Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Pierre Gasly finished on the top of the timecharts on the first day of the second pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit at Sakhir in Bahrain. This is the second and final test after the first test took place at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.

The second test is taking place at the venue of the first race of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship starting on March 20, 2022. The teams have brought a final set of updates for this test before the season begins.

This final three day test at this hot and dusty venue will reveal the contours of the pecking order for the opening races of the season.

Lando Norris replaced a sick Daniel Ricciardo on the opening day of testing for the McLaren F1 team. The Haas F1 team did not participate in the morning session as the freight did not reach on time.

Pietro Fittipaldi handled testing duties in the afternoon for the American team. Kevin Magnussen, the late replacement for Nikita Mazepin, will join the team later.

2021 saw the Toro Verde GT team make its European and British competition debut, this year the team will be entering four cars in to the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup GB series.

Along with the announcement that the team will be joining Carrera Cup, they have also announced that racer/engineer Julian Westwood will be joining the Rochdale-based squad as Team manager for the Porsche programme.

Last year saw the team compete in GT2 European Series, Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, and the Ginetta GT5 Challenge, this year they switch focus to UK-based racing, joining the Ginetta GT Academy along with the Carrera Cup GB.

“At the end of 2021 we decided that we were going to go out into the marketplace and the Carrera Cup was where we decided to set out our stall with the introduction of the new car and it being a very popular championship,” explained Jules Westwood, Porsche Carrera Cup GB Team Manager.

“Jonesy [Chris Jones] has experience from winning the championship with Tio [Ellinas] in 2018, I’ve got experience from too many years to mention with Team Parker, so between us we’ve got a good knowledge of what we need to know and need to do. We’ve ended up with four cars from zero, so it’s been an interesting time facilitating having the right people in place to have success.

For the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Circuit of the Americas on 26 March, RSS Racing will place the #38 Ford Mustang in the hands of Patrick Gallagher, who will make his second career NASCAR start. Belle Haven Investments will sponsor the car, though the team is open to adding more support.

He wrote on social media, “These things are a riot on the road courses, ready to go!”

Gallagher primarily competes in sports cars as a two-time Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) National Champion and current IMSA driver. Mainly racing in IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge, he won at Watkins Glen in 2021 on a part-time schedule. He is the 2017 Mazda Global MX-5 Cup champion, a campaign that saw eight wins in twelve tries, and also has experience in the Pirelli World Challenge and GT4 America Series.

In January, he made his Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona début for Crucial Motorsports, driving a McLaren 720S GT3 in the GTD class alongside Lance Bergstein, Paul Holton, and Jon Miller. Gallagher recorded the fastest lap of the quartet but the entry retired after 263 laps and was classified nineteenth in class. He will return to the team for next weekend’s 12 Hours of Sebring.

His first NASCAR start was the 2019 Xfinity race at Mid-Ohio, where he piloted the #99 for B.J. McLeod Motorsports. After starting at the back in thirty-seventh, he finished twenty-third and one lap down.

As Ukraine’s defence against Russian invasion continues, Roger Penske is the next NASCAR Cup Series team owner to pitch his aid. On Thursday, Penske announced that his Penske Corporation will donate $1 milion to the World Central Kitchen, which provides meals during times of crisis.

In the days following Russia launching its widely vilified invasion, Cup team owners Richard Childress and Rick Hendrick chipped in for Ukraine by respectively donating one million rounds of ammunition and $200,000 to a relief fund set up by Samaritan’s Purse. The latter added a further $102,000 after Hendrick Motorsports drivers combined to lead fifty-one laps in Sunday’s race at Las Vegas, with $2,000 per lap led as Hendrick driver Alex Bowman won.

Others showed support through special liveries and decals. The day before the Cup race, the car of Xfinity Series driver Stefan Parsons had a double stripe in Ukraine’s national colours blue and yellow with the phrase “UKRAINE STRONG” on the hood.  Penske driver Ryan Blaney placed a Ukrainian flag on his #12 car’s rear bumper, while Penske ally Wood Brothers Racing added a blue strip of tape to the yellow rookie stripe for Harrison Burton.

“Grateful to be part of a family that knows when to take care of others in need,” Blaney tweeted.

“Through a collective effort among Penske Corporation companies contributing $1 million to WCK, Team Penske is helping to feed those who are in need in Ukraine,” reads the donation page. “We invite Team Penske fans and followers who would like to make their own contribution to WCK’s Ukraine response to donate below. Thank you for your support!”

Gianmarco Quaresmini is set for a season of double duties as he enters the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup and Porsche Carrera Cup Italia with the Ombra Racing squad.

The Italian will return to the team after running with them in Porsche Carrera Cup France, where he finished twelfth place in the series. Alongside that series he also competed in the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia, finishing third in the championship with Tsunami RT.

