Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The JC Raceteknik squad had a perfect weekend at the World RX of Norway in Hell as the young Norwegian talent Sondre Evjen claimed a second place finish in the FIA European Rallycross Championship for RX1 behind the reigning Euro RX champion Andreas Bakkerud, making it a 1-2 for the home crowd.

Evjen who pilots a similar EKS built Audi S1 EKS RX Quattro as Bakkerud, has been a front-runner in the 2022 RallyX Nordic series with the car and during the weekend he showed some promising results by posting sixth fastest time in the heats and was ranked seventh as he got stucked in traffic in some of the races.

Evjen explained his frustration about the early races as: “a tough start at the beginning of the weekend and we had a hard fight all weekend.” Later in the Progression Race and also in the Semi-Final, Evjen managed to finish in second place to secure a spot in the five-car final.

After the two Hyundai i20 drivers of Anton Marklund and Fraser McConnell had to retire from the final, Evjen only had to defend the second place from the fast charging Janis Baumanis: “It wasn’t perfect from me in the final on the gravel sections either, but we managed to hold it together to the end and to take second place at my home track is fantastic. I’m very happy with the result, the whole team has worked hard this weekend and this is a great result for them.”

Team Principal Joel Christoffersson was also pleased with the fine performance: “We had a good weekend here in Hell, it was a fantastic ending with P2 in the final, thanks to a brilliant move in the first corner. Sondre was driving very well and we had the pace all weekend but with the new race format and not being able to take the joker on the first lap we got stuck in traffic, so it was not so easy.”

When people think of NASCAR, they quickly associate it with American motorsport. Sunday’s Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International, however, will provide an international blend as six drivers each from different countries are on the grid. The weekly presence of Mexico’s Daniel Suárez already makes the Cup grid multinational, but five others will show up as road course ringers including a pair of Formula One alumni, two Cup newcomers, and a lot of success in open-wheel and sports car racing.

Perhaps the most high-profile name of the field is Kimi Räikkönen. The Finn, who dabbled in NASCAR’s lower series in 2011 four years after winning the F1 World Championship, will make his Cup début in the #91 for Trackhouse Racing Team as part of their PROJECT91, a programme intended to attract international racing stars to stock cars. While “The Iceman” will be the first of his country to race in Cup, Mika Salo tested a Cup car in 2009 while Tuomas Pöntinen became the first Finnish NASCAR winner in the Whelen Euro Series at Vallelunga in July.

Räikkönen is not the only F1 driver as Daniil Kvyat will run his second race for Team Hezeberg. The Russian, who last ran an F1 grand prix in 2020, finished thirty-sixth in his maiden NASCAR start at Indianapolis in July following a suspension failure. Kvyat is the first Russian to compete in a NASCAR national tier, while global and regional series have seen the likes of Roman Mavlanov (Euro Series) and Kosma Guznyakov (Weekly Series).

Also driving for Hezeberg is Loris Hezemans of the Netherlands. The reigning Euro Series champion, whose father Toine owns Hezeberg, has run the Cup races at COTA and Road America but failed to finish either due to mechanical trouble.

Representing Germany is Mike Rockenfeller, a DTM champion and Le Mans ace who enters his first NASCAR race. Rockenfeller is contracted to drive for Spire Motorsports at Watkins Glen followed by the Charlotte Roval in October. He is the fifth German to race in the Cup Series after Lothar Motschenbacher (1970), Rolf Stommelen and Fritz Schultz (1971), and Klaus Graf (2004).

For all the common jokes about in-laws, Austin Wayne Self is glad to have a brother-in-law willing to give him an opportunity to further his driving career. On Monday, Jordan Anderson Racing announced Self will attempt to make his NASCAR Xfinity Series début at Watkins Glen International on Saturday, driving the #32 Chevrolet Camaro.

Self’s wife Jennifer, whom he married in April 2021, is Anderson’s sister. While Self has been a Camping World Truck Series regular since 2016, 2022 proved to be more family-focused for him, having skipped multiple races to take care of his newborn daughter Zepplyn Jane.

“I am very thankful for this opportunity with Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport,” said Self. “Anyone that knows me how much I enjoy road course racing and to have the opportunity to attempt to make my Xfinity Series début driving for my wife’s brother’s team is incredibly special.

“We have to qualify for the race on speed, but I am confident with the car and crew we have put together for this race that we can have a successful debut with our #32 AM Technical Solutions Chevrolet Camaro.

