Autoblog Motorsports

Jimmie Johnson is just as confused as everyone else about his plight with the coronavirus. A positive test caused the seven-time NASCAR champion to miss the first race of his career, and it was followed three days later by a negative test. “There’s a lot of speculation there," Johnson said Friday, a full week after testing positive.

Simon Pagenaud says racing hasn’t been quite the same without spectators to cheer the drivers on for the opening stages of the IndyCar season. The IndyCar series will welcome fans for the first time this season during the REV Group Grand Prix doubleheader Saturday and Sunday at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Road America’s setup makes it an ideal testing ground for welcoming back fans.

After a weekend spent stoking division, President Donald Trump on Monday went after NASCAR's only Black driver and criticized its decision to ban the Confederate flag at its races and venues. Exploiting racial tensions, Trump wrongly accused Bubba Wallace of perpetrating “a hoax” after one of his crew members discovered a rope shaped like a noose in a garage stall they had been assigned to. Federal authorities ruled last month that the rope had been hanging there since at least last October an

Valtteri Bottas won a chaotic season-opening Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday while Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton finished fourth after getting a late time penalty. Bottas took a knee as he received the winners’ trophy and the podium trio held up a black T-shirt with “End Racism” written on it. The race was interrupted three times by a safety car and nine of 20 drivers abandoned, including both Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon — who tried to overtake Hamilton on the outside w

Four months after the opening race was called off at the last minute, the Formula One season finally gets underway this weekend on another continent and in a different-looking world. There will be no fans on hand at the remote Spielberg track in Austria, with the coronavirus still creating uncertainty over how many races can actually be held — and where. Defending F1 champion Lewis Hamilton has been an outspoken supporter of the movement and will be competing in an all-black Mercedes car — ins

The 27-year-old German lost his real world drive after he let a gamer take his place, without the rest of the field knowing, in an official Formula E 'Race at Home Challenge' event. Abt, a winner in Berlin in 2018, will replace Chinese driver Ma Qinghua alongside British driver Oliver Turvey at the Chinese-owned team in the season finale behind closed doors at the old Tempelhof airport next month.

Ferrari have had a major rethink of their 2020 Formula One car but updates to make it go faster will not be ready until the third race of the season, team boss Mattia Binotto said on Tuesday. Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc will instead start the COVID-19 delayed season in Austria on Sunday in cars similar to those they wrapped up testing with in Spain at the end of February. "The truth is that the outcome of the tests led us to take a significant change of direction in terms of developme

McLaren's Formula One future was never in doubt despite a cash crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and now resolved by a fresh injection of funds, team principal Andreas Seidl said on Tuesday. The National Bank of Bahrain announced on Monday a 150 million pound ($184.26 million) financing facility for the McLaren Group, which includes the team and supercar manufacturer. Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat Holding Co is McLaren's majority shareholder.

Former Formula One driver and Paralympic champion Alex Zanardi, seriously injured in a handbike accident 10 days ago, has undergone neurological surgery for a second time, a hospital statement said on Monday. The Santa Maria alle Scotte hospital in Siena said that the surgery had lasted around two-and-a-half hours and that Zanardi, who suffered severe head injuries in the accident on June 19, was sedated and intubated in the intensive care unit. Hospital director Roberto Gusinu said that a sec

Formula One starts its season in Austria this week, nearly four months later than planned due to the COVID-19 pandemic and against a very different backdrop even if Lewis Hamilton's targets remain the same. The six times world champion can equal Ferrari great Michael Schumacher's record seven while his Mercedes team are bidding for an unprecedented seventh successive drivers' and constructors' title double. "We are preparing the best way we can for what is going to be the most difficult season

Formula One teams will operate in bubbles within bubbles when the season starts behind closed doors in Austria next week after being stalled since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There will be no spectators, no sponsors or VIP guests wandering the paddock and limited social interaction even between team mates. Ferrari sporting director Laurent Mekies reckons the biggest challenge, for his mechanics at least, could be having to wear face masks at all times in the heat and tight confines of

Declaring “the noose was real,” NASCAR officials on Thursday released a photo of the rope found in the garage stall of Black driver Bubba Wallace that prompted a federal investigation that determined it had been there since last October. The incident has put racism front and center for the stock car series that two weeks ago banned the Confederate flag from its venues and races at Wallace's urging. It also prompted criticism from some fans that NASCAR had somehow overreacted — criticism NASCAR