We have made it to spring and pretty much every series is in action. Formula One had a back-to-back to open its season. NASCAR is in full momentum. IndyCar has already completed an oval race. There has been plenty of sports car racing. March is proving to be the launchpad for the 2022 season, as we have seen for pretty much every season before.
There is a lot to celebrate from the past month and it gives us a lot to look forward to for the remainder of the year.
"Mini Memorial Day Weekend"
During the March 20 podcast episode of The Teardown from The Athletic, Jeff Gluck mentioned that weekend was a "mini Memorial Day weekend" of sorts as Formula One, IndyCar and NASCAR all competed on the same day and virtually avoided overlapping. The Bahrain Grand Prix and Texas IndyCar race might have overlapped a tad, but the IndyCar race was over before NASCAR got started in Atlanta and went four hours around the reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway.
While it was the opening weekend for the Formula One season and only the second round for IndyCar, this happens more often than we likely realize. Memorial Day weekend isn't the only time all three series compete on the same day. It is the most notable day because for each series one of their biggest races takes place, usually Monaco for Formula One with the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600. But it happens a more often only with less sexy races.
For starters, let's go back to 2008. The first season of IndyCar reunification, Lewis Hamilton's first world championship season and the first full season of the Car of Tomorrow for the NASCAR Cup Series. On four occasions there were "mini Memorial Day weekends" including Memorial Day weekend.
April 6: Bahrain/St. Petersburg/Texas
April 27: Spain/Kansas/Talladega
May 25: Monaco/Indianapolis/Charlotte
June 22: France/Iowa/Sonoma
This is not including the weekend when IndyCar race on Saturday while Formula One and NASCAR were on Sunday or NASCAR was on Saturday and Formula and IndyCar were on Sunday.
How does that compare to 2022?
We already had one "mini Memorial day weekend" in March. How many more are there?
Six!
May 29: Monaco/Indianapolis/Charlotte
June 12: Azerbaijan/Road America/Sonoma
July 3: Silverstone/Mid-Ohio/Road America
July 24: France/Iowa/Pocono
September 4: Zandvoort/Portland/Darlington
September 11: Monza/Laguna Seca/Kansas
Make sure to rotate your couch cushions accordingly.
Super Sebring
It took three years, but the second edition of Super Sebring finally took place with the FIA World Endurance Championship returning to central Florida for its 1000-mile (or eight-hour) season opener the day before the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Everyone is still learning to live with one another, but it is working out. Sebring reported an attendance increase from 2019. They have figured out to spread out the races with Michelin Pilot Challenge on Thursday, WEC on Friday and IMSA on Saturday. They moved the WEC race up in the day to a noon start time. We still didn't come close to the 1000-mile mark due to multiple red flags for accidents and weather.
I still don't think the WEC Sebring race has to be special and be 1000 miles or eight hours. I think a six-hour race would be perfectly fine and I think it works better. The race could start a little later. It could be a 3:00 p.m. Sebring start and be half a day race and half a night race. But this is working.
We had Alpine win the WEC race overall with a grandfathered LMP1 car. I thought SportsCar365's John Dagy said it best that it was fitting an LMP1 car won on its final visit to Sebring considering how synonymous the track and class were for nearly 20 years. I was happy that Nicolas Lapierre won considering his LMP1 pedigree and his unceremonious exit from the Toyota program not so long ago. Kudos to André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxivière for also being in the Alpine.
We had some cross-pollination between the 1000 miles and the 12 hours. Some drivers couldn't do both. Sébastien Bourdais was told no. Ricky Taylor didn't, but his co-drivers Filipe Albuquerque and Will Stevens did. Ben Keating did both. Loïc Duval only did the 12 hours. Nicolas Lapierre only ran the 1000 miles. Twenty-one drivers did both events.
