Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

This weekend’s returning SIngapore Grand Prix will see drivers pushed to their mental and physical limits, with the race being profoundly known as arguably the most demanding on the Formula 1 calendar.

The race at the Marina Bay Circuit returns this weekend for the first time since 2019, following the Coronavirus pandemic, meaning a number of drivers are in for a wake-up call when they venture out onto the track which offers no rest throughout the lap.

Charles Leclerc‘s trainer, Andrea Ferrari, has given an insight into what makes the circuit so demanding, with Ferrari revealing the “driver can never take a breather”.

“On the current Formula 1 calendar, Singapore is the most demanding track. It’s a traditional street circuit with the walls punishing the slightest lack of concentration. Furthermore, there are no long straights, so the driver can never take a breather, as it is only in a straight line that the heartbeat can slow down a bit to give the athlete a break.

“Making the situation even more challenging is the Singapore climate, with very high temperatures and levels of humidity. This compromises thermoregulation, the body’s ability to dissipate heat. The drivers sweat a lot and so lose mineral salts and calcium, essential for muscle function which in turn affects physical performance on track”.

Formula 1 heads to the Singapore Grand Prix for Round Seventeen of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

Williams Racing will be hoping for back-to-back points after Nyck de Vries finished in ninth place at the Italian Grand Prix, when he was drafted in for Alex Albon who was unable to race due contracting appendicitis.

Nicholas Latifi goes into this race knowing that he won’t be racing for Williams next year after the team announced that they would not continue together. The Canadian has had a disappointing season, having no points so far and being outscored by De Vries in his first Formula 1 race. However, with no pressure on him now, he is able to take advantage of the last six races of the season and potentially his Formula 1 career.

Latifi is looking forward to his first Singapore Grand Prix and is excited by the challenge of the harsh conditions.

“Singapore has been one of the Grands Prix on the calendar I’ve been most looking forward to. It’s one of the only two I haven’t raced at including Japan. It’s my first-time visiting Singapore and I’ve heard so many great things about this race.

Formula 1 returns to the Singapore Grand Prix this weekend for Round Seventeen of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the series’ first visit to the Asian country since 2019

Williams Racing driver Alex Albon is fit and ready to get back on track in Singapore, after missing the Italian Grand Prix. The Thai driver spent a night in a hospital intensive care unit in Italy on the weekend of the previous Grand Prix, after suffering a rare respiratory failure due to post-operative anaesthetic complications after his appendicitis surgery.

He was removed from a ventilator the following day, and was discharged from hospital and allowed to travel back to his home in Monaco forty-eight hours later. Albon was replaced by Nyck de Vries for the Italian Grand Prix and the Dutchman scored points on his debut after a number of grid penalties and a composed and mature drive.

Albon heads into the most physically demanding race on the calendar with severe humidity and at a track which requires high concentration, but he says he is not underestimating the challenge of the weekend ahead.

“Firstly, I’d just like to thank everyone for all their messages and support over the Italian Grand Prix weekend. My preparation for Singapore has been a little different than normal but I’m feeling good and I’ve done everything possible to get ready for one of the most physical races on the calendar.

Scuderia Ferrari has announced they have signed a new Team Partner in a multi-year agreement that will see Bitdefender branding appear on the helmets of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and on both F1-75s.

For 2023 the branding of the cyber security and digital data protection company will also appear on the drivers’ race suits and on team clothing.

In March 2022 Ferrari announced that they would be pausing their partnership with their long-term cyber security partner Kaspersky, a Russian-based company, removing the logos from the cars, helmets and online platforms “as the partnership is paused for the time being due to a joint decision taken by the two companies”.

Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal and Managing Director Mattia Binotto talked of the new deal, “We are pleased to embark on this new partnership with Bitdefender, with whom we share values such as the highest level of technological efficiency, striving for excellence in performance and a culture of security.

“It’s a pleasure to be able to count on a Team Partner such as Bitdefender, an innovative and accomplished company, already highly regarded for its professionalism and reliability.”

Max Verstappen has admitted to feeling like there is “no rush” to claim his second Drivers’ Championship, despite the Dutchman having his first chance to do so this weekend at the returning Singapore Grand Prix.

The incredibly popular race at the Marina Bay Circuit returns this weekend for the first time since 2019 following the Coronavirus pandemic, with more on the line for the championship leader than usual.

