I will have a three-week-old baby, so my chances of making it to the first Atlanta Motoring Festival & Concours are pretty slim, but I hope this is something my whole family is going to in a year or two. I request that all Atlanta-area readers go and report back.

Those of us rightly concerned with the future of Prema IndyCar — which has now missed a race — have not heard much from financier Deborah Mayer since all that started to melt down due to lack of funding. In other categories, we did know that the Iron Dames program, which Mayer founded, would not be racing much if at all this year, but she has now at least attempted to do some press about it.

Iron Dames is reorienting itself as a more open-ended support system for getting more women into motorsports, rather than a race team with cars for women to drive, and some may see this as a defeat, but I think it’s a good call. That program was too rigid to get solid, lasting results. It was a box into which everything had to fit, rather than an adaptable team that could draw together the right drivers, the right car, and the right program. The drivers were top-notch; that wasn’t the problem. The problem is that the best women in racing should be seeking the best seats in racing, and the movement supporting them should be helping them do that rather than spending all its resources trying to go racing all by itself.

I have been waiting to cover this story until we were sure there was nothing seriously wrong with Alex Bowman’s health, but despite seemingly widespread efforts to make this into just one of them racin’ deals, I still don’t actually feel sure about that. After getting out of the car and being replaced by a pit reporter at COTA last week, Alex Bowman will now miss the Phoenix Cup race with Anthony Alfredo substituting. Bowman’s form has not been where you’d expect a Hendrick driver to be for a long time, and now I’m starting to worry that it’s systemic.

Ahead of this weekend’s opening round, the FIA has updated the guidelines for Formula 1 driving standards and penalties. In the last couple years, stewards’ decisions have provided way too many distractions from the racing, and imprecise, contradictory, or overly prescriptive guidelines have led a lot of F1 drivers to questionable on-track decisions. Something does need to change about this, and it seems like they’re going less prescriptive and more principles-based, which is good. The real problem, though, is that stewards are part-time volunteers, they change often, and few of them have enough racing experience to make knowledgeable rulings. How this sport has not yet figured out how to pay for professional stewards is beyond me.

I have not seen anything that worries me yet after the first two Formula 1 free practice sessions of 2026. Adelaide is (along with Qatar) probably the hardest track of the year for energy management as a pretty flat-out place, and we saw earlier this week how the FIA’s track-by-track energy deployment rules are going to work. This is the key element that will make or break the 50/50 split between turbo V6 and hybrid power: Is there enough headroom in the package to fine-tune things for the demands of each race weekend in the rules?

In Melbourne, it looks like teams are settling on a big super-clip (full blast of battery recharge with full throttle while slowing) into turn 9 as the bit of track they have to sacrifice in order to accelerate with full power on the next straight and make it to the other side. It’s the sort of thing purists were worried about, and I’ve seen some complain about how it looks through practice, but as Juan Pablo Montoya reported trackside on the broadcast, the acceleration after that is mighty impressive. I’ll withhold an opinion on whether that’s worth it and say we’ll find out in qualifying.

In general, every team and every driver looks to be where I’d expect them to be at this point with the exception of Aston Martin, which we knew was in trouble before the circus got to Australia, but things seem to really be crumbling now. A blame game has started (Newey is pinning it all on Honda, of course), the engine is shaking the hybrid system to bits, the drivers’ health is at risk from the vibrations, and it looks likely they may retire by choice before much of the race is even complete.

It’s not all Honda’s fault, of course; Aston sounds like they were taken by surprise by the total brain-drain of Honda people who worked on the Red Bull program, even though this is how Honda has always worked. Arguably it’s why Honda’s F1 history is so messy, too, and it’s repeating itself here, and Aston Martin was not ready for it.

Honda sends people to F1 to train and bring that wisdom to other parts of the company. This is also Toyota’s approach to Formula 1, but that’s why their arrangement with Haas is so carefully constrained, and it doesn’t even include the power unit, which is provided to Haas by Ferrari. Haas, meanwhile, is putting in top 10 times in practice. Aston Martin is hardly putting up any times at all, and Lance Stroll’s fastest one so far is on trend to be outside the 107% window to qualify!

