Worlds collided when Trackhouse Racing teammates Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch met up with RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson in Texas earlier this year. All four Red Bull athletes got together to see what would happen when you put an F1 driver in a stock car on a dirt oval no less.

Van Gisbergen is a three-time Supercars champion who became a full-time NASCAR driver after his stunning Cup win debut in the 2023 Chicago Street Course race. Zilisch is no slouch either as one of the biggest rising stars in the world of stock car racing, this year winning his Xfinity debut race at just 18 years old and snagging a class win in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. 

Both were there to coach the F1 pilots as they learned their way around the track. Tsunoda, who is currently competing in his fourth full-time season as an F1 driver, was paired with Zilisch. To the surprise of none, SVG selected his fellow Kiwi (Lawson).

Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Advertisement

With a handy ‘Dirt 101’ whiteboard, the NASCAR stars informed Tsunoda and Lawson of what awaited them in the challenges ahead. They explained the cars and how they operate, but perhaps it would have been simpler to invoke the immortal words of Doc Hudson: “Turn right to go left.”

With help from their NASCAR coaches, the two drivers started their test with ‘finding the line’ — keeping the car within two bollards while ripping around the track. Tsunoda nailed it on his first try, but it didn’t go as smoothly for Lawson. SVG noted he wanted Lawson “up on the fence,” but Lawson perhaps took that too literally, clobbering one of the outer bollards that lined the wall. However, he had a bit of redemption in the ‘cornering speed’ test that followed as Tsunoda lost the tail and spun out. Yes, swear words did come across the radio, but would we have expected anything else? 

Now on equal ground, it’s on to qualifying where Tsunoda re-asserted himself with a lap time a few tenths faster than Lawson. It gave Tsunoda the preferred line for the start with the two NASCAR drivers spotting them from above. Zilisch carefully explained where the acceleration zone was but the fiery Japanese driver wasn’t very interested. “I’m going whenever I want so tell Liam that,” he radioed.

Liam Lawson

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Advertisement

Meanwhile, SVG had some very NASCAR-esque advice for his countryman. “You’re also on the inside for Turn 1 so don’t be afraid to feed him a right rear.” 

Tsunoda took early control but Lawson was fighting hard to stay with him over the course of the five-lap sprint race. He did feed him that right rear about halfway through the race, but Tsunoda seemed unfazed and carried on. In a slide job that would make dirt racing ace (and 2021 NASCAR Cup champion) Kyle Larson proud, Lawson absolutely sent it in on Tsunoda to finally take the lead. Although he completely cleared him, Tsunoda was clever enough to cross back under him and snag the victory.

In fact, Tsunoda’s only hiccup was holding the trophy backwards during the post-race celebrations, but a pressing question remains: When do we get to see them face off against their NASCAR counterparts?

You can watch and enjoy the shenanigans in the Red Bull Motorsports video below.

Factory Ducati MotoGP rider Francesco Bagnaia believes he has done a “better job” than Pramac’s Jorge Martin in terms of pure results this season but would be “happy” if his rival is crowned champion.

Bagnaia is on the verge of losing his riders’ crown to Martin in this weekend’s final showdown at Barcelona, having dropped 24 points behind in the standings.

Although the Italian has shown sensational form on the Ducati this year, winning 10 out of the 19 grands prix held so far, a series of crashes and unforced errors have been his undoing, including an incident during a critical point of the championship in the Malaysian GP sprint race.

But the two-time champion feels his performances have been superior to those of Martin, who has won just three times on Sundays this year, and that a lack of consistency has left him trailing the Pramac rider in the championship.

Asked if Martin is more deserving of the title this year, he said: “I think both of us are deserving the title because [of] what we did.

“Absolutely, in terms of mistakes, I did a lot [of them] and if you want to be a champion you have to be more precise, more consistent and Jorge was more consistent than me.

“In terms of results, it’s clear that we did a better job because I won 10 races on Sundays, six races on Saturdays. So in terms of pure results, we did a very good job.

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing, Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: MotoGP

Advertisement

“But I think both of us are deserving of the title. What I want to say is that it will be strange [to lose the title after winning 10 races].

