Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Regardless of a Jeff Gordon fan’s opinion on the current #24 driver William Byron, it probably did not feel good seeing a #24 blue/red flames car in the wall while leading with two laps remaining. Byron was battling with Joey Logano before the latter moved him aside and into the wall before pulling away to win Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway, as payback for earlier contact.

Logano started on the pole and was stout as he led 108 of 293 total laps, over twice as much as the next driver (Denny Hamlin’s forty-two). Although Kyle Larson was on point early on as he battled with Logano, his race fell apart following a lap 56 spin and engine failure on lap 112. By the end of Stage #1, Logano led Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Byron, Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones, Tyler Reddick, and Bubba Wallace. Chastain won the second stage, with Truex, Logano, Hamlin, Byron, Jones, Bell, Chase Elliott, Aric Almirola, and Daniel Suárez in tow.

Despite getting stage points, Busch, Wallace, and Chastain would not reach the finish. Busch wrecked out on lap 168 after Brad Keselowski hit the wall in front of him, while Chastain spun while racing for the lead on lap 196. Wallace was involved in a nine-car crash that collected him and 23XI Racing team-mate Kurt Busch, Elliott, Hamlin, Jones, Truex, Ryan Blaney, Chase Briscoe, and Cole Custer.

Shortly after the ensuing restart, Byron squeezed Logano into the turn two wall, though Logano kept going. Although Byron had the pace, Logano gradually whittled the margin before catching him on the penultimate lap.

As they entered turn three, Logano hit Byron’s rear bumper, causing him to slide up the wall. With Reddick too far back and Byron dropping out of the top ten entirely, Logano took the white and checkered flags. The win is his first points payer of 2022 after winning the Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and his second at Darlington in a national series after previously taking the now-Xfinity Series victory there in 2012.

Cian Shields took his first GB3 Championship win in the reverse-grid encounter at Silverstone on Sunday, ahead of Nick Gilkes and Bryce Aron.

Shields got past polesitter David Morales off the line, while half the field went three wide through Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel but somehow survived.

Branden Oxley swept across to defend from Matthew Rees into Abbey on Lap 1 but clipped the JHR Developments car’s front wing and sent the reigning British F4 champion across the run-off area.

Nick Gilkes ran second in the early stages, 1.5 seconds clear of Morales, who in turn led Tommy Smith and Bryce Aron.

Roberto Faria pulled into the pits with a puncture on Lap 2, as Max Esterson managed to defend from Race 2 winner Tom Lebbon into Brooklands.

Vermont SportsCar, a longtime partner for Subaru‘s rally operations in North America, is the second team to confirm its commitment to the Nitro Rallycross Class E for the 2022/23 season. Series founder Travis Pastrana will drive the #199 FC1-X, while Conner Martell is in the #21.

“This is a big step for our company and team, and shows we are serious about our commitment to the sport and the future,” commented VSC head Lance Smith. “We are proud to have been a seminal force in the rise of rallycross in the USA beginning over a decade ago, but this next step into the electric space, and where Nitro wants to go with it, makes us excited and more optimistic than ever about the future of the sport. This is spectacular racing and amazing entertainment for fans and drivers. All these ingredients make for a very compelling marketing opportunity for the automotive industry and sponsors. We think Nitro RX is perfectly suited to the EV space and vice-versa.”

Pastrana founded Nitro Rallycross in 2021, during which he won two rounds and the inaugural Supercar championship via tiebreaker. The 38-year-old has extensive rallying experience which includes championships in Rally America and the American Rally Association, while rallycross stints have come in Nitro RX’s spiritual predecessors Global Rallycross and Americas Rallycross.

Despite committing to Group E, he will continue driving in the Supercar class for Subaru Motorsports USA.

“I’ve been driving for VSC since my very first rally nearly twenty years ago,” said Pastrana. “I’m confident we will put forward an amazing effort and I’m excited to enter this next chapter with Lance, his team, and Conner. Conner is a great kid and an amazing young American talent.”

Max Esterson has stepped up from the BRSCC Avon Tyres National Formula Ford Championship, finishing third just a few short years after stepping out of virtual racing and into physical cars.

The American took three wins last year, having previously ranked as one of the top five iRacing drivers in the United States before a year of karting in 2019.

