Cal Crutchlow says he fears this year’s Honda MotoGP bike may have sacrificed the manufacturer’s traditional “weapon”, its front-end strength. LCR rider Crutchlow said during both pre-season tests that he was struggling with the front-end of this year’s RC213V, and on the eve of the new season in Qatar the Briton reiterated those concerns. Crutchlow
Month: March 2019
Andretti Autosport does not head into the 2019 season as title favourite despite its resurgence last year, according to the team’s chief operating officer Rob Edwards. Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay finished second and fourth respectively in the championship standings last season, taking five wins and four pole positions between them. Team-mate Marco Andretti added
MotoGP riders will continue to push for an earlier start time for the opening race of the season in Qatar, believing a change would make for a better and safer spectacle. The race at the Losail International Circuit is set to start 8pm local time, an hour later than last year, and riders remain concerned
Praise for a new boss who has brought back the feel-good factor has been a fundamental part of the Ferrari Formula 1 team’s pre-season. New team principal Mattia Binotto has swiftly eliminated the air of misery that seemed to dog the Maranello team as its latest title bid turned to rubble in 2018. With a
Marcus Ericsson is preparing for his IndyCar debut this weekend after joining Schmidt Peterson Motorsports from the Sauber Formula 1 team. Here, he describes the main differences between the championships. You’ve done five days in an IndyCar – or four-and-a-half days because of rain at Laguna Seca. Do you feel underprepared compared with your F1
The new McLaren 720S GT3 car will race for the first time in the hands of a customer on the support package of next weekend’s Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix. The car, which has been developed in-house by the new motorsport department at McLaren Automotive, will be given its customer debut in Melbourne on March
Kevin Harvick recently described fellow NASCAR Cup champion Jimmie Johnson as “one of the most disrespected great drivers”. Seven-time title winner Johnson is currently on a winless streak in championship rounds stretching back to June 2017. But Harvick launched a vehement defence of Johnson’s reputation after they appeared on a radio show together late last
NASCAR tyre supplier Goodyear has warned Cup Series teams to obey its tyre pressure advice at Phoenix this weekend given the higher speeds likely under the 2019 rules. The full higher downfore and increased horsepower rules package – designed to increase overtaking – will be used for the first time at Phoenix. That combination will
Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe is taking “a leave of absence” from the Formula 1 team, Autosport has learned. Lowe’s future at Williams was under scrutiny following the production delays that meant the team missed the first two-and-a-half days of pre-season testing at Barcelona, and the performance of the new car when it did
Formula 1 is “running late” to make the big changes it wants for the 2021 season, according to Renault engine chief Remi Taffin. FIA president Jean Todt claimed in August last year that he expected the regulations to be finalised soon, but there is still no public outline of the sporting or technical rules. F1
Canada’s return to the World Rally Championship could be fast-tracked in an effort to find FIA rally director Yves Matton’s medium-term solution to the series’ winter rally headache.
Matton told Autosport last month that he favoured two winter rallies on the WRC calendar and a Canadian event is seen as part of that solution. A
Formula 1 rookie Alex Albon says there were no “nasty surprises” from Toro Rosso’s 2019 car when he logged proper mileage for the first time in pre-season testing. Albon has graduated from Formula 2 and will make his F1 debut in the Australian Grand Prix season opener. He had not driven an F1 car before
Alex Rins says Suzuki’s MotoGP bike has been improved in all the areas he had requested after winter testing. Rins impressed in the final pre-season test in Qatar as he topped Sunday’s second day of running and ended up third fastest overall, behind only Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo. Despite suffering a small crash at
NASCAR Cup Series 2015 champion Kyle Busch says he cannot see himself leaving his Joe Gibbs Racing squad for another team. Busch signed a new “multi-year” contract extension with JGR at the end of February and continues his career with the team that began in 2008 following his switch from Hendrick Motorsports (pictured below). The
PFC Brakes continue to set the standard in high performance brake systems with its CarbonMetallic brake pads remaining the first choice of NASCAR championship-winning teams. From the inception of its CarbonMetallic brake pads in 1984 and leading legendary team owner Rick Hendrick to his first win as a NASCAR Cup Series win with Geoff Bodine,
Will Power feels he is in the greatest form of his IndyCar career and is aiming to double up on series titles and Indianapolis 500 victories this season. In 2018, the year he also won the Indy 500 for the first time, Power became the most successful IndyCar driver in Team Penske’s history and scored
World Rally Championship leader Ott Tanak is confident there will not be a return of the cooling issues which have plagued Toyota’s last two trips to Rally Mexico. The Yaris WRC has struggled to acclimatise to the combination of the altitude and heat in Guanajuato, with two factory cars finishing sixth and seventh in 2017.
