News

Legends Boucles, a rally in Belgium with historic cars, has ended early after an accident on the second stage of the day killed a spectator. What a heartbreaking development. I understand that danger is part of the spectator tradition in rally, but geez.

Jos Verstappen was driving a BMW M3 E30 in the event; he was not involved in the accident.

It was impressive enough when CrowdStrike by APR clawed back a long-awaited victory in Daytona last month, but now the LMP2 team has won both races outright in the doubleheader of four-hour Asian Le Mans Series races in Dubai. This team came to play this year.

Formula Regional Oceania (which now insists on calling itself CTFROT, tragically) has carved out its place as the warm-up for the new year for open-wheel drivers with grand aspirations. This year’s grid featured not just decorated juniors but the likes of Kalle Rovanperä and Ryan Wood, proper famous racing drivers from other categories. And despite the stiff competition, young American Ugo Ugochukwu — whom we know from the thankless toil of Formula 1 ladder series racing, and for whom things did not work out with the McLaren Racing junior program — has won the championship.

This was a great Miami E-Prix, complete with wet conditions. Jaguar hadn’t scored any points so far this season, and this win vaults Evans into P6 in the championship. I think he’s my favorite winner on the Formula E grid, meaning I enjoy the way he wins the most. He keeps his cool through the playing out of careful strategy, and then when it comes time to make the move, he does so forcefully and without mistakes.

Also worthy of note was Porsche driver Nico Müller, who took his first pole position in Formula E.

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest lap of the first week of testing today, the last day. Is the GOAT’s long ground effect nightmare finally over?

I know this is verging on caring about testing lap times, but you should read the quotes in the article, too. Lewis sounds like he’s waking up from a bad dream.

This is not a report of a fire but rather one of smoke pouring out of many different buildings. The executive turnover at Renault is not over, and the Alpine brand is in trouble. Even though the WEC Hypercar program began to show promising signs last year, that’s several pay-grades below the people who are concerned about this.

Clearly the Alpine Formula 1 team is also a concern, as they have fallen to worst on the grid, and Renault will no longer even make them an engine. When Hornerpalooza kicks off, I fully expect the team to change brands.

It has been a tough stretch for the Tower car at Daytona. Last year they won and then were disqualified for some piece of bodywork hanging off the bottom that surely reduced their performance, and this year they were the second-to-last LMP2 car running. Sébastien Bourdais is 46, and he has a top-class World Endurance Championship drive to worry about, and I wouldn’t want to be flying off to get my ass kicked all the time in LMP2, either.

I was among the many Ryan Eversley fans flying to Daytona last week worried about not seeing his name on any entry lists. Lo and behold, when I landed, I ran into him at the airport leaving Daytona, and I briefly became even more worried. He quickly put my mind at ease with the news that he will be racing Precision Racing LA’s Toyota GR Supra in Pirelli GT4 America full-time this year.

Ryan bounces back and forth between IMSA and SRO, which is a normal thing for a coaching-level pro to do as up-and-comers such as Karl Forman enlist their services in whatever series suits their program. Forman is graduating from the GR Cup series, where Eversley coaches many drivers, so they’ve worked together and have chemistry, and they’re staying in the same OEM ecosystem. And going forward, if you want to build a track record right now with any GT brand, I dare say it’s Toyota.

UPDATE, FEB 5: According to DSC’s Graham Goodwin, who somewhat hesitantly published this story after other publications began to run with it, the primary source of this story may have “over-egged the pudding,” as he puts it, and the appearance of the ARX-06 in FIA-sanctioned competition is not nearly as imminent as was reported. That story may even have complicated the deal, which would suck. Listen to #TWISC for more details.

Given how long the Acura ARX-06 has been in service in IMSA, it is natural to wonder why it hasn’t entered the WEC yet, and I look forward to learning more about that if possible, but as friend-of-TF @putdorianedown.bsky.social points out, there are many pieces of such a project that are just now falling into place:

This has been a story repeatedly, of course, but this one seems a lot more solid: - it gives a year, 2027 - there's space, because of Porsche - it names a credible partner team, Inter Europol

So, Great Honda Bake-Off for Le Mans (and the rest of the season) suddenly very plausible.

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— The Pin is mightier than the sword (@putdorianedown.bsky.social) Jan 30, 2026 at 9:34 AM

This is such a cool partnership, and I hope they really lean on the history to get some crossover going. No less storied a NASCAR figure than Geoff Bodine built bobsleds for Team USA for decades that won many medals, which I think is something fans of both motorsports winter sports should know.

The Wall Racing Huracan GT3 is, objectively, the most attractive Lamborghini on Earth, much as Mount Panorama is the most attractive race track on Earth, so it’s pretty sweet for Pfaff fans familiar with Marco Mapelli’s work to have this car to root for at the Bathurst 12 Hour.

Brutal development for poor old Jack. Super Formula was the one thread of redemption from which he was dangling after getting dumped by Alpine F1 for not having more money than Franco Colapinto, and it seems budget is still the issue even in Japan. What’s Jack going to do now?

I didn’t realize the world continued to have beat reporters with jobs in it, but sure enough, there is a sharp young motorsports reporter starting at IndyStar. Even better, he says he has been prompted to join Bluesky because it “needs more motorsports reporters,” so if you’re part of the squad, make sure to greet Zion warmly, so he sticks around, unlike so many of his predecessors.

The winter weather has begun to wreak its havoc on the first event of the NASCAR season, which is a significant bummer. Friday activities are still scheduled, and they’re trying to cram all the Cup action into Sunday, so we may still have a race, but it’s not going to be the rowdy Madhouse party we all want.

NASCAR has made a string of popular moves lately, and I would like to suggest one more: Move the Clash back to Daytona permanently, and have the All-Star Race at Bowman Gray.

Tim Cindric, whom you may remember as the former president of Penske Racing who was fired last year after one too many cheating scandals, has been… re-hired by Penske. Now, it’s not in an executive role, so I guess that’s something. He’s going to be on the pit wall doing strategy for Scott McLaughlin. Scotty is stoked, obviously, as this is the guy who pretty much made his racing career happen, and he knows racing at least as cold as anyone else on Earth. I guess this means Penske is really putting its ammo behind the 3 car this year!

I think it’s probably fair to say that Aston Martin F1’s 2026 car is the most anticipated race car of the year, what with the Adrian Newey and the Honda works status of it all. Hyping it up even more, the first test is in Spain, and Fernando Alonso drives that car. So with the eyes of the world on this car, Lance Stroll pulls it out onto a hot track for the first time, drives it around slowly four times, and then on the fifth lap has to pull it over in the runoff and shut it down.

This Netflix thing seems to be working pretty well for motor racing. Keep it up, I say.

They’re still racing IROC cars, and all the old greats who can still race are doing so. Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte, so on and so forth. This news just reminds me that NASCAR lost its antitrust suit, and its fear and loathing about racing it doesn’t own made it look particularly bad, even though everybody knows that NASCAR could just be a happy partner with stuff like this and derive nothing but benefit. Maybe it will now.

Can I say something without anybody getting mad?

I found out about Thunder Road Speedbowl in Vermont on FloRacing, and I’m really glad that broadcast is working out for both parties. Great racing, great facility, great announcers, great categories — it’s the total package.