Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Guanyu Zhou is ready for his rookie Formula 1 season to start after the official unveiling of his first car on Sunday, Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s C42.

Twenty-two-year-old Zhou will become the first full-time Chinese driver in Formula 1 history when he takes the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix next month, and the former FIA Formula 2 racer cannot wait for the lights to go out at the Bahrain International Circuit.

He says there are opportunities for Alfa Romeo thanks to the new aero regulations that come into play in 2022, even if they did not have the best of times during the first pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Zhou and the team have another opportunity to put the laps in the C42 in Bahrain during the second test prior to the opening race, but he says he has been welcomed warmly into the team since his arrival after replacing Antonio Giovinazzi at the Hinwil-based outfit.

“I am fully pumped up for the season and seeing the C42 in the livery in which I will race it definitely makes it real,” said Zhou.  “We are at the beginning of a new era, with new cars and new regulations, and this creates an opportunity for all teams to make progress since we are all starting from scratch.

Valtteri Bottas admitted to being impressed by the new Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN 2022 car, the C42, despite an underwhelming first pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The Finn made the switch from the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team during the off-season to replace his retiring countryman Kimi Räikkönen, and he is excited to see what lies ahead with his new team after the unveiling of the C42 on Sunday.

The C42 is the latest design to come out of Hinwil, and is the first designed to the new aero regulations that came into effect in 2022, and Bottas was pleased with how the car looked when the true paint work was unveiled to the world.

“I am impressed by our new car, the C42,” said Bottas.  “I think the livery is really beautiful, the Alfa Romeo Centro Stile did a brilliant job.

“It’s my first car at Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN, of course, which makes it special, and I am really looking forward to being on the grid in Bahrain with it.”

Michael Crees will make his return to the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) for the 2022 season with Power Maxed Racing in an exciting move for one of the most popular drivers on the grid of recent seasons.

The 38-year-old from Broadstairs, Kent was all set to participate in the 2021 BTCC season after winning the Jack Sears Trophy in 2020 at the wheel of a Honda Civic Type R for the BTC Racing squad but at the eleventh hour, they split much to the dismay of Crees and also his legion of fans.

He went on to compete in the Formula 1 supporting Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup before the COVID-19 pandemic brought an end to his racing all together.

But now he will return in the Hybrid powered Vauxhall Astra ran by the Adam Weaver squad with Crees’ destination a source of great rumour during the off season after he announced early on that he had secured a drive.

“I’m absolutely over the moon to be back in the BTCC, so glad to finally get a deal done! We obviously intended to continue in touring cars last year but it didn’t quite go to plan, but I’m hungrier than ever, now I have been abroad racing the best in the world on tracks like Monaco. I’m aiming for a strong season in the Vauxhall Astra and have been speaking to the team over the last few years, but never quite managed to get the deal across the line – now we have finally done that,” said Crees on the move.
 
“Obviously, I wouldn’t be on the grid without my amazing sponsors and the support team I have built around me, Vince, Paul, Tony and Diana, so a huge a huge thank you goes to all of them for their continued assistance. I simply couldn’t do this without the support of my wife Jodie and our two amazing children Hugo and Bonnie, as they have put up with a lot of phone calls and ups and downs but glad we can focus on the job in hand now and all enjoy it!
 
“The Astra is a new car for me to get adjusted to, and there are obviously differences this year with the introduction of hybrid power, but I’m confident we can put together a successful season with the guys at Power Maxed Racing and we’re all looking forward to the challenge.”

In 2020 the team at Kunos Simulazioni released Assetto Corsa Competizione for consoles after a successful role out of the title on PC. Based on the GT World Challenge, the game was released to initial excitement from console users who were looking for a dedicated sim racer that didn’t compromise for mass appeal. Unfortunately the result wasn’t what was expected, the game released to a multitude of bugs as well as poor frame rates. The game was locked to 30fps even on the Playstation PS4 Pro and XBOX One X, yet they for some reason struggled to reach the number.

Kunos have now though released the next-gen upgrade for the PS5 and Series X. Now full disclosure, the game has been reviewed using the PS5 version as well as with a controller. Unfortunately I don’t own a wheel for the Playstation, but I do own the game fully on PC with a Wheel so won’t be going in blind.

So I will get the negatives out the way first. There are some bugs that come with new game releases in this day and age. There are currently issues with save transfers, force feedback strength and sometimes there are system crashes. Kunos have responded that they are looking at these problems so they should be fixed in the future.

