KTM motorsport boss Pit Beirer admits not being able to come to an agreement to sign Andrea Dovizioso for the 2021 MotoGP season “hurt”. Dovizioso faces an uncertain future after announcing his Ducati exit at the end of the year during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend. The three-time MotoGP championship runner-up had been linked to
Double Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso’s previous Indianapolis 500 experience provided a “two-way exchange” within the Arrow McLaren SP team to help improve set-up, according to Robert Wickens. With Alonso returning to the Brickyard this year for this third attempt at the Indy 500, aiming to secure the triple crown of motorsport, he teamed
Miguel Oliveira believes the absence of reigning champion Marc Marquez has made more riders think they can win races in the 2020 MotoGP season. Honda rider Marquez will be out for at least another two months after breaking his right arm in a crash during the Spanish Grand Prix, while stress damage to the titanium
Fresh from his first NASCAR Cup Series victory, William Byron has secured a two-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports. On Tuesday Hendrick Motorsports announced Byron will stay with the team through until at least the end of the 2022 season, having signed a contract extension on 8th August. Saturday night’s victory at Daytona International Speedway
Robert Wickens says Arrow McLaren SP’s investment in youth with Pato O’Ward and Oliver Askew is “no longer a risk” having surpassed expectations during the 2020 IndyCar campaign. The Arrow McLaren SP team named O’Ward and rookie Askew as its 2020 IndyCar drivers, forcing James Hinchcliffe out of its line-up, to put together an inexperienced
Tony Kanaan is aiming to race on all of IndyCar’s oval rounds in 2021, despite the veteran driver having previously expected to wind down his time in the series. Kanaan had announced pre-season that the 2020 campaign would be the last time he competed at any IndyCar race except the Indy 500, but restrictions on
Joan Mir believes Suzuki “is a contender” in the 2020 MotoGP title race despite having only scored one podium finish from the first five races. The 2017 Moto3 world champion beat Pramac’s Jack Miller to second in the Austrian Grand Prix last month to register his first podium in the premier class and the first
Tech3 is a MotoGP stalwart, having raced in the premier class for the past 20 years under the guidance of Herve Poncharal. A regular podium visitor, Tech3 had never been a winner – that is, until Poncharal’s bold switch to KTM reaped rewards in the 2020 Styrian GP. Tech3’s hugely popular team boss Herve Poncharal
Several MotoGP manufacturers are not happy that KTM will be permitted to develop its engines ahead of the 2021 season, with fears it is working on a “super engine”. KTM and Aprilia are permitted by the regulations to be exempt from the engine development freeze imposed on non-concession manufacturers Honda, Yamaha, Ducati and Suzuki. However,
Johann Zarco thinks he’s “ready” to step up to the factory Ducati team in 2021, but believes he needs to score more MotoGP podiums before being considered. The double Moto2 world champion joined the Ducati fold for 2020 after signing a deal directly with it to join the satellite Avintia squad on a year-old Desmosedici.
Ed Carpenter Racing rookie Rinus VeeKay hailed Sunday’s IndyCar race at Gateway as “one of the best races I have ever driven” en route to a hard-fought fourth place finish. VeeKay, who leads the rookie standings, climbed from 14th to sixth in Saturday’s race one, at a track in which he had won in Pro
Honda will not qualify for concessions for the 2021 MotoGP season even if it fails to score a podium in a so-far tough 2020 campaign. For the first time since 1982, no Honda rider has scored a podium in the first five races of a season, with the best-placed HRC rider in the standings LCR’s
Reigning IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden believes he can still beat Scott Dixon to the 2020 title, but says he needs to “reverse the trend” of his season so far. Team Penske driver Newgarden scored the 16th win of his career and second of the 2020 season on Sunday at Gateway, while Dixon finished fifth, but
Reigning IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden recorded his second victory of season for Team Penske under caution in the second race of the double-header at Gateway. Newgarden gained the lead from team-mate Will Power through the third and final pitstop cycle on lap 152 after the Australian was briefly held up by backmarker Ed Carpenter on
First-time NASCAR Cup Series winner William Byron has credited a ploy “to be aggressive” with helping him qualify for the playoffs in the regular season final round at Daytona. The Hendrick Motorsport driver cleared Denny Hamlin following a push from Clint Bowyer in a green-white-chequered finish and fended off a side-draft from Martin Truex Jr
