Welcome to the daily motorsport briefing for Tuesday, 22 September 2026. Formula 1 has landed in Baku for a Grand Prix weekend that starts two days early. MotoGP sits between rounds, but not between headlines. NASCAR’s Chase field is still absorbing a fight that will go unpunished. Meanwhile, the World Endurance Championship heads for Mount Fuji. Here is everything confirmed today, plus the session times that matter.
The Storyline That Matters Most: F1 Has Rebuilt Its Weekend Around a Saturday Race
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix will not follow the usual Friday-to-Sunday rhythm. Azerbaijan marks Remembrance Day on 27 September, so free practice runs on Thursday. Qualifying follows on Friday. The race itself takes place on Saturday afternoon. Red Bull flagged the revised running order in the same statement that confirmed its driver line-up, and Formula 1’s own session listings match it.
That compression matters more at Baku than almost anywhere else. The 6.003km street circuit pairs a two-kilometre full-throttle blast with a claustrophobic run past the old city walls, and teams normally spend a full Friday trading downforce for straight-line speed. This time they get one day of practice before the setup is locked in, with forecast gusts of up to 64.8kph on qualifying day and track temperatures near 49C in the opening session. Expect setup gambles, and expect at least one of them to go wrong. For background on why calendars bend around dates like this, see our explainer on how the Formula 1 calendar is built each year.
The championship context sharpens it. Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ standings on 292 points after his Madrid win. He holds 81 points over Mercedes team-mate George Russell, while Lewis Hamilton sits third on 191 and Lando Norris fourth on 186. Baku reliably produces safety cars, so it remains one of the few places where a gap that size can shrink quickly.
Confirmed Today
- Red Bull: Isack Hadjar has been declared fit and returns alongside Max Verstappen in Baku, having recovered from the wrist injury that kept him out at Zandvoort, Monza and the Madring.
- Honda HRC Castrol: Joan Mir will miss the Japanese and Indonesian Grands Prix. Tests have not yet identified the cause of symptoms he has carried for months, and MotoGP Medical Director Dr Angel Charte has prescribed 15 days of rest and rehabilitation. A replacement has not been named.
- Aprilia: Jorge Martin will not need arm-pump surgery before the Asian flyaways. He says he is short of full fitness but much improved on Misano, after taking pole, sprint victory and the Grand Prix win in Austria.
- MotoGP: Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo is confirmed as the 2027 season finale on 26-28 November. The full 2027 calendar lands on Friday 25 September.
- NASCAR: No driver penalties for the Bristol pit-road fight. A review of the crew members involved remains open, with any sanctions due later this week.
- RFK Racing: Crew chief Jeremy Bullins has left the team, with Mike Skarbowski taking over Brad Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford from Kansas.
Race and Session Schedule
Formula 1: Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Baku City Circuit
- Thursday 24 September: Practice 1 at 12:30 local, Practice 2 at 16:00
- Friday 25 September: Practice 3 at 12:30, Qualifying at 16:00
- Saturday 26 September: Grand Prix at 15:00, 51 laps
FIA WEC: 6 Hours of Fuji
- Friday 25 September: Free Practice 1 at 10:15 local, Free Practice 2 at 14:30
- Saturday 26 September: Free Practice 3 at 09:30, Qualifying at 14:00
- Sunday 27 September: Race from 11:00 to 17:00
NASCAR: Kansas Speedway
- Saturday 26 September: Craftsman Truck Series at 1:00 p.m. ET on FS1
- Sunday 27 September: Hollywood Casino 400 at 3:00 p.m. ET, 267 laps and 400.5 miles
MotoGP has a weekend off before the Japanese Grand Prix at Mobility Resort Motegi on 2-4 October, which opens a run of five Grands Prix in six weeks. IndyCar’s season is already complete.
Driver and Personnel Changes
Hadjar’s return triggers a three-way reshuffle. Liam Lawson, who deputised for the past three rounds, goes back to Racing Bulls, and Yuki Tsunoda returns to reserve duties. Red Bull thanked Lawson for stepping in under difficult circumstances; the practical effect is that every seat in the Red Bull family reverts to its intended 2026 occupant for the flyaway run-in.
