Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Although the upcoming anime HIGHSPEED Étoile takes place in the future, race fans will easily recognise the tracks that the NEX Race competes on. Six real life modern circuits around the world will appear in the show, all with slight tweaks to their layouts to “accommodate” the futuristic NEX Race cars and new names, before it concludes at a fictional raceway.

Fuji Speedway is the only track of the seven that is currently used by the Super Formula Championship, who has a partnership with the HSE project. Known as Neo Fuji Speedway in the anime, its design is based on the original six-kilometre configuration used from its opening in 1965 to 1974. The most notable feature of this layout is the infamous “Daiichi” corner, a NASCAR oval-inspired banked turn that was depicted in HSE‘s first promotional teaser last March. Neo Fuji Speedway is also the lone circuit that will appear in multiple episodes starting with the pilot.

Episode 2 will star Bahrain International Circuit as Shangri-La Desert Circuit, its course almost identical to its current Grand Prix counterpart used by Formula One. The only notable difference lies in the addition of a kink on the straightaway between turns thirteen and fourteen.

The iconic Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo will be in Episode 5 as Circuit de Plancipote. The street circuit, particularly the Mirabeau corner and Nouvelle Chicane, appears in the show’s second PV released in early March.

Circuit of the Americas, host of a wide variety of motorsport including F1 and NASCAR, becomes Wilderness Frontier Circuit for Episode 7. While much of its design remains, the final two turns have been replaced by an oval-like corner. Interlagos’ Autódromo José Carlos Pace, home of the São Paulo Grand Prix, will also appear in this episode with the name La Pa Ortiz Circuit.

If horseshoes, incense, and the power of prayer aren’t turning around their luck, Toby Price, Paul Weel, and Kellon Walch should probably try hiring an exorcist to finally slay their Baja demons.

Team Australia has more than proven to be one of the fastest trucks in SCORE International, but do not have the results to show for it as mechanical failures plague them virtually every race. The San Felipe 250 was just another addition to their string of miserable luck as Price battled with Alan Ampudia for the win throughout the day—going as far as to bypass swapping him out for Weel as scheduled—and eventually took the lead with twenty miles to go, only for a bolt on the right front control arm to break. Unable to get it repaired in time, the team was forced to retire yet again; since their début in 2022, they have only completed two of seven races.

With Price out of the picture, Ampudia simply had to hold off twice defending race winner Luke McMillin for the win, which he easily pulled off by nine minutes after topping qualifying on Thursday. Joined by his brothers Aaron and Rodrigo and navigator Kyle Craft, Rodrigo the overall UTV victor in 2023, he scored his maiden SF 250 triumph and became the first Mexican driver of record to win a SCORE Four-Wheeler overall race since he and his family triumphed at the 2019 Baja 1000.

“Feels good. It feels good to win this, what an incredible feeling,” said Ampudia at the finish. “No problems except at the last part, a tyre started to go down and we decided to take a chance and go flat for the last twenty miles.

“The plan for the race was to keep the car going without stopping and so we did it, taking care of the car so we didn’t have to push it too much. At the end, we knew the lead we had was still a minute away and we decided to step on it, and here we are.”

Round three of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season is in the books, and for the first time this year, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Scuderia Ferrari found their way to victory, who took his third career win just two weeks after surgery for appendicitis.

Max Verstappen’s dominant start to the season came to an end after brake issues saw the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver retire after just three laps, while the podium was rounded out by Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.

Perhaps the biggest talking point came on the penultimate lap, with Fernando Alonso being given a time penalty equivalent to a drive-through penalty after stewards deemed that he was the reason why George Russell crashed out at turn six.

Here what those from the pit wall and garages had to say after the conclusion of the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park.

Frédéric Vasseur – Team Principal, Scuderia Ferrari

The trip to Albert Park saw the dominant run of Max Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing come to an end, with Carlos Sainz Jr. claiming his and Scuderia Ferrari’s first victory of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Just two weeks after appendicitis that ruled him out of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Sainz was in sublime form and was in a class of his own throughout the afternoon in Melbourne, and he led home a Ferrari one-two ahead of Charles Leclerc.

It was also a good day for the McLaren F1 Team as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished third and fourth, while the sole Red Bull at the chequered flag, Sergio Perez, was a distant fifth.

There was also drama late on as George Russell crashed out, with Fernando Alonso being handed a penalty for braking erratically that the stewards deemed was the reason the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver hit the barriers.

