Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

NASCAR, and stock car racing as a whole, is a bit different from other forms of racing as it eschews podiums in favour of a Victory Lane for the winner. But the sanctioning body is willing to try something new as the 2023 Busch Light Clash looms. Scheduled for 5 February, it will once again take place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will do so again in 2028. Owing to the venue’s history as an Olympic site, NASCAR will introduce a podium ceremony along with gold, silver, and bronze medals for the top three finishers in the Clash’s final race.

The medals are produced by Jostens, who produces rings for the Super Bowl champions and related memorabilia for high schools. One face will feature the Busch Light Clash logo while the opposite has a graphic celebrating the Coliseum’s centennial anniversary and NASCAR’s own seventy-fifth celebration. The winner’s medal weighs 4.7 ounces (133.243 grams) and is covered in 24-karat gold.

The podium ceremony will take place underneath the Coliseum’s Olympic cauldron.

“These will be tremendous prizes for our drivers who are competing inside a venue that’s hosted two Olympic Games and is preparing for a third,” said NASCAR senior vice president for racing development and strategy Ben Kennedy. “Not only do the medals honor the rich tradition of this stadium, but they also provide a special element unique to NASCAR’s 75th anniversary.”

It may seem sacrilegious for NASCAR to have podiums and medals, even for an exhibition, but the Clash will not be the first time such as been awarded. In 1995, the top three at the two Atlanta Motor Speedway races received medals to help build up hype for Atlanta following the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Travis Pastrana is known for his rallying exploits, but he likes to dabble in stock cars from time to time even if he abandoned his full-time NASCAR career a decade ago. This continued interest has procured a chance for him to check off another item on his bucket list in February: the Daytona 500.

On Tuesday, 23XI Racing announced Pastrana will attempt to make his Cup Series début in the Daytona 500, driving the #67 Toyota Camry. The news was initially teased on Friday before being reported by Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic, and the team formally confirmed the news four days later.

Pastrana needs little introduction as one of the most iconic names in motorsport, and action sports in general, today. In 2012, the eleven-time X Games gold medalist decided to enter NASCAR by competing in the now-Xfinity Series and Craftsman Truck Series. He eventually ran the full 2013 Xfinity slate for what is now RFK Racing, where he finished fourteenth in points with four top tens and a pole at Daytona’s sister superspeedway Talladega. However, unstable funding and poor performance by his standards prompted his departure at year’s end.

In the decade since, he made one-off returns to the Truck Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. His most recent start was a twenty-first in 2020.

“I’m thrilled at the chance to race in the Daytona 500,” said Pastrana. “t’s the one event every year that all my friends and family come together to watch at our buddy Dale’s house and it’s an event I’ve wanted to race my entire life. My first Supercross win came at Daytona when I was sixteen years old, and I qualified third at Daytona for the Xfinity Series in 2013. That race didn’t end up well, but I was able to finish tenth despite the fact I crossed the finish line backward through the infield grass at 180 mph.”

Zak Brown insists no guarantees have been made to either Álex Palou or Pato O’Ward about possible chances to race in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship despite both being a part of the McLaren F1 Team’s driver roster.

Palou has already been confirmed as one of McLaren’s reserve drivers, although a lack of a Superlicence means O’Ward is unable to take up a similar role.  However, the Mexican will still join the Spaniard in being a part of the test driver line-up for the 2023 season.

Both drivers experienced free practice sessions during the 2022 season, Palou participating in the opening session of the United States Grand Prix weekend and O’Ward the same in Abu Dhabi.  Both had also had opportunities to drive the 2021 MCL35M at various times throughout the year.

Brown, the CEO of McLaren, hopes that O’Ward will finally be eligible for a Superlicence of his own by the end of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season, but neither he nor Palou are in line for a move to Formula 1 at this moment in time and no assurances of that happening have been given.

