Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Lando Norris has revealed there is a possibility of a points finish in this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, after an awful season-opener for the McLaren F1 Team in Bahrain.

Despite qualifying eleventh in Bahrain, Norris endured a difficult evening in the desert, making six pit-stops overall to help solve a pneumatic problem by topping him up with air. Despite the British driver not being at fault for the problems, he explained how he and the team want to put it right this weekend.

“The team are working tirelessly to learn everything we can from Bahrain and to make changes so that we have a better weekend on track in Saudi.

“We know there is a lot of work to do to get to where we want to be, but I trust the team and know they are doing everything they can for us to be better. Let’s get out there and give it everything.”

Norris has enjoyed himself in the past at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, boasting point finishes at the previous two Grand Prix’s in Saudi Arabia. He is hoping for more of the same this weekend as he looks to score his and McLaren’s first points of the season.

Javier “Javi” Campos Dono became eligible to compete in the Dakar Rally after taking part in the 2022 Rallye du Maroc, and he hopes to fulfill that in 2024 when he competes on a bike in Rally2. To prepare him for the entry, he intends to enter various rallies and possibly the 2023 Rallye du Maroc.

The Rallye du Maroc is a round of the World Rally-Raid Championship and part of the Road to Dakar programme, the latter rewarding outstanding competitors with free admission to the Dakar Rally at select events if they never competed at Dakar. Riders Stéfano Caimi and Ruben Saldaña Goñi made their Dakar Rally debuts in January after performing well at the 2022 Rallye du Maroc, while the first Road to Dakar leg of 2023 rewarded Tobias Ebster for winning Rally2 at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

Road to Dakar winners are allowed to roll over their Dakar entries to the following year, as is the case with Campos. Riding in the Rally2 category, he finished forty-third overall and eighth among the fourteen Veteran Trophy entries for riders over the age of forty-five.

“All the steps have been taken so that in October I can receive the new KTM 450 Rally 2024 motorcycle,” posted Campos on social media. “This motorcycle, of which only a limited number of units are manufactured, will be the one that I will use in the Dakar 2024. Anca Vigo will be in charge of giving the necessary touch-ups to start it up.”

The Rallye du Maroc will run on 12–18 October, likely coinciding with the arrival of his new bike should he take part. Until then, he told Faro de Vigo that he plans to take part in the Hellas Rally Raid in Greece, which will be held on 22–28 May, and assisting with overseeing the Adventure Galicia Rally in Spain on 25–30 September; both rallies are rounds of the FIM’s European Rally Raid Championship alongside the RoRallyMarathon (Romania) and Dinaric Rally (Croatia and Bosnia), with Galicia being the finale. Campos is the head organiser of the Adventure Galicia Rally, which renders him ineligible to take part as a competitor but he will test the course beforehand.

The Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway restoration project took a step forward Tuesday evening when the Nashville Fair Board of Commissioners voted three to two to approve Bristol Motor Speedway‘s blueprint for the historic facility.

Bristol and parent company Speedway Motorsports launched the revitalisation plan in 2020, which received the blessing of Nashville Mayor John Cooper the following year in the form of a letter of intent. A formal commitment was reached between the two parties in November to finalise Bristol’s operation process.

In short, Bristol would oversee Fairgrounds Speedway for thirty years, during which the track would host the NASCAR Cup Series and support divisions like the Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series. Permits to use the track were for four weeks of the calendar year, with three being for nearby areas while the other is exclusively for the track. The “landmark” deal also set race weekends at ten per year and a specific track operating schedule.

If it goes through, the State of Tennessee and Nashville Convention and Visitors Convention will provide USD$17 million (€16,388,850) each in grants.

With the vote swinging in the Fairgrounds’ favour after the Fair Board vote, it now must go through the Nashville Metro Council followed by the Metropolitan Sports Authority.

Haas F1 Team Principal Günther Steiner reflected on the “challenging” back-to-back weekends of pre-season testing and the Bahrain Grand Prix, coming away pleased with their qualifying result and optimistic about improving upon their race day fortunes. 

