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Charles Leclerc continued his winning ways as he topped the first practice ahead of Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas.

Leclerc was faster than Verstappen by 0.116 seconds. Leclerc set the fastest lap of 1m30.772s on the soft compound tyres in the dying minutes of the session. Verstappen set his fastest time on the hard compound tyres, an ominous sign for the competition.

The first free practice session of the second race of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship took place at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Formula 1 returned to this track for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in less than four months. This race debuted on the Formula 1 calendar as the penultimate race of last season.

The track has 27 corners and is a superfast flowing track. It is a temporary street circuit with the barriers close to the track. The drivers negotiated the first session without any major incidents.

Any NASCAR Cup Series owner/driver aspires to be like among the likes of Alan Kulwicki and Tony Stewart, but Brad Keselowski‘s tenure as one instead has him feeling like Michael Waltrip.

On Thursday, NASCAR handed down one of the largest points penalties in recent memory when it gave Keselowski’s #6 RFK Racing Ford Mustang an L2 level penalty. The car was found after Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway to have violated Sections 14.1 and 14.5 of the rulebook, which respectively concern vehicle assembly and body, in regards to the modification of a single-vendor part. Keselowski and the #6 have been docked 100 points in the driver and owner standings, respectively, as well as ten playoff points. Crew chief Matt McCall has been fined $100,000 and suspended for the next four races; engineer Josh Sell will fill in.

The Next Gen car, currently in its first season of action, stands out from its predecessors in that it relies on parts supplied to all teams from single suppliers; for example, every Next Gen car has radiator ducts made by Dallara, while all driveshafts are produced by Xtrac Inc. This is intended to reduce costs for teams as they would not have to manufacturer the parts themselves. To discourage them from tampering with such components, NASCAR introduced a new penalty system that targets infractions with stiffer punishments, which can go as far as to disqualify teams from making the playoffs in extreme circumstances. Disqualification is reserved for L3 level penalties, which are for egregious cases like counterfeiting or swapping out single-vendor parts with outside components rather than simply modifying them.

NASCAR did not specify which part of Keselowski’s #6, though the sanctioning body publicised that it broke clauses C and D of Section 14.1 as well as clauses A and D of 14.5; 14.5.d reads that “external surfaces of body panels may be wrapped or wrapped with paint applied to the wrap. Any external wrap or coating must be removable. Textured paint or vinyl will not be permitted.”

The 100-point penalty drastically drops Keselowski from sixteenth in the standings to thirty-fifth, the worst of all full-time drivers and trailing David Ragan and Garrett Smithley who have run two and three of five races, respectively. In order to make the playoffs, he would need to reach the top thirty in points and likely rely on a win. Even if he qualifies for the playoffs, he would already be in a hole due to his negative playoff points.

Ryan Arciero hails from a legendary off-road racing family and was mentored by the late Bob Gordon. On 8–10 April, Arciero will race against “Baja” Bob’s son Robby in the younger Gordon’s Stadium Super Trucks, making his series début at the season-opening Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Arciero is a third-generation off-road driver whose father Frank “Butch” Arciero Jr. was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2019 alongside Gordon while uncle Albert has run off-road and sports cars. He has competed in various desert championships like Best In The Desert and SCORE International. In SCORE, he has four victories in the Trophy Truck class at the 2003 Baja 500, the 2003 and 2004 Baja 1000s, and the inaugural Baja 400 in 2019; the 2003 and 2004 wins came as a co-driver with Mark Miller. Arciero also has eight NORRA Mexican 1000 wins alongside his father and the Gordons, and he will once again team up with Robby and his son Max Gordon for the 2022 race in late April.

Two weeks ago, Arciero competed in the Mint 400, a prestigious desert event in Nevada where victory has eluded him multiple times: he was in the home stretch of the 2020 edition before a flat tyre doomed him, while he finished second to 2013 SST runner-up Rob MacCachren in 2021. Arciero dominated the first half of the 2022 race only for his truck to lose power on the dry lakebed, eliminating him from contention yet again.

