Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

‘Silly season’ is always a key part of the Formula One season, it gives both fans and teams a chance to fantasise about potential line-ups and future results. The chaos usually begins with a big bang, with 2022 proving to be no different so far.

With five seats left to be filled, and plenty of interested drivers, it’s certain to be a hectic summer break; however, so much has already happened that it doesn’t even appear that the majority of the teams are going to enjoy the luxury of a month off.

In the last two weeks alone, ‘silly season’ has already seen a retirement, a shock switch, a contracted driver told he’s not needed and the threat of legal action.

So, just what has gone down so far in the 2022 ‘silly season’?

Sebastian Vettel announces retirement

Whilst it wasn’t the start of ‘silly season’, Sebastian Vettel‘s retirement announcement prior to the Hungarian Grand Prix has proved to be the big bang that has caused ‘silly season’ carnage. To the surprise of most, Vettel announced in Hungary that he’d be retiring from Formula 1 at the end of 2022, therefore leaving a seat to be filled at the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team.

Team Australia has revealed the Geiser Brothers trophy truck they will use for their three-race campaign beginning with this week’s Vegas to Reno. The truck, painted black and blue, will be piloted Toby Price and Paul Weel at the V2R followed by the Baja 400 and Baja 1000.

The effort was revealed in May, allowing two friends and Australian desert racing rivals to join forces. When Weel returned to racing in 2020 after over a decade away from the sport, he purchased a trophy truck from Price. Since then, the two have competed against each other in series like the Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship and Stadium Super Trucks, the latter of which saw them finish 1–2 on two occasions.

To prepare for their American adventure, Price and Weel competed in Australian events such as the prestigious Tatts Finke Desert Race. Price won the overall for the eighth time in his career (second in the Cars) while Weel retired with an engine failure.

“We’re super proud to be the major partners of Team Australia,” sponsor Quad Lock posted on social media. “Our Aussie legends Paul Weel and @tobyprice87 will take the wheel of the Quad Lock branded Geiser Bros Trophy Truck this weekend at Vegas to Reno, before embarking on Baja 400 and the Baja 1000 in November!”

Price is no stranger to V2R organiser Best In The Desert, racing in the 2020 Parker 425 and finishing fifth in the Trick Truck category. SCORE International, sanctioning body for the two Baja events, has welcomed Price on occasion since 2012, highlighted by a 2019 Baja 1000 run with now-four-time Dakar Rally champion Nasser Al-Attiyah where they finished second overall. Weel will be making his SCORE début.

If poorly handled, concussions can end careers and lives regardless of sport. Four weeks since his Pocono wreck, Kurt Busch hoped his recovery would allow him to be physically able to pilot a NASCAR Cup Series car again, but difficulties in simulator testing proved otherwise. As a result, he will miss his fourth straight race as he sits out Sunday’s Richmond Raceway event. Ty Gibbs will continue his substitute role in the #45 23XI Racing Toyota.

“Brain injury recovery doesn’t always take a linear path. I’ve been feeling well in my recovery, but this week I pushed to get my heart rate and body in a race simulation type environment, and it’s clear I’m not ready to be back in the race car,” Busch wrote on Wednesday.

“This was by far the hardest week emotionally because I do feel the progression of recovery, but racing requires an extreme physical and mental effort, and my body is not 100% able to sustain the intense race conditions.

“I am making progress and pushing hard each day. I am encouraged by my team of doctors, and we will continue to do everything it takes to get me to 100% to return to competition.

“Thanks to everyone for the continued support and best of luck to the 45 team and Ty this weekend in Richmond.”

Perhaps to little surprise, Noah Gragson will graduate to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2023. On Wednesday, Petty GMS Motorsports announced Gragson will drive the #42 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and compete for Rookie of the Year honours.

Gragson is in his fourth season of Xfinity Series competition with JR Motorsports, with whom he has become one of the series’ perennial frontrunners. He has eight career wins to his name and is currently fourth in points with three victories, eleven top fives, fifteen top tens, and two poles.

“To be able to finally announce my plans for next season and officially say I will be competing full time in the NASCAR Cup Series is a dream come true,” said Gragson. “This is what we all dream of when we start racing at a young age, to be able to compete at the top level with the best in the world. I’m excited to join Petty GMS and drive a car that has so much history in our sport, the #42.”

