Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Ruben Saldaña Goñi‘s hope of making his Dakar Rally début in 2023 were seemingly dashed in late July when his application was rejected due to insufficient experience. Three months and a participation in the Rallye du Maroc later, he is on his way to Saudi Arabia.

Competing on a KTM 450 in the Rally2 category, Saldaña finished twenty-third overall with stage finishes of thirty-ninth, twentieth, twenty-seventh, twenty-second, twenty-ninth, and twenty-sixth. He was the third best finisher among rookies in the class, with the top newcomer Stefano Caimi—who was sixth overall—also clinching a trip to Dakar.

His run was enough to convince the Amaury Sport Organisation to reverse their decision on 12 October, which he publicly revealed a week later. Being part of the World Rally-Raid Championship, the Rallye du Maroc is a Road to Dakar event that allows competitors with no previous Dakar Rally experience to be invited if they are among the best performers in select races. T4 driver Toomas Triisa secured his spot after finishing eighth in Morocco, while Luis Díaz Soza won said class at the Atacama Rally in August to do the same.

“Receiving this letter is a reward for years of dedication to this sport,” wrote Saldaña. “As you know, all my life the idea of ​​one day being able to run a Dakar has followed me and this is not something you go and buy.

“As this race grew, the requirements to be able to take the start increased, and this year has undoubtedly been the strictest to date. This year, the available places have been reduced by 20% compared to last year. It is warned that it will be the hardest and longest edition to date, with two additional stages, fewer links, more specials and split roadbooks to prevent some drivers from following others without worrying about navigation. These elements increased interest in the Dakar.

Stage #1B of the Andalucía Rally continued the World Rally-Raid Championship T1 duel between Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb, this time swinging in the former’s favour as he won with a time of 3:26:40.

The stage’s terrain proved to be difficult for many competitors, with Loeb and RallyGP rider José Ignacio Cornejo both calling it “complicated”. Ricky Brabec, the first rider on course for the day, called it “not my favourite kind of stage. It makes me feel like I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle, so I just want to get out of here safe and be ready for the Dakar.”

Yazeed Al-Rajhi was second at 3:35:26, followed by Loeb’s 3:38:05. Despite winning the prologue, Loeb was hindered by power stering failure and a technical glitch in his roadbook that caused it to not register a waypoint crossing. The same issues impacted fellow Prodrive Hunter driver Guerlain Chicherit, though he was able to salvage a fourth-place finish.

“The navigation was difficult in the initial kilometres so soon the other cars arrived around us. That was really tough,” said Loeb. “At the end of the first section some problems with the power steering appeared but fortunately it didn’t completely go, but it stayed with me.

“In some slow corners it was difficult to turn the wheel but in general we didn’t lose so much time with the actual technical problem as it was the navigation that was so hard. If you get a little bit wrong in the middle of the olive trees, everything looks the same and then it’s very difficult to hit the waypoints as so many have been positioned so close so if you are a little bit wrong you have to turn around immediately.”

It has finally been confirmed that the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship will be heading to Cape Town, South Africa, as the Season Nine calendar was updated at Wednesday’s FIA Motor Sport Council meeting in London.

The incredibly fast circuit which has been planned for Cape Town was approved as part of the meeting, with it now cemented that at least three new cities will host a Formula E race in 2023. Races in India, Brazil and South Africa will see the newbies line-up alongside the traditional races in Monaco, London and Rome.

Whilst South Africa is joining the calendar, South Korea is set to miss out on Season Nine, after the venue which hosted the season finale last season was ruled out for 2023 due to renovation works. The sport are talking to the country’s representatives about moving the race to a different part; however, those talks are still ongoing. With South Korea having been taken off, Berlin has been turned into a double-header, still four races less than the six it hosted as the bizarre Season Six finale.

With the calendar having been updated, Maserati MSG Racing have set their sets on what will be the “most diverse calendar yet”, with Team Principal James Rossiter expecting big things from 2023. The Italians are especially looking forward to their home races in Rome and Monaco, meaning their still unconfirmed line-up will have three chances of winning a home race for the newish side (Maserati took over ROKIT Venturi Racing).

Rossiter is “looking forward” to the season getting going, with the aim being to bring an “even bigger audience” than the series has ever seen.

With Season Nine of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship edging ever closer, the FIA World Motor Sport Council have given their permission for Cape Town, South Africa to join the still not fully announced calendar.

