Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Robert Stout has been grinding in his first year of Stadium Super Trucks competition, and his work was finally rewarded this weekend at the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix with a victory. A day after scoring his first series podium and 100th of his racing career, he held off newcomer Jacob Abel to win his maiden race.

After finishing last in Race #1 on Saturday due to a spin, Ricky Johnson started on the pole ahead of fellow Crosley Brands trucks Abel and Bo LeMastus. Stout, as the third-place finisher in said race, began his day in eleventh with winner Matt Brabham in last.

Johnson led the first lap before Abel passed him on the trip across Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge. As Abel braked for the next corner and consequently surrendered the position back to Johnson, the latter’s race fell apart when LeMastus tried a pass for the lead on the inside, but the move backfired as he drove into Johnson’s side and sent the two into the tyre barrier. A lengthy caution to clean up the track and separate the trucks followed, and LeMastus eventually rejoined the race without his hood.

The race eventually resumed with Abel as the leader, while Stout quickly shot through the order into fourth. Stout caught Abel and passed him for the top spot on lap five. Behind them and third-placed Arie Luyendyk Jr., Brabham took fourth from Jett Noland on lap six and the competition caution came out later on the circuit.

Stout continued to lead at the restart. Brabham entered the podium range by passing Luyendyk on the inside in turn twelve, resulting in bumping that nearly pushed Luyendyk into the tyres. Max Gordon also slipped by to take fourth.

The Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team have requested a review of Sebastian Vettel’s disqualification from the Hungarian Grand Prix after initially finishing second at the Hungaroring.

Vettel was disqualified from the race after the FIA were unable to take one litre of fuel from the car after the race had concluded. It is a requirement set out in the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations, that a litre of fuel must be taken from the car after the race. The team believe that in no way did Vettel receive a performance advantage from allegedly breaking the technical regulation, and that the act was not done deliberately.

According to Aston Martin’s data which it will use in it’s appeal to the FIA which is set for Monday 9th August over video call, Vettel’s AMR21 car did in fact have a litre of fuel remaining, with the data showing that there was actually 1.74 litres left in the tank.

The entire team will be hoping that their appeal on Monday will be successful and that Vettel’s brilliant second place can be reinstated.

McLaren Racing have announced that they will take a 75-percent majority stake in Arrow McLaren SP, furthering their commitment to the NTT IndyCar Series.

The purchase is set to be completed later in the year, taking majority from team founder Sam Schmidt and co-owner Ric Peterson, the “S” and “P” in the team’s name. Schmidt has been a part of IndyCar as a team owner since 2001 with Sam Schmidt Racing, and partnered with McLaren in 2020 to form the team we know today.

The name of the team and base of operations in the United States are expected to remain the same, while McLaren are expected to add personnel and engineering resources to the team. They will also put together a five-person board to oversee the program, headed by McLaren F1 CEO Zak Brown. Schmidt and Peterson will have seats on the board, as well as maintaining their 25-percent stake in ownership.

“Today’s announcement is a strong signal of our long-term commitment to IndyCar as both a racing series and a marketing platform for McLaren Racing and our sponsor partners,” Brown said according to RACER.com.

“I want to pay tribute to Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson who, together with the commitment and support of Arrow Electronics, have built a formidable team for us to keep growing and fulfill our common ambition of consistently challenging for wins, Indy 500s and series titles.”

Roman Bilinski took his second win of the season as the GB3 Championship‘s weekend at Snetterton 300 came to an end.

Mikkel Grundtvig started on pole, ahead of Reema Juffali, Bilinski and Douglas Motorsport newcomer Tommy Smith.

Smith was turned around at Turn 1 after contact with fellow debutant Branden Lee Oxley in the Chris Dittmann Racing car, dropping him to the back of the field from fourth on the grid.

Grundtvig ran wide at the same corner on Lap 2, allowing Bilinski to take the lead as the Fortec Motorsport drivers of Roberto Faria and Race 1 winner Oliver Bearman put Championship leader Zak O’Sullivan under pressure.

O’Sullivan went on the offensive on Javier Sagrera to try and get away from Bearman who had moved past his team-mate on the previous lap, but compromised his line as Bearman found a way past the Carlin driver.

Sebastian Alvarez took top honours in the second GB3 Championship race of the weekend at Snetterton 300, defending from Zak O’Sullivan to take his first win in the series.

There was a small amount of housekeeping after the flag on Saturday’s Race 1.