He replaces Ty Dillon, who will depart Petty GMS after just one year. Dillon’s exit was announced in July, and he is currently in the midst of a difficult year as he sits thirtieth in points. While Gragson’s 2023 sponsors have not been revealed, one can assume at least some returning names as he and Dillon are both sponsored by Black Rifle Coffee Company.

With Erik Jones signing a multi-year contract extension to continue driving the #43 in late July, the driver lineup for Petty GMS is set for 2023 and beyond.

The GRX Management Team owner and former world rally champion Marcus Grönholm wants to see his driver Jari Huttunen back in a Rally1 car after a good performance on the debut in Rally Finland last weekend, scoring a points finish in ninth place overall.

Grönholm who is the mentor for Huttunen has told in an interview with WRC.com he wants to see the 28-year-old Finn get established in the Rally1 class and Grönholm do believe the time is right to do it now. Grönholm has a strong connection with the M-Sport squad, which Huttunen was driving for on his debut and now after the frustrated results Grönholm is in talks with Malcolm Wilson to give Huttunen more opportunities as the Ford Puma Rally1 had issues with fuel pressure and a power steering failure.

“I’m not looking at a five-year plan, we need to come somewhere in the next one or two years. It is time to move forward. OK, there are not Rally1 cars easily available and places free, but I hope he can do some good times when he becomes familiar with the car. He won the WRC3 title two years ago but never had the chance to go further. Now we are with M-Sport and Ford and now he had his first chance, finally, to have his first test with a Rally1. It is not easy to come here following his one-day test and to show his speed against others who have been in the car many times is not easy. So far, he is doing OK.”” Grönholm told WRC.com.

Huttunen who is the 2020 WRC3 champion, has already a WRC2 program with M-Sport for this season but the Finn is eager to get more rallies in the Puma soon and through Grönholm´s connections with the official WRC partner Wolf Lubricants, Huttunen could get the backing needed to drive in Finland; “I want to drive this car again, of course, but I don’t know when, I have to thank my sponsors for making it happen for me in Finland. I was going step-by-step and making good progress. The car feels amazing, when we had the problems, all I could do was drive and make no mistakes. I did that.” Huttunen told WRC.com.

For the upcoming Ypres Rally in Belgium next weekend, Huttunen will be back in the M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally2 in the WRC2 class.

Josh Williams joined B.J. McLeod Motorsports for the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series with the hope of running the full season while also débuting in the Cup Series. However, nineteen races later, the two parties will no longer work together.

“Josh Williams and B.J. McLeod Motorsports have mutually agreed to part ways for the remainder of the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season,” reads a statement from Williams on Wednesday. “I would like to thank B.J. and Jessica McLeod for the opportunity, and wish them nothing but the best going forward.”

After five seasons with DGM Racing, Williams signed with BJMM ahead of 2022 on a multi-year agreement that would give him the opportunity to race in the Cup Series for McLeod’s Live Fast Motorsports. Said goal was attained when he ran the Bristol Dirt Race in LFM’s #78, finishing twenty-fifth; the same result came in his second Cup start at Indianapolis four months later.

However, his full-time Xfinity campaign proved to be difficult. After recording seventeen top-twenty finishes in his final year as a DGM driver in 2021, he only mustered three across the first nineteen rounds of 2022; in fact, he failed to qualify for more races (four) than he had top twenties. He finished thirty-sixth on Saturday at Michigan with an electrical issue.

“We would like to thank Josh for all he has done this year and wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavours,” the team shared.

Every sponsorship starts from somewhere, and Sargento‘s support of NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Josh Bilicki has rather unusual roots. The cheese producer is set to sponsor Bilicki’s #45 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet at Watkins Glen International on 20 August, a partnership that spawned from an accident with memetic value.

Sargento is a close partner of Road America in Elkhart Lake, which includes placing its signage around the track and sponsoring the Xfinity race there in 2021. During the Xfinity event in early July, Bilicki was involved in a massive crash on lap 14 that collected thirteen drivers and his attempted avoidance of the carnage took him off the racing surface and into a Sargento signboard. The sign remained affixed to the front of Bilicki’s car as he rejoined the track before being removed without damage to the vehicle. Bilicki would finish thirteenth.

