Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The Toksport WRT driver Emil Lindholm from Finland is now confirmed to become the 2022 WRC2 Junior world champion as his rival Chris Ingram from the United Kingdom is forced to withdraw from the season remainder as Britain is not fully recovered from his crash at the Acropolis Rally Greece earlier.

As Ingram will not participate anymore this season, Lindholm has enough points to claim the world title and when the Rally Japan entry list got officially published yesterday it got confirmed that the Finn has sealed it.

Drivers under the age of 30 can participate in the WRC2 Junior class. Lindholm and co-driver Reeta Hämäläinen could also take double championship titles in the FIA World Rally Championship, as the Finns are also fighting for the overall WRC2 class title but he has to win over Kajetan Kajetanowicz from Poland in the two upcoming rallies as the current championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen will not be entering the last two rounds as well.

“In relation to the WRC2 World Rally Championship program, the WRC2 Junior World Championship was my main goal. Great news! However, our goals have increased over the course of the season, and right now our number one goal is to drive together with Reeta for the WRC2 class world championship. The WRC2 Junior championship is a nice intermediate goal, but we aim higher. It’s nice to say already at this stage that the WRC season has been successful according to expectations. Many thanks to Toksport WRT and all my supporters for allowing us to compete also in the last round of the season in Japan.” Lindholm said.

The former Formula 1 driver Heikki Kovalainen from Finland is headlining the decent 38-car entry list for the 2022 FIA World Rally Championship season-finale in FORUM8 Rally Japan next month, the Finn will do his WRC2 debut in a Skoda Fabia R5 fielded by the Japanese team Rally Team Aicello.

Kovalainen who retired from F1 in 2013 after a good career with teams like Renault, McLaren, Lotus, and Caterham, has since then enjoyed his passion for rallying but has also done some races in the Japanese Super GT series as well.

The 40-year-old Finn claimed the championship title in the Japan Rally Championship last month and now he and Japanese co-driver Sae Kitagawa will be on the start grid when Japan is returning to the WRC after 12 years hiatus.

In the Rally1 class, there will be a total of 11 hybrid cars entered with the Kovalainen´s fellow Finn, the 2022 champion Kalle Rovanperä headlining the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT line-up. the eigh-time rally champion Sébastien Ogier from France will also be joining the season-finale and the Welshman Elfyn Evans. The home hero Takamoto Katsuta will be in the usual fourth Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 car, entered outside the factory team under the Toyota Gazoo Racing NG WRT.

With Oliver Solberg who recently got dropped out from the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT line-up, it will be Dani Sordo from Spain who will be taking control of the third Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car for the Korean manufacturer. The experienced tarmac specialist will be joined by the current 2022 vice-champion Ott Tänak and the Belgian Thierry Neuville.

Pierre Gasly heads into the final four races of his Scuderia AlphaTauri career feeling that it was the right decision to sign for the BWT Alpine F1 Team for the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season and beyond.

The Frenchman had been announced to remain with AlphaTauri earlier in 2022, but once the driver merry go round began with Sebastian Vettel’s retirement announcement and the news that Fernando Alonso would replace him at the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, rumours began to swirl around the paddock that Gasly was a preferred choice to replace the Spaniard at Alpine.

Gasly took his maiden Formula 1 race victory for AlphaTauri in the 2020 Italian Grand Prix and has scored two additional podiums since he re-joined the team after an ill-fated ten-race stint with Red Bull Racing in 2019.

His departure to Alpine will end nine years of association with Red Bull after they brought the Frenchman into their Red Bull Junior Team before promoting him to Formula 1 in 2017, but Gasly feels it was the right time to move on.

“The opportunity came up in the summer and we started to have conversations about it,” Gasly is quoted as saying by Motorpsort.com.  “It’s obviously a big move for me, I’ve been with Red Bull for nine years, pretty much my entire career with them.

Gene Haas reckons Mick Schumacher has a lot of potential to succeed in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, but the German has cost the Haas F1 Team a lot of money by having big crashes, money the team cannot afford to waste.

Schumacher was brought into Formula 1 at the beginning of the 2021 season and dominated his then team-mate Nikita Mazepin, but 2022 has seen him up against Kevin Magnussen, and although he has brought the team home some points, his most memorable moments seem to be when he has suffered accidents on track.

Qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was his first big accident of 2022, while he has also suffered huge crashes during the Monaco Grand Prix and in practice, most recently, for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Schumacher’s future within Formula 1 beyond 2022 remains uncertain, with rumours rife that he is set to be replaced by his countryman Nico Hülkenberg for 2023, although Antonio Giovinazzi also remains in with a chance of making a comeback of his own.

