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The young flying Finn Lauri Joona was on top over the weekend in RallyRACC Catalunya – Costa Daurada as he clinched the 2022 WRC3 driver’s championship and became the fifth Finn this season to take a title after Kalle Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen won the FIA World Rally Championship title for driver and co-driver in New Zealand. Emil Lindholm took the WRC2 Junior title most recently and Enni Mälkönen became the first female in three decades to take a co-driver title in WRC3, however, she´s the co-driver for Sami Pajari.

But the WRC3 title fight was quite a challenge for Joona as the other title contender Czech´s Jan Cerny started the Spanish rally in the lead and had a 2.5 seconds advantage heading to Sunday but later he went down to the second place and was constantly putting Joona under pressure after the Finn passed him. Joona managed to win the rally and the title by just 9 seconds dead.

“It was a big relief we didn’t have to drive that stage, I think we would have had to go through in three wheel drive and we would have lost 20sec. Of course our main target was Junior WRC but when we realised we had a possibility to be world champion in this series, we put our focus here. It was a risk coming to Spain where I do not have too much experience on Tarmac, but it has worked.” Joona said.

Official 2022 WRC3 Driver´s Championship standings

Scuderia Ferrari Racing Director Laurent Mekies reflected on a tricky but successful qualifying for the team at the United States Grand Prix, with Carlos Sainz taking pole position and Charles Leclerc finishing just thousandths off the pace in second. 

“The whole team did a great job in what was one of the trickiest qualifying sessions of the season. Yesterday we did less preparation work than usual, as we only really had one session to do that, because of the 2023 tyre test. 

“On top of that, as the session got underway, strong winds made life difficult and in this situation Carlos and Charles did a very good job, dialled in to their cars to the extent that in Q2, with both of them being able to go through to Q3 on a scrubbed set of tyres.” 

Mekies said that Sainz earned his pole with a “perfect” lap, deserving of the top spot after coming markedly close on several occasions this year. In spite of the stellar one-two result for Ferrari, the team won’t be locking out the front row due to Leclerc’s ten-place grid penalty for the replacement of engine elements.

“Carlos put together the perfect lap and this pole is well-deserved after he has come within a few hundreds of being quickest on more than one occasion this year. If it was not for Charles’ penalty, we’d be looking at an all-Ferrari front row.”

Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz put together a blazing lap around Circuit of the Americas to take pole position at the United States Grand Prix. Taking his third career pole position, Sainz said he was “comfortable” with the car throughout the session despite contending with variable wind gusts. 

“Qualifying went well right from Q1. I was feeling comfortable in the car and building the speed lap after lap until the last attempt in Q3. The wind was tricky today, so every lap was a bit different, but this made it an exciting qualifying as it always is here in Austin.”

Sainz will be looking to convert his pole into his second career win, set to battle at the front alongside Max Verstappen. The Spanish driver also shared his condolences after learning of the passing of Dietrich Mateschitz, co-founder of Red Bull. 

“Tomorrow we’ll give our absolute best in the race to convert this pole into a win, although we can expect a good battle with our rivals.”

“Despite taking pole, I naturally feel sad after learning of the passing of Dietrich Mateschitz. He was an exceptional man to whom the world of sports owes a lot and he will be dearly missed. My deepest condolences to his family and friends and to the entire Red Bull family.”

Sébastien Ogier together with his new co-driver Benjamin Veillas won the RallyRACC Catalunya – Costa Daurada. Ogier becomes the fifth driver to win an event during the season alongside Kalle Rovanperä, Ott Tänak, Sébastien Loeb, and Thierry Neuville while the co-driver stood on the podium for the first time in his career in the FIA World Rally Championship.

The Frenchman has done his job, he got into the lead after the midday service on Friday and since then he has held on to it. For the team, it is an important victory where together with teammate and 2022 world champion Rovanperä in the third place means Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT secured the manufacturer title.

The margin for Ogier was 16.4 seconds to second-place finisher Neuville, who towards the end of the year found increasingly better speed in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1. Rovanperä took another podium place of the season, he opened strong and had the lead during the weekend but a puncture caused time loss and a drop in the list.

Neuville´s teammate Tänak drove home a decent fourth place for Hyundai, 32 seconds ahead of the local hero Dani Sordo in fifth, the Spaniard did not gather pace to fight for the victory during the weekend. Toyota´s Elfyn Evans‘ frustrated weekend ends with sixth place, since teammate Ogier left his full-time contract, the Briton’s pace has also dropped, they both shared a lot of settings and tips during tests and events, something that now only happens sporadically in pace with the Frenchman’s entry, because Evans was missing 35 seconds to threaten forward.

