Fernando Alonso will drive McLaren’s 2019 Formula 1 car for the first time in next week’s post-Bahrain Grand Prix test. The two-time world champion walked away from grand prix racing at the end of the 2018 season but has become a McLaren ambassador and adviser for 2019. In announcing his new role the team said
Sebastian Vettel believes the cornering strength of Ferrari’s 2019 Formula 1 car may have cost it straightline speed, but needs more data to be sure. One of the traits of the Ferrari last season was strong top-speed performance, but Vettel and Charles Leclerc seemed to struggle in this area in the Australian Grand Prix. Red
Toyota World Rally Championship driver Kris Meeke says his fastest time on the Tour of Corsica’s shakedown has confirmed his confidence in the Toyota Yaris. The Bastia-based event is Meeke’s maiden asphalt outing in the Yaris WRC. His shakedown time was 0.9s faster than anybody else on the 3.40-mile Sorbo Ocagnano stage. “I came away
The FIA has opted to split the senior Formula 1 race official roles held by the late Charlie Whiting for this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix. As for the season-opening race in Australia, where Whiting’s shock death on the eve of the weekend prompted a late reshuffle, Michael Masi will be the race director in Bahrain.
Former Citroen drivers Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo have tipped the team and Sebastien Ogier as pacesetters for their home World Rally Championship round in Corsica this week. Meeke came close to winning the event in 2017 for Citroen, retiring from the lead with an oil connector problem. Ogier arrives in Corsica having triumphed in
The FIA says it didn’t want to be a ‘dictator’ after refusing to ban the Mercedes-inspired wheel rim holes last year, even though it has caused a development war. Mercedes was at the centre of controversy when it ran a design of wheel spacer that featured holes for better airflow on the Singapore Grand Prix
Fernando Alonso says the Dakar Rally-winning Toyota Hilux he’s sampling in South Africa this week “feels incredible” after his maiden run in the car. The Spaniard, who races for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship, drove the Hilux in the Kalahari desert, 900km away from Johannesburg, South Africa. Alonso drove alongside 2009 Dakar winner Giniel
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko reckons the Ferrari Formula 1 team had to hold back its performance in the Australian Grand Prix because of cooling problems. Ferrari endured a muted season-opening race as its pace-setting pre-season testing form translated into fourth and fifth on the road in Melbourne. The Italian team says it has
The Aprilia MotoGP team should aim to fight for podiums “in most races” next year, according to its technical chief Romano Albesiano. Aprilia is the only premier-class works team not to have scored a top-three result since its return to the grid in 2015, with a pair of sixth-places its best finishes. Riders Aleix Espargaro
McLaren Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz Jr believes Renault’s 2019 engine is “something to fight with” and finally marks the progress it needed to make “two years ago”. All bar one of Sainz’s four seasons in F1 have been with Renault power, and he drove for the French manufacturer’s own team at the end of
Rally GB will move its base from Deeside to Llandudno in an effort to further boost the profile of Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship. Autosport first learned of plans for the move last October, when a city centre stage in Liverpool was also discussed. Hopes of competitive action in Liverpool have faded, but
Double Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso is testing Toyota’s Dakar Rally Hilux in South Africa this week. Alonso has joined Gazoo Racing South Africa for a two-day session in a desert around 600 miles from Johannesburg, near the town of Bokhara, in a ‘controlled environment’ of small dunes and hard gravel. Autosport revealed in
The NASCAR Cup Series calendar has undergone a vast shuffle for the 2020 season, with changes including the season finale moving to Phoenix. The Cup champion has been decided at Homestead every year since 2001, but the last round will take place at Phoenix next year and be held around two weeks earlier than usual
The FIM has ruled that Ducati’s controversial MotoGP rear winglet is legal and that Andrea Dovizioso’s Qatar Grand Prix victory is now final. Following a protest lodged by Honda, Suzuki, Aprilia and KTM in the wake of Dovizioso’s season-opening win earlier this month, the FIM Court of Appeals hearing took place on Friday at the
Josef Newgarden and Ryan Hunter-Reay say IndyCar must look into its decision to allow drivers to run off-track at Austin’s Turn 19 by deciding not to enforce track limits. In IndyCar’s pre-season open test at Austin drivers repeatedly ran wide at the penultimate corner, raising the possibility of the series having to review continual violations