“In this sport, being kind of a rookie driver, the sport just doesn’t allow it – it’s just too expensive,” said Haas, the owner and founder of the Haas F1 Team, to The Associated Press at the recent NASCAR event at Las Vegas, as quoted by Crash.net.  “If you make any mistakes in driver selection, or strategy, or tyre selection, it is costing you millions of dollars.

The reigning junior world rally champion Sami Pajari has confirmed that he will join the FIA World Rally Championship season-finale in Rally Japan next month in the WRC2 class in a Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo fielded by the Skoda Motorsport backed Toksport WRT.

Pajari who finished third in this year´s JWRC standings after winning the title last year has this year been doing a part-time program in the WRC2 class at selected rallies. So far he has done two outings in Rally Italia Sardegna and at his home rally of Rally Finland. This weekend he will be out again at the RallyRACC Catalunya – Costa Daurada before rounding up with Japan next month.

The Rally Japan will mark his debut outside of Europe in his career and Enni Mälkönen will be reading the notes for him in the co-driver seat.

“To compete in Japan in a Rally2 car is an unbelievable opportunity for us and first I want to thank all our fantastic partners and everyone who has made this possible. At such a long haul event, even just learning to manage the effects of the time difference in a competition setting is an invaluable experience for the future, of course together with the asphalt mileage we can gather there. There could not be a better event to end this season.” Pajari said.

Rumors now being surrounding Toyota’s continued rally investment have been buzzing for several years, it is not about the continuation of Toyota Gazoo Racing in the FIA World Rally Championship but about their next move to broaden the investment and reach consumers.

It is still unknown if the team will be developing a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 or a Rally3 car, but the team management it is all silent concerning the fact that no decisions have been made in Japan, but according to some Finnish motorsport news sources there have been some secret tests taken place recently far from the team´s testing grounds.

Rumors speak of a Rally2 variant, where the company has a perfect starting point in the GR model of the Yaris. Jari-Matti Latvala who is the team principal at Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT has spoken to the Finnish publication Rallit.fi and he does not give any comments yet. In Finland, it is said that the team bought cars from prominent manufacturers at an early stage to collect and gather experience for their development of a Rally2 car.

Juho Hänninen is said to have run the secret tests that were placed far from his own team (Toyota) to more easily keep the tests to himself. Perhaps it is about further test drives of the hydrogen-powered Toyota GR Yaris H2 that was shown in the Ypres Rally Belgium, or if the rumors were to be true, we can expect to see a car from Toyota in the Rally2 customer segment at the earliest by the start of the 2024 season.

Last week we reported that Oliver Solberg, who most recently has been dropped out of the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT line-up for 2023, was in talks with M-Sport Ford WRT about a potential drive for the British team, now also the team´s founder Malcolm Wilson confirms it.

In an interview with the American publication DirtFish.com, the managing director at M-Sport said they have opened up negotiations with Solberg about placing him in one of the factory Ford Puma Rally1 cars for the upcoming season.

The news about Solberg leaving Hyundai came just after the last round in Rally New Zealand and directly after that, the two parties started to negotiate, with some sources saying the deal is about to be closed.

“Yes, we’re interested to talk to Oliver and we have talked already – I met him after he came back from New Zealand. Obviously, there would have to be a commercial aspect to any deal for next year. We talked about him coming here a couple of years ago.” Wilson told Dirtfish.com.

Solberg´s last work with Hyundai will be recce duties ahead of the season-finale of Rally Japan, the young Swede will also be entering the Cambrian Rally in Wales with his private Volkswagen Polo R5 at the end of this month.

The driver market in the FIA World Rally Championship is running hot at the moment when the rumors about the Estonian Ott Tänak looking to part away from the Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT team at the end of the season and he will maybe join back with the M-Sport Ford WRT team next season but also Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT is looking to snatch back Tänak as well.

In 2019 Tänak won the world title with Toyota but he has since then moved over to Hyundai where he hasn´t had the results he hoped for, he was, however, a title contender for this season but lost the chance to take a second title when Kalle Rovanperä, who became the youngest ever world champion in WRC, claimed it in Rally New Zealand last time out.

The man himself has even hinted at the possibility of quitting in his speeches. Thierry Neuville, who has been in the Korean manufacturer line-up since the beginning of the WRC project, does not believe his teammate’s talk about retirement.

