I confess to having a pretty hard time following the Chili Bowl. It’s just so long and grueling, and the lower brackets put on such bad racing. But that’s because there are HUNDREDS of cars in this thing, and when the cream is finally done rising to the top, it’s usually hardworking aspirant dirt racers versus active top-tier NASCAR Cup Series drivers and the who’s-who of full-time sponsored sprint car drivers and USAC midget champions, not to mention people who have been slogging to win this specific event year after year after year.

One of those aspirants won it this time. I had already tired out by the time the final came on, but I think I’ll go back and watch to get to know Emerson Axsom better. If you win the Chili Bowl, you are special by definition.

Ugo Ugochukwu is the driver after this year’s Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy (CTFROT, which, upsettingly, they pronounce as an acronym) who raised eyebrows the highest in their four-race event at Taupo this weekend. He has never stood out that much in Formula 3, but he showed some people up at the beginning of this race meeting. But by the end, Supercars star Ryan Wood was up to speed, and he got to hoist a trophy in front of his home crowd. It must feel pretty good to be him lately.

This is also the series where Kalle Rovanperä is beginning his single-seater odyssey, and he did not do so well. I wonder if things are going to pick up for him before the Super Formula season starts.

As I hoped, the entry-level IMSA series is looking fire this year. There are dominant figures in both the LMP3 and GSX classes, but one must observe how Oscar Tunjo and Westin Workman swept both races. The first one was straightforward, but the second one was a slithery wet race, and Workman had significant car problems at the start. There is serious talent coming up the ranks.

When I look at the Roar results, I see some into which I can put some stock. The way Will Power and Chaz Mostert drove in this test, when I see Kenny Habul within a couple tenths of the fastest time across GTD and GTD Pro, I reckon the 75 is going to be quick. But when the Porsche 963s are bunched up like that, and the Banana Boat is right there despite running last year’s car, I just figure nobody in GTP is showing what they’ve got.

The internet loves to hate, but the Michelin 24H Dubai is not a joke race. Okay, there are some joke cars, but racing GT3 cars competitively for 24 hours is never a joke. The M4 clearly has an edge here, and WRT is one of the highest-level outfits that shows up for this thing, but they still deserve full credit for execution in this race. You’d expect WRT to be spread a bit thin right now, given that they’re about to run the prototypes in IMSA for the first time, but it sure didn’t show in Dubai.

I am so excited for the good-guy Red Bull era. And the good-guy Ford era, frankly.

To me, these designs reveal a lot about the power dynamics. Jim Farley has obviously given Ford Racing a lot of power at the company. It’s involved in every category on Earth, it got a new brand that makes it more separate from road cars this year, and that brand has an official shade of blue that is utterly unrelated to that of the blue oval on the hood of the car. That’s power. And yet, look at what happened in the Formula 1 deal. It’s like Red Bull said, “Look, we’ll use your blue for the shirt, so that way when your WEC drivers take a picture with Max, it’ll look nice. But do not touch the car.”

This resulted in the nicest looking Red Bull F1 car in a long time. I might even call it a definitive livery; it spans the team’s history. And I think the innards of the car reflect a similar dynamic to what’s happening on a business level. Red Bull did not just become a Ford factory team. Ford became a service provider to the Red Bull factory team.

I am one of the many who found Ferrari’s 2025 season painful to watch. The Lewis part wasn’t really that more painful than the Charles part for me, though, honestly, because they’re both being completely squandered by the team. As to which story will be a darker chapter in Formula 1 history, I don’t think we can tell yet.

Adami is a storied figure in the F1 paddock, but I think it’s been pretty clear for a while that this car needs a new engineer. He and Carlos Sainz had some painful moments, too, though obviously they also had a lot of success once they got used to each other and the car. The difference is, Lewis doesn’t have that kind of time — and, really, Ferrari doesn’t, either. This looks just as bad for the team as it does for Hamilton.

As a Cadillac hat wearer, let me be the first to say that WTR has to do something. Both cars got shellacked by AXR’s sole car last year. The 2026 package has evolved significantly, so maybe that has a whiff of fresh start vibes? But I’m not sure if this drastic and last-minute a transition bodes well for this being the year WTR finishes doing something.

Ford’s LMDh engine, I am pleased to report, is a naturally aspirated 5.4-liter V8, so it will be at least the third-best sounding car on the grid. What is notable, but not surprising, is that the architecture is shared with the Mustang GT3. This really suggests to me that the LMDh car is going to be named Mustang, and I for one would appreciate it being dubbed the new Mustang GTP. Or “Mustang Dark Horse GTP” or whatever they have to do to get past the whiz kids.

As for drivers, I don’t find that announcement very surprising, either, but it is impressive how pitch-perfect it is. They’ve got the Return of the Rocky, they’ve got the second Priaulx, and they’ve got — and I quote — “fresh from the F1 circuit” Logan Sargeant. So I guess that explains why he quit the Genesis program.

Now, Pato has been driving McLaren F1 cars around for a long time, and I’m glad he’s getting a raise. Fornaroli, though, I’m nervous for. He seems pretty damn quick! He’s yet another case of someone graduating from F2 at the top of the class and having nowhere to go except the back of the garage. There are no McLaren F1 seats opening up anytime soon. At least Pato has an IndyCar to drive. There may be one of those opening up at McLaren next year, but the line to get in it is long.

