Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Fortec Motorsport have announced a familiar face will make his GB3 Championship debut at Oulton Park this weekend, in the form of 2020 F4 British Championship champion Luke Browning.

He took seven wins, 16 total podiums and six poles as he claimed the title at the last gasp ahead of Zak O’Sullivan, who goes into the penultimate round of the season with a chance to take his first championship triumph a round early.

The final race of last season was curtailed due to a sudden downpour, seeing half-points awarded which meant O’Sullivan fell four points short of taking the title.

The Cheshire driver won all three races at his local circuit last season, and will hope that success will set him up for a positive debut weekend.

Browning sits fifth in ADAC F4 with a win to his name, while runaway leader Oliver Bearman took a win on his return to GB3 at Snetterton 300 in August.

Brett Moffitt is out of commission for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Richmond Raceway. On Wednesday, Moffitt announced due to an illness that prevented him from running the previous week’s Darlington Raceway event, he will have to skip Richmond. Ty Dillon will replace him in the #02 Chevrolet Camaro of Our Motorsports for the second straight race. Details of his sickness were not disclosed, but it is unlikely to be COVID-19 as he explained in a statement that he is attending the race.

“I’ll be in Richmond this weekend with the Our Motorsports team, but it will be as a spectator atop the team pit box,” began his release. “Last Saturday, en route to Darlington, I started feeling ill, which ultimately caused me to miss that race. After meeting with my doctors this week, they want me to sit out at Richmond as well, just as a precautionary measure. I plan to return to the seat of the #02 Chevy next week at Bristol (Motor Speedway).

“Thanks to Ty Dillon for filling in for me at Darlington. I’ll be rooting him on in person as he takes the wheel of the #02 Fr8Auctions Chevrolet again this Saturday!”

In having to skip two races, Moffitt’s playoff hopes take a hit as the Xfinity Series enters the penultimate round of the regular season. He is currently twenty-second in points with eight top-ten finishes and a best run of second in the season opener at Daytona, but he switched from Camping World Truck Series points in April and thus had to start his Xfinity run with zero points. While he will almost certainly receive a waiver from NASCAR to participate in the postseason should he qualify, he needs to win the final race at Bristol in order to do so; he finished twenty-sixth in his lone Xfinity start there in 2020, while he has a win in the Trucks.

The last two seasons have proven unlucky for Moffitt in the health department. When the 2020 slate was paused in the spring due to the pandemic, he broke his legs in a motocross accident, though the freeze bought him enough time to recover without missing a race. He would reach the Truck Series Championship Round that year.

The NASCAR Cup Series‘ Next Gen car will make its racing début in the 2022 Daytona 500; being a superspeedway where drafting is key, it was imperative that the sanctioning body learn how the car works in the draft. On Tuesday and Wednesday, eight drivers and their teams participated in a test session around Daytona International Speedway in which they piloted Next Gen cars in a pack and while running the draft.

Of the eight teams, four were Chevrolet-powered: Chip Ganassi Racing (Ross Chastain), Hendrick Motorsports (William Byron), JTG Daugherty Racing (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.), Richard Childress Racing (Austin Dillon). Joe Gibbs Racing (Denny Hamlin) was the lone Toyota, while Roush Fenway Racing (Chris Buescher), Stewart-Haas Racing (Cole Custer), and Team Penske (Joey Logano) were the Fords. All but Chastain, Hamlin, and Stenhouse had tested the Next Gen car in the past in single-car sessions using the P3 prototype, which had no manufacturer markings.

While one-driver runs were the norm throughout the testing process, the test was the second to feature multiple cars after a two-man test at Charlotte in October with Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr. It was also the second test at Daytona after Buescher took part in a December run; the Daytona Road Course held a session for Xfinity Series driver Austin Cindric and IMSA team Action Express Racing last August.

Between testing days, the tapered spacer—which limits speeds on superspeedways akin to its predecessor, the restrictor plate—was reduced in size as was the rear spoiler, dropping the car’s horsepower to 510. The Next Gen car is expected to run at 670 or 550 hp under the rules packages to be set by NASCAR once 2022 arrives, a reduction from the current 750- and 550-hp setups for the Gen-6.

