Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The BWT Alpine F1 Team are preparing for the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend at the Bahrain International Circuit, where drivers Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon will be hoping to extract all the performance from the A522.

As a new season approaches, Alpine will be hoping to take their late-form from 2021 into the new season, something which would be very beneficial to them given the new technical regulations this season, which will very possibly shake-up a lot of the field. It was an okay pre-season for Alpine, the French-side did suffer from some reliability issues, something which will most likely play a big factor this weekend.

Nevertheless Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, is extremely proud of all the effort his team has put into this season’s car, as they look to start the season on a positive note.

“It’s always exciting to embark on a new Formula 1 season and, this year especially, there are more question marks surrounding the deeply changed technical regulations and subsequent impact on competitiveness and hierarchy. I’m looking forward to seeing all the hard work from Enstone, Viry and the trackside team come to fruition when Esteban and Fernando drive the A522 at full capacity in real racing conditions. 

“We had some very positive days across Barcelona and Bahrain and we also endured some slightly trickier sessions with the usual testing glitches and gremlins popping up from time to time. I’m very proud of the efforts from everyone in allowing as much preparation as possible. We were able to conclude the Bahrain Test with our two best days of running and over a double century of laps completed. Now, it’s time to see what we’ve got in hand, so bring on this weekend.”

This weekend’s season opening Bahrain Grand Prix will see BWT Alpine F1 Team driver, Fernando Alonso, begin his twentieth season in Formula 1. Both Alonso and team-mate Esteban Ocon are looking forward to getting racing with the new era of Formula 1 cars this weekend at the Bahrain International Circuit.

The veteran Spaniard driver is incredibly entering his twentieth season in the sport this weekend, perhaps it will be his final. Alonso who has won in Bahrain three times during his Formula 1 career, may well find himself getting up to speed quicker than his younger opponents this weekend, the Spaniard has plenty of experience at having to adjust to new technical regulations.

Alonso is feeling good in himself ahead of the season-opener, he is also relatively happy with the team’s A522.

“The winter has gone well for me. I feel in good physical shape and I had some rest over the winter too. We’ve been busy in Barcelona and Bahrain the last few weeks and because we’ve had more time in the car I’m far more prepared. 

“We’re reasonably pleased with the A522 and our preparations over the winter. Nobody knows what fuel or engine modes everybody has been using during testing, so it’s impossible to place an order right now. We always want to do more laps as the learnings are endless in Formula 1 but I’m looking forward to Saturday and seeing where we are against our competition.”

Both Scuderia AlphaTauri drivers, Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda, are looking forward to kicking-off their 2022 season this weekend, at the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Gasly had a very strong 2021 season and was a regular figure in the top eight across the season, the Frenchman will need to enter this season open-minded however with the new technical regulations looking all but certain to reshuffle the field slightly.

The Frenchman is more than ready to get going with the new season, where he hopes his team can work in the right direction.

“We start the year in Bahrain, where I have gone well in the past. I’m ready and excited to get going. Of course, we have to be open minded in terms of what we can expect. One topic of winter testing has been the “porpoising” that affected all teams. From our side, the situation regarding this was already much better in Bahrain than in Barcelona, so it’s one thing we still need to work on, as it’s definitely not a nice sensation and it shakes your head around, but I’m not too anxious about it.

“We seem to be working in the right direction. In terms of the track, we know what to expect after three days testing there last week and so we have a clear idea of what we need to work on to have a good race. We have only had six days on track in total and so there is going to be a lot to do, a lot to learn, with the aim of developing the car as quickly as possible.”

Ferrari have given a first look at the next model that will take on their GT3 hopes in sports car racing, the Ferrari 296 GT3, base on the 296 GTB which will be release this year.

The 296 GT3 will have a huge legacy to live up as it replaces the outgoing Ferrari 488 GT3, the most successful car in Prancing Horse history, which has seen 107 titles from its debut race to date, with 429 wins from 770 starts with both of its Standard and Evo 2020 versions.

The race version retains its links to the production model, which was inspired by legendary cars such as the 1963 250 LM. That car holds a huge importance in the history of Ferrari as it marks the last time they won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright in 1965.

The timing of the new GT3 and links to its past are no coincidence as Ferrari will be returning to the top tier of sports car racing with their Hypercar in 2023, the endurance classic is likely to be seen as the ultimate goal for the brand in sports car racing as they aim to take both the Hypercar and GT crowns.

