Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Kyle Larson will add another NASCAR Xfinity Series start to his plate as he enters the Darlington Raceway round on 13 May in the #10 Chevrolet Camaro for Kaulig Racing. His Cup Series sponsor HendrickCars.com will appear on the car.

Larson is currently fourth in the Cup standings after ten races with victories at Richmond and Martinsville. Despite his successes, he has never won at Darlington in either series: he has seven top tens and five top fives in ten Cup starts there, including three straight runner-up finishes in 2019 and 2021; he scored top tens in all five of his Xfinity Darlington races with a best run of fourth in 2016.

He ran the fall Darlington race in 2022 for his Cup team Hendrick Motorsports, where he battled with Sheldon Creed and Noah Gragson for the win until late contact with Creed enabled Gragson to slip through. Larson finished fifth.

“Darlington is a challenging track and definitely one on the top of my list that I’m eager to get a win at,” said Larson. “The Kaulig Xfinity cars have been really fast this year too so I’m thankful for the opportunity to run double duty and hopefully we’ll have a good shot at a win.”

Hendrick will once again field an Xfinity car for Larson in 2023 at Sonoma in June followed by fall Darlington. His Cup team-mates William Byron and Alex Bowman will also make starts in the #17.

Fernando Alonso is aiming for a fourth consecutive top three finish this weekend in Azerbaijan, although the Spaniard knows it will not be easy during the first sprint weekend of the season.

The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team driver has finished each of the first three races of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season in third place, with the AMR23 proving to be competitive on every type of track so far this season.

It’s been nearly four weeks since the Australian Grand Prix concluded, and Alonso says he arrives at the Baku City Circuit with his batteries recharged ready for the challenge ahead.

“It’s good to be back after a few weeks away from racing,” said Alonso.  “I have recharged the batteries after a high adrenaline start to the season, and I am now looking forward to Baku.

“The circuit presents us drivers with a unique challenge, as we face lots of tight slow-speed street sections and then extremely high-speed straights that create lots of opportunities for risk and reward.

Brandon Walsh has long raced a Toyota Tacoma in SCORE International competition, but that will change for the Baja 500 on 3 June as he will instead pilot the #1870 Polaris RZR Pro R in the Pro UTV Open class.

Walsh’s Tacoma competed in Class 7 and Class 7F (both for production mini or mid-size pickups), scoring podium finishes in the SCORE class championships eight times throughout the 2010s while taking home the Class 7 title in 2011 and Class 7F in 2018. His most recent victory came in 7F at the 2022 season-opening San Felipe 250, though the rest of the year was plagued by engine failures and he finished runner-up in the championship battle to Gerardo Novelo by five points.

He was unable to defend his San Felipe win in early April after yet another engine expired in the closing stretch.

“San Felipe was my last race in a truck for a while,” began a social media post from Walsh on Tuesday. “It’s been a wild ride for the last 17 years racing nothing other than Toyota Tacomas but it’s time for a little change.

“This truck was flying when it had a healthy motor at San Felipe 250! Unfortunately a catastrophic motor issue put us out 70 miles from the finish.

Franz Tost will step down from his role as Team Principal of Scuderia AlphaTauri at the end of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, with current Scuderia Ferrari Sporting Director Laurent Mekies to come in as his replacement.

Tost has been ever present since the team was formed as Scuderia Toro Rosso back in 2005, and he has seen the team take two victories in this time, one for Sebastian Vettel in 2008 and the second for Pierre Gasly in 2020, both at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

However, recent form has dipped, with the team currently sitting ninth in the Constructors’ Championship with only one point to their name after the opening three races of the season, the same position they finished in the standings in 2022.

Rumours have been rife over the future of the team, but it appears that whilst AlphaTauri will remain on the grid in its current form next year, they will have a new leader at the helm.

“First of all, I would like to thank Dietrich Mateschitz, who gave me the incredible opportunity to be Team Principal of Scuderia Toro Rosso and Scuderia AlphaTauri for the past 18 years,” said Tost following the announcement.  

Stage #3 of the Sonora Rally was a tale of two leaders as the FIA top dog Sébastien Loeb crashed which abruptly ended his race, while Daniel Sanders strengthened his advantage in the FIM overall.

