Gotta say, I am not feeling any less worried about Alex Bowman. Hendrick is making it sound like he’s getting better but still isn’t quite there, but this is now three races affected by these symptoms.

At any rate, Anthony Alfredo had a pretty good run in the #48 at Phoenix before getting taken out. I would love to see Justin Allgaier get some redemption at Vegas for his Daytona 500 appearance.

This has been long speculated about, but more official, corporate-sounding noises are being made about Chinese car giant BYD going racing. They will, of course, go directly to the highest levels in Formula 1 or FIA WEC — or both? — at least in their minds, until they learn how motorsport works.

Bring it on. I hope they crank up the competition in motorsports as much as they are in making good road cars that people actually want and can afford.

When I was in middle school my public favorite band was Limp Bizkit. That was the one I thought projected the way I wanted to be seen. My secret favorite band, though, was Korn. That was the music that actually spoke to my soul, which I did not want anyone to see or hear from.

Nowadays, I am pursuing things — very publicly, too — that I definitely would have thought were cool in middle school but could never have admitted. I never allowed myself to explore, for example, NASCAR because it would have been deeply uncool. At our school, we made fun of NASCAR and people who liked NASCAR.

Well, now I know better, and now Jonathan Davis will wave the green flag at the Cup race in Vegas this weekend, and I will be smiling.

My favorite Lamborghini, the Wall Racing Huracan, placed fifth in class at the Bathurst 12 Hour this year after a best finish of P9 in last year’s outings, so they’ve decided to contest the full season of GT World Challenge Australia. Surely it helped having works driver Marco Mapelli fresh off the Daytona 24 to run the Mountain, but the team also says they’ve just dialed in their operations this year.

It would be fun to see some solid results for the Huracan in the year when the Temerario is rolling out. Pfaff Motorsports — Mapelli’s team for his IMSA endurance outings — will be debuting its Temerario at the 12 Hours of Sebring March 18–21, their goal being simply to finish the famously bumpy race.

I don’t want to make all 2026 NLS stories about one thing, but raise your hand if you would like to see Ayhancan Güven race against Max Verstappen.

*every hand on Earth goes up*

Max is not participating in the NLS until round 2, but his car and co-drivers will be there. I can’t wait to see how they stack up against this monster Grello duo. To be very clear, Manthey has not yet said they are sending this car to the N24… but they totally are, right?

Hyundai is clearly behind the eight ball in WRC this year, but at least they aren’t the only ones. It is difficult to imagine anyone catching up with Toyota even just two rallies in, but Hyundai reports that they’re flat out on drivability upgrades that will begin to roll out by the Croatia Rally that starts April 10. Unfortunately for us Hyundai-heads, talking to the press about this now seems like an effort to get out in front of expectations for Kenya and set them to “low.”

Ligier insists that there is a market for GT2 cars and racing as defined in the present day. The way they sell it is “GT3 levels of performance at GT4 levels of cost.” Now, the word “performance” is doing a lot of work there, because all they really mean is power. A GT2 car cannot corner like a GT3 car can. What it can do is go straight very fast.

Look, I understand why rich racing enthusiasts want to do that. If they want to race them against each other, go ahead. What I don’t want is for this GT2 spec to start creeping into multi-class sport car racing. They would be hazardous. Even if these people are rich enough to bring a pro driver along with them for a long race, the am time in a car as fast as the outright leaders — but only in a straight line — is going to be a mess.

People still hate on F1 Academy, but I understand their reasons less and less every day. People complain that it’s not a real “path” to Formula 1 for these women, which I guess it does seem like it promises to be, but if you talk to Susie Wolff about it, the objectives are so much broader than that, and it’s smashing them. They decided that the most important move to address gender disparities in motor racing is to make young, aspiring female drivers very visible in the world, and putting them in F1-looking cars at F1 races is obviously the way to do that. Wolff and her team often cite FIA karting statistics that show enormous leaps in registrations from girls following the launch of F1 Academy, and I don’t see how you could argue with those results.

But the next layer of the objection always seems to be that this is about marketing rather than racing, and usually they cite as evidence the fact that Formula 4 cars are not the best or most challenging race cars in the world. Well, I would like to invite such critics to race one against these women. Now that we’re enough years in for F1 Academy graduates to start forging grown-up racing careers, one after another is revealing that she is not aspiring to be an Instagram influencer but rather a racing driver.

This is the greatest such story yet, to my eye. Lia Block is doing a full American Rally Association season in a Hyundai i20 N Rally2 car, and she’s making quite clear that her ambition is to contest the FIA World Rally Championship. Her father, of course, was Ken Block, so it runs in the family. To lose your father in an off-road vehicle crash and stay on your path towards being a professional driver is no small or simple thing. She knows exactly what she’s getting into, and she intends to do it at the highest level.

