Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

When the NASCAR Xfinity Series season resumes on Saturday at Watkins Glen International, Jordan Anderson Racing will enlist the services of Cup Series driver Erik Jones. On Monday, the team announced Jones will drive the #31 Chevrolet Camaro in his first Xfinity start since 2019.

Jones has seventy-seven career Xfinity starts between 2014 and 2017 for Joe Gibbs Racing, scoring nine wins and making the Championship Round in 2016. He returned to the series for the 2019 Bristol summer race for the now-defunct XCI Racing, but finished thirty-seventh after a crash.

The WGI race will be Jones’ first at the Xfinity level in a Chevrolet after spending much of his career in all three national series with Toyota. He moved to the Bowtie for 2021 with Richard Petty Motorsports, and he currently sits twenty-fifth in Cup points with two top tens and a best finish of ninth at Bristol Dirt.

In two Xfinity starts at WGI, his best finish is eighth in 2017; it was his second top ten on a road course after a sixth at Mid-Ohio in 2016. His lone national series road win came at Mosport during his 2015 Camping World Truck Series championship campaign. Although he has not won on such tracks since, he has never finished outside the top ten in three Cup tries at The Glen, including a highest run of fourth in the most recent edition in 2019.

“I am thankful for the opportunity to join a JAR lineup of some very talented drivers,” said Jones. “It will be great to return to the Xfinity Series behind the wheel of the #31 Camaro at Watkins Glen. With my past experience there I am hopeful we will be able to garner a great finish.”

Currently in its first season of Xfinity competition, JAR fields the #31 for a multitude of drivers like team owner Jordan Anderson, Tyler Reddick, Josh Berry, and Kaz Grala. Sage Karam will drive the car at the next road course event in Indianapolis. Reddick, also a Cup regular, holds the car’s best finish of fifth at Charlotte and it is thirty-second in the owner standings.

JHR Developments’ Joseph Loake made the most of his mega fast reactions to claim victory in race three of the British F4 weekend at Oulton Park, adding a second win to his 2021 campaign and keeping his name in the championship conversation as we approach the midway point of the season.

Loake surged past championship leader James Hedley into Old Hall to claim a lead that wouldn’t be relinquished. Hedley meanwhile slipped down to fifth on the opening lap and would even succumb to late race pressure from title rival Matthew Rees to eventually cross the line in sixth place.

Meanwhile back at the sharp end, it was Matias Zagazeta that scored a fantastic second place and recording some form of redemption after a tough opening two races of the weekend. That podium wasn’t secured until after a thrilling dice with Carlin’s Roman Bilinski and even slipping past Eduardo Coseteng to claim the second step.

Bilinski came home in third place to record his first podium of the season, finishing ahead of his rookie team mate Dougie Bolger who played a starring role in the race to finish in fourth and claim his first rookie cup victory, finishing ahead of Matthew Rees in fifth.

Coseteng would wind up in seventh place, which would be the best result for the Phinsys by Argenti rookie since the season opener at Thruxton. Kai Askey finished in eighth and once again claimed some points for Carlin, with Aiden Neate again showing incredible pace in ninth place to also claim the fastest lap and the extra point that comes with that.

Senna Proctor has claimed his first win for BTC Racing in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) to end the latest weekend of action at Oulton Park as he dispelled his wrongs from earlier in the day when he failed to convert pole position.

Proctor ended up on pole once more in the reverse grid race and at Turn One though, it was championship leader Ash Sutton who claimed the lead as he looked to finalise his surge back up the grid with a Race Three win.

But the drama began behind the duo as Sam Osborne ended up on the grass and was collected by Jack Butel and Jack Mitchell, Nicolas Hamilton also ended up retiring from the race with Ollie Jackson, Rick Parfitt and Sam Smelt also going off to avoid the incident.

Jade Edwards was also tipped into a spin by Jason Plato as they aimed to avoid the spinning car and while Jackson, Edwards and Parfitt made the subsequent restart from the red flag, the cars of Osborne, Butel, Mitchell and Hamilton had to be recovered.

When the race resumed, it was Sutton who came out worse for wear as the Infiniti Q50 went around the outside of Proctor into turn one only for contact between the pair to send Sutton down the field before he retired after contact between Colin Turkington and Carl Boardley saw the latter hit his teammate.