Loeb, the World Rally-Raid Championship and Sonora overall leader after winning Stage #2, rolled into a ditch just twelve kilometres into the stage. While Loeb was unharmed, his co-driver Fabian Lurquin was taken to hospital after reporting torso pain that was subsequently diagnosed as a small shoulder fracture. While repairs began on the car following its return to the bivouac, Lurquin’s injury meant the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team had to retire from the rally altogether.

“We were on an off-road track and came to a crest with a very tight left-hand corner,” Loeb explained. “There was a big ditch in front that we couldn’t see.”

With Loeb’s exit, Stage #1 winner Nasser Al-Attiyah re-inherited the overall lead in a reversal of their positions at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, which he had dominated before incidentally crashing out in that race’s third stage. Still, Wednesday was not all smooth sailing for Al-Attiyah as he had to overcome two flat tyres and some technical problems to secure a third-place stage finish.

Now the leader, he faces pressure from Prologue and Wednesday’s stage winner Yazeed Al-Rajhi and runner-up Sebastian Halpern, who respectively trail Al-Attiyah for the overall by 2:51 and 5:06.

Championship leader Max Verstappen says he is eager to get back racing after the four-week break as he bids to further extend his advantage at the top of the standings this weekend in Azerbaijan.

Verstappen took his second victory in three races last time out in Australia and also won in Azerbaijan last year, but with it being a sprint race weekend, he is expecting it to be more of a chaotic three days at the Baku City Circuit.

The twenty drivers will only get one hour of free practice before the important sessions get underway this weekend, and the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver says they will need to have a ‘solid’ session to prepare enough for Qualifying later in the day.

“It’s good to be back!” said Verstappen.  “It’s been a long break and I’m looking forward to getting back to racing.

“Baku is a challenging track to get right. As it’s a street circuit with long straights, it gives us multiple options on what wings we can run. It’s also the first Sprint race weekend of the season so that might make it slightly chaotic.

Despite not having been racing since the Australian Grand Prix at the beginning of April, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team have been working tirelessly back at their factories to try and improve their W14 car, according to Team Principal Toto Wolff.

The cancellation of the Chinese Grand Prix for a fourth consecutive season due to coronavirus restrictions in the country meant a four-week gap between the Australian and Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but Wolff says Mercedes have been working hard to try and bring updates to their car.

Wolff says Lewis Hamilton’s positive second place finish in Albert Park last time out – and the fact George Russell led early on – shows the team are working in the right direction with the car, and it is important to continue to bring improvements if they are to return to winning ways.

“We’ve had a few weeks off from racing but both factories have been hard at work,” said Wolff.  “We’ve tried to maximise this period, bringing planned development to the car and extracting as much as possible from our learnings so far.

“Australia showed that we are making progress, although we need to be cautious about reading too much into a single result. But the signs in Melbourne were still encouraging and that has been a good motivator for the whole team heading into this gap in the calendar.

Toni Breidinger will make her long awaited NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series début on 6 May at Kansas Speedway. She will drive the #1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for TRICON Garage. Victoria’s Secret, for whom she works as a model, will sponsor her truck.

Breidinger is in her second full season in the ARCA Menards Series for Venturini Motorsports, currently sitting ninth in points with a best finish of twelfth at Talladega. She placed sixth in the 2022 standings with six top tens.

She had planned to run a Truck race in 2021 with Young’s Motorsports but departed the team midseason for Venturini. The move also gave the 23-year-old a spot as a Toyota Racing Development driver.

“When I was younger, I dreamed of being a race car driver and a Victoria’s Secret model. I was told I couldn’t do both, but here I am—I’ll be driving the No. 1 Victoria’s Secret Toyota Tundra TRD Pro at Kansas,” said Breidinger. “I’m endlessly grateful to the Victoria’s Secret team for believing in not only me, but women in sports. A huge thanks to Toyota Racing Development and TRICON Garage for this opportunity. It’s going to be a learning curve, but I’m ready to soak up every bit of it.”

ARCA will also race at Kansas earlier in the day.

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon looks forward to making a comeback at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after an unfortunate double-retirement for the team in Australia, where he and team-mate Pierre Gasly collided on the second restart– ending both of their races. 

