Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Pierre Gasly made up six places from his grid slot in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, with his immediate switch to the intermediate Pirelli paying early dividends.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri driver started seventeenth after missing out on advancing out of Q1 due to a failure to get a final lap in after the red flag for debris, ironically caused by team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.

However, he was able to make early gains thanks to his pit stop for intermediate tyres at the Circuit de Monaco, although a delay on the switch to dry tyres prevented him from moving into the points-paying positions.

Nevertheless, Gasly was happy with the result in Monaco, although he admits he could and should have been in the points after showing strong pace all through the practice sessions, only to be caught out in Qualifying.

“We started seventeenth and finished eleventh, so considering Monaco and the track layout, I think we can be happy with this today,” said Gasly.  “When I saw the rain on the grid I had a massive smile on my face, as I knew it was our opportunity to try something different and to hopefully move forward.

The second generation of the Toyota 86, called the GR86 to reflect the involvement of Toyota Gazoo Racing, will be the star of a single-make series set to début in 2023. Called the GR Cup, the new championship will be sanctioned by SRO America with fourteen races planned across seven tracks.

The motorsport version of the GR86 will be created by converting a production GR86, fitting the vehicle with the necessary safety equipment and features like a custom body from Stratasys, rear wing made of carbon fibre, a Bosch engine management system, and exhaust from Borla. The car uses a six-speed sequential transmission courtesy of SADEV while its fuel cell can hold twenty-two gallons. Development of the car takes place at Toyota Racing Development‘s facility in Mooresville, North Carolina.

While the GR Cup is specifically focused in America, Toyota Gazoo Racing operates an Australian counterpart called the TGRA 86 Series that supports the Supercars Championship. Formed in 2016, the 86 Series has proven to be popular on the Supercars weekend slate while Toyota intends to provide factory support through 2026. Toyota will also launch a “feeder” level for younger drivers in 2023, with standouts being invited to race in the main 86 Series.

“This new racing series will help reinforce and validate the track inspired engineering bred into every Toyota GR vehicle,” reads a statement from Toyota released Wednesday.

“GR Cup will also offer participants one million dollars in total purse and prizes thanks to several great partners that have teamed with Toyota Gazoo Racing North America in this unique series. While the racing is the most exciting feature, each event will also offer a great environment for comradery among like-minded car enthusiasts. From first class, exclusive hospitality to partner sponsored displays, it’s sure to be a celebration of everything car and racing enthusiasts love, car culture and motorsports.”

It has been an eventful 2022 for Rajah Caruth as he leads the ARCA Menards Series standings after five races and has two NASCAR Xfinity Series starts to his name. On Saturday, he can add the Camping World Truck Series to his résumé as he drives the #7 Confluence Music Festival-sponsored Chevrolet Silverado RST for Spire Motorsports at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

“Rajah Caruth is a rising star and we’re thrilled the help him take the next logical step in his career this weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway,” commented Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson. “Rajah has a tremendous upside and he’s proven that on multiple occasions in the ARCA Menards Series. He has the kind of talent Spire Motorsports looks for and this type of opportunity is exactly what my partner T.J. Puchyr and I had in mind when we decided to field a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team.”

After finishing third in the 2021 ARCA Menards Series East standings, Caruth graduated to the national series in 2022. Five races in, he has top tens in all but the season opener at Daytona (where he finished eleventh) and leads the championship by five points over Nick Sanchez. He is also running a part-time schedule in the Xfinity Series for Alpha Prime Racing, finishing twenty-fourth at Richmond in his maiden start.

Caruth is one of five Black drivers to attempt at least one NASCAR national series race in 2022, and he was named to NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity programme in 2020 and 2021. Accounting for this, Gateway is a fitting location for his début as the track’s naming rights holder World Wide Technology is the largest Black-owned company in the United States.

“I’m thrilled to make my NASCAR Camping World Truck Series début this weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway with Spire Motorsports and Chevrolet,” said Caruth. “To drive the Confluence Music Festival Chevrolet Silverado and represent the Steward family and World Wide Technology is truly an honor. I’m grateful to represent them on and off the racetrack. This is the big break I’ve been striving for and I’m going to make it count.”

