Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Popular Brazilian driver Lucas Di Grassi has announced that he’ll be joining Mahindra Racing for the ninth season of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, after becoming the first driver in the series to have scored a thousand points.

The ex-Formula 1 driver and 2016 Formula E champion became the first driver in the series to complete one-hundred races and surpass a thousand points, both of which he achieved at the Seoul E-Prix last weekend. Di Grassi is arguably ‘Mr Formula E’, with the Brazilian having taken part in every Formula E race in the championship’s history, as well as being the first ever winner of the series.

He’ll be joining Mahindra for the 2023 campaign where he’ll be tackling the team’s Gen3 car, with the sport’s regulations completely changing for next year. He joins the Indian team after spending a year with ROKIT Venturi Racing, who are going to be taken-over by Maserati‘s new Formula E entrant next season.

Di Grassi will be replacing Alexander Sims at the team, with the British driver having decided to leave the series; Di Grassi will therefore be alongside Oliver Rowland at the side.

It’s exciting times to be part of Mahindra for Di Grassi, with the side set to have the returning ABT Sportsline as their customer team. Di Grassi spent seven years with ABT, giving him a “good springboard”.

The FIA have made moves to remove ‘aerodynamic porpoising’ from the FIA Formula 1 World Championship once and for all with regulation changes to be implemented, some from the Belgian Grand Prix after the summer break.

There has been an outcry from some drivers and Team Principals throughout the 2022 season due to the excessive bouncing down the straights that has been seen, with many reckoning it is bordering on dangerous for the drivers.

Some Team Principals such as Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Christian Horner have said it is up to the teams to address the issues, but the FIA have interjected themselves into the conversation and have made plans to eliminate it from the sport once and for all.

From the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of the month, the FIA will be measuring how much ‘porpoising’ affects each car on the grid, and the sports governing body will be looking for teams to ensure their cars are running safely.

There will also be extra scrutiny on the Central Floor Flexibility, with teams being informed of a re-defining of the stiffness requirements of planks and skids around the thickness measurement holes.

After what feels like an age since discussions began, the FIA has finally ratified the engine regulations for the next era of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, starting in 2026.

The current V6, 1.6-litre layout will remain with the same RPM levels, however the MGU-H element will be removed, while the fuel flow rate will also be reduced with an aim of a power output of around 400kW.

There will also be a lot of ‘standardisation’ and ‘simplification’ measures implemented, including the removal of variable trumpets and their actuation and control systems, as well as the extension of standardising of certain components and/or their design features.  This includes the likes of injectors, knock sensors, ignition coils and some sensors such as torque, temperature and pressure sensors.

As well as these changes, the exhaust systems and ancillaries must be designed to extend to a full Power Unit life, saving teams a significant amount of money in the process.

Fully sustainable fuel will also be introduced, meaning the end of fossil fuels within Formula 1, with the futures fuels coming from either, non-food-bio derived, genuine municipal waste or sustainable carbon captures.

In July, Brad Pérez‘s hopes of making his NASCAR Xfinity Series début fell short when he failed to qualify at Indianapolis. On Saturday, he will get another chance at Watkins Glen International as he drives the #35 Toyota Supra GR for Emerling-Gase Motorsports.

EGR provides a much better, if not assured chance of Pérez starting an Xfinity race for the first time. His Indianapolis entry came in MBM Motorsports‘ #13, one of the weaker teams in owner points, while the EGR #35 is a full-time entry with some cushion in the standings.

“surprise! we back at it again,” began an Instagram post by Pérez. “thanks to [Emerling-Gase Motorsports] for the opportunity to drive this badass GR Supra this weekend at [Watkins Glen].

“wouldn’t be possible without these amazing small businesses coming on board. [Mountain View Property Management], Weiss Sand & Clay, Dusty Pete’s thank you all! 2 local NY businesses and 1 local TX business

“let’s go racing in beautiful upstate NY”

Otmar Szafnauer has no concerns about the focus of Fernando Alonso in his final nine races with the BWT Alpine F1 Team before he makes the switch to the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team in 2023.

