Three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Andre Lotterer believes that winning the World Endurance Championship title this year means more than his 2012 triumph with Audi.

The German, who sealed the crown in Bahrain on Saturday with Porsche Penske Motorsport team-mates Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer, suggested that his second world crown conveys more prestige than the maiden triumph secured in the inaugural season of the reborn WEC.

“There is more recognition for such an achievement in today’s circumstances,” Lotterer told Motorsport.com.

“You have to look at how the championship has come a long way.

“A lot of manufacturers have come, and they haven’t come just to participate – everyone has come to win.

“The competition now and the Balance of Performance that levels the field means the execution, operation and strategy, doing the perfect job through the season, is what is rewarded.

“I would say it is quite meaningful.”

Race winners #1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro: Marcel Fässler, Andre Lotterer, Benoit Tréluyer and #2 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro: Rinaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish crosses the line

Photo by: Daniel Kalisz / Motorsport Images

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Lotterer stressed that he wasn’t necessarily picking this year’s Hypercar title with the Porsche 963 LMDh over his 2012 success with the Audi R18 e-tron quattro LMP1 as a more significant highlight of his career.

“I wouldn’t say it means more to me, it’s just different,” said Lotterer, who is leaving the PPM squad for next season after Porsche’s decision to reduce its full-season driver line-up to two drivers.

“But we were quite dominant in 2012 and there wasn’t that much competition if i am honest.”

LMP1 newcomer Toyota was Audi’s only factory rival that season after it made a late decision to undertake more than a limited number of development races, its original plan following Peugeot’s withdrawal shortly before the start of the season.

Lotterer suggested that the world title should no longer be viewed as the poor relation to victory at Le Mans.

While Porsche won the drivers’ title this year with Lotterer, Estre and Vanthoor, it could manage a best finish of fourth in the 92nd running of Le Mans. 

“Previously in LMP1, Le Mans was the thing everyone wanted; it was all about Le Mans back then, he explained.

He added that back in the early years of the WEC revival “you kind of thought you’d lost the season” with a failure to win at Le Mans.

He described winning Le Mans with co-champions Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler as the “heroic part” of a WEC campaign in 2012 that included a further two victories and four podiums.

That is a reference to the Lotterer and his team-mates coming out on top in the battle with the sister Audi driven by Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello despite the failure of hybrid system on their R18 early in the race.

Lotterer, 42, has no intention of retiring after losing his PPM drive with the end of his contract.

He revealed before the Bahrain 8 Hours that he is in talks with Porsche about a possible new role and is also in contact with other manufacturers.

DS Penske’s Maximilian Guenther finished the second day of Formula E pre-season testing in Jarama fastest, just 0.031s clear of Kiro’s Dan Ticktum.

The German posted a 1m28.408s in the final hour of the afternoon session at the Jarama Circuit just outside Madrid, which is hosting Formula E testing this week after the flooding in Valencia.

How Formula E resolved its logistical nightmare to save its pre-season test

DS Penske team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne finished the day third fastest, just 0.152s behind his new stablemate as teams get to grips with the new Gen3 Evo machines, which include all-wheel-drive this season.

Splitting the pair was Ticktum, who in the morning session had become the first driver to go below the 1m29s barrier driving for the newly rebranded Kiro team, which was formally ERT.

The second Kiro machine of Formula E rookie David Beckmann finished the second day of running fourth with a late effort that put the German less than two tenths behind Guenther’s time.

Like Ticktum, Beckmann has yet to be confirmed with Kiro for the upcoming season which gets underway in Sao Paulo on 7 December.

Dan Ticktum, Kiro Race Co

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

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The Mahindra’s of Nyck de Vries and Edoardo Mortara finished fifth and sixth after moving up the leaderboard in the final 15 minutes on Wednesday, the former also completing the joint most laps on 46.

Nick Cassidy finished seventh, the Kiwi having come to a stop out on track in the morning session along the start/finish straight after his Jaguar lost drive, which brought out a second red flag inside the final 25 minutes.

The first stoppage occurred just as the opening hour of running was completed, Sam Bird having gone off at Turn 1 and beaching his McLaren.

