Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Bubba Wallace signed more than just autographs and the Busch Light Pole Award backdrop in the past seven days. Nearly a week after scoring his first career NASCAR Cup Series pole, he received a multi-year contract extension to stay in the #23 Toyota Camry of 23XI Racing.

The news comes with perhaps no surprise as Wallace is a founding member of 23XI Racing, having served as the #23’s driver since the team’s maiden season in 2021 and is one of the most marketable personalities in the sport today. 2022 has been his best statistical campaign to date with career bests in top fives (four), top tens (six), his Michigan pole, and a current standing of nineteenth. He scored his and 23XI’s first win at Talladega in 2021.

Although currently outside the playoff line with three races left in the regular season, he is riding a four-race streak of top-ten finishes, and many have asserted that Wallace’s playoff hopes would be much more secure if not for early struggles with his pit crew. At Michigan, Wallace became only the second black pole winner in the Cup Series (Wendell Scott in 1962 was the first) and finished runner-up.

“Bubba was a key part of the early stages of 23XI, and I am thrilled that he will continue with the team,” said 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin. “When we announced Bubba as our first driver, the goal was to help him take his career to a higher level, and we have done just that. Bubba and the #23 team earned the organization our first win and first pole award, and with a career-best four consecutive top-ten finishes heading into Richmond this weekend, Bubba is continuing to get more competitive each week. We’re excited to see his growth as he and the team work toward achieving our goals.”

Wallace has competed in the Cup Series since 2017. As the championship’s lone black full-time driver, he has helped bring the sport to new audiences by frequently commenting on social issues and being involved in philanthropic activities. On Thursday, ahead of the Cup race at Richmond Raceway, Wallace hosted “Bubba’s Block Party” with musical performances by hip hop artist Wale and the HBCU Virginia State University’s Trojan Explosion marching band. His marketing power has also attracted major sponsors such as Columbia and DoorDash.

The new age of the FIA World Rallycross Championship finally dawned last night (11 August) as the brand new all-electric beasts were revealed to the public for the first time.

The new RX1e class cars were unveiled during a launch event in the Norwegian town of Stjørdal. The rain could not dampen the spirits of the assembled crowd as they were warmed up by an electric DJ set before the new machines were revealed. There was a similarly excited reception as the drivers stepped out and shared their thoughts on the new era of WorldRX.

Safe to say, they are all eager to get going. Four-time world champion Johan Kristoffersson said: “I think fans are going to be surprised by the performance and speed. I’ve rarely felt so pumped going into a new season – it’s certainly going to be one to remember.”

While this may be a new era for the sport, there are still large elements of familiarity for the fans – one of Volkswagen Dealerteam BAUHAUS‘s main rivals is going to be the similarly legendary Hansen World RX Team, helmed by Kenneth Hansen. Speaking separately to the event, Hansen explained the challenges that have led to this historic moment: “It was not as simple as just removing the internal combustion engine and putting in the electric powertrain – this has been a huge effort by everyone in the team, in Sweden, France and England.”

The end result is cars that produce 500kW of power (the equivalent of 680bhp) and 880Nm of instant torque, making them the fastest rallycross cars ever. They are so fast, they even took former world champion Timmy Hansen by surprise: “I’m very positively surprised by many things, mostly with how fast the car is – it really is as fast as we had been hoping. The speed of the launch is just incredible now – it’s something completely different.”

Just four points apart going into Summer Shutdown, the closest battle in the constructors’ standings is between BWT Alpine F1 Team and McLaren F1 Team, with both teams vying for fourth place in this year’s championship. 

Both Alpine and McLaren have a significant margin on Alfa Romeo Racing, who sits in sixth, while Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team has transcended the midfield teams, having essentially secured a top three result with their recent performances. With the exception of any huge gains made from teams lower in the standings, it appears that the battle for the “best of the rest” will be fought by the evenly-pegged constructors. 

Alpine, who sits at ninety-nine points as of the Hungarian Grand Prix, and McLaren, with ninety-five, have both shown strengths and weaknesses as the season has developed, each with stand-out results and difficult weekends– Let’s take a look at how the season has panned out so far.

