Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Max Verstappen was delighted to take pole position for the Styrian Grand Prix on Saturday, with the Dutchman relatively comfortable in Q3 as his two best laps were good enough to take top spot.

The Red Bull Racing driver continued his fine form of 2021, with Verstappen the only driver to dip beneath the sixty-four second mark in Qualifying, his lap of 1:03.841 more than two tenths of a second ahead of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team pairing of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen says Red Bull have made good gains in Qualifying in 2021, and the championship leaders form continued at the Red Bull Ring as he took his third pole position of the season.

“It is of course a great result to take the Team’s first pole position at our home track and I feel very good about that,” said Verstappen.  “We made a big step forward in qualifying this year and although the car has been competitive and pretty easy to set-up all weekend we still made some good changes for qualifying.

“From my side, the first lap in Q3 felt pretty good. Around here you don’t have many corners but it is actually quite hard to nail the lap because of the braking up to Turn 3 and 4 where it is easy to lose a tenth if you make a tiny mistake.”

Edoardo Mortara took his second career ABB FIA Formula E World Championship victory in race two of the Puebla E-Prix last Sunday, with the win also seeing him take over at the top of the championship standings.

Having finished third in race one on Saturday, the Swiss racer played the perfect tactical battle to defeat Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E Team’s Pascal Wehrlein to the chequered flag to take the win, with the ROKiT Venturi Racing driver scoring forty points across the weekend.

And Mortara says the Puebla E-Prix weekend was the best of his career to date.

“What a weekend,” said Mortara.  “Yesterday, we finished third on the podium and today, we went two steps further to take the win.

“Scoring 40 points on one race weekend alone is incredible and after winning today, I’m honestly speechless. This has been the best race weekend of my entire career.”

Lucas di Grassi feels he is back in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship battle after taking his first win of the season in the opening race of the Puebla E-Prix last Saturday.

The Brazilian finished second on the road but was immediately promoted to victory after Pascal Wehrlein was disqualified from first place after his Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E Team failed to declare his tyres prior to the race.

From eighth on the grid, di Grassi drove well and used his attack mode to good effect to make up places, and he was in prime position once the decision was made by the stewards about Wehrlein.

It is di Grassi’s eleventh Formula E victory, and the thirty-third time he has stood on the podium, and he says his Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler team continue to show their credentials despite the German marque announcing their departure from the championship at the end of the season.

“This victory feels very special,” said di Grassi on Saturday. “Today, we finally proved that our Audi e-tron FE07 is a real winner.

The second round of the 2021 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship began with Race 1 at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon, where Hitech GP‘s Reece Ushijima took his maiden win in the series.

The Japanese-American driver took pole on Saturday morning, ahead of Zak O’Sullivan (Carlin) and Frederick Lubin (Arden Motorsport).

Lubin slipped back to sixth in the opening exchanges, with Bart Horsten, Javier Sagrera and Roberto Faria moving past between Abbey and Aintree.

Alex Connor, Bryce Aron, Max Marzorati and Chris Dittmann Racing team-mate Ayrton Simmons all overtook José Garfias who dropped to 14th.

The top three remained unchanged from then, with Ushijima and O’Sullivan pulling a three-second gap to Horsten and the rest of the chasing pack.

Dan Rowbottom has taken a maiden British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) pole position around the Brands Hatch Indy circuit in a front row lockout with Halfords Racing with Cataclean (Team Dynamics) teammate Gordon Shedden.

A session which saw Jake Hill lead throughout and not a lot of drivers improving, the MB Motorsport driver finished third ahead of Tom Oliphant, Aidan Moffat, Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton, Chris Smiley, Josh Cook and Stephen Jelley.

After criticism from certain quarters about his inclusion in the squad alongside Shedden this season, Rowbottom has once again proved the doubters wrong and will aim for a first race win tomorrow.

While further down, Colin Turkington didn’t have a great session finishing 14th with many title contenders having poor sessions or having times expunged due to track limits offences.

To start off, 21 cars were covered by less than a second early in the session with Hill leading with 48.179 which was +0.078secs ahead of Oliphant with Ingram covering the top three as just over 20 minutes remained.

It’s back-to-back for poles for Max Verstappen after a stormer of a lap during the Styrian Grand Prix qualifying. 

Championship leader Verstappen was the only driver to get his car into the one minute, three seconds times all weekend, and he cemented his place on top with two laps good enough for pole position in Q3.

Q1 – Haas Out Again

Nicholas Latifi still hasn’t been able to outqualify Williams Racing team-mate George Russell. Yet again, Russell got through to Q2, but Latifi just missed out in sixteenth. However, the Canadian was less than seven-tenths of a second behind the best lap of the session.