In a race that was one of the most dramatic Formula 1 fans have had the pleasure of seeing, with the results being completely ‘jumbled up’ which included both Williams Racing drivers scoring points, which was the British teams first points since an equally chaotic 2019 German Grand Prix. As with the German Grand Prix, the action was caused by a surprise bout of rain half an hour before the Grand Prix which was likely the cause of six non-finishers.

First Lap Chaos

Unlike the past few Hungarian Grand Prix’s where there has been little action, the 2021 edition of the race was packed to the brim of action from the very first lap, Valtteri Bottas got caught in a sandwich between Sergio Pérez and Lando Norris after a poor start and in an effort to make up the positions lost, missed his braking point colliding heavily with the diffuser of Norris, who in turn was a passenger and took Pérez out of the race.

Max Verstappen would’ve suffered the same fate (after also being hit by the out of control Bottas) had it not been for some excellent work done by his engineers in repairing a bargeboard during the brief Red Flag period caused by the early collisions. As a result of this error, Bottas will take a five-place grid penalty for the next race after the summer break at Spa-Francorchamps.

All of this action promoted Scuderia Ferrari‘s Charles Leclerc to second place, who was no doubt looking for redemption after narrowly missing out on a British Grand Prix victory, but a similar mistake to Bottas’ this time from Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team Driver Lance Stroll took the Monagasque driver out of the race who in turn caused McLaren F1 Team‘s Daniel Ricciardo to have a spin.

Soon after all the chaos the red flag was brought out to clear the vast amount of debris that now lay around the first few corners of the lap. Stroll suffered the same fate as Bottas and will also be taking a five-place Grid Penalty at Spa. Norris’ race was over with the damage on his McLaren too much for him to continue, with the Briton’s fifteen-race scoring run coming to an end.

Rory Butcher has claimed his first win in the Toyota Corolla for Speedworks Motorsport in Race Two at Oulton Park as he continues a good weekend heading towards his home circuit of Knockhill.

Leading the pack to begin the race was Dan Rowbottom who had maximum success ballast on board which hampered his ability to keep position. This allowed Butcher to charge taking third from Adam Morgan and then managed to claim the spots of the two Hondas in Rowbottom and Shedden at the hairpin.

Shedden would be forced wide as a result and Adam Morgan and Jake Hill capitalised from there, this change allowed Butcher to ease to victory with Rowbottom and Morgan finalising the podium places in a dominant display from the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK driver.

Shedden was down in sixth ahead of Stephen Jelley and Ash Sutton who recovered well and will be one to watch in the reverse grid race while Senna Proctor and fellow recovering Tom Ingram completed the top ten.

Results in full to follow

Dan Rowbottom is a winner in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) for the first time after securing victory in the opener at Oulton Park.

It was an eventful affair which had to be restarted after a multi car accident at Lodge to open the race.

Senna Proctor started the race on pole but a slow start allowed Gordon Shedden to blast into the lead with Rowbottom storming through to follow his teammate into second. Further down, Aiden Moffat tangled with Colin Turkington sending the Team BMW driver off the road, with Ash Sutton also taken out of contention.

But the main incident happened with Jason Plato and Tom Oliphant clashing and tipped into a spin at Lodge with Chris Smiley left with nowhere to go. The BMW rolled back and hit the rear of the car at speed with Rick Parfitt also getting caught up in the incident.

The race was then restarted with a six lap shootout with Rowbottom using his opportunity to head to the front. Butcher behind spent the rest of the race keeping Stephen Jelley at bay with Moffat and Plato following with the Halfords Racing with Cataclean ace producing a brilliant race win.

McKenzy Cresswell took his debut British F4 win in the reverse grid race two at Oulton Park on Saturday evening to finally live up to the early promise that the JHR Developments rookie had been showing since the season commenced at Thruxton in May, leading a commanding race to finished five seconds clear of the field after staggering start.

After starting on the third row, it was Cresswell that made the perfect start to quickly dispatch Carlin’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and David Morales in the Arden machine to leave nothing but Thomas Ikin between himself and a maiden winner’s trophy. He would get past the Arden rookie later on in the lap at Island hairpin and would not be matched for the remainder of the race to take his maiden win.

Inthraphuvasak was able to get past Ikin later in the race and annex second place and score his first podium of the season as well as Carlin’s second of the campaign. Ikin had to soak up some late race pressure from the hard charging Abbi Pulling before a battle with herself and Joel Granfors to give Ikin his third podium in successive meetings.