Everything looks good right now at Ferrari, which will start the 2019 Formula 1 season as early favourite after a strong performance across the fortnight of testing at Barcelona. The squad’s optimism heading into the new campaign is in stark contrast to the mood within the camp towards the end of 2018, and a significant
Ferrari has revealed it has chosen to remove its Mission Winnow branding for the opening grand prix of the 2019 Formula 1 season in Australia. It emerged last month that Australian authorities had launched an investigation into whether the initiative introduced by Ferrari title sponsor Philip Morris late last year contravened laws banning tobacco advertising.
Jorge Lorenzo claims he feels more at ease on Honda’s MotoGP bike than he did with the Ducati this time a year ago after an encouraging end to pre-season testing. Having missed the opening test of the year in Sepang after breaking his scaphoid in a training accident, Lorenzo got his first on-track running of
Graham Rahal believes other racing championships cannot match IndyCar’s recent rise, and that it is one additional manufacturer away from “absolutely taking off”. Rahal, who has been in top line American open-wheel racing since he joined Newman Haas Lanigan Racing for Champ Car’s final season in 2007, says he has noticed significant improvements in IndyCar’s
Mercedes’ efforts in the design of its 2019 Formula 1 car have made sources of “pride”, making its previous design “start to look clumsy and naive by comparison”. In a video that compares Mercedes’ new challenger, the W10, with its double title-winning predecessor, technical director James Allison talks through the major changes triggered by F1’s
Toyota driver Takamoto Katsuta has admitted he still has a lot to learn about getting the maximum out of a Yaris WRC following a debut win in the car on Saturday’s Itaralli in Finland. Katsuta won the final winter round of this year’s Finnish Rally Championship by edging Emil Lindholm’s Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 by
Ex-Hyundai driver Jari Huttunen’s Rally Sweden drive has landed him firmly back in the running for a World Rally Championship factory seat. The Skoda Fabia R5 driver’s efforts were one of the talking points of last month’s Torsby-based event. The 25-year-old went off the road while fighting for the lead with WRC 2 winner Ole
Andrea Iannone says he is “not expecting a lot” from his first race on Aprilia’s MotoGP bike at the 2019 season opener in Qatar. Iannone sat out much of the first pre-season test at Sepang and then finished 18th overall – four places behind team-mate Aleix Espargaro – over three days of running at Qatar’s
Having won five consecutive world championship doubles in Formula 1’s hybrid era, Mercedes has more to lose than most from the revised 2019 technical regulations. In a special interview with James Allison for the bumper season preview issue of F1 Racing, filmed before the start of testing, we asked the man with ultimate responsibility for
Chip Ganassi Racing convert Kurt Busch says he is “playing it smart” after two consecutive top fives so far in the NASCAR Cup Series season. Busch, who has switched from the Ford-using Stewart Haas Racing squad to Chevrolet runner CGR this year, earned a third at Atlanta and a fifth at Las Vegas last weekend.
Five-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton has suggested he will make more outings on two wheels this season, after he visits this weekend’s Qatar MotoGP season opener. Hamilton, a self-confessed motorcycling aficionado, is set to attend the first weekend of the 2019 MotoGP season at the Losail circuit as a guest of the Petronas SRT
Andretti Autosport believes the potential of driver Colton Herta is enough to justify its tie-up with Harding Steinbrenner Racing in 2019, after Herta impressed in IndyCar testing last month. Herta, son of Champ Car and IndyCar race winner Bryan, topped three of four sessions in IndyCar’s ‘Spring Training’ test at Austin, as HSR used Honda
Brad Keselowski felt he was too kind to his Penske NASCAR Cup team-mate Joey Logano as he came second in their team one-two at Las Vegas. A week after giving the new NASCAR Ford Mustang its first win at Atlanta, Keselowski came through from 19th on the grid at Vegas to fight for a second