Bryn Lucas hosts Ben Hunt and Kevin Turner on the Autosport YouTube Channel in a new weekly fan Q+A edition of the show.

There’s a discussion on the breaking news story of the day with Sauber announcing Formula 2 Championship Leader Gabriel Bortoleto will be joining the team, with both current drivers Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu leaving at season’s end.

There are also more of your questions in the aftermath of the Brazilian Grand Prix, such as whether Lando Norris is World Champion material, how Lewis Hamilton will fare at Ferrari given his recent struggles on track, and whether Franco Colapinto will be picked up by RB for 2025.

#f1 #bortoleto #verstappen

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Nico Hulkenberg has revealed how the marshals at Turn 1 for the Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix were “partying” after illegally helping the Haas driver rejoin the race after an off.

The German spun out in difficult conditions at Interlagos and although he failed to reach the barriers at the first corner, he became beached on a crest in the run-off area, with his rear wheels in the air.

This led to the use of the virtual safety car – one which brought race-defining pit stops – but instead of Hulkenberg retiring, he was pushed off the ledge and continued.

But the use of outside assistance contravened F1 regulations and saw Hulkenberg disqualified – the first driver shown the black flag since the Canadian Grand Prix in 2007.

Recapping his race, Hulkenberg said: “I think it was going OK on the inters actually; I was in a train with Pierre [Gasly] and Fernando [Alonso] for a long time, before we pitted. So I think we were going OK – it wasn’t dreadful, but it wasn’t amazing either.

“Just after the pit stop, our race somehow… obviously it finished pretty quickly and it all went south from there.”

Nico Hulkenberg, Haas VF-24

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

On the incident that ultimately saw him disqualified, Hulkenberg explained: “They [the marshals] came out, they pushed me off and they were really happy with themselves.

“They were partying and pushing me on and saying, ‘come on, go, let’s go, this race isn’t finished’. In that moment, you don’t really think, you don’t care to be honest as well.

“You just continue and you deal with the consequences later.”

The race would further hinge on a red flag just laps after Hulkenberg had triggered the virtual safety car as a deluge of rain and Franco Colapinto’s crash under safety car conditions left race control with no alternative.

Having made it to the pits under the red flags before being told of his disqualification, Hulkenberg dealt with the worst of the weather and insisted: “Definitely amongst the toughest conditions that I’ve raced in.

“Incredibly low grip, a very, very narrow window, very hard to make no mistakes. It was very tough.”

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

After Ryan Blaney won the NASCAR Cup Series title last year, his father had the idea to build a trophy case as a gift to his son.

His dad, a well-accomplished racer in his own right, still has the trophy so he can build the case, but …

“He hasn’t even started,” Blaney said. “And his excuse is, ‘I need to know if I build one or two?’

“Well, that’s a pretty good excuse.”

Dave Blaney might as well wait a few more days before getting started.

Ryan Blaney will try to become the first Cup driver to win back-to-back titles in the elimination playoff era (which started in 2014) as he battles Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano and William Byron for the 2024 Cup championship Sunday at Phoenix Raceway. The driver among those four who finishes the best in the 40-car field will end up as the champion.

“It’s something really hard to do any sport, to go back to back,” Blaney said.

“You have to perform two years in a row — you and your team have to do it and have perfect ends of the year. It’s really tough. We have a pretty unique opportunity to try to change that [stat], and hopefully we bring our best stuff and have a shot at it.”

The Team Penske driver believes he has had a better season than last year, but this year he has had seven races where he has failed to finish so his stats don’t show just how much speed his cars have had throughout the year.

“We’ve had an overall way better year than what we did last year, and maybe it hasn’t shown because I’ve gotten in a ton of wrecks this year,” Blaney said. “It’s no one’s doing. I feel like us as a group, we’re way stronger than where we were in 2023. … I look at last year, we kind of caught fire at a good time, right before the playoffs.

“This year, I feel like we’ve been fantastic all year and have still gotten better through the year.”

In that championship run a year ago, Blaney won at Martinsville, a week prior to Phoenix, giving him a boost of momentum into the championship race, where he placed second overall and first among the four finalists.

Blaney, who had never advanced to the Champ 4 until last year, once again goes into Phoenix having won at Martinsville — in even a little more dramatic fashion as this time he had to win to Martinsville for any chance to advance.

So just getting to the Champ 4 in back-to-back years is an accomplishment (only Blaney and Byron made the Champ 4 last year among the 2024 finalists).

Kevin Harvick pitches a NEW playoff format the NASCAR Cup Series

Now that he’s there, Blaney should feel as if he has a good shot. He has finished In the top 5 in six consecutive Phoenix races — and in the last eight Phoenix races, he has an average running position of 5.6.

“To do it back-to-back, to pretty much have the same group of guys that I had last year on the car — it just shows the strength of everybody working together and being a family together,” Blaney said about potentially accomplishing a feat that hasn’t been done since Jimmie Johnson won five consecutive titles from 2006-2010.

“This is such a strong group. We’ve done this two years in a row. It’s a huge feat, so it would definitely be a little bit more special.”

Logano, a teammate to Blaney at Team Penske, won titles in 2018 and 2022 and didn’t even make it to the Champ 4 round the following year. He knows just how difficult it is to repeat.

“The competitors are closer than ever,” Logano said. “There’s no clear advantage in the race teams anymore like there used to be, or not as much — when you think of the old car, you’d have maybe 12 cars that can win every weekend.

“Now you have 25 cars that can win any weekend. Maybe more. So that just puts more cars within the range of being able to win, making it harder to win. You don’t have the guys that are winning eight, nine, 10 races in a year anymore.”

Blaney has won three races this year. He probably feels it should have been at least four if not more as he lost some close finishes and then couldn’t hold off a hard-charging Reddick in the top lane at Homestead the week prior to Martinsville.

Having a championship already helped Blaney handle the disappointment of Homestead as far as having the confidence to bounce back and perform at a top level in a must-win situation.

“I had no one to be disappointed in other than myself,” Blaney said. “That was purely, 100 percent on me that I lost Miami making the wrong decision on the last lap of the race.”

Blaney hopes he has the wrong decisions out of his system and that he can make all the right ones Sunday.

If so, his dad will know that he can start building a bigger trophy case. Unless he feels should wait another year.

“That’d be over the line,” Blaney said with a laugh when asked about the trophy case. “Get the two done right now [if we win] and worry about the other one.”

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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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.

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.