Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The third and final race of the Boost Mobile Super Trucks‘ Townsville 500 weekend appeared to come down to Paul Morris and Shae Davies as the two approached the last corner. However, their battle instead opened the door for Paul Weel to slip past and move from third to first to win his second Stadium Super Truck race.

A field inversion from Race #2 placed Rob Whyte, who retired from said event with a brake failure, on the pole ahead of Phillip Foster. Weel, who won the second race for his maiden SST victory, started last.

Whyte cleared the field early with Davies moving into second. The two ran in the order for the first three laps before Davies passed him in turn two; Whyte tried his own move in the thirteenth and final turn, where they made contact but he failed to make the overtake. A lap later, Whyte fell two spots to Morris and Race #1 winner Toby Price after running wide into turn eleven.

By the first competition caution on lap six, Davies led Morris, Price, Whyte, Shaun Richardson, Weel, Trav Milburn, Dave Casey, and Foster. While the top three pulled ahead on the restart, Weel overtook Richardson and Whyte in a three-abreast pass approaching turn three to take fourth. He gained another position on lap eight when the driveshaft fell out of Price’s truck and ended his race.

Price’s retirement prompted the second competition yellow to come out, and the race resumed on the penultimate lap as the grid exited turn three. Morris took the lead after cutting through the grass in turn seven.

On Friday, fans were perplexed when Michael Annett was replaced at the last minute by Chris Windom for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Knoxville Raceway in his native Iowa. A day later, the move received justificiation as it turned out Annett had suffered a leg injury that will also force him out of the seat for the Xfinity Series event at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Austin Dillon will replace him in the #1 JR Motorsports car.

With less than an hour before the Xfinity Series’ Credit Karma Money 250, Annett pulled himself from the driver’s seat due to his injury; specifics of the ailment, such as when it occurred and if it will impact his schedule, were not disclosed beyond it happening to the leg. The injury forced him to abort the Knoxville Truck start, which would have been his first in the series since 2014, after only participating in practice.

As there was not much time before the green flag, JR Motorsports approached Jordan Anderson and B.J. McLeod—both owner/drivers at the track to oversee their respective teams—before deciding on Dillon. Incidentally, Anderson’s driver Josh Berry is a JRM part-timer who has subtitute experience for Justin Haley at Dover in May, and he also filled in for Kris Wright at the Atlanta Truck event in March. Such a process is not as simple as picking the most qualified driver as a team also has to ensure the replacement can fit into the original person’s seat.

Dillon, a Cup Series driver running his main series’ race on Sunday, is the 2013 Xfinity champion. It will be his first Xfinity oval race since Indianapolis in 2019, though he has only raced sporadically in the series since 2018. He has top tens in all three starts at Atlanta, with the most recent being an eighth in 2017.

“We were calling and scrambling and I’m gonna tell you right now: if I had my helmet and my HANS device, I would have left you in a New York Minute, Rick (Allen),” said JRM owner and NBC commentator Dale Earnhardt Jr. “We went through a bunch of different drivers and reaching out to everybody, scrambling to try to find out who was even here who could do the job. A lot of the Cup guys don’t come in until tomorrow[.]”

With the first ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix just under five months away, key regional and domestic media representatives were given an exclusive tour of the Jeddah Corniche circuit, soon to be the fastest and longest street circuit on the Formula 1 calendar.

Promoters of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix the Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation, welcomed a selection of sports and leisure media to the circuit which is located on the banks of the Red Sea. The tour was led by HRH Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al Abdullah Al Faisal, Chairman of the Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation

The circuit which stretches 6.175km and consists of a challenging twenty-seven corners, will see drivers average 250km/h on what will become not only the fastest street circuit on the calendar but one of the fastest circuits altogether.

The media were shown various sectors of the circuit including the four-story futuristic looking Pit-Building which is set to be complete by October. Not only this but the media were shown the impressive twelve degree banking on turn thirteen and also the main DRS section of the track, where speeds of 322km/h are expected.

The circuit has been built and designed by both Tilke Engineers and Formula 1’s very own Motorsports Division. HRH Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al Abdullah Al Faisal spoke after the tour of his excitement for the grand prix in December.

Writer and producer of the BAFTA award winning documentary ‘Senna’, Manish Pandey, has been given exclusive rights by Bernie Ecclestone to make an eight-part docu-series titled ‘Lucky!’.