Javier Sagrera received a 30-second time penalty for causing a collision which gave the Spaniard front wing damage, and Elite Motorsport team-mate Tom Lebbon a puncture which saw both fall down the order on the opening lap.

Reece Ushijima was deemed to have caused a collision with Championship leader O’Sullivan in the early stages of Race 1, which handed the Hitech GP man a five-place grid penalty.

Alvarez started on pole for Race 2, courtesy of the Mexican’s second-fastest time in Qualifying on Saturday morning, ahead of Saturday’s race-winner Oliver Bearman.

When Ty Gibbs finally begins full-time competition in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in the future, you can already pencil him in as a playoff and likely championship contender. Until then, he will just keep winning as a part-timer.

Saturday’s Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey 200 at Watkins Glen International ended with Gibbs holding off venerable road course expert A.J. Allmendinger to win his third career race in just his tenth start. The effort came in dominating fashion as he led 43 of 82 laps.

Austin Cindric started on the pole and led the entire first segment. Excluding a competition caution on lap 12, the lone yellow flag of the stage came on lap five when NASCAR newcomer Michael Munley crashed into the tyre barrier, though he would return to the race before exiting much later into the event with a suspension failure. Allmendinger, Daniel Hemric, Harrison Burton, Jeb Burton, Justin Haley, Noah Gragson, Brandon Jones, Riley Herbst, and Sam Mayer rounded out the top ten.

Harrison Burton, Jones, Gibbs, and Allmendinger would lead laps in Stage #2 with Allmendinger taking the win ahead of Gibbs, Cindric, Justin Allgaier, Gragson, Herbst, Mayer, Michael Annett, Erik Jones, and Hemric. Annett was making his return to competition after recovering from a leg injury. Alex Labbé‘s car stalling on lap 35 was responsible for the only caution in the segment.

Gibbs led the field to begin the final stage before losing it to Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Hemric and Matt Mills bringing out the caution. Jones, doing a one-off, also wrecked on lap 69 for another yellow, as did Kyle Weatherman on lap 78 after his car caught fire due to an electrical issue. The Weatherman incident set up a four-lap run to the finish, one that saw Gibbs keep Allmendinger at bay en route to the victory.

Robby Gordon had Matt Brabham and Robert Stout all over his rear bumper in the waning moments of Saturday’s Stadium Super Trucks Race #1 at the Big Machine Music Grand Prix. Despite the pressure, he kept them at bay to become the inaugural SST race winner in Nashville.

Gordon started tenth while Brabham and Stout were the top qualifiers and were thus at the rear. Series newcomer Stanton Barrett was on the pole ahead of twelve other drivers in the largest SST race grid since 2018 at Long Beach. As Barrett led the opening laps, the Crosley Brands trucks of Bo LeMastus, Ricky Johnson, and Jeff Ward followed. By lap three, Gordon broke up the Crosley contingent as he moved into second before Johnson spun while racing Stout.

Barrett and Gordon, who raced against each other in the NASCAR Cup and now-Xfinity Series in the 2000s, comprised the top two at the competition caution on lap four. The duo pulled away on the restart a lap later as Stout took third from Ward while going over the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge.

Shortly before lap six, Barrett started to slip as he lost the lead to Gordon before Stout passed him to start said circuit. Brabham joined the picture a lap later and held third at the second competition yellow.

The next green flag set up a three-lap run with Gordon leading Brabham and Stout. Jett Noland caught the trio but nearly drifted into the wall as the final lap began. Brabham and Stout chased down Gordon as they entered the final three corners, with Brabham attempting a pass on the inside in the penultimate turn but failing. Another try came in the last corner, resulting in Brabham running into Gordon’s rear bumper, to no avail as Gordon cleared him.

Colton Herta absolutely blitzed the field by over one half of a second, winning pole position for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix with the first lap to dip into the 1:13.000 time zone with a 1:13.683. Herta was able to save a fresh set of alternate red-walled Firestone tyres after Q1 and it proved enough to help take his second pole of the season and continue to dominate on the streets of Nashville.

Group One in qualifying saw a great deal of contenders, including Alexander Rossi, Alex Palou, Patricio O’Ward, and three of the four Team Penske drivers. Early in the session a red flag came with Jimmie Johnson smashing into the tyre barriers in turn ten before any official lap time could be recorded. With no guaranteed track time until Q3, time was not on the side of the drivers.

With about three minutes left in the session, teams put on the alternate red-walled Firestone tyres in hopes of getting a time set before the session ends. In the end, Palou went fastest in the session while Graham Rahal, Helio Castroneves and Scott McLaughlin were among those eliminated.

