Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The opening free practice for the Australian Grand Prix was interrupted with a red flag after GPS problems at the Albert Park track, with an issue with the distribution of live tyre information being blamed.

The live tyre information that is used by teams and live feeds to show where cars are on track failed just after the forty minute mark causing the black out of information, although the GPS system itself was still active in Formula 1’s monitoring station within race control.

The session was halted for around nine minutes while a fix was put into place, with drivers effectively driving blind as a result of the failure, which meant the pit wall could not see where they were on track nor warn them about any faster cars coming from behind.

With the track during free practice sessions often busy as teams try and learn about their car and how to best set it up for the weekend, the sensible decision was made by the stewards to through the red flags, ending the risk of causing an unnecessary accident on track.

Valtteri Bottas was one of the drivers who supported the decision for the session to be stopped, the Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake driver believing it would have been risky to keep cars circulating without the information from the pit wall.

After being a factory rider for Hero MotoSports since 2021, Franco Caimi is now a free agent. On Friday, Hero confirmed Caimi’s departure via a social media video bidding him farewell.

“Once a Hero, always a Hero,” begins the video’s description. “We’ve enjoyed every moment with you, @francocaimi! Wishing you the best, always.”

Caimi joined Hero in April 2021 after mainly competing with Yamaha, making his début at the Andalucía Rally. He raced the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Cup with the team and notched an overall bike podium in the second race at the Silk Way Rally. However, his first Dakar Rally with the team—which would have been his sixth attempt at the race—would not come until 2023 after breaking his arm in a crash while preparing for the 2022 edition. After missing the latter, he ran the rest of the World Rally-Raid Championship (successor to the Cross-Country Rallies World Cup) schedule with a best RallyGP overall finish of eighth at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

In what would be his lone Dakar for Hero, Caimi overcame a slow start and Stage #12 crash, the latter resulting in knee pain after he missed a large drop, to place tenth in the RallyGP general classification. His strongest daily performance was eighth in Stages #10 and #11. The tenth continues his streak of scoring top tens in each Dakar that he finished, with his best being eighths in his début in 2017 and 2020.

Caimi did not take part in the next W2RC leg in Abu Dhabi. After fielding four bikes at Dakar, Hero had two for Ross Branch and Sebastian Bühler at the ADDC; the former finished fifth overall while the latter did not reach the end. Joaquim Rodrigues, the fourth Hero rider, broke his femur after crashing in the opener.

Jean-Loup Lepan left the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge second in the World Rally-Raid Championship Rally2 standings, but will be stepping back from the bike for now as he intends to skip the Sonora Rally on 23–28 April. His next W2RC race will be the Desafío Ruta 40 on 28 August through 1 September.

“It is three weeks after my return from Abu Dhabi,” began a social media post from Lepan. “I’m taking a little break and I’ll soon be back in sport to prepare for the rest. I won’t be present for the 3rd round of the @officialw2rc, I’m preparing for the 4th round in Argentina.”

After finishing fourth in class at the season-opening Dakar Rally, Lepan was among the top Rally2 riders in Abu Dhabi as he battled with Paolo Lucci for the points lead. Although Lucci won more stages, Lepan claimed Stage #4 and beat Lucci—who was nursing a wrist injury—in the fifth and final leg to finish ahead of him in the overall by nearly nine minutes. Lepan and Lucci respectively finished second and third, with non-championship rider Tobias Ebster claiming the overall.

Nonetheless, Lucci’s stage wins and runner-up in Dakar make him the current championship leader with fifty points to Lepan’s forty-five.

Since Rally2 is a class for amateur and aspiring riders, they are allowed to skip one round without it impacting their standing. Dakar winner Romain Dumontier applied this caveat when he elected to skip Abu Dhabi, which dropped him from first in points to third, seven back of Lepan.

Fernando Alonso put his early dry weather running to good use to top second practice at Albert Park on Friday, with rain leaving his time of 1:18.887 untouchable thereafter.

The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team used the medium tyre to set the pace, 0.445 seconds clear of Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, while Max Verstappen, fastest in the dry first session earlier in the day, was third for Oracle Red Bull Racing, 0.615 seconds down on Alonso.

Rain just before the quarter hour mark sent drivers scurrying back to the pits, with those who did brave an extra lap or two finding conditions tricky. Alonso and McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris both went off at turn one, while Lance Stroll touched the wall at turn nine.

Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. both ventured out on soft tyres just after the half hour mark but returned to the pits straightaway as conditions were still too wet for slicks, while George Russell did likewise for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team but on intermediates, the Briton feeling the conditions also did not suit that compound.

The track conditions never improved enough to see times from before the rain shower threatened, meaning the top three of Alonso, Leclerc and Verstappen finished ahead of Russell, Sainz and BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon.

Max Verstappen survived a spin during a twice red flagged opening free practice session of the Australian Grand Prix weekend to top the time sheets on Friday at Albert Park.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver set a best time of 1:18.790 on the soft Pirelli tyre to lead the pack by over four-tenths of a second, a pack that was led by Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s Lewis Hamilton.

However, it was not all plain sailing for Verstappen, the Dutchman making a mistake by going over the exit kerbs at turn four and spinning, although he was able to keep the RB19 out of the walls.

The session was twice halted, the first due a technical glitch surrounding the GPS system used by the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, with teams up and down the paddock unable to track their cars on circuit.  Nine minutes of the hour were lost whilst a fix was put in place, with running deemed too dangerous without the system being used.

The second red flag came towards the end of the session when Logan Sargeant, making his first race appearance in Australia, stopped on track with what looked like an electrical problem on board his Williams Racing FW45.

Nyck de Vries admits he did not do a good enough job and did not show enough aggression during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend, and he is looking to rectify this in Australia.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri driver has yet to show his full potential in either of the opening two races of the season and was always on the backfoot during the Saudi Arabia weekend when he was forced to miss final free practice session due to a power unit change on his AT04.

De Vries feels his performance at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit was more competitive than two weeks prior in Bahrain, and he feels he and the team are making good progress as they look to finally secure their first top ten finish of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

“Looking back at Saudi, obviously I’m not satisfied, but let’s say content with the progress I felt on my side of the garage,” said de Vries.  “I think the two race weekends so far have shown strengths and weaknesses and overall, Saudi was a more competitive and performant weekend, even if missing FP3 didn’t help.

“After the race, I was critical of my own performance and I meant what I said – I think I need to improve in those scenarios. At the start and the restart, I should have been a little bit more aggressive, while the end of my race was very strong.

MidAmerica Outdoors in Jay, Oklahoma, will début a new Pro Lite truck racing championship in 2023 dubbed the MAO Racing Truck Championship Series with a four-round season. As the name and leadership suggest, the series will mainly race at MAO, though the opener will take place at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri, in one month.

The series was introduced in December as a truck counterpart to the existing MAO Racing SXS Championship Series, which has existed since 2000 and began its season in mid-March. Although the SXS side has seven races, it will be present at all four Truck weekends.

Lucas Oil Speedway is primarily known for dirt track racing but has an off-road configuration that was previously used by the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series until its demise in 2020. While LOORRS was a West Coast-based series, the Wheatland round was a combination weekend with the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League.

“If you were a person sitting in the stands, just to hear the roar and thunder and watch these trucks, you could not tell the difference between a Pro 2, a Pro 4, and a Pro Lite,” stated MAO race director Bill Champion in February. “The only difference is this is more the entry level, if you will. These trucks range in price $75,000 (€69,753.75) to $200,000 (€186,010). You get a lot more people who are able to afford this.

“We’re the largest short-course racing series in the country right now as far as racing and numbers. Then you throw in Pro Lite trucks and we have the recipe for a big event at Wheatland.”

Fidel Castillo Ruiz hopes to make his Dakar Rally début in 2024, and will do so with a student-run effort. Last Tuesday, he revealed the Ahúja Racing project, which consists almost entirely of university students. Castillo will race a Can-Am Maverick X3 in the T4 category with Marc Solà Terradellas as co-driver.

The team débuted at the Spanish Cross-Country Rally Championship (CERTT, Campeonato Español de Rallies Todo Terreno) season-opening Rally TT Jaen Mar de Olivos days after their reveal. Castillo finished third overall and won the T4 class, finishing just fifty-one seconds behind overall winner José Henrique Dinis Alvo Silva. Besides contesting the rest of the CERTT schedule, Ahúja also plans to compete in select FIA European Cup for Cross-Country Bajas events and the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Rallye du Maroc.