“We announced Álex as our reserve driver because he has his Superlicence,” said Brown to RacingNews365.com.  “He’ll continue testing with us and Pato will continue as well once we solidify our testing plans, but he doesn’t have a superlicence.

In 2022, Alexandre Giroud and Francisco Moreno Flores finished first and second in the Dakar Rally‘s Quad category. Fast forward to 2023 and even a tougher course did not change the top two.

The reigning World Rally-Raid Champion, Giroud defeated his fellow Drag’on Rally rider Moreno by forty-three minutes, making it a much closer result than last year when he won by over two hours. Giroud is the first back-to-back Quad winner since Alejandro Patronelli won in 2011 and 2012. The Frenchman kept a clean sheet better than his country in the FIFA World Cup Final as he never surrendered the overall lead across all fourteen stages. Ironically, the football analogy means the Dakar Quad 1–2 was an inverse of said match as Moreno is Argentinian.

It was not a “perfect” sweep as he did not win every stage, but winning the first four legs built up a massive advantage over Moreno. When Moreno broke the streak by taking Stage #5, he was still forty minutes back.

2021 Rally winner Manuel Andújar joined the fight when he bookended the cancelled Stage #7 with two wins, the latter of which saw an uncharacteristically difficult day for Moreno that caused Giroud to pull ahead by over an hour. However, Andújar fell out due to mechanical problems during the Empty Quarter Marathon.

Laisvydas Kancius and Marcelo Medeiros won every leg in the second half, with the former notching two and the latter enjoyed four in a row. Kancius could have had a third victory in Stage #8 but it evapourated when his Quad broke down. However, an early crash for Medeiros and retirement for Kancius respectively relegated them to ninth and seventh in the overall.

Malle Moto, officially known as Original by Motul, might be the hardest class to race at the Dakar Rally as bike riders do not have crews to help them and only some supplies. The difficulty were upped even more for the 2023 Rally due to its longer route, but Charan Moore was up for the challenge.

Moore battled with Javi Vega throughout the fourteen stages. After Moore took the overall lead by winning the first leg, Vega gave chase before losing ground when Mike Wiedemann won Stage #3. Vega finally got by Moore with a Stage #5 victory, though it was short lived as he lost it a day later.

When the Rally resumed following Stage #7’s cancellation for rain, Mário Patrão threw a wrench into Vega’s pursuit by finishing second to Moore in the next two legs and Vega’s deficit grew to over twenty-three minutes, further exacerbated by a Stage #9 fall. Vega, despite nursing rib pain, received a mulligan when Moore respectively suffered gearbox and radiator failures in Stages #10 and #11, enabling Vega to pull ahead.

Moore was able to recover by winning the second half of the Empty Quarter Marathon before delivering the coup de grâce in the fourteenth and final leg. In addition to winning Malle Moto, he finished twenty-eighth overall among all bikes and twelfth in Rally2, which Malle Moto is grouped within but has its own standings.

He described the race as “[a]n incredible journey. A rollercoaster from start to finish. Bike issues, a complete engine change, radiator issues, bush mechanics – all ace out from the comforts of a tent and box of tools and spares but enjoyed every second!

Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz reflected on his second season with the outfit, and said that he feels that the team has the potential to battle for the title this season, given they improve upon weak points from 2022 and make further gains in pace. 

According to Formula1.com, Sainz said that the beginning of the year was difficult as he had trouble coming to grips with the new-regulation 2022 car. However, he was able to move forward as the season went on and find good pace, though he suffered several retirements due to technical issues and incidents. 

“Yeah, it’s been a challenging [year], as you guys have seen from the outside. There was a challenging first third of the season where I struggled a bit with the car balance, with the driving style, a car that for some reason didn’t suit me straight out of the box, and I had to fight through it quite a lot.”

“And the second two-thirds, I have been a lot happier with the car. I’ve been a lot more on the pace, but unfortunately, a lot of DNFs, a lot of reliability issues along the way.”

