MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi insists he did not feel “disrespected” by Yamaha’s decision to replace him with Fabio Quartararo for the 2021 season. The seven-time MotoGP champion will make way for Quartararo in the Japanese marque’s factory roster next year, and is mulling the possibility of retirement after 2020 – although Yamaha has made it
Month: February 2020
NASCAR driver Ryan Newman’s Rousch Fenway Racing team says he is “awake and speaking” after suffering serious injuries in a horror crash during the Daytona 500. Newman, 42, was injured in a last-lap wreck in Monday’s race at Daytona International Speedway, which was delayed from its original Sunday slot due to poor weather. He was
KTM and its satellite squad Tech3 have unveiled the colours their RC16s will sport during the 2020 MotoGP season. The liveries were revealed in a digital launch event on Tuesday. While the works team will run an unchanged scheme in 2020, Tech3’s livery (pictured below) has been revised, with silver more prominent on the fairing
Maverick Vinales says it was “not easy” to commit to another early MotoGP contract renewal with Yamaha, as he had an “open mind” about going elsewhere. The 2013 Moto3 champion has long harboured championship ambitions in the top class, having won three of his first five races with Yamaha after joining from Suzuki in 2017,
Ryan Newman is in a “serious condition” in hospital following his final-lap accident at the NASCAR Cup season-opening Daytona 500, but his injuries are not life threatening. Newman, driving for Roush Fenway Racing, was dicing for the lead of the race in the second round of overtime with Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin, with his
Denny Hamlin became the fourth driver in NASCAR history to win back-to-back Daytona 500s with victory in overtime, though a frightening Ryan Newman crash overshadowed the season-opening Cup race’s finish. Hamlin, who joins Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and Sterling Malin in defending the race, pipped Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney in a photo-finish after Newman’s crash.
Elfyn Evans will be allowed to push for the World Rally Championship title in 2020 following his first win for Toyota in Sweden. After beating reigning champion Ott Tanak to victory last weekend having led after every stage, Evans is now equal top of the championship standings with Tanak’s Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville, albeit Evans
The Daytona 500 has been suspended until Monday afternoon for only the second time in the history of the season-opening NASCAR Cup series race after rain in Florida. The race was originally scheduled to begin at 3.18pm local time, but the 40-strong field was held on pit-road for an hour as a light rain shower
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans claimed his second career World Rally Championship victory after coming through the final stage of a shortened Rally Sweden. Evans dominated the event from the opening stage on Friday morning, winning five of the nine stages, and beat defending world champion, Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, by 12.7 seconds. Kalle Rovanpera took a sensational
Double MotoGP race winner Alex Rins says Suzuki is “where I wanted to be” with its new bike after the first pre-season test of 2020 in Malaysia. Rins ended the Sepang test third overall with a lap just 0.101 seconds off the pace, while team-mate Joan Mir was a further 0.382s adrift in 11th on
Double Xfinity champion Tyler Reddick believes he can make the playoffs in his first NASCAR Cup season in 2020, despite admitting that prediction ‘sounds crazy’. Reddick won NASCAR’s second tier Xfinity series in 2018 and 2019, but a move to Richard Childress Racing last year realigned his path to the Cup series. He will contest
Elfyn Evans is closing in on his second World Rally Championship win as he leads Rally Sweden by 17.2 seconds to Ott Tanak. Toyota’s Evans set the fastest time on all three of Saturday morning’s stages and, though he was only fourth on the afternoon’s Torsby Sprint stage, he went quicker than reigning world champion
Toyota World Rally Championship driver Elfyn Evans has extended his Rally Sweden lead to 16.9 seconds after winning all three of Saturday morning’s stages. Evans started the day with an 8.5s advantage over the Hyundai of Ott Tanak but managed to double that lead, making the most of the tricky terrain in the warmer weather.
Petronas SRT MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo does not believe he is ready to fight for the world championship in 2020. Quartararo managed seven podiums on an slightly detuned ‘B-spec’ Yamaha in 2019, which included two near-misses in victory battles with Marc Marquez at Misano and in Thailand, and ended up as comfortably the best rookie
IndyCar owner Roger Penske has announced the prize fund for the Indianapolis 500 will rise by $2million, and that the controversial guaranteed starting spots concept will not be adopted. The overall pot for this year’s race will be $15m, the biggest in the event’s history, while the winner will receive at least $2m. While qualifying
World Rally Championship returnee Jari-Matti Latvala will take no further part on Rally Sweden following his Friday exit with an electrical issue. The four-time Rally Sweden winner was making his first start of the season in a privateer Toyota Yaris WRC, having lost his factory drive with the make at the end of last year.
