Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Patrick O’Donovan put in another masterful drive across the day to win round two of the Motorsport UK British Rallycross Championship 5 Nations Trophy. He was more pressured for victory after rain hit Lydden Hill in the morning and closed the field together.

At the start of the final, there was plenty of contact. Poleman Ollie O’Donovan made the best start and jumped into an early lead. Coming into Chessons O’Donovan Jnr and Viktor Vrankx were side by side and pushed the race leader. The Proton Iriz was forced wide and O’Donovan dropped back to fifth that soon became fourth after squeezing by on Roberts Vitols. Out front it was no Vrankx and Jack Thorne running second ahead of Patrick O’Donovan. The reigning champion didn’t hold back and got into second at the Devil’s Elbow. Coming up the hill he went for the lead and took it.

Thorne took advantage of the overtake and went into second though damaged Vrankx’s power steering and his own boost pipe. With each driver not at ultimate pace Patrick pulled clear to an easy victory. His father, Ollie was able to claim third after a spin for the struggling Vrankx. The Iriz driver tried to close in on second but had to settle for the bottom step of the podium.

Vitols failed to make the jump of lap one due to the contact and lack of visibility. After going around the mound he hunted down Tristan Ovenden over the remainder of the race. The Latvian wasn’t able to claim the position even after Ovenden had a trip through the gravel. They both got past the only electric vehicle in the race. Roger Thomas retired on the opening lap after the differential broke on the start line. Mike Sellar stopped on track when his power steering pipe burst and caught fire on the hot turbo. No damaged occurred.

Steve Hill had a day to forget and failed to make the final after steering issues and running on two cylinders in Q2. He is unsure if he will return later in the year after destroying the car’s main engine on Saturday. Dom Flitney enjoyed racing in the wet but struggled for visibility. In his semi-final he ended up two seconds off making the cut. Jake Harris drove the electric Mini but struggled with setup issues all day. He beat Colin Anson who made the most of his aging Ford KA. Six time champion Julian Godfrey failed to start his semi-final when a throttle issue couldn’t be resolved in time. With time before the next round he hopes to resolve the reliability issues. Oliver Bennett crashed in both his qualifying races after showing impressive pace, the second wreck ending his weekend. Michael Boak suffered more clutch issues and failed to finish a race, knocking him out before the semi-finals. He’ll test the car before a hopeful return in Ireland.

The grid for the 2023 FIA World Rallycross Championship is beginning to take shape. Alongside Hansen World RX Team‘s fraternal pairing of Timmy and Kevin Hansen, Niclas Grönholm has now confirmed his future in the sport, having signed a multi-year extension with Construction Equipment Dealer Team.

The 26 year old Finnish driver finished third in the 2022 campaign, his best ever season result, after some promising performances in the all-electric PWR RX1e, including a win at round 6 at Montalegre in Portugal. He was the first driver to snatch an event win from five-time world champion Johan Kristoffersson, and this year Grönholm expects to do more.

“While we had a strong first season for the team, I’m never satisfied until we are at the very top – and that’s just what we have worked very hard for throughout the winter,” reported Grönholm. He knows what it is like to compete at the very top, having done so in 2019 until an unfortunately timed bout of appendicitis ruled him out of contention.

He also knows that such a title challenge won’t come easy: “The opposition will no doubt be just as tough this season, but we continue to work in earnest to achieve our goals. I can’t wait to get back behind the wheel of my PWR RX1e!”

Team Manager Jussi Pinomäki says the team is on track to succeed: “We reached our initial goals for the first season by winning races, finishing in the top three overall…but we are far from satisfied. We will continue to push the envelope, both on and off-track…and our long-term goal of challenging for the FIA World Rallycross Championship titles has not changed.”

Francisco López Contardo is set to get back into defending his World Rally-Raid Championship after missing the second leg for paternal leave.

The reigning W2RC T3 champion, López began 2023 by finishing fifth in class at the Dakar Rally, and he exited Dakar fourth in points (third-placed Guillaume de Mévius did not race for points). While a top five is always a solid performance, especially at such a challenging event, it was his worst finish since switching to four-wheeled vehicles in 2019 and the first time that he failed to podium overall. Much of this could be attributed to mechanical troubles that plagued his Can-Am XRS, which prompted him to submit a report to South Racing stressing the importance of vehicle reliability for the rest of the season.

