Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The calendar for the 2023 FIA World Rallycross Championship has been revealed, featuring the welcome return of some classic rallycross circuits. After being ratified by the FIA World Motor Sport Council, the calendar includes a mix of old favourites, returning venues from last year, and a brand new venue in Asia.

Following a successful debut year for the all-new electric RX1e class, the championship promises to blend old with new in its tenth season in 2023. The action kicks off on familiar ground. Just like 2022, the first round is a standalone FIA European Rallycross Championship event at Nyriád, Hungary’s “red cauldron.” Then the WRX action begins in Hell, Norway, in mid-June. The Magic Weekend remains on the calendar, as the championship makes its way to Höljes, Sweden, for round two. Appropriately enough, this will be the championships 100th round, so expect a great event full of celebrations.

Round three finally sees rallycross come home, as the championship heads back to Britain for the first time since 2019. The championship so far features no Formula 1 circuits manipulated to suit rallycross, but is instead on proper purpose built rallycross tracks, including the iconic birthplace of rallycross: Lydden Hill. From there, the series moves to Belgium, not to Spa-Francorchamps as in the last few years, but back to Mettet, one of the original WRX circuits, back for the first time since 2018. The ever-popular Montalegre, Portugal, in its newly configured form, will be round five of the championship

The third iconic track making a comeback is Estering, Germany, site of such memorable moments as Kevin “Round The Outside” Eriksson earning his nickname at turn one in 2016, and Andreas Bakkerud somehow limping home in his Ford Focus RX, despite major damage to one of his wheels. For the final rounds, the championship heads outside of Europe for the first time in its new electric era. Treading familiar ground, the penultimate event weekend will be at Killarney International Raceway, South Africa, scene of the closest ever finish to the championship as Bakkerud and Timmy Hansen finished absolutely equal on points. Finally, the series heads to Asia for a round at an as-yet undisclosed venue.

Arne Dirks, executive director of Rallycross Promoter GmbH, believes the calendar “represents the very best of rallycross and…has been the subject of a huge effort behind the scenes in recent months.” Speaking of the mix of circuits this year, Dirks said “we have been committed to returning to Cape Town to showcase World RX in front of the enthusiastic South African fans, and we are hugely excited to be adding a new event in Asia to the line-up, which truly underscores the series’ World Championship credentials. At the same time, the re-introduction of three charismatic European venues in Lydden Hill, Mettet and Estering reflects our desire to celebrate rallycross’ rich heritage and traditions while embracing the sport’s electric future.”

With the ninth season of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship just around the corner, the calendar for the first season of the new era of the sport has been completed, following the addition of the first ever Portland E-Prix.

The Portland E-Prix completes the Season Nine calendar, with the race set to take place on the 24th June; however, the circuit is subject to homologation. It means that Season Nine and the first year of Gen3 will see four new host cities, with Portland joining Hyderabad, India, Cape Town in South Africa, and São Paulo in Brazil as new hosts.

Of course, India, South Africa, and Brazil are new countries for the series as well, unlike the United States. The USA has a long history with the all-electric championship, with previous races in the nation having taken place in Long Beach, Miami and New York City. Portland was confirmed on the calendar following a meeting of the FIA Motor Sport Council, who also announced that a location in Seoul, South Korea, is being looked into for Season Ten following construction to the Season Eight circuit that was used.

Going back to the news about Portland, Alberto Longo, Co-Founder & Chief Championship Officer, Formula E is “excited” to announce that the USA will be remaining on the calendar next season, with it being an “important market” for the sport. The race will also be a home event for the Avalanche Andretti Formula E Team.

“We are excited to bring the premier electric motorsport world championship to Portland for the first time in June next year. There is a big, passionate fanbase for professional sports in the city, together with strong ecological credentials which makes Portland a perfect host for the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Formula 1 has revealed the venues today that will host the six F1 Sprint Events during the 2023 campaign, a record number after increasing it from three during the 2021 and 2022 FIA Formula 1 seasons.

An F1 Sprint event takes place on a Saturday, meaning qualifying is moved to Friday with an hour practice session being dropped. Friday’s qualifying determines the grid for the sprint race, which involves a one-hundred kilometre race to determine the grid for the traditional Sunday race.

Next year’s Sprints races will be held in Azerbaijan (Baku Street Circuit), Austria (Red Bull Ring), Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps), Qatar (Losail Circuit), the United States (Circuit of The Americas) and São Paulo (Interlagos).

The Austrian Grand Prix and São Paulo Grand Prix will remain as sprint races from previous seasons, seeing the Italian Grand Prix dropped as a sprint event.