“Hopefully, we can see that checkered flag wave on Saturday afternoon and give us a little momentum to hold over until the Truck Series resumes action at Kansas Speedway next month.”

Construction Equipment Dealer Team enjoyed a strong start to their 2022 FIA World Rallycross Championship campaign, but both drivers admit that there is still work to be done.

The team were the only outfit to get all of their cars into the final of the season opening round at Lånkebanen in Hell, Norway, at the weekend (13/14 August).

The gender-equal pairing of Swede Klara Andersson and Finland’s Niclas Grönholm drove valiantly to ensure that the new PWR RX1e was competitive from the beginning of the weekend right until the checkered flag dropped. Andersson was particularly ebullient, having not only debuted the car, but also making her own debut on the WorldRX stage.

Reflecting on her performance, Andersson said: “It’s been a fantastic debut for me in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. It feels absolutely amazing to finish fourth behind such merited drivers as Johan Kristoffersson and Timmy Hansen,” who are the only two drivers on the grid to have world championships under their belts (four and one respectively).

”We have shown our potential and collected valuable experience. The team have really supported me all weekend and pushed me forward. There are still some tenths to find in both me and the car, and I look forward to continuing in Riga.”

Since the inaugural season in 2021, Extreme E has forbidden fans from attending races due to their remote locations and to reduce any environmental detriment that large crowds might bring to said areas. That appears to be changing for the 2022 finale on 26–27 November as the Energy X Prix in Punta del Este, Uruguay, will reportedly intend to admit spectators.

Over the weekend, meetings took place at the José Ignacio resort by Punta del Este between Extreme E officials and representatives from Uruguay’s FIA member organisation Automovil Club del Uruguay (ACU), Energy X Prix promoter Sportlink, and local authorities of the Maldonado and nearby Montevideo Departments. The Extreme E contingent consisted of various directors and series test driver Timo Scheider; the group had travelled from Chile, where they held the same discussions ahead of the Copper X Prix in Antofagasta on 24–25 September. This was the fourth such meeting for XE in Uruguay since the Energy X Prix was announced.

On the agenda were securing media and construction rights, examining the area to determine how to design the track, and ultimately agreeing to allow attendance; the latter further entailed outlining security with cooperation from the department’s emergency and traffic departments.

Punta del Este is new to the Extreme E calendar, but previously hosted its open-wheel older sibling Formula E from 2014 to 2015 and in 2018. FE raced on a street circuit situated on the city’s harbour, which would be a completely new but uncharacteristic track if XE were to follow in those footsteps due to the series’ commitment to leaving a region as untouched as possible upon departing. Instead, while the track layout has yet to be revealed, one can assume the Energy X Prix would take place outside of town where open grass is abundant or along its beaches.

Discourse surrounding Kevin Harvick for much of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season generally questioned when he would finally win a race, which he last achieved in 2020. Now, he is suddenly a potential championship contender.

After riding a winless streak of sixty-five races, Harvick has won the last two races in a row with Michigan and Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway. He took the lead from Denny Hamlin during green-flag pit stops with forty-eight laps remaining and never surrendered it.

He faced a challenge from Chris Buescher but kept the fellow Ford at bay with help from lapped traffic, before Christopher Bell joined the picture and tried to chase him down. However, Bell’s last-ditch effort failed as Harvick held him off to secure his sixtieth career Cup win, fourth at Richmond, and first at the Virginia track since 2013.

“I thought we had fended off the #17 (Buescher) pretty well, and then they told me that the #20 was coming, and I’m like, ‘Oh man, usually when you’re coming on new tyres, there’s no defense for that,'” Harvick said in his post-race press conference. “That’s why I was a little bit frustrated with myself with the not shifting part on the front straightaway because I gave up the big chunk. It should have never been that close, just a lapse in my attention span, I guess, would be the best way to put it.”

Bell settled for second, making for a very memetic finish as numbers 4 and 20 placed 1–2. Such an order has only occurred one other time in Cup Series history with Harvick and Matt Kenseth in the 2016 Bad Boy Off Road 300 at New Hampshire.

Timmy Hansen has described finishing second in the first ever all-electric round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship as a “very good result” both for himself and the entire Hansen World RX Team, but admits there is a lot to work on as the championship progresses.

Looking back on the first outing for these cars, the 2019 world champion was very reflective: “For sure there is a lot to go home and work on, but it was a good weekend. In the semi-final and especially the final I thought inside the car I had a problem, I nearly spun a couple of times.”