Most of the students attend the Elías Ahúja Residence Hall (Colegio Mayor Universitario Elías Ahúja), an all-male residential college attached to the Complutense University of Madrid in Madrid, Spain. The school’s namesake, and by extension the team’s, Elías Ahúja was a philanthropist in the early 20th century who assisted in developing social services and charity efforts in Spain.

“I have been in this project since its inception, and seeing the evolution that it is having and the new leap that we are going to hit, fills me with pride and emotion,” said Castillo. “Being able to have lived this experience with all my loved ones is priceless. […]

“Our goal is clear: get to the Dakar, and rest assured that we will do our best.”

Coming off an eighth place finish in Saudi Arabia, BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon looks forward to tackling the Australian Grand Prix amid an energising atmosphere of “passionate” fans in Melbourne.

“Australia is always a favourite for drivers and teams. Melbourne just has a special vibe when F1 is in town and the fans are so passionate. It’s well worth the long trip and the jet lag!”

Reflecting on his last time out in Melbourne, Ocon said that the adjustments made to the Albert Park Circuit enhanced racing there, allowing for more passing, while staying true to its “challenging” nature. 

“The track itself is fun and the changes made last year I think really improved the circuit with better overtaking opportunities. It’s still a challenging track, both technically and physically, with a lot of changes of direction at low and high speeds.”

Considering the variability and difficulty of Albert Park’s turns, The French driver said that the team will be focused on putting together the best possible set-up ahead of race day. He added that the team is excited to hit the track after a week off. 

Shaun Richardson is hoping to make his return to the Stadium Super Trucks at the 2023 season-opening Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on 14–16 April, but hopes to get sponsorship squared away by then.

“Shaun Richardson Motorsport are looking for sponsors for the Longbeach Stadium Super Truck race in two weeks time,” reads a Facebook post made Wednesday. “Its a little short notice but if anyone knows of a commercial partner that would like to go on our #12 Stadium Super Truck we still have 75% space still available and very affordable packages.”

As a British native living in Australia, Richardson has not found many opportunities to squeeze the American series into his schedule. Nearly all of his SST starts have taken place in Australia since his debut in 2016, with the exceptions being the 2017 Watkins Glen round and the 2022 Long Beach opener.

When SST spun off its Australian operations into the Boost Mobile Super Trucks in 2020, Richardson became one of the full-time drivers following the COVID-shortened inaugural season. Running all three weekends in 2021, he finished fourth in points with four podiums and a runner-up finish in the first race at Tasmania.

The Boost Mobile Super Trucks died at the end of the year and its fleet of vehicles returned to America in time for 2022, with Richardson deciding to tag along for Long Beach. He finished ninth and twelfth in the weekend’s two races before crossing the Pacific again to compete in Australian TransAm. Richardson also does drag racing in the Kenda Tires 660 Drag Radial Series.

Josh Williams won the hearts of fans when he parked his damaged car on the frontstretch during the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, even if it resulted in him being suspended and replaced by Alex Labbé for the following week at Circuit of the Americas.

However, his newfound glory has produced some welcome and extremely appropriate backing for the rest of the 2023 season. On Wednesday, his DGM Racing team announced Parking Guidance Systems, LLC, will sponsor his #92 Chevrolet as well as the multi-driver #91 throughout the year beginning with Labbé’s in the latter car at this weekend’s Richmond Raceway event.

PGS provides assistance with technology like INDECT, which is intended to help consumers with orderly parking inside garages at public locations such as shopping malls and stadiums.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Parking Guidance Systems to the #92 and for their support of our team as a whole by sponsoring Alex Labbé for a couple of races,” said Williams. “In the future, I won’t have to worry about where to park using PGS’s technology; if only Atlanta Motor Speedway had it in place.”

Although not an everyday occurrence, there have been instances of drivers acquiring sponsorship with a veneer of irony or unusually high appropriateness. For example, DGM part-time driver Josh Bilicki was sponsored by cheese manufacturer Sargento at the 2022 Watkins Glen Xfinity race after he crashed into a Sargento signboard during that year’s Road America event.

It did not take long for Toby Price and Paul Weel to get used to their new Trophy Truck. Purchased from Andy McMillin in December, the two put their #46 truck atop the leaderboard in Wednesday’s qualifying for the SCORE International season-opening San Felipe 250.

