Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

In a battle between two of the must watch drivers on the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), Jake Hill and Ash Sutton produced a modern day classic in Race One at Knockhill.

Hill battled back after losing out on the second lap to Sutton who produced a superb move to pass the BMW. They remained inseparable throughout the opening laps until contact on the final hairpin on lap five.

Sutton was heavy on the breaks and Hill misjudged the move slightly and hit the Ford Focus before further contact on the next lap but a clean fight ensued on lap eight as they swapped places twice, but as the rear wheel drive BMW’s got stronger as did Hill as he got the job done to seal his second win of the season.

The Ford Focus ST held on from Colin Turkington in the end who finished on the podium ahead of Stephen Jelley with George Gamble in a return to form after a superb start to BTCC life finishing in the top five holding off championship leader Tom Ingram. Gordon Shedden, Rory Butcher, Dan Cammish and Ricky Collard finalised the top 10.

2022 British Touring Car Championship – Race 1 – Knockhill

1.       Jake HILL (GBR) ROKiT MB Motorsport 24 laps
2.       Ash SUTTON (GBR) NAPA Racing UK +3.640s
3.       Colin TURKINGTON (GBR) Team BMW +3.784s
4.       Stephen JELLEY (GBR) Team BMW +5.979s
5.       George GAMBLE (GBR) Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport +6.363s
6.       Tom INGRAM (GBR) Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com +6.933s
7.       Gordon SHEDDEN (GBR) Halfords Racing with Cataclean +13.008s
8.       Rory BUTCHER (GBR) Toyota GAZOO Racing UK +13.984s
9.       Dan CAMMISH (GBR) NAPA Racing UK +14.242s
10.     Ricky COLLARD (GBR) Toyota GAZOO Racing UK +14.381s
11.     Tom CHILTON (GBR) Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com +15.296s
12.     Bobby THOMPSON (GBR) Autobrite Direct with JourneyHero +16.210s
13.     Aiden MOFFAT (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +17.124s
14.     Adam MORGAN (GBR) Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport +18.220s
15.     Josh COOK (GBR) Rich Energy BTC Racing +21.591s
16.     Árón TAYLOR-SMITH (IRL) Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing +23.599s
17.     Sam OSBORNE (GBR) Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan +34.493s
18.     Rick PARFITT (GBR) Uptonsteel with Euro Car Parts Racing +34.803s
19.     Daniel LLOYD (GBR) Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com +36.371s
20.     Dexter PATTERSON (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +37.039s
21.     Will POWELL (GBR) Autobrite Direct with JourneyHero +41.723s
22.     Jade EDWARDS (GBR) Rich Energy BTC Racing +42.293s
23.     Ollie JACKSON (GBR) Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan +43.259s
24.     Nic HAMILTON (GBR) Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing +48.873s  
25.     Ash HAND (GBR) CarStore Power Maxed Racing +2 laps
26.     Michael CREES (GBR) CarStore Power Maxed Racing +2 laps
27.     Jason PLATO (GBR) Rich Energy BTC Racing +2 laps
28.     Daniel ROWBOTTOM (GBR) Halfords Racing with Cataclean +3 laps
29.     Jack BUTEL (GBR) Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com +19 laps

Jake Dennis sealed another London E-Prix pole position, to make it back-to-back pole positions at the ExCeL Centre. The Brit was met by an eruption of applause from the British crowd, as the experienced Lucas Di Grassi qualified alongside him. Antonio Giovinazzi was the big shock of the duels, the Italian managed to qualify in third.

However, whilst there was delight for Dennis, there was severe disappointment for all four title contenders. All four failed to make it to the duels and will start from the mid-pack, putting all at risk of opening lap carnage.

Group A

Group A saw championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne and his team-mate Nyck de Vries, Race One winner Dennis also featured in the first group. Sérgio Sette Câmara, Oliver Askew, Maximilian Günther, title challenger Edoardo Mortara, António Félix Da Costa, Oliver Rowland, Sam Bird and André Lotterer all featured in Group A.

After the first runs it was Dennis who yet again sat top of the timesheets on a mid 1:13, with Bird, Askew and Vandoorne all very close behind. After two collisions in Free Practice 3, Mortara was clearly suffering from confidence, he was last after his first run.

Mortara led the pack out for their final push-lap, knowing that he needed to put in a performance. The Swiss failed once again to make it to the duels in London; however, championship leader Vandoorne also failed to make it into the duels after a big lock-up at Turn One!