McLaren’s Formula 1 rookie Lando Norris is wary of repeating his top-10 qualifying heroics from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, but hopes the team is more competitive than it thought. Norris qualified eighth for his grand prix debut and while he was unable to finish in the points in the Melbourne race he and McLaren
The opening round of the 2019 MotoE season will take place in July at the Sachsenring, after the first two rounds were cancelled following the Jerez paddock fire. Preparations for the all-new electric MotoGP support class were disrupted by a fire during this month’s Jerez pre-season test in which all 18 of the series’ Energica
M-Sport driver Teemu Suninen has been told to finish this week’s Tour of Corsica after three crashes in the first three rounds of the 2019 World Rally Championship. Suninen went off the road on the first stage of the season in Monte Carlo, the first stage proper last time out in Mexico and spent time
NASCAR has revealed changes to its Cup qualifying procedure that it hopes will be “fair” and “entertaining” after farcical scenes at Fontana earlier this year. The new-for-2019 aero package has put an emphasis on drafting to set a competitive qualifying lap and it led to many drivers missing out on setting a time at Fontana,
Ross Brawn admits he wanted to be more ambitious with planned Formula 1 engine rules changes for 2021, but understands why there was a push back from the current manufacturers. The original plan called for “cheaper, simpler, louder” power units, with significant changes that were intended to encourage new manufacturers – with Porsche a particular
Formula 1’s 2021 overhaul should provide new opportunities to make big gains in a technical area that has become one of grand prix racing’s most important battlegrounds. The introduction of the V6 turbo-hybrid engine regulations in 2014 made fuel and lubricant suppliers a much more influential factor in the competitive pecking order. Long-time partners Ferrari
Ferrari expects its performance in this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix to show the effect of the “corrections” it has made following its poor start to the 2019 Formula 1 season. The Italian team finished fourth and fifth in the Australian Grand Prix having topped the times in pre-season testing and been considered the favourite heading
Hendrick Motorsport’s Chase Elliott says he needs to “capitalise” more strongly when he is in position to win NASCAR Cup Series races, after narrowly missing out on victory at Martinsville. Three-time race winner Elliott, who waited 98 racies for a maiden Cup victory, was the only driver to pass the dominant Brad Keselowski on track
Renault’s Formula 1 team needs to be hard on itself if it is to bounce back from the disappointment of the Australian Grand Prix, reckons its managing director Cyril Abiteboul. The team has set its sights on closing down the gap to the top three of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull this season, but it
Andrea Iannone believes Aprilia must first focus on extracting more performance from its existing MotoGP package before focusing on upgrades. Ex-Ducati and Suzuki rider Iannone made his Aprilia race debut in Qatar earlier this month, qualifying 19th and scoring two points for finishing 14th. Team-mate Aleix Espargaro enjoyed a more competitive showing as he kicked
Hyundai has announced nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb will contest Rally Chile in May, while the dropped Andreas Mikkelsen returns to take on both Argentina and Chile. Loeb had been confirmed for Rally Monte Carlo and Rally Sweden, before Hyundai dropped Andreas Mikkelsen to run Loeb and Dani Sordo alongside Thierry Neuville in the
IndyCar’s youngest race winner Colton Herta says he was not “super-confident” he could hold off Josef Newgarden for victory at Austin. Harding Steinbrenner’s Herta was a shock winner at the Circuit of the Americas after James Hinchcliffe and Felix Rosenqvist’s collision brought out a late caution that caused Will Power, Alexander Rossi and Scott Dixon
Honda hopes to have its first victory with Red Bull by the summer break as it bids to make use of its chance to win in Formula 1 again. The Japanese manufacturer scored its first podium of the V6 turbo-hybrid era in the 2019 season-opening Australian Grand Prix, its first start with Red Bull. That
Penske’s Brad Keselowski dominated to win the first 2019 NASCAR Cup series race at Martinsville. Keselowski led 446 laps out of 500 and won all three stages on his way to his second victory of the year. The Penske Ford driver took the lead from team-mate Joey Logano on the sixth lap of the race
Steinbrenner Harding Racing’s Colton Herta became the youngest winner in IndyCar history with victory at Austin in a wild late finish. The 18-year-old’s victory relied on a stunning restart following a safety car called after James Hinchcliffe nudged the rear of Felix Rosenqvist at Turn 19 – where no track limits were enforced – and