Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Frédéric Vasseur admits Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN wanted more from the Belgian and Dutch Grand Prix weekends, but they are focused on getting the most out of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

Alfa Romeo are celebrating their home Grand Prix this weekend at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, but they go into the event having failed to score points in any of the past six Grand Prix, the last top ten finish coming in the Canadian Grand Prix back in June.

Vasseur, the Team Principal at Alfa Romeo, feels the Monza track should see Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu be more competitive than they have been in recent races, and they will be looking to break their pointless run on Sunday afternoon.

“We head to Monza this week for the final part of the triple-header and, more importantly, for our home race,” said Vasseur.  

“It’s been an intense and challenging two weeks of racing so far, and there’s no denying we wanted more from Spa and Zandvoort, but we return to Italy with confidence, motivated to do well in front of our home supporters and a big contingent of our staff, who will be on the grandstands.

Valtteri Bottas is looking to get Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season back on track this weekend at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

The Finn has failed to score points in any of the past six Grand Prix, with his pointless run stretching back to the Canadian Grand Prix in June, where he finished seventh.

Bottas feels Monza is one of the more ‘iconic’ tracks on the Formula 1 calendar, and he enjoyed a positive 2021 event during his final year with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team where he won the Sprint Race and taking a podium in the main race despite starting at the back of the field following a grid penalty.

And the ten-time race winner hopes Alfa Romeo can make a step forward this weekend in Italy and challenge for the points on Sunday afternoon.

“I am looking forward to racing again after two unlucky weekends: of course, this weekend is a home race for the team and for our title partner, Alfa Romeo, which makes it even more special,” said Bottas.

Sebastian Vettel is preparing for his final Italian Grand Prix this weekend, one which will fill the four-time World Champions with “all the emotions”.

The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team driver claimed his first ever victory in Formula 1 at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, back in 2008 whilst driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso. This weekend will be full of memories for the German driver, who actually won’t be behind the wheel of his AMR22 until Friday afternoon.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team Reserve driver Nyck de Vries will take Vettel’s place Friday morning, in one of Aston Martin’s two young driver sessions.

Vettel can’t wait to “feel every moment” in front of the incredible Tifosi this weekend, who still shower the former Scuderia Ferrari driver with an unimaginable amount of love.

“I will feel all the emotions when I arrive at Monza – the track where I took my very first F1 win – for one final time. I have always loved the unique feel of the circuit and the challenge it provides, as well as the energy from the fans. I will feel every moment of that intensity this time. The influence and characteristics of this year’s ground effect cars should be interesting – I hope that we see more action at what is typically a tough track for overtaking.”

Max Verstappen arrives at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza this weekend on the back of four consecutive FIA Formula 1 World Championship race victories, although he has yet to win this event during his career.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver has come back from the summer break in supreme form by taking wins in both the Belgian and Dutch Grand Prix having gone into the summer with victories in France and Hungary.

Verstappen, who holds a one-hundred-and-nine-point advantage in the Drivers’ Championship heading to Italy, expects Red Bull to have a positive weekend at Monza after proving themselves to be quick on the straights in 2022.

“I’m really looking forward to Monza,” said Verstappen.  “If you look at the year so far, we have been quick on the straights and I think it’s going to be the same around this weekend.

“There’s a lot of history there as well, it’s an amazing track with an incredible atmosphere. You only need to look at their support of Ferrari to see how passionate the Italian fans are for racing.

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team came agonisingly close to their first victory of the season at last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix; however, it wasn’t to be, they are therefore aiming to finally end their winless streak at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

It was a very strong weekend at Zandvoort for Mercedes, but Qualifying cost them come Sunday. George Russell finished second at the Dutch venue, equalling his best ever result in Formula 1. Lewis Hamilton finished fourth, despite having been in the lead with only a handful of laps remaining.

Team Principal Toto Wolff reflected on the team’s performance last weekend, one he labels as “fantastic”.

“We didn’t have the fastest car across the Dutch GP weekend, but the team did a fantastic job putting us in the mix to win the race and we need to ensure we’re in that position on a more regular basis.
 
“We took some risks in Zandvoort and not all of them worked; we exist to fight for victories and will never shy away from making bold decisions. We scored good points in our chase for P2 in the championship and it was fun to be back in the fight. Through everyone’s hard work, we’re edging closer to that first win of the season.”

