Last weekend, Round 4 of Season 9 of the FIA Formula E World Championship saw the all-electric series visit India for the first time. The Hyderabad E-Prix took place on a street circuit constructed around the shores of the Hussain Sagar lake by the NTR Gardens. The race produced a third winner of the season.

MotoGP visited Sepang for a three-day test last weekend. F1 is rolling out their 2023 cars and shaking them down, mostly at Silverstone, for "filming days".

WorldSBK heads to Phillip Island, for two more days of preparations on February 20th and 21st, followed by Round 1 on the 24th - 26th of February. Read on for race coverage, testing, livery reveals and Sports Car news as well.

Meanwhile, NASCAR runs the Daytona 500 on Sunday. With no other racing on tap this weekend, it is usually the race that fans from other racing series tune in to remind themselves why they don't follow NASCAR. Crash. Boom. Bang. Restart and repeat.

We appreciate your loyal readership, help fuel the weekly updates by contributing. You can help the independent content flowing for less than you think. We encourage you to visit us on PATREON and for as little a s a cup of coffee, you can keep the community moving forward. As an incentive, anyone who throws down will be eligible to win a copy of the book Alboreto: Gasoline in the Veins.

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Sunday, February 19th: NASCAR - Daytona 500 2:30 PM FOX

MOTOGP - The three-day MotoGP test in Sepang saw varying conditions, with a damp Day 2 sandwiched in between more favorable conditions.

On Friday, VR46 Racing Team’s Marco Bezzecchi ended the day on top, as the Italian set a 1:58.470 to finish 0.130s ahead of second place Maverick Viñales on the Aprilia RS-GP.

Many eyes were on the new Ducati Lenovo Team lineup as Enea Bastianini joins reigning Champion Francesco Bagnaia. Bastianini was fastest of the two and third overall, with Prima Pramac Racing's Jorge Martin just five thousandths in behind in fourth. Bagnaia was fifth, another tenth further back.

The time in Malaysia wasn't all about fastest times, as teams and riders focus on trying new solutions, set ups and variations. In the Honda camp, Marc Marquez had no less than four bikes to try. Marquez had one that he finished 2022 on, two 2023 bikes that have been seen a few times now, and one with some new, relatively unseen parts on it.

That bike features the new air intake but also sports the aero wings that seem to be the ones Marquez ran in the second half of 2021. In addition, this particular RC213V has the ground effect lower side fairing and an aluminium swingarm. In between all of the seat shuffling, the eight-time World Champion ended Day 1 in P12.

At KTM, new arrival Jack Miller was the lead rider for the Austrian factory on the timesheets he ended the day in 16th. Yamaha is finding the top speed they were searching for in 2022.

On the second day of testing at Sepang International Circuit, the riders only had a couple of hours of dry running time under their belts. Overnight rain meant a damp track in the morning, before heavy rain just after midday limited action.

It was another Ducati Satellite Team rider who went quickest, with Jorge Martin quickest on the Prima Pramac Racing Ducati. Day 2 saw RNF MotoGP Team's Miguel Oliveira second on the Aprilia RS-GP. GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3's Pol Espargaro was P3 on Day 2.

At Aprilia, Maverick Viñales tested a small variation of the new aero wings, the difference is they have a third element underneath them. On Day 2, Yamaha's new aero package and 2023-spec engine see them slot in behind the Ducati's for top speed.

Day 3 had some dampness, but also saw times tumble. Once again it was a Ducati on top, with Mooney VR46 Racing Team's Luca Marini posting the fastest lap, breaking into the 1:57s. It should be noted that the VR46 riders, although posting the quickest times on two of the three days, were doing it on the well-sorted GP22.

World Champion Francesco Bagnaia also broke the 1:58 barrier. Aprilia Racing's Maverick Viñales rounded out the top three, the Spaniard 0.147s off Marini’s top time.

With most of the solutions tested, tried and sorted, Sunday focused on some time attacks. All but two riders improved their best times from Friday and Saturday, those two were Miguel Oliveira and Fabio Quartararo.

At Prima Pramac Racing, Jorge Martin talked about the step forward with the 2023 engine, he was fifth at the end of the day. Ducati Lenovo Team Manager Davide Tardozzi was also pleased overall, but he did also stress that the details of the whole new bike will be decided in Portimão. He also reported that Bagnaia said there were good points to the ‘23 machine, but still "one weak point" compared to the GP22.