Since the convergence regulations were announced I have wondered what this weekend will look like moving forward. The Hypercars and LMDh cars can run against each other. The LMP2 classes are identical. No one would dare run both races with the same car, but I am interested in seeing what teams choose to do which race. We cannot have one race with all IMSA and WEC competitors participating. There were 36 cars in the 1000 miles. There were 53 cars in the 12 hours. We cannot have one race with 89 cars on track. Even if we took the LMP3 cars off track there would still be 79 cars out there.
Ultimately, world championship teams will run the 1000 miles. We will see fewer IMSA/American-based teams attempt the WEC race, which is a little sad, but it is the best of both worlds coming together. Some drivers will double-dip. Of course, with both races we will not see every driver in each. I guess the one small hope is a manufacture like Toyota would run its full WEC program but then have a spare car for the 12 hours, and Peugeot and Ferrari could theoretically do the same. Each team could put together a mix of three drivers. It would be similar to what Corvette did during the Lone Star Le Mans weekends at Austin. It is unlikely, but there is nothing wrong with wishing for it.
April Preview
In North America, Japan's Super GT series does not get much coverage, but it is a highly competitive series and high-class drivers have populated the grid through the years. This year's season begins in the middle of the month and there have been some changes ahead of the 2022 season.
Schedule
Eight races, but the race distances will either be 300km or 450km, with no longer endurance races.
Okayama opens the season on April 17 before the first of three 450-kilometer events at Fuji on May 4. Suzuka closes the month with a round on May 29. After two months off, Super GT returns with a pair of 450km races. First at Fuji on August 7 and then at Suzuka on August 28.
Sportsland SUGO will be on September 18, as the season closes with three rounds over three months. Autopolis hosts the penultimate round on October 2 before Motegi hosts the finale on November 6.
Grid Changes
The GT500 champions have split. Sho Tsuboi will remain in the #36 Team au TOM's Toyota but Giuliano Alesi will join him while Yuhi Sekiguchi moves to the #39 Team SARD Toyota replacing Heikki Kovalainen alongside Yuichi Nakayama. Sacha Fenestraz and Ritomo Miyata will share the #37 Team KeePer TOM's Toyota. Sena Sakaguchi continues the game of Toyota musical chairs, moving to the #19 Team WedSport Bandoh with Yuji Kunimoto.
Bertrand Baguette has left Honda to drive the #12 Team Impul Nissan alongside Kazuki Hiramine. Baguette replaces Nobuharu Matsushita, and Matsushita moves to the #17 Real Racing Honda, the entry Baguette occupied in 2021. Koudai Tsukakoshi remains in the #17 Honda.
Nissan is also making a change in the car. The Nissan Fairlady Z GT500 replaces the Nissan GT-R GT500, which had been Nissan's model of choice since 2008. Nissan has also flipped Mitsunori Takaboshi and Kohei Hirate, with Takaboshi moving to the #3 NDDP Racing entry joining Katsumasa Chiyo and Hirate in the #24 Kondo Racing entry with Daiki Sasaki. Nissan has not won the GT500 title since 2015 when the #23 NISMO entry of Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli took the title. Matsuda and Quintarelli are back in the #23 Nissan.
In GT300, Autobacs Racing Team Aguri will have Hideki Mutoh and Iori Kimura in the #55 Honda NSX GT3. Shinchi Takagi moves from ARTA to the #96 K-Tunes Racing Lexus joining Morio Nitta, reuniting the two drivers, who were co-drivers from the middle of the 2000 season through 2010. Takagi and Nitta won the 2002 GT300 championship. Augusto Farfus will run the #7 BMW Team Studie x CSL BMW M4 GT3 with past Le Mans winner Seiji Ara, and Tsubasa Kondo.
Other events in April:
IndyCar has one race: Long Beach.
Formula One has two races: Australia and Imola.
MotoGP visits the Americas before starting its European season.
NASCAR is short track heavy: Richmond, Martinsville and the Bristol dirt race, before Talladega closes the month.
World Superbike and the European Le Mans Series each begin their seasons.
