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Motorsport

An update on the Liam Lawson to Williams links on loan where he would’ve gone & be a perfect replacement for Sergio Perez at Red Bull Racing for 2025 but it’s still unlikely

by Sports Benches

Image Credit: Lukas Raich via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

There’s a little more to it a few days ago about the possibility of Liam Lawson racing on loan at Williams-Mercedes from Red Bull next season alongside fellow past Red Bull & Toro Rosso alumni Alex Albon from Thailand.

Last weekend, it was announced that Daniel Ricciardo will be back at Alpha Tauri while they hold on Yuki Tsunoda for another year due to the Honda links they bring into RB’s feeder squad when it comes to the engines + funding. It seems that won’t go away until at least the end of 2025 where Liam should be racing F1s by then in place Ricciardo before RBR & AT will switch to Ford engines from 2026, so that Yuki may join Aston Martin since they will be the next Honda’s works outfit. 

It would’ve been great to see Liam get a full season experience at Williams beforehand next season where he can be a perfect replacement for the under-fire Sergio Perez as Max Verstappen’s next team-mate at the flagship organization in 2025. But then that door is also closed when Williams wanted to retain American Logan Sargeant despite him crashing all the time.

Even though Sargeant may not be back & Liam missing out, Williams would elect to have last year’s Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich from Brazil instead in his place. All can Liam do now is learn from both Red Bull teams, then step up to Alpha Tauri in 2025 and go from there to achieve something big so he can go on & race for the main team in 2-3 years time. It’s the same for Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris who had to sit a year out before earning their first moves onto the big time. Let’s hope more Kiwis can follow his lead when it comes to earning their stripes from the ground up to all the way at the top level.

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Motorsport

Formula 1 News, Thoughts on Jack Doohan racing in the World Endurance Championship next season with Alpine’s Hypercar machinery instead of a 3rd season in Formula 2

by Sports Benches

Image Credit: Lukas Raich via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

Well, Jack Doohan may not have the best start, but he has still managed to make up lost time where he sits fourth right now in the Formula 2 drivers points with one round (two races) left in Abu Dhabi at the end of November. The good news is that he will be staying with Alpine for another year as their reserve driver, so we will get to see Jack race these F1 cars on a couple of occasions as required during practice sessions. We’ll have to wait and see if he can replace at least replace either Frenchmen of Pierre Gasly or Esteban Ocon in either 2025 or realistically 2026.

The bad news is that he may not be racing Formula 2 again for one more year at Virtuosi Racing in 2024, even though he might be allowed one more season before the maximum limit for a driver to race in this 2nd Tier series of 3 years unless you win the Drivers’ Championship. Although he could racing in the World Endurance Championship instead also within the Alpine umbrella for new their Hypercar programme which is the top class. It sounds like he’s following the path of Mark Webber, who came through the junior open-wheel ranks before he did 1-2 years of Endurance Racing; then he had a decorated decade of racing Formula 1s & rounded off his driving days back in Enduros with Porsche between 2014-2016.

Image Credit: Chris Game via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0

Whatever path that might be for the young 20-year-old, if he chooses WEC with Alpine, let’s hope he can not only win the 24 Hours of Le Mans but also stop Ferrari & Toyota in its tracks with the series championship too. Yes, he has been a proven race winner several times before and have not won any championships so far despite being so close.

However, he needs to continue racing with the proof of taking home good regular results so Alpine can hopefully promise him a Formula 1 ride someday. They haven’t had their own in-house driver into the main squad from the lower levels before that reflects their driver development pathway following the fracas of fellow Aussie & former Alpine academy member Oscar Piastri where he ended up at McLaren instead in 2023.

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Motorsport

Motorsport News, Spire Motorsports make another big splash in NASCAR this time buying Kyle Busch Motorsports’s Truck Series team & its engineering assets

by Sports Benches

Image Reference: Zach Catanzareti via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0

Spire Motorsports have made another big investment today and this time they have purchased all of Kyle Busch Motorsports’s Truck Series team including its race shop/facilities and Industrial engineering division for $25 million. Kyle Busch himself has confirmed it while Spire will be provide more information about their transaction of KBM this Saturday at 10.30am ET during the Fall Talladega race weekend.

What does that mean going forward? They would field up to 2-3 full-time cars where 1-2 of them will be racing for the whole season while the other would feature multiple drivers which could include Kyle Busch. Although it seems that Kyle would fully focus driving the No.8 Chevy Camaro at Cup level for Richard Childress Racing as well as spending more time with his son Brexton.

