Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Sam Bird took a dominant victory in the second race of the New York City E-Prix weekend to take over at the top of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship standings.

Jaguar Racing returned to form with a vengeance on Sunday, with Bird taking pole position just ahead of team-mate Mitch Evans, and for much of the race, it appeared it would be the same order at the chequered flag.

Evans was running second when, inexplicably, he clipped the wall at the exit of turn six and damaged his left-rear suspension, leaving him easy pray from the chasing pack.  He eventually slipped out of the points and ended a disappointed thirteenth.

This promoted the excellent Nick Cassidy of Envision Virgin Racing to second, with the New Zealander the only driver to have kept tabs with the two Jaguar drivers in the early laps.  Cassidy had passed Evans for second on track during his first attack mode run but slipped behind his countryman when both used their second.

Bird took the chequered flag 4.167 seconds clear of Cassidy to become only the second driver this year to take a second victory – nine different drivers have won inside the first eleven races – and he jumped from thirteenth in the standings to hit the top!

Top Gun Racing have announced via social media that the team will make their NTT IndyCar Series race debut at the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix next month, held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.

The team made their first ever attempt at the Indianapolis 500 this past May, and unfortunately rookie R.C. Enerson did not have the pace to qualify. Now, the team will step up to the plate again, this time on the road course, and look to make their name in IndyCar.

The team also confirmed that Enerson would once again be the pilot of the entry. Enerson has road course experience in an IndyCar, driving for Dale Coyne Racing three times in 2016 and once for Carlin in 2019, with a best finish of ninth at Watkins Glen International Raceway in 2016. Enerson also has experience in Indy Lights competition with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in 2015, and a half-year with the team in 2016.

The 24-year-old American is also an accomplished sim racer, and was a top contender in the 2021 IndyCar iRacing Challenge.

Neil Enerson, R.C.’s father, confirmed that the team will test on a road course in July, but not at IMS. Enerson did not state what track the test will take place at.

Promotional rights to the FIA European Rally Championship have been awarded to WRC Promoter. The multi-year agreement, announced on Thursday, starts in 2022. As a result, WRC Promoter now has a large set of projects on its plate. The European Rally Championship becomes the promoters fourth FIA series. The Munich-based company has held rights to the FIA World Rally Championship since 2013 and back in February, took on both the FIA World Rallycross and FIA European Rallycross Championships. The ERC’s support series will all be included in the new agreement, ratified at the World Motorsport Council in Monaco.

This announcement brings international rallying into greater synergy. Back in March, the FIA’s announced a five-tier pyramid structure for rallying. At its peak, the Hybrid Powered Rally 1 vehicles in the WRC. The next step down is The WRC support categories and the European Rally Championship itself. 

This structure gives the ERC a position of paramount importance in the Rallying pyramid. Not only is the ERC a coveted title, but it is now firmly entrenched as a definitive stepping stone to WRC glory for aspiring drivers. This will inform how WRC Promoter chooses to promote both the ERC and WRC, according to WRC Promoter managing director Jona Siebel;

“The FIA has entrusted the group with the commercial rights for another major championship. Having built a strong track record in promoting the WRC during the last nine seasons, we’re in a perfect position to add the ERC to our portfolio,” Siebel added.

“We have a high level of organisational, promotional and broadcast experience in our team and look forward with great confidence to working alongside the FIA to develop the ERC as an integral part of the Rally Pyramid.

Team Abba Racing and Century Motorsport took GT3 and GT4 honours in Round 3 of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship at Donington Park, in one of the most incident-packed races in recent memory.

With seven retirements and two safety car periods in the first 20 minutes, the survivors in a shrunken field had a frantic first stint before handing over to the faster Pro and Silver drivers.

Sam Neary took over from father Richard and managed the gap back to Yelmer Buurman for the team’s first win in the series, with Jonny Adam prevailing in a thrilling late battle for third.

In GT4, Century Motorsport took their second 1-2 finish of the season, with Will Burns and Gus Burton winning by over 30 seconds over Chris Salkeld and Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke.

GT3

There was immediate drama as Michael Igoe spun the WPI Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo after contact with Nick Jones in the Team Parker Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

Nick Cassidy missed out on his maiden ABB FIA Formula E World Championship victory in race one of the New York City E-Prix on Saturday, although he refuses to lay any blame on Jean-Éric Vergne on the move that saw him fall from the lead to fourth place.

