Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Argentine debutant Franco Colapinto took the first pole position of the season at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday.

Both he and Van Amersfoort Racing make their FIA Formula 3 Championship bows this weekend, and have shown their hand at the earliest possible opportunity, starting at the top of the order for Sunday’s Feature Race.

Roman Stanek topped Free Practice earlier in the day, and put his Trident just behind Colapinto, who went fastest with his first valid lap.

Kush Maini finished the session in third place, but was later ordered to start both the Sprint and Feature Race from the pits after failing to stop at the weighbridge, while Charouz Racing System‘s Ayrton Simmons picked up a three-place penalty for the Sprint Race for impeding Maini’s MP Motorsport team-mate Alexander Smolyar at the end of the Russian’s lap.

The ART Grand Prix cars impressed and locked out fourth through sixth position, with Gregoire Saucy leading Victor Martins and Juan Manuel Correa home.

World Champion Max Verstappen started the 2022 season the same way he ended it in 2021, on top. The Dutchman ended the opening day of the Bahrain Grand Prix as fastest, but it wasn’t the usual suspects close behind at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Verstappen enjoyed a smooth opening day, the World Champion was fifth after the first session before claiming his top spot in the afternoon, where conditions were similar to what they will be for Qualifying on Saturday. His best time was a 1:31.936, with both Scuderia Ferrari’s close behind.

Verstappen is happy with how the weekend has started, he does predict though that the true pace of each team is still unknown.

“The car felt good today, testing here last week means we’ve all started in a good place. We had quite a straightforward and smooth day so I’m pretty happy, we also tried a few things on the car in each session and they seemed to work well. You can see that Ferrari are pushing hard and are very close so that’s exciting.

“Looking ahead, we’ll have to wait and see with different teams’ engine modes, no one is in quali spec yet so I think everyone still has a lot more to give. It’s good to see the teams are all closer together, in general that’s what everyone wants and I think over time teams will get even closer together.”

Trident‘s Roman Stanek topped the times in Free Practice in the FIA Formula 3 Championship‘s first-ever visit to the Bahrain International Circuit.

The Czech driver enters his third season of F3 in 2022, and his best lap of 1:48.012 edged out ART Grand Prix‘s Gregoire Saucy by just two hundredths of a second.

BWT Alpine F1 Team junior Caio Collet went fastest in the early exchanges before the times tumbled in the circuit’s first running of the day.

Franco Colapinto competed in the LMP2 class of the Asian Le Mans Series and European Le Mans Series, and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2021, but steps back into single-seater racing with Van Amersfoort Racing this year and showed his hand to move ahead of Collet as the track developed.

No drivers were able to move into the 1:47s, but Stanek moved to the top of the times towards the end of the session, going a hundredth away from breaking the 1:48s barrier.

Max Verstappen led the second free practice session of the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir.

Charles Leclerc finished in second position, just 0.087 seconds slower than the Dutchman. Team-mate Carlos Sainz finished in third position at the end of the session.

The second free practice session of the opening race at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir started with air temperatures at 17 degrees C and track temperatures at 22 degrees C. The conditions were chilly and the session was at a time more representative of the qualification session and race.

Most of the drivers came out on the medium compound tyres. The Scuderia Ferrari drivers set the early place with Leclerc at the top of the time charts with a lap time of 1m33.121s.

Verstappen was out on the track ten minutes into the session. Verstappen slotted into second position with his first effort with a lap time of 1m33.621s .

Pierre Gasly finished on top of the time charts in the first free practice session 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain.

Charles Leclerc finished in second position ahead of his team-mate Carlos Sainz at the end of the first practice session.

The first free practice session of the opening race of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship started at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir with air temperatures at 20 degrees C and track temperatures at 36 degrees C.

The brand new 2022 challengers under the new regulations looked strikingly different from the cars of last season. Each car was a unique interpretation of the regulations as the new 2022 season was underway.