So at some point we will get to see Kyle race a full season of Trucks to try win a championship there? Yes, let’s hope so as sure Spire would let him fulfil his wish where they’ve got a great business relationship together. Then after that, he can pass it on to Brexton once he’s 18-19, who also signed a big contact with RCR at the same time they hired his dad from Joe Gibbs Racing  (which is a Toyota team) during the announcement a year ago.

Image Reference: Zach Catanzareti via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0

For now, we could see Spire set its own ladder from Trucks to Cup level where one of their next full-time Truck drivers would go on & drive for any of the three Cup cars in about three years time. We don’t know who might it be but I guess one will be a youngster and another experience in the form of Marco Andretti with thanks to the Gainbridge $$$ backing.

With that being said, I think Spire would be content running three cars after 2024 while keeping all three charters. So for teams like Trackhouse, they would have to buy one of the charters out from Stewart-Haas Racing which is the going to be the No.41 whereas the other No.10 charter would go to Richard Childress Racing & set up a 3rd full-time Cup car there for Austin Hill. Then for Stewart-Haas’s end, they would be happy to settle just running two cars (No.4 & No.14) while looking to run Chevys again once the existing Ford contract expires after the 2024 season.

Image Reference: TaurusEmerald via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

It’s a crazy and expensive market but Spire is no stranger in making big investments as we hope we can see the next step of Spire being at their best on the race track sooner rather than later. Plus, we thank Kyle Busch for everything at Trucks level mainly as a team owner that led to so many of his young drivers honing their craft that led to wins and championships before they go on & race at the highest levels, while he too can also win Truck races himself from time to time where he hopes to keep on doing it with Spire next year before looking to race a full season there for the championship at some point.

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Motorsport

Motorsport News, NASCAR: Ryan Preece to stay in the No.41 Ford Mustang at Stewart-Haas Racing for another year next season

by Sports Benches

Image Reference: TaurusEmerald via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

Ryan Preece has received a confirmation from Stewart-Haas Racing today during a radio interview with Dave Moody and he will be back for another year in the No.41 Ford Mustang, even though things were slow and difficult for him this season other than the 5th placed finish at Richmond Raceway back on July 30th in Virginia.

So things will still need more time for him to make a more consistent impact as he’s currently 25th on drivers points right now, with three places behind team-mate Aric Almirola in the No.10 car & five places up of another team-mate Chase Briscoe in the sister No.14 car. All in all, it’s hard to see him be at Ross Chastain’s level, whom they’ve both raced not just on the dirt tracks but also showed some talent on these low-budget race cars via Xfinity Series level in the past. However, the results is just not there right now where Ryan can hopefully turn things around starting with these Top 10 results in 2024.

If not, we’ll have to wait & see what happens as SHR is open to selling up to 2 charters. I don’t think the fire sale will happen just yet for at least another year when you got the experienced veteran Aric Almirola holding the glue as Kevin Harvick will step away for good at season’s end in November at Phoenix, with Josh Berry replacing him in the No.4 team soon.

I also don’t think Almirola will retire just yet as well when he initially announced his retirement at the end of last season but then he changed his plans & continued to race for SHR under a multi-year deal where he will want to stick around for one more year, then retire this time for good.

That way, it would be perfect timing for the team to sell the No.10 charter to Richard Childress Racing for Austin Hill as well as the No.41 charter if the results still not good to any one of the current two-car teams ahead of the next TV rights contract to start from the 2025 season.

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Motorsport

Motorsport News, Thoughts on Brodie Kostecki’s 2024 NASCAR plans update in the hope of 2-3 part-time races with Richard Childress Racing again

by Sports Benches

Weeks after Shane Van Gisbergen has announced his full-time move to the US with Trackhouse under an initial development deal, Brodie Kostecki has today updated his plans to race NASCAR as a part-time driver again following his Cup debut last month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Road Course) in the No.33 Chevy Camaro for Richard Childress Racing.

Although it’s too early to tell since the 2024 schedule isn’t out yet, but he hopes to be there up to three races – we just don’t which type of races could it be? One is definitely a road course since he has tons of experience there, but he could also be racing on an oval for the first time as well where he raced there a few times before a long time ago in the ARCA Series.

