Honda has told Johann Zarco to have “no illusion” of replacing Jorge Lorenzo at its factory MotoGP team as he gears up for a three-race stint with LCR. Takaaki Nakagami will miss the last three races in Australia, Malaysia and Valencia to recover from a shoulder operation he is to have after this weekend’s Japanese
Eleven factory drivers from four manufacturers will battle it out in the GT World Cup at Macau next month. The works contingent from Mercedes, Audi, Porsche and BMW, which includes four former winners with eight wins in the event between them, is part of a 17-car entry for the GT3 shootout on the Macau Formula
LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow believes his new part-time MotoGP team-mate Johann Zarco will “do better than people expect” in his upcoming three-race stint. KTM outcast Zarco has been drafted in to replace Takaaki Nakagami on the year-old Honda RC213V at Phillip Island, Sepang and Valencia, with the Japanese rider ruled out due to a
Ricky Stenhouse Jr has secured a NASCAR Cup Series lifeline after signing a multi-year deal to drive for JTG Daugherty Racing, racing alongside team-mate Ryan Preece in 2020. Stenhouse, a two-time Cup race-winner, joins the team after ending a 10-year spell with Roush Fenway Racing. Roush had opted to replace Stenhouse with Chris Buescher (pictured
Criticism of the Llandudno Wales Rally GB service park could be answered if the World Rally Championship follows the lead of Formula 1, according to M-Sport team boss Richard Millener. Britain’s round of the WRC was criticised by some teams due to the Llandudno town centre service park which was disjointed and unable to bring
Johann Zarco will contest the three final races of the 2019 MotoGP season on an LCR-run Honda bike. The 29-year-old will ride a year-old Honda RC213V, replacing Honda-contracted LCR team regular Takaaki Nakagami. Honda announced the day prior that Nakagami has had his MotoGP deal extended through 2020, but that he will skip the Phillip
Five-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Emanuele Pirro will make his Super Trofeo debut at the Lamborghini World Finals at Jerez, alongside motocross legend Tony Cairoli. The pair will race in the pro-am category for the Super Trofeo Asia season-finale races on the Friday of the event, before entering the World Finals as wildcards. Pirro,
After a huge crash at Talladega, 44-year-old Brendan Gaughan joked that he will need the permission of his parents to race in the NASCAR Cup Series again. With less than 10 laps to go, leaders Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Kyle Busch made contact on the backstretch, sending Busch up the race track into then race
Citroen has revealed the most radical aerodynamic updates seen since the start of the new era of World Rally Cars in 2017 ahead of Rally Spain. The French team has been testing its car in Spain ahead of next week’s Salou-based event, a crucial event in Ogier’s efforts to take his seventh straight championship and
Honda has announced Takaaki Nakagami will keep his LCR MotoGP ride for 2020 but skip the end of this season for surgery – opening the door for Johann Zarco’s opportunity. Autosport revealed last week that KTM outcast Zarco is set to come into the LCR line-up for Phillip Island, Sepang and Valencia as Nakagami’s stand-in
Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney booked his spot in the next stage of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with victory at Talladega, in a race of high attrition. The race, suspended after just one stage on Sunday due to poor weather, boiled down to a two-lap shootout for the win after a red flag was thrown
LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow says his slump in MotoGP form means he is unlikely to retire at the end of 2020 as he is keen to prove himself. Crutchlow has endured a mixed campaign aboard the 2019-specification Honda RC213V and has struggled in recent races, crashing at Misano and finishing Buriram in 12th. He has
The NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Talladega has been suspended until Monday afternoon, after rain left the field stranded in the pitlane after 55 of the scheduled 188 laps. Having begun racing at 2pm local time on Sunday afternoon, the 40-strong field for the second race in the ’round of 8′ was able to
Team owner Richard Childress will drive the pace car at Talladega on Sunday, as Kevin Harvick is set to surpass Dale Earnhardt’s number of starts in the NASCAR Cup Series. Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway will mark Harvick’s 677th career start in the series, one more than the total career starts of the driver he
With competition out on the stages, and controversy in the service park, Wales Rally GB threw up another exciting World Rally Championship event Llandudno. The moving of the service park to seaside town Llandudno is the chief topic of conversation for the latest episode of the Gravel Notes podcast with David Evans, as Autosport’s rallies