“First of all, I believe that Ott doesn’t want to quit so soon. I know that he has had challenging times at home, but I believe that the top results of recent times have given him the necessary motivation. I think Ott is like everyone else. He is waiting for news about who will lead our team in the future. I’d argue that it plays a pretty big role in Otti’s decision whether he’s going to stay with our team, quit, or whatever.” Neuville told Dirtfish.com.

“I don’t know who would be the right person to lead the team. Someone who can do the things we need right now. We need people pulling together.”

Kalle Rovanperä competed in the highly popular Rallylegend event with his Toyota Gazoo Racing team principal Jari-Matti Latvala’s Toyota Celica ST185 rally car. However, the young Finnish star drove in the Stars class, where no times were taken.

Having secured the FIA World Rally Championship title in Rally New Zealand a couple of weeks ago, Rovanperä only focused on enjoying himself together with his co-driver Roope Korhonen. Rovanperä, known for his drifting hobby, offered the audience a lot of entertainment in his classic Toyota.

“It was a great rally here. Today (Saturday) there were already a few longer stages. We enjoyed ourselves and laughed a lot with Roope. We have pulled out some nice drifts for the audience, and they have certainly enjoyed it. The atmosphere has been incredible, there are a lot of people cheering along the roads all the time. It gives you a great feeling yourself. You can’t experience this anywhere else.” Rovanperä said.

For Latvala it was a different story, he was in competitive mode and the former WRC driver did not show mercy to the others. Latvala drove his Toyota Celica GT-Four to first place in the Classic class. However, the Italian Zivian “Zippo” Andrea, in a Subaru Impreza offered a tough challenge, but Latvala took first place with a margin of 12.3 seconds.

Italian Luca Pedersoli was the first in the WRC class in San Marino in a Citroen DS3 WRC. The Swiss Paolo “Il Valli” Vallivero was 19.8 seconds behind in a Ford Fiesta WRC. In the Historic class, it was the Italian Simone Brusori who was first in a Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.0 with a massive lead of 2 minutes and 34.4 seconds over the local Nicola Bonfé in a Ford Escort RS2000 MKII.

The 2022 European Le Mans Series season concluded on Sunday with a fourth victory of the year for Prema Racing at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, and the Italian outfit are one of six outfits across the three classes to receive an automatic invitation to next years’ 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The two leading teams in the LMP2 class, as well as the leading entry in the LMP3 category, will all be offered invitations to race in the LMP2 class at Le Mans next year, while the top three in the LMGTE standings will also have a chance at racing at the twice-around-the-clock event next June.

Prema Racing had all but guaranteed themselves the champion before the race at Portimão on Sunday, and despite mixed weather conditions in Portugal, the trio of Louis Delétraz, Ferdinand Habsburg and Juan Manuel Correa took victory, while second place was enough for Panis Racing to secure the second automatic invitation.

It was even more exciting in LMP3, with late drama for the #13 Inter Europol Competition entry gave Cool Racing the race victory and the championship, the trio of Mike Benham, Malthe Jakobson and Maurice Smith overturning the nineteen-point deficit they had going into the final race. 

The trio of Charles Crews, Nico Pino and Guilherme Oliveira appeared to have the championship in their pockets only for two collisions to ruin their day. Firstly, Pino collided with the TDS Racing x Vaillante LMP2 entry of Mathias Beche, before a second collision with the TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of John Hartshorne ended their day in the gravel trap.

Joey Logano has reason to celebrate as he is the first driver to lock a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Round. On the other hand, Bubba Wallace will likely prefer to have what happened in Vegas stay there.

Logano passed Ross Chastain for the lead with three laps remaining and held on to score his third win of 2022 and third at Las Vegas Motor Speedway; he also reaches the thirty-win mark in his Cup career. Interestingly, he has made the Championship Round every other year since the introduction of the system in 2014, with 2018 and 2020 also seeing him advance by winning the first race in the Round of 8.

“All you want to do is get to the Championship Four when the season starts and race for a championship, and we’ve got the team to do it. I don’t see why we can’t win at this point,” said Logano. “Things are looking really good for us. […]

“Just a lot of adversity fought through the last fifty laps or so. I thought we were going to win and then we kind of fell out and then had the tires, and racing Ross was fun. He was doing a good job air-blocking me, and just trying to be patient, and eventually, I was like, ‘I’ve got to go here.'”

While Logano has plenty of reason to be upbeat, however, fan discourse mainly surrounded Wallace. On lap 94, after leading much of and winning Stage #1, he was squeezed into the wall by Kyle Larson on the frontstretch, prompting him to retaliate by hooking Larson. As the two were shot at the outside wall, Wallace’s Toyota ally Christopher Bell was also caught in the crossfire as he got clipped and spun.

