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Admittedly, I don’t watch a lot of racing at this level, but I like knowing there’s a guy in the field who is this serious about his racing. I will remember his name and enjoy seeing it pop up in the news.

Having lived there for a while about a 12 years ago and fled because of what was happening to it culturally, I am deeply bemused by the idea of motorsports on the streets of contemporary San Francisco. It doesn’t sound like Red Bull cared very much about the on-the-ground experience, as obviously this event was primarily intended to be slickly edited for the global internet, but nobody other than the people who got there first could see anything, vehicles were in the fence, and Yuki Tsunoda caught his F1 car on fire doing donuts. All in all, a humongous success for motorsports being motorsports.

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Supercars resolutely remains my overall favorite racing series on Earth. Despite Ford and Chevrolet changing homologation teams and a whole new Toyota Supra making its racing debut, every single outfit looked ready to fight. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Triple Eight hit the ground running as the new Ford HT — or that Broc Feeney won them two of the three races — but what is surprising is that their new customer, Blanchard Racing Team, leapt from last in 2025 to the front of the field. James Golding poled it for the first race, and they would have won 1-2 if Feeney and Triple Eight hadn’t beat them out of the pits.

For Chevrolet’s part, some saw tapping Team 18 as the new HT as a big risk, even though Anton De Pasquale was consistently in the mix last year. Well, he won race 2, so that seems like it’s working out fine.

The Toyota debut wasn’t perfect — they had one engine go pop — but by the last race, all five Supras had finished in the top 10. Not a bad start.

There were some track surface problems that sort of screwed over the support categories, and several main game drivers got severely overheated in the last race, but nevertheless, Supercars reports record attendance, and it was a great all-around event.

Formula E has a very serious new race car coming next year, and rather than punish development mistakes for years as the championship has done so far, it has come up with a more flexible upgrade system that should also make seasons a bit spicier.

Previous generations of Formula E rules have only allowed completely new homologations for mid-rule-cycle Evo updates to the whole platform. Now, instead, the series will give each team allotments of development tokens for specific systems that they can deploy as needed for joker upgrades. This is not only less expensive than having to develop and homologate whole new cars while suffering with the flaws of the current one until the Evo, it means teams will be bringing different updates at different times, which will inject some surprise into the field.

It really sucks that Amy Ruman won’t be able to challenge for her third Trans Am championship this year. This is the first time she’s missed the opening round in her entire career. I’d love to see her stage a huge comeback anyway and hopefully win some races.

Mark Webber will no longer be the sort of race-day sensei he has been for Oscar Piastri so far, though he will stay involved in managing Piastri’s affairs. I’m sure there’s nothing serious to this, but it’s still a statement that Oscar no longer needs the support of an F1 veteran in his trackside operations.

Possibly my favorite GT3 car based on what is certainly my favorite front-engine road car. If this tiger livery in the article is actually running the race, I am going to lose my mind.

Between Porsche leaving WEC and Lamborghini leaving everything, people are getting itchy to declare the end of the Platinum Era of Sports Car Racing™, but honestly I think 18 Hypercars at Le Mans is still a pretty stout grid, given that Genesis is new to the grid this year and, you know, McLaren and Ford are coming next year.

As for Cadillac, not spreading the 31 too thin is obviously a great call. Wayne Taylor is obviously behind AXR in IMSA, Wayne wants to win Le Mans with his boys, that’s fine, but more importantly, JOTA is clearly ready to do it. Concentrating all the 31’s firepower on IMSA gives them the best possible chance of toppling Penske and Porsche.

Thank God, Ralf Aron is out of hospital and recovering after breaking his back in a horrendous incident out of his control during the Bathurst 12 Hour. Investigations into how the wreck could (read: should) have been avoided are still ongoing.

I’m getting pretty tired of all the anxiety on the sidelines about this year’s Formula 1 season. Teams are trying some crazy stuff, and if that’s not what Formula 1 is all about, then what is it about? When is the last time you heard about a race car aero component that generates lift on purpose?

As the Cadillac F1 project was getting going, I heard a lot of snoot from snooty F1 people about how Cadillac was doomed and unlikely to even make it to the grid, and yet how they were also pathetic for not even building their own power unit at first. Well, fast forward to the present, and they are way more ready to go racing than the new Aston Martin-Honda factory team, and that team had a chassis already.

So I think Cadillac F1 has earned the right to be believed when it gives projections of its progress, and TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss says the GM power unit is still on schedule for its initial goal of 2029, and he’s even making noise about doing it sooner if possible.

