All three Toyota World Rally Championship drivers were fortunate to make it to the end of Friday’s opening day of action at Rally Argentina. Ott Tanak and Kris Meeke both led the event, but both suffered potentially rally-ending transmission problems with their Yaris WRCs on the day’s final stage. Their team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala picked up
Month: April 2019
Esapekka Lappi will not be able to resume Rally Argentina due to damage to his Citroen’s rollcage, continuing his miserable World Rally Championship run. Lappi crashed out on Friday’s final stage, having struggled for pace up to that point and run no higher than sixth. After a distant seventh last time out in Corsica and
World Rally Championship points leader Thierry Neuville moved into the lead of Rally Argentina as Ott Tanak spun from first to third on Friday’s final stage. Toyota initially looked strong on the Friday afternoon loop, with Kris Meeke leading and Tanak retaking second place from Neuville’s Hyundai on Las Bajadas – Villa del Dique. Meeke’s
NASCAR has adjusted its aero rules after just one Cup Series practice session at Talladega Superspeedway amid concerns over high speeds. This weekend is the first superspeedway race under NASCAR’s new aero rules for the 2019 season, which include replacing the restrictor plate long used to control speeds on the fastest tracks with a tapered
IndyCar has brought the debut of its new cockpit protection system, dubbed ‘Advanced Frontal Protection’ (AFP), forward to its the next race on the Indianapolis road course. The series had previously stated its aim was to have the titanium deflector in permanent use from this year’s Indy 500 on May 26. But following this week’s
Daniel Ricciardo believes running out of useable tyres made second practice for Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix even stranger for him than the abandoned first session. The Renault driver ended FP2 with more than half an hour to go because he had flatspotted two sets of tyres in the first hour. FP1 was red-flagged after
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton believes it is “unlikely” that his team can reel in Formula 1 rival Ferrari overnight after trailing by seven tenths in Azerbaijan Grand Prix Friday practice. After the first session featured no representative running due to George Russell’s accident and subsequent track checks, Ferrari dominated the afternoon practice. Charles Leclerc led
Toyota’s Kris Meeke moved into the lead of Rally Argentina with an early stage win, although World Rally Championship points’ leader Thierry Neuville is beginning to close in for Hyundai. Meeke’s Yaris team-mate Ott Tanak had been overnight leader after his win on the Villa Carlos Paz superspecial yesterday evening, initially retaining that lead by
Chase Elliott is hopeful that aero updates in NASCAR this year will help the series move away from the teamwork element that has dominated recent Talladega and Daytona races. Drafting among team-mates has been common in NASCAR for decades, but it has intensified in recent years on the superspeedways to the point where at last
Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team boss Christian Horner says Honda’s new engine will boost race performance thanks to the increased availability of higher power modes. All four Red Bull and Toro Rosso drivers had new V6s installed for the start of Azerbaijan Grand Prix practice, while Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly also took new
World Rally Championship teams have been working flat-out to make their cars as waterproof as possible ahead of Rally Argentina due to the severe weather. The fifth round of the series features a high number of watersplashes and river crossings and recent torrential rain has raised water levels to potentially dangerous levels for the teams.