The Austrian had some strong words, though, after the team were faced with a barrage of abuse, mainly from Hamilton fans. The seven-time World Champion was a sitting duck in the race’s closing stages, after being on tyres much poorer than the rest of the top four. Abuse has been a huge problem amongst the Formula 1 community this season, with Mercedes, Oracle Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri having all been on the receiving end of it following the recent race.

Twenty-six years after the NASCAR Cup Series last raced at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the series will return in 2023. On Wednesday, Speedway Motorsports and NASCAR announced the NASCAR All-Star Race will move to the North Carolina track to celebrate NASCAR’s seventy-fifth anniversary and consummate the decades-long effort to restore the historic facility. The race will take place on 21 May 2023.

“North Wilkesboro Speedway boasts a winners list that features the true giants of our sport, and next year, another great will be added as the NASCAR Cup Series stars once again race at this historic facility,” NASCAR chief operating officer Steve O’Donnell stated. “As part of our seventy-fifth anniversary season, we are excited to return to the roots of the sport for the NASCAR All-Star Race. This will be a can’t-miss event as we honor our past and look forward to the future.”

The .625-mile (1.006 km) North Wilkesboro was on the Cup Series calendar from the inaugural season in 1949 to 1996. Despite being a charter track and fan favourite, it was taken off the schedule as NASCAR’s 1990s nationwide boom prompted Speedway Motorsports, who purchased the track in 1995, to move the date to Texas Motor Speedway. Ironically, the All-Star Race had been at Texas for the past two years, where it was met with generally negative reception from fans.

The track was immediately closed after the 1996 races and fell into disrepair as SMI appeared reluctant to revisit it. Attempts to revive the speedway led to late model races in 2010 and 2011 before it fell silent once more.

After another decade of seemingly fruitless endeavours by fans, a light was spotted at the end of the tunnel. In 2020, led by Dale Earnhardt Jr., the track was scanned into iRacing and used as the final stop for that year’s eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series. The following year, the state of North Carolina received an $40 million allocation from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief American Rescue Plan to be used in renovating the state’s three major speedways (North Wilkesboro, Charlotte Motor Speedway, and Rockingham Speedway). $18 million went towards North Wilkesboro and Wilkes County for infrastructure improvement, getting the ball rolling.

Brett Moffitt went from having no NASCAR ride to two in one weekend. A day after announcing he would enter Friday’s Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway for AM Racing, he added the following day’s Xfinity Series event there with SS-Green Light Racing. He will drive the #07 Ford Mustang.

Moffitt had been running the full Xfinity schedule for Our Motorsports before being booted from the team after Indianapolis in July due to a lack of funding. He did not run any races in August or the Darlington weekend to kick off September. At the time of his exit, he was sixteenth in points with four top tens.

“I’ve been anxious to get back in a Xfinity car this year, especially at a track like Kansas,” said Moffitt. “I finished in the top ten the past couple of times the Xfinity Series has raced there, so hopefully we can build off that.”

The start with SSGLR will be his first in a Ford since his 2015 Cup Series Rookie of the Year campaign with Front Row Motorsports.

Moffitt has enjoyed success at Kansas in the Trucks, winning the second race in 2020 after placing second in the first. He also scored top tens in his two latest Xfinity starts there in 2020 and 2021. The 2020 run came with Joe Williams as crew chief before he moved to the SSGLR #07.

Venezuelan driver Alessandro Famularo will get behind the wheel of the #15 Charouz Racing System car this weekend, in the final weekend of the FIA Formula 3 season at Monza.

Famularo is the fifth driver to occupy the car this season, as he replaces David Schumacher, who filled the Charouz seat in Zandvoort in round eight.

The nineteen-year-old hasn’t raced in a single-seater series since taking part in the Formula Regional European Championship for three races at the beginning of 2021. 

Charouz has only managed to score one point this season, so Famularo will be keen to do what many could not before him and get points on the board for his team.

Famularo outlined his expectations ahead of the weekend, “The aim for this weekend will be to gain experience and learn the maximum possible. I’m really excited about this and I can’t wait to go out there and drive, especially at a beautiful track like Monza.”

Kevin Harvick was anything but happy when his car suddenly burst into flames due to an exhaust failure during Sunday’s Southern 500, prompting him to call out the Next Gen car’s “crappy-ass parts.” In response to such criticisms and safety concerns, NASCAR will allow Cup Series teams to install intumescent coatings along the cars’ underside lower crush panels, exhaust cover panels, right-side stop panel, and upper rocker box surface. It is not required and teams may opt against using it if they feel otherwise.