The Briton was left down in 20th and behind team-mate Taylor Barnard during the afternoon session and some four seconds adrift, but both completed impressive mileage on 46 and 45 laps respectively.

Maserati MSG’s Jake Hughes had set the fastest time in the morning session with a 1m28.604s, which was some eight tenths quicker than the fastest lap managed by Antonio Felix da Costa on the first day of running.

Hughes and team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne finished the afternoon session 21st and 22nd in the standings and seven seconds off the pace but had been circulating together for large portions to practice race simulations.

Sam Bird, NEOM McLaren Formula E Team

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

Two further days of action are set to take place on Thursday and Friday, with a simulation race due to be held on Thursday afternoon where the pit boost technology will be trialled ahead of being possibly implemented this season.

An all-female test is also due to still go ahead on Friday afternoon, with Indy NXT driver Jamie Chadwick and F1 Academy championship leader Abbi Pulling set to drive.

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

Tyler Reddick admits the first time he met Michael Jordan, he could feel the nerves.

Reddick has no problem driving a race car 200 miles an hour. But meeting one of the world’s most famous athletes who co-owns the 23XI Racing team? That got to him.

“The first time I met Michael. I was really nervous, honestly,” Reddick said. “You’re meeting one of the greatest to ever do it. I remember just being nervous and trying not to say the wrong thing or act like a fool or anything crazy.”

As far as saying the wrong thing, Reddick probably knows that actions speak louder than words, especially when it comes to winning races and championships.

The 28-year-old Reddick will vie for the NASCAR Cup Series title Sunday at Phoenix Raceway as he battles defending Cup champion Ryan Blaney, two-time titlist Joey Logano and William Byron. The highest-finishing driver among those four will be crowned the champion.

Not only is it Reddick’s first time among the Champ 4 drivers in Cup (Reddick won two Xfinity titles in this format), he also makes 23XI’s first appearance in the championship round in the four-year history of the organization. Jordan, a North Carolina native whose father would occasionally work on racing engines, co-owns the team formed by his good friend, Denny Hamlin, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing.

“As I’ve gotten to know [Jordan] better, spend more time around him, it’s been nice getting know Michael, and him getting to know me and understand also, on top of it, how passionate he is about racing,” Reddick said. “From our first conversation that was something that he made even more apparent to me, but I just also been seeing it through his actions, through his excitement over these last two years, too.”

Jordan sits on the pit box for the races, often right behind the crew chief. For Reddick’s crew chief, Billy Scott, he has gotten comfortable with Jordan’s presence.

After Reddick’s win two weeks ago, Jordan praised Scott’s strategy.

For Scott, also making his first Champ 4 appearance as a crew chief, hearing Jordan talk about him in the media certainly isn’t something he expected.

“It’s kind of surreal,” Scott said. “It’ll be a long time before it fully sets in, but It’s amazing how much he understands and studies the sport and he knows everything that’s going on.

“That’s one thing that [what he says] means a lot because he is as knowledgeable about it as any fan out there and or any other owner for that matter. And so when he does give the compliments, it’s well warranted.”

Tyler Reddick will carry the banner for dirt late model racers as he races for the Cup title

And it goes the other way around. Jordan called into a competition meeting last year and apparently didn’t mince words.

“At the end, he gave his opinion on what he heard — and he didn’t like what he heard,” Hamlin said. “He gave certainly some pointed remarks as to what championship teams sound like, and what winning teams sound like, and how we need to change the way we are communicating and the way we were shifting blame all over the place.

“That was a pivotal moment for our team and our drivers to hear about taking responsibility for each person’s shortcomings and how you are going to get better.”

If Reddick can pull off the title, he’ll not only do it with the extra noise surrounding him driving for Jordan in what is the first trip to the Champ 4 for driver and team co-owner. But the organization also has the extra noise of currently suing NASCAR over antitrust grounds.

Jordan, speaking outside the courtroom Monday, said he feels his team can put that aside.

“The race team is going to focus on what they have to do this weekend, which I expect them to. … I’m looking forward to winning a championship this weekend,” Jordan said.

Reddick said he can put all that noise behind him as well, even in his first Champ 4 attempt. He feels his past experiences in the Xfinity Series will help him focus on the task at hand.