Alpine may have comfortably outperformed McLaren at the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix, but the first handful of races ended up playing out in McLaren’s favour. The early-season Australian Grand Prix and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix were McLaren’s two best performances of the season, giving them a great margin over their rivals.

Lando Norris finished fifth and Daniel Ricciardo finished sixth in Australia, coming off a solid qualifying performance and benefitting from some key retirements from ahead. The team made out with an even bigger haul of points in Imola, as both drivers qualified well and were able to snatch seven points in the sprint, followed by Norris’ first and only podium of the season so far with a third place finish. Ricciardo unfortunately didn’t score any points on Sunday, finishing last after suffering a first lap collision with Carlos Sainz. Ultimately, the team brought home twenty-two points from the Imola Sprint weekend, their largest points result of the season so far. 

NASCAR‘s new testing rules for elite drivers from outside the stock car world were put to the test (pun intended) on Thursday as Kimi Räikkönen and Mike Rockenfeller took to Virginia International Raceway for some laps ahead of their Cup Series débuts.

NASCAR’s new non-regular “Select Driver Orientation Test” rules include stipulations like having “elite credentials from the highest forms of motorsports in the world”, testing with an organisation not connected to the team fielding the ride in the race, and both parties receiving express approval from NASCAR. The provisions were outlined in June following the announcement that Räikkönen would enter the Cup race at Watkins Glen in August.

Due to the limitation on the team fielding the test car, Räikkönen and Rockenfeller drove a generic Next Gen car prepared by IMSA team Action Express Racing. Still, Räikkönen’s employer Trackhouse Racing Team brought four employees to provide insight. The car, built as part of Next Gen road course testing in 2021, features no manufacturer badging (though Räikkönen and Rockenfeller will both drive Chevrolets in their races) and sports #31 to reflect AXR’s IMSA programme; the number prompted Justin Haley to quip, “Is Kimi replacing me in the 31?”

Räikkönen, the 2007 Formula One World Champion, previously tested at Virginia in 2011 for Robby Gordon Motorsports ahead of what would have been his maiden Cup start at Sonoma Raceway before going off course, damaging the nose and aborting the start. At the time, the Finn had run a race each in NASCAR’s Xfinity and Truck Series, though he would not return to the discipline for over a decade. Rockenfeller’s entry at the Charlotte Roval for Spire Motorsports will be his first foray into stock cars after enjoying tremendous success in endurance racing and DTM.

While Virginia International Raceway is not on the NASCAR schedule, it is frequently used as a test track for teams hoping to practice for road course racing.

Stoffel Vandoorne is preparing for the most important weekend in arguably his motorsport career, with the Belgian driver on the verge of becoming the Season Eight Formula E World Champion.

Vandoorne has been the class driver throughout the season, and will be hoping for a strong weekend at the brand-new Seoul E-Prix. The season finale looks set to be completely unpredictable, with it being the first time Formula E has visited South Korea, meaning a new track to learn. The weather has also been shocking in Seoul over the last few days, with the city having experienced its worst flooding and rainfall in eighty-years.

The Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team are also close to wrapping up the Constructors’ Championship, putting added pressure onto Vandoorne to deliver. It’s also Mercedes-EQ’s last weekend in the all-electric series, with the team leaving at the end of the season.

Vandoorne is aiming to treat this weekend like any other; however, with so much on the line, that could be extremely difficult to do.

“It looks like we are in for a tricky weekend in Seoul, partly because of the weather, but also with it being a new track for all of us. So, there are quite a few unpredictable factors in the run-up. For me, though, it’s just a race like any other.

The BWT Alpine F1 Team are expecting a battle within the London High Court if Oscar Piastri opts not to honour his contract with the team in 2023, according to Otmar Szafnauer.

Piastri was announced to race for Alpine in place of the departing Fernando Alonso earlier this month, only for the Australian to deny he would be moving up from his role of reserve driver amid rumours of an imminent move to the McLaren F1 Team.