Alonso made the surprise move from Alpine to Aston Martin, the Spaniard taking the place that will be vacated by the retiring Sebastian Vettel, and it has sparked a wild mid-season silly season of rumours that involves Oscar Piastri, Daniel Ricciardo and the McLaren F1 Team, amongst others.

Szafnauer, the Team Principal at Alpine, says he sees no reason why Alonso will not give it his all between now and the end of the season, believing the two-time World Champion still shares the same goals as the rest of the team, which involve beating McLaren to fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

“I have absolutely no worries about the rest of the season,” Szafnauer is quoted as saying by Autosport.com.  “Our goals are pretty clear. We want to finish at least fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. I think third is a step too far.

“Fernando realises that too. He’s a professional. He’s a competitor. Once he puts that helmet on, you know as well as I do he wants to do the best he can, if not win.

After a two-year absence, Stanton Barrett will hope to make his NASCAR Xfinity Series return at Watkins Glen International on Saturday. He is scheduled to drive the #47 Chevrolet Camaro for Mike Harmon Racing.

Barrett’s last Xfinity appearance came at Watkins Glen in 2019, where he finished twenty-third for MBM Motorsports. He has competed in the series since 1992, at the age of nineteen, with seven top tens and a best finish of fifth (1996 Atlanta) in 204 career starts. His best run at Watkins Glen in five tries is eighteenth in 2014.

The 2019 WGI start came after another multi-year hiatus as his last Xfinity race prior came in 2016. During that stretch, he did one-offs in the Cup Series for Rick Ware Racing and Spire Motorsports at the Charlotte Roval (fortieth in 2018), Talladega (thirty-fifth in 2019), and the Daytona Road Course (thirty-eighth in 2020); even that Cup stint occurred after a decade away from the series. However, his time in the Cup Series has been exclusively in inferior equipment as he never finished higher than thirtieth.

While his NASCAR résumé has mostly been limited to sporadic starts, he makes his living as a Hollywood stuntman. Recent productions for which he lent his services include the television shows NCIS, Star Trek: Picard, and Stranger Things, as well as movies like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Captain Marvel, Logan, and John Wick: Chapter 3. Barrett made his début as a film director with Navy Seals vs. Zombies in 2015, and it served as his sponsor for his first and only career Camping World Truck Series start at Talladega that year.

Since 2021, Barett’s racing has mainly come in the ARCA Menards Series and Stadium Super Trucks. He ran the Mid-Ohio ARCA races in 2021 and 2022 for Fast Track Racing, whose owner Andy Hillenburg is also closely involved with the film industry, with top tens in both including a sixth in 2022. Barrett recently contested the SST round at the Music City Grand Prix in the #F26 truck (intended to honour the late dirt racer Mark Fields), his second career weekend, finishing seventh and fourth in two races.

Saber Porto‘s Dakar Desert Rally, the first video game covering the Dakar Rally since Dakar 18, will be released on 4 October for PC, PlayStations 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X and S. Pre-orders opened on Tuesday, and those who do so will unlock the Audi RS Q e-tron, the first electric vehicle to win a rally raid’s overall.

The Audi RS Q e-tron won four stages and finished ninth in its competition début at the 2022 Dakar Rally with Mattias Ekström. In March, Stéphane Peterhansel won the overall in the car at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

Part of Saber Interactive, Saber Porto developed Dakar 18 as Bigmoon Entertainment (who previously helped work on games for MotoGP and WRC) before being acquired and renamed by their new parent the following year. It was only the third official Dakar Rally game after Paris-Dakar Rally in 2001 and Dakar 2: The World’s Ultimate Rally in 2003, both of which were by Acclaim Entertainment. Dakar 18 received mixed reviews as it struggled with physics problems and overcomplexity for casual players but was widely praised for its realism.

Following the four-year dormancy, Dakar Desert Rally shifts from the South American setting of its predecessor to the current Rally’s home of Saudi Arabia. The reveal trailer had been released in December 2021.