Despite his off-road-heavy background and Long Beach being a street circuit, Arciero is far from being a stranger to pavement racing. In 2005, he participated in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race at Long Beach and finished second to Rhys Millen. From its inaugural season in 2008 to the demise in 2011, Arciero was a driving instructor for the single-make Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup. As a Volkswagen factory driver, he helped the manufacturer contest the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb in 2006/2007 and develop the VW Baja Touareg programme for the 2008 Baja 1000.

At the turn of the millennium, he did pavement oval racing in the Ultra Wheels Super Truck Series, which included a six-win campaign in 2003. That year and the next saw Arciero race thrice in the now defunct NASCAR Southwest Series at tracks located in his native California. While he did not pursue a NASCAR career further, his Baja 400 victory came with an engine built by Cup Series team Joe Gibbs Racing.

43-year old Kajetan Kajetanowicz will be making a return to the FIA World Rally Championship this season as he is making a step-up back to the series’ premier support class in the WRC2.

Last year Kajetanowicz lost out his crown and the dreams of becoming the 2021 WRC3 champion at the last-ever stage of the year.

Coming in to the final round of the season at Rally Monza in Italy, it was a tight battle and all knew it was a shootout for the title between Kajetanowicz and the Frenchman Yohan Rossel.

Before the Wolf Power Stage, Kajetanowicz was sitting in second ahead of the third place Rossel by 1.6 seconds splitting them two but with a stunningly drive by Rossel on the power stage ended up with Rossel snatching the title by winning the stage.

Now Kajetanowicz and co-driver Maciej Szczepaniak will reset their minds and going for the WRC2 title instead, the class where they have finished as runner-up in 2019. Entering in the same RaceSeven backed Škoda Fabia Rally2 Evo used last year, the duo knows it won’t be an easy task as they are up against the factory teams.

Following eight years of success in prototype racing internationally, Jackie Chan DC Racing plans to launch an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship program starting with the 2023 season.

With previous experience and success in the WEC, ELMS, AsLMS, and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Jackie Chan DC Racing are excited to extend their reach as a full-time IMSA entrant. First formed in 2015, the team is headed by Chinese-American David Cheng and international celebrity Jackie Chan and saw a series of significant results early on.

At the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans, the team managed an impressive second place overall finish will a dramatic 1-2 team LMP2 class finish. In 2018 the team was able to secure LMP2 and LMP3 class championships in the Asian Le Mans Series. After a pause in competition efforts in the wake of 2020, the team is excited and committed to an IMSA debut at the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona. The team is currently in the final stages of planning for a state-of-the-art headquarters based somewhere on the west coast.

“Obviously there is a ton of excitement surrounding IMSA GTP, but if you step back and look at the robust size and deep levels of talent in this paddock through all of the classes, it is really impressive. It makes for a very attractive package, both for sponsor partners and for potential clients,” Cheng stated.

“We had to step away from the sport in 2020, but we’ve spent the time exploring opportunities to compete and I’m thrilled to be making this full-time move to compete in IMSA. By establishing a new base here in North America, we can build our business and offer a tremendous experience to our customers.”

With the BWT Alpine F1 Team riding on a high from its double points finish in Bahrain last weekend, it’s no surprise that Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso are both very much looking forward to getting on track in Saudi Arabia. Team Enstone achieved its best performance in a season-opening race since 2013, when Kimi Raikkonen took the race win at the Australian Grand Prix whilst it was called the Lotus F1 Team. Saudi Arabia was also a good race for Alpine last year; Ocon very narrowly missed out on getting a third place finish (Valtteri Bottas, then a Mercedes driver, beat him to it by just 0.102 seconds!) and also ended up leading a lap.