My immediate reaction to the presidential decree that there shall be a Freedom 250 IndyCar race on the streets of Washington, D.C. is on the record: I doubt it’s going to happen. I don’t think IndyCar had any choice but to agree to give it a go — and I believe Roger Penske is firmly supportive of it, anyway — but they will look like fools when it either doesn’t come to pass or is an unmitigated disaster, and that’s just IndyCar’s fate.

Well, the first concrete step towards doing it is complete, and it’s a humiliating compromise. The circuit layout has been revealed, and rather than the promised glorious four-mile run between the U.S. Supreme Court building, the Lincoln Memorial, and back along the National Mall, it’s a 1.66-mile tootle around in front of the Capitol with seven turns, three of which are 90 degrees, and only one of which is to the right.

The minuscule course should make it easier to pave over Washington’s world-famously decrepit street surfaces, but someone in Washington will have to actually do that in order for it to happen, and that seems like a big ask. As for the racing, well, I hope you like slow corners. They should be easier to handle than normal, though, because the longest straight is a quarter mile shorter than the typical IndyCar street course, so the cars will never be going terribly fast.

So what are the bureaucratic-nightmare reasons this circuit is so compromised and the race is deeply unlikely to happen at all? Well, they’re all things we knew immediately: Racing on the proposed course would require an act of Congress to override a ban on commercial advertising, which would take a million years and probably a whole lobbying team to accomplish, there are laws in place to protect historic buildings from loud sounds and vibrations that would be hard to get around (not that I’d expect the current administration to care overly much about destroying historic things), and, well, they just can’t shut down that much city and build that much barrier in time.

I am moving my Freedom 250 doomsday clock hands five minutes closer to midnight.

The worst thing about motorsports is that there’s no way to agree about whether something is good or not. There are too many interested parties with too many different motivations and preferences, and thus two people can watch the exact same thing and derive opposite opinions about it.

I tend to use a pretty simple heuristic: Was it interesting, yes or no? In fairness, I have almost never watched a race car in motion and not found it interesting, but there are, of course, levels to this. I would put the 2026 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix near the highest end of the highest level.

Oh, one car is way faster than the others and won the race 1-2? How interesting! They must have done a very good job at working around the loopholes in this exceedingly complicated regulation set and built the best race car possible under the circumstances! I wonder what the championship fight between the two Mercedes drivers will be like, and if any of the three other teams with the same engine or Ferraris that embarrassed them off the line at the start might have something to say about it!

Oh, a bunch of cars had serious technical problems? How interesting! As a motor racing enthusiast, I wonder if there are 1,001 or so fascinating technical stories there!

Oh, Oscar Piastri destroyed his car on the recon lap to the grid by getting on the power with his right wheels over the curb? How interesting! I wonder if there will be more mistakes that add drama to the season this year!

Oh, there was a race at the front for the first like 15 laps instead of it being over by turn 3? How interesting! I wonder if the fluctuations in energy available for overtake boosts from lap to lap had anything to do with that!

Oh, Ferrari chose to stay out when most people chose to pit under an early virtual safety car, and for some reason they aren’t apologizing afterwards? How interesting! The fan narrative that “Ferrari is bad at race strategy” might not completely explain the decision-making at the team that beat everyone else except the team with the head-and-shoulders fastest car!

Oh, Fernando Alonso had the Aston Martin in the points for a period of time despite the car being a deathtrap shitbox, Cadillac finished its first Formula 1 race ever, and Gabi Bortoleto got Audi points on debut? How interesting!

Oh, Arvid Lindblad, the season’s only rookie, finished EIGHTH? How interesting!

Oh, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, the dominant drivers of the 2022–2025 ground effect cars, hate the new cars, but Lewis Hamilton, the most successful Formula 1 driver of all time, loves them and thinks they’re “really fun”? How interesting!

Oh, HALF A MILLION PEOPLE went to a motor race this weekend? HOW INTERESTING!

Like, come on. Yes, there are some wrinkles to smooth out after race 1 of year 1 of a completely different car. No, nobody completely understands what the optimal way to use the battery is. Yes, it is possible that some changes to the ICE/electric balance of energy output might help. So, let us sally forth into the Formula 1 season and do those things. If you’re not entertained, I dare say that’s your choice.

Do you like the new cars? That’s a different matter. Personally, I do. I think powerful electric boost and active aero for efficiency is a very interesting combination. There are some things I’d like changed, but they’re all regulatory matters.