The Envision Virgin Racing driver had taken a superb pole position earlier in the day – his second of his rookie season – and he was able to convert that into the lead at the start.  He was able to maintain his advantage through both of his uses of attack mode, but he was lower on energy compared to the chasing pack, which was led by Vergne.

The move from Vergne eventually came at the hairpin, but the Frenchman ran the New Zealander wide, which not only meant he fell behind the two-time champion but also Maximilian Günther and Lucas di Grassi.  However, although feeling the move from Vergne was a little bit over the top, he felt it was just a part of racing.

“I think we did a good job today,” said Cassidy.  “At the start of the race I felt very comfortable, under control. The full course yellow didn’t fall my way, though – it was when I had my Attack Mode so I couldn’t extend the gap I had and lost time, which I think is ultimately what cost me.

“I was down a little bit on energy to JEV (Vergne) so I knew that he would attack me somewhere and there was a high chance it would happen at turn 10. He lunged me and, unfortunately, he overshot a bit and ran wide, which obviously left me out to dry.

Lucas di Grassi feels he is back in the battle for the 2020-21 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship title after finishing third in race one of the New York City E-Prix on Saturday.

The Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler driver started seventh and made good use of his attack modes to move up the order, with di Grassi in the ideal position to move up into the podium places when Jean-Éric Vergne attacked Nick Cassidy for the lead.

Maximilian Günther may have moved from third to first in the same move, but di Grassi was perfectly placed to get ahead of Cassidy as well, and he ultimately ended third to move up to ninth in the championship standings.

With the 2020-21 season appearing to be one of the closest, di Grassi is only eighteen points behind joint leaders Edoardo Mortara and Robin Frijns heading into the final five races of the season, the first of which is race two of the New York weekend on Sunday.

“Today was a fantastic day in New York and, after the victory in Mexico, it’s already another trophy,” said di Grassi, who now has finished on the podium three times in New York. “Now, I’m also back in the title fight.

Jean-Éric Vergne finished second in the opening race of the New York City E-Prix on Saturday, but the two-time champion feels he should have taken the victory.

The DS Techeetah driver was running second behind polesitter Nick Cassidy for much of the race around the Brooklyn Street Circuit, and he was conserving energy in a bid to make a late pass on the Envision Virgin Racing driver for the lead.

However, when the move came, both Vergne and Cassidy ran wide at the hairpin, which allowed Maximilian Günther to pass both.  Günther then went on to take his first win of the season and the third of his ABB FIA Formula E World Championship career.

Vergne, who was Formula E champion in both the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, admits he was disappointed to miss out on what would have been his second win of the season and his eleventh victory overall, but at least the points for second place moved him up to third place in the Drivers’ Championship, just four points behind joint leaders Edoardo Mortara and Robin Frijns.

“I qualified second and finished second, it was a good race but it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity,” said Vergne.  “Still, I am very happy with the points and coming back in the championship.

Maximilian Günther secured his third ABB FIA Formula E World Championship victory on Saturday afternoon, with the German coming through from fifth on the grid to win race one of the New York City E-Prix.

In what has been a tough season to date for the BMW i Andretti Motorsport driver – he had only scored points in four of the opening nine races with a best finish of fifth – Günther made up a place at the first corner as Mahindra Racing’s Alex Lynn ran wide, before passing Nissan e.dams’ Sébastien Buemi to run third.

With just eight laps remaining, DS Techeetah’s Jean-Éric Vergne in second made a lunge on long-time race leader Nick Cassidy of Envision Virgin Racing at the hairpin, and with both running wide, Günther managed to stay on the inside and pass both to take over the lead.

Günther was also able to conserve more energy than his rivals, and he was able to hold onto the lead until the chequered flag for his first victory of the season. 

“My third victory in Formula E tastes really good!” said Günther. “New York is a highlight for any driver and it is also the home race for BMW i Andretti Motorsport.

Team Abba Racing and TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK set the fastest times in a 15-minute warm-up session on Saturday morning, as the teams made their final preparations for the Intelligent Money British GT Championship‘s first race at Donington Park this season.

GT3

The story of the morning was that the GT3 field was back up to its full size, after the Team Abba Racing mechanics burnt the midnight oil to repair wishbone damage caused by an exploding brake disc in FP2 on Saturday afternoon.

