Suddenly, one of the racing seasons to which I was most looking forward this year has been called off at the last minute. Two-time World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä has withdrawn from the 2026 Super Formula season citing worsening health issues, indefinitely pausing his quest to make it to Formula 1. This not only leaves the KCMG team in the lurch with a replacement who missed out on testing, it deprives the top Japanese open-wheel series of its second high-profile rookie this year after Jack Doohan’s plans to compete fell through.

Rovanperä’s overall open-wheel trajectory has been sensible, but it has gone a little strangely. He got started in the well regarded Formula Regional Oceania championship over the winter, though he didn’t achieve many notable results, and he had to miss the final round due to — yes — illness. The plan was always then to enter Super Formula, but he has told reporters that this was the requirement of his minders at Toyota rather than his own initiative.

Super Formula is a very high-level series, of course — both Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson had strong showings there prior to getting their Formula 1 rides, and Álex Palou did a turn there as well — but it’s certainly a bit more out-there of a choice for a Formula 1 aspirant than, say, Formula 2. It makes sense if you’re Toyota, though. But the latest development is the weirdest of all: The announcement of Rovanperä’s withdrawal was issued by Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda himself. It’s understandable that Toyota would take on Kalle’s career as a bit of a project given the prowess he showed in WRC, but one gets the impression that he is not entirely in control of his own destiny here.

Rovanperä’s winter testing in the Super Formula car was disrupted by issues that were reported as “vertigo,” but the vague statements imply that the current issue is a bit more significant than that. These developments have not been terribly well received by the race-viewing public, to the point that Rovanperä’s WRC stablemate, Takamoto Katsuta, felt the need to publicly defend him and continue to back him as a Formula 1 prospect.

EuroNASCAR has decided to change the name of its pro division from “PRO” — i.e. the division in which the drivers are pros — to V8GP. The syllables have gone from one to four, and the meaning has gone from one to zero.

The press release announcing this truly is a marvelous thing. It claims the new branding represents the series’ “Grand Prix intensity and global ambition.” I can translate that for you right now: “NASCAR makes people think of America, and (we believe) that dissuades Europeans from buying tickets.” Even better, they frame the decade-old category as the “ultimate stage for professional drivers in European touring car racing.”

Touring car racing?

Oh, I see. This is V8 “touring car” racing. That is, don’t think of NASCAR, the American organization that actually sanctions this. Think of Supercars, the Australian organization that doesn’t sanction this. I wonder how long the NASCAR relationship will carry on?

EuroNASCAR is already rolling out driver news with this catchy “NASCAR Euro Series V8GP” moniker, and I will give them this: If it were called the V8GP European Championship, it would be the thing they think it is. It isn’t, though. It’s the NASCAR European Series.

I can’t say watching Jules Gounon, Dani Juncadella, and Max Verstappen race a Mercedes-AMG GT3 in a minor round of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie was that fun. I mean, it would be fun to watch these guys lap the Nordschleife with no one else out there, and it was more fun than that to watch them dodge cars going so much slower than they were that it looked like they were placed there intentionally to challenge them, but they didn’t actually race after the first stint of the four-hour race.

This event made Max very happy, of course, because instead of losing like he is in Formula 1, he got to win a race by over a minute with no competition, which is apparently very fun for him.

Unfortunately, the team won’t get to book the result because they used an extra set of tires in qualifying and exceeded their weekend limit, so the win goes to the Rowe Racing BMW of Dan Harper and Jordan Pepper. By blaming qualifying procedures, I guess Mercedes means to convey that they miscounted at that point, so they didn’t know they were short in the race. That, of course, would be publicly indistinguishable from knowing they were short and going, “Who cares? This is a test.”

Max proved his point, though: Everyone else racing in this year’s N24 should be scared of him.

