The Arrow McLaren SP driver, who is embarking on only his second full season in IndyCar, produced a new track record of 1m05.847s to edge out Rossi of Andretti Autosport by just 0.069s. In the frantic fast six final qualifying stage, fellow youngster Alex Palou narrowly missed out on the front row in his first
Month: April 2021
Ex-Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean was the first of the runners to duck under the 1m07s barrier, with the IndyCar rookie logging a 1m06.942s lap in his Dale Coyne Racing with RWR-Honda, despite flirting with the dirt exiting Turn 13. Colton Herta had moved to the top of the timesheets prior to a brief stoppage
Following its season of inactivity, the IndyCar Series’ feeder championship returned with a 13-car entry, an improvement on the eight AER-powered Dallara IL-15s that started its last race at Laguna Seca in September 2019. Swedish 22-year-old Lundqvist, the 2018 British F3 champion, was an expected favourite after scoring 15 wins from 17 races on his
The Spaniard, heading into his second season in IndyCar, produced a 1m06.472s lap to take top spot ahead of Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta, who went just 0.017s short of displacing him. Three-time Barber winner and two-time series champion Josef Newgarden slotted into third just 0.006s further back for Team Penske. Defending series champion Scott Dixon
The seven-time Cup champion is set to drive the #48 Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda for all 13 road and street courses on the 2021 IndyCar schedule, with 2004 IndyCar champion Tony Kanaan taking over the car for the four oval races including the Indianapolis 500. Having raced at the Cup level for two decades, winning 83
The French car manufacturer has slipped back against its main rivals this year, and it left the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix without scoring any points. While the team is hopeful that an aggressive upgrade push can lift it up the grid, its executive director Marcin Budkowski says its difficulties can be traced back to
Rossi, who battled for the 2018 and 2019 IndyCar titles, slumped to ninth in the points table last season, as Andretti Autosport struggled for race day performance in the first two-thirds of the season, and then saw pitstop issues hamper them on strong days such as the Indianapolis 500. Ahead of Sunday’s season-opener at Barber
In Marquez’s absence in 2020 through injury, Mir and Suzuki ended his domination of the world championship – though Mir had the legitimacy of his title repeatedly questioned because he won it without Marquez present. These were claims both riders dismissed. Marquez returned to action after a nine-month layoff on Friday at the Algarve International
Quartararo ended Friday’s running at the Algarve International Circuit second overall, 0.340 seconds off Francesco Bagnaia’s FP2-topping lap on the Ducati. The Portimao venue was one of the weakest tracks for the 2020 Yamaha factory riders, but Quartararo attributes much of his struggles last year – when he slumped to 14th in the race, which
IndyCar has used its current 2.2-litre twin-turbo V6 engines since 2012, with manufacturers Chevrolet and Honda finding ever-smaller areas in which to improve and gain an edge. IndyCar president Jay Frye said recently that he expects the series to be “pushing” 900 bhp on road and street courses by 2025 with the new engines, with
As Tsunoda is 5ft2, he says his team has built a “a special pedal case” to ensure he can operate the pedals in the AT02 as usual. Tsunoda explained the situation in the pre-event press conference for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, a home event for the AlphaTauri squad as the Imola track is just
The 20-year-old son of retired NASCAR ace Jeff Burton won four times in his first full season in the second-tier Xfinity Series last year with Joe Gibbs Racing, placing eighth in the standings, and currently lies third in the Xfinity points. He will become the fourth member of the Burton racing family to compete at
The six-time world champion will make his long-awaited return to racing this weekend in the Portuguese Grand Prix, following nine months on the sidelines with a broken right arm suffered in last July’s Spanish GP. In his absence, Honda failed to win a race for the first time ever since it returned to the premier
Englishman Carchedi has worked with Mir since the Spaniard’s debut in MotoGP in 2019, with the pair winning the world championship last season. Mir will be without his right-hand man for this weekend’s third round of the 2021 season in Portugal after Carchedi failed a pre-travel COVID test. Carchedi has gone into isolation in Andorra
The two-time Formula 1 world champion set out to complete the famous triple crown of motorsport which includes winning the Monaco Grand Prix, Le Mans 24 Hours and the Indianapolis 500. Having notched up success at Monaco (2006 and 2007), and Le Mans (2018 and 2019), he is now only missing victory on the famous
