Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

In 2020, James Davison‘s NASCAR Cup Series début at Talladega Superspeedway was aborted due to NASCAR not approving him for such a formidable track. One year and thirty-four starts later, he will finally get his chance with MBM Motorsports when he runs Sunday’s Talladega event in the #66 Ford Mustang.

The race will be Davison’s first with MBM. Excluding his first two career starts with Spire Motorsports, all of his Cup runs have come with Rick Ware Racing. In 2021, he has run nineteen races with a best finish of twenty-second at Martinsville.

Davison has no prior superspeedway experience in any national series. All five of his Xfinity Series starts have been on road courses, including an eighteenth on the Indianapolis Road Course in August in his first Xfinity race since 2018.

Rich Mar Florist will sponsor his #66. The car’s hood features Hawaiian hibiscus flowers to honour the eighty-year anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in December. Davison previously paid tribute to the Second World War in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, where he won the final race on the Chicago Street Circuit with sponsorship from The Greatest Generations Foundation, which resulted in his livery having an image of Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking with Allied paratroopers prior to D-Day.

“Teaming up with @RichMarFlorist and @MBMMotorsports for the TALLADEGA 500 this weekend! The Hawaiian Hibiscus pays tribute to the 80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor this December,” tweeted Davison.

Guenther Steiner admits there are very few positives to take away from the 2021 Formula 1 season as the Uralkali Haas F1 Team look set to end the year without a point to their name.

Ahead of the 2021 campaign, Haas admitted that they would be focusing on developing their 2022 challenger rather than any updates for the VF-21, and as such they have been struggling at the back of the pack all season long.

Neither Mick Schumacher nor Nikita Mazepin have troubled the top ten, with Haas only securing one Q2 appearance in the opening fifteen races, courtesy of Schumacher in the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard in June.  Aside from Robert Kubica, who only competed in two Grand Prix in place of Kimi Räikkönen at Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN, the two Haas drivers are the only two yet to break into the top ten this year.

Steiner, the Team Principal at Haas, admits it has been a tough season for everyone at the team, but he is pleased that both Schumacher and Mazepin are continuing to learn ahead of what is expected to be a much more competitive season for the team in 2022.

“[The performance] shows the guys are learning, which is the most important thing to be ready next year,” Steiner is quoted as saying by PlanetF1.com.

Xevi Pujolar, the Head of Trackside Engineering at Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN, says the team will do everything they can to overhaul Williams Racing in the battle for eighth place in the Constructors’ Championship in 2021.

Alfa Romeo has seen Williams pull ahead thanks to four points scores in the past five races, with two of those being double points scores for George Russell and Nicholas Latifi.  Both drivers scored points in both the Hungarian and Belgian Grand Prix (although the latter was just for half points after the race was curtailed after just a handful of laps behind the safety car due to heavy rain), while Russell has also scored top ten finishes in both the Italian and Russian races.

Williams currently has twenty-three points to their name while Alfa Romeo have just the seven, although they secured their best result of the season in Russia thanks to Kimi Räikkönen taking an eighth-place finish. Prior to that, the team had only scored three points courtesy of tenth place finishes in the Monaco, Azerbaijan and Hungarian races.

And that result, coupled with some impressive Qualifying displays from Antonio Giovinazzi who started inside the top ten for both the Dutch and Italian Grand Prix, has given Alfa Romeo confidence they can fight back and retake that eighth place away from Williams in the remaining seven races of the season.

“We keep pushing,” Pujolar is quoted as saying by PlanetF1.com. “We do our best every race and we will fight until the end of the season and we will see after Abu Dhabi if we did it [beat Williams] or not.

Piero Ferrari believes his father, Enzo Ferrari, would have approved of Charles Leclerc as a Scuderia Ferrari driver, believing the Monegasque driver has everything needed to be a success with the Maranello-based squad.

Leclerc joined Ferrari at the start of the 2019 season in place of Kimi Räikkönen and immediately showed why they decided to promote him to the team despite having only one full season in Formula 1, where he raced for the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team in 2018.

He won two races in his first year with the team in Belgium and Italy, and although he has not won again since – mainly due to the performance deficits of the machinery he is driving – he has still managed to achieve thirteen podiums and nine pole positions, including two this year in Monaco and Azerbaijan.

And the Vice President of Ferrari says Leclerc is a driver with ‘incredible talent’ and will bring the team a lot of big results if they give him the car to do it in.