The 2026 12 Hours of Sebring gave us just what we needed on so many levels. It cleansed the palette of that niggling feeling about losing seven hours of the Daytona 24 to fog. It provoked some crazy driving — some of it heroic, some of it stupid — all of which made for great entertainment. And, my favorite part: Just as people who prefer European-style endurance racing rules were becoming fed up with all the yeehaw wave-arounds and restarts and starting to use the dreaded A-word (“artificial”), we got exactly the kind of late-race yellow they were sure was coming, and everybody kept their heads. The restart happened, everybody raced, and we got a completely satisfying finish. Well, unless you hate Penske or Porsche or both.

Yes, it was another Porsche Penske Motorsport 1–2 with the 7 ahead of the 6, and the GTP pecking order was more or less unchanged from Daytona, but it was a bit more of a dogfight this time. Both cars had their incidents — including the 6 breaking its nose on the back of the 31 Cadillac under safety car, which would have amused me if I didn’t always want the 31 to win — but they recovered through typically flawless Penske execution. Intriguingly, what decided the finishing order was actually a rather brazen on-track pass.

With just over an hour remaining in the race, the team called in a position swap because the 6 car, with Kevin Estre driving, was on fresher tires. Seven minutes later, Felipe Nasr in the 7 pounced on him in the G-loaded last corner and took the lead back, which Estre said happened because he was dutifully following team orders and Nasr was not. That is amusing to me. Good on you, Felipe. Way to get Porsche its 20th overall win at Sebring.

Porsche’s only serious challenge in GTP was again from Cadillac, with the 31 starting on pole and having the pace (and the Jack Aitken) to stay a threat, but in a heartening development for Caddy fans, the Wayne Taylor cars were finally in contention this time as well. There was a Cadillac three-ship running together late in the race that looked pretty dangerous. In fact, the 10 finished on the podium, but it was taken away in post-race tech for excess camber, which gave P3 to the 31. It is great to see WTR up there, though. They hadn’t really been pulling their weight.

There are no Porsches in LMP2, of course, but the equivalents last weekend were the United Autosports cars, who also finished 1-2. They did get a race from Spike, who was back in purple, but the AO Racing dragon-car got caught out by the timing of a full-course yellow. Tower had a pretty good race, too — which isn’t the greatest of looks for Sébastien Bourdais, who recently quit the team — but they got outdone by United on a restart. There was also some spectacularly bad driving in LMP2, most of it well within LMP2 stupidity norms, but Parker Thompson, driving the #52 in his second-ever LMP2 race, brutally murdered the DragonSpeed Corvette for absolutely no reason.

In GTD Pro, it was more Porsche, but not at all in a boring way. The winner was the Manthey #911, a truly remarkable showing even for Manthey. To swoop down upon U.S. racing like they did and then win their first Sebring is an incredible display of execution, but to do it with Nick Tandy hounding you all day in the AO Racing #77 — the People’s Porsche in this country — is all the more unlikely. So that was the other class with a Porsche 1–2. The GTD Porsches were not as dominant — particularly the Manthey #912 — but the Wright Motorsports #120 did make the podium with two overtakes in the last two laps. All that plus a superb debut of the new Carrera Cup car? Pretty good weekend for Porsche.

As for the other debutante, the Lamborghini Temerario GT3, it didn’t instantly turn around Pfaff’s fortunes, but it did finish the race! I can’t wait to see how they go on a less turbulent track.

But. The legendary GT3 drive of the weekend was that of the #21 AF Corse Ferrari. That Tony Fire cannot be stopped. After taking their lumps in drive-through penalties for racing… you know, hard, Antonio Fuoco absolutely tore the field apart to win the #21’s second IMSA race of the last three. Lilou Wadoux drove in both of those races, of course, and she was unstoppable as well. I have a new favorite Ferrari 296.

Even so, there is another GTD car upon which I urge readers not to sleep. The #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage of Zacharie Robichon, Tom Gamble, and pole winner and Formula 1 offspring Eduardo Barrichello just went back-to-back on the podium, taking P2 in class at Sebring. “Dudu,” as Barrichello insists on being called, now leads the drivers’ championship.

In summary, IMSA racing rules.

