All the latest news from the racing world!
F1
Verstappen has reportedly signed a further extension to his contract with Red Bull, for 4 or 5 years into the future. Long contracts are always a bold choice by a driver with so much talent, as he could be stuck with a poor car, however, I am sure there will be performance clauses in there, and the money doesn’t hurt either!
In the wake of current world events, the FIA will allow Russian drivers to race under the FIA flag, whilst Motorsport UK has banned Russian and Belarusian drivers from competing in the UK. This means that if Mazepin does stay in F1, unless he changes his racing license nationality, he won’t be able to contest the British Grand Prix. It is a difficult decision to make, as we obviously don’t want to see Russian drivers being promoted at the moment in our sports, however, there may be some Russian drivers who don’t condone their countries actions either, and why should we punish them. Mazepin obviously might not feel that way, given his dads ties to the Kremlin, but there could be others who don’t agree with that.
IndyCar
Power has come out saying that he does not like the current blue flag rules in the sport. He was rather damning when talking about the IndyCar officials, saying that despite most drivers wanting it to change, they do nothing. The issue he has, is that drivers can fight with the cars laps ahead of them, until they have been lapped by the entire field. I do agree it is a rather weird rule, and likely there to help the drivers gain on the leader, as they will always have to pass more cars laps down. My view, is they should take the consensus view in motorsport, and blue flag them from the start.
Other News
The World Rally Championship was back again for Round 2, as we saw an excellent snow rally in Sweden. This was the weekend where we were going to see who was going to fight for this title, and Rovenpera came through as possibly the favourite for the season, given his sheer pace this weekend. Even without hybrid power he could match the top times, and stormed to a rally win, plus a strong title lead. Neuville was close on pace to the Toyota’s, but couldn’t give them a proper fight, whilst Lappi had a superb return to the sport, but getting on the podium. For Ford, Breen did have pace at points in the weekend, but a crash on Day 1 meant we never saw what he could really do. Finally, it is becoming a habit for Evans to crash in WRC, and he needs to get rid of it soon.
Meanwhile, NASCAR had its second race of the season at Fontana, which gave us a fair amount of action, with some cars running down low, but most were up near the wall. Reddick was clearly the fastest, but was so unlucky with a flat tyre, which ended any hopes of a win for him. With Tyler gone, it opened up the chance for some unexpected drivers to fight for the win, such as Suarez, who couldn’t quite hold off the eventual winner of Larson, who will want to show that last year was no fluke. He did annoy his teammate though, as he chopped across Elliott when they were side by side, which cost Chase any chance of a win.
-M
Meaning of Motorsport 