Just three days after the rally, on 18 January, his wife María Jesús Aldunate gave birth to their son Tomás López Aldunate. He is their third child.

Although the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge was not for over another month after Tomás was born, López elected to skip the race to continue raising his newborn. As it is just the second round of the five-race season, López only dropped a single spot in the T3 standings to fellow Red Bull driver Mitch Guthrie and is now fourth in points, seventy-two back of leader and Abu Dhabi winner Seth Quintero. The top five drivers—which also includes Quintero, Austin Jones, and Cristina Gutiérrez—are all Red Bull factory drivers; López and Gutiérrez race under the Red Bull Can-Am Factory Racing banner in a partnership with South Racing.

He confirmed his return for the final three legs at the Copec RallyMobil in Los Ángeles, Chile.

Kaden Honeycutt will hope to make his NASCAR Xfinity Series début on Saturday at Martinsville Speedway, the same location as his maiden Truck Series race last year. He will race the #74 Chevrolet Camaro for CHK Racing.

“We are excited to announce that Kaden Honeycutt will pilot the 74 CHK Racing Chevrolet at Martinsville Speedway this weekend,” reads a team announcement on Monday.

Honeycutt races in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series as well as part-time in the Truck Series, the latter of which includes twelve starts since 2022. His Truck début came at Martinsville, as a last-minute replacement following Matt Jaskol’s exit from G2G Racing, where he was classified thirty-fourth after a crash.

He joined Roper Racing for the first six races of the 2023 Truck season. Despite lows like missing Daytona and having to withdraw from his home race at Texas due to a practice crash, he rebounded in the sixth round at Bristol Dirt by finishing ninth. The run tied his career best first achieved at Phoenix the previous year.

CHK has struggled to start 2023, failing to qualify for all but one of the first seven races. The exception at Phoenix still ended with Dawson Cram finishing last due to a fuel pump issue. Ryan Vargas and Baltazar Leguizamón have also attempted to race the car.

Scuderia Ferrari left the Australian Grand Prix empty-handed, adding zero points to the tally after a tough race for the team. Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur said that, due to the unfortunate circumstances the team faced, their result at Albert Park Circuit was by no means representative. 

“Today’s result, not scoring points, does not reflect the progress we have made as a team. We have taken a step forward in terms of pure performance and even more importantly, we had a decent and consistent race pace on the various tyre compounds, including the Hard. Only yesterday’s qualifying did not match our potential.”

The race began with Charles Leclerc spinning off into the gravel on the race start after contact with Lance Stroll, causing his retirement. In the final stages, Carlos Sainz was handed a penalty for his incident with Fernando Alonso on the second restart, putting him out of the points.

Vasseur said that Leclerc’s collision was a case of bad luck, with him getting tangled with the Aston Martin while battling for position through turn three. 

“Our initial reaction is one of frustration, with Charles clearly unlucky to be involved in a racing incident at the start.”

Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz went from a potential podium to a finish outside of the points after being handed a penalty for causing Fernando Alonso to spin out on the second restart of the Australian Grand Prix. 

Tyre strategy played a role in Sainz dropping down from his starting position of fifth to eleventh, with him being one of several drivers who pitted just before the first red flag. He was able to recover as he pushed through the remainder of the eventful race, and started in fourth on the second restart. 

“I had a good start and felt confident on the medium tyre but we were unlucky, pitting just before they brought out the first red flag and I dropped down to P11. From there I managed to pull off a good comeback with nice overtakes and solid pace, so for that I’m happy.”

It was on this restart that things turned sour for Sainz, making contact with Alonso on turn one– one of several incidents on the chaotic start. A consequent red flag was flown, and the race would have one final restart under neutral conditions to finish the last lap of the race. 

He would cross the line in fourth, but the stewards’ decision to give him a five second time penalty saw him slide all the way down to twelfth– last of the finishing cars. 

Jonathan Shafer will aim for his maiden NASCAR start at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday when he enters the Craftsman Truck Series race for On Point Motorsports. He will drive the #30 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro.