“In terms of points in an opening race, Bahrain was my best performance since I started in F1 so that is definitely a positive,” said Ocon about the upcoming weekend. “Double points for the team made Sunday even better and when you compare our opening race last year, there is much to be happy about. It’s great that we are racing so soon after Bahrain and it will be key to carry this positive momentum into the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend. It was great to finally drive the A522 in racing conditions and very much looking forward to doing it all again in just a few days in Jeddah. We raced there not too long ago so the track isn’t as unknown to us drivers as it was last year.“

Ocon’s views were echoed by his teammate. “Both cars scored points which is the main thing for us from the first race,” Alonso said. “Last year we didn’t score any in Bahrain, so it’s already an improvement.“

“The competition in Formula 1 is not only on track but off it too,” Alonso was also keen to stress. “At Enstone and Viry we have to focus on what’s ahead and continue to bring updates to our cars, so we can not only stay where we are, but make steps towards the front. The team is working so hard at both factories and at the track too. It’s a pleasure to see this all coming together and I’m really happy with what we’ve achieved so far.“

Round two of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship will take place this weekend at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, home of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The night race joined the Formula 1 calendar in 2021 and was the penultimate race of a close and contentious season. Lewis Hamilton won the inaugural race after a scrappy battle with Max Verstappen.

The second edition of this Grand Prix will take place at this newly-configured high speed street circuit. The Formula 1 circus returns to this track on the coast of the Red Sea after just four months.

What happened at the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix?

Charles Leclerc scored a popular victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain last weekend.

Leclerc led a Ferrari 1-2 as Carlos Sainz took second place after the Oracle Red Bull Racing drivers challenge evaporated in the closing laps in the opening race of the season.

On the eve of the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the BWT Alpine F1 Team‘s Chief Technical Officer Pat Fry is feeling optimistic about the new Formula 1 season so far. Alpine managed to get a double points finish in Bahrain last weekend, as well as get some really good running (Esteban Ocon‘s incident where a sidepod flew off his car excluded!). In fact, the Bahrain Grand Prix was Team Enstone’s best performance in a season-opening race since the Lotus days in 2013; back then, Kimi Raikkonen took the race win at Australia’s Albert Park street circuit.

“It’s always good to come away from the first race with both cars scoring points and, just as importantly, learn more about how the car works in full racing conditions,” said Fry about Bahrain. “We ran reliably on both the chassis and power unit when it counted with the odd hiccup here and there, which is expected at the first race of the season.“

“We have a solid base to build from now and we’ll continue our learning this weekend,” Fry continued, regarding the team’s plans for Saudi Arabia. “We don’t have any distinct upgrades for Saudi Arabia but we will run some interesting test items in practice, which will give us some ideas for future concepts. As it’s a low downforce circuit, we will have a different rear wing for this weekend and Esteban will return to the latest spec sidepod after the issue from last week. We have a development plan in place and we are pushing ahead as hard as we can for the Melbourne race and beyond.“

The FIA is among a vast list of organisations who have taken action against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, its member clubs from the Sport and Mobility Councils are stepping up to assist Ukraine itself, such as aiding relief efforts and transporting refugees.

Now a month in, the invasion has triggered one of the largest humanitarian crises in Europe since the Yugoslav Wars or even World War II, with over 3.6 million Ukrainians having fled the country. Living up to their role as automobile authorities, various FIA members are helping refugees with free vehicular and roadside assistance when crossing borders into each member’s respective country, such as Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club of Germany, Österreichische Automobil-, Motorrad- und Touringclub of Austria, Algemene Nederlandse Wielrijders Bond of the Netherlands, Automobil Clubul Roman, Automobil Club Din Moldova, Autoklub Slovakia Assistance, Magyar Autoklub of Hungary, and the Bosnia and Herzegovina Automobile Club. The Automobile Club Du Luxembourg is also providing vans to members who plan to drive to the Ukrainian border with supplies, while ADAC Germany has made van rental cheaper for the same reason.

“The FIA and its member clubs, supported by BIHAMK, are doing all in their power to relieve this unprecedented humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. To this end, the FIA and its member clubs have already started various activities – from collecting funds and humanitarian goods to providing free roadside assistance services to help refugees fleeing from Ukraine to other European countries,” reads a statement from the Bosnia and Herzegovina Automobile Club.