“It doesn’t [impact me],” Reddick said about the 23XI dynamic. “I wish I could explain to you why that’s the case, but for me, I’m just focusing on what I can control — that’s my race car, that’s my team, that’s our preparation and mindset going into the weekend.

“The rest is off to the side and worry about it later.”

If he can capture the title, Reddick is for sure to get another bear hug from Jordan as he did after the Homestead win. On that afternoon, Jordan called Reddick “a little kid.”

Reddick says Jordan can call him that even though Reddick is 28 years old.

“[He] can do whatever he wants as long as we keep getting race-winning race cars like that and keep fighting like we have been this year,” Reddick said. “I would rather Michael say I’m a little kid than him say nothing at all. 

“I’m quite OK with it.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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The peculiarity of the free tyre change that is allowed under Formula 1’s red flag rules has long been a source of frustration to drivers.

When the situation crops up, like it did in Brazil last weekend and at the Monaco GP in May, those who are caught on the wrong side of things bemoan the sheer randomness of it.

In Monaco, it was all about how the hard compound starters were compromised by the first-lap red flag that allowed all the medium runners a free switch to the hard.

At Interlagos, George Russell, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc were all left ruing what they had lost by switching to fresh inters as worsening rain arrived, while those that carried on in tricky conditions got a free tyre change after Franco Colapinto’s huge crash.

The apparent luck of the draw is something that time and again gets criticised, and yet no one has come up with the fairer solution.

Back at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Norris was running sixth early on when he made a stop under safety car conditions for Mick Schumacher’s accident – which dropped him to 14th.

In theory, it was about playing the long game as those ahead of him that did not stop would need to do so under full race conditions later on – so lose more time.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, makes a pit stop

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

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However, his plan fell flat when a red flag was brought out, which handed everyone ahead of him a free stop and left the Briton stuck down the order.

Speaking afterwards, his criticisms of things were similar to what he said on Sunday night after Brazil.

“Of course, I’m always on the bad end of it, so it probably sucks more for me than anyone, but I think it’s just a very unfair rule that should be taken away,” he said.

“I think they should change it to one mandatory pit stop with two different tyre sets needed to be used, and then I think that’s acceptable.

“But this just ruins everything, to be honest. You put so much effort in for it to be taken away for some stupid rule.”

But while the unfairness aspect is the thing that annoys drivers the most, last weekend’s race at Interlagos has put into focus another factor that is slightly more worrying.

It is that in a wet race like Interlagos where conditions are worsening and there is the potential for a red flag, drivers are almost encouraged to stay out on far-from-perfect rubber much longer than they ideally would.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who stopped under the VSC conditions triggered by Nico Hulkenberg’s off, said that the rain that was coming down had left the track treacherous – but the lead cars obviously felt it worth the risk of staying out.

“I don’t think we expected it to rain as much as it did and then honestly, the toughest part of the race was behind the safety car, trying to stay on the track,” said the Australian.

“I think it kind of exposed a bit of the issue we have with the wet tyre – when everyone is begging for a red flag but refusing to go onto the wet tyre because it’s so bad.

“A pretty dangerous situation to have cars literally struggling to stay on the track behind the safety car. But it’s not really anything new. Hopefully, we can try to at least change it now.”

Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, at the restart

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

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Race winner Max Verstappen, whose victory was made easier by the red flag situation, admitted that things were right on the knife edge as he stayed out – but there was no way he was going to stop.

“When some pitted, the rain was coming, we stayed out, which was very sketchy,” explained the Dutchman.

“And then I saw Esteban [Ocon] in front of me flying, like four seconds a lap faster and I was like, ‘I’m just happy to keep the car on the track’.

“At one point it was just, we need a red flag. It was just undriveable, even on extreme tyres.”

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, who had pitted Leclerc early but had dropped him into traffic, conceded that the issue teams face is gambling on staying out and not crashing.

“For sure you can say at the end of the day, if you stay on track, waiting for the red flag, it is the right call,” he said. “But if you crash, you look stupid…”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said that, with conditions worsening, there was a safety aspect to the situation – and that while there were competitive gains to be had by staying out and hoping for a red flag, in his mind there was only one course of action he preferred.

