Sebastian Vettel admits that not speaking out on social, equality and climate issues earlier in his racing career is his “only regret” from his time in Formula One. The German driver, who raced for Red Bull, Ferrari and Aston Martin, won four F1 world championships from 2010-2013 and won 53 races in total. Vettel, who […]
Sebastian Vettel admits that not speaking out on social, equality and climate issues earlier in his racing career is his “only regret” from his time in Formula One.
The German driver, who raced for Red Bull, Ferrari and Aston Martin, won four F1 world championships from 2010-2013 and won 53 races in total.
Vettel, who retired in 2022 after 300 grand prix entries, spent the latter years of his career advocating on a range of topics close to his heart, from climate change, LGBT rights, women in motorsport and more.
“When I started as a rookie, I was solely focused on racing and it was the only thing that was occupying my day,” Vettel told the BBC last month.
“But towards the last couple of years, I think it’s probably one of the things, maybe the only thing that I would say I regret, is not to speak out earlier in my career and seeing the potential power in terms of reach and audience that you might have as a professional athlete to inspire people.
“Since then [I’ve been] trying to spread messages that are important to me.”
Vettel, now 37, also launched a “Race for Women” event in Saudi Arabia when F1 first raced in the Gulf country in 2021.
“It was mostly about taking young girls and women to the track and giving them a glimpse of racing in go-karts and we had a fun day and that’s the story we’re trying to continue to tell,” he explained.
“It’s always difficult with these things how much impact you might have. Certainly, we had a lot of impact on all these girls and gave them a lot of courage for the future to speak out in a country that is changing and evolving and things are improving.
Sebastian Vettel won four F1 world championships from 2010-2013 (Getty Images)
“So the intention really is to go back and continue once we’ve sort of planted the seeds and give those girls and women a little bit of a voice.
“When I did go-karts in Europe I raced girls but it was very rare. The more girls we have participating and less of these stereotypes that girls can’t race, I think it’s positive, it’s good evolution.
“It is important in Europe but it’s even more important I think in a place like Saudi where you can feel things are opening up, maybe not with the speed we all wish or some people expect but there are steps. It’s great to see these girls get a chance to get behind the wheel.”
Vettel raced in the 2025 Race of Champions in Sydney, alongside compatriot Mick Schumacher, but has on the whole maintained his distance from competitive racing since his retirement more than two years ago.
Joey Logano earns first NASCAR win of 2025 at Texas
FORT WORTH — In the end, it was Joey Logano who avoided crashes and survived NASCAR Overtime at Texas Motor Speedway to score his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of 2025. Photo: Aragon/The Racing Experts Logano outdueled his Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney to earn the win Sunday in the Würth 400, extending his mark […]
FORT WORTH — In the end, it was Joey Logano who avoided crashes and survived NASCAR Overtime at Texas Motor Speedway to score his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of 2025.
Photo: Aragon/The Racing Experts
Logano outdueled his Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney to earn the win Sunday in the Würth 400, extending his mark of winning in consecutive seasons to 14.
“The sport changes so quickly,” said Logano, whose highest finish prior to the win was eighth at Martinsville. ” It’s crazy how you can just ride these roller coasters and just proud of the team.
“Finally get AAA Insurance into victory lane. They’ve been a partner of mine since I’ve been to Penske, so 13, 14 years. I’ve yet to win with them. It was awesome to get that done here.”
In total, Logano led seven laps en route to the 37th win of his career, tying him with 1970 series champion Bobby Isaac for 23rd all-time on the series’ wins list.
Ross Chastain also picked up his highest finish of the year, scoring the runner-up finish and second Top-5 effort of the year.
“Starting 31st, we wanted to go plus 30 positions today,” Chastain said. “It’s all on this crew – the engineering group at Trackhouse Racing and the group at Chevrolet.”
Blaney finished third, with Kyle Larson — who led a race high 90 laps — and Erik Jones rounding out the Top-5 finishers.
Photo: Aragon/The Racing Experts
“If I could have kept the lead, we would have been hard to beat in clean air like that. Just a little frustrated with myself, but all-in-all, it was a good points day for us today,” Larson said.
The race featured 12 cautions for 73 laps, with 13 drivers failing to finish.
The next race for the NASCAR Cup Series is scheduled for Sunday, May 11, at Kansas Speedway.