“But in [any] case, [if] Jorge will win the title, I will be happy for him because we have known each other for a long time and I’m happy that a rider I know very well is deserving of the title.”

Bagnaia and Martin were in opposite positions heading into last year’s season finale at Valencia, with the latter then facing a 21-point deficit to his factory Ducati rival.

It prompted Martin to engage in some mind games over the course of the weekend, including following him on track during certain sessions, but Bagnaia made it clear that he wouldn’t resort to such practices in Barcelona.

“The only thing I will do is if he will start [the race] behind me I will not push,” he said.

“I know perfectly that on my side mind games are not working. So I never wanted to do, I never did and I will continue doing my job because then I think Jorge understood from the experience of last year that he just lost time doing this.

“It’s better to do your job and prepare everything perfectly and then decide it in the race.”

Photos from Barcelona GP – Thursday

Mercedes is set to use the final Formula 1 races of the season to gain further understanding of its weaknesses, having accepted it will finish fourth in the constructors’ standings.

The Silver Arrows displayed a turn in fortunes mid-season and after a winless 2023 picked up three race victories during the summer.

George Russell capitalised on contact between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to win in Austria, before Lewis Hamilton took two race wins in Britain and Belgium, but the team has failed to continue that form into the end of the campaign.

Although Russell initially led early in the wet conditions at Interlagos last time out, he fell to fourth after pitting before the red flag to extend a run of races without a podium dating back to the September’s Azerbaijan GP, when Russell inherited third after Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez‘s late tangle.

With the gap to Red Bull in third now 162 points, and having seen its struggles lie in similar areas since the dawn of the ground-effect era, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin insisted the team would now focus on how to get on top of those issues for 2025 and the final year of the current rule cycle.

“The main thing in terms of learning is that the corners that we are weak in are still the same ones. It is the interconnected, slow corners. That is normally where we trip up,” explained Shovlin.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“Going into the weekend, we certainly had sector two in Brazil, which has a lot of those corners, on our radar as an area that we might struggle.

“The big focus in these remaining races for us is learning what we can. We are in a position in the championship where we cannot challenge in front of us. It is very unlikely we are going to see any challenge from behind.

“Our focus has very much shifted to learning what we need to this year to apply to next year in order to get on top of those issues.”

Despite its struggles in the rain during the Brazilian weekend, Shovlin pointed to the advantages of being able to run the car in the wet as part of its learning process ahead of the new campaign.

“In Brazil, it was useful having that wet running because you want to get a read on the car in the wet,” he added. “There is always a few wet quali and race sessions over the year. It was reassuring to see that the pace in those conditions was decent.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, on the pit wall

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“But we are going to be looking at all the remaining tracks to assess performance and just confirm what we understand about this car and whether the changes we are hoping to make for next year are going to improve those areas.”

On the specific characteristics that can be reviewed, Shovlin said: “Vegas has a lot of straight line and low-speed corners. Qatar is a faster track and then, finishing in Abu Dhabi, which is a mix of everything, it will give us a good read on how we are performing and who is the benchmark.

“Sometimes it is Red Bull, sometimes McLaren, sometimes Ferrari, but it will allow us to establish the gap that we need to close down over those winter months.”

Red Bull was concerned about being portrayed as the “villain” in the new Formula 1 film, co-producer Jerry Bruckheimer has revealed.

The upcoming F1 movie has seen heavy involvement from the real-world paddock, with filming continuing to take place on grand prix weekends, including at the recent Mexico City Grand Prix where star Brad Pitt was pictured waving to fans.

The cars used for the fictional APXGP feature F1 bodywork bolted to F2 machinery, with Mercedes having created the unique vehicles.

Due to this involvement, the black-and-gold cars feature Mercedes and AMG logos, something that led to rival teams, including Red Bull, fearing how they would be portrayed in the production.

In conversation with outgoing Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei at the 2024 Investor Day event in New York, Bruckheimer said: “The interesting part is that, since we teamed up with Mercedes, the other teams said ‘wait a second, this movie is going to be about Mercedes and we’re going to look bad’.

“Red Bull said ‘we’re going to be the villains’. It took us three years to convince them that they weren’t going to be the villains and we finally got to a place where all the teams are really leaning into us to really help us.”

