Red Bull is determined to extend its contracts with both Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen until the end of 2020, amid ongoing speculation about their future in Formula 1. F1 teams are bracing themselves for a potentially big shake up in the driver market at the end of next year, with a number of top
Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost insists it is too early to assume that Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat will form the team’s Formula 1 line-up in 2018. Gasly made his grand prix debut with the team in Malaysia, standing in for Kvyat, and the Faenza squad announced over the Japanese GP weekend that the
NASCAR Cup Series playoff contenders Kevin Harvick and Kyle Larson believe points leader Martin Truex Jr is no longer unbeatable following their battles with him at Charlotte. Truex won Sunday’s race at Charlotte having started 17th on the grid, but Harvick ran second for much of the race until he was demoted to third by
Yamaha MotoGP team boss Lin Jarvis does not expect contract extension talks with Valentino Rossi to begin until several races into the 2018 campaign. Rossi’s current contract runs out at the end of next season. The Italian’s current deal was signed on the eve of the 2016 season and was announced during the Qatar weekend,
Martin Truex Jr booked a place in the last eight of the playoffs with his sixth victory of the season in the NASCAR Cup race at Charlotte, secured in overtime. The Furniture Row Racing driver led 91 of 334 laps through the race despite starting 17th. He had climbed all the way to fourth by
Romain Grosjean sparked a debate in the Japanese Grand Prix Formula 1 drivers’ briefing by querying Lewis Hamilton taking his seatbelts off while celebrating race wins, it has emerged. Hamilton clearly undid his belts to celebrate winning the Singapore Grand Prix, and admitted he had done so on numerous occasions beforehand. In a video of
Honda says its priority is for Pierre Gasly to race in the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, even if that means it will sacrifice the chance to win the Super Formula title. Gasly, the 2016 GP2 champion, replaced Daniil Kvyat at Toro Rosso for Malaysia and Japan but says it remains unclear if he
Kajetan Kajetanowicz secured a record breaking third consecutive European Rally Championship title despite retiring just after a helicopter crash caused the cancellation of SS11 of Rally Latvia. The Ford Fiesta R5 driver entered the gravel-based event as the favourite with a 24-point lead, although Portuguese frontrunner Bruno Magalhaes still had a chance to take the
Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle completed a brilliant victory on Rally Catalunya, while Sebastien Ogier extended his World Rally Championship lead after Thierry Neuville retired. Meeke has struggled all season with an ill-performing C3 WRC and a number of driver errors – leading to him being dropped for Rally Poland – but the Dungannon driver
A stage of the final European Rally Championship round in Latvia has been cancelled following a helicopter crash. ERC officials confirmed that the 11th stage will not run and that cars have been re-routed to SS12, which will now start 10 minutes late. A statement from the rally organisers said: “There has been a civil
Pierre Gasly says he hasn’t been told if he will race for Toro Rosso in the United States Grand Prix, despite the Formula 1 team announcing he would. On Saturday night Toro Rosso said Daniil Kvyat would be recalled for Austin, replacing the Renault-bound Carlos Sainz Jr, alongside Gasly. It would mean Gasly missing the
Citroen’s Kris Meeke closed in on Rally Spain victory over the three stage Sunday morning loop, as Thierry Neuville’s title challenge unravelled further with retirement. Meeke was quickest through all three of the stages, most impressively on the second stage of the loop SS15 Riudecanyes. At the infamous Coll de la Teixeta roundabout where drivers
Kris Meeke leads Rally Catalunya overnight, as a double Hyundai crash harmed its World Rally Championship manufacturers’ bid and left a pair of M-Sport Ford Fiestas on the podium. In SS12 both Dani Sordo, second overall, and Andreas Mikkelsen, sixth, crashed their Hyundais out of the event by hitting the same rock. Sordo had remained
The FIA has been urged by McLaren to get tougher in stopping teams from burning oil in Formula 1 next year, amid suspicions some are still gaining from the practice. Although motor racing’s governing body has begun a clampdown on the activity, with teams restricted on the amount that can be burned, there remain big
Mercedes believes that cooler temperatures in Japan, allied to changes made to its car ahead of the Formula 1 weekend, were key to it recovering from its Malaysia “disaster”. Just a week on from the German car manufacturer chasing answers for its lack of pace at Sepang, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas led the way