The announcement was made at the recent council meeting in London on Wednesday, where it was confirmed that South Africa would be joining India and Brazil in 2023 as new hosts of the all-electric series. With this in mind, it seems to be a perfect time for new venues to join the championship, which will, of course, be welcoming it’s third generation of car in the upcoming season.

The calendar has further been updated, with a number of other big changes having been made. The Berlin E-Prix has been turned into a double-header following the removal of South Korea, with it looking increasingly unlikely that the series will return to the venue which hosted the Season Eight finale in 2023. It is due to the area of which the circuit was situated at having renovation work done to it. There are still, though, two TBC slots on the updated calendar, which could see another new venue potentially join the series.

Alberto Longo, Co-Founder and Chief Championship Officer, Formula E, was “excited” to confirm that the series will be heading to South Africa and that they are still in talks with South Korea.

“We are excited to announce Cape Town as a new destination for our series in Season 9. Our local partners are working incredibly hard to bring an ABB FIA Formula E World Championship race to the city and we cannot wait to see the futuristic Gen3 race cars competing against the iconic natural backdrop of Table Mountain.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly recounted previous experiences at the United States Grand Prix, as well as the inspiring crowds representative of the rapid growth of F1 in the US. Gasly hopes to come away from Circuit of the Americas with a solid finish to move forward from his weak track record at the circuit. 

The French driver comes off an eighteenth place finish at the Japanese Grand Prix, but said that the atmosphere at Suzuka International Racing Course was “special” with all the amount of support there for him and AlphaTauri. 

“As usual, there was a unique atmosphere in Japan, especially on our first visit in three years and going there as a Honda driver was intense, with so much support for all our team and I was amazed at the number of French flags in the crowd. It was all very special.”

Gasly said that last year’s race weekend in Austin was amazing to partake in, being an event full of great entertainment and an extraordinary number of fans from across the US who travelled to watch the action live. 

“Now we go to Austin, another really cool venue. Last year, there was a big crowd and a great buzz with the popularity of F1 exploding more and more each year in the States. I remember when I was leaving Austin last year that the airport was absolutely full of fans flying home to all over America, there were no passengers that hadn’t been to COTA!” 

Lando Norris has revealed that he did speak to the Oracle Red Bull Racing team about a possible move away from the McLaren F1 Team, but he felt remaining with his current outfit was the better option for him.

The British racer signed a contract extension with the team earlier this year and will race for the Woking-based outfit until the end of the 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, and he will have a new team-mate in Oscar Piastri next season.

Norris has confidence that McLaren can join the fight at the front of the field during his time there, and as a result, he found it easy to turn down the chance to join Max Verstappen at Red Bull.

“Of course there are talks with other people from time to time,” said Norris to German publication, Auto Motor und Sport.  “You always ask yourself the question: What is the best thing for my career? I want to win and win world championships.

“There have been talks with Red Bull. They are a team that has been in the top three for years. But that just shows even more how much confidence I have in McLaren. Although there were talks, I felt McLaren was better for me to achieve my goals.”

Tom McCullough, the Performance Director at the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, says their aggressive development programme and great reliability have benefited them as they look to move up to sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship across the final four races of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Aston Martin scored consecutive sixth place finishes in the Singapore and Japanese Grand Prix – one each for Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel – while the latter also scored an eighth place at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, and the points scored across the two events mean the team are just seven points behind Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN in the standings.

McCullough credits the development of the AMR22 this year that has seen them show significant improvements as the year has gone on, and it was satisfying to see them rewarded with the points finishes in both Singapore and Japan.

“We’ve had a continuous aggressive development from the start of the year,” said McCullough to Motorsport.com.  “And we’ve been bringing bits to the car race-on-race, and the bits have been working, the car has been going faster, and we’ve been understanding the bits.

“The guys in the development function have been doing that, and it makes our job at the track easier with a faster car.  At the same time thus far we’ve had impeccable reliability as well, always there racing.

Max Verstappen will arrive at the Circuit of the Americas as a two-time World Driver’s Champion after taking the title by winning the Japanese Grand Prix two weeks ago, but the Dutchman knows he still has work to do in 2022.

The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver has an unassailable lead in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship standings despite their being four races – as well as a sprint race – remaining, and he is bidding to take a record-equalling thirteenth victory of the season this Sunday.

