Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

DEForce Racing‘s Noel Leon was the dominant man at the Vintage Grand Prix, taking the top step of the podium in races one and two at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Gonella Racing‘s Mac Clark continued his consistent string of podium finishes, capping off the weekend with a win in race three.

Provisional qualifying for race one was cancelled due to track conditions, with the grid being set by the points standings. Championship leader Leon started on the pole alongside Velocity Racing Development‘s Jason Alder. Lucas Mann, who was set to start seventh, was forced to start from the pit lane, and was soon involved in the race’s first full course yellow. Mann, along with Will Edwards, had to be towed out of the gravel trap at turn one, requiring a red flag for their extraction.

With about fifteen minutes left in the race, Leon led the field back to green ahead of Arias Deukmedjian and Clark, and would maintain his lead up until another full course yellow as Joe Ostholthoff stalled in the carousel turn 12.

The race went back to green with enough time on the clock for one more lap before the white flag, as Leon held off Deukmedjian and Clark to take the checkered flag for race one. After the race, penalties were handed to Clark and fourth place Justin Arseneau, Jay Howard Driver Development‘s Bijoy Garg was elevated to third place to round out the official podium.

Although he was knocked off the podium, Clark sat on the pole for race two, joined by Leon on the front row. The young Canadian held a strong half-second lead as Leon kept fighting to close the gap. He was assisted by a full course yellow with ten minutes to go for Trevor Russell, who went off course in turn nine. With the gap now closed, Leon made his move on Clark with five minutes remaining to take his second victory of the weekend. Clark went on to finish second and Alder returned to a podium finish for the first time since Road Atlanta at the beginning of the season.

Fuel mileage was the name of the game in the final stage of the NASCAR Cup Series‘ Explore the Pocono Mountains 350 on Sunday. As those around him ran out of gas, Kyle Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing team were able to conserve their way to his second win of the year.

With an inversion of the top twenty from Saturday, twentieth-placed Chris Buescher started on the pole alongside Michael McDowell. Multiple drivers were sent to the back after switching to backup cars due to wrecks on Saturday: Anthony Alfredo, Ross Chastain, Cole Custer, Kyle Larson, Corey LaJoie, Ryan Newman, and Ryan Preece. Justin Allgaier also joined the seven at the rear as a last-second driver change, filling in for Justin Haley in the #77 Spire Motorsports car after Haley opted out due to a wreck in the Xfinity race earlier in the day.

Stage #1

After just two laps, Alfredo’s difficult weekend continued when his right-front tyre went down and sent him into the turn two wall. The rookie has not enjoyed much success at Pocono, with his lone national series start prior to this weekend being the 2019 Truck Series race that ended with an opening-lap crash.

Buescher, whose lone Cup win came at Pocono in 2016, led at the lap six restart before being passed by McDowell, who was incidentally driving the car that Buescher piloted in his 2016 victory. Martin Truex Jr. took the lead on lap 14 with Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Christopher Bell following.

Green-flag stops began taking place with less than five laps to go in the stage. While Bell gave up second to pit, Truex stayed out to win the stage; Aric Almirola, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, Bubba Wallace, McDowell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Tyler Reddick, Daniel Suárez, and Joey Logano rounded out the top ten. William Byron barely beat Truex to the line to rejoin the lead lap.

The tenth anniversary edition of the Silverstone 500 has been taken in emphatic style by 2Seas Motorsport. The single round entry dominated qualifying to take the pole yesterday and a combination of Hunter Abbott and Martin Kodric drove exceptionally to romp away at the front of the field. As a result, the Anglo-Bahraini outfit secures not only its first win in their new Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO but the prestigious and historic RAC Trophy. In the GT4 class victory went to Newbridge Motorsport, the team which led most of the 2020 Silverstone 500 only to lose out on pit strategy at the end. Amazingly, the result gives both amateur driver Matt Topham and GT racing legend Darren Turner their first victories in the intelligent Money British GT Championship.

GT3: Victory Assured but Points Hard Fought in the Top Class.