Speaking about the Brazil podium finishers who all stayed out, Stella said: “I am here congratulating them on their decisions.

“But personally, I am not very comfortable to leave a car out there that has tyres that are pretty worn with that amount of water. Without the red flag we would be commenting on a different race.”

The way to stop drivers from taking the gamble and pushing on with unsuitable tyres would theoretically be solved by not allowing the free tyre change that is allowed in the regulations.

If drivers knew that a red flag would not allow them a free swap, then decisions on which tyre to commit to would be based purely on which is most suitable to the conditions – and not so much about gambling in sticking it out when conditions are too dire in the hope of being saved by a stoppage.

But the red flag rules are in place for safety reasons and not competitive ones. It has long been accepted that changing tyres has to be allowed under red flag conditions because of the risk of debris from accidents causing punctures or other issues.

Forcing drivers to stick to their current tyres when there is a chance they could have run over broken carbon fibre of other parts on the track, or been involved in an accident themselves, would be an incredible safety risk and lunacy to have in the rules.

There have, however, been numerous suggestions in the past of ways to potentially improve things and make them fairer.

One idea, that would best work for dry races to avoid the potential for a free stop, would be to allow teams to change tyres in the stops – but if they wanted to it would have to be for the same compound.

This scenario would prevent what happened in Monaco, and also ensure that drivers who had stopped to switch compounds under full race conditions were not unfairly punished.

Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team VCARB 01, makes a pit stop

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

However, it would not have avoided penalising drivers in Brazil because the inter is ultimately the best tyre for the rain – because by the time the full wet is brought into action, normally visibility is so bad that racing does not take place.

Another idea could be to allow the teams the option to change tyres if they are damaged, but if they do so they have to pull themselves out of the race order and drop to the back.

That way, there would not be an incentive to stay out longer than necessary in tricky conditions – because ultimately if there is a red flag the disadvantage could be greater if you need to change rubber. And if you feel you are still on the right tyres, you can keep them on and take your stop later.

Or what about Norris’s suggestion after Saudi 2021, of tweaking the sporting rules to demand that each driver makes a mandatory stop under normal race conditions, irrespective of a red flag?

All these ideas are things that have been discussed, and drivers have their own opinions about what can be done to make it better – but unfortunately, F1 has never moved things forward much.

Asked after Monaco whether he had some hope of the red flag tyre rule being revisited by teams and the FIA, he said: “I don’t know. There are many things that they have not changed, probably because they don’t listen to the drivers.”

Five months his words still appear to ring true.

Ducati test rider Michele Pirro will be drafted in at VR46 for the final round of the 2024 MotoGP season at Barcelona, Motorsport.com has learned.

Pirro will be riding one of VR46’s GP23 bikes in the Barcelona GP on 15-17 November, with Fabio di Giannantonio again absent from racing after getting surgery done on his left shoulder last Wednesday.

Although Andrea Iannone impressed VR46 in the Malaysian GP last weekend after returning to MotoGP at the express wish of team owner Valentino Rossi, the one-time grand prix winner will not be racing in Spain next week.

The decision was taken by Ducati in conjunction with VR46 and will be formally communicated to the public next week.

Iannone, who had been out of action since his 2019 campaign with Aprilia after receiving a four-year doping ban, finished 17th less than a minute behind race winner Francesco Bagnaia‘s factory Ducati.

One of the conditions required for Iannone to compete again in the last race was not to look out of place at Sepang, a goal he more than achieved with his quick adaptation to the GP23.

Andrea Iannone, VR46 Racing Team

Photo by: Asif Zubairi

However, Ducati has decided to lean on the reliable Pirro in Barcelona after taking technical and development aspects into consideration.

Unlike this season where Ducati is fielding four GP24 bikes between its official team and Pramac, the Borgo Panigale marque will be down to just three factory-spec bikes in 2025. These will be raced by Bagnaia, new works team rider Marc Marquez and di Giannatonio at VR46.

The pre-season test in Barcelona, where Pirro will again be on duty at VR46, is therefore crucial for Ducati to get the final details for the 2025 bike right as MotoGP enters a two-year engine freeze phase.