Verstappen says the main goal across the remaining races is to ensure Red Bull take the Constructors’ Championship, and he they will do just that if they can outscore Scuderia Ferrari by nineteen points in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.

“It was special to secure the Drivers’ Championship in Japan, I didn’t get the chance to celebrate too much as we’re still focussed on securing the Constructors’ Championship for the Team,” said Verstappen.

“The ultimate goal is of course to win both, but we need to keep our heads down, it will come if we keep performing well.

Ahead of this weekend’s FIA Formula 1 World Championship action at the United States Grand Prix, Toto Wolff has revealed that Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team will be delivering their final upgrade package to the W13 as the Brackley-based team firmly switches their attentions to the development of their 2023 challenger.

The Silver Arrows are yet to claim a race victory in 2022, and with just four races remaining in the season, Mercedes are at risk of finishing the season without a race victory to their name for the first time since 2012. It would also mean the first time in Lewis Hamilton‘s Formula 1 career that he has failed to win a race during a season.

Wolff was keen to stress that the team head into Austin looking to rebound from a tough run of performances in Singapore and Japan, where Wolff stated that the W13 wasn’t allowed to show it’s true potential across both race weekends due to the team’s failure to put both George Russell and Hamilton in clean air.

While the Mercedes Team Principal is keen for his team to chase their first win of the season in Austin, he also stated that with such little time left in the season, attentions within the team will also be heavily placed on the development of their 2023 car.

“The double-header in Singapore and Japan was a frustrating one for the team, as we didn’t put ourselves in the clean air we needed to maximise the race pace of the car. We want to end this season strongly and the results of the last two races only make us more determined to do so.

Frédéric Vasseur feels Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN have not been able to maximise their potential across the past two Grand Prix in Singapore and Japan due to the weather conditions, but he hopes for more normal weather across the next two events in the United States and Mexico.

Rain hit both the Marina Bay Street Circuit and Suzuka International Racing Course and left Alfa Romeo unable to extract everything from their updated C42-Ferrari, but the Team Principal of the Hinwil-based squad believes they can be top ten contenders this weekend at the Circuit of the Americas with conditions expected to be dry.

“The race in Austin, as well as the one in Mexico City next week, gives us an opportunity to race in what should be more regular circumstances,” said Vasseur.  

“There’s no denying we expected more from the races in Asia, especially from Japan as we were bringing some upgrades, but the conditions were such that we were not able to express our full potential.

“Still, our cars proved to be quick in the dry, and that’s the positive we brought back with us and on which we plan to build.”

Valtteri Bottas says he is coming to the Circuit of the Americas for this weekends United States Grand Prix in a competitive mode after winning a bike race in Kansas just last weekend.

The Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN driver is a previous winner of the United States Grand Prix having won from pole position back in 2019 whilst racing for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, and, as a result, he has positive memories of racing at the Circuit of the Americas.

Bottas hopes the updates Alfa Romeo are bringing to the track this weekend can end his pointless run in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, which stretches back all the way to the Canadian Grand Prix in June.

“I always enjoy being in the States: I spent a good amount of my time off here this year, cycling and exploring, and I was in a bike race in Kansas just last Sunday – which I also won, which means I’m already in competitive mode ahead of the weekend,” said Bottas.

“I won the race from pole here in 2019, and I have overall good memories of this track, of the fans and of the atmosphere.

The eight-time world rally champion Sébastien Ogier tops the Thursday morning shakedown in RallyRACC Catalunya – Costa Daurada as two Toyota Gazoo Racing cars are within the top three after the session.

Some rain showers were greeting the drivers during this morning and tire strategy played a big role throughout the session, the Toyota drivers were the only ones in the Rally1 category that ran with the Pirelli soft tires while the rest of the teams selected the hard compound on the 4.21 kilometers Coll de La Teixeta Shakedown stage early on.

Ogier edged the Toyota Gazoo Racing NG driver Takamoto Katsuta by just nine-tenths of a second on his third and final run, while Pierre-Louis Loubet, who ran a total of six times on the stage slotted in third with an impressive time of just 1.2 seconds slower than Ogier when he went out with soft tires. The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team driver split the two Toyotas of the 2022 world champion Kalle Rovanperä and Elfyn Evans, who posted fourth and fifth fastest times respectively.