Nico Hülkenberg made it into Q3 in his first weekend with the team, qualifying in tenth, while teammate Kevin Magnussen slotted into seventeenth. Points weren’t in the cards for the team, however, with Magnussen finishing thirteenth and Hülkenberg ending up in fifteenth. 

“It was quite challenging because we had pre-season testing and then there was very little time before the race. All in all, even if we had struggles in the race, qualifying was good. We got one car into Q3 and for Nico to come back after three years of not having a full-time drive, it was a very good result for the team. We could’ve done better than tenth, but we were happy with it. 

“In the race it didn’t start too well, for Nico it wasn’t an ideal start knocking off the front wing endplate, and Kevin was the only one on the hard tire to start which put him in difficulties. All in all though, I think the performance is there in the VF-23, we just need to get it out permanently at all the races – so I’m really looking forward to those races.” 

When asked what he felt was the most surprising result of the season opener, Steiner said that Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team was particularly impressive, with Fernando Alonso making it onto the podium after lots of talk surrounding the team’s potential throughout testing. 

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal of the BWT Alpine F1 Team is hoping that his side can further unlock the A523’s potential this weekend at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, after enduring a mixed start to the season in Bahrain.

The Bahrain Grand Prix was a very challenging one for the Enstone-based team, with Pierre Gasly having scored points in eighth despite having started last, whilst Esteban Ocon retired after accumulating twenty-seconds worth of penalties. More was certainly on the cards for Alpine in Bahrain, with the French side having shown “very strong race pace”.

Reflecting on the season-opener, Szafnauer believes his side certainly have “work ahead of us”, in a bid to discover what the A523’s “maximum” is.

“We left Bahrain with mixed feelings. On one side, we were satisfied to come away with points given Pierre raced from the back of the grid to ninth place and his drive required good decisions, a well-executed strategy and strong race pace; all of which we showed. On the other side, we made too many mistakes across the weekend, and we can all do a better job to improve on those.

“I believe Esteban’s race was a one-off, a culmination of a string of errors, some on his side, some operationally, and his side of the garage will undoubtedly bounce back in Saudi Arabia. Right now, we know the A523 has potential. We just have not exploited everything to the maximum yet and there’s work ahead of us to achieve that. It’s a long season, we’ve opened up with points and we must keep pushing as a team.”

Having achieved a strong result for Haas F1 Team with a ninth place finish at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix last season, Kevin Magnussen is looking to replicate his performance at Jeddah Corniche Circuit this year and score a share of points for the team. 

“Last year, Saudi Arabia was a strong weekend. Coming away from Bahrain with a fifth place and coming to Jeddah, expectations were high and the pace was good in the car. We got a bit unlucky with strategy – the safety car came out at a vulnerable time for us – but we still managed to score a few points and I hope we can be strong here again this year.” 

Several alterations have been made to the high-speed track since last year’s race, with the intention of improving sightlines and ensuring driver safety. Being the venue of one of 2022’s most action-packed weekends, Magnussen hopes that these changes don’t hamper the “thrilling” nature of competing there. 

“I think it’s a great circuit. Last year was my first time there and it’s a really fun and exciting track to drive, so I hope it hasn’t changed too much or at least not changed for the worse. 

“I hope it’s still going to be a thrilling place to drive. It’s a circuit where confidence with the car counts for a lot – you need to be confident and happy with the car and happy to push because it’s a pretty flat-out track.”

Pierre Gasly sees this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as “an opportunity for redemption”, after enduring a woeful qualifying at the season-opening race in Bahrain.

Qualifying in Bahrain was miserable for Gasly on his BWT Alpine F1 Team debut, with the Frenchman having been eliminated in the opening stages of qualifying. To make matters worse, he had his best lap-time deleted for exceeding track limits, resulting in him starting his Alpine debut from last.