When the title of the film was revealed in July, it was met with a mixed reaction, with it branded as either alienating or a good piece of marketing by our writers.

Brad Pitt

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

Asked why this simplistic titling was important, Bruckheimer said: “Because the greatest racing movies were Le Mans and Grand Prix, and now there’s going to be F1.”

F1 has a release date of 25 June 2025 in the UK but details on where the global premiere will take place remain unconfirmed with Bruckheimer joking, “That’s up for discussion.”

When Maffei said, “I thought we had an idea. I thought I knew, but OK,” Bruckheimer added:

“I think we’re going to show it to the drivers and to the F1 teams in Monaco and then we’ll have premieres in New York, London and a bunch of other cities.

“Brad is really invested in this movie. He doesn’t like to do press but I think we’ll take him on a world tour where he’ll be glad to show his efforts in driving and acting in this movie.”

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

Tony Stewart has spent the past couple of years training himself to drive a car that goes from 0 to 330 mph in a matter of seconds.

He’ll admit that it took him a while for his brain to process information as quickly as required in a dragster. Does that mean he can process everything quickly, now?

He’s not sure. Ask the three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion about processing changing diapers, and he laughs about what his next challenge in the upcoming days.

“I’m trying to find every and any way I can to get out of having to change diapers,” Stewart said in an interview a few weeks ago. “But my wife is a very strong-willed woman, and she has assured me that I am not, under any circumstances, getting out of these responsibilities as a father and a parent.

“And I don’t blame her. It’s part of it.”

Stewart’s wife, Leah, is due in the next couple of weeks and the pending birth is the most exciting thing in the life of the NASCAR Hall of Fame driver. When they decided they wanted to start a family, Leah opted to step out of her top fuel car and Stewart, still a relative newbie in the drag racing world, stepped in.

It hasn’t been easy. Like any competitor, Stewart wants to consistently vie for wins. But he has embraced this new racing life. His NASCAR racing days in the rear-view mirror, Stewart has found joy in the challenge of competing in a totally new discipline where the car goes from 0 to 100 mph in 60 feet on its way to a top speed of 334 mph. 

“The car is going down the race track, and your brain’s behind it going, ‘Wait a minute, what’s going on? And how do I get caught up?’” Stewart said. “But like anything else — if you want to lift weights, you’ve got to work up to it. Your brain has the ability to do exactly the same thing. It is caught up now in the car.

“I know what the car is doing. If it moves, I know where it’s at. I know what to do to respond to it, but it took a while for my brain to get used to processing information as fast as it’s happening in a dragster.”

Heading into this weekend’s National Hot Rod Association season finale at the Pomona (Calif.) Dragstrip, Stewart sits 10th in the standings, having failed to advance out of the first round in 10 of 19 events this year. He has made the finals once, with his best finish a runner-up at Sonoma. He is a candidate for Rookie of the Year, but the season hasn’t gone as well as he wished.

“I’d like to say it’s going great,” Stewart said. “But it’s been a struggle this year. … . It was a big learning curve for me as a driver, for the team and the crew to tune the car to sit there and figure out how to make the car run better and perform the way that they need to perform.”

Stewart spent one year racing a top alcohol dragster and this year moved to the top fuel category. He has three victories in the top alcohol division.

“I thought at the beginning of the season that I, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was going to be the weak link of the team,” Stewart said. “I felt like the team was going to be better suited to win rounds and try to win races than I was going to be capable of at that time.

“Luckily, I’ve got a great wife that’s a great teacher, and I got up to speed fairly quickly on what I need to do as a driver to drive the car. We’ve just struggled.”

For Stewart, it’s the mindset that is the biggest difference between his former racing life and current one. He was used to 3.5-hour races. Now he does races in 3.5 seconds. 

“I’d say on the sprint car and the NASCAR side of things. the driver usually ends up being 70 percent of the equation of the success of it,” Stewart said. “That’s because of what they do with their hands and feet in the car, and where they’re lifting and how they’re driving the race car.

