Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The Mclaren F1 Team go into the penultimate round of the championship on the back of a horrendous triple-header, all but ending their hopes of third in the constructors’ standings. The team will be hoping to get back to form this weekend at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Lando Norris was one of a number of drivers who’s race was ruined by a puncture at the Qatar Grand Prix. The British driver goes into the weekend at the brand-new Jeddah Corniche Circuit hoping to score some valuable points. The circuit which is the second longest and the second fastest on the calendar looks set to be a thriller.

Norris is excited to experience the new street circuit and expects qualifying to be pretty special.

“The track in Jeddah is going to be fun, it’s a really fast and flowing track with close walls, which will create a unique challenge. I’ve been driving the circuit in the simulator to get up to speed with the layout, which is really important when arriving at a new venue.

“Qualifying in these cars at this circuit is going to be a very cool experience, and will set us up for a strong race on Sunday. We’re going to be giving it our all right up until the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi, to finish in the best possible position in both championships.”

The Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team are looking to finish the final rounds of the championship on a high, as Formula One enters it’s first-ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the newly built Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Lance Stroll enters this weekend on the back of an excellent sixth place at the Qatar Grand Prix, a similar result this weekend may see him jump his team-mate in the drivers championship and move up to twelfth. It will be a weekend that will keep all the drivers on their toes, as they look to get up to speed as quickly as possible at the longest street circuit on the calendar.

Stroll is hoping to carry his form from Qatar into this weekend, where he believes Friday’s Free Practice Sessions will be crucial.

“It’s a brand-new track in Saudi Arabia, which means the early practice sessions will be crucial – and we’ll be learning every lap of the weekend too. It’s a good challenge – and, after finishing sixth in Qatar, we want to carry that form into the final two races of the season to end our year on a high.” 

“We have prepared for the track as much as we can” – Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel also finished the Qatar Grand Prix in the points, just. The German claimed a single point from the Losail International Circuit, and will be hoping to better his team-mates result this weekend, if he wants to end the season as top Aston Martin driver.

Both Uralkali Haas F1 Team drivers go into this weekend’s first-ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on an equal playing field, as all the drivers get ready to face the brand-new Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Mick Schumacher had a good Qatar Grand Prix last time out, in what was possibly the team’s strongest performance all season. This weekend offers Schumacher a good opportunity to push for a Qualifying Two spot, with all the drivers having to learn the new Saudi Arabian street circuit.

The circuit is set to be the second fastest of the season, Schumacher is excited to see what the circuit is going to feel like.

“250km/h sounds pretty fast so I’m definitely excited to see what it’s going to be like driving around the circuit. Nobody has driven around the track before so to tackle it, it’s important to get up to pace in FP1 and find your way around, to get the philosophy of the track right. It’s always a challenge I feel to find the right approach to a new track and that’s the same for everybody.

“Hopefully we’re going to be involved in the overtaking and be in a position where we can fight. The hope is there and for sure we will try our best to get up to pace and fight with some other cars.”

Chase Purdy‘s sophomore year in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will be in a Toyota. On Tuesday, Hattori Racing Enterprises announced Purdy as the driver of the #61 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join the HRE team,” Purdy stated. “They have consistently won races and been a weekly contender for the last several years. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to race with this group in 2022.”

After a part-time schedule in 2020, Purdy competed for Rookie of the Year honours in the #23 of GMS Racing. Despite a rough regular season as he failed to finish higher than fifteenth and missed the final race due to a positive COVID-19 test, he notched two top tens in the playoffs at Gateway (sixth) and Talladega (ninth). He finished nineteenth in points.

At season’s end, Grant Enfinger was announced as the 2022 driver of the #23. Instead of moving to one of the team’s other three trucks that has not been filled (#2, #21, #26), Purdy joins HRE, a team that has seen much success in recent years. HRE’s #16 was piloted by Austin Hill for the last three seasons, during which he won eight races, before he moved up to the Xfinity Series.

It was not immediately revealed if Purdy’s #61 is a renumbered #16 or a second truck that HRE will field. At the moment, Purdy is the only driver contracted to HRE.

Pierre Gasly goes into this weekend’s inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, on the back of a mixed Qatar Grand Prix where he took his first front-row start since he raced in Super Formula back in 2017, he’ll be hoping to take this qualifying speed into the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Whilst his qualifying speed was exceptional in Qatar, his race pace was not. Both Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda struggled in the race and dropped backwards in rapid fashion. This weekend offers a new opportunity to Gasly to further excel, the Frenchman has had a brilliant campaign so far and will be looking for a strong end to the season.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver believes this weekend will be very complicated for all the drivers and that it will be an exciting challenge.