Shafer plans to run an eight-race schedule for the team though other dates have not been immediately revealed.

“I’m beyond excited to make my first NASCAR Craftsman Truck race with On Point Motorsports at one of my favorite tracks, Martinsville Speedway,” said Shafer. “I consider this to be my home track because my mom’s family lives right down the road and I have spent a lot of time in this area when I was growing up.

“My goal is to give Steven Lane (team owner) and the team a good finish and to run every lap with no damage. With funding and sponsorship, I hope to run seven more races this year with On Point.”

A seventeen-year-old from Ohio, Shafer previously competed on dirt in the World of Outlaws and USAC. In 2020, he began inching towards a stock car career by competing in the CARS Late Model Tour and finishing seventh in the 2021 standings.

Brad Pérez is more than familiar with road course racing, having competed in SCCA Spec Miatas before breaking into NASCAR as a specialist for teams wanting someone with experience on such disciplines.

Saturday, however, will bring a change of pace as he runs his first NASCAR oval track race. On Monday, Pérez announced he will drive the #20 Chevrolet Silverado RST for Young’s Motorsports in the Craftsman Truck Series at Martinsville Speedway. Martinsville is heavily reliant on braking, making it and other short tracks fairly popular destinations for road racers hoping to get into oval racing.

On Twitter, he quipped he is “excited to turn left finally”.

All six of Pérez’s NASCAR starts since his début in 2022 have come on road courses starting with the 2022 Truck race at COTA for Reaume Brothers Racing, where he finished twentieth. He backed it up with a twenty-second at Sonoma in his most recent Truck start to date.

Since Sonoma, he has entered every Xfinity Series road race starting at Indianapolis in 2022 for MBM Motorsports, where he failed to qualify, before joining Emerling-Gase Motorsports at Watkins Glen. He placed twentieth again at The Glen followed by twenty-third at the Charlotte Roval.

Daniel Suárez is the next NASCAR Cup Series driver to throw his gauntlet into the Superstar Racing Experience as he will make his series début at Thunder Road SpeedBowl on 20 July.

“I have watched the series and noticed how much fun everyone seems to have each week,” said Suárez. “Anytime I race, I want to win, but I know it’s going to be a big challenge with as many talented drivers as SRX attracts. No matter what happens I know SRX will put on a great show for the fans in the stands and the television audience this summer.”

Suárez is the fifth current full-time Cup Series driver to join SRX for 2023 alongside Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, and Brad Keselowski. The influx in Cup regulars became possible after SRX moved its races to Thursday nights as part of a new television deal with ESPN, thereby ensuring no clash with Cup race weekends.

Eight races into the 2023 Cup season, he is nineteenth in points with three top tens and a best finish of fourth at Fontana. He scored his first victory at Sonoma in 2022 en route to a tenth-place points run.

“Daniel is a very special guy,” commented SRX CEO Don Hawk. “I liked him the very first time I met him and have enjoyed watching him sharpen his racing skills at Team Trackhouse. He has a lot of talent, coupled with a persona that has been well embraced by his sponsors and his ‘amigos’. We welcome them all to SRX and are excited to see Daniel take on the Speedbowl at Thunder Road.”

Cody Ware was arrested and charged Monday by the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office with felony assault by strangulation with serious bodily injury inflicted and misdemeanour assault on a female. Details of the case were not disclosed beyond the charges. NASCAR indefinitely suspended him shortly after the arrest.

He had been replaced by Matt Crafton in the #51 Ford for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, for what his Rick Ware Racing team simply referred to as a “personal matter.” Some pointed out that Ware’s name on the windshield had been replaced by Crafton’s, a curious change of pace as cars typically retained the original driver’s name banner even with a substitute (e.g., Josh Berry racing the #9 with Chase Elliott’s name still listed while the latter is out with a broken leg). Crafton retired with an engine failure in thirty-fourth.

As of this article’s publication, Ware remains in custody at Iredell County Detention Facility in Statesville, North Carolina, though bail was secured for USD$3,000 (€2,763.27).