With Price behind the wheel, the #46 set a fastest time of 5:39.616, over two seconds faster than second-placed Tavo Vildósola. The Price/Weel duo, dubbed Team Australia, are in an AWD TT similar to the one they ran at the 2022 Baja 1000 before it was destroyed in a fire; after McMillin, a five-time Baja 1000 winner, announced his retirement from full-time racing, he sold his truck to the Australians. For Price and co-driver Kellon Walch, the start comes four weeks after racing in the World Rally-Raid Championship’s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge where Price competed on a bike and took the RallyGP points lead while Walch rode shotgun to Mitch Guthrie in T3.

McMillin commented on Weel’s post about the pole, “Way to go boys and the whole team!”

His cousin Luke McMillin was fourth fastest to begin his SCORE TT title and San Felipe victory defence. Bryce Menzies, who finished second to Luke in the 2022 points battle and teamed up with Andy at the last two Baja 1000s, qualified one spot ahead. Menzies topped qualifying at the 2022 San Felipe 250.

Rob MacCachren was eleventh in class. MacCachren, who helped Luke McMillin win the 2021 and 2022 Baja 1000s, is racing with a heavy heart after losing his father Bob MacCachren earlier in the week.

The site of the Hydro X Prix technically does not have much of a history with “hydro” power but will in the future. On Thursday, Extreme E announced the former Glenmuckloch open-pit coal mine in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, will host the X Prix on 13/14 May.

Glenmuckloch was closed after the collapsed of its owner ATH Resources before the land was acquired in 2013 with plans of converting it into a green energy site. After a decade of ironing out the details and trying to acquire funding, Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners joined the project as lead investor in 2022.

The location will specialise in Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH), a form of energy storage that uses water’s potential energy to pump between reservoirs and turbines. A wind farm is also planned.

“It’s always great to have a home event, and racing is Scotland is something I am really looking forward to,” said Andretti’s Catie Munnings, who visited the site with Kevin Hansen of Veloce Racing. “There’s always something unique about every Extreme E course but racing in a location like this which is close to home will be something special for me and the team.

“I’ve heard the track will be a combination of both fast sections on grass as well as drops into a quarry which will be really interesting to see. The Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E team have a lot to build on and we are more hungry than ever to achieve a result that we deserve.”

On 17 March, The Checkered Flag spoke with International Off-road Drivers Association president Kelly Kuether ahead of the inaugural season, which begins on 29/30 April.

Below is the full transcript of the interview. 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: To start off, how did the idea to start IODA come about? I know there was a rift with SODA’s leadership, but can you elaborate on what specific issues went down?

KK: The biggest issues with the rift that there was with SODA, point blank, was people were being treated poorly. It was being run more like a dictatorship. It didn’t matter what drivers wanted, it didn’t matter what people thought, it was going to be the owner’s way or no way. It had gotten to the point where now that we have gotten further into the offseason and heading towards the new season that points champions weren’t being paid. None of that was done. Just overall bad leadership.

Alex Bowman is once again the NASCAR Cup Series points leader. On Wednesday, the National Motorsports Appeals Panel overturned a 100-point penalty given to him and his Hendrick Motorsports team-mates William Byron and Kyle Larson.

The trio suffered the penalty following the Phoenix race in early May due to their hood louvers, which are sourced from a single vendor, having illegal modifications, a violation of Sections 14.1 and 14.5 of the rulebook. Although the panel agreed that Hendrick had broken the rule, they deemed the points penalty too harsh and withdrew it. While Chase Elliott was not impacted as he is injured, his #9 car lost 100 owner points that have also been restored.

While the points penalty is dropped, the panel is keeping the USD$100,000 (€92,331) fine for each car and suspensions of all four cars’ crew chiefs.

Bowman, who had been sixteenth in points after COTA due to the penalty, moves all the way up to first. Byron is elevated from twenty-second to third, while Larson moves from twenty-seventh to ninth.

“We are grateful to the National Motorsports Appeals Panel for their time and attention,” said team owner Rick Hendrick. “Today’s outcome reflects the facts, and we’re pleased the panel did the right thing by overturning the points penalty. It validated our concerns regarding unclear communication and other issues we raised. We look forward to focusing on the rest of our season, beginning with this weekend’s race at Richmond.”