KTM rider Pol Espargaro says he wants to have no input on his MotoGP team-mate for 2020 and believes whoever is chosen should show dedication and willingness to “suffer”. Johann Zarco had slotted in alongside Espargaro on a two-year deal in the off-season but requested to be released from his contract a year early and
Hyundai team boss Andrea Adamo says he is taking a “big picture” view of whether to keep Craig Breen for the 2020 World Rally Championship season. Former Citroen driver Breen was given an initial Hyundai chance in Finland, where he impressed the team with seventh place after giving up sixth to help Thierry Neuville’s title
Johann Zarco is set to replace Takaaki Nakagami at LCR Honda for the last three rounds of the 2019 MotoGP season, Autosport has learned. Nakagami is suffering from a similar shoulder problem to the one that afflicted Marc Marquez last season, and for which the world champion had surgery last December. The fact that Marquez’s
Dorna Sports has announced a five-year deal with the new Rio Motorpark circuit to bring MotoGP back to Brazil for the first time since 2004 in ’22. MotoGP promoter Dorna and organisers of the Brazil race reached a preliminary agreement last year to return the series to the country at a new circuit. The five-year
KTM MotoGP rider Mika Kallio accepts he needs “to show something different” if he is to remain part of the team’s full-time rider line-up for 2020. A long-time KTM tester, Kallio was drafted in to replace the ousted Johann Zarco, but finished out of the points in his first race this year at Aragon and
Kyle Larson is the latest example of how one win in NASCAR’s playoff system can completely change the championship fortunes of a driver. It was just a little over two months ago that Larson was anguishing over having to “race backup cars” as he wrecked his primary car in practice sessions on two consecutive race
Valentino Rossi says his MotoGP employer Yamaha will pull out all the stops to keep Fabio Quartararo beyond 2021 if it’s not “crazy”. Moto2 graduate Quartararo has been the breakout star of the current premier-class campaign for Yamaha’s new Petronas-backed satellite team, scoring five podiums and four pole positions. Speaking after the Thailand Grand Prix,
Kris Meeke is edging ahead of Jari-Matti Latvala in the race to stay at Toyota for the 2020 World Rally Championship due to his greater consistency. With Toyota thought likely to keep WRC leader Ott Tanak and to have already signed 19-year-old WRC 2 Pro champion Kalle Rovapera, Tanak’s current team-mates Meeke and Latvala are
Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaro says persistent mechanical failures cannot be allowed to happen anymore, after retiring from the MotoGP Thailand Grand Prix with an electronics problem. Espargaro was battling Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci and on course for a likely top-10 finish when he was forced to peel into the pits two-thirds of the way through the
Dani Sordo will remain a Hyundai driver next season, sharing an i20 Coupe WRC for seven of next year’s 14 rounds of the World Rally Championship. Sordo had been linked with a move to Toyota but Autosport reported last month that he was set to stay at Hyundai into a seventh season instead. The Spaniard,
Chip Ganassi Racing has expanded to a three-car IndyCar line-up after signing Alfa Romeo Formula 1 third driver Marcus Ericsson to partner Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist. Ericsson switched to IndyCar after five years in F1 and raced for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in 2019, partnering James Hinchcliffe, and scored a best result of second in
At the age of 26, Marc Marquez has won eight grand prix world titles after clinching his sixth MotoGP world championship in Thailand. Marquez has been a near-unstoppable force across the last decade through all three classes of the world championship. In MotoGP, he has romped to success on bikes that have proven difficult to
NASCAR’s next generation Cup Series car, dubbed Gen-7, will complete on-track testing on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Gen-7 NASCAR machines are expected to make their competitive debut in 2021, although parts of the new package could appear in ’20 following a successful trial during this year’s Charlotte All-Star race. NASCAR intends for Gen-7 to lower
Newly-crowned six-time MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez has compared Fabio Quartararo’s riding style to that of three-time title-winner Jorge Lorenzo “when he was at the best level at Yamaha”. Lorenzo spent nine years at Yamaha, beginning with his debut season in 2008, and won all three of his MotoGP titles – in ’10, ’12 and
Marc Marquez’s run to the 2019 MotoGP title was “something crazy” for modern grand prix motorcycle racing, according to rival Andrea Dovizioso. After crashing out of a commanding lead in Austin, Marquez finished first or second in the following 14 races and has clinched the title with four races to spare. Speaking after Marquez’s coronation