Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

After enjoying such a positive weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix, this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix looks set to be a return to reality for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team, due to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve‘s low-speed corners.

The Silver Arrows head to Canada having claimed their first double podium since the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya just over a week ago. Lewis Hamilton finished second with George Russell in third, despite the latter having a woeful Saturday.

Russell’s performance was truly exceptional in Spain, given that he started the race in twelfth. The strong result saw the Germans move above Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team in the Constructors’ Championship, and into second.

Mercedes’ new concept certainly worked a treat in Barcelona; however, Team Principal Toto Wolff is aware that the venue was always going to suit the W14.

“The result in Spain was a well-deserved reward for everyone’s efforts at Brackley and Brixworth to bring our update package to the track. We were pleased with how it performed, and it will provide a new baseline for us to build from.
 
“But we must also manage our expectations. It was a circuit that suited our car, and we should expect our direct competitors to be stronger in the next races. The gap to Red Bull is large and it will take lots of hard work to close that down. Nevertheless, we’re up for the challenge.”

After a weekend off, the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship is back this weekend with the usually “spectacular” Canadian Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen will be looking to repeat his victory at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve from last season.

With F1 bosses having confirmed that this weekend won’t be cancelled following forest fires in Montreal, the entire grid is preparing for what is more often than not an exciting weekend, due to there being no room for error. A mistake at the Canadian GP will result in a driver ending up in a wall, due to how little runoff there is.

One of the reasons why the action is so thrilling is because Pirelli usually take the softest compounds from their range, with this weekend being no different. The Italian manufacturer are taking the C3, C4, and C5 compounds for the eighth Grand Prix of the season, which consists of seventy laps. Usually, the Soft tyre only appears during qualifying in Canada, mainly because a one-stop is possible during the race, using the Medium and Hard compounds.

A two-stop is often more preferred by the drivers though, meaning strategy could come into play on Sunday. Despite the long back straight, average speeds at the Canadian venue are normally fairly low, due to the numerous low-speed corners.

Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Mario Isola is as always in Canada expecting the C5 not to appear on Sunday, whilst high track evolution is a guarantee.

Williams Racing have announced an iconic line-up of cars which will be going up the famous hill next month at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, which takes place July 13-16.

The festival brings together some of the most iconic cars from both the road and motorsport worlds, with 2023 being no exception. Williams have announced that Keke Rosberg‘s title-winning FW08C from 1982 will be driven at the festival by a series of drivers, including both Williams Racing drivers.

Williams Academy and IndyNXT driver Jamie Chadwick will drive the car on Friday, before Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant share the driving duties on the Saturday. 2009 World Champion and Williams Ambassador Jenson Button will be behind the wheel on the Sunday.

Williams aren’t only taking Rosberg’s legendary car, with the British side having confirmed that Jacques Villeneuve‘s FW19-06 will also be driven, with it having been raced by the Canadian to his 1997 title. Alain Prost‘s simply unmissable 1993 title-winning Williams FW15C is also set to be on display during the festival, as is Nigel Mansell‘s Williams FW14B, which claimed the championship that season.

The latter will complete its running using sustainable fuel, with four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel in the cockpit. Fans will also be able to see a version of the FW45 on show, with it set to feature the winning livery from the Grove-based team’s ongoing competition in collaboration with Gulf Oil.

Ahead of next month’s annual Goodwood Festival of Speed, McLaren have announced an iconic line-up of cars which will be going up the famous hill, in recognition of the manufacturer’s sixtieth anniversary.

Goodwood holds an incredibly special place in the heart of all involved with the British manufacturer, given that McLaren founder, the late Bruce McLaren, regarded Goodwood as the company’s test track. To mark the sixtieth anniversary of McLaren, all McLaren cars present at the festival will parade up the hill together, in what’ll be a spectacular sight for the fans to behold.

Given how significant this year’s festival is to McLaren, they’ll be taking a series of cars to recognise their achievements since being founded by Bruce, meaning a selection of Formula 1 machinery will be present. Two-time World Champion Mika Hakkinen will be driving his 1999 title-winning MP4/14A, whilst JJ Lehto will be driving Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 MP4/23A-05, which the seven-time World Champion drove to his first world title.

Two-time World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi will drive his legendary 1974 M23-05, whilst Emanuele Pirro will drive Alain Prost‘s and the late Niki Lauda’s MP4/2B-03. As well as this, NEOM McLaren Extreme E driver Emma Gilmour will be completing a run up the hill in the iconic papaya 1970 Can-Am M8D-01.

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown recognises how important Goodwood is to the British company and how it’s somewhat where McLaren’s “story began”, filling the American with excitement for next month’s event.

