Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Sebastian Vettel goes into the British Grand Prix with fond memories of the Silverstone International Circuit, having won at the venue as recently as 2018.

Whilst victory is highly unlikely, Vettel is hoping for a strong weekend following a difficult round in Canada. A return to the points would go down very nicely for the four-time World Champion, with four races taking place in the next five weeks.

The going will hopefully be slightly easier for the German at Silverstone, with the next substantial upgrade set to be fit to the AMR22 this weekend.

Vettel is more than ready for the “pretty intense” weekend, as he bids to perform well at the team’s home race.

“I have enjoyed many race weekends at Silverstone, and I am always struck by the enthusiasm and appreciation that the British crowd shows to the teams and drivers. It is such a fantastic event.

Pierre Gasly heads into this weekend’s British Grand Prix in high spirits, having signed a one-year contract extension with Scuderia AlphaTauri. The deal means that the French driver no longer has to worry about where he’ll be in 2023, taking an enormous weight off of the AlphaTauri driver’s shoulders.

The early announcement means that Gasly and the team can look forward to the rest of this season, as well as next year, something he explained ahead of the weekend.

“I’m looking forward to this weekend at Silverstone for many reasons, including the fact I know I can now look ahead to a further 18 months with this team. I’m pleased it’s been confirmed early, so we now have time to plan a strategy of how to build and develop next year’s car. We already know we can perform well together, so I am convinced that if we work well over the rest of this season and develop well, there is no reason why we can’t have an excellent 2023 season.
 
“For me personally, my goal is to help this team get to the top. Compared to when I first came here in 2017, we now have a lot more experience of working together, we all know and understand one another very well across the team, both in Faenza and Bicester.

“We work efficiently together, based on our past history and many seasons racing together. I have big ambitions for myself, and I always give my maximum to get the best results for the team. I will continue to push to get the best ever season this team has had next year.”
 
Looking ahead to the weekend at the Silverstone International Circuit, Gasly is expecting anything but a “straightforward” weekend. The French driver is expecting the team to suffer at Silverstone due to their aero problems, however, Gasly is aware that the issues will hopefully soon be solved with upgrades to come.

“As for Silverstone this weekend, it’s a circuit I appreciate a lot, it’s very fast and you get an incredible feeling from the car in some sections, particularly Maggotts and Becketts. But we will have to see how we get on, because being honest when assessing our car, we know we lack a bit of aero and we can expect to have to deal with a weekend that might not be straightforward for us.

Japanese driver Akinori Ogata is back in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the #13 Toyota GR Supra for MBM Motorsports. He will run two races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on 16 July and Texas Motor Speedway on 24 September, both of which will be new tracks for him but venues on which he has prior experience in the Camping World Truck Series.

“I have an exciting announcement today for my race in the NASCAR Xfinity Series,” begins Ogata in a video posted on social media. “I’m going to drive the #13 MBM Motorsports Toyota GR Supra at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 16 and Texas Motor Speedway on September 24. I’m so glad to be back to racing Xfinity Series. My paint scheme’s very cool those races so stay tuned.”

The 48-year-old Kanagawa native first appeared in the Xfinity Series in 2018, where he finished thirty-third at Phoenix in a one-off for MBM. After a two-year absence, he returned in 2021 for Jimmy Means Racing at Richmond and B.J. McLeod Motorsports at Martinsville, respectively finishing thirty-fourth and twenty-six.

Much of Ogata’s starts have come in the Truck Series, where he has competed since 2014 on a part-time basis including the last three seasons with Reaume Brothers Racing. His lone Truck start of 2022 to date came at Darlington in May, where he suffered an engine failure after fifty-four laps.

Ogata made his first start at Texas during the 2020 Truck season, finishing twenty-fifth. In two Truck races at New Hampshire in 2015 and 2016 with MB Motorsports, he has an eighteenth (his career best in the series) and thirty-first.

While the Goodwood Festival of Speed is known for its Hillclimb time trials, Extreme E teams Andretti United XE and Veloce Racing decided to take it a step further by pitting their drivers against each other in a head-to-head time attack. Both teams’ drivers piloted their Spark ODYSSEY 21s up the Hillclimb course, with Veloce ultimately taking the win with the best combined time during the weekend.