McLaren are rumoured to be bringing in Piastri in place of Daniel Ricciardo despite Alpine claiming a contract is in place for him to partner Esteban Ocon next season, and Szafnauer says the courts are the likely destination for the battle should the twenty-one-year-old fail to honour his contract with the Enstone-based team.

Szafnauer, the Team Principal at Alpine, has already contacted Formula 1’s Contract Recognition Board (CRB) after Piastri’s intentions were revealed, and should the Australian decide not to race for them, compensation will be sought.

“Going to the High Court is over 90% certain that’s what we’ll do,” Szafnauer is quoted as saying on Reuters. 

Helmut Marko, the Motorsport Advisor at Red Bull, has poured cold water onto the rumours that Pierre Gasly has a clause in his contract that would allow him to join the BWT Alpine F1 Team next season.

The recent driver merry-go-round that began with the retirement announcement of Sebastian Vettel has seen Fernando Alonso leave Alpine to join the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team on a multi-year contract from 2023, whilst Alpine’s reserve driver Oscar Piastri has distanced himself from replacing the Spaniard.

Daniel Ricciardo has been muted as a possible Alpine arrival as Piastri has been linked with replacing his fellow Australian at the McLaren F1 Team, whilst another name that has been long linked with the team is current Scuderia AlphaTauri driver Gasly.

However, Marko says the Frenchman is under contract with AlphaTauri for 2023 and does not have any kind of clause within that contract to move away from them.

“There is no exit clause for Gasly, there was none before the summer break and there will be none after the summer break,” Marko is quoted as saying to German publication Sport1.

Short course modified kart racer Drake Bitetti suffered severe head injuries in a mountain biking accident on Monday, resulting in hospitalisation. His team Davis Motorsports has set up a GoFundMe to raise support.

Bitetti has competed in Great American Shortcourse‘s Mod Kart class since the series’ founding in 2021. After placing eighth in points that year with a best race finish of seventh on four occasions, he sits sixth in the 2022 standings across six rounds with a highest run of fifth at the SBC Fairgrounds in June.

He also races in the GBC UTV/Quad/Trophy Kart Short Course Series at Glen Helen Raceway, winning the second round in late February. Glen Helen is too a GAS track, and Bitetti’s Saturday GAS race there in March saw him come back from getting turned and flipped after starting on the pole to finish sixth.

“We are putting this together to help the Bitetti family is this tragic time,” reads a statement from Davis Motorsports owner Brian Benites. “Drake has had a major accident on his mountain bike on Monday he is in Loma Linda hospital with severe brain trauma! He is a great kid and has a long road to recovery!! We all need to come together and help anyway we can.. thank you.”

As of this article’s publishing, the GoFundMe has garnered $3,850 from nine donors, with the goal being set at $25,000.

The Stadium Super Trucks will be entering some unfamiliar territory on 3/4 September when they hit the high banking of Bristol Motor Speedway, so it makes sense for the series to develop some familiarity with the environment beforehand. On Tuesday, race organiser Cleetus McFarland held a test session for his Bristol 1000 weekend that will include the trucks, and part of his itinerary was to drive one around and test various layouts that the series can use.

The Bristol 1000, a 100-lap race between McFarland and fellow YouTube and motoring personalities in Crown Victorias, will be held on Bristol’s legendary half-mile oval and 28° banking. On the other hand, while SST will utilise part of the oval as well, Tuesday’s testing was to see what other elements are usable such as the infield and either pit road.

Truck testing is depicted in McFarland’s latest video posted Wednesday via a series of clips interspersed with Bristol 1000 runs. The first shows him going along the inside line of turns one and two and onto the backstretch before making a U-turn onto the straight’s pit road, where a pair of jumps greets him, and he circles the backstretch and pits. Another lap takes him through the infield and onto the frontstretch, prompting him to propose a ramp each on the infield and start/finish line. Eventually, a Dodge Viper is placed on the backstretch pit road for him to catch air over.

