Peugeot has announced it will end its Dakar Rally programme after the 2018 event. The news had been long anticipated following Peugeot’s victories in the 2016 and ’17 events, and given its dissatisfaction with rule changes that are set to hamper its rear-wheel-drive cars. Peugeot Sport director Bruno Famin said: “As this will be the
Ross Brawn has said Formula 1 is at “a crossroads” in its bid to define its future direction, and this week we should get a proper glimpse of where its new owners want to take it. Following some intensive research by in-house specialists hired by the F1 organisation, the new management will present its vision
World champion Lewis Hamilton’s racecraft is “unparalleled” among Formula 1 greats, reckons his long-time technical boss Paddy Lowe. Now chief technical officer at Williams, Lowe was engineering director and then technical director at McLaren during Hamilton’s time there and then joined Hamilton at Mercedes in the role of executive director (technical) from mid-2013 to the
Honda’s performance across the Mexican Grand Prix weekend was better than expected, according to its Formula 1 project chief Yusuke Hasegawa. McLaren’s engine partner chose to take penalties for engine component changes on both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne’s cars in Mexico, where it felt it would struggle, so they would have fresher parts for
NASCAR Cup team Front Row Motorsports has ruled out dropping Ford and taking the vacant Toyota alliance made available by the championship-leading Furniture Row team dropping back to one car. It had been rumoured that Toyota was courting Bob Jenkins’ Front Row team, a two-time Cup race-winner that has used Ford equipment since 2010. Toyota
Honda MotoGP rider Dani Pedrosa says he expected to go from first to last in the Malaysian Grand Prix when he realised it would be a wet race. Pedrosa edged out Johann Zarco and Andrea Dovizioso to grab a third pole of the season in dry conditions on Saturday at Sepang, but slipped to fifth
Sebastien Ogier says winning the 2017 World Rally Championship with M-Sport was the most emotional moment of his career. After four WRC titles in factory Volkswagens, Ogier secured a late deal with M-Sport’s independent Ford programme for this season when VW pulled out. He clinched his fifth championship on Rally GB, where Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport
A deal for IndyCar to race at the Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix venue in August 2018 is 99% complete, according to sources close to the race organisers. Mexico City was listed as a provisional host venue on the 2018 IndyCar calendar as it had not been able to secure the date before calendar reveal
Denny Hamlin defended punting Martinsville race leader Chase Elliott into a spin as an acceptable part of a NASCAR Cup title fight. A furious Elliott drove into fellow playoff contender Hamlin on the slowing-down lap and then remonstrated with him in the pitlane after Joe Gibbs Toyota driver Hamlin had spun Elliott’s Hendrick Chevrolet out
Andrea Dovizioso says he did not request the team orders that Ducati implemented during the Malaysian Grand Prix to keep his MotoGP title hopes alive. Dovizioso’s sixth victory of the year at Sepang ensured that the championship goes down to the season finale at Valencia, albeit with Dovizioso trailing Marc Marquez by 21 points with
Lewis Hamilton’s fourth Formula 1 world title and drive to ninth in the Mexican Grand Prix is the focus of the latest edition of The Autosport Podcast. Lawrence Barretto and Stuart Codling join Edd Straw to look back at an incident-packed race in Mexico, and ask what Hamilton’s title means for his legacy. Hamilton’s place
Kyle Busch secured his place in the final championship four by winning a chaotic NASCAR Cup race at Martinsville. In the first race to be run under lights at the track, Busch finished second in both opening stages as Brad Keselowski emerged in front, looking to sweep both Martinsville races this season. Busch’s win came
Fernando Alonso believes newly-crowned Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton had it “too easy” on his way to the title in 2017. Hamilton was embroiled in a close fight at the top of the standings with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel for much of the year – but as Vettel’s championship challenge unraveled after the summer break,
Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has called Bernie Ecclestone’s claims that Mercedes and the FIA helped his Formula 1 team “unadulterated hogwash”. Ecclestone was quoted in an Italian newspaper claiming that Ferrari had been helped with its engine this season by rival Mercedes, and that the FIA had “often helped” keep Ferrari competitive. Marchionne has now
Sebastien Ogier sealed the 2017 World Rally Championship with third place for M-Sport on Rally GB, as Elfyn Evans claimed a dominant first win for himself and DMACK. Wales was tipped as one of the events where DMACK’s tyre would be advantageous, and Evans used it to dominate from the start of the forest stages