Veloce did not have its usual drivers Lance Woolridge and Christine GZ, the former of whom was at the TGRSA 1000 Desert Race while the latter has been retooling since recovering from her injury in the season-opening Desert X Prix. In their steads, the team brought back part-time 2021 female driver Jamie Chadwick and esports partner Quadrant loaned its sim racer Max Fewtrell to the lineup.

On Saturday, Fewtrell defeated Andretti’s Catie Munnings with a time of one minute and 1.79 seconds to the latter’s one minute, 4.87 seconds. The following day, Timmy Hansen avenged his team-mate by breaking the one-minute mark at 59.95 seconds to stave off Chadwick’s 1:0.79. However, Veloce’s combined time of two minutes and 2.58 seconds trumped the Andretti duo’s two minutes and 4.82 seconds.

Munnings commented on a video posted by Andretti United’s social media, “It was so much fun going up the Hillclimb. Had a few runs each every day so it’s been an amazing experience.”

“Great experience all weekend, but now we’re packing everything up and going to Sardinia,” added Hansen. “See you there in two weeks.”

The Rallye du Maroc, after some scheduling adjustments, is the next race on the World Rally-Raid Championship calendar on 1–6 October. With over three months before the grid descends upon Morocco, organisers revealed the route for the event, which will be a loop 2,300 kilometres in length and broken up into five stages. The new layout was revealed Tuesday.

Due to COVID-19, the rally in recent years consisted of five loops that started and ended at the bivouac in M’Hamid. As restrictions loosen up, racers are granted a greater travel distance with different destinations at each stage, though they will still spend four nights in the bivuoac.

Said bivouac is to be situated at the Grand Stade Adrar Agadir, a football stadium that has been a perennial venue for the FIFA World Cup whenever Morocco bids for host rights.

The qualifying stage—dubbed Stage #1A—is a 58-km loop around Agadir in southwestern Morocco along the Atlantic Ocean. Stage #1B will take competitors out of the area on the race’s longest stretch: a 562-km excursion to Tan-Tan, which previously served as a stop for the Dakar Rally during its stint as a Europe-to-Africa race. From Tan-Tan, the rally heads to Laâyoune 562 kilometres away for Stage #2, where a 342-km loop of the city makes up Stage #3. Racers then head back to Tan-Tan on a 559-km run before closing the rally by returning home to Agadir via 374-km trip.

“I wanted to take the competitors elsewhere, on new tracks,” said rally operator David Castera. “From a sporting point of view, it will be more interesting because the regulars won’t have more reference points than the competitors who are less initiated in Morocco. When I design a new edition, with my teams, the priority is the course.”

A week after scoring his maiden Pro 2 victory, Cory Winner will try his hand at the Stadium Super Trucks. On Tuesday, he visited SST headquarters in North Carolina to test a truck ahead of his début at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on 1–3 July. He will drive the Continental Tire truck.

Winner currently competes in Championship Off-Road‘s Pro 2 class, which he joined in 2019 after enjoying success in Pro Lite. Three years of coming up short of reaching the top step of the podium were finally rewarded at last Saturday’s Crandon International Raceway weekend when he passed SST alumnus Keegan Kincaid for the lead and held off Jerett Brooks and Ryan Beat—both of whom have piloted the Continental stadium truck—for his first career win in the category. He followed up the triumph by finishing third in the Sunday race and thirteenth in the Forest County Potawatomi Brush Run.

A second-generation racer, Winner began in Junior Karts n 2007, but took a five-year hiatus before returning in Mod Karts. A solid performance there prompted a promotion to pro short course trucks in 2015. He won the 2017 Lucas Oil Southern California Regional Pro Lite championship, a year after finishing second in the standings. His experience also includes the larger Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series and Championship Off-Road’s spiritual predecessor TORC: The Off-Road Championship.

Despite not winning a race in 2021, he finished second in the COR Pro 2 championship battle to Kincaid by just a single point.

Winner is one of two confirmed SST newcomers at Mid-Ohio alongside Ben Maier. Coincidentally, both use #67 as their main racing numbers.

The McLaren F1 Team head into their home race on the back of a disappointing Canadian Grand Prix, where no points were scored from either Daniel Ricciardo or Lando Norris.