Since my last column, there’s been good and bad news on the racing front so let’s get the negative stuff out of the way first! My GT Cup Championship team-mate, Paul Bailey, has decided to withdraw from this year’s remaining races and I can fully understand his reasoning.

We suffered engine issues with his “customer” Brabham BT62 Competition at Brands Hatch a month or so back, the car’s first outing since a new engine was fitted. We had to switch to his 10-year-old and very rare McLaren MP4-12C Can Am for Race 2 and although we won the GTO class, the McLaren is uncompetitive compared to the more modern cars we’re up against.

Not surprisingly, Paul is very disappointed with the Brabham’s unreliability and so believing that we’d struggle for the remaining races, he’s pulled the plug on the entry. After that Brands event, we were placed sixth overall in the championship standings and second in GTO but I have to agree with Paul that continuing would have been a massive uphill battle.   

I feel really sorry for Paul who has spent a lot of his own money on this car. We twice made history in it last year, having achieved the first-ever class victory for a “customer” Brabham BT62 Competition in June, we went on to achieve a first outright race victory in the world for a “customer” BT62 at Silverstone in August. 

My next race was with Matty Graham when we claimed sixth place in the Valluga Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport in the British GT Championship at Donington Park at the end of May. 

Tom Lebbon took his second GB3 Championship win at Silverstone on Sunday morning, at the same venue where he took his first earlier in the season.

He tangled with Callum Voisin at the end of the race, but survived a puncture to hold onto the lead.

Voisin lost the lead off the line to Lebbon, with Joel Granfors also making his way through at Maggotts, while Javier Sagrera and Roberto Faria also got past the British-Swiss driver.

McKenzy Cresswell went off at Abbey, rolling his Chris Dittmann Racing car twice, but was able to get out of the car under his own steam.

Meanwhile, Bryce Aron slowed and pitted as the safety car came out, but rejoined the back of the field.

Envision Racing‘s Nick Cassidy topped Sunday’s opening session of the London E-Prix, where the New Zealander set the fastest-lap of the weekend so far. António Félix Da Costa and Robin Frijns rounded-off the top three.

Edoardo Mortara was the day’s early-pacesetter, before Jake Dennis who completely dominated Saturday made his way to the top of the timesheets. With ten minutes remaining, Dennis set a 1:13.092, the fastest time of the weekend so far. The morning session was very overcast, with some of the drivers complaining of a few drops of rain.

Mortara brought out a brief yellow-flag at Turn Nine, after spinning and coming into slight contact with the wall. When rejoining the circuit, the ROKIT Venturi Racing driver almost made contact with one of the DS Techeetah drivers, in what would’ve been a heavy collision.

With eight minutes left, the top five were separated by under a tenth of a second, highlighting that the day will be incredibly close. In the final five minutes Sérgio Sette Câmara and Frijns almost broke into the 1:12s, both set 1:13.0s. With three minutes remaining, Cassidy became the first driver to break into the 1:12s, setting a 1:12.933.

Elsewhere, Mortara continued to push too hard, following a disastrous Saturday. The Swiss driver found himself in the wall again, this time at the Custom House chicane.

It was a Saturday to forget for ROKIT Venturi Racing, after championship contender Edoardo Mortara failed to score a point, seriously hampering his title bid. However, nobody was more furious than Lucas Di Grassi who managed to finish in the points despite starting from the back.

The Brazilian driver could’ve been a podium contender in Race One on Saturday; however, Di Grassi had all of his Qualifying laps staggeringly deleted. Di Grassi had managed to qualify for the duels, but was slapped with a ridiculous penalty for supposedly impeding Mitch Evans.

An anger-driven Di Grassi fought his way through to finish tenth-place, recovering at least something from the horrific day.

The Venturi driver said that it was the “hardest” he’d ever fought for a points finish, with “every point” being “worth fighting for”.

“Today’s race was very hard and because the circuit is not the most energy sensitive, we knew that it would be very difficult to pass. Despite starting from the back of the grid, we managed to gain 13 positions, which averages around one overtake every three laps. This result comes down to a good strategy and an even better car. It is probably the hardest I have ever fought to score two points in my career.

Mitch Evans faced a mix Saturday at the London E-Prix, where the New Zealander recovered well from a difficult qualifying. The TCS Jaguar Racing driver failed to make it into the duels, resulting in a fourteenth-place start.

