During morning practice, the #27 Andretti Autosport made hard contact with the barrier on the outside of Turn 17 at Barber, and the damage was extensive enough to require a whole new rear end and a new engine. The team had under three hours to get the car prepared and set up in time for
Month: April 2022
VeeKay lapped the 2.366-mile Barber Motorsports Park track in 1m06.2507s to beat last year’s Barber polesitter Pato O’Ward by 0.15s and land his first pole since the opening race of the Indianapolis Grand Prix double-header in October 2020. Arrow McLaren SP’s O’Ward reported he had to gather up a major slide as he tried to
Rossi’s shunt after 15 minutes was a strange one, the car fishtailing viciously on the exit of the final turn, despite not initially riding the curbs. The #27 Andretti car, which had been seventh fastest up to that point went onto the grass and smacked an unprotected part of the barrier, most heavily with its
Following opening practice for the fourth round of the 2022 IndyCar season at Barber Motorsports Park, Rossi said F1’s arrival in Miami is “going to be awesome” and said that adding a Las Vegas race in 2023 was justified, which will see F1 expand to having three races in the US, plus the Canadian GP
Herta lapped the 2.366-mile 17-turn Alabama course in 1m06.5149s to shade defending series champion and 2021 Barber winner Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing) by 0.05s. Alexander Rossi was precisely 0.1s behind team-mate Herta but shaded fellow Andretti Autosport driver Romain Grosjean to secure third spot. In a session that suggested Honda have retained somewhat of
Rossi described the 2.43-mile circuit on which he never competed during his bike career as “a great track, fantastic” ahead of the start of his assault with the WRT Audi squad on the Sprint Cup segment of this year’s GTWCE. “The layout is interesting, it is a very old-style track,” said the seven-time MotoGP champion,
Speaking ahead of the series’ return to Barber Motorsports Park, where he scored his first win for the Honda powered Chip Ganassi Racing last year, Palou said there was nothing missing in the HPD-built units’ repertoire. However, Palou admits that Chevrolet, as witnessed by Penske’s start to the season, has improved its engines this season.
When Sebastien Bourdais suffered his awful-looking 228mph accident during qualifying for the 2017 Indy 500, he not only broke his pelvis and left hip, he also blew apart his and Dale Coyne Racing’s best chance of Indy 500 glory. Seb was on the third lap of his qualy run, and his first two were the
Hamlin tweeted a clip from American animated series Family Guy mocking Asian drivers, spliced with footage from the final lap at Talladega when Kyle Larson collided with Kurt Busch, who drives for Hamlin’s 23XI Racing team. Busch’s 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace was also collected in the crash. Larson is the only Asian-American driver at NASCAR’s
Middleton, who won the British GT4 championship in 2018, was set to take over from Imperiale Racing team-mate Alberto di Folco in the first of two one-hour Sprint Cup races but was clipped by the oncoming BMW M4 GT3 of Jens Klingmann which pulled into the box in front. “The BMW was sort of on
Erik Jones was leading on the final lap but the drivers behind him were getting antsy to make a move. Kyle Larson moved to the top lane to get around him and Jones followed him in an attempt to block. Chastain, who was running third on the last lap, elected to remain on bottom lane
When the Galles and Kraco Indycar teams merged for the 1990 season, it thrust two of the championships’s top driving talents into partnership. Al Unser Jr had largely spent his open-wheel career with Galles and Doug Shierson’s teams driving as single-car operations – his only team-mates had been part-timers Pancho Carter and Tom Gloy in
The NASCAR legend, a four-time winner of NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 at IMS, is contesting his first full season of IndyCar after a road-and-street course-only programme in 2021. Johnson scored his best IndyCar result to date on his first oval appearance at Texas Motor Speedway last month, claiming an impressive sixth-place finish, but Indy’s 2.5-mile speedway
In the morning session, 2016 Indy winner Alexander Rossi spun his Andretti Autosport machine as he straightened up on the warm-up lane beside the short chute between Turns 1 and 2. Then, in the afternoon running, four-time 500 winner Helio Castroneves lost control of his Meyer Shank Racing car on the warm-up lane and spun
Martin Plowman summarised events fairly well after team-mate Kelvin Fletcher had clinched a remarkable maiden British GT victory for their Paddock Motorsport outfit in a madcap second race at Oulton Park from 14th on the grid. “I think like a lot of people we were a bit confused,” he told Autosport. “I didn’t know what