Richard and Sam Neary start from tenth place on the grid, and will have two hours to demonstrate the pace they showed at Silverstone before a mechanical issue ended their race.

Andrew Howard was first across the line in the Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage, setting a 1:32.177, but it was quickly smashed by several drivers, including Richard Neary in the battle-scarred Mercedes-AMG GT3, who set a 1:29.643.

Howard’s first representative effort was much closer to the front, as times continued to fall at a warm Donington.

A decade after his last IndyCar Series win, Marco Andretti is a Camping World SRX Series race victor. Andretti held off Luke Fenhaus in a green-white-checker finish to win Saturday’s race at Slinger Speedway, his first of the season.

Heat races

Andretti started on the pole for the first heat and led every lap. While the front saw little in the way of drama, Paul Tracy would clash with Ernie Francis Jr. and Hailie Deegan throughout the night, and he was the victim of Heat #1’s lone race-related caution when he spun and cut a tyre.

The second heat saw Willy T. Ribbs on the pole before spinning; Michael Waltrip wrecked to produce a caution too. Deegan spent much of the heat at the front and fending off a pair of NASCAR veterans in Bill Elliott and Greg Biffle, though Biffle would ultimately take the win by .060 of a second.

Heat #1 results

Heat #2 results

Feature

The 150-lap feature was kicked off by Andretti and Fenhaus, the latter running a ringer car as the winner of the Slinger Nationals on Tuesday. The 17-year-old Fenhaus battled with Andretti throughout the first twenty laps before clearing him, which left Andretti fighting with Tony Stewart for the runner-up spot.

After the “fun flag” for running too many laps under green, Stewart took the lead shortly following the ensuing restart. Stewart and Fenhaus traded blows before another caution came for Waltrip’s wreck. Tracy, Francis, and Deegan would also renew their entanglements, which prompted Deegan to indirectly call out Tracy by tweeting that although SRX does not have spotters, drivers “have mirrors that work perfectly fine”.

Maximilian Günther took full advantage of a battle for the lead between Nick Cassidy and Jean-Éric Vergne to steal victory in the opening New York City E-Prix on Saturday.

Günther was running third when Vergne attempted an overtake on long-time leader Cassidy at the hairpin, and with contact made between the two, the BMW i Andretti Motorsport driver was able to pinch the lead.

Cassidy had led from the start having taken his second career ABB FIA Formula E World Championship pole position earlier in the day, with the Envision Virgin Racing driver seemingly in control of the race.

He was challenged in the first corner by a fast-starting Alex Lynn, but the Mahindra Racing driver ran too wide and instead of making up ground from third on the grid, he actually lost two positions and slipped to fifth.

Cassidy was shadowed throughout by DS Techeetah’s Vergne, with the two-time Formula E champion seemingly biding his time and conserving his energy before making a move.  Meanwhile, Günther had made one place up at the start thanks to Lynn’s mistake, and he made a superb pass on Nissan e.dams’ Sébastien Buemi to run third.

Daniel Hemric might be the most snakebitten driver in the NASCAR Xfinity Series today, if not all national series. Despite a strong final stage in Saturday’s Credit Karma Money 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, his hopes of finally breaking through for his first career victory in any series were dashed with a late wreck. Instead, Joe Gibbs Racing team-mate Kyle Busch won his 102nd career race in what is likely his final start in the series, which would cap off the most successful career in Xfinity history.

Busch started on the pole while Austin Dillon was sent to the rear as an injury replacement for Michael Annett. He would go on to lead every lap in the opening stage and win the second.

Hemric found himself in position for much of the final stage as he led 45 laps. However, the incidents began to pile up with less than twenty laps to go beginning with Carson Ware‘s accident. The slower car of Kyle Weatherman stayed out on the ensuing restart, but he spun his tyres and fell back before being clipped by Brandon Brown and Harrison Burton, causing him to go around and set up another restart.

Weatherman apologised to Burton and Brown in a Twitter video, explaining the “shifter got stuck in second (gear) and literally can’t get it to come out of second gear. Of course it happened at the worst time. We were out of tyres, didn’t have any tyres to take. Had good speed, we were running sixteenth, seventeenth all day. Figured we could possibly maintain. I chose the outside to try to give the leaders the inside, of course just a crappy situation.”