Denny Hamlin started on the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Sonoma Raceway, but a late wreck led to him being the lone retirement. Still, Joe Gibbs Racing had reason to celebrate as his team-mate Martin Truex Jr. completed a dominant day by leading the final fifteen laps following the caution for Hamlin’s crash to score his second win of 2023.

Truex led 53 of 110 laps and held off former JGR driver and last week’s winner Kyle Busch for his fourth win at Sonoma; previous victories came in 2013, 2018, and 2019. Much of Truex’s strong day could be attributed to Sonoma being a technical track without much room for aggression, clean air, and the road course-only lack of cautions for stage breaks.

“It’s tough to pass here, always has been,” said Truex. “There’s only two really good passing zones. Even those are difficult sometimes to get it set up right with a guy, even if he has a little bit older tires. You try to pressure a guy, make him slip somewhere and find an opening. It’s definitely hard to pass.

“Clean air is obviously a big deal. I don’t think it was as bad as last year by any means with the package we have now, with the short track package. I think it was a little bit better than last year, for sure. I could run close to guys. You just lose a little bit of grip. At a track where you’re just sliding all the time, you don’t have much grip to begin with, it makes it tough. But I think for us being the leader, being able to drive away, our car was that good. I could manage tyres easier, not have to run as hard to lead. It always kind of makes the lead look bigger and easier than it is.”

Hamlin led the first thirty-two laps and won Stage #1, but spun across the start/finish line while following William Byron, explaining he “I went to turn left to try to peak under him, and the wall was there.” The crash relegated him to a dubious last after winning the pole at Sonoma for the first time in his career; it was also his second road course pole after Watkins Glen in 2018.

Desert Endurance Motorsport will be a four-car operation at the 2024 Dakar Classic next January, announcing their lineup during the Dakar 2024 presentation at the Iveco Industrial Village in Turin, Italy. The team is overseen by Ermanno De Angelis and Nunzia Del Gaudio in partnership with historic motorsport news platform Victorious and Adrenaline24h.

The most notable driver is Arturo Merzario, an sports car racing star and Formula One alumnus in the 1970s who continues to race well into his seventies. The team had announced Merzario’s entry in February.

Also racing for the team will be Stefano Picasso and Andrea Belometti. Picasso has owned Swiss automaker Picasso Automotive since 2020; in May, the company unveiled the Picasso 660 LMS supercar, which is inspired by Le Mans prototype cars and will see just twenty produced for customers.

Perhaps fitting the Dakar Classic’s embrace of classic vehicles, Belometti has a decorated background in historic regularity races. He has won races like the Mitteleuropean Race and Winter Marathon, and finished runner-up overall in the 2021 and 2022 1000 Miglia.

While Belometti mainly races a 1929 Lancia Lambda Spider and 1937 Fiat 508 in such events, the Dakar Classic will present rather different vehicles of choice for him, Merzario, and Picasso. Desert Endurance Motorsport intends to bring a Nissan Patrols, two Suzuki Vitaras, and an IVECO ACM 80-17 to Saudi Arabia. The IVECO saw action at the 2023 Classic with Brendolan Stefano, who finished eleventh among trucks and a spot behind the IVECO Magirus of team-mate Giuseppe Francesco Simonato.

Tommy Graham took victory in the inaugural Irish Rallycross Grand Prix that saw multiple leaders and action throughout the race. Tristan Ovenden recovered from a setback in the semi-finals to beat Jake Harris on track for his second British Rallycross victory.

At lights out, fast-starting Derek Tohill and Michael Leonard Jnr came together at the first corner. Both spun wide and down to last. It meant the other front-row starter, Harris vaulted into an early lead in his electric Mini Countryman. Graham slotted into second ahead of Ovenden and Gary Donoghue.

Semi-final two winner, Harris, took a conservative approach throughout the race, not wanting to repeat a mistake earlier in the event. He was able to hold cars behind but allowed the rest of the field to use joker strategy to pass him. 

Once out of the way, Graham emerged as the new leader, having jokered on lap two. John McCluskey was second place ahead of a charging Tohill. Come the final lap Tohill was all over the back of McCluskey but suffered suspension failure. He was able to drag the car to the line though dropped to last place. 

It meant that Graham took his first victory in a left-hand drive car, having recently purchased Kevin Proctor’s Fiesta. McCluskey took second ahead of Ovenden who slowed while leading his semi-final which dropped him to third. Completing the running order were Donoghue, Leonard Jnr, Harris, and Tohill. Darragh Morris was a non-starter having retired in his semi-final. Post-race, Tohill was disqualified for his maneuver at the start.