Prior to his suspension, Ware was thirty-first in points with a best finish of fourteenth at the Daytona 500. He has raced in the Cup Series for his family team since 2017, becoming a full-time driver in 2022 and placing thirty-second in the standings.

His younger brother Carson Ware had also been indefinitely suspended in 2021 following his arrest for assault and property damage. Though he was reinstated a year later, Carson has not returned to racing since.

Christopher Bell led the final 100 laps of Sunday’s Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway to score his first win of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, but they were what he called “some of the longest laps of my life.”

As cautions mounted for single-car spins, Bell faced heavy pressure from Tyler Reddick especially on the final restart with eight laps remaining. Reddick attempted to close in but any prospect of making a charge was dashed after Ross Chastain crashed due to contact from Trackhouse Racing team-mate Daniel Suárez on the final lap, ending the race under caution.

Bell took the lead from Reddick, who won Stage #2, before the final segment after electing to stay out instaed of pit. While a gamble, it paid off as he led the entirety of the stage.

“We clearly were not the best car, but Adam (Stevens, crew chief) kept asking me what I needed,” recalled Bell. “I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to help me enough on a pit stop adjustment to get me where I need to be.’ I just said, ‘Let’s stay out,’ and he believed in me and we were able to make it work.”

Kyle Larson started on the pole and seemed to be one of the the favourites before wrecking out on lap 175 after a clash with Ryan Preece.

AVID Racing Yamaha will make their World Rally-Raid Championship début on 25–28 April when they bring “The Burrito” to the Sonora Rally. Camelia Liparoti will pilot the car in the T3 category, with Tony Albano as co-driver.

AVID UTV, an aftermarket parts manufacturer and supplier based in California, created the team—nicknamed “Project Last Stand”—in conjunction with Yamaha for the 2023 King of the Hammers, with Tyler Thomas driving “Burrito” while Rodney VanEperen piloted a second Yamaha YXZ1000R dubbed “Taquito”. Living up to AVID’s background, the cars are not fully stock with modifications like upgraded suspension to withstand KOH’s rocky terrain.

Burrito struggled with engine problems throughout its time at KOH before culminating in a drivetrain failure that knocked it out of the Can-Am UTV Hammers Championship. Despite the exit, it had shown early speed with Thomas by climbing from eighty-third to fifteenth on the opening lap. VanEperen bowed out after two laps.

While King of the Hammers is a rock crawling event with its own extremes that greatly differ from rally raid, there has been plenty of crossover between the disciplines. Both have also been dominated by Can-Am while Yamaha’s support is limited by comparison, though the latter has enjoyed success on occasion. Most notably, Yamahas swept the T3 podium in the eleventh leg of the W2RC season-opening Dakar Rally, one of two stage wins in the division for the Japanese manufacturer amid a sea of Can-Am triumphs.

Although the joint venture is a new face for the Sonora Rally, AVID UTV on its own is no stranger. Founder George LaMonte is a regular at the event, previously competing on a bike before switching to a YXZ1000R Turbo in 2019; after LaMonte raced on his own the first year, Albano began calling the shots for him the following year. The UTV efforts eventually inspired his company to develop the “Baby Raptor”, a 2017 YXZ1000R donning a miniaturised Ford Raptor body that Dave Sykes and Albano raced in 2021 before they lost a CV axle.

Reigning champion Patrick O’Donovan was the class of the Motorsport UK British Rallycross Championship 5 Nations Trophy all day. However, a gearbox failure in his Semi-Final put him on the back row of the final at Lydden Hill.

The GB1 car lined up seventh on the grid for the final. From there O’Donovan worked his way to fourth by the Devil’s Elbow. Leading the pack was the front row sitting trio of Jack Thorne, Ollie O’Donovan and Viktor Vrantx. Vrantx in his RX2e machinery could do nothing to stop the now Hansen Peugeot 208 equipped O’Donovan Jnr and Patrick flew past going up the hill to take third. 