The first sprint of the year will be in Azerbaijan with the exciting Baku Street Circuit holding host to what will be a thrilling weekend. The season will also see the legendary Belgian Grand Prix hosted at Spa-Francorchamps become a Sprint weekend for the first time. The two other new tracks to host the format will be the returning Qatar Grand Prix and the United States Grand Prix.

Sam Bird was in good spirits at the launch of Jaguar TCS Racing‘s Gen3 challenger the I-TYPE 6 last week, with the British driver having his eyes firmly set on making Season Nine his year.

The experienced ABB FIA Formula E World Championship driver endured a horrific Season Eight campaign, which saw the Jaguar driver suffer from horrendous luck. His luck certainly didn’t improve as the season developed, as the racing Gods wouldn’t even let Bird enjoy a home race without an issue, and a sizeable one of that!

Following a collision on the opening lap of the second race at the London E-Prix, Bird unfortunately broke his hand and somehow managed to make it to the end of the race, presumably in an array of pain.

As a result of the broken hand, Bird was forced to sit out the season finale in Seoul, due to needing a surgery to fix his hand. The Brit was also involved in a big crash during private testing, yet thankfully ahead of the new era of the sport, the fan favourite’s recently broken hand is “absolutely perfect”.

“Absolutely fine,” revealed Bird, exclusively to The Checkered Flag.

McAnally-Hilgemann Racing will have a new duo in their Chevrolet Silverado RSTs for the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. On Tuesday, the team announced Christian Eckes will pilot the #19 Silverado while Jake Garcia competes for Rookie of the Year honours in the #35.

Eckes joins Chevrolet after spending the last five years with Toyota. Driving for ThorSport Racing, he made the 2022 Truck playoffs and finished eighth in the standings with fifteen top tens and a pair of runner-ups at Texas and Gateway. It was his second full season in the Trucks after anotjer eighth-place placement in the 2020 standings for Kyle Busch Motorsports and sharing a truck with Grant Enfinger at ThorSport the following year. The part-time stint saw him score his first career win at Las Vegas.

Incidentally, Enfinger and KBM also moved from Toyota to Chevrolet in 2022 and 2023, respectively. MHR underwent the same change prior to the 2022 season.

“It’s a true pleasure for me to be a part of MHR, the NAPA Racing family, and to contribute to growing this programme into a championship-calibre organisation,” said Eckes. “That’s what Bill (McAnally, owner), the team, and I have set out to achieve and I believe he has assembled a group that can make that goal a reality.”

Garcia made his Truck début with a five-race slate in MHR’s #35. After missing his first intended start at Martinsville due to qualifying being rained out, he raced at Gateway (finished twenty-ninth), IRP (twenty-eighth), Richmond (twentieth), Bristol (twenty-second), and Phoenix (sixteenth). The truck was a new addition for the team, who was already fielding the #19 and #91, and the latter’s owner points will be transferred to the #35 to ensure it can run every race.

Pato O’Ward says he would be willing to take a break from his NTT IndyCar Series career in order to achieve his goal of reaching the FIA Formula 1 World Championship in the future.

The Mexican has become a genuine front runner in IndyCar across the past couple of seasons whilst racing for the Arrow McLaren SP team, and he has also tasted Formula 1 machinery with the sister McLaren F1 Team across 2022.

He tested the MCL35M from 2021 earlier this year alongside fellow IndyCar stars Colton Herta and Álex Palou and had his first experience of the MCL36 during a maiden free practice outing with McLaren ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November.

O’Ward has made it obvious in the past that he would like to race in Formula 1, and although his route to a race seat at McLaren looks blocked for now – they will race with two relatively young drivers on long-term contracts in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from 2023 – he still believes he can find his way onto the grid.

And he would be willing to sacrifice his ride in IndyCar to make this happen with the knowledge that he would likely be welcomed back to the series once his time in Formula 1 is over.

Tom McCullough has revealed that the 2023 offering from the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team will be significantly different to what was seen on track in 2022, with the team putting into practice what they learned throughout the previous FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Aston Martin endured a tough 2022 season where they scored only fifty-five points, twenty-two points less than they achieved in 2021, although they remained in seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship.

The new regulations did not seem to suit the Silverstone-based team in the early stages, but they continued to update the AMR22 throughout the year, and it ended on a positive note with points finishes in nine of the final eleven races, including consecutive sixth place finishes in the Singapore and Japanese Grand Prix.