I don’t mind the howling turbo spooling long start procedure, but I think they should be allowed to use the instantaneous power delivery of the electric motor to get off the line. Rather than have them clobber each other at the start like Franco Colapinto nearly did to Liam Lawson, have them launch hard into lap 1 with very different energy levels and race it out.

Have a qualifying mode that turns up the ICE fuel flow level or something to make the split less than 50/50. Do I care whether that power goes to the wheels or the battery? No, I just want to make sure they’re making the car go as fast as possible in every part of the track when they don’t have to save tires or race people.

That’s about it, really. The cars are clearly better for racing than before, they look and sound incredible, and personally I am more interested in acceleration than top speed or overall lap time. I go into this season as excited as ever before because even if it’s status quo, it will be better, and it won’t be. There will be massive surprises.

A lot of NASCAR fans, commentators, and competitors say that the first intermediate oval is when “the season actually starts” because superspeedways are crapshoots and road courses aren’t real NASCAR for some reason, even though the first NASCAR road course race was in 1954, and there have been permanent road courses on the calendar since 1988. I find this attitude incredibly irritating and self-defeating, but fortunately most people don’t even know this attitude exists and watch Daytona, Atlanta, and COTA and love them, as I do.

Frankly, I thought the NASCAR races at Phoenix this weekend were a big step down into the normal midseason feeling that NASCAR is a grind. The races weren’t bad, and the outcomes were just, but there was nothing particularly distinguished, either. I know a lot of race fans find recovery drives through the pack to be inspiring racing — and Sheldon Creed, Shane van Gisbergen, and Sunday winner Ryan Blaney all provided excellent demonstrations of that — but to me that’s of a second tier to battles of evenly matched cars and drivers on challenging tracks. Don’t tell NASCAR this because they might not agree to do these anymore, but the big March weekend at Phoenix Raceway was comprehensively carried by IndyCar.

Knowing this was happening does not lessen the intensity of hearing the news that Max Verstappen, Jules Gounon, and Dani Juncadella will race a Red Bull-liveried, Winward Racing-prepared Mercedes-AMG GT3 at the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Max will also contest the NLS2 round in preparation.

Today just happens to be the day these lineups are coming out, but it does taste a little more delicious coming on the heels of the opening round of a Formula 1 rule set that Max viscerally hates. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see Max race in Formula 1 for a long time to come, but I also hope that sports car racing is increasingly where he has his fun in life.

High Limit has set itself up for a big season this year, and if you’re new to dirt racing, I recommend you watch it.

First of all, it’s on FloRacing, which is (at least for now) the best value that exists in racing streaming services, just because there’s so much on there. The World of Outlaws series, which consider themselves the established leaders in dirt late model and sprint car racing, have their own exorbitantly priced streaming service, and Flo gives you all the same kinds of racing — with many of the same drivers — in different series, plus all kinds of other dirt, pavement, and even snow racing, for (at press time) half the price. So there’s that.

But in its own right, High Limit is just a very rewarding race series to follow. They run 64 races in a season, first of all, with many on weeknights, so if you’re someone who needs racing every night like I do, High Limit has got you. Many of the drivers are fantastic characters, and with Kyle Larson in charge on the business side, there are regular NASCAR tie-ins and crossovers.

This weekend, for instance, High Limit is in Las Vegas and scheduled around the NASCAR weekend. Not only is Larson running, two of NASCAR’s greatest villains — Corey Day and Ty Gibbs — are as well. But despite the constant presence of star power from established dirt racers and NASCAR interlopers, the series embodies its grassroots nature. There are always local aspirants and track legends in the mix, and in a discipline as instantaneous and physical as winged sprint car racing, the competition is always close.

Supercars just wrapped up its highest profile weekend of the year as the show-stealing support act at the Melbourne Grand Prix. It’s not necessary in this venue to sum up all four races and their qualifying sessions, but I will offer some takeaways.

The new Toyota is really almost there. The Walkinshaw Supras qualified near the front at times and bagged multiple top-10 results, including the Supra’s first podium from Ryan Wood.

The Penrite cars are well in it. Payne was a huge factor in the first two races, and Allen had to keep going to the back and driving back through. He surely passed the majority of the cars passed in the entire race meeting.

Brodie Kostecki won pole on Thursday and converted it into a win, breaking a six-year streak of Ford failing to win in Melbourne, and he did it with food poisoning. He only got more fearsome as he felt better, winning three of the four races and becoming the second driver ever to win the Larry Perkins Trophy twice.