Würth 400 Results
1. Joey Logano 2. Ross Chastain 3. Ryan Blaney 4. Kyle Larson 5. Erik Jones 6. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 7. Austin Dillon 8. John Hunter Nemechek 9. Christopher Bell 10. Daniel Suarez 11. Todd Gilliland 12. Ty Dillon 13. William Byron 14. Riley Herbst 15. Justin Haley 16. Chase Elliott 17. Zane Smith 18. Chris Buescher 19. Cole Custer 20. Kyle Busch 21. Tyler Reddick 22. Shane Van Gisbergen 23. Ty Gibbs 24. Carson Hocevar 25. Austin Cindric 26. Michael McDowell 27. Chase Briscoe 28. Brad Keselowski 29. Ryan Preece 30. Cody Ware 31. Jesse Love 32. Josh Berry 33. Bubba Wallace 34. Noah Gragson 35. Alex Bowman 36. A.J. Allmendinger 37. Chad Finchum 38. Denny Hamlin
‘Lonely’ Palou cruises to win at IndyCar Alabama Grand Prix | National News
Spanish pole-sitter Alex Palou dominated from start to finish to win Sunday’s Alabama Indy Grand Prix and stretch his IndyCar points lead in quest of a third consecutive season title. Palou won for the third time in four races this season with Denmark’s Christian Lundgaard second and New Zealand’s Scott McLaughlin third. It was the […]
Spanish pole-sitter Alex Palou dominated from start to finish to win Sunday’s Alabama Indy Grand Prix and stretch his IndyCar points lead in quest of a third consecutive season title.
Palou won for the third time in four races this season with Denmark’s Christian Lundgaard second and New Zealand’s Scott McLaughlin third.
It was the 14th IndyCar career victory for Palou after 90 laps over the 2.3-mile, 17-turn road course at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.
Not since New Zealand’s Scott Dixon had a driver won three of the first four races in an IndyCar campaign.
Palou cruised to victory in 16.26 seconds.
“It was a perfect day, I would say a perfect weekend,” Palou said. “The car was amazing, super fast, and I just had a ton of fun. I was a bit lonely there but I loved it. It was an amazing day.”
Dutchman Rinus Veekay was fourth with Australia’s Will Power fifth.
Palou, chasing a fourth series crown in five campaigns, won this year’s first two races at St. Petersburg and Thermal and captured his latest on the same Alabama track where he took his first IndyCar triumph in 2021.
“We’ve always been really good here. I love this place,” Palou said. “Every lap here feels good. It’s going to be special from now on.”
Palou surged ahead at the start and cycled back to the front quickly after the first two sets of pit stops. He refueled for the last time on lap 65 and three laps later was back in front to the finish.
Palou, 28, advanced his points edge with Lundgaard moving past Long Beach winner Kyle Kirkwood of the United States into second.
“It’s awesome. Everything we could have hoped for and much better,” Lundgaard said.
The fifth race of the season will be contested Saturday on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as teams prepare for the series’ signature event, the Indianapolis 500 oval classic on May 25.
NASCAR Cup Series results from Texas: Kyle Larson wins stage, finishes fourth
FORT WORTH, Texas – With 12 cautions including seven in the final stage, Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway quickly became a battle for survival. And while ultimately, it wasn’t quite the win it often looked like it would be for Kyle Larson, his No. 5 Valvoline Chevrolet was still intact and rolling when […]
FORT WORTH, Texas – With 12 cautions including seven in the final stage, Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway quickly became a battle for survival.
And while ultimately, it wasn’t quite the win it often looked like it would be for Kyle Larson, his No. 5 Valvoline Chevrolet was still intact and rolling when the checkered flag fell.
Larson won the second stage – his fifth straight race at Texas with a stage victory – and turned in a solid fourth-place finish, scoring 50 points along the way. It was the second straight race in which the 32-year-old scored the most points.
He also led the most laps and was in control of the race through much of stage three. But on lap 244, Michael McDowell got a good jump on a restart and had help from behind, shuffling Larson back to fourth. With three more cautions and restarts, and with track position at a premium all day, Larson wasn’t able to quite make it back to the point.
“You don’t want to give up the lead at a mile-and-a-half (track), it’s hard to get it back,” Larson said. “Michael just did a good job timing it. I left early the restart before and was going to leave early again then and he just anticipated and left probably right with me or barely before and he had (Tyler) Reddick pushing behind him. Wish I could go back and do that all over again. Just try to learn from it.”
William Byron, the Cup Series points leader, was solid in each of the first two stages, finishing seventh in both and scoring eight points. During the stage two caution break, crew chief Rudy Fugle made a two-tire call but Byron made contact with Cole Custer upon leaving his stall. Still, Byron took over the lead and was able to hold on for a while, eventually succumbing to Larson.