Granfors held on to fourth, his best result since his podiums at Thruxton. Pulling also managed a top five finish, which was a great return after a disappointing result in race one earlier in the day. Oliver Gray finished in sixth and scored yet another rookie podium in the process, with Phinsys by Argenti’s Marcos Flack finishing in seventh.

Zak Taylor finished eighth after being demoted two places from taking a 5-second penalty after exceeding track limits, with Matthew Rees making the most of the title contenders to go from eighteenth to ninth to just miss out on the points but still managed to take a small nibble into Hedley’s title advantage after gaining more positions than him. Eduardo Coseteng came home in tenth for the Argenti squad after another solid run for the Filipino rookie.

PREMA Racing‘s Dennis Hauger won the final race of the FIA Formula 3 Championship weekend at a soaked Hungaroring, leading home team-mate Arthur Leclerc and Trident‘s Jack Doohan.

The race began behind the safety car due to the conditions, with all drivers on the full-wet tyre. The 30-strong field had a 20-lap sprint in the Feature Race in the trickiest conditions, and the Trident drivers of David Schumacher and Doohan battled early, with Doohan coming out on top and staying third.

Arthur Leclerc started from pole after setting the fastest time in Qualifying on Friday, while Championship leader Dennis Hauger completed the first row, and looked to consolidate his 45-point lead over the final PREMA Racing driver Olli Caldwell.

Victor Martins was the first victim of the wet conditions, starting 24th and taking out Oliver Rasmussen (HWA Racelab) in the second sector amid the spray, the MP Motorsport driver’s incident scrambling the safety car.

That meant Martins failed to score for the fifth race in a row, having started the day fifth in the Championship standings.

James Hedley managed to keep title rival Matthew Rees at bay to win the opening British F4 race of the weekend at Oulton Park, sustaining pressure from the JHR Developments rookie to convert his first pole position of the year.

From the line, both Hedley and Rees made an even start but it was the Fortec championship leader that got into Old Hall first and began to build up a commanding lead before Rees put on a late charge. But no matter how hard he pushed, it was Hedley that kept him at bay to take the chequered flag on the narrow Cheshire circuit by just two tenths of a second to increase his advantage at the summit of the championship to 28 points.

Joseph Loake kept Hedley and Rees in sight for the whole race, but ultimately had to settle for the final position on the rostrum after not being able to take any opportunity to fight for the win. The Ford Fiesta champion from last year will be happy for scoring his first podium since the Thruxton race three win back in May.

Last weekend’s British F3 winner at Spa – Roman Bilinski had to settle for fourth, matching his season’s best result as the Carlin man came under pressure from the ever impressing Fortec rookie, Oliver Gray who rounded out the top five.

Dougie Bolger gained a spot to take sixth place and claim another rookie podium, finishing ahead of Aiden Neate who turned in yet another stirring performance considering the lack of experience compared to the rest of the grid, with the newcomer even passing Phinsys by Argenti team mate Eduardo Coseteng on the way to seventh.

Matteo Nannini won the second race of the weekend as the FIA Formula 3 Championship takes on the Hungaroring for the fourth round of the season.

Lorenzo Colombo won Race 1 on track to take his first points, podium and win earlier in the day, but received a penalty post-race for falling too far behind the safety car, dropping him to seventh. Ayumu Iwasa inherited the win for Hitech GP, and started Race 2 from 12th place.

Amaury Cordeel and Victor Martins stalled from the start but everyone behind was able to avoid the Campos Racing and MP Motorsport cars, while pole-sitter Enzo Fittipaldi held off Nannini on the first lap.

Olli Caldwell was forced to pit early in the race after contact at Turn 1, allowing Championship leader Dennis Hauger to re-extend the gap PREMA Racing team-mate Caldwell closed in the morning.

Nannini is benefitting from a dual campaign with HWA Racelab in FIA F3 and Campos in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, and led by two seconds after a third of race distance.

Senna Proctor claimed a maiden British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) pole at Oulton Park on Saturday afternoon in one of the most exciting Qualifying sessions of the season so far seeing the BTC Racing driver on top.

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington and Halfords Racing with Cataclean’s Gordon Shedden set the pace early on with the former going fastest first more so than what was previously seen in Free Practice, but his mark of 1:25.928 would soon be eclipsed by Shedden.

Turkington headed back to the front only for Proctor to take top spot with a 1:25.721 clocking. Rory Butcher‘s Toyota Gazoo Racing UK Corolla looked to steal it away as he headed into provisional pole but his hopes of a first top spot for the team were dashed as Shedden and then Proctor improved further still.

