Lovecars On the Grid. Global Motorsport Podcast

Welcome to the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Happy New Year from Tiff Needell and Paul Woodman, and welcome to Season 2 of our podcast! It's technically episode 42, but with a New Year, we're starting a new Season! Thank you for all of your support on our podcast so far, we really do appreciate it!  

In this week's motorsport roundup, the guys cover the Dakar Rally, Formula 1, BTCC and more!  

It wouldn't be our podcast without kicking off with Formula 1, where we have yet more controversy in the sport! Back at Spa in Belgium in 2021, we had a 3 lap procession, which was then called off, due to the weather. 70,000 fans were left disappointed after waiting in the rain, and unfortunately won't be getting any refund as a result! This is as a result of a decision by Liberty Media, who instead are offering a prize draw to win 1 of 170 seats at next year's Grand Prix. Poor show from Liberty Media!  

The Dakar rally is kicking off in Saudi Arabia, with some action before the race even started, with a service crew car involved in an explosion, with members airlifted to hospital. Officials haven't ruled out criminal activity yet, we wish a speedy recovery to all of those involved. Carlos Sainz is in his electric powered, Audi RSQ E-Tron, the first of it's class in the Dakar Rally with some disagreements between Audi and the race officials over the rules of the rally. Sainz actually got lost looking for a weigh station, and is currently 2 hours behind, in 48th place! He wasn't the only driver to get lost though, as teams aren't allowed to use satellite navigation systems, relying only on maps in their given road book that day.   

If you're a fan of this kind of motorsport, we plan to cover some grass roots motorsport events in our upcoming TV show, so keep your eyes peeled for that! Should we put Tiff into an endurance race? What do you think? Let us know too, if you have access into anything interesting for us! 

  It's an interesting time of the year for Formula 1, as young drivers start signing up for Formula 2 and Formula 3, could these be the future F1 stars? We can of course look at the Autosport Awards for future talent too, with George Russell and Lando Norris winning awards in the past, before they became stars in Formula 1. Names such as Jonny Edgar, Zak O'Sullivan, Louis Foster and Oli Webb are all nominated for the driver of the year awards, so these could be our future stars!  

In Touring Cars, Jake Hill has signed up to West Surrey Racing team, who are powered by ROKiT and partnered with the new NAPA sponsor.

Welcome to Episode 41 of the Lovecars On The Grid podcast! Tiff Needell and Paul Woodman are here with another episode, with a motorsport roundup of events from the past week!  

It's been Christmas week, so very quiet from a motorsport front, but still lots to talk about from the FIA with Formula 1 and other sports, too. The FIA seems to be going through an interesting period, after Frenchman, Jean Todt moved on from being in charge of the FIA for 12 years, bringing in Mohammed Ben Sulayem as the new FIA President. Then of course we had the controversy between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen in the last race of the season at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Furthermore, both Ross Braun and Pat Symonds are leaving Formula 1, who were two figures behind the new, 2022 car. In addition to this, Belgian FIA Rally Director, Yves Matton also quits!  

What also doesn't help, is that a petition has been launched on Twitter to get Michael Masi out of the FIA, following his decisions at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Should he stay? What do you think? To make matters even worse, Nicolas Latifi, who was the driver that crashed, causing the safety car at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, has been receiving death threats for what happened to Lewis Hamilton following the incident! Of course, Latifi didn't intend to crash!  Paul then gives us some stats on Formula 1 for our Christmas Quiz! Comparing Max Verstappen beating Lewis Hamilton to Fernando Alonso beating Michael Schumacher in 2005. Did you also know that Nikita Mazepin received 234 blue flags in the 2021 season!   

World Rally Championship is back on 23rd January, with French Rally driver Sebastian Loeb driving for Ford in the new Puma rally cars. The cars this season will be hybrid for the first time, too, which will make for an interesting season for WRC with 100HP boosts from the hybrid system.   

In the British Touring Cars Championship, NAPA Auto Parts are using BTCC as a launch platform for their business in the UK market, which will give BTCC a real boost, allowing drivers to be paid to be full time BTCC drivers, as opposed to drivers using their own sponsors.   