In his defence, Gasly performed exceptionally well during the first race of the year, after fighting through the field to ninth, to claim points on his debut for the Enstone-based team. Reflecting on the season-opener, Gasly “enjoyed” his first weekend for Alpine but left the Bahrain International Circuit with “some disappointment”.

“On the whole, I was pretty pleased [in Bahrain], especially on Sunday to go from last to ninth and take home some points. I know there’s so much more to come from myself and from the team as we have not reached 100% yet. That is why we also left Bahrain with some disappointment as not everything clicked together and it’s important we piece everything together to make sure we extract the maximum performance.

“I enjoyed my debut in Alpine colours, the entire team is so talented and motivated to succeed and I’m excited to see what we can achieve when we execute a smoother race weekend.”

Garrett Smithley probably did not expect his 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule to be with three different teams, but at least he is racing full-time. On Tuesday, JD Motorsports announced he will replace Bayley Currey in the #4 Chevrolet Camaro for the rest of the season starting Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, reuniting him with the team for whom he raced from 2016 to 2019.

“It’s great to have Garrett back,” said JD owner Johnny Davis. “He’s easy to work with, has the talent to get the most out of our race cars, and knows when to go and when to be patient. We’re excited to pick up where we left off with him, preparing fast, reliable cars to race.”

Smithley was supposed to run the full 2023 season for B.J. McLeod Motorsports, but left the team after three races following a disastrous start to the year in which he failed to make Daytona and was locked out of the grid at Fontana when qualifying was rained out. His third and final race at Las Vegas ended with a power steering fluid leak, after which he migrated to DGM Racing for Phoenix with whom he finished thirty-second.

Although he had planned to run multiple races for DGM, JD elected to bring him back. He raced for JDM for four year, scoring four top tens, a best race finish of fifth in the 2018 Daytona opener, and a highest points run of eighteenth in 2016.

“I can’t wait to get back to Atlanta Motor Speedway,” said Smithley. “Old Atlanta was my favorite track, but running the Cup (Series) last year on the new surface was valuable, and I’m excited to take what I learned to JDM.”

The NASCAR Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas on 26 March was already set to be a star-studded affair with Jenson Button, Kimi Räikkönen, and Jordan Taylor all set to make one-off starts. On Tuesday, seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson threw his hat into the ring as he will pilot the #84 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Legacy Motor Club with backing from Club Wyndham.

“COTA has been on my racing bucket list for a very long time, but my timing was off by a year or so,” said Johnson. “I was hoping it was going to be on the IndyCar schedule, and it wasn’t, and then they added it to the NASCAR schedule after I left. I’m excited to finally be able to check this one off the list and thankful to Club Wyndham for making it happen. From everything I’ve heard, NASCAR drivers have had a lot of fun racing at COTA, so to say I’m looking forward to it is an understatement.”

Johnson also announced he will race the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on 28 May. He has won the race four times including three in a row from 2003 to 2005, while also claiming the fall event four more times with a pair of season sweeps in 2004 and 2005.

“The Coke 600 is one of those premier races on the schedule,” Johnson continued. “For fans, it’s truly one of the greatest days in motorsports with Monaco, IndyCar’s Indianapolis 500, and then NASCAR’s longest race that starts in the afternoon and ends at night. Last year, I lived out another bucket list item and was able to race in the Indy 500. I’m looking forward to driving this Next Gen car at Charlotte and putting on a great show for Club Wyndham.”

He returned to NASCAR for 2023 after retiring from full-time competition in 2020 and spending two years in IndyCar. Now a co-owner of Legacy Motor Club, he is running a part-time schedule that includes prestigious events like the Daytona 500, where he was caught up in a crash and classified thirty-first, and the inaugural Chicago Street Race in July.

Ahead of the second round of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship this weekend in Saudi Arabia, Williams Racing have announced the signing of Frederic Brousseau as their new Chief Operating Officer.

Brousseau will start working for the Grove-based side in April, following a twenty-six year career in the aerospace industry. He will certainly bring some much-needed expertise to Williams, given that he has spent his entire life working on some of the biggest projects in the world. Since 1997, Brousseau has worked for Pratt & Whitney Canada, where he started at the very bottom of the ladder, before working his way to the top.

