Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Lando Norris is hoping to end the first part of the season before the summer break on a high as the Briton looks to extend his unbroken points scoring run to start the 2021 Formula 1 season.

The McLaren F1 Team racer has scored points in each of the opening ten races, with podium finishes coming his way in the Emilia Romagna, Monaco and Austrian Grands Prix, and he has only finished lower than fifth on one occasion, which was an eighth place in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Norris hopes to help McLaren continue their good start to the season as they battle Scuderia Ferrari for third place in the Constructors’ Championship, and with good memories of the Hungaroring, he is ready to go into the summer break with a strong Hungarian Grand Prix weekend.

“I’m looking forward to heading back to Hungary, a track that has good memories for me after my official F1 test debut there in 2017,” said Norris.  “We’ve had a good start to the season so far, and we’ll be aiming to finish the first half of the year on a high, before a break over the summer shutdown.

“The Hungaroring can be a tricky circuit to get right, and we know that it’ll be a challenge to outperform our closest rivals in the Constructors’ Championship. But we’ll be giving it everything to continue building that gap and set ourselves up for a strong second half of the season.”

Red Bull Racing have confirmed they have lodged a request to the FIA to take another look at the high-profile crash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix.

Verstappen’s race was over at Copse Corner after being tipped into a spin by the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver on the opening lap, with Hamilton taking a ten-second time penalty for his part in the incident.

However, Red Bull do not feel the penalty handed out to Hamilton was justified, and they have asked for further talks with the FIA ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.  The video conference will take place at 4pm CEST on Thursday.

Both Red Bull and Mercedes will be allowed up to three representatives in the meeting, including the team principals.  And whereas Red Bull’s request is not an actual appeal, the FIA could take additional action if new evidence is provided.

Article 14 of the FIA’s International Sporting Code states that: “If, in Competitions forming part of an FIA Championship, cup, trophy, challenge or series, or of an international series, a significant and relevant new element is discovered which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned, the stewards who have given a ruling or, failing this, those designated by the FIA, may decide to re-examine their decision following a petition for review…”

Max Verstappen is looking ahead to this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix with the aim of forgetting what happened in the British Grand Prix.

The championship leading Red Bull Racing driver collided with main rival Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap at Silverstone and ended up having a big crash into the barriers at Copse Corner, but he escaped with just a little bruising.

Verstappen says he used a twenty-four-hour sim race earlier this week to see how it felt to be sat in one position for a significant amount of time, but he felt good coming through that and ready for the race at the Hungaroring this weekend.

“I’m happy to get back on track in Hungary this weekend, especially after the last race result,” said Verstappen.  “I’m a little bruised of course but that’s normal after such a big impact but I’m training and feeling good.

“I did a 24hr sim race this week and it was a good test to see how my body would react to spending time sat in one position and behind screens for a long time, I felt absolutely fine which makes me feel positive heading into the weekend. I’m definitely ready to go again!”

The British Grand Prix saw the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team bring to an end a five-race winning run for Red Bull Racing, but all the focus was on the first lap clash between eventual race winner Lewis Hamilton and current championship leader Max Verstappen at Copse Corner.

Hamilton was attempting to pass Verstappen heading into one of the fastest corners on the Formula 1 calendar, but the two rivals collided, with the Dutchman spinning viciously into the barriers.  Hamilton sustained some damage and was handed a ten-second time penalty for his part in it, but he recovered from that to catch and pass Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for the victory.

Toto Wolff, the Team Principal at Mercedes, admits the incident has polarised the Formula 1 paddock and beyond, with many differing opinions about who was at fault or whether the penalty was justified, but ultimately it was good to see Verstappen walk away from such a big crash without injury.

“Everyone has their own opinion on the events of Silverstone, and it was a very polarising incident,” said Wolff.  “However, the most important thing is that Max is OK.

“It’s never nice to see a car crashing, particularly at such high speeds and at a corner like that, so we’re glad he emerged from the accident unscathed.”

