Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team’s Sebastian Vettel earned a point at the Hungarian Grand Prix, going from eighteenth up to tenth after a solid race and the potential for a greater return. 

Vettel said that ninth place was in his sights near the end of the race after switching places with team-mate Lance Stroll, but ultimately wasn’t able to catch Esteban Ocon for the position with the Virtual Safety Car hindering his prospects. He ended up just over a tenth behind Ocon, narrowly missing an additional point.  

“We had to fight hard for a point today and we came close to a second point when I was chasing down Esteban [Ocon] in the final laps. The team switched cars because I had a better opportunity to catch Esteban, but obviously the Virtual Safety Car hurt us and we ran out of time. I was very close on the final lap, but I needed just one more corner to make a move.”

Vettel enjoyed the race overall, having had good pace at the Hungaroring. He did, however, struggle with his second set of tyres, which were used mediums. 

Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Vettel said that improving the team’s qualifying needs to be a priority after summer break.

For the first time since serving a suspension to begin the 2015 NASCAR Cup Series season, Kurt Busch will skip three straight races. Due to the concussion-like symptoms sustained in his Pocono qualifying crash, he has not been medically cleared to return to action.

Ty Gibbs remains the substitute driver of the #45 Toyota Camry for 23XI Racing. The Xfinity Series regular finished sixteenth in his Cup début at Pocono and seventeenth last Sunday at Indianapolis. He placed thirteenth in his maiden Xfinity start at Michigan in 2021 and won that year’s ARCA Menards Series race there.

“While I am continuing to make improvements every day and can’t wait to get back in the #45 Monster Energy Toyota Camry TRD, I have yet to be cleared to return to competition and will not be participating in the NASCAR Cup Series race this weekend at Michigan International Speedway,” Busch posted on Wednesday. “I know Ty will continue to do a great job representing 23XI and the #45 Monster Energy team in Michigan.

“I am working hard to get back to 100% and it’s my hope to be back in the car at Richmond Raceway. Thanks to everyone for the continued support and I look forward to being back on track soon.”

Due to the missed races, Busch dropped from fourteenth in the standings to eighteenth, though a waiver and his Kansas victory in May assure him a playoff spot.

After years of trying, Elfyn Evans finally made it to the top step of the podium at last years Rally Finland, for 2022 the Welshman is looking to break out of the shadow of his teammate Kalle Rovenperä, who has taken five out of seven victories this season.

Evans heads in to the weekend sitting in third place in the drivers’ championship with 79 points, just 13 points behind Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, but 96 points behind his teammate Rovenperä.

2022 hasn’t been a bad year for Evans, he has taken home three second-place finishes and shown impressive pace, unfortunately his TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team teammate has been unstoppable in the new generation of WRC cars. For Finland Evans is hoping to build on the momentum of his second place finish in Estonia.

“Finland is definitely one of my favourite rallies on the calendar, if not my favourite, and I’m really looking forward to it,” said Evans.

“There’s not many places where you have the same sensation driving a car as you do in Finland, so it’s always a highlight and to win there last year was something very special.

It was a London E-Prix to forget for Jaguar TCS Racing, especially with Mitch Evans‘ Drivers’ Championship hopes effectively going up in flames.

Evans recovered from fourteenth to fourth at the ExCeL Centre, before a technical issue with just a few minutes remaining saw the New Zealander retire from the race. It resulted in championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne inheriting fourth, and a thirty-six point lead in the standings.

On the other side of the garage, Sam Bird managed to rescue some points for the team, who remain fourth in Constructors’ Championship.

Team Principal James Barclay labelled Evans’ retirement as “cruel”, but insists the team will “fight until the very end.

“That was an unfortunate and cruel end to the race for Mitch and the team. He had shown phenomenal pace and race craft to fight all the way up to fourth and on the brink of a podium finish. Unfortunately, we had to retire the car with a technical issue and it’s a real shame that we couldn’t capitalise on the great position we had got ourselves into. Sam put in another fantastic race performance today to secure points.

Mitch Evans was on the verge of closing the gap to Stoffel Vandoorne in the Drivers’ Championship, until the New Zealander suffered heartbreak at the London E-Prix.

The Jaguar TCS Racing driver had worked his way up from fourteenth-place to fourth, after overtaking at a circuit where it was supposedly impossible to do so. Whilst Evans wasn’t set to close the gap by much as championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne was in fifth, it would’ve been something beneficial to take into the season finale.