Mir’s absence is the more serious one. Honda has framed it as a medical precaution rather than a recovery timeline, because there is no diagnosis yet. Takaaki Nakagami is the obvious candidate to deputise again after covering the Austrian round, but nothing is official. Rider-market context sits in our guide to how MotoGP teams choose between factory and satellite status.
In NASCAR, Bullins leaves RFK having joined for the 2025 season as a reunion with Keselowski from their Team Penske years. Keselowski sits 18th in points and has missed the postseason twice running, so the change reads as a reset rather than a mid-Chase panic. Skarbowski steps up from a team manager role. In IndyCar, Dennis Hauger has been confirmed at AJ Foyt Racing in the No. 14 for 2027.
Penalties and Stewards’ Decisions
The headline call is a non-call. NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell confirmed on Monday that neither Ryan Blaney nor Carson Hocevar will be penalised for their pit-road altercation after the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, on the basis that the sanctioning body wants drivers to settle disputes themselves and has no interest in legislating passion out of the sport. The incident began in a fight for second place: Hocevar went for a crossover move, Blaney moved to defend, and the contact put Blaney into the Turn 1 wall with terminal damage.
NASCAR has left one door open. Officials are still reviewing the crew members who joined the scuffle, and any penalties there are expected later this week. For the framework behind calls like this, our guide to how race stewards decide on-track penalties is a useful companion, as is our breakdown of how NASCAR’s playoff elimination rounds are structured.
Nothing new has been published by the FIA stewards ahead of Baku. Grid penalties are always worth watching at a power-sensitive circuit, and our explainer on how Formula 1 calculates grid penalties for power unit changes sets out the maths if a team takes fresh components during the compressed Thursday running.
Official Announcements
The third Formula 1 Commission meeting of 2026 took place in London on Monday, chaired by FIA Single-Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis and FOM President and CEO Stefano Domenicali. Minor changes to the 2026 Sporting and Financial Regulations were agreed, and several 2027 items were approved: race distance drops from 305km to 290km in line with the revised fuel-flow rules, a hard stop time is introduced for the end of racing activity in disrupted events, the overall three-hour limit disappears while the two-hour cap on actual racing stays, free practice gains more flexibility to be extended after interruptions, and gearbox homologation is removed to preserve supplier development freedom. All of it remains subject to World Motor Sport Council approval.
On two wheels, the Valencia confirmation is the second fixed point of 2027 after Buriram was named as the 5-7 March opener. It arrives with the sport already committed to a technical overhaul, which we covered in MotoGP’s 2027 reset.
Championship Check
NASCAR’s Chase is absurdly tight at the top. After Joey Logano’s Bristol win, Kyle Larson leads on 2,206 points to Denny Hamlin’s 2,205, with Logano third on 2,190 and Christopher Bell fourth on 2,189. Hocevar sits eighth and Blaney sixth, which is part of why Saturday night boiled over. The Bristol weekend was also framed by tributes to the late Kyle Busch, including a lap-18 salute led by Samantha Busch and a tribute scheme on Ty Gibbs’ car. Our piece on how NASCAR stage points and playoff points work together explains why single-point margins are so common at this stage.
MotoGP is nearly as close. Martin leads Marc Marquez by 12 points after Austria, with Marco Bezzecchi 42 adrift in third and Pedro Acosta arriving in Japan off a maiden Grand Prix win. In the WEC, Toyota lead the manufacturers’ standings from BMW and Ferrari, with Fuji and Bahrain still to run before the Monza finale. IndyCar’s season is done: Alex Palou took a fifth title, and we broke down the arithmetic in how Palou sealed title number five from tenth place.
What to Watch Next
Three things will shape the next 72 hours. Baku’s Thursday practice will reveal immediately whether any team has mis-judged its wing level, because there is no second Friday to fix it. Fuji will test whether Toyota can convert home advantage into a championship cushion, and long stints in changeable coastal conditions make our guide to how changing weather impacts endurance strategy relevant again. And NASCAR’s promised crew-member ruling will define how far the sanctioning body’s tolerance for self-policing actually extends.
Sources: Formula1.com, MotoGP.com, NASCAR.com, FIAWEC.com and INDYCAR.com. All session times are local to the circuit unless stated otherwise.
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