“Charles is a driver who would have been very much to my father’s taste,” Ferrari is quoted as saying on German publication Speedweek by PlanetF1.com.  “Comparisons with previous drivers are always difficult.

Alexander Albon says all the stories surrounding pressure racing in the second Red Bull Racing seat alongside Max Verstappen are ‘a myth’, and it was only pressure from within that cost him his seat with the team for 2021.

Albon lost his drive with Red Bull for this season as the team opted to replace him with Mexican Sergio Pérez, with the Anglo-Thai driver dropping down to the role of test and reserve driver.  However, he will find himself back on the Formula 1 grid in 2022 as he replaces Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team-bound George Russell at Williams Racing.

With Pérez seemingly struggling as did both Albon and Pierre Gasly before him as Verstappen’s team-mate, the role of second driver at the team has again been discussed, with many believing the pressure of being the Dutchman’s team-mate is putting too much on each driver.

However, Albon believes this is not the case, and it is the pressure from within himself that was the defining factor of his success with Red Bull in the second half of 2019 and the whole of the 2020 campaign.

“To be honest, all the stories about pressure are a bit of a myth,” Albon said to Motorsport-Total.com.  “The bottom line is that the driver puts the pressure on himself, that comes from you.”

Christian Horner says there is ‘strength in depth’ in the Red Bull Junior Team as they look to the next future talents that will be in consideration for a promotion to Formula 1.

In 2021, Red Bull’s young driver programme promoted Japanese racer Yuki Tsunoda to the Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda team in place of Daniil Kvyat, meaning six of the current grid have, at some point, been a part of the Junior Team.

Tsunoda joined Max Verstappen, Pierre Gasly, Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Daniel Ricciardo in being brought into Formula 1 by Red Bull, while in 2022, Alexander Albon will re-join the grid and make it a super seven. 

But looking to the future, Red Bull have a number of young drivers coming through the ranks in both FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3, and Horner says there are plenty of options for Red Bull and plenty of decisions to make regarding those making waves in junior formulae.

“We have this group of young talent coming through,” said Horner to Formula1.com. “We have Liam Lawson and Jüri Vips in F2, we have got Dennis Hauger leading the way in F3 and an exciting young American, Jak Crawford.

Christian Horner has revealed that Red Bull Racing would consider welcoming Pierre Gasly back to the team in 2023 as the Frenchman continues to thrive at the sister Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda team.

Gasly was brought into the Red Bull team in 2019 but failed to thrive in the environment alongside Max Verstappen and was replaced by Alexander Albon midway through the campaign.  The Frenchman returned to AlphaTauri (then known as Scuderia Toro Rosso), and since has taken his maiden Grand Prix victory in Italy in 2020 as well as podiums in Brazil 2019 and Azerbaijan this year.

Albon’s tenure at Red Bull only lasted until the end of the 2020 season, with the team opting to bring in Sergio Pérez for 2021, and the Mexican has already been confirmed to remain with the team going into 2022.

In a recent interview with Formula1.com, Horner, the Team Principal at Red Bull, says the team has many options for who could drive for them in 2023, and Gasly’s name remains in the discussions.

“I would never rule anything out,” said Horner. “He’s driving at a very nice standard. He’s still very young, he’s doing a great job. For 2023, we have multiple options available to us, so when you’re in the situation that we are, that’s exactly what we want.

Nikita Mazepin’s first season in Formula 1 may by the end of the year go down as one of the most controversial in Formula 1 history, after the Uralkali Haas F1 Team rookie angered yet another driver at last weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.

Mazepin may well be gaining supporters off the track but on it he certainly isn’t, it’s been a rarity this season for Mazepin to make it through a race weekend without angering an opponent. Sunday’s race at the Sochi Autodrom wasn’t one of these rarities unfortunately, as Yuki Tsunoda had some very strong words for his fellow rookie.

The Russian’s reputation in the paddock isn’t exactly brilliant, the rookie was known to have an aggressive racing style based on his junior career but for the majority of the season he’s managed to stay out of people’s way. The biggest fallout with another driver this season for Mazepin came with his very own team-mate, fellow rookie Mick Schumacher who has completely out-shone Mazepin this season.

Schumacher vented his anger to the team during the Azerbaijan and Dutch Grand Prix’s, after being unhappy with his team-mate’s sudden aggressive blocking whilst attempting to overtake. A very similar incident occurred during the incredible Russian Grand Prix, resulting in Mazepin being awarded a black-and-white flag.

