NASCAR plans to reduce speed on the Daytona and Talladega plate speedways by up to 10 miles per hour. They are afraid that the cars will go too fast. Maybe Formula One should take a page from the same book.
F1 drivers – especially the fast guys at the top like Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen – had to cancel qualifying laps this weekend at the Red Bull Ring as well as in the most recent races in Portugal and Italy. (Laps are cleared when all four wheels of a car leave the lane line. Sometimes drivers screw something up and this happens; sometimes they actually plan to take a lap with two of their wheels over the line in certain bends or parts of the course, to get an advantage.)
That this is even allowed is ridiculous. A border is a border, not something that can be moved at will. The Armco in Monaco is a limit. Hit it and the car will be damaged – as it should be. Drive past the border in Austria on all four wheels and the stewards say “Naughty Guy” and delete the time.
So why not slow down the cars? I know some people may think this is almost sacrilege, but if NASCAR fans can’t tell the difference between 190 mph and 200 mph or 180 and 190, then an F1 fan won’t be able to tell the difference either and it might help Cars stay within the confines of the route.
Okay, Max and Red Bull pushed their way to the top in the 2021 FIA F1 World Championship by destroying the field at the Styrian Grand Prix on Sunday. Max led from start to finish and it was the first time in the turbo-hybrid era (2013) that Mercedes lost four races in a row. Whatever Mercedes did, Red Bull got it covered. Hamilton was second, Bottas was third (barely) and Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull was fourth. Lando Norris finished fifth for McLaren. Both Hamilton and Norris referred to their runs as “lonely races,” which says pretty much everything about the race. For a full report, please click here
Max Verstappen wins Styrian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton second – BBC Sport
NOTEBOOK RECORDS
Lance walk around Montreal likes to play hockey at home in Switzerland. He’s also a huge fan of the Montreal Canadiens. Prior to the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix, Stroll and several Canadians were training at the Bell Center to promote the big race. Now Stroll has glued a Canadiens logo onto his green Aston Martin helmet (above). “I’m really excited to see the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup final for the first time in my life,” he said on Twitter. “I want to wish good luck to all the guys who did an amazing job in all the playoffs. I can’t wait to see the final. “
Although our Nicholas Latifi didn’t make it out of Q1 in qualifying on Saturday, he just missed. In fact, it was flying. The broadcaster and retired Formula 1 driver Martin Brundle said: “Latifi has just turned the best lap of his career.” Latifi said, “It’s frustrating to just miss out on Q2, but my second lap was very competitive so I was happy with it. On my last run I lost some time in the last sector behind the traffic; it can block your line of sight into such high-speed turns, so I got a little out of shape there. All in all a frustrating result. “
As we proceed hoping for a 2022 Canadian Grand Prix (don’t count your chickens folks) a full crowd will be admitted to the British GP this summer at Silverstone. However, there are still concerns about Covid-19 in the UK and if you want to get into the Grand Prix you will need proof of two vaccinations and a test at the gate. Also (like here) the Public Health Director will have the final say depending on the current coronavirus conditions.
Betting in The paddock, my friends tell me, is that George Russell will be with Mercedes next season, replacing Valtteri Bottas. Then when Hamilton retires, Russell will be ready to take over the helm of the team. They say. And one notable non-driver is top aerodynamicist Dan Fallows, who will be leaving Red Bull Racing to work for Aston Martin F1.
More of that Boys in the paddock. The Russian Grand Prix will take place on the Autodrom Igora Drive, north of the city of Saint Petersburg, from 2023. Not a big surprise. St. Petersburg is the hometown of Vladimir Putin. He was born there, studied at the city’s state university and, after graduating in 1975, joined the KGB for 16 years. In 1991 he quit in order to start a political career in Saint Petersburg. The city is probably the most attractive in Russia and a Grand Prix puts a city on the international map like no other event than the Olympics can.