The Papaya-coloured side have well and truly put their Canada woes behind them, as they prepare for the British Grand Prix. The team have been working hard since the last round to figure out what went wrong, after struggling for pace during the race.

Crowds full of papaya are the perfect fuel to motivate McLaren on, with Team Principal Andreas Seidl feeling full of excitement and anticipation ahead of the hugely important weekend for the team.

“There is nothing better than a home race and the whole team is looking forward to seeing the papaya fans among the sell-out crowd. Of course, as well as being a home race for the team, Silverstone also marks Lando’s home Grand Prix, which means we really feel the support from the grandstands. Plenty of our own team will also be at the race, seeing their hard work in action.  

“It’s been good to spend some time away from track since Canada. Since then, we’ve reviewed the weekend, know where we need to improve, and we’re now putting our full focus on the weekend ahead of us. 

Lando Norris is fired up and ready to go this weekend at the British Grand Prix, as the Brit puts the disappointment of the Canadian Grand Prix behind him ahead of his and the team’s home race.

The British GP is always a fan and driver favourite, with the British crowd being well-known for generating one of the best atmospheres of the season. A strong race at the Silverstone International Circuit will do wonders for Norris, ahead of four races in July before the well-deserved summer break.

Norris is excited for the weekend ahead, where he’s hoping that the hard work done by the McLaren F1 Team following Canada will prove to be beneficial.

“I’m so excited to be heading back to my home race at Silverstone. Seeing the British fans and all the papaya as we drive round the track is always so motivating and such a boost for the team – nothing beats a home crowd. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in the fan zone and soaking up the atmosphere.  

“We’ve been working hard on our performance since the last race in Canada and working as a team to understand what we need to do better. We’ve got a good understanding of that now, and although we know there are no overnight fixes, we’ll be doing everything we can to give the home fans something to cheer about.” 

It was a Canadian Grand Prix to forget for the Haas F1 Team last-time out, after Mick Schumacher was forced into retirement and Kevin Magnussen finished last of the running drivers. However, Qualifying was actually a very strong day for the American team, who locked out the third row.

Team Principal Guenther Steiner was incredibly pleased with that part of the weekend in Canada, labelling it as “very good”

“Saturday was a fantastic day for the whole team as everything was executed well – it’s never perfection until you’re P1 and P2 – but for where we are, to have the best qualifying result after quite a few difficult weekends, is very good. It was executed by the whole team – drivers, engineers, mechanics – fantastically. It was a very good day.”

This weekend’s British Grand Prix is a special one for Haas, who for the first-time since 2019 will have the team’s families at the Silverstone International Circuit. Haas have been unable to run their family event due to the pandemic, Steiner is delighted that they can finally restart it.

“It’s very good that once again we can do our family event. We haven’t had anything since COVID hit in 2020. We were planning our Christmas event but last year we had to cancel it at very short notice because there was a surge in cases in December 2021, so I’m very happy that we can finally have the families around with the team just to enjoy a good time.

Saudi Arabia is a country long associated with its abysmal human and women’s rights record, one that has overshadowed its recent motorsport endeavours including welcoming international series like Formula One and the Dakar Rally. Despite this, the Middle Eastern nation has grown more open towards female driving, legalising the act in 2018 and hosting the all-women Rally Jameel in March. As the Dakar Rally returns to Saudi Arabia in 2023, a team consisting of women hopes to take part.

The aspirations of SHERO Rally Team to compete at Dakar have taken the group to the Italian Baja on 7–10 July. Team director Iole De Simone along with sisters Elham and Ebtihal Al-Fahad will pilot Polaris RZR SSVs prepared by rally driver Lorenzo Cenzi and his Jazz Tech operation, with Farida Abdullah, Sue Mead, and Saja Kamal respectively serving as their co-drivers. Italian Baja will be the outfit’s first international competition.

De Simone founded SHERO, a portmanteau of “She” and “Hero”, in 2020; hailing from Italy and an alumna of Stanford University and Harvard Business School Executive Education, she previously worked as a physical education teacher and the sports director for King’s College Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. She signed Dania Akeel and Mashael Alobaidan as the team’s first members and project managers. After a delayed start due to COVID-19, the programme formally launched in December 2020 with the goal of running the 2022 Dakar Rally, though its timetable was later pushed back a year.