In part two, here is what those who missed out on points in Albert Park had to say about their days in the Australian sunshine.

The trip to Albert Park saw the dominant run of Max Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing come to an end, with Carlos Sainz Jr. claiming his and Scuderia Ferrari’s first victory of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.

Just two weeks after appendicitis that ruled him out of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Sainz was in sublime form and was in a class of his own throughout the afternoon in Melbourne, and he led home a Ferrari one-two ahead of Charles Leclerc.

It was also a good day for the McLaren F1 Team as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished third and fourth, while the sole Red Bull at the chequered flag, Sergio Perez, was a distant fifth.

There was also drama late on as George Russell crashed out, with Fernando Alonso being handed a penalty for braking erratically that the stewards deemed was the reason the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver hit the barriers.

In part one, here is what the top ten finishes in Albert Park had to say about their days in the Australian sunshine.

Just two weeks after surgery for appendicitis, Carlos Sainz Jr. took victory in the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park as Max Verstappen saw his chance of a tenth consecutive race win go up in smoke on just the third lap.

The 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season had started with two races dominated by Verstappen and Oracle Red Bull Racing, but once the Dutchman was troubled by a locking rear brake, it was game over for the championship leader, and he pulled into the pits with his right rear corner in flames.

Sainz, from second on the grid, took over the lead heading into turn nine on lap two, with the Spaniard showing the kind of form that Scuderia Ferrari will miss in 2025 as the team will replace the twenty-nine-year-old with Lewis Hamilton.

It seemed that Sainz had the race under control, with firstly Lando Norris and then Charles Leclerc chasing him, neither of which could put him under any real pressure as he charged to a third career victory.

Ferrari and McLaren at the Front

With Verstappen out of the way, it was initially Sainz, Norris, Leclerc and Oscar Piastri inside the top four, with George Russell leading the chasing pack for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

In the wake of a botched police raid on Monday morning that claimed the life of Federal Police Special Units (DSU) agent and rally raid competitor Jonathan Savel, three police officers were arrested and charged by the Charleroi Public Prosecutor’s Office for various offences including some in connection to the case.

All three were charged with forgery of documents and embezzlement, breach of trust, violation of professional secrecy, unlawful access of police databases, and weapons violations. One of them also received a criminal conspiracy charge; he was named by two separate investigations by different departments, prompting them to unify their operations, though the office did not confirm if he had any ties to the suspect.

Savel was killed when he and his DSU POSA (“Protection, Observation, Support, Arrest”) team were leading a house raid in Lodelinsart, pursuing a suspect wanted for trafficking arms and drugs. After entering, the fifteen-man group spotted a woman and began interacting with her when the assailant—whom the office said was awakened by the police’s arrival—began firing at them from behind a door. Savel and two other agents were hit five times in the armpits, collarbones, and legs, all body parts that were not protected by bulletproof armour; one officer suffered critical injuries but his condition has improved since, while the other received minor wounds. Reinforcements circled the building and entered from behind, where they discovered the shooter was injured, and he died in hospital.

He was the fifth DSU member to die in the line of duty after Paul Peeters (died 1987), Jozef Grauwels (1990), Marcel Coopmans (1996), and Pierre Goblet (1999), and the first in such a mission.

Three weeks before the operation, Savel competed in the World Rally-Raid Championship‘s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, where he finished twenty-third in Rally2 and fifth among Malle Moto riders. It was his second start in the series after placing fifty-fourth at the 2023 Rallye du Maroc. Both races were part of his quest to make the Dakar Rally in 2025.

Qualifying at Albert Park for the 2024 Australian Grand Prix sprung up plenty of surprises, especially with Lewis Hamilton not making the top ten.

Daniel Ricciardo was once again out qualified by his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, who made Q3 while Esteban Ocon got out of Q1 for the first team this season. Read what the bottom half of the grid had to say below.

#44 – Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

“The car felt great in FP3. It was much improved from yesterday and we were right there at the front. Going into qualifying, the inconsistencies within the car showed up though, unfortunately. The wind typically picks up here in the afternoon and I think we suffered with that today, similarly to how we struggled in FP2. The car is on a knife’s edge, and it is difficult as a driver to work around these inconsistencies.

“It’s not a great feeling for anyone in the team at the moment but we will keep working away. George did a good job today to get the car into Q3. I’ll be focused on coming back tomorrow and trying to do a better job.”

