Basketball great LeBron James will be the official starter when the 24 Hours of Le Mans sportscar race celebrates its centenary this weekend, organizers of the endurance classic said on Monday. The Los Angeles Lakers forward, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and four-time champion, joins a list of celebrity starters who have carried out the…

MADISON, Ill.—Kyle Busch had been in and out of his car through a lengthy weather delay. He had idled on the track through two red flags. He had kept his poise through 11 cautions, including five down the stretch as he tried to protect his lead. Must have seemed like Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Race…

Max Verstappen had warned that his Red Bull team was good enough to win every single race of the Formula One season. On Sunday he took one more step toward that ambitious sweep by easing to victory at the Spanish Grand Prix. The two-time defending champion started from pole position and never was challenged as…

Red Bull’s championship leader Max Verstappen flew to pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz joining him on the front row after a dramatic qualifying. Verstappen was nearly half a second clear of the Spaniard and so good was his first lap in the final phase that he aborted…

INDIANAPOLIS—The Indianapolis 500 is the one race Josef Newgarden desperately wanted to win. It’s basically the only race that matters to his boss. Coming up empty for 11 consecutive years had become personal for the two-time IndyCar champion. Newgarden finally broke through Sunday, though, winning the Indy 500 to extend team owner Roger Penske’s record…

MONACO—Formula One leader Max Verstappen beat Fernando Alonso to pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday and conceded even he would like to see the evergreen Aston Martin driver win again. The Spaniard, a two-times world champion like Verstappen, has not won a race since he was at Ferrari a decade ago but…

MONACO—Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff joked that a Monaco Grand Prix crane operator must have been trained by the “Cirque du Soleil” after Lewis Hamilton’s car was lifted sky-high following a crash in final practice. More seriously, there was some concern the incident may have revealed to rivals secrets of the car’s floor and upgraded…

MONACO—Formula One champion Max Verstappen led a Red Bull one-two in final practice for the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday while Lewis Hamilton brought the session to an early end by crashing his Mercedes. Overall leader Verstappen lapped with a best time of one minute 12.776 seconds, 0.073 faster than Mexican team mate and last…

MONACO—Seven-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton said Thursday he’s not been approached by Ferrari and is hopeful a contract extension with Mercedes will be finalized “in the coming weeks.” The 38-year-old is in a contract year with Mercedes and recent reports have linked Hamilton to a move to Ferrari. But the British driver said at…

INDIANAPOLIS—It is hard to be an introvert among the bodacious characters of Arrow McLaren Racing. But Felix Rosenqvist, who readily admits he “was closed as a shell” when he joined McLaren for the start of the 2021 season, is having a blast with firecracker teammate Pato O’Ward and wild-card boss Zak Brown as they rebuild…