Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

After four years away, A.J. Allmendinger will be back in the NASCAR Cup Series as a full-time driver in 2023. On Wednesday, Kaulig Racing announced the two-time defending Xfinity Series regular season champion will drive the #16 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for the entire 2023 Cup season, marking his return to being a top-level regular. Camping World Truck Series driver Chandler Smith has been hired to fill the #16 Xfinity car vacated by Allmendinger.

A former open-wheel racer, Allmendinger was one of Team Red Bull’s first drivers in 2006 before elevating to a full Cup schedule the following year. He would become a journeyman for multiple teams including the since defunct Michael Waltrip Racing and Phoenix Racing, what is now Petty GMS Motorsports, and Team Penske before landing at JTG Daugherty Racing in late 2013. With JTG, he won his maiden Cup race at Watkins Glen in 2014, but departed the team after 2018.

Kaulig recruited Allmendinger to the Xfinity Series in 2019, and he quickly latched on as he enjoyed the less intensive schedule and in a more competitive ride. Since joining the team, he has won twelve times and scored the regular season championship in 2021 and 2022. He currently leads the Xfinity points with four victory, including Saturday’s Talladega event.

“I first called A.J. in 2019 to ask if he would run a couple Xfinity Series races for us. He agreed to do five, and he was disqualified in the first two races. Although it was two tough results, A.J. saw what we were trying to build here at Kaulig Racing, and better yet, he believed in what we were building,” said team president Chris Rice. “After the success we’ve had together since then, we think the next step is for him to help us do the same with our young, Cup Series team.”

Allmendinger was also occasionally called up to the Cup Series in Kaulig’s multi-driver #16, and he broke through with another victory at Indianapolis in 2021. It was the inaugural Cup race on the infield road course layout.

Coming off the back of a stunning maiden win in Portugal, Belgium’s Enzo Ide is in prime position to take the final win of the 2022 FIA European Rallycross Championship as the season comes to a close at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps. If he manages to do so, he may leapfrog rival Janis Baumanis to take second-place behind the 2022 champion, Anton Marklund.

To motorsports fans of any discipline, Spa-Francorchamps surely needs no introduction. Fewer people are perhaps aware that, since 2019, it has been a driver’s favourite on the rallycross circuit. In a change for this year, loose gravel has been added to the bottom of the long banked corner, hopefully affording even more overtaking opportunities, as the drivers will have to choose a line and stick with it for the full sweep of the turn.

Ide certainly deserved his win in Montalegre last time out. Having had consistently great pace all year, he has had a string of bad luck. In Portugal, however, everything went right for him. “I kept my head cool and stayed focussed all day, and I was very happy to end the weekend on a high with my first rallycross victory,” Ide explained. When speaking about his team he added “it’s amazing. The EKS guys are a great bunch of people and we’ve been working hard from the beginning. This goes to show that hard work pays off.”

Baumanis certainly has the pace to hold off an attack from Ide, but he too has been unlucky this season, and is now too far from Marklund to deny him a third Euro RX title. Baumanis responded like a gentleman, saying “I was happy for Enzo that he got his first win and happy for Anton that he won the championship. Congratulations to him – we had our share of fights and contact, but he is a very, very worthy champion.” These sentiments will in no way diminish his desire to keep Ide at bay, and also take #YellowSquad‘s first victory of the season.

Meanwhile, Marklund will want to finish the season in style. He has had a superb year, thanks in no small part to the SET Promotion team, for whom he is full of praise: “It’s been an awesome year. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with such good guys – if I ever have, indeed. It’s just amazing. They do everything down to the very smallest detail and have given me the right tools to do the job, and I think we have treated those tools well. I’m extremely lucky.”

Despite winning Stage #2, Sébastien Loeb has endured a tumultuous Rallye du Maroc. The penultimate leg on Wednesday only added to his challenges when a steering failure resulted in his retirement. With World Rally-Raid Championship T1 rival Nasser Al-Attiyah finishing third behind Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Guerlain Chicherit, the points battle grows narrower.

