Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

After securing his best finish of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, Lance Stroll has hailed his team’s efforts around the Marina Bay Street Circuit as the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team driver was able to secure a sixth-place finish at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Starting from the sixth row of the grid in eleventh place, Stroll would gain one place on the opening lap thanks to the slow start suffered by championship leader Max Verstappen. Stroll would soon fall outside the points on the following lap as the Dutchmen was able to make a late move heading into turn seven to get past the Canadian driver.

Stroll would make his move into the points-paying positions on lap twenty-one by taking advantage of the misfortune of Fernando Alonso’s retirement and Yuki Tsunoda’s slide. As a result of the two incidents, Stroll then found himself running in ninth place, directly behind Sebastian Vettel.

The Aston Martin driver would come in for his one and only pit-stop of the race on lap thirty-six and was able to execute the overcut on his teammate to rejoin the action in seventh place with Vettel placed behind him in eighth.

Stroll would once again gain a place as a result of Max Verstappen’s misfortune after the Dutchmen locked up attempting to overtake Lando Norris into turn seven. Stroll would come home to cross the finish line in sixth place and despite Verstappen’s best efforts to rectify his earlier mistake, the Canadian was able to finish two seconds ahead of the championship leader.

Jody Egginton believed Scuderia AlphaTauri deserved to take more than just a solitary point away from the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, with questionable strategy decisions meaning they dropped down the order.

Having started with both Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda inside the top ten and with weather conditions uncertain following a heavy downpour that saw the race delayed by over an hour, the team scored only a tenth-place finish on Sunday thanks to Gasly, while Tsunoda crashed out.

Egginton, the Technical Director at AlphaTauri, believes the decision from the pit wall to pit both drivers for dry tyres came too early, and it meant Gasly fell behind Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel in the final result.

Tsunoda crashed out at turn ten not long after making his own pit stop, meaning the potential double points finish turned into just a single point and a drop to ninth place in the Constructors’ Championship behind the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team.

“After all of the hard work put in by the team and drivers over the weekend, we have failed to maximise the opportunity to score good points with both cars tonight,” said Egginton.  “This is due to our engineering team committing too early to the switch to dry tyres.

Pierre Gasly admitted to being disappointed with finishing only tenth in Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix, with the Frenchman feeling he missed out on a potential top five finish by pitting too early for slick tyres.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri driver had been just behind McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris in the opening phase of the race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit but was one of the first to pit for Pirelli’s medium compound, and the time lost compared to some of his main rivals meant he slipped behind them.

Whereas Norris was able to move up the order and finish fourth, the second McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo and both Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team drivers edged ahead, and he was left with only one point to his name come the chequered flag.

“I’m very disappointed today, that’s not the result we should’ve had,” said Gasly.  “We were having an excellent race, behind Lando and ahead of the two Aston Martins, but we took a massive risk boxing early and lost some positions.

“I don’t fully understand why we made this decision, so we’ll need to review everything and learn from this mistake.

McLaren F1 Team Principal Andreas Seidl couldn’t have been happier at the outcome of the first Singapore Grand Prix since 2019, as Lando Norris finished fourth and Daniel Ricciardo fifth, to seal a first double top five finish of the season for the Woking-Based Team.

The result at the Marina Bay Circuit was beyond McLaren’s wildest dreams, as not only did they seal a double top five finish, but Constructors’ Championship rivals the BWT Alpine F1 Team saw both of their drivers retire with what appeared to be a double engine failure. As a result of McLaren’s four-five finish and Alpine’s double-DNF, the papaya-side are staggeringly back into fourth in the Constructors’, after scoring twenty-two points in challenging conditions.

Norris was consistent all race. The Brit made a strong start and ran in fifth for the majority of his opening stint; however, he rose to fourth thanks to Lewis Hamilton going into the barrier. The McLaren driver defended brilliantly from Max Verstappen, who ended up in the Turn Seven runoff following a Safety Car restart due to trying a lunge on Norris. Pitting during the Safety Car period worked perfectly for Norris and Ricciardo, who made his way through the field from sixteenth to fifth in what was his best drive of the season.

Seidl knows full well that his team are now “back in the game”, with the pressure seemingly now on their French rivals to comeback.