Despite virtually all the drivers’ explaining how it would be impossible to overtake at the ExCeL Centre, Evans pulled off eight moves. The Jaguar driver managed to recover a sixth-place finish, moving him to second in the Drivers’ Championship.

However, he slipped further behind championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne, who finished second behind Jake Dennis. Evans clearly had strong pace in London, but was unable to utilise it all after making a mistake in qualifying.

Evans blames his mistake for having to come through the field, but is determined to “bounce back” in the second race on Sunday.

“After my mistake in qualifying we were on the backfoot, starting from P14, but we finished a solid P6 with eight points. It was a really hard race, very physical, and hard to manage because of the kind of track we have here in London. We managed to make a lot of overtakes, the Jaguar I-TYPE 5 felt really good and has a lot of pace, so hopefully we can have a good day tomorrow. We’ll bounce back, have a strong quali and start towards the front to have a good result.”

Hamish Kelsey delivered some Kiwi flavour to the Championship Off-Road podium when he won Saturday’s Pro Turbo SxS race at the Dirt City Motorplex. He is the first New Zealand native to win an American short course off-road race since Rod Millen in the unrelated Championship Off-Road Racing in the early 2000s.

Kelsey started fourth but a strong start propelled him into the lead as the field approached turn one. He battled with favourite C.J. Greaves for much of the race before the latter’s car abruptly slowed to a stop on lap nine, which allowed Kelsey to lead the final three laps.

Rodney VanEperen, whose team prepares Kelsey’s UTV, tried to narrow the margin but finished over a second back. Andy Kleczka rounded out the podium.

“Lining up on the start line knowing who was behind me, there was C.J. and Kyle (Chaney) and Rod, I had to make it the widest hairpin I could and I managed to hang on,” said Kelsey on the podium. “I’m not sure what happened to C.J. there, but he was flying.

“Thank you everyone back home; Mum, Dad, Gran watching, and Alex, my brother, he’s the backbone of my UTV racing and everything he’s done for me is incredible. The VanEperen family for giving me the opportunity to be here, I just can’t thank them enough.”

Brett Moffitt certainly has talent as the 2018 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion, but he doesn’t have the dollars.

Following Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Catchfence‘s Lee Spencer reported Moffitt will not return to the #02 Chevrolet of Our Motorsports effective immediately as a lack of sponsorship proved too much to sustain a full season.

“It’s obviously not an ideal situation or what I planned on, but I’ve had a lot of great experiences with Our Motorsports, (owner) Chris Our and the entire Our family. They’ve given me a lot of opportunities,” Moffitt told Catchfence. “It’s been a good two-and-a-half years. Hopefully, our paths will cross again in the future.”

Moffitt has raced for Our since 2020, initially on a part-time basis while pursuing a second Truck Series championship with GMS Racing. In 2021, he departed GMS for Niece Motorsports but a dismal start to the Truck season prompted him to permanently commit to Our and the Xfinity Series. He finished 2021 with a twenty-first-place points placement, ten top-ten finishes, and a runner-up finish in the season opener at Daytona.

Through the first twenty races of 2022, he was sixteenth in the standings with four top tens while his best run was seventh at COTA. At Indianapolis, he closed out his Our tenure by finishing sixteenth.

Want to win an easy bet? Just pick A.J. Allmendinger to win a NASCAR road course race.

Allmendinger dominated Saturday’s Xfinity Series event on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, leading all but twenty laps from the pole to win for the third time in 2022. All three victories came on road courses with COTA and Portland being the other, while he now has eleven national series road victories to his name including two in the Cup Series (the second of which was the inaugural Cup race on the Indianapolis RC).

“God, I love this place,” remarked Allmendinger. “I knew Bowman was really good at the long runs, and so I tried to gap him as much as I could. God, I love Indy!”

A trio of Cup drivers hoped to challenge Allmendinger ahead of their race on Sunday, but Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain, and Chase Briscoe respectively finished a distant second, fourth, and fifth. Bowman was making his first Xfinity start since Michigan in 2018, while his last road race in the series was an eleventh at Mid-Ohio as a rookie in 2013.

“I probably was a little too nice on that last restart,” Bowman commented. “I knew he was going to be better than us firing off. At the end, we were definitely running him down, just not enough laps.”

