Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Kevin Magnussen feels ‘some good things’ are now going the way of the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team as they have a stronger financial foothold in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship than ever before.

Haas have traditionally had one of the smallest budgets on the grid since they joined Formula 1 back in 2014, and their lack of development of their past two cars have shown just how their finances lacked. 

The VF-21 from 2021 was not developed at all as they focused on their 2022 design, although the VF-22 that came from that plan was only given minimal updates compared to other teams.

But the arrival of MoneyGram as lead sponsor has given Magnussen, who returned to the sport after a year away in 2022 and scored Haas’ first ever pole position in Brazil, some confidence that they can begin to fight on a more even level going forward.

“There are some good things going our way,” said Magnussen to GPFans.com.  “We’ve got MoneyGram as a title sponsor now, and that is going to allow us to invest more in certain areas.

James Vowles’ appointment as Team Principal of Williams Racing has been described as an ‘amazing’ opportunity by Lewis Hamilton, according to Toto Wolff, the Team Principal of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

Vowles left his role as Chief Strategist at Mercedes when offered a chance to replace Jost Capito at Williams, and he will take up his new role in February.  He will be tasked to bring Williams up from the back of the field, the team having scored only eight points during the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Wolff says Hamilton, who has worked alongside Vowles ever since he joined Mercedes back in 2013, was very supportive of the move and felt it was amazing that he was getting the chance at Williams.

“I told him this week that this was going to happen and he is absolutely fine,” Wolff is quoted as saying by GPFans.com.  “Working with James has always been a great pleasure for him.

“The clever thinking on a Sunday morning, that was good fun with James always. But he is absolutely…I think his first response was ‘That’s amazing for James’.”

Lucas Di Grassi put all his ABB FIA Formula E World Championship experience to use at the 2022/23 season-opening Mexico City E-Prix, as the Brazilian dealt with immense pressure to claim a third-place finish at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

As the sun rose on race day, nobody could’ve predicted that Di Grassi would end the day towards the sharp-end, with Mahindra Racing having looked less than convincing across pre-season testing and during Free Practice One. Free Practice Two was slightly better for Di Grassi, who was the only driver capable of extracting any performance from Mahindra’s M9Electro powertrain. Heading into the first qualifying session of the season, no one had any hope for Mahindra or their customer side the ABT CUPRA Formula E Team, who’d languished at the back during Free Practice.

Unbelievably, whilst the other three Mahindra-powered cars struggled, Di Grassi made it all the way to the Final of the duels, where he remarkably claimed the first pole position of the Gen3 era. When it came to the race, the former Formula E Champion started the race excellently after a solid launch. Di Grassi led the opening stages of the race and dealt with two early Safety Cars well; however, it was a mistake from him at Turn Two after the second Safety Car restart which allowed Jake Dennis to lunge up the inside at Turn Three.

Dennis went on to clear into the distance, with Di Grassi having not had the pace to escape to victory. He ended up defending for the bulk of the race, with the likes of Jake Hughes and Pascal Wehrlein having appeared considerably faster. The Brazilian used all his years of experience in the all-electric series, though, to maintain second place, until Wehrlein eventually found a way past. Whilst he had no answer for the German, he did manage to keep Hughes behind to claim a famous rostrum on his Mahindra debut, securing him fifteen points.

He actually walked away from Mexico City with eighteen points, having claimed an additional three for achieving pole position. Di Grassi hailed his fortieth Formula E podium as a “Mexican miracle”, with the Brazilian driver having been hoping to “make the team proud” ahead of the race.

The season-opening round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship was a hugely memorable one for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, who started the Gen3 era of the all-electric series in brilliant fashion at the Mexico City E-Prix.

Gen3 couldn’t have started much better for the German manufacturer, with their Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 powertrain having looked incredibly impressive all weekend in Mexico City. Three of the four Porsche-powered cars made it into the qualifying duels ,with all four then going on to claim a points finish at the season opener. For the factory team, Pascal Wehrlein claimed a well-deserved second place finish, whilst António Félix da Costa finished seventh on his debut for the team after narrowly missing out on the duels.

Wehrlein formed part of a Porsche one-two in Mexico City, as Porsche customer team Avalanche Andretti Formula E claimed victory. It was Jake Dennis who cruised to the first win of the season, with the British driver having put on one of the most dominant displays in Formula E history. Former Porsche Formula E driver André Lotterer claimed fourth for Avalanche Andretti, on his debut for the American team.