With the official licence from race overseer Amaury Sport Organisation, over 150 vehicles that raced in the three most recent Dakar Rallies (when the event was moved to its current location) will appear, stretching across five categories (Cars, Bikes, Quads, SSVs, Trucks). Gameplay features touted by the developers include dynamic weather across all four seasons and a day/night transition, the ability to assist fellow competitors in moments of trouble and vice versa, and authentic roadbooks based on those used since the 2020 race.

If you told any Formula 1 fan at the end of 2021 that Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team would be winless by the mid-point of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, they would likely not believe you. With an on-going record of eight consecutive Constructors’ Championship titles, Mercedes have secured their status as one of the greatest ever teams to compete in Formula 1. However, a difficult W13 car has seen the British-based manufacturer struggle to keep up with their rivals so far in the 2022 season, much to the disbelief of the entire paddock.

What went wrong?

The 2022 Formula 1 season is the first of the new era, where regulation changes have been implemented in an attempt to bring the field closer together and overcome the overtaking difficulty that was caused by turbulent air.

The new generation of F1 car features simplified front and rear wings as the most notable change, as well as some floor changes, larger tyres, wheel covers and over-wheel winglets that will lower the amount of turbulent air that is sent in the direction of a following car. These changes have worked very well so far, as we often see closer racing, and drivers consistently following around half-a-second behind another driver for most of a lap – something that was uncommon in the previous generation.

While these changes have brought a lot of good to the quality of racing, a side-effect of these regulations is a phenomenon the paddock calls ‘porpoising’ – where the car violently bounces on the straight as a result of the new aerodynamic regulations on the floor of the cars. Some teams were able to fix their porpoising issues relatively quickly, while other teams took a bit longer to overcome the issue – and one of those teams is Mercedes.

The silver arrows were finding themselves to be several tenths of a second behind Oracle Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Ferrari as a result of the bouncing. At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton even suffered back pains when climbing out of his car due to the car’s violent bouncing at high speeds. Mercedes’ performance got so bad to the point where Toto Wolff described the car as a “s**t box”.

Ott Tänak says the win in Rally Finland last time out is cetainly a good morale boost for the Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team after struggeling a lot this season with the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car and now the Estonian is looking forward to head to Ypres Rally in Belgium this weekend after moving up to second in the championship leaderboard.

Tänak is explaining the Belgian tarmac rally is quite challenging and demanding as the drivers need to have a lot of confidence in the cars on the narrow roads. Tänak had not the greatest rally last season when he struggeled with setup of the Hyundai i20 WRC car, he ended the rally in sixth place with over 3 minutes down on the event winner and Hyundai teammate Thierry Neuville.

“We head to Belgium on the back of our Finland victory, which was certainly a good morale boost for the team. Ypres is a unique tarmac rally, one that looks quite simple on paper – lots of straights and junctions, and not so many types of corners.”

“In reality, it is actually quite tricky because the junctions and cuts are different and it can be very demanding, especially if the weather is mixed. You need a lot of confidence in the cuts and a stable car. Power will also be really important with acceleration from slow speed. We’ll try to keep the momentum from Finland, even if it’s a very different type of rally.”

Thierry Neuville: “We will need to make sure everything is on point if we are going to be competitive“

Teammate Neuville however hasn´t had the greatest season so far this year after having a lot of issues with the car over the past couple of rallies and had a dissapointing rally in Finland last time out.

Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team´s deputy team principal Julien Moncet says the Rally Finland win last time out is a boost of confidence for the team and it proved the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car is reliable, speaking ahead of the weekend as the team is heading for round nine of the FIA World Rally Championship in Belgium.

The team enjoyed great success at Ypres Rally last season too with the local home hero Thierry Neuville clinching the win in the old WRC spec Hyundai i20 WRC car. The team have had issues with the setup and reliability throughout the season and only had two wins so far with Ott Tänak winning in Italy and now last time out in Finland.