“They can manipulate the race car a little bit to a certain degree and make up for what it’s not doing that they need it to do. The NHRA side is opposite of that. It’s 70 percent of the tuners and 30 percent the drivers, There’s nothing I can do as a driver to make it go faster, but there’s about 20 ways every run that I can screw it up and slow it down or cause something catastrophic with the engine.”

Among the challenges were a change in chassis specs that no one knew how they would impact the performance. And then there was something else.

“Obviously, you know, not having Leah in the car and adding a driver that’s a little heavier in the race car, we knew that would be a factor to some degree, just not sure how big of a factor that was going to be,” Stewart said.

Stewart doesn’t know whether he will run in place of his wife at the start of next season. The NHRA has adopted rules for how points would be allocated if a driver uses a substitute driver for part of a season because of a driver’s pregnancy or fertility treatment. Those rules would allow, in certain situations, for the points earned by the replacement driver to go to the primary driver’s season total.

“Obviously I’m not a woman, and I have no idea what childbirth is like and what it takes to recover from that,” Stewart said. “I’m learning more and reading more about it, and it’s not an easy journey to get back to the forum before you get pregnant.

“We’re still trying to figure that out, but it’s ultimately going to be Leah’s decision. The reason I’m driving the car this year is because I’m just the replacement driver. I’ve told everyone, I’ll drive the car until she’s ready to come back. It is ultimately her race car and her race team, and when she wants to get back in that car, it’s going to be sitting there for her.”

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.

Get more from NASCAR Cup Series Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Tony Stewart

The Monaco Grand Prix’s position on the Formula 1 calendar remains intact, bar a minor date tweak, as a new deal has been signed to run until 2031.

But given the iconic race’s place in F1 has come under question in recent years, is this the right move for the series? Our writers give their input.

There’s enough room in the calendar for one weekend where the thrill isn’t the race – but it has its own charm – Alex Kalinauckas

One of the best things about Formula 1 is that it’s a broad church. The Monaco GP sums this up well.

It’s a track from a bygone era, which deserves considerable recollection and respect. It’s where the excesses of the modern iteration of the championship (such as the huge team motorhomes) must be crammed into a small space. This also applies to car size, with the lengthy modern machines even more of a challenge for the drivers to thread through the principality’s barriers. This is by far the best thing about Monaco.

Yes, it can come at the cost of a processional race in dry conditions, but everything that pre-dates a sunny Sunday on the riviera is still an essential part of excelling in grand prix racing. Qualifying speed is a massive part of the overall test for success for drivers, which in Monaco is hyper-focused by the track’s compact nature.

The thrill of Monaco qualifying is up there with the best that F1 can offer. Around all the heartbreak and eventual joy for home hero Charles Leclerc in this challenge in recent years, the 2023 event stands out most vividly in this regard. Max Verstappen‘s stunning third sector ended up being the only thing standing between a first Aston Martin F1 win ever and a 33rd for Fernando Alonso.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19

Photo by: Erik Junius

It was a lap for the ages – at a time when on other ‘normal’ circuits the opposition couldn’t get close. Monaco’s layout negates any particular power or aerodynamic design efficiency prowess. A year on, Verstappen having to push so hard to compete with the reinvigorated Ferrari and McLaren squads led to him hitting the wall and losing his victory shot.

Monaco is famously a ‘sunny afternoon for shady people’. Yet given the alternative these days would be another identikit street track in a different city or a runoff-heavy Tilkedrome – both things that induce similar angst at the heart of this discussion – that shade is only coming from people who can’t accept that the specifics of Monaco are a price worth paying for one weekend in 24. Plus, if it’s a wet affair, it’s also an instant classic.

And then there’s the list of F1 legends to have won in Monaco. With many more to come, they deserve to be given the opportunity to shine at this intrinsic challenge of grand prix racing and put their names alongside those who previously starred on the streets of Monte Carlo.

Monaco is not what it once was – the jewel in the F1 crown – Mark Mann-Bryans

The challenge of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix is indeed a unique one – but since when should the result of a Formula 1 race be determined over one lap on a Saturday afternoon?

The current cars, for starters, are too big and too wide to promote any tangible sense of a battle for position that is not decided by undercuts or timely safety cars.

Research conducted earlier this year found that, after the first lap, on-track overtakes at Monaco for the past decade totalled 101 – there were 99 at the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix alone.

