Motor Sports

F1 is messing with the sprint format again and not entirely for the better.
Apparently now the plan is to have actual qualifying (for the sunday race) at friday and then at saturday have a qualifying for the sprint and the sprint race itself.

So the sprints would be made a completely separate second race.
Back when the sprint was introduced, they heavily emphasized it's not a "sprint race" but a sprint qualifying. You'd get couple points, almost a technicality.
Then they changed it to rather considerable amount of points: sprint winner gets more than difference of GP winner and second.
And now it is its own event, whole saturday given to sprint that has nothing to do with the actual race.

As if adding half dozen GPs didn't dilute the events enough, now we have half dozen sprint fillers on top of that.

Irish WRC rally driver Craig Breen has died at 33 in accident while testing.
His co-driver wasn't injured.

Breen was currently 6th in championship points, higher than he ever finished.
In his last race, the only one he competed this season, Swedish Rally, Breen was second - eighth WRC podium of his career.

Dammit, they've confirmed the F1 sprint change (see top post). I was hoping FIA or something would block it, there being only few days left to make it official, but apparently it's happening.

Imola F1 - officially Emilia Romagna GP - has been cancelled due floods in the area.

W series, the women's F3 raced 2019, 2021 & 2022, has officially closed down. Last season was stopped short, but they were still trying to get it running again.

Meanwhile FIA started this year "F1 Academy" which is basically women's F4.

Yesterday Formula E race in Portland made me think that the series should start a shift away from street circuits.
When FE started it was fitting because the electric cars were that much slower 8 years ago. And I suppose a new series wanted its own image by racing in places where there hadn't been motor sports. Also racing in cities fit to the image of high tech "sport of the future".

But now with the Gen 3 cars (as I've explained before, each "car generation" in Formula E is supposed to be used for four years before a redesign) it looks to me that best races happen in regular old raceways.
Street races have their charm, I wouldn't want them dropped from F1 (although that too is starting to have too many), but Formula E should start moving on.


It's pity FE champion de Vries is having awful rookie season in F1. I'd like to see Formula E become another potential route to F1 instead of being the dumping ground for F1 dropouts it is now.

Well, that was the most ridiculous F1 GP for a long time.

I generally agree with the clear rule that if you're over the track limits and keep doing it four or more times you get penalties. The old interpretations on whether you gain advantage or not were vague.
But when you hand out around two dozen 5 or 10 second penalties during and after the race, something's seriously wrong.

FIA wrote:

A separate note from the FIA in the aftermath of the race noted more than 1,200 instances of potential track limits breaches, adding that “we will renew our recommendation to the circuit to add a gravel trap at the exit of Turns 9 and 10” for future events.

Yeah, that might be a good idea - considering majority of track limit violations happened in that combination of last corners.

Ricciardo returns to F1, replacing de Vries in AlphaTauri for rest of the season.

Unfortunately Formula E champion de Vries didn't get a good opportunity in F1, AlphaTauri being the weakest team this year.

My guess is they're bringing in the veteran driver to built next year car because they have nothing to lose (and little chance of winning anything) this season.

Jake Dennis becomes 8th Formula E champion. He is first British champion and first to confirm the title in a home race.
The title is first to Andretti (or any US team); however they're not likely to win (tomorrow) the team championship, that will almost certainly go to a British team, Jaguar or Envision - also a first.

Looks like in Singapore we'll finally have a F1 GP winner this year that isn't a Red Bull. Will be interesting race tomorrow

Red Bull secures F1 team championship already and Max will likely take his in next race.


Remarkable thing right now is that 19 out of 20 drivers have been confirmed to continue in their teams next year (counting Ricciardo, currently injured).
Only Logan Sargeant doesn't have contract and I suspect won't. But who will drive the other Williams is harder to guess.

While attention was in the tire drama and Verstappen's championship, something big went unnoticed by most F1 viewers in Qatar: this was the most dangerous F1 race perhaps in decades.

And I'm not talking about the tires. (Explanation for those who don't know. Due the fact that the track also host motorcycle races curbs are different than on most track and Pirelli noticed at Friday that tires had been dangerously damaged. It was decided a tire set wasn't allowed to be used in race more than 18 laps, meaning everyone had to make at least three stops.)

Despite being evening race, conditions were insanely hot. Rookie Sargeant became too sick to finish the race. Some of those who did couldn't get out of their cars without help. Alonso had burns in his back. Ocon threw up during the race, twice. Leclerc was starting to have his vision dim. Even the podium drivers had to lie down at backroom floor before the ceremony.

Aside the heat, the tires had their part in this. Despite dangers Pirelli analyzed, with three pit stops you didn't need to care about wear and as Piastri put it, it was a race of 57 qualifying laps. That maximum push in what by some standards is world's hardest motorsport was beyond what can be expected even from the best of the world.
Sure they're royally paid, but this was risking life and limb (much more than usual).

And the track is difficult one to begin with. It's windier than most which along weekend kept pushing especially Ferraris off the track. Drivers aren't particularly familiar with it, Qatar having been competed only once 2021.
And as this weekend had the sprint event, the sprint qualifying and race replaced two practice sessions, also forcing to lock car setting earlier than on usual weekend.

In the end they had an unscheduled 10 minute practice (before sprint qualifying). That may not sound much, but there hasn't been an extra practice in F1 since 1996! (Back then was rule that you couldn't race on wet unless there had been a practice or qualifying on wet. This was the case in Monaco and as it would've been disaster to skip the legendary race, they solved it by having an extra wet practice on Sunday before the race.)