Hyundai has also proved the pace on tarmac rallies can be strong, the only tarmac rally so far this season is the Rally Croatia and there the team also made some progress but are falling more behind when it comes to setting up the cars for gravel rallies.

For this rally the team will have its usual line-up of Ott Tänak / Martin Järveoja. Thierry Neuville / Martijn Wydaeghe and Oliver Solberg / Elliott Edmondson.

“Although it is a short turnaround from the last event, we take a lot of confidence with us to Belgium. The victory at Rally Finland showed that the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 is reliable, competitive, and certainly capable of winning rallies. We also performed well at Ypres last year, with Thierry and Martijn leading an excellent 1-2 finish at their home event. Our pace on tarmac during Croatia Rally was strong, so we hope to reproduce that same speed next weekend on a similar surface.”

The JC Raceteknik squad had a perfect weekend at the World RX of Norway in Hell as the young Norwegian talent Sondre Evjen claimed a second place finish in the FIA European Rallycross Championship for RX1 behind the reigning Euro RX champion Andreas Bakkerud, making it a 1-2 for the home crowd.

Evjen who pilots a similar EKS built Audi S1 EKS RX Quattro as Bakkerud, has been a front-runner in the 2022 RallyX Nordic series with the car and during the weekend he showed some promising results by posting sixth fastest time in the heats and was ranked seventh as he got stucked in traffic in some of the races.

Evjen explained his frustration about the early races as: “a tough start at the beginning of the weekend and we had a hard fight all weekend.” Later in the Progression Race and also in the Semi-Final, Evjen managed to finish in second place to secure a spot in the five-car final.

After the two Hyundai i20 drivers of Anton Marklund and Fraser McConnell had to retire from the final, Evjen only had to defend the second place from the fast charging Janis Baumanis: “It wasn’t perfect from me in the final on the gravel sections either, but we managed to hold it together to the end and to take second place at my home track is fantastic. I’m very happy with the result, the whole team has worked hard this weekend and this is a great result for them.”

Team Principal Joel Christoffersson was also pleased with the fine performance: “We had a good weekend here in Hell, it was a fantastic ending with P2 in the final, thanks to a brilliant move in the first corner. Sondre was driving very well and we had the pace all weekend but with the new race format and not being able to take the joker on the first lap we got stuck in traffic, so it was not so easy.”

When people think of NASCAR, they quickly associate it with American motorsport. Sunday’s Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International, however, will provide an international blend as six drivers each from different countries are on the grid. The weekly presence of Mexico’s Daniel Suárez already makes the Cup grid multinational, but five others will show up as road course ringers including a pair of Formula One alumni, two Cup newcomers, and a lot of success in open-wheel and sports car racing.

Perhaps the most high-profile name of the field is Kimi Räikkönen. The Finn, who dabbled in NASCAR’s lower series in 2011 four years after winning the F1 World Championship, will make his Cup début in the #91 for Trackhouse Racing Team as part of their PROJECT91, a programme intended to attract international racing stars to stock cars. While “The Iceman” will be the first of his country to race in Cup, Mika Salo tested a Cup car in 2009 while Tuomas Pöntinen became the first Finnish NASCAR winner in the Whelen Euro Series at Vallelunga in July.

Räikkönen is not the only F1 driver as Daniil Kvyat will run his second race for Team Hezeberg. The Russian, who last ran an F1 grand prix in 2020, finished thirty-sixth in his maiden NASCAR start at Indianapolis in July following a suspension failure. Kvyat is the first Russian to compete in a NASCAR national tier, while global and regional series have seen the likes of Roman Mavlanov (Euro Series) and Kosma Guznyakov (Weekly Series).

Also driving for Hezeberg is Loris Hezemans of the Netherlands. The reigning Euro Series champion, whose father Toine owns Hezeberg, has run the Cup races at COTA and Road America but failed to finish either due to mechanical trouble.