He made a positive start to the second round of the season at Silverstone with two strong results; The Checkered Flag spoke to the Red Bull-partnered driver before Race 3.

“Started fourth [in Race 2], finished fourth, so it’s been a good weekend so far,” he said.

“Much better than Oulton Park, I’m just trying to get some points, be consistent and keep improving. It’s been good.

Tom Lebbon delivered his and Elite Motorsport‘s first win since moving up to the GB3 Championship in Race 2 at Silverstone on Sunday morning.

The Checkered Flag caught up with the 2020 Ginetta Junior champion before Race 3.

“It was a good result for me and the team, getting the team’s first win and my first win in GB3. Overall, a good result for the team and myself.”

He admitted the team expected the first win to come sooner or later, but perhaps not after a disappointing season opener from Lebbon’s side of the garage.

He took one top-ten finish and failed to finish the reverse-grid Race 3 at Oulton Park after contact with Luke Browning.

It was lights out for the first time for W Series in 2022, with Jamie Chadwick taking the victory in the USA for the season’s first double-header at the Miami International Autodrome.

Spanish racing driver Nerea Marti started on pole for the first-time in her career but did not get away well, meaning she fell from the front of the grid, allowing reigning champion Chadwick to take the lead from the starting line.

It was an unfortunate opening lap for Alice Powell, as she brought out a Safety Car after hitting the wall at the exit of Turn 7 resulting in an early retirement from the race. The session was red flagged with the remaining seventeen drivers lining up in the pits, whilst Powell’s car and the debris was cleared from the track.

The second start-up allowed Chadwick to maintain the lead with Emma Kimiläinen close behind for many laps. Battling for third was Fabienne Wohlwend and Marta Garcia, with the Spanish driver managing to come out in front after Wohlwend went wide at Turn 11.

With eight minutes of the race to go, Kimiläinen made her move on Chadwick, managing to take the lead moving herself up into first through Turn 11.

Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen is set to line up third after a tight qualifying ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. Having had to acclimate to a brand-new track and find the right setup with minimal running time, Verstappen was “pleased” with how qualifying had gone. 

“Overall, I was pleased with qualifying today, we are still trying to learn the track and trying to find a decent balance in the car. To be that competitive in qualifying was a big surprise, this is not an easy track to learn.” 

Verstappen missed out on his opportunity to fight for pole, making an error on his final run and ultimately backing out of the lap. He is, however, happy to be on the second row after severely limited running on Friday, only completing just fifteen laps as a result of a day stricken with reliability issues. 

“Of course, we want to be on pole but I think we’ve done a really good job considering where we were yesterday. It’s always going to be tricky and it’s hard to push to the limits when you don’t know the track overly well.”

Verstappen is excited to race the RB18 on Sunday, as the car has shown great straight-line speed and handling– also noting the track’s “slippery” nature outside the racing line. 

Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez will line up on the second row for the Miami Grand Prix, having finished qualifying third and fourth, respectively. Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner is looking forward to an interesting inaugural Miami race, as the team continue their battle at the front with Scuderia Ferrari. 

Qualifying resulted in a tight field at the sharp end of the grid– Horner said that small imperfections put the team out of the running for pole position, leaving a dominant Ferrari to take the first and second positions. 

“It was all about those fine margins today. It was looking positive for us after the first run, but then a small mistake for Max at turn four and that was it for him, and then Checo’s first sector wasn’t good for him, so we start from the second row tomorrow. Ferrari have done a very good job today so credit to them.”

Although the team wasn’t able to best the Italian outfit, Horner is pleased with Verstappen’s “recovery” after missing out on a substantial amount of running during the practice sessions due to reliability issues. 

“Max has been on the back foot today, he’s down on laps on the other guys and still learning about the track so it’s a good recovery from him.”

Tom Lebbon won the second GB3 Championship race at Silverstone, to give himself and Elite Motorsport their first win in their second season in the Championship.

Joel Granfors started from pole for the second time, ahead of Lebbon and Luke Browning.

Everyone made it through Copse cleanly, before Lebbon got past Granfors into Maggotts.

Max Esterson held station in fourth place, while McKenzy Cresswell‘s Chris Dittmann Racing car began to smoke exiting The Loop on Lap 1.