The 26-year-old also took part in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup double-header at Monza with the Dinamic Motorsport team, finishing sixteenth and fifteenth in the highly competitive series that supports the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

“I’m really happy about this program, because after 2021 with the Ombra team and with the new car, it was mandatory to go on and double the program,” said Quaresmini.

“Going back to racing in the Supercup, the championship of the highest level and prestige, accompanying it to the Italian championship is the right step to take.”

Upcoming Danish star Bastian Buus will join the BWT Lechner Racing squad for the upcoming Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup season, joining the previously announced Dylan Pereira and Harry King.

Despite only being 18, Buus has already tasted success in sports car racing; in 2020 he won the GT4 Pro-Am European Championship, “It’s really hard to take this all in now. It’s been two years since I switched from a kart to a race car, and while we’ve had big ambitions from the word go, I haven’t had the imagination to think it was possible to get this far in such a short time”, said Buus.

Buus already has his eyes on a championship title for 2022, “Being able to work with a team like BWT Lechner Racing is a dream come true for me. I will get the opportunity to learn a lot from some hugely fast drivers and a fantastically skilled crew. And I’m going to need that because my goal is to secure the Porsche Mobil 1 Rookie Championship. I am really looking forward to getting started working with the team and I am 110 percent motivated to deliver a perfect job from my side.”

The Dane’s ambitions don’t stop at the Rookie title, “One of my overall goals, for the time being, is to be selected for the Porsche Motorsport shootout to become an official Porsche Junior driver. BWT Lechner Racing will be the perfect team to give me the chance to prove my talent and be recognized.

“A big thank you to Robert and Walter Lechner, who are themselves former racing drivers and who have chosen to believe in my performance and give me a chance this season. Also thanks to BWT and my sponsorship network, Flatout Club, which has helped to enable me to enter into the agreement – without them all this would not have been possible.”

Chase Janes will go from Hickory, North Carolina, to Martinsville, Virginia. On Thursday, Reaume Brothers Racing announced Janes has been scheduled for his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series début at Martinsville Speedway on 7 April.

Janes primarily competes in late models at Hickory Motor Speedway, where he won six races in 2020 a year after missing all of 2019 with a broken wrist. In 2018, he finished top ten in the track’s late model championship.

“Coming off of surgery in 2019, I knew it would be a climb to just get back to where I was,” said Janes. “After a successful 2020 and 2021, I’m very blessed for the opportunity that Josh (Reaume), Frank (Bickford), and everyone with the team has given me. Everything happens for a reason, and I’m excited to roll into Martinsville in April.”

RBR fields the #33 full-time for a variety of drivers, with Jason White and Loris Hezemans making starts in the first two rounds at Daytona and Las Vegas, respectively, which Janes will presumably pilot. The team also has a partnership with GMS Racing to operate the #43 truck for Thad Moffitt. Hezemans, the reigning NASCAR Whelen Euro Series champion, also drives for the team’s Cup Series partner Team Hezeberg.

“I thoroughly enjoy having drivers make their national series début with our team,” commented Reaume, who owns the team. “Chase has an extensive short track background, and I am excited to see that success translate to Martinsville.”

As many codes of motorsport continue experimenting with electric power, Team Audi Sport has already taken one to the top step of the podium. The Audi RS Q e-tron, driven by Stéphane Peterhansel with Edouard Boulanger as co-driver, won the first stage in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and never looked back en route to becoming the first electric vehicle to win an overall rally raid in just its second start.

The RS Q e-tron made its racing début at the Dakar Rally in January, where Mattias Ekström won four stages and finished ninth in the Cars class. Dakar winner Nasser Al-Attiyah of Toyota Gazoo Racing dominated the Desert Challenge by winning every stage afterwards, but was eliminated from the overall victory after retiring from the first stage with damage from an “unlucky landing” which resulted in a major time penalty. Sébastien Loeb of Bahrain Raid Xtreme, who battled with Al-Attiyah for the Dakar crown and entered Abu Dhabi as another threat, was also the victim of bad fortune when the drivetrain was damaged. Ekström, Al-Attiyah, and Loeb were already familiar with electric motorsport as they have competed in Extreme E.

With Al-Attiyah and Loeb out of the picture, Peterhansel was consistent in his performances. Despite finishing Stage #2 in fourth after being hindered by a tyre puncture, he maintained his overall lead in the next stage after the next closest challenger Yazeed Al-Rajhi—who had narrowed the gap to the leader to less than eight minutes—was knocked out by a broken differential. Peterhansel finished Stage #3 in third.