Seventh place goes to Takamoto Katsuta, who is driving steadily but in line with Hyundai’s increased pace has lost places during the season. The last three places in the top 10 go to M-Sport Ford with Adrien Fourmaux, Craig Breen, and Pierre-Louis Loubet. The Spanish round was also the last time Paul Nagle will be co-driving for Breen after a long successful career he is ending it now, we do wish him a great and healthy future.

Carlos Sainz Jr. secured pole position for only the second time in his Formula 1 career, after putting together a great lap to beat Charles Leclerc in Austin.

Qualifying also saw a number of shock results, including an exit for Esteban Ocon, a season-best qualifying result for Aston Martin and new-found pace for Alfa Romeo ORLEN F1 Team.

Q1 – Shock Exits For Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon, Home Favourites Haas Disappoint

The first part of qualifying saw a number of shocks, including another twist in the BWT Alpine F1 Team and McLaren F1 Team battle for fourth place in the Constructors Championship.

Sainz was the early pacesetter going 0.498s quicker than Leclerc with a laptime of 1.35.297s. Mercedes also looked competitive in the first session, with Lewis Hamilton managing to secure fourth, ahead of Sergio Perez even with his final laptime being deleted. It was a disappointing day for Haas F1 Team, as they saw both their drivers not make the cut for Q2 in their home Grand Prix. Mick Schumacher struggled for pace, while Kevin Magnussen was just a few tenths off making the next session.

It was a shock exit for Ocon, who only managed to secure eighteenth on the grid for Alpine. The Frenchman could not hook his lap together, which led to him being knocked out. Daniel Ricciardo also got knocked out in the first session of qualifying for the third time in five races, the Australian driver was unable to capitalize on Ocon’s effort in the battle for fourth in the constructors and it was a disappointing end for Ricciardo as he nears his McLaren exit.

Max Verstappen topped the final practice session ahead of the 2022 United States Grand Prix qualifying session.

Guanyu Zhou and Valtteri Bottas were the first drivers to see the track, with both going out on soft tyres. Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel weren’t too far behind, but they appeared to be doing race runs on the hard compound tyres.

The first action of the session saw Mick Schumacher having issues. The issues for the German driver were gearbox related with the Haas F1 Team driver reporting that he was having problems changing gear. The issue was later reported as an ERS water pump issue by Haas. That meant he got limited running time and that is no ideal with the German fighting to keep his seat in 2023.

Sergio Perez set the pace early, with a 1.37.338s, a tenth ahead of Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. It didn’t take long to switch around however, with World Champion Verstappen going four tenths faster than Leclerc’s best attempt.

Daniel Ricciardo was the next driver to have issues, reporting issues with the brake pedal. He lost a large amount of running, meaning the Australian was only able to complete fifteen laps.

After failing to win across his first thirty-nine career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts and qualifying for the playoffs on consistency alone, Ty Majeski will enter the Championship Round having won two of the three races in the Round of 8.

Majeski, who won the Round of 8 opener at Bristol to clinch a spot in the Championship Four, was strong throughout Saturday’s Homestead-Miami Speedway event as he finished fourth and second in the first two stages. He took the lead to begin the final segment and dominated it, only relinquishing the top spot to pit under green. It is ThorSport Racing‘s third win at Homestead and first since Matt Crafton in 2015.

“This place is so much fun. This race track is just badass, so much fun to race on,” Majeski stated. “Obviously, it makes it more fun when you have a truck like that. I’m so proud of Joe (Shear Jr., crew chief), everybody at ThorSport—Duke, Rhonda, Allison (Thorson, team owners)—to let us go and live our dreams. We all make a living racing and that is pretty dang cool. I love doing this. I’m so happy to be here and so proud to making the most of this opportunity.

“I can’t ask for much more momentum going into Phoenix chasing a championship. That is our goal. We are plenty capable of doing it. We proved it two of the last three races, and we are going to go give it our best shot.”

Zane Smith finished second to join Majeski in the final round, as do Ben Rhodes (sixth) and Chandler Smith (tenth). Rhodes’ title defence remains alive with his run as he beat Stewart Friesen by a single point despite the latter’s third-place run. Friesen claimed team orders from ThorSport assisted in Rhodes making the Championship Four over him, arguing Crafton had allowed Rhodes to pass him to gain the additional point. Team orders have been a hot-button issue in NASCAR since Cup Series driver Cole Custer was docked fifty points and indefinitely lost his crew chief for intentionally impeding other drivers at Charlotte to help Stewart-Haas Racing ally Chase Briscoe make the Round of 8.