Nico Hulkenberg replaced Sebastian Vettel, who has tested positive for Covid19, for the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team. Daniel Ricciardo was back at the wheel of the MCL36 after missing the second test with Covid19-related illness.

The third instalment of Chasing the Dream was released on F1 TV last week, showcasing the effort put in behind the scenes from the drivers and teams throughout the 2021 FIA Formula 2 season.

The show dives into the personal lives of some of the brightest talents on the grid over six episodes. This includes Formula 1’s latest recruit Guanyu Zhou and eventual F2 champion Oscar Piastri as well as Théo Pourchaire and Dan Ticktum.

Episode 1: Year of the Tiger

The first episode kicks off with Zhou, looking into his childhood and the impact that the Chinese Grand Prix had on single seater racing in China. Li Bing, a Chinese Formula 1 commentator, states that, “Formula racing in China started to grow rapidly” following the organisation of the Grand Prix.

We then see the grid in action at the first round of the season in Bahrain. Zhou and fellow Alpine Academy driver, Christian Lundgaard, battle for the first four points of the season which comes along with pole position.

The two of them were then joined by another fellow Alpine Academy driver in Sprint Race 2. Oscar Piastri incites an exciting last few laps going wheel to wheel to Zhou and Lundgaard to win his first Formula 2 race, later proclaiming over the radio, “If you don’t love F2, you do now”.

19-year-old Cameron Palmer has been crowned the 2022 Halfords BTCC Apprentice of the Year and will spend the season with the Halfords Racing with Cataclean squad ran by Team Dynamics after beating off competition from apprentices up and down the country.

The competition involved a practical assessment and a tough interview, designed to evaluate the entrants’ skills, knowledge and dedication which Palmer from Ashbourne, Derbyshire did in order to impress the panel of judges.

Currently doing his Level Three apprenticeship, Cameron is developing his knowledge on hybrid and electric cars and will be putting this into practice now at the top level in the BTCC going from road cars to a fully fledged Touring Car.

“The Halfords apprenticeship is a great start in the industry,” he said. “I’m learning through hands-on work and can’t wait to work on high performance touring cars. Winning the competition is a huge career opportunity, and I hope it will help me climb the ladder in this exciting industry and one day go into motorsports.”

This could lead to further opportunities for Palmer with Josh Hall who won in 2019 now a fully fledged race car mechanic for Team Dynamics after winning the same award. He will work with the team who currently have Gordon Shedden and Dan Rowbottom confirmed as their two drivers for the 2022 season.

With the 2022 BTCC season upon us, Team BMW are the latest team to unveil their livery which will adorn their duo of BMW 330e M Sport cars piloted by four time Drivers’ Champion, Colin Turkington and multiple race winner, Stephen Jelley.

Jake Hill is also part of the trio but is running under the MB Motorsport powered by ROKiT banner in a striking matt black effort while for Team BMW, they will go away from that with a white base returning for 2022 as BMW M celebrates its 50th anniversary.

“It’s always an exciting day when we showcase our new livery for the season,” said WSR Team Principal Dick Bennetts.

“It’s no different in 2022 and this year we have two extra factors in both the move to hybrid powertrains and greater sustainability as well as celebrating BMW M’s 50th anniversary.

“I was involved in several BMW Motorsport projects in the 1970s with Formula 2 and the BMW M1 Procar series, and I don’t think I’d have predicted to still be involved all these years later.

Alpine Elf Team have claimed pole position for the FIA World Endurance Championship 1,000 Miles of Sebring ahead of the #708 Glickenhaus Racing. As predicted from their pace in practice, Porsche GT Team will start the first race of the year locking out the front row of the GTE grid.

It became clear early on in the Hypercar and LMP2 qualifying session that the fight for overall pole was between Alpine and Glickenhaus as Toyota Gazoo Racing was still struggling to find optimum pace at the Sebring International Speedway. Nicolas Lapierre led the way in the #36 Alpine, taking provisional pole after the first flying laps. Due to the new qualifying system that came into place in the WEC last season where only one driver from a team has to set a qualifying lap time, Lapierre stayed on board to protect the lap time from charging Olivier Pla.

