Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Marcus Clutton has topped the time sheets, in the Enduro Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 he shares with Morgan Tillbrook, during first practice for the final round of the 2021 Intelligent Money British GT Championship. The margin of superiority? 0.007 seconds, how very James Bond.

Annoyingly for fans of the least secret government agent in history, it wasn’t even an Aston Martin which claimed second place! That honour went to the championship leaders Leo Machitski and Dennis Lind in the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO from Barwell Motorsport.

GT4 was topped by the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK entry, the #15 Toyota GR Supra GT4 of John Ferguson and pace setter Jamie Caroline. 4th in the title fight for the GT4 Pro/Am, the Toyota bested 3rd place Assetto Motorsport to claim the top spot by a more suitable margin of 0.508 seconds.

GT3: Enduro Atop Times as Title Leaders Show Pace

The championship leading Lamborghini of Dennis Lind and Leo Machitski had an almost perfect start to the weekend when, if all goes well, they will claim the GT3 Pro/Am and Overall titles. A 1:26.480 is faster than the qualifying lap record at Donington Park but one car blotted the copybook for the Barwell run machine, Enduro Motorsport’s McLaren on a 1:26.473.

Also spoiling a great Barwell session was the solitary Porsche 911 GT3 at the meeting. The time was set by F3 legend and British GT veteran Scott Malvern in the machine he shares with Nick Jones, and was less than 2 tenths off the McLaren at the head of the pack in a session where the top ten were covered by less than a second. Fifth quickest in the session, behind the fourth placed Barwell pairing of Sandy Mitchell and Adam Balon were returning round by round GT4 graduates, Mia Flewitt and Euan Hankey in their Team Rocket RJN McLaren 720S GT3.

Conditions at Donington Park continued to improve as Free Practice Two saw top honours ultimately taken by Barwell Motorsport‘s GT3 title contenders Leo Machitski and Dennis Lind in their #63 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo. In GT4, Toyota Gazoo Racing UK‘s #15 Toyota Supra GT4 duo made it a double header across both free practices sessions as they were again quickest, in spite of a few challenges.

GT3: Barwell dominate the top of the tables.

Sandy Mitchell was the first of the Barwell Motorsport cars to go quickest, though the #1 Lamborghini didn’t immediately rise through the rankings, as the top spot was shared between a number of teams before this. Phil Keen’s #18 WPI Motorsport Lamborghini, the McLaren 720s round by round GT3 entry of Team Rocket RJN driven by Euan Hankey as well as Enduro Motorsport‘s Marcus Clutton all topped the table before Mitchell became top dog.

That didn’t last too long though, as teammate Dennis Lind was hot on his heels, and after a couple of laps of reducing the lead held by the #1, Lind comfortably surpassed the time of his sister car, extending the lead to 0.3s with the only other real competition for the pair of Barwell cars coming from the Mia Flewitt/Euan Hankey combo, who finished third.

This may have been different, however, had the Team ABBA Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 had the whole of the session, but the #8 car driven by father/son duo Richard Neary and son Sam were forced to start the session late as a consequence of Track Limits violations in the previous session. The 5 minute penalty didn’t stop Sam Neary though as he wasted no time in getting the mean green Mercedes machine up to fourth quickest overall.

Phil Keen and Michael Igoe, in spite of their early pace were unable to capitalise further on this, leaving them fifth quickest through the session, ahead of the Ram Racing duo of Ian Loggie and Yelmer Buurman.

Zak O’Sullivan is on the brink of taking the GB3 Championship title with two races remaining. All he has to do is finish Race 1 on Saturday afternoon.

The Carlin man took pole for Race 1, and might have had Race 2 pole but for traffic. He was feeling positive when TCF caught up with him at Donington Park on Saturday.

“Getting pole doesn’t really change too much, I think we had the Championship celebrations before Quali, because mathematically I’m champion, unless I get any penalty points in Race 1,” the 16-year-old said.