The British manufacturer is working on a racing comeback in the GT4 category, in which it successfully competed with the Evora Cup GT4 customer car in the 2010s. A motorsport return is on the cards as part of a relaunch of Lotus under the ownership of Chinese car maker Geely, which took a controlling interest
The long-awaited competition debut of the new E-type Jaguar has been made at last. Two of the magnificent Coventry machines appeared in the main race of the day at the British Automobile Racing Club national meeting at Oulton Park. Their first appearance was an impressive one, both cars being in virtually standard trim and leading
Aitken, who will contest both the Endurance and Sprint Cup legs of the series aboard a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO, explained that there is “a lot to be learned by doing something a bit different”. The 25-year-old will make his GT racing debut in this weekend’s opening round of the Endurance Cup segment of the
Toronto is currently set to be the 11th round of the 2021 IndyCar Series season, on 9-11 July, but travel restrictions to Canada as the country tackles its third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic have cast doubt on a highly popular event, which was canceled last year, too. Not only does a temporary street course
The 45-year-old will make his single-seater debut this season after almost two decades at the top level of stock car racing, contesting the 13 road and street course races on the IndyCar schedule with reigning champion squad Chip Ganassi Racing. Johnson will join six-time series champion Scott Dixon, ex-Formula 1 driver Marcus Ericsson and second-year
A charging drive earned Steve Simpson the season-opening Tin Tops victory in the Peugeot 206 RC he shared with father Colin for the Classic Sports Car Club event at Oulton Park. The pair qualified second but were promoted to pole by gearbox failure on the Honda Integra of Nigel Ainge and Danny Cassar. Simpson Sr
The Australian joined the Woking-based team at the start of this year, as he bids to help the outfit get back to winning ways. But beyond the F1 ambitions, McLaren’s involvement in IndyCar, plus CEO Zak Brown’s association with Supercars, has teed up a good chance of some running outside of grand prix cars. Brown
Cobb, 47, who has made a combined 247 starts across the Xfinity and Truck series, will compete in RWR’s #15 Chevrolet in the GEICO 500 on the 25 April. She will become just the second female driver in NASCAR history who has competed in all three of NASCAR’s national series, after Shawna Robinson was the
James has played an instrumental role in creating and implementing many of the technical systems and processes that have helped make F1 such a global hit – including the establishment of its state-of-the-art broadcast centre. As well as helping ensure the series remained at the cutting edge of technology and never missed a beat during
MotoGP returns to Europe after its Qatar residency – as the Losail International Circuit hosted both pre-season testing and the opening two rounds – after the start of the season was reshuffled amid COVID-19 pandemic issues. Instead of heading to the United States and Argentina after the Qatar season-opener, the MotoGP paddock descends on Portimao
The Italian manufacturer is the only one of the six present on the current MotoGP grid who supplies bikes to two satellite squads on top of its factory effort. Long-time partner Pramac receives full factory support from Ducati, with both current championship leader Johann Zarco and Jorge Martin running identical machinery to works team duo
The former March, Brabham, Shadow and ATS Formula 1 racer will make his first racing appearance since 2017 at the wheel of a KTM X-Bow GT2, specially developed for the am-focused series created for high powered machines not as reliant on downforce as GT3 cars by prolific GT racing promoter SRO. PLUS: The high-power solution
The US entrant appeared on the initial entry list for the Spa 6 Hours on May 1 published last month, but marque founder Jim Glickenhaus stressed that he had not committed to taking part with his pair of Pipo-engined 007LMHs. Now, he has confirmed that Glickenhaus Racing will miss the Belgian series opener and instead
The Honda star hasn’t been on his RC213V since his aborted comeback at the Andalusian GP last July just days after surgery on the right arm he broke in the Spanish GP, with Friday’s FP1 session at Algarve marking the first time he’ll have ridden a MotoGP bike in 265 days. No one is sure
The bid on the Time Attack 1 class for production-based machinery at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb on 27 June will be made under the Bentley Motorsport banner by 2015 event winner Rhys Millen, son of former course record holder Rod. Renewable biofuel will power the Continental in line with Bentley’s Beyond100 strategy, under which