But there was no need for the Frenchman to sweat; his 1:47.407 was not only the fastest lap time of the race event so far by almost three seconds, but set the Alpine 1.3s up on Pla’s fastest time in the Glickenhaus. It was too much of a deficit for the privateer team to overcome.

The Hypercar/LMP2 qualifying was shortened by 12 seconds after Fabio Scherer – replacing Alex Brundle after the Brit tested positive for Covid – in the #34 Inter Europol Competition went wide through Turn 1 and hit the tyre barrier on the outside of the circuit. There was a lot of damage done to the car, and with the sun setting and only 12 seconds left on the clock the decision was made not to restart. This was much to the annoyance of Sebastien Buemi who believed his team mate Brendon Hartley driving the #8 Toyota was due to improve on his lap time.

If the New Zealand driver had improved, he could have possibly placed the Toyota third on the grid rather than fourth behind the LMP2 pole sitter. Only two tenths off the LMP2 car, Hartley was on an improved lap time and quite possibly would have promoted himself up a position. Still, the fastest Toyota was nearly two seconds adrift of pole-sitting Alpine. Toyota will be hoping their race pace is stronger than their one-lap pace displayed so far.

Two weeks after the grid completed pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, they return for the first round of the 2022 FIA Formula 2 season for another blockbuster year.

This season’s weekend format has reverted to the previous format of a single Sprint Race and Feature Race after the 2021 season saw two Sprint Race’s as well as a Feature Race spread across the weekend.

The Story So Far

PREMA Racing’s Jehan Daruvala was quickest on the Day One of Testing, setting a time which was half a second quicker than the rookie Calan Williams who set the second fastest time.

Carlin’s Liam Lawson was quickest on Day Two and became the first driver to delve inside the 1m42s. He too was half a second quicker Ralph Boschung and Théo Pourchaire who both set identical lap times to take second.

MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich topped the timing sheets on the morning Day Three which saw a sandstorm forcing Race Control to abandon the afternoon session. He finished ahead of his team-mate and FIA Formula 3 graduate Clement Novalak to take the quickest time of the day.

Kay van Berlo drove a near-perfect race to claim an impressive back-to-back victory at Sebring International Raceway for the season opening race week for the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup North America series.

It was another clean start for the field as Kay van Berlo led the field in to the first corner, once again Parker Thompson made a lightning start to get the jump on Riley Dickinson to take second place on the opening lap. Pro-Am driver Carlos De Quesada was an early spinner after contact from Pedro Torres; De Quesada would recover to track to continue.

By the end of the first lap van Berlo, on fresh Michelin tyres, had already pulled out a visible gap to the second placed Thompson. It wouldn’t be long before Dickinson would make his move on Thompson, dropping him to third place with a small tap (which would result in a warning), into the jaws of chasing Leh Keen and Dimitri Dimakos.

In Pro-Am Justin Oakes took the lead on the opening lap, ahead of Efrin Castro, and Alan Metni. For Am Mark Kvamme led John Goetz and Vernon McClure.

Ten minutes in to the forty-minute race van Berlo was in control and pulling away from the field; Teammate Riley Dickinson was 1.357 seconds back with another 2.2 second gap to Thompson, who was being chased down by Trenton Estep, Dimakos and Varun Choksey.

The 2022 FIA Formula 3 Championship gets underway at the Bahrain International Circuit this weekend (18-20 March), with first-year drivers comprising over half the grid.

The Checkered Flag takes a look at the circuits the Championship will visit, recaps the revised weekend format and runs through the drivers currently confirmed to compete in the first round.

Calendar

As always, all rounds support the Formula One World Championship and the FIA Formula 2 Championship.