By the time he became well acclimated with the car, the lead was firmly in the hands of Red Bull, and Mercedes was able to catch up to the frontrunners pace-wise. With this, he felt that he wasn’t able to achieve results representative of his improvement– but hopes that he’ll be able to keep up the momentum into 2023.

Rally2 might not have the same prestige as the top-level RallyGP, but perhaps that adds to its charm as amateurs and those with burgeoning rally raid careers duke it out. Many of the sixty-three Rally2 riders who ultimately made the finish to be classified in the 2023 Dakar Rally came to Saudi Arabia as privateers, riders hoping to make a name for themselves, or boasted little prior experience in the discipline.

Romain Dumontier fell more under the second category. He spent the 2022 Rally—his first time at Dakar—and the World Rally-Raid Championship chasing Mason Klein, but with Klein having since graduated to RallyGP, Dumontier immediately pounced. Riding a Husqvarna with some factory support from HT Rally Raid, the Frenchman dominated the 2023 edition after assuming the overall lead in Stage #5, a day after winning the previous leg, and never relinquished the top spot from there. Dumontier’s other victories came in Stages #5, #6, #9, #11, #12, and the final #14.

“I got stronger after two delicate first days, a second week with three top tens, a top 5, but also seven stage wins in Rally2,” said Dumontier. “I was able to ride throughout these two weeks at my level, never above. I wanted to be in control and not get scared. I was able to follow the rhythm of the stage winners and see the commitment it took to be at the top of the rankings.”

Paolo Lucci set the tone early by winning the first stage but fell behind after crashing in Stage #5. Although Lucci presented the greatest overall challenge to Dumontier, the margin between them grew with even the slightest misstep by Lucci; a waypoint and punctured water pump in Stage #9 was effectively the death blow as he fell from 16:25 back to nearly half an hour. Although he closed the gap at times, it only re-inflated in the final five stages to thirty-two minutes.

Although Michael Docherty was over an hour behind Dumontier, his Dakar début was a memorable run for any Rally2 rider. His performance fluctuated between stage wins and hanging on in the top ten during the first half, but the second saw him step up his game to compete with every bike in general as he even kept pace with RallyGP. He finished third overall in Stage #10 behind factory riders Ross Branch and Adrien van Beveren before finding himself fighting with Luciano Benavides for the Stage #13 overall win. Benavides edged out Docherty but received a speeding penalty that briefly promoted Docherty to the top spot before the former’s brother Kevin ultimately claimed the win en route to the overall Rally victory.

Renault Sport officially launched the all-new four-wheel-drive Renault Clio Rally3 at the Pas de la Casa Circuit in Andorra on Sunday afternoon, becoming the brand´s first four-wheel-drive rally car.

In 2019 the FIA announced the new FIA Rally Pyramid and added a brand new class for more simple four-wheel-drive rally cars. M-Sport Poland was the first manufacturer to have a car ready for the class, and the Ford Fiesta Rally3 has had many great successes in the FIA World Rally Championship. but also in other international and national rally series, they will now face a new competitor.

The new Renault Clio Rally3 is the first all-wheel drive Clio, it was jointly designed by the teams at Viry-Châtillon, the Alpine manufacturing plant in Dieppe Jean Rédélé and the BWT Alpine F1 team in Enstone in the United Kingdom. The rally car was presented on Sunday after completing a development program with almost 5,000 kilometers of tests, the Clio Rally3 continues its homologation process with the FIA. Since the redesign of the Rally Pyramid, Renault has established itself as the front-wheel-drive benchmark, with the successes of the Clio Rally5 and Clio Rally4, launched in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

The car is powered by a 1.3-liter TCe 16-valve turbocharged 4-cylinder engine with direct injection that puts out a total of 260 hp and 415 Nm and it uses a SADEV gearbox with a limited-slip differential. The rear wing has been designed by the BWT Alpine F1 team and is “considered to be simple in appearance, but highly effective”.