With a three hour race its hard to say that victory was earned on Saturday but for Hunter Abbott and Martin Kodric it’s almost true. After throwing down a serious marker in qualifying, Abbott shot off like the proverbial robber’s dog at the start of the race, building up an almost 30 second lead before eventually bringing the Benz to pit lane. Aided and abetted by two significant retirements in the first hour, most of the hard work was actually done by the amateur driver.

Those retirements, of Brendan Iribe‘s Inception Racing by Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720s GT3 and the father and son pairing of Richard and Sam Neary in the only older Mercedes-AMG on the grid, made the job a little easier. Iribe came to grief whilst lapping the Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport GT4 Mercedes, the faster car suffering front suspension damage which called time on the race. Richard Neary however had the stint of his life in the Team Abba Racing Mercedes GT3, at times setting the pace and driving with a confidence and relaxed manner we’ve rarely seen from the longtime Am driver. He handed over to Sam Neary well in contention for a podium before gear selection problems stopped the most successful Mercedes-AMG chassis of all time in its tracks.

The biggest challenge to the 2Seas tsunami was Barwell Motorsport. Leo Machitski drove exceptionally well in the first stint, excepting of course the spin on lap one which would have dropped the Lamborghini fully to the back of the field if not for a similar rotation for class debutant Mia Flewitt in the Team Rocket RJN run McLaren GT3. An early pit stop to change over to Dennis Lind paid dividends, the ex-Lamborghini factory man carving his way through the field to lead the race outright through the three mandatory pit stops. Early gains from pitting a pro against the ams evaporated when the team returned to pit lane and installed Machitski again, going up against the likes of Kodric, Jonny Adam and Charlie Eastwood.

A highlight of the closing hour was the intra-team battle between Lind in the #63 Lamborghini and Sandy Mitchell who harried and eventually passed in the #1 machine he shares with Adam Balon. Que the looks of horror in the Barwell garage as the team’s two Lamborghini’s, fighting over the last two podium spots at the biggest race of the year, banged wheels at Stowe corner. With the 2Seas Motorsport machine a single round entry, the battle wasn’t just for the second biggest trophy but the biggest haul of points. 37.5 points for Mitchell and Balon goes a long way to repairing the damage from a less than spectacular Brands Hatch.

Austin Cindric once again has the most NASCAR Xfinity Series wins in 2021. After holding off Ty Gibbs in Sunday’s Pocono Green 225, he scored his fourth win of the year to break a tie with Cup Series driver Kyle Busch.

Harrison Burton started on the pole, while Riley Herbst was sent to the rear for unapproved adjustments. Jesse Iwuji made his first Xfinity start of the season in Mike Harmon Racing‘s #47 that Bayley Currey usually drives; being a driver change from the entry list, he was also ordered to start at the back.

Burton led the entire opening stage, with the halfway point of this 22-lap stretch being marked by Josh Williams hitting the turn one wall after contact with Santino Ferrucci. Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Daniel Hemric finished second, followed by Justin Allgaier, Cindric, A.J. Allmendinger, Gibbs, Noah Gragson, Jeb Burton, Justin Haley, and Josh Berry.

The start of the second stage lasted just one lap before Haley was turned and ping-ponged between the outside and inside walls, during which he was impacted by Ryan Vargas; series newcomer Sam Mayer also suffered damage in the incident.

Vargas was visibly emotional in his interview with NBCSN after being released from the infield care centre as the wreck adds to what has been a challenging rookie season. Furthermore, the hood of his #6 car featured a tribute to his friend and JD Motorsports car chief Brian Lear, who died in May and was from Pennsylvania; the #6 that Vargas drove in the race was also Lear’s final constructed car prior to his passing.

Adam Morgan has claimed his first win of the 2021 BTCC season as well as the maiden effort for the new BMW 330i M Sport ran by the Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport squad.

Morgan was picked out for the reverse grid race and produced a superb effort to finish ahead of Jack Goff who had Team HARD. Racing’s best result in their new CUPRA Leon with Aiden Moffat edging a drag race to the line ahead of Jason Plato for the final podium spot.

