Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Paretta Autosport have formed a technical partnership with Ed Carpenter Racing that the team run at least three road and street course races with Simona De Silvestro once again behind the wheel.

The team will start at Road America in June, going to Mid-Ohio in July, before finishing up with Nashville in August. After making their debut in the 2021 Indianapolis 500, the women-led and staffed team announced that they will not return to the event in 2022 to focus on building into a part-time road and street course program from 2023 onwards and eventually a full time program.

After partnering with Team Penske for their Indy 500 entry, team owner Beth Paretta is grateful for the knowledge gained from “The Captain” and is eager to translate it into her work with ECR going forward.

“We had a great first year working with Roger Penske and Team Penske in 2021 as part of the Race for Equality and Change initiative and since then I have been working on building the right structure and opportunity to continue to grow our team,” Paretta said.

“The training and support we received last year was invaluable and to be able to carry that forward and work with Ed Carpenter Racing is exciting for us.”

Guenther Steiner says it is important for the Haas F1 Team to put their disappointing Australian Grand Prix weekend behind them and turn their focus onto returning to the top ten this weekend at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

Imola hosts the fourth round of the 2022 Formula 1 season, and after Kevin Magnussen scored points in both the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, neither the Dane nor team-mate Mick Schumacher were able to break into the top ten in Australia.

Despite missing out on points, Steiner believes the team were not far away from the top ten at Albert Park and had luck surrounding the timing of the safety car played more into their hands, they would have at least put themselves into contention.

“The whole weekend was very challenging, starting with little issues on Mick’s car and Kevin not being on top form because he didn’t feel well,” said Steiner.  “Nevertheless, with all these hinderances we still got close to points.

“In the race we didn’t get lucky with the safety cars which could’ve helped our strategy but we put Australia behind us. Not as a negative, but it’s a very competitive championship this year and you need to be perfect to get points.

Kevin Magnussen heads to the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in high spirits, with the Haas F1 Team driver confident his VF-22 will be strong around the Imola circuit on what will be his first sprint race weekend.

The Dane has enjoyed a relative strong start to his return to Formula 1 in 2022, with a fifth-place finish in Bahrain being followed by a ninth in Saudi Arabia, although he had a under par Australian Grand Prix last time out, partly down to feeling unwell for parts of the weekend.

But Formula 1 arrives in Europe for the first time this year this weekend with the return of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, with Magnussen feeling the characteristics of the Imola track should suit his car as he bids to return to the top ten.

“Imola is an awesome track but the characteristics and speed-wise – corner speeds and straights – make it a more average track,” said Magnussen.  “As it has a bit of everything, and this car is all-round good, I think we should be able to do well there. I’m looking forward to it because it’s an awesome track.

“The cars are lower and they’re also stiffer, so kerb riding is a little harder than it used to be with the old cars. We’ll see, I hope whatever challenges these new cars have we can still be in the competitive range in terms of kerb riding.

Mario Isola believes the ten Formula 1 teams will need to start from scratch when it comes to tyre knowledge this weekend at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, with information from the past two editions of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix virtually useless.

The eighteen-inch tyres introduced to Formula 1 in 2022 will race in Europe for the first time this weekend at Imola, with the C2, C3 and C4 compounds being brought to the track by sole tyre manufacturer’s Pirelli. 

They are the same three compounds as in 2021, but the change from thirteen to eighteen-inch tyres will ensure teams will need to work out the best way of using the compounds this weekend.

Isola, the Motorsport Director at Pirelli, says teams will need to workout the best strategy around the old-school challenge of the Imola circuit, and with the first sprint Qualifying race coming up on Saturday, this will also need to be factored in.

“Imola is an old-school, challenging track, where overtaking can be tricky, also because the circuit is quite narrow in places,” said Isola.

Eight races into the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, Stefan Parsons has dropped his full-time effort with B.J. McLeod Motorsports in favour of a limited schedule, he announced Tuesday. However, the downscale also includes receiving an offer of which he did not disclose further details beyond it potentially helping his long-term aspirations.

“Although I am disappointed to not be racing at Talladega, I’ve been offered an opportunity that could potentially be highly beneficial to my career long term,” reads a statement from Parsons. “The No. 99 BJ McLeod Motorsports team will always be family. I look forward to going to battle with them for select races the remainder of this season.

“Thank you Mark Sokal for supporting me. I look forward to representing (sponsor) SOKAL for years to come. I will share my plans with everyone as soon as they are finalized.”

Parsons signed with BJMM for the full 2022 campaign after making sporadic starts for the team for the previous three years. After failing to qualify for the season opener and not finishing the next two starts due to being collected in crashes, he was running at the end of the last five races. His best finish is twenty-first at Phoenix and COTA, and he was thirty-first in points at the time of Tuesday’s news.

“Effective immediately, BJ McLeod Motorsports will field the No. 99 NASCAR Xfinity Series entry on a part-time basis,” BJMM said in a release. “We wish Stefan Parsons nothing but the best and look forward to having him drive the No. 99 in a handful of races during the remainder of the 2022 season as his schedule allows. The No. 5 and No. 78 entries will continue to compete full-time.”