Although I bet it will be on a short track oval or else it will be all road course events in the short-term while he has a year left on his current contract with Erebus Motorsport in the Supercars Series here. I don’t think RCR would wanna put him on a high-banked oval so early without ovals experience unless he can do it in the lower series first, which is where everyone got their first goes there & the same will go to SVG on what is about to be his learning/work experience year with these race cars.

So yes, Brodie could be the perfect replacement for Austin Hill at RCR’s Xfinity Series team from 2025 should A.Hill be promoted to their Cup squad as long as they can get a 3rd charter off Stewart-Haas Racing’s No.10 team. Actually, this can be possible – have a look at Connor Moshack who also raced in ARCA in the past before gaining tons of road course experience in the Trans-Am TA2 series over the last two years. Then he went straight to Xfinity level for the majority this year where he split his time between Sam Hunt Racing & Joe Gibbs Racing with little ovals experience beforehand & he too got to race at these tracks more often other than road courses for the first time.

I know Brodie wants full-time Cup someday & resume his Supercars rivalry with SVG, but I’d like to see him follow Connor lead’s first once his Erebus contract is up by racing on ovals before he can race Cup every weekend.He has a bright future ahead as if it wasn’t for that qualifying crash last month, then he would’ve been Top 5-7 material but glad he’s getting more opportunities with the support being backed by RCR.

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Motorsport

F1 Live Race Today at Suzuka: Max Verstappen unstoppable with Aussie Oscar Piastri’s first podium in P3 for McLaren while NZ’s Liam Lawson finished 11th in Alpha Tauri

by Sports Benches

Yes, today’s Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix race was crazy earlier on where we saw a few cars make contact into each other that led to some DNFs along the way. But it was a great day though with Max Verstappen being unstoppable in the Red Bull-RBPT Honda before he was joined by both McLarens to round out the Top 3 as Lando Norris finished 2nd followed our Aussie own Oscar Piastri, who scored his first podium finish in 3rd. We wished Oscar would’ve chased down Max from 2nd, but then he was blocked by the race winner immediately after the race start where Lando took a great view on the outside from 3rd to 2nd before he couldn’t get on hold onto Max as the race progresses. There will always be another Oscar moment after his mother couldn’t be there to watch her son race in-person today, but it looks like we will see him win races & hopefully a World Championship someday thanks to his latest four-year contract extension a few days ago with McLaren.

And shoutout to New Zealand’s Liam Lawson down in 11th for the Alpha Tauri-RBPT Honda outfit. He had a great battle with his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda from the start, although he was losing some track position for a while. But he had a great last half run though nonetheless, having made up some lost time where he got around Yuki before being way ahead of him en route towards another good result – despite being a lap down in his 4th race. Again, this is one driver who deserves a full-time seat. But there’s nothing we can do about it unless Williams can loan him out (which is unlikely) following the news yesterday that Alpha Tauri will retain both Yuki and the injured Daniel Ricciardo next season. Next stop, Lusail International Circuit in Race 17/23 this season under the lights for Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday 8th October/Monday 9th October at 4am AEDT here.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on Liam Lawson missing out a Alpha Tauri 2024 drive after they retained both Daniel Ricciardo & Yuki Tsunoda

by Sports Benches

Image Reference: Lucas Reich via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

NZ’s Liam Lawson may be underrated at the moment thanks to his fill-ins for the injured Daniel Ricciardo in the other Alpha Tauri-RBPT Honda race car recently. But he will have to spend the next Formula 1 season as their reserve driver for all races after they retained both Riccardo & Yuki Tsunoda unless Williams can loan him out from Red Bull to replace Logan Sargeant, which is going to be less likely to happen now.

He’s done so well in qualifying as well as his race results that includes his first points finish of 9th last weekend in Singapore. Now he still has one Super Formula round to try and win a championship there towards the end of next month, but then that round clashes with the Mexico City GP should Daniel Ricciardo still not recover from his hand injury. It would’ve been better if Danny moved onto Williams; Unfortunately he’s there to help Yuki and the team out over the next year at this stage. There is nothing bad about Liam where he’s so highly rated, especially when he’s our of our Aussie neighbours across the Ditch.

After the announcement today, I guess he will come back better regardless of what happens in the short-term. Once Sergio Perez leaves in 2025, then we will be able to finally see Liam back out on track every round for AT to make a more meaningful impact with results on the board before the team’s switch to Ford from 2026. It’s never been a better time where not only we can see an Aussie in Oscar Piastri & Danny Ric battling up front, but it’s also good to see a Kiwi doing well too in Liam.