The latter who topped the tyre test only a few weeks ago finished on 1:25.485s ahead of Shedden by just 0.076s and Butcher by 0.087s whilst Dan Rowbottom finalised the top four followed by Jack Goff and Adam Morgan in fifth and sixth.

Jake Hill, Stephen Jelley, Turkington and Ash Sutton rounded out the top ten with Tom Ingram unable to set a time with a wastegate problem.

Lewis Hamilton clinched pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix in the eleventh race of the 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship. This was the Briton’s 101st pole position and his eighth pole position at this race.

Valtteri Bottas was in second position, 0.315 seconds slower than Hamilton. Max Verstappen was in third position with a big gap of 0.421 seconds to Hamilton.

The qualifying session at the Hungaroring circuit took place under scorchingly hot conditions with air temperatures at 29 degree C and track temperatures at 60 degree C.

The three compounds for this race are from the middle range of the Pirelli tyres – the white-striped hard tyres (C2), the yellow-striped medium tyres (C3) and the red-striped soft tyres (C4).

Q1: Russell and Tsunoda Eliminated

Kimi Räikkönen went to the top of the time charts in the early exchanges with a lap time of 1m17.963s. Max Verstappen went to the top of the time charts on his first run with a 1m16.214s lap time. The Dutchman was 0.210 seconds faster than Hamilton.

Zak Brown says there is uncertainty about whether or not McLaren will join the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship as planned in 2022, particularly after both Audi and BMW announced they would be withdrawing at the end of the current campaign.

McLaren secured an option to join Formula E for its ninth season in 2022-23, but Brown, the CEO of the Woking-based team that has teams in Formula 1 and the NTT IndyCar Series and a future commitment to Extreme E, says there are plenty of doubts about their participation now two of the big manufacturers have pulled out.

Brown says no decision has yet been made, but with the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team not yet committing themselves to the championship beyond the current season, they are looking into whether joining Formula E is financially viable for McLaren.

“On Formula E, we are looking to see how it continues to develop,” Brown is quoted as saying by GPFans.com.  “Obviously, with Audi and BMW leaving it’s a bit of a concern.

“We’re not quite sure what Mercedes is going to do and when we make a decision, is it commercially viable? We’re still looking at that.

Jost Capito says he would not hold back George Russell if the chance of racing for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team comes for him in 2022.

Russell has been linked with a move to Mercedes to replace Valtteri Bottas for next season having impressed everyone with his performances for Williams Racing, even though he has yet to score a point with them in two-and-a-half years of racing. Russell has qualified inside the top ten in the Austrian and British Grand Prix but has been let down by the performance of the car when it mattered on race day.

Capito, the Team Principal and CEO at Williams, believes Russell is ready to move up to a top team in Formula 1, having shown again and again his credentials in a car that is at best the ninth fastest car on the grid. And the Team Principal says the team are willing to wait on the decision about Russell’s future about confirming their line-up for 2022, the first year of the new aerodynamic regulations in Formula 1.

“I would wish that George gets this seat, because he is in the position now in his career where he can handle to be in a top team and fight for the championship,” Capito is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.

“I would never hold a young driver back if he can have this kind of opportunity. So I hope for him that he gets this opportunity.

Lewis Hamilton edged out Max Verstappen in final practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix as the two title protagonists led the way at the Hungaroring on Saturday morning.

On the back of their collision on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix, all eyes have been on the battle between the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team and Red Bull Racing drivers, and the duo were again at the front of the field in the final running before Qualifying.

Hamilton set a best time of 1:16.826 to edge out Verstappen by 0.088 seconds, while it seems to be advantage Mercedes as Valtteri Bottas ended third despite a big lock-up at the chicane on his final flying lap that saw the Finn go off track.

The second Red Bull of Sergio Pérez was down in seventh, with the Mexican appearing to be struggling in comparison to his team-mate Verstappen.  Pérez ended up behind both Scuderia Ferrari drivers and McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris, but more alarmingly for Red Bull, he was over a second down on the outright pace.

There was a red flag in the final quarter of the session when Mick Schumacher crashed his Uralkali Haas F1 Team car at the fast turn eleven, with both the front and rear of the left-hand side of the car damaged.  He was able to get out of the car under his own power but his participation in Qualifying is now in doubt.