The Clio Rally3 is expected to have undergone the homologation process around April so the car will be eligible to be used during the summer, the tarmac and gravel versions of the car are both priced at €122,000 excluding VAT.

The NEOM McLaren Formula E Team produced a solid debut at the Mexico City E-Prix last weekend, to kickstart Gen3 and the 2022/23 season of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Formula E’s newest team were already tipped as an outfit to watch ahead of the weekend at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, after performing strongly at the official pre-season test. Jake Hughes was one of the fastest drivers during pre-season testing and started the season in fine fashion, after making it to the Semi-Final duels in qualifying. The rookie driver was sadly knocked out by eventual race winner Jake Dennis; however, his lap-time against his fellow ‘Jake’ was the second fastest in qualifying.

Hughes started the first race of the year from third and maintained the position for the majority of the race, before being overtaken by Pascal Wehrlein whilst trying to activate his second Attack Mode. The rookie driver was then caught napping by André Lotterer on the last-lap, who snatched fourth from the Brit. Hughes’ unawareness resulted in him finishing fifth rather than fourth; however, it was still an impressive result given that it was his debut.

For the returning René Rast it was a disappointing weekend, after qualifying in fifteenth. The German’s race wasn’t much better despite having made up some places, after retiring in the closing laps of the race following a collision with Oliver Rowland, breaking his suspension.

Whilst Rast’s result wasn’t what was hoped for, McLaren certainly have a car that can challenge for the points, as proven by Hughes. With that in mind, Team Principal Ian James has labelled the team’s first weekend in the sport as “solid”, with the McLaren boss being “massively proud” of what the team have achieved so quickly.

Jake Hughes delivered a strong performance on his debut weekend in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, after having been towards the top in virtually every session at the Mexico City E-Prix.

Whilst the NEOM McLaren Formula E Team driver had to settle for fifth at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, he cemented his place as a driver to watch this season, despite his rookie title. The British driver was one of the only drivers to be consistently quick all weekend in Mexico City and even made it to the Semi-Finals of the duels, where he was knocked out by eventual race winner Jake Dennis. Despite having been knocked out prior to the final, Hughes actually set the second-fastest time during qualifying, further highlighting his potential.

Hughes performed strongly in the race after starting third, and remained there for the bulk of the race after failing to find a way past Lucas di Grassi. He did get overtaken by Pascal Wehrlein, though, in the latter stages of the race whilst activating his second Attack Mode. Hughes failed to reclaim third from Wehrlein and was then overtake by André Lotterer on the last-lap, after the McLaren driver was caught completely unaware at the Turn Nine/Ten chicane.

Nevertheless, claiming fifth on his debut was an impressive result, with the British driver having admitted that he was “happy with my performance” but that there are certainly “things we can improve on”.

“It’s been a good weekend! I finished with a really good result and I’m really impressed with the team and how well we’re working together. It’s been such a short turnaround for us, we haven’t had much time with the car, so to deliver what we have is very impressive. We have things we can improve on, but I’m happy with my performance this weekend and we’ve learned some lessons to take away.” 

Avalanche Andretti Formula E Team Principal Roger Griffiths has “every confidence” that his team can perform at the highest-level consistently this season, after Jake Dennis dominated the season-opening race of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Dennis stormed to victory at the Mexico City E-Prix by almost eight seconds, after being unbeatable at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. After disappointingly losing the duels Final to Lucas di Grassi, the British driver was well and truly fired-up for the race, and he certainly didn’t disappoint. He pounced on a mistake by di Grassi in the opening phase of the race and never looked back, with the Andretti driver having built a sizeable lead almost instantly.

Whilst he did have to deal with a Safety Car restart, Dennis never looked troubled, as he started the new season and Gen3 in perfect fashion. On the other side of the Andretti garage, the newly-signed André Lotterer managed to claim fourth on the final lap, after completing a great move on an unaware Jake Hughes. Lotterer arguably had the pace for the podium, but couldn’t find a way past di Grassi, who defended superbly.