Production has already started on the 296 GT3 in Ferrari’s Oreca di Signes factory and will feature a 6-cylinder engine. Testing is expected to begin in the coming months as they prepare for its race debut in 2023.

The drama has well and truly begun before the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix for the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team, after Sebastian Vettel tested positive for Covid-19. The German will be replaced by fellow German and Aston Martin Reserve Driver Nico Hülkenberg.

Vettel will not take part in any of the season opening weekend, with Hulkenberg to replace his compatriot starting from Free Practice 1 at the Bahrain International Circuit.

It will be Hülkenberg’s first-time racing in Formula 1 since replacing Lance Stroll at the Eifel GP in 2020, after the Canadian tested positive for Covid-19.

Whilst it is a great opportunity for Hulkenberg, Sebastian Vettel will be highly disappointed to be missing the start of a new and exciting season, hopefully a speedy recovery will allow Vettel back into the AMR22 soon.

In January, Sébastien Loeb finished runner-up in the Dakar Rally in a special rally raid machine developed by Prodrive called the Bahrain Raid Xtreme Hunter. On Wednesday, Prodrive revealed a version of the Hunter that is not only street legal, but significantly faster and more powerful than Loeb’s car to the point where it is promoted as the “world’s first all-terrain hypercar”. It is designed by Ian Callum, who was also the mastermind of the BRX Hunter.

“There are numerous hypercars on the market. However, they all need good roads or even race tracks to show their performance,” said Prodrive chairman David Richards. “We identified that in certain parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, there are vast expanses still to be explored that go way beyond the access provided by asphalt roads. Therefore why not create a vehicle that gives the opportunity to explore these regions with performance way beyond that offered by any off-road vehicle before.”

The Hunter’s engine compartment is a dry sump system sporting a 3.5-litre V6 twin turbo engine which makes it fifty percent quicker than the BRX Hunter. A four-wheel drive vehicle with a six-speed paddle shift gearbox and 480 litre safety fuel cell, it has over 600 bhp and up to 700 Nm in torque that enables it to reach 100 kph in less than four seconds with a top speed of approximately 300 kph.

The paddle shift differs from its Dakar counterpart, which has a manual sequential gear, though components like the engine and double wishbone suspension remain the same in design. Still, even those are different in tuning and performance: besides the aforementioned speed difference with the engine, the suspension on the street Hunter has 400 mm of travel, 50 mm more than the Dakar version.

The chassis is composed of high tensile steel with an FIA-regulation safety cage. Surrounding it is a body made of recycled materials that form a carbon fibre composite frame. Carbon fibre is also used for the seats, and the interior further comes with a six-point safety harness, and a dual fire extinguisher system. The controls of the car are modelled after those of a production car rather than the race-focused BRX’s.

The McLaren F1 Team and McLaren MX Extreme E Team will run with Google sponsorship after the Woking-based team signed a multi-year partnership deal with the internet giants.

Android and Chrome branding will appear on the engine cover and wheel covers of the MCL36 throughout 2022, while similar branding will appear on Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo’s race suits and helmets.

Likewise, Google branding will also appear on the number 58 McLaren MX Extreme E car as well as the race suits of Emma Gilmour and Tanner Foust, the two drivers for McLaren’s first season in Extreme E in 2022.

Google products will also be provided to McLaren, with the team set to use 5G-enabled Android devices and Chrome browsers across their race weekends.

“We are absolutely delighted and proud to welcome Google to the McLaren Racing family,” said Zak Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing.  “Google is a global leader in technology and has been a ground-breaking innovator in connecting people around the world.

A shift in the competitive order of the FIA World Endurance Championship 1,000 Miles of Sebring was seen during second practice, but Toyota Gazoo Racing had been the ones to watch until a penalty stripped them of their fastest time.

The second practice session gave teams the chance to run their cars at cooler temperatures similar to what they will be experiencing in the second half of Friday’s race. Although Toyota were on the pace, it was Alpine Elf Matmut‘s session to lead from the start. The initial pace was set by Andre Negrao in the early stages of the session. He set a 1:50.845, a time only beaten by team mate Matthieu Vaxiviere in the closing stages of the session with an improvement of three tenths.

Brendon Hartley had been second fastest, showing Toyota was back in business after their slow start in the pre-season Prologue, but a pit lane speeding infringement saw the team stripped of their fastest time. Losing three-tenths of a second, the car fell from second to fifth behind the duo of LMP2 United Autosports and the Realteam by WRT entries. Although the timing board reflects the #8 Toyota being down in fifth, the team know they were up in the fight for fastest lap against rivals Alpine, which should give them good confidence going into tomorrow.

