Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

With the Stadium Super Trucks‘ upcoming weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway being in support to YouTuber and SST driver Cleetus McFarland‘s Bristol 1000, it is only appropriate that other content creators take part in either or both. Such names will include a trio of SST newcomers as Derek Bieri, Matt Carriker, and Fielding Shredder tested trucks at series headquarters on Monday in preparation for their maiden starts.

Bieri runs Vice Grip Garage, which has 1.3 million subscribers and focuses on restoring and driving classic vehicles. His most-viewed video, a 2021 effort to start up and drive a 1968 Buick LeSabre 400, has over ten million views. He frequently shows up to races organised by McFarland including the Bristol 1000.

Unlike Bieri and McFarland, Carriker’s YouTube channel DemolitionRanch focuses on firearms. Launching his page in 2014, he is one of the top gun personalities on the site with over eleven million subscribers. A veterinarian by trade, the Carriker family also runs two channels covering veterinary care (Vet Ranch) and vlogging (OffTheRanch), which respectively have 2.85 million and 4.2 million subscribers.

Despite the different account scope from his fellow SST newcomers, he is well familiar with off-road racing, having owned a Trophy Truck. He worked with various teams at the SCORE International Baja 1000 three times, such as supporting the Trophy Truck Spec of Dion Podgurny for the 2016 race. Carriker has also taken part in the Mint 400 and expressed interest in running King of the Hammers.

Shredder is a drift racer whose Shredder Racing channel boasts 47.2 thousand subs. He broke into the larger media scene in 2019 when he starred in the Netflix drifting series Hyperdrive, where he finished third. His contract with Netflix—which included an NDA on discussing the show—expired earlier this year, which permitted him to provide such content for his page.

Alex Albon produced arguably his best performance since returning to Formula 1 at the Belgian Grand Prix, after defending tenth place like a lion all the way to the chequered flag to score a well deserved point.

It was a magical weekend for the Thai driver, who made it to Qualifying Three purely on merit after an outstanding Saturday. Due to a plethora of grid penalties for other drivers, Albon actually started the race from sixth; however, quickly dropped a few places.

Despite losing some ground early on, Albon remained in the points places with help from his FW44, which was nothing short of a rocket ship down the straights. Albon was able to overtake people with ease, with many mentioning just how fast the Williams Racing car was during the race. Towards the end, Albon led a DRS train of five cars; however, none could overtake the apparent mile-wide Williams.

It was a brilliant performance from Albon, who hailed the race as one of his “personal bests” after finishing tenth.

“This was one of the tougher races I’ve done in my career and also one of my personal bests. We did the best job we could today and it’s a good feeling. On the lap to the grid, it was clear that tyre degradation was going to be really high and hotter track temperatures than we have had the rest of the weekend made tyre wear worse. On the final stint I was thinking about three-stopping, but we held on, kept Lance [Stroll] behind and then it was about not making any mistakes.

Pierre Gasly’s one-hundredth career Formula 1 Race proved to be one to remember, as the Scuderia AlphaTauri driver battled his way back from a pit-lane start to secure a ninth-place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The French driver had originally taken advantage of a number of penalties further up the grid, as his twelfth-place finish in qualifying turned into an eighth placed start for the Grand Prix.

However, an electrical system failure prior to the race start saw Gasly forced into starting his race from the pit-lane.

Pitting early, Gasly was able to undertake a large stint on the hard tyres before finishing his race on the Medium compound. The extra pace provided by the medium tyres towards the end of the race allowed Gasly to work his way from seventeenth on lap twenty-three to a ninth placed finish come the end of the Grand Prix.

Speaking after the race, Gasly described his comeback at the Belgian Grand Prix as ‘incredible’.

“It’s been an amazing race, it’s my 100th race today, so it’s a special one. I’m really surprised with how we’ve finished, after having to start from the pitlane to come back home in the top 10 is pretty incredible, so we should be happy with that today.

“We were obviously lined up in P8 on the grid, but had an issue and had to return to the garage, luckily we got the car started, and were able to begin the race from the pitlane.

“The car isn’t quite where we want it to be yet, we’ve still got some areas we need to work on, but I’m pleased we managed to be back scoring points again today.”

Yuki Tsunoda: “I’m pretty happy with how I drove“

Zane Maloney becomes the sixth F3 feature race winner of the 2022 season, crossing the line first in Spa-Francorchamps.