NASCAR, IMSA
I switched on the NASCAR races from Pocono Raceway this weekend and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They had a lot there that was reminiscent of Pocono turnouts in the late 1990s, early 2000s. An overcrowded grandstand and an infield and a parking lot full of mobile homes created a large audience. And they saw some wonderful races. On Saturday, Kyle Larson was on the verge of winning another NASACAR Cup race when he hit a tire on corner three and hit the wall. Alex Bowman snuck past to win while Larson finished ninth. In Saturday’s Truck Race, John Hunter Nemechek emerged as the winner. On race Sunday of the Xfinity Series, Austin Cindric won, but if it had been one more lap, Ty Dillon would have caught up with him, it was so close. And in the second cup race of the weekend, Kyle Busch ran the last 115 laps without the clutch, but held on for victory.
SATURDAY TRUCK: John Hunter Nemechek defeats boss Kyle Busch for victory in Pocono (speedwaydigest.com)
SATURDAY CUP: NASCAR: Flat tire foils Kyle Larson’s offer for fourth straight win as Alex Bowman takes Pocono | Fox News
SUNDAY XFINITY: Austin Cindric wins Xfinity Series Pocono – TSN.ca
SUNDAY CUP: Kyle Busch Loses Clutch, Stretching Fuel To Take Pocono Victory (msn.com)
In Watkins Glen and the six hours of the Glen IMSA race in Sahlen, writer Jeff Olson reports that it is usually not a good sign for a racing driver to be taken to the pits in a safety car. In the case of Harry Tincknell on Sunday, it was pure joy as he won the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International with a car that was so low on fuel that it ran dry on the cooling lap and Tincknell was waiting for a ride had to wait on the winning track to greet the co-drivers Oliver Jarvis and Jonathan Bomarito. For details, please click here Mazda Motorsports repeats victory at Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen | Motorsport | buffalonews.com In the GT Le Mans class, the Corvette took first place. For details, please click here CORVETTE RACING AT THE GLEN: Hard-won victory for Garcia, Taylor | SpeedwayMedia.com
MORE RACE NEWS
The one from Nissan Communications: At the weekend, the Nissan Sentra Cup officially started with 24 participants in Shannonville Motorsports Park near Belleville (above). This kick-off event was highly symbolic because it was not only the very first race in the history of the new Canadian motorsport series, but also the racing debut of the Nissan Sentra. The Sentras posted faster lap times than pre-season tests and were driven by talented drivers from Ontario, Québec and British Columbia. In the end, Gavin Sanders from Ontario won both races. More information can be found here Nissan Sentra Cup Celebrates Its First Winners of 2021! (nissannews.com)
The old one The Canadian Touring Car Championship had to cancel its races at Shannonville Motorsport Park over the weekend due to a lack of vehicles. There are several reasons for this condition. Many non-professional or semi-professional racing drivers are notoriously slow in preparing for the start of the season. In addition, in this case there is now a competing series, the FEL Motorsports Sportscar Series, and a number of cars are in both championships (Stock Cars and Sprint Cars do this all the time, by the way). Last weekend, the FEL championship in the CTMP held its first race and 1, only 14 cars came to the sports car race and 2, it was a bit of a crash festival. For example, some cars that wanted to drive with CTCC in Shannonville were not repaired in time. And a couple of big-league teams who had called the new championship the best thing that could have happened to Canadian racing in years didn’t bother showing up at the CTMP. CTCC will now try to open its season in Trois-Rivières in August.
Tony Stewart made some new fans on Saturday night at Eldora Speedway in Ohio by winning the second straight Superstar Racing Experience race and Paul Tracy made many new enemies after getting tangled up with Bobby Labonte. Local dirt track starter Kody Swanson finished second and Helio Castroneves finished third. The most talked-about driver was Tracy, who led the first 25 laps of the 50-lap feature using the bumper and fenders of his racing car to protect the lead.
“I know I’ll have a couple of Bobby Labonte fans after me because he’s mad at me, and rightly so,” said Tracy. “He passed me on the restart. I ran upstairs and I decided how to cut down like Tony and I just got it all wrong. It came a little earlier than I thought and I tagged it and that’s it. So that was my mistake and I went to apologize to him, but he got none of it.
“The SRX cars put on a great show. I felt really good on this track. This is a wonderful track Tony has and I couldn’t be happier with the way we went overall tonight. We collected a lot of points and hopefully won a few new fans. I’m sure we made some enemies because these Bobby Labonte fans probably hate me. “
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