Josh Berry is the first to secure a chance to fight for a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship. He and his JR Motorsports team-mates put on a clinic in Saturday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as he and Noah Gragson combined to lead 152 of 200 laps and finish 1–2; Justin Allgaier, fresh off signing a contract extension with JRM, completed the podium sweep.

Berry took the lead on the final restart with thirty-five laps remaining, set up by future JRM driver Brandon Jones‘ spin on lap 162, and never let go. Gragson, the Stage #2 winner, settled for second after being in first for a race-high eighty-two circuits. Behind the JRM trio at the front, the team’s fourth driver Sam Mayer still had a solid day of his own in seventh.

“I never won at Vegas as a driver so I love when our JRM drivers do,” tweeted team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. “Plus 1-2-3 against a tough field is something to be very proud of.”

Ty Gibbs was the highest finishing non-JGR driver in fourth. Despite winning the first stage, he explained he “sucked on restarts and that was where people capitalised today with track position, and dirty air was very big. I feel like that was the spot we were not as good at as we needed to be to contend for the win, but I feel like we were capable of it, just needed to be in better lines on restarts. I don’t feel like it was because I spun the tyres, but there were still people getting runs. We were three-wide at one point, but people were getting runs on the top, so it was possible to move forward.”

Hailie Deegan finished thirteenth, the best performing Ford, in her Xfinity début.

Race results

In honour of the sixtieth anniversary of Mexico City’s inaugural race in Formula 1, the winner of pole position at the Mexico Grand Prix will be awarded two replica helmets as a tribute to brothers Pedro and Ricardo Rodríguez de la Vega, two of Mexico’s most prominent drivers in the history of motorsport.

This award serves as a continuation of last year’s pole-sitter award, when Valtteri Bottas was presented a replica helmet of five-time F1 champion Juan Manuel Fangio by the Fangio Foundation at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. 

Pedro Rodríguez found great success in sportscars, having won the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours and Daytona 24 Hours endurance races as well as two F1 Grands Prix. Ricardo Rodríguez cemented his place in history as Scuderia Ferrari’s youngest ever driver, a record that still stands today. 

The inaugural F1 race in Mexico City took place in 1962 as a non-championship event. Although Ferrari did not participate in the race in light of a difficult season, Ricardo Rodríguez was able to take part in a Lotus-Climax. The event took a tragic turn, as Rodríguez suffered a fatal crash during qualifying. 

Pedro Rodríguez showed great strength as he recovered from the loss of his brother and went on to have a prolific career in racing, making his mark in the world of motorsport.

Sergei Kariakin might be openly critical of the FIA’s policy that Russian competitors denounce their country’s invasion of Ukraine, with those who refuse being prohibited from entering events overseen by the body, but he still thinks he can talk—or write, in this case—his way out of it in time for the 2023 Dakar Rally. On Thursday, he submitted a letter to FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem requesting for the rule to be lifted.

“Dear Mohammed Ahmad Sultan Ben Sulaye, my name is Sergei Kariakin,” begins the letter.

“I’m contacting you as a race driver, winner of Dakar, 8 time in a row competitor of this rally-raid. But this year my sports plan has been changed.

“Our team were unable to continue participation in World Cup calendar due to need of signing of special paper for Russian athletes.

“In my opinion signing this document is against the basis of neutrality to politics which is a universal fundamental ethical principle what is also described Article 3 of the FIA Code of Ethics.

Hayden Paddon who most recently won his home rally of Repco Rally New Zealand in the WRC2 class has revealed he is targeting a part-time Rally1 program for the upcoming season.

Paddon has been driving at the top level for some time before but over the past couple of seasons, he´s been without a seat in a factory team, last time in 2018 when he ran also a part-time program with Hyundai Motorsport. So far the kiwi has only one rally win in the WRC when he won the Rally Argentina in 2016.

In 2019 he was set to run a private entered Ford Fiesta WRC in Rally Finland rented from M-Sport Ford but he was involved in a high-speed crash before the event so he had to retire from the rally completely.

So far the kiwi hasn´t announced his 2023 program but he is looking to do a full-season campaign in the WRC2 class and add some selected Rally1 outings to his schedule.

“The perfect season would be a full WRC2 program and some selected Rally1 outings, there are some really good rallies out there where I think we could do very well. Events like Portugal and Sardinia, if Chile’s back or México – those kinds of medium speed, technical rallies where we have experience. Maybe on those events, you can rely a little bit on the running order to offset the fact we haven’t been in the car so much.” Paddon said.