Is a race or a circuit defined solely by the number of overtaking opportunities? Of course not, but at a time when more fresh eyes are tuning in than ever before, there has to be something more than the annual procession around world-famous casinos.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24, Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Purists love Monaco for the blurry footage of their all-time favourites putting in sublime drives against the odds, at a time when nothing summed up the grit and glamour of F1 dovetailing like a Sunday in Monte Carlo.

Even off-track things have changed. The VIP guestlist for Monaco is now firmly underneath the likes of Miami and Las Vegas on the clipboard. Getting inside the velvet rope is much more important at those American races than in the principality.

Business is still conducted on the yachts moored in the harbour, of course, but that clientele, too, is finding new homes.

Saudi Arabia, Singapore and once again, Miami (there is a reason F1’s owners pick these places…) are where contracts get signed, handshakes are made, and deals are done.

Monaco will forever have its rightful place in F1 lore, but sadly it has now become stale. Ironically, it has been overtaken.

Monaco’s history is intrinsically tied to its grand prix – Stuart Codling

The Monaco Grand Prix epitomises the principality it calls home: tiny but fiercely independent, and as indomitable as the rocks upon which it perches. In the centuries since Francesco Grimaldi sneaked into the castle disguised as a Franciscan monk, then opened the doors to an invasion force led by his cousin (an origin story depicted in the Monegasque coat of arms), foreign powers have squabbled repeatedly over this small but strategically useful spot.

Likewise, the grand prix has weathered assaults on its status.

Juan Manuel Fangio, Alfa Romeo 158, leads Bob Gerard, ERA A

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Monaco’s land border is just 3.7 miles long, although reclamation projects and modern architecture have enabled it to expand outwards into the sea as well as upwards and downwards. The rocks which once sheltered pirates now enclose a bewildering network of subterranean road and rail tunnels.

Against this tapestry of continuous transformation, both geographically and demographically – two-thirds of the population are ‘foreigners’ – the grand prix acts as a fundamental connection between Monaco’s past and present. When the race was first held in 1929, the principality’s chief source of income was casino receipts. While gambling remains an industry and a tourist draw, Monaco’s post-war reputation as a dissolute Nazi hangout required the ruling family to make a course correction in which the grand prix played a central role.

Putting Monaco on the map was the point of hosting a grand prix in the first place. The Automobile Club de Monaco craved recognition from the Association Internationale des Automobile-Clubs Reconnus (the forerunner of the FIA) but this wasn’t forthcoming: the Monte Carlo Rally, which had been held since 1911, stopped short of the border. To be accredited as a national sporting body the ACM would have to stage a race on sovereign territory.

Antony Noghes, son of the ACM’s founder, duly walked the narrow streets until he alighted on a potential route which, by and large, remains the same to this day.

“This skirted the port,” Noghes said later, “passing along the quay and the Boulevard Albert Premier, climbed the hill of Monte Carlo, then passed round the Place du Casino, took the downhill zigzag near Monte Carlo Station to get back approximately to sea level and from there, along the Boulevard Louis II and the Tir aux Pigeons tunnel, the course came back to the port quayside.

“Today the roads comprising this circuit look as though they were made for the purpose.”

Graham Hill, BRM P261

Photo by: Sutton Images

Despite the unpromisingly narrow layout, dirt-surfaced and crisscrossed by tramlines, the first events proved successful because Noghes attracted a high-quality international field. Post-war, though, Monaco was tainted by its association with the Vichy regime and by society scandal: Princess Charlotte, the heir presumptive, had divorced her husband and taken several lovers including her doctor and a notorious jewel thief, Rene Girier. Casino receipts were down 90%.

Upon acceding to the throne in 1949 – the year the Monaco Grand Prix had to be cancelled because the state coffers were running on empty – Charlotte’s son Rainier III set about rebuilding Monaco’s economy and reputation, diversifying into tourism and the attraction of foreign tax exiles. Hosting a prestigious international motor race would make Monaco a destination again.

And, barring a few financial issues in the early 1950s and the small matter of a bug going round in the early 2020s, the Monaco Grand Prix has been central to the principality’s success trajectory ever since.