Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso has “lost his way” in recent MotoGP races, according to his former team-mate Cal Crutchlow. Dovizioso qualified 13th for the German Grand Prix while his title rival Marc Marquez – ahead of the Ducati rider by 44 points in the title race – has taken pole position for Sunday’s race. The
Kimi Raikkonen reckons the debate over whether Formula 1 has become less difficult is skewed because “the memory plays games” when looking back at previous years. Amid the plan to drastically change multiple elements of F1 for 2021, some drivers – including five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton – have called for the physical challenge to
The NASCAR Cup Series night race at Daytona has been delayed until Sunday afternoon on account of persistent heavy rain throughout Saturday evening. The 400-mile 160 lap race was due to start at 19.40 local time but rain forced a delay before organisers eventually announced the postponement. Rescheduled to take place during daylight hours on
LCR Honda MotoGP rider Takaaki Nakagami says he felt like his ankle was breaking at every corner during Saturday’s German Grand Prix running at the Sachsenring. Nakagami was wiped out by Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi early in last week’s Dutch TT and, although he did not suffer any broken bones, he has struggled with an
Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci says he was angered by Joan Mir’s “strange” behaviour in MotoGP qualifying for the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring. Petrucci was first of the two to head out on track in the Q2 session but had a slow out-lap and was looking over his shoulder several times, allowing the Suzuki
Carlos Sainz Jr believes McLaren’s Spanish Grand Prix upgrade package is now showing its strength in high-speed corners and means it can head to Formula 1’s British Grand Prix confident. Sainz believes McLaren’s strong showing in the French and Austrian Grands Prix – scoring 22 points at the two venues – means the package is
Honda MotoGP rider Marc Marquez took a seventh consecutive pole position at the Sachsenring and beat his own lap record set last year. Marquez had a comfortable gap over his Q2 rivals from the get-go, taking the lead with a 1m20.575s lap on his first attempt and then immediately pitting for his second bike. His
McLaren Formula 1 team principal Andreas Seidl says it is “pretty difficult to imagine” any new entry investing the money currently required to be successful in the championship. F1 is pursuing prospective teams and engine manufacturers, with Honda the only supplier to join since the V6 turbo-hybrid engine rules were introduced in 2014. Resource restrictions
Penske’s Joey Logano will start the NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona from pole position after persistent lightning led to the cancellation of qualifying. The weather conditions at the track on Friday afternoon prevented NASCAR from completing the pre-qualifying inspection and forced the cancellation of qualifying. The field for Saturday night’s race has been set
The major upgrade package Renault recently brought to its Formula 1 car has not had the impact that was was expected, according to the team’s drivers. Renault promised a “substantial” upgrade for its home race in France last month and brought a new front end and new floor to Paul Ricard, along with a selection
McLaren boss Andreas Seidl wants his team to embrace a more “risky” approach to Formula 1 car development in its bid to move further up the grid. The McLaren team finished sixth in the constructors’ championship in its first campaign using Renault engines but finds itself fourth this year after another race in which both
Audi has unveiled a new contender for the forthcoming GT2 class pioneered by sportscar promoter Stephane Ratel. The Audi R8 LMS GT2 will race in a category aimed at amateur drivers and will be pitched against GT3 machinery in the Stephane Ratel Organisation’s sprint series around the world, including the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe
Honda MotoGP rider Marc Marquez ended Friday at the Sachsenring as the practice pacesetter, outperforming nearest rival Alex Rins by 0.341 seconds in the afternoon session. Second in the opening practice for the German Grand Prix earlier in the day, championship leader Marquez very nearly crashed on his first flying lap in the afternoon when
Racing Point’s enduring struggles in the 2019 Formula 1 season are a “bit of a legacy” of its financial difficulties in its former Force India identity. The Canadian-owned team was a ‘new entry’ to the championship last year after Force India went into administration. Force India’s troubles meant the team’s progress with its 2018 car
Petronas SRT Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo topped the opening MotoGP session at the Sachsenring, narrowly beating championship leader Marc Marquez. Marquez, unbeaten at the Sachsenring in various classes of grand prix racing since 2009, established a big lead five minutes into the session and proceeded to better his lap on several tours. The Honda rider
