Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Ernie Francis Jr. will be back for more Superstar Racing Experience action as he enters this Saturday’s race at I-55 Speedway. He was initially scheduled to run just the first two races of the year at Five Flags Speedway and South Boston Speedway.

“13. Unfinished Business,” began an SRX social media post. “@ErnieFrancisJr will join the field for @I55Raceway, carrying @CornwellTools onboard his No. 99 entry.”

Francis finished runner-up in the inaugural SRX championship in 2021 to founder Tony Stewart with a win at Indianapolis, but downsized to a part-time slate for 2022 as he focuses on a full-time Indy Lights schedule. He finished eleventh and seventh in his first two 2022 SRX races, which were done in the #5 though he now moves to the #99 that Justin Marks piloted at Stafford Speedway.

I-55 will be Francis’ third foray into dirt racing in SRX after finishing third at Knoxville Raceway and eighth at Eldora Speedway in 2021. The Pevely track is one of two dirt circuits on the 2022 calendar alongside the season finale at Sharon Speedway.

The seven-time Trans-Am Series champion is currently eleventh in Indy Lights points with a best finish of seventh in the opener at St. Petersburg. Matt Brabham, winner of that St. Petersburg race, told The Checkered Flag in March that he believes Francis would be a good fit for the Stadium Super Trucks, a series that has drawn some comparison to SRX as both are run by former NASCAR drivers and emphasise driver skill in identical vehicles.

The Austrian Grand Prix put a spotlight on Scuderia Ferrari’s on-track strengths as well as their weaknesses, as Charles Leclerc took home the victory at the Red Bull Ring while Carlos Sainz saw a podium finish slip away due to a reliability issue. 

Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto said that the team did a great job throughout the race, from the “quick” pit stops to an aggressive strategy that gave the team the upper hand against Max Verstappen.

“There are a lot of positives we can take home from today’s race. We have secured our second consecutive Grand Prix win, which confirms that we are doing a good job with a car that is proving to be competitive at every track.

“Our management of all aspects of this race went well, from our detailed preparation, even after yesterday’s Sprint and I think we made all the right decisions in terms of strategy, running an attacking race right from the start. That meant we were able to put Verstappen under pressure, forcing him into a defensive race. 

“The mechanics carried out five very quick pit stops and the drivers executed everything we asked of them prior to the race and managed the tyres very well.”

Dan Ertman, who raced in the Short-course Off-road Drivers Association and was a liked name in the Wisconsin short course scene, died Saturday in a motorcycle accident in Marinette County. He was 53.

According to the Marinette County Sheriff’s Department, Ertman was travelling southbound on U.S. Route 41 at 5:53 PM when he lost control of his motorcycle, causing him to skid along the road while the bike crashed into a ditch. He was pronounced dead on site by a county medical examiner. Ertman was not wearing a helmet, and is presumed to have ridden at high speeds with alcohol in his body.

“Marinette County Sheriff Jerry Sauve reports that on Saturday July 9th 2022 at 5:53 P.M. Marinette County Dispatch received calls of a motorcycle crash on U.S. Hy. 41 in the southbound lanes just north of the Oconto County Line,” begins a statement released by the department.

“Sheriff’s Deputies, Grover — Porterfield Fire Department, Aurora Bay Area Paramedics responded to the scene. The investigation revealed that the motorcycle was southbound at a high rate of speed and had passed several other vehicles. The operator of the cycle who was alone on the bike then lost control and skidded down the highway. The cycle traveled into the ditch and the operator came to rest on the shoulder. Lifesaving efforts were unsuccessful. The victim was later pronounced dead on the scene by the Assistant Marinette County Medical Examiner.

“The victim has been identified as DANIEL E. ERTMAN age 53 of Oconto WI. No helmet, alcohol and speed are believed to be contributing factors in this fatality which remains under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and Marinette County Medical Examiner.

Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took victory at the Austrian Grand Prix, coming out on top after an intense battle with Max Verstappen throughout the race. 

His first race win since Australia, he was able to overcome an issue with the car’s throttle pedal and withstand pressure from behind in the race’s final laps to ultimately cross the line first. 

With Austria marking the halfway point of the season, Leclerc remains second in the drivers’ standings, 38 points behind the current leader, Verstappen.

“Every win is special, but this one feels just amazing. The last 15 laps were on the limit with the issue we had, but we brought it home. 

“Today, we had a really strong pace and some great battles. I worked hard last night to find where I could still improve and it made the difference today. I’m very happy!”

Chase Elliott‘s hometown of Dawsonville, Georgia, is located about eighty-five miles from Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, but victory had eluded him for much of his NASCAR career. In Sunday’s Cup Series race, he needed to throw a block on the final lap to stave off an incoming Corey LaJoie, but he got to add that home win to his résumé.

While Eliott is the four-time-defending Most Popular Driver, LaJoie was perhaps the sentimental pick to win as the underdog seeking his first career national series win. However, the road to victory—especially on a track designed with superspeedway racing in mind—is paved with wrecked cars and aggressive moves. On the final lap, while Elliott was riding in first, LaJoie received a strong push from Erik Jones to catch the leader who then moved up and hit LaJoie’s front-left bumper. The contact was enough to send LaJoie into the turn one wall, where he spun down and hit Ryan Blaney before ricocheting back up and starting a pile-up that ended the race under caution.

“I hate to throw a mega block like that,” said Elliott. “I had kind of shied away from that big block throughout the day. Had always kind of given in at different points to a guy when they had that big of a run.

“But running the last lap, if you let him go, one of two things can happen. You choose the lane you want to lose in and you hope that you have enough time to go and get him back, or you throw a big block and hope you can stay in front of him. The problem is it could go one of two ways for you. Obviously, you can crash throwing the big block, or you can try to be patient and wait, and then the crash happens behind you and you’ve given up the lead and the caution comes out and now the race is over. I don’t know how you know exactly what choice to make in that situation. A guy is coming with a massive run, am I taking the chance of crashing when I threw it up in front of him? Absolutely, but I didn’t think I was going to get another shot at him if he let him grab the lead right there in that situation.

“I was able to defend the bottom side block and I felt more comfortable defending more aggressively up to the top. I thought that was a situation that I could win on. Fortunately, it worked out, but those situations are impossible. They might go right for you some and they might not, and I don’t really know how you know what’s going to happen next to be able to make that choice.”

It took one-and-a-half seasons, but Bobby Labonte is finally on the top step of a Superstar Racing Experience podium. He led all seventy-five laps in Saturday’s race at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway to secure his maiden series win ahead of Marco Andretti and Matt Kenseth.

Labonte started on the pole alongside Andretti, who presented his biggest opposition throughout the night including restarting next to him with ten laps remaining. Nevertheless, Labonte kept him at bay and handily took the victory. Besides his first win, it is his third podium after placing runner-up at Indianapolis in 2021 and South Boston in June.

“We took the lead, we held onto it, had a couple challenges at the end, won my first SRX race,” Labonte commented.

Andretti finished runner-up for the second straight race, while Kenseth joined the two on the podium in his series début. On the other hand, another newcomer in Josef Newgarden endured a tumultuous night that began with him leading every lap in Heat #1 before spinning into the wall in the Feature on lap 49 and wrecking with fellow NTT IndyCar Series driver Tony Kanaan with ten laps to go.

Cole Williams, who won a fan vote to join the grid for the race, took Heat #2—also leading flag to flag after starting last—but was fairly nondescript in the Feature as he placed twelfth of thirteen. Tony Stewart had mechanical trouble that resulted in his retirement from the heat followed by his worst Feature finish to date of eleventh.

