2022 Motorsports thread

[ejstubbs]

On 25/06/2022 at 10:07, Invicta Informant said:

One thing that has been a good watch over the past few days on YouTube is the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

 

Was also "live" (with a bit too much unnecessary chatter IMO, but there you go) on ITV over Saturday and Sunday.  I've just been watching it on catch-up.  The electric fan car that broke the hillclimb record is a bl00dy missile:

 

 

According to the chat on the ITV coverage, they had the fans set on maximum downforce - all two tonnes of it!  What that YouTube clip doesn't show very well is the car sat at the start line with the fans spooling up before it set off like a scalded cat.

Edited June 30, 2022 by ejstubbs

[Invicta Informant]

This weekend will see the racing debut of Peugeot's 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar at the 6 Hours of Monza. Brits Paul di Resta and James Rossiter are part of the team (in different cars), with Frenchmen Jean-Eric Vergne and Loic Duval, Dane Mikkel Jensen, and American Gustavo Menezes.

 

From Autosport magazine and their website, images have been released of Porsche's LMDh contender (the 963), and of Ferrari's as yet unnamed Le Mans Hypercar.

 

With the number of manufactures scheduled to join the top class in the WEC and/or the IMSA, sports car racing seems to be in healthier state compared to other racing series.

[Invicta Informant]

The 24 Hours of Spa is on this weekend and will feature a 66 car field, all in GT3-spec machinery. The race is being streamed on YouTube.

 

British Touring Cars are back from their Summer break this weekend at Knockhill. The coverage is split (for some reason) between ITV1 and ITV4.

 

Plus, there is IndyCar action from the Indianapolis Road Course, which can be viewed on Sky Sports. The situation between the reigning champion (and championship contender) Alex Palou and his team Chip Ganassi Racing is bizarre to say the least. 

[Invicta Informant]

Following the recent round of the World Rally Championship in New Zealand, Kalle Rovanpera has become the youngest ever World Rally Champion at 22 years old and the first Finnish champion since Marcus Gronholm in 2002. Rovanpera's co-driver, Jonne Halttunen, also becomes a World Champion too. There are two rounds of the championship still to go in Spain (20th-23rd October) and Japan (10th-13th November).

[Invicta Informant]

The final meeting of the 2022 of the British Touring Car Championship will take place this weekend at Brands Hatch, racing on the GP circuit. Coverage is on ITV4.

 

The top three drivers in the championship standings, Ash Sutton on 345, Jake Hill on 340 and Tom Ingram on 338, are the favourites but Colin Turkington on 318 is not mathematically out of the running.

[Steadfast]

I watched this on YouTube earlier, an entertaining interview with my favourite BTCC driver.

 

 

Jo

[Invicta Informant]

Two more championships have come to their conclusions this weekend gone. In the NASCAR Cup Series, Joey Logano won his second Cup series crown driving for Team Penske. While in  MotoGP, Italian Francesco 'Pecco' Bagnaia riding for Ducati won his first championship since winning the Moto2 crown in 2018. This season also marks the first time Honda finished last in the manufacturers' standings in the modern era, being the only manufacturer to not score a victory (Ducati, Yamaha, Aprilia, KTM, and Suzuki, who are withdrawing from the championship, are the others).

 

The only other championships that have yet to conclude their 2022 seasons, are the World Endurance Championship (final race being the 8 hours of Bahrain on 12th November) and the World Touring Car Cup (final rounds in Bahrain on 10th-12th November and Saudi Arabia on 18th-20th November). The World Touring Car Cup, formerly the World Touring Car Championship, will be discontinued following these final two meetings.

[LNERandBR]

Ott Tanak has been confirmed as driving for M-Sport in the WRC next year.

 

Finally the silly season he started by leaving Hyundai has all but finished. I'm sure M-Sport will announce the rest of their lineup soon. Most likely Gus Greensmith will be there as he's been mentioned by them unlike Adrien Fourmaux. However, I hope their lineup includes Oliver Solberg after he was ditched by Hyundai. He really needs a better learning environment and that tends to be what M-Sport are good at. You just have to look at Ott.

 

Really feel for Craig Breen as the hoped for results never materialised this year. Hopefully he will get a full reset by moving back to a part time role with Hyundai next year.

Speaking of, Lappi moving to Hyundai was a suprise. Although I suppose it makes sense if he wanted a full season and all Toyota could give him was a part season.

 

There's still some speculation about Elfyn Evans but I think he's all but confirmed at Toyota.

 

[Invicta Informant]

On 07/12/2022 at 14:54, LNERandBR said:

Ott Tanak has been confirmed as driving for M-Sport in the WRC next year.

 

Finally the silly season he started by leaving Hyundai has all but finished. I'm sure M-Sport will announce the rest of their lineup soon. Most likely Gus Greensmith will be there as he's been mentioned by them unlike Adrien Fourmaux. However, I hope their lineup includes Oliver Solberg after he was ditched by Hyundai. He really needs a better learning environment and that tends to be what M-Sport are good at. You just have to look at Ott.