Aston Martin’s performances in the second half of the season was pleasing to see for Technical Director McCullough, and although the mid-season technical directive surrounding the design of the floor of the cars aimed at reducing porpoising was brought in, it had next to no effect on the team.

McCullough says the updates they introduced to their floor, as well as smaller updates around the rest of the car, saw the team improve their performance, and it brought them closer to the front of the field.

18-year-old Sammy Smith is one of Toyota’s hottest young prospects, and his ascent through the stock car ladder has already placed him in a NASCAR Xfinity Series ride for 2023. On Tuesday, Joe Gibbs Racing announced he will drive the #18 Toyota GR Supra full-time.

“This is an opportunity I have been working towards,” said Smith. “I can’t wait to get behind the wheel full-time and am looking forward to a great season. I learned a lot in 2022 that will really help me to be competitive and run up front in the Xfinity Series.”

Smith dominated the ARCA Menards Series East in 2021 and 2022, winning eight of fifteen total races with top-five finishes in all but one (the exception was a crash at Iowa in 2021) while also securing the championship both years. He also raced in the national ARCA Menards Series with six victories and top fives in every start but Pocono (where he still won the pole) to place fourth in points despite not running the full schedule.

The second half of 2022 also saw him enter the Xfinity Series with JGR as he ran nine races. He scored three top tens including a third-place run at Watkins Glen.

“Sammy is a fantastic addition to our 2023 Xfinity lineup,” offered JGR Xfinity vice president Steve DeSouza. “He proved to have the passion and the talent to necessary to compete for wins in the races he ran for us in 2022. We are excited to get him in the #18 full time and know he will be competitive from the jump.”

The top three in the 2022 ARCA Menards Series championship battle will now compete against each other in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for Rookie of the Year. On Tuesday, GMS Racing announced Rajah Caruth will pilot the #24 Chevrolet Silverado full-time in 2023.

Caruth battled with Rev Racing team-mate Nick Sanchez and Daniel Dye throughout the 2022 ARCA season, finishing third in the standings with fourteen top tens, eight top fives, and a best finish of second at Kansas.

Sanchez and Dye have also graduated to the Trucks, with the former driving for Rev—who has an alliance with GMS—while the latter will be Caruth’s partner at GMS in the #43.

“I am extremely honoured and really excited to join GMS Racing and be in the fold of a professional race team with so much history,” said Caruth. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this throughout my whole career, and I’m going to do the best in my power to make the most of it.

“I can’t thank everybody at GMS enough for believing in me and believing that I have what it takes to drive one of their trucks. Same goes for everybody at Chevrolet for their support, we truly wouldn’t be able to make this happen without them.”

It is the start of a new dawn for Maserati MSG Racing, with the return of the famous Italian manufacturer to motorsport being marked with a stunning livery to the team’s Gen3 challenger, the Maserati Tipo Folgore. Season Nine of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship is looking truly set to be a record-breaking one for the series, with Maserati being the latest team to countdown the days to the season opener in Mexico City.

The launch of the stunning car took place at the home of Maserati, Modena, Italy. Their Gen3 challenger is, of course, the Italians first electric race car, with the hope that the innovations and techniques used can benefit the exciting new electric journey that Maserati are venturing on.

It is no secret that the leap from Gen2 to Gen3 is a sizeable one, with the new vehicles being faster, lighter, smaller, more powerful, more sustainable, and boast a front and rear powertrain. Gen3 of the all-electric series is truly a piece of genius, one that Maserati are excitingly going to be an integral part of.

The team’s line-up for Season Nine consists of Edoardo Mortara who has remained with the team during it’s rebranding from Venturi Racing to Maserati MSG Racing, and Maximilian Günther, who is making the switch from the Nissan Formula E Team.

Speaking about the car’s livery, Mortara, who finished third in the Drivers’ Championship last season, instantly mentioned that it’s “very different” compared to everyone else. The Swiss driver also discussed the importance of pre-season testing, which will commence in just over a week in Valencia, Spain.

Andreas Seidl says he was not surprised that the majority of the podium places during the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship were split between just three teams, but he believes that the budget cap will help the other teams down the line.

Lando Norris’ third place in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was the only time across the twenty-two races of 2022 that a podium place did not go the way of either Oracle Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Ferrari or the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

Seidl, the Team Principal of the McLaren F1 Team, says the infrastructure of the leading teams was always going to benefit them in the early stages of the budget cap era of Formula 1, and he believes any chances of taking ‘lucky’ podiums was almost impossible.