Scott Dixon admitted that reaching a half-century of US open-wheel victories was something he ‘never thought possible’ after beating Takuma Sato in the first of IndyCar’s two races at Gateway. The five-time series champion won his first CART race at Nazareth in 2001 for Bruce McCaw’s PacWest Racing team on only his third start after
Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson said he “did all we could” after missing out on the playoffs in his final full-time season. With the final places in the playoffs still to be decided heading into Saturday’s final regular season round at Daytona, Johnson finished fifth in both of the opening two stages, but
William Byron clinched his first NASCAR Cup victory at Daytona as a late race crash denied seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson a place in the playoffs. Byron, Johnson and Matt DiBenedetto, the three drivers on the bubble in the fight to get into the Round of 16 as the field arrived at Daytona, all managed
Scott Dixon fended off a late charge from Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato at Gateway to record his 50th IndyCar career win and extend his championship points lead. The five-time series champion’s Chip Ganassi machine had jumped long-term leader Patricio O’Ward (Arrow McLaren SP) in the final green-flag pit-stops on lap 162 of 200 to
Will Power scored his 59th IndyCar Series pole position for the first of two races at Gateway, while Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato topped the times for Sunday’s second race. IndyCar opted to use the two-lap qualifying format first trialled at Iowa for the 1.25-mile Gateway oval, with the first lap setting the grid for
Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner and four-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti will return to the cockpit this weekend at Gateway to drive Honda’s two-seat IndyCar at the start of the race. Franchitti was forced to end his 17-season Indycar career at least a year before he had intended after a huge accident at Houston in September
LCR MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow admits “hesitantly” that he doesn’t believe Honda is working as closely with him in the 2020 season as it used to. Crutchlow joined the Honda stable in 2015 with LCR and has been contracted directly to Honda since 2018, with the Briton winning three grands prix in his time with
Leading riders have called for greater consistency from MotoGP stewards following numerous incidents across the Austrian and Styrian Grand Prix weekends. Opinion was split on the pitlane start penalty awarded to Johann Zarco for the Styrian GP after his horror collision with Franco Morbidelli in the Austrian GP the week before. In the Styrian GP,
Porsche works driver Simona de Silvestro will make her debut in the GT World Challenge Endurance Cup in next weekend’s Nurburgring round with the ROWE Racing team. De Silvestro was added to Porsche’s roster of factory drivers late last year when she took up a development role for the Weissach marque’s Formula E team, marking
NASCAR has declared itself happy with the speed of the prototype Next Generation car now scheduled to be introduced for the 2022 Cup Series after resuming testing this week. The two-test on Monday and Tuesday at Dover International Speedway, with Stewart-Haas Racing driver Cole Custer behind the wheel, was the first held since March and
Valentino Rossi says he hopes to see his protege Francesco Bagnaia “dressed in red” for the 2021 MotoGP season as Ducati nears a decision on its future works team line-up. During the Styrian Grand Prix weekend, Ducati confirmed it had offered Pramac rider Bagnaia a new two-year deal to remain within the Italian marque’s ranks
Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal is “very happy” to have been able to give “underrated” Miguel Oliveira a chance to “show he’s a MotoGP rider” with his Styrian Grand Prix win. Oliveira snatched a maiden win for himself and the popular Tech3 outfit at the last corner of a thrilling Styrian Grand Prix last Sunday, capitalising
Rally Germany has become the latest World Rally Championship round to be cancelled, while Rally Italy is moving three weeks earlier to avoid clashing with Formula 1’s Imola race. The Bostalsee-based Tarmac event in south-west Germany becomes the latest WRC casualty of the COVID-19 outbreak and joins Argentina, Portugal, Finland, Kenya, New Zealand, Wales Rally
Despite one of his best finishes of the season at Dover, Jimmie Johnson will go into the final race to make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs as an outsider. A late-race two-tyre pit call briefly gave Johnson the lead in Sunday’s second race of a weekend double-header at Dover International Speedway and he came away
Rinus VeeKay said he would apologise to his Ed Carpenter Racing crew after his “biggest nightmare” of hitting crew members was realised in his second pitstop at the Indianapolis 500. The Dutch rookie was the best of the Chevrolet-powered cars in qualifying and moved up from his fourth place starting position to run third after