“It’s a bit of an underwhelming end to the championship, I guess, but qualifying was good. I wasn’t really expecting it, I improved my driving from testing as I’d picked up some bad habits between Oulton Park and Donington.”

Those “bad habits” related to “simply over-reaching with the brake pedal. I was struggling with braking and thought there was an issue with the car yesterday, but there turned out not to be.

Chris Dittmann Racing are in a tight Teams Championship fight with Elite Motorsport going into the final round of the GB3 Championship season.

The Checkered Flag caught up with Team Manager, Chris Dittmann ahead of qualifying on Saturday morning.

“We’re feeling good. Testing’s been going well, it’s obviously going to be very tight around here.

“Testing always proves to be tight round here, but we’re looking forward to trying to get it all right in qualifying.”

Ayrton Simmons has brought four wins and six podiums this season to date, and Chris was impressed with the team’s most successful driver’s efforts since returning to the series full-time.

Zak O’Sullivan and Reece Ushijima took pole for Race 1 and Race 2 on Saturday as the GB3 Championship visited Donington Park for the second time this season.

The title was effectively secured by the time the circus rolled out of Oulton Park

Bryce Aron set the early pace ahead of James Hedley, but the pair were quickly shuffled back by the Chris Dittmann Racing pair of Alex Fores and Branden Oxley.

The third CDR entry of Ayrton Simmons then went quickest ahead of Reema Juffali (Douglas Motorsport), before Reece Ushijima and Hedley shared the top spot between them over about 15 seconds.

Fores and Oxley dropped down the order as others set their first representative laps, but quickly moved back up to 11th and 12th.

Mario Isola felt the Turkish Grand Prix showed that the intermediate tyre was ‘well-suited’ to a wide range of changeable conditions, with the green-walled tyre the predominantly used tyre throughout the fifty-eight-lap race.

One driver – Alpine F1 Team‘s Esteban Ocon – went against the guidance from Pirelli Motorsport and went through the whole event without making a pit stop, the first time since the Monaco Grand Prix of 1997 that a driver has been able to complete a full-race distance without taking to the pit lane at least once.

However, the one-stop option was the best choice for the race, although the timing of the stop was critical, with conditions giving the drivers headaches as the tyres began to grain on the still-wet track.

Isola, the Head of F1 and Car Racing at Pirelli, felt Valtteri Bottas and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team called the strategy right by stopping on lap thirty-seven, with the Finn having the pace advantage to take his first victory of the season at Intercity Istanbul Park.

“Following wet conditions in Saturday’s free practice, we had wet weather from start to finish of the grand prix today,” said Isola.  “However, this was never heavy rain that required the full wets: instead it was perfect territory for the intermediates, which showed themselves to be very well-suited to a wide range of changing wet conditions.

Mick Schumacher says there is no reason to be sad even though he finished a lowly nineteenth on Sunday after a positive weekend at Intercity Istanbul Park.

The Uralkali Haas F1 Team driver had started an encouraging fourteenth on the grid after a superb display during the tricky Qualifying session on Saturday afternoon. But being amid the midfield had its perils for the German on Sunday as he was spun around by Fernando Alonso at turn four to fall to be back of the pack.

Nevertheless, Schumacher did not let it affect him and he was able to bring the car home, learning a lot about driving in difficult conditions.  But he knew he was out of position on the grid and felt the race result was reflective on where the pace of the VF-21 is in 2021.

“We knew it was going to be tough and I think because there was no real chaos, the result that we drove today was realistic anyway,” said Schumacher.  “Again, we learned a lot, we learned how to be competitive at the race start and we just have to analyze how we do it even better.

“Overall, it’s been a very positive weekend. There’s no reason for me to be sad because I’m not in the championship fight, so anything good from this weekend – I’ll take it – and anything bad I will leave it behind and learn from it.”

The latest draft calendar for the 2022 Formula 1 calendar has been released following a meeting of FIA’s World Motor Sport Council on Friday, and it sees twenty-three races but no Chinese Grand Prix.

