Motoring News

Teams all too frequently bin off one of the choices – either because the soft is too aggressive, the medium falls into no-man's land, or the hard is too conservative – but this weekend's race in Japan has left what Pirelli's head of car racing Mario Isola says is a real "headache" for strategists.With high-degradation Suzuka making a one-stop pretty much a no-goer (unless we end up with a ...Keep reading

The Maranello outfit had hoped that the progress it had made with its SF-24 this year would allow it to pose a proper threat to Red Bull around the high-speed swoops of Suzuka.Good progress has been made at the kind of corner speeds that are common around Suzuka, so the venue was going to be a good litmus test of how much of a step forward the team had taken.While it duly managed to cut the ...Keep reading

Ahead of today’s Japanese Grand Prix, Verstappen hinted that Red Bull was changing its car repair assessment systems through an F1 event.This was after its post-Melbourne analysis of the failure that led to the Dutchman’s right-rear brake pad jamming onto the disc and the whole assembly eventually catching fire early in the race, which was won by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.Red Bull chief ...Keep reading

But teams and drivers are already bracing themselves for what could be a game of patiently follow-the-leader thanks to the growing dirty air problem that F1 is experiencing right now.While F1’s new ground effect rules era from 2022 was supposed to better allow cars to follow each other closely, and indeed it worked for a while, the efforts by teams over more than two years now has done away with ...Keep reading

NASCAR implemented some new aero rules for short tracks for the second consecutive season, which focuses on a simpler diffuser and a 3-inch spoiler.In the two races in which it’s been used so far – Phoenix and Richmond – there has been no visible improvement in the racing in general and especially for Busch and his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team.“I didn’t think we could make it ...Keep reading

Larson, the last of 10 cars in the final round of Saturday’s qualifying, just nipped Bubba Wallace on his second lap to grab the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race.It was 40 years ago at the spring Martinsville race that Geoffrey Bodine won the first Cup race for team owner Rick Hendrick, which kept his fledgling organization in business and evoled into one of NASCAR’s most successful ...Keep reading

The top three average speeds in Saturday’s practice came from the first 20-minute session with LaJoie leading the way at 94.585 mph.In 12 career starts at the 0.526-mile short track,  LaJoie has never started better than 14th or finished better than 18th (twice).Bubba Wallace was second overall (94.382 mph) and Ryan Preece was third (94.265 mph).Chase Elliott was fastest in the second session ...Keep reading

Wickens – who suffered a serious spinal cord injury in an IndyCar crash at Pocono in 2018 that left him paraplegic – was making his debut in the series, sharing a Target SRL-entered Hyundai Elantra N with his fellow Canadian co-driver Mark Wilkins.This was the first race of a double-header event to start the NLS endurance racing season, a 28-lap stanza around the fearsome 12.9-mile circuit ...Keep reading

1) Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2) Sergio Perez (Red Bull), 3) Lando Norris (McLaren)

The drivers and teams report back on final practice and qualifying at the Suzuka International Racing Course ahead of the Formula 1 MSC Cruises Japanese Grand Prix 2024.

Bruno Guimaraes scores his fourth goal of the season as Newcastle beat Fulham at Craven Cottage.

Max Verstappen was the class of the field during qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix as the reigning world champion charged to pole position in his Red Bull.

The Spaniard arrived at Suzuka in a buoyant mood after leading team-mate Charles Leclerc to a 1-2 finish at the Australian GP, and hopes had been high of a strong showing in qualifying after some promising long-run form in practice.However, Ferrari endured a more challenging time in the fight for grid positions, as Sainz ended up fourth on the grid, 0.485 seconds adrift of pole position man Max ...Keep reading

No play is possible at Durham against Hampshire and Derbyshire against Gloucestershire for a second straight day.

Acosta's impressive march through the field in the Qatar GP to run as high as fourth because sliding down to ninth already grabbed attention.But it was a similar charge from seventh on the grid last time out in Portugal that culminated in a maiden podium in third, after Aprilia's Maverick Vinales crashed out on the last lap, that looks to have set the tone for the rest of Acosta's year.While much ...Keep reading

Beyond the headline lap times that have hinted at signs of progress in unlocking pace from its W15, the mood of its drivers is far more upbeat than at any point this season.Indeed, Lewis Hamilton declared that there had been a "night and day" difference in how comfortable he felt in the car – something that has not been common throughout the troubled campaigns Mercedes has endured in the latest ...Keep reading

Alpine A524 technical detail
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
A look at the two front wing specifications available to Alpine in Japan, with the newer of the two being the upper one (splattered with green flo-viz paint). Note not only how the shape of the upper flaps differ considerably different but also how the team has made the switch to semi-detached flap tips at the endplate juncture ...Keep reading

Hamilton qualified only seventh for the Japanese GP, 0.569s off poleman Max Verstappen but just 0.084s shy of the fourth-placed Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.Despite the disappointing grid position, the seven-times world champion insists that the past two days have given him a clearer idea of what direction his team needs to take.He says that he’s had to make minimal changes to his W15 over the ...Keep reading

Max Verstappen will lead an all-Red Bull front row at Suzuka after topping qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix on Saturday.McLaren ended up as Red Bull's nearest challenger on a single-lap, with Lando Norris putting his MCL38 third on the grid behind Sergio Perez's RB20.Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, the winner of the Australian GP a fortnight ago, will line up fourth ahead of the top Aston ...Keep reading

Live coverage of Saturday's Championship game between Sunderland and Bristol City.