Esteban Ocon was the surprise omission of Q1. The Alpine F1 Team driver had looked fast all weekend and a Q3 entry was looking promising, but he struggled and could only get seventeenth.

Antonio Giovinazzi was able to not only outqualify his Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN team-mate, but he also pushed his car into Q2. Kimi Räikkönen couldn’t follow him and is starting eighteenth. His session was hindered when he went off at Turn 4 during a flying lap.

Max Verstappen couldn’t complete a hat-trick of fastest times, with Lewis Hamilton topping the final practice session of the Styrian Grand Prix. 

Yet again, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team duo of Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas seemed to be on the back foot compared to Red Bull Racing, but the team was able to pull a couple of rapid laps out to beat their rivals. 

In the battle on top, Hamilton and Bottas came first and third respectively, with the duo being sandwiched by Verstappen in third. Sergio Pérez wasn’t too far behind in fourth. 

Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda seem to be on fine form. Pierre Gasly has been one of the standout drivers of the year and his pace is getting stronger. He was fifth fastest with his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda following just behind him in sixth.

Scuderia Ferrari will be hoping to put the disaster of Paul Ricard behind them after walking away from the French Grand Prix with no points. However, the Red Bull Ring hasn’t been kind to them, with the duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. struggling to have the pace of those in front. Leclerc finished seventh with Sainz Jr. in thirteenth. 

Reece Ushijima topped the times in Qualifying for Hitech GP as the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship began its weekend at a Silverstone on Saturday morning.

Arden Motorsport‘s Frederick Lubin was fastest on Thursday morning’s second pre-event testing session and on Friday afternoon, with Ushijima, Roberto Faria and Javier Sagrera sharing the top of the timing sheets across the six sessions.

The three Carlin cars of Christian Mansell, Championship leader Zak O’Sullivan and Bryce Aron set the early pace in Qualifying, before Faria went fastest for Fortec Motorsport.

Faria’s team-mate Mikkel Grundtvig and Douglas Motorsport‘s Reema Juffali spent time at the top of the table as times fell towards the halfway stage of the session.

Ushijima and Hitech team-mate Bart Horsten sat first and third with eight minutes remaining, sandwiching Lubin.

For the first time in five years, Ryan Ellis will race in the NASCAR Cup Series. Ellis confirmed Friday that he will drive for Rick Ware Racing in October’s race at Kansas Speedway.

The news was initially revealed on Wednesday in an episode of his and Matt DiBenedetto‘s Not Another Racing Podcast show. Cody Ware, a Cup driver for RWR and close friend of Ellis, was a special co-host for the episode and dropped the news shortly after his segment discussing his IndyCar Series début. In the episode, Ware explains the deal came together as his way of making up to Ellis after the Ware wrecked Ellis on the final lap of June’s Xfinity Series race at Mid-Ohio.

“Afterwards, you know how horrible I felt—the text messages were gold, the gifs and everything you sent me,” Ware said. “At that point, me and my dad were talking and obviously, he knows how bad I felt. He felt bad for you too. We both know how hard you work and you’re always digging to find sponsorship to get to the race track any chance you get.

“That’s why we’re super stoked to be able to bring you on for the Cup race at Kansas later on this season, to give you another chance and hopefully just let you have some fun and do what you do.”

Ellis quipped in response, “If you crash me in that race in your dad’s car…

From the Hungarian Grand Prix onwards, the FIA have announced that they will be changes to pit stops in order to reduce the amount of automation involved.

Some teams are thought to be utilising sensors and automatic systems to quicken stops, but the FIA want minimum reaction times of humans to be taken into consideration.

These means at least 0.15 seconds from when the wheel nut is tightened to the jack man being told to drop the car to the ground, while another 0.2 seconds will be taken between the jacks going down and the driver being told to drive away.  This is thought to be a safety aspect before any possible issue arises.

Andreas Seidl, the Team Principal of the McLaren F1 Team, has welcomed the news, and he says it is important to ensure the safety of the pit crew.  He is also delighted it is being introduced before something major happens.

“Safety for our pit crew is one of the most important things for us as a team,” Seidl is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com.  “It’s such a very competitive battlefield in F1, and therefore I think it is good to clarify even further of what the FIA is expecting in order to be within the rules.

Carlos Sainz Jr. says most of Scuderia Ferrari’s focus on Friday at the Red Bull Ring was on long-run pace and testing ways to best keep life in their tyres, particularly on the back of their terrible French Grand Prix last Sunday.

Both Sainz and team-mate Charles Leclerc were unable to keep their tyres in a good operating window last weekend and, after Qualifying inside the top ten on Saturday, both feel out of the top ten to miss out on points.

Sainz says a lot of work will be done on Saturday morning in order to prepare for Qualifying for the Styrian Grand Prix, but for now, they will be analysing the data acquired on Friday in order to prevent a repeat of what happened at the Circuit Paul Ricard last week.