Luca Marini: "A good start and a fantastic test. We followed the program and we've fully done it. We made some good steps forward in terms of engine brake, traction and front feeling. If I had to describe it, but not only for the lap time, the perfect test! I also kept a good pace in the sprint race, low 59, and I also attempted some overtaking simulations. We needed to better understand how to deal with this type of distance because it will be a demanding race. The standings amazed me, there are 20 riders in 1 second of gap. The level is very high, anyone can win, but the important thing is to stay there."

Next up the MotoGP World Championship travels back to Europe for the Portimão test one month from today. Unlike past years, when the season started in Qatar, Portugal will host Round 1 of the 21-race 2023 season. The series then heads to the Western Hemisphere for the Argentina GP at Termas de Río Hondo, then up to North America, when they visit Austin's Circuit of The Americas. The Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas is on April 15th. Get tickets for the USGP.

Check out the 2023 MOTOPGP CALENDAR.

On Wednesday, February 15th, Dorna announced that Andrea Dovizioso and Hans-Georg Anscheidt will each be named MotoGP Legends in 2023. Italian rider Dovizioso will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at Mugello and German rider Anscheidt at the Sachsenring.

Modern MotoGP fans all know about Desmo Dovi, but may not be as versed in the history of the two-stroke 50cc class. German rider Hans-Georg Anscheidt was born in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in 1935 and would become one of the most successful 50cc riders in the first decade of the 50cc World Championship.

He took his first 50cc World Championship in 1966 and it didn’t stop there as the German won an impressive three titles in a row from 1966 to 1968. Remarkably, the first two saw Anscheidt compete as a factory Suzuki rider, but in 1968 he won his final Championship as a privateer. With his name in the history books as a three-time World Champion and winner of 14 Grands Prix, Anscheidt retired as the reigning Champion at the end of 1968.

Hans-Georg Anscheidt: "It is a great pleasure for me to become a MotoGP Legend. I did not expect it, as the 50cc class came years after the other classes of the World Championship had started and is long gone. I am very happy, and I will do all I can to come to the Sachsenring together with my son.

"The 50cc class was very special for me as I was racing bigger offroad bikes before and had to learn to handle these tiny, wobbly beasts with their narrow power band and narrow two-inch tires that had no margin for error.

"When the 50cc Moto Cup started in 1959, they had an average of 100 km/h. In 1960 it was already 110 km/h. In 1961 the topspeed of our Kreidler in the European Championship was around 140 km/h, when I last raced at Spa in 1968, my Suzuki went up to 205 km/h. It was an amazing development in these early years.

"I have not been in the paddock for a very long time., so I am very excited to see the World Championship again. I know from TV that the races are very close!"

WORLDSBK - The Superbike Commission have met numerous times recently and on Wednesday, February 15th announced the following rulings:

The question of a minimum combined weight (Rider/Machine) has been ruled out by the “SBK Permanent Bureau".

The Supersport and Supersport Next Generation category will see their 2022 technical rules maintained for an additional year. This postponement will allow current manufacturers under the Supersport rules to work during this season to meet the base of technical/balancing rules for the 2024 Supersport Next Generation, mandatory for all manufacturers.  

At the end of the 2023 season, a study establishing the performance balancing results will be drawn up in order to establish the performance balancing in this series for 2024.

On the specific sporting side, a testing restriction has been established. It is now prohibited for riders and teams contracted to compete in the World Supersport & World Supersport 300 World Championships to test, practice or race at the same location as an FIM World Superbike World Championship event during the 11 days preceding the day of first practice of this event.

In line with all FIM disciplines (initiated by GP classes), the meaning of the yellow flag with red stripes (change of adherence) will be as follows: “The adhesion on this section of the track could be affected by any reason other than rain, giving unexpected surface conditions. This can include isolated damp patches on a dry track, oil, gravel, grass or other debris”. 

The FIM is continuing its mission of improving riders' equipment and developing helmets. In line with this policy, only FIM homologated helmets (with a valid FIM Homologation Label) will be allowed with the following deadlines:

Until the 12/31/2025: FRHPhe-01 & FRHPhe-02

As from 01/01/2026: FRHPhe-02 only

On Tuesday, February 14th, Honda unveiled the the CBR1000RR-R that Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge will contest the 2023 Superbike World Championship on. Team HRC have become the fifth and final factory team to reveal their colors for the 2023 campaign.

Both riders are entering their second WorldSBK campaign with Honda. The livery features HRC’s traditional red, white and blue color scheme.

‘Alvaro Bautista: The Return’, is a 40-plus-minute, in-depth look at a landmark year for the 38-year-old and is available now with a subscription to the WorldSBK Video Pass.