Despite this, he feels the team has started very strongly, saying “through qualifying we showed really good pace, that’s so nice when we have built these cars back home in the workshop and it showed we made the right decisions and we are there fighting at the front.”

Team owner, rallycross legend Kenneth Hansen, was similarly optimistic: “I’m proud of having taken not only our team, but also world rallycross as a sport to a ground-breaking new electric era. In summary of this historic weekend we are happy that the cars worked well, we had nothing major go wrong, we are still learning a lot about the setup and of course at the end it was good with a podium for Timmy – that was very successful.”

Like all the teams in this years new RX1e class, Hansen was not totally comfortable in the car all weekend. Indeed, event winner Johan Kristoffersson went so far as to describe the weekend as “extremely disappointing” due to the amount of work that all the teams obviously still need to do to the cars.

17-year-old DTM Trophy driver, Theo Oeverhaus, will become the youngest ever DTM driver in the next round of the main series at the Nürburgring, with a guest drive as part of the Walkenhorst Motorsport team.

Oeverhaus has been a DTM Trophy driver since 2021, picking up a maiden win in his first season at Hockenheim. The German has enjoyed more success this season, currently sitting third in the drivers’ standings, notching up 76 points with a victory at the Norisring and second place at the Lausitzring.

He will partner Esteban Muth and Marco Wittmann at the Walkenhorst team, driving a BMW M4. And in doing so, taking the record for the youngest ever driver in the category from Pascal Wehrlein, who made his debut at the age of 18 in 2013.

On this opportunity Oeverhaus said: “I am really happy about this chance and the confidence from DTM to be racing as the youngest driver in history. It will be a tough weekend for me as I will be racing in DTM Trophy as well. Nevertheless, I am very much looking forward to showing how well one can progress through the ranks of the junior series BMW M2 Cup and DTM Trophy into the high-quality DTM. Huge thanks to Walkenhorst Motorsport who are supporting me both in DTM Trophy and in DTM”.

Niclas Königbauer, team manager at Walkenhorst added: “For us as a team, being able to accompany Theo from karting to DTM in such a successful way makes us proud and brings great joy. I am really curious to find out how he will do in his first GT3 sprint race. And, of course, I hope to see further young talents on the unique DTM platform and that we are allowed to be a part of the success story”.

Championship leader Anton Marklund‘s unbeaten run in this year’s FIA European Rallycross Championship has come to an end after Andreas Bakkerud secured a very popular home win at Lånkebanen in Hell.

A highly entertaining weekend was brought to a close with a scintillating final. Marklund lined up on pole alongside defending champion Bakkerud. Jamaican star Fraser McConnell, who has been delighting fans all weekend with his aggressive, no holds barred racing, started in the middle of the line, with the man currently in second place in the championship, Jānis Baumanis alongside, and finally another Norwegian, Sondre Evjen, who has had a distinctly mixed weekend, completing the grid. The crowd were expecting fireworks, and the drivers certainly delivered.

McConnell sadly got left on the line and had to retire straightaway with technical issues. Baumanis squeezed Bakkerud and Marklund on the run down to turn one, forcing Marklund off the track and over a curb, puncturing his front right tyre and causing a steering issue which dropped him out of contention. Baumanis put in a valiant effort, throwing his #YellowSquad Peugeot 208 around the track in the hunt for second place. But out front, it was all about the home favourites. Andreas Bakkerud, winner of the first ever World Rallycross Championship Grand Slam at hell back in 2016, led his compatriot Evjen home for a Norway 1-2, throwing their cars into a series of doughnuts to the delight of their fans.

For Marklund, there will be a sense of “what might have been.” The Swedish driver looked like the man to beat all weekend, setting the pace in all three Heats, and winning his Progression Race and cruising to an easy win in his Semi-Final, despite that race ending in chaos. The flag didn’t drop after five laps had been completed, so, as Marklund slowed down, Evjen stormed past and rocketed away, leaving Marklund to give chase. Once the mistake was found, however, the race win was rightly handed back to the championship leader.

If it hadn’t been for that opening lap contact, Marklund would surely have taken the fight to Bakkerud right to the line. However, as always with rallycross, it isn’t over until the checkered flag drops, meaning the Swede finishes off the podium for the first time in 2022. A strong performance as well from Baumanis will give the #YellowSquad team a boost. However, due to points now only being awarded based on finishing position in the final, the Latvian has only clawed back one point from his rival, meaning the gap to the leader is still a formidable 17 points.

