Motorsport News

Bentley will make its Blancpain GT Series Asia debut at Shanghai International Circuit next weekend (September 23/24) after official customer squad Absolute Racing confirmed that two of its Continental GT3s would be competing in rounds nine and 10. The Shanghai-based squad has run several Audi R8 LMS GT3s in each of the pan-continental championship’s four events so far this season but also campaigns its British-built supercars in Pirelli World Challenge and China GT. Now t

Irish racing driver Matt Griffin, has arrived in America for the 6th round of the FIA World Endurance Championship taking place at Circuit of Americas, Austin, Texas this coming weekend. Just two weeks after racing the in Mexico City, Griffin returns to the west with teammates Mok Weng Sun and Kieta Sawa in their number 61 Clearwater Racing, Ferrari 488 GTe competing in LMGTE AM. Having only ever raced at Circuit of Americas once, back in 2013, Griffin is looking forward t

The main weather story for the Six Hours of COTA late this week will be the heat. A large high pressure ridge through the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere will be sitting over Texas, resulting in mostly sunny skies each day and high temperatures reaching well into the 90s (mid 30s C). These temperatures are 3-5 degrees warmer than normal for Austin this time of year. Everyone at the track will need to take precautions to beat the heat - drink plenty of water, take freq

BMW Motorsport presented its new top-of-the-range model for the international GT racing scene at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt am Main: the BMW M8 GTE. Before the BMW 8 Series Coupé goes on sale, the race car will compete on the track next season, including in the FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC). It is with this series that BMW Motorsport will also make its return to the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans (FRA). Technology meets tradition: BMW Motorspor

The news emanating from the press conference in Mexico City was hardly unexpected. The announcement in July that Porsche would leave the WEC at the end of the season caused huge waves in the upper levels of the FIA and ACO, especially as the Stuttgart team had earlier said they were committed up to the end of 2018. Coming less than a year after Audi’s departure, the organisers were facing a barren season with just one manufacturer hybrid programme, which might not even cover

As we roll into September thoughts are already with 2018 and what's going to be happening with the FIA WEC. With some dates all but confirmed we are in a position to say that we will be at the following WEC events next year. Prologue - 5 & 6 April 2018 Spa Francorchamps - 4 & 5 May 2018 and 3 & 4 May 2019 Le Mans - 16 & 17 June 2018 and 15 & 16 June 2019 Sebring - 15 & 16 March 2019 We will also be covering the British GT Championship and ELMS. So if you are a team or d

We take a look at the new proposals from the FIA WEC for the upcoming season changes from the end of the 2017 season. The organisers have been speaking about making the Le Mans 24 hour race the season closer for some time now, so no surprise that this will be the case going forward – the surprise being that in the 2018/19 season WEC will race 4 times around the clock at Le Sarthe. We have to remind ourselves that this is a transitional period and going forward the 48 hours

‘In any job, there's always going to come a day that can only be described as ‘a bad day at the office’… well today was a very bad day at the office for us at Clearwater Racing’ team Managing Director Arj Pillay Kulasegaram said after the 6 Hours of Mexico. The 61 Ferrari 488 GTE started from 4th in class with Weng Sun Mok holding on to that 4th place in GTE AM until 32 minutes into his stint when there was contact at Turn One with the 92 Porsche GTE PRO causing damage to

The Porsche LMP1 Team put on a commanding display today during the 6 Hours of Mexico Presented by AT&T, with the No.2 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber taking their third win of the season after a textbook race. The victory, which was Bernhard and Hartley’s second win in a row in Mexico, saw the trio extend their points lead to 41, with four races remaining in the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign. In second place at the Aut

Both Porsche 919 Hybrids will start from the front row of the grid in Sunday’s six-hour race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. The championship leading Le Mans winners, Earl Bamber (NZ), Timo Bernhard (DE) and Brendon Hartley (NZ) took pole position on a dry track. Grid position two for the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) went to the crew of the reigning world champion Neel Jani (CH), André Lotterer (DE) and Nick Tandy (GB) in the s