Alex Lynn admitted it was hard to put into words how he felt after securing his maiden ABB FIA Formula E World Championship victory in the second race of the London E-Prix weekend on Sunday.

The Mahindra Racing driver was brilliant all weekend long at the Exhibition Centre London (ExCeL), taking pole position and third place in Saturday’s opening race and then his maiden win on Sunday after on-track winner Lucas di Grassi was penalised for a safety car offence.

Lynn moves up to sixth place in the Drivers’ Championship standings heading into the final two races of the season in Berlin next month, with the British racer admitting it was a fantastic feeling to finally take his first Formula E victory in his fortieth start.  He sits just seventeen points behind current championship leader Nyck de Vries heading to the Tempelhof Airport Street Circuit on 14-15 August.

“It’s hard to put my feelings into words to be honest!” said Lynn.  “I can’t believe this has happened – it’s as special as it gets.

“Formula E has been an interesting journey for me, so to win is unbelievably special. We had to make it happen today and we did. I get the pleasure of driving the car and I’m thankful to the whole team; there’s not a group of guys and girls that doesn’t stay longer and wake up earlier than them so I’m thrilled for the whole team.

Jake Dennis was ‘super happy’ after securing his second victory of his rookie ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season on Saturday as the Briton won race one of his home London E-Prix.

The BMW i Andretti Motorsport driver came out on top of a great battle with countryman Alex Lynn to take victory at the Exhibition Centre London (ExCeL), the first race in the unique part indoor, part outdoor track within London Docklands.

After getting ahead of Lynn when the Mahindra Racing driver took his second attack mode, Dennis was then able to control the race from the front and bring himself firmly into championship contention.  It was his second victory of the season after triumphing in the Valencia E-Prix in April.

“I am super happy. I pretty much didn’t know what to expect going into the race,” said Dennis.  “It was a little bit different to normal, with really not much energy-saving going on.

“It was obviously an intense battle with Alex Lynn; I was trying to put him under pressure. We took the risk to stay up in front when he took his second attack mode. I knew I could keep him behind, but I didn’t know if it would work out better or not.

The BRDC British Formula 3 Championship returned to the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps for the first time since 2019 at the weekend (23-25 July), and served up its customary helping of surprises up and down the order.

Championship leaders Zak O’Sullivan and Carlin extended their respective advantages in the Drivers’ and Teams’ standings, thanks to a win and four podiums across the first two races.

Bart Horsten took his first pole for Hitech GP on Friday evening, also putting himself at the front for Race 2 by account of his second-best time.

In fact, the top four was the same for Race 1 and 2, with O’Sullivan second, his Carlin team-mate and Horsten’s compatriot Christian Mansell third and Roman Bilinski fourth in just his second F3 qualifying session.

Race 1

Race 1 took place in wet conditions which had caught several drivers out in the other categories on Saturday morning.

NTT IndyCar Series veteran Sage Karam is giving NASCAR a shot. On Monday, Jordan Anderson Racing announced Karam will make his Xfinity Series début in the #31 Chevrolet Camaro at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course on 14 August.

“It has always been a dream of mine to be able to compete at this level with some of the world’s best stock car drivers,” Karam stated in a team release. “My goal is to learn as much as possible and soak in this experience. It’s a welcomed challenge for me, and I’m looking forward to building strong relationships with the talented people of Jordan Anderson Racing.”

The 2013 Indy Lights champion, Karam has sporadically competed in IndyCar since 2014, with starts in the Indianapolis 500 coming every year; in May, he finished a career-best seventh in the prestigious event. His highest IndyCar finish is third at Iowa in 2015. In 2020, he raced three times on the Indianapolis RC with IndyCar for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. He finished twenty-third twice in the first two races and twenty-fourth in the third.

While much of Karam’s career has been spent in open-wheel cars, he has closed-wheel experience in sports cars and rallycross. In the former discipline, he finished runner-up overall in the 2014 IMSA race at the Indianapolis RC.