The season begins with F3’s first-ever visit to the Middle East and Bahrain (18-20 March), before two two-day testing sessions at Circuito Jerez (05/06 April) and Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (15/16 April).

Round Two also takes place at a new circuit for F3, the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari Imola (22-24 April), before moving back to Catalunya, the venue for 2021’s season opener (20-22 May).

MP Motorsport have announced their first driver for the 2022 Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine season, with Russian Michael Belov joining the Dutch outfit.

Belov was twice a race winner for G4 Racing as he raced a partial campaign with them last year, taking victory at Spa-Francorchamps and then again at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia.  He also scored a double podium at the Circuit Paul Ricard in a one-off wildcard appearance with JD Motorsport, although those results did not count towards the championships standings.

The twenty-year-old is aiming high for his first full season in FRECA, with more victories amongst his targets for 2022 as he looks to improve on finishing eighth in the standings last year.

“I’m very pleased to have signed with MP for the full 2022 FRECA season,” said Belov. “I’ve battled MP’s cars on several occasions last year, and back in SMP F4 the MP drivers were my prime rivals. And now I will be one of them myself!

“I definitely aim to add more wins to my FRECA victory tally, and who knows where we will stand at the end of the season? I’m looking forward to the start of the season with great anticipation.”

The two North American endurance racing icons, the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Twelve Hours of Sebring, are known collectively as the “36 Hours of Florida”. Porsche customer teams have experienced great success between the two races with 14 overall victories between the two races since 1968 and have opened the season with a win in both GTD classes at Daytona. With four 911 GT3 R entries, two in each GTD class, the customer teams are ready for a strong fight this weekend.

In GTD Pro the #9 Pfaff Motorsports and #79 Proton Competition will see who can reign supreme after 12 hours of racing. The #9 car is fresh off a 2021 GTD class championship and a win at Daytona this year, after being driven by Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet, and Felipe Nasr.

In the red, white, and blue #79 car will be drivers Julien Andlauer, Alessio Picariello, and Cooper MacNeil. MacNeil won in GTLM last year at Sebring. “The track is legendary and the win in 2021 was very cool as it was the last year for the Porsche 911 RSR to race in IMSA. The new Porsche 911 GT3 R showed its speed at the Rolex 24 winning in both GTD classes,” MacNeil stated,

“We will need to have a clean run with no car issues and no driver mistakes to make it back on the top step of the podium this weekend.”

GTD will feature the #16 2022 Daytona winning Wright Motorsports 911 and the second-year #99 HARDPOINT 911. Wright Motorsports’ 911 will be piloted by Jan Heylen, Zacharie Robichon, and Ryan Harwick. The #99 car will be driven by Katherine Legge, team principal Rob Ferriol, and Stefan Wilson.

PUMA is joining with Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN as the team’s official race gear and training apparel supplier. Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou will don PUMA racewear, and team members will be outfitted in an exclusive training range from the brand. 

 “We welcome PUMA to the Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN family with open arms. Like our team, their brand has a long and proud history in sports and has become synonymous with quality and innovation. They are going to help us deliver performance, not just by enabling our drivers and crew to train and compete with the latest gear, tailored to their needs, but also by pushing their research and development efforts to provide ever better equipment,” Alfa Romeo Team Principal Frederic Vasseur said. 

The sporting brand will also be providing performance gear for the team’s crew to assist them in their preparation at Alfa Romeo’s Swiss headquarters. The team will be wearing PUMA footwear on and off track as part of the partnership.

“We are more than delighted to join forces with Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN as official race gear supplier. Alfa Romeo has got a long legacy in Motorsport being one of the founding fathers of Formula One. The passion for Motorsport is what connects us,” PUMA Head of Sports Marketing Motorsport James Clark said.

Clark said that the brand is excited to collaborate with Alfa Romeo’s brand-new driver line-up, with Zhou coming into the sport as China’s first-ever F1 driver and Bottas being a partner with PUMA for several years already.