The moment caught Sargento’s attention and, certainly amused, they updated their Facebook page’s banner to a shot of it. Over a month later, the two parties have finally come together for a formal alliance.

“Sargento has been a long-time partner of Road America and we are proud to have this iconic landmark in our own backyard,” commented Sargento CEO Louie Gentine. “When we saw our sign on the front of Josh’s car, we had the same reaction as many others. We like to have fun, so we’re excited to partner with the Wisconsin native for this upcoming race.”

Both Sargento and Bilicki are Wisconsin natives, with the former’s headquarters in Plymouth being approximately fifty miles away from Bilicki’s hometown Menomonee Falls.

The official entry list for the upcoming FIA World Rally Championship round in Greece is now officially announced, the list is featuring a bumper-entry of 13 cars in the all-new hybrid Rally1 cars and a total of 70 crews that will be taking on the legendary EKO Acropolis Rally Greece on 8-11 September.

The biggest team entry will be again by the British M-Sport Ford outfit with a total of six Ford Puma Rally1 cars. The Rallye Monte-Carlo winner and nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb will be returning to do his last round of the season for the team. He will be joined by his two fellow countrymen of Adrien Fourmaux and Pierre-Louis Loubet as well as Craig Breen and Gus Greensmith meanwhile the local hero Jourdan Serderidis is entered as a privateer with support from M-Sport.

Toyota Gazoo Racing is not changing their line-up for this round and we will not see a Loeb vs. Sébastien Ogier battle anymore this season. The line-up consists of the current WRC points leader Kalle Rovanperä, Esapekka Lappi and Elfyn Evans, and Takamoto Katsuta is entered outside the factory team under the TGR NG banner, all in Toyota GR Yaris Rally1.

Hyundai Motorsport will have their usual line-up of Ott Tänak, who won last time out in Finland and Thierry Neuville but replaces Oliver Solberg with the Spaniard Dani Sordo in the third Hyundai i20 N Rally1.

The WRC2 class also sees a huge field of 39 cars where some of the strong names in the class are seen being entered. The current championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen and his teammate Marco Bulacia are entered for Toksport WRT in a pair of Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo machines. Toksport WRT 2 team is also presented at the rally with the Rally Finland winner Emil Lindholm and Nikolay Gryazin.

The officially itinerary for the 11th round of the 2022 FIA World Rally Championship has now been presented as the legendary Repco Rally New Zealand will be making a comeback at over one month for now, the rally which takes place between 29 September – 2 October will see some old classics returning.

The rally will start with the usual shakedown Thursday morning around the Auckland area, the rally ceremony takes place at the Pukekawa Auckland Domain before a super special stage of 1.4 kilometres in the city centre park. The rally´s first full-day on the Friday sees the first of the classic stages when the crews are heading up to the North Island town of Raglan where the world famous stage at the Whaanga Coast as well as two stages nearby Te Akau.

The stages will be ran twice over the day with no service meanwhile they are up there, the Whaanga Coast stage is 29.07 kilometres long, Te Akau South is 31.02 kilometres and Te Akau North is 18.20 kilometres, which will put both men and the machine to the ultimate test, however, the crews are alllowed to stop at the Reglan for a tyre change.

The rally continues on the second full-day of Saturday with more classic stages being ran twice where the 15.83 kilometres Kaipara Hills will open the loops followed by the 22.63 kilometres long Puhoi and ending the loop with the shorted 5.6 kilometres Komokoriki before a mid-day service in Auckland.

The final day of the rally sees a new stage being added at Whitford Forest Te Maraunga Waiho which will be 8.75 kilometres long before the purpose-built 6.42 kilometres test of Jack´s Ridge, also these two will ran twice and the Wolf Power Stage will be rouding-up the rally at Jack´s Ridge. A total of 17 stages are presented in the announcement with a combined stage mileage of 276.44 kilometres.

The 2023 Best In The Desert season will be contested over seven races. The new calendar comes as the crown jewel Vegas to Reno looms on the horizon, with the 2023 edition set as the fifth round of the schedule.

BITD traditionally opens its season in Arizona with the Parker 250 and Parker 425 a week later, with the shorter-distance race being for motorcycles and UTVs while larger four-wheelers contest the later. For 2023, however, both will take place on the same weekend on 4–8 January to help draw more entries who otherwise might not want to make multiple trips to Parker.