Another noticeable change is the door number placement as it will be moved closer to the front wheel for the seventh-generation vehicle, a change that has proven polarising among fans and industry personnel. While Buescher’s, Byron’s, Logano’s and Stenhouse’s cars kept their numbers directly below the window as usual, Chastain, Custer, and Dillon opted to move them forward. Of course, Chastain’s #42 will not be on the track in 2022 as CGR has been bought out and he will drive the #1 that year instead. Hamlin and JGR elected to ditch the number entirely in favour of a FedEx logo on the side.

Mahindra Racing has confirmed that Oliver Rowland will join their team for the 2021-22 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season, with Alexander Sims remaining as his team-mate.

Alex Lynn has departed the team despite taking a race victory in the London E-Prix during the 2020-21 season and finishing the higher of the two drivers in the final standings.

Rowland makes the switch from Nissan e.dams, with the Briton having taken one victory, five podium finishes and five pole positions during his Formula E career, all of which he is aiming to build on when he moves to Mahindra.

“I’m very excited to be joining Mahindra Racing for Season 8,” said Rowland. “Moving to a new team there will of course be a transition but I think that, with the combination of my experience in Formula E and the team’s results last season, we have the potential to achieve some great things together.

“I’m really happy to have Alexander as my team-mate and look forward to working with him on extracting the most from the car and getting some strong results for the team.”

Valtteri Bottas has spoken of his pride of what he and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team have achieved in their five years together, with the Finn leaving the team at the end of the current season to join Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN.

Bottas joined Mercedes for the 2017 season after the shock retirement of Nico Rosberg, and since then he has helped them win four consecutive Constructors’ Championships.  He has taken nine race wins, fifty-four podiums and seventeen pole positions, all of which he will be aiming to improve on between now and the end of the season in Abu Dhabi in December.

“I am so proud of everything we have achieved together in my time with Mercedes – and it is not over yet, because we have our biggest challenge so far to try and claim our eighth constructors’ title,” said Bottas.

“When I look back on my time with Mercedes, I want to be able to say that I squeezed every drop out of this opportunity and left nothing on the table; and I want to make sure that we finish our time together as champions.”

Bottas says it has been a privilege to race alongside Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, and he has always had a good relationship with his team-mate that has helped the team maintain their consistency as they fought at the front of the field.

Charles Leclerc felt ‘pretty happy’ with the performance shown by Scuderia Ferrari during the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, with the Monegasque racer starting and finishing fifth on Sunday.

Leclerc said he did not want to take too many risks at the start, but once the race settled down, he found the pace of his SF21 to be close to the pace of Pierre Gasly in fourth place, but the Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver just had that little extra to prevent him from moving up a place.

He was also surprised by the performance and longevity of the medium compound of Pirelli tyre, but he still felt his strategy of using the soft and then the hard compounds was the right way to go.

“I’m pretty happy with our overall performance of this weekend,” said Leclerc.  “Finishing with both cars in the points today is a good result.

“The start was good, but then I didn’t want to take too many risks. I think the main surprise for everyone was how long the Mediums could last. Still, I think that the Soft–Hard combination was the right choice for us. We were very close in pace to the car ahead, but it was just not enough today.

Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda will field an unchanged line-up for the 2022 Formula 1 season after announcing that both Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda will remain with the team next year.

Gasly has been one of the standout drivers across the past two seasons with the team, claiming his maiden Formula 1 victory in the 2020 Italian Grand Prix and standing on the podium on a handful of occasions, including this year in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Frenchman is hoping that the momentum the team is building can continue as he looks to take AlphaTauri up the grid next season.

“I am very happy to be moving forward with Scuderia AlphaTauri for another season in Formula 1, especially after seeing the progress that we’ve made as a team since I first joined in 2017,” expressed Gasly.  

“Seeing the performance we’ve shown so far this season, I think there are great things to achieve for the rest of this season and for next year, especially with the upcoming changes to the championship in 2022.