The Automobile Club of Portugal launched the “Uma vida, um lugar” (“One life, one place”) campaign, which entailed teaming up with state-owned airline TAP Air Portugal to provide aerial transport for refugees from Warsaw, Poland (where the Portuguese embassy is located) to Lisbon. As of a news release on Monday, the ACP can afford to fly up to 660 refugees and has already done so for over 200.

“As a mobility club, nothing makes more sense than launching a humanitarian transport operation for those fleeing war in dramatic conditions,” the ACP proclaimed on 11 March.

NASCAR Cup Series drivers racing in the Xfinity Series and lower is a fairly touchy subject, but two reasons why it happens are to help them gain experience on a certain track ahead of their main series’ race and give multi-driver Xfinity teams a chance to win races and gain owner points. For Saturday’s Pit Boss 250 at Circuit of the Americas, DGM Racing and SS-Green Light Racing have turned over the #92 Chevrolet Camaro and #07 Ford Mustang to Ross Chastain and Cole Custer, respectively.

Now in his sophomore season as a permanent Cup driver, Chastain has enjoyed a strong start to 2022 as a member of Trackhouse Racing Team. Despite poor finishes in the first two races, he is riding a streak of three top-three finishes in which he led the most laps at Las Vegas and placed second in the two most recent rounds.

At the inaugural COTA weekend in 2021, he took over SSGLR’s #07 for the Xfinity race in place of an injured Joe Graf Jr. and finished thirtieth. The next day, he was fourth in the Cup race. In nineteen career Xfinity road course races, he has four top tens with a best finish of fifth at the Charlotte Roval in 2020. Among his twelve Cup starts on such courses, he has three top tens including the COTA finish.

Chastain has raced in the Xfinity Series since 2014, including full-time campaigns from 2015 to 2018 and in 2020. His last Xfinity campaign saw him place seventh in points as he led all drivers in top tens with twenty-seven in thirty-three tries.

“Ross is a very talented racer, and we’re thrilled for the opportunity to work with him,” said DGM owner Mario Gosselin. “Ross’ recent accomplishments in the Cup Series are truly impressive. We’re humbled and extremely thankful to have him in the #92 this weekend.”

Frédéric Vasseur admitted he was ‘impressed, but not surprised’ with the way the Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN began their 2022 Formula 1 campaign in Bahrain, with the Hinwil-based outfit scoring points with both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu last Sunday.

After a less than straightforward pre-season testing programme, the team showed good speed and performance throughout the weekend at the Bahrain International Circuit, with Bottas claiming sixth and Zhou tenth to give the team nine points towards the Constructors’ Championship. 

Vasseur, the Team Principal at Alfa Romeo, says the level of confidence within the team in Bahrain was obvious to see, and he hopes they can carry the momentum from last weekend into this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

“Starting the season with two cars in the points is a great feeling, and to be back on track within a week allows us to channel this enthusiasm and momentum into hopefully another good result,” said Vasseur.  

“I was impressed, but not surprised, by how the team approached the weekend and by the level of confidence we had in our means: we know the whole team worked well during the year leading to this and we are eager to show the world what we can do.”

Parker Kligerman is in for a busy Saturday at Circuit of the Americas. In addition to running the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race for Henderson Motorsports, he will make his first Xfinity Series start since 2017 later in the day. The latter will come with Emerling-Gase Motorsports in the #35 Toyota GR Supra.

“Yesterday @JoeyGaseRacing & @PatrickEmerling gave me a call asking if I’d be interested in giving the @NASCAR_Xfinity series a go again,” Kligerman tweeted on Wednesday. “Very humbled they thought of me for this & I hope we can get them a great result!”

After sporadic competition from 2009 to 2012, Kligerman ran his lone full season in the Xfinity Series in 2013, finishing ninth in points for Kyle Busch Motorsports. KBM, a current Truck team, shuttered its Xfinity programme at season’s end, and Kligerman has since run just two Xfinity races: a twenty-first at Darlington in 2015 for Obaika Racing and tenth at Road America two years later with Precision Performance Motorsports. In fifty-three career Xfinity starts, he has three top fives, nineteen top tens, a pole in his series début, and a best finish of third at Road America in 2013.

