Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

DGM Racing began the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season as a triumvirate of full-time cars in the #36, #91, and #92 Chevrolet Camaros. However, the team announced Monday that it will become just a duo as the #92 reduces its schedule to just a part-time entry.

All three cars are being filled by multiple drivers, and the #92 began the season with Kyle Weatherman behind the wheel for the first five races. In his last start of the slate, Weatherman scored his second career top ten by finishing eighth at Atlanta. Ross Chastain took over the car last Saturday at Circuit of the Americas, where he ran up front for much of the day before finishing seventeenth. Despite not being a weekly driver for the team, Weatherman remained involved as a crew member.

Although the #91 also scored a top ten at Atlanta when Mason Massey finished sixth while Alex Labbé can upgrade to a full season in the #36 with sufficient funding, the team elected to axe the #92 in order to place more emphasis on the other two cars. Labbé, Weatherman, and Preston Pardus who drove the #91 at COTA will not have their responsibilities change despite the news. The team also fielded the #90 for Labbé at Daytona, where he failed to qualify.

“DGM Racing has made the difficult decision to condense our operations from three entries to two full time entries and a part time third entry,” reads a statement from the team. “This move allows us to strategically allocate our resources to be most competitive.

“Mason Massey, Alex Labbe, Kyle Weatherman, and Preston Pardus will still remain part of our 2022 driver lineup with this change. We continue to support Weatherman in his search to secure partners for the remainder of the season.”

It only required a mad scramble on the final lap that resulted in plenty of contact and anger, but Ross Chastain can finally call himself a NASCAR Cup Series race winner. A wild run to the finish between him, A.J. Allmendinger, and Alex Bowman ended with all three drivers bumping each other and Allmendinger eventually spinning while Chastain held on to win for the first time in the premier series and on a road course.

Chastain started sixteenth while Ryan Blaney was on the pole. Daniel Suárez, Chastain’s partner at Trackhouse Racing Team, qualified second and dominated the opening stage en route to the win. Blaney, Alex Bowman, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, Justin Haley, Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe, Harrison Burton, and Austin Cindric rounded out the top ten.

Despite Suárez’s day getting off to a strong start, power steering problems began to plague his #99 car as the stage came to an end. He eventually fell off the pace as his power steering was eliminated, forcing him to fight the car to what would eventually be a twenty-fourth. With Suárez out of the picture, Cindric dominated Stage #2 before pitting which cycled Denny Hamlin into the lead and eventual stage victory. Kyle Busch, Logano, Blaney, Aric Almirola, Austin Dillon, Burton, Chastain, Cindric, and Bubba Wallace followed.

While the first two stages ran caution-free, the incidents necessitating yellow flags ramped up in the final segment with six cautions being called. Combined with a lack of local cautions in NASCAR, the first five were all for debris or single-car stalls or spins too close to the rest of the racing. The sixth and largest came on the penultimate scheduled lap when Logano, Kurt Busch, and Kyle Larson made contact and went into the gravel and wall outside turn one.

In overtime, Saturday’s Xfinity Series winner Allmendinger battled with Chastain and Tyler Reddick. Chastain held the advantage through the first lap while Allmendinger and Bowman gave chase before catching him in the final sector. Allmendinger made his move in turn fifteen and pushed Chastain wide, and Bowman joined the fight with a dive along the inside line two corners later. Allmendinger and Chastain made up the ground before the latter pushed the other into Bowman, causing Allmendinger to spin. As Bowman ran wide to avoid further collision with the spinning Allmendinger, Chastain remained inside and held the lead for the final two straights to score his and Trackhouse’s maiden victories.

Former World Karting Champion Hugo Ellis will join the grid for the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup GB series with the Joe Tandy Racing team, along with backing from NAPA Racing UK.

The 20-year-old enjoyed a successful karting career, including winning the 2016 IAME International Final and briefly moved in to single seater racing in Formula Ford before taking a break away from racing to concentrate on his education and business opportunities.