“Twenty-two points. Back in the game! Thanks to the entire team for delivering an excellent result this weekend, in hot, humid conditions here at the track in Singapore, back at the MTC and our colleagues at Mercedes HPP. Daniel and Lando both had superb drives today in tricky conditions.

Lando Norris‘ run of finishing in seventh-place finally came to an end, as the McLaren F1 Team driver crossed the line in a brilliant fourth-place, after a strategically flawless performance.

The British driver made a strong start to the Singapore Grand Prix and quickly found himself all on his own in fifth. With conditions being treacherous, Norris was told that he’d be extending his opening stint on the Intermediates by as long as possible, something which worked perfectly for both him and the Woking-based team.

Norris did amazingly to defend fifth from Max Verstappen not long before his pit-stop, which he made during a full Safety Car was released due to Yuki Tsunoda having crashed at Turn Ten.

This allowed Norris a beautifully cheap stop which elevated him to fourth, which is where he had risen to after Lewis Hamilton slid into the barrier. In all honesty, nothing else really happened for the Brit during his race, apart from a scary moment when Verstappen nearly went into the back of him at a Virtual Safety Car restart; however, that was before his cheap pit-stop.

Norris was impossible to overtake, something the Dutchman found out at the restart for Tsunoda’s crash, where he went into the run-off at Turn Seven following a hige lock-up whilst trying to lunge up the inside of the Brit.

It was a disappointing Singapore Grand Prix for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell both making critical mistakes.

Hamilton was battling Carlos Sainz for fourth but slid straight on into the barriers, leaving him with no option but to pit to replace his broken front wing. Luckily the seven-time World Champion combined the stop with the switch to slick tyres meaning not too much time was lost but enough to push him down the order from fourth to ninth.

The seven-time champion tried to save his race but found himself battling Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen. The Brit went to overtake Vettel and found himself overtaken by Verstappen as a result.

“I think we started off with a pretty decent weekend and it was just really unfortunate at the end, no matter how hard I was trying it was just not possible to overtake.

“Today was about who gets on the slicks first and it would have been slice and dice with Carlos, which I was working towards. But that went out of the window when I had that lockup going into Turn 7. Your heart sinks a little bit, but you get back up again and try.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team driver George Russell is set to start from the pitlane for this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix due to a new power unit.

It was a disappointing day for the Brit yesterday, as qualifying saw him miss out on a place in Q3 to Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen due to a throttle problem. The team have decided to take a new power unit due to reliability concerns.

The afternoon will be tough for Russell, who is likely to lose his streak of top-five finishes because of the nature of the Marina Bay Circuit. The circuit is known for being difficult to overtake, so it might be a long afternoon for the Brit while his teammate could be battling for the team’s first win of the season.

It will undoubtedly be an interesting race with a mixed-up grid. Max Verstappen will be battling from eighth as he looks to secure his second world title, while the likes of Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo and Russell will be aiming to make up places from near the back of the grid.

After a lengthy delay, the World Rally-Raid Championship hit the Moroccan desert Saturday with a prologue stage for the Rallye du Maroc, consisting of a nine-kilometre loop around Agadir. Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah found the early advantage by being the fastest of the Cars, while Ross Branch led the way for the Bikes.

Al-Attiyah hoped to draw first blood in his W2RC T1 class title pursuit, having entered Morocco trailing Sébastien Loeb by one point and seeking his second straight win in the event. The former set a time of 7:29 to lead all four-wheelers ahead of Yazeed Al-Rajhi‘s 7:37, while Loeb was third at 7:42. Guerlain Chicherit was fourth in his début with a Prodrive Hunter.

Seth Quintero cleared Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team colleague Guillaume de Mevius for the T3 lead by thirteen seconds at 8:10. Quintero’s time was good for ninth overall. Rokas Baciuška topped T4 at 8:23 for twelfth overall ahead of Rodrigo Luppi de Olivera by just six seconds.

On two wheels, Branch outclassed Toby Price for the overall and RallyGP lead with a time of 1:01.28, forty seconds quicker than the Australian.

“I rode average and all over the track, just tried to go too hard and didn’t work,” explained Price, who is having a busy few weeks as he comes off his Baja 400 run.

The last time Matt DiBenedetto won a NASCAR race, he was a 19-year-old prospect. Eleven years later, he is back in Victory Lane, albeit under controversial circumstances.