I am saddened to hear about the passing of George W. Barber, who is to me first and foremost the founder of Barber Motorsports Park, the most beautiful racing venue to which I have ever been.

He was many other things, of course, including a racing driver and a successful businessman, but the aptly described “motorsports park” named for him represents something essential about the soul of racing. Motor racing has the kind of effect on people that they pour themselves into it with everything they have, building on its future to benefit not just themselves but everyone who loves it for generations to come. Barber was that kind of guy who built that kind of place.

It wasn’t long ago that the Bathurst 12 Hour had to get creative with entry classes in order to fill the grid, but that era is gone. The GT3 racing world wants to run Bathurst, and now it’s getting a little crowded up on that mountain for multi-class racing. There were only two GT4 cars entered in the 2026 race (along with two other oddball entries), but there is talk of bringing the whole Monochrome GT4 Australia series to the race meeting next year, so there can be a whole grid full of high-level GT4 cars with their own endurance race.

After an unforgettable wet/dry Bathurst 1000 last year, the 12 Hour seems to have achieved new heights of importance, with a strong grid boasting multiple new manufacturers and packed with top-tier drivers. Attendance was reportedly record-breaking, business was booming in town, and the weather was amazing. Australia’s international endurance race is entering a well-deserved heyday.

Mount Panorama is one of those tracks that is said to supernaturally choose its champion, and in this year’s 12 Hour, the Mountain was intensely discerning, eliminating one contender after another until one of the most diamond-hard, razor-sharp entries — Mercedes-AMG Team GMR’s #888, driven by Maro Engel, Maxime Martin, and Mikaël Grenier — was permitted to win, smashing a record for how far back a 12 Hour winner had started, having come from 29th on the grid.

The Mountain is a formidable place. This is known and expected and part of racing there. It is central to the circuit’s allure. But despite having delivered the kind of brutal challenge its audience and competitors expect, the 2026 race was marred by some incidents that were — fortunately — merely horrible and not tragic.

This race is beloved for its pre-dawn start, with GT cars hauling the mail up Mountain Straight three-wide, only their headlights visible. The first hour is crowned by sunrise atop the mountain, heralding a glorious beginning to the race, unlike other day-long endurance races where sunrise provides relief from a long, dark night.

Unfortunately, at the 12 Hour this year, sunrise was more of a relief than usual. The dark beginning had been shattered by multiple wildlife strikes, most notably a collision with a massive kangaroo by the factory Mustang GT3 driven by Christopher Mies, ending the car’s debut at Bathurst after not even half an hour. The Mustang was obliterated, and the driver was traumatized and lucky to be alive, to say nothing of what happened to the tough, graceful animal.

This was an ominous beginning, and it was echoed by a later collision that could have been even more catastrophic in terms of human life.

In the ninth hour, at the end of a safety car period, the lapped cars were given a wave-around. Following this race’s procedures, that small group of back-markers dropped the hammer. They are not permitted to change position, but nor is the field held until the wave-bys reach the back of the pack; they are given the green flag when they reach the line. The wave-by cars are only given the chance to recover a lap, and in order to do that, they have to stay ahead of the leaders under full-blast racing conditions.

So the cars at the back of the field — some driven by inexperienced drivers, some in classes incapable of keeping up with GT3 cars, some slowed by damage or other issues, some as fast as the cars at the front — hurtled up the mountain as fast as they could while still driving hesitantly enough to avoid passing one another and incurring penalties. Entering the narrow and blind sections for which Mount Panorama is renowned, cars made contact, spun, slowed, and stopped.

The Tsunami RT Porsche 911, driven by Bathurst 12 Hour debutant Johannes Zelger, was turned around and stopped in a blind corner as the leaders raced towards him. It was obvious what was going to happen. Yellow flags were shown in the area, but it isn’t clear if the flag stand best positioned to warn drivers in time was doing its job. Hopefully, an investigation will clear that up. The race leader was Ralf Aron in the Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG, which was having intermittent radio issues, which could happen to anyone on the brutal and wild circuit. He had no idea what was around the corner.

The Mercedes and the Porsche became twisted, smoking sculptures of destruction. Both drivers crawled out of the wreckage, but Aron only made it just clear of the track before lying on his back in agony. He was taken to the hospital, and he turns out to have broken his back. Thank God, he retains full sensation and mobility, and he even wants to come back to the Mountain. The motor racing world is lucky he could have the chance.

