Julius Seebach admits he had a lump in his throat when Audi’s ground-breaking RS Q e-tron off-roader rolled away from the startline at the Dakar Rally in January. “Stephane Peterhansel was the first to start as he was the winner last year [in a Mini JCW buggy],” explains the managing director of Audi Sport, “and
Month: March 2022
With FP3 being run in the daylight in windier and dustier conditions than Friday, combined time improvements were few and far between on Saturday afternoon. Friday pacesetter Alex Rins on the Suzuki set the early pace in the session with a 1m55.562s, before Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro took over with a 1m55.016s. Rins returned to the
On 24 February, Russian forces ordered by president Vladimir Putin began an invasion on neighbouring Ukraine, which has so far spanned a week . The invasion has been condemned by Western nations, with sanctions being imposed from countries worldwide on Russia. Sporting authorities have also moved in recent days to ban Russian athletes and sporting
3:55 AM ET The Haas Formula One team has terminated its contract with Russian driver Nikita Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali. The decision was taken in the wake of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and means no Russians are signed up to drive in F1 ahead of the new season. “Haas F1 Team has elected
Rins ended the opening day of practice at the Qatar GP fastest of all after topping a tight FP2 with a 1m53.432s, with team-mate Joan Mir in third. After a tough 2021 campaign blighted by a lack of development on the bike, Rins only managed one podium in a crash-strewn year while Mir couldn’t defend
On Thursday night ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, Autosport reported that Ducati would not run its full 2022 engine for the season and instead use an updated 2021-spec unit. This was reportedly a decision made by Bagnaia, which has forced Miller into running the same engine as per the technical regulations in MotoGP. Ducati
That year’s Chinese Grand Prix marked his 91st career Formula 1 victory and surely firmly cemented the seven-time world champion as the de-facto greatest of all time. Except it didn’t. Schumacher retired at the end of that season – although he would return with Mercedes for three further (rather fruitless) campaigns – having laid down
The seven-time MotoGP champion will be joined aboard an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II by 2019 Nurburgring 24 Hours winner Vervisch in all 10 Endurance and Sprint Cup rounds of the series. Multiple DTM race winner Muller, also winner at the Nurburging enduro in 2015, will come in alongside them in the Pro class
The six-time world champion ended Friday’s running for the first grand prix of the 2022 season second overall behind the Suzuki of Alex Rins. Honda has radically overhauled its RC213V for the new season after several years of problems with rear traction, with Marquez admitting on Thursday that the changes are so drastic that it
Quartararo has spent the winter complaining about the lack of development Yamaha has made with its engine, with its top speed deficit from last year remaining. On Friday in Qatar, Quartararo was last on the speed traps and is over 10km/h slower than practice pacesetter Alex Rins on the Suzuki (which has an inline four-cylinder
Although he raced at Gateway’s oval course last August, ex-Formula 1 driver Grosjean is only committing to the full IndyCar calendar in 2022, his second year in US open-wheel racing, and his first with Andretti Autosport. In yesterday’s six-car test for oval rookies, Grosjean topped the speed chart for laps run without the aid of
The reintroduction of ground effect-style aerodynamics for the 2022 season has resulted in the return of a phenomenon known as porpoising, at which the heave movement of the car is excited by the oncoming airflow and causes up-and-down oscillations in the car. This was a problem for F1 cars back in the early 1980s when
On Thursday evening ahead of the 2022 season beginning with the Qatar Grand Prix, Autosport reported that Bagnaia and factory Ducati team-mate Jack Miller had gone to a 2021-spec engine. In testing in Malaysia Ducati brought three different specification of engine for Bagnaia to test: a 2021, a 2021 evolution and the 2022 version. With
Unlike in previous years, there was no testing held on the Losail International Circuit ahead of this weekend’s season-opener. And with FP1 being held in daylight, FP1 was largely an exercise in track cleaning – though lap times were fairly solid for the conditions. There was early drama for RNF Racing rookie Darryn Binder –
The fourth season of the popular series, covering the epic battle for the 2021 World Championship between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, is set to debut on the streaming service on March 11. Domenicali acknowledged that the series has had a positive impact on F1, but cautioned that it would have to continue to do