Despite having already won a vast number of Grand Prix’s in his Formula 1 career, Verstappen has never won at the Asian venue, something he will probably need to do to claim the title.

If Verstappen wins the race and claims the fastest lap then he will become a double World Champion, if Charles Leclerc fails to finish in the top eight and Sergio Pérez fails to finish in the top four.

It’s more likely that he’ll retain his 2021 title at the following Japanese Grand Prix; however, with this weekend being at a street circuit anything is possible.

With the battle for fourth-place in the Constructors’ Standings heating up between BWT Alpine F1 Team and McLaren F1 Team, the Chief Technical Officer of Alpine, Pat Fry, has confirmed the team will be delivering a new upgrade package to the A522 this weekend.

At the beginning of the summer break, Alpine held just a four-point advantage over their closest rivals in the Constructors’ Standings but after a successful triple header for the team which saw Fernando Alonso secure a fifth-place finish at Spa, Alpine now hold an eighteen-point advantage over McLaren.

With the Enstone-based team determined as ever to secure fourth-place in the Constructors’, Fry has confirmed that the A522 will have a completely new floor this weekend at the Singapore Grand Prix, with the team believing it will provide a step up in regard to performance.

“We are bringing an entire new floor to both cars this weekend, which will also carry over to Japan for the next race. Visually, on the surface, it’s not much different to the previous version as most of the developments are underneath. It should bring a reasonable step in performance, though. At recent races, we’ve managed to bring a strong set of developments to the car, and they’ve all worked as expected.“

Fry would also state that Alpine would not be stopping the production line just yet in regard to updating the A522 this season but did reveal the team would be using the United States Grand Prix at the end of October as a date to start shifting their focus to their 2023 challenger.

The Side-by-Side (SxS) class might just be a support class to Nitro Rallycross‘ Group E division, but its first round of the 2022/23 season this weekend at ERX Motor Park will see a grid laden with achievements across a multitude of disciplines.

Many return from the 2021 season’s SxS rounds such as Nitro RX founder Travis Pastrana and former Global Rallycross Championship runner-up Brian Deegan; both have enjoyed great success on both four and two wheels as multi-time X Games motocross medalists. Deegan finished runner-up to Tanner Foust at the second ERX SxS race in 2021.

Championship Off-Road Pro 4 and Pro Turbo SxS driver Scottie Lawrence joined Deegan and Foust on that podium and will return for the 2022 weekend. When COR visited ERX in July, Lawrence finished seventh and tenth in the two Pro 4 races but did not take part in the Pro Turbo SxS events after wrecking his UTV at Crandon.

Terry Madden comes over from Ultra4 Racing, where he drives a UTV. In February, he was co-driver to Deegan as they won the King of the Hammers’ UTV Grudge Match in Johnson Valley, California.

Robin Shute will race in Nitro Rallycross for the first time, though he is not unfamiliar with the discipline as he has tested rallycross cars in the past. Shute is the defending winner of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and previously won in 2019 and 2021; he is the first British driver to claim the legendary hillclimb.

After a rare disappointing showing for the BWT Alpine F1 Team in the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season in Monza, Fernando Alonso is looking for his team to return to its usual form at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Alonso had scored an impressive fifth and sixth place finishes in Spa and Zandvoort respectively, before a water pressure failure at the Italian Grand Prix saw the Spaniard end the triple header on a low point.

At the beginning of the triple header, Alpine’s lead over McLaren F1 Team for fourth-place in the Constructors’ Standings stood at just four points, but after a run of good results in Spa and Zandvoort, their lead now sits at eighteen points.

The Italian Grand Prix marked just the fifth time that Alonso has failed to finish inside a points paying position. Alonso has spoken on how the team has spent the last two weeks attempting to understand their shortcomings in Monza.

“It was an intense few weeks on the road in Europe and we’ve been glad for the reset before the final flyaway races of the season. We came away from the triple header with 18 points, scored in Spa and Zandvoort. We had two strong races there and the car was performing well.

This weekend sees McLaren F1 Team head into Round Seventeen of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 season for the Singapore Grand Prix.

2022 sees the return of the Singapore Grand Prix after a two-year absence from the calendar. The whole race is held at night from start to finish and is one of the toughest races of the season for everyone involved, due to the heat and high humidity added to the threats of rain on track and the minimal margin for error.