Kris Meeke rocketed into the lead on Rally Spain’s Saturday morning loop, as World Rally Championship contender Thierry Neuville crashed on the road section before stage nine. Meeke started the day in third after Friday’s gravel stages but a push on SS7 El Montmell, a stage he and co-driver Paul Nagle identified as one to
Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position for Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix with a dominant qualifying performance, leading a Mercedes one-two, while title rival Sebastian Vettel was third-fastest. Hamilton was quickest in all phases of the session, as he claimed his first pole at the Suzuka and smashed Michael Schumacher’s qualifying lap record from 2006. The
Ferrari’s Formula 1 turbocharger problems ruined Sebastian Vettel’s qualifying and prevented Kimi Raikkonen from starting last weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix. In this latest video from weekly programme The Flying Lap, Craig Scarborough explains the cause of the turbo problems that had such a big impact on the Sepang weekend. Ferrari also introduced an upgrade package
Andreas Mikkelsen completed a fine first day as a Hyundai World Rally Championship driver by completing Friday’s Rally Catalunya gravel stages at the top of the times. Mikkelsen lost the lead briefly after the opening test of the afternoon – when he slipped 0.3 seconds behind the privateer Ford Focus of Mads Ostberg – but
NASCAR chairman Brian France says the Cup’s stages format introduced for 2017 has brought out the best in the series. At the beginning of the year NASCAR controversially revamped its races by deciding to split them into three segments, with the top 10 in each stage on the road scoring championship and playoff points. The
Formula 1 bosses are in talks with officials in Vietnam about holding a race in the future. Earlier this year, former F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone said he could have done a deal with Vietnam but turned the chance down as he felt there were enough races in Asia. But F1 commercial chief Sean Bratches has
Honda test rider Hiroshi Aoyama will stand in for the injured Jack Miller at the forthcoming MotoGP round at Motegi. Miller broke his leg in a training accident in Andorra last Friday and has been forced to sit out next weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix. Aoyama, 35, has now been announced as Miller’s replacement at the
Hyundai’s latest World Rally Championship signing Andreas Mikkelsen made a dream start with his new employer by taking the Rally Catalunya lead on Friday morning’s first loop of stages. The WRC’s only mixed-surface event of the season was blessed with sunshine and blue skies – the sort of conditions championship leader Sebastien Ogier feared the
Formula 1 is planning to introduce biometric gloves from next season in a bid to help medical personnel better assess the physical condition of a driver after accidents. The new technology features a 3mm thick sensor and it will monitor a driver’s pulse rate and the amount of oxygen in the blood. In the future,
Tony Kanaan has signed a multi-year contract to drive for AJ Foyt Racing in the IndyCar Series from 2018. It had been known that the team was negotiating with the 2004 champion and 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner, once it became clear that Kanaan’s tenure at Chip Ganassi Racing was ending after four years. Foyt said:
Renault has promised its teams it is working hard to produce a “magic” Formula 1 engine mode for 2018, in a bid to take the fight to Mercedes and Ferrari in qualifying. Although the French manufacturer’s power unit is proving to be a match for rival engines in the races, it is still lacking at
Jorge Lorenzo will fight for the 2018 MotoGP title with Ducati, believes the series’ commercial chief Carmelo Ezpeleta. Having spent his entire MotoGP career up this year with Yamaha, Lorenzo has struggled to adapt to a new bike since joining Ducati. His best results are third places at Jerez and Aragon, and he is currently
Sebastien Loeb looks increasingly likely to make his World Rally Championship return on the 2018 Monte Carlo Rally. Though Loeb’s focus next year will be a ramped-up Peugeot-Hansen World Rallycross Championship campaign and he will also contest the Dakar Rally again, he has made clear he would be open to occasional WRC outings. Citroen team
Roger Penske has ruled out running a fifth car at IndyCar’s Indianapolis 500 in 2018 for Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya will drive full-time in the IMSA Sportscar Championship next season as part of Penske’s all-new Acura DPi programme after switching to an Indianapolis-only IndyCar schedule last year. The ex-Formula 1 driver had recently said he
Haas driver Kevin Magnussen says the fact that he has not been penalised for his driving by Formula 1 stewards means he has no need to change his aggressive style. Magnussen has been involved in incidents with other drivers this season – notably at the Hungaroring, where he was involved in a spat with Renault’s