“I can’t wait to get started in Porsche Carrera Cup GB, the car looks, sounds and drives just awesome! ” said Ellis. “JTR have been great so far, with both Nicks, Tandy and Madge, plus all their great crew, I’m sure we have everything in place to make the most of my opportunity.

“Plus having NAPA Racing UK involved with the team and myself is just the icing on the cake, I hope to do them Proud.”

Nick Tandy, Team Principal of JTR is excited to bring the NAPA Racing brand to the Carrera Cup, “To help bring an iconic brand into British racing is something fantastic for us at JTR.” said Tandy. “I’ve long since followed the exploits of NAPA Racing in the US and its always associated with success.

Richardson Racing has announced a new title partnership with Comline Auto Parts (Comline) for the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup GB season.

The new deal will see the Corby-based team rebranded to Comline Richardson Racing this year as the team enter their third year in the series with Will Martin and Jack Bartholomew.

Martin enters the season as a title contender after finishing the last two seasons championships in the top five, while Bartholomew moves up from the Porsche Sprint Challenge.

Gwyn Richardson, Comline Richardson Racing team principal, was happy to welcome the new partnership, “We’re thrilled to confirm that Comline Auto Parts will be our new title partner for 2022, and to join forces with such an established automotive brand is fantastic for us as a team as we continue to develop.

“This partnership is a reflection of the huge steps forward we have taken in recent years, and one that I believe will be a huge success both on and off track during the season ahead.

W Series is a championship that has an aim to create opportunities and inspire young girls in motorsport. The upcoming season sees the Series’ youngest ever driver as it announces 16-year-old Juju Noda will race in 2022.

Juju Noda, who dreams of becoming the first-ever female Formula 1 World Champion, comes into W Series already breaking records. She started karting at just three years old and by the time she was nine, had tested a Formula 4 car. She went on to break more records at 11-years-old when she drove a Formula 3 car for the first time at the Okayama International Circuit, Japan.

The-16-year-old follows in the footsteps of her father, Hideki Noda who competed in Formula 1 during the 1990s. She later moved to Denmark with her father to make her racing debut at the 2020 Danish Formula 4 Championship. So far in her racing career, Noda has taken 5 pole positions, 12 podiums and 3 race wins. She will join the rest of the all-female grid in the hopes of becoming 2022’s W Series World Champion.

Noda will join eight other newly selected drivers in securing a seat alongside the top eight qualifiers of the 2021 drivers standings. She took part in pre-season tests at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona and the Inde Motorsports Ranch in Arizona, where W Series Racing Director Dave Ryan and his team decided who would take the 2022 seats.

 “As the profile of W Series grows, the talent pool and standard of our driver line-up increases, and the 2022 W Series grid is the strongest yet,” Ryan explained.

The 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix could have been a total nightmare for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team. With their car still very much off the pace compared to the Red Bulls and Ferraris and Lewis Hamilton starting all the way down in sixteenth place due to a poor run in qualifying, the Brackley boys had a lot of damage limitation to do. Fortunately, they managed to succeed in that. George Russell finished in fifth after running in clean air for most of the race and Hamilton managed to climb up to a 10th place finish through an impressive recovery drive.

“It was a strong race in terms of maximising our potential points today,” said Russell. “The car felt good but we’re just lacking downforce because we can’t get the car to run close to the ground. We got the car in a nice window and I was pushing as hard as I could, it was probably the most physical race I’ve experienced in F1, 50 laps at the limit on a fast street circuit – I just want to be doing it fighting for victory.“

Whilst Mercedes does still have a lot of work to do, Russell seems confident that the team will be able to put their heads down and work through the difficulties to get Mercedes back to winning ways. “Everybody is working as hard as they can to close the gap to Red Bull and Ferrari, every single person at Brackley and Brixworth wants more and we’ll continue to push until we close that gap. This first part of the season isn’t packed with races, the calendar isn’t too dense, so it gives us some time to find solutions.“