My impression of watching Formula E at Jarama is that, at this point, Formula E absolutely can hang at a normal race track — and that’s before they get the 200-mph car next year. This race was scintillating, and I think it shows why electric racing is such a good idea when it can get the energy levels exactly right.

The level of energy deployment necessary for a good race on a proper road course is made possible by Formula E’s still relatively new Pit Boost fast-charging, which I think is one of the most underrated technical developments in racing recently. Not only does it reduce the amount of in-race management, increase the strategic options, and create great mid-race jeopardy, this level of fast-charging seems among the most likely of all current technologies in motorsports to have massive consumer benefits.

Rico Abreu is one of racing’s truest hustlers, to the point that there was almost a sense of relief last year when he struck a deal with an outfit no less reputable than Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing. Such a pairing would have to show out quickly, though, and sure enough it has. Rico won their fourth race together at the season opener for Central Arizona Raceway. I can’t even guess how many more they’ll get this season.

IMSA has announced the drivers and cars inducted into its Hall of Fame this year, and while sports car racing is sort of the motorsports hall of fame in and of itself, the IMSA class of 2026 is stacked.

Drivers

• Bill Auberlen
• Butch Leitzinger
• Roger Mandeville
• Brian Redman
• Lyn St. James
• Hans-Joachim Stuck

Cars

• Audi 90 Quattro GTO
• Riley Daytona Prototype
• Greenwood Corvettes
• Mazda RX-3

UPDATE March 20, 1:30 PM: Things have gotten pretty spicy in this one.

After issuing a terse non-denial yesterday that was enough for me to decide the story was at least half-true, Audi today announced a new management structure in which Jonathan Wheatley is leaving effective immediately for “personal reasons” and Mattia Binotto will add team principal — a job at which he performed not-excellently at Ferrari before joining this team — to his list of titles. There has been additional reporting to suggest Binotto and Wheatley didn’t get along, which I guess is obvious given what’s happening. Again, this sucks for Audi.

Not to be outdone, Lawrence Stroll released a goofball statement as an Aston Martin press release where he “set[s] the record straight” that Adrian Newey is his “partner and an important shareholder,” and that he’s not going anywhere, which we knew. Stroll reminds us that Aston does not adhere to “traditional” conceptions of the role of team principal (again, we know), but all this chaos and ambiguity is apparently “by design.” Then he drops the real banger, which I will quote in full:

“We are regularly approached by senior executives of other teams who wish to join Aston Martin Aramco, but in keeping with our policy, we do not comment on rumour and speculation.”

Absolutely hilarious framing. It’s not out of the question that this is all Wheatley’s idea, but what is out of the question is that Wheatley would quit his job running the Audi F1 team if his next move weren’t a done deal, so for Stroll to make it sound like people are beating down the door is silly. I did see a report that Stroll took another meeting with Christian Horner this week, but at this point I’m starting to think that’s all Stroll trying to recruit him, and he’s saying no. Never mind the fact that, to all appearances, Newey hates Horner.

Anyway, can’t wait to see how this one lands. Another enticing tidbit is that Mercedes has — magically, coincidentally, just today — promoted Bradley Lord to deputy team principal and Toto Wolff’s formal number two. I’m sure that has nothing to do with TP vacancies suddenly appearing at any brand new F1 teams.

Original post, March 19, 2:09 PM:

There is nothing surprising about Adrian Newey stepping down as big-picture boss after four months on the job. I think the Formula 1 world was too polite about that appointment. Newey is renowned for wanting to be left alone by businesspeople to concentrate on hand-drawing aerodynamic diagrams. He doesn’t want any part of the big picture. On the other hand, Aston Martin’s actual race car is such a dumpster fire that perhaps there was no one else in the organization who knew enough about race cars to fix it. There probably still isn’t.

What’s surprising is that Jonathan Wheatley is leaving Audi to do the job. The speculation is that Newey recommended Wheatley to Lawrence Stroll himself, and that makes sense. Wheatley is the man, and Stroll seemingly does not care how much of his fortune is left at the end of his time in racing. But this sucks for Audi. They are just getting their legs under them, and Wheatley seemed to be central to the project.

