular was stopped from claiming a historic hat-trick only completed by Dan Eaves and Jason Plato previously and one which Ash Sutton has threatened this season.

But on Sutton, it wasn’t the end of the day he hoped as he hit strife on the first corner. Tussling with Tom Ingram, he was squeezed into the pit wall and after further contact as his car began to ground to a halt, he was out of the race.

He trudged through the myriad of spectators at Oulton Park with his helmet on showing his frustrations. Ingram as of time of writing has not been penalised, with the general view being that Sutton chose the wrong move down the outside and wasn’t shunted into the wall by the defending champion.

Johan Kristoffersson has claimed his 37th career victory at round 2 of the 2023 FIA World Rallycross Championship in Hell, Norway. The Swedish superstar fought of all the competition throughout a very dramatic weekend to win the final, leading home Niclas Grönholm and a very impressive Timo Scheider who secured a podium for the first time this year.

Kristoffersson continues to be the only driver ever to win a SuperPole shootout in World RX, as they were introduced in 2022 to coincide with the switch to all-electric cars. From there, he comfortably won all four of his heat races and also his semi-final, surviving as drama unfolded all around him.

The talking point of the whole weekend is the incident between fellow Kristoffersson Motorsport driver Ole Christian Veiby and 2019 champion Timmy Hansen. Battling for second position, Hansen charged up the inside of the Volkswagen Polo RX1e as they crossed the line to start the third lap. Veiby kept the door firmly shut, forcing Hansen up onto the inside curb, launching the car onto two wheels and causing irreparable damage to his Peugeot 208 RX1e, forcing him out of the competition. After the race, an obviously livid Hansen confronted Veiby as he drove back into the paddock, physically hitting the Polo with his fist. As a result of all this action, Veiby was disqualified from that heat, and Hansen was fined €1,000 for “conduct after the incident [that] was not acceptable under any circumstances.”

Hansen World RX Team’s disastrous weekend continued in the semi-final. Hansen’s teammate, Kevin Hansen, who had been a major threat to Kristoffersson through the event until that point, gained a puncture while attempting to block Kristoffersson at the start of the race, allowing Scheider and Sébastian Loeb to pass and make it to the final.

In the end, it was Grönholm who was the closest threat to Kristoffersson. The Flying Finn, who won in Norway in 2019, got ever faster as the weekend went on. There was a lot of contact between all the cars in the final in the opening run to the first corner. Veiby’s boot lid was ripped off and he ended up tagging Grönholm and Scheider at various points in the opening two corners, with very little that any driver could do about it. After that, the race settled down, with the top four drivers all taking their joker on the final lap and emerging in the same order.

Jake Hill has done the double at Oulton Park with those in the BTCC Drivers’ Championship having a glimmer of hope yet that the dominance of Ash Sutton can be quelled.

It was a near carbon copy of the opening race with another lights-to-flag win for the Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport driver. It is the first double on the same weekend for Hill.

Despite an early safety car period to retrieve Will Powell’s stricken Honda, he controlled the restart and eventually pulled clear to secure the win ahead of Ash Sutton.

The fight for the podium saw Tom Ingram hold off a superb Colin Turkington who will start towards the front in the final race of the day aiming to cap off a superb comeback job.Josh Cook grabbed fifth ahead of Dan Cammish and Adam Morgan.

Morgan will now start on pole for the reverse grid race ahead of Cammish, Cook and Turkington, giving the chance for another BMW win. Dan Lloyd, Ricky Collard and Rory Butcher concluded the top 10.

On 14 June, The Checkered Flag sat down with Brandon Semenuk as he enters the second half of the American Rally Association season on the verge of clinching his second straight championship.

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

An article summarising the interview can be read here.

Transcript

TCF: You’re coming off winning the Southern Ohio Forest Rally this past week. How would you describe your race and scoring the first win there for Subaru?

BS: It was a good weekend. We’ve done the event three times prior and this year was definitely a bit more tricky with the conditions. It’s Southern Ohio in June so it’s usually hot, humid, but this year, we didn’t really get any rain before the event so the roads were extra dry, a lot of dust but also really loose on the roads. And the way the roads are, to profile the roads, they’re very crowned, and when they get dry like that, it’s like driving on ball bearings. So a little looser this year.