Whilst Mercedes is still fairly disappointed with its results so far this season, Russell wouldn’t allow it to take the shine off the positive aspects of the race. “We aren’t here to fight for P5 but you’ve got to take the positives,” Russell concluded. “The race was enjoyable to drive, this track is probably in the top five of the year, incredibly fast and with fantastic grip.“

After really struggling with his car’s setup during qualifying, Lewis Hamilton seemed to be able to overcome those difficulties when it came to race day. “Balance-wise, the car felt good, but just not fast enough,” Hamilton said “The end result isn’t great but the race was going relatively well, I was struggling with tyre temperatures at the beginning but then I started to gain on the cars ahead on the Medium tyre, it was a really good stint. I was keeping up with George and putting in some decent lap times considering how old the hard tyres [were] at the end. We were unlucky with how the VSC played out at the end but I was giving it everything.“

W Series has announced that new drivers Bianca Bustamante and Juju Noda will race for the W Series Academy program in the upcoming 2022 season. The program supports the development of young female drivers in motorsport as it will allow them to gain valuable experience in mentorship and training. The team’s support will help drivers in the pursuit of a career in motorsport racing.

The W Series Academy program is a new team entrant in 2022, and both Bustamante and Noda will stay with the team for the next two years. The team states that any drivers who join the program will only be able to stay with them for two years, so the opportunity for progression and support is continued for many young female talents.

Juju Noda comes into the sport as the youngest ever W Series driver. She is just 16-years-old and has big dreams of becoming the first-ever female Formula 1 World Champion. Noda has broken many racing records, including driving Formula 4 and Formula 3 cars when she was younger.

Joining Noda will be Bianca Bustamante, another young talent at 17-years-old. Her W Series journey starts after she impressed W Series Race Director Dave Ryan at pre-season tests in Barcelona and Arizona. Last year, she was chosen for the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) Girls on Track Rising Stars program in France at the Circuit Paul Ricard.  Both of these young drivers will make their W Series debuts at the Miami International Autodrome in May, where they will join the 15 other confirmed drivers to kick start the eight-circuit season.

The grid for the 2022 BTCC season is taking shape ahead of the season opener on 23-24 April but it will not include a full capacity effort with three TBL’s handed back.

With the Hybrid Installation Test confirmed for tomorrow (29 April), BTC Racing, Team Dynamics and Speedworks Motorsport will not run further cars this season with the former confirming this already by stating they were running a three-car line-up.

This began to take shape with the addition of Jade Edwards to BTC Racing once more with Team Dynamics initially set to add to Gordon Shedden and Dan Rowbottom, while Speedworks Motorsport will add one further driver to already confirmed Rory Butcher at Toyota Gazoo Racing UK.

The test at Donington Park on Tuesday sees teams install the new hybrid units and test with them as all are expected to run with Hybrid Power by the time of the Croft test on 6 April.

With the 2022 BTCC season imminent, BTC Racing have confirmed the first of their three drivers for the upcoming season with popular Northampton-based driver, Jade Edwards set to make her return.

Edwards made her debut during a one-off outing at Silverstone in 2020 and achieved her dream of joining the grid full time during the 2021 season with the Steve Dudman ran squad with championship points scored during that maiden effort – being the first female to do so since 2007.

After a challenging but rewarding opening season, she has her sights set on strong results on her return. “I can’t wait for my second full season in the BTCC and I’ll be aiming to build on everything I’ve learnt,” said Edwards.

“I’m not there to make up the numbers and I intend on proving that from the outset. I can’t thank Steve enough for his continued support and for putting his faith in me once again.”

“Jade fully deserves her place on the grid after a promising 2021 season,” said BTC Racing Team Owner, Steve Dudman. “We have every faith in her ability as a racing driver and we’ll assist with her continued development, which I’m sure will see her compete with the very best on a regular basis. Diversity shouldn’t be just a tick box.”