Nobody in racing does calendars like IMSA does. They treat it as a point of pride that they publish their calendars so early and keep them so consistent year after year. As far as fans are concerned, the only meaningful change in the 2027 calendar is that the Roar and the Rolex are moved one week later, so the race weekend is now January 28–31.

After swapping Maserati for Citroën in Formula E this year, the Stellantis Blob of Automotive Brands will swap DS Automobiles for Opel for the 2026–2027 season. Does anyone know what that means? What is the difference? Do any of these things resonate with consumers? No, I’m really asking. I guess I need a European to let me know, but I have my doubts.

Ahead of the two Supercars rounds in New Zealand, Walkinshaw TWG Racing has announced a new Kiwi co-owner, Scott O’Donnell. He’s a racer himself, which is always a good sign. O’Donnell picked up some of the shares sold by Zak Brown when United left the ownership group. Now O’Donnell wants to work on strengthening support for the team in New Zealand, which he has a fair shot at doing with three rising-star Kiwi drivers on staff.

Why must Formula E be like this? It will never beat the allegations of being a gimmicky circus, even though the racing is actually great now, and next year they’re getting a race car that’s actually fast. Yes, the drivers are largely Formula 1 also-rans, but looking at that another way, they are very good race car drivers. They are also, by and large, very well paid race car drivers. But apparently things are going badly enough for them that they’ve decided to make a Whole Thing out of it.

The letter is, well, sweeping. It criticizes the stewarding, the race direction, the rules, and even the leadership’s understanding of what the racing product is. They want an overhaul that puts people who understand Formula E racing specifically in charge, as well as better feedback and decision-making mechanisms.

And, like, fair enough. But it doesn’t seem like team management had much of a view into this move, and drivers going rogue doesn’t seem like the most likely route to professionalizing the series. What it’s gotten them so far is another round of “Formula E is a shit show” headlines.

After spluttering through just two rounds last year, organizers of the TCR Australia series wanted to get a fresh start in 2026, but ahead of the opening round planned for The Bend this weekend, they’ve decided to call the whole thing off. TCR is just not a beefy enough category for Australia. No country loves its touring car racing more, but they put V8 engines in them. These little things just don’t move the needle.

If a racing series is going to enter the 21st century and provide its broadcasts via the internet, and it’s not going to do it as a YouTube subscription and let Google handle all the hard parts, the next best thing is for it to provide its own comprehensive streaming channel without any geographical restrictions like the FIA World Endurance Championship is now going to do. FIAWEC+ launched today (web only, iOS/Android coming soon, apparently), and you can watch the entire championship — including the 24 Hours of Le Mans — plus European Le Mans Series and Michelin Le Mans Cup, original documentaries and stuff, and get live timing, all for 49.99€ a year.

Thank goodness IMSA is back this weekend. Starting the year off with the Daytona 24 is a tradition that should never be questioned, but it does leave the paddock with a bit of a hangover. After the gap, though, Sebring is like another first race of the year, and some programs do treat it as such since it’s such good testing environment (in that it is constantly trying to break your car). The Aston Martin Valkyrie debuted there last year, for example, rather than at Daytona. And with this race’s long history, most teams still like to bring a little extra flair to the second round.

Good examples to look out for this year: Pfaff Motorsports will introduce the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 to the world after having one last crack in the Huracán in Daytona, and yes, it will be dressed in plaid. AO Racing will bring Roxy — the pink one — to her first endurance race. And Porsche Penske Motorsport has bedecked its Porsche 963s in Mobil 1 liveries harkening back to the swirly livery of the Porsche 911 GT1 in 1996 — not the most attractive livery to my eye, but a pretty famous one nonetheless.

One other, less heralded debut at Sebring this week is the new Porsche 911 Cup car. Porsche Carrera Cup North America will run its first two 40-minute races with the Type 992.2 car, which also has a brand new Pirelli tire. There are 27 entries for Sebring. I know a lot of people don’t watch single-make series, but this is a pretty big upgrade for the Cup car, and c’mon, you gotta watch a new race car at least once.