This was ahead of Josh Cook, Senna Proctor, Rory Butcher, Ash Sutton, Dan Lloyd and Chris Smiley who made up the top ten.

Sutton takes the championship lead away from the Kent circuit once more three points ahead of Tom Ingram after finishing inside the top ten, while Colin Turkington made sure it wasn’t his first non-points scoring weekend since 2003 at Mondello Park by bagging two in an otherwise poor effort from the four time champion who is now well adrift.

Off the line, Morgan got a superb start with Goff, Moffat and Plato the top four going into first corner at Druids. The former set a fastest lap but locked up twice on two separate occasions giving some potential worries, but he did not lose any ground to the Cupra Leon in second.

Max Verstappen took a commanding victory in the Styrian Grand Prix on Sunday to further extend his advantage at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

The Red Bull Racing driver was untouchable as he led from start-to-finish to take his third victory in four races, with Lewis Hamilton slipping further behind in the standings as a result.

Verstappen got a strong start and was clear of Hamilton heading into turn one, while behind, Pierre Gasly and Charles Leclerc clashed, which saw the former retire with damage and the latter pit at the end of lap one for a new front wing.

Gasly’s left-rear wheel was clipped by Leclerc on the exit of turn one, with the subsequent puncture slowing the Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver down on the run to turn three.  Heading into the turn, whilst taking avoiding action, Gasly also spun Antonio Giovinazzi around and hit Nicholas Latifi, with the latter also heading to the pits on the opening lap with a puncture.

Gasly’s race was done as he returned to the pits with a broken suspension, an unfortunate result after securing an excellent sixth place on the grid on Saturday.

Ayrton Simmons took his second win of the 2021 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship season in the reverse-grid Race 3 at Silverstone on Sunday.

Reema Juffali started on pole, ahead of Max Marzorati and Mikkel Grundtvig, the top three lining up as they did in Brands Hatch‘s reverse-grid race.

Race 1 and 2 pole-sitter and winner Reece Ushijima started 16th and last, with Championship leader Zak O’Sullivan just ahead.

Ushijima has closed the gap to the Carlin driver this weekend, with the pair finishing 1-2 in the opening races.

Dexter Patterson was excluded from the race weekend after an altercation with Bryce Aron and a marshal in parc fermé after Race 2, after the two drivers collided.

Tom Ingram has claimed his second win of the 2021 BTCC season for the Ginsters EXCELR8 Trade Price Cars stable after snatching it from Tom Oliphant on the last lap who nearly made it back-to-back wins at Brands Hatch Indy.

Ingram now leads the BTCC Drivers’ Championship but could yet find himself in front of the stewards with questions asked on the move to pass Oliphant on the last lap and with Ash Sutton finishing second on a drag to the line, he would inherit the race win if a penalty occurred.

Dan Rowbottom, Josh Cook, Dan Lloyd, Chris Smiley, Jason Plato, Aiden Moffat and Senna Proctor finalised the top ten in a lively race with the top eight together for most of the race queuing behind Oliphant’s 75kg with full ballast.

Off the line, Oliphant made a superb start with Rowbottom and Sutton the top three. Shedden spun on the opening lap and more carnage ensued as Sutton went round the outside of Ingram but could only just hold it on the track and Hill and Ingram benefitted.

But to begin Lap Two, Shedden was yet again in strife with Jelley going off into the tire barrier and the Halfords Racing with Cataclean driver limping away while a safety car was called meaning Oliphant’s near two second advantage was eroded.

Tom Oliphant has claimed Round 7 of the 2021 British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) at Brands Hatch Indy with a superb battle ensuing with Gordon Shedden who took second in the end.

Oliphant led to begin the race and opened up the gap towards four seconds before Shedden chipped away lap after lap, but he ran out of time in the end to pass the Team BMW driver.

It is a second race win for Oliphant with Dan Rowbottom finalising the podium ahead of Jake Hill, championship leader Ash Sutton, Tom Ingram, Chris Smiley, Aiden Moffat, Josh Cook and Jack Goff who finalised the top ten.