Race results

Heat #1

Heat #2

Austin Hill hails from Winston, Georgia, which is located approximately fifty-five miles from Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton. After nearly winning at his home track in March, Hill completed the effort in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series action as he dominated the final stage and beat back Josh Berry for his second win of the season.

Hill and Richard Childress Racing team-mate Sheldon Creed enjoyed a strong outing as they finished 1–2 in Stage #2, though the latter subsequently fell out of the top ten. Meanwhile, Hill took the lead on lap 101 and save for some threats from the likes of Berry and Ryan Truex was virtually unstoppable as he led a race-high total of seventy-three laps.

Some fans and other figures took issue with Hill’s last-stage dominance and an otherwise unremarkable race on a reconfigured track intended for superspeedway-style racing, which they partly attribute to the Xfinity package which was simply the standard intermediate oval aerodynamic setup with superspeedway engine regulations. By comparison, the Cup Series‘ Atlanta package was the standard one used for superspeedways.

Anthony Alfredo, who finished fourteenth, tweeted during Sunday’s Cup race that it “has had a lot more side-by-side ‘pack racing’ than the Xfinity race. It’s most likely because they run their full speedway package. Xfinity is just the traditional intermediate aero package, but with the superspeedway motor package. Handling is still important tho.”

Regardless of circumstances that may have helped him, both of Hill’s Xfinity wins have come on superspeedways (or similar as Atlanta is still 1.5 miles in length) with Saturday and the Daytona season opener in February, establishing himself as one of the top drivers at such tracks. He was also the favourite at Talladega Superspeedway in April before a late crash, while his maiden Camping World Truck Series victory came at Daytona in 2019.

Parker Kligerman is quite well-versed at road course racing, having worked as an IMSA analyst and is the part-owner of Lime Rock Park. Yet it wasn’t until Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series inaugural race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course that he could finally call himself a NASCAR road course winner.

Kligerman led all but eleven of the sixty-seven laps and won the first stage to score his third career Truck win. Despite facing a challenge from Stage #2 winner Zane Smith, who won the first road race of 2022 at COTA, Kligerman took the lead on the final restart with three laps remaining and never looked back. It is his first NASCAR national series win on a road course, third of his Truck career and first not at Talladega (2012 and 2017), and second road victory in a stock car after 2016’s New Jersey Motorsports Park round in the now-ARCA Menards Series.

While the win does not lock him into the playoffs as he and Henderson Motorsports are only doing thirteen of twenty-three races, both parties are hopeful on translating the victory into a potential full-time campaign in the future. With the three road courses out of the way, his next start is Indianapolis on 29 July; Kligerman finished nineteenth and seventh at COTA and Sonoma, respectively. In seven career Truck road races, he scored top tens in all but two.

“This is the biggest win of my life,” Kligerman wrote in a thank-you post on /r/NASCAR. “Hopefully it can be the momentum we need to get to do it on a weekly basis as many of you have said. In the meantime we have a couple more races to win this year”.

Preceding the race was a especially chaotic qualifying session as multiple trucks spun in wet conditions, which forced NASCAR to cancel the third and final round of qualifying in favour of simply taking the best time from either Rounds #1 or #2. Pole winner Corey Heim, piloting the #51 truck that Kyle Busch drove to victory in the second road course event at Sonoma, suffered a failed transmission after sixty laps. Truck newcomers Connor Mosack, Trey Burke, and Mason Filippi also retired from the race, as did Justin Marks in his first NASCAR start since 2018. Conversely, NASCAR débutants and Reaume Brothers Racing team-mates Stephen Mallozzi and Kenkō Miura were able to reach the finish in twenty-second and thirty-third, respectively.

Race results

If not for the penalty in the Island X Prix #1, Rosberg X Racing would be three-for-three in 2022. But two-for-three after a dominating performance in the second race of the doubleheader is still certainly a strong effort for the Extreme E championship leaders. Following yet another qualifying sweep on Saturday and winning Semi-Final #1, RXR’s Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky got by the leading ABT CUPRA XE of Jutta Kleinschmidt on the final lap for the team’s fifth total victory.