On to the positives. The game retains its brilliant physics, you can really feel what the car is doing and with the haptic feedback implementation on the PS5 controller, feeling a loss of traction or brakes locking, makes the game so much more immersive. The original Assetto Corsa was not fun to drive when using a controller, it was very much a ‘wheel input’ game, but now they have made this game a lot more accessible for those that want to experience the majesty of the Spa 24 Hours but may not have £300 to spend.

Visuals have also been vastly improved. The game now boasts 4K and 60FPS and it makes a massive difference. The 60FPS, in particular, is so important for racing sims on console and it is actually very smooth. I don’t have an fps counter but I haven’t seen a frame-rate dip in my playtime, this is including at night and in the rain. The 4K visuals also make surging around tracks like Misano at night a spectacular thing to behold as well as a sunny day around Silverstone.

The Asian Le Mans Series was run over 4 rounds this year as well as being held back to back at the Dubai Autodrome and the Yas Marina Circuit. This saw February become a very busy month for the competitors and saw the cream rise to the top.

The #4 Nielsen Racing Oreca took the title in the top LMP2 class after a run of 2 wins and 2 second places. Rodrigo Sales, Matt Bell, and Ben Hanley all performed at the top of their game to dominate the series. Their 2 wins came early on in Dubai which set their up the run in nicely as their two full season rivals, High Class Racing and Graff Racing, were busy swapping finishing positions. It was ultimately the #39 Graff Racing of David Droux, Eric Trouillet, and Sebastien Page Am that took the second spot in the title. The Dennis Andersen, Anders Fjordbach, and Kevin Weeda piloted High Class Racing Oreca followed in third.

Although Graff took only second in the Overall LMP2 championship, they did take the AM subcategory title in front of their High Class Racing rivals. The #44 ARC Bratislava Ligier of Miro Konopka, Neale Muston and John Corbett finished third.

Incredibly in LMP3, consistency came out on top of outright pace as the #27 CD Sport squad took the title. A third-place finish and a trio of second places saw the team claim the title by just four points from their teammates in the #3 CD Sport entry. The #22 Rinaldi Racing Duqueine machine completes the podium.

The GT category featured a bumper grid of 23 cars. This promised to provide some spectacular fights for the top spot eventually it was the #7 Inception Racing McLaren that claimed the championship title after a fifth-place finish in the final race along with a win in the opening round and two second places. They were joined on the rostrum by the #91 Herberth Motorsport Porsche of Alfred Renauer, Robert Renauer, and Ralf Bohn and the #55 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari.

Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport have confirmed their driver line-up for the 2022 British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season with George Gamble currently the second rookie driver on the grid and set for his debut alongside title challenger, Adam Morgan.

Gamble has previously raced throughout the TOCA paddock in Ginetta Juniors, Ginetta GT4 Supercup and Porsche Carrera Cup GB but will now make the step up to Touring Cars for the first time.

“I am delighted to be joining Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport this season,” he said. “Having raced on the support race package for a long time now I have always aspired to be in the main race, but equally felt it was important to be with the right team and in the right car.

“I am under no illusions – the racing will be a step up from what I am used to. The level in the championship is so high and the racing so close, but I feel with the experience of the team and a quick driver in Adam as my teammate, I can have a solid first season and a good run at the Jack Sears Trophy.”

Racing in the BMW 330e M Sport, Morgan is glad to have Gamble on board as they aim for even better results in their second season.

The Boost Mobile Super Trucks might no longer be active (for now), but Dave Casey will still be truck racing in 2022. On Sunday, Casey confirmed he will compete in the Haltech V8 SuperUte Series, making his first foray into the category. He will drive an Isuzu D-Max fielded by Sieders Racing and prepared by SWL Racing with sponsorship from Bendix.

Casey hails from a background in off-road racing, primarily competing in the Australian Off Road and ARB Australian Off Road Racing Championships before joining the Boost Mobile Super Trucks in 2021. Although the Boost Mobile Super Trucks—an offshoot of the Stadium Super Trucks in the United States—also consisted of off-road vehicles, it raced on street circuits and paved road courses in support of the Repco Supercars Championship. Still, he was up to the challenge after testing a stadium truck in 2020.