He started on the factory floors and held several operational and management roles, where he later became General Manager of the P&W’s Mirabel Aerospace Centre. He was most recently promoted to Vice President, Operations at P&W in April 2022, where he oversaw the company’s operations across twelve countries.

Having worked his way to the very top at P&W, Brousseau is excited to be embarking on a “brand new journey” with Williams, where he’s “eager” to help shape the team’s future.

“There is no better feeling than setting out on a brand new journey and working towards achieving your dreams. It has been an exciting beginning of the season and I am looking forward to joining a team with such Formula 1 heritage. I am eager to get started and contribute to building the organisation’s future alongside everyone at Williams Racing.”

Bayley Currey is back with Niece Motorsports, marking his fifth year of part-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competition with the outfit. He will drive the #41 Chevrolet Silverado RST at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday with sponsorship from Worldwide Express and Unishippers.

Currey first raced for Niece in 2019, scoring a top ten at Michigan in just his second start. He remained involved over the next three years, running twelve races for the team with a best finish of twelfth at Darlington in 2020 and Kansas the following year. He made his series début in 2017 and has two top tens in thirty-three career starts.

Most of Currey’s racing comes in the Xfinity Series, where he ran the full 2022 calendar for JD Motorsports with a twentieth-place points finish and a best run of tenth at Loudon. He returned to JDM for the 2023 season but was replaced by Garrett Smithley after just four races; Currey was thirty-second in points with his highest placement being just twenty-eighth at Las Vegas and Phoenix.

The Niece #41 is the team’s multi-driver truck; Travis Pastrana drove it at Daytona while Ross Chastain did so at Las Vegas. Others scheduled to race the #41 in 2023 include Tyler Carpenter and Chad Chastain.

Otmar Szafnauer admits the BWT Alpine F1 Team still do not know the true pace of their A523 after a weekend full of problems in Bahrain, but he believes the team could be the fifth fastest team.

Esteban Ocon qualified inside the top ten at the Bahrain International Circuit, but a trio of penalties meant he was fighting with Lando Norris over last place.  Pierre Gasly was eliminated in Q1 in Qualifying but fought back through to ninth place on his first appearance with Alpine since his move away from Scuderia AlphaTauri.

Gasly was catching Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake’s Valtteri Bottas in the closing laps, and Szafnauer, the Team Principal of Alpine, believes there is a case that they are the fifth fastest team so far in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

“We still don’t know its true pace because of some of the operational things that happened in the race,” Szafnauer is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.  “Esteban had all of his issues that we talked about, Pierre was stuck in nineteenth for quite some time at the beginning.

“I’m looking at lap times and if you ever watch a race between the guys up front and the guys at the back, [in the same car] you can be two seconds a lap different just because of where you’re racing.

Timo Scheider is once again an XITE Energy Racing driver, albeit in a slightly different discipline from last time. On Monday, the team announced Scheider will make his Nitro Rallycross début in this weekend’s season finale at Glen Helen Raceway.

He replaces Kris Meeke, who was running much of the calendar but fell while skiing ten days before Monday’s news, resulting in a compression fracture of the T7 vertebra.

“It’s just going to take a few weeks to self heal. I would love to tell you I was trying a double backflip or something, but no. I just fell on my ass on the ice so felt pretty stupid. It is what it is,” remarked Meeke. “Really frustrating as this was a doubleheader. Really looking forward to it. Looked like a mega track, but going to have to sit on the sidelines for this one.”

Scheider is no stranger to XITE, having taken over as the male driver of their Extreme E programme from owner Oliver Bennett for the second round of the 2022 season onwards as Bennett focused on Nitro Rallycross. Prior to the signing, he had been working as Extreme E’s Championship Driver which entailed being a reserve driver for needy teams and designing courses for the series. In his XE race début at the first Island X Prix, he and team-mate Tamara Molinaro scored a runner-up finish for the team’s maiden podium. However, despite initial plans of completing the season, he was replaced by Ezequiel Pérez Companc for the last race of the year and returned to his reserve duties.

