Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

April is shaping up to be a busy month for western Mexico and Baja California. After the month began with SCORE International’s San Felipe 250, it will end with the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Sonora Rally and NORRA‘s Mexican 1000. With Sonora set to conclude on the first day of the Mexican 1000, NORRA hopes to reward those who intend to race both.

In collaboration with Sonora Rally organisers, NORRA has launched the Ultimate Ironman Challenge for solo riders doing the back-to-back rallies.

The Sonora Rally will end on 28 April in San Luis Río Colorado, located in northwestern Sonora near the border with Baja California, while the Mexican 1000’s pre-race technical inspection is taking place that same day in Ensenada roughly 350 kilometres away. To help out challenge riders, NORRA will send a van and trailer rig to San Luis Río Colorado to pick them up and take them to their next destination; the van can hold fourteen people while the trailer accommodates approximately seven bikes.

Upon reaching Ensenada, NORRA will expedite the inspection process for the riders so that they can reach the Mexican 1000 driver’s meeting at 6 PM. The 1000 then begins on 29 April. All participants will receive a commemorative plaque from NORRA.

Sonora will be approximately 2,091 kilometres in length. The 1000’s route for 2023 has not been released, though the 2022 edition totalled nearly 1,300 km for cars.

Ahead of this month’s first Formula E rookie test since 2020, Avalanche Andretti Formula E have announced their line-up for the test in Berlin. Representing Andretti a day after the eighth round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship will be Formula 2 driver and Red Bull Junior Zane Maloney, and reigning INDY NXT Champion Linus Lundqvist.

The duo will hit the Tempelhof Street Circuit to gather crucial data for Andretti, whilst gaining their first experience of Formula E. As well as being a current F2 driver and Red Bull Junior driver, Maloney is also one of Oracle Red Bull Racing‘s official reserve drivers for this season, highlighting the talent the Austrians see in the young driver.

Maloney is “very excited” to have been invited to the test and is incredibly grateful to Andretti for making it possible, with him set to “learn as much as I can”.

“I’m very excited to be part of the Berlin Rookie Test with Avalanche Andretti Formula E. Driving in Formula E is going to be a new experience for me so I’m very grateful for this opportunity and would like to thank everyone at Andretti for making this possible. I will be trying to learn as much as I can during this test and gain some beneficial experience in the GEN3 car.”

Since winning the INDY NXT Championship last season, Lundqvist has tested an IndyCar at Texas Motor Speedway, as he continues to search for his next move. The Swiss driver is incredibly talented and has won four titles since 2016, making it understandable why Andretti are giving him a chance.

Jody Egginton says Scuderia AlphaTauri have a lot of data to go through ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after failing to extract as much performance from their AT04 as they had hoped they would during the Australian Grand Prix weekend.

At the third time of asking, the team finally scored their first top ten finish of the season thanks to a tenth place for Yuki Tsunoda, although team-mate Nyck de Vries remains without a point leaving Albert Park after being caught up in an incident with Williams Racing’s Logan Sargeant on the chaotic lap fifty-seven restart.

Egginton, the Technical Director at AlphaTauri, admitted the AT04 struggled for pace down the straights in Australia, and it also was hard work for the drivers to get the three Pirelli dry weather compounds in the right window.

He praised the drivers for doing everything they could to maximise their result, but Egginton says the team still have work to do to unlock the AT04’s potential and bring both Tsunoda and de Vries into regular top ten contention.

“It was a very difficult race for us,” said Egginton. “Both drivers pushed hard to extract all they could from the package, but we couldn’t manage to get the cars moving forward as required.

Yuki Tsunoda admitted he did not expect to score a top ten finish during last Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix, but the Japanese racer was pleased to take tenth place to score Scuderia AlphaTauri’s first point of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Tsunoda had finished eleventh in both of the opening races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and started in that position for the final lap tour to the chequered flag following the third of three red flags during the race at Albert Park.

Tsunoda had been running fifth after the crazy lap fifty-seven restart, but with the positions being reset to how they were prior to the red flag, he was relegated back to eleventh on the road.

