Motorsport Roundup: Toyota Wins WEC Portimao, Ex-F1 Drivers Shine At IndyCar And IMSA, And McLaren Announces 2022 Extreme E Entry

The last seven days in motorsport may not have been as action-packed as the previous week, but there was enough racing to make some headlines. The action ranged from the WEC 8 Hours of Portimao, to ex-F1 drivers shining at IMSA and IndyCar in Detroit. McLaren also announced its involvement in another racing series aside from F1 and Indycar. Here’s all about it:

WEC

Toyota Gazoo Racing triumphed again with the No.8 car of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima winning the second round of the 2021 World Endurance Championship at Portimao. But it wasn’t all plain sailing as the Alpine Elf Matmut squad of Andre Negrao, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere had qualified in pole position. In the end, the Alpine fell back to third position behind the sister No.7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose-Maria Lopez. 

 

As for Glickenhaus’s WEC debut in the hypercar category, the 007 car of Richard Westbrook, Ryan Briscoe, and Romain Dumas managed to make it to the end, but were 30th overall and 54 laps down on the race winning Toyota. In other news, BMW announced its post-Formula E future by confirming its entry in the LMDh prototype category from the 2023 season onwards. 

Ex-F1 Drivers Score Big 

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It was a positive race weekend for a couple of ex-F1 drivers in Detroit, USA. First up was Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac’s Kevin Magnussen, who with teammate Renger van der Zande took his maiden win at the fourth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The other winner was Marcus Ericsson, also representing Chip Ganassi Racing, taking his first IndyCar victory.

Extreme E

The Extreme E grid will be bigger in 2022 as McLaren have confirmed its presence in the all-electric SUV off-road racing series. This makes it a total of three racing disciplines McLaren is involved in other than its main Formula One team and IndyCar. Expect a n announcement on its driver lineup as we get closer to the 2022 season.

MotoGP

Good news for fans in Austria as MotoGP has announced that its double-header races at the Red Bull Ring will be open to full capacity crowds. The 10th round of the season is scheduled to commence on August 8, with the following round on August 15. 

The next race weekend will see Formula One return to racing with the French Grand Prix at the Paul Ricard Circuit, followed by MotoGP at the Sachsenring in Germany. The 2021 DTM season will also kick off at Monza.