Whatever you do Red Bull, don’t waste his talent and lose him to another series. Although I wouldn’t mind if he did race at the Indy 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans (top hypercar class) next year for the occasion.

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Motorsport

NASCAR News Today, looking at potential buyers as Stewart-Haas Racing is the next team to potentially sell 1-2 charters as well as downsizing them at the same time

by Sports Benches

Image Reference: TaurusEmerald via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

After the big charter sale by Live Fast Motorsports the other day which went to Spire Motorsports for a whopping $40 million, it looks like the next team who would be looking to sell them is Stewart-Haas Racing. They currently run Ford Mustangs at the moment as a four-car team which ran since 2017 from Chevys with initial success, but it hasn’t been the same that way sadly in the last few years.

I guess Aric Almirola would want to stay for at least one more year in 2024, then bow it out on a high alongside Smithfield Foods in the No.10 team. That way, this could be perfect timing for Richard Childress Racing to buy the No.10 charter & expand to three cars for Austin Hill ahead of 2025, who is currently driving for them at Xfinity level, regardless of price.

So that is one charter SHR is open to selling, there’s also another charter they would like to put on the shop window which is the No.41 team. Since Kurt Busch left at the end of 2018, the team’s momentum has done way downhill over time off the back of Daniel Suarez for one year followed by Cole Custer & now Ryan Preece. The first year here is always tough for Preece, especially when he impressed in Xfinity and Trucks level last year after a few years beforehand at JTG Daugherty Racing. Now he might be back for another year in 2024 which is good news, but if he doesn’t do so well again then it would be no surprise that SHR is gonna close down the No.41 team as well. The problem is which team is gonna take it from there?

RFK Racing would be a great shoutout as long as SHR makes it available. I’m not so sure about Trackhouse but I think they will eventually purchase a charter off Spire & expand to three cars with Zane Smith onboard next year – so don’t think they will need another one. The same goes to Spire as I think they will want to make a small profit off Trackhouse & use the potential sale to improve their equipment eventually back as a two-car team. Maybe 23XI Racing perhaps to let a Toyota Racing talented driver to hone his skills for the first year or two before making the step up at some point to Joe Gibbs Racing? They wouldn’t be against the idea of expanding to having three full-time Cup cars, even though the rumour of 23XI racing under Ford Mustangs has been gone lately thanks to Denny Hamlin staying at JGR.

And I think unless Legacy Motor Club can improve their on-track performance next year with Erik Jones & now John Hunter Nemechek, I don’t see them spending $50 million on something that can guarantee them to race days following their recent switch to Toyota that will begin next year. So there you have it, we expect the No.10 charter to be sold off to Richard Childress Racing come 2025 following the retirement of Aric Almirola. And I guess we will have some competition amongst two-car teams for the No.41 charter, should Preece continue to flop next season.

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Motorsport

NASCAR Race Today, Denny Hamlin wins the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway for Joe Gibbs Racing’s No.11 Team

by Sports Benches

Image Reference: Zach Catanzareti via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0

It was a great night out for the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas out on track at Bristol Motor Speedway where Christopher Bell won the first two stages in the No.20 machine, but a series of yellows during the final stage saw Denny Hamlin take over the lead before he rounded out as the winner for his No.11 team. Denny is now third in the Playoffs standings at 3032 points where he’s only just four points behind William Byron (No.24 Hendrick Chevy) and his team-mate in the No.19 Martin Truex Jr.

Great to see Denny steer clear of trouble following a great start, although he had to drop back a bit during the 2nd stage but bounced back well off the back of pit road in order to bring his car home in 1st place. The challenge for him now is to stay ahead & go dominate these all of these tracks as well as the rare Roval in Charlotte up front as this could be his year at last if he can stay in there going into the Championship 4 Finale & win that title at Phoenix come early November.

We also give a shoutout to Carson Hocevar in the No.42 Chevy for Legacy Motor Club where he too was running through the middle of the field before some good luck towards the rest of the night saw him finish in 11th, so fantastic moment for the No. 42 to experience such as great result. We don’t know if he will be back next Sunday at Texas but he is one driver Spire is considering to replace Ty Dillon in the No.77 Chevy next year as we’re sure this will be confirmed sooner rather than later.