Crossovers between NASCAR and IndyCar are not extremely common but also not nonexistent. Fellow IndyCar mainstay Santino Ferrucci also began running Xfinity races earlier in 2021, while NASCAR’s Cody Ware débuted in IndyCar in June. Xfinity playoff contender A.J. Allmendinger, Cup Series star Kurt Busch, Cup part-timer James Davison, Truck Series occasional face Conor Daly, and NASCAR veteran J.J. Yeley all have IndyCar experience.

Championship leader Grégoire Saucy took his seventh victory of the 2021 Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine season on Sunday, with the Swiss racer coming out on top of a thrilling battle involving four cars for the lead at Spa-Francorchamps.

The ART Grand Prix driver started from pole position but lost the lead to team-mate Gabriele Mini on lap one, before Saucy found a way back ahead of the Italian on lap three.

The safety car was deployed briefly, but Saucy was then able to hold onto the lead until the chequered flag despite pressure from behind from R-ace GP duo Zane Maloney and Hadrien David, as well as Mini.

Mini lost out to both Maloney and David and dropped to fourth on lap four, and although Maloney was able to stick close to Saucy up front, he was never close enough to make a genuine challenge for the lead and ultimately was forced to settle for the second step on the podium.

Race one winner Michael Belov was a man on the charge in race two, with the G4 Racing driver climbing from eleventh on the grid to finish an excellent fifth.  He had capitalised on a clash between Prema Powerteam team-mates Paul Aron and David Vidales to move up to sixth on lap nine, and after that he was able to close down and pass MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto for fifth.

Alex Lynn took his maiden ABB FIA Formula E World Championship victory in a controversial second race of the London E-Prix, with on-track winner Lucas di Grassi being penalised and eventually disqualified for pitting under the safety car and not stopping for long enough.

The Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler driver was running eighth when the safety car was deployed after an incident with André Lotterer left António Félix da Costa in the barriers at turn one, and as the electric-powered Mini went down the start/finish straight, di Grassi went into the pit lane.

With the safety car crawling down the pit straight, di Grassi briefly stopped in his pit box and returned to the track in the lead! However, the move was immediately investigated by the stewards, and they awarded the Brazilian a drive-through penalty for a safety-car infringement.

His team did not inform him of the penalty and as a result, he was handed a time penalty at the chequered flag that left him down in eighth, and he was subsequently disqualified from the results post-race.

The penalties for di Grassi promoted Lynn to first place, with the Briton finally taking his maiden victory in Formula E, with the Mahindra Racing driver moving himself firmly into championship contention as a result.  It was a great weekend for Lynn, who took a podium finish and a pole position on Saturday.

Michael Belov secured his and G4 Racing’s first Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine victory on Saturday at Spa-Francorchamps, with the Russian surviving difficult conditions to win by over nine seconds despite a mid-race safety car.

The Russian racer started from pole position on a damp track, and despite first lap attacks from Hadrien David and Zane Maloney, he was never truly challenged for the lead as he secured his first win of a season that has only really just got started.

Prema Powerteam’s David Vidales made a good start to jump from eighth on the grid to run fourth, but the Spaniard was the driver responsible for causing the safety car as he spun into the barriers exiting the Paul Frere turn on tricky damp conditions.  Vidales’ car stopped in a dangerous position, and the safety car was required for three laps and over fourteen minutes of running!

On the restart, Belov immediately pulled out a lead on David, and by the chequered flag that lead had extended to over nine seconds ahead of the R-ace GP driver, while the podium was completed by David’s team-mate Maloney.

In what was his best showing of the season to date, Dino Beganovic took an excellent fourth for Prema Powerteam ahead of the leading ART Grand Prix entry of Patrik Pasma, with the Finn having made the switch to the team from KIC Motorsport ahead of the round in Belgium.