Ducati’s current cushion over other manufacturers is so big that no one doubts the development freeze will be an advantage for them in the long-run.

However, the fact that Marquez does not have much experience on the current GP24 – having ridden a one-year-old bike at Gresini in 2024 – has led general manager Gigi Dall’Igna to conclude that Pirro’s presence at the test is vital for the marque.

At the moment, it is not certain whether three GP25 bikes will be shipped to Spain as is planned, or if only two will be available due to a production issue.

In any case, Ducati wants to have Pirro, who plays a major role in the development of the bike, at full capacity in Barcelona to help Bagnaia and Marquez fine-tune the bike by providing more data.

Pirro is already testing the GP25 on Wednesday and Thursday this week at Jerez. After these two days of running, the bike will be packed up and sent to Barcelona for the first official 2025 test on 19 November.

Lancia’s sporting director Eugenio Franzetti has explained why the brand is making its rally return in Rally4 and what is required to make a comeback to the World Rally Championship.

Lancia, the winner of a record 10 WRC constructors’ titles (1974-1976, 1983, 1987-1992), is set to return to the rally stages next year with its all-new Ypsilon Rally4 car. Officially launched last month, the car will compete in the Italian Rally Championship and the newly created one-make Lancia Rally Trophy.  

The creation of the two-wheel drive Ypsilon Rally4 marks a return to rally for Lancia, 50 years after it won its first WRC title with the legendary Stratos in 1974. 

While Lancia’s emergence has created much fanfare, there had been speculation it would consider a Rally2 programme. It ultimately confirmed a Rally4 project that will see the brand contest the 2026 European Rally Championship.

Lancia has not ruled out a future WRC comeback and would consider forming a business plan once the WRC has announced its 2027 technical regulations. The FIA is expected to reveal its new regulations in December this year.

According to Franzetti, the stability of the Rally4 regulations was among the considerations that swayed the car maker to make its return at the lower end of the rally pyramid.  

“What we need is to have the rules [2027 regulations], we need to know how the Rally2 of the future will be made and how the Rally1 of the future will be made. Once we understand this, in a few months we can also understand how much it costs to make them and how much. And then once we understand the rules, we can create a business plan,” Franzetti told Motorsport.com’s Italian edition. 

“Once the business plan has been created, we can put the costs on one side of the scale, and the value of visibility and the revenue on the other side, and understand if this scale is a scale that is positive. 

“We do motorsport and there is a return on investment. The return on investment is given on one hand by the technical and logistical costs of doing it, on the other hand it is substantially the value of visibility, which has a great significance. This visibility also brings you sponsors, partners and so on. All this clearly must be extremely positive. 

“Today the only certain rule is Rally4. We know how it is made, how much it costs and everything. That’s why Lancia is back with a Rally4. The only certain thing we know is the regulation, it’s clear, it’s an extraordinary product, interesting from a racing point of view and from a commercial point of view.”

Lancia Ypsilon Rally4

Photo by: Lancia

Lowering costs and the introduction of a cost cap are factors that could interest Lancia to rejoin the WRC. 

Franzetti also admitted to be an admirer of the Rally2 class, which Lancia’s owner the Stellantis Group is already visible in through the Citroen C3 Rally2 programme.   

“Let’s try to create championships that cost a little less and that have a cost cap, after which, staying within it, you do what you want,” he added. 

“You have to make a championship with a finite number of millions, after which the engineers can unleash their imagination, knowing that motorsport is used as a promotional tool and therefore in any case everyone will bring what they know how to do also in terms and in the end it’s a show case. 

“Today we are all moving towards hybrid, electric, electrified. I imagine that everyone wants to demonstrate that they know how to do that thing there. But a cost cap would be enough and then leave space for the others.

“The Rally2 is a very interesting car because it’s fast, it lets you win [national] championships, obviously the European championship, which allows you to go very fast also in WRC. 

“Today, with few Rally1s [in WRC], if you have a Rally2 you can also get into the top 10, even get close to the top five and you have crazy visibility. And then it’s a commercial product, it’s a product that you sell and whoever buys it is happy, it [the car] runs well, has an acceptable cost per kilometre and so on. The Rally2 was an extremely clever specification.”