Lando Norris has been in a rich vein of form all season, outperforming his experienced team-mate by a big margin and has pulled the McLaren team way above where their performance has been. Norris might only have one podium to his name this season, but he remains the only driver outside of the top three teams to bring home a podium. Norris has raced at Singapore once before with McLaren and earned himself a points finish that day, but he is excited to get back out on track.

“I’m excited to be heading back to Singapore this year, it’s another race returning to the calendar and it will only be my second time racing there! I can’t wait to get back into the car, especially with the new OKX livery we have for Asia.

“Marina Bay is another unique street circuit, and I was in the points there in 2019 so hopefully we can keep that up and bring back more points for the team this time.”

Formula 1 heads to Asia for Round Seventeen of the FIA Formula 1 season, where it plays host to the Singapore Grand Prix.

McLaren F1 Team are looking to score points again after Lando Norris finished seventh at the Italian Grand Prix, but they will look to improve at one of the hardest races on the calendar with the night track needing the full concentration.

McLaren’s Team Principal Andreas Seidl is hoping both drivers can have positive results, as the team looks to overtake BWT Alpine F1 Team in the battle for fourth in the constructors’ standings

“We’re looking forward to getting back on track in the unique environment Singapore brings! I’m sure there will be a vibrant atmosphere created by the fans in Marina Bay as we return for the first time in three years.

“It’s also the third night race on this year’s calendar and has lots of corners for the drivers to navigate. The logistics of working on European time can also provide an interesting challenge but we’re ready to attack the weekend and finish in a strong position.”

For the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval on 8 October, Jesse Iwuji Motorsports will place the #34 Chevrolet Camaro in the hands of Kaz Grala.

“I’m pumped to announce I’ll be in the No. 34 Eracing Assocation/Ruedebusch.com Chevrolet Camaro SS for Jesse Iwuji Motorsports at the Charlotte Roval race next weekend! Make sure you give the team and ERA a follow on social media and let them know how much you appreciate their support,” said Grala on social media. “Thank you for the opportunity Jesse Iwuji and Emmitt Smith!”

Since his full-time Xfinity rookie season was abandoned midway in 2016, Grala has competed in the series on a part-time basis. So far in 2022, he ran three races for Alpha Prime Racing—for whom he is also employed as a reserve driver—before joining Big Machine Racing Team for five starts, scoring a best finish of fifth at Watkins Glen. Such a run coupled with other solid performances like two more top fives and four total top tens have made him particularly favourable on road courses.

In two Xfinity starts at the Roval, he finished eighth in 2018 and exited with a suspension failure two years later.

Grala has made three starts in 2022 in the Cup Series for upstart The Money Team Racing led by Floyd Mayweather Jr. He also split the #02 for Young’s Motorsports in the Camping World Truck Series and notched a seventh at Mid-Ohio.

The inaugural BBC Green Sport Awards intend to recognise organisations and athletes who use their respective sport to help raise climate awareness. Five categories are included, with the Young Athlete of the Year and Ambition & Impact Awards featuring nominees from the world of motorsport: Ellis Spiezia is in the running for the former, while Extreme E and McLaren Racing are on the latter’s shortlist.

Spiezia is a sixteen-year-old who competes in the ERA Championship, an electric open-wheel junior series. He won the pole for the inaugural race at Circuit Zolder in July and finished fourth in what would be the championship’s lone event of 2022 as multiple dates were called off due to logistical troubles. The American is a major advocate for electric motorsport, partly owing to his longtime interest in sim racing, and many of the real-life disciplines he competes in are electrically powered. In 2021, he finished runner-up for the first Project E20 Euro Trophy, an electric karting series.

“I am excited and honored to be one of five nominees for the BBC Green Sport Awards Young Athlete of the Year,” posted Spiezia on social media. “Being an advocate and ambassador for climate action through electric motorsport is my passion. We’ll see who wins at the Sport Positive Summit next week. (I’m a racing driver— you know I love a competition!)”

Spiezia will be competing with cricketer Joe Cooke, table tennis player Anna Hursey, fellow American and Major League Soccer defender Zoe Morse, and Norwegian midfielder Morten Thorsby.