In the 2021 Boost Mobile Super Truck season’s three rounds, Casey recorded a best finish of fourth in the first race of the season-opening Tasmania SuperSprint. Later in the year, he garnered attention for a wild flip while on his qualifying run for the Townsville SuperSprint, though he was unharmed. He placed fifth in points.

A second season in the series was abandoned when the trucks were returned to America in January following what BMST officials asserted was a falling-out with new Supercars ownership. Although newly appointed Supercars CEO Shane Howard theorised import laws were the culprit instead, he was open to bringing the trucks back for 2023. Still, this meant no Australian stadium trucks for 2022, so Casey had to look elsewhere for a Supercars undercard and he found one in another truck racing discipline.

The opportunity arise via Paul Morris, the 2017 Stadium Super Truck and 2021 Boost Mobile Super Truck champion. Morris oversaw the latter’s operations through his Paul Morris Motorsport team and home base at Norwell Motorplex.

The NASCAR Cup Series‘ WISE Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway presented an interesting list of challenges: a track that the series had not visited in two years, an aging track surface, and the still unproven Next Gen car on an intermediate track for the first time. As it turned out, many did not live up to it as multiple wrecks occurred, with a whopping twelve caution flags being flown for a track record.

After a similarly accident-laden practice and qualifying on Saturday, Austin Cindric started on the pole alongside Erik Jones. At the back, Kurt Busch served a pass-through penalty for failing pre-qualifying inspection three times, which prevented him from setting a time in said session. Ross Chastain wrecked in practice and switched to a backup car, sending him to the rear; other drivers there included Larson for an electronic issue, Justin Haley for an oil cooler change, and unapproved adjustment penalties for Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, and Bubba Wallace.

Stages #1 and 2

Jones led the first ten laps before being passed by Tyler Reddick. Kyle Busch spun on lap 15 to warrant a caution, which also took the place of the competition yellow. Reddick led on the restart before Chase Elliott took the spot, though much like how his qualifying run ended with a spin, he lost the lead after brushing the wall twice. Besides relinquishing the lead back to Reddick, Elliott went around on lap 38.

Reddick’s stage took a literal painful (or would it be painless?) turn when he began reporting numbness in his left leg due to his posture in his seat; the same predicament occurred during his Camping World Truck Series career at Dover in 2015. Nevertheless, he pressed on as the race continued, and stayed in the lead through another caution for Josh Bilicki‘s spin. He claimed the stage win ahead of Jones, William Byron, Chase Briscoe, Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman, Logano, Ryan Blaney, Cindric, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

After taking the stage win, Reddick took ibuprofen to remedy his leg ailment, and he and Briscoe led the field to the start of Stage #2. Between stages, Todd Gilliland‘s right front wheel came off on track, which will result in a four-race suspension for crew chief Seth Barbour and a crewman. Wheels, which were changed as the Cup Series transitioned from the Gen-6 to the Next Gen car, were a major talking point during the Daytona 500 after Grala and Haley’s cars lost theirs during the race which resulted in the same penalties.

The final livery of the 2022 grid has been revealed with the launch of Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s challenger, C42. The car was viewed by fans around the world in augmented reality via a QR code shared online and by the release of a collection of CGI images and videos. 

Alfa Romeo partnered with JigSpace, a platform that allows for 3D visualisation, to provide fans the ability to explore the C42 and better understand how the new technical regulations impacted the design of the car. 

“F1 is the pinnacle of advanced engineering and manufacturing on earth. These cars are so technologically advanced, especially in the new era starting this year, with a level of engineering complexity and nuance that can be hard to explain and visualise.” said Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur. 

“I igSpace is just so useful for communicating the revolutionary design and beauty of our car, in an immediately accessible way. That’s why this partnership is so exciting for us.

“By using JigSpace we can show just how incredible our 2022 car is and give all F1 fans an intuitive, engaging experience that simply wasn’t possible before,”

The only mistake that 28-year-old Scott McLaughlin made all weekend was getting out of his car in victory lane, stumbling out and falling on his backside. Not that he will mind, having won his first career NTT IndyCar Series race in the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

“Oh my butt’s getting burnt… that hurt, on the exhaust,” he said, sitting on the sidepod of the car in victory lane post-race. Ok, maybe two mistakes.

The New Zealand native held off defending series champion Alex Palou, who was hot on his heels for the final fifteen laps of the race, and becomes the sixth driver in history to win his first IndyCar race with “the Captain” Roger Penske.

“[I] really struggled those last few laps just to keep my head and save the fuel…” McLaughlin said. “But we did it.”