A month later, the UTV Legends Championship is scheduled for 17–20 February.

After taking March off, BITD resumes with the Silver State 300 on 20–22 April, the first of three rounds to award double points. 2022 saw a surprise winner when the UTV of Cole Barbieri scored the overall victory for four-wheelers with fellow UTV racer Mitch Guthrie right behind.

18–20 May will see a new double points-paying UTV event, the location and name of which were not immediately disclosed. It can perhaps be viewed as a substitute for the Adelanto Grand Prix, which was cancelled due to financial issues.

Mike Rockenfeller has done it all in endurance and touring car racing with overall wins in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, and Nürburgring 24 Hours, class wins in the Spa 24 Hours and 12 Hours of Sebring, and champions in the Le Mans Series LMP1 and Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. On 21 August, he will add NASCAR to his decorated résumé as he runs the Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International for Spire Motorsports in the #77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. He is also contracted to race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval on 9 October.

“Attracting world-class talent like Mike Rockenfeller is such an honor for Spire Motorsports,” said Spire Motorsports president Bill Anthony. “Mike is a talented, globally accomplished driver and we’re thrilled to introduce him to NASCAR. We’ve invested in getting Mike up to speed quickly through the Driver Familiarisation Test and our partners at Chevrolet have generously offered simulation time for him. Everyone at Spire Motorsports is motivated and committed to providing Mike with a great effort for Watkins Glen and the Charlotte Roval.

Since retiring from DTM following the 2021 season, the 2013 series champion has committed more to sports car racing by contesting IMSA’s Michelin Endurance Cup with Ally Cadillac Racing, a programme that began that year. Sharing the #48 Cadillac DPi with fellow Le Mans winners Kamui Kobayashi and José María López and seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, Rockenfeller and the team’s best finish is fifth at Daytona followed by a sixth at Watkins Glen.

In 2021, the #48 finished second overall at the Rolex 24. Rockenfeller won the 2010 overall as a member of Action Express Racing, who prepares the Ally Racing #48 and assisted NASCAR in developing the Next Gen Cup car.

“Since starting my professional racing career back in the early 2000s, I’ve always kept a close eye on NASCAR,” Rockenfeller commented. “What’s more, after teaming up with Jimmie Johnson, one of the heroes of the sport, my respect and appreciation for NASCAR has grown. It’s an immensely competitive series with some of the world’s greatest drivers racing wheel-to-wheel, merely centimeters apart. Room for error is minimal, at best. Watkins Glen is a difficult track in any car but given how sensitive and big a NASCAR Cup Series car is, I think this will be an even bigger challenge.”

This weekend the long awaited debut of the new all-electric FIA World Rallycross Championship RX1e class will be making its debut, a new era that replaces the old internal combustion engine Supercars in the world level of rallycross, but this will also not be the only thing that is new for the sport this weekend.

Ramudden World RX of Norway will also become the first-ever rallycross race meeting that is not allowing the drivers to use the joker lap on the first lap of each race due to new regulations made by the Rallycross Promoter GmbH and the FIA.

Why you might ask? The new regulations says if a track do have a joker lap placed at the first corner of the venue, it cannot simply be used. So the drivers needs to battle through the first lap before they can split up the tactics on the following lap, however, with the new regulations of the Progression Race format and the new Heats format, the laps are now five instead of the old format of four.

If a driver happens to be taking the joker lap on the first lap, it will not be counted as a valid joker so the driver has complete it one more time during the remaining laps of the race and the regulations are also supplemented for the FIA European Rallycross Championship´s RX1 and RX3 classes as well as the all-electric FIA RX2e Championship support class.

The entry list of eight drivers for the weekend should produce some good action anyway, featuring high-calibre names such as the four-time World RX champion Johan Kristoffersson, 2019 World RX champion Timmy Hansen and his brother, the 2016 Euro RX champion Kevin Hansen, the 2022 RallyX Nordic champion Niclas Grönholm as well as World RX returneer Ole-Christian Veiby and championship regular Rene Munnich, also the debutant Gustav Bergström and first full-time female driver Klara Andersson.

