Simon Chapman
Simon Chapman is a motorsport news editor and journalist at Speedcafe, covering global racing series with an emphasis on hard news and sharp race analysis. His work centres on the moments when races, incidents and off-track decisions carry consequences for drivers, teams and championships. He combines fast, detail-heavy reporting with clear narrative framing, recognised within the motorsport industry for engaging race coverage.
Daily motorsport news and race coverage
Chapman works inside Speedcafe’s daily motorsport news operation, filing regular stories across the outlet’s core racing categories. His output includes straightforward race reports, incident write-ups and news pieces that track how individual events shape wider seasons. Headlines such as pit lane brawls in NASCAR, tyre failures that end promising runs, and drivers’ pleas to the motorsport community show a focus on race-defining moments and their repercussions.
In pieces on drivers like Brodie Kostecki, he reports both the on-track context and the broader stakes for the motorsport community, treating competitor voices as central to the story rather than colour around the edges. His style is direct and fact-led, with analysis built from the timeline of events, the rulebook and the reactions of those involved.
NASCAR and Shane van Gisbergen’s transition
NASCAR is a major strand of Chapman’s current work, and his archive includes a run of stories on Shane van Gisbergen’s move into the series. He follows that transition across multiple stages: rain-shortened races such as the Coca-Cola 600, delays to van Gisbergen’s planned Truck Series starts, and mechanical issues like tyre rubs that destroy chances of a top-10 finish.
Each report ties van Gisbergen’s individual experiences back to the demands of NASCAR’s calendar, equipment and competitive environment. Chapman also covers major news involving series icons, including the death of Kyle Busch, the revealed cause framed as a wake-up call, and the way teams and family respond. In those pieces he balances immediate facts with legacy and public reaction, writing obituaries and follow-up features that explain why a figure mattered and how the paddock processes the loss.
His NASCAR work mixes straight news, human-interest angles and contextual features, giving communications teams a clear sense of how stories about drivers and teams will be framed once they enter the news cycle.
GT and endurance racing incidents
Chapman is active in Speedcafe’s GT and endurance racing coverage, writing on international series and their safety and injury stories. His reporting on Ollie Millroy’s fiery China GT crash and subsequent hospital stay details the discovery of additional injuries, including a neck fracture, and explains how that affects the driver’s recovery and future racing prospects. He also tracks career turns for drivers such as Robert Shwartzman, covering his move to Peugeot in the FIA World Endurance Championship as a potential revival of a stalled racing trajectory. These articles combine medical updates, team decisions and championship structures, showing how one incident or signing can reshape a driver’s path and a manufacturer’s programme. The tone remains factual even in high-stakes situations, prioritising clear chronology and confirmed information over speculation.
Supercars and national touring car stories
Chapman has a long association with touring car and Supercars coverage, having co-founded the motorsport outlet Velocity News at the start of his career and later leading Supercars reporting that contributed to award-winning coverage.
At Speedcafe he continues to cover national-level touring car stories, including team developments and livery launches. His pieces on Tickford Racing, for example, report on new Mustang unveilings and driver entries for events such as the Ipswich Super440, tying cosmetic changes back to sponsorship, team identity and competitive expectations. In Supercars-focused work, including Kostecki’s plea to the motorsport community, he treats drivers’ public statements as news events, linking their concerns to the health of the category and the responsibilities of stakeholders.
This strand of his reporting often sits at the intersection of sporting performance, commercial realities and series governance, giving his Supercars pieces a wider business and policy dimension.
Career scope and reporting style
Beyond his current role, Chapman has worked as a sports journalist across broadcast and digital outlets, extending his experience beyond motorsport while retaining racing as his core specialty. He has written thousands of published articles, building a large body of work that reinforces his reputation as a high-volume, deadline-driven reporter.
His author bio notes industry recognition as Motorsport New Zealand Journalist of the Year, underscoring that his motorsport work is judged on analytical sharpness and the quality of race coverage as much as speed. Chapman’s public profiles present him as accessible to sources, inviting story pitches through professional channels, which aligns with a beat built on ongoing relationships with teams, drivers and series organisers.
Across categories, his distinguishing feature is a consistent focus on how events and decisions affect the competitive and human stakes of motorsport, rather than solely the technical details of cars or tracks.
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