Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Nico Hulkenberg made his return to Formula 1 after a three-year break at the first round of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship in Bahrain, but was left disappointed after “a tricky race” under the lights.

The German driver made a rather unlikely return with the Moneygram Haas F1 Team, and despite a surprise Qualifying Three appearance in qualifying, he was unable to make his return to the sport a dream one with a points finish.

Contact on the first lap caused Hulkenberg to lose a big part of his front wing, costing him a lot of time in the first stint before he lost even more time when he had to have it changed during his first pit-stop of the race. The thirty-five year-old reflected on the race as a race of two halves, with the first one being “very tough” due to the damage he was carrying.

“It was a tricky race – especially the first half. I had contact with someone on lap one which I didn’t really notice so that was a bit frustrating. I had quite a lot missing from the front wing and lost a lot of load and grip with that, and that made the first half of the race very tough.

“We tried to hang in there, but I was going through my tires like a hot knife through butter, so we decided there was no point in continuing like that and we pitted for a new front wing. We did a race distance though and got lots of good information, so we’ll definitely take that.”

Older race fans will not appreciate this fun fact: the combined age of the winners at Phoenix Raceway so far this weekend is just 16.5. A day after fifteen-year-old Tyler Reif won the ARCA Menards Series race, eighteen-year-old Sammy Smith held off Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Ryan Truex to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series‘ United Rentals 200.

Cautions plagued the day as eleven were called including the two for stage breaks, the second most for a Phoenix Xfinity race after fourteen in the spring 2005 edition. The final yellow flag eliminated Justin Allgaier, who won both stages but was sqeueezed into the wall by Kaz Grala and Brett Moffitt; Allgaier had fallen back after contact from JR Motorsports team-mates Brandon Jones and Sam Mayer, the latter of whom crashed with JRM’s Josh Berry in Stage #2.

While a race to forget for JRM, JGR enjoyed a 1–2 finish with Smith and Truex, the former now holding the early advantage in the Rookie of the Year battle. Smith took the lead shortly after Gray Gaulding‘s wreck on lap 147 and never relinquished it through the carnage.

“I think the track just changed a lot more than I expected it to,” explained Truex, who was making his first of six starts for JGR. “That long run, we were really bad. I was just hanging on. Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) and these guys let me complain on the radio and we made the right adjustments. That was a good restart at the end; I’m glad at least I could try to make it exciting. Congrats to Sammy and I think he was the class of the field all day. His car looked so good, and he could do what he wanted.”

Sheldon Creed had a dramatic rally after spinning with fifty laps to go and dropping out of the top twenty before climbing through the order, notably gaining eighteen spots in the final sixteen circuits to finish third. Creed partly capitalised on late contact between Kaulig Racing‘s Kyle Busch and Chandler Smith, causing the former to slide into the wall before finishing ninth.

Ed Jones might be known for his open-wheel and sports car endeavours, but he is set to add stock cars to his résumé. On Saturday, he announced he will run the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Circuit of the Americas on 25 March, driving the #20 Chevrolet Silverado for Young’s Motorsports.

“Excited to be racing in my first @NASCAR_Trucks race at @COTA in two weeks time with @youngsmtrsports,” tweeted Jones. “[N]ew experience and ready for the challenge”.

The 2016 champion of what is now Indy NXT and an ex-European formula ladder prospect, Jones raced in the NTT IndyCar Series from 2017 to 2021 for multiple teams including Dale Coyne Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing, and Ed Carpenter Racing. While he enjoyed some success with three podiums, one of which came in his first Indianapolis 500, he never finished higher than thirteenth in points.

Since 2022, Jones has focused his attention on sports car racing in IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship. In 2022, he finished eighth in the WEC LMP2 standings driving for Jota Sport, scoring a third in his 24 Hours of Le Mans début. He has also run the 24 Hours of Daytona since 2021 with a best class finish of fifth in 2022.

British in nationality but born in Dubai, Jones will be the first driver from the United Arab Emirates to compete in a NASCAR national series, and one of just three born there to race in NASCAR in general after Aliyyah and Yasmeen Koloc in the Whelen Euro Series.

In 2022, Rosberg X Racing was easily the top team as the defending Extreme E champion with two wins, but penalties and errors doomed their title defence. Unfortunately for Johan Kristoffersson and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky, matters did not improve as the 2023 season began when they received a 136-second time penalty in the Grand Final of the first Desert X Prix, relegating them to third.

Veloce Racing capitalised on the penalty to score their first victory in just their second race with Kevin Hansen and Molly Taylor. For Hansen, the win comes as redemption after fracturing his vertebrae during the 2022 Desert X Prix’s Crazy Race.

“To come back to Saudi Arabia and get my first Extreme E win with this new team, with Molly, and in the country that I had such a career changing accident, this is such a highlight,” said Hansen.