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After trying to short pit, Byron was trapped a lap down when Jesse Love crashed with 49 laps to go, bringing out a caution. However, he quickly got it back when Kyle Busch spun a handful of laps later and the No. 24 team went to work. More cautions and trips down pit road gave the team more time to repair the nose and by the end, Byron had rallied all the way back to a 13th-place finish.
Chase Elliott was also trapped a lap down along with Byron and like the 24 team, the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts squad used the Busch caution to rejoin the lead lap. From there, the 9 followed the 24 back through the field, avoiding damage from cautions and eventually coming home with a 19th-place showing.
Alex Bowman was also fast throughout most of the early going, especially in stage two as he rocketed through the field all the way to third, scoring eight points. But the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet was collected in a crash at the beginning of stage three, not of Bowman’s doing, and the damage was too severe to repair. He finished 35th.
“I just saw guys wrecking in front of me. I tried to get high. The No. 16 (AJ Allmendinger) came back across the track, and we all piled in there,” Bowman said. “I hate that for this team. We had a really fast No. 48 Ally Chevrolet. I think we passed more cars than anyone’s ever passed at Texas.”
The NASCAR Cup Series will return next week with a race at Kansas Motor Speedway. Next Sunday’s race is set for a 3 p.m. green flag and will air on FS1.
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How Michael McDowell’s underdog run for the win ended in the wall
Spire Motorsports has one NASCAR Cup Series victory as an organization, but that was almost six years ago. On Sunday at Texas, they started from pole position with Carson Hocevar, but it was veteran Michael McDowell who nearly brought home the hardware for the team in a stunning upset. Instead, his race ended on the […]
Spire Motorsports has one NASCAR Cup Series victory as an organization, but that was almost six years ago. On Sunday at Texas, they started from pole position with Carson Hocevar, but it was veteran Michael McDowell who nearly brought home the hardware for the team in a stunning upset. Instead, his race ended on the back of a tow truck.
“I just really hate it for everyone on this No. 71 Chevrolet,” said McDowell. “We were giving it everything we had there to try to keep track position. Joey [Logano] got a run there, and I tried to block it. I went as far as I think you could probably go. When [Ryan] Blaney slid up in front of me, it just took the air off of it and I just lost the back of it. I still had the fight in me, but I probably should have conceded at that point.
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“Just proud of everyone at Spire Motorsports. I know that’s not the day that we wanted, but we had the opportunity to win the race. I’m really proud of everyone at the Hendrick Motorsports engine shop – you guys saw those restarts, the motors were ripping. Just hate that we didn’t get it done, but we knew we had to go for it. We went for it and it didn’t work out.”
McDowell, who has over 500 starts as a Cup Series and shocked the world when he won the 2021 Daytona 500 with Front Row Motorsports. Since then, he collected another victory at the Indianapolis Road Course in 2023, but that was the last time he visited Victory Lane. In the off-season, he joined Spire to help the three-car organization improve its on-track efforts. Well, when crew chief Travis Peterson made the call to take two tires in favor of track position, McDowell almost secured a lot more than a decent finish.
He snatched the lead away from Kyle Larson, fending off all challengers on every restart. He was helped by the fact that the closing laps of the race featured very short runs due to the constant carnage throughout the pack. But when defending series champion Joey Logano finally caught him with four laps to go, McDowell had no intentions of surrounding.
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He ran Logano all the way to the apron in a desperate attempt to block, but it wasn’t enough. He fell back to third as Logano’s teammate Ryan Blaney also passed him, but he kept pushing.
That’s when he lost control in the dirty air from Blaney’s car, slamming the outside wall and ending his day. His crew chief put his head in his hands in disbelief as McDowell’s race came to screeching halt. Despite his valiant effort, McDowell leaves Texas with a 26th-place finish.
Photos from Texas – Race
Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford
Joey Logano, Team Penske FordSean Gardner / Getty Images
Sean Gardner / Getty Images
NASCAR President Steve Phelps
NASCAR President Steve PhelpsJames Gilbert / Getty Images
James Gilbert / Getty Images
Ryan Blaney, Team Penske Ford
Ryan Blaney, Team Penske FordJames Gilbert / Getty Images
James Gilbert / Getty Images
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports ChevroletChris Graythen – Getty Images
Chris Graythen – Getty Images
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing ChevroletChris Graythen – Getty Images
Chris Graythen – Getty Images
Noah Gragson, Front Row Motorsports Ford
Noah Gragson, Front Row Motorsports FordChris Graythen – Getty Images
Chris Graythen – Getty Images
Austin Cindric, Team Penske Ford
Austin Cindric, Team Penske FordChris Graythen – Getty Images
Dramatic fire ends Denny Hamlin’s Texas NASCAR Cup race
Denny Hamlin became the first driver to fall out of the race Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway with his day ending in a dramatic oil fire. Hamlin was attempting to make up ground after some early miscommunication with the team. When Noah Gragson spun, forcing the first yellow flag of the race, the entire field […]
Denny Hamlin became the first driver to fall out of the race Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway with his day ending in a dramatic oil fire.