Derek Tohill took the win in the Supercar final after passing both Tristan Ovenden and John McCluskey on track. Ovenden was spun by Tohill and retired after leading the first half of the restarted final.

The first start saw the field get away cleanly with Ovenden vaulting into the lead from second. After a mistake, he dropped back to fourth giving poleman McCluskey first place. On lap two as Tohill exited the joker lap he made light contact with Jake Harris who spun the Mini. He tried to get going but blocked the track and brought out a red flag. 

At the restart of the shortened four-lap race Ovenden once again went into the lead. McCluskey followed closely while Tohill kept his third-place starting position. Tohill made a pass on McCluskey at the start of the following lap and closed on Ovenden. A few car lengths back across the start line Tohill attempted the same move at turn one, this time for the lead. He locked up and tapped Ovenden into a spin which broke the Citroen’s suspension. Ovenden attempted to get going but almost spun as the car weaved across the track. 

In the mess, Tohill held first and wasn’t challenged for the remainder of the race. McCluskey took second ahead of now first of the British contingent Julian Godfrey. Having stalled on the first start Tommy Graham was running fourth ahead of Harris. The positions stayed as they were even through the joker strategy which meant Derek Tohill crossed the line in first. The stewards stated that no action was required which confirmed a win at home for the reigning Irish Rallycross champion. McCluskey finished second with Godfrey rounding out the podium. Michael Leonard Jnr was the only other retirement after stopping on track for long enough that he was lapped.

Godfrey took maximum points in the British championship after a terrible start to the day. Right before Q1 he suffered a fuel pump failure. The team made a workaround and he was able to race. After qualifying fourteenth, he passed two cars on track to take third in his semi-final before finishing third in the final. Godfrey reflected on the day’s racing, “Pleased with that. Had a lot of problems with the car this morning. It got better and better through the day.” Earlier in the day Leonard Jnr and Tohill entered into a one-lap shootout after crossing the line in their semi-final equal on time down to the thousandth of a second. Tohill won the impromptu duel after Leonard Jnr clipped a tyre bundle.

The idea seemed ludicrous when it was first announced. A NASCAR Cup Series car racing the 24 Hours of Le Mans? Absurd, right?

As it turned out, what might be ridiculous on paper could be a magical experience in practice.

NASCAR’s first foray into the legendary endurance race since 1976 was a rousing success. With seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, Formula One champ Jenson Button, and former Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller behind the wheel and support from premier Cup organisation Hendrick Motorsports, the team successfully completed 285 laps and hung around with the LMGTE class to finish thirty-ninth overall.

“That was unbelievable,” NASCAR chairman Jim France said. “That was thousands of hours of hard work by hundreds of people that went into making this thing happen. And then the way the team and the pit crews and everybody performed all week, it was just fantastic.

“I hope my dad and my brother are somewhere up there looking down and smiling, but the goal when we set out was to try and finish the race running at the end and not be last, and we accomplished that.”

Mario Isola believed that the degradation seen at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was lower than in previous years at the track, and the change to the C1 specification ahead of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season made it more likely that a two-stop strategy was utilised.

The Spanish Grand Prix saw the majority of drivers make two stops, although the combination of which compound drivers used was varied.  Three drivers – MoneyGram Haas F1 Team duo Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, plus the unfortunate Lando Norris, made three stops.

Max Verstappen started on the medium compound, switched to the hard compound for his second stint, before ending the day on the softest compound on his way to victory.  His Oracle Red Bull Racing team-mate Sergio Pérez also went that way on his way to fourth place.

The other two podium finishers, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team duo Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, went soft-medium-soft, while Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. went another way, starting on the soft, switching then to the medium and finally to the hard.

Isola, the Motorsport Director at Pirelli, was pleased that the medium compound in particular was more competitive than they had been expecting before the race, helped somewhat by the lower than expected temperatures in Spain.

João Costa will return to the Dakar Classic in 2024 and use the opportunity to pay tribute to his country’s heritage as he will race a UMM Alter.

Costa’s first and only Dakar Classic came in 2022 when he and Luis Santos restored a SsangYong Musso that ran the 1997 Dakar Rally with Patrick Tambay. Competing under the Blues Brothers DKR Racing Team banner, the duo successfully completed the race in eightieth overall.

He eventually aligned with Classic-UMM Team to prepare an Alter for the 2023 Dakar Classic, but elected to postpone the effort by a year as a team member was dealing with personal trouble. The programme is being headed by mechanic Carlos “Tucha” Barbosa and Luís Galvao.