Matt DiBenedetto says he is going to “turn heads all season long” following his switch to the Wood Brothers team after a breakthrough 2019 NASCAR Cup season. DiBenedetto led the most laps of the Daytona 500 last season before being caught in a large crash, bursting onto the scene with the small Leavine Family Racing
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans remains in control of Rally Sweden at the end of the opening day of the shortened event, as reigning champion Ott Tanak reclaimed second. Evans dominated proceedings in the morning, winning two of the first three stages to take an eight-second lead into service after four stages over his team-mate Kalle Rovanpera.
Elfyn Evans has opened up a lead of almost eight seconds over his Toyota World Rally Championship team-mate Kalle Rovanpera following the opening loop of stages on Rally Sweden. The Welshman won two of the morning’s three stages in changing road conditions to hold a lead of 7.9s over Rovanpera, who impressed in the second
Jimmie Johnson has targeted a Le Mans 24 Hours entry when his full-time NASCAR career comes to an end after the 2020 Cup season. Seven-time Cup series champion Johnson will halt a full-time, top-line career that began in 2002 at the culmination of this season – which starts with the Daytona 500 this weekend. An
Penske’s two-time Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin will take part in IndyCar’s oval rookie test at Texas on Friday. McLaughlin drove on both days of IndyCar’s ‘spring training’ test at Austin on Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation for his debut in the Indianapolis road course race, and will be back in Penske’s #2 car this week
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, is set to visit the NASCAR Daytona 500 on Sunday, the first president to do so since George W. Bush in 2004. Trump (pictured above with 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr) is expected to visit the NASCAR season-opener on the way back from a trip
Rally Sweden’s opening Karlstad superspecial has been cancelled as concerns continue over the unseasonably warm temperatures affecting the World Rally Championship’s only snow-based event. The rally’s traditional curtain-raiser uses the city’s trotting track with drivers normally competing in pairs on the 1.18-mile course. It had been scheduled for 2000hrs local time tomorrow (Thursday), but following
Penske’s Will Power played down the issue of rain water leaking into his cockpit from IndyCar’s new-for-2020 aeroscreen during the ongoing test at Austin. At the two-day test at the Circuit of the Americas beginning on Tuesday, drivers were met with rain and fog as well as low temperatures, meaning most drivers did not run
Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier is hopeful that a new position in the road order will help him overcome his recent Rally Sweden “struggle” in the World Rally Championship. Ogier has three wins in Sweden, more than any other non-Scandinavian driver. However, the last two editions of the event have not gone to plan for the six-time
MotoGP rider Pol Espargaro says the step forward KTM has made with the 2020 RC16 bike is “bigger than what I imagined, what I expected” after testing at Sepang. Espargaro, who bagged KTM’s sole MotoGP podium so far in a wet Valencia finale in 2018, was firmly within the top 10 on all three days
Wales Rally GB will move back to its Deeside service park in 2020, after one year in the Llandudno town centre for Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship. The move to the North Wales coastal town Llandudno last year was hailed as taking the teams and cars closer to the people, as Deeside is
Brad Keselowski has blasted Joey Logano following NASCAR’s Clash race at Daytona, accusing his Penske Ford team-mate of “dumb racing”. Logano attempted to block a run from 2019 NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Busch with less than 10 of the originally scheduled 75 laps remaining in the controversial race, which was finished by just six cars.
Third-generation IndyCar racer Marco Andretti hopes that returning for a second spell at Rob Wilson’s renowned driving school will help him rediscover his best form. Andretti, who races for the Andretti Herta Autosport team run by his father, Michael, scored a best finish of sixth as he finished 16th in the standings last season, which
Suzuki is close to signing both its current MotoGP riders Alex Rins and Joan Mir for the 2021 and ’22 seasons, despite interest in Mir from Ducati, Autosport has learned. Team boss Davide Brivio made it clear that while contracts for 2021 and 2022 have not yet been signed by either rider, despite some speculation