Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season is finally upon us, and in less than six months since last season’s thrilling finale in Long Beach the grid looks completely different. Four rookies will be making their first starts in IndyCar, while two return for their first full seasons in the sport. On top of that, plenty of veteran drivers find themselves with new teams. All have their eyes on one prize, the Astor Cup.

But as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and when it comes to starting the IndyCar Series season where better to do it than the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR?

Colton Herta dominated last year’s event, taking the pole position and leading all but three laps of the race.

The young American cruised through the first two stints of the race, boasting a gap of over ten seconds to second-place Josef Newgarden. However, a caution with 27 laps to go changed that, as Jimmie Johnson spun in turn three. With the most push to pass boost left of any driver in the field and the faster option tyres, it seemed that this was Newgarden’s opportunity to steal the win, but Herta held strong.

Another caution a few laps later with 21 to go for contact between James Hinchcliffe and Ed Jones, and the restart with 17 laps to go gave Newgarden one more chance to pass Herta into turn one. He wasn’t able to make the move, and Herta sailed to his first win of the season and first career win on a street course. Newgarden finished second, with his Team Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud third.

The Haas F1 Team will run an all-white car during the third and final day of the first pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with the Uralkali branding being removed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There has been widespread condemnation of Russia’s invasion of their neighbours, and Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen have already said it would be difficult to see Formula 1 racing at the Sochi Autodrom in Russia in September.

But with Russian sponsors and a Russian driver on board, all eyes were on Haas, and despite running their usual livery on Thursday, they will remove the Uralkali branding ahead of Friday’s running.

Nikita Mazepin will continue to participate in the running and will have the driving duties on Friday morning before hands the VF-22 over to team-mate Mick Schumacher for the final afternoon session.

“Haas F1 Team will present its VF-22 in a plain white livery, minus Uralkali branding, for the third and final day of track running at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Friday 25 February,” the team said in a statement on Thursday evening.

Guanyu Zhou was pleased to get his first proper taste of Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s C42 on Thursday, with the Chinese driver completing seventy-one laps of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

With Alfa Romeo giving test driver Robert Kubica the morning session on Wednesday, Thursday afternoon was the first time that Zhou was able to turn laps in pre-season testing, and he made the most of his track time to set the tenth best time of the day.

It was the first true running of the car after a number of mechanical issues affected the first day and a half of running, but Zhou hopes they have turned the corner and can now truly focus on improving the car across the remaining four days of testing in Spain and Bahrain.

“It was nice to get to drive this new generation of cars: it definitely feels different from what I drove in the past,” said Zhou.  “I took my time at the beginning of the session, trying not to push too hard but just getting used to the car and the way it felt: towards the end, I tried a few better runs.

“There is a little bit of bouncing compared to last year’s car, for sure, but I’m sure everything is going to get better as the team understands the car more. We are working in the right direction.

Andrew Shovlin admits the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team still have ‘plenty of issues’ to work on ahead of the start of the season after a less than straightforward day two of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Thursday.

Lewis Hamilton was only able to complete forty laps during the morning session as he struggled with the balance of his W13, while the team also experienced a data logging issue that restricted his running.

George Russell took over the driving duties in the afternoon and enjoyed a much more productive session as he ran sixty-six laps, and his best time saw him place fourth fastest for a second consecutive day.

However, Shovlin, the Trackside Engineering Director at Mercedes, admits the team are on the back foot at this stage of pre-season, with the performance aspect of the W13 not as strong as they would like.  He knows however, it is early days and they still have time to make the car more competitive.

“We had a difficult morning with Lewis, experiencing a data logging issue that delayed our start and in general, we were struggling a bit more with the balance,” said Shovlin.  “Some of that may have been setup items that we were trying and some of it the harder tyres that we were running today.

Esteban Ocon had his first proper taste of BWT Alpine F1 Team’s A522 during day two the pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and he made good use of the track time available to rack up one hundred and twenty-five laps.

The Frenchman, the surprise winner of the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2021, said it was important to get some significant running on track on Thursday, and he admitted he was beginning to get a proper feeling of how the car handles.

Ocon admits there are still areas where Alpine need to improve their car, but that is the reason for pre-season testing, to iron out the issues before the season starts in earnest next month in Bahrain.

“Today was my first proper day in the A522 and it’s certainly a great feeling to be back in a Formula 1 car and doing lots of laps,” said Ocon.  “It was good to start to get a feeling for the car on proper tyres in accurate testing conditions.

“The most important target for us today, like yesterday too, was to do lots of running so to do over 100 laps is encouraging. We tested a lot of different things and we’ve given ourselves a couple of ideas to work on.

Charles Leclerc ended day two of the first pre-season test with the quickest time at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as two red flags affected the days running.

Firstly, a gearbox issue for Sergio Pérez left the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver stranded on circuit, while a fuel pump issue for Nikita Mazepin did likewise for the Uralkali Haas F1 Team driver.  However, despite their stoppages, both did not lose too much time and were able to resume running not long after.