4:14 AM ET Aston Martin will have to put a “performing structure” in place to convince four-time Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel to stay on beyond the end of the season, the squad’s new team principal Mike Krack said. Vettel, a 53-time race winner who joined the team from Ferrari in 2021, is out
One-time Moto3 race winner Binder – younger brother of MotoGP race winner Brad Binder – will make his MotoGP debut this weekend in the 2022 season-opening Qatar Grand Prix. The younger Binder brother is the first rider since Miller in 2015 to come straight from Moto3 and skip Moto2, with the South African jumping onto
The new MotoGP season begins on Friday with the first free practice of 2022 at the Qatar Grand Prix and will mark the first new premier class campaign not to feature Valentino Rossi since 1999. The VR46 name will still be present on the grid in the form of Rossi’s new Ducati satellite team, which
The chassis, which also set pole position and finished second in the Luxembourg Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in Schumacher’s hands, went into the Suzuka finale four points behind Hakkinen. The car is available for sale via duPont Registry. Although Schumacher qualified on pole, his race went wrong before the start when he stalled on
4:41 AM ET Red Bull has confirmed reigning world champion Max Verstappen will remain at the team until 2028 after signing a new contract. The five-year extension is reported to be worth $55 million a year, moving Verstappen level with the figure that Lewis Hamilton is believed to earn at Mercedes. After winning the championship
Penske Porsche Motorsport began its test program with a rollout of the as-yet-unnamed prototype at Porsche’s proving ground at Weissach in January, which was delayed by a month due to a lack of parts. It then completed over 2000km of running at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya last month. “The test in Barcelona was five days,”
The new campaign begins this weekend in Qatar with the first of a record 21 races, with most of the riders having had just five days of pre-season testing this year. Ducati is expected to be one of the main players in the championship battle in 2022, with Bagnaia coming into the year having finished
IndyCar was set to move to larger 2.4-litre twin-turbo V6s with hybrid units at the start of next season and Chevrolet-Ilmor and Honda Performance Development have been working to that deadline. Engines were originally due to begin testing in the first quarter of this season, with hybrid units from Mahle, a company based in Stuttgart.
During the first extended runs of the new cars designed under the revised technical regulations for 2022, all teams found their cars were bouncing along the straight when at high speed due to the new ground effect requirements. The issue proved uncomfortable for drivers and caused a number of teams to sustain damage to the
6:19 AM ET Formula One has confirmed it has terminated its contract with the promoter of the Russian Grand Prix, meaning the sport has no plans to hold a race in the country in the future. The news comes in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and follows F1’s decision last week not to
The New Zealander will pilot a Hyundai i20 N Rally 2 car, backed by Hyundai New Zealand, in selected events this year before contesting a full season in 2023. Paddon announced he will reunite with long-time co-driver John Kennard for the programme, a rekindling of a partnership that claimed victory at Rally Argentina when competing
Kirkwood, reigning Indy Lights champion, turned a 219.78mph lap in his AJ Foyt Racing on his 116th of 146 laps, but it came with the benefit of a tow. The same was true of Callum Ilott, former Formula 2 championship runner-up, who finished the day second for the Juncos Hollinger Racing team, with whom he
That has inevitably prompted some interest about what it was on the MCL36 that seemed to be working so well to avoid the problem that affected everybody else. Much of the attention focused on the car’s floor, which features a more developed edge surface and ‘edge wing’ than some of its counterparts. The design seen
The Barbadian rookie set a 1m47.614s during the afternoon session at the Bahrain International Circuit as the series geared up for its season opener in two weeks time. Fellow rookie William Alatalo finished second for Jenzer Motorsport, a tenth behind the leader, with Jak Crawford in third for 2021 drivers champions Prema. Roman Stanek, who
Two-time Indycar champion and double Indianapolis 500 winner Unser worked with Herta in his role as a driver advisor to Harding Steinbrenner Racing when fellow second-generation racer Herta made his full IndyCar debut in 2019. The 21-year-old Andretti Autosport driver, who won three races last year on his way to finishing fifth in the points,