 

Really feel for Craig Breen as the hoped for results never materialised this year. Hopefully he will get a full reset by moving back to a part time role with Hyundai next year.

Speaking of, Lappi moving to Hyundai was a suprise. Although I suppose it makes sense if he wanted a full season and all Toyota could give him was a part season.

 

There's still some speculation about Elfyn Evans but I think he's all but confirmed at Toyota.

 

From what I have seen for the 2023 WRC Season, M-Sport Ford will have Ott Tänak and Pierre-Louis Loubet, Hyundai will have Thierry Neuville, Esapekka Lappi and the third car shared by Dani Sordo and Craig Breen, while Toyota will have Kalle Rovanperä, Elfyn Evans and the third car shared by Sébastien Ogier and Takamoto Katsuta. The season starts with Monte Carlo on 19th-22nd January, with rounds scheduled in Sweden, Mexico, Croatia, Portugal, Sardinia in Italy, Kenya, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Chile, Central Europe (co-hosted by Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic) and concludes with Japan on 16th-19th November.

 

Sportscar Racing for the 2023 season looks very interesting with the convergence of the Le Mans Hypercar and LMDh rulesets into one class. BMW and Porsche are returning to the top class in the IMSA, now called Grand Touring Prototype (GTP). Their season begins with the Daytona 24 Hours on 28th-29th January. Porsche's main works effort is being run by Penske in both the IMSA and the WEC (two cars in each series), with privately run efforts by JDC-Miller MotorSports and Proton Competition in the IMSA (one car each) and Jota Sports and Proton Competition again in the WEC (one car each). Cadillac's works team is run by Chip Ganassi Racing who are running two cars in the IMSA and one car in the WEC, plus there is a privately run Cadillac (by Action Express Racing under the Whelen Engineering Racing banner) in the IMSA.

 

BMW in the IMSA will be run by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (two cars) and the marque are due to return to the WEC in 2024 (run by WRT, who were meant to run Audi's LMDh car before Audi canned the project). Acura (a brand of Honda's) will still be run by Wayne Taylor Racing  and Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian (one car each) in the IMSA. There are no plans for the car to be entered into the WEC or for Le Mans.

 

The WEC season begins with the 1,000 Miles of Sebring on 17th March (the day before the IMSA's 12 Hours of Sebring). Toyota, Peugeot, Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac and Glickenhaus will be present in the top class Hypercar category, especially at the Le Mans 24 Hours on 10th-11th June, which will be the 100th Anniversary edition (but not the 100th Race). The first race took place on 26th-27th May 1923. There were no races in 1936 (General Strike and related civil unrest in France) and between 1940 and 1948 (WW2 and the post-war reconstruction).

 

Alpine are due to return to the WEC in 2024 with their own LMDh car, plus Lamborghini are due to join the series also in 2024 with a LMDh car. There are still plans for Le Mans Hypercars from ByKolles (badged as a Vanwall), Isotta Fraschini, De Tomaso, and Veloqx, but when, where or if they will make their debuts remains to be seen at present. The LMDh cars incidentally use a standard LMP2 chassis from one of the approved manufactures, Oreca, Ligier, Dallara or Multimatic, and from there the road car manufacturers (Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Porsche, Alpine and Lamborghini thus far) build their own cars around one of those chassis.

[LNERandBR]

1 minute ago, Invicta Informant said:

From what I have seen for the 2023 WRC Season, M-Sport Ford will have Ott Tänak and Pierre-Louis Loubet, Hyundai will have Thierry Neuville, Esapekka Lappi and the third car shared by Dani Sordo and Craig Breen, while Toyota will have Kalle Rovanperä, Elfyn Evans and the third car shared by Sébastien Ogier and Takamoto Katsuta. The season starts with Monte Carlo on 19th-22nd January, with rounds scheduled in Sweden, Mexico, Croatia, Portugal, Sardinia in Italy, Kenya, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Chile, Central Europe (co-hosted by Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic) and concludes with Japan on 16th-19th November.

 

Indeed, although Takamoto Katsuta will still be running at all events. He just won't score manufacturer points at those events Ogier is at. We don't yet know exactly which events Ogier will be at or indeed how the rounds will be shared between Craig Breen or Dani Sordo. 

 

Submissions for entering Monte Carlo closed on the 16th so we should hear about the 3rd M-Sport Car soon. Unless they have spent so much on Ott's contract they are just running 2 cars. There is still speculation that Seb Loeb will do some rounds again and any 3rd car is expected to be Gus Greensmith. 

 

In WRC2. Oliver Solberg has been confirmed as running for Toksport in a Skoda. It's expected that Emil Lindholm and Sami Pajari will also be in that team.

 

Also, Adrian Formaux has been demoted to a WRC2 drive for M-Sport which will have 2 Fiesta's with Gregoire Munster in the second. 

[SR71]

No '23 thread yet but getting first racing action of the year in at Arlington this afternoon.