ABT CUPRA’s Nasser Al-Attiyah outran Johan Kristoffersson throughout the first lap of the Final, which prompted the latter to “just [try] to stay as close as possible to him, to give Mikaela the best possible basis for her run, and she made good use of it with a fantastic move. It’s a team achievement that we can all be proud of.”

“It’s been my strongest Extreme E weekend so far,” commented Åhlin-Kottulinsky. “We worked so hard, Johan and I analysed everything to try and improve even more. The final was an absolute blast for me, waiting for right opportunity to overtake Jutta. After this week, and everything that happened during the first race, I just feel like this is the ending that we deserved, and I am very happy for the team.”

“It reminds me of my F1 days,” said RXR owner Nico Rosberg. “It’s been a great team effort with everyone giving their best and being at the height of their game. Both drivers have been performing at an incredibly high level. Johan was the star of Race #1 in NEOM. Mikaela was the star of this weekend with her speed and incredible pass for the win through the river, during the last lap. I couldn’t be prouder.”

Even if Kleinschmidt held off Åhlin-Kottulinsky, it would have been for naught as the right shoulder strap of her seatbelt was not fastened, a glaring safety hazard that resulted in ABT CUPRA being disqualified. The team is the first to suffer a disqualification in series history.

Charles Leclerc ensured that the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship is far from over, after an emphatic victory at Oracle Red Bull Racing’s home race the Austrian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen had no answer to the Monegasque driver’s pace and had to settle for second, thirty-six seconds ahead of third-placed Lewis Hamilton at the Red Bull Ring.

Leclerc’s victory means he now sits thirty-eight points behind the reigning World Champion, as the season reached it’s halfway point. Driver of the Day went to Mick Schumacher, who made it back-to-back races in the points, after an excellent sixth-place finish. There were shock retirements for Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz Jr, with the latter suffering from yet another power unit failure.

Leclerc takes the fight to Verstappen

After three months without claiming a victory, Leclerc finally stepped back onto the top step of the podium. The Scuderia Ferrari driver, who started from second, dropped a couple seconds behind Verstappen early-on, before closing down the Dutch driver. Once closed down, Verstappen put up less of a fight than Leclerc may have expected, the Dutchman radioed in to his team to complain of traction problems.

This resulted in Verstappen completing an early pit-stop, resulting in an early one-two for Ferrari. Once Leclerc pitted, he again found himself behind the Dutchman. For the second time of the race though, Leclerc eased past the Red Bull driver, who continued to complain. The same happened once again following the pair’s second stop.

It was the first-time this season that Leclerc has taken the fight to Verstappen, and crucially won. It wasn’t without it’s worries though, with the Monegasque driver complaining of throttle problems in the final few laps. To the jubilation of Leclerc and his Ferrari team, he managed to bring his F1-75 home for a crucial victory.

Rosberg X Racing had the perfect start to the Island X Prix by sweeping qualifying and winning the first race, only for the latter to be taken away for a penalty. As the Sardinia double enters its second and final round, the Extreme E points leader’s vengeance campaign is off to a good start as Johan Kristoffersson and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky once again won both qualifying rounds on Saturday.

RXR easily cleared Chip Ganassi Racing, who was promoted to the Race #1 win after RXR’s penalty, by over ten seconds in single-car qualifying. The points leader then claimed Heat #1, though not with a challenge from X44 as Sébastien Loeb kept the margin to Kristoffersson close. Åhlin-Kottulinsky then beat Cristina Gutiérrez for the heat win, and RXR was aided by X44 suffering a fifteen-second penalty for leaving the switch bay too soon.

“I think this was the best qualifying session for me since I started in Extreme E, so this day was epic,” said Åhlin-Kottulinsky. “Johan and I prepared intensely yesterday, and the team worked very hard on the car after our impact in the first event, so I am glad that it all worked out in our favour.”