“Saudi will be extremely quick, with a large number of very high-speed corners, some of them blind. I think it’s going to be very complicated from a driving point of view and there will be the extra challenge of the track surface being completely new.

“No cars have ever raced on it, there will be no rubber down and probably some oil will still be coming out of the tarmac, which is what normally happens at a new circuit. So, we are looking at a street circuit with quite low grip, which is a new challenge as no one has any data from the track.”

Another step in the right direction for Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway has been taken. On Tuesday, the City of Nashville announced Mayor John Cooper has agreed to Speedway Motorsports Inc. and Bristol Motor Speedway‘s proposal to revitalise the historic half-mile oval.

“We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the mayor, government officials, and Nashville community to breathe new life in the legendary Fairgrounds Speedway,” stated SMI head Marcus Smith. “In addition to bringing major NASCAR series races back to the historic facility, we’ll create a calendar for local racing and special events that generates a positive economic impact for the region.”

The Fairgrounds, which opened in 1904 and hosted the NASCAR Cup Series from 1958 to 1984, has not seen much major action in the years since. In an effort to bring NASCAR back to the area, Bristol and SMI launched a restoration campaign last December, while NASCAR increased its presence in Nashville by hosting the Champion’s Week banquet downtown and returned to Nashville Superspeedway in nearby Lebanon after a decade-long absence; the NTT IndyCar Series also débuted on a downtown street circuit. In March, Cooper signed a letter of intent to begin the process and confirmed Bristol would operate the track.

The plan intends to renovate the speedway while minimizing costs for the city; while the city will retain ownership, Bristol will manage it for thirty years. Revenue bonds will be issued by the Metro Sports Authority to help pay for restoration. The grandstands will also be rebuilt to seat 30,000 fans, double the current number.

Local council debates have taken place during which opponents cited issues such as noise on race days, a concern that BMS hopes to mitigate by reducing track test sessions and sound reduction technology. Despite the NIMBYism, Nashville’s Metro Charter requires racing to take place at the Fairgrounds, which was appeased through local events and smaller series such as the ARCA Menards Series and Superstar Racing Experience. To boost the economy, the proposal includes expanding the speedway’s capabilities to host non-racing events.

Max Verstappen goes into this weekend’s first-ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix knowing that this weekend could see him crowned world champion, if results go his way at the brand new Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

This weekend in Saudi Arabia could be one that Verstappen remembers forever, with the possibility of being crowned champion on Sunday. On the other hand this weekend could also see Lewis Hamilton draw level on points with the Dutchman, there really is no room for error from either driver this weekend.

Verstappen will be hoping to get up to speed at the brand new street circuit quickly on Friday, and get an understanding of all twenty-seven corners! The circuit is the second longest and second fastest on the calendar, meaning that concentration will be absolutely critical at the fast and flowing street circuit.

The championship leader recognises that there is no room for mistakes this weekend but is calm that he can perform at his best.

“I’ve driven the track on the simulator and it seems like a really fast track, so there’s no room for error. Of course, there will always be a bit of guesswork as we haven’t driven on the track there yet. It’s going to be interesting and I’m looking forward to the challenge. It’s been fun to go to different tracks again this year.

From 2012 to 2015, David Gilliland drove the #38 for Front Row Motorsports on a full-time basis. Six years later, his son Todd Gilliland will do the same. On Tuesday, FRM announced Gilliland will drive the #38 Ford Mustang for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season and compete for Rookie of the Year honours, while Zane Smith joins the team’s Camping World Truck Series stable in the #38 Ford F-150.

Gilliland enjoyed a solid 2021 Truck campaign in which he won the inaugural NASCAR race at Circuit of the Americas. Although he was eliminated from the playoffs after the first round, he finished a career-best seventh in points with sixteen top tens and ten top fives to go with the victory. He joined FRM in 2020, the same year that the team expanded its Cup operations into the Trucks, after being a Toyota development driver for much of his career.