“Both of us believe so much in what the engineers and mechanics are doing, so we feel so safe when we get in the car. We believe in what we are going to drive and I think that is also giving some results.”

Although the Rosbergs held the advantage for much of the Grand Final, Åhlin-Kottulinsky sped in a slow area and received the penalty of over two minutes to knock RXR down to third. ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team, with new driver Mattias Ekström and the returning Laia Sanz, finished runner-up. Chip Ganassi Racing and reigning champion X44 retired with mechanical problems.

Scuderia AlphaTauri Team Principal Franz Tost was disappointed in the team’s result at the Bahrain Grand Prix, leaving the season opener empty handed with no points on the board.

Tost applauded the performance of sister team Red Bull Racing for their dominant campaign, finishing with a one-two, but admitted that his own team’s result left much to be desired. 

“First of all, congratulations to Red Bull Racing for a fantastic start to the season, finishing with a one-two and so far ahead of the rest of the field. From our side, I am not satisfied with our performance.”

Tost said that the team is aware of their car’s shortcomings, and that they will work hard to bring in upgrades and changes to remedy areas in need of improvement. 

“From a technical point of view, we have a lot to work on as the car isn’t on the level I expect. We know where the deficiencies of the car are, and we have to work to increase the performance with new upgrades, which I hope will be effective when they arrive.”

The season-opener of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship saw Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda finish just outside of the points positions to take eleventh place after starting fourteenth at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Williams’ Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant were Tsunoda’s nearest rivals on Sunday, and the pair’s overtaking of the Japanese driver soon after the start would come to define the outcome of the race– Albon would take tenth place at the checkered flag, denying Tsunoda a points result. 

“The race pace was better than we expected, but at the same time, it’s very frustrating to just miss out on points. The start was the decisive moment as I lost some positions to Williams, and their straight-line speed was too strong for us, so we couldn’t manage to overtake them.

Tsunoda said that tyres were a tricky element of his race at Bahrain International Circuit, and that though he was pleased with the management aspect, he felt that he was lacking grip on the rear. 

“I’m happy with my tyre management, although we struggled more than we thought. As soon as we wanted to push, the tyres began to overheat, and I started to slide around and lose the rear.”

Justin Lofton‘s quest to become the winningest Mint 400 victor continues into its fourth year, but his 2023 attempt is off to a good start as he beat defending winner Kyle Jergensen by nearly six seconds in qualifying on Friday.

Lofton, the 2015, 2016, and 2019 winner, set a time of 3:41.420 that was 5.8 seconds ahead of Jergensen. Although Lofton was the fastest in qualifying for the 2022 race as well, he was knocked out of contention almost immediately with a tyre puncture, foreshadowing a race that eliminated other leaders upon which Jergensen capitalised.

While Lofton was ahead of Jergensen by six seconds and the latter led Dale Dondel by nearly four, the margins from third onwards was much closer as Dondel held off Ryan Arciero for third by just .017 of a second. Arciero is looking to rebound after leading much of 2022 before his truck lost power.

The Class 1 of James Dean was the highest qualifying non-Unlimited Truck in fifth overall. Christian Sourapas, filling in for his father Steve Sourapas due to a late medical development, qualified fourteenth in his first time racing a traditional Trophy Truck since 2020. Multiple drivers rolled on their qualifying laps, especially due to a jump at the start that prompted others to be urged to avoid it; Kevin Adler‘s flip in front oh him forced Lofton to redo a lap.

In the Limited race that began four hours prior to Unlimited qualifying and subsequently ran concurrently, 22-year-old Joe Terrana won over Bruce Binnquist by just a minute and twelve seconds. Last year’s winner Dustin Jones was twenty-ninth.

Tyler Carpenter made waves in late 2021 when he won a preliminary race at the Gateway Dirt Nationals and celebrated with a very colourful interview in which he compared his opponents to “keyboard warriors” and said the win was for “all you pussies”, resulting in a fine, before backing it up by winning the main event. Said victory was parlayed into a NASCAR Truck Series ride at Knoxville Raceway for Niece Motorsports.

On Friday, the team announced Carpenter will return for the other dirt race on the Truck calendar at Bristol Motor Speedway on 8 April. He will drive the #41 Chevrolet Silverado once again with sponsorship from AutoVentive and Precision Vehicle Logistics.

“I’m really excited for another opportunity to get back behind the wheel of one of these trucks,” Carpenter stated. “I’m thankful for the opportunity from Niece Motorsports, Precision Vehicle Logistics, AutoVentive and Worldwide Express. I learned a lot about these trucks last season and definitely feel like we have something to prove this year.”