Every racing series is an experiment with the balance between what you might call the “American style” of keeping lapped cars in the race with wave-bys and the “European style” of preserving the sanctity of race positions through incidents and restarts. The former is more spectacular. The latter is safer. Australian racing — with Bathurst as its epitome — tends toward the former. Its drivers and fans want to see a cracking motor race. International GT drivers may have American-style racing experience from IMSA, but generally they are used to the latter. This is a recipe for confusion.

At a long and treacherous track like Mount Panorama, field spread is guaranteed. It makes sense to give lapped cars a chance. But I cannot understand a rule that releases the fastest cars behind the slowest cars — who are going as fast as they can while still having to worry about staying in position — on a track with massive elevation changes, close walls, and blind curves. We may find that there were other procedural failures that contributed to this incident, but surely it would have been avoided if the wave-bys were simply allowed to catch the field before it went green. It’s a long race. There’s time.

These dangerous incidents contributed to the tension in a race that is always tense. There were many more racing incidents, questionable blocks, race-ending mistakes, and other heartbreaks. Those things are always part of racing on the Mountain. Last year, over the top at Skyline, Kenny Habul and Stephen Grove got into each other so hard that Grove’s AMG went airborne and looked for one chilling instant like it might go right over the side. Terror is a familiar companion racing at Bathurst. But both of this year’s serious incidents had an absurdity about them that suggests there should have been ways to mitigate them. I hope to see some proactive efforts to prevent the next one.

Don’t let this take away from the greatness of this race, though. The Bathurst 12 Hour still welcomes independent challengers, and they rise to the occasion and go toe to toe with the hardened pros. Such a car — the High Class Racing #86 Porsche of Kerong Li, Anders Fjordbach, and Dorian Boccolacci — started 30th, right behind the eventual winners, and finished second to them overall by merely a second. This is a glorious result. As the Bathurst 12 Hour grows into its status as a global crown jewel of endurance sports car racing, we can hope for the 2026 podium to go down as an aspirational example, even as the race’s most brutal incidents should go down as a warning.

IMSA has such a huge audience now that this promises to be a worthwhile and educational event. There have been some juicy rumors about the liveries for this, particularly involving Porsche Penske Motorsport. I’m praying for this one.

This news has been telegraphed for a while, but part of me still can’t believe they didn’t figure out a way to have Spa on the F1 calendar every year. It’s Spa. It’s one of the coolest race tracks in the world.

On the other hand, I am supportive of opening up a slot on the calendar for a new race in Asia or Africa, or perhaps another rotation between such places. Formula 1 should certainly make every effort to live up to its title of world championship.

I have been excited about BMW’s new spin on single-make entry-level sports car racing, which is entering as a class at the endurance rounds of IMSA’s VP Racing SportsCar Challenge this year. Thus I was bummed to see that they’ve decided to pull out of the Sebring round, meaning the M2 Racing will only run at three IMSA races this year. It will now debut at the COTA round May 8–10. They’ve decided they bit off a little more than they can chew for the first year, it appears. They did sweeten the deal, though, offering the top three in the championship a GT4 test.

When I was about four minutes into the Brawn F1 docuseries, I thought, “Man, Keanu Reeves is like the Carl Sagan of racing. We need more!!!” Well, guess what. We’re getting a documentary from him about the launch of Cadillac F1, which is sure to be an incredible telling of an incredible story.

Kevin Harvick and Will Buxton are reuniting for the 21st-century version of SPEED, a cross-discipline hub for motorsports news that has never really been replaced since the channel was converted into what is now FS1. This is a great sign for the overall health of racing, and this sort of top-tier one-stop-shop show is exactly what the scattered fanbase needs. Best of all, it’s a podcast available in both audio and video formats that will come out twice a week. And even though SPEED has adapted to the present-day media environment, its branding and segments — and even its studio — pick up right where they left off.

2025 was a tough year for 23XI racing, with its distracting lawsuit against NASCAR threatening its existence as a team, and Tyler Reddick in particular, with scary health issues in his family and whatever other factors combining to have him go winless. That’s all behind them now; 23XI won a settlement in the lawsuit — a historic financial win for Cup Series teams over France family ownership — and Tyler Reddick went out and won the Great American Race. Michael Jordan’s impact on the sport cannot be overstated at this point. Remarkably — given Riley Herbst’s usual irrelevance — all three 23XI cars finished in the top 10, giving the team a decisive early championship lead.

It was your usual crazy Daytona race, but this time it felt like the Daytona 500 is supposed to.

This was no fluke drive, he was right back there with Denny in case anything stupid happened, and then it did, and he drove right through it on Nightmare Mode

— Jon 🛞 (@jon.turningfortune.com) Feb 15, 2026 at 5:44 PM