M-Sport´s Gus Greensmith also went for softs on his later attempts and he managed to take a sixth fastest time on his fourth run, meanwhile, teammate Adrien Fourmaux, who returns to the line-up after a two-month hiatus ended with seventh fastest after having a slow opening run.

Craig Breen also driving for M-Sport was the ninth fastest and local two WRC2 drivers of Pepe López and Alejandro Cachón claimed eighth and tenth fastest times respectively.

Josh Berry is the first driver to lock a spot in the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship Round after winning at Las Vegas on Saturday, and JR Motorsports understandably wants to keep him around as they signed him for the 2023 season.

“JR Motorsports has always been my home as a racer, and I’m proud to return to JRM and the #8 team for 2023,” Berry stated. “When I came here, it was as a late model driver and mechanic, and when I got the opportunity to race full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, it was a dream come true. We’ll race for a series championship next month, and that’s nearly full circle for me with the team.”

Berry is a longtime member of the JRM organisation, having competed for them in the Xfinity Series since 2014 and winning multiple late model races, the latter of which also includes the 2020 NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national championship. However, his Xfinity career had been held back by a lack of funding, which resulted in his 2021 Rookie of the Year campaign not being a full-time season despite winning twice, though he was still busy with multiple starts as a substitute driver. Berry even got to race in the Cup Series in relief duty.

He was able to acquire enough backing for the entire 2022 season with increased support from Tire Pros. This commitment has paid off tremendously as he has won three times and sits fourth in points with a ticket to the Championship Round. Tire Pros will sponsor him for nine races in 2023 while serving as an associate sponsor for the rest.

“Greg (Bell, Tire Pros president) and the team over at Tire Pros are a huge reason I’m able to drive in the Xfinity Series,” said Berry. “They took a chance on me in 2021 and for that I am forever thankful. We had a great first year together and were able to follow that up by putting the Tire Pros Chevrolet into Victory Lane at Dover. I can’t wait to continue that success in 2023.”

When the Rally3 regulations were presented to be introduced for the 2021 season, the British outfit M-Sport Ford was quick to introduce a new car but now the Ford Fiesta Rally3 will face competition as the French manufacturer is set to be joining the Rally3 field with a newly developed car in about one year.

With the M-Sport being first and alone with a car for the cheaper four-wheel-drive category, the choice fell easily on M-Sport when the FIA Junior World Rally Championship switched to four-wheel drive. But now the brand looks to have competition, as the French manufacturer Renault is in tests with a brand-new Renault Clio Rally3.

Renault started with the Clio Rally5, continued with developing a Clio Rally4, and announced at its launch that they were expected to take the next step, over the past few days former JWRC driver Jean-Baptiste Franceschi has been testing the car for the company on French dirt roads and earlier he was testing the car on tarmac.

The launch and sale of the car cannot be expected to start until the second half of 2023 and to be ready for the 2024 season. Renault will probably be a contender to supply the JWRC class with cars come the 2024 season as well.

When Hattori Racing Enterprises expanded to two trucks for the 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Chase Purdy was tabbed as the driver of the new #61 Toyota Tundra TRD. However, his stint with the team will only last one year as the team announced they will part ways at the end of the 2022 season.

After finishing nineteenth in points as a rookie in 2021, Purdy moved from GMS Racing to Hattori’s new #61 for 2022, marking a return to Toyota after racing with the make in regional levels. His tenure began on a sour note after missing the season opener at Daytona, though his production has improved from 2021 with a higher average finish of 17.8 after twenty races versus 22.6. He sits sixteenth in points with two top tens at Gateway and Talladega.

Purdy made his Truck début in 2018 for the now defunct MDM Motorsports. He returned to the series two years later on a seven-race schedule for GMS, during which he notched his first top ten. His best career finish is sixth at Gateway in 2021.

“Hattori Racing Enterprises (HRE) and Chase Purdy have agreed to amicably part ways at the end of the 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season,” reads a team statement. “We are appreciative to Chase for his efforts and contributions in helping to establish a second team and earning career-high statistics this season. HRE intends to continue fielding two full-time teams in 2023 and is in the process of solidifying the next driver of the #61 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro. We look forward to closing out the season strong with Chase as we continue to build for the 2023 season.”

While Purdy is out, the team has not confirmed if Tyler Ankrum will remain in the flagship #16. Ankrum also joined the team in 2022 and missed the playoffs like Purdy, but he has more top tens with eight and is higher in points as he sits twelfth.