The 54th annual Baja 500, the second leg in the four-race SCORE International World Desert Championship, begins on Saturday, 4 June. 248 entries will traverse over 460 miles of desert in what likely be a very weather-involved event.

The Moto and Quad classes start their race at 4 AM local time (Pacific Time), while the Four-Wheel categories do so five hours later. Racing is livestreamed on SCORE’s website.

The Course

The Baja 500’s 463.72-mile loop starts and finishes at the Rivera del Pacifico Cultural Center in Ensenada, with a pair of physical checkpoints at Route Miles 240.1 and 360.3. Teams will have twenty hours to complete the course.

It goes without saying that deserts are very hot as is summer weather, and that combining the two tends to create exceptionally high temperatures. However, this appears to be even more the case for 2022 as the loop does not include a run along the coast near the Pacific Ocean. An inland-exclusive course was last used in 2016 and overshadowed by the deaths of two riders from extreme heat that reached triple digits Fahrenheit; Bryce Menzies, who finished runner-up in the San Felipe 250 and has won the 500 thrice, recalled his father Steve having to “try and find missing riders that were having heat stroke. Pretty bummed as it was chaos last time for a lot of people.”

“This is a very dangerous course with the HEAT be careful and don’t dehydrated keep plenty of fluids with you,” wrote four-time overall winner Robby Gordon, who is unable to take part in this year’s race due to overseas business obligations with SPEED UTV.

Mike Krack says Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team’s Monaco Grand Prix was far more complex than what it appeared on paper, but he was happy Sebastian Vettel was able to leave the principality with a point.

Vettel started ninth and finished tenth, while Lance Stroll made up four places from his starting position to finish fourteenth.  However, Krack, the Team Principal at Aston Martin, says the result only tells one small part of the story.

Pre-race rain played havoc with proceedings and made strategy calls difficult, and it was down to whether drivers gambled on making the full wet Pirelli tyre last until slicks were an option, or whether they made the switch to intermediate tyres in between.

Both Aston Martin drivers made the switch to intermediates before moving onto the dry weather tyres, and Krack praised both drivers for their performances, with Vettel earning the team a point thanks to finishing within five seconds of Esteban Ocon, who had been penalised for contact with Lewis Hamilton earlier in the race.

“On paper you could describe our performance in the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix as follows: Sebastian lost one place from his P9 qualifying position to finish tenth in the race, and Lance gained four places from his P18 qualifying position to finish fourteenth in the race,” said Krack.

Sebastian Vettel said scoring a point in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix was a ‘good effort’, with the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team driver feeling it was a pretty straightforward race despite the difficult conditions.

Vettel started ninth on the grid but was one of the first to gamble for a switch to the intermediate Pirelli tyres.  He found himself in the battle behind Fernando Alonso in the final stint, and although he finished on the road in eleventh, he was promoted to tenth after Esteban Ocon was penalised with a five-second time penalty for a collision with Lewis Hamilton.

The four-time World Champion believes tenth was the best result possible in Monaco, but the biggest plus to come from the race was what was learned about the updates that the team first introduced in the Spanish Grand Prix seven days earlier.

“Today was a race in which anything could happen, but actually it was quite a clean and straightforward race for me,” commented Vettel.  “We managed to pick up a point, which was a good effort because it is always difficult to make progress at Monaco, especially with only one dry line.

“Given the way the race developed, I do not think we could have finished any higher. It was a real struggle on the Wet tyres in the early laps so that is why we went to the Intermediate as soon as we could.

A Swedish driver took a superb victory on Sunday around one of the most legendary tracks in the world – but I’m not talking about Marcus Ericsson at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!

No, I’m talking about a young driver in his second season racing in Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, Ferrari Driver Academy racer Dino Beganovic, who took the chequered flag first at an equally legendary track, the Circuit de Monaco.

The Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine series is extremely competitive – more than thirty-five drivers racing for ten teams across ten circuits in Europe, all at FIA Formula 1 World Championship standard. 

Even within his own Prema Racing team, Beganovic has intense competition from Mercedes-Benz protégé Paul Aron as well as rookies Sebastián Montoya (the son of Juan-Pablo Montoya) and Hamda Al Qubaisi. Add into the mix drivers within the Alpine Academy and Alpine Affiliate driver programmes, Red Bull Junior Team and other Ferrari Driver Academy members and you have a hugely talented bunch of drivers all with the target of reaching the pinnacle of the sport.