It meant that Porsche had all four of their powertrain-powered cars in the top seven, something that no other powertrain supplier came close to achieving. Team Principal Florian Modlinger labelled the first race as “successful”, with the start of the season and Gen3 having been “outstanding” for the German manufacturer.

“That was a successful first race day of season 9. Both factory cars qualified in the top 10. In the race, Pascal quickly worked his way up the field and ended up scoring our team’s first podium result of the season. Antonio kept getting entangled in duels further back but also managed to progress.

Pascal Wehrlein was a man on a mission in the closing stages of the Mexico City E-Prix, after battling through the top five to claim a super second place finish at the season-opening round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Wehrlein started the first race of the Gen3 era in sixth, after being knocked-out at the Quarter-Final stage of the duels after being beaten by eventual race winner Jake Dennis. Nevertheless, sixth place was a solid starting position for the German driver, who looked strong all weekend at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. When the race started, he quickly settled into the race and got past Dan Ticktum for fifth during the opening phase of the E-Prix, before sitting comfortably behind the top four.

As the race moved into its second half, a four-car group had formed from second to fifth, with Dennis having escaped out front. Wehrlein soon began to make his moves towards the podium places and got past André Lotterer for fourth. He then found himself behind Lucas Di Grassi and Jake Hughes, with Wehrlein having overtaken the latter on Lap Twenty-Six, whilst both Di Grassi and Hughes activated their second Attack Mode.

Wehrlein had significantly better pace than those amongst the top five, excluding Dennis, with his Porsche 99X Electric powertrain having been performing wonders. A couple of laps later and he made the move on Di Grassi for second, before clearing off into the distance. The 2022 Mexico City winner couldn’t quite make it back-to-back wins; however, second spot was an excellent achievement having started sixth.

The TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team driver labelled his podium as a “super start” to the new campaign, with Wehrlein having confidence that the team’s car still has a “lot of potential”.

Jake Dennis became the first winner of the third era of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, after a sensational performance at the Mexico City E-Prix. As well as claiming victory by almost eight seconds, the British driver claimed the TAG Heuer Fastest Lap, meaning he walked away from the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez with twenty-six points.

Dennis was imperious in Mexico City and was looking like the odds-on favourite for pole position, after setting the fastest lap of the weekend during his Semi-Final duel against fellow Brit Jake Hughes. The Avalanche Andretti Formula E driver ended up losing the Final duel to Lucas Di Grassi as a result of severe damage to his front-wing, which he obtained after smashing into a bollard during his Quarter-Final duel. Given the damage he had, it was astonishing for Dennis to even make the Final, which he lost convincingly.

After being fired-up for the race, Dennis quickly settled into the first race of the season behind Di Grassi, who led the opening stages of the E-Prix. The British driver ultimately bided his time before lunging down the inside of the Brazilian at Turn Three following a second Safety Car, after Di Grassi made a huge error at the second corner. After making the move on the Brazilian driver, Dennis never looked back and built a substantial lead in rapid fashion, before a third Safety Car ruined all his hard work.

Dennis saw his lead disintegrate after Edoardo Mortara span into the tyre barrier at Turn One, leaving the British driver to restart the race following he Safety Car. The Andretti star did just that, and got the race back underway flawlessly. He astonishingly had a lead of over a second by the time he completed the first lap since restarting the race, before once again escaping out-of-sight. He eventually claimed an easy victory in what was a Porsche one-two – Andretti are a Porsche customer team for 2023 – with Pascal Wehrlein having fought through the top-five late on.

Speaking prior to the podium celebrations, Dennis praised the “sensational” Mexican fans and labelled the race as incredibly “physical”. The British driver was also quick to thank his team for all their efforts in just getting to Mexico City, with the turnaround from Gen2 to Gen3 having been exceptionally fast.

The eight-time world rally champion Sébastien Ogier will be hunting for his record-breaking ninth Rallye Monte-Carlo win next weekend as he will be joining the grid for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT.

