Itâs one thing to make it to Formula 1, but itâs another thing entirely to stay there.
Thatâll be the truism ringing in the ears of F1âs nine uncontracted drivers in 2022, whose first job will be to ensure ongoing gainful employment into 2023 and beyond.
Youâve got to be in it to win it, and with almost half the gridâs seats up for grabs, the 2022â23 silly season has a great deal of potential to be very silly indeed.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSFor the last two years MotoGP had been living in a fundamentally Marc MĂĄrquez-free universe in which riders who arenât the 29-year-old Spaniard have been free to carve up the premier-class championship for themselves.
Your perspective on these two years will likely vary wildly depending on why you watch MotoGP and which riders youâre a fan of.
But if youâre Honda boss Alberto Puig, theyâre an aberration.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSOffering Aussie Formula 2 champion Oscar Piastri to McLaren as a reserve driver was a sign of goodwill from his Alpine Formula 1 team ahead of an uncertain future on the sidelines, according to Sky Sports F1 pundit Ted Kravitz.
Alpine announced during the final three days of testing that it would offer its rising star to McLaren in the event either Lando Norris or Daniel Ricciardo were unable to compete and if existing reserves Nyck de Vries, Stoffel Vandoorne and Paul di Resta were unavailable.
The announcement was unrelated to Ricciardoâs COVID diagnosis, and the McLaren driver is expected to be in the car for this weekendâs first race.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSIf Formula 1 awarded points based on how strenuously a team denies it has a fast car, Mercedes would already be well on the way to the 2022 championship.
Itâs Mercedesâs great unheralded strength. More than building championship-winning machines, the team from Brackley is expert at insisting that itâs not the favourite ahead of the first race.
Letâs revisit some of Hamiltonâs preseason appraisals of years past.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSThe 2021 season must feel like a distant memory for reigning champion Fabio Quartararo.
Itâs been less than five months since the 22-year-old made himself Franceâs first motorcycle world champion â less than five months since El Diablo flossed with a giant CGI devil after clinching the title in Misano.
But those heady times mustâve felt like a lifetime away as he crossed the line ninth and more than 10 seconds behind Qatar Grand Prix winner Enea Bastianini.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSMad Maxâs new title threat, fears for Ricciardoâs McLaren: Winners and losers from final F1 test
The Formula 1 pre-season closed in Bahrain on Saturday night, and through the haze of testing uncertainty came one seemingly irrefutable fact: Red Bull Racing is the team to beat.
Itâs notoriously difficult to deduce an accurate competitive order from pre-season testing times. Itâs impossible to know for certain fuel levels and engine modes, and with lap times being set at different times of day, when the track is in different conditions, no two laps can be directly comparable.
But after six days of testing at two different tracks we can begin to sketch the basic outline of the field ahead of next weekendâs season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, and some undoubted winners and losers are starting to take shape.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSThe first of the final three days of F1 testing is in the books, but all anyone wants to talk about is Mercedes.
The Silver Arrows unveiled a dramatically updated package in the Bahrain pit lane, impressing and stoking controversy in equal measure in what could be the sportâs first flashpoint of the year.
Further down the pitlane, Italyâs two teams performed strongly, with Pierre Gasly setting the dayâs fastest time, while Valtteri Bottasâs new team, Alfa Romeo, finally got a clean day of running in the books after a difficult first test in Spain.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSWhen Kevin Magnussen bowed out of Formula 1 at the end of 2020, he seemed almost happy to be done with the sport.
The season had delivered him a career-worst result of a solitary point, though the paltry return wasnât for a lack of trying. Haas was in steep decline and struggling to keep its head above water, and Magnussen and teammate Romain Grosjean extracted just one points finish each over 17 rounds.
In the end Haas dismissed both its drivers in favour of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, two rookies who could inject funding into the team.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSFormula 1 closes its pre-season campaign this weekend, with three days of testing beginning Thursday (tonight) at the Bahrain International Circuit.
Just 30 hours of crucial track time remains before the first round of the season, and while some teams will be aiming to build on decent foundations laid during February testing, several others are already playing catch-up thanks to reliability problems.
Once the sun sets in Sakhir on Saturday night weâll have a rough understanding of the competitive order, but with the first race taking place at this same venue, expect some teams to keep at least a card or two close to their chests for another week.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSNikita Mazepin says heâs lost âtrustâ in his former Haas Formula 1 team after it sacked him without warning in the wake of Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine.
The axed star, who was replaced by former Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, also said he intends to set up a foundation to help Russian athletes banned from international competition due to the war.