The other Ferrari customer team, Cadillac, is having more problems as we get into the real race weekend, and that should surprise no one. I was surprised things were going so well before. But nothing has happened that suggests any sort of doom. I sure would love to see both cars finish the race, though. “We’re not last” is as ambitious a first race as I could ever demand of them.

Ferrari itself is looking great, as expected after testing. Lewis is happy and actively exploring the car and the energy deployment system, and Charles was fastest of all in FP1. Both drivers’ lap times on every team are close — except on cars with issues, like that of Lando Norris — and that’s not surprising; they’re still heavily in testing mode. Mercedes seems to have turned up the wick for FP2, which put at least Piastri’s McLaren into the mix. Verstappen went off and made a bit of a mess of his car, but by and large the Red Bull power unit is humming along. Arvid Lindblad put up a P5 time in his first FP1 session as a Formula 1 driver.

Again, we’ll see how qualifying looks. I have seen enough to believe these cars can race, but qualifying is where energy starvation will make the difference between a field that makes sense and one that does not. Now, that might be fun. But it might be a mess.

You could argue that this is just Ford reaching a captive audience, since U.S. F1 fans are the obvious target, but I think it’s a pretty interesting signal that Ford Racing is spending gonzo money on narrative-rich ads about their racing programs that won’t be broadcast on television. They must think this Apple TV thing is going to work for Formula 1. And they’re using the opportunity to educate U.S. F1 fans about racing beyond F1, so I’m all in favor.

McLaren is not a central fandom of mine, but I do like how they roll. Who knows how profitable any of this is, but they seem like the company that takes motor racing the most seriously in the sense that it’s the reason they exist, and if anything their road cars are derived from their race cars rather than the other way around. They’re also some of the best performing and driver-focused road cars in the world, so they’re pulling it off.

This year, we’ll see their LMDh hypercar on track ahead of its racing debut next year, and McLaren execs are doing some press about how they’re justifying this effort. They’re calling it Project Endurance. They’re going to make and sell track-only consumer versions and host driving events with them, that sort of thing. Obviously this is for the mega-elite — McLaren’s GT cars were already very high-end, and this is going up-market — but maybe it’s also the kind of thing that convinces the mega-elite to stay invested in motorsports.

Manthey is the king of LMGT3, reigning champions in DTM, they’re in IMSA now, you know them, you love them. They’re the ones who invented the color “grello.” They are synonymous with Porsche 911 racing. They have revealed this year’s WEC cars today, and, well, the grello-adjacent one (Lore editor’s note: not official Grello™) is butt ugly. But the other one is very cool! Interesting conundrum.

Round 2 is a company big-time collectors seem to like, though I’m not familiar with their work. Lionel’s work I am all too familiar with; they’re the ones who cancel production of all the diecasts of Black drivers’ cars after I order them. I go way out of my way to order my NASCAR diecasts from third parties or direct from teams because that is how bad The Official Diecast Brand of NASCAR™ is to deal with.

How did an industry that made the most famous race car drivers on Earth 25 years ago fall so hard? Well, I’m sure there is some macroeconomic explanation, but hopefully this consolidation indicates a new path forward for racing collectibles that actually takes advantage of the last 25 years of logistical advances, which have been, you know, considerable.

Prodigious racing collector Cale says:

Round 2 owns the Racing Champions brand, too, so if there is any justice in the world…

— Cale Putnam (@caleputnam.bsky.social) Mar 5, 2026 at 10:06 AM

Reigning Toyota GR Cup North America champion, front-running Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup driver, current four-for-four IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge GSX championship leader, and friend-of-friends-of-the-site, Westin Workman, will add the GT4 America championship to his docket this year. He will drive the No. 68 Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 for RAFA Racing alongside Tyler Gonzalez in the Silver class. This is an amazing roster for an amazing multi-car team.

What I want to know about Westin’s path is, is he going to Connor Zilisch his way into NASCAR, or is he going to drive Toyota hypercars in the WEC?