Max Verstappen took pole at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Sergio Pérez.

Lando Norris had an impressive session and will start third following Pérez’s grid penalty, while Australian driver Oscar Piastri lines up fifth. Read what all the drivers had to say following qualifying below!

#1 – Max Verstappen – Oracle Red Bull Racing

“Even though it was a more difficult weekend, achieving pole position today was great. I didn’t really expect to make it on pole, but we kept on making steady improvements throughout qualifying and I felt able to push a little bit better. Over the weekend, we have been struggling with the graining and have had a lot of things to figure out, but we just needed to keep on fine tuning the car with the Team.

The balance of the car got better throughout; as we went through the session it felt easier to manage and I’m very happy with the laps we did in Q3 and surprised myself. We obviously had all the information from Q1 and Q2 and I think we achieved two very good laps. It is a bit of an unknown tomorrow as it is always easy to make a mistake here and it is harder to manage the tyres.

The 2024 Australian Grand Prix gets underway tomorrow with Max Verstappen on pole, but what happened in qualifying?

Verstappen will start ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr. on the front row. It was an impressive performance from the Spaniard, who returned to the paddock after recovering from an appendicitis surgery that saw him miss the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Sergio Pérez’s lap was third fastest but he’ll start the grand prix in sixth on the grid, after the FIA gave him a three-place grid penalty for impeding Nico Hülkenberg.

That means Lando Norris will start on the second row after he completed his best qualifying of the season so far. The Briton finished ahead of Charles Leclerc, who many thought was the favourite for pole position. With Pérez’s grid penalty though, Ferrari will start 1st and 4th, giving them a great chance to get into the lead and battle with Verstappen.

Home favourite Oscar Piastri qualified sixth, starting the race in fifth. The Australian wasn’t too happy with his final lap on Saturday, but he’s still in a great position to score big points in front of his home crowd.

George Russell was the lead Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team and will start Sunday in sixth. Mercedes have really struggled for pace this weekend, so a 7th place start will be a positive for Russell as he continues to perform well in difficult circumstances.

Joaquim Rodrigues is walking away from racing after over three decades of racing in series ranging from motocross to rally raid. He announced his exit from motorsport in a statement posted Saturday.

“For thirty-five years, I dedicated myself, heart and soul, to motocross, supercross, enduro, and, more recently, to rallies,” began Rodrigues. “I always did it intensely and passionately. It wouldn’t have made sense any other way.

“The dedication that led me to the Motocross World Championship and then to the coveted AMA Supercross in the United States accompanied me throughout my entire career. The same dedication and enthusiasm with which I devoted myself to rally raids.

“It wasn’t easy, it never is. Leaving home, still a kid, to join an official team in the Motocross World Championship, alongside the two-time World champion, is a dream of any young rider, packing up and heading to the United States, alone, not knowing what to expect from the fiercest Supercross championship in the world. It reached a point where, more than the lack of motivation, I felt it was time to stop, to change course. The enthusiasm wasn’t the same, and I always respected the teams, the sponsors, and everyone around me.

“It was the same in rally raids. Attracted by the great marathons, I fell in love with the desert. We started in the Dakar adventures with success, defeats, joys, good days, and not-so-good days, but I never gave up on what I set out to do, because giving up is not part of me.”

The upcoming BP Ultimate Rally-Raid will be a special event for João Ferreira as it marks the first World Rally-Raid Championship round in his home country of Portugal. With a homecoming looming, it only makes sense for him to try something different, and that shakeup is in the form of racing the Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus for X-raid Team.

It will be Ferreira’s second time competing in the W2RC’s Ultimate category after making his series début in the Mini at the 2022 Andalucía Rally in neighbouring Spain. He will hope Portugal goes better than that start, where he only completed Stage #1A before crashing out in the following leg.

Since then, Ferreira’s W2RC action has come in the Challenger and SSV categories. He ran much of the 2023 calendar in the former, driving a Yamaha for X-raid, before switching to a Can-Am Maverick for South Racing in the latter class at the season-ending Rallye du Maroc and winning. Ferreira began the 2024 season with a fifth in SSV (third among points-eligible drivers) at the Dakar Rally, and won the opening stage at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge before getting disqualified halfway through for having his crew come onto the racing surface to help him with repairs. After two rounds, he sits fourth in SSV points but will drop in position after Portugal as he moves into Ultimate, which does not have its own class-specific standings, on a one-off. He is expected to return to South Racing for the rest of the season afterwards.