Representing Germany is Mike Rockenfeller, a DTM champion and Le Mans ace who enters his first NASCAR race. Rockenfeller is contracted to drive for Spire Motorsports at Watkins Glen followed by the Charlotte Roval in October. He is the fifth German to race in the Cup Series after Lothar Motschenbacher (1970), Rolf Stommelen and Fritz Schultz (1971), and Klaus Graf (2004).

For all the common jokes about in-laws, Austin Wayne Self is glad to have a brother-in-law willing to give him an opportunity to further his driving career. On Monday, Jordan Anderson Racing announced Self will attempt to make his NASCAR Xfinity Series début at Watkins Glen International on Saturday, driving the #32 Chevrolet Camaro.

Self’s wife Jennifer, whom he married in April 2021, is Anderson’s sister. While Self has been a Camping World Truck Series regular since 2016, 2022 proved to be more family-focused for him, having skipped multiple races to take care of his newborn daughter Zepplyn Jane.

“I am very thankful for this opportunity with Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport,” said Self. “Anyone that knows me how much I enjoy road course racing and to have the opportunity to attempt to make my Xfinity Series début driving for my wife’s brother’s team is incredibly special.

“We have to qualify for the race on speed, but I am confident with the car and crew we have put together for this race that we can have a successful debut with our #32 AM Technical Solutions Chevrolet Camaro.

“Hopefully, we can see that checkered flag wave on Saturday afternoon and give us a little momentum to hold over until the Truck Series resumes action at Kansas Speedway next month.”

Construction Equipment Dealer Team enjoyed a strong start to their 2022 FIA World Rallycross Championship campaign, but both drivers admit that there is still work to be done.

The team were the only outfit to get all of their cars into the final of the season opening round at Lånkebanen in Hell, Norway, at the weekend (13/14 August).

The gender-equal pairing of Swede Klara Andersson and Finland’s Niclas Grönholm drove valiantly to ensure that the new PWR RX1e was competitive from the beginning of the weekend right until the checkered flag dropped. Andersson was particularly ebullient, having not only debuted the car, but also making her own debut on the WorldRX stage.

Reflecting on her performance, Andersson said: “It’s been a fantastic debut for me in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. It feels absolutely amazing to finish fourth behind such merited drivers as Johan Kristoffersson and Timmy Hansen,” who are the only two drivers on the grid to have world championships under their belts (four and one respectively).

”We have shown our potential and collected valuable experience. The team have really supported me all weekend and pushed me forward. There are still some tenths to find in both me and the car, and I look forward to continuing in Riga.”

Since the inaugural season in 2021, Extreme E has forbidden fans from attending races due to their remote locations and to reduce any environmental detriment that large crowds might bring to said areas. That appears to be changing for the 2022 finale on 26–27 November as the Energy X Prix in Punta del Este, Uruguay, will reportedly intend to admit spectators.

Over the weekend, meetings took place at the José Ignacio resort by Punta del Este between Extreme E officials and representatives from Uruguay’s FIA member organisation Automovil Club del Uruguay (ACU), Energy X Prix promoter Sportlink, and local authorities of the Maldonado and nearby Montevideo Departments. The Extreme E contingent consisted of various directors and series test driver Timo Scheider; the group had travelled from Chile, where they held the same discussions ahead of the Copper X Prix in Antofagasta on 24–25 September. This was the fourth such meeting for XE in Uruguay since the Energy X Prix was announced.

On the agenda were securing media and construction rights, examining the area to determine how to design the track, and ultimately agreeing to allow attendance; the latter further entailed outlining security with cooperation from the department’s emergency and traffic departments.

Punta del Este is new to the Extreme E calendar, but previously hosted its open-wheel older sibling Formula E from 2014 to 2015 and in 2018. FE raced on a street circuit situated on the city’s harbour, which would be a completely new but uncharacteristic track if XE were to follow in those footsteps due to the series’ commitment to leaving a region as untouched as possible upon departing. Instead, while the track layout has yet to be revealed, one can assume the Energy X Prix would take place outside of town where open grass is abundant or along its beaches.