The Trident driver started the race from second and after taking the lead on lap 11, he held position till the checkered flag, to take his first ever Formula 3 race win.

Caio Collet began the race on pole, with Maloney and Francesco Pizzi behind him. 

As the lights went out and the race got underway, Collet got off the line quickly and held his lead. However Pizzi was not so fortunate, dropping down the order after dipping his wheel in the gravel.

In the last corner of lap one, Pizzi and MP Motorsport’s Kush Maini made contact forcing a yellow flag. Joint championship leader coming into the weekend Victor Martins, was also caught up in the incident forcing him and Maini to retire from the race and prompted a virtual safety car which was quickly upgraded to a full safety car. 

The Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway was always bound to be a wild conclusion to the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, but Sunday’s race really took things to another level. While not the late-night overtime wreckfest of the Xfinity Series race on Friday, the 400 was postponed to Sunday due to weather, saw multiple crashes highlighted by a thirteen-car pile-up with twenty laps remaining that eliminated much of the field, an hours-long rain delay, and a dash to the finish that propelled Austin Dillon into the sixteenth and final playoff slot over Martin Truex Jr. despite the latter’s sixth-place points standing.

Dillon was nineteenth in the standings entering Daytona and therefore needed a win to qualify for the playoffs, and two slots were still available after Kurt Busch withdrew his playoff waiver. Ryan Blaney, third despite being winless, was virtually assured a playoff spot provided he did not crash out; incidentally, he was involved in the first accident of the race on lap 32, and spent the rest of the day salvaging a finish of fifteenth, six laps down. Despite the day and Truex finishing eighth, Dillon’s win and Blaney’s points advantage were enough for the latter to clinch.

“Honestly, it’s been a good year for us, but the wins haven’t come,” commented Blaney. “I feel like we can be a big threat in the playoffs, it’s just a matter of putting races together. It’s been a good year, but a great year would be wins and I feel like this team can do it if we just continue to do what we know and we improve on the things that we can get better at.”

Truex, who got caught in a lap 126 crash, will miss the playoffs for the first time since the inaugural year of the format in 2014. 

“We just had too much damage at the end,” he explained. “We had a good spot on the restart and we got a good restart. We got the #2 (Austin Cindric) up front, which is what we were trying to do, but just couldn’t keep up. Just too much damage. It’s a shame. We knew it was going to be tough with so many cars out of the race and the distance between me and the #12 (Blaney). It was going to be hard to hang on to fourth or better with a car that torn up.”

The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team came so close to achieving their pre-race goal of scoring a double points finish at the Belgian Grand Prix, with Sebastian Vettel finishing eighth and Lance Stroll in eleventh.

Vettel drove superbly in his last race at Spa-Francorchamps. The German demonstrated solid pace capable of battling with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, something which has been virtually impossible for the four-time World Champion this season given the AMR22’s mixed performance.

Stroll also drove brilliantly, but in the end didn’t quite have enough to beat Alex Albon for the final points place. The Canadian driver was stuck behind Albon for an obscene number of laps, with the Thai/British driver having seemingly made his car a mile wide. Stroll ended up being caught in a DRS train, meaning he had to balance his focus between attacking and defending.

Team Principal Mike Krack was hoping both drivers would finish in the points; however, he did praise Stroll for “executing some impressive” overtakes.

“After qualifying yesterday we said that our aim would be to score points with both cars in today’s race, and we very nearly achieved just that: Sebastian finished a fine eighth, and Lance ended up 11th, less than a second behind the 10th-placed finisher [Albon]. We started both cars on Mediums, then split the strategies [Vettel: Medium-Hard-Medium; Stroll: Medium-Medium-Hard].

Sebastian Vettel had a successful final Belgian Grand Prix of his Formula 1 career, after the four-time World Champion claimed a solid eighth place finish at Spa-Francorchamps.

The German did well to avoid the opening lap carnage, which saw Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso collide. Vettel at one point early on find himself in fifth, before the charge of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc dropped the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team driver down a couple of spots.

Vettel did well to recover eighth late on, after coming out of the pits behind Pierre Gasly. This put the Aston Martin driver at risk of being caught by Esteban Ocon; however, the German dealt with Gasly to recover eighth.

