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
Ott Tanak says he has “learned a very good lesson” and needs to “focus more than ever” on Rally Sweden, after crashing out of his Hyundai World Rally Championship debut. Tanak rolled off the side of a ravine on the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally on the first full day of the event, which ruled him
Three-time MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo says the chances of him making a full-time return to the series have increased since his Yamaha test debut, but remain low. Lorenzo drew a line under a 12-year premier-class career as he walked away from a two-year Honda contract midway through, announcing his retirement at the end of 2019.
IMSA sportscar champion Felipe Nasr and McLaren Formula 1 test and development driver Sergio Sette Camara will share the #31 Carlin-Chevrolet IndyCar entry in 2020. Nasr’s best results in junior formulae came with the Trevor Carlin-run team, winning the British F3 championship in 2011, and finishing third in the 2014 GP2 (now Formula 2) championship
The team of which 2009 Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button is a partner is switching to McLaren from Honda for its 2020 GT World Challenge Europe campaign. Jenson Team Rocket RJN will field a solo McLaren 720S GT3 in the five races that make up the Endurance Cup segment of the GTWCE this season.
The first three-day pre-season test of the 2020 MotoGP season from the Sepang International Circuit concluded last weekend, with Petronas SRT’s Fabio Quartararo topping the timesheets. For the first time, all six manufacturers – Honda, Ducati, Yamaha, Suzuki, KTM and Aprilia – ran their 2020 prototype bikes on track together, with 2019’s rookie sensation Quartararo
Reigning MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez admits he is “more worried about the bike” than his physical condition ahead of the season following the first test in Malaysia. Marquez suffered a partial shoulder dislocation in a crash at last year’s Malaysian Grand Prix – which he aggravated further in a fall during the Jerez test
Erik Jones claimed victory in a chaotic NASCAR Clash race at Daytona, in which only six cars were able to finish. A series of accidents in the final laps of the race caused multiple stoppages and slowly whittled the 18-car field down. Jones was running fourth at the final restart but swept past a host
Fabio Quartararo says he can still get better on Yamaha’s 2020 MotoGP bike as he is not yet “100% comfortable” with it, despite ending all three Sepang test days fastest. Quartararo was fastest on the opening day of the first pre-season tes on a 2019-specificaion M1, then used the 2020 version to go fastest on
Ducati has “struggled” to maintain the same pace as its main MotoGP rivals during the Sepang test, says works rider Danilo Petrucci. Petrucci led a Ducati top-four lockout in this same test last year, but was only sixth-fastest over the three days of 2020 Sepang running – with the lead Desmosedici of Pramac rider Francesco
Honda boss Alberto Puig says rookie signing Alex Marquez went “better than expected” during the three-day Sepang MotoGP pre-season test. Reigning Moto2 world champion Marquez has joined his elder brother Marc at the factory Honda team in 2020, forming the first all-brother premier class line-up in history. The younger Marquez made his debut on the