MotoGP rider Aleix Espargaro admits his Aprilia team is unlikely to make a big step over the rest of the campaign and wants it to switch focus to 2020 already. Aprilia has significantly more points on the board than it had by this point in its disastrous 2018 season, but it remains last in the
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has suggested there is an “agenda” behind ongoing rumours that he is being lined up to replace Chase Carey as a future Formula 1 chief. Wolff’s success at Mercedes has led to him being linked to a future role running F1, with Formula E chief Alejandro Agag, Lamborghini CEO Stefano Domenicali
Ducati MotoGP rider Andrea Dovizioso says people are “wrong” to question his level of aggression, after finishing a distant fourth in last weekend’s Dutch TT. Having started 11th, Dovizioso leapt up to fourth in the early stages and matched the leading trio on lap times before beginning to drop pace in the second half of
LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow has revealed he suffered a fracture in his right knee after slipping and falling from his bicycle ahead of MotoGP’s German Grand Prix this weekend. Crutchlow stopped to adjust the height of his saddle on his bicycle on Wednesday when he slipped and banged his leg against the ground. The
Estonia has begun a groundbreaking three-year plan to join the World Rally Championship calendar. Rally Estonia, which runs out of Tartu next week, has traditionally been a warm-up for WRC crews competing on Rally Finland, which takes place across the Baltic Sea a few weeks later. Estonia attracts the best entry of any rally in
Red Bull and Honda were “surprised” to score their first Formula 1 win together in Austria because Mercedes being “almost perfect” meant the season started tougher than expected. Max Verstappen’s victory in Austria, at Red Bull’s home race and in front of senior Honda personnel, was a timely triumph as discussions continue over the manufacturer’s
NASCAR president Steve Phelps says he does not expect “massive, wholesale” changes to the 2021 Cup Series calendar. The series revamped its calendar in 2020 and Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief racing development officer, said at the time that the “fans and the industry as a whole have been vocal about the
MotoGP race winner Danilo Petrucci will remain part of the Ducati factory team in 2020, the Italian manufacturer has announced. Petrucci was brought in to replace Jorge Lorenzo at the team on an initial one-year deal for 2019, and convinced Ducati to extend his tenure with the outfit through a solid start to the campaign,
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff thinks Formula 1 should not talk itself down and should remember the Austrian Grand Prix the next time there is “polemic” criticism about racing. An entertaining Red Bull Ring race came one week after an uneventful grand prix at Paul Ricard that provoked condemnation. Wolff compared that reaction to comments made
Pierre Gasy needs a mental “Control-Alt-Delete” reset in a bid to recover his Formula 1 season, reckons his Red Bull boss Christian Horner. Gasly has had a difficult start to the campaign, and his misery continued in the Austrian Grand Prix when he was lapped for a third race in a row, while team-mate Max
Hayden Paddon has secured a World Rally Championship return with a last-minute deal to drive M-Sport Ford’s third Fiesta WRC on Rally Finland. Overlooked for a Hyundai return in favour of Craig Breen for the event, Paddon decided not to “cry about the decision” in order to find an alternative. His agreement to return to
Mercedes has revealed the cooling problems that made its Austrian Grand Prix “painful” were a legacy of the fundamental design of its Formula 1 car being too “optimistic”. Valtteri Bottas finished third while championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished off the podium for the first time this season in fifth, as Mercedes 100% winning start to
The world’s only twilight race returns to the Yas Marina Circuit. After a decade on the Formula 1 calendar, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix has established itself as the season finale. With time running out to secure a seat at the showdown and packages starting from £999, this is a race you won’t want to
Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne deserve a “lot of credit” for helping McLaren develop a much better Formula 1 car this year, says its new team boss Andreas Seidl. Although both drivers endured frustrations with McLaren’s lack of competiveness over recent years, Seidl thinks that the job they did in steering the team down the
The result could not have been better for PETRONAS after unveiling the second strand of its potent performance oils in MotoGP. Petronas Yamaha Sepang Racing Team’s Fabio Quartararo used his Yamaha M1 to set a third pole position of 2019 at the historic Assen TT circuit ahead of a second consecutive podium for the rookie