In true Talladega Superspeedway fashion, overtime to Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race was a chaotic affair until hell broke loose coming to the finish with a massive crash that placed DiBenedetto at the front of the pack on one lane opposite Bret Holmes. Although Holmes beat DiBenedetto to the line, the caution flag had come out before they reached the finish to freeze the order, and a length review by NASCAR found DiBenedetto was the leader at that time.

Because the race consequently ended under yellow, DiBenedetto officially did not lead a lap but was granted the win while Holmes was demoted to third behind Ben Rhodes. Overtime had been set up when Carson Hocevar‘s truck stopped on track with less than three laps to go.

It is DiBenedetto’s first win in a NASCAR national series after coming close so many times in the Cup Series prior to his exit after 2021. His only other victories in NASCAR-sanctioned divisions were three in what is now the ARCA Menards Series East in 2009 and 2011, with the last coming at Bowman Gray Stadium on 4 June 2011, a gap of 4,138 days (eleven years, three months, twenty-eight days). His team Rackley WAR also scores their maiden Truck triumph.

Much of the race was overshadowed by a horrific crash on lap 20 when Jordan Anderson‘s truck suffered an engine failure. Anderson was in the process of unbuckling himself and exiting the cockpit while his truck was still in motion, barely escaping before it slammed into the inside wall. He was airlifted to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital to be treated for second-degree burns to various parts of his body, though he would return home later in the night.

With the summer finally over here in America, Nitro Rallycross is falling into its next leg of the championship as the series heads to ERX Motor Park for round three of the championship.

RX Cartel remains the team to beat coming off of two round wins, each coming from their two drivers Andreas Bakkerud and Robin Larsson. Both Bakkerud and Larsson competed here last year giving so it should make for a comfortable event for them. The two have had some friendly battles and a good rivalry going into this round and being a track they’ve both run at, expect it to be more of the same. Larsson leads the championship with 58 points while Bakkerud follows closely behind at 48.

Vermont Sportscar hasn’t had the best start to the season after Travis Pastrana and Connor Martell both suffered from penalties or track moves that didn’t prove successful. Now back on American soil, the native duo seeks to start to get back to a standard form this weekend at ERX. Pastrana raced here last year and pulled out his first podium finishing second on the weekend behind then-teammate Scott Speed. Martell will get his first taste of ERX this weekend as he tackles it in the FC1-X. Pastrana and Martell are sitting seventh and ninth respectively.

After a few fill-ins, Kevin Eriksson finally makes his return to NRX after breaking his foot in the preseason. Filling in for him, and garnering a decent amount of points in the process, was Finnish and World Rallycross driver Niclas Gronholm. Now that Kevin has returned he and his brother, Oliver Eriksson aim to take the fight to their competition. Last time out in ERX the Eriksson’s both suffered from damage ending their racing in last chance qualifiers and the early laps of the final. 

Rounding out the field is XITE Energy Racing as Jensen Button makes his first appearance this season and Oli Bennet returns to take revenge on ERX. Button stands to make a mighty large impression as this is his first weekend ever competing in rallycross. The Former F1 Driver’s World Champion made the commitment to the North American rounds of Nitro Rallycross so he will be available for parts of this second season. Bennet ran the MINI his last time competing at the venue and suffered to many mechanical errors to make an impact. Third entry Kris Meeke should make his return later in the season but his strong season start boasted good news for XITE. While Button has no points due to this being his first appearance, Meeke places eight with 29 points and Bennet sits in tenth with 18 points.

The first day of the 2022 NORRA 500 on Friday was overshadowed by a fatal accident involving a competitor and a chase team.

On the thirteenth Route Mile of the course, a transit period along the highway from Ensenada to Ojos Negros and near a garbage dump, the #1464 Unlimited Truck of Matthew Legg lost its brakes and collided with a Ford F-150 at around 9 AM. The accident resulted in the death of a boy approximately nine years of age and his parents being hospitalised after being assisted by the Mexican Red Cross.

“Yesterday a NORRA race team lost one of its members due to injuries sustained in a tragic accident during a highway transit stage of the NORRA 500,” reads a statement from NORRA posted Saturday. “Racers and teams are the heart of our extended NORRA family. NORRA’s thoughts and heartfelt condolences go out to all involved.”