Overall, IndyCar is doing pretty great right now, but if there’s one element of the sport that I’d say is still lacking in the Penske Era, it’s Indy 500 entries. This is the greatest race in the world, and it used to be worth it to people to come from all over the world just to attempt to make it, and half of them wouldn’t. Last year, we wound up with one extra entry, and even though that gave us an exciting, tense Bump Day, it ended up just being sad that Jacob Abel didn’t get to race. This year, it’s not even clear we’ll get to 33 entries.

Engine leases are a chokepoint. We don’t know what’s going on with Prema Racing, and therefore we don’t know whether one or both of their leases will be available. There seems to be some momentum on still running one Prema car with Callum Ilott, which would be nice. Katherine Legge and her devoted sponsors are wrangling for the other one, but there’s also the minor detail of a Chevy team who would be willing to run it.

On top of the 25 regular-season drivers, Helio Castroneves is back with MSR to continue attempting to win a fifth 500, and Takuma Sato is back with RLL. Arrow McLaren has confirmed Ryan Hunter-Reay in its fourth car, and Ed Carpenter will drive his team’s third car as per usual. Andretti usually runs a fourth car, and Marshall Pruett reports that people contacting the team with interest have been told the seat is taken. We can presume that’s for Colton Herta. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing intend to run Conor Daly, and Abel Motorsports hope Jacob will actually get to start this year. That would be 32, some of which are not confirmed.

Will we get to 33 with Callum or Katherine — or better yet 34 with both? Stefan Wilson and Devlin DeFrancesco are also reportedly seeking rides. The problem is the rides don’t exist. The best case seems to be 34 if Prema gets its act together and some Chevy steps up to prepare Katherine’s car.

The first Grand Prix of Arlington was a home run. It was great as a viewer, and I had many friends and sources on the ground telling me how first-rate it was. It was not without its hiccups — Will Power came around a blind corner and hit a turned around Scott Dixon in practice while a marshal lackadaisically waved a green flag, and then a catering crew walked onto a hot track — but by race day, everything was humming along.

It’s just an awesome circuit. It’s wide enough to make moves but challenging enough to make mistakes. There are rises and dips and bumps and all the obstacles a street circuit is good for. It’s in a multi-sport complex, so it seems great for access and spectators. I’m already looking forward to the next one.

And as for the racing, well, it was an utter clean-up for Andretti. Max Taylor made an excellent show of himself to win the IndyNXT race, Marcus Ericsson got his first IndyCar pole position, Kyle Kirkwood won, absolutely pouncing on Álex Palou and then driving away, Will Power got his first Andretti podium, and Ericsson finished fourth. This is all despite having an all-time classic Andretti pit stop nightmare day on every car. They really need to get that figured out.

So, we’re three races in, the championship is not already over like last year, and the first new race was fantastic. Markham will hopefully be at least close to the same level. Somehow, though, I don’t think the other one is going to meet the standard.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a slight worry that my rapturous praise of the 2026 Formula 1 regulations was a bit premature, but after two races, it is obvious. The Shanghai round certainly turned up the new-car chaos with lots of cars missing sessions or even failing to start the race — including BOTH MCLARENS!!! — due to various gremlins. But the racing was superb throughout once again — even the sprint was good — and Kimi Antonelli gave us all the joy of seeing someone win his first grand prix for the first time in a while, which he did by passing his teammate as Formula 1’s youngest ever polesitter.

(Unfortunately, Bob Constanduros on the PA tried to ruin the greatest moment of Kimi’s life by announcing him as “Kimi Raikkonen”.)

This is a guess, but I’m guessing we saw teams take a bit more risk in round 2, and the increase in problems was the consequence. You just want to have a complete weekend at round 1 of a new car, and Melbourne was a particularly extreme track to start with due to its energy demands. With a little more confidence in China, teams f’d around more, and they consequently found out more.