Group Two was headlined by Scott Dixon, Herta and Romain Grosjean, as well as his teammate Cody Ware making his debut on a street course.

Dixon was finally able to dethrone Herta at the end of the session, reaching into the 1:14.000 mark on his final lap. Herta also reached the 1:14.000 mark without even using the red tyres, sitting out the last few minutes of the session and saving his reds.

The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular season ended with a literal flash as lightning cut short Saturday’s United Rentals 176 at Watkins Glen International with twelve laps remaining. Austin Hill was the leader at the time of the delay, enabling him to score his second win of the year.

Hill started on the pole in the first Truck race at WGI since 2000, and he led the first four laps before Todd Gilliland took the spot. Gilliland, who won the most recent road race at COTA in May, would score the stage win ahead of Sheldon Creed, Derek Kraus, Josh Berry, Austin Wayne Self, A.J. Allmendinger, Paul Menard, Stewart Friesen, Ben Rhodes, and Ryan Truex. NASCAR newcomer Chad Chastain produced the lone caution of the stage when his truck stopped on lap seven.

The second stage ran green the entire distance as the lead was exchanged between Jack Wood, Carson Hocevar, Zane Smith, John Hunter Nemechek, and Hill. Hill would take the stage win ahead of Nemechek, Allmendinger, Smith, Creed, Tyler Ankrum, Hocevar, Gilliland, Ben Rhodes, and Sam Mayer.

As Hill continued to lead, Nemechek and Creed ran behind him. After a caution on lap 53 for Kraus spinning after contact with Allmendinger in turn four, ending the former’s playoff hopes, a red flag came on lap 60 for lightning. Despite efforts to wait out the storm, worries about clashing with the Xfinity Series race looming later in the day prompted NASCAR to call the race.

Albeit shortened by weather, the win is Hill’s second in a row after winning a month prior at Knoxville and his first on a road course. With a tenth-place finish, Hocevar locked himself into the playoffs alongside fellow rookie Chandler Smith.

Colton Herta went two for two in practice at the NTT Indycar Series Music City Grand Prix in Nashville in commanding fashion to leave him as the heavy favourite for pole position later today.

Herta was once again a solid distance clear of the pack, going almost half a second quicker than second placed driver Alexander Rossi, who brought out the red flag with just three minutes left of the session.

While the timing screens showed Scott Dixon in third, it was far from plain sailing for the six-time champion who twice spun and caused red flags in the 45 minute session, once at the very start, and then at the very end as the field were let out for just one flying lap.

Scott McLaughlin also caused the red flags to flutter as the truncated nature of the session meant most drivers didn’t get a good look at the Firestone alternate tyres ahead of qualifying.

Fourth for Alex Palou ensured Honda occupied the top four spots as Andretti Autosport and Chip Ganassi Racing went toe-to-toe on the bumpy street circuit.

The first sprint round of the 2021 Intelligent Money British GT Championship season will take place tomorrow with the grid now set ahead of two 1 hour encounters at Snetterton. Qualifying was its usual thrilling display of raw speed, delayed by over an hour due to a fire in the paddock at the circuit. Four ten minute sessions set two grids ahead of the racing on Sunday with TF Sport and Team Rocket RJN claiming the poles for the first race and Barwell Motorsport and Assetto Motorsport celebrating the top spots in qualifying for race 2.

Ahmad Al Harthy dominant in GT3 AM Qualifying.

With two free practice sessions in changeable conditions, qualifying took place in almost perfect weather and was the teams first real look at a dry, but green Snetterton 300 circuit. Initial pace went to the WPI Motorsport Lamborghini of Michael Igoe with Andrew Howard‘s Beechdean AMR entry and Adam Balon for Barwell also taking turns at the top of the timesheets.

Then came the best efforts of Ahmad Al Harthy in the new look TF Sport Aston Martin V8 Vantage AMR GT3. It was the Omani driver’s first competitive laps in Norfolk since 2015, though he did benefit from some testing during 2020 Media Day ahead of the Oman Racing Team’s aborted campaign last year. A 1:50 dead was his first effort before a second lap lowered the pole time to a 1:49.237, 0.841 seconds clear at the front of the field.

Second place went to Paddock Motorsport, the Bentley Continental of Kelvin Fletcher. Second place was pretty much all that any of the 10 drivers not from Oman could hope for and the battle was intense. Enduro Motorsport‘s Morgan Tillbrook took the inside of the second row of the grid alongside the #1 machine of Adam Balon.