On lap 125 of Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, Kyle Busch wrecked with Austin Dillon. Rather than heading to pit road to assess the damage, Busch elected to go directly to the garage and retire from the race. Heading to the infield at high speeds, he knocked over orange cones and forced passersby to get out of the way.

While certainly expediting his trip to the garage, NASCAR was less than pleased with the blatant safety concerns created by his speedy exit. The lone entry on Tuesday’s penalty report indicated that Busch has been fined $50,000 for the act. Specifically, Busch broke Sections 12.1.a, 12.5.2.5.a, and 12.8.a of the rulebook, which address personnel conduct and actions detrimental to stock car racing.

Busch was officially classified in thirty-fifth after his DNF. He was one of seven retirements, with all but one being for crash damage (Erik Jones exited with an engine failure).

He did not blame Dillon for the wreck and commented in an interview with NBCSN that “we were running like shit and we got wrecked, so that’s what you get when you run like shit. […]

“I don’t know what our problem is. Every time we go to the sim, a new sim, and think we have a good sim session, we go to the race track and we suck. I’m done with that.”

Beard Motorsports is back for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. On Tuesday, the team announced it will enter the 2022 season-opening Daytona 500 with the #62 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and the possibility of running the other three superspeedway races at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway have not been ruled out.

A driver of the car was not immediately revealed. Xfinity Series regular Noah Gragson was to make his Cup début in the entry at the 2021 Daytona 500 but failed to qualify after being caught in a wreck in his Bluegreen Vacations Duel. Prior to the qualifying races, team owner Mark Beard died at the age of 72, which left the team’s future in question and it has not entered any events since the 500.

Beard Motorsports first appeared in 2014 with Clay Rogers, who débuted the team in what is now the ARCA Menards Series in 2009. However, Rogers failed to qualify for the two Cup races that the team entered.

Brendan Gaughan joined the organisation in 2017 as its Cup programme was revived. Gaughan scored four top-ten finishes with a best run of seventh twice in seventeen races, all but one of which was a superspeedway; the lone exception was the Daytona Road Course in 2020 before his retirement. Gaughan currently serves as the team’s vice president of racing operations, while crew chief Darren Shaw is the lone full-time employee. Shaw has worked as Beard’s crew chief since 2017.

“My father was passionate about racing, and he took a great deal of pride in coming to Daytona and competing against the biggest names in the sport,” team executive vice president Amie Beard stated. “He passed away just before this year’s Daytona 500, and his presence was definitely missed.”

Pierre Gasly had an excellent Dutch Grand Prix weekend, with the Frenchman qualifying and finishing fourth at the Circuit Zandvoort, behind only Max Verstappen and the two Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team drivers.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver had a superb weekend amid the sand dunes in The Netherlands, with the Frenchman qualifying on the second row on Saturday before converting that into fourth on Sunday, finishing well clear of the chasing pack, which was led by Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Gasly says the team did an amazing job all weekend long at Zandvoort and they have been rewarded with twelve points towards the Constructors’ Championship as they bid to finish fifth in 2021.

“P4 is an amazing result today, I don’t think we could really hope for much better and it’s 12 important points for us,” said Gasly.  “I really enjoyed all 72 laps here in Zandvoort, it’s a fantastic track.

“I had fun today, I’m really pleased with everything, the car is really fast and I managed to get it set-up just the way I wanted.

Lewis Hamilton lost the lead in the Drivers’ Championship after Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix, but the Briton was quick to praise the crowd at the Circuit Zandvoort, even though the majority were supporting his rival for the title, Max Verstappen.

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver was forced to settle for second at Zandvoort behind Verstappen, with the positions ensuring the Dutchman now holds the lead in the standings, albeit by only three points.

Hamilton reckons that even with a perfect Sunday, he would have struggled to beat Verstappen and Red Bull Racing, but he was delighted to run him close around a track he felt was amazing to attack, particularly on low fuel at the end.

“What a race and what a crowd, honestly, it’s been an amazing weekend,” said Hamilton.  “Max did a great job so congrats to him. I gave it everything I had out there, but they were just too quick for us this weekend.