The Return tells a story of redemption for both Bautista and Ducati. The documentary focuses on a return to the top of the WorldSBK Championship.

February marks the start of the 2023 season with the season-opening Australian Round taking place from the 24th - 26th February. In the week leading up to that, there will be two days of testing for the entire WorldSBK and WorldSSP grid. The two-day test is on Monday and Tuesday before the round, which falls on the 20th and 21st of February.

The 2023 Motul FIM Superbike World Championship calendar has 12 rounds planned:

DATE

February 24-26 Australia Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit

March 3-5 Indonesia Pertamina Mandalika International Street Circuit

April 21-23 The Netherlands TT Circuit Assen

May 5-7 Spain Circuit de Barcelona - Catalunya

June 2-4 Italy Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli”

June 30 - July 2 UK Donington Park

July 28-30 Czech Republic Autodrom Most

September 8-10 France Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours

September 22-24 Spain MotorLand Aragon

September 29 - October 1 Portugal Autodromo Internacional do Algarve

October 13-15 Argentina Circuito San Juan Villicum

Round 12 TBA

MOTOAMERICA - On Tuesday, February 14th, MotoAmerica announced that Yamaha Motor USA is offering a contingency program for the 2023 Mission Mini Cup By Motul series.

Yamaha will post a total of $15,300 for the series that features MotoAmerica’s youngest racers, aged six to 14, with a payout of $425 per event in the newest classes in the championship – Stock 50, Stock 110 and Stock 125.

Yamaha’s contingency program for the Mission Mini Cup By Motul series is a first for the championship by a manufacturer. A top-three finish in any of those three classes will pay $250 to the winner, $125 to second place and $50 to third.

 

"It's really cool to have contingency involvement for these young racers in our Mission Mini Cup By Motul series for 2023,” said Cory Texter, Mission Mini Cup By Motul Series Manager. “Yamaha is a top manufacturer in our series on the big bikes and with this contingency program, I think we will see a lot of blue bikes at the front in our Stock classes for Mission Mini Cup By Motul as well. It's going to be a really fun year."

The Mission Mini Cup By Motul series will kick off its season with a round at the Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina, on May 5th - 6th, and will conclude with the MotoAmerica season finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, New Jersey, September 23rd - 24th.

 

In between will be rounds with MotoAmerica at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama (May 19th - 20th), Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (June 2nd - 3rd) and Pittsburgh International Race Complex in Wampum, Pennsylvania (August 18th - 19th) with a second standalone Mini Cup round at New Jersey Motorsports Park (July 15th - 16th).

Today (Thursday, February 16th), MotoAmerica announced that REV’IT! Sport International, a manufacturer of technical motorcycle apparel, is returning as the title sponsor of the MotoAmerica Twins Cup Championship for the 2023 racing season.

The 2023 MotoAmerica season gets underway in just over one month, when the Supersport Class contests the world-famous Daytona 200 on March 11th.

The weekend also includes the opening round of the 2023 MotoAmerica Mission King Of The Baggers Championship, REV’IT! Twins Cup Championship, and the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship. This will mark the second time these three classes will race on the high banks of the superspeedway.

The first round of the Medalia Superbike Championship kicks off their calendar at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on April 21st - 23rd. For the complete season calendar, more information and to buy tickets, visit MOTOAMERICA.

Alboreto: Gasoline in the Veins - The story about the man who grew up to realize his childhood dream of driving a Formula 1 car for Enzo Ferrari is now available once more in the United States.

Listen to that interview HERE. 

There is also a Facebook page for the book HERE.

FORMULA 1 - On Wednesday, February 15th, 87 days after the season finale under the floodlights of the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team presented its new F1 car for the 2023 season - the Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 E PERFORMANCE. Under the banner headline of 'All in Performance', the team unveiled its second challenger of the new era of Formula 1 regulations at Silverstone. Here's the MERCEDES-AMG F1 W14 E PERFORMANCE.

The W14 combines the lessons learned from a tough 2022 season. While retaining the underlying concept of its predecessor, the 2023 car builds on it with bold solutions. In terms of appearance, the W14 stands out not only for its architecture but also its livery. The Team returns to the iconic black look of 2020 and 2021 - years in which it won the F1 Constructors' Championship. Joining Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, Reserve Driver Mick Schumacher and Team Principal & CEO Toto Wolff at the ceremony, were this year's crop of apprentices and PETRONAS interns.