CGR had their momentum from the Race #1 win and strong Round #1 qualifying effort end on a sour note in Heat #2 following a pair of time penalties for hitting a waypoint flag and a switching zone infraction. However, the team’s solid pace throughout the week means they will continue to be a threat for Sunday’s races.

ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team won Heat #2 much like in the previous round, which was made all the more impressive as the outfit is in Extreme E’s spare car as their primary was too damaged to take part following a massive wreck in the Island X Prix #1 Final.

Qualifying results

Intermediate Classification

Round #2

Heat #1

Heat #2

Round #1

Isack Hadjar won the FIA Formula 3 Championship Feature Race from pole on Sunday morning in tricky conditions at the Red Bull Ring.

The 29-car grid had a rolling start in full-wet conditions, with Hunter Yeany withdrawing from the weekend after sustaining a broken wrist in the Sprint Race.

Hadjar ran wide at Turn 9 on the first lap, Martins couldn’t quite take advantage but appeared to have more grip.

Hadjar managed to set the fastest lap on Lap 3 and opened the gap to over a second after Martins clouted the sausage kerb on the inside of Turn 10.

Zak O’Sullivan got around the outside of William Alatalo at Turn 4 on Lap 4, and began to chase former Carlin driver Ido Cohen for P14.

Kevin Magnussen scored the Haas F1 Team two valuable points in the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint race, after holding-off his team-mate for the entirety of the race.

Magnussen will start Sunday’s race from seventh, after a solid Saturday afternoon by the Dane. The Danish driver kept ahead of Mick Schumacher all Sprint, and seemed to be working with his team-mate to ensure their positions remained safe.

Magnussen kept Schumacher within DRS range of him for all but the final three-laps, where it appeared there was some miscommunication from the Haas wall.

Nevertheless, Magnussen is very happy to have scored points after not expecting much from the Sprint race.

“I didn’t expect that we would be able to do that, especially after this morning in practice. It didn’t look good, it didn’t feel good, so we made some changes but the cars are under parc ferme so it’s very limited to how much you can change. The changes worked and the pace was more of less back for the race. We’ve got two points so I’m very happy and we can certainly fight for points tomorrow given yesterday’s performance. I’m looking forward to another try tomorrow.”

Marcus Armstrong dominated Saturday’s Sprint Race in round 8 of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 championship by leading from start to finish at the Red Bull Ring, ahead of Théo Pourchaire and Jack Doohan.

It marks the Kiwi driver’s second win of the season, with the first coming in the Imola Sprint Race earlier in the season.

Championship leader Felipe Drugovich kept up with his consistent results this season in fourth place with Juri Vips rounding out the top five.

With Armstrong starting on reverse grid pole, the Hitech Grand Prix driver got the perfect start when the five lights went out.

He kept Pourchaire behind him as the rest of the grid cleanly navigated themselves through the first few corners.

Charles Leclerc will start the Austrian Grand Prix from second place, after fending off his team-mate during the Sprint race. As a result of finishing second, Leclerc scored seven-points and will once again line-up alongside Max Verstappen.

The title rivals had a short battle early-on, with Leclerc having his eyes set on taking the win from the Dutchman. In the end though, all Leclerc’s attempt at going for the lead did was introduce Carlos Sainz Jr into the fight, which ultimately led to Verstappen escaping.

The Scuderia Ferrari duo then battled for several laps, almost coming together on a number of occasions. Leclerc managed to keep the confidence-fueled Spaniard behind for the entirety of the Sprint, to finish the short race from where he started it.

Leclerc enjoyed the battles with his team-mate; however, the Monegasque driver wasn’t a fan of his fight with the 2021 World Champion.

“I had a pretty good start. First, we had a battle with Max (Verstappen), which was a bit on the limit. Then Carlos overtook me but I regained my position in turn 4. I just focused on managing my tyres for the first few laps so that we could push more towards the end.