Marc Marquez admits there was no sense in him pushing to finish higher than fourth in MotoGP’s Malaysian Grand Prix, given his comfortable advantage in the championship. Honda rider Marquez had the opportunity to seal a fourth premier class title with a round to spare at Sepang, but was unable to take the fight to
Valentino Rossi said riding his Yamaha MotoGP bike in a wet Malaysian Grand Prix was “very dangerous” and he could have easily crashed. Rossi and team-mate Maverick Vinales have struggled with the 2017-spec Yamaha bike in the rain all season. They qualified fourth and fifth in the dry at Sepang, but fell back into the
An “angry” Andrea Dovizioso says his Malaysian Grand Prix victory is not as satisfying as it should be because last week’s poor Australian GP has left him a title outsider. Dovizioso claimed his sixth win of the season at Sepang, with points leader Marc Marquez only fourth, to take the championship fight to the final
Elfyn Evans is two stages away from becoming Rally GB’s first British winner since Richard Burns in 2000, with Sebastien Ogier poised to seal the World Rally Championship in Wales. Evans nursed his lead through Sunday morning’s first three stages and now holds a 43.4-second advantage in his DMACK Ford. The extremely tight five-way podium
Jorge Lorenzo claims he did not see a dashboard instruction to let Ducati MotoGP team-mate Andrea Dovizioso by to win the Malaysian Grand Prix. Dovizioso led home a Ducati one-two at Sepang, keeping his faint title hopes alive heading into the Valencia finale as points leader Marc Marquez could manage no better than fourth. Lorenzo
Andrea Dovizioso beat Ducati team-mate Jorge Lorenzo in a wet Malaysian Grand Prix to keep his slim MotoGP title hopes alive, as Marc Marquez could only manage fourth place. In wet conditions, the two factory Ducatis of Dovizioso and Lorenzo had the clear measure of the opposition, although it was the Tech3 Yamaha of Johann
Franco Morbidelli has been crowned 2017 Moto2 champion after chief rival Thomas Luthi was declared unfit to take part in today’s race in Malaysia. Luthi suffered a crash during qualifying for the penultimate round of the season, losing control of his Kalex bike at turn 2 with three minutes left in the session. A medical
Daniel Ricciardo says Red Bull is considering tactically changing his Formula 1 engine ahead of Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix after a frustrating qualifying. Ricciardo said he felt “very confused, annoyed, helpless” after he ended up seventh fastest, almost a second off the pace while team-mate Max Verstappen was 0.086s off pole position. With his Renault
Romain Grosjean said getting beaten by Sauber in Mexican Grand Prix qualifying was a ‘slap in the face’ for Haas, after the team lapped 18th and 19th quickest. Mexico was one of the worst F1 events for Haas in its debut season in 2016, and team boss Gunther Steiner said this year’s edition presented “one
Elfyn Evans maintained his Rally GB lead as fog shook up the rest of the leaderboard on the Saturday night stages. Sebastien Ogier was one of those to gain most, moving up to second place and closer to clinching the 2017 World Rally Championship this weekend – despite going off the road and picking up
The FIA has made further tweaks to its track limits rules at the Mexican Grand Prix, as the debate over the issue rages on in Formula 1. Following problems at last year’s race, changes were made to the Turn 1 and Turn 2 kerbing for this event – with speed bumps now situated alongside the
Elfyn Evans stabilised his Rally GB lead at just under 50 seconds as the event headed towards Saturday evening’s after-dark stages. Thierry Neuville became the first man to outpace Evans on a Saturday stage when he won the second running of Dyfi, but the runaway rally leader was still second quickest and maintained a 47.9s
Elfyn Evans continued to storm away from the field on Saturday morning’s Rally GB stages, as Thierry Neuville leapfrogged World Rally Championship rivals Sebastien Ogier and Ott Tanak into second. A clean sweep of four more stage wins brought DMACK Ford driver Evans’s overall lead up to a massive 49.3 seconds as light rain averted
Marc Marquez says “everything was wrong” in qualifying for MotoGP’s Malaysian Grand Prix, and fears a repeat on Sunday will stop him from fighting for the win. Marquez leads the championship by 33 points from Andrea Dovizioso with two rounds remaining but will only start seventh, the second-worst grid slot of his MotoGP career, at
The British Talent Team will not take part in the 2018 Moto3 season, with John McPhee set to switch to the CIP KTM squad. McPhee, 23, joined the newly-formed, Dorna-supported British Talent Team squad this year, and began the season strongly with a pair of second places in the first two rounds at Qatar and