The team have certainly gotten themselves an excellent package for Gen3, with their Porsche powertrain having performed wonders despite having struggled during pre-season. Griffiths hailed the work done by the team to make the car “super competitive” as “impressive”, with the result being a “massive” achievement for the team in their first race as a Porsche customer team.

“What an amazing first race of Season 9 and the start of the GEN3 era. After a little bit of disappointment coming out of Valencia in terms of our pace, the efforts from the team over the Christmas break to turn it around and put a super competitive car on the racetrack has been impressive. It’s massive for Avalanche Andretti. It’s massive for our first competitive race with Porsche Motorsport.”

André Lotterer enjoyed a solid start to life at the Avalanche Andretti Formula E outfit, after leaving the Mexico City E-Prix with fourth place to his name following an impressive last-lap move on rookie Jake Hughes.

The former TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team driver has seemingly fitted into Andretti beautifully, with the German having shown good pace all weekend at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. His pace was so good in fact, that he managed to get all the way to the Semi-Finals of the duels, where he was comfortably beaten by polesitter Lucas di Grassi. A mistake by Lotterer at the hairpin allowed di Grassi to make it to the Final with ease, whilst the German driver had to settle for fourth on the grid.

Lotterer had a very good race on the whole, but did slip to fifth behind Pascal Wehrlein, who was faster than the bulk of the top five. He had been in podium contention for the entire race, with di Grassi having held up a gaggle of cars for the majority of the race; however, there was nothing Lotterer could do about the former Champion. Ultimately, a last-lap lunge on Hughes promoted the new Andretti driver to fourth, where he went on to finish the season-opening round of the 2022/23 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

His result secured a tremendous one-four for Andretti, with Jake Dennis having claimed the first victory of the Gen3 era. Reflecting on the race, Lotterer admits that being on the podium with Dennis “would have been nice”, but that he simply got a “bit stuck” behind di Grassi and Hughes.

“Great result for the team and congratulations to Jake. It’s amazing for the Avalanche Andretti team to start the season with a win and a P4 for me. I’m happy for the points, but it would have been nice to be on the podium together. I was trying hard, but I couldn’t get past. The way the race was I was just a bit stuck behind the two cars with di Grassi backing up.

The T2 category of the Dakar Rally is for production vehicles with certain modifications to make them suitable for racing. Since 2014, the class has been a playground for the Toyota Land Cruisers of Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body, and Ronald Basso and twice-defending champion Akira Miura were eager to be the one to get them to ten straight wins.

After fourteen gruelling stages, Basso got the honour as he and co-driver Jean-Michel Polato set a total time of 107:39;42, over seven hours better than Miura and Laurent Lichleuchter‘s 114:49:08. It is Basso’s first Dakar win after finishing second to Miura in 2022.

“Fifteen days were not easy at all with a few scares,” wrote Basso. “Thank you to everyone following me on this journey! A very nice gift for my tenth Dakar! See you very soon!”

The Land Cruiser is known for its reliability and durability, so much so that militant groups frequently convert the vehicle into “technicals” for use in warfare; this usage also looms over the Toyota Hilux, the rally raid model of which won the T1 category with Nasser Al-Attiyah. The aforementioned strengths were tested by Toyota Auto Body’s two Land Cruisers—a new 300 GR Sport model—in the rigors of the Saudi desert almost immediately from the start when Miura rolled in the opening stage and could not be righted despite Basso’s help.

Upon getting back on his wheels, Miura rejoined the race for the second stage after repairs but steering issues nailed Basso, prompting team director Yuji Kadoya to comment the Rally had already “taken a toll on our team’s stamina.” The crews got a brief reprieve as problems were mostly limited to punctures over until Stage #5, when Miura’s three-stage win streak ended on a drivetrain failure 135 kilometres in. The issue effectively knocked him out of overall contention due to a penalty for leaving the Special Stage mid-race.