Hamlin was attempting to make up ground after some early miscommunication with the team. When Noah Gragson spun, forcing the first yellow flag of the race, the entire field dove to the pits … except Hamlin. In some confusion over code words, he stayed out when he was meant to pit. He came to pit road alone, falling to the very rear of the field.
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A frustrated Hamlin began his march forward, but it was slow going as passing is extremely difficult at the modern version of Texas. However, the No. 11 Toyota Camry began to slow abruptly with just a few laps to go in the stage. Off the pace, the car spun out in Turn 1, as flames erupted from under the car in what appeared to be an oil fire.
This will mark Hamlin’s first DNF of the 2025 season, finishing 38th (last). He completed just 75 of 267 laps before the mechanical failure. It also ended an impressive streak of 21 consecutive lead lap finishes for Hamlin. The first stage ended under caution with Austin Cindric collecting taking the ‘win’ and collecting ten valuable bonus points.
“It was blowing up for about a lap or so before it really detonated,” said Hamlin. “I tried to keep it off to keep it from full detonating, that was they can diagnose exactly what happened to it. It’s tough to say exactly what it is, but they’ll go back and look at it and we’ll find out in a few weeks.”
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Speaking more on the rash of mechanical gremlins plaguing the Toyota camp, Hamlin said, “I’m not really sure. I’ve had blown engines in two or three season in-a-row now where we didn’t have any issues several years prior to that. Just trying to develop I’m guessing and trying to get more. Certainly, we feel like we need to get a bit more power but this was unexpected for us.”
Photos from Texas – Race
Joey Logano, Team Penske Ford
Joey Logano, Team Penske FordSean Gardner / Getty Images
Sean Gardner / Getty Images
NASCAR President Steve Phelps
NASCAR President Steve PhelpsJames Gilbert / Getty Images
James Gilbert / Getty Images
Ryan Blaney, Team Penske Ford
Ryan Blaney, Team Penske FordJames Gilbert / Getty Images
James Gilbert / Getty Images
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports ChevroletChris Graythen – Getty Images
Chris Graythen – Getty Images
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing ChevroletChris Graythen – Getty Images
Chris Graythen – Getty Images
Noah Gragson, Front Row Motorsports Ford
Noah Gragson, Front Row Motorsports FordChris Graythen – Getty Images
Chris Graythen – Getty Images
Austin Cindric, Team Penske Ford
Austin Cindric, Team Penske FordChris Graythen – Getty Images
Laurens County First Steps joins NASCAR Day Giveathon to expand early literacy program | News
Laurens County First Steps (LCFS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting early childhood education and family development in Laurens County, recently announced its participation in the NASCAR Day Giveathon 2025. LCFS is one of only ten South Carolina organizations selected to benefit from this 27-hour online fundraising event. The NASCAR Day Giveathon will kick off […]
Laurens County First Steps (LCFS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting early childhood education and family development in Laurens County, recently announced its participation in the NASCAR Day Giveathon 2025.
LCFS is one of only ten South Carolina organizations selected to benefit from this 27-hour online fundraising event.
The NASCAR Day Giveathon will kick off at 3:00 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, and continue through 6:00 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 14, 2025.
All funds raised during this event will directly support the integration of the Laurens School District 55 Dolly Parton Imagination Library affiliate program with the Laurens County First Steps program. This unification will ensure that all children across Laurens County can participate in a single, streamlined program.
The annual cost to maintain this expanded initiative is estimated at $46,204. With the community’s help, LCFS can provide a free book every month to 1,426 children from birth to age five — at a cost of just $2.70 per child.
To make a donation during the Giveathon, please visit https://laurensfirststeps.org/ starting at 3:00 PM EDT on May 13. Click on the event link to be directed to the NASCAR Day Giveathon donation page. Every gift, regardless of size, will directly impact young lives by supporting early literacy and school readiness.
For further information, please contact Laurens County First Steps at toniable@laurenscfirststeps.org or 864-984-8130.