Carpenter earned his Truck début at Knoxville via Niece’s “Win and You’re In” programme, which was to reward the winner of the Gateway Dirt Nationals super late model race in St. Louis with a ride at Knoxville. Carpenter had won the 2019 edition while the 2020 race was cancelled due to COVID-19, meaning he was a back-to-back winner entering the Knoxville race. He finished fourth in the 2022 Nationals.

His Knoxville Truck race was cut short by a mechanical failure.

While practice is not indicative of race pace, Veloce Racing enters the Extreme E season-opening Desert X Prix with some momentum after setting the best overall time across both Free Practices on Friday.

Veloce’s total time of 11:27.589 in the second practice, held three hours after the first ended, was faster than runner-up Andretti XE‘s time in the same session by over a second.

“The confidence and spirit within Veloce Racing is extremely high and we’re ready for the Desert X Prix double-header in NEOM,” said Veloce driver Kevin Hansen. “This is the best preparation I have had before an XE season, and the team pulled out all the stops with the testing programme in Dubai and with their efforts here in NEOM so far. The ingredients are in place so now we need to go out and execute the plan over the weekend.”

Defending champion X44 was penalised fifteen seconds during FP1 before being unable to start the second due to an issue with the car’s rear. They were eventually allowed to run two “make-up” laps with Cristina Gutiérrez and perform a driver switch. McLaren, who set the best time in FP1 ahead of Andretti, also did not complete FP2.

Carl Cox Motorsport, ahead of their series début, ranked ninth total with their best time coming in FP2.

It was a bittersweet season opener for BWT Alpine F1 Team, with Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer saying that he was pleased to leave the Bahrain Grand Prix with points in hand, but feels that the race revealed some shortcomings in the team. 

Esteban Ocon retired late in the race after accruing three separate time penalties– one for not being properly in his box on the start, another because the pit crew began working on the car before said penalty was completely served, and a final one for speeding in the pit-lane.

After losing out on the opportunity to have both cars fighting in the points, Szafnauer said that the team needs to improve “operationally” in order to avoid making the same errors in the future. 

“While we can be satisfied to come away with points from today’s race, given how everything played out, we also leave Bahrain knowing we have a lot of hard work ahead of us. On Esteban’s side, and operationally, we must do better to make sure there is no repeat of what happened today. 

On the other side of the garage, Pierre Gasly managed to finish the race in ninth place, recovering many positions from last place on the grid. Szafnauer was impressed by Gasly’s debut performance with the team, which got them off the ground by adding two points to the team’s tally. 

Pierre Gasly’s inaugural race with BWT Alpine F1 Team saw him finish in the points, with a ninth place result, after starting at the back of the grid at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The French driver was pleased to be able to make a comeback after a discouraging Saturday. 

“I’m happy with today’s race and it’s a great way to mark my debut with Alpine. After yesterday’s Qualifying we were all feeling disappointed as that’s not where we aimed to be, so well done to the entire team for their hard work in turning it around for the race.”

Gasly said that he went into race day aware of the “challenging” task he had ahead of him, but said that he was optimistic that, with the right moves and solid pace from their A523, the opportunity to earn points was still in sight. 

“It was always going to be challenging to take points today, but we had confidence in the performance of our race car and we knew we had a chance to score points with a good strategy.”

Pleased with the decent start to the season, Gasly hopes to build upon the result in Bahrain and learn from his team-mate Esteban Ocon’s difficult race, which saw him take several penalties. 

Polaris has launched the Polaris RZR Factory Racing programme with young stars Brock Heger, Cayden MacCachren, and Austin Weiland. Besides OEM support, the programme is developing the first “purpose-built race ready UTV” for off-road competition. Being the RZR Pro R line, the cars are eligible for SCORE International‘s Pro UTV Open category for production UTVs.

Heger and Weiland switch to Polaris after respectively competing for Yamaha and Can-Am. The former mainly competes in short course and is the reigning Championship Off-Road Pro Stock SxS champion, while also competing in SCORE’s Trophy Truck Spec class. With Can-Am, Weiland was one of the top drivers in SCORE International’s Pro UTV Forced Induction category, winning the class in three of four rounds in 2022 including the legendary Baja 1000, though he finished fourth in the SCORE class championship due to a retirement in San Felipe.

MacCachren is the teenaged son of off-road great Rob MacCachren, having switched from UTV racing to Trophy Trucks in 2022. He won the inaugural California 300 that year and made his SCORE driving début at the Baja 400 before running the 1000 alongside Christian Sourapas.

“Backed by nearly seventy years of innovation, Polaris is not only responsible for literally inventing the performance side-by-side category, it also has a long and storied history of winning at the highest levels of off-road racing, so it simply makes sense that we’d be driving the industry forward yet again with the first, full-fledged UTV class factory racing program,” commented Polaris Off Road Recreation vice president Reid Wilson.