Christian Horner says his Oracle Red Bull Racing team remain in talks with the FIA about its alleged breach of the 2021 cost cap, and he maintains that their submission was below the $145 million budget allowed for last season.

Horner, the Team Principal at the Milton Keynes-backed team, maintains Red Bull are innocent of all charges and stayed underneath the budget, even though a FIA audit showed a potential breach of the cap, as well as a secondary procedural breach.

Speaking during the Team Principal meeting on Saturday at the Circuit of the Americas, Horner says that they are very clear on their side that they did not breach the $145 million budget, and any rumours about potential on-track benefits are ‘totally fictious’.

“We’re in discussion with the FIA about what those costs are and what are mitigating potential circumstances,” Horner is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “We had zero benefit from a development perspective or an operational perspective either for 2021 or 2022 from the way that we operated within the cap. Our submission was significantly below the cap.

“We expected certain things to be potentially challenged or clarified, as is the process in a brand-new set of regulations. But based on external, professional accounting third parties, the interpretation of those rules, of a 52-page document to police this, we were very clear from our side.

Pirelli Motorsport were able to get some valuable data during second practice for the United States Grand Prix on Friday after all ten teams participated in a blind tyre test aimed at next years’ tyre compounds.

None of the teams nor drivers knew what compound they were running during Friday’s running at the Circuit of the Americas, but they all had variations of the harder compounds that Pirelli are planning to use next season in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

Simone Berra, the Chief Engineer at Pirelli, says it was a useful day for Pirelli as they got to understand how their harder tyres worked on track, and they will be doing something similar with the softer compounds next weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

“We were finally able to get the first part of the 2023 testing programme completed following the wet weather that cancelled the planned session in Japan,” said Berra.  

“The work we did in FP2 here will allow us to analyse valuable data collected on the harder compounds, just as next weekend’s FP2 session in Mexico City will give us some useful information on the softer compounds.”

Jost Capito, the Team Principal of Williams Racing, believes Logan Sargeant is ready to make the step up into the FIA Formula 1 World Championship in 2023, and will be at the Grove-based team next season if he secures a Superlicence in the FIA Formula 2 finale next month.

With two further free practice outings confirmed for Sargeant in both the Mexico City and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the twenty-one-year-old American will earn himself a Superlicence and a spot on the grid next season if he finishes inside the top six in the Formula 2 standings this year.

Racing for Carlin in 2022, he currently sits third in the championship standings heading into the final round in Abu Dhabi, but his position inside the top six is far from confirmed, with Jack Doohan, Jehan Daruvala, Enzo Fittipaldi and Liam Lawson all within twelve points of his current points tally.  In fact, everyone down to eleventh placed Dennis Hauger could thwart Sargeant’s chances of making it into Formula 1.

Sargeant has twice won races in Formula 2 in 2022, capturing feature race victories at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring, but he will need to regain the form he showed across the midpoint of the season in Abu Dhabi after scoring only six points across the past two Formula 2 weekends in the Netherlands and Italy.

But despite this, Capito feels that he is ready to make that jump should he indeed secure that all-important Superlicence to replace the ousted Nicholas Latifi at Williams.

After running in his first FIA Formula 1 World Championship free practice session on Friday at the Circuit of the Americas, Logan Sargeant will get further opportunities in the opening sessions in both Mexico City and Abu Dhabi, it was announced on Saturday.

The young American impressed his team as he adapted to life in Formula 1, with Sargeant expected to be racing for the Grove-based outfit full-time in 2023 if he can succeed in winning a Superlicence in the FIA Formula 2 finale in Abu Dhabi next month.

Sargeant has also been confirmed to participate in the post-season young drivers test at the Yas Marina Circuit, and the twenty-one-year-old is excited for the opportunities coming his way and thankful to the team for giving them to him.

“I’d like to start by saying thank you again to Williams Racing and Dorilton Motor Sports for giving me the opportunity to drive on home turf yesterday here at COTA,” said Sargeant.  “It was one of the most enjoyable moments of my career so far.

“I’m very grateful to be given further time in the FW44 at Mexico and Abu Dhabi. My aim is to make the most of every minute in the car and with the team to build on the progress I’ve made in Austin and throughout my time on the simulator at Grove.

As the penultimate leg in the 2022 World Rally-Raid Championship, one could not afford any mistakes or misfortunes while running the Andalucía Rally‘s third stage. Alas, many were not so fortunate as various drivers and riders crashed or had disappointing runs that have left their W2RC class title hopes on thin ice.