Ash Sutton has a second race win of the 2022 British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season to keep himself well in the fight to defend his Drivers’ Championship following Snetterton.

In a weekend which saw Colin Turkington surge ahead in the Drivers’ Championship after a double win, Sutton kept it interesting sitting behind Turkington and Tom Ingram post Snetterton and it shows the continued improvements in the NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST.

But it could have been a different story with Dan Rowbottom making a stellar getaway and surged ahead of pole sitter Sutton into Riches but a minor mistake from the Halfords Racing with Cataclean driver allowed Sutton and Jason Plato through. The former’s issues were confounded with a lack of hybrid meaning he fell away from the chasing pack concluding the race in tenth.

With their storied history and at times no love lost, many would have been salivating at the prospect of Sutton and Plato renewing their rivalry with the latter having his best showing of the season but barring a few laps where Plato looked to be catching Sutton, he backed off which by his own admission post race was due to tyre wear and also all his hybrid being used up.

This allowed Sutton to surge away with the main battles like in the previous races happening further down. Ricky Collard was jubilant as he sealed his first podium as part of the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK squad in a frenetic final few laps which saw a superb battle with Tom Ingram.

Johan Kristoffersson has made history by becoming the first ever event winner in the new all-electric era of the FIA World Rallycross Championship. The four-time world champion looked to be in imperious form all weekend as he leaves Hell in Norway with 20 points.

The final offered some textbook Kristoffersson control, poise, and power. After an uncharacteristically poor start, the Swedish driver was sat in fourth place at the first corner. Kristoffersson’s teammate, Ole Christian Veiby, ran a touch wide, going three-abreast with Niklas Grönholm in his PWR RX1e, and a very aggressive Timmy Hansen, who attempted a daring move around the outside of all of them. Spotting this would cause a little chaos, Kristoffersson, demonstrating why he is the most successful World RX driver of them all, backed out of it, slid his car down the inside of the lot of them, and emerged out of turn 1 in first position. From there, as is so often the way, Kristoffersson proved impossible to catch, and he soared to the line to take his 28th victory in World RX.

Hansen shouldn’t be too despondent, bringing his Hansen World RX Team Peugeot 208 RX1e home in second, just ahead of the second Kristoffersson Motorsport Volkswagen Polo RX1e of Norway’s Veiby, with Klara Andersson just edging out her Construction Equipment Dealer Team teammate Grönholm in 4th.

Kristoffersson only lost two of the races he entered this whole weekend. He came a very close second to Hansen in Heat 2, and completely missed the start in his semi-final. As the other three cars screamed off the line, Kristoffersson remained stationary before eventually getting his Polo going. By the time the checkered flag dropped, however, he was back up into second position and was climbing all over the back of Veiby. If there hadn’t been a yellow flag caused by the unfortunate retirement of Rene Münnich in his Seat Ibiza RX1e, there would likely have been a daring and aggressive move up the inside of the final corner.

Ultimately, though, there was no stopping the defending champion. Speaking with characteristic confidence immediately after the race, he reasserted his dominance, saying “the first overtake of the weekend was in the final…so that was nice to be able to do that move.” Commenting on the debut for electric, he was more philosophical, saying “we still have a lot of work to do, but at the same time we are also learning [along] the way because everything is so new and faults happen. It’s just that we do those things now during the racing…but all in all it’s been good.”

It has been an eventful month for Chandler Smith. Just two weeks after son Chandler Jr. was born, the new father got to punch his ticket to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series‘  Round of 8 by dominating Saturday’s Worldwide Express 250 at Richmond Raceway. It marked his third win of the year.

He and his Toyota allies dominated the race as if to hoping to live up to its previous name ToyotaCare 250, with all 250 laps being led by Tundras. After Smith led the opening lap, pole sitter Ty Majeski cleared him for the lead and held it for the remainder of Stage #1. Smith’s Kyle Busch Motorsports team-mate and defending winner John Hunter Nemechek led a lap between stages before Smith reclaimed it. Nemechek’s 2021 victory also saw a Toyota sweep of the laps led counter.

Smith would not lose the lead at any point for the rest of the race. The 176 total laps led are the most in Smith’s Truck career by a wide margin (his previous best was 71 at Knoxville in 2021) and the third highest in a Richmond Truck race behind Ted Musgrave‘s 199 in 2005 and Jack Sprague‘s 196 in 2001.