As January approaches, we of course look forward to the Dakar rally, that starts on 1st January. With nearly 500 different vehicles taking part, from buggies, motorbikes, trucks and cars, with just 1000 people taking part and just 10 British people taking part!   

That's it for our podcasts for this year! Thank you to everyone who has supported us and may we wish you a very Happy New Year!

Welcome to Episode 40 of the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Tiff Needell and Paul Woodman are back to give you another roundup of motorsport updates from the past week!  

This week, the guys discuss more about the Formula 1, we also have the Extreme E and there's testing for next years Formula 1 and F2!  

Kicking off with Formula 1. Mercedes have dropped their appeal following the race in Abu Dhabi and the battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. The question now though, is Lewis Hamilton going to retire from Formula 1 racing? With all the pressure from Max and his team mate George Russell next year, could Hamilton go against his contract for 2022 and leave F1? If he did, who would replace him?  

Hamilton didn't attend the prize giving, which is against FIA rules and he was also knighted this week! But what are rules after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix fiasco? Driver's are fined for breaking rules, but the same doesn't appear to apply to the FIA. There needs to be consistency in the Championship!  

Hamilton did have a Win this weekend though, as his LH44 team won the race in Dorset at the Jurassic Coast in the Extreme E series. Although the Rosberg Racing team won the overall title as the Championship comes to an end. We have some new teams coming to the sport next year, with McLaren also joining the series. Should we try and get Extreme E on our tv show next year?  

Following the end of the F1 season, the majority of drivers were back in Abu Dhabi for 2022 Season testing. Pirelli are bringing an 18 inch tyre to the 2022, so drivers were testing the new tyres as Yas Marina Circuit. Formula 2 were testing at the same time, as they will be getting the same new tyres next year, too.  

Remaining in Sports, we had the Sports Personality of the Year, Emma Raducanu deservedly won the Award, but should we have seen Lewis Hamilton on the shortlist?  

Next week, we of course have Christmas, but we will still be here! If there's anything you want to ask Tiff, please let us know!  

Thank you for all the support from our viewers this year, and may we wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Welcome to episode 39 of the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Paul Woodman and Tiff Needell are here to give you a motorsport roundup from the past week, but of course, top of our agenda is the Formula 1 finale in Abu Dhabi!  

Firstly, a huge congratulations to Max Verstappen! He won more Grand Prix's than Mercedes driver, Lewis Hamilton, a fantastic drive from both drivers. It is undeniable that both Lewis and Max are unbelievable drivers, which gave us a very exciting season, that came to down to not only the last round of the season, but the last lap!  

In qualifying, it looked like the Red Bull F1 car was faster. Max was able to secure pole position, with Hamilton behind and Perez in 3rd place. In the race, Hamilton tried passing Max on the outside, forcing Hamilton off the track, which caused the first controversy of the race, should Hamilton have given the place back?  

Mercedes then gambled on having a quicker car, bringing Hamilton into the pits and covering the pit stop by the Red Bull team on the previous lap. Sergio Perez was able to help Verstappen catch back up though, by holding up Hamilton, reducing the gap between him and Verstappen. Bottas on the other hand didn't appear to be able to support his Mercedes team mate in a similar fashion.   

Until this point, it was looking like this was Hamilton's race, with both Mercedes team boss, Toto Wolff and Red Bull team boss, Christian Horner both making radio messages to race director Michael Masi.   

With just four laps to go, an accident from Nicolas Latifi in his Williams prompted a safety car. We weren't sure if the race was going to restart, and race control announced that lapped cars were not allowed to overtake the safety car, meaning that Verstappen was way behind Hamilton.   

All of a sudden, the rules were changed, allowing all lapped cars to overtake the safety car. This gave Hamilton and Verstappen a one on one race, but with Hamilton on older tyres, there was little he could to do defend from the Dutch driver.   