The season is set to begin at the Bahrain International Circuit on 20 March and end with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit on 20 November, earlier than the 2021 season is set to conclude as Formula 1 looks for a more settled calendar after two years of uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix moves from December in 2021 to the second race of the season in March 2022, while the Australian Grand Prix returns to the calendar after two consecutive seasons of being cancelled due to COVID-19.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix remains on the calendar on 24 April at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in place of the Chinese Grand Prix, which has found itself dropped from the calendar for 2022.  However, the race will be back ‘as soon as conditions allow’, according to a statement from Formula 1.

The race at Imola will be followed two weeks later by the first Miami Grand Prix in the United States (8 May), before races in Spain and Monaco in consecutive weekends conclude the month of May.

Williams Racing suffered a challenging Turkish Grand Prix at the Intercity Istanbul Park Circuit, after George Russell finished fifteenth and Nicholas Latifi seventeenth, as the team failed to continue their points scoring run.

Both drivers were caught out in the opening stages of the wet Grand Prix, Russell lost places after avoiding a spinning Fernando Alonso on the opening corner and then later on after battling with Esteban Ocon. Latifi on the other hand wasn’t caught out by someone else’s error, it was in fact his own error which lost him ground. The Canadian span on the opening lap leaving him with too much ground to recover.

Head of Vehicle Performance Dave Robson highlighted the significance the track’s condition had on the race, with the surface refusing to dry during the Grand Prix.

“Today’s race was dominated by the track condition, which stayed damp for the duration. Like everyone else, we tried to make the intermediate tyre last until the track was ready for slicks, however, once it became apparent that this wasn’t going to happen, we were all faced with the decision of whether or not to fit a new intermediate. As Ocon and Ricciardo demonstrated, pitting early or not at all made little difference to finishing position, with only the fast cars that started out of position really making progress.

“George and Nicholas both lost ground in the opening laps, with George losing positions after fighting with Ocon and having Alonso spin in front of him, and Nicholas himself spinning. Both recovered well and showed reasonable pace at times whilst also managing the tyres. The season continues in two weeks in Austin and we are looking forward to getting back to Texas for the first time since 2019.”

George Russell’s points scoring form failed to continue at the Turkish Grand Prix, after the British driver crossed the line in fifteenth with team-mate Nicholas Latifi finishing in seventeenth place at the wet Intercity Istanbul Park Circuit.

It was a challenging grand prix for Williams Racing which they will be glad to see the back of, both drivers failed to make any significant progress during the grand prix. Russell in fact dropped places in the opening laps, after being caught out by Fernando Alonso spinning ahead and after fighting Esteban Ocon. The Alpine F1 Team were not Russell’s friend in Istanbul!

Russell believes that despite the difficult race, the team can still take many learning points away from it.

“It was definitely not an easy race today. The first 10 laps or so felt pretty good but as the intermediate tyre started to wear down on the dry line it became increasingly difficult. The conditions were quite unique as, even though that dry line was appearing, because of the cloud cover and the temperature it wasn’t close to switching over to the slicks.

“We can definitely learn something from today though as, even though we didn’t quite have the pace we would have hoped for, it was very difficult for everybody to manage.”

Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN could have scored points during Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix had Antonio Giovinazzi obeyed team orders to allow team-mate Kimi Räikkönen through late in the race, according to head of track engineering Xevi Pujolar.

Giovinazzi ended eleventh and Räikkönen twelfth after the Italian failed to allow the Finn ahead despite the 2007 World Champion showing better pace at the time of the call.

Less than a second separated Giovinazzi from tenth placed Esteban Ocon at the chequered flag, with Räikkönen ending up on his tail, which makes it even more painful for Alfa Romeo, who currently sit ninth in the Constructors’ Championship with just seven points to their name.

“We asked to swap positions but then at this point Antonio was starting to pick up the pace and he himself decided that he wanted to stay ahead,” Pujolar said on Formula1.com. “Maybe that situation is a couple of laps that we potentially could have been faster as a team. Then it was just one more lap to catch Ocon.