Hemric took off and Busch attempted to give him a draft, but he provided too strong of a push that instead sent his team-mate into A.J. Allmendinger and the wall; he would be relegated to a thirtieth-place finish as his drought continues.

The third and final race of the Boost Mobile Super Trucks‘ Townsville 500 weekend appeared to come down to Paul Morris and Shae Davies as the two approached the last corner. However, their battle instead opened the door for Paul Weel to slip past and move from third to first to win his second Stadium Super Truck race.

A field inversion from Race #2 placed Rob Whyte, who retired from said event with a brake failure, on the pole ahead of Phillip Foster. Weel, who won the second race for his maiden SST victory, started last.

Whyte cleared the field early with Davies moving into second. The two ran in the order for the first three laps before Davies passed him in turn two; Whyte tried his own move in the thirteenth and final turn, where they made contact but he failed to make the overtake. A lap later, Whyte fell two spots to Morris and Race #1 winner Toby Price after running wide into turn eleven.

By the first competition caution on lap six, Davies led Morris, Price, Whyte, Shaun Richardson, Weel, Trav Milburn, Dave Casey, and Foster. While the top three pulled ahead on the restart, Weel overtook Richardson and Whyte in a three-abreast pass approaching turn three to take fourth. He gained another position on lap eight when the driveshaft fell out of Price’s truck and ended his race.

Price’s retirement prompted the second competition yellow to come out, and the race resumed on the penultimate lap as the grid exited turn three. Morris took the lead after cutting through the grass in turn seven.

On Friday, fans were perplexed when Michael Annett was replaced at the last minute by Chris Windom for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Knoxville Raceway in his native Iowa. A day later, the move received justificiation as it turned out Annett had suffered a leg injury that will also force him out of the seat for the Xfinity Series event at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Austin Dillon will replace him in the #1 JR Motorsports car.

With less than an hour before the Xfinity Series’ Credit Karma Money 250, Annett pulled himself from the driver’s seat due to his injury; specifics of the ailment, such as when it occurred and if it will impact his schedule, were not disclosed beyond it happening to the leg. The injury forced him to abort the Knoxville Truck start, which would have been his first in the series since 2014, after only participating in practice.

As there was not much time before the green flag, JR Motorsports approached Jordan Anderson and B.J. McLeod—both owner/drivers at the track to oversee their respective teams—before deciding on Dillon. Incidentally, Anderson’s driver Josh Berry is a JRM part-timer who has subtitute experience for Justin Haley at Dover in May, and he also filled in for Kris Wright at the Atlanta Truck event in March. Such a process is not as simple as picking the most qualified driver as a team also has to ensure the replacement can fit into the original person’s seat.

Dillon, a Cup Series driver running his main series’ race on Sunday, is the 2013 Xfinity champion. It will be his first Xfinity oval race since Indianapolis in 2019, though he has only raced sporadically in the series since 2018. He has top tens in all three starts at Atlanta, with the most recent being an eighth in 2017.

“We were calling and scrambling and I’m gonna tell you right now: if I had my helmet and my HANS device, I would have left you in a New York Minute, Rick (Allen),” said JRM owner and NBC commentator Dale Earnhardt Jr. “We went through a bunch of different drivers and reaching out to everybody, scrambling to try to find out who was even here who could do the job. A lot of the Cup guys don’t come in until tomorrow[.]”

With the first ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix just under five months away, key regional and domestic media representatives were given an exclusive tour of the Jeddah Corniche circuit, soon to be the fastest and longest street circuit on the Formula 1 calendar.

Promoters of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix the Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation, welcomed a selection of sports and leisure media to the circuit which is located on the banks of the Red Sea. The tour was led by HRH Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al Abdullah Al Faisal, Chairman of the Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation

The circuit which stretches 6.175km and consists of a challenging twenty-seven corners, will see drivers average 250km/h on what will become not only the fastest street circuit on the calendar but one of the fastest circuits altogether.

The media were shown various sectors of the circuit including the four-story futuristic looking Pit-Building which is set to be complete by October. Not only this but the media were shown the impressive twelve degree banking on turn thirteen and also the main DRS section of the track, where speeds of 322km/h are expected.

The circuit has been built and designed by both Tilke Engineers and Formula 1’s very own Motorsports Division. HRH Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al Abdullah Al Faisal spoke after the tour of his excitement for the grand prix in December.