Carlos Sainz gained the 3rd place trophy in his Ferrari, with Yuki Tsunoda in 4th place in his Alpha Tauri. Valtterri Bottas came down in 6th place. What an end to the season!  

In Formula 2, Oscar Piastri took pole for the main race, and won the Championship in Abu Dhabi. Will we see him in a Formula 2 car?  

Next weekend, the Extreme E is coming to the UK!

Welcome to episode 38 of the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Tiff Needell and Paul Woodman bring us the latest roundup of motorsport events from around the World! In this episode, we look at Formula 2, Aussie Supercars and S5000 Single seaters, but we kick off with the Formula 1 race in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia!  

Potentially the most insane race we've ever seen in Formula 1, would you agree? An incredible drive from both Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes, and Max Verstappen in his Red Bull as the battle continues for the Championship!  

The opening corner at Jeddah caused a few problems, Tiff did call it last week! Verstappen had an amazing qualifying, although only qualified in 3rd place after not completing his lap. In the race, Mick Schumacher crashed in his Haas car, resulting in a red flag for the first time.  

Following the restart, Verstappen gained advantage through overtaking Hamilton and then coming off the track, leaving Hamilton to take avoiding action and allowing Esteban Ocon to move into 2nd place. The stewards intervened at this point,  Red Bull the option to take 3rd place behind Ocon and Hamilton, or face a penalty. Red Bull chose to put Max into 3rd place.  

Then we had a 2nd red flag caused by Nikita Mazepin and Sergio Perez, resulting in both drivers being retired from the race. Verstappen came back to overtake Hamilton and Ocon, resulting in his team asking him to give the place back to Hamilton. This however turned into Hamilton crashing into the back of Verstappen! A crazy turn of events! Thankfully, the front wing of Hamilton's car had minimal damage.  

After further trading positions between Hamilton and Verstappen, Verstappen received a 5 second penalty from the stewards, awarding Hamilton the win. Verstappen took 2nd place, with Bottas just sneaking past Ocon on the final straight to snatch 3rd place. Verstappen then left the podium without celebrating. Onto Abu Dhabi for a very exciting season finale!  

Staying in Saudi Arabia, Formula 2 brought a lot of excitement too! Oscar Piastri edges closer to his championship victory following his fourth win of the season in the second sprint race.   

Following a red flag in F2, Theo Pourchaire's car stalled on the grid, and Enzo Fittipaldi hit the back of his car, resulting in both drivers being taken to hospital. We have since heard that both drivers are ok.   

The feature race was then shortened to 20 minutes, and was cut even shorter when the race was declared over following a second red flag.  

Moving down-under to Australia, where the Aussie Supercars were at Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit , Bathurst, NSW. It was a win for Chaz Mostert, in his Holden Commodore ZB, with Cameron Waters in his Ford Mustang in 2nd.  

Next weekend, we have the Formula 1 final coming in Abu Dhabi and we see the battle for the championship win between Lewis and Max! Who will win?

Welcome to episode 37 of the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Paul Woodman and Tiff Needell once again bring us the latest motorsport updates from around the World!  

This week, we're crowning two FIA World Champions in both World Touring Cars and World Rally Cross. We look at a rally event in the UK, but we start with some sad news. Sir Frank Williams sadly passed away, a real tragedy and our thoughts are with the Williams family. Listen to Tiff's memories of Sir Frank!  

World Touring Cars took place in Russia this weekend, for the Race of Russia at the Sochi Olympic Park. Ex-British Touring Car driver, Rob Huff took the win, becoming the 12th different driver to win in the 16 races in his Cupra, but the Championship win went to Yann Ehrlacher in his Lynk and Co car.   

We also saw World Rally Cross this weekend, with it's season finale taking place at the Nurburgring in Germany. Swedish driver, Johan Kristoffersson took the Championship win, after his rival Timmy Hansen was disqualified from the final.   

This weekend also saw the Roger Albert Clark Rally take place in the UK, with drivers such as Top Gear star, Chris Harris! Snow and bad weather resulted in drivers getting stuck and entire stages being called off. Unfortunately, the weather also brought an early end to the event, too.  