Al-Rajhi notched his second stage win of the rally after Stage #1B, beating Chicherit with a time of 3:11:40 to 3:13:10. While Al-Rajhi moves up from seventh to fourth in the Cars overall, Chicherit maintains his lead with Orlando Terranova tailing by nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds. Loeb had been sitting third before exiting Stage #4, and his position has now been usurped by prologue and Stage #3 winner Al-Attiyah. Barring disaster in the final stage, Al-Attiyah will enter the season-ending Andalucía Rally with the points lead.

Another exitee in the leg was the RallyGP of Toby Price, who was also third in his class entering Wednesday’s stage. At the eighty-fifth kilometre, Price crashed out while attempting to navigate through dust, resulting in bruises to his forehead and hands and necessitating an airlift to hospital. Although he was not seriously injured, the crash damaged his helmet and has forced him to retire from the rally for good.

“Not much to say other then I really [fucked] up,” posted Price on Instagram. “Made a mistake early and lost 3 minutes on time, so was in some dust and moved out to see better but went back into some dust and not 100% sure what I hit but was on the ground after this. Big thanks to Bell Helmets for keeping my head safe but sure pissed I wrecked a new helmet and Alpinestars for the protection. Was seeing some stars but was back on the bike and at the refuel I was sore in my neck with bruise on my forehead and both wrists/hands.. when they seen my helmet I couldn’t continue with a split it had in it and wanted to check me out. So helicopter ride out and all checks come back fine luckily. Just feel I’m still in the clouds a little.

“Sorry to the team for all the hard work they put in, we were sitting in a great spot and I threw that one away and I’m bummed I let you all down. Thanks for always following the journey sometimes it’s good and this one is shit[.]”

It was a tough race for Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN, as they found themselves with both cars not scoring points at the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Singapore Grand Prix.

Valtteri Bottas had a poor qualifying session, that saw him knocked out of Qualifying One and start fifteenth on the grid, after George Russell started from the pitlane. Despite showing good pace through parts of the race, he was unable to bring home any points, which is disappointing for the team considering the pace they showed on Friday. The wet conditions didn’t help the Italian team either, with their worst performances mostly coming in the wet this season.

Despite gaining multiple positions, most were down to other drivers. Bottas is hoping that the team can quickly get past this result and concentrate on the Japanese Grand Prix.

“Considering where we started today, we probably got as much as we could. Of course, it’s always frustrating when you finish just one position away from the points, but at least we avoided any mistakes and kept it on track.

“Towards the end, the soft tyres were starting to drop and I couldn’t close in on Gasly, but I think it was a good call to try going with them in the second stint today: I don’t think any other compound would have given us a better result.

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN had a disappointing race weekend despite a positive Friday at the FIA Formula 1 World Championship‘s Singapore Grand Prix.

Valtteri Bottas had a quiet day on track, he did manage to finish the race and take advantage of the multiple retirements but the last few laps saw him struggle to chase down Pierre Gasly for the final points position. It was an early end to the race for Zhou Guanyu; however, an incident on Lap Seven with Nicholas Latifi saw both drivers have to retire and the latter gain a five-place grid penalty for his erratic driving.

Alfa Romeo Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur labelled the evening a difficult one in Singapore, and puts no blame on either of his drivers.

“It has been a difficult weekend, despite the good pace we showed on Friday. Yesterday’s wet qualifying ended up compromising our day, as it was always going to be challenging to come back from 14th and 15th on the grid.

The race itself was not easy, especially on a damp track: Zhou couldn’t do anything to avoid being taken out when he was showing good pace; Valtteri probably got as much out of the race as possible, and it was only a fast-charging Verstappen who kept him out of the points in the end. We tried giving him a fighting chance with the soft tyres, but in the end that was not enough to finish in the top ten.

BWT Alpine F1 Team lost major ground in the battle for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with both cars not finishing the FIA Formula 1 World Championship‘s Singapore Grand Prix.

Both drivers retired early in quick succession, with reported power unit issues on both cars, that could lead to potential penalties in the coming weeks.

Fernando Alonso had a poor start losing a position to Lando Norris on his record breaking three-hundred fiftieth Grand Prix start. The Spaniard held down his position well in sixth but did lose touch to Norris up the road. After an early Safety Car, Alonso was showing why he has the most Grand Prix starts with some brilliant defending on soon to be two-time World Champion Max Verstappen, but Alonso finished the race with nothing to show for his work after his retirement on the twenty-first lap.