“I think even if we’d have got everything right today with the traffic, the pit stops and the strategy, it’d still have been tough to get by them. We didn’t get those elements spot on, but either way, we pushed as much as we could and we’ll take it offline, debrief and see how we could have improved.

There will be a new series supporting the GB3 Championship in 2022, in the form of the newly-announced GB4 Championship.

The series will use the same Tatuus F4-T014 chassis as Spanish, Italian and ADAC F4 series’, bringing it closer to the current GB3 car, while GB3 will also move to a bespoke Tatuus MSV-022 next year.

This will allow teams to use 80% of the same parts across both cars, with the Tatuus chassis’ being broadly similar, further driving down running costs.

MotorSport Vision (MSV)’s new championship will add a feeder series between karting and GB3 on its books, though Chief Executive Jonathan Palmer insisted the series is “not designed to compete with the F4 British Championship“.

That distinction is key, as Motorsport UK has taken control of British F4, introducing a halo-shod car which will increase running costs, both compared to this season’s car, and next season’s GB4 offering.

Toto Wolff says the decision to who would partner Lewis Hamilton at the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team was not an easy one to make, but ultimately, they have chosen George Russell over Valtteri Bottas for the 2022 season.

Wolff, the Team Principal at Mercedes, has thanked Bottas for his efforts during his five years with the team, with the Finn having taken nine wins, seventeen pole positions and fifty-four podium finishes since he joined them in 2017.  He has helped them secure four consecutive World Constructors’ Championships in that time, with the team aiming for a fifth in 2021.

“This hasn’t been an easy process or a straightforward decision for us,” said Wolff.  “Valtteri has done a fantastic job over the past five seasons and he has made an essential contribution to our success and to our growth.

“Together with Lewis, he has built a benchmark partnership between two team-mates in the sport, and that has been a valuable weapon in our championship battles and pushed us to achieve unprecedented success.

“He would absolutely have deserved to stay with the team, and I am pleased that he has been able to choose an exciting challenge with Alfa next year to continue his career at the top level of the sport; when the time comes, he will leave us with huge goodwill from every single member of the team, and he will forever be part of the Mercedes family.”

Following the confirmation on Monday that Valtteri Bottas will join the Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN team next season, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team has announced that George Russell will replace the Finn.

Russell has been part of the Mercedes-Benz junior programme for a number of years and has been linked to replacing Bottas as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate thanks to his impressive performances for the Williams Racing team across the past three campaigns.

And now another part of the puzzle for the 2022 season has been put into place with the confirmation that Russell will race for Mercedes next year, and Russell says the announcement is a special day for him on both a personal and professional level, even if there is sadness that he will be leaving Williams.

“It’s a special day for me personally and professionally, but also a day of mixed emotions,” said Russell.  “I’m excited and humbled to be joining Mercedes next year, which is a huge career step, but it also means I’ll be saying goodbye to my team-mates and friends at Williams.

“It has been an honour working alongside every member of the team, and an honour to represent the Williams name in F1. Since I joined in 2019, we have worked tirelessly to push each other forward and bring the team back up the grid where it belongs.

Max Verstappen felt it was ‘incredible’ to win his home race, with the Dutchman triumphing in Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix at the Circuit Zandvoort despite almost race long pressure from behind from Lewis Hamilton.

The Red Bull Racing driver took a superb pole position on Saturday afternoon and held onto the lead at the start, with the Dutchman building a gap when needed in order to stay ahead when making his pit stop.  To the delight of his orange army, he took his seventh victory of the season and the lead in the Drivers’ Championship standings.

Verstappen admitted the expectations were high coming into the weekend with the supporters at the track almost inclusively in his corner, but he felt it was a positive Team performance at Zandvoort that saw him withstand the pressure from Hamilton and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

“It’s incredible to win here today on another home track and it feels great to take the lead in the Driver’s Championship again,” said Verstappen.  “Of course the expectations were very high coming into the weekend and it’s never easy to fulfil that but the whole crowd has been incredible and I am so happy to win here.

“It was quite a tough race, Lewis was really putting the pressure on and both Mercedes’ had really good pace but we managed to have that three second buffer when we needed it and I think that was very important.