The second and final day of the race proceeded as planned without further incident. Matt Hylton unofficially won the overall.

For much of Q3 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Lewis Hamilton was a contender for pole position, but when the chequered flag fell, he found himself only third on the grid.

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver had been quick initially in Q3 as drivers used Pirelli’s dry weather tyres for the first time in the session, but his final run saw him struggling for grip, and it cost him as he missed out on pole to Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by just 0.054 seconds.

As close as the times were at the front of the field, Hamilton also found himself behind Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Pérez, meaning his run of failing to secure a front row start in 2022 continues, but he hopes for a more positive Sunday in Singapore.

“I was pushing so hard and it was incredibly close,” said Hamilton.  “It was really difficult to get to a position where we could be fighting for first place and I just didn’t have enough grip on the last lap.

“Coming here, we didn’t know how close we could be this weekend. We knew we’d be stronger than in Monza, but we didn’t know exactly how much. Nonetheless, I am grateful to be on the second row tomorrow.

Max Verstappen was forced to abort his final flying lap in Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix by his Oracle Red Bull Racing engineers after they detected that he would run out of fuel should be complete it.

The Dutchman driver was ultimately forced to settle for eighth on the grid at the Marina Bay Street Circuit having already aborted a couple of laps prior to the final one, and he admitted he should have completed at least one of those laps that could have seen him higher up the grid.

Had Verstappen run out of fuel, he would not have had the mandatory one kilogram of fuel needed for a sample by the stewards, and he risked disqualification had he gone on.

“We couldn’t finish the push lap today because we wouldn’t have had enough fuel in the car, it was a mistake that we didn’t see coming throughout the session,” said Verstappen.  “We were a little surprised by the additional lap at the end, we didn’t expect to have to do that.

“I was on for a good lap when I aborted before starting the last lap, it might have been pole. In hindsight we should have finished the penultimate lap, instead I had to abort two laps, but hindsight is a great thing.”

Charles Leclerc took his ninth pole position of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season on Saturday amid tricky conditions at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore.

The Scuderia Ferrari driver made it through the wet opening two segments of Qualifying and then took top spot in Q3 with a time of 1:49.412, less than a tenth of a second clear of both Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Pérez and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s Lewis Hamilton.

Leclerc admitted it was an exciting session despite the tricky conditions that only saw the dry Pirelli tyres appear in Q3 after intermediate tyres were needed in both Q1 and Q2.

“With track conditions changing throughout, it was a tricky but exciting qualifying,” said Leclerc.  “We were very quick on the Intermediates in Q1 and Q2, then had to start again from zero on the slicks in Q3.

“There were some damp spots of tarmac here and there and you really had to adapt to the track evolution.  The feeling in the car has been great all weekend and I look forward to racing here again tomorrow.”

Fraser McConnell and Andreas Bakkerud both crashed in Free Practice Saturday morning. Both drivers drove into the Turn 1 jump catching a rut resulting in independent rolls for each driver. Bakkerud’s car managed to stay within the track confines while McConnell’s rolled over the barrier outside track limits and into a small pond.

The pair of Group E FC1-X cars are totaled and will have to be repaired in time for the next day of racing. Most importantly, both drivers were able to leave the cars by themselves although Bakkerud was loaded into an ambulance and taken to receive medical treatment. Fraser walked away on his own to be looked over and receive medical attention. 

With two of the Dreyer & Reinbold drivers currently suspected to be out, that just leaves Robin Larsson and Andrew Carlson to compete this weekend. Larsson will have to compete well to keep RX Cartel at the top of the leaderboard ahead of Vermont Sportscar and XITE Energy Racing.

Dreyer & Reinbold has released a statement on the matter:

“Dreyer Reinbold Racing JC drivers Andreas Bakkerud and Fraser McConnell crashed during a Nitro Rallycross pre-race practice session today at ERX Motor Park. Both drivers quickly received medical evaluation at the scene. After initial treatment from the medical team on site, Bakkerud was transported to the ERX Medical Center due to soreness in his shoulder. Bakkerud and McConnell are going to the hospital for further observation as a precautionary measure. More information regarding their conditions will be released as it becomes available. We are still assessing the damage to the vehicles to see if they will be able to race this weekend. We are happy that the cars are built to keep our drivers safe.“