Nikita and his father, Dmitry Mazepin, were subsequently specifically named and added to a European Union sanctions blacklist overnight owing to their close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSFor a driver with 22 starts, no points and a highest finish of 14th to his name, Nikita Mazepin has attracted an extraordinary amount of attention in his single year in Formula 1.
And a single year is almost certainly all heâs likely to get after he was summarily sacked by Haas on Saturday.
Sanctions levied against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine forced the issue, and a growing number of national motorsport bodies, including Motorsport Australia, have moved to ban Russian licence-holders.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSMotoGP was at its unpredictable best in its first weekend back for 2022, with Enea Bastianini opening the season with an emotional maiden victory with the independent Gresini team.
The sophomore rider was a rare bright spot for Ducati on an unexpectedly difficult weekend for the Italian manufacturer â indeed expectations throughout the field bore little resemblance to the outcome of the race in Doha, with the form guide blown wide open.
Perhaps the sole exception was Fabio Quartararo, who would be taking no pleasure in discovering his dire pre-season predictions for Yamahaâs stinking form have proved true.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSThe 2022 Supercars championship got off to a chaotic start in Sydney, where debilitating humidity and intermittent rain challenged drivers on their first weekend back in the cockpit.
So tricky were conditions that even reigning champion Shane van Gisbergen wasnât immune, with a pair of high-profile Sunday offs derailing a hitherto imposing weekend.
These are the key talking points from a sometimes wet and almost always wild weekend in Sydney.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSMax Verstappen enjoyed a well-deserved break as the new world champion during the off-season, but thereâs clearly been no such rest for his lawyers.
Before a wheel had been turned in anger in 2022, Red Bull Racing and its new world champion announced theyâre extending terms until 2028.
Reports from the Netherlands place the value of the deal at around $A75 million per year â Lewis Hamilton-tier cash for a driver almost 13 years the Britonâs junior.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSLewis Hamilton and new world champion Max Verstappen will resume hostilities in a new season of Formula 1 later this month, but the blows from their brutal 2021 showdown are still reverberating.
Last December motorsport fans were treated to the closest finish in Formula 1 history: Hamilton and Verstappen, tied on points, in a final-lap duel to win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the world championship.
A late-braking lunge on fresh tyres catapulted Verstappen down Hamiltonâs inside at turn five. Shod with older rubber courtesy of a late-race safety car, the Briton was powerless to fight back, and the Dutchman became the first driver to beat Hamilton to the crown in five years.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSMotoGP returns for 2022 with a record-breaking calendar, three world champions with points to prove and a field as wide open as ever.
Fabio Quartararo will attempt to defend his maiden championship, but the Frenchman has had barely a good word to say about Yamahaâs prospects after preseason testing. Meanwhile, Marc Marquez gets closer to full fitness with each passing day after two seasons of injury. And Joan Mir will be eager to prove his 2020 title was no COVID-influenced fluke.
There are two Aussies to keep an eye on too, with Jack Miller in desperate need of a strong, consistent showing to prevent a Ducati reshuffle among its mammoth eight-bike contingent, while Remy Gardner continues his year-long rivalry with nemesis turned teammate Raul Fernandez.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSNikita Mazepinâs chances of clinging to his Formula 1 seat have received a boost after the FIA declined to ban Russians from international motorsport despite IOC recommendations.
Mazepin will be allowed to race under the FIA flag subject to âadherence to the FIAâs principles of peace and political neutralityâ. The FIA also confirmed the Russian Grand Prix has been cancelled for 2022 for reasons of âforce majeureâ.
But the Haas driverâs future in the sport is far from certain. His position in the team dependent on the backing of Russian chemicals company Uralkali, in which his father, Dmitry, is a shareholder. Dimity Mazepin has ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine is now in its seventh day.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSThe Supercars will fire up for 2022 at a floodlit Sydney Motorsport Park this weekend with just one crucial question in mind: can anyone catch Shane van Gisbergen?
The challenge of title defence will be as hard as ever in the final year of the Gen2 regulations. Itâs a truism in motorsport that the longer the rules stay the same, the closer the field becomes, and the pandemic-induced delaying of Gen3 til 2023 has gifted Van Gisbergenâs would-be usurpers a final opportunity to hone their attacks to steal the crown.
But momentum counts for a lot in Supercars, and getting the campaign off to a strong start was key to Van Gisbergenâs title last year. Can he do it again this weekend in Sydney?
Continue reading on FOX SPORTS