Michael Igoe ended up fifth ahead of Howard, whose second attempt was disallowed due to track limits infringements with Machitski, Loggie, Proctor and Jones rounding out the top ten. The G-Cat Racing Porsche recovered well from a scary off track moment earlier in the day, but couldn’t get within a second of the top ten at the hands of Shamus Jennings.

Oliver Bearman took his first win in the newly-rebranded GB3 Championship on Saturday afternoon, despite a race-long challenge from Fortec Motorsport team-mate Roberto Faria.

The returning ADAC F4 and Italian F4 Championship leader continued his astonishing form in 2021 by taking pole after missing three rounds, ahead of Tom Lebbon and Faria.

Frederick Lubin (Arden Motorsport) returned to the Championship after missing Donington Park and Spa-Francorchamps through illness, as Branden Lee Oxley and Tommy Smith made their debuts for Chris Dittmann Racing and Douglas Motorsport respectively.

Lebbon fell down the order from the start with what seemed to be a puncture in the opening exchanges, while Bearman led the first lap in Norfolk from Faria, Roman Bilinski and Javier Sagrera.

Championship leader Zak O’Sullivan sat fifth, just ahead of title rival Reece Ushijima (Hitech GP), whose challenge has faltered a little since his double-DNF at Donington two meetings ago.

Death, taxes, Matt Brabham being the Fastest Qualifier for a Stadium Super Trucks weekend.

On Friday, the points leader was the fastest driver in practice/qualifying for the sixth straight weekend (four-for-four in 2021) as he set a fastest lap time of 1:54.3724 around the new Nashville Street Circuit. His time was .399 seconds faster than second-placed Robby Gordon, marking the second consecutive round in which the duo was the top two in qualifying. Gordon’s truck was partially wrapped in purple with new sponsor Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, marking a rare occasion in which his livery was not the traditional bright orange with SPEED Energy branding.

Max Gordon was the third quickest for his best career qualifying run. He led practice in his series début at Road America in 2020, while his previous highest qualifying effort was fifth that weekend.

Arie Luyendyk Jr. led the quintet of Crosley Brands-sponsored drivers in fifth ahead of Jeff Ward (eighth), Jacob Abel (ninth), Ricky Johnson (tenth), and Bo LeMastus (twelfth). Abel is an SST newcomer, while Ward and Johnson are running their first races since 2013.

Zach Van Matre, in his first start since Long Beach in 2019, rolled his truck while attempting to navigate a left-hand corner slightly over six minutes into the session. He is the second driver to flip in qualifying in 2021 after Dave Casey did so in the Boost Mobile Super Trucks at Townsville in July.

Colton Herta took the honours of leading the first ever practice session on the streets of Nashville after topping the times on Friday ahead of this weekend’s NTT Indycar Series Music City Grand Prix.

It was a session full of learning for all 27 drivers but the Andretti Autosport driver learned the quickest on the tight, bumpy street circuit, setting a 1:16:587, just under four tenths clear of second place.

That second spot was occupied by six-time champion Scott Dixon who showed you can teach old dogs new tricks as he continues to fight at the front at the very top of the sport.

Championship contender Pato O’Ward didn’t have the session he desired though as he hit the wall at turn three having just gone second at the time. The Mexican clipped the inside wall which speared his Arrow McLaren SP car into the outside wall doing a fair amount of damage that needs to be fixed for tomorrow’s second practice.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s Conor Daly also caused a red flag as he locked the rear tyres over the bumpy bridge and went heavily into the tyre barriers at the end of the long straight. The Indianapolis native was OK, as was O’Ward.

Esteban Ocon and the Alpine F1 Team took their first victory in Formula 1 at a chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix, which caused confusion for Pirelli.

The race began with all bar one driver on the green intermediate compound tyre with rain having soaked the circuit. However all the drivers except Lewis Hamilton gambled at the race restart and switched to the medium tyres after multiple crashes on the opening lap saw the race red flagged.

The red flag period allowed the track to dry, which it did rapidly allowing the entirety of the remaining racers to move ahead of Hamilton who restarted still on the intermediate tyres, which quickly became the wrong tyre to be on.

From the moment Hamilton pitted for slick tyres Esteban Ocon took the lead and technically never gave it up. The Frenchman who restarted the race on the medium tyres pitted for a set of hard C2 tyres on lap thirty-seven and went onto claim his first ever Formula 1 victory.

Head of F1 and Car Racing at Pirelli Mario Isola, was quick to congratulate Ocon and Alpine on their victory in what was an unpredictable grand prix.