“Racing is integral to everything we do, driving performance innovations that inspire the products we bring to showroom floors, ultimately pushing the industry forward and advancing the consumer side-by-side market. We’re absolutely chomping at the bit to now showcase Polaris’ engineering prowess and ingenuity through our new Polaris Factory Racing team.”

Kimi Räikkönen and Jenson Button raced together in Formula One for over fifteen years. On 26 March, they will face off on the track once again, albeit in a slightly different vehicle from what everyone is used to.

On Thursday, Rick Ware Racing announced Button will race in NASCAR for the first time as he will do a three-race Cup Series schedule in their #15 Ford Mustang. His first start will come at Circuit of the Americas on 26 March, followed by the Chicago Street Race on 2 July and Indianapolis Motor Speedway on 13 August.

The plan came together as Button prepares to run the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June in a NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen Chevrolet Camaro, a project organised by NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports under the Garage 56 banner. While he will be in a Ford Next Gen car for his NASCAR entries, the differences between NASCAR manufacturers are relatively scant, especially for the Next Gen vehicle which receives multiple parts from single vendors regardless of make. His Le Mans team-mates Jimmie Johnson and Mike Rockenfeller also boast Cup experience, the former being a seven-time champion while the latter has dabbled on road courses in addition to helping test the Garage 56 car. Jordan Taylor, who is working as driver coach for the trio, is also set for his NASCAR début at COTA.

“Obviously, racing a Cup car is very different than what I’m used to,” said Button. “It’s a lot heavier with a lot less power and basically no downforce. It’s got a sequential gearbox where you need to blip the throttle, so there’s lots of stuff to learn in a very short space of time.

“But I just get excited about that new challenge, and when I throw myself into something, I am 100 percent in. I’m not just doing it for fun in some one-off. I want to be competitive, and I know that to be competitive, it’s going to take a bit of time. That’s why doing these three races works very well this season.

For the NASCAR Cup Series‘ Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on 9 April, Kaulig Racing will enlist the services of Jonathan Davenport in his maiden NASCAR start. He will drive the #13 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

Davenport competes in dirt late models, winning twenty-four races in 2022 and the inaugural XR Super Series championship. The series raced on Bristol’s dirt layout that year, where Davenport held off then-reigning Cup champion Kyle Larson.

“This is literally a dream come true for me,” said Davenport. “I’ll get to race against the best race car drivers in the world and will get to do it at one of my favorite tracks. I have a lot to learn but have two great teammates in A.J. (Allmendinger) and Justin (Haley) to learn from. We started working on this last October during the Roval weekend in Charlotte and to see it come to fruition is absolutely amazing.”

Kaulig’s #13 was opened for the team’s Xfinity Series driver Chandler Smith to run in five races starting at the Daytona 500, though he missed the show. The team also fields the #16 for Allmendinger and #31 for Haley on full-time bases.

“Jonathan Davenport is an all-time favourite of mine because of how well he has done in his dirt racing career,” commented Kaulig president Chris Rice. “I’m super excited to have his side of dirt racing intermix with NASCAR and see what he can do in one of our Kaulig Racing Chevrolets.”

Always rocking a cowboy hat in the paddock, Arturo Merzario was a relatively big personality in 1970s endurance racing as a top driver for Ferrari and Alfa Romeo before competing in Formula One. His first F1 team-mate was Jacky Ickx, who went on to win the 1983 Paris–Dakar Rally and has since become closely affiliated with the legendary rally raid.

In 2024, Merzario will try his hand at Dakar for the first time, though in the adjacent Dakar Classic, with backing from Swiss team Desert Endurance Motorsport.

“I had promised myself to participate in the Dakar in my career, and here I am, albeit in the Classic version,” Merzario stated. “But it will be a great emotion. Space (in racing) is being made for young people, and I still have many programmes ahead of me. I thank Ermanno (De Angelis) and Nunzia (Del Gaudio) for the opportunity, it will be an exciting ride.

“My objective? Arriving on stage and receiving the coveted medal from friend/foe Jacky Ickx.”

Merzario began his career in sports cars and hillclimbing, winning the 1972 1000 Kilometres of Spa and Targa Florio as well as finishing runner-up in the 1973 24 Hours of Le Mans. Much of his sports car success came with factory backing from Ferrari, who hired him for their F1 programme in 1972 and 1973. He later raced for Frank Williams’ preceding namesake team, March, and his own outfit though did not score any points outside of Ferrari and Williams. Merzario scored eleven points in his eight-year F1 career with his highest runs being trio of fourths in the 1973 Brazilian and South African Grands Prix for Ferrari and the 1974 Italian GP for Williams. He worked with Ickx at Ferrari, and ironically replaced him at Williams (which became Wolf-Williams) midway through the 1976 season.