WEC Tag

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief INDIANAPOLIS — A new outfit to the NTT IndyCar Series this year, DragonSpeed is ready to make a bigger commitment for the 2020 season. The team has long been associated as a sports car presence in the FIA World Endurance Championship, but opted to expand their efforts with a five-race campaign – St. Petersburg, Barber Motorsports Park, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Road America and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – with driver Ben Hanley in IndyCar for 2019. Elton Julian, team principal of DragonSpeed, discussed their future plansRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief After much anticipation on the future of Fernando Alonso, it has been confirmed that he will step away from racing in Formula 1 at the end of the season. The 37-year-old Spaniard owns 32 Grand Prix victories (sixth all-time) and two F1 championships. “After 17 wonderful years in this amazing sport, it’s time for me to make a change and move on,” Alonso said. “I have enjoyed every single minute of those incredible seasons and I cannot thank enough the people who have contributed to makeRead More

By Josh Farmer, Contributing Writer Dale Coyne Racing driver Pietro Fittipaldi suffered “suspected fractures to both legs” in a substantial crash during qualifying for this weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship event at Circuit Spa-Francorchamps. The 21-year-old Brazillian lost control of his No. 10 DragonSpeed BR1 Gibson LMP1 while entering Spa’s famed “Eau Rouge” section and crashed heavily into the tire barriers. The incident forced a 35-minute delay to on-track activities as Fittipaldi was extricated from his car and taken to the track’s medical center before being airlifted to a local hospital.Read More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor With recent news out of Ferrari it looks like Formula 1 will once again be flirting with the 1,000 horsepower threshold soon. Mercedes comfortably hit 900 plus horsepower with their 2016 power unit and the old V10’s also broke 900 hp, but the last time F1 engines produced over 1,000 hp was during the peak of the original turbo era in the mid-80’s. According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Ferrari’s 2017 car, code named 668, is an all out attempt by the prancing horse to reign inRead More

 By Adam Tate, Associate Editor Fernando Alonso, gracing the cover of the newest edition of Motor Sport Magazine, proudly proclaims that he wants to win the Indy 500 and Le Mans. It is not the first time the Formula One veteran has made this claim. As his number of competitive years in F1 dwindle, or more accurately; go squandered by McLaren Honda, the once heir apparent to Schumacher is seeking new opportunities to cement his legacy and rediscover the joy in racing. I like this, a lot. Though I haven’t beenRead More

At the start Lotterer led the 33 car field but was soon coming under pressure from Mark Webber in the no1 Porsche 919 Hybrid.  It took the Australian six laps to find away around the second placed Oliver Jarvis in the no8 Audi and then he set about catching and passing the lead car with a daring move at Abbey after 28 minutes. Webber then built up a big lead before handing over to Brendon Hartley.  The Kiwi world champion then continued the good work of his Australian teammate butRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Porsche again topped the timesheets for the second and final day of running for the World Endurance Championships ‘prologue’ test from Paul Ricard in France. Brendon Hartley picked up where Neel Jani left off yesterday and set the fastest time of the test with a blistering 1:37.448 lap during a qualifying simulation. Once again, the time was close to those set last year by Porsche, despite the 8% energy reduction via the fuel flow regulation changes, but it is worth noting that last year Porsche ranRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Porsche has started off 2016 the same way the finished 2015, on top. Day one of the World Endurance Championship’s traditional ‘prologue’ test at Paul Ricard has seen the new 919 top the timesheets in both the morning and afternoon sessions. The days fastest lap was a 1:37.487 by Neel Jani which is just two tenths of a second off his test best time of a year ago, despite new fuel flow regulations designed to slow down the extraordinary speeds the LMP1 cars achieved last season.Read More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Following on the heels of Audi and Porsche who unveiled their 2016 WEC prototypes yesterday, Toyota has revealed its new TS050 today as it prepares for the season ahead. Dubbed the TS050, the car while visually similar to the TS040 that came before it, is new from the ground up. The biggest change is a new Turbocharged 2.4 liter V6 in place of the V8 used last year. Following Audi’s step of copying 2015 champions Porsche, Toyota too has decided to ditch their supercapacitor set upRead More

By Adam Tate, Managing Editor Not to be outdone by rivals, Audi, Porsche has also unveiled its 2016 WEC challenger in the form of an all new 919 hybrid. Following on the team’s massive success from victory at Le Mans and a World Championship in 2015, Porsche has merely refined their prototype instead of the kind of ground up work rivals Audi and Toyota have undertaken. Despite new fuel flow limits cutting the power of the 2.0 liter turbocharged V4 engine, Porsche still claims the car makes over 900 horsepower. It doesRead More