Alex Connor made his way up the inside of John Bennett into Brooklands on Lap 2 to go into P11, but the Elite Motorsport driver took the place back a lap later.

In what could have been dubbed the FIA World Endurance Championship 3 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps due to time lost in caution periods, Toyota Gazoo Racing took their sixth consecutive victory at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps with Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez.

The race was tormented by heavy rain much earlier than expected, with the first specks falling on the track at the end of hour one. From then it was more a race of survival to keep the cars on the circuit for the 106 drivers rather than a race of speed, only really drying in the final hour. Tyre strategy became much more important as putting slicks on at the right or wrong time could make all the different come the end of the race, something that was discovered by pole-sitting Glickenhaus Racing.

Bitter Sweet Victory for Toyota

The American privateer team led the pack away in the hands of Olivier Pla, with the Alpine Elf Team trying to find a way around the outside of La Source. It was a costly move, allowing both the Toyota to get the run on the French car and demote it to fourth overall and in class. Within the first hour, the pace advantage the Toyotas had was proving too much for the Glickenhaus, but it held the lead impressively and stayed within range of the Toyotas once they had passed to drop it to third.

It was at the end of the first hour that the first of three red flags came out. This was the only red flag due to an incident, as they other two were waved thanks to torrential rain and too much standing water on the track. It was the ARC Bratislava that got unlucky going through Stavelot and pitched into the tyre barriers. Spinning around, Miroslav Konopka nearly collected one of the Toyotas as his LMP2 car came to a halt in the middle of the track. Konopka was fine and got out the car unaided once the red flag had waved.

During this red flag, the rain fell hard pushing the FIA to restart under the Safety Car. But even during this period cars were spinning off, showing that the heavy rainfall and lack of running had made the circuit’s track surface treacherous. It wasn’t, however, the wet track that brought woes to the Toyota garage as a hybrid failure saw the then-leading #8 slowing to a stop on track. Sebastien Buemi managed to get the car moving again after a full reset and electrical cycle trackside, but the second stop brought about the end of the race for half the Japanese garage.

Justin Allgaier faced an uphill battle if he wanted to go back-to-back in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Darlington Raceway, but he was more than up for the challenge. He led seventy-six of 147 laps, twenty-one more than JR Motorsports team-mate Noah Gragson as he held off said ally in overtime to win for the first time in 2022.

A rained-out qualifying placed Ty Gibbs on the pole and Allgaier in third, but the latter started at the rear due to a battery change. As Allgaier knifed through the order, Gibbs and Gragson traded the lead in Stage #1 with Gragson winning out. Josh Berry, Allgaier, Riley Herbst, A.J. Allmendinger, Ryan Sieg, Landon Cassill, Ryan Truex, and Friday’s Truck Series race winner John Hunter Nemechek followed. Timmy Hill and Jeb Burton were responsible for cautions during the stage, while Sheldon Creed exited with an engine failure.

Allgaier led his first laps of the day between stages and to kick off the second, holding the top spot before Myatt Snider wrecked on lap 76. Gragson and Allgaier battled for the lead only for the former to go two-for-two in stage victories, while Gibbs got by Allgaier to place second again. Nemechek, Tyler Reddick, Berry, Sam Mayer, Allmendinger, Truex, and Herbst.

The Allgaier/Gragson duel continued in the final segment until furious charges from Allmendinger and Reddick enabled them to join the fight. Unfortunately for Reddick, a tyre went down and sent him into the wall. Allmendinger, who was on older tyres than Allgaier and Gragson, led to begin overtime but quickly fell back.

Gragson’s chase failed as Allgaier scored his first win of the year and snapping a thirty-four-race winless streak dating back to last year’s spring Darlington event. That race also saw JRM cars finish first and second, with Berry filling the latter.

Charles Leclerc clinched pole position at the 2022 Miami Grand Prix at the Miami International Autodrome in Florida. Carlos Sainz was in second position, just 0.190 seconds slower than Leclerc. Max Verstappen was in third position behind the two Scuderia Ferrari drivers.

Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas rounded off the top five positions in the qualification session at this brand new circuit.

The qualifying session started in hot conditions with air temperatures at 33 degrees C and track temperatures at 53 degrees C at the Miami International Autodromo circuit. Esteban Ocon suffered a heavy crash in final practice and his car could not be repaired in time for qualification.