Tsunoda whom had his DRS wide open, tried to overtake the Russian going through Turn 12, Mazepin however suddenly cut across Tsunoda far too late. The Race spoke to FIA Formula One Director Michael Masi who explained why the black-and-white flag was shown to the Russian rookie.

Jason Alder finally made his return to the top step of the podium this past weekend at Virginia International Raceway, winning two of three races at the Andy Scriven Memorial Weekend event, bringing himself up to third in the championship.

Alder won the first race of the weekend after starting third, passing polesitter Noel Leon and second place Nico Christodoulou by the end of the second lap, and took off to win his first race of the year since round 2 of the year at Road Atlanta. Christodoulou finished the race in second place, and though he finished the race provisionally third, Leon was knocked down to eighth and Christian Weir collected his first podium of the season.

Louka St-Jean started race two on the pole as everyone behind jockeyed for position. A three-car battle for the lead ensued with Weir, Christodoulou and Clark, with Weir keeping the title contenders behind for a period of the race. Unfortunately, he ran off-track into the tyre barrier ending his day in heartbreaking fashion. Another two-car incident at the back of the field, bringing out a safety car.

Through the melee, Mac Clark raced his way through the field after starting eighth to win the race, with Christodoulou and Leon once again finishing second and third respectively. Unlike in race one, Leon’s podium was official this time.

Ryan Shehan started the third race on pole, but the trio of Leon, Alder and Clark all raced to the front having started in the top five. The session was marred by cautions, with Clark taking the win over Leon in second and Clark in third.

Christine Giampaoli Zonca or Christine GZ as she is known as will make her international rallycross debut at the World RX of Spa-Benelux next weekend as she joins the grid in the new all-electric series FIA RX2e Championship.

Christine GZ, who is currently competing in another all-electric series – Extreme E, competing for XITE ENERGY HS run by former World RX regular driver Oliver Bennett. She will utilise her expertise from off-roading as the first-ever RX2e race will happen in Belgium.

While the rallycross will be her maiden event but the 27-year-old Italian-Canary driver has plenty of transferable experience in rallying. In her first full season in the front-wheel-drive class of the Canaries rally series in 2014, she secured the title behind the wheel of a home-built Toyota Corolla AE92 and continued to compete in the local events before she took her motorsport engineering degree.

Two years after her first rally title, she made her FIA World Rally Championship debut at the Spanish round of Rally de Catalunya, winning the women’s category of the Spanish Gravel Rally Championship as a member of the first all-female rally team.

After her rally career, she focused on off-road racing in North America and has finished top-five finish in the Baja 1000 in the Pro UTV Turbo class and last year she was the main driver for Avatel Racing Team in the Dakar Rally.

Rising Swedish rallycross star Filip Thoren is the next driver to be taking a step-up in their career as he makes his four-wheel-drive international debut in the FIA RX2e Championship at the World RX of Spa-Benelux on 9-10 October.

Thoren will be one of many fresh new faces that are entered for the weekend to have a shot in the new all-electric rallycross series, he started his racing career in karting at the age of seven until he was fifteen when he took a break from the motorsport scene.

He returned in 2018 when he entered a selection of Folkrace events, after a promising showing in the grassroots series he decided to take a step-up to rallycross in 2019. In 2020 he had a full-time entry in the Junior 2150 class of the Swedish Rallycross Championship in a BMW E36 which resulted in a sixth-place finish in the championship. Thoren made a return to the class this season and started off with a podium finish at Höljes before differing fortunes ultimately made him finish the season with eighth place.

Now the Swedish youngster is looking to utilise his previous Folkrace background in Belgium.

“I am very much looking forward to my RX2e debut at Spa. It is a great challenge for me to go from my rear-wheel drive BMW to electric four-wheel drive, with all that power and torque available. My target for the weekend is to make step-by-step progress each time I am out on track, and then we will see what the results will bring after that!” Thoren said.

For the Rally Finland round of the 2021 FIA World Rally Championship this weekend, there are a total of seven local drivers that are looking to take home the win in the WRC3 class as the current title protagonists Yohan Rossel and Kajetan Kajetanowicz both missing from the entry list.

Mikko Heikkilä has entered with a Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo is one of the leading names that are joining the field for the gravel grand prix; at Arctic Rally Finland earlier this year he took a podium finish and followed up with one more at Rally Estonia but now he is looking strong to take a step-up on the podium.