This seems sudden (cars are already in Daytona!!), and Dane has been in this role for just one season and seemingly done an awesome job. Nothing against Hidalgo — her résumé is completely stacked for this — but I would like to know more about why Jess Dane is out of not just this position but General Motors entirely.

This is clearly going to be an awesome Cup car, but what jumps out at me is that there is no question whatsoever which model Ford should style its NASCAR body after. If Dodge is coming back to Cup in a couple years, what will it call its race car? Challenger, obviously. So when the heck is Chevrolet going to announce a new muscle car, or reintroduce the Camaro, or whatever it’s going to do??

Whatever Porsche is doing in Formula E, it’s very intense. Apparently they would rather run two factory teams Red Bull F1-style than forge a long-term relationship with a race team with its own opinions, like Andretti. Nissan is a pretty solid landing pad. The works team won the drivers’ championship in the 2024–2025 season, and then they lost their customer team when McLaren left Formula E. I hope picking up Andretti works out for both organizations.

People online are being obnoxious about this, which obviously makes me want to post about it more. The American SRO-sanctioned sports car racing championships are getting nice, tight broadcast packages of all their 2026 events on Fox Sports 1, creating potential for many more Americans to see high-level sports car racing than might otherwise do so. I’ve been watching exactly these sorts of broadcasts of the 1999 British GT season, and it’s some of my greatest motorsports comfort viewing.

More race car good, less race car bad. That is and will always be my position.

All pre-season test liveries are weird and half-assed. We know this. As those go, there is something almost clever about how the sideways clip art Cadillac logo sort of resembles the robot barf camouflage patterns teams tend to use. But. But. I sure hope someone else is in charge of the real racing livery for America’s (High-Budget) Formula 1 Team.

At this point, we don’t really know if Prema Racing exists or not. Last year at this time, they were about to launch an IndyCar team. Now Deborah Mayer has pulled her funding from racing, the Rosins have left their posts, the Iron Dames are done racing, and yet as far as we know, Prema is still racing in single-seaters. I can’t imagine the stress the drivers are under.

This is a well deserved appointment, and what an honor to be announced first, all by himself! To me, that’s a signal McLaren sees Jensen as a star of the future, so they want the world to get to know him before they announce some of the blockbuster names that are surely coming from other departments at McLaren Racing. Those names may generate the bulk of the headlines, but it’s likely they’ll be on more limited and specialized programs. Jensen is the main man. It’s cool that they’re giving him this leadership position of going first.

I suppose that if you are an OEM with solid brand affinity trying to return to NASCAR and also the public consciousness, you would be dumb not to spend as much money on it as you possibly can. One must make headlines to succeed at these things. In the new year, Ram has made two.

One is that they are awarding one of their Truck Series seats to the winner of a reality show. Now, people will scoff at this. I have seen nothing but people scoffing at this. But I will reserve judgment until it comes out, because I would like to remind everyone that making motor racing into a reality show has been fairly successful recently. To be good, this show would have to both successfully pick a competent NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver and actively increase a large audience’s engagement with and literacy in motorsports. Could it do all that? Sure! Let’s see if it does.

The other headline is that Tony Stewart is coming back to NASCAR racing to drive one of these trucks AT DAYTONA. Maybe this is shocking because Smoke has been doing anything other than NASCAR for 10 years and seemed to be totally, permanently fed up with it. In other words, this was probably a very large line item in Ram’s NASCAR budget.

This race was a great demo of why Formula E is uniquely fun and interesting among racing categories (when it isn’t a shit show in a way that is really fairly normal among racing categories). Cassidy qualified P13. He saved energy and stayed out of trouble, took advantage of some sudden opportunities, and then went for it. Superb drive.

All right, it would be negligent not to point out that Citroën is much closer to a rebrand than a new team that should be getting all warm and fuzzy about out-of-the-gate success, and in fact it might be argued the team had some unfair advantages getting going, but come on, this is a glorious win no matter how you slice it.

Dan Ticktum, though — as is his wont — had a miserable time.

NASCAR has at last abandoned its absurd win-and-you’re-in playoffs format that absolutely no one found exciting and was by definition unable to produce meaningful champions. It has gone back to a 10-race Chase but with some significant scoring and seeding differences from last time.

Winning a race is worth a major gap in points compared to that between any other positions, which I find to be an excellent replacement for win-and-you’re-in. Everyone who blames WaYi (yes, I did that) for the kamikaze style of racing of the previous era is absolutely right, but I believe it is also still good to incentivize winning and racing hard instead of cruising for points. It’s also good to award stage points, since it keeps people pushing throughout the race. These are mechanics that actually make NASCAR racing exciting, and now they will finally matter throughout the whole season.

Some people have also complained about the fact that the cutoff position for the Chase is P16 — they think there should be fewer cars — but that makes no sense to me. The more cars there are in the Chase, the closer to a normal motorsports championship it is, and it’s not like the P16 car is going to be able to leapfrog everyone and win the championship like they could before. They’re going to have to be absolutely magnificent for 10 weeks, and if they do that, hell, crown ’em.

There are also reasonable business reasons to start with many contestants, and I feel like modern fans are not understanding enough of such things. In order for motorsports to be good, you have to, you know, have motorsports at all.