Daniel Ricciardo had set the pace for the McLaren F1 Team in the morning session, but the Australian was usurped, not only by Scuderia Ferrari’s Leclerc in the afternoon but also by Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly.

Leclerc’s best time of 1:19.689 was just over two-tenths better than Gasly’s best, while Ricciardo was six-tenths back in third.  For both Gasly and Ricciardo, it was their first tastes of their respective 2022 machines after watching Yuki Tsunoda and Lando Norris run on day one.  And both drivers were busy as they both exceeded the one-hundred lap barrier.

Having taken over from Lewis Hamilton for the afternoon session, George Russell ended the day fourth fastest for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, just ahead of the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr. who had run in the morning session before handing over to Leclerc.

Christine “GZ” Giampaoli Zonca will need to undergo surgery on Friday to treat her broken foot. With the next Extreme E race not until 7/8 May, she will have over two months to heal.

GZ suffered the injury during single-car qualifying for the Desert X Prix last Saturday. In the session, her Veloce Racing car rolled after digging into the sand while turning left, causing the vehicle to flip onto its roof. After being taken to a local hospital, she was diagnosed with a fractured foot and discharged later in the day.

Hedda Hosås filled in for GZ in Sunday’s racing, where the team finished fourth in the Crazy Race.

On Thursday, GZ revealed in an Instagram post that the foot was fractured in three places and the operation will take place the next day.

“Tomorrow we will have surgery. Apparently the foot is broken in 3 different areas and if we want to be “ready” for the next race this is the only way to go,” read the post. “Thank you all for support and mainly to my team for everything they are doing @veloce_racing”.

Trident Motorsport have announced three drivers for their first Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine season, with Tim Tramnitz, Roman Bilinski and Leonardo Fornaroli all signing for the Italian outfit for 2022.

Seventeen-year-old Tramnitz steps up from racing in the German ADAC F4 and Italian F4 Championships in 2021 where he finished second in both, with five wins coming in the former and four wins in the latter championship.

And Tramnitz is delighted to be moving up to FRECA with Trident in 2022, and he believes the team will get the best out of him during his rookie campaign in Formula 3 machinery.

“I’m really happy to compete with Trident in FRECA this year,” said Tramnitz.  “For me and for the team it’s a new challenge in this series and I’m so proud to be part of that story.

“The team has such a big history and so much experience and for me it is a big opportunity to learn and to get the best out of me. I had such a warm welcome from the team and I’m confident that we can achieve a lot together this year.

Zak Brown, the CEO of the McLaren F1 Team, says it would be stupid not to think about the future of Formula 1 and allow Andretti Global an entry into the sport, and it is ‘short-sighted’ of teams to not support the move.

Michael Andretti has opened talks with the FIA about entering Formula 1 as soon as the 2024 season as an eleventh team on the grid after talks last year broke down with the Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN outfit about taking over the Hinwil-based outfit.

However, the likes of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s Toto Wolff and Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Christian Horner have doubted Andretti Global would bring value to Formula 1, something Brown disagrees with.

“I think Andretti as a name, as a highly credible racing team, and knowing who his backers are, and who he is, they will no doubt help us grow the sport in North America,” said Brown to Motorsport.com.  “I think the teams that may not support another team are being short-sighted.

“Are we trying to grow the sport? Or are we doing what racing teams have a bad tendency to do, which is think about today and not the future.”

When the Superstar Racing Experience conducted its inaugural season in 2021, Marco Andretti, Hélio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, and Paul Tracy were NTT IndyCar Series drivers who took part. For 2022, the quartet will return—albeit with different schedules—and will be joined by Josef Newgarden and Ryan Hunter-Reay. The group was reported by the Associated Press on Wednesday with confirmation from SRX CEO Don Hawk.

Andretti and Tracy will once again run all six races. The former won at Slinger Speedway en route to a fourth-place points finish, while Tracy was seventh with a best race finish of fifth at Eldora and the Nashville Fairgrounds.

Kanaan will enter all but one round, with the exception not being specified. In 2021, he shared his car with NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Hailie Deegan, and the duo combined to finish sixth in the standings with Deegan holding the best run of second at Knoxville; Kanaan’s highest finish was seventh at Stafford and Eldora. Castroneves, the defending Indianapolis 500 winner, was fifth in points with a podium at Eldora and will be at three dates in 2022.

Newgarden, a two-time IndyCar champion, will run the 9 July race at the Nashville Fairgrounds; he was born and raised in Nashville, making the track a natural pick. Set to enter his eleventh season of IndyCar competition and sixth with Team Penske, Newgarden is one of the top drivers in the series with twenty career wins and is coming off back-to-back runner-up championship finishes. With the exception of a fifth-place finish in 2018, he has never ranked lower than second in the standings since joining Penske in 2017.