Testing took place in late 2020 and 2021 with coaching from FIM Cross-Country champions and Dakar veterans Jacek Czachor and Marek Dabrowski, and the team also attended the Dakar Rally as observers. Akeel entered the Sharqiyah Baja in March 2021 with a Can-Am Maverick prepared by Polish organisation DUUST, becoming the first Saudi woman to run an FIA-sanctioned rally. A year later, SHERO fielded three entries in Rally Jameel: a Ford Bronco for de Simone, a Toyota Prado for Ebtihal Al-Fahad, and a Jeep Grand Cherokee for Elham Al-Fahad. De Simone finished thirteenth overall and seventh in the PT6 class ahead of Ebtihal (fourteenth overall, fifth in PT4) and Elham (thirtieth overall, second in AW8).

SHERO hoped to begin racing outside Saudi Arabia with the Andalucía Rally in June before it was postponed to October due to dangerous weather in Spain. Following the Italian Baja, the team intends to take part at the Rallye du Maroc (1–6 October) and Dubai International Baja (1–3 December) before heading to the Dakar Rally on 31 December–15 January 2023. A desert training session in Abu Dhabi is also planned for 15–20 November.

Mick Schumacher will be hoping to finally score his first ever Formula 1 point this weekend, at the famous British Grand Prix.

The young German was forced into retirement last time out in Canada, after suffering from an unfortunate reliability issue. This weekend marks the start of a crazy month for the championship, with four races taking place in July before the summer break.

As part of this weekend, families of those who work for the Haas F1 Team are going to the event, meaning that Schumacher will get to meet the families of his mechanics for the first-ever time.

“It’s great for the team as it also marks the week where all their families come to visit which is something I’m looking forward to as we didn’t get the chance last year because of COVID. I will get to meet every single family which is going to be nice. Silverstone has some good and bad memories for me but it always treated me well so I’m excited to go there and it marks the start of all the European races that are coming, which is nice as it means we all have a bit more time without so many flyaways.”

Schumacher is excited to drive the VF22 around the Silverstone International Circuit, where it’s yet to be seen whether the new cars will be able to go through the Maggotts and Becketts complex even faster than before. The German driver is fully prepared for what he expects to be a “fun” weekend.

Team Stange Racing‘s maiden NASCAR Cup Series race will have to wait another month. On Monday, citing a holdup with receiving the sanctioning body’s approval for newcomer Tarso Marques, the team announced it will delay its Cup début from the upcoming Road America race to Watkins Glen International on 21 August. To prepare for the start, Marques and Stange hope to run the Xfinity Series event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on 30 July.

An ARCA Menards Series operation, Team Stange expanded to the Cup Series for 2022 with plans of running eight races—including three road courses—with Marques, an ex-Formula One driver and Stock Car Brasil veteran. However, save for some CART races in 1999 and 2000, Marques possessed little oval experience and had never made any starts in NASCAR’s lower divisions. With NASCAR hesitant to approve drivers for its top level if they have no lower division racing whatsoever (hence the sanctioning recently tweaking its testing rules for outsiders with “elite credentials”), regardless of their résumé, the team intends to give him seat time in the Xfinity Series at Indianapolis.

“We have been working very hard to prep for the Cup races we plan on doing,” begins a team statement. “Just like everything in life, nothing goes as planned. Dignity Gold/Team Stange Racing and Tarso Marques will be at Indy in July to compete in the Xfinity Series race to get Tarso’s driver approval to move on to Watkins Glen and other races as we prepare for 2023.”

Some of the operation’s blueprint had already hit a rut, such as not entering the Camping World Truck Series race at Sonoma Raceway in early June despite initial intention to do so. In the meantime, the team has developed into a solid operation in the Dignity Gold GT Sprint Race, winning its maiden start with Ricardo Sperafico.

Marques has never raced at Indianapolis, though he came close during his final F1 season in 2001. Following the Belgian Grand Prix and in the midst of a points-less campaign, he was demoted by Minardi to reserve driver for the rest of the year and Alex Yoong finished out the season at Monza, Indianapolis, and Suzuka.