However, a five-second time penalty for Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. promoted him up to tenth, and although he did not believe AlphaTauri had the kind of pace to score points, they have to be happy to secure their first top ten finish of the season at the third time of asking.

“I have mixed feelings about today,” admitted Tsunoda. “We scored our first point of the season which is good, but to be honest, given our pace I didn’t expect to score any today.

The 2023 Sonora Rally will run just over two thousand kilometres in total with 2,091. With 1,249 km planned in Special Stages, 842 will be provided for liaison sections on which competitors will travel to and from the bivouac.

Following a route revising, the rally will begin in Hermosillo with the Prologue stage on 23 April. The city will host two loops of the Prologue and Stage #1, which combine to form 210 kilometres of SS.

The second stage heads to the next bivouac Puerto Peñasco on a 287-km trek, where the rally will stay for three days with a pair of loops for Stages #3 and #4 respectively 347 and 252 km long. Finally, racers go 153 km to San Luis Río Colorado on the fifth and final day.

The 2,091 kilometres rank second of the three rally format rounds with confirmed distances on the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship calendar, trailing the Desafío Ruta 40‘s 2,440 km but ahead of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge‘s 1,913. The Rallye du Maroc, the final round of the season, revealed the route in March but without specific distances. The season-opening Dakar Rally is a marathon event spanning 8,549 km.

2023 Sonora Rally route

David Bernstein will make his Stadium Super Trucks début at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on 14–16 April, racing the #23 with sponsorship from off-road fabricator Kibbetech. He spent Wednesday at series headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, testing ahead of the weekend.

Bernstein is a recreational off-roader, frequently bringing vehicles like sand rails and his truck nicknamed “The Punisher” to dunes in Glamis. The area hosts sand drag racing, which Bernstein regularly competes in on Saturday nights.

In contrast to his familiar territory, SST primarily races on pavement, and he remarked his Glamis experience does not translate to the trucks as a result. Bernstein explained while observing other test drivers that he was often accelerating too early before the truck had developed enough grip to the racing surface.

“Slow is fast these things are super twitchy but I’ll get it,” said Bernstein of his test. “It’s a little bit of a learning curve, but I’m learning by the end of the season. I’ll be okay.

“It is as fun as it looks though.”

This is not going to go over well…

Following the NASCAR Cup Series‘ race at Phoenix in early March, all four Hendrick Motorsports cars and Justin Haley received an L2-level penalty for hood louver modification violations which resulted in fines, the quintet’s crew chiefs being suspended, a loss of 100 points in the driver and owner championships, and ten playoff points. Hendrick appealed the penalty last Wednesday, and the National Motorsports Appeals Panel dropped the points deductions while keeping the fines and suspensions intact.

Haley’s Kaulig Racing team launched their own appeal that was heard by the panel the following Wednesday, but received a significantly different verdict despite the same infraction. Although the USD$100,000 (€91,707) fine and four-race suspension of crew chief Trent Owens remain the same, the panel only ruled to reduce the 100-point deduction to 75 while still losing the ten playoff points.

Owing to Hendrick’s status as one of the top teams in the Cup Series versus Kaulig’s more modest standing, allegations of favouritism were quickly thrown around by fans perplexed by the inconsistent rulings.

The panels for the two hearings were different due to a rotating system, with Haley’s being overseen by Raycom Sports CEO Hunter Nickell, former driver Shawna Robinson, and Magic Valley Speedway track promoter Steve York. On the other hand, Hendrick’s came down from the trio of Kelly Housby, Dixon Johnston, and Bill Lester.

Chase Briscoe is yet another NASCAR Cup Series regular who will run both his main series’ and the Craftsman Truck Series‘ dirt races at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend. He will drive the #22 Ford F-150 for AM Racing in the latter, marking his return to the Trucks after skipping 2022.

After racing the full 2017 Truck campaign and finishing sixth in points, Briscoe has only returned to the series on very sporadic occasion with particular interest in the dirt events thanks to his upbringing in such a discipline. He won the 2018 race at Eldora followed by the pole the following year, both for ThorSport Racing, before not appearing in 2020 as Eldora was axed from the calendar due to COVID-19.