As Ash Sutton sealed pole again, a third straight weekend of potentially two out of three wins going the way of dominant BTCC Drivers’ Championship leader was potentially set but Jake Hill paid heed to that in the Oulton Park opener with his first win of the season.

Hill was superb off the line blasting past pole-sitter Sutton around the outside on the run down to turn one. A defensive drive followed as Sutton aimed to unsettle the Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport driver.

But as the rear wheel drive car brought its tyres up to temperature, he grew into the race and pulled away from Sutton who despite not sealing the win will be delighted with another big points haul.

The same can be said for Tom Ingram who dubs it up a ‘pointsy’ race and has done so all season in his title defence and came from sixth on the grid to finalise the podium.

Ricky Collard was the best of the rest in fourth keeping away the chasing pack in Dan Cammish, Josh Cook, and Bobby Thompson. Team BMW trio Adam Morgan, Colin Turkington, and Stephen Jelley finalised the top 10.

Nico Hulkenberg held his hands up after qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix, with the German having been awarded a three-place grid penalty for speeding under red flag conditions.

Hulkenberg enjoyed an unbelievable qualifying session in very mixed conditions at the Circuit de Gilles-Villeneuve, with him having thrived when the rain arrived towards the end of the second part of qualifying. Hulkenberg comfortably made it into the top-ten shootout, where he dramatically put his VF-23 on the front row. He timed his best lap to perfection, as a red flag was flown six seconds after he completed his lap.

A crash in the second sector for Oscar Piastri resulted in a red flag being required, something which saw a stoppage of a few minutes. With the rain having become heavier, nobody was able to improve once the session resumed, resulting in Hulkenberg ending the session second. The result provisionally marked MoneyGram Haas F1 Team‘s best ever grid position for an actual race, until it was agonisingly taken away from him.

Hulkenberg was awarded a three-place grid penalty for speeding whilst the red flags were flown for Piastri’s crash, something he admitted he must “face the consequences” of. As a result, the German will actually start from fifth, whilst Fernando Alonso has inherited a front row start.

With Haas not boasting the best race pace, Hulkenberg doesn’t think the penalty has really impacted what he’s capable of on Sunday.

Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton believes a “podium is on the cards” on Sunday at the Canadian Grand Prix, after securing third on the grid at the Circuit de Gilles-Villeneuve.

Hamilton enjoyed a solid qualifying on Saturday, where all of his experience in mixed conditions came in use. The Briton was actually fortunate not to be eliminated in the second part of qualifying, where he finished tenth. Hamilton would’ve been eliminated had it not started to rain in the closing minutes of Q2, given that he hadn’t set a lap on the Soft compound.

When the rain did fall though, Hamilton made the most of the challenging conditions, to qualify fourth. He’ll be starting from third though, following a three-place grid penalty for Nico Hulkenberg.

Whilst pole sitter Max Verstappen is the clear favourite for victory, the seven-time Canadian GP winner is targeting a “battle” with former team-mate Fernando Alonso.

“That was a good result for us today. The conditions were very difficult out there as we tried to get temperature into the tyres. It was very tricky keeping it on track and delivering when it counted. I think P4 was probably the best we could have done though so overall, I’m really happy with it. We will take it and hopefully we can move forward tomorrow.
 
“I hope we can compete with Fernando (Alonso) and if so, I think a podium is on the cards. It would be good to have a battle with him. Our race pace is often better than our single lap pace and hopefully that’s the case tomorrow.”

The grid for the Canadian Grand Prix will look quite different this afternoon, with multiple drivers being awarded grid penalties following an action-packed qualifying session in the rain.

Max Verstappen secured pole position yesterday for the fourth successive race and was set to start alongside Nico Hülkenberg in second place after the Haas F1 Team driver put in an incredible lap to beat the likes of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

Unfortunately, the German driver’s second-place finish was revoked due to a violation of the red flag regulations. The FIA stewards discovered that Hulkenberg failed to adhere to the minimum lap time during a red flag period that resulted from Oscar Piastri’s crash in Q3.