Ogier is doing his second consecutive part-time this season as he will be sharing the third Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 with Takamoto Katsuta. It is still not clear if Ogier will continue to drive in endurance racing but the Richard Mille Racing entrant in LMP2 was not seen on the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship entry list as it got published, or if he will take some time off to enjoy his family life.

He is the 2nd most successful WRC driver in history, after his fellow countryman Sébastien Loeb who has clinched a total of nine world titles in the series but Ogier is also one of the two drivers that have won titles with three different manufacturers, the other one being the Finn Juha Kankkunen. Ogier’s rally career began in 2005 when he won the Rallye Jeunes on debut and was rewarded with a place in the Peugeot 206 Cup for the following season, he then teamed up with his long-term co-driver Julien Ingrassia, who became synonymous with Ogier.

In 2008 Ogier started to drive in the WRC, when he entered the FIA Junior World Rally Championship in a Citroen C2 S1600 and made his debut in Rally Mexico where he also won his class and became the first JWRC to score WRC points as he ended up eight overall, and the same year he clinched the JWRC title, which became the first of many to come. He was also awarded a first drive in a Citroen C4 WRC in Wales Rally GB.

The following year Ogier made a one-off appearance in the now defunct Intercontinental Rally Challenge in Rallye Monte-Carlo, where he surprisingly won in a Peugeot 207 S2000 fielded by Kronos and also joined his first full-season in WRC driving for Citroen Junior Team and took his maiden podium finish in Acropolis Rally Greece same year. In 2010 he joined the main factory team Citroen Total WRT for two outings beside driving in the junior outfit, he took his first WRC to win in Rally Japan driving in a works car.

The Welshman Elfyn Evans is returning for a fourth season in the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT as he will be on the start line in the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship season-opener in Rallye Monte-Carlo next weekend.

The two-time runner-up in the champion had a bit of a poor season last year without any wins but for this season the 34-year-old is hoping he could challenge again for the WRC driver´s title.

Evans is known for winning the 2010 British Junior Rally championship and was the winner of the UK Ford Fiesta Trophy series, also he won the Pirelli Star Driver Shoot-out after two days of tests in Wales which lead to a funded drive in a Pirelli supported Group N spec Subaru Impreza in 2011. The year after he won the WRC Academy title, as well as the R2 title in the BRC and the UK Fiesta Sport Trophy, the win in the WRC Academy resulted in him getting a WRC program as a prize for the following season.

However it was not the first time the Welshman would enter a WRC event, he entered the first event already in the 2007 Wales Rally GB where he ended up 42nd overall. He got his first real taste of WRC when he drove a Ford Fiesta RRC for M-Sport Ford WRT in Rally de Portugal, retiring with a transmission problem before starting the final day under WRC2 regulations and finishing 23rd overall.

To his surprise, he was then asked to compete in Rally Italia Sardegna the very same year in a Ford Fiesta WRC after Nasser Al-Attiyah was forced to withdraw because of commitments in Qatar. Without any tests before the event, he surprised many by finishing sixth overall and this sparked his career.

Kalle Rovanperä became the youngest ever FIA World Rally Championship champion last year when he clinched the world title in Rally New Zealand at the age of 22 years and 1 day old, which was the most perfect birthday present. Now he is returning to the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT team this season and will defend the title starting with Rallye Monte-Carlo next weekend.

Rovanperä won two titles in the Latvian Rally Championship during his early career before stepping into the world scene in 2017. After two seasons in the support category, he became the 2019 WRC2 Pro champion at the age of 19 and was promoted to the Toyota factory team in 2020.

In 2021 Rovanperä set another record by becoming the youngest-ever driver to win a WRC event in the Rally Estonia and took another win in Acropolis Rally Greece the same year. In 2022 he took a hattrick of wins on all three surfaces starting with a win on snow in Rally Sweden, a win on the tarmac in Rally Croatia, and a win on gravel in Rally de Portugal. He also clinched three more wins that season, including the famous Safari Rally Kenya, a total of six wins which lead to becoming the 2022 champion.

He has not yet stood on the podium in Rallye Monte-Carlo as he has only managed to finish fourth, two times in 2021 and last year but this season he hopes he can take the win and set another record in the French Alps.

“My feeling is good before the start of the new season. We know that it will not be easy to defend the championship. We have seen that the competition level is getting higher all the time, so we need to try and raise our game also and keep pushing hard. The team is again doing a great job to try and maximise the performance and make the car faster and stronger.” Rovanperä said.

