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Porsche's first challenger for outright honours at the Le Mans 24 Hours for 16 years has run for the first time ahead of schedule.

Tuesday evening saw the official launching of the 2013 Gran Premi Aperol de Catalunya as a selection of local riders attended a presentation in Barcelona.

Williams says Valtteri Bottas' star performance at the Canadian Grand Prix was still a help for the team, even though his race slump highlights how much work it still needs to do.

Lewis Hamilton believes that Mercedes will still need a good step up in form for the British Grand Prix if it is going to be able to challenge Red Bull and Ferrari

Aleix Espargaro looks forward to receiving more power, with a new Aprilia engine on course to be made available to Power Electronics Aspar at the end of September.

The new Bentley Continental GT3 racer will be powered by the British manufacturer's V8 engine rather its W12 powerplant.

Ducati Team travels to Barcelona with no specifically set goals, although both Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden are looking to draw more positives from Round 6.

Marc Marquez has very much put the lows of Mugello behind him and is now looking to enjoy a strong first home Grand Prix in the premier class of the World Championship.

M-Sport became the first company in the world to launch an R5 rally car, when the Fiesta R5 was unveiled in Cumbria.

Team Penske has been fined and docked entrant points after Helio Castroneves's car failed a post-race inspection following his win at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday.

Valentino Rossi admits that he felt the effects of the first-lap crash that took him out of his home Grand Prix at Mugello two weekends ago.

For the sixth consecutive year, the Albacete circuit will host the FIM Europe Road Racing European Championship to be held on the 5th and 6th of October 2013.

M-Sport Fiesta the first of the new breed of R5 cars

Ryan Briscoe will return to Panther Racing for this weekend's IndyCar race at Milwaukee

Red Bull has announced it has extended Sebastian Vettel's contract until the end of the 2015 season.

Best known in motorsport circles as the former head of British Formula 3 teams group FOTA, Jeremy Lord died on Sunday after an illness lasting a few months. He was 74

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo says he has faith that Mercedes and Pirelli will be appropriately "prosecuted" by the FIA International Tribunal

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh says his team must maintain belief it can sort out its current car following a troubled Canadian Grand Prix

WorldSBK.com takes a look at some facts and figures that emerged from the sixth round of the eni FIM Superbike World Championship at Portimao.

Sylvain Guintoli keeps on impressing with his steady pace: nineteen straight races in the points, in 2013 he didn't finish worse than sixth (Assen race two) and climbed on the podium nine times, more than anyone in this first part of the season. He is leading the championship even if, among the first five riders of the chart, he is the one with less wins, only one, to Laverty's four, Sykes' three and the two posted by Davies and Melandri.

The fall in race two put an end to a streak of eight races in the podium for Tom Sykes, his best one. Also Kawasaki stopped its string at eight. Only twice in history they were able to do better: in 1993, when they recorded one of thirteen (since Anderstorp race two to Estoril race two) and in 1991-1992, with nine from Phillip Island 1991 race one to Spa 1992 race one.

With the points scored in third in race one, Tom Sykes became the 25th rider in history to have scored at least 1000 points: his total now is 1000.5.

Eugene Laverty posted his seventh win, reaching Ben Bostrom at the 28th all-time place. Curiously these two riders have their wins unbalanced, with a higher percentage of wins in the second races. Laverty won only once in race one and six times in race two, while Ben Bostrom won twice in race one and five times in race two.

In race one Marco Melandri scored his twelfth win: that's exactly a half of the most successful rider among the active ones, Carlos Checa. Once more, and that makes it seven times in a row, Marco won without starting from the front row of the grid. For BMW it's the tenth win, only one shy of Bimota.

Best season result for Leon Camier, fourth in race one. In the last two seasons he finished higher only at the Nurburgring in the second race held last year, when he scored the last Suzuki podium to date (third).

Qualifying

Tom Sykes scored his sixteenth pole, equalling Neil Hodgson at the fifth all-time place. Tom at the moment counts a streak of five poles: it's the thrid all-time sequence, the same recorded by Carl Fogarty from Brno to Assen in 1993. In front of him only the record string of Ben Spies of seven poles (Phillip Island-Miller 2009) and the one of six by Doug Polen (Zeltweg-Hockenheim 1991). All by himself, Sykes was able to record the best string in Kawasaki history, that up to now had never started five times straight from pole.

The gap between the poleman Sykes and the second in grid, Eugene Laverty, 0.001 seconds, is the smallest in Superbike history and was recorded only once, in Kyalami in 2009, between Ben Spies and Michel Fabrizio. That pole by Spies in Kyalami was the sixth of the aforementioned all-time string.

Eugene Laverty scored his 20th front row start, the tenth straight: in Superbike history there were only eleven longer strings, and the record belongs to Scott Russell, with seventeen (Brands Hatch 1993-Albacete 1994). Eugene's performances allowed Aprilia to become the sixth team in history to record a sequence of at least ten front row starts after Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha. The absolute record belongs to Ducati, with 71 straight front row starts from the 1991 Brainerd race to the 1996 Phillip Island one.

Also Jonathan Rea recorded his 20th front row start: together with Laverty, they reached in the all-time rankings Michel Fabrizio (at the 21st spot), which in 2013 started from the front row only in Phillip Island.

Carlos Checa (Team Ducati Alstare) has achieved his and the team's best result of the season, in Race 2 at Portimao, giving some fresh confidence to everyone involved in Ducati's WSBK effort. to The 2011 Superbike World Champion was able to show a good pace throughout the 22-lap race, battling with Chaz Davies in the final stages to ultimately finish a solid 6th.

The setting change between the two races allowed the Spaniard to ride more comfortably on board his 1199 Panigale R, despite the left shoulder injury that hampered him in the previous rounds and in the final stages of Race 1 on the Portuguese track.

"We made small changes before race 2" said Carlos Checa "and as a result the bike was much easier to ride, especially when it came to changing direction. It was the first time I was able to maintain a good pace for the entire race and I'm very happy with the result. I want to thank my entire team that has worked so hard every weekend up until now, I appreciate all that they are doing - this sixth position motivates us to continue to improve in the next races."

The sixteen days before the next round at Imola gives Checa's shoulder time to improve, meaning he can be in better physical conditions for the track on which he won five of the last six races.