The remaining spot on the calendar is now filled up as the season-finale for the 2022 FIA European Rally Championship has been confirmed last week, the rally will be hosted on the same weekend as the FIA World Rally Championship during 2022 RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada, seeing the two largest rally series in the world sharing same stages and will become an ultimate spectacle for all rally fans.

The asphalt round is scheduled to be hosted on 20-22 October on the hills of Costa Daurada nearby the city of Barcelona. Even if the ERC series will be sharing the same stages as the WRC series, it will be a bit cifferent and be run under its own regulations. The rally starts with a qualifying stage on Thursday morning before continuing on Friday and ends on Saturday meanwhile WRC will continue on to Sunday.

Spain is set to become the longest rally of the year, the two days will be featuring a total of 14 special stages that includes a total of 240.60 kilometres of test and the 24.40 kilometres long El Montmell Power Stage will conclude the rally, where hopefully many champions will be crowned their hard fought titles. The WRC Promoter which owns the rights for ERC and WRC broadcasting, will provide bespoke highlights, TV and social media content throughout the weekend.

“We are hugely excited to announce the event as the final round of this year’s championship, the ERC is committed to developing and raising the profile of young talent. Many of our drivers have aspirations to reach the highs of the WRC and the inclusion of Spain as the final round will give them the perfect opportunity to showcase their abilities.” Iain Campbell, manager of ERC, said.

“Event organisers RACC know exactly what it takes to run a successful rally at this level and they jumped at the chance to have us on board.”

The local hero Lauri Joona won the WRC3 single-make class during the Secto Rally Finland over the weekend and ending the last stage with a 4 minutes and 23.8 seconds lead over the rivals and also did a nearly clean-sweep across the four days by winning almost all except one of the stages.

The FIA Junior WRC regular however did not have the perfect weekend, he faced some power steering issues in his M-Sport Poland built all-wheel-drive Ford Fiesta Rally3 car but despite that he managed to take all stage wins. Before the final day of the rally he had a lead of 3 minutes and 34.7 seconds over the Rally Estonia winner Jan Cerny.

The class win is seeing him moving closer to his fellow countryman and championship rival Sami Pajari, who swithced class for the weekend as he was entered in a Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo fielded by Toksport WRT in the WRC2 class. Joona is now only one point short of snatching the championship lead.

Cerny finished the rally in second place meanwhile class debutant Henri Timonen ended up further 17 minutes behind in third place, the FIA European Rally Championship regular Toni Herranen completes the leaderboard in fourth and Tommi Heino had to retire on Friday after he went off the road.

Official rally results for WRC3:

It has been over a decade since a Dane competed on two wheels at the Dakar Rally. As acceptance letters continue to make their way to those hoping for a shot at the 2023 edition, Thomas Kongshøj will break his country’s dry spell.

Assuming no change of plans, Kongshøj is slated to be the first Danish rider to race at Dakar since Jes Munk in 2011. Munk, the first Dakar competitor from Denmark in general, switched to four-wheel racing following a severe wreck in a 2013 motorcycle accident that left him comatose for fifteen days, and his 2015 Dakar entry came in a buggy.

Kongshøj is a ten-time motocross and enduro champion in his home country, winning the 2007 national motocross title before scoring nine total enduro crowns from 2013 to 2018. Outside of Denmark, he won the Swedish national enduro championship in 2014 followed by the Sea to Sky enduro race in a year later. When not racing, he runs Thomas Kongshøj Adventure for adventure riding and motorcyclist development.

In 2021, he expanded his playing field to cross-country rallying by débuting in the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, which is currently a leg on the World Rally-Raid Championship like the Dakar Rally. Piloting a KTM with DUUST Rally Team, he finished fourth in the Rally2 class and eighth overall. In March, Kongshøj entered the FIM Bajas World Cup‘s Qatar International Baja and finished eleventh overall; he had physically placed fourth but suffered a time penalty for a malfunctioning GPS and lost additional ground while helping a fellow rider.

“Holy shit. This is insane. I cannot believe it. I am a proud man,” began a post by Kongshøj on social media. “I have now received a response from my team and Saudi Arabia that I have just been enrolled and qualified to drive Dakar Rally 2023! A dream that I have had since I was very young is now coming true. I’m SO happy and SO proud of my team and the journey we’re going on in the next three years.