The promotion means he bypasses the second-tier Xfinity Series and jump straight into the top level. Scott Speed in 2009 is the most recent driver to race full-time in the Cup Series with no prior Xfinity starts (his Xfinity début came two weeks after his Cup rookie campaign began). While moving from Trucks directly into Cup is very rare, the biggest success story of such a graduation is Kurt Busch, whose Cup rookie year came in 2001 after a season in the Trucks (with some Cup starts) and would not appear in Xfinity until 2006. Unlike Busch, however, Gilliland enters Cup without ever making a start in the series.

“I feel like I’ve found a home at FRM,” said Gilliland. “I’ve been around the team when I was growing up and watching my dad race. I joined the truck team here and it has been a good place for my career. I can’t wait to step up into the NASCAR Cup Series. I know the challenges ahead, but I’m planning to be here and help grow with this team for a long time.”

The #38 has been a rotating door of drivers since David Ragan‘s retirement at the end of 2019. John Hunter Nemechek took over the car in 2020, but only lasted one season—finishing twenty-seventh in points—before departing to head to the Truck Series. Another rookie in Anthony Alfredo became the #38’s pilot in 2021, during which he placed thirtieth in the standings with a single top ten at Talladega in the fall. Reigning Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell will serve as his team-mate in the #34.

The Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team enter the penultimate round of the championship at the first-ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with the team still in contention for both titles, a single slip up this weekend though could see Lewis Hamilton’s reign come to an end.

Formula One ventures into a completely brand new circuit this weekend at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, coming in at 6.1km with twenty-seven corners, it becomes the second longest and the second fastest circuit on the calendar. The fast and flowing street circuit should suit Mercedes perfectly, especially with Hamilton having his new engine from Brazil to use this weekend.

Hamilton will be looking to further close the gap on championship leader Max Verstappen, knowing though that a single slip-up could see him lose the championship in Saudi Arabia. This weekend looks set to be a thriller.

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff is excited that the team are still in the fight for both titles, especially after where they were halfway through the season.

“Two races to go, and two Championships still to be decided. We are all excited to still be in the fight at this stage in the season, it’s a privilege and a testament to our resilience when we see where we stood in the early summer. Both titles are wide open, and our mission is clear. Last time out we saw a faultless drive by Lewis in Qatar, commanding the race from start to finish, and a strong recovery for Valtteri before the unfortunate puncture took him out of contention.
 
“The car has been performing well recently and is probably in the best place it has been all season, with the drivers confident to push it to the limit. That’s encouraging for the final races and gives us strong momentum to take forward. Jeddah is another completely new challenge, an all-new track to get to grips with and a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to ensure we hit the ground running on Friday, because getting as much information as we can during those initial sessions will be vital.
 
“It’s a fast street circuit with long flat-out sections and several high-speed corners, lined by barriers meaning it’ll be high risk and reward. We’re more motivated than ever and we expect to be in the hunt, so we are all looking forward to the debut grand prix in Saudi Arabia. Just a few days ago we lost Sir Frank Williams. He will be in all our thoughts this weekend and we’ll try our best to deliver a performance that’s worthy of his racing spirit.”

Formula One is back this weekend for the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the penultimate round of this breathtaking season which takes place at the only recently built Jeddah Street Circuit, giving Pirelli plenty to think about.

Many believed the circuit wouldn’t be ready in time to host this weekend, amazingly though with just days until the event kicks off, the track is ready and it looks stunning. Saudi Arabia is the thirty-fourth country to host a Formula One Grand Prix, for which Pirelli have decided to bring their middle range of tyres, the C2, C3 and C4 compounds.

This weekend is a complete step into the unknown similar to the Qatar Grand Prix last time out, except with the massive difference being that many forms of racing had taken place at the Losail International Circuit before. With Jeddah the only data that has been gathered is from the simulator, making this weekend one not to miss.

It’s based off the data gathered from the sims that Pirelli have opted for their middle range, which they believe will suit well to the fast and flowing street circuit. The circuit which has been designed by the well-known Hermann Tilke, is the longest street circuit on the calendar at just over 6.1km, with it being the second longest circuit in general, behind Spa.

Not only this but the circuit which sits right alongside the coast, is set to be the second fastest on the calendar behind Monza, with average speeds of over 250kph being predicted. The circuit does take the record now though of having the most turns on the calendar, drivers will have to get up to speed on Friday and learn all twenty-seven corners, one of which is banked at twelve-degrees.

McLaren Racing announced today the confirmation of ownership of NTT IndyCar Series team Arrow McLaren SP with 75% majority shareholding, officially putting the team under the McLaren Racing banner, a deal first announced at the Music City Grand Prix in August.