Although his W2RC focus has been in side-by-sides, Ferreira continues to race the Mini in regional competition. In 2022, he won both the Portuguese Cross-Country Championship and FIA European Cup for Cross-Country Bajas (now FIA European Baja Cup). The following year, he upgraded his Mini to comply with T1+ regulations and finished fourth in European Cup points and third in what is now the World Baja Cup. A month after Dakar, he narrowly lost the 2024 World Cup opener at the Saudi Baja by thirty-eight seconds to Yazeed Al-Rajhi.

The BP Ultimate Rally-Raid, set to begin on 3 August, predominantly takes place in Portugal save for a stage that extends into Spain. Both countries will be represented on X-raid Team as Ferreira teams up with the Spaniard Pau Navarro.

The opening two free practice sessions took place on Friday around the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne as the Australian Grand Prix weekend of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season commenced with Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc setting the pace.

However, there was drama for Williams Racing as Alexander Albon crashed heavily, which destroyed his chassis significantly that the team were forced to make a difficult decision to field only one car for the rest of the weekend, with Logan Sargeant missing out.

Oracle Red Bull Racing go into the weekend having finished first and second in both the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but based on what happened on Friday, Australia might present them a more difficult weekend going for the triple.

Free Practice One – Norris Fastest, Albon Crashes

McLaren F1 Team’s Norris set the pace in the opening session, his lap of 1:18.564 just 0.018 seconds clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, while the top six were separated by less than a tenth of a second. 

Verstappen, who is looking to equal his record of ten consecutive race victories this weekend, was only 0.015 seconds clear of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s George Russell, with Scuderia Ferrari’s Leclerc a further 0.002 seconds back.

Dan McMillin acquired a swanky new livery for the 2024 SCORE International season as Monster Energy’s The Beast Unleashed came onboard to sponsor his #23. He ended up finishing San Felipe 250 qualifying on Thursday with what resembled a rat rod with a duct taped #23 on the doors.

McMillin flipped his truck during the reconnaissance lap, navigating through a series of esses before hitting a lump in the ground leading into a lefthand turn and doing two rolls before landing on his roof. The McMillin Racing team removed the body, applied a blank backup shell that left the engine and rear fully exposed save, used duct tape to apply the numbers along the doors, and sent him out. Despite this, he managed to get back on track and complete a lap.

“There was a small mound and I didnt see it,” said McMillin. “I wasn’t going very fast but it just spit me over one or two times. The guys and Roger (Rogelio Pereira Jr.) got it back to the pits and got the truck running again and we went out there and put down a pretty conservative but good lap. The truck seems fine. We will take a good look at it and get ready to race on Saturday.”

Alan Ampudia narrowly edged out defending SCORE Trophy Truck champion Bryce Menzies and Toby Price for pole. Price had swept both qualifying sessions of the 2023 season at San Felipe and the Baja 400, but opted for a more conservative strategy this time around due to the course’s challenging terrain. Defending winner Luke McMillin, Dan’s brother, qualified fourth ahead of Christopher Polvoorde, the latter racing a new Mason all-wheel drive truck.

Mint 400 winner Adam Householder was twentieth in TT.

IndyCar is racing this weekend, but not for points.

That’s a sentence that hasn’t been written since 2008. But this weekend, the series heads to The Thermal Club, a unique motorsports “country club” in California’s Coachella Valley for a combined open test and exhibition race dubbed the “$1 Million Challenge”. The first two days of the weekend will feature over nine hours of testing, with Sunday featuring two heat races followed by an “All-Star Race” on Sunday night.

But there is one big reason why this exhibition is happening: Texas Motor Speedway’s annual date was removed from the calendar, leaving what would have been a six-week gap between of the opening race of the season in St. Petersburg and the following event in Long Beach.

Mark Miles, President and CEO of Penske Entertainment, has his ears open for fan feedback for the series’ first major exhibition event in over a decade:

“I think we’ll see how fans react. And you know, because you do it all the time, that you’ll have a good sense from social media on the fan reaction to the racing… People really enjoyed being there [for testing in 2023]. Maybe raised some of the questions you asked about racing. I hope we’ve addressed them, and we expect to have a really good weekend that people enjoy.”