It was the perfect Saturday for Jake Dennis at the London E-Prix, after the Brit claimed victory on home soil just like he did last season. The Avalanche Andretti FE Team driver was unbeatable during the entire day, after topping every single session on Saturday.

Dennis claimed somewhat of a quadruple crown on Saturday, after topping Free Practice Two, Qualifying, winning the Race and claiming the Fastest Lap. Stoffel Vandoorne was the only driver able to keep up with the British driver’s relentless pace, on a day Dennis called “perfect”.

The Brit spoke exclusively to The Checkered Flag after the race, where he summed up what was a day that “couldn’t have gone any better”.

“As far as Saturday’s go, that was perfect. Yeah, couldn’t have gone any better. You know, we’ve had such a such a clean day. No mistake from the team and myself, we delivered when we had the opportunity to and to execute the race the way we did was pretty special. It was like we had been doing it for years, so yeah, full kudos-off to the team on this one. They gave me a great car and I just had to deliver the laps when they mattered. Putting the qualifying laps in the race when it matters, so yeah.”

Dennis seemed capable of opening the gap to Vandoorne whenever he pleased, resulting in the Avalanche Andretti driver being untroubled for virtually the entire race. Dennis admitted that there was more pace in the car if needed, but that he was ultimately “controlling” the pace of the race.

Kevin Magnussen admits the Haas F1 Team have not been as competitive as they would have liked to have been this weekend at the Hungaroring, but he feels from thirteenth on the grid, he can fight for points on Sunday.

The Dane has been running with an updated package this weekend in Hungary, but as with any upgrade, it takes time to understand it and get the most out of it, but he felt he did as much as he could under the circumstances.

Magnussen says the car has been feeling better with heavy fuel this weekend, which give him hope he can advance from his grid slot and fight for a top ten finish on Sunday afternoon.

“You always want to make Q3 and it wasn’t one of our best qualifying sessions but it seems this weekend we’ve been a little bit less competitive,” said Magnussen.  “There’s a lot of work going into it but it’s one of those things that will take time to extract the most out of it.

“From P13, I think you can fight for points. The pace looked alright on the long run, certainly the car felt good in FP2 with high-fuel, if anything a little bit better than low-fuel.

49 races.

That’s how long it’s been since Alexander Rossi last won a race in the NTT IndyCar Series at Road America in 2019. Today, that drought finally came to an end, as Rossi won the Gallagher Grand Prix.

Rossi started the race on the outside of the front row, and was in the right position to take advantage of a heartbreaking engine failure for his teammate Colton Herta, and cruise to victory lane. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing‘s rookie Christian Lundgaard dazzled with his first career podium in second place, and Will Power took the championship lead with his third place finish.

“It’s a relief, man,” Rossi said in victory lane. “It’s been so many things for so long, and I do feel for Colton [Herta], I do, but I’m happy.”

“Thankfully something came our way.”

Max Verstappen endured a tough Q3 during Qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday as the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver could only set the tenth fastest time following a suspected issue with his power unit.

Verstappen had shown extremely strong pace throughout Qualifying up until then and believed he had what it took to take pole position, but on leaving the pits for his final attack lap on fresh tyres, he found he did not have the power needed even to contend.

As other drivers attacked and improved their own times, the defending World Champion slipped to the bottom of the top ten and will have a lot of work to do on Sunday if he is to fight for a podium finish at the Hungaroring.

“I don’t know exactly what happened, I drove out of the pits and there was no release and no power in the car, we couldn’t fix it,” said Verstappen.  “We tried everything we could whilst out on the track, I‘ll have a chat with the Team and I hope that everything is fixable.

“It’s frustrating to start in P10 tomorrow after such a positive qualifying, we looked competitive and we had good pace.

Valtteri Bottas admitted it was positive to see Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN return to the top ten in Qualifying after setting the eighth fastest time on Saturday afternoon at the Hungaroring.

The Finn had been uncharacteristically outside of the top ten in the past few events after being a regular inside Q3 during his time racing for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, but Bottas was delighted to be back where he feels Alfa Romeo belong.

“It is positive to be back in Q3, we finally got everything together and the results show for it,” said Bottas.  “It has been a while since we have been there and it’s good to be where we feel we belong.

“We were closer to Alpine than we thought, which is a positive, and it seems we made a bit of progress since the last race.”

Bottas does not feel the race pace of those at the front of the midfield is that different and starting inside the top ten gives him a good chance of returning to the points for the first time since the Canadian Grand Prix.