Impeding took centre stage following the session with seven drivers being summoned to the stewards, with three drivers given penalties for their offences.

Carlos Sainz Jr. qualified eighth during the session, but blocked both Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly in the final corner, resulting in the BWT Alpine F1 Team driver losing out on a spot in Q2 and being eliminated. Sainz will now start eleventh on the grid, behind his teammate, Charles Leclerc, who was also summoned to the steward’s room for impeding Yuki Tsunoda but the incident was dismissed with no further action.

Fernando Alonso believes he can “put pressure” on Canadian Grand Prix pole sitter Max Verstappen on Sunday, with the Spaniard having claimed a second front row start from the last three races.

The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team driver will start from second on Sunday at the Circuit de Gilles-Villeneuve, following a grid penalty for Nico Hulkenberg. Alonso had qualified in third behind Hulkenberg; however, the German was slapped with a three-place grid penalty for speeding under red flag conditions in the final part of qualifying.

The Spaniard will certainly take being promoted to the front row with open arms, given that he gives him a clear run down to the opening corner. He used all of experience to master the changing track conditions, putting him in an excellent place to claim a sixth podium of the season.

Speaking prior to Hulkenberg’s penalty being announced, Alonso admitted that he has “an opportunity” to claim a good result on Sunday and potentially challenge Verstappen for victory.

“We will take third place on the grid after a very complex Qualifying session. We were a little bit unlucky with the red flags during Q1 and Q3 just before we could complete a faster lap that  might have put us on the front row. There is an opportunity tomorrow and hopefully we can recover second place early in the race and put pressure on Max [Verstappen] in front.

In an action-packed qualifying, Colton Herta took the NTT P1 Award after getting his tenth NTT IndyCar Series career pole position, in the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America.

“It’s been way too long for us this year to get a pole,” said Herta, who hasn’t started from pole position since Toronto 2022.

Next to Herta, in second place, is find Pato O’Ward, who lost a few tenths after going slightly wide at the exit of the Canada Corner.

Alex Palou will start in third position, next to 2023 Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden, who had a spin at the end of the Firestone Fast Six session. Alexander Rossi in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren will start in fifth while Kyle Kirkwood qualified for the Fast Six but couldn’t take part in it because of an engine failure after Round 2 and will start in sixth position.

A tough session for some big names of the series: Scott Dixon and Will Power, starring of a contact sustained in Free Practice 2, are going to start respectively twenty-third and twenty-second, while Romain Grosjean will start nineteenth after a spin and running wide at the opening corner during Round One, Group One.

Nicolás Cavigliasso will move from production SSVs to Light Prototypes as he enters August’s Desafío Ruta 40 driving an MCE-5 in the T3 category for Wevers Sport. The effort will culminate in his fifth career Dakar Rally in 2024 and first in T3.

Cavigliasso spent Thursday and Friday testing an MCE-5 with Wevers in France, with his wife Valentina Pertegarini serving as co-driver. It was his second T3 test after participating in a young driver’s session in Dubai in March sponsored by Red Bull, who operates a T3 and T4 factory team alongside South Racing Can-Am but also has an MCE-5 division led by Mitch Guthrie. In April, Guthrie won his class at the Sonora Rally, the latest World Rally-Raid Championship before the Desafío Ruta 40.

Cyrille Constensou, who designed the MCE-5, was present for both tests. Constensou previously worked on the Volkswagen Touareg and Peugeot that challenged the Dakar Rally.

Before switching to SSVs, Cavigliasso was a star on quads as he won the class at the 2019 Dakar Rally, the final edition in his home continent of South America; he had finished second in his maiden Dakar the previous year. After skipping 2020 for personal reasons, during which he still won the Quad class in the South American Rally Race, the Argentine returned in 2021 and claimed two stage wins before retiring with a broken clutch. He spent 2022 preparing for the jump to SSV in 2023, finishing twenty-fifth overall in T4 after mechanical problems early on with a best stage performance of fifth in Stage #9.

Besides Guthrie and Cavigliasso, a third MCE-5 will be piloted by Gabriel Rodríguez in Argentina. Rodríguez will also make his T3 début after previously racing bikes.