The UMM Alter is the flagship vehicle of Portuguese metalworks company União Metalo-Mecânica. A French-designed 4×4 vehicle, it remains in use today by various police forces and even served as the popemobile for Pope John Paul II when he visited Portugal in 1991. It is also claimed to have finished every Dakar Rally that it entered during the 1990s.

Classic-UMM Team’s Alter was initially used by Francisco Esperto in the Troféu UMM championship. Others to pilot this specific Alter include Jorge Carpinteiro, José Silva, and César Fonseca.

Kyle Larson is one of the best drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series and motorsport in general, as well as a former Cup winner at Sonoma Raceway. It was not surprising that he would dominate the lower Xfinity Series‘ inaugural trip to his home circuit on Saturday, crushing the field in practice and qualifying before leading the bulk of the race.

What was surprising, however, was that a late restart and rare stumble would do in his hopes of completing the daily sweep. Instead, Aric Almirola was the Cup driver in Victory Lane.

Larson led 53 of 80 laps ad swept both stages, asserting his dominance in such convincing fashion that he was leading the field by over thirteen seconds. Jeffrey Earnhardt‘s crash with fifteen laps remaining set up a restart for which Larson began in the second row behind Alex Labbé and Daniel Suárez, who elected not to pit. While the front row sparred with Almirola, Larson got caught up in a battle for third with A.J. Allmendinger before Larson clipped a stack of tyres in the final hairpin.

With his Cup colleagues fighting each other, Almirola drove off to his fourth career Xfinity win and first in any national series on a road course. The win was also the first for RSS Racing.

“This is so special. It’s hard to explain,” said Almirola. “I know it’s an Xfinity win. It’s not a Cup win, but after COTA, I told Davin (Restivo, Cup engineer) and Drew (Blickensderfer, crew chief), I was like, ‘I really don’t think I should run any more road course races in the Xfinity car. It makes me look like a wanker and I lose self-confidence going into Sunday.’

Johnny Greaves‘ 2023 Championship Off-Road season could not have started any worse as he suffered broken bones in a crash during Friday practice ahead of the opening round at Antigo Lions Roaring Raceway. The injury will keep him on the sidelines to begin the season, though he hopes to return later in the summer.

Greaves’ truck violently rolled off course as he entered the final turn in Pro 4 practice. While the truck remained intact enough that a crew member was able to drive it back to the paddock, Greaves was airlifted to hospital in Green Bay, where he was alert and in good spirits despite the injuries.

A moment of silence and prayer in support of Greaves took place later in the evening during pre-weekend entertainment.

Defending Pro Lite champion Kyle Greaves will substitute for his uncle in the #22 Pro 4.

“Wanted to say thank you to everyone for all the support and prayers! I hope to be back on the track mid summer, in the meantime, @kgreaves34 will be racing my truck,” wrote Greaves on social media. “Good luck to everybody this weekend, stay safe and keep your wheels on the ground”.

Alexander Albon said that whilst it was pleasing to beat three cars to the chequered flag on merit, the race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya highlighted the need for Williams Racing to bring more downforce to its FW45.

The Thai driver was ‘pleasantly surprised’ to be as competitive as he was during the Spanish Grand Prix, particularly with where the team were on Friday and Saturday, but the ‘proper racetrack’ showed the downforce levels were insufficient to be truly competitive.

Albon hopes the upgrades that are in development back at their Grove factory can enable them to move up the order and challenge once more for the top ten, something he was able to do early in the season before they dropped back in recent events.

“The race wasn’t easy, but it was better than I thought it would be,” said Albon.  “We were fighting and beat three cars on merit.

“Considering where we were on Friday and Saturday, I’m pleasantly surprised with how today went. You get no prizes for P16 but if there was some rain we could’ve maybe had something.

Guenther Steiner admitted the result of the Spanish Grand Prix was ‘disappointing’ for the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team, with neither Nico Hülkenberg nor Kevin Magnussen finishing inside the points.

Hopes had been high heading into race day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya that the team could add to the eight points they had scored in the opening six races, especially with Hülkenberg starting seventh after an impressive display in Qualifying.

However, heavy tyre degradation on both cars meant they were forced to pit three times during the race compared to two for many of their rivals, which left them down in fifteenth and eighteenth at the chequered flag.

Steiner, the Team Principal at Haas, says it is important the team analyse what happened with its tyre wear in Spain and come back with a solution to those problems if they want to be contenders for points in upcoming events.

“Quite a disappointing result today, we just couldn’t get the tyres to stay alive,” said Steiner.  “We did one more pit stop than everyone else, but even if we hadn’t stopped, we would’ve gone slower and ended up there anyway.