It’s easy to forget how young some of the drivers coming through the junior formulae are – Beganovic only turned eighteen in January, but already he is in his third season of single seater racing. 

Frédéric Vasseur says the aggressive strategy applied to the Monaco Grand Prix enabled Valtteri Bottas to score points for a sixth time in seven races but bringing both cars home in the difficult conditions was the primary aim.

Bottas started twelfth but made his strategy work to move into the points-paying positions, closing the day out in tenth.  However, a penalty for Esteban Ocon for colliding with Lewis Hamilton moved him up to ninth to allow him to score two points.

Zhou Guanyu was less fortunate in the other car, but his day was always going to be tough starting at the back of the field, and the Chinese driver ended sixteenth.  However, he drove a clean race, with Zhou encountering only a few wild moments when the track was at is trickiest.

Vasseur, the Team Principal at Alfa Romeo, says Bottas’ two points enabled them to remain fifth in the Constructors’ Championship heading out of Monaco, and it heralded a good return for a team that knew coming into race day that scoring points of any kind was likely to be difficult.

“The conditions out there were treacherous and to bring home two cars is the primary objective, and we achieved it,” said Vasseur.  “We knew that, after a difficult Saturday, scoring would have required a really good race are we were able to deliver one.

Valtteri Bottas says climbing from twelfth on the grid to score points in the Monaco Grand Prix meant it was not a bad day for Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN, with the Finn again impressing with another strong performance on Sunday.

Bottas was off the pace in Saturday’s Qualifying session but stayed out on trouble on Sunday amid the difficult conditions at the Circuit de Monaco, and the strategy calls made by the team enabled him to jump into a points-paying position.

He finished on the road in tenth but profited from Esteban Ocon’s penalty for a collision with Lewis Hamilton to move up to ninth to score his sixth top ten finish in seven races.

“It’s been a pretty long race, but we can be happy we made our opportunities count as a team,” said Bottas.  “It was really easy to make mistakes out there and I am glad we didn’t: gaining positions in Monaco is never easy, so to end up in the points from P12 on the grid means it wasn’t a bad day.

“We made the right strategic calls, which was a challenge as it was not easy to choose which tyres to pick at any time.

Laurent Rossi says the BWT Alpine F1 Team’s performance during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend bodes well for the Enstone-based outfit, with some of the lessons learned likely to benefit them on future tracks that have slower sections.

Alpine’s strengths are usually held on the fast to medium paced tracks, so to see both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon be competitive around the slowest track on the calendar on Sunday was good to see.

Rossi, the CEO at Alpine, believes the progress made with the set-up of the car between Friday’s running and Saturday was promising to see, not only for the weekend just gone but also for weekends still to come.

“Today’s Monaco Grand Prix was very eventful and it’s always good when you come out of those races with strong points in the bag,” said Rossi.  “As a team, we were expecting it to be a challenging weekend at a circuit with so many slow-speed corners, which does not tend to suit our car.

“We’ve had to dig deep all weekend to make improvements between Friday and Saturday, which not only helped us this weekend, but also bodes well for the future where we can take forward this knowledge in adapting our car to all types of tracks.”

Fernando Alonso enjoyed his best result of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season so far thanks to a seventh place in the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, but his day was not without its difficulties.

The BWT Alpine F1 Team driver had tricky choices to make when it came to strategy, with the decision to go straight from the full wet Pirelli tyre to the slicks meaning they were able to jump several places ahead of those who made an additional stop for intermediates.

Alonso was also forced to hold off the challenge of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s Lewis Hamilton in the final stint as he managed the life of his medium compound tyre, which the team opted to use for the final stint after the red flag for Mick Schumacher’s crash.

“It was a very difficult race today with the conditions, so we can be pleased with a seventh-place finish and more points added to the championship,” said Alonso.  “It was a tricky race to manage with difficult choices on strategy at times, but we did everything well as a team and it was all well managed.

“At the wheel, it was not easy, and I had to be careful at times not to make any mistake to make sure we brought the car home in the points. On the dry stints, because of what we learned on Friday, we had to be careful on the tyres, especially for me after the second-red flag.