Next weekend, we have the penultimate race in Formula 1 in Saudi Arabia. The Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen battle continues! Formula 2 will follow, with Oscar Piastri expected to take his Championship win, ahead of rival Guanyu Zhou, who already has a seat with Alfa Romeo in Formula 1 next year!  We'll leave you with one question, what's your 1,2,3 prediction for the Formula 1 this weekend?

Welcome to Episode 36 of the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Paul Woodman and Tiff Needell are back with your roundup of motorsport events from last week! We have the Formula 1, World Rally Championship, Rallycross and World Superbikes!  

We kick off with Formula 1, which took place at the Losail Circuit in Qatar at the weekend. The Hamilton vs. Verstappen battle continues! Verstappen received a 5 place grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags in qualifying. It took the FIA 20 hours to make a decision on that! Max managed to get back into second place, behind Hamilton in his Mercedes. Just 8 points separates the two drivers, who will win the Championship? Fernando Alonso managed to snatch a 3rd place for his team Alpine, with Alonso also taking the Driver of the Day vote. Elsewhere in Formula 1, Alfa Romeo have announced that Valterri Bottas' partner in 2022 will be Chinese driver, Guanyu Zhou. The first Chinese F1 driver! We look forward to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in 2 weeks time.  

In World Rally Championship, Elfyn Evans couldn't overtake Toyota teammate Sebastien Ogier, giving Ogier his 8th World title. The WRC finale took place at Monza, with Evans locking up his car under braking, spinning off a hay bale and stalling his car.  British Rally Championship also concluded at the Ulster Rally, with Welshman Matt Edwards stamped his name firmly in the record books after becoming Motorsport UK British Rally Champion for the third time in a row. No driver has ever done that before! Rival Osian Pryce tried to challenge for the win, but unfortunately ended up with his Polo on it's roof!  

Then there was the World Superbikes, taking place in Indonesia at the Pertamina Mandalika International Street Circuit. Turkish rider, Toprak Razgatlıoğlu ended Jonathan Rea's 6 years as Champion on his Yamaha. The first race was cancelled due to the weather, but Jonathan took 2nd place on his Kawasaki and British rider, Scott Reading in 3rd.

Welcome to episode 35 of the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast!  

Paul Woodman is at the airport this week, so slightly quieter than usual, but he's joined by Tiff Needell as always for the weekly motorsport roundup! We've had four major events form this weekend, including the Formula 1 in Brazil, Moto GP in Spain, IMSA in America and the Race of Remembrance in Anglesey, that Paul was a part of.  

Let's kick off with the epic race at Interlagos in Brazil! Another controversy between Red Bull and Mercedes, which started with Max Verstappen inspecting the wing of Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes. The wing was 0.2cm too big, resulting in Hamilton being able to go much faster than Verstappen's Red Bull. This led to not only a penalty for Hamilton, but also a fine for Verstappen for touching his car in the pits! When we got to the race, there was a further controversy, with Verstappen pushing Hamilton wide, resulting in both drivers leaving the track when Hamilton attempted overtaking Verstappen for first place. The stewards declared it a racing incident, but did Verstappen did this on purpose? What do you think? Paul's opinion in it is clear, despite having to be relatively quiet in his airport lounge!  After taking a 25 grid place penalty over the weekend, Hamilton still managed to win the race, with Verstappen behind him, and Bottas in 3rd. Sergio Perez took the fastest lap in his Red Bull car. Onto Qatar for the next race!  

The last round of Moto GP took place in Valencia last weekend, too. With Moto 3 being the most exciting race, with Champion Pedro Costa taking his first pole position of the season, ironically at his home Grand Prix! He unfortunately got taken out of the race, leaving another Spanish rider, Xavier Artigas to win the race. In the main Moto GP race, Francesco Bagnaia took his fourth Win in a row on his Ducati! But of course, there were tears everywhere for the last race for Valentino Rossi, following a spectacular career for the rider.   