World Rally Championship driver Ott Tanak took an early lead on Rally Argentina, winning the opening Villa Carlos Paz superspecial by 1.6 seconds from Citroen’s Sebastien Ogier. Toyota’s main title contender Tanak followed up his fastest time in the shakedown with the best time on the short 1.18-mile blast around the host city’s streets, which
World Rally Championship form driver Ott Tanak set the benchmark time during Thursday’s Rally Argentina shakedown stage. The Estonian’s time of 2min34.9sec was set on his first run of the 2.64-mile stage, and was not bettered by either the Toyota Yaris driver nor any of his rivals. Following behind was points leader Thierry Neuville in
McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris only rates the start of his rookie season a “six out of 10” despite claiming his team’s best result across the first three races. Norris qualified in the top 10 on his grand prix debut in Australia and followed that up with his first points finish in Bahrain, where
Lewis Hamilton says the 2019 Mercedes Formula 1 car is harder to work with than its predecessor, despite the team starting the season with a trio of one-two finishes. Mercedes had a difficult start to last year in terms of extracting the most from its car, winning only one of the first three races and
Robert Kubica says the Williams Formula 1 team does not yet have a “clear solution” to the differences between his and team-mate George Russell’s cars this year. Despite having run similar or identical set-ups to Russell, Kubica has felt his car has a different aerodynamic behaviour to his team-mate’s FW42. Kubica saw some signs of
Aleix Espargaro believes he is “riding better than ever in my life”, but that Aprilia must conquer its tyre wear issues to give him any chance of MotoGP podiums. Espargaro, who made his MotoGP debut in 2009, is set to start his 150th premier class race at Jerez next weekend. His sole top-three finish came
Fernando Alonso said running only 29 laps of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Wednesday’s test meant he cannot yet judge whether the McLaren Dallara-Chevrolet IndyCar package will be competitive. Seven hours of Indy 500 testing had been scheduled for Wednesday, split between sessions for full-season IndyCar drivers, a ‘rookies and refreshers’ session for newcomers and
As the World Rally Championship heads into back-to-back flyaway gravel events in Argentina and Chile, we went behind the scenes with M-Sport on its testing programme. Despite the loss of world champion Sebastien Ogier, the team has had a very promising start to 2019 – with Teemu Suninen fighting for victory in Sweden and Elfyn
Takuma Sato put Rahal Letterman Lanigan on top on a heavily rain disrupted first day of Indianapolis 500 testing, as Colton Herta led the ‘rookie’ session featuring Fernando Alonso. Rain caused a four-hour delay early in the initial ‘veterans’ session on Wednesday, with just 28 laps completed before the first stoppage. When the session resumed,
In his bid to be a leading Formula 1 engineer, a 23-year-old Canadian student put the brakes on his racing career and signed up for the 2018 INFINITI Engineering Academy. He is now four months into a once-in-a-lifetime work placement at Renault F1 Team. Last June, engineering student Chase Pelletier impressed judges to scoop the
The factory Aston Martin Racing squad will not contest this year’s Nurburgring 24 Hours in June with its new Vantage GT3. AMR has opted against trying to improve on last year’s fourth-place finish with the previous V12 Vantage racer in order to concentrate on its worldwide customer programmes with the new-generation GT3 and GT4 racers.
Everybody at Williams is a victim during the Formula 1 team’s struggles, not just the drivers, says Robert Kubica. Williams slipped to the back of the grid in 2018 and has started 2019 with an even less competitive car, leaving Kubica and rookie team-mate George Russell detached at the back of the grid. The team’s
Chip Ganassi says his driver Kyle Larson and Chevrolet have his “full support” after a difficult start to the NASCAR Cup season. Larson, who has finished in the top 10 in the drivers’ standings for the last three years with Chip Ganassi Racing, has two top-10 finishes to his name from the opening nine rounds
Gerhard Berger says Lewis Hamilton is the only Formula 1 driver he has seen who he would rank on the same level as his former McLaren team-mate Ayrton Senna. Berger, who is chairman of DTM’s organising body the ITR, partnered Senna at McLaren from 1990-92. The Austrian said he rates five-time world champion Hamilton above
New Zealand has been tipped for a one-off return to the World Rally Championship next season, taking Australia’s slot on the 2020 calendar. Rally Australia’s current agreement with host town Coffs Harbour is up at the end of this season and there is no real desire from WRC stakeholders to return to the New South
Jorge Lorenzo says he can sympathise with Maverick Vinales’ recent difficulties with MotoGP race starts and battling in the pack. Yamaha rider Vinales made sluggish getaways in both of the first two grands prix of the year in Qatar and Argentina, and then was handed a ride-through penalty for jumping the start last time out
Formula 1 track designer Tilke has revealed what the new Vietnam Grand Prix track will be like from the cockpit with the release of an onboard simulator lap. The build of the new 5.565km (3.46-mile) street circuit in the suburbs of Hanoi is ongoing and the footage from Tilke’s own simulation data has offered a
M-Sport’s Elfyn Evans is aiming for “efficiency” as he looks to further his best start to a World Rally Championship campaign in Argentina this week. Evans is fourth in the WRC standings, having scored three top-five finishes already this year, including podiums on the last two rallies. He led the Tour of Corsica into the
Daniel Ricciardo believes he and the Renault Formula 1 team have made a breakthrough with the “knife-edge” braking that was holding him back at the start of the season. Ricciardo switched from the race-winning Red Bull team to midfield outfit Renault for 2019 and retired from the opening two grands prix. While bad luck stopped
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