McLaughlin led the field to green to get the season started, and after surviving a very clean turn one for the whole field, held the lead for the first stint. The consensus around the paddock was such that the primary, black-walled Firestone tyres were the better race tyre, and many who started on the new compound of alternate, red-wall tyres pit early to get them off the car as soon as possible.

Want to be successful in racing? Win a championship in the Stadium Super Trucks first. Two-time SST champ Sheldon Creed became a Camping World Truck Series title winner with a burgeoning NASCAR career ahead of him, while Matt Brabham won three SST crowns and is already an Indy Lights winner after last racing there before he ever drove a stadium truck.

Correlation obviously does not equal causation and Brabham also has the experience advantage as the oldest driver in the Indy Lights field and former race winner there, but one of SST’s biggest promotional points is its ability to help drivers develop their driving skills. While the concept of an off-road truck turning laps and jumping off ramps on street circuits is certainly unusual, the series further assisted Brabham in becoming more than familiar with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg course before Sunday’s Indy Lights season opener. In his first Indy Lights start since 2015, he capitalised on misfortunes befalling his Andretti Autosport team-mates Hunter McElrea and Christian Rasmussen to win his second career race.

Brabham started sixth while McElrea qualified on the pole. However, Brabham quickly found himself contending for the lead after the top three starters ran wide entering the first corner. He spent much of the race chasing down McElrea and Rasmussen before the former clipped the wall and spun on lap 13, resulting in a caution. A poor restart by Brabham enabled Rasmussen to pull ahead, though Brabham kept his position and resumed his pursuit.

With his team-mate too far back, it appeared as if Rasmussen would storm off to win in his Lights début. Unfortunately for him, his engine failed with just two laps remaining, which shuffled the lead to Brabham. He would lead the rest of the way to claim his second career series win after last triumphing at Indianapolis in 2014.

While somewhat of a circumstantial victory rather than domination, Brabham proved his open-wheel spark was still bright. He raced full-time in Indy Lights for Andretti in 2014 after a meteoric ascension through the Road to Indy, but he struggled that year due to rising too quickly and not fully adapting to his new environment. After losing his ride three races into the 2015 season, Brabham moved to being a driver coach and two-seat IndyCar driver before landing in the Stadium Super Trucks.

Bobby Dotter has been in NASCAR for four decades as a driver and owner of SS-Green Light Racing, with one Xfinity Series win to show for it during his driving days. SSGLR, on the other hand, never had much success in finding Victory Lane as a middling-at-best team for much of its existence. With help from an alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing, SHR Cup Series driver Cole Custer finally checked that box off when he survived three overtimes chaotic Production Alliance Group 300 at Auto Club Speedway.

Custer started second alongside pole winner A.J. Allmendinger, though his biggest adversary was Trevor Bayne, the 2011 Daytona 500 winner who was making his first Xfinity start since 2016. The two battled for the lead throughout the opening stage before Bayne came out on top with Custer in tow. Justin Allgaier, Noah Gragson, Ty Gibbs, Allmendinger, Josh Berry, Ryan Sieg, Daniel Hemric, and Sam Mayer rounded out the top ten.

Gibbs and Hemric, who were team-mates at Joe Gibbs Racing in 2021, clashed almost immediately after Stage #2 began when they collided, resulting in a post-race chat. Another JGR driver Brandon Jones spun on lap 57 for another caution. At the front, Custer took the lead after the Gibbs/Hemric incident and never looked back as he won the stage, while Jones rebounded to finish second. Allgaier, Gragson, Gibbs, Hemric, Allmendinger, Mayer, Berry, and Riley Herbst followed.

The final stage saw an escalation in incidents as Brandon Brown and Jade Buford spun, the latter hitting the inside wall in the process and ending his day. As the race neared its scheduled conclusion, hell seemed to break loose after Brett Moffitt and Sheldon Creed tagged the wall to set up the first overtime. Hemric collided with Jones on the restart to create another restart. Before Custer could take the white flag, Creed clipped Stefan Parsons and Jones was caught, sending the latter into the pit wall barrels and kicking up so much sand that a red flag was called. Ironically, Creed and Jones have both raced for Richard Childress Racing and crashed into pit barrels, with Creed being a current RCR driver who did so in a Camping World Truck Series event at Homestead in 2020; Robby Gordon and Tyler Reddick both slammed into barrels as RCR Cup drivers at the 2002 Richmond spring race and 2021 Next Gen car testing at Charlotte, respectively.