“It wasn’t easy to find the right rhythm on the sometimes very treacherous broken dunes,” Peterhansel commented. “Our pace was right and we didn’t take too many risks. Once again, the Audi RS Q e-tron was a lot of fun.”

The fourth stage saw another fourth-place run for Peterhansel with a twelve-minute advantage over Martin Prokop. A sixth in the fifth and final segment allowed Peterhansel to secure the overall victory with a time of 17:43:07, nearly half an hour faster than Prokop’s 18:12:56. The win is Peterhansel’s seventh in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge’s Cars category, breaking a tie with fellow Frenchman Jean-Louis Schlesser for the most in the event’s history. He also won as a Bike rider in 1996.

NASCAR announced Thursday a pair of position changes for Executive Vice President Steve O’Donnell and Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation Ben Kennedy. The former has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer, while the latter will rejoin NASCAR’s competition department as Senior Vice President of Racing Development and Strategy. Both begin their new duties effective immediately.

O’Donnell, who has worked for NASCAR since 1996, became EVP and Chief Racing Development Officer in 2014. After starting his tenure at the sanctioning body in the marketing arm, he moved to operations which entails overseeing the sport’s rules and regulations.

“NASCAR is in a prime position for growth, and I look forward to helping our talented team continue the work necessary to build our sport,” O’Donnell said. “I am deeply passionate about NASCAR, its fans and those who work in our industry. Together, we will continue the unprecedented collaboration to ensure our sport’s success.”

Kennedy, a member of the France family that runs NASCAR and a former Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series driver, transitioned into the sport’s executive side after ending his driving career in 2017. As SVP of Strategy and Innovation, he was the mastermind of the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in February.

“I am excited to return to the Competition team and continue to learn from some of the most innovative leaders across our sport,” stated Kennedy. “The racing this season with the Next Gen car is some of the best we’ve ever seen. It is truly an exciting time in NASCAR, and I look forward to helping this talented team grow our sport.”

Actor-turned-racer Michael Fassbender is set to make his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut this year with the #93 Proton Competition entry alongside Matt Campbell and another to be confirmed driver.

After competing in the Ferrari Challenge North America for a few years, Fassbender partnered with Porsche and together created the Road to Le Mans series on YouTube, which has followed the Irish actor since 2019, as he worked his way up from the bottom of the Porsche Pyramid.

Starting out in the Porsche Super Sports Cup in Germany, Fassbender got to grips with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, competing in 10 races throughout the season. He claimed five top-ten finishes, with his best results coming at Hockenheim and Spa-Francorchamps when he finished in eighth place.

2020 saw a mixed bag of competition, as the world battled against COVID, racing programmes were disrupted. Despite this he managed to take part in Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup as a guest driver in Barcelona, unfortunately a race that would end with a non-finish. A month later he would get his first taste of the Circuit de la Sarthe, competing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland race, supporting the main 24 Hours of Le Mans event.

That year also saw him move in to the European Le Mans Series with Proton Competition, competing at Paul Ricard (seventh place), Spa-Francorchamps (fourth place), Monza (fifth place), and Algarve (fourth place).

Following a year away from the sport, Alex Albon has returned to Formula 1 with Williams, where he will hope a fresh start can re-ignite his hopes for a potential seat with a race-winning car.

The story of Alex Albon’s time in Formula 1 is rather sad, much like that of Pierre Gasly and his time at Red Bull Racing. The 2019 season would see the young driver score two points finishes in the first four races, before being promoted to the Red Bull seat after the summer break. Albon scored an incredible fifth place after storming through the field from the back of the grid in his first outing for Red Bull at Spa, and was turning heads throughout the paddock.

The British-Thai driver performed very well in his first season, and continued his contract with Red Bull going into 2020. However, Albon’s performance started to drop over the course of the year, meaning he couldn’t be the backup that Max Verstappen and Red Bull needed to challenge for both championships. Red Bull were the second fastest car in 2020, and Albon was consistently scoring below the top four – meaning he was being out-scored by slower cars in some of the races.

After only two podiums (both of which were third place finishes) compared to Verstappen’s eleven podiums and two victories; Red Bull pulled the plug and replaced their number two driver with Sergio Perez for the 2021 season. Albon wasn’t even demoted to Alpha Tauri, he simply took a year out as a reserve driver in order to make room for rookie, Yuki Tsunoda, who would be occupying the second Alpha Tauri seat alongside Gasly.

Ahead of the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship Prologue event this weekend, reigning champions AF Corse have released a video and images of their livery and race suits for the season ahead.

While the livery remains largely the same to the previous year, the team have added “extra graphics that accentuate the vehicle’s dynamic character and emphasise the theme dominated by the Italian “tricolore” flag.” The Ferrari 488 GTE will also feature the logo celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Maranello brand.

Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado return to defend their title, joined by the new pairing of Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuoco. The new season gets underway this weekend with the official 2-day Prologue test, before racing at the 1000 Miles of Sebring from 16-18 March.

Actor Michael Fassbender will make his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut this season as a 62-car grid is confirmed for the 90th running of the event.

The 2022 entry list was delayed after the Automobile Club de l’Ouest reopened the application process earlier this week. The application extension came as a result of some teams withdrawing from the race after the FIA sanctions in regards to the Russian invasion on Ukraine came into action. It had not been confirmed when the entry list would be seen after the second application window, but the announcement has come 24 hours after that process closed.

Five Hypercars fill the top class of the race – both Toyota Gazoo Racing and the sole Alpine Elf Matmut full season entries along with a duo of Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus. The inclusion of two cars comes from an agreement with WEC, ACO and Glickenhaus that if the team entered one full season entry they could have two Le Mans entries. The team were hoping to pull together a third car in the reopened application period but they didn’t have enough time to complete the necessary steps.

Surprisingly, the LMP2 regular Racing Team Nederland has not made it onto the 62-car strong grid, instead taking up the second reserve spot. The #29 machine usually races full season FIA World Endurance Championship which grants it automatic entry to the blue-ribboned event, but as the car is not a permanent feature this year they have not qualified for automatic entry.

27 cars make up the LMP2 field, the largest field of the race. Joining the full season WEC cars; DKR Engineering, TDS Racing x Vaillante, Nielsen Racing, CD Sport, Duqueine Team, Cool Racing, Graff Racing, Inter Europol Competition, IDEC Sport and Panis Racing all bring a sole entry, whilst Team WRT and Algarve Pro Racing WEC entries have been granted a second car. The second Team WRT entries comes courtesy of the team winning the LMP2 championship in the European Le Mans Series last year.

It appears there is no category that Bruno Senna can’t race in, as the Brazilian is announced as one of the world’s first electric flying car pilots, after joining Airspeeder!

Senna, who has raced most notably in Formula 1, Formula E, FIA World Endurance Championship as well as being a World eX race winner, has been announced as a racing development pilot and global ambassador for Airspeeder, the creator of the world’s first racing series for electric flying cars. The first EXA race is set to be announced imminently, Senna will be joining a strong list of pilots, which will include one of Australia’s leading female racing drivers and also a Drone Champions League racer.

The racing will at first be remotely piloted, before eventually becoming a fully crewed racing series from 2023 and beyond. Senna will play a key role in the development of the sport and the technical and dynamic development of the Speeders that will take part in it.

Matt Pearson, Founder, Alauda Aeronautics and Airspeeder is very proud to have Senna onboard and believes the Brazilian brings an unrivalled pedigree to the championship.

“We are proud that Bruno Senna has chosen to join the Airspeeder family as a racing and development pilot. Throughout his career he has demonstrated his incredible prowess as a pure out-and-out racer. However, Bruno is also a world-class developer of racing vehicles who is fascinated with advancing cutting-edge technologies.

Wednesday marked four days since Nikita Mazepin was released by Haas F1 Team as the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine continued to impact Russian sport. Various drivers and athletes of Russian and ally Belarusian nationality, including Mazepin, have either been required to compete under a neutral flag or were banned entirely from international sporting events. Unhappy with losing his ride despite accepting the former’s conditions, he has launched the “We Compete As One” foundation, which intends to support such athletes who have been unable to take part in their respective sports internationally due to “political reasons”.

“Today I am announcing the creation of a new foundation to help athletes who have been blocked from competing for political reasons. #WeCompeteAsOne”, tweeted Mazepin.

The foundation’s name is a jab at F1’s “We Race As One” campaign intended to promote diversity and acceptance in motorsport. With many Russian athletes being prohibited from entering international events, those like Mazepin have defended themselves by arguing such verdicts unfairly single them out for the actions of their government. A week prior, the Russian Automobile Federation released a statement condemning the FIA’s decision to require Russian and Belarusian drivers to race under FIA flags, accusing it of being “discriminatory and contrary” of the FIA statues.

On 5 March, approximately a week and a half after Russia began its Ukrainian invasion and a fortnight before the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, Haas dropped Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali, which is operated by his father Dmitry and provided a stable financial boost for the team during tumultuous seasons of recent. While Mazepin’s presence has long been maligned due to his behaviour, background, and on-track performance, the action to fire him was finally taken as the invasion and ensuing criticism mounted. Even if Mazepin had not been released, he would not have been able to race at the British Grand Prix due to Motorsport UK forbidding Russian drivers from competing.

The older Mazepin is close with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which resulted in the European Union imposing sanctions on him and many Russian nationals on Wednesday.