In an onboard lap, the run begins on the frontstretch, and McFarland then rides the first two corners’ banking onto the backstretch before taking a sharp left onto the straightaway’s pit lane entrance. After clearing its jump, he turns right to enter the infield and cuts diagonally before rejoining the oval at the mouth of the frontstretch’s pit entrance. A ramp before the start/finish line then completes his lap.

Speaking with series officials after his lap, McFarland suggests converting the frontstretch ramp into a double set and adding another ramp in the middle of the straight, but notes they would deal with the matter as the weekend arrives. Other conversations include pointing out the truck’s surprising stability on the high banking.

The Grand Prix de Trois-Riviéres venue which have hosted FIA World Rallycross Championship and Americas Rallycross events previously is now confirmed to host the Nitro Rallycross round 7 in Quebec, Canada on 21/22 January 2023.

The Hippodrome haven’t seen any rallycross events being hosted since 2019 when ARX last time visited the venue, the track also played hosts for the World RX of Canada between 2014 and 2018, and the now defuncted Titans RX series also planned to have a round there in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic caused mayhem in the world.

The round will also be the first-time we will see the new all-electric FC1-X cars being raced on snowy surface as GP3R will be the first stop of the two Canadian rounds to host a race during the winter season, the other is a yet To Be Announced still but is located in Alberta.

The European stint of the series is completed and the upcoming round will be at the ERX Moto Park in Minnesota, USA on 1/2 October followed up with a round in Los Angeles before heading to Saudi Arabia to round-up the year. Quebec will be featured as round 7 out of 9 in the 2022-23 season, after the Canada visit the series finale will end the second season and it will be hosted in March at a TBA round in USA.

The Japanese Kazuki Nakajimahe who is a multiple 24 Hours of Le Mans winner and a former Formula 1 driver for Williams Racing back in 2007 to 2009, will be doing his rally debut this weekend drving in a Toyota Yaris N5 at the Varaosaexpert Ralli in Lahti, a support rally event which will be run alongside the Lahti Historic Rally, part of the 2022 FIA Historic Rally Championship.

Nakajimahe didn´t get a breakthrough in F1 and his career was shortlived there but after that the racing career fortune got turned around when he signed up for Toyota Gazoo Racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012, during his time in the WEC, the Japanese scored a total of three back-to-back wins in 24 Hours of Le Mans between 2018-2020 and a further 13 wins, including the driver´s title in the 2018-19 season in WEC.

He announced his retirement from endurance racing at the end of last season and he has since then became the vice president of the Toyota Gazoo Racing´s European division. Now he will be doing his first-ever rally with Aaron Johnston as his co-driver, the Britoin is also co-driving for the fellow Japanese driver Takamoto Katsuta in the FIA World Rally Championship and the car is a national spec N5, similar to the current Rally2 regulations but with cost effiency in mind,

Varaosaexpert rally will also feature the young Japanese drivers of Nao Otake, Yuki Yamamoto and Hikaru Kogure from the TGR´s Next Generation driver development team but those three are entered in a trio of Renault Clio Rally4 cars.

The Team RX Racing owner and legendary Irish rallycross driver Ollie O´Donovan has announced yesterday (Wednesday) that he has withdrawed from the third round of the 2022 FIA European Rallycross Championship in Hell, Norway this weekend.

Reasoning behind this is because of the new Proton Iriz RX Supercar (RX1) that he is using for the 2022 campaign is not fixed due to some technical issues that his son Patrick O´Donovan faced throughout the Nitro Rallycross weekend in Strängnäs, Sweden two weekends back.

Ollie says he wants the car to be fully prepared and functionally for the season remainder in a statement posted by the team on social medias, it is not likely the issues will be adressed for the following Euro RX round in Riga, Latvia neither, but Ollie hopes to be back for the two remaining rounds in Montelegre, Portugal and in Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium.