Both Nissan e.dams cars have been disqualified from the results of the opening London E-Prix on Saturday after being deemed to have overused power during the thirty-three-lap race.

Sébastien Buemi had finished a season’s best fourth and Oliver Rowland tenth, but both drivers have now lost their points, much to the dismay of the drivers and the team.  They both exceeded the maximum 48kWh energy cap that had been introduced to prevent a flat-out E-Prix.

Buemi reckoned it was a software glitch that caused the issue, and despite it not giving any kind of performance gain, he acknowledges the rules are there for a reason.

“It’s a software glitch,” the Swiss racer said to Motorsport.com.  “It’s a mistake in the set-up. The power cut off like a hundredth of a kilowatt too late.

“It wasn’t even a tenth of a second too late, but the rule is the rule. We got disqualified because we didn’t set it up properly.  Obviously, there’s absolutely zero performance [gain].”

Jake Dennis took his second career ABB FIA Formula E World Championship victory on Saturday, with the Briton coming out on top of a close battle with countryman Alex Lynn to win the first race of the London E-Prix weekend.

The BMW i Andretti Motorsport driver followed Lynn for much of the first half of the race but crucially was able to conserve enough energy so to get ahead when the Mahindra Racing driver took his second attack mode.

Dennis then capitalised on a mistake from Lynn to be able to hold on to the lead when he went through the attack mode activation zone for a second time, and then went on to take a dominant victory.

From pole position, Lynn held onto the lead into the first turn one ahead of Dennis, while André Lotterer found a way ahead of Sérgio Sette Câmara into fourth.  A little further back, Alexander Sims found himself pushed into the wall at turn six and out of the race, an incident that necessitated a brief full-course yellow to clear his car from the track. 

Tom Blomqvist was also a first lap visitor to the pits, with the NIO 333 FE Team driver taking damage on lap one and retreating to his garage for repairs.  He returned to the track seven laps down.

Frédéric Vasseur admitted it was disappointing to miss out on points once again in the British Grand Prix, with Kimi Räikkönen’s late spin after small contact with Sergio Pérez ending Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN’s shot at the top ten.

Räikkönen was embroiled in a close battle with Red Bull Racing’s Pérez for the minor points, with the two running side-by-side for a number of corners, but the two made contact heading into the penultimate turn, with the Finn coming off worst as he ended up spinning down the order.

Antonio Giovinazzi ended up being the lead Alfa Romeo driver at the chequered flag in thirteenth with Räikkönen fifteenth, meaning the team remain in eighth place in the Constructors’ Championship with only two points to their name after the first ten races.

Vasseur, the Team Principal at Alfa Romeo, says the team are continuing to close the gap on those in front, but it was always going to be a struggle at Silverstone, a track that they were expected to find difficult.

“Another race in which our good pace put us close to the points, but in which the reward eventually eluded us,” said Vasseur.  “We had a good start, we were able to run in the top ten both before the stops and at the time of Kimi’s contact with Checo, but in the end we just missed something to stay ahead.

Antonio Giovinazzi felt it was a long British Grand Prix last Sunday, with the Italian having a relatively low-key afternoon on his way to thirteenth place at the chequered flag.

The Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN driver felt his C41-Ferrari had good pace at Silverstone, but he was unable to use it to good effect when it mattered, and ultimately, he was unable to keep Yuki Tsunoda behind him as he got stuck behind Williams Racing’s George Russell.

Giovinazzi rued the fact that Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda’s Tsunoda went on to score a point for tenth place, and he continues to wait for his second top ten finish of the season, something he hopes will come next time out in Hungary.

“It was a long race and not an overly exciting one for me, we had good pace but we couldn’t put it together when it mattered,” said Giovinazzi.  “We were in front of Tsunoda before the stops, but got stuck behind Russell and couldn’t get through.

“This wasn’t a track where overtaking is easy, and it’s quite a disappointment when you see that Yuki eventually finished in the points.