“It is not a surprise what we have seen,” Seidl is quoted as saying by GPFans. “Especially when you go into a new era of Formula 1 with completely new technical regulations.

“The teams that have the best infrastructure, that had unlimited money in the past in order to create the best possible teams, and that have the best available tools and methodologies in place, there is even more reason that when you have to do something completely from scratch, they create an even bigger advantage for themselves by using everything that they have in place.

Otmar Szafnauer believes the BWT Alpine F1 Team developed their car more than any other team on the FIA Formula 1 World Championship grid during the 2022 season, with perhaps the exception of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

Alpine enjoyed a strong 2022 campaign, scoring points in all bar two races as they raced their way to fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, the team edging out the McLaren F1 Team in what was a fantastic battle all the way to the end of the year.

This was even more special after enduring an extremely difficult pre-season test, but once the season got underway, they were able to introduce new components all the way through the season to enable them to stay ahead and pull away from McLaren.

Szafnauer, the Team Principal at Alpine, admitted it had been a tough start to their season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya during testing, but he was delighted with the progress and development of the A522 that enabled them to score one hundred and seventy-three points across the twenty-two races.

“The first test had its problems for a couple of reasons,” Szafnauer is quoted as saying by PlanetF1.com. “Mainly because we did not want to push the performance envelope and that means a couple of things.

The 2023 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series will open with the inaugural Arctic Ice Race in Rovaniemi, Finland, on 5/6 March. With the series taking on a non-paved surface for the first time, it only made sense to take pages from a discipline that is more than familiar with such a racing style.

The format is heavily inspired by that seen in rallycross with a series of heat races and semi-finals before concluding with a final. While not as common in that discipline, the series will also change the track layout each day to keep drivers on their toes.

The weekend begins on Friday, 4 March with six thirty-minute practice sessions on a course that is 3.2 kilometres in length. Saturday will see a time attack tournament conducted on a 2.4-km track, which sets the starting order for Sunday’s races.

Only a select number of cars will be available for the race, and two drivers will be assigned to each like in the standard championship.

“Since the creation of the series in 2009, we have always explored new territories and pushed the boundaries,” said series head Jérôme Galpin. “Bringing the pure racing of EuroNASCAR on ice makes perfect sense in our strategy to innovate and develop new concepts of racing.

After two years with Chevrolet, Dean Thompson will move to Toyota as he joins TRICON Garage for the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season. He will pilot the #5 Toyota Tundra TRD.

After back-to-back Irwindale Speedway late model championships, Thompson débuted in the Trucks with Niece Motorsports at the 2021 season finale before elevating to the full 2022 schedule. He finished twenty-third in points with a best run of eleventh at Las Vegas.

“I am thrilled to start the next chapter of my career with TRICON Garage and Toyota Racing Development,” said Thompson. “The team and manufacturer have quickly made a statement in the Truck Series as striving to be the best of the best. I’m ready to take on the challenge and live up to the expectations of being a driver for TRICON.”

TRICON, formerly known as David Gilliland Racing, switched to Toyota from Ford for 2023. By becoming a TRD outfit, the team inherits prospects like Corey Heim from the Chevrolet-bound Kyle Busch Motorsports but will also retain Tanner and Taylor Gray, whose grandfather Johnny co-owns TRICON.

“We’re really excited to welcome Dean into the TRICON programme for 2023,” Gilliland commented. “Our goal is to develop future stars of the sport, and he has all the intangibles of a driver with a long NASCAR career ahead of him. He shares our commitment to growing this team into a premier Truck Series organisation, and we can’t wait to hit the track with him at Daytona.”

With the start of Season Nine and Gen3 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship only a month away, the all-electric series has announced that it has extended its partnership with founding partner Julius Baer, in what is a multi-year extension of their relationship.

It is truly an exciting time for Formula E, with the next generation of the championship edging ever closer, its founding partner, though, has remained the same since day one and will continue with the series for the foreseeable future. The extension of Formula E’s deal with the private Swiss bank will run until the end of 2026, when the conclusion of Gen3 will likely be.

As well as extending its deal with the series itself, Julius Baer will be the title partner of the São Paulo E-Prix, which is one of three new host cities for Season Nine.

Philipp Rickenbacher, CEO, Julius Baer, believes it is “no surprise” that the bank continues to be “enthusiastic” about the electric series, one which it remains “united with”.

“As one of Formula E’s founding partners since 2014, it should come as no surprise that we remain enthusiastic about the success of our engagement with the all-electric series.  We are united with Formula E by a pioneering spirit and an interest in the innovations and megatrends that are shaping our future.”