The statement reads; “We have taken the decision as a team to withdraw from the third round of the European Rallycross Championship at Hell in Norway this weekend. I’m really disappointed as it’s a circuit I love and it’s been a few years since I last raced there. While we are getting on top of the issues Patrick faced when he drove the Iriz RX in Sweden recently, we want to make sure we are totally prepared next time we race in Euro RX. I think it’s unlikely that we will be in Riga either, but we are working hard for return for the final two rounds of the season in Portugal and Belgium, I loved racing at those venues last season in World RX, and of course have the British Championship events to focus on too.”

The Iriz Supercar is a new build for this season, Ollie has used a Ford Fiesta for the past season but he has handed the keys over to his son Patrick to use it in the 5 Nations British Rallycross Championship for this season and the team also owns an older spec Ford Focus, so it is most likely that Ollie will be using that car while the Iriz´s problems gets sorted.

Just a few days after the Rally Finland the teams have switched focus to carry out some pre-event testing on tarmac roads in Belgium to come fully prepared for the upcoming Ypres Rally on 18-22 August.

Hyundai heads to next week’s tarmac rally with high expectations after the win in Finland last weekend and the team also celebrated a one-two finish in Belgium last season when Thierry Neuville won the home rally with Craig Breen finishing in second place.

Ott Tänak, who celebrated the first victory for Hyundai Motorsport in Rally Finland, returned to the wheel of his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car already on Tuesday, just over a day after he stood on the podium and Oliver Solberg was next up to test the Hyundai on Wednesday.

The M-Sport outfit has also moved to Belgium for testing, they were carrying out some tests on Tuesday with Adrien Fourmaux behind the wheel of the Ford Puma Rally1 and continued with Breen on Wednesday, however, the Toyota Gazoo Racing is not presented at the moment but it is known the team have carried out some tests already back two weeks ago.

It is expected the other M-Sport drivers will have a go at testing throughout the rest of the week but it is unsure still in what order they will be running while Neuville is expected to do his testing today (Thursday).

The South African off road icon Lance Woolridge was announced on Wednesday afternoon to be making rallycross debut in the all-electric FIA RX2e Championship support series at the FIA World Rallycross Championship round in Norway this weekend.

Woolridge who has never done any proper side-by-side racing before, beside being an active driver in the current Extreme E series, driving for Veloce Racing alongside a familiar RX2e name Christine GZ, where he has faced a little bit of door banging.

The South African do have a lot of off roading experience from earlier, before he signed up with Veloce to replace Stéphane Sarrazin for this season in Extreme E, he became a two-time a Class T champion in the South African Cross Country Series.

“I’m very excited to enter a completely new discipline for me, that will help me to add a set of skills to my driving and enhance my motorsport career. I will be happy to progress my learning and speed throughout the weekend.” Woolridge said.

Woolridge will be up against some of the upcoming fast young talents including the Höljes winner Viktor Vranckx, Patrick O’Donovan, Isak Sjökvist, Nils Andersson as well as Extreme E rival Laia Sanz.

Scuderia AlphaTauri have confirmed that Red Bull Junior Liam Lawson will make his Free Practice 1 debut at the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix. Lawson’s involvement in the session at Spa-Francorchamps will fulfil the first of two young driver-mandated practice sessions for the Scuderia AlphaTauri team.

Lawson is currently competing in his second Formula 2 season and sits eighth in the drivers championship with two victories to his name. The most recent of the two coming at the Sprint Race around Le Castellet.

Lawson’s strong form in 2022 has seen the young New Zealander promoted to the role of Reserve Driver for both Red Bull-owned teams after Jüri Vips’ time in the Red Bull Junior team came to an end in June.

Meanwhile, Scuderia Ferrari have announced that last season’s Formula Two runner-up Robert Shwartzman will take the reins of the F1-75 for both mandated young driver sessions this season.

Both Lawson and Shwartzman ran in the 2021 post-season test around the Yas Marina Circuit. Lawson drove for the Scuderia AlphaTauri team in Abu Dhabi while Shwartzman ran for the Haas F1 Team. Now both drivers will have the chance to impress in an official Formula 1 Weekend.