Maxine Wahome made history this past weekend as she became the first woman to win a World Rally Championship-3 event, topping the class and finishing sixteenth overall in the Safari Rally Kenya. She is also the first female WRC support category winner since Isolde Holderied won the San Remo Rally‘s Group N division in 1994.

Driver of the #34 Ford Fiesta Rally3, she completed the rally with a total time of 5:20:21.6, good for sixteenth in the overall classification with a twenty-six-second advantage over fellow Kenyans Jeremy Wahome (no relation) and McRae Kimathi. Her time was also twenty seconds behind World Rally Championship driver Gus Greensmith.

The event started on a high note when she was running second after Friday. However, her ECU failed multiple times during the next stage and required a change which forced her to continue under Super Rally rules. Despite the setback, other predicaments for the field and consistent driving enabled her to take the lead and never look back.

“My goal was just to learn the car and day by day improve my speed,” Wahome told WRC.com. “Wednesday was my first time in the car. I normally drive a Subaru Impreza N12. The only testing I got with the car was on tarmac, which is completely different to the Safari.

“The mission today was to make it through the stages slow and steady to get it to the finish and learn more about the car.”

Pirelli is set to bring their hardest tyre compound range to the British Grand Prix, with Silverstone Circuit regarded as one of the most taxing tracks on the calendar when it comes to tyre degradation. 

At last year’s race, most of the drivers, including winner Lewis Hamilton, opted for a two stop strategy– with a first change under the red flag caused by the early collision between Hamilton and Max Verstappen and a second mid-race stop to switch onto hards. 

Two years ago, the 2020 British Grand Prix exemplified the potential for tyre drama at the demanding circuit, with three late-race tyre blowouts and an iconic finish in which Hamilton won the race on three tyres. 

Although Pirelli will once again bring their toughest compound step– the C1, C2 and C3 compounds– this year’s race comes with increased unfamiliarity with the new 2022 regulations. 

Pirelli Motorsport Director Mario Isola said that Silverstone, which is known for its intense high-speed corners, will put several elements of the new regulations to the test as they relate to tyre strategy and behavior. 

Title sponsorships come in many shapes and sizes, but McLaren‘s newest partner for its Formula E and Extreme E programmes is a bit of an unusual one. Announced Monday, the Saudi “eco-city” of NEOM assumed naming rights for the British outfit’s electric racing divisions, dubbing them NEOM McLaren Formula E Team and NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team while both comprise NEOM McLaren Electric Racing.

“Our partnership with McLaren Racing complements NEOM’s commitment to driving sustainable solutions and tackling some of society’s most pressing challenges,” commented NEOM CEO Nadhmi Al-Nasr. “The partnership will allow us to share our collective resources and experience to yield exciting results, not only for our own organisations, but also for the broader automotive and sports industries.

“NEOM is an economic engine for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and will be a hub for innovative businesses like McLaren Racing to conduct cross-industry research, incubate, collaborate and bring new technologies to the world.”

Located in the deserts of Tabuk Province, NEOM (a portmanteau of “Neo-” and Mustaqbal, Arbic for “future”) is a £406 billion venture spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with goals of completing the first phase of construction by 2025. It is the centrepiece of Saudi Vision 2030, a series of megaprojects to reduce the country’s oil dependence and develop its public sectors like tourism and infrastructure. NEOM intends to be a cosmopolitan, self-sufficient paradise of sorts with the implementation of futuristic yet environmentally friendly elements, such as energy being generated by renewable sources like solar and wind power. “The Line”, a planned 170-km linear city of one million residents a massive rail system in lieu of cars and streets. Food is to be grown locally through sustainable agricultural methods like vertical greenhouses, while artificial intelligence and robots provide services for the population.

Also planned is OXAGON, a seven-kilometre floating port city based off the desert coast on the Red Sea. Besides serving as NEOM’s logistics hub, it would establish a supply chain of imported and exported goods for the city. The OXAGON Research and Innovation Campus, an education and research center, will partner with McLaren to host the latter’s Accelerator programme which applies performance-based data to non-motorsport contexts. Select Saudi citizens can also take part in the NEOM Graduate Opportunities in Work (GrOW), a one-year initiative that lets them work with McLaren.