Power’s incident was the third of the day after 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi spun on the warm-up lane and four-time defending Indy winner Helio Castroneves spun out of the warm-up lane into the Turn 2 wall, prompting the test to be prematurely concluded. The 2018 Indy 500 winner completed a 360-degree spin on
It was reassuring, last August in Nashville, to hear Zak Brown confirm that Arrow McLaren SP would be retaining its drivers for 2022. We were certain that Pato O’Ward wasn’t going anywhere, especially while McLaren dangled the Formula 1 carrot in front of him, and we knew that Felix Rosenqvist’s deal, signed in late 2020,
Fletcher and fellow Paddock Motorsport McLaren co-owner Plowman finished third on the road behind Ian Loggie (RAM Racing Mercedes) and Shaun Balfe (Balfe Motorsport Audi), following a mid-race red flag during the pit cycle, but was promoted to first as both had their race one success seconds added to their race times. TV actor Fletcher,
The team has confirmed that Simona De Silvestro will return to action for Paretta Autosport at three rounds this year – Road America in June, followed by Mid-Ohio in July and Nashville in August. Paretta explained that the #16 entry, which made its debut in last year’s Indianapolis 500, was never going to be re-entered at
The #16 Paretta Autosport will enter the 2022 IndyCar Series at Road America, Mid-Ohio and the streets of Nashville, with possible extra entries before the year’s end. Team owner Beth Paretta said the majority of women who took part in her “women forward” Indianapolis 500 campaign in 2021, the squad’s debut, will be returning and
Entering the final turn of the final of 250 laps, Briscoe made contact with Reddick as the pair were fighting over the lead sending both cars spinning out of control allowing Busch to pounce. Reddick was able to straighten out his #8 Chevrolet and continue but not before Busch – who was running far back
Balance of Performance is never going to get universal approval. But one of its upsides is that multiple manufacturers are capable of winning and setting virtually identical laptimes. Take the Pro qualifying session at British GT’s Oulton Park round last year, where 0.088 seconds split the top four – which included a Porsche, two Lamborghinis
Team president Taylor Kiel and McLaren CEO Zak Brown had been considering the prospect of continuing with a third car this year, after Juan Pablo Montoya’s participation in the Grand Prix of Indy and the Indianapolis 500 alongside full-timers Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist. However, Kiel has now confirmed to Autosport that other commitments have
Allan McNish has never enjoyed much success at Suzuka. Only ever entered in three races at the 3.608-mile circuit which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, the Scotsman was withdrawn from the 2002 Japanese Grand Prix on medical advice following a 175mph qualifying crash and managed a best finish of third in his two prior
Back in 2019, this writer rated Alexander Rossi as the best IndyCar driver of the season. Yes, he’d missed out on the title – indeed, he slipped to third in points at the final round – but the Andretti Autosport driver made fewer mistakes than champion Josef Newgarden, despite having the best car on fewer weekends, and
All those driver/team combinations who have been announced for the 106th running of the Indianapolis 500 will be in action at the Speedway on 20-21 April. Marco Andretti will return to his favourite track with Andretti Autosport, where he scored Rookie of the Year honors in 2006 with a close runner-up finish and where he
Much has changed since Anglo-Bahraini squad 2 Seas Motorsport was last a full-season entrant in the British GT Championship in 2020. Although it won at Snetterton that year with Jack Mitchell and Jordan Witt, the team’s frequent struggles with unreliability on the McLaren 720S GT3 were a drain on time and resources. “We were employing
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver grabbed too much kerb on the inside of Turn 5 of the legendary street course during Friday’s sole practice session, so that the underside of the car grounded out, taking weight off his wheels just as he needed maximum grip to complete the corner. Johnson hit the tyre wall on
The Andretti Autosport driver climbed from sixth on the grid to deliver his first podium for his new team and the fourth of his 19-race-old IndyCar career. Grosjean’s rise through the field came after crash in qualifying brought out the red flags, resulting in the Frenchman losing his fastest laps in the Fast Six shootout.
The Andretti Autosport driver led the first stint of the race, but was surprised to emerge from the pits behind not only Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou’s Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda but also Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden. While he spent much of the second stint trying to get around Newgarden, he had fallen 1.5s behind the eventual winner