Vettel was pleased to see his car being “more competitive” during the race, with finding a “decent rhythm” having been key to the strong result.

“Eighth is a solid result. I was a little bit unlucky with the timing for the second stop. I came out just behind Pierre [Gasly] and lost a lap behind him, which allowed Esteban [Ocon] on new tyres to close down the advantage I had built up during the middle stint.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team‘s Toto Wolff is, understandably, disappointed with the outcome of Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix after suffering an early retirement on Lewis Hamilton‘s side of the garage, and finishing a decent fourth place with George Russell – but a long distance away from the leaders in race and single-lap pace.

The Belgian Grand Prix started off well when Hamilton was able to jump Sergio Pérez at Turn One and challenge Fernando Alonso on the run up the hill. However, after misjudging a move around the outside as a result of Alonso being in his blind-spot, Hamilton would make wheel-to-wheel contact with the Spaniard and launch the rear of his car into the air at Les Combes.

The Briton pulled over in the third sector, retiring from his first race this year as a result of the damage, leaving Russell as the only hope at a good result at the high-speed Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

Russell had a relatively lonely race, finishing fourth after trying his best to catch Carlos Sainz Jr up for the final podium place in the dying laps of the race. Wolff is not happy with the gap to the dominant Oracle Red Bull Racing as the Silver Arrows prepare to race at Zandvoort next Sunday.

“I don’t think we can be satisfied with this weekend – if you see Verstappen, he has leaped above us all. We really need to find out how we can improve our car because the gap is just too big.

Red Bull Racing’s Christian Horner was thrilled with the team’s result at the Belgian Grand Prix, where the team pulled off a 1-2 finish and fastest lap. With Max Verstappen taking victory after starting fourteenth due to an engine replacement penalty, Spa marked the lowest starting position the team had ever won from. 

“This was our biggest ever achievement to date. We have never won a race from as far back as P14 and to take a 1 – 2 with Checo, along with fastest lap, is an outstanding achievement.”

Horner said that Verstappen had performed incredibly, as the Dutch driver was able to advantage of the chaotic first lap to move himself up the ranks, and overtook the rest of the grid with his great pace and solid tyre management. 

On the other side of the garage, Sergio Perez maintained his position against the rivaling teams of Scuderia Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team with a solid effort to ensure a second place finish.

Horner acknowledged the efforts of the entire team for having been able to foster such an outstanding result, including the all the great work done “behind the scenes”.

A strong weekend from both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon ensured that the BWT Alpine F1 Team‘s lead of fourth place in the Constructors’ over McLaren grew by sixteen points, this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Starting in third place, Alonso’s race was nearly undone from the get-go as Lewis Hamilton squeezed the Spaniard into Turn Five with contact between the two resulting in Hamilton having to retire on the opening lap.

Speaking on the incident, Alonso declared the collision between the two as simply a racing incident.

With Alonso escaping from the incident seemingly unharmed, the Alpine driver was able to go about his race around the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit to come home for what at first appeared to be a sixth-placed finish.

However, a five-second time penalty for Charles Leclerc for speeding in the pit-lane gifted Alonso a late fifth-place finish.

Reflecting on another strong race day for the BWT Alpine F1 Team, Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer has stated that his team should be ‘exceptionally pleased’ with their efforts.

With the Enstone-based team locked in battle with the McLaren F1 Team for fourth in the Constructors’ standings, the sixteen-point haul the team takes home with them compared to McLaren’s point-less showing will likely serve as a huge confidence boost to the team for the remainder of the season.

Starting third on the grid, Fernando Alonso was always expected to take home a strong haul of points from today’s Belgian Grand Prix; however, contact with Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap threatened to stunt any progress around the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit.

Alonso was able to escape unharmed from the collision and went about his race to claim an eventual fifth-placed finish. The Spaniard was gifted fifth place late on as a result of Charles Leclerc’s five-second time penalty.

For Esteban Ocon, despite an impressive showing in qualifying, the Frenchman started from towards the back of the grid due to a number of new engine components on his A522.

Lewis Hamilton has acknowledged his fault for an incident at Les Combes with Fernando Alonso on lap one of Sunday’s Belgium Grand Prix, that saw him retire from his first race of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

The seven-time World Champion got a good start and was able to pass Sergio Pérez at Turn One, as did Alonso. Hamilton got a good run up the hill and attempted a move around the outside of Turn Five, but didn’t leave enough space for his former team-mate. Hamilton’s rear-right wheel made contact with Alonso’s front left, sending the rear of the Briton’s car high in the air, before landing heavily.