Hunter-Reay lost his ride at Andretti Autosport after eleven seasons, a stretch that saw him win the 2012 championship. In fifteen years of IndyCar competition, he scored sixteen wins. However, his performance—and luck—declined since his most recent win at Sonoma in 2018, which included a difficult 2021 campaign as he finished a career worst seventeenth in points with no podiums. He was replaced by Romain Grosjean for 2022 and instead moved into sports cars with Chip Ganassi Racing. His SRX schedule was not revealed, though not having an IndyCar seat means he will have time to run the entire season unless other obligations come up.

Toto Wolff says Andretti Global would need to prove they have what it takes to join Formula 1 and demonstrate that the team could add value to the sport.

Michael Andretti has revealed that he is in talks with the FIA about entering a team into Formula 1 from the 2024 season onwards, having late last year unsuccessfully attempted to buy into the Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN outfit.

Wolff, the Team Principal of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, says that whilst Andretti is a big name in motorsport, they would need to show they have everything in place as mandated by the FIA financially, including the $200 million entry fee.

“Andretti is a name, that’s for sure,” Wolff is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “And the American market is important. But every team that is joining needs to be accretive, that means needs to add value.

“And it’s not only it’s not only by paying $200 million entry fee, but it needs to demonstrate in my opinion what it can do for the other teams, for F1 and FIA. Only then the sport will grow.

Max Verstappen believes Michael Masi was ‘thrown under the bus’ by the FIA in the wake of the controversial conclusion to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the Dutchman feeling the now former Race Director was very capable of continuing with his job into 2022.

Masi has been replaced during the off-season by Eduardo Freitas and Niels Wittich, who come across from the FIA World Endurance Championship and DTM Series respectively, and Verstappen is saddened that he was ousted in the first place. 

“I think it’s not correct,” Verstappen said to Motorsport.com.  “Everyone always tries to do the best job, everyone can always use help.  

“Like us drivers also – we have the whole team behind us, we prove it ourselves. For me, it’s very unfair what happened to Michael – he was really being thrown under the bus.  

“Now, [that they] did sack him like that in the first place for me is unacceptable. And now basically [that they] sacked him is really incredible. I feel really sorry for Michael.  

Sebastian Vettel says he will not race in the Russian Grand Prix in 2022, even if Formula 1 opts to race there, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking in the press conference on day two of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team driver admitted he was in shock at the invasion of the Ukraine by Russian troops and believes it would not be right for Formula 1 to race at the Sochi Autodrom this year.

Vettel is a director in the Grand Prix Drivers Association, and although conversations between the drivers have not yet happened, he is expecting talks to take place about the conflict and what actions they should take.

“In my personal opinion, obviously I woke up again after this morning’s news, shocked,” Vettel said on Thursday.  “I think it’s horrible to see what is happening. Obviously if you look at the calendar, we have a race scheduled in Russia.

“For myself, my own opinion is I should not go, I will not go. I think it’s wrong to race in that country. I’m sorry for the people, innocent people who are losing their lives, getting killed for stupid reasons under a very strange and mad leadership.

For the first time since the controversial finale of the 2021 Formula 1 season in Abu Dhabi, Toto Wolff and Christian Horner appeared together in public on Wednesday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and both agreed to draw a line under what happened last year and move on.

The relationship between the Team Principals of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team and Oracle Red Bull Racing broke down last year as Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen fought over the Drivers’ Championship. 

And it all came to a head in the finale in Abu Dhabi as Verstappen took the title after controversies over the legality of the safety car restart that ultimately cost FIA Race Director Michael Masi his job.

However, despite a difference of opinion over what happened to his Red Bull counterpart, Wolff says it is important for Formula 1 to close that particular chapter and move on and focus on the new season ahead in 2022.

“It’s to be expected. It got fierce at times and brutal. But there’s a lot at stake,” Wolff is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.  “It’s a Formula 1 world championship, and there’s the fighting on track, and the fighting off track for advantages. So that’s okay.

McLaren F1 Team had a successful first day of testing, as Lando Norris took on both of today’s sessions and ended the day with 103 laps completed and the lead lap time. Norris’s time of 1:19.568 placed him over half a second ahead of the second place runner, Charles Leclerc.

“I’m really happy to be back behind the wheel. It’s nice to be in the car again and get to push the limit. It’s been good for me to get used to this new car, because I’ve driven the same regulations for my whole F1 career,” Norris said. 

“It’s nice to have a change and it was a productive day. We learned a lot of things for the team, and we got all the information we wanted to. We can now compare it back to the simulator and the wind tunnel. A good day, and a good start to this test.”

McLaren may have finished out the day on top, but lap times were not of significance for James Key, McLaren’s Executive Director, Technical, who focused more on learning about the new car and collecting data. 

“This has been a productive first day for us. We’re not taking any notice of lap times at the moment, it’s all about learning and following our own directions and priorities. We gathered some important data points during this first day of testing and learned a great deal, both to carry forward for the rest of this test and also to use as we develop the car further.”