Instead, Evans saw the gap increase to thirty-six points, after his car shut down with just two minutes remaining. Fans watched on as Evans’ car crawled to a halt, as Vandoorne inherited fourth-place and a healthy championship lead.

Evans was understandably distraught after the race, where he struggled to find the words to explain his Sunday afternoon.

“It’s hard to put this one into words. It was a huge race after a difficult qualifying and we were able to put ourselves P4 after starting P14. It was a faultless race, really aggressive with the overtaking and a perfect strategy from the team with my ATTACK MODES. We were set to score a lot of points but we had a technical issue with a few laps to go, which is heartbreaking for everyone in the team. Stoffel (Vandoorne) now has quite a large points advantage but we’re not giving up.”

The BWT Alpine F1 Team scored points with both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon during Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, even though they were forced to use a strategy that was far from ideal.

Alonso ended eighth at the Hungaroring for an eighth consecutive race, but he was forced to use the unfavoured Hard compound for his second stint, a tyre that did not work as well as Pirelli had hoped.

The Spaniard revealed Alpine had no choice but to adopt this strategy due to a lack of available medium tyres, and they committed to making only one-stop during the race, a decision that ensured the team kept ahead of the McLaren F1 Team in the Constructors’ Championship.

“It was hard racing today and we are pleased to come away with a double points finish,” said Alonso. “We managed to avoid cars at a busy Turn 1 on lap one and we lost some positions.

“After that, we concentrated mostly on our race pace and we wanted to make the one-stop strategy work on the Hard tyres. We didn’t have two Medium compounds to choose from for the race and instead we maximised our tyre choice for Saturday’s Qualifying.

Alexander Albon will remain with Williams Racing for the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season and beyond after signing a new multi-year contract with the Grove-based team.

Having sat out racing in 2021 after losing his drive within the Red Bull Racing team, the Thai driver joined Williams ahead of the 2022 season and has scored all three of their points so far this year thanks to a tenth place in the Australian Grand Prix and ninth in the Miami Grand Prix.

And Albon is delighted to be able to commit his future with the team after impressing sufficiently in the opening half of the 2022 campaign that has seen him outqualify and outrace regularly team-mate Nicholas Latifi.

“It’s really exciting to be staying with Williams Racing for 2023 and I look forward to seeing what we can achieve as a team in the remainder of this season and next year,” said Albon.

“The team is pushing hard to progress, and I am really motivated to continue this journey and further develop our learnings together.”

Trans-Am Series TA2 driver Connor Mosack is back for another NASCAR Xfinity Series start, this time entering the Watkins Glen International race on 20 August. He will drive the #26 Toyota GR Supra for Sam Hunt Racing in what will be his second start.

“I’m really excited for the opportunity to race with Sam Hunt Racing this year at Watkins Glen,” Mosack stated. “Sam has a great group of guys, and I’m looking forward to working with them. My goal going into the race is to come out with a top-ten finish. Sam has competitive cars and if we can stay out of trouble in the race, I think we will be in a good spot at the end.”

Driving for TeamSLR in Trans-Am, Mosack sits third in the TA2 standings after eight rounds. He leads the class in poles with three at Charlotte, Road Atlanta, and Mid-Ohio, while his best finish is second at Charlotte. He finished third in the 2021 standings with a win at Watkins Glen, and will get additional track time there before the Xfinity event as Trans-Am visits the New York road course on 7–11 September.

While primarily a sports car driver, Mosack’s career began in stock cars as a late model driver. In 2021, he began part-time competition in the ARCA Menards Series with all eight starts to date coming on ovals. He has run six races in 2022 for Bret Holmes Racing and scored top tens in each with a best run of third at Iowa.

In June, he made his Xfinity début as a road course ringer for Joe Gibbs Racing at Portland, but was involved in a late crash and classified twenty-eighth after starting eighth. A month later, he entered the Camping World Truck Series event at Mid-Ohio for BHR, only to once again retire as his brakes failed and placed thirty-fourth.

The Dakar Rally serves as the ultimate challenge for many rally raid competitors, and the past week saw many of them go one step closer towards their dreams as the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) sent out acceptance letters to those they deem worthy of competing in the 2023 edition. Besides returning faces and defending winners, many amateur riders will get the chance to run the rally for the first time.