Andreas Seidl says the McLaren F1 Team scoring more points in the Monaco Grand Prix than their closest rivals was a good result, even though only Lando Norris was able to finish inside the top ten.

Norris fought hard with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s George Russell for fifth but was forced to settle for sixth at the chequered flag, but team-mate Daniel Ricciardo struggled once more and could only muster a thirteenth-place result.

Seidl, the Team Principal at McLaren, says Norris’ nine points – eight for the sixth place and a bonus one for fastest lap – make the result a positive one for McLaren.

“We’re leaving Monaco with P6 and the fastest lap for Lando,” said Seidl.  “Nine points is more than our competitors for P4 in the Constructors’ Championship managed, which makes this a very positive outcome.

“Lando showed strong pace all weekend. In the rapidly changing conditions we had a 50:50 call which just didn’t work-out for us and he lost a position – but he didn’t put a foot wrong today in challenging conditions.”

Lando Norris was pleased with his sixth-place finish in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, even though he felt he could have beaten George Russell to fifth had things gone more his way.

The McLaren F1 Team driver fell behind the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver in the first round of pit stops – only marginally – and despite a pit stop for fresh tyres and a much faster car in the final stages, Norris was unable to reclaim that position before the chequered flag fell.

Norris said racing in Monaco in the wet was ‘very tough’ to do, but he was delighted to continue his strong form, with the bonus point for fastest lap also going his way.  However, he knows the team still has work to do to make another leap forward in pace to be in contention at the front.

“It was a good day for me,” said Norris.  “We lost out to the Mercedes in the first pit-stops which was a close call, but you win some, you lose some, and in this case today we just lost out.

“I think the team did a really good job, I had a competitive car and it was an enjoyable race; it’s impossible to describe what it’s like to drive an F1 car around Monaco in the rain – it’s very tough.”

The 106th Indianapolis 500 was one for the history books, as Marcus Ericsson took home his first ever Borg-Warner Trophy in a thrilling race. For seven drivers in the field, this was their first ever attempt at the legendary race. On top of the five rookies that are considered rookies for the entire 2022 season, Jimmie Johnson and Romain Grosjean join the fray as Indy 500 rookies. The main objective for these seven drivers? Survive. Who completed this objective? Who’s day ended with a destroyed racecar? Who took home Indy 500 Rookie of the Year? Let’s break it all down in this week’s IndyCar Series Rookie Report.

DAVID MALUKAS – DALE COYNE RACING WITH HMD MOTORSPORTS

QUALIFYING: THIRTEENTH – RACE: SIXTEENTH (-3)

Malukas was one of three rookies to qualify in the top fifteen for the Indy 500, with the Dale Coyne Racing cars showing great pace throughout the month of May. The team suffered a major setback after a crash with Santino Ferrucci on Carb Day that forced the team to rebuild the car. Most importantly for the young driver, he was consistent and he kept his car clean. Malukas made some great moves on restarts, reaching as high as eighth twice.

He may have come home sixteenth, but Malukas achieved all of the goals he set out to achieve at the beginning of the month.

“I wanted to finish and be the highest finishing rookie and we achieved both of those things today,” he said. “I’ve now realized why people say that this track chooses its winners because there are so many different things that can happen, and everything just needs to go your way. There’s a lot of possibilities.”

“Things didn’t always go our way, but we finished P16. Overall, I’m very happy, I made minimal mistakes from my side being a rookie and going into the next one I’m going to be expecting the race to be this long!”

Toto Wolff has called for changes to be made to the Circuit de Monaco after witnessing a frustrating Monaco Grand Prix for his driver Lewis Hamilton, who was unable to make on-track passes despite having a much faster car than some of those ahead.

Hamilton was unable to pass BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon despite his pace advantage, and later in the race he got stuck behind the other Alpine of Fernando Alonso, who was backing the pack up and allowing the top six to get away.

Wolff, the Team Principal at the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, says the venue and spectacle of the Monaco Grand Prix are both fantastic, but having a procession when the racing gets underway is not great for the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

“That was the usual chaotic race in Monaco – and once again, a lesson that we need to look at this circuit layout, so people can’t drive round five seconds off the pace in a procession,” said Wolff.

“This is a fantastic venue and spectacle – but it would be great if the racing could be at the same level.”