The sister Toyota in the hands of Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi still seems to be struggling a little to find the pace of the #8 with the car finishing eighth overall, nearly a second off the leading lap time of the Alpine. Overnight the two crews will likely sit together to work out what the #8 is doing to extract additional pace over the #7.

Filipe Alberquerque led sister car driven by Paul di Resta to a United Autosports one-two, with Realteam taking third. Keeping the LMP2 fight as predicted, between United Autosports and WRT as suggested from the results of the pre-season Prologue, the sister Team WRT #31 came fifth in class, seventh overall.

Kay van Berlo made it a clean sweep of sessions on Wednesday at Sebring International Raceway as he topped both practice sessions and continued his form to take pole position with a lap of 2:03.330 in the Kelly-Moss Road and Race Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.

It was another Kelly-Moss car that would lead the way in the Pro-Am class as Efrin Castro also topped all three sessions of the day, claiming pole position in class with a time of 2:05.299, which was good enough for fourteenth overall, ahead of JDX Racing’s Peter Atwater and Kelly-Moss teammate Alan Metni. The top nine drivers would end the session within one second of each other in the Pro class.

The 2021 runner-up opened the session with the fastest lap, putting in a time pf 2:05.349 before teammate Riley Dickinson outpaced him, improving to 2:04.697. 311RS Motorsport’s Leh Keen briefly put himself in contention for the top spot with a time of 2:04.467 before van Berlo set his fastest lap to take pole position on his third flying lap.

“It’s been a pretty smooth day with first place in all of the sessions so far, obviously very happy with pole,” van Berlo told The Checkered Flag. “It’s a big priority, especially with 43 cars on the track, if you start mid-field or even a couple of cars back you are in a really risky position, especially the opening laps of the race, and especially the beginning of the season, you just don’t want to be in that position.

“We knew that we had a good car, free practice was good, we were in the right direction, within the window already, we just had to put it together, which is not that easy, especially with so many cars out on track, its easy to catch traffic at the wrong moment.

Era Motorsports appeared to come out fighting at the first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round this year, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, only for a gearbox issue to end the team’s race early in the final hour of running.

Drivers Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel, and Kyle Tilley are looking not only for redemption following the Daytona heartbreak but also continued success following a second-place finish last year at the Twelve Hours of Sebring.

It was the team’s amateur-rated driver, Merriman, who set the #18 Oreca LMP2 car in third last year in qualifying. Following a race of demands and attrition, the team would leave with only the second step on the podium, feeling as though they had more left to give.

The Twelve Hours of Sebring typically proves to be an exciting race for both drivers and fans. This is due to the challenge the circuit poses for drivers and the excitement spectators can expect while watching from the festive infield. Dalziel will be experiencing a home race as he lives just 90 miles north of the track in Winter Park.

“We are ready to bounce back at Sebring, literally. We had so much promise at Daytona with no result to show for it, so we are looking to get 2022 back on track,” Dalziel commented,

With the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix just days away, McLaren F1 Team has outlined their hopes and goals for the coming season. As one of 2021’s leading mid-field teams– finishing 4th in the Constructors’ Championship– the team in papaya is looking to make another step forward in 2022. 

“After a busy winter, we’re kicking off another exciting season of Formula 1 and the team is ready to go racing under the new regulations. Our aim is to continue to build on our progress from 2021, further closing the gap to the top and bringing the fight to our competitors,” Team Principal Andreas Seidl said.

Seidl said the team is preparing for the first race by putting in effort to gain further understanding of the car and resolving the issues met during testing. 

“The entire team and our colleagues at Mercedes HPP have worked incredibly hard to build a car under new regulations and delivered a good platform to start the season. We continue to understand the car after a mixed pre-season test and the team are working hard to address the issue we encountered, in preparation for the first race.”

Lando Norris, entering his fourth season in F1, is thrilled to start racing this weekend, and is optimistic in spite of a “tricky” test. 

The 70th running of the Twelve Hours of Sebring will feature three BMW M Motorsports teams and four M4 GT3s as well as Bill Auberlen’s 500th race with BMW.

BMW M Team RLL will field two cars in GTD Pro while Turner Motorsports and Paul Miller Racing will field one car each in the GTD class.

The #24 RLL Motul M4 will feature Philipp Eng, Marco Whittman, and Nick Yelloly while the #25 RLL Motul M4 will be driven by John Edwards, Connor De Phillippi, and Augusto Farfus at Sebring. Bobby Rahal’s RLL team has a successful past at Sebring with GTLM class wins in 2011 and 2012 and claiming the first pole position and podium for the BMW M8 GTE in 2018.