“It’s a pity to retire early from today’s race and it means we’ve missed out on some decent points in the championship. I think we can look at the positives and we can be very proud of our performance this weekend again.

Despite Alpine’s issues, they showed good pace up until Alonso’s retirement with the Spaniard fighting for sixth place and putting in some excellent defending against Verstappen; however, with crucial points lost in the Championship it is no consolation for him.

Not for the first time this season, Kevin Magnussen leaves a FIA Formula 1 World Championship race weekend expressing his anger towards the steward’s decision-making, as a black-and-orange flag for a damaged front wing end-plate saw Magnussen fall out of contention for a points finish at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Starting from ninth-place on the grid, Magnussen would collide with Max Verstappen on the opening lap, sustaining damage to the left endplate on his front wing. Verstappen was quick to call out on the radio that the damage sustained to Magnussen’s VF-22 front wing was unsafe, and by Lap Six, the black-and-orange flag was issued to the Dane, forcing him into a pit-stop for a new front wing.

After being forced to the back of the grid, Magnussen would run the remainder of the race towards the back, and would only finish ahead of his team-mate and George Russell of those to finish the race for a twelfth-placed finish.

While Magnussen was quick to express his frustration at the stewards decision to award the black-and-orange flag, the Haas F1 Team driver stated the level of pace the VF-22 had shown on Saturday was a cause for optimism for those inside the team.

“I had very slight damage but it was nothing. I got the black and orange flag which to me seems unnecessary as the part wasn’t about to fall off, there were no safety concerns as it has tethers to the car – it wasn’t even moving. We finished P12 when we had an extra pit stop that I didn’t need, so it’s frustrating. It was a positive Saturday yesterday, and we’ve seen the car has some pace, so that’s at least encouraging. Hopefully we can keep it up moving forward.”

Guenther Steiner, the Team Principal of the Haas F1 Team, has voiced his displeasure at the race stewards decision-making as Kevin Magnussen was awarded a black-and-orange flag on the opening lap for damage sustained to his front wing. Crucially for the Haas team, the point-less finish around the Marina Bay Street Circuit has seen them fall back a place in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Constructors’ Standings, due to Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team‘s twelve-point haul on Sunday.

Magnussen endured a tough start to his Singapore Grand Prix as contact with Max Verstappen on the opening lap resulted in his left front endplate on his front-wing coming loose. The race stewards would soon award Magnussen the black-and-orange flag, forcing the Dane into an early pit-stop, plummeting the Haas driver towards the back of the grid.

Magnussen failed to bounce back from the enforced pit-stop and would finish the race in twelfth-place. Speaking after the race, Steiner was once again left irate by the stewards decision-making.

“A disappointing race as we could’ve scored points here realistically, without dreaming of them. The incident on Lap 1 with Kevin, we lost all positions and again we received a black and orange flag, now for the third time, when there is no need for it. We have made it very clear to the FIA on the past two occasions and it’s just like you have your back against the wall.”

While a potential points finish was taken away from Magnussen in the opening laps, Mick Schumacher would face an equally similar fate with just fifteen minutes remaining in the Grand Prix.

It was an extremely disappointing Sunday for BWT Alpine F1 Team in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship‘s Singapore Grand Prix.

Team Principal, Otmar Szafnauer saw his team not score any points due to a double retirement with both car issues being suspected power unit issues. Esteban Ocon started from seventeenth on the grid after an issue with his brakes in Qualifying. The weekend was a poor one for the Frenchman, with him retiring in thirteenth place when he could have been much higher up considering the potential the car had.

Fernando Alonso did extract the potential from the car and qualified fifth, ahead of the team’s championship rival Lando Norris. Despite being jumped by the Brit at the start, Alonso looked to be having a stellar drive keeping soon-to-be two-time world champion Max Verstappen behind him until an engine issue forced the Spaniard out of his record-breaking three-hundred fiftieth race, making him the driver with the most Grand Prix starts.