“It was an intense Friday,” said Sainz, who ended eleventh in both Friday sessions.  “In the morning, we tried various set-ups to find the best direction to follow regarding the tyres. Our main aim in both of today’s sessions was to understand the behaviour of the various compounds.

“Tomorrow we will concentrate more on enhancing the car’s performance on flying laps with the aim of qualifying well, but it will not be easy. Our race pace was not bad, but we are cautious and we will continue to analyse all the information and data gathered today.”

In 1982, Jack Ingram became the first champion of what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The two-time series champion and 2014 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee passed away Friday at the age of 84.

Ingram made his name at the New Asheville Speedway and in the Late Model Sportsman Division, the Xfinity Series’ predecessor. He won the Sportsman championship from 1972 to 1974 and continued to race at the level when it transitioned into national series status in 1982 as the Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series. He won a series-high seven races to become the inaugural champion, and repeated with a five-win campaign in 1985. Nicknamed “Iron Man”, his thirty-one career victories were the most in series history until Mark Martin surpassed him in 1997, and he currently ranks sixth all time. Five of those wins came consecutively at South Boston Speedway, including a clean sweep of all four rounds in 1986.

Prior to the Sportsman/Xfinity Series, he made nineteen starts in the now-Cup Series between 1965 and 1968, 1972, and 1981. Ingram scored four top tens at the highest tier with a best finish of second at Hickory in 1967.

He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2007 and the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2014.

“There is no better way to describe Jack Ingram than ‘Iron Man.’,” said NASCAR chairman Jim France. “Jack was a fixture at short tracks across the Southeast most days of the week, racing anywhere and everywhere. He dominated the Late Model Sportsman division like few others. He set the bar for excellence in the Xfinity Series as its Most Popular Driver in 1982 and champion in 1985. Jack was an old-school racer and his work on his own car helped propel him to Victory Lane hundreds of times.

Pierre Gasly started the weekend at the Red Bull Ring superbly with the second fastest time in first practice on Friday, but the Frenchman was forced to watch from the side-lines in the afternoon after Honda identified a potential engine problem.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver was strong throughout the morning session as the Styrian Grand Prix weekend began, with Gasly ending second fastest behind his former Red Bull Racing team-mate Max Verstappen.

The team did not want to risk an engine failure in the afternoon so took the car apart to check through the power unit, leaving Gasly unable to participate, but the Frenchman can see some work needs to be done as team-mate Yuki Tsunoda did not have a great afternoon session.

“This morning was great, the pace and performance of the car was strong and everything went well, so it was a really positive session for the start of the weekend,” said Gasly.  “Unfortunately, the team spotted an issue on the PU and didn’t want to take any risks, so have spent the afternoon checking this.

“There were some things we wanted to try during FP2 so it’s a shame to have not been able to do that but at the end of the day, there’s nothing we can do about it and we just need to look forward to tomorrow now.

Antonio Giovinazzi was pleased with his Friday at the Red Bull Ring, with the Italian placing his Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN C41-Ferrari into the top ten in both free practice sessions.

Giovinazzi, who scored his first points finish of his Formula 1 career in Austria back in 2019, showed good speed in both sessions as he started the weekend on the front foot, with ninth place in the morning being followed by tenth in the afternoon.

The Italian knows the difficult work is yet to come and the team will need to make a step forward in order to be a contender for Q3 in Qualifying on Saturday afternoon.

“It was a good Friday today, the car balance felt good from the first laps in FP1 so we have a good base to build on,” said Giovinazzi.  

“We are happy with the day but we also know that tomorrow will be more difficult: we need to keep working tonight, find some speed in a few little details and hopefully have the same positive feeling when we head out in FP3.

Sebastian Vettel feels the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team have made a ‘decent’ start to the Styrian Grand Prix weekend, with the German ending the afternoon session at the Red Bull Ring with the sixth fastest time.

Vettel has found some form in recent races, with his first points as an Aston Martin driver coming in the Monaco Grand Prix before a podium finish in Azerbaijan.  Last weekend he scored a third consecutive top ten finish in France, and he is looking to build on that this weekend in Austria.

After finishing down in fourteenth in the morning session, Vettel responded well to finish sixth in the afternoon, and he is encouraged by the one-lap pace heading into Saturday’s all-important Qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring.

“I think we have made a decent start to the weekend,” said Vettel.  “Our pace over one lap is looking encouraging and I think we can squeeze out more from the longer runs.

“We have a good idea of where we can make those improvements, which is the important thing. Racing in the mountains means it can be really tricky to predict the weather, so it is going to be about making sure we are on the right tyres at the right time and reacting well to the conditions.