For decades, Matt Kenseth raced at 200 mph in a NASCAR Cup Series stock car. On Monday, he raced at a much slower pace on foot in the prestigious Boston Marathon.

Kenseth finished the 26.2-mile (42.195-km) course in three hours, one minute, forty seconds. Running at a pace of 6:56 per mile, he finished 142nd in the 50–54 men’s division.

From his maiden start in 1998 to 2017, Kenseth was one of the top drivers in the Cup Series, winning the championship in 2003 and two Daytona 500s. He scaled back to a part-time schedule in 2017 with now-RFK Racing before seemingly exiting the sport for good, but returned in 2020 as the full-time driver of Chip Ganassi Racing‘s #42 for the rest of the season following Kyle Larson‘s suspension.

Upon concluding the 2020 season, he stepped away from NASCAR for good and has not raced in any national series since, though his racing career has continued at the regional level in short track competition. For 2022, he intends to run three races in the Superstar Racing Experience at Nashville, I-55, and Sharon. Kenseth is currently a nominee for the NASCAR Hall of Fame‘s Class of 2023.

Although Kenseth has no plans of returning to NASCAR, many drivers have used events like marathons and triathlons as physical training to meet the grueling demands of their day jobs. Kenseth’s exercise routine began in his early career via gym workouts and cycling, during which he developed a rapport with seven-time Cup champion and triathlete Jimmie Johnson. By 2019, he and his wife Katie were running marathons beginning with the Berlin Marathon in Germany. In October 2021, he finished fifty-second in his age group at the Chicago Marathon.

Tommy Smith took his first podium of the 2022 GB3 Championship with third place in the final race of the weekend at Oulton Park.

The Checkered Flag spoke to the Douglas Motorsport driver after the podium celebrations.

“Absolutely I’m happy, though I’d much rather be on the podium in Race 1 or 2 because that’s where you qualify,” he said.

“We’ve still got some work to do but I’ve got to be happy with that. It was a tough weekend so to come away with a trophy is pretty cool.”

GB3 has introduced the Tatuus MSV-022 for this season, and the Australian driver recognises the resemblance to the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine car he drove in the first half of last year, the Tatuus F. Renault.

Mikkel Grundtvig won the final race of the weekend at Oulton Park for Fortec Motorsport, his third GB3 Championship win.

The Dane started on pole, ahead of Tommy Smith and Nick Gilkes.

Grundtvig made a storming start, while Smith struggled slightly more off the line but managed to hold the Gilkes behind in the Hillspeed.

Marcos Flack was squeezed onto the grass on the exit of Shell Oils, the Australian dropping to the back of the order at the end of the first lap.

Cian Shields slipped back a couple of positions, having retired from Race 2 earlier in the day.

The opening round of the 30th season of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship has been claimed by Audi Sport customers in both the GT3 and GT4 overall battles. Neither the #22 Audi R8 LMS EVOII GT3 of Balfe Motorsport nor the #42 Audi R8 LMS GT4 of Steller Motorsport did the job the easy way, both starting on pole, losing out early on and persevering to take the victory at the end of a thrilling hour.

Shaun Balfe and Adam Carroll took the GT3 machine to victory, the team owner fought off a tumble down the order due to an unplanned short shift at the start whilst the professional had to fight off a 15 minute onslaught from AMG factory driver Jules Gounon to keep the place at the flag.

In GT4 it was a tale of execution rather than outright speed which won the fight for Steller’s Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding. Not flawless themselves, Fielding was aided by longer penalties for rivals due to short pit stops.

GT3: Astonishing Battles Lead to Audi Victory in GT3

The race opened with a bang, or two or three and Richard Neary for Team ABBA Racing wrestled the lead of the class from Shaun Balfe by force. The assault opened the door for Graham Davidson, subbing for Simon Watts, in the #2 Team Rocket RJN McLaren along with the #77 Enduro Motorsport Mclaren, #93 Sky Tempesta Racing and #40 Fox Motorsport McLaren through over the course of the first lap.

Further back Ian Loggie was laying the foundations of a grandstand finish, bringing the #6 Mercedes-AMG GT3 of RAM Racing up into the top eight by the time he crossed the line to start lap 2. The Mercedes dragged the Paddock Motorsport McLaren of Kelvin Fletcher with him.

Joel Granfors took his first podium in the GB3 Championship on Monday afternoon at Oulton Park, holding on after a two-part attack from Matthew Rees.

The Checkered Flag spoke to the Swedish Fortec Motorsport driver after he picked up his first piece of silverware since moving up from the F4 British Championship.

“It’s a good feeling, I had P2 but lost the position at the start to Roberto Faria with wheelspin,” he said.

“The pace felt good at the beginning but I had dirty air and was stuck behind him.

“In the end the tyres overheated a bit and then it was just trying to keep Matthew Rees behind.

Luke Browning won the second race of the 2022 GB3 Championship at Oulton Park on Monday to ensure a 100 per cent record from the first two outings of the season.