And all in all the organizers did "good" work to keep as much as possible of this hidden.

Next year Qatar GP will be in December, but I do expect Drivers' association will have a few words about this.

Finland's possibly best hope for next F1 driver Tuukka Taponen finished 5th in Italian F4, 2nd in rookie class.

Previously this year he also competed UAE F4 (with most of the same top drivers) where he was 2nd, winning the rookie class.

Kalle Rovanperä is again rally world champion!

He took his second title by finishing second in Central European Rally, first ever event competed across three countries (Germany, Austria, Czech).

The score on WRC drivers' championships is now: France 18, Finland 16, rest of the world 13.

While championships have been already decided and only curiosity on top is whether Perez can remain second to give Red Bull their first ever 1-2 of drivers' championship, there's still lots of interest in Las Vegas GP.

Formula 1 has only raced in Vegas twice 1981-82. The latter race has very special meaning for Finland: that was where we got our first F1 world champion, Keke Rosberg. (Alonso is the only one racing now who was born at the time.)

While this season has seen disastrously hot races in Middle East, Vegas is about to be the coldest F1 race in who knows how many years. The track is also very unusual, a street circuit with long straights making it the second fastest track after Monza.
All this can shake the order much. McLaren is clearly suffering while Ferrari can for change really challenge Red Bull. Williams might be having their best race and the bottom teams, home team Haas and Alfa Romeo, will be fighting for points that could be worth $10 million (if changing order in team championship).
It could be quite a race.

And F1 needs it to be. The new owners, in general betting on US expansion, have gambled fittingly hugely on Vegas. They've spend ton of money to make this event happen, compared to usually being the ones paid to for the privilege. If the event flops badly, one way or another, this could have big consequences for the future of the series.

Another who needs a great race is Logan Sargeant. The only driver who hasn't contract for 2024 may be having his last home race. Unless he has really big sponsors behind him, I don't think he has a further career in F1. But now he qualified 7th (6th with Sainz penalty), after being very last in five previous qualifyings. If he can convert that to points, he at least wouldn't finish 21st in essentially 20-driver series.

Carlos Sainz Sr. has won Dakar Rally for fourth time (previously 2010, 2018 and 2020).


Formula E season started last week with Pascal Wehrlein winning in Mexico.


I interested about soon starting E1 Series of electric boats.
There's meant to be 12 teams, each with male and female drivers - 24 still competing for one championship.
Finnish Emma Kimiläinen who competed in the defunct women's F3 W Series is to be in team sponsored by Tom Brady.
Some of the other teams announced by now are by Sergio Perez, Rafael Nadal, Didier Drogba and Steve Aoki.

I'm not happy about major rule change in World Rally Championship and it appears majority of drivers agrees. And I'm pretty sure fans too.

They've changed scoring into a terrible mess. For a decade and some it's been simple: 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 points to ten best (same as F1 and several other series) and additional 5-4-3-2-1 to five best of the last stage ("power stage").

Now it works like this:
- after friday and saturday (thus ca. 2/3 of the rally) top ten get 18-15-13-10-8-6-4-3-2-1
- top seven of sunday get 7-6-5-4-3-2-1
- the last stage of sunday is still power stage, giving the 5-4-3-2-1

So the rally has been split to two races, longer and shorter? Weird, but doesn't sound bad?
Except it's not that simple. It's still one race and if you retire at sunday, you'll lose your saturday result too. On the other hand, like till now, if you retire at friday or saturday, you can continue at sunday - now racing for the sunday points and not just the power stage points.

The official winner of the rally is the winner in total time. But that means the winner doesn't necessarily get most points. In fact, it would be theoretically possible to win a rally without scoring any points at all! Never going to happen, but theoretically. While on the other hand it's practically certain that along the season there will be rallies where winner does not get most points.

This also shrinks the differences between places, making it more about who finishes the most races than who wins the most. I always oppose that in any motorsport, taking risks and winning should be rewarded.

Finns has a good motorsport weekend.

Tuukka Taponen won Formula (3) Regional Middle East championship, winning two out of three starts in the final Dubai race.
Notable thing is that while Taponen is a rookie to F3, the series also included drivers who have or will this year compete in the F3 world championship series. Because Middle East series is this early, it's used as testing/training grounds by drivers and teams later competing in F3 championship or Formula Regional European series (where Taponen goes next).

Meanwhile Esapekka Lappi won Swedish Rally, his second win in WRC. The joy of that is diminished by him making ignoble history: this is the first time Rally winner does not score most points in the weekend due the mess they made of scoring for this season.
On the positive, five other Finns also scored points in Sweden, after Monte Carlo where only participating Finn Pajari failed to score.

F1 season 2024 starts next week in Bahrain. This is to be the first time in F1 history that season opener features exactly same drivers in same teams as last season finale. Not a single driver change.

Winter tests suggest most teams are where last season left off:
- Red Bull at top, Ferrari and Mercedes the almost competitive challengers
- McLaren is fourth, followed by Aston Martin
- RB (or "team previously known as AlphaTauri/Toro Rosso") may be slightly improving past Alpine Renault who have fallen to compete with Sauber (or "team previously known as Alfa Romeo")
- Williams is still at the back, with only Haas behind them

Couple big F1 news for next year.

Design guru Adrian Newey will be leaving Red Bull at the end of season. Speculation is he might be heading to Ferrari, like Lewis Hamilton will from Mercedes.

Nico Hülkenberg will for next season join Sauber, which makes me worried about Bottas. The over 30 year streak of Finnish drivers on every F1 season may be at risk.