This wave of disaster hit both two- and four-wheel classes, including the headlining T1 where Nasser Al-Attiyah lost his W2RC and race overall lead to Sébastien Loeb. Although Al-Attiyah was able to salvage a fourth-place class finish, his time of 3:48:49 was over eleven minutes worse than Loeb’s stage-winning 3:37:01. As Al-Attiyah had an eleven-minute and twenty-second overall gap on Loeb entering Stage #3, the latter retakes the top spot on both fronts and clings onto a general twenty-eight-minute advantage.

Cristina Gutiérrez‘s hopes of back-to-back T3 championships were all but dashed after a dismal stage in which her car came to a stop before finishing twelfth in class, eight spots behind class points leader Francisco López Contardo. Gutiérrez had already faced an uphill battle as she was twenty-eight back of López entering Andalucía, but she only trailed him by six minutes after Stage #1B. Guillaume de Mevius won the stage ahead of fellow Red Bull driver Seth Quintero.

The slightest slip was especially fatal in the T4 championship battle, where the top three were separated by just three points. Although Marek Goczał assumed the lead following Stage #1B, his prospects were literally turned upside-down when his Can-Am flipped. While he and co-driver Łukasz Łaskawiec were unharmed, the wreck has eliminated them from the title picture. Rokas Baciuškas finished second in class to non-W2RC driver Gerard Farrés Guell to give him the edge over Austin Jones in the standings.

Although out of RallyGP contention, Ross Branch was subject to his own heartbreak when he crashed 100 metres before the finish and stage win. This allowed Kevin Benavides to take the leg victory, though Branch still salvaged a runner-up finish. Adrien van Beveren was third to maintain his overall lead. Ricky Brabec‘s dark horse shot at the W2RC title still has some life as he finished fourth to Sam Sunderland‘s eleventh, though Sunderland remains ahead in the overall by thirteen minutes.

Lance Stroll felt the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team will need to wait until Saturday’s running at the Circuit of the Americas to find out where they are in relation to their rivals despite a strong opening free practice session on Friday for the Canadian.

Stroll ended an encouraging fourth fastest behind only Carlos Sainz Jr., Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton as the United States Grand Prix weekend got underway with free practice one on Friday, although he was only fifteenth in the unrepresentative second practice that was dedicated to a Pirelli tyre test.

The one-time polesitter in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship says there is still pace to find from his AMR22, but he hopes the pace shown on Friday can translate into a good weekend for the team.

“It felt pretty good out there today, but tomorrow’s practice session will probably give a better indication of where we stack up in this really close midfield,” said Stroll.  “We were able to focus on both long and short runs despite the reduced running in FP1, so that was useful. 

“But, we still have speed to find and a few things we can tweak here and there to find some performance. Everyone is in the same boat in terms of preparation this weekend due to the tyre test.

Alexander Albon admits the wind that hit the Circuit of the Americas on Friday – and is likely to get worse across the weekend – does not suit the Williams Racing team, and they will be doing everything they can to improve their car before Saturday’s running.

The Thai driver was surprised to end the opening session of the United States Grand Prix weekend with the thirteenth fastest time, particularly when he feels there is still some time to be found in the FW44, although five of those behind him were young drivers or test drivers.

Albon says Williams will need to do their homework if they are to be competitive this weekend, especially if the wind does indeed get stronger as predicted.

“The one representative session we had today went surprisingly okay being thirteenth on the time sheet,” said Albon.  “There’s definitely some more time to be found.

“It’s tricky with it being windy up here and the winds only going to get worse during the weekend which doesn’t tend to suit our car.

Logan Sargeant said his main goal going into his maiden FIA Formula 1 World Championship free practice session was to learn as much as possible, and the young American felt he did just that on Friday at the Circuit of the Americas.

The twenty-one-year-old from Florida was competing in first practice for the United States Grand Prix on Friday for Williams Racing in place of Nicholas Latifi, and he completed twenty-three laps across the hour at COTA, finishing nineteenth fastest overall.

Sargeant admitted the difference between his usual ride in the FIA Formula 2 championship and the ride in a Formula 1 car was massive, with highlighted differences being the way the F1 cars reactive through high-speed corners and under braking.

“The main goal coming into today was to learn as much as possible and I feel like I did pick up on a lot,” said Sargeant, who is favourite to replace Latifi full-time at Williams in 2023.  “It was very different to what I honestly expected but in a good way.

“The way that the car reacts compared to what I’m used to in Formula 2 is massively different. Super reactive in the high-speed and so good on the brakes.