“It was good to have a little break after the Australian Grand Prix to properly debrief after the race and analyse the weekend as a whole.

“Obviously, it did not end well for us but there were many positives to take from the weekend, and we are fully focused on bouncing back strongly in Baku.”

Having had a lengthy break, Ocon said that he is ready to get back to racing in Baku with new updates to his A523. He emphasised the importance of acclimating to Baku City Circuit quickly with the new sprint format, which sees teams receive only one practice session before qualifying. 

Above all, Ocon hopes to have a “positive” result in Baku redeem some points the team missed out on last time out, causing them to drop behind McLaren F1 Team in the standings. 

Rick Hendrick might want to wrap William Byron and Kyle Larson in bubble wrap.

On Wednesday, Alex Bowman announced he fractured a vertebra after crashing in the High Limit Sprint Car Series race at 34 Raceway the previous night. The injury twill keep him out of the #48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet for approximately three to four weeks.

Josh Berry will fill in, marking the second time he replaced an injured Hendrick driver in 2023 after substituting for Chase Elliott in the #9 for five races after Elliott broke his leg in a snowboarding accident. Berry scored a best finish of second to Larson at Richmond in backup duty.

Both of Berry’s two prior Cup starts in 2021 were also as COVID replacements at Spire Motorsports. He even did a Truck Series race that year for Young’s Motorsports for the same reason followed by eight more as a backup at Rackley WAR following a driver change, as well as five Xfinity starts after Michael Annett hurt his femur.

“First, I want to let everyone know I’m feeling ok,” reads a statement from Bowman. “My focus is now on healing and resting. Being out of the car is never an update any driver wants to make. I’m thankful to Josh Berry and Hendrick Motorsports for stepping up to the plate and I know the entire Ally Racing team will give it their all these next few weeks.

René Rast won’t be remembering his home E-Prix anytime soon, after the German endured a miserable weekend at the Berlin E-Prix.

The NEOM McLaren Formula E Team driver struggled for pace all weekend at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit, with Nissan’s powertrain in general having been underwhelming. Rast endured a disastrous race on Saturday after finishing seventeenth, due to being awarded a five-second time penalty for hitting Sérgio Sette Câmara at the opening corner.

“It was a very difficult race, particularly in the first 10 laps,” Rast admitted on Saturday. “The whole field was close together with a mixture of slow and fast, so it was all about trying to avoid contact. I then unfortunately hit Sergio [Sette Camara], picking up damage and a five-second time penalty. By pushing to the end of the race, we learned more about how these Gen3 cars run on the track, which will be helpful ahead of the second race. We’ll debrief and analyse the data to work out how we can maximise our car for tomorrow.” 

Sunday’s race was no better for Rast after he was eliminated in the group stage of qualifying for the fourth race in a row, leaving him with a mountain to climb. The German struggled in the wet qualifying session and could only make up four places during the race, to finish thirteenth. Overall, it was a woeful weekend in his home country, with Rast openly admitting that himself and the team “were just not quick enough”.

“It’s been a very difficult weekend, particularly today,” Rast said on Sunday. “I missed FP3 and then went straight into a wet qualifying session without any laps done to prepare, so I was on the back foot. Whilst I moved forward during the race as our conservative strategy paid off, we were just not quick enough this weekend. We now just need to keep working and come back stronger in Monaco.” 

Significant changes to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Sprint format have landed in time for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with adjustments made to the session schedule and sprints now defined as an independent aspect of the Grand Prix weekend. 

The previous format for F1 sprint consisted of free practice one and a traditional qualifying session on Friday, which set the grid for the Sprint event held on Saturday after a second practice session. The results of the sprint set the starting order for Sunday’s Grand Prix. 

This year, teams are restricted to just one practice session before going straight into qualifying on Friday. This qualifying session will define the starting grid for the Grand Prix on Sunday. Saturday is now dedicated entirely to the F1 Sprint, with a “Sprint Shootout” session setting the order for the Sprint race later that day. 

The Sprint Shootout functions similarly to a typical qualifying session, with three stages, the elimination of five drivers in each of the first two rounds, and a final scramble for pole position amongst the remaining ten. 