Aston Martin Racing are poised to fight for GTE Pro and Am victory, after the team qualified on the front row in each class for tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Mexico. The #95 V8 Vantage GTE Pro of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen will begin the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship in second, after the pair found themselves battling throughout the session with the #71 Ferrari for qualifying honours. With the pair setting a combined average lap time of 1m39.534 – just 0.1

In a Friday afternoon press conference at the Mexican round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, series boss Gerard Neveu and ACO President Pierre Fillon unveiled the the new schedule, as well as a roadmap for the future, including revised LMP regulations for 2020. Provisional 2018-19 WEC Schedule: 5 & 6 April: The Prologue, Circuit Paul Ricard (FRA) 4 & 5 May: WEC 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (BEL) 16 & 17 June: 24 Hours of Le Mans (FRA) 13 & 14 October: 6 Hours of F

Motul Sepang 12 Hours organisers SRO Motorsports Group have renewed their partnership with Super GT promoter, GT Association, in a bid to encourage more Japanese teams and drivers to compete in Asia’s only Intercontinental GT Challenge round on December 7-10. Malaysia’s Formula 1 venue plays host to the 2017 campaign’s fourth and final endurance race later this year following stops in Australia, Europe and North America. The event’s proximity to Japan - where the same FIA

Friday 1 September, Mexico City: Aston Martin Racing is ready to kick off the second half of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship, as the premier racing series touches down in Mexico City. After taking a GTE Pro double podium in 2016 - scoring a victory and third place - Aston Martin Racing will be hoping to claim yet another strong points-haul 12 months on. While the intense heat and 2,250m altitude of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez challenged both the drivers and V8

There hasn't been a big change in what I'm thinking the weather will be in Mexico City this weekend for the WEC event, but my confidence is rising that the racing will be impacted by rain each day. A low pressure system will be taking shape in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the east coast of Mexico. This will produce an easterly flow through the low and mid levels of the atmosphere that will pump moisture toward the track all weekend, but especially Saturday and Sunday. With m

We’ve done it, the wait is almost over, the summer break only has a matter of hours left… ‘THANK GOODNESS’ we hear you cry! With round 5 of the FIA World Endurance Championship knocking on the garage door, we managed to sneak in 5 minutes with Clearwater Racing’s Managing Director Arj Pillay Kulasegaram as they prepare to get the second half of their debut season underway. You’ve gone into the summer break still leading the Championship. Did you think this was where you w

Perrinn appear to have called a halt to their LMP1 programme, favouring a Garage 56 entry in 2019 with a full electric car with autonomous mode. The Dacia branded LMP1 project looks to have been shelved as Perrinn, who had sold 2 LMP1 chassis for 2018 to ART Racing Services move instead towards a full electric car with an autonomous mode. Plans are for the car to run in the 2019 24hrs Le Mans race under the Garage 56 entry for alternative technologies. From what Perrin

Lights to flag victory for Clearwater Racing in the second race of the Blancpain GT Asia series at Fuji Speedway Race 2 of the Blancpain Asia GT Series saw Clearwater racing take their second victory of the weekend in their Sunseeker Singapore McLaren 570S GT4. Weng Sun Mok started the unusually hot and sunny race and drove at a stonking pace until the halfway mark before handing the Clearwater Racing machine over to Richard Wee who then went on to set the fastest GT4 lap o

Clearwater are back in style!! On their return to the Blancpain Asia GT Series, they qualified on Pole and won Race 1. Superb driving from Richard Wee and Weng Sun Mok brought the team its first pair of Blancpain trophies. And the Sunseeker Singapore McLaren 570S GT4 was faultless and ran error free. The teams managing director Arj commented "Our record with these amazing cars from Woking is something we're incredibly proud of: we've taken Pole Position and Won our first

Clearwater Racing set the pace on a drying track at the Fuji Raceway in free practice 2 for the Japan leg of the Blancpain GT Asia series. Images from @hitoshi0825 Running the only non Porsche entry in the GT4 class seems to be paying dividends as FIA GTE AM Drivers Championship leader; Weng Sun Mok set a lap time of 1m53.803s which was 0.569s faster than Ringo Chong’s HubAuto Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR and another half-second clear of Taiwan TopSpeed’s Keo Chang. The day’s e