He moved to the newly formed Carl Cox Motorsport for the 2023 Extreme E season and finished eighth alongside Christine GZ at the opener in Saudi Arabia last week. Incidentally, Scheider’s opponents at Glen Helen include his XE Championship Driver replacement Andreas Bakkerud and Fraser McConnell, the latter being the reserve during Scheider’s XITE stint and now a rival driver for X44.

Caesar Bacarella might be the co-owner of Alpha Prime Racing, but he’s open to racing for other teams if approached. In Saturday’s case, he will attempt the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the #66 Chevrolet Camaro for MBM Motorsports.

“Welcome to the team Caesar Bacarella! The Alpha Prime Racing co-owner and CEO of Alpha Prime USA will be driving the #66 Chevrolet this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. His ride will feature Alpha Prime Supplements’ Prime Bites Protein Brownies,” reads the team announcement.

Bacarella has owned Alpha Prime alongside Tommy Joe Martins since 2021; the team name refers to Bacarella’s company Alpha Prime USA, which sells sports apparel and workout supplements with a product from the latter division being his sponsor on the #66. APR fields the #43, #44, and #45 cars full-time; Ryan Ellis makes the bulk of the #43’s schedule, the #44 is exclusively piloted by Jeffrey Earnhardt, and the #45 is filled by multiple drivers including Rajah Caruth, Leland Honeyman Jr., and Sage Karam. Bacarella was to run the Daytona opener in the #45 but stomach problems sidelined him and Stefan Parsons took over for the race.

The 47-year-old has raced in NASCAR since 2017 with twenty-four career starts for APR, B.J. McLeod Motorsports, and DGM Racing. His best finish is twelfth at Daytona in 2021 with DGM; all four of his career top-twenty finishes have come on superspeedways. While Atlanta is not a superspeedway, it produces relatively similar racing due to its reconfigured layout. Bacarella finished twenty-eighth at the second Atlanta race in 2022.

He will hope to turn around the #66’s fortunes as it failed to qualify for three of the first four races in 2023 with Timmy Hill, Mason Maggio, and Dexter Stacey. Hill made the Fontana race and finished thirty-second. Brian Weber was supposed to race at Phoenix but felt he needed more time to prepare, prompting Hill to take over for the event.

Chad Chastain’s ascent through the NASCAR national ranks continues as he will make his Xfinity Series début at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday. He will drive the #91 Chevrolet Camaro for DGM Racing. The Governors Highway Safety Association will “sponsor” the car via its “Protect Your Melon” initiative overseen by the Chastain family, stressing the importance of wearing seat belts while in a car and a nod to their background as watermelon farmers.

His older brother and Cup Series driver Ross Chastain occasionally races for DGM such as at Fontana in February, where he finished twenty-fourth in the #91. The younger Chastain, who mainly competes in short tracks in their native Florida, ran four Truck Series races since 2021 for Niece Motorsports, for whom Ross also drives.

“I’m thrilled to make my NASCAR Xfinity Series début with DGM Racing, a Florida-based race team, driving a ‘Protect Your Melon’ Chevrolet just like I watched my brother do for years,” Chastain commented. “I have a great platform to raise awareness for safe driving, whether on the track or on the roads in the local community and being able to tie that back to our family business is an honour.”

After finishing thirty-fourth in his maiden Truck start at Watkins Glen in 2021, Chastain ran three races for Niece in 2022. He finished thirtieth in all three starts at IRP, Richmond, and Homestead.

“We’re excited to work with Chad,” said DGM Racing owner Mario Gosselin. “He has done a nice job in the select NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races he has run, and we’re excited to give him the opportunity to continue his growth in NASCAR. The programme that both Ross and Chad have put together promoting seat belt safety is fantastic and we’re happy to collaborate with them to bring awareness to this important topic.”