“Over the years we have seen good success at Sebring. We have had two GTLM victories and last year, we had the heartbreak of being taken out of the probable victory just before the chequered flag waved,” Rahal remarked, “Sebring is such a historic race. There are not that many races older. I am always excited to go to Sebring because of that history.”

For Turner Motorsports, Auberlen will drive alongside Robby Foley and Michael Dinan in the #96 car. Auberlen has been racing with BMW M Motorsports since 1996 and in that time he has won a race in every BMW race car he has driven.

Following a third-place finish at Daytona, CORE Autosports aims to defend its Sebring crown, having won by more than 2.5 seconds last year with drivers Jon Bennett, Colin Braun, and George Kurtz.

The same trio will once again be behind the wheel of the #54 CrowdStrike/Flex-Box Ligier JS P320 for this year’s running of the Twelve Hours of Sebring. The CORE team currently has eight podium finishes and four wins at the track to their record.

Despite being half the distance of the prior race, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Sebring is just as, if not more, challenging for both cars and drivers. The track was originally paved in the 1950s, so time and repairs have resulted in a bumpy and rough surface for race cars.

Sebring not only features less lighting than Daytona, but it also lacks Daytona’s banking. Without the long banks, drivers will find little to no take to take a quick breather or perform easy, high-speed overtakes.

Bennett commented on these struggles, “The bumpy nature of the Sebring circuit can certainly grind away at the physical aspect of going fast and maintaining focus during long stints. Inmany ways, this race requires a similar effort to a 24-hour race.”

Porsche customer racing team Wright Motorsports currently leads the GTD class points in both team and driver standings after securing a first-place finish at the Rolex 24 at Daytona six weeks ago.

With the same lineup from Daytona (Ryan Hardwick, Jan Heylen, and Zacharie Robichon) piloting the #16 1st Phorm Porsche, Wright Motorsports will be looking to continue the two-year podium streak they hold at Sebring International Raceway. The team placed first in 2020 with Hardwick, Heylen, and Patrick Long following early race contact and running on a broken shock. In 2021 Long, Heylen, and Trent Hindman would take pole and come home to take the second step on the podium in a Porsche 1-2 finish.

Continued success at Sebring following the Daytona win would assert the team as a competitor to keep on an eye on this season. Sebring International Raceway poses a challenge for both cars and drivers, this is due to how the track was paved in the 1950s combined with various patches making the track especially bumpy. “Sebring is without a doubt the toughest and most grueling race of the year,” Hardwick commented, “We are not planning to let our foot off the gas heading into Sebring!”

Noting the high the team was on following the Daytona win, team owner John Wright also commented on the team’s focus for Sebring, “That was an incredible moment in our team’s history, but as soon as the event was over, it became time to focus forward and get ready for the rest of the season.

“Our team is ready, our car is prepared, and the drivers are focused. Momentum and consistency are on our side, and we are ready for an event that always demands the most from its competitors.”

McAnally-Hilgemann Racing is in its first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season with two entries, but Wednesday saw the team announce plans to expand further, albeit on a part-time schedule. Beginning at Martinsville Speedway on 7 April, the team will complement the full-time #19 of Derek Kraus and #91 of Colby Howard with a new #35 Chevrolet Silverado RST piloted by Jake Garcia.

The #35 will run four more races in 2022 after Martinsville at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (4 June), Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (29 July), Richmond Raceway (13 August), and Bristol Motor Speedway (15 September). Chad Norris, who reached the 2020 Truck Series Championship Round at GMS Racing with Brett Moffitt, will serve as crew chief.

Garcia is a seventeen-year-old late model racer who won the Southern Super Series championship in 2021, the youngest driver to achieve the feat, a year after finishing second in points with Rookie of the Year honours. He won the Pro Late Model title at Five Flags Speedway in 2019, followed by the Super Late Model crown there two years later.

He made his ARCA Menards Series West début in the 2021 season finale at Phoenix for David Gilliland Racing, where he qualified fourth and finished sixth. This past weekend, he entered the Rattler 250 at South Alabama Speedway, where he finished seventh in the Grasshopper 125 support race and fifth in the Rattler.

“I’m excited to work with MHR and Chevrolet in this next step in my racing career,” said Garcia. “I’m looking forward to learning a lot from this opportunity and I look for us to have some good finishes in these races with MHR.”