“For sure for the team it was not ideal. I did not understand very well why we could not swap at this point because also then when you have got both cars at the end we can change it back depending on the situation.

Antonio Giovinazzi believes that had the Turkish Grand Prix been one lap longer, he would have been able to pass Esteban Ocon and score the final point on offer.

The Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN driver made up positions on the opening lap at Intercity Istanbul Park and waited until lap forty to make his one and only pit stop for fresh intermediate tyres, but despite the advantage of the fresher rubber, he was too late to catch Alpine F1 Team’s Ocon for tenth.

Giovinazzi believes the race in Turkey was harder than it could have been had he qualified better on Saturday afternoon, but the Italian feels Alfa Romeo are showing good pace at this part of the year, something he hopes they will capitalise on in the United States Grand Prix later this month.

“We were just one lap away from being in the points, and this is really frustrating,” said Giovinazzi. “The race wasn’t bad, despite starting from the back as a result of yesterday’s qualifying, which made everything harder.

“We gave it our best but unfortunately it wasn’t enough – for the smallest margin, just one second. We had good pace in the last couple of races, so let’s focus on getting back in the points for the next race in Austin.”

Marcin Budkowski was disappointed to see his Alpine F1 Team score only a single point during Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix, but he was full of praise for the way Esteban Ocon managed his tyres throughout the race at Intercity Istanbul Park.

Fernando Alonso had started fifth after a superb Qualifying performance on Saturday, but the Spaniards race was compromised early after contact with Pierre Gasly at turn one on the opening lap spun him around. 

As he was attempting to regain ground, he made more contact, this time with Mick Schumacher, which earned him a five-second time penalty and some potential damage to his A521, and this left him sixteenth at the chequered flag.

Ocon on the other hand drove superbly after taking the gamble not to switch tyres during the race.  After starting twelfth, he ultimately finished tenth to secure a valuable point for the team and extend the outfits points scoring run to fifteen races.

However, with Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda scoring a sixth-place finish thanks to Gasly, Alpine saw their advantage over their rivals reduce to twelve points with just six races remaining, much to the disappointment of Executive Director Budkowski.

Esteban Ocon scored one point in Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix, with the Frenchman becoming the first driver since the Monaco Grand Prix of 1997 to go through a whole race without making a pit stop.

Despite warnings from Pirelli, the Alpine F1 Team driver attempted to make one set of intermediates last the whole race, and despite losing ground in the closing stages to those who had made a pit stop, Ocon was able to hold onto the final point having started outside the top ten.

Ocon felt the tyre gamble was worth taking at Intercity Istanbul Park, and he believes the point shows that it was the right decision.

“Scoring one point today does feel sweet after a challenging weekend and a very long race,” said Ocon.  “It was good to take a risk today by going to the end on one set of tyres, which you don’t see very often.

“It was also nice to give the guys a break from doing pit-stops for the afternoon! I remember at this race last year the same could have been possible; it was difficult, but the tyres just about lasted and we have a small reward for that in the end.

If John Hunter Nemechek wins the 2021 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship, 2022 will be his title defence campaign. If not, he will get another shot.

Despite speculation about potentially moving up to the Xfinity Series, Nemechek announced Thursday that he will instead remain with Kyle Busch Motorsports in the #4 Toyota for the 2022 season. Crew chief Eric Phillips will continue to serve as his crew chief.

Nemechek joined KBM for his first full Truck season since 2017, and has set the series on fire as he leads all drivers in wins (five), top fives (twelfve), and top tens (fifteen, tied with Todd Gilliland). He won the regular season championship and currently still leads the points with one more race before the Championship Round.

“I came to Kyle Busch Motorsports because it was an opportunity to get back to Victory Lane,” began Nemechek in a press release. “I accomplished my goal of being here for wins and I’m excited to be coming back for more next year. […]

“We have some unfinished business left trying to bring the championship trophy home to KBM this year and then we’ll go to work on the brand new 2022 Tundra so that we can compete for more wins and another championship next year.”