Vergne led the way from that moment but had his mirrors full of Cassidy's Envision Racing machine as the checkered flag drew closer. The New Zealander had managed to gather up an extra four percentage points of usable energy on Vergne come the closing stages of the race.

Buemi followed home in third but an overpower infringement saw him demoted to 15th spot via 17-second penalty, equivalent to a drive-through. That promoted António Félix da Costa onto the podium in his 100th race, the Season 6 champion having started the race in 13th. Teammate Pascal Wehrlein crossed the line fourth after picking his way through the order from 12th on the grid.

The result left Wehrlein with an 18-point advantage on Jake Dennis in the Drivers' standings, with Vergne leaping to third. TAG Heuer Porsche has taken a 23-point lead over Avalanche Andretti in the Teams' World Championship.

Jean-Eric Vergne: “I’m very, very happy. It was a tough race – I had to defend quite hard at the end but we somehow managed to win it. It was a clean race, no mistakes. Very happy with the win today. It’s good for everyone’s heart in our team. For the first few races it’s good to boost it with a good race like that so couldn’t be happier.

“I like new tracks - I think it’s cool. Especially this one – it’s a lot of fun. When there is a lot of little secrets to find on the track, I probably find them quickly enough.”

The ABB FIA Formula E World Championship travels to South Africa for Round 5 next. The Cape Town E-Prix is on Saturday, February 25th.

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IMSA WTSC - The results are in for the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Not on the race track, which has already been well-documetend. But we're referring to the crowd numbers - both in the stands and for those watching on TV from home.

For the Rolex 24 At Daytona event, Daytona International Speedway reported an all-time attendance record. A week earlier, a huge crowd buoyed by thousands of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts camping in the infield turned out for the Roar Before the Rolex 24.

The increase in at-track attendance was visible for all to see, but at the same time there was a significant increase in television viewership as well. NBC Sports reported that viewership was up 28 percent over the 2022 audience with an average of 360,000 TV-only viewers for the NBC and USA Network telecasts. All five TV windows on those two networks were up over the year before, with a peak viewership of 1.2 million.

Interest in Sports Car racing is cyclical. But interest can usually be traced to the product that is being put on the grid. Clearly, the second-coming of the GTP class has fans excited in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Sebring is always packed. But with the likelihood of this year's Super Sebring weekend being the last time we see the FIA and IMSA at Sebring, interest in attending has already seen sold out reserved RV and VIP fan packages.

The launch of the “Win the Weekend” docuseries on IMSA’s YouTube channel just prior to the Rolex 24 surpassed 1.2 million views, with nearly one million viewers previously unexposed to IMSA content. IMSA’s collective social media channels saw impressive growth. Total engagements numbered 6 million, representing a 500 percent increase year-over-year, while 31 million video views accounted for a 72 percent increase across all social platforms.

“Our audience metrics from the Rolex 24 match what many of us saw with our own eyes,” said IMSA President John Doonan. “We believed that the introduction of our new, hybrid-powered GTP class would resonate with race fans, and these metrics proved it to be a resounding success. We couldn’t be prouder of the efforts of our IMSA and Daytona International Speedway teammates, the significant activation from many of our official automotive partners, and the tremendous on-track competition provided by our teams and drivers. We have substantial momentum that we expect to continue into the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring next month and throughout the 2023 IMSA season.”

The true test will be crowd numbers at the series' sprint races, especially those venues who will not have the added benefit of hosting the GTP class.

Next up on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts on March 18th.

WEC - The FIA World Endurance Championship recently held a Q&A with the manufacturers who are entered in the series top Hypercar class ahead of the 1000 Miles of Sebring.

One of those who participated is GM sports car racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser. With the advantage of one race already in the books, Cadillac Racing will take that data and use it to translate to the World Endurance Championship season; especially the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Laura Wontrop Klauser: “Daytona was nice to have sort of a 24-hour dress rehearsal for Le Mans within in a race in itself, and we were hoping to have gone away with the trophy. I’d say the main takeaways were we are very pleased with our vehicles, we think we have a strong package but we need to find some more pace. There is a lot of development between now and the Sebring race kicking off the WEC season, continuing to fine-tune the vehicle, understand what it’s good at, what we need to do to get better, working through all of the details. The good news is we have 24 hours of data to do that, but there is not that much time to take the data and work with it.”