Ford has hired its race engineers for the two as-yet-unnamed (but surely named Mustang GTP) Hypercars it will enter in the 2027 FIA World Endurance Championship. One is Leena Gade, who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Audi three times. The other is Jean-Philippe Sarrazin, who engineered the #6 Penske Porsche when it won the world drivers’ championship in 2024. Not bad, eh?

Their boss (trackside engineering manager) will be Grant Clarke, who was chief engineer of the NEOM McLaren Formula E team in 2024 and at TF Sport in WEC for four years before that.

Look. I said before Daytona that I was glad Cleetus was running the truck race there because I was ready to rip the bandaid off the question of whether influencers who drive little beaters around tracks they made themselves can jump straight into NASCAR. He had run ARCA, and his results had been uninteresting, but fine. Put him in a truck and see how he does, so we can get this over with. Well, we did. He was completely overwhelmed and wrecked almost immediately. So, that settles it, I thought. The dude does not know how to race at a high level yet.

Oh, no. It’s not over. On the contrary, Richard Childress is now putting him in the No. 33 O’Reilly car to race at Rockingham, having signed him to a two-year part-time deal. Notice how the press release calls him a “skilled driver and motorsports enthusiast” but a “genius marketer.” They aren’t even hiding why they’re doing this.

Hm. I had been tracking Otmar lately because he’d been getting a bit more public, most notably with a podcast at The Race, and talking a pretty big game about how things should be run in Formula 1. This had stimulated some rumors that he may have been looking to get back in the big game. But a little while ago, the podcast went quiet, and now he’s taken a job in the little game. I wonder if Christian Horner sucked all the air out of the room?

Gridlife is, in concept, something I really like. Given my background, you probably wouldn’t be surprised that my immediate reaction when I first set foot upon the grounds of a race track was, “I’m getting real TRanSFoRMAtiONal fEstivAL vibes from this!” It did not boggle my mind to learn that some race promoters take that to its logical conclusion and have full-weekend EDM lineups playing in the infield, but it also heartened me enormously to learn that Gridlife’s take on the motorsports part of that was an inclusive club-racing model. I doubt I’ll ever go to one of these unless my kids want to take me someday, but I am glad it exists.

Of course, as a motorsports writer, Racer is also, in concept, something I really like. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite motorsports publication across all categories, but it’s the go-to for IndyCar, and it is comprehensive, so it’s always worth sticking around. When that group acquired MAVTV last year and created the Racer Network, I thought, “That’s a good idea. Give us some racing to watch with our subscription, and hell, I’ll gladly also take your magazine.” Unfortunately, the first year of the service did not fill me with optimism about the second, and there is currently no form of racing I follow that requires me to subscribe to it, so I no longer do.

Now more pieces are starting to fall into place. An umbrella organization has been created called F=ma. It’s no DXDT, but it is at least an engineering reference that applies to motorsports, and that is the signal they would like to send. It is led by Chris Dyson, son of Rob, so, racers. Racer is now part of F=ma’s portfolio, along with PR firm The ID Agency, which represents the likes of Porsche, Bridgestone, and Hot Wheels. F=ma has now also acquired Gridlife.

This all makes sense. You can see a coherent portfolio here. But so far to me it sounds like a closed loop that will live or die on its own, rather than part of the broader racing world.

If you have any doubts about whether NASCAR remains in contact with its essential soul, I give you the case of Myatt Snider.

Snider drives part time in the O’Reilly series, but at the Cup race at Circuit of the Americas, he was working the lane as an assistant pit reporter for FOX Sports when he was asked to put on a fire suit and helmet, get into Alex Bowman’s car, and drive it for the final stage of the race. Bowman was succumbing to some sort of health issue — which weirdly has not been disclosed even though we assume it was just your normal cool suit problems — and he had to pull in. Snider texted a little about breaking points with friend and fellow ringer Brad Perez, jumped into the #48, and finished the race without incident.

The NASCAR world mourns the passing of Chase Pistone, 10-time competitor in NASCAR’s national series and Legends car driver and team owner.He was a four-time champion of the Summer Shootout in Legends, credited with over 80 feature wins across short-track categories. He was also the grandson of “Tiger Tom” Pistone, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner. Chase was 42 years old.