Hamilton limped around the circuit, dropping positions, but was instructed to pull over by his team in the final sector. The accident was completely the Mercedes driver’s fault, and no further action was necessary as it was a lap one incident; however, Hamilton would later be warned by the FIA for not attending a mandatory check-up at the medical centre as instructed by a light on his steering wheel. Alonso was able to continue the race and would finish fifth.

Hamilton was understandably disappointed in his post-race interview, explaining that Alonso was in his “blind spot” as he swooped around the outside.

“Looking back at the footage, Fernando was in my blind spot and I thought I left more room than I did, so it was my fault and I paid the price. I’m just sorry for the team, we had a chance of P3 and P4 today,” the number forty-four driver explained.

The Belgian Grand Prix was another event that didn’t quite go the way of Scuderia Ferrari. Oracle Red Bull Racing have extended their lead in the Drivers’ Championship and Constructors’ Championship with an impressive one-two finish at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, while the Italian outfit were only able to finish third and sixth.

Ferrari went into the weekend knowing a good result wouldn’t be easy, as Charles Leclerc had a grid drop as a result of changing some components on his power unit; however, Max Verstappen would also take a penalty for the same reason, somewhat balancing the two teams out. Carlos Sainz Jr was promoted to pole position after Verstappen’s grid drop was applied after qualifying, but was eventually caught up to and passed by both Red Bull cars as a result of having less pace on Sunday afternoon.

Leclerc would suffer from bad luck when a tear-off visor strip would get caught in his brakes in the opening laps of the race, forcing an early pitstop. The Monégasque worked his way back up to fifth place, before pitting on the penultimate lap in an attempt to take the fastest lap.

The plan; however, failed as Leclerc was passed by Fernando Alonso on lap forty-three, before re-overtaking the BWT Alpine F1 Team driver on lap forty-four, costing him the fastest lap. Leclerc also received a five-second penalty at the end of the race for speeding in the pit-lane, demoting him to sixth place overall.

Ferrari Team Principal, Mattia Binotto, says the team need to “roll up [their] sleeves” if they want to catch up to the huge points deficit between themselves and Red Bull.

Carlos Sainz Jr finished the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix in third place, hanging on to the final podium spot after struggling to match the Oracle Red Bull Racing cars throughout the entirety of Sunday’s event. The Spaniard started the first race back after summer from pole position, after Max Verstappen was demoted to fourteenth as a result of a power unit penalty.

The Scuderia Ferrari driver was able to get a good start and avoid the early race drama between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso behind, before being caught by the Red Bull drivers of Sergio Pérez and Verstappen. Sainz struggled with his tyres towards the end of the race and looked to be under pressure from George Russell, but was able to hold on to take his seventh podium of the season.

“The car felt quite good today and we did our best, but our pace just wasn’t quick enough this weekend to hold on for the win,” said the number fifty-five driver.

“We ran a solid race from start to finish, with good pit stops and strategy calls, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Red Bulls behind, as they simply had more pace.

“Time to analyse and prepare the next week’s race at Zandvoort.”

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen took victory at the Belgian Grand Prix, recovering from an engine replacement penalty that saw him start fourteenth. A masterful charge through the field saw him finish the race nearly eighteen seconds ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez in second place. 

Verstappen said that the result was not without difficulty, as he had to be careful to not get tangled up in the first lap incidents. From there, he said that he was able to gain positions with strategic overtakes and good tyre management. 

“This whole weekend has been incredible. It’s never easy though, it was quite a hectic first lap staying out of trouble, so many things were happening in front of me and everyone was trying to maintain their spot. After the safety car and when it had all calmed down, we made our way forward by picking the right places to overtake and we could look after our tyres.” 

Looking ahead to his home race and beyond, Verstappen said that finishing every race strong will be key, even if the team doesn’t win every weekend– they do, however, want to strive for every victory possible. 

“Now we need to keep on working hard and focus on each race ahead of us. We know that we have to finish every race, we don’t need to win every race but we want to as a Team. Let’s see what we can do in Zandvoort.”