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone who arguably built the sport, has given Pandey’s company Jiva Maya permission to produce an eight episode documentary all about Ecclestone and how he built the FIA Formula One World Championship. The series will include unprecedented archive straight from Formula 1 Management. The series’ worldwide sales will be represented by ICM.

Ecclestone who is now ninety years-old, has been filmed extensively at his home in Gstaad during the Covid-19 lockdown, where he shared both his and Formula 1’s life story from birth. Pandey was left completely in awe of Ecclestone.

“Bernie has been able to reflect, not just on his days as one of the greatest sporting impresarios of all time, but also on his life. In his 90 years, he has travelled the world and met everyone who is anyone, yet he remains incredibly personable and immensely funny. It is a joy to tell his extraordinary story, in full, for the first time”

Pandey and Ecclestone clearly have a strong relationship, with the supremo having never shared his full story before. 

RAM Racing and Newbridge Motorsport took pole position in GT3 and GT4 as the Intelligent Money British GT Championship paid its first visit to Donington Park this season.

Yelmer Buurman and Ian Loggie took good results in Leicestershire during the Championship’s three races here in 2020, also running well in both Free Practice sessions on Saturday morning.

The Pro-Am pair have put themselves in the best possible position for a repeat performance with a strong joint effort on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Newbridge Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT4 of Silverstone 500 winner Matt Topham and Darren Burke, who replaces Darren Turner this weekend.

A reminder that British GT qualifying is a combined affair, with Am drivers and nominated Silvers taking Q1, and Pro drivers alongside the remaining Silver-graded drivers looking to improve on their Am’s pace.

Reigning champion Sandy Mitchell set the fastest time of the weekend so far in FP2 ahead of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship‘s first qualifying session and race at Donington Park this season.

John Ferguson and Scott McKenna stole top spot in GT4 with an equally late lap on Saturday afternoon.

GT3

Marcus Clutton picked up where he left off in the early stages, setting a 1:27.394 to immediately beat his time earlier in the day.

Martin Plowman moved up 12 places to go fourth in the Paddock Motorsport Bentley Continental GT3, behind Michael Igoe and Lewis Proctor.

Championship leader Dennis Lind went eighth with the #63 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo‘s first timed lap, but at 4.9 seconds off Clutton, the Danish Lamborghini Squadra Corse driver’s time was anything but representative.

Andreas Seidl, the Team Principal of the McLaren F1 Team, admits that he expected Daniel Ricciardo to adapt to his new team and find speed with his MCL35M faster than has this season.

Ricciardo made the jump from the Renault DP World F1 Team (now Alpine F1 Team) to McLaren at the beginning of the 2021 season but has struggled for pace, particularly in relation to team-mate Lando Norris.

Whereas Norris has taken three podium finishes in the opening nine races and secured his maiden front row start in the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend, Ricciardo has yet to threaten the top three with a best finish of sixth.  Ricciardo has scored forty points in the first nine races and sits eighth in the Drivers’ Championship, sixty-one points fewer and four places lower than Norris.

Seidl says he did not imagine that the Australian would take as long to come to terms with his new team as he has, and he believes his driver will agree with him.  However, the Team Principal has every belief that Ricciardo will get to grips with the team and car before too long.

“I don’t think he imagined it would be so difficult to change teams,” Seidl said to RTL.  “He’s disappointed, so are we. Because we thought he would be faster.

Fernando Alonso does not believe Williams Racing will be fighting his Alpine F1 Team on a regular basis, despite George Russell’s impressive performance during the recent Austrian Grand Prix.

Russell starred at the Red Bull Ring, making it through to the top ten shootout for the first time as a Williams driver on Saturday before fighting for most of the day within the top ten. 

Unfortunately for Russell, he slipped out of the points as Alonso caught and passed him with just a handful of laps remaining to leave him eleventh, the third time in his Williams career that he has missed out on the points by just one position.

But despite this, Alonso does not foresee Williams being a genuine top ten contender in every race, although he will need to wait a couple of races to see if the Grove-based team have turned a corner or not.

“No, I don’t think so,” Alonso is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com after being asked about Williams being a genuine threat to Alpine. “I think they have made a step forward, but also we checked last year in Austria, they started 11th, so it seems to be a circuit they perform really well at.