Matt Brabham might be too busy with Indy Lights to try for a fourth Stadium Super Trucks championship, but that does not mean stadium trucks aren’t in his 2022 plans as he will run the season opener in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on 8–10 April. Albeit not full-time, the start marks his eighth year of SST competition.

Brabham has been SST’s top guy since his début in 2015, winning twenty-five races and three championships. The trio of crowns, consecutively from 2019 to 2021 (2020 did not keep standings as a season heavily impacted by COVID-19), are the most of any driver in series history; the third came in dominant fashion as he finished on the podium in all ten races and swept Mid-Ohio’s IndyCar weekend.

At Long Beach, Brabham and Robby Gordon are the only drivers to win thrice with Brabham’s coming once each weekend from 2017 to 2019. In twelve career SST starts at the California street circuit, he has podiums in all but one, and he came close in the exception as he finished fourth in 2018’s Race #1.

He moved to Indy Lights for 2022 with Andretti Autosport, and his second stint there began with a bang as he won at St. Petersburg in his first race. Prior to SST, Brabham was one of the rising prospects in Indy Lights and the Road to Indy ladder with titles in the U.S. F2000 National Championship and what is now Indy Pro 2000. Now with new life in open-wheel racing, he has resumed pursuing his dreams of racing in the NTT IndyCar Series where he last competed in a one-off at the 2016 Indianapolis 500.

Although Indy Lights is his primary focus now, Brabham has been more than open about coming back to SST if the race weekend does not have Indy Lights. He discussed a return when he spoke with The Checkered Flag in early March.

It was another strong weekend for Scuderia Ferrari, with Charles Leclerc finishing second and Carlos Sainz Jr third at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

It was so nearly back-to-back victories for Leclerc, however the Monegasque driver lost out late on to World Champion Max Verstappen, the pair were entangled in an exhilarating battle at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Leclerc had been leading for a large majority of the race, until a fully-charged Verstappen got within DRS range late on. Leclerc battled hard but fairly, however was unable to keep Verstappen behind despite terrific defending.

Sainz had a straightforward race, the Spaniard initially ran in fourth, before moving up to third after the race’s only Safety Car. Sainz was involved in a slight misunderstanding, as Sergio Pérez was made to let the Ferrari driver past, after overtaking illegally whilst the Safety Car was out.

Ferrari are sitting comfortably at the top of the Constructors’ Standings with Leclerc also leading the World Championship, Team Principal Mattia Binotto is very pleased with how the season has begun for the Scuderia.

This evening, we were all treated to a great show with two strong drivers fighting for the win. In the end, it didn’t go our way, but once again we were competitive. It’s been a great start to the season, with 78 points scored over the two races, out of a possible total of 88. That’s definitely a significant figure and we can be pleased about it. Charles and Carlos both did well and were clear thinking, especially at the key moments, which helped in bringing home as many points as possible.

Charles Leclerc came agonisingly close to making it back-to-back wins to start the 2022 season, however was beaten late on by Max Verstappen at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Scuderia Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, rounded off the podium at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

It was a mighty-fine effort by Leclerc to almost claim his second win of the season, the Monegasque driver had been in second early on behind Sergio Pérez, before overtaking the Mexican after pitting under a Safety Car. Leclerc then controlled the lead for a large chunk of the race, before Verstappen found himself within DRS range late on, leading to an epic battle.

The pair overtook each-other several times, with both of them almost grinding to a halt at the final corner in order to get DRS on one-another. In the end though the Dutchman got the better of Leclerc, who does at least still sit nicely at the top of the World Championship.

Leclerc was disappointed not to win but thoroughly enjoyed the battle with the World Champion.