And yes, Michael McDowell (No.34 Ford) did have a great race to finish 6th after running reasonably well inside the Top 6-7 for the whole time. We just wished he had a front row race car that would’ve seen him had a better chance of winning that race as his last chance in order to keep his Playoffs chances alive into the 2nd Round of 12 tie. But he and Front Row Motorsports had another great season out nonetheless as there’s always more to come towards being a regular Top 15 presence that will hopefully see him more than just a regular-season race every week next year.

Next stop, Texas Motor Speedway to begin the second round of Playoffs for another three races starting next Sunday/Monday AM Australian time as there’s no more Saturday night races this year.

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Motorsport

NASCAR News Today: Thoughts on Spire Motorsports officially buying off charter from Live Fast Motorsports & then forming partnership with Trackhouse for Zane Smith

by Sports Benches

Image Reference: Zach Catanzareti via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0

So there you have it, Live Fast Motorsports has chosen to sell their charter to Spire Motorsports ahead of next season today for a huge transaction fee of $40 million. Yes, that is the rate you wish to buy one right now following the previous highest charter purchase of $13 million almost two years ago when 23XI Racing expanded their 2nd full-time car off now-defunct small run team StarCom Racing. Other than that, Spire immediately used its third charter by loaning it off to Trackhouse Racing where they will be fielding a third car together under Spire’s banner (Number TBD) alongside Corey LaJoie in the No.7 & Ty Dillon or Carson Hocevar in the No.77 for reigning Truck Series Champion Zane Smith, who will be officially joining them on a multi-year contract from Front Row Motorsports starting next season. And on Live Fast’s side, well, it looks they will continue Cup racing going forward on a part-time basis as an open-cup team. So expect them to see BJ McLeod drive his own car again at Superspeedways where he scored some Top 10s every now and then for the odd occasion or two every year.

Gotta say it’s a huge breakthrough step for all parties involved as we hope to finally see the realisation of all Cup cars being competitive on the race track every weekend. Some people like BJ McLeod with his cult personality status and the way he runs on a shoestring budget alongside wife Jessica as well as Matt Tifft & Joe Falk as we have nothing against them. However, he can’t keep on running at the back all the time where the results haven’t been there compared to other small run teams & he has made the right call today in selling up the charter to Spire at the highest price tag possible. Let’s hope he can invest some of that charter money towards improving his Xfinity Series operation as we wish them good luck.

Image Reference: Zach Catanzareti via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0

Meanwhile, Spire is no stranger of making investments where they’ve been a major player off the track including this activity today. Although it’s good to see the No.7 improve over the last 1-2 years thanks to Corey LaJoie alongside his own sponsorship package, but let’s hope the involvement of Gainbridge as a sponsor and maybe Andretti being involved at some point would see them make some massive steps on-track as a three-car team thanks to Trackhouse & Zane Smith. We have to wait and see though what the No.77 team’s driver status might be next season with Ty Dillon most likely to be replaced by another young Trucks star in Carson Hocevar from Niece Motorsports, who has also been filling-in the No.42 Chevy Camaro lately for Legacy Motor Club at Cup level following the unexpected dismissal of Noah Gragson over a month ago.

What else could we say after next year, Trackhouse would be looking at fielding three full-time cars at some point as you can only lease one every few years unless they can share half of the stake with Spire. It’s too early to tell once Zane Smith is eventually going to be integrated into Trackhouse’s HQ and race equipment after 2024, but then you got New Zealand’s Shane Van Gisbergen from Supercars where he will racing for them under a developmental year to get more ovals experience next season. Maybe Trackhouse can keep on churning more decent performances from there with more money to be earned before making the full-time charter purchase from Spire that would see them expand to three cars while Spire reduces back to two. And on the driver change? It looks like one might be going out and that would be Daniel Suarez in the No.99, we have nothing against him but the team would might wanna go into a different direction with all three drivers driving for them based on their on-track reputation & merit rather than letting a driver just stump up with sponsorship to them like Suarez.

Next up, keep a close eye on the Stewart-Haas situation who may be planning to sell up a charter or two while downsizing the number or full-time teams depending if Aric Almriola is gonna stay for another year in the No.10 car or retire this time for good as well as Ryan Preece’s performances in the No.41 machine next season. If so, expect Richard Childress Racing as well as lot other two-car teams to try and get if off them at a hefty price tag of $50 million each that totals $100 million for two.

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