The Enduro Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 of Morgan Tillbrook and Marcus Clutton set the fastest time in FP1 at a cloudy Donington Park on Saturday morning.

The #77 car hit the front early and never relinquished it, in a session truncated by a five-minute red flag period.

Gus Burton/Will Burns were on top in GT4, as Century Motorsport look to build on their positive start to the season.

GT3

The two Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evos of Dennis Lind and Sandy Mitchell were first out of the pitlane, and it was Championship leader Lind who went top of the timesheets first with a 1:28.909 ahead of Beechdean AMR‘s Jonny Adam.

Adam was soon usurped for second by Mitchell, the reigning British GT champion going half a tenth behind his Barwell team-mate within the opening ten minutes of the hour-long session.

For the first time ever, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series raced at Knoxville Raceway. Despite the fanfare and excitement surrounding Friday’s Corn Belt 150, it ultimately left many fans and drivers frustrated as multiple wrecks resulted in fourteen cautions and four overtimes that dragged out the event. By the end, Austin Hill was able to survive the carnage to win his first race of the year.

Hill started thirteenth while Derek Kraus was on the pole following heat races. While the first two stages ran mostly clean as much of the incidents were for single-truck spins, the wheels came off in the final stage as it featured nine of the fourteen cautions. Kraus, who won the first two stages, found himself antagonising much of the field with his driving, resulting in him being turned by Grant Enfinger and Tyler Ankrum during post-race cooldown laps.

While Truck races generally run for one-and-a-half hours, the Corn Belt 150 was stretched to 2 hours, 25 minutes, and 55 seconds due to the litany of cautions, especially in the final laps as constant overtime sessions from crashes resulted in laps being added; what was supposed to be a 150-lap event would end at 179. Such a lengthy race drew comparisons to the Daytona Road Course event in February, which ran longer than the Cup Series‘ race there the previous year and is the longest race in series history by duration, and the Darlington race in May that reached 2:28:40.

After Hailie Deegan, Sheldon Creed, and Jett Noland (ironically, Deegan and Creed have extensive off-road experience while Creed and Noland have raced together in the Stadium Super Trucks) wrecked with two laps remaining to set up the first overtime, the largest accident of the night was triggered shortly after the restart with seventeen total drivers involved. Three more overtimes would take place, and Hill escaped with his seventh career win and first of 2021.

“Kind of thought we were out of it there on that restart when I was on the outside of the #38 (Todd Gilliland) and I fell back to like twentieth and I didn’t think we were going to make it back up,” said Hill. “Track position was huge and it was really hard to get around people. You had to kind of rough them up to get around them. I just kept my head down. […]

Christian Horner does not believe Red Bull Racing are compromising the development of their 2022 Formula 1 car by continuing to update the RB16B this year in a bid to claim both championships.

Red Bull have won the past five races, four of which have been taken by current Drivers’ Championship leader Max Verstappen, while the Azerbaijan Grand Prix went the way of the Dutchman’s team-mate Sergio Pérez.

Victory for Verstappen in the Austrian Grand Prix saw him take a thirty-two-point lead over Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers’ standings, while Red Bull are forty-four points clear of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team in the Constructors’ Championship.

Horner, the Team Principal at Red Bull, says the development of the 2021 car is likely to continue until it is necessary to focus all development into the 2022 car, which will be the first car developed for the new regulations that come into force next year.

“You’ve got to go week by week, race by race and I think the team’s doing a great job of balancing the challenges of this year and next year,” Horner is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.

George Russell does not believe the Sprint Qualifying Race format that is set to make its debut in the British Grand Prix will suit the Williams Racing team, with the Briton believing it will see them drop back rather than make progress.

The race weekend at Silverstone will see a change to the usual programme, with one practice session on Friday morning leading up to the usual three-stage Qualifying session later that day.  Another practice session will take place on Saturday morning before a half-hour sprint race on Saturday afternoon, which will determine the grid for Sunday’s full-distance Grand Prix.

Russell has been a standout performer in Qualifying sessions this year, with the Briton having made it into Q2 in every round to date.  Last time out for the Austrian Grand Prix, he went one stage further for the first time as a Williams driver and made it into Q3.