Unlike their four-wheeled counterparts, Bike and Quad riders become eligible through a selection process that includes filling out a questionnaire, which details their participation in FIM-sanctioned world championships and races that fall under the Road to Dakar banner, and a dossier on themselves. Such files were to be submitted by 22 July, and approval letters for amateurs began going out a week later. As part of increasing safety and consequently difficulty in qualifying, the ASO and FIM convened in July and agreed to “allow only experienced riders to participate”.

A multitude of riders who received the letters are newcomers, ranging from those like Tomás de Gavardo who wishes to continue the family legacy to those with experience in World Rally-Raid Championship events like Kyle McCoy, Mathieu Troquier, and Fabio Lottero.

Gavardo is the son of the late Carlo de Gavardo, the first Dakar rider from Chile and a multi-time national enduro champion who finished third overall in the 2001 edition. The younger Gavardo will race for BAS World, the Dutch arm of KTM’s factory programme. He won the FIM Junior Bajas World Cup in 2019.

“I am super happy to be able to announce my participation in the Dakar 2023,” Gavardo told El Deportivo. “In recent times, ASO had said that it was going to lower the quotas for enrollees. I was a little afraid that I would not be accepted, but I can already confirm that I will be in Arabia at the end of this year to run my first Dakar, at the age of 23. It’s a dream, I’m super happy and super grateful for the opportunity I’m being given.

McLaren F1 Team Principal Andreas Seidl said that Lando Norris maximized his position to take seventh at the Hungarian Grand Prix, finishing behind only the top three teams. He was pleased to see their recent upgrade placed them ahead of their main rival in the standings, BWT Alpine F1 Team, when it comes to pace at the Hungaroring.

“With all six cars from the top three teams finishing the race, P7 was the best we could achieve today – and we did it. The upgrade we introduced at Paul Ricard – and improved our understanding of here – put us into position to be the fourth fastest team, which is a great achievement.” 

Seidl said that despite running essentially the same tyre strategy on both cars, Daniel Ricciardo ended up struggling after his second stop on the hard tyres, a compound that ended up being difficult for other teams on the grid as well. Ultimately, Ricciardo’s race ended out of the points in fifteenth after starting ninth. 

“Lando executed a clean race today to take that seventh place but with the same strategy on Daniel’s side, we struggled to generate grip in the final stint on the Hard tyre and he fell out of the points.”

Seidl said that Ricciardo’s relative struggle with the hard tyre is worth reviewing as the team enters summer break, and he looks forward to some rest before the final half of the season, in which McLaren will likely be battling Alpine for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. McLaren is currently just four points behind Alpine, a close fight that Seidl expects to be “thrilling”. 

After a stellar qualifying result of fourth place, McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris ended up taking seventh place at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Though he would have wanted to finish higher up the grid, Norris admitted that his McLaren didn’t have the performance to stay ahead of the likes of Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team. 

“P7, happy with that. After yesterday, of course we’d all wished for a bit more, but we just didn’t have the pace today with the quicker cars behind. We just did an extremely good job yesterday. I’m happy with it, it’s the maximum we could do today with the cars ahead. 

Norris said that seventh place was likely the best possible result for the team this weekend, behind only the leading teams and ahead of their main competition, BWT Alpine F1 Team. The result sees McLaren sit just four points behind Alpine in the battle for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. 

“Tough in places but seventh was the best we could have done for the points today, and we were ahead of our rivals.”

“Unfortunately, there were more lows than highs” – Daniel Ricciardo

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo slid back from his ninth place starting position to finish the Hungarian Grand Prix in fifteenth, as a chain of unfortunate moments saw the Australian driver fall out of the points. 

Bristol Motor Speedway is a legendary facility known for NASCAR, but it has occasionally welcomed non-pavement disciplines like dirt and even rallycross. On 3/4 September, BMS will add the Stadium Super Trucks as part of YouTube personality Cleetus McFarland‘s Bristol 1000 weekend. As of this article’s publishing, the trucks are scheduled to race following Bristol 1000 qualifying on Sunday.

McFarland revealed the invitation in a video posted to his second YouTube channel on Tuesday. He is competing in this weekend’s Music City Grand Prix with the trucks in what will be his second career start.