Thierry Neuville will be having his 10th anniversary as a driver for the South Korean manufacturer next weekend when he will be starting in the Rallye Monte-Carlo with a Hyundai i20 N Rally1.

Neuville will be the lead driver in the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT going into this season, the Belgian ace has previously won the Monte-Carlo event in 2020 and he has also claimed three furthermore podium finishes at the legendary rally in 2016, 2019, and 2021. This season Neuville hopes he can finally secure his first world title after finishing runner-up on five occasions as well as finishing third overall for two years running.

For this season the South Korean manufacturer has delivered a new aerodynamic package for the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 cars, with the most significant change being a new front splitter and a new rear wing but also a new team principal, Cyril Abiteboul, who is known from the Formula 1, so Neuville thinks these changes might help with securing the two crowns this season (the other being the manufacturer title).

“I always like starting the year with Rallye Monte-Carlo; it is an event where we have been competitive in recent years. I expect we will face some tricky conditions, despite the warm weather in the region at the moment. Monte-Carlo is always a bit of a surprise, but I’m looking forward to it.” Neuville said.

“It’s nice to kick off a new season; everyone is on equal points again, and it’s up to us to make the best out of the clean slate. The package of the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid has improved so much since its first round in 2022, which helps with our confidence going into this year. There’s been some slight evolutions on the car which will give it even more performance. We never know what our opponents have done during the winter, but I don’t think there will be any big changes. While everybody will have improved a bit, hopefully we are all on a similar level.”

Daniel “Dani” Sordo Castillo (Dani Sordo) will do the same as teammate Thierry Neuville and begin his 10th anniversary with the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT in the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship season-opener in Rallye Monte-Carlo next weekend.

Besides the 10th year with Hyundai, Sordo will also be celebrating his 20th anniversary in the WRC. The Spaniard started of his career in the 2003 Rallye Catalunya – Costa Brava when he entered with his private Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII in the home rally where he finished in respected 18th overall as the best national classed driver.

He made his Rallye Monte-Carlo debut two years later driving a privately owned Citroen C2 S1600 in the FIA Junior World Rally Championship, he finished fourth in class and 15th overall that year. The year after in 2006 he made the step up to the WRC class and joined the Kronos Total Citroen WRT for one season before he got promoted to the main factory team Citroen Total WRT the following season.

The same year he clinched his first podium finish in Monte-Carlo and run three more seasons for the team before stepping down to some part-time driving when he joined the Mini WRC WRT in 2011. In 2013 he was back at Citroen and took another podium in Monte-Carlo and also won his first-ever rally in Rally Deutschland the very same year.

He joined Hyundai Motorsport in 2014 where he belongs now still, he has done Monte-Carlo six times for the team and this will be the seventh. For this season he is going for another part-time season and he is contracted to do seven events in total while teammate Craig Breen, who has returned for 2023 will go for the remaining six.

The Flying Finn Esapekka Lappi has moved team for the 2023 FIA World Rally Championship season as he is now set to debut for the South Korean manufacturer and the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT in Rallye Monte-Carlo next weekend.

Lappi is the only driver on the start grid for the season-opener which has driven for four different manufacturers throughout the last five seasons. He joined Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT for the 2017 season where he also claimed his first and only win so far at his home rally of Rally Finland.

After the 2018 season, Lappi joined Citroen Racing for one season and had quite an ok season-ending 10th overall. After that, he joined M-Sport Ford WRT for the 2020 season in an all-Finnish line-up with Teemu Suninen in the second Ford Fiesta WRC. Lappi managed to take his best Rallye Monte-Carlo to finish that season with a fourth-place finish but he was later dropped out from the line-up after one year.

In the 2021 season, he went back to the WRC2 class, in which he also previously won a title in 2016 with Skoda Motorsport. He won the two rallies he entered under the Movisport banner in Arctic Rally Finland and Rally de Portugal. For the 2022 season, he moved back to Toyota for a part-time program in the third Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 where he shared the seat with eight-time champion Sébastien Ogier and secured three podium finishes.

Now he is back full-time in the WRC as he replaces Ott Tänak in the Hyundai team, as the Estonian has signed with M-Sport for this season.