Perhaps foreshadowing a frustrating World Rally-Raid Championship campaign, Kevin Benavides‘ Dakar Rally Bikes defence in 2022 did not go as hoped as he suffered multiple mechanical failures. Fortunately for him, 2023 was far kinder, a rather ironic twist considering it presented the most difficult route since the Rally’s arrival in Saudi Arabia.

While the likes of Skyler Howes, Toby Price, and even younger brother Luciano Benavides usually headlined the RallyGP stage results, Benavides lurked in podium range. As the Rally entered its closing days, he tailed Howes and Price with 2:40 separating him and the leader Price after the Empty Quarter Marathon. Benavides slipped into second after a dramatic Stage #13 in which he waited to assist his injured Red Bull KTM team-mate Matthias Walkner before rallying to win the leg, following Price by just twelve seconds. He then held off Price in the fourteenth and final stage to win by fifty-five seconds, giving him a forty-three-second edge in the overall.

Benavides joins a small group of riders who won multiple Dakar Rally Bike overalls with different manufacturers, having won in 2021 with Honda before moving to KTM. Cyril Neveu (Yamaha in 1979 and 1980, Honda in 1983, 1986, 1987) and Edi Orioli (Honda in 1988, Cagiva in 1990 and 1994, Yamaha in 1996) are the only others to achieve the feat.

“This was my challenge when I agreed to come to KTM, today I managed to fulfill it. Endless thanks to all the people who support me,” posted Benavides on social media. “I haven’t fallen from the sky yet. […] A kiss to heaven for my friend Paulo (Gonçalves) forever, who I know will always follow me.”

Despite failing to win a stage for the first time in his Dakar career, Price now has six podiums in nine total tries including wins in 2016 and 2019.

After fifteen days and over 5,000 kilometres, the 2023 Dakar Rally wrapped up Sunday in Dammam on the eastern side of Saudi Arabia. The longest Rally since its move to the Middle East in 2020, it presented a challenging route that knocked multiple frontrunners out of the overall.

Yet the more things change, the more they also stay the same. While Guerlain Chicherit scored his second stage win, the results of Stage #14 did little to affect the T1 overall as Nasser Al-Attiyah won his fifth Dakar Rally by 1:20:49 over Chicherit’s fellow Prodrive Hunter Sébastien Loeb. Hunters won nine of the fourteen legs including seven by Loeb, but technical problems during the first half doomed them from vying for the overall.

Chicherit’s win moved him into tenth overall and third in T1 of the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship behind Al-Attiyah and Loeb.

“Congratulations to Nasser and Mathieu (Baumel) for their victory and to Sébastien and Fabian (Lurquin) for their fantastic remontada. Alex (Winocq) and I are finishing with the satisfaction of being able to remobilise after a frustrating second leg by the end of which we’d already lost any chance of winning the Rally,” said Chicherit. “The car suffered, and so did I. Cars have become so efficient that they take us to the limits of our bodies. This even went as far as a brief loss of consciousness on landing a jump. Despite the pain, we managed to score several top five finishes in the second half of the Rally, allowing us to made a solid start in the context of the championship. We know what we still have to do to improve the Prodrive Hunter and we’ve gathered a lot of precious data to develop our e-Blast H2.”

The final stage was also the last chance for winless drivers to try for the stage victory: indeed, three FIA classes had new victors. Cristina Gutiérrez won in T3 to become the lone female stage victor of 2023; she also won the Prologue but it did not count towards the final classification. Privateer Carlos Vento Sanchez claimed T4 ahead of Cristiano Batista and Michal Goczał. In T5, Vaidotas Paškevičius was the lone driver not of Czech or Dutch nationality to win a stage as the Lithuanian defeated Mitchel van den Brink, who recently turned 21, by just seven seconds.