“God is so good,” said Smith. “I’m a Daddy now. My wife had such an amazing labour and delivery. We have an amazing and beautiful baby boy at home. Honey, this is for you and Jr., this is for you as well. I can’t wait to get home to you two tonight. The blessings just keep stacking up. I have an incredible group behind me at KBM and an incredible group of partners with ChargeMe, Safelite and everybody. I’m taking this in. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it, but I’ve going to keep taking it in and giving all glory to the Lord.

“Just like I said at Media Day, if the Good Lord wants it to be our championship, then it will and if it’s not, it’s not. I like how everything is going right now for sure.”

Colin Turkington made it two from two at Snetterton as he heads into his 500th race start in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) shortly with a showcase of true race craft as another commanding victory headed the way of the four-time champion.

Turkington again finished ahead of his teammate Jake Hill with the ROKiT MB Motorsport driver having an important weekend for his title credentials but barring running side by side with him in the opening lap, the experienced driver pulled away after the initial battle.

Unlike the opening race, he only had one safety car period to contend with but remained ahead despite not getting a demon restart he usually gets. Tom Ingram again concluded the podium with the same top five keeping order with Adam Morgan and Stephen Jelley concluding proceedings.

Ricky Collard produced his best display yet on his return to the championship going up five places to sixth places and will start fourth on the reverse grid with Ash Sutton, the defending champion getting a brilliant chance of a second win of the season and to stop the BMW dominance.

He will have Dan Rowbottom and Jason Plato alongside him on the front row who finished 8th and 7th respectively and were reversed alongside him with a 650th race start coming for the latter who will look to bookend a poor final season with a race win at the expense of one of his recent rivals in Sutton.

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington converted his pole position to a lights-to-flag victory to begin Sunday’s proceedings at Snetterton as the four time BTCC champion kept his stablemate, Jake Hill at bay throughout.

Turkington’s only threat came from the race start and subsequent safety cars with Michael Crees and Aiden Moffat in strife at the start and end of the 15 lap race respectively. Hill seemingly wanted to bank points so sat behind his teammate and championship rival until towards the end when he tried for one last push to no avail.

Content with second, he held off Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com driver, Tom Ingram to complete the leading trio. The only top five change came in the form of Adam Morgan who found his way past Stephen Jelley who benefited from Jason Plato having to withstand pressure from a battle pack include Dan Cammish, Ash Sutton, Dan Rowbottom and Gordon Shedden.

With Shedden joining at the end after a brilliant undercut on Toyota GAZOO UK Racing’s Ricky Collard late on. Further down, Rory Butcher made progress into the points alongside George Gamble with both making charges from the back, the latter in the most recent race winner having issues on the formation lap which sent him to the back but he finished one place off his starting position in 16th.

2022 British Touring Car Championship – Race 1 – Snetterton

Stoffel Vandoorne is the ABB FIA Formula E World Drivers’ Champion of Season Eight, after finishing in second-place at the Seoul E-Prix season finale. Edoardo Mortara won the final race of the season after a dominant display, with Jake Dennis rounding-off the final podium of the season. Mitch Evans claimed second in the championship, after finishing seventh.

Mortara makes the perfect start

After ten cities and sixteen races it all came down to the final race of the season, Vandoorne against Evans for the Season Eight Drivers’ Championship. Vandoorne qualified fourth, with Evans in thirteenth, leaving the New Zealander with it all to do.

With António Félix Da Costa on pole, the Portuguese driver made an excellent start to the one-hundredth Formula E race; however, contact-madness pursued behind. Virtually all the drivers came to a halt due to an onslaught of contact, somehow they all made it out okay with little damage. Sérgio Sette Câmara was one of the only drivers to suffer quite a lot of damage from the incident. André Lotterer, Dan Ticktum and Oliver Rowland all retired from the race in the opening few minutes.

The race lead quickly changed, as Mortara pulled off a superb move on Da Costa to take the race lead, with Dennis following the Swiss driver through to take second. It quickly became clear that Da Costa didn’t have the pace to win, as the DS Techeetah driver dropped well behind Mortara and Dennis. In the championship fight, Vandoorne remained in fourth, whereas after twelve minutes Evans had made his way to ninth but needed to make his way to first to claim the title.

Pascal Wehrlein and Nyck de Vries became the fourth and fifth retirements of the final race of the season, after the pair collided with one another. With the conditions being completely dry, the complete opposite of Race One, gaps in the field started to rapidly appear. Mortara and Dennis created a healthy gap to those behind, with the opening lap midfield carnage having dropped the majority of the field a good distance behind the top five.