Szafnauer was frustrated with the double retirement, especially in a race they looked to have good pace in throughout the weekend. This makes for a massive twist in the Constructors’ Championship, with McLaren F1 Team overtaking the French outfit for fourth in the standings after they had both cars in the top five.

“Unfortunately, we had a double retirement from today’s Singapore Grand Prix, which is a pity as we’ve been very competitive all weekend. It looks like we suffered a similar power unit issue on both cars, which we will investigate in detail.

The 2022 FIA World Rallycross Championship is heading to the legendary Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps for the next double header in the all-new RX1e championship (08/09 October). All eyes will be on championship leader Johan Kristoffersson as he attempts to bounce back from the disappointment of his first loss this year last time out in Montalegre, but his rivals know that he is no longer unbeatable.

When it first joined in 2019, there was some hesitation among the WRX fanbase about another Formula 1 track being added to the calendar. However, all fears were quickly dismissed when the racing began. Featuring wide sweeping gravel corners, a spectacular jump, and an iconic blast up Eau Rouge, it is a track that requires “big balls,” as one driver memorably said in the first weekend.

Despite his winning streak ending in round five in Portugal, KMS driver Kristoffersson is still the favourite to take home the spoils. The Swedish driver has had to fight tooth and nail for every victory so far this year, and did cross the line first in Montalegre before the stewards awarded him a ten-second penalty for opening lap contact with title rival Timmy Hansen.

Both Timmy and his brother Kevin Hansen have demonstrated the almighty speed of their Hansen World RX Team cars, and have been in the running for victories at almost every event. Both drivers demonstrated some superb driving in Portugal, with Kevin being unlucky with a semi-final incident which saw his race ending in the wall, and Timmy being entangled in the contact with Kristoffersson in the final. They certainly have the team to do it. As Kevin said, “we were really slow starting off on both days, but we worked incredibly well to improve and the guys did an amazing job keeping the car in perfect race condition every time and working to improve the speed.”

Another driver who feels supremely confident in his team is Kristoffersson’s teammate, Ole Christian Veiby. The Norwegian shares a similarly impressive accolade with his dominant teammate, having achieved four out of five podiums this year. The podium on day two at Montalegre was at best an unlikely outcome, having hit the wall hard at the end of heat one. “I was really happy and quite emotional to finish second” explained Veiby. “I honestly didn’t think that would be possible after heat one, and I owe the result to a fantastic team effort – giving up is not for us!”

After running a combined twenty-one NASCAR national series races in 2021, James Davison is back behind a stock car cockpit for the first time in over a year. He will drive the #18 Toyota GR Supra for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval on Saturday, marking his maiden start of 2022.

Despite being a regular face in the Cup Series in 2020 and 2021, making a combined thirty-five starts for Spire Motorsports, Rick Ware Racing, and MBM Motorsports including twenty in the latter, Davison did not return to RWR as the team downscaled to two cars and opted for other names in the multi-driver #15 while Spire committed to their own roster for the #77 and MBM has only has their Xfinity drivers make the occasional Cup start. In the meantime, he finished third in the GTD class at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, driving a Mercedes-AMG GT3 alongside Scott Andrews, Stevan McAleer, and Mike Skeen for Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports; it marked Davison’s first IMSA start since 2017.

In April, he returned to his native Australia to compete in the S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship at Melbourne. After retiring from the first two races, he finished eleventh in the third and final event. While Davison’s résumé is loaded with sports car and stock car racing, he has a background in open-wheel competition which included a runner-up championship finish in Indy Lights in 2009 and racing the Indianapolis 500 from 2014 to 2020.

“PUT ME BACK IN COACH! Excited to reunite with Joe Gibbs Racing and pick up where we left off,” posted Davison on social media.

Davison ran three Xfinity races for JGR in 2017 and 2018 as a road course ringer, scoring a fourth at Mid-Ohio in the first year and eighth at Road America the latter. Although he crashed out of the 2017 Road America event, he led a race-high eleven laps.

Cadillac Racing, in conjunction with Chip Ganassi Racing, has revealed its driver line-up for the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship season, where they will compete for the first time in the Hypercar category.

Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn, two of Chip Ganassi Racing’s (CGR) drivers in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, will race in WEC in 2023, alongside another former CGR driver, Richard Westbrook.

The three drivers will compete in the whole seven-race season, which will see the return to Portimão in Portugal and the one hundredth centenary edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, on board the all-new Cadillac V-LMDh, as well as the opening race of the IMSA season, the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Bamber, the 2019 IMSA GTLM Champion and a two-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, says he is eager to be in contention for race victories in 2023, particularly at the Circuit de la Sarthe in June.

“The World Endurance Championships gives us the opportunity to race at the world’s biggest race, which is Le Mans, the crown jewel of sports car racing,” said Bamber.

The FIA World Endurance Championship has unveiled its calendar for the 2023 season, and it sees a return to the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal in an expanded seven-race schedule.

The championship will run for its eleventh season next year, with the Official Prologue and the opening race of the year both taking place at Sebring.  The Prologue takes place on 11-12 March before the 1000 Miles of Sebring on 17 March, which takes place as part of the ‘Super Sebring’ weekend that also includes the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.

The 6 Hours of Portimão makes up round two on 16 April and marks a welcome return to the Portuguese track that hosted the 8 hours of Portimão back in 2021.  The event dropped off a reduced calendar in 2022, but is returning to the calendar for 2023.

Two weeks later, the championship will head to Belgium for the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps before the centenary edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 10-11 June.  Le Mans hosted its first race back in 2023, and plenty of celebrations are planned running up to the event and across the race weekend.

The 6 Hours of Monza will then take place on 9 July at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza for its third running, with a two-month break then following before the tenth running of the 6 Hours of Fuji in Japan on 10 September.

The NASCAR Cup Series‘ Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval round on Sunday will be missing three full-time drivers as Alex Bowman and Cody Ware join the long-unavailable Kurt Busch on the sidelines. Like Busch, Bowman will miss the race due to a concussion while Cody Ware has not fully recovered from his ankle fracture in his ankle; both suffered their injuries at Texas two weeks ago.

Bowman sustained concussion-like symptoms after spinning into the wall at Texas, which forced him to miss last Sunday’s Talladega race. In his place, Noah Gragson piloted the #48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and overcame getting collected in a massive wreck to salvage a nineteenth-place finish.

As the Roval is the final race of the Round of 12, Bowman has been eliminated from the playoffs. However, the #48 is still eligible to compete for the owner’s championship with Gragson.

“With my health continuing to be my number one priority, I will not return to racing this weekend at the NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. I am continuing to make strides in my recovery to make sure I can return to competition at 100%,” stated Bowman. “I appreciate Noah stepping into the #48 Chevrolet again and will be cheering hard for my Ally Racing team this weekend. Thank you to everyone for your support during this time. It has not gone unheard or unseen and I’m overwhelmed by your support.”

“Alex’s health is our first priority,” commented Hendrick president Jeff Andrews. “We’re focused on supporting his recovery and seeing him back in his race car when the time is right. Alex has a long career ahead of him, so we will invest the necessary time and take our guidance from medical experts. We’re putting no pressure on him to return before he’s 100% ready.”

Hailie Deegan is set to make her NASCAR Xfinity Series début on 15 October for SS-Green Light Racing, driving the #07 Ford Mustang. She revealed the plans on her YouTube channel on Tuesday.

“When it comes to the NASCAR world, when things are about to get announced, it’s usually a lot of rumours about it, it usually gets cold before it’s actually announced, but this is something that we’ve kept a secret pretty well,” said Deegan.

Currently in her second full-time season of Camping World Truck Series competition, Deegan is twenty-first in points with two top tens. Her most recent race at Talladega last Saturday saw her best career finish of sixth. As a rookie, her lone top ten was a seventh at Gateway.

While her performance has only yielded three top tens, she is a popular figure due to her social media presence with over 501 thousand subscribers on YouTube and 1.2 million Instagram followers. She won the Truck Series Most Popular Driver Award in 2021. With her marketability, she is often touted as a Ford young prospect with plans of eventually climbing the NASCAR ladder.

Other racing activities in 2022 include two starts in the Superstar Racing Experience and returning to her off-road roots with her maiden Mint 400 start.