Off the line, Rowbottom got a poor start and Oliphant swamped him and led Moffat and Shedden ahead of Sutton, Hill and Ingram with the latter pulling past Shedden on the opening lap but fell down the order to sixth place.

Oliphant’s gap went over two seconds with Moffat holding off Shedden. Sutton surged on the outside, but Shedden took advantage on Lap Five to pull past his fellow Scot and hold off Sutton who has 75kg on board.

Reece Ushijima became the first double-winner of the 2021 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship season on Sunday, winning Race 2 at Silverstone for Hitech GP.

Zak O’Sullivan tailed him home a second behind, with Roberto Faria taking third place and his first podium of the season.

Saturday’s Race 1 winner started from pole position for the second race in a row, courtesy of his second-fastest time in Qualifying.

Ayrton Simmons suffered a five-place grid penalty after his collision with Bart Horsten at Brands Hatch, placing him down the order on Sunday morning.

Zak O’Sullivan moved past Frederick Lubin into Copse to go into second place, with Roberto Faria also making moves.

It probably comes with little surprise that Tony Stewart knows his way around Eldora Speedway, a dirt track in Ohio that he has owned since 2004. Consequently, it is not unexpected that Stewart dominated Saturday’s Camping World SRX Series event there, winning the first heat race and the feature to sweep the fledgling series’ dirt races.

Heat races

Tony Kanaan and Kody Swanson made up the front row to kick off the first heat. Swanson, a five-time USAC Silver Crown champion driving the local track car and also competing in that night’s Silver Crown event, battled with Kanaan and Stewart throughout the qualifying race. Stewart took the lead shortly before a caution came out, leading to a restart with four minutes remaining. Stewart held off Hélio Castroneves to win.

As Willy T. Ribbs led the way to start Heat #2, Kanaan’s second heat quickly fell apart after connecting with Ernie Francis Jr. and spinning, with Stewart, Swanson, and Michael Waltrip also falling victim; the damage forced Swanson to switch to a backup car for the feature. Marco Andretti and rallycross champion Scott Speed sparred for the rest of the heat with the former winning out.

Heat #1 results

Heat #2 results

Feature

By finishing first and third in the heats, Stewart’s average finish placed him on the pole ahead of Andretti, though he started at the rear after making a quick pit stop. As a result, Paul Tracy joined Andretti on the front row.

Tracy dominated the first half of the race after taking the lead from the opening lap. The second restart on lap 26, which came after a caution for Kanaan’s spin, saw Swanson pass Tracy for first. Another restart came with eight laps remaining as Swanson and Stewart led.

Saturday’s Pocono Organics CBD 325 ended with a duel of Hendrick Motorsports team-mates and a dramatic turn of events. For the final 19 laps, Kyle Larson chased down Alex Bowman before making his move with three laps remaining. But when it seemed like Larson was going to score his fourth straight points win, a blown left-front tyre coming to the finish allowed Bowman to slip by to win.

Larson started on the pole alongside Hendrick team-mate William Byron. Cole Custer was sent to the rear after failing pre-race inspection twice.

Stage #1

Ryan Preece and Chase Elliott made contact coming to the green flag, resulting in non-terminal damage to both cars. It was the second incident of the day to occur at the start, joining a wreck in the Truck race earlier in the day. Incidentally, the victim of the Truck crash was Jack Wood, who drives GMS Racing’s #24 that Elliott ran in his Truck one-off at Texas earlier in the month.

The ideal opportunity for those like Elliott to make adjustments came on lap eight when a caution was called for debris, taking the place of the planned lap 12 competition yellow. Elliott’s Hendrick allies led much of the opening stage with Larson leading four laps before Byron did so until Custer’s wreck on lap 13.

“(On) these restarts, you are trying to get up in those tight holes to make sure you don’t get freight trained by five cars on the straightaway,” Custer told NBCSN. “I don’t know if it was just too tight or miscommunication or what. I really wanted a good day today. I thought we had a good car those first few laps with our HaasTooling.com Mustang but we will just move on to tomorrow.

Pascal Wehrlein has called his disqualification from the opening race of the Puebla E-Prix as ‘Very Tough’ after the German lost victory in Mexico just as he took the chequered flag.

His Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E Team failed to declare the race tyres on his or team-mate André Lotterer’s cars prior to the race, with a steward’s investigation subsequently disqualifying both from the final result.

Wehrlein had not put a foot wrong after starting from pole position, but his wait for his maiden ABB FIA Formula E World Championship victory goes on.

“It’s hard to find the right words for what happened today,” said Wehrlein.  “After qualifying on pole, we deserved the first win and we did it too on this track.

“Ultimately, a mistake was made in the tyre registration, which wouldn’t have changed the performance. In my opinion, disqualification is a very tough penalty. But now we’re looking ahead and we’ll attack again tomorrow.” 

The qualifying session for the 2021 Intelligent Money British GT Championship Silverstone 500 has been claimed by 2Seas Motorsport on their return to the championship with a single Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO. The Anglo-Bahraini squad sealed the top spot in fine style, leading both the Am and the Pro sessions on Saturday afternoon on the Grand Prix circuit at the home of British Motorsport. GT4 pole position wasn’t as easily won, with the early session giving the advantage to the BMW M4 GT4 EVOs of Century Motorsport. The second session saw the Silver Cup pairing of Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding take the front row in class in just their second race back in the GT4 version of the Audi R8 LMS.

GT3: Abbott and Kodric Set Course for the Front Row.

The new to British GT pairing of BTCC star Hunter Abbott and GT World Challenge Europe front runner Martin Kodric opened their accounts in the series with an authoritative performance in their respective sessions. The 2Seas crew each claimed the fastest lap in their ten minutes to make a combined advantage of 1.706 seconds over the Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT3 of Giacomo Petrobelli and Charlie Eastwood.

Initially it was Petrobelli who stole the top spot in the Am session but he was promptly replaced by Brendan Iribe for Inception Racing by Optimum Motorsport who then lost out almost straight away to Hunter Abbott. The same pattern was repeated on the second flying laps, with Abbott proving categorically that the team’s decision to defect from McLaren to Mercedes-AMG over the winter was well made. The cars returned to pit lane for driver changes with the #14 Mercedes-AMG sitting a comfortable 0.565 seconds clear of the McLaren from Oculus VR co-founder Iribe.

A similar margin covered the seven of the top eight in the second session though from the off Kodric stated his intention emphatically. The Croatian hotshoe headed out on the circuit and uncorked two scorching laps which left all the other front runners scratching their heads. The #14 was 0.7 seconds clear at the top of the tables by the time Kodric called it quits, the combined times from the two sessions gave the black and blue Benz and even stronger position at over a second and a half to the Petrobelli/Eastwood Aston Martin.

A strong effort from reigning champion Sandy Mitchell saw Adam Balon‘s sixth upgraded to third place for the start of the longest race on the calendar. Ian Loggie and Yelmer Buurman took fourth place as the quickest of the full season Mercedes ahead of Iribe and his co-driver Ollie Millroy. Enduro Motorsport will be celebrating the outside of the third row in their McLaren 720s GT3 thanks to Morgan Tillbrook and Marcus Clutton, an amazing performance in only their second race in the class and against strong competition. Beechdean AMR, Balfe Motorsport, Barwell Motorsport and Team ABBA Racing rounded out the top ten.

Jasin Ferati has left the Monolite Racing team and left their future in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine series in the balance.

Ferati was absent from the grid for the two races at Circuit Zandvoort last weekend after suffering issues with his helmet during Friday’s running, and subsequently he has opted to leave the team after failing to break into the points in any of the ten races so far.

The Swiss racer retired from four of the opening eight races and failed to qualify for one of the races at Monaco, with his best finish of nineteenth coming in the opening race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya at the beginning of May.

“The Italian squad could rely on the lone Pietro Delli Guanti today after Jasin Ferati was forced to sit out due to a helmet issue,” said a statement from Monolite Racing Saturday at Zandvoort.

“The efforts made by the Swiss driver and by the whole team to find a replacement one with the right homologation and take part in the event were unsuccessful.”