Despite a threatening Bayne and Anthony Alfredo, who was on newer tyres and conducting a furious charge to the front, Custer was able to hold them off on overtime #3 to win his tenth Xfinity race.

Williams Racing had an impressive first three days of on track action at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, getting some good mileage and managing to get to grips with the new FW44 car.

The team managed a total of 347 laps over the three days of testing and on day 3, new driver Alex Albon managed ninety-four laps, which was the joint most laps completed along with Mercedes driver Sir Lewis Hamilton.

Albon’s fastest lap of the day was a 1:20.318 and was eighth fastest overall. Behind him was his teammate Nicholas Latifi, who only managed 13 laps during the day, however his fastest lap was 1:20.699, three tenths of a second behind his teammate.

Speaking after the conclusion of his first Formula 1 testing session since the beginning of 2020, Albon said; “We got some really good mileage in today and managed to maximise the limited testing time we have before the first race of the year.

“Overall, the team have had a very successful few days in Barcelona; the car has been reliable and so we’ve done well to build a very good foundation to work from. It’s still early days and we can’t read too much into lap times, but I think we should be very pleased with how these sessions have gone and I’m looking forward to getting back out in the car in Bahrain.”

During NASCAR‘s testing of the Next Gen car ahead of its début season in 2022, among the sanctioning body’s talking points to develop hype was the intention of making a car that is more difficult to drive. Whether it be for that or Auto Club Speedway‘s aging surface or some other reason, drivers certainly seemed to have a hard time manoeuvring it during Saturday’s Cup Series practice and qualifying session.

Multiple drivers were involved in spins or accidents that stem from the Next Gen car having significantly less downforce than its predecessor, among other factors that increase its difficulty to control. Ross Chastain slammed into the wall during practice, while Kevin Harvick and Chris Buescher both spun in the session. Victims in qualifying included Aric Almirola, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, and Brad Keselowski, the latter’s tyres also going down after his spin and causing his car to be beached on the backstretch infield. By the end of the day, Austin Cindric‘s burgeoning Cup career continued to take off as the rookie backed up last week’s Daytona 500 victory by winning his first pole in just his ninth start.

“I think [the increased driving difficulty is] enjoyable to a certain extent,” commented Cindric. “The hard-to-drive part is different than in years past when you go to Darlington or Fontana or Atlanta in the past it was hard to drive but controllable. I think with this car you don’t have as much sidewall deflection and you don’t have the side force. You’re hard to drive is defined by different things. I am not going to sit here and tell you that I know what all those things are. You have to be somewhat conservative in some areas and somewhat aggressive in other areas. I was having to talk myself into my lap because I wasn’t aggressive enough in a lot of areas. I think the learning process is different for every driver and every team. You key off different things and there is a lot that is different right now.”

Cindric is the first Team Penske driver to win the Cup pole at Fontana since Kurt Busch in the 2007 fall race, but the first in the spring event since Ryan Newman in 2002.

“Yhe last time I approached a qualifying session having to talk myself into my own lap as much as I had to today was back when I raced U.S. F2000 in 2013 or 2014 and went to IRP the night before the 500,” he added. “I know that is probably gibberish to the entire NASCAR fan base but that is what today reminded me of. There is so much learning and so much going on and it is all happening really fast. As a driver, you can’t be distracted by the crashes or mistakes or the short amount of time. I had all the data I needed today to learn what I needed to do and go apply it. It is fun to be able to go do that.”

Mario Isola says Pirelli Motorsport can be pleased with how the first real test with their eighteen-inch tyres on 2022 machinery went at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last week, with plenty of laps being run by all ten teams.

Before the test in Spain, Pirelli had only run their eighteen-inch tyres on mule cars, so to see them in action on the real thing represented the next step for Formula 1’s tyre supplier.

Isola knew time was being spent by the teams to understand how their 2022 machines would work alongside the new tyres, although not much attention was paid towards lap times.

However, with lap times around one second slower than what was seen during last years’ Spanish Grand Prix, Isola is expecting lap times to be faster than the 2021 machines before the end of the year.

“We can be pleased with how the three days of testing went, which of course represented the debut of our 18-inch tyres on these new single-seaters, with all the tyre testing up to now having been carried out using only mule cars,” said Isola.