His brother, Nick, has asked outlets to promote the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which anyone can call or text any time at 988.

The racing public doesn’t know much more than that, but we don’t have to in order to hold one of our own — and his family, friends, colleagues, and competitors — in our hearts.

I have reasons for not participating in the intensely politicized version of online discourse about motorsports (as well as everything else). I have some experience in both capital-P politics and other forms of movement building, and what all that taught me is actually part of what drew me into motorsports in the first place. When you’ve got something good going — something that draws human beings into collective activity with one another that transcends all manner of differences in demographics, backgrounds, and belief systems — you need to do everything you can to throw the doors to it open and usher everyone in, because that very thing is what creates peace in the world.

Motor racing is one of those things. Yes, I know that fascist dictators throughout modern history have loved motor racing, too, but you know what? They lost. The periods of world war that canceled international motor racing sucked, and when they were over, societies rushed to turn their airfields into race tracks and turn the race car factories that turned into bomber factories back into race car factories. And nowadays, racing is so big, high tech, and inextricably international that I am not exaggerating when I say that I believe it could hold the world together as it tries to fall apart.

I honestly do.

So. One thing we know about Formula 1 racing is that it has lately and not-subtly become a plaything of the oil barons of the Middle East. All of the political neutrality touted by windbags at regulatory bodies can’t change the fact that the entities controlling Formula 1 — including the American company that owns it — are most definitely on A Side. I see people complain about this every day, and I get it.

But now look what’s happening.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the governments of the United States and Israel are prioritizing things other than motorsports in their decision to decapitate the Iranian regime and kick off a whole conflagration that exceeds their most troubled nightmares. And their actions are now beginning to interrupt the activities of an American-owned publicly traded company that operates a sport with hundreds of millions of fans worldwide — including millions of Americans who are just getting to the party — that puts on three massive events in America, that has an exclusive broadcast deal with an American technology company that is one of the most profitable and powerful entities in the entire world (that being Apple), and whose Gulf State owners and financiers (and fuel providers) are getting actively bombed as payback for these strikes.

Which side of that do you think Formula 1 is on? Even if there are people in Formula 1 who are consciously on the other side ideologically, it is indisputable that the interest of the massive planetary industrial enterprise that is motor racing is for big international wars not to happen.

So I stand on the side of motor racing. It’s a much better use of international industry, technology, real estate, commerce, and oil refineries than warfare.

UPDATE Mar 3, 2026, 2:16 PM: The FIA World Endurance Championship has postponed its opening round, the Qatar 1812km, due to the violence in the region. The first WEC round will now be at Imola from April 17–19, and the plan is to run Qatar later in the year.

Ford is designing aerodynamic devices for cars that ionize air currents funneled over strips of electrodes and then pull them toward an oppositely polarized terminal, creating an “ionic wind” as they collide with regularly charged molecules, directing air precisely onto aerodynamic surfaces. The patent includes mention of high- and low-downforce modes that redirect the air accordingly. HOW UTTERLY COOL IS THAT?

GT3 racing is so great right now that it feels like we’re still just getting started, but what’s amazing is that there have already been enough generations of GT3 to have a full grid of historic ones with their own racing series. The GT3 Revival Series is participating in the annual Peter Auto Test Days at Circuit Paul Ricard this week. It’s not an official test, so the whole grid won’t be there, but a bunch of cars will. If the cars themselves aren’t enough of a headline for you, how’s this: The VDS Racing BMW Z4 will be driven by 2024 WRC champion and 22-time rally winner Thierry Neuville.

I feel that the plan to open the Asian Le Mans Series (which runs over the winter) to the hypercar class this year has been underrated so far, but I don’t think that will be the case anymore. After unveiling the 2026 car for the World Endurance Championship, Ferrari global head of endurance racing Antonello Coletta said they intend to enter the Ferrari 499P — likely candidate for “best race car in the world” right now — in the 2026–2027 Asian Le Mans Series, too.

So far, the Peugeot 9X8 has been the only hypercar about which moves are being made, and don’t get me wrong, that’s a badass race car. But the Ferrari wears the crown.