Upon KBM’s Xfinity exit and an aborted Cup Series rookie campaign, he has mainly focused on the Trucks with part-time schedules since 2016 with some Cup starts sprinkled in. He joined Henderson in 2017 and won his second career Truck race with the team at that year’s Talladega event (his maiden series victory also came at the superspeedway as a full-timer in 2012). Kligerman finished fifth in the 2022 season opener at Daytona, and will run twelve more races with the team including all three road courses at COTA, Sonoma, and Mid-Ohio.

Although he had not made an Xfinity start for nearly five years, the 31-year-old is a reasonable pick as a road course ringer. He is an IMSA pit reporter for NBC Sports and owns a minority stake in Lime Rock Park, an IMSA road circuit that he commented in a Reddit AMA earlier in the week as one that he has been “working on” getting the Trucks to visit. Kligerman also has a Silver FIA licence, though he had spent the last six years in the Gold category.

Valtteri Bottas says he is eager to get back behind the wheel of his Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN car this weekend in Saudi Arabia after his impressive debut with the team last weekend in Bahrain.

Bottas took a superb sixth place finish at the Bahrain International Circuit despite a poor start, and the Finn is hoping to build on that performance this weekend at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, a venue where he took a podium finish with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team in 2021.

The multiple Formula 1 race winner is expecting Alfa Romeo’s results throughout 2022 to fluctuate, but he also expects the team to bring updates that will hopefully help them stay towards the front of the midfield and fight regularly points scorers.

“It’s nice to be back in the car soon after a good result,” said Bottas.  “It gives us the chance to build on the strong performance we showed last weekend and fix the things that can be improved.

“It’s still early days in the season and we expect the balance on track to shift backwards and forwards as teams bring updates, but we are not standing still either and we are determined to stay on top of this curve.

Scuderia Ferrari go into this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on the back of not only winning the Bahrain Grand Prix, but having claimed their first one-two since 2019. Can they do it again this weekend at the incredibly fast and unforgiving Jeddah Corniche Circuit?

The season opener last weekend couldn’t have gone any better for Charles Leclerc, after winning the race, claiming pole position and the race’s fastest lap. Carlos Sainz Jr despite coming second didn’t feel as comfortable in the car compared to his Monegasque team-mate, the Spaniard will be hoping to push his team-mate all the way this weekend.

A Leclerc victory this weekend really would cement his place as one of the favourites for the Drivers’ Championship this season, in the new era of Formula 1, this weekend possesses a very different challenge though.

Despite being the second longest circuit on the calendar, the Jeddah Corniche Circuit is staggeringly the second fastest, an incredibly daunting statistic giving the fact it’s a street circuit. Both Leclerc and Sainz Jr will need to be on their toes this weekend, and most importantly keep out of the walls.

Leclerc’s Race Engineer, Xavi Marcos, is expecting the teams which have paid the most attention to detail with designing this year’s cars, to have an advantage this weekend.

Max Verstappen says the Oracle Red Bull Racing team need to put the disappointment of the Bahrain Grand Prix behind them as Formula 1 heads to Saudi Arabia for the second race of the season this weekend.

Verstappen was on course for a certain podium finish last weekend at the Bahrain International Circuit only to retire with just three laps to go with a mechanical issue, but the reigning World Champion knows the season is long and there will be chances to make amends.

The Dutchman also knows Red Bull have a competitive car in 2022, and he is eager to get back behind the wheel to attack at this weekend’s race at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

“Last weekend was a tough one for all of us to take, we win and lose as a team and we’ll come back stronger this week,” said Verstappen.  “We have a good package and we were competitive in Bahrain, so there are positives to take from the weekend, and we have a very long season ahead – it’s only the first race.

“Looking ahead to Saudi, the track is still very new for us, last year the humidity was challenging and they’ve made some small adjustments to visibility in sector one so I’m curious to see how it’s going to be this time around.