But races have been more of a struggle for both him and his team, and he believes the new format will not be that beneficial to a team still seeking their first top ten finish since the 2019 German Grand Prix.

“Silverstone’s going to be an even bigger crowd [than Austria] and I’m sure they’re going to be buzzing for it – probably after England have won the Euros as well, so they’re going to be happy about that,” Russell is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.

Tom Blomqvist will compete in his first New York City E-Prix this weekend, with the Anglo-Swedish racer aiming to return to the points for the first time since the Rome E-Prix in April.

The NIO 333 FE Team have shown good speed with both Blomqvist and team-mate Oliver Turvey, but their performance in the races have often seen them drop down the order.  This was evident in the Puebla E-Prix three weeks ago where Blomqvist took a top ten starting position but was unable to convert that into a points finish.

NIO started the year with five top ten finishes in the opening six races, but since then neither Blomqvist nor Turvey have scored points, with the team currently sitting at the bottom of the Teams’ Championship heading into the final six races of the season.

Blomqvist is looking forward to racing around the Brooklyn Street Circuit this weekend as the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship plays host to rounds ten and eleven of the 2020-21 season, with the twenty-seven-year-old aiming to continue the progress NIO have made this season.

“Personally, I think it’s great we’re able to race in New York,” said Blomqvist. “It’s such an iconic city. I have never raced there so it will be a first for me.

Two races into the Boost Mobile Super Trucks‘ Townsville 500 weekend and both events have produced first-time winners. Paul Weel held off Race #1 winner Toby Price in the final laps to score his maiden Stadium Super Trucks victory.

An inversion from the first race placed Dave Casey at the front alongside Rob Whyte; Phillip Foster would have been on the pole as he finished last due to a broken rear axle, but he elected to start at the rear. Casey led the opening corners before a scramble resulted in him being passed by Whyte and much of the field. More battles resulted in Whyte having to skip the jump coming to the start of lap two, allowing Shaun Richardson to take the lead.

Paul Morris, who had a quiet Race #1 due to brake issues, took the lead and held the position to the first competition caution ahead of Weel and Richardson. Prior to the yellow, Trav Milburn hit Shae Davies‘ rear in the final corner, spinning him and causing Milburn to lose his hood.

On the restart, Weel overtook Morris in turn two. Price took second from Morris shortly before the second competition yellow, while Weel continued to lead. Although Price successfully made the pass in turns eleven and twelve to lead lap eight (damaging his hood afterwards), Weel returned the favour in turn two of the ensuing circuit.

The final lap was marked by duels between Weel and Price, which ended with the former pulling away, and Morris and Davies, who made contact twice in turns two and eleven. The first incident stemmed from Morris locking up his brakes as he, Davies, and Price entered the corner, shooting him left and squeezing Davies into the wall. Morris’ tie rod eventually broke off and rendered him unable to turn into turn eleven, causing another collision with Davies that resulted in damage to Morris’ left-front wheel, though he was able to cross the line.

Toby Price has raced in the Stadium Super Trucks since the inaugural trip to Australia in 2015, but luck always seemed to go against him, from his three runner-up finishes at Adelaide to leading the most laps at Gold Coast in 2019 before being spun in the final corners. Six years after his début and in his first run at the Townsville 500, the Dakar Rally star has finally won his first SST race.

Price, racing his first Boost Mobile Super Trucks weekend of 2021, started third after qualifying in the position on Friday while Fastest Qualifier Shae Davies was on the pole. A fairly sluggish start for the front starters enabled series newcomer Phillip Foster and Trav Milburn to spring to the lead with Rob Whyte in tow, though Foster fell back and Whyte would lead the first three laps.

As Whyte led the first three circuits, Price followed Milburn into podium range before taking second before the lap four competition caution. At the restart, Price and Davies carried enough momentum to overtake Milburn as they approached turn one.

Davies began pursuing Price, who was consistently turning the fastest laps of the day, while Milburn followed as the top three began to isolate themselves from the field. Although Davies narrowed the gap and attempted a move on lap eight, the effort backfired as Price kept him at bay and ultimately re-increased the margin.

Having built a safe cushion over Davies, Price drove off to his first career victory and sixth podium finish. Davies settled for second to record his sixth consecutive podium, while Milburn notched career podium #3.