Johann Zarco says qualifying third for MotoGP’s Czech Grand Prix made him feel like he “still has the ability” amid a largely miserable debut season at KTM. Zarco has endured a torrid first half of the 2019 campaign, but took advantage of wet conditions in qualifying at Brno by topping Q1, and then securing KTM’s
World Rally Championship points leader Ott Tanak will take a 16.4 second advantage into the final day of Rally Finland after edging away in the Saturday afternoon loop. Tanak took just one stage win after service but extended his lead over Esapekka Lappi over the remaining stages to move to within touching distance of a
Toyota World Rally Championship team principal Tommi Makinen has criticised Kris Meeke and Jari-Matti Latvala for ‘forgetting the plan’ for this week’s Rally Finland. Meeke retired from Saturday’s stages with damage to the left-rear of his Yaris WRC, while Latvala emerged from the same Kakaristo stage with a left-rear puncture. His car suffered bodywork and
World Rally Championship points leader Ott Tanak built a comfortable 13.8-second lead on Rally Finland after Toyota team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Kris Meeke hit trouble on the Saturday morning loop. Tanak and Latvala each took turns at the top of the standings, with Tanak using his better road position to take 3.1s out of Latvala
MotoGP is set for an expanded 20-race calendar in 2020, with the returning Finnish Grand Prix joining the existing 19 races for next season. A draft 2020 calendar is expected to be circulated among teams in the coming days, and while it is not final, it is set to be the longest in the world
Toyota World Rally Championship driver Kris Meeke is out of Rally Finland with broken suspension after hitting a rock during on the Saturday morning loop. Meeke was second overnight, and was running third – just 0.6 seconds off the lead – after winning the morning’s second stage. He had been matching the split times of
Nissan locked out the front row for SUPER GT’s Fuji 500-mile race after the qualifying session was ended prematurely following a major crash for Honda runner Koudai Tsukakoshi. Tsukakoshi’s Real Racing Honda suffered a braking problem on the approach to Turn 1, slamming the barriers hard and bringing out a red flag. Just 20 seconds
Toyota World Rally Championship driver Jari-Matti Latvala moved into the lead of Rally Finland on an ultra-close afternoon loop, after which the top four are split by just 2.6 seconds. Latvala overturned his team-mate Ott Tanak’s 5.4s morning advantage with the fastest time on the second pass of Moksi to open up a slender 0.4s
Valentino Rossi says the Yamaha MotoGP engine that failed in second practice for this weekend’s Czech Grand Prix at Brno was ‘old’. Smoke started pouring from Rossi’s factory M1 midway through FP2 on Friday afternoon, causing the seven-time premier class champion to cruise back to the pits and switch to his number two bike. He
Cal Crutchlow says LCR Honda MotoGP team-mate Takaaki Nakagami “doesn’t deserve” machine parity with the other factory HRC riders next season as his results this year do not justify it. Nakagami admitted on Thursday ahead of the Czech Grand Prix weekend that talks between himself and Honda over a ’20 deal had stalled, as the
World Rally Championship points leader Ott Tanak holds a 5.4-second lead over Toyota team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala after the opening loop of Rally Finland, as Thierry Neuville struggled with set-up issues. Despite running first on the road, Tanak grabbed the lead after the first stage of the day, Oitilla, and extended his advantage over the remaining
Yamaha MotoGP riders Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales say they are not prepared to write off the rest of the 2019 season, despite plans to test a 2020 prototype at Brno on Monday. Yamaha is expected to run an early version of its 2020 engine during the traditional post-race test at the Czech venue as
Hyundai World Rally Championship driver Thierry Neuville took an early lead on Rally Finland after winning the opening Harju superspecial by 0.7 seconds from points leader Ott Tanak. Tanak, who won last year’s event, topped the morning shakedown from Neuville and had been marginally up through the opening split, but lost time towards the end
Johann Zarco says he is now more accepting of his situation at KTM and aims to “better control” his emotions in the second half of the 2019 MotoGP campaign. The double Moto2 champion’s debut campaign aboard the RC16 has been a miserable experience, with just one top 10 finish and a lowly 16 points scored
The final places on the 2020 MotoGP grid have yet to be secured, as talks between Jack Miller and Pramac, and Takaaki Nakagami and LCR stalled over the summer break. Both are on deals that expire at the end of this year, but are more than likely to remain where they are currently as no