Race 1 winner Luke Browning started from pole again, ahead of Joel Granfors, Roberto Faria and Matthew Rees.

David Morales smacked the kerb at Brittens as he tried to get past Marcos Flack, while Cian Shields boxed at the end of the first lap.

McKenzy Cresswell looked to build on his positive fourth-place finish in Race 1 as he dived down the inside of Javier Sagrera at Shell Oils on Lap 2, while Callum Voisin lost a couple of positions.

The two Arden Motorsport cars of Alex Connor and David Morales made a positive start, Connor moving up from the back after failing to set a representative time in qualifying on Saturday morning.

Callum Voisin stepped up from the Ginetta Junior Championship into the GB3 Championship for 2022, but had a disappointing start to the season after contact with his team-mate Javier Sagrera and Alex Connor on the first lap of Race 1 at Oulton Park on Saturday.

The Checkered Flag columnist spoke to TCF before he attempted to recover from a 20th-place finish in the first race of the year.

“Saturday was a mixed day, qualifying was pretty good but the race was just loads of different stuff,” he said.

“Everything concertina’d into one, out of the hairpin I got taken out, I was in the pack and had a little bit of contact.

“It was just a little bit unfortunate really, everything that could go wrong did. But I’m confident we’ve got the pace, so we’ve just got to get through, have a clean first lap and then we should be on our way to a good result.

Javier Sagrera switched from Elite Motorsport to Carlin for his second season in the GB3 Championship in 2022, but his season got off to a nightmare start as he retired after a first-lap collision with team-mate Callum Voisin.

The Checkered Flag spoke to the Spanish driver ahead of Race 2 at Oulton Park.

“It’s a hard one to swallow when you get a DNF in the first race of the season, but it’s a long season so I think you have to keep your head up and keep working from that,” he said.

Though Sagrera and Carlin completed a fairly uninterrupted testing schedule over winter, the one-time podium finisher feels “it hasn’t been easy, and I think we have some work [to do] to catch up [and] be where I want to be, which is getting wins as soon as possible.”

GB3 has introduced the Tatuus MSV-022 this year, joining the F4 British Championship in running a halo-shod car for 2022, with an airbox meaning the car bears some resemblance to the Dallara 320 used in Euroformula Open.

MP Motorsport continued their strong showing into the second day of the FIA Formula 3 Championship test at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Saturday.

Caio Collet set the pace on a morning run where the BWT Alpine F1 Team junior prioritised one-lap pace, ahead of team-mate Alexander Smolyar and Franco Colapinto.

William Alatalo was nearly three seconds slower in the afternoon as drivers focused on tyre preservation and race simulations, while Josep Maria Marti (Campos Racing) and Arthur Leclerc (Prema Racing) had their turns towards the top.

Morning

Gregoire Saucy picked up where he left off on Friday by going quickest in the early stages, with a 1:32.109, before Collet and Smolyar displaced him to take the top two spots.

Colapinto had focused more on endurance throughout both days of the test, completing the most laps in both sessions on Friday and on Saturday morning. Across those three sessions, he completed 154 tours of the Grand Prix circuit.

The NASCAR Cup Series has only experimented with dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway for two years, yet both editions saw dilemmas dominate their headlines. After the 2021 Food City Dirt Race was marred by visibility concerns, the 2022 race was drenched with rain, covered in mud, and overshadowed by a scoring controversy. In spite of this, the race came down to a wild duel between Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe that ended with neither winning as Kyle Busch snuck through their last-corner wreck for the victory.

The drama began just ten laps after pole-sitter Cole Custer took the green flag when mud soaked multiple cars’ grilles and overheated their engines until NASCAR called a mandatory caution to allow everyone to clean them. Custer and Stewart-Haas Racing team-mate Aric Almirola had pitted prior to the yellow to address the issue which dropped them a lap down before NASCAR restored their lap, though neither regained their positions.

Kevin Harvick, who was later involved in a crash during the second stage, called out a “terrible job prepping the track and full of mud and there was nobody here to pack the track, so we all look like a bunch of bozos coming in to pit because we don’t know how to prep the track.”

Fellow SHR driver and dirt ace Briscoe took the lead on lap two and led forty-eight laps before blowing a right-rear tyre and hitting the wall. Another dirt star in Kyle Larson led the field to the restart with fifteen laps remaining in the stage and won ahead of Ty Dillon, Christopher Bell, Austin Dillon, Busch, Alex Bowman, Joey Logano, Reddick, Ryan Blaney, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The stage ended under caution after Justin Allgaier hit the wall.

Stage #2 saw multiple wrecks beginning with Bowman’s spin on lap 91. A larger crash collected Harvick, Bowman, Noah Gragson, and Corey LaJoie on lap 99, followed by Brad Keselowski‘s spin fourteen laps later after contact with Austin Dillon, a lap 125 debris yellow, and LaJoie going around on lap 131. Amid the cautions, Daniel Suárez led much of the stage before losing the position to Briscoe on the final restart with ten laps remaining. Bell passed Suárez for second, while Chase Elliott, Busch, Larson, Logano, Michael McDowell, Blaney, and Reddick.