When the Trucks added dirt races at Bristol and Knoxville in 2021, Briscoe ran both for Roper Racing, respectively finishing fifth and thirty-sixth due to a crash. He also did a pavement start at Kansas with the team and placed nineteenth.

“I always look forward to the Bristol dirt weekend and to be able to get on track twice as much and feel things out will be a lot of fun and, I hope, really beneficial,” said Briscoe. “I know everyone at AM Racing has worked hard to get the truck ready and I think it’s anyone’s race when it comes to the dirt events. I got the chance to run Bristol a few years ago, and I’ve run the Truck race at Knoxville, so I’ve got a good idea of how the truck itself will act on dirt. It’ll really just come down to how the track surface changes and whether things can stay green for long enough to make a move.

“I love going back to the Truck Series so hopefully I’ll be able to pick up my second dirt win in a truck this weekend.”

The Australian Grand Prix brought an unprecedented level of chaos, and though Haas F1 Team’s Nico Hülkenberg was able to stay out of trouble, he was greatly disadvantaged by the decision to revert to the running order before the third restart of the race. 

“It was wild and a bit messy at times,” Hülkenberg said after the race, “We’ll have to look through everything that happened as there were a lot of things happening.”

The German driver started tenth and remained in the points by the time his team-mate Kevin Magnussen lost a rear-right tyre after collision with the wall on lap fifty-two, causing the second red flag of the day.

The final restart saw four cars retire, with crashes occurring up and down the field– Hülkenberg, however, benefitted from the hectic lap, rising all the way up to fourth when a third red flag was declared. 

It would have been an extraordinary result for Haas, but the FIA elected to reset the starting grid to the last time the cars could be accurately placed in order– which was before said restart. This meant that he would finish the race in eighth place under neutral conditions.

21-year-old Tanner Carrick will make his NASCAR début on Saturday when he enters the Craftsman Truck Series dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway. He will drive the #30 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for On Point Motorsports.

Carrick is no stranger to the Toyota camp, racing with Toyota motors in dirt cars. The 2017 USAC National Series Rookie of the Year was among the top prospects in midget racing before migrating to sprint cars, where he has won seventeen times.

“Running the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol wasn’t something that was really on my radar, and I am really thankful and appreciative that the team at On Point Motorsports reached out,” Carrick stated. “Running on dirt is something that I am really familiar with, so I am really excited for this opportunity and look forward to working with everyone associated with the team.

“I am really thankful for the opportunities I have had over the course of my career that have led me to this point. Starting my career with Keith Kunz Motorsports and building a great relationship with them and Toyota has been something that I have always cherished, and for this opportunity with On Point Motorsports to come about and them to also have a relationship with Toyota is cool. I am really looking forward to getting to work.”

The #30 has mainly been a multi-driver, single-truck operation. Across four of the first five races in 2023, the #30 was piloted by Chris Hacker, Colin Garrett, and Ryan Vargas; Vargas scored the truck’s best finish so far of eighth in the most recent event at Texas.

After not having any NASCAR experience entering this weekend’s Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Race, Jonathan Davenport will exit with two starts under his belt. In addition to making his Cup Series début for Kaulig Racing on Sunday, he will enter Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series event in the #7 Chevrolet Silverado RST for Spire Motorsports.

Nutrien Ag Solutions will sponsor his vehicles for both races.

“I’m really excited to run for Spire Motorsports in the Truck race and make one of the biggest weekends of my racing career even bigger,” said Davenport. “Being able to get in a truck for a team that has proven they can get it done will only boost my confidence for the weekend. With the added track time in the Nutrien Ag Solutions #7 Silverado, hopefully it’ll shorten my learning curve for both races.”

Davenport races in dirt late models, winning the inaugural XR Super Series championship in 2022 as part of a 24-win campaign that included victory over then-reigning Cup champion Kyle Larson. The year also saw him win the Eldora Million at Eldora Speedway, the first dirt track to host NASCAR since 1970.

Spire fields two full-time cars in the Cup Series but occasionally brings out the #7 truck for select starts. Corey LaJoie finished twenty-third in the rain-shortened season opener at Daytona, while a tyre issue prevented Alex Bowman from making the truck’s second and most recent attempt of the year at COTA. The truck ran eleven races in its first year in 2022 and won with William Byron at Martinsville.