The team will now be run with a five-person board including AMSP owners Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson, along with three representatives of McLaren, all chaired by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown. Taylor Kiel, the current president of AMSP, will be responsible for the team’s operations and report directly to Brown and the board.

The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

McLaren have been partnered with the team formerly known as Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports since 2020, and experienced tremendous growth and success. Young star Pato O’Ward has been the highlight, finishing third in the championship this past season while collecting two wins from five podium finishes, eight top-five finishes and three pole positions.

Aside from their partnership with Schmidt-Peterson, McLaren have a history in IndyCar that spans over 50 years. During the 1970s, they amassed 28 victories including three Indianapolis 500 victories. Their first victory in the event came in 1972 with Mark Donohue, while Johnny Rutherford won two Borg Warner trophies with the team in 1974 and 1976, before the manufacturer left the sport in 1979.

Jérôme D’Ambrosio has become the new Team Principal of the ROKiT Venturi Racing team after Susie Wolff moves to a new role of Chief Executive Officer.

Venturi enjoyed one of their strongest seasons in the 2020/21 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, with Edoardo Mortara ending second in the Drivers’ Championship and Norman Nato ending the season with a race victory in Berlin.

Nato has been replaced this year by Brazilian veteran Lucas di Grassi, and hopes are high of an even better 2021/22 season for Venturi.  However, after three years in the position of Team Principal, Wolff feels the time is right for a change at the top, with former Formula E race winner D’Ambrosio coming in.

“After serving as Team Principal for the past three years, the timing feels right for this change,” said Wolff.  “Since taking on this role in 2018, I have experienced a great sense of pride and achievement from how we have gone from strength to strength as an organisation.

“Since joining the team last year, Jérôme has made a positive impact and I know that I’m leaving the team operations in very capable hands as Formula E advances towards its third generation of competition in Season 9.”

Nyck de Vries will look to defend his ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in the 2021/22 season after being confirmed to return with the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team alongside Stoffel Vandoorne.

Mercedes will withdraw from Formula E at the end of the season ahead of the introduction of the third generation cars, but they field an unchanged line-up for the forthcoming season as they look to defend both titles.

“Continuity and stability definitely play a big role,” said Ian James, the Team Principal at Mercedes. “How does the saying go? ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’

“But at the same time, there’s another old adage that being successful does not automatically mean that there’s no room for improvement. Nyck and Stoffel both play an absolutely key role in that respect.

“They’ve been phenomenal as drivers so far while also making a huge contribution to the development of this team that we’ve built up from scratch, so having that continuity going into Season 8 is a tremendous advantage.”

Reema Juffali will be an Official Ambassador for the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this weekend (3-5 December).

The 29-year-old’s maiden GB3 Championship season yielded a best finish of fourth at Silverstone, though she was unlucky not to take podiums after starting in a strong position in Race 3 on several occasions.

Juffali will be involved in several promotional and media activities during the weekend at her home circuit in Jeddah, as the first female professional racing driver from Saudi Arabia.

She will also get one of the first tastes of a street circuit whose completion has gone down to the wire, taking to the high-speed track in the 1979 Williams FW07, which evolved into the FW07B driven to the 1980 title by Alan Jones.

Juffali will join other drivers from the Kingdom in the Saudi Supercar Club during a weekend in which Formula 1 and Formula 2 contest their penultimate rounds of the season.

Jost Capito, the current CEO and Team Principal of the Williams F1 Team, has paid tribute to Sir Frank Williams, the founder and long-time Team Principal of the team.

Sir Frank passed away at the age of seventy-nine on the 28 November, with the legendary Briton having overseen one-hundred-and-fourteen race victories, nine Constructors’ Championship and seven Drivers’ Championships across a forty-three-year career.

After Dorilton Capital took over the team midway through the 2020 season, Sir Frank and daughter Claire Williams stepped away from Formula 1, but their legacy, particularly Sir Franks’ is immense, something that current Team Principal Capito is in awe of.

“The Williams Racing team is truly saddened by the passing of our founder Sir Frank Williams,” said Capito.  “Sir Frank was a legend and icon of our sport. His passing marks the end of an era for our team and for the sport of Formula 1.

“He was one of a kind and a true pioneer. Despite considerable adversity in his life, he led our team to 16 World Championships making us one of the most successful teams in the history of the sport.