Obviously the trophy for worst weekend goes to McLaren. Oscar Piastri hasn’t gotten a single lap in a grand prix after two of them, and this time, defending world champion Lando Norris didn’t get any, either.

Aston Martin promises they’re making behind-the-scenes progress, but we’re still getting onboard video of Fernando Alonso taking his hands off the wheel to try to shake life back into them.

Williams’ car is a total mess, which is hugely disappointing given how much they hyped up their own 2026 program, but Carlos Sainz did bag a couple points in the race.

Clearly the most famously bad weekend is that of Red Bull, even though it masks the fact that Isack Hadjar picked up four points for P8, and Liam Lawson beat him in the Racing Bulls. Max Verstappen had to retire the car with 11 laps to go, and now he hates the car and the sport and you and me and everyone.

Cadillac also showed more growing pains this weekend — including Checo crashing into Valtteri slightly on lap 1, for which he apologized — but they both finished the race, so we’ll take that!

Also highly worth mentioning is the fifth place performance of Ollie Bearman and Haas. Alpine is also apparently back in the game. Both cars finished in the points, Colapinto in P10 and Gasly in P6. Haas and Alpine — power unit customers of Ferrari and Mercedes, respectively — are the examples of customer teams who seem to have gotten it right this year.

Which brings us to Ferrari! Recall that Lewis’ only meaningful achievement in his debut season with Ferrari last year was winning the China sprint race. Well, this year in China, he finally stood on the podium of a grand prix again, and it was a seriously lovely moment with Kimi, Bono, and Lewis all up there together. George Russell was also present.

Yes, Mercedes obviously has a power advantage, but it’s no longer clear that they’re going to keep that advantage over Ferrari for long. In both grands prix and the Shanghai sprint, both Ferraris have troubled Mercedes, and while George and Kimi certainly seem happy to be driving the fastest car, both Lewis and Charles report that they’re having a blast driving the Ferrari, which is what it should be like to drive Ferraris, don’t you think?

Shanghai — in my view the most consistently underrated track on the F1 calendar — demonstrates more of what F1 cars can do than Melbourne did, and that also means the cars spend less time doing any particular thing, so there were no meaningful energy starvation problems, and everybody seemed to have plenty of juice to make dicey racing moves. I really do recommend watching both the sprint and the grand prix. Formula 1 racing is really fun again, I can’t wait for more, and it really sucks that we’re losing two races this spring due to the tragic stupidity of warfare.

Antonio Fuoco. Tony Fire. Driver of Ferraris. Gotta love him.

Well, Ferraris are no longer enough for Tony Fire. Last year he needed to go demonstrate that he can also win in ORECA LMP2s, which he did in the Asian Le Mans Series twice, finishing P2 in the drivers’ championship. Now the Ferrari-affiliated AF Corse team, who ran the Cetilar Racing-entered LMP2 Fuoco drove last year, is putting him in the ELMS car. You see, AF Corse won the ELMS LMP2 Pro/Am titles in 2023 and 2024, but last year they slipped to a lowly fourth (though they did win the season opener). I guess they just need a little more Tony Fire to get back to the top.

NASCAR Truck Series driver Daniel Dye just did something so dumb that it’s actually frustrating, because motorsport is such a high-level, professional, competitive industry these days that I want to believe it doesn’t employ anyone dumb enough to hire someone this dumb. Apparently, that is not the case.

Dye was on some bootleg streaming app for people who like to open packs of baseball cards or something, and he started bragging about having no idea who David Malukas — driver of the Team Penske #12 Verizon Chevrolet in the IndyCar Series — was when they met at the St. Petersburg race weekend IndyCar and the Truck Series shared. Dye then went on to perform a homophobic caricature — apparently intended to be of Malukas — for an excruciatingly long time.

Dye has been suspended by NASCAR and his team and will be required to complete sensitivity training in order to return to racing. He posted an extremely bad Instagram apology. He will be replaced in this weekend’s Truck Series race at Darlington by A.J. Allmendinger.