The Pirelli tyre choice at this race is the white-striped hard compound tyres (C2), yellow-striped medium compound tyres (C3), and red-striped soft compound tyres (C4), the middle range of compounds in the Pirelli tyre range.

Q1: Magnussen knocked out

Carlos Sainz with a lap time of 1m30.858s went fastest to take the top spot in the early running. Verstappen with a storming lap of 1m30.235s laid down the gauntlet and went to the top of the time charts. Leclerc with a lap time of 1m29.474s displaced Verstappen at the top of the time charts.

After a highly-anticipated return of W Series‘ third season, the Miami double-header will take place this weekend at the Miami International Autodrome. W Series will campaign its longest race calendar this year with 10 races at eight Formula One supported Grand Prix weekends, with new broadcast partnerships Sky Sports and ESPN showing live footage.

Spanish driver Nerea Marti set the fastest lap time at the Miami circuit of 1:56:915. She will start in front of two-time champion Jamie Chadwick and Bristol Street Motors driver Alice Powell for the season’s first race.

Jenner Racing’s Chadwick was less than one tenth of a second behind the Spanish racing driver after a late collision by Fabienne Wohlwend brought out a red flag with 29 seconds of the session remaining, resulting in the session ending early as she made contact with a wall. Alice Powell, who set the fastest time in yesterdays practice session will start on the second row ahead of Emma Kimiläinen.

The walls and lack of grip out on the track meant that drivers had very small margins for errors. Pole sitter Nerea Marti had a close call with the wall earlier in the session, as Chloe Chambers also span at the entry to the chicane on Turn 14 whilst the other drivers pitted. This caused a four-minute delay in the session but Chambers managed to finish 11th, being the fastest of the five new drivers making their debut in Miami this weekend.

After the red flag, Marti set the fastest lap by seven one hundredths of a second, ahead of Jamie Chadwick who improved from three tenths behind to three tenths ahead. 2021 runner up Alice Powell was showing great pace, being two tenths up on the pole lap time set by Nerea Marti, however due to the incident could not finish her lap and will start in third position for the opening race.

W Series took to the racetrack for the first time in 2022 ahead of its first double-header in Miami. The 18 drivers tested the cars around the Miami International Autodrome for season three’s first practice session.

British racing driver Alice Powell set the fastest time in the session with Click2Drive Bristol Street Motors, topping lap times ahead of CortDAO driver Fabienne Wohlwend who took the second fastest time and reigning champion Jamie Chadwick taking the third.

Emma Kimilainen started out by setting the quickest time at the very start of the practice session. The PUMA racing driver struggled at the beginning of the 2021 season but produced some good results for her team towards the end and after a win at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, collected valuable points for the championship.

Towards the end of the 2022 Miami practice session, rookie Juju Noda crashed into the wall at the exit of turn 16 after following leader Alice Powell, finishing the session ahead of teammate Bianca Bustamante. Emely de Heus also had a spin in the session with Sirin Racing, but managed to stay clear of the walls whilst testing out the championships Tatuus F3 T-318 car as well as the track ahead of qualifying and the season’s first race.

The times throughout the session remained close to each other as Fabienne Wohlwend took a purple sector by over half a second with a lap time of 1:57:212. Powell however pipped Wohlwend setting a lap time of 1:57:118 towards the end. She had a strong 2021 season, coming second in the drivers’ standings after a close battle with two-time champion Jamie Chadwick.

Sergio Pérez led the third free practice session of the 2022 Miami Grand Prix at the Miami International Autodrome in Florida, USA.

Charles Leclerc finished in second position, just 0.194 seconds slower than the Mexican. Max Verstappen finished in third position at the end of the session.

Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel rounded off the top five positions. The two Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team drivers, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, ended the session in fifteenth and seventeenth positions as under the conditions the W13 was porpoising again.

The race started under very hot conditions with air temperatures at 33 degrees C and track temperatures at 48 degrees C.

Verstappen set the early pace with a lap time of 1m34.037s. Leclerc displaced the Dutchman from the top spot with a lap of 1m32.250s. It was game on between the top two contenders as Verstappen went to the top of the time charts again with a lap time of 1m31.355s.