Julian Godfrey had looked to take fifth after a sensational start. However, after contact his engine cut out sending him tumbling down the order. Instead, Roberts Vitols on his return to the championship was fifth closely followed by Tristan Ovenden. On the second tour Ollie let his son by. Over the following two laps Patrick put pressure on Thorne but the leader defended hard to keep first. O’Donovan Jnr jokered on lap four and Thorne responded the following lap. The GB1 car claimed the lead and held it all the way to the line to claim his eighth Supercar victory. O’Donovan said, “Just chasing down Jack was not an easy job. He’s a good driver. He made a few mistakes and we were able to real him in. It was close coming out of the joker.”

Vrantx was able to take third place after a close fight with O’Donovan Snr. Now in a fully working Proton Iriz, O’Donovan was sitting third but the pair made contact as Vrankx exited the joker lap. It sent O’Donovan wide and let Vitols ahead into fourth which became their finishing position. Ovenden had a quiet race into sixth while Godfrey overcame a misfire that had plagued his whole day to take seventh. Steve Harris, the other driver giving electric power its BRX debut came home eighth and last.

Due to the large field, many missed out on the final. In a chaotic Semi-Final 1 Mike Sellar spun off after light contact with Harris. Michael Boak on his Supercar debut failed to start when his clutch failed, causing two jump starts. Both of these meant when Patrick O’Donovan retired he still qualified for the Final. Roger Thomas was a distant fifth in his Semi-Final after having to pass a fast-starting Colin Anson. It was worse for Steve Hill who broke his engine after a hard landing in Q1. Dom Flitney’s fuel pump failed in practice. The team was able to change them in time for the Semi-Final but having not started a qualifying session weren’t allowed in.

Joey Logano‘s NASCAR Cup Series spotter Coleman Pressley could not serve in the spot for Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway as he was with Taylor Gray‘s team, so he jokingly asked his team-mate Ryan Blaney to fill in. Sure enough, the move paid off big time.

With Blaney atop the spotter’s stand giving signals, Logano manhandled the field by leading all but twelve laps in the 150-lap race for his second career Truck victory. He also won his heat race.

“I called him up after we got done qualifying [at Atlanta] and said, ‘Would you want to do it?’ And he was all in,” recalled Logano. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, absolutely, but I never really spotted before. I’ve only done it a couple times and the last time I did it the guy wrecked.’ So I’m like, ‘Well, we can’t do much worse.’

“But he did a good job. Obviously, anytime you put a race car driver up there, that’s why a lot of the spotters used to be race car drivers, they understand what you’re looking for as far as speed and honestly Ryan knows what he wants to hear on the radio, which I typically want to hear a lot more than him. I was trying to get him to keep talking more and more, which he was. We had some fun and some good laughs and it all worked out.”

Multiple wrecks resulted in green-flag laps only lasting about seven laps including a multi-car crash that took out defending winner Ben Rhodes with ten laps remaining. Logano faced a challenge from ThorSport Racing team-mate Ty Majeski but easily held him off on the final restart.

It goes without saying that Kyle Larson is going to be the favourite whenever he enters a race on dirt, and he continued to prove that in Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series heat races to set the starting order for the next day’s Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Assigned to the third heat, Larson started sixth but took the lead from pole sitter Erik Jones after just one lap and never looked back. By passing five cars, he earned fifteen total points (one point for each position gained from where a driver started plus ten points for winning), more than anyone else in the field.

Due to the passsing points caveat, which is only present for dirt races, simply winning a heat will not guarantee starting up front. For example, Bubba Wallace claimed Heat #4 but could only earn ten points at most as he started on the pole, meaning he could not improve from his starting position, and therefore will start the Dirt Race in eleventh.

On the other hand, J.J. Yeley impressed by finishing third in Heat #3 (eight points) and passing six cars for fourteen. His third-place starting spot is the first time he qualified in the top five for a Cup race since he started fourth at Phoenix in 2007. It is also Rick Ware Racing’s best starting spot since Joey Hand’s ninth at the 2022 Road America event.

“We obviously didn’t know what to expect. I tried to roll the bottom on our first two little hot laps, just judging off the previous heat race, the car didn’t feel very good,” said Yeley, a dirt track ace before entering NASCAR. “I’m a dirt guy by nature and I knew all of those guys were gonna fight for the bottom, so I said, ‘The heck with it, I was gonna go to the top’ and the car handled really, really good up there.