Emil Lindholm, son of the former WRC driver Sebastian Lindholm who is currently fifth in the WRC3 standings, managed to secure his first-ever Finnish Rally Championship title last weekend at the SM KokUA 60-v Juhlaralli and he will also be one of the drivers to watch out for, he is entered in one the TGS Worldwide´s Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo.

The 2018 class winner Eerik Pietarinen will debut his new Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 at the rally after switching away from the Skoda he previously used.

Riku Tahko, the former FIA European Rallycross Championship regular, made his step back in to rally from rallycross about two years ago and he is the sole Finn driving a Hyundai i20 R5.

Steve Arpin and GRX Loenbro brought home a successful result concluding the first round of Nitro Rallycross. Arpin had only received the car as early as Tuesday and was not yet up to speed with the car, especially after switching platforms. He now pilots a Hyundai instead of the Ford he’s grown accustomed to the last few years.

“The GRX Loenbro HempFusion #00 has been like a rocket since the guys pulled it out of the shipping container”, Arpin said. “It’s been 2 years since I’ve raced in rallycross and it took me a little bit to get used to the differences between this new platform and the Fiesta, but I think we are in a great spot!”

The privateer team started the weekend strong after making it all the way to the semifinals in the bracket heats following day one. Arpin was able to beat the big-name drivers of Tanner Foust and Robin Larsson only to fall short when faced with Travis Pastrana in the third round. This placed him third in the overnight standings and easily into the final for the next day.

With Arpin easily into the final, he had nothing to do but focus on the task ahead, finishing on the podium. Focusing on his driving and avoiding incidents, he managed to pilot the i20 to a solid second-place finish for the first race of the season.

Team principal Jussi Pinomaki commented on the event saying, “Obviously, we are really really happy. We started from a blank sheet and managed to continuously improve over the two days. We managed to stay out of trouble and have a decent pace on track and together that brought us a great result.”

George Megennis won his first Nitro Rallycross event this past weekend in Salt Lake City. The 16-year-old showed a strong start to his NRX career as he topped the likes of Saturday’s winner, Casper Jansson, and the runner-up, Martin Enlund. Although Megennis couldn’t do it alone without help from some friends throughout the weekend.

“Eric Färén was a huge help as ever, giving me great calls over the radio and keeping the car running nicely. A big thanks to DirtFish for coming onboard for my NRX campaign too and of course the Hansens for their help throughout the weekend – it was an amazing experience to work so closely with Timmy and Kevin, sharing information between us on track conditions and so forth“, Megennis said at the end of the weekend.

Megennis was suspected to be a top runner with his racing knowledge and family history, namely his brother Robert being an Indycar Lights driver. He had previously tested an RX2 car a few years ago at America’s Rallycross in Mid Ohio. The young American has only developed more in his short time with the car becoming quicker and more confident in his abilities throughout the weekend.

“I felt quick the entire weekend! The key to winning on Saturday was a mix of speed and caution; I focused on ensuring we didn’t pick up any punctures or damage in the berms and that consistency paid off.”

George now sits third overall in the standings with a total of 80 points after the first two rounds. The NRX NEXT driver will need more solid results and help from his rallycross compatriots if he wants to remain in form as he did this weekend.

Jack Doohan won the final FIA Formula 3 race of the year to clinch the team’s championship for Trident – ending the long rule by PREMA in that particular championship. As usual, there was a dramatic and exciting battle right to the end the Australian coming out on top of an intense battle with teammate Clément Novalak, who would end up in third behind Frederik Vesti.

Having already been named title-winner, Hauger was taken out by Oliver Rasmussen and had to stop for repairs, but the Norwegian made his way back out and still managed to take home with him the fastest lap of the race.

Desperate to keep PREMA’s run going in the championship Olli Caldwell and Arthur Leclerc battled to tenth and seventh but it would not be enough to take a third title in succession for the Italian team.

In the closing stages, Vesti found a way past Novalak who’s tyres had taken a battering after his race-long battle with team-mate Doohan. Logan Sargeant – finishing off a strong weekend would finish fourth having started in eleventh place in turn securing Charouz Racing System’s highest placing in the series and Jak Crawford secured his best feature race result with a top five.

Race Re-Cap

Doohan and Novalak remained one and two heading into the first corner of the season’s final race. With Hauger stuck in ninth, and Leclerc and Caldwell both out of the points, it was looking great for Trident who had provisionally jumped PREMA in the Teams’ title race.