However, each stage of the Sprint Shootout is shorter than during traditional qualifying, with SQ1 being only twelve minutes, followed by ten minutes for SQ2 and eight minutes for SQ3, which puts pressure on teams and drivers to get their laps in as quickly as possible.

Laurent Lichtleuchter, a twice-winning co-driver in the Dakar Rally‘s T2 category, died during Wednesday’s Morocco Desert Challenge stage in a freak accident. He was 40 years old.

The crash occurred fifty-four kilometres into Stage #4 when Lichtleuchter and Patrice Garrouste‘s #237 Polaris RZR was hit by another car, unable to see them through the intense dust, in the co-driver’s side at 140 km/h. The impact was so violent that their car burst into flames almost immediately, killing Lichtleuchter instantly.

Garrouste suffered burns but was escaped the car in time.

“This is a very sad news and we are profoundly grieved,” said Marco Piana, owner of Lichtleuchter’s team Xtremeplus. “We lose a dear friend who was part of the Xtremeplus family for twenty years. We have no words to express this loss. Our thought and condolences go to his family. He leaves three beautiful children.”

Lichtleuchter was a veteran navigator, having called the shots at the Dakar Rally since 2009 in both trucks and cars, with much of his work in the past decade coming for Toyota. He and Peter Jerie won the 2015 Desafío Guarani in Argentina and the Dakar Series championship before the former was picked up by Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body for 2016 onwards. Working with Akira Miura, the duo finished second in their Silk Way Rally début that year.

Mahindra Racing endured yet another frustrating weekend at the Berlin E-Prix, with the Indian manufacturer having struggled for outright pace across both races at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit.

Since Mexico City, Mahindra having really found the going tough, with the seventh and eighth rounds of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship having been no exception. Oliver Rowland and Lucas di Grassi both found qualifying in particular very difficult, whilst Rowland was able to make up eleven places in Saturday’s race to finish tenth.

There was nothing for the team to celebrate in Sunday’s race, with Rowland’s point from Saturday having been their only one from the double-header. There was at least some joy for the manufacturer, with their customer team ABT CUPRA Formula E Team having locked-out the front row for Sunday’s race, whilst they also scored points in the race.

Following their challenging weekend, Mahindra have slipped from seventh to eighth in the Constructors’ Championship, leaving Team Principal Frederic Bertrand “frustrated”.

“Firstly, I’d like to congratulate our customer team Abt CUPRA Racing on their pole position and front row lock out for the second race today. Both their drivers did a fantastic job managing to extract what they needed out of their cars to be on the front row for their home race, which must have been a special feeling for them. For us, we were less fortunate.

Oliver Rowland claimed Mahindra Racing‘s only point at last weekend’s Berlin E-Prix double-header, after the Indian side endured a challenging weekend in the German capital.

It was evident early on that Rowland was in for a tough weekend, with the British driver having hit the wall during Free Practice 2, after suffering from what appeared to be a technical fault. His incident brought out a red flag as he had to be towed back to the pits, perhaps giving Mahindra an idea that they were in for a long weekend. Those fears were probably enhanced after Rowland qualified twenty-first at the Tempelhof Airport Circuit for Saturday’s race, a session he labelled as a “disaster”.

The thirty-year-old did incredibly during the race, though, to claim tenth, securing his first point since Hyderabad. He qualified much better on Sunday and lined-up twelfth on the grid; however, he wasn’t able to “hook everything together” during the second race and finished fourteenth. Overall it was a challenging weekend for Rowland, who admitted to having struggled for “confidence and consistency”.

“We scored a point during race one which is a positive. But again, I just struggled with a bit of confidence and consistency. FP1 and FP2 were a bit of a challenge just in terms of having some issues so it wasn’t an ideal start to the weekend. The first qualifying was a disaster but a good strategy during the race put me in a position to score points, which was a positive outcome for the first day.

“Today for the second race, in the wet conditions we hoped for a little bit more. Abt showed that the car is capable of being competitive in the rain, but we didn’t quite hook everything together. In the race I had a bad start because I was on the wet side and I was almost at the back anyway, so we decided to try again what worked in the first race, to save a bit of energy and try and push through at the end, but it was not as successful this time.”