The IndyCar Series has delayed its next engine formula until 2022 so it can integrate a hybrid system in a bid to attract more manufacturers to join Honda and Chevrolet. The hybrid system will work in parallel with the Ilmor-built Chevrolet and Honda Performance Development-built Honda engines to produce more than “900 horsepower”. IndyCar’s new
Craig Breen began his World Rally Championship return with Hyundai by going third fastest on Thursday morning’s Rally Finland shakedown. The former Citroen driver, called up by Hyundai for what is currently a one-off outing, was second only to WRC leader and 2018 Finland winner Ott Tanak’s Toyota on his first shakedown run – outpacing
The Le Mans-winning Team Goh McLaren squad has withdrawn from this month’s Suzuka Intercontinental GT Challenge event and played down its plans for a full-season campaign in 2020. Goh has axed its Suzuka 10 Hours assault on August 25 with a pair of 720S GT3s entered under the McLaren Customer Racing Japan banner, citing concerns
Sebastien Ogier has made clear he will depart the World Rally Championship at the end of the 2020 season. The six-time world champion always said his current Citroen contract would be his last in the WRC and reconfirmed that decision on Wednesday in a French media interview. Ogier told Autosport he was looking forward to
MotoGP team boss Lin Jarvis says Yamaha is better at responding to the specific needs of its riders than rival marque Honda, despite Marc Marquez’s success aboard the RC213V. While the development of Honda’s 2019-spec RC213V has been largely determined by five-time champion Marquez, Yamaha gives its factory riders Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales more
Indy Lights championship leader Oliver Askew says his test IndyCar test with Chip Ganassi Racing in a current-spec IndyCar next week can “open doors” and is the “biggest opportunity” he has had in his career. Askew, 22, has impressed in his junior career, winning the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout at Laguna Seca in 2016
The Avintia MotoGP team has announced it has retained Tito Rabat for the next two seasons, ending speculation that the 2014 Moto2 champion could make a World Superbike switch. Rabat joined the Avintia team last season, but had his season cut short by a horror leg injury sustained in a crash during a wet practice
Craig Breen could get further outings with the Hyundai World Rally Championship team in Turkey and Britain, Autosport understands. The former Citroen driver has been called up by Hyundai for this week’s Rally Finland, which will be his first WRC start since the end of 2018. Sources in the team have admitted Breen’s deal could
Hyundai Motorsport director Andrea Adamo says his World Rally Championship team has done all it can to try to improve its Rally Finland form for this week’s event. WRC manufacturers’ championship leader Hyundai arrives at the Jyvaskyla-based event with significant upgrades to its i20 Coupe WRC. The team would not be drawn on the specifics
The R-Motorsport Aston Martin team will contest November’s Kyalami round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge ahead of a potential full-series entry in 2020. The Swiss DTM entrant has revealed that it will field two Aston Martin Vantage GT3s in the IGTC finale in South Africa on November 23 after the climax of its twin programmes
The form of privateer MotoGP rookie Fabio Quartararo has acted as “stimulation” for team-mates Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales, believes factory Yamaha team boss Lin Jarvis. Quartararo, 20, has scored three pole positions and two podium finishes at Barcelona and Assen respectively in his first nine MotoGP races with the Petroinas SRT Yamaha team. Why
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Erik Jones says he will “sleep a lot easier” after his second place at Pocono boosted his chances of qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Jones is yet to score a victory that would guarantee a place in the playoff, with just six regular-season races remaining in 2019. The 16 drivers
Ryan Hunter-Reay says he was “baffled” by IndyCar points’ leader Josef Newgarden’s late attempt to steal a podium at Mid-Ohio. Hunter-Reay ended an 11-race streak without a podium to seal third behind the duelling Chip Ganassi Racing-run cars of Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist, but a last lap clash threatened to ruin his race. At
Scott Dixon says that the Mid-Ohio IndyCar race proves that the championship has “the best racing in the world” after he beat team-mate Felix Rosenqvist. Dixon ran one less pitstop than Rosenqvist and managed to hold off his late-charging Chip Ganassi Racing team-mate, despite the pair touching wheels while fighting for the win. “You know,
NASCAR has unveiled the first details of its maiden double-header weekend at Pocono and suggested that the two races will be a distance of 350 miles each. Pocono is hosting a double-header of two races across June 27-28 instead of the usual two separate races on different summer weekends. The track has recently undergone a