According to the Society for Protective Coatings’ 2011 Protective Coatings Glossary, an intumescent coating is a “fire-retardant coating that when heated forms a foam produced by nonflammable gases, such as carbon dioxide and ammonia. This results in a thick, highly insulating layer of carbon (about 50 times as thick as the original coating) that serves to protect the coated substrate from fire.” Such paints are used to protect steel parts from igniting; while steel is a powerful metal, it can be damaged by exposure to extreme heat like flames.

The coatings must meet the SFI Foundation’s Specification 54.1 regarding “Non Flammable, Thermal Barrier / Fire Extinguishing Coatings”, such as TEMPROTEX’s coating that is frequently utilised in NHRA.

While the paint is optional, NASCAR will require teams to install a lateral seal/dam between the back of the front clip weight box and the top of the splitter panel; the seal is intended to keep debris created by flat tyres from entering the splitter and causing further damage. Teams are also obliged to modify the right-side back stop panel by replacing it with a fourteen-gauge steel panel.

Other changes include expanding clearance between the exhaust and rocker box floor.

Scuderia AlphaTauri will look to bounce back after a disappointing race at Zandvoort in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship as Formula 1 heads to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix this weekend.

Pierre Gasly has not had the season he would have wanted with the team’s point tally below expectations. AlphaTauri are lacking in performance compared to other cars around them, and that showed at the Dutch GP with the Frenchman finishing eleventh and his teammate having to retire from the race prematurely.

Gasly is hoping AlphaTauri can pick up form after a tough weekend and rekindle some of the magic from his win at Monza two years ago.

“Zandvoort was a tough weekend. We made some progress with the car going into Qualifying, but in the race, I didn’t really have the pace to fight with our usual rivals, especially after dropping a place at the start and running in traffic. However, we learned some useful lessons, so I’m approaching this last race in Europe, our home race, in a positive frame of mind.”
 
“Monza is close to home for me, and for the rest of my career, this race will always be very, very special for me. There’s a different feeling going there, not just because it’s a home race for the whole team. The energy and the atmosphere there is incredible for everyone in the team. We must come to the track with the drive and mentality to go and chase points.“

“Whether that will be easy or difficult with the car we have, there will always be some opportunities and we must maximise the potential we have. If we do a good job, we can transform that into good results. We have to stay positive and look ahead. “

When the five red lights go out at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday, Fernando Alonso will equal Kimi Räikkönen’s FIA Formula 1 World Championship record of the most race starts as the Spaniard is set to start his three-hundred and forty-ninth race in his Formula 1 career at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. Ahead of equalling the record, Alonso has said that his mind wont be on the record and instead firmly focused on the racing.

Alonso comes into the weekend’s action after a remarkable drive at the Dutch Grand Prix which saw the BWT Alpine F1 Team driver come back from a thirteenth-place starting position to achieve a sixth-place finish.

The two-time world champion has enjoyed a successful season to date with the Enstone-based team, on just four separate occasions this season Alonso has failed to finish in a points-paying position, with the most recent occasion being an eleventh-place finish at the Miami Grand Prix.

The Alpine driver was keen to state that the support he receives from the Tifosi, mixed with his two previous victories around Monza, provide him with a special feeling heading into the weekend’s action.

“Monza is one of the most historic places to go racing in Formula 1. On this triple header we go from the Dutch atmosphere in Zandvoort to the passion of the Tifosi in Monza, so it’s pretty special.

With BWT Alpine F1 Team further strengthening their grip on fourth place in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Constructors’ Standings last time out in Zandvoort, Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer has said that the Enstone-based team will be looking to make it six consecutive double points finishes this weekend at the Italian Grand Prix.

Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso, starting twelfth and thirteenth respectively, were both able to recover from disappointing qualifying sessions to secure a fifth double points finish in a row for the Alpine team. Ocon secured a ninth-place finish while Alonso was able to pick his way through the field in an impressive manner to secure a sixth-place finish in Zandvoort.

Since the return from the summer break, Alpine has been able to break away from McLaren F1 Team in the battle for fourth in the Constructors’ Standings, while McLaren has struggled to find race pace, Alpine has been able to string together impressive finishes in both Belgium and the Netherlands to grow their lead over McLaren to twenty-four points.