Connor Mosack will pursue his busiest season of stock car racing in 2023 when he runs twenty races in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the #24 Toyota GR Supra for Sam Hunt Racing. His schedule will be a healthy blend of road courses, which he is savvy on as a Trans-Am Series regular, and ovals.

Mosack finished fourth in the Trans-Am Series’ TA2 standings in 2022 with a win at Watkins Glen International. Besides this making WGI on 19 August an obvious stop, it also means he will attempt the road races at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, Circuit of the Americas, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Portland International Raceway, and Sonoma Raceway. The Chicago Street Race and Road America are the lone road courses that he is not scheduled to attempt for SHR. Last season, he finished twenty-eighth at Portland for SHR ally Joe Gibbs Racing in his Xfinity début and fifteenth at WGI with SHR later in the year.

His 2023 season begins with the fourth race of the year at Phoenix Raceway, where he finished tenth in the ARCA Menards Series race there in 2022 (a combination event with the ARCA Menards Series West). He also has ARCA experience at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he finished fourth in 2022, Bristol Motor Speedway (ninth), and Kansas Speedway (evelenth in 2021, fifth in 2022). Mosack ran the 2022 Bristol Truck Series race for his ARCA team Bret Holmes Racing, finishing thirty-first.

SHR re-signed Mosack for much of 2023 in December, and he will partner the full-timer Kaz Grala in the #26. The team has not announced other drivers in the #24.

Mosack’s 2023 Xfinity schedule

The three-way battle for the 2023 Dakar Rally overall Bikes crown became more of a toss-up after the penultimate stage on Saturday, thanks to a Herculean effort by Kevin Benavides.

Benavides entered Stage #13 trailing leader Toby Price by 2:40 and second-placed Skyler Howes by 2:12, but the pursuit was quickly put aside when he attended to Red Bull KTM team-mate Matthias Walkner after he fell fifty-five kilometres in. Walkner had crashed after jumping onto a slope, hurting his lower spine; Benavides stopped to provide aid until medical help arrived, and Walkner was subsequently taken to King Fahd Hospital in Riyadh.

“I saw Matthias on the ground at kilometre 55 and it was so scary because he was with a lot of pain in the back,” said Benavides. “I stayed with him and we called the doctors, we called the team. Then the helicopter came and when he was a little more calm he told me to ride on. I wish him a fast recovery.”

The situation resulted in Benavides having 23:10 removed from his final time, reducing it from 2:44:57 to 22:21:47. His brother Luciano had initially won the stage with a time of 2:21:44 but was slapped with a one-minute penalty for speeding, relegating him behind Kevin and Rally2 rider Michael Docherty. With Price finishing fifth (2:28 behind Benavides) and Howes seventh (3:31 back), Benavides chopped his overall deficit to the former to just twelve seconds. Howes trails Price by 1:31.

Price admitted he “actually had a crash today and made a couple of mistakes, I honestly thought I made a bit of a mess of it all. Just knew I had to push hard, get that bonus time and give it large. One more day to go, wish me luck.”

During the season-opening race of Season Nine of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in Mexico City, it was confirmed by the ABT CUPRA Formula E Team that Robin Frijns had been sent to hospital having suffered a “fracture to his left hand”, as a result of a nasty opening lap collision at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez with Norman Nato.

The weekend in Mexico City hadn’t been a great one for Frijns up to the point of his collision, with the Dutch driver having qualified nineteenth on his ABT Cupra debut. Things didn’t get much better for the experienced Formula E driver on the opening lap of the race, as his Mahindra M9Electro ploughed straight into the back of Nato at the Turn Nine/Ten chicane. The incident was a bizarre one, with Frijns’ car having increased in speed at a point which would usually see the drivers brake.

The cause of the collision will likely be announced by the team following an investigation into the crash, with multiple reliability issues having occurred during the season-opening weekend. His car did appear slightly airborne as he exited Turn Nine, suggesting that he was perhaps simply a passenger in the incident. Nevertheless, its resulted in painful consequences.

It was announced during the race by the Formula E World Feed that Frijns was going to have an operation on his wrist following the crash, with ABT Motorsport having released their own message on social media.

ABT Motorsport stated on Twitter: “We are sad to confirm that @RFrijns has suffered a fracture to his left hand and is being examined at the hospital. We are sending lots of love.”