She went on to speak about the BoP and the added challenge of an added platform in the WEC:

"There has been a lot of thought put into how to set all this up for success. In terms of how the regulations are written for the LMDh platform and even what we share with LMH in terms of different targets like mass and power targets, there has been a lot of preparation put into making sure the cars by design – if you follow the regulations, which we all have to – are very close to each other right out of the box. I think that’s what we saw in IMSA at Daytona where we took the baseline settings for the vehicles and we all were able to race together. I think we saw some great racing during the race. Applying that as we move into WEC, where you have both platforms together – LMDh and LMH – it’s using those same concepts of making sure the baseline is very close so that you don’t have to worry about cars being wildly different and how they create performance and being able to compete together. There’s also some differences between the platforms that there has been a committee that has worked through issues, which has representation from all the manufacturers involved in the programs, so that we’ve been able to identify anything we felt would make a big difference between the two platforms for the regulations and work through that. I’d say that everyone has put as much possible effort as they could in to getting this right and I’m excited to see what happens at Sebring. I’m looking forward to seeing all of us on track together and then working with the ACO as we move forward into the season and, of course, IMSA as well on its side and the collaboration between the two series.”

Homologation in IMSA and the FIA WEC: “It’s one homologation. Our car is homologated. There are differences in scrutineering systems for IMSA and the WEC, so we will have some different electronics depending on where we’re racing to make sure that we’re legal and simple things like where the Michelin sticker goes on the car depending on which series you’re in. For the most part, they are the same cars and that is what appealed most to us about this opportunity to be a part of this platform. One car can race both series, which means you can race all over the world in two series.”

On not having any testing time on European circuits: "We would have liked to do some testing in Europe. The main reason we didn’t is we were very hardware constrained and shipping has become quite challenging in terms of lead time, so we could not sacrifice the car being in a container being shipped for extra days or weeks when we had a very aggressive test schedule that we were trying to accomplish in a short period of time. Now that we have gone racing, we’re going to see if we can get some testing scheduled in Europe in the spring. It’s always good to test on pavement that is similar to where you’re racing, so that would be key on our list of something to get done. If we cannot, we’ll do our best to work around it because that’s what we do in racing – we adapt to our situation. We’re trying to find elements of tracks in the U.S. similar to what you see in Europe or different things we can understand on the car so that when we get to Europe we’re ready to go.”

There are 13 Hypercar entries and nine global manufacturers in the WEC for 2023. The Hypercar class has expanded and it includes Cadillac, Ferrari, Glickenhaus, Peugeot, Porsche, Toyota and Vanwall. Since last season the WEC Hypercar field has more than doubled in 2023 (up from six in 2022). Alpine, BMW and Lamborghini are set to join the WEC grid in 2024.

Check out the 2023 FIA WEC ENTRY LIST.

The eleventh season of the FIA WEC will start with the Official Prologue at Sebring on March 11th and 12th, followed by the first race of the season, the 1000 Miles of Sebring on Friday, March 17th as part of the “Super Sebring” weekend.

RENNSPORT REUNION - Earlier today (Thursday, February 16th) Porsche Cars North America announced the theme for the upcoming Porsche Rennsport Reunion 7 as “Icons of Porsche.” A tribute to the 75th anniversary of Porsche sports cars being celebrated this year, the four-day event being held at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca near Monterey, California from September 28th to October 1st. The event will enable fans of all ages to experience many of the most iconic cars, drivers and designers in the marque’s history.

Conceived by racing great Brian Redman and Porsche Cars North America’s longstanding PR General Manager Bob Carlson in 2001, Rennsport was created to celebrate the racing heritage of Porsche. They envisioned an event at which drivers and enthusiasts could gather to celebrate racing and pay tribute to the people and cars that have helped build the Porsche legacy. Since its inaugural event at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut over 20 years ago, when it was last held in 2018, Rennsport Reunion drew over 80,000 guests to the famous race course on the Monterey Peninsula.

Rennsports Reunion tickets will be available for pre-event purchase through the circuit's website: WTRLS.

President and CEO of Porsche Cars North America Kjell Gruner: “We’re all excited to be able to announce the return of the Rennsport Reunion, which is always a highlight of Porsche Motorsports enthusiasm and heritage. Rennsport Reunion has grown quickly over the years into a truly one-of-a-kind experience of sight, sound and emotions. For a few days, it feels like everyone thrilled by the brand is united in one place, on and off the track, as one Porsche family. Our ambition is to make Rennsport Reunion 7 the best one yet.”

Porsche has set up a dedicated website for Rennsport Reunion 7. For further details, updates and event highlights including special programming, news on E-Sports, fan zones, live stream opportunities, autograph sessions with drivers and a host of other off-track activities, fans can visit the new, dedicated Rennsport website at RENNSPORT REUNION 7.