Extreme E is probably a very unsurprising candidate for an award focused on green sport. Now in its second season, the electric off-road series has been open about promoting environmental awareness with Legacy Programmes at each round and desire to leave as little of a footprint as possible with races in remote locations and few attendees.

This weekend’s returning Singapore Grand Prix is set to be an emotional one for the retiring Sebastian Vettel, with his most recent and likely final Formula 1 victory having come at the Marina Bay Circuit in 2019.

It’s crazy to think that Vettel was the winner the last time the championship visited the Asian country, demonstrating just how fast time flies at the pinnacle of motorsport. Vettel’s famous race-winning strategy at the most recent race in Singapore will forever be a “fantastic” memory for the German, who will thankfully get one final race at a circuit he has “always loved”.

The race hasn’t featured since 2019 following the Coronavirus pandemic; however, whilst a victory is incredibly unlikely, the four-time World Champion does think his AMR22 “should perform better” at the demanding venue.

“I have many fantastic memories of racing at Singapore – I have always loved the challenge that the track provides. It is a proper street circuit – totally relentless, with corner after corner, and some incredibly fast sections. Getting on top of that challenge is incredibly satisfying – especially in qualifying. We should perform better here this weekend due to our car’s strengths in slower-speed corners.”

Singapore challenge something Lance Stroll “enjoys”

Lance Stroll heads into this weekend’s returning Singapore GP having retired at the recent Italian Grand Prix, along with his Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team partner Vettel.

Yuki Tsunoda heads into his first ever Singapore Grand Prix having signed a contract extension with Scuderia AlphaTauri for 2023, meaning the Japanese driver can “focus only on the race weekend”.

It doesn’t come as a shock that the Faenza-based team opted to give Tsunoda a contract for a third season in the series, especially given that it’s currently difficult to pinpoint which Red Bull Junior driver will be the next to earn a promotion to the pinnacle of motorsport.

The young driver is “very happy” for the news of his contract extension to have been announced, even though, he states he was “fairly confident” he wouldn’t be dropped.

“I am very happy that my contract has been extended for another season. It was confirmed to me a short while ago, a few days before the announcement last week. I was fairly confident that I would be staying, but there was a bit of stress until it was confirmed, obviously that doesn’t bother you when you’re in the car, but off-track you do think about it a bit. So, I can head into Singapore and Japan with none of these worries, allowing me to focus only on the race weekend and my preparations – I’m excited!

This weekend’s returning race at the Marina Bay Circuit presents a new challenge for Tsunoda, with the AlphaTauri driver having never driven the circuit in-person before.

With the deadline to apply for the 2023 Dakar Rally only a month away, Russian and Belarusian teams are faced with either condemning the former country’s invasion of Ukraine, in compliance with FIA policy, or sitting out the race entirely. In a very unsurprising move, KAMAZ-master announced Wednesday that they have refused to sign the FIA’s documentation, which entailed prohibiting Russo-Belarusian competitors from displaying their nation’s flags and standing in solidarity with Ukraine.

With the nineteen-time Truck category winners out of the picture, the class will be won by a team besides KAMAZ for the first time since IVECO in 2016.

Parent company KAMAZ is partly owned by the Russian government via state-run defence conglomerate Rostec and builds vehicles for the Russian military like personnel transporters, MRAPs, and armoured cargo trucks. Such vehicles have seen heavy action in Ukraine, with many also being captured by Ukrainian forces for their own use. The manufacturer became subject to sanctions just two days after the invasion began while Daimler suspended its partnership with KAMAZ; by June, the company’s exports had tanked from a lack of foreign investment to the point where domestic sales had to be boosted.

The penalties also impacted KAMAZ-master, who had to sell off some of their race-winning trucks and begin developing parts in their hometown of Naberezhnye Chelny. Outside backers like Red Bull withdrew their aid and was replaced by state-owned oil company PJSC Gazprom; while Gazprom has also been sanctioned by the West, Europe’s heavy dependence on its products have triggered a gas crisis throughout the continent.

While KAMAZ has continued racing in the Russian Rally-Raid Championship, drivers Dmitry Sotnikov and Eduard Nikolaev stated in July the team would continue with their programme as if Dakar was still on their schedule. In early September, team owner Vladimir Chagin said he was negotiating with the Amaury Sport Organisation to let them take part, though Wednesday’s announcement gives the obvious indicator that such talks had fallen through.