“Although I’m disappointed to lose the victory so late in the race, it feels good to be fighting for wins again. Whenever I had a bit of margin to Max (Verstappen), I could manage the race well. But after the Virtual Safety Car, as soon as he got in the DRS range, it became difficult. He was fast in the straights and I was fast in the corners. You have to play on your strengths as much as possible when it’s this tight.

Oracle Red Bull Racing claimed their first win of 2022 at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, after World Champion Max Verstappen overtook Charles Leclerc late on at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

It was a fantastic duel between the pair, with the Dutchman eventually coming out as the winner, on the back of not finishing the opening round of the season. Verstappen who started fourth, sat in third for the majority of the race, before capitalising on a Safety Car to recover Nicholas Latifi’s crashed Williams. The Dutchman then found himself in second behind the Ferrari driver, but left it until the final few laps before giving it a real go.

The Dutchman went for the lead as soon as he got within the one-second window, which saw his Red Bull sail past the Ferrari with ease. However Leclerc immediately fought back and retook the lead on the following straight, with the help from DRS. The Drag Reduction System was incredibly strong at the circuit, to the point where both Verstappen and Leclerc almost grinded to a halt to try and get DRS on one-another.

With just a few laps to go though, Verstappen made his move to the front stick, and cross the line for his first win of the new season. Just like Verstappen, Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner, loved the duo’s dual in Saudi Arabia.

“What a great race, it was a very strategic race from Max, not taking too much out of the tyres and making sure he had enough left to attack at the end of the Grand Prix. There was some great racing between him and Charles, it was fantastic to watch, thankfully he had enough to hang on right at the end there.

Max Verstappen took his first win of the 2022 season, after leaving it late to overtake Charles Leclerc at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Team-mate Sergio Pérez finished an unfortunate fourth after incredible bad luck at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

After starting the race in fourth, Verstappen quickly found his way up to third, after Carlos Sainz Jr was boxed in on the opening lap by his Scuderia Ferrari team-mate. From then on the Dutchman settled into the race, making his only pit-stop during the Safety Car for Nicholas Latifi’s crash at the final corner.

Verstappen who sat in second behind Leclerc by the time racing had restarted, found himself within DRS range of the Ferrari driver in the closing stages of the race. He found himself within the one second window, after a Virtual Safety Car was deployed so that a number of stricken cars could be recovered after suffering from sudden reliability issues, much like he did in Bahrain!

It was then full attack from Verstappen, who after initially finding his way past on lap forty-two down into the final corner, was immediately overtaken by Leclerc on the rundown to Turn 1. Incredibly both drivers almost came to a stop on entry to the final corner, after both wanted DRS on one-another. Verstappen finally made his move to the lead stick with just a few laps remaining, to claim his first win and points finish of the new season.

Verstappen loved the battle with Leclerc, but was somewhat disappointed to have seen his team-mate fall out of the lead having controlled the race from pole so unfairly.

Max Verstappen took victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, after a dramatic fight for the lead with Charles Leclerc at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. 

From the start, Oracle Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Ferrari were positioned for a battle at the front, with Sergio Pérez on pole followed by Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen. The race start allowed Pérez to pull away early and take control of the race, and Verstappen to pass by Sainz within the first turns of the opening lap. Amazingly it was a relatively clean start, the grid didn’t see much shuffling. 

Just behind the leading teams, BWT Alpine F1 Team’s drivers Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso found themselves in a battle for sixth position. Alpine Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer was in no hurry to stop them from racing each other, making for some of the race’s most exciting wheel-to-wheel action. With Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen close behind, the midfield pack brought the excitement in the opening phase of the race. 

Lewis Hamilton, who started a lowly fifteenth, was up to eleventh by the twelfth lap. One of only a couple of drivers to start on Pirelli’s hard compound, Hamilton looked to recover to the points with a unique strategy that saw him pit only once, very late in the race. 

Guanyu Zhou received a five-second time penalty for cutting a corner during an early battle with Alex Albon, and later a second penalty for failing to serve the initial penalty properly.