Broc Feeney did win race 3, meaning Kostecki is only one win ahead of him on the year so far, and Will Brown finally poled one after flailing in qualifying for so long, but overall I come away from Melbourne concerned about Triple Eight’s form. Brown made a lot of bad moves in races and got decisively trounced by Brodie in the last one. Feeney ended up in a lap 1 wreck in the final race and for some reason kept his foot in, dragging his car around destroying everybody else around him before retiring. I sense frustration in the team.

I am certainly not concerned about the form of Supercars as a whole. They smashed long-standing attendance records on days when Formula 1 wasn’t even happening, and the overall weekend attendance was record-breaking also. I think Supercars is getting its moment of recognition on the global motorsports stage. SVG winning a bunch of NASCAR races probably helped, but the exciting Finals last year seemed to make an impact all on its own, and the series is taking advantage of the momentum.

IndyCar delivered under real pressure this weekend. Not only was it sharing the Phoenix weekend with NASCAR — and thus facing a chance to be 40 MPH faster than the racing many more people than usual were tuning in for — the opener at St. Pete had been kind of a snooze, at least in summary. Yes, it had the usual great IndyCar racing throughout the pack, but Álex Palou dancing away with another championship is not a storyline likely to deliver a critical growth year.

Fortunately for the storyline, Phoenix turned it on its head. Palou wrecked out of contention early in the race, and with Josef Newgarden surging back to his traditional position at the front of any short oval race, there is now a championship leader other than Palou for the first time since the 2024 season. Palou’s incident coming up on Rinus Veekay may have been a bit of a spotter fail, and another potential spotter fail of the same nature took Will Power and Christian Rasmussen out of contention later on. All day, Rasmussen continued to earn his reputation as the craziest man in IndyCar short oval racing, and it would have been quite a romp for him if he’d been able to hang on and win.

More shoutouts are necessary. Shoutout to Mick Schumacher for qualifying FOURTH in his first oval race ever. He didn’t have a glorious finish, but he sure had a glorious start. Shoutout to Dennis Hauger for one of the best saves I’ve ever seen (seen below). And — Will Power fan that I am — I must reserve my final shoutout for David Malukas for taking the 12 car to pole. That guy really has to prove he deserves the equipment upgrade he got, and this is some pretty good proof.

I found Formula 2 more charming this weekend in Melbourne than I have in the past because now their simple DRS-based racing reminds me of the Old Days of 2022–2025 Formula 1. More importantly, though, they put up some pretty good racing this weekend. Congratulations in particular to F2 rookie Nikola Tsolov from Campos Racing for a canny win in the feature race, taking advantage of some quick opportunities and dealing with Nico Varrone, hardly your typical F2 rookie in terms of racing experience.

I am, of course, mainly watching Formula 2 this year to see Colton Herta, and though he crashed in practice and did not amaze in qualifying or in race results, I think he did fine. In the sprint race he was aggressive and opportunistic, testing and learning the limits of the car and making some mistakes without causing any meaningful problems. In the feature, he drove more conservatively and made good choices, finishing in P7. Herta was, it should be noted, handily beaten by his Hitech teammate, Ritomo Miyata, who is the most interesting matchup with Herta on the grid in terms of prior open-wheel success.

The tenth season of Formula 2 is off to a good start. The broadcast mentioned that Lando Norris is the first F2 graduate to become F1 world champion, which blows my mind.

No decision has yet been made, but if the F1 races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in April have to be canceled due to war, there is no logistical option for replacing them this year. The 2026 championship would be down to 22 races, and there would be a month-long hole in it between Japan and Miami.

When this Darryl H. Cuttell fellow purchased the IHRA, a bunch of other series (including boat racing), race tracks, and other assets, the communications from the new organization were so delusional about its prospects that I sensed we were in for a good old-fashioned rich guy motorsports meltdown. I’m just glad none of these deals touched any race series I care about.

Nothing has overtly gone belly up yet, but I certainly haven’t heard anything about the racing; in fact, this story here is the first thing I’ve heard about how it’s going. Answer: terribly. The guy appears to manage like a tyrant, and he’s quickly running out of people to run this thing for him.

With the Qatar 1812km postponed due to the breakout of regional war, the FIA World Endurance Championship chose to open the season in Imola and try to reschedule the Qatar round. In the ensuing flurry of activity, it was unclear whether teams would get their Prologue testing event this year, as it typically precedes the race weekend in Qatar. Fortunately, they’ve figured out a way to do a mini-prologue in Imola on April 14.

The only team planning to run the CUPRA Leon in the British Touring Car Championship this year has had to pull out due to lack of funds. Un-Limited Motorsport raced in BTCC in 2024 and 2025. The CUPRA will be absent from the BTCC grid for the first time since the car was introduced in 2021.