“We have locked in our deal with Super Stadium Trucks,” said McFarland. “As if racing cars at Bristol wasn’t going to be crazy enough, on September 3rd we have the best burnout contest the United States has ever seen guaranteed, and then Sunday, September 4th, amidst a Bristol 1000 Crown Vic race with thirty of your favourite YouTubers driving Crown Vics, we will have Super Stadium Trucks racing with Robby Gordon.”

An automotive YouTuber with nearly three million subscribers on his main channel, McFarland made his SST début at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in April. After finishing tenth in the first race, he was only meters away from winning the second event before he tried to correct his truck mid-air and spun out upon landing, causing him to hit the wall and lose the win to Gordon.

While short course off-road trucks are certainly a new face for Bristol, the Tennessee short track is no stranger to off-road racing. In 2013, Red Bull Global Rallycross raced on a course that began on the backstretch pit lane and swept through the two oval corners before cutting through the infield then rejoining the oval. The circuit mostly retained its concrete surface save for a dirt section on the oval’s frontstretch.

Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen head in to this weeks Rally Finland flying high from back-to-back victories in the last two rallies. The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team driver currently leads the FIA World Championship after taking an impressive five victories from seven events so far this season.

Rovenperä goes into the weekend with an impressive 83-point lead, with his nearest challenger Thierry Neuville having taken only two podium finishes so far this season.

“Rally Finland is of course a very special event for us, but I try to treat it and enjoy it just like any other,” said the Flying Finn. “I don’t feel so much pressure, because after our wins this year I don’t think we have anything to prove.

“Of course, we will have great support from the fans and I would like to try and win it for them if we can. Last year it was not so easy for us so we will try to do a better job this time: We just need to prepare a bit better in the test to make sure we have a good setup and feel comfortable, and then I think we can be fast and really enjoy the weekend.”

“I’m sure there will be a lot of support for Kalle after his performances this year, and I know how that can give you a boost on your home event.” added Toyota Team Principal Jari-Matti Latvala.

ROKiT Venturi Racing sit thirty-five points behind the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team following the London E-Prix, where Lucas Di Grassi rescued a much needed victory for the team.

After Race One, where Di Grassi was forced to start from last after having all of his Qualifying times deleted, Venturi desperately needed some points. Especially with Edoardo Mortara failing to finish in the top ten on Saturday also. Di Grassi rescued a small number of points for the team in Race One, after overcoming his last-place start for supposedly impeding others during Qualifying.

The Brazilian lined-up in second-place for Race Two, where he managed to find his way past Jake Dennis late-on and breakaway to secure a well-deserved victory. It was some vital points for the side, with championship contender Mortara failing to finish in the points yet again in Race Two.

Team Principal Jérôme D’Ambrosio was delighted after the second race, where he shared just how “proud” he was of his whole team.

“It was a fantastic race today – awesome drives in qualifying and the race from Lucas to achieve this first, and well deserved, win with the team. Unfortunately, it didn’t go Edo’s way today, but that’s Formula E and I have no doubt that he will come back fighting in Seoul. Most of all though, I am incredibly proud of the team – yesterday was a very difficult day and today we showed once again what we’re made of. We won’t stop fighting until it’s over.”

Lucas Di Grassi claimed a brilliant victory at Race Two of the London E-Prix on Sunday, following on from a difficult Race One on Saturday. The Brazilian driver started second-place for Race Two, alongside Race One winner Jake Dennis.

Di Grassi sat behind for the first half of the race, before making his way past the Brit during the pair taking their various attack modes. Once in the lead, the ROKIT Venturi Racing driver pulled away, to claim a thoroughly deserved victory. The thirty-seven-year-old was elated after the race, the complete opposite of what he was like after Race One.

On Saturday, Di Grassi was made to start from last-place, after having all of his lap-times deleted for impeding other drivers. It was one of the most bizarre penalties ever seen in motorsport, which understandably left the Brazilian furious.

After the race on Sunday, Di Grassi explained how he “deserved” the win, after what happened on Saturday.

“This result means everything to me. I had a great battle with Jake [Dennis] and from start to finish, the race was very strategic. I think we timed our Attack Modes perfectly and that allowed us to build a good energy buffer and then, when the time was right, I was able to spend the energy, open a gap and then hold the lead from there.