In America, the Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta hosted the IMSA at the Petit Le Mans, with a last lap lunge for #55, taking the victory. The Championship Winners however were the #31 Cadillac.   

As previously stated, Paul was racing at Anglesey Circuit in Wales at the weekend, raising money for Mission Motorsport, who assist in rehabilitating those from the armed services by providing opportunities in motorsport and the automotive industry. Paul was racing in a team driving a Caterham 270 race car. The team finished a respectable 4th place, narrowly missing a podium.   

Next weekend, we have the Formula 1 in Qatar to look forward to, who do we predict to win? World Rally Championship goes into it's final round at Monza and the British Rally Championship at Ulster!

Nearly a year into our Global Motorsport Podcast, Paul Woodman and Tiff Needell are back, with episode 34!  

We crowned 3 new champions this weekend, but we kick off with Formula 1 in Mexico. Unfortunately, it was quite an uneventful race, but Max Verstappen drove brilliantly and won the race, with Lewis Hamilton's Championship hopes are sadly dying away! Sergio Perez had the Mexican crowd behind him, finishing 3rd on the podium.  

The first corner seemed to hold the most action, with McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo managing to cause a five car collision and Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff calling for action against the driver. We have Brazil to look forward to at Interlagos, as well as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the finale in Abu Dhabi  

The World Sportscar Championship came to an end this weekend too, with a back-to-back Championship win for Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lope in the #8 Toyota after a 2nd place at Bahrain.   

In NASCAR, it was a win for #5 with Kyle Larson at Phoenix Raceway, holding off the other four contenders in  Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott. Larson's pit crew managed a pit stop in 11.8 seconds, which isn't great by Formula 1 standards, but very quick for NASCAR!  

Moto GP was at Portimao in Portugal. A win for Francesco Bagnaia on his Ducati, and it looks like Remi Gardner will take the championship in Moto 2, with a win on his Red Bul KTM Ajo. Moto 3 was won by Pedro Acosta on his KTM.  

Next week, we have one more title to be taken, with Moto GP at Valencia. We have the Brazilian Grand Prix, with Red Bull hot favourites with Max Verstappen! Who will win? Paul is also at the Race of Remembrance with Team Paddlup in a Caterham 270 race car! Fingers crossed for dry weather Paul!

Welcome to episode 33 of the Lovecars On The Grid Podcast! Tiff Needell and Paul Woodman are back for another week of roundups with the latest motorsport updates!  

We've been encouraging you all to watch NASCAR for weeks, but after an initially dull and boring race, the last round before the Grand Finale went right down the wire in the last 50 laps! Kyle Larson was caught speeding twice, but Alex Bowman took the win with a controversial clash with Denny Hamlin after the race! Hamlin managed to lock up all four wheels and ended up in front of Bowman! Hamlin still managed to get through to the final 4.  

Over in Bahrain we had the WEC. Jose Maria Lopez, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi took a 50 second lead in the #7 Toyota for their 3rd consecutive win, giving the trio a 15 point lead ahead of the championship final coming up this weekend. In the GTE class,  there was controversy as Ferrari were deducted 25HP by the FIA, giving the race to the Porsche's in the same race.  

Paul is taking part in his own endurance race, in the Race Of Remembrance at Anglesey Circuit in his Caterham Academy car on 13-14th November!  

This weekend was also the Formula Ford 50th Festival at Brands Hatch, with a win for B-M Racing's Jamie Sharp, and previous winners such as Jan Magnussen and Dennis Lind also driving. Tiff was actually at the first Festival all those years ago, and finished 7th!  

There was also the Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally,  with the British Rally Championship, with a win for Osian Pryce in the VW Polo. He now leads the Championship as they go into their final round at the Modern Tyres Ulster Rally next weekend.  

We also have the Mexican Grand Prix coming up! The Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton battle continues with the S bends and track limits at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Will the Mexican crowd get behind Sergio Perez? WEC will be back in Bahrain, whilst the NASCAR finale is taking place in Phoenix. Moto GP is the Algarve Grand Prix, taking place in Portimao.