Ahead of April’s official Formula E rookie test, Envision Racing have confirmed that ex-Formula 1 driver Jack Aitken will be completing the test in one of the teams cars, at the Tempelhof Street Circuit.

The first rookie test since 2020 will take place a day after round eight of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Berlin, with twenty-two drivers set to get their first experience of the all-electric series. At twenty-seven years old, Aitken will be one of the more experienced rookies; however, it will be the former Williams Racing driver’s first taste of Formula E.

Aitken will head into the rookie test on the back of having won the prestigious 12 Hours of Sebring, where he partnered former Formula E driver Alexander Sims and Pipo Derani. The British-South Korean driver is “really excited” to hit the track in Berlin and help build on the team’s “great start” to the Gen3 era.

“I’m really excited to be Envision Racing’s rookie driver. It’s a great opportunity for me to get behind the wheel of a Formula E car for the first time – the new Gen3 model looks like a lot of fun to drive. I can’t wait for the opportunity to experience that for myself in Berlin and assist the team with their work as they keep building on what has already been a great start to the season.”

Team Principal Sylvain Filippi added on Aitken’s comments and shared how “delighted” Envision are to welcome him onboard, with Filippi being aware how useful Aitken’s “wealth of talent and experience” will be to gathering crucial data.

Andrea Stella was able to oversee the McLaren F1 Team’s first points finishes of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season in Sundays Australian Grand Prix, the first time the Woking-based team have breached the top ten since he took over as Team Principal during the off-season.

After two pointless races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, confidence within McLaren appeared to be low, particularly after Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both qualified outside of the top ten during Saturday’s Qualifying session at Albert Park.

However, both drivers stayed out of trouble and showed good pace to take sixth and eighth place respectively, the points moving the team from the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship up to fifth, just fourteen points behind Scuderia Ferrari in fourth.

Stella says that even without the three red flags in Australia, the team were showing good pace, and they can return home for the four-week break before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with confidence that they are heading the right way in the development of the MCL60.

“An eventful race today in Melbourne,” said Stella.  “We managed to stay out of trouble and were able to score our first points of the season.

Lando Norris was pleased to bring home the first points of the season for the McLaren F1 Team during Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix, with the Briton securing sixth place at Albert Park.

Two troubled weekends in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia had seen Norris end both races down in seventeenth, and after Qualifying only thirteenth on Saturday, hopes were not that high that a first top ten finish of the season would be forthcoming.

However, Norris stayed out of trouble and was able to show good pace to take home sixth place, although he did benefit from the late race double retirement from the BWT Alpine F1 Team and the five-second time penalty for Carlos Sainz Jr. to score eight points in Melbourne.

However, unlike those drivers, Norris kept his nose clean and was able to get points on the board, which he believes will be good for the confidence of the team both trackside and back at their Woking factory.

“A very good race. We had good pace throughout, stayed out of trouble with no mistakes,” said Norris.  “The team did a very good job. I think the pace today was stronger than our qualifying pace yesterday, so things came together nicely. Just a well-executed race.

As the Stadium Super Trucks season opener looms, various drivers have been testing with the series at headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Among those testing on Tuesday was Rob Radmann, who would be making his SST début when he enters a round.

Radmann hails from an open-wheel background, mainly driving a 1999 Swift 008.a and 2004 Élan Pro Formula Mazda in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) competition, among other historic vehicles. He was the youngest driver to receive his Midwestern Council of Sports Car Clubs (MCSCC) licence for road racing when he did so at the age of fourteen, following a successful karting career.

In 2020, he qualified for the SCCA National Championship Runoffs and won multiple SCCA Formula Atlantic class races at tracks like Barber and Road America. He also claimed the MCSCC Formula A championship.

While Radmann did not confirm when he would run an SST points race, his father Jim posted Friday about the family team being present at the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville on 4–6 August. Nashville is one of two confirmed stops for SST in 2023 alongside the season-opening Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on 14–16 April.

Fellow SST newcomer Trey Hernquist also tested alongside Radmann on Tuesday ahead of his maiden start at Long Beach. Other tests are planned throughout the week.