Szafnauer was complimentary to the team’s performances since the return from the summer break, stating that even when the team isn’t performing at its best, such as qualifying at Zandvoort, the team has been able to rectify any issues they have faced. Szafnauer is looking for a strong result in Monza to round off what has proved to be a successful European stint of the season.

“The Netherlands was another very good race for the team with both cars converting out-of-place grid positions well into the points. It was a great race across the board where we made strong calls on strategy matched with strong racecraft from the drivers to deliver what was required. It was not a completely clean weekend – far from it – especially as our qualifying was quite uncharacteristic for a number of reasons.

Ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, Pirelli have announced that the three tyre compounds in the middle of their range have been chosen for this weekend’s FIA Formula 1 World Championship action around the famous Autodromo Nazionale Monza circuit.

The tyre manufacturers Principal Director, Mario Isola, stated that the decision had been taken to select the C2, C3 and C4 tyres due to the high speed nature of the Monza track and with the demands of the track factored in, the middle of the range tyres selected by Pirelli will attempt to minimise the occurrence of the rear tyres overheating.

“Monza is well-known for its high speeds and some fast corners where it’s important to have a car with perfect balance. This year’s tyres should lead to less overheating at the rear on a track where the cars run low downforce and often use slipstreaming to gain a tow.”

Isola was also keen to state that without a Sprint-Race featuring at this year’s Italian Grand Prix like it did last year, the team’s face heading into Sunday’s Grand Prix with less information on the Pirelli tyres, which Isola believes will lead to various strategies being chosen across the grid.

“With no sprint race in Monza this year, the teams will head into the grand prix with a bit less information than last time, which means that the strategic approach will be somewhat different.”

X44 will have a title sponsor for the first time INT the form of Vida Carbon, branding the team X44 Vida Carbon Racing beginning with the upcoming Extreme E round in Antofagasta on 24/25 September.

Vida Carbon is a Canadian investment firm specialising in carbon credit, which is a permit for a given party to emit a certain amount of carbon (a single carbon credit is worth a tonne of greenhouse gas). The company currently oversees four carbon credit projects like providing high efficiency stoves in Ghana and India, REDD+ (“Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation”) conservation in the Amazon, and improving rice farming irrigation in Telangana.

“Around the world, we are all feeling the direct impacts of climate change,” said Vida Carbon executive chairman Jamie Keech. “Traditional motorsports have long been associated with having a negative impact on the environment, and though many series are taking encouraging steps towards a more sustainable future, Extreme E is unique in the way it approaches this issue. Our partnership with X44 is proof that sustainable practices and a net zero future are possible. Vida Carbon and X44 are working towards that future.”

The team first partnered with Vida Carbon at the Island X Prix in Sardinia in July, where the company’s name appeared on the windshield banner as part of a redesigned livery. With Sébastien Loeb and Cristina Gutiérrez piloting the #44, X44 finished sixth and second in the doubleheader’s two classifications.

While it is to be expected that a business keen on environmental improvement would want to invest into a series like Extreme E, X44 owner Lewis Hamilton has also been a champion of such causes.

The Baja 400 on 13/14 September will see the début of VatosLokos Racing, a new team competing in the Pro Stock UTV category. Dennis Romero will pilot the #3943 Can-Am Maverick X3 for the team with Oscar Ibarra, Walter D’Agostini, and Mauricio Obrador as team-mates.

VatosLokos (Spanish for “crazy dudes”) revealed their entry and livery for the 400 last week. The first pre-run took place on Tuesday, two days after such sessions were permitted by SCORE International between Route Miles 33.14 and 364.12.

Romero is relatively new to desert racing, though he is more than familiar with off-roading. The Ecuadorian competes in rallying throughout the Americas such as the American Rally Association, Argentinan Championship, and NASA Rally Sport‘s Atlantic Rally Cup. In 2017, he won the ARA’s Production 4WD title.

“I am pleased to present this new project for September! I will be competing in ‘BAJA400 by VP Racing Fuels’, one of the most famous off road competitions in the world,” Romero posted on social media. “The BAJA 400 is a 400-mile off-road car competition in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. We will form a team with my co driver Oscar Ibarra and Walter D’Agostini and Mauricio Obrador to face this tough and long competition.

“Our team VatosLokos Racing, and together with sponsors we will form the team on top of the Can Am Maverick X3.