If a team doesn’t lift the Stanley Cup in the first week of June, then the ice hockey season has been going on too long in my opinion. I’m starting to have the same feeling about Formula 1 racing.
There are still two races left in the 2021 season, which will not be held until December. That’s crazy. Next year, they’ll finish things off in November when NASCAR raises its final checkered flag. Still late, but OK I guess.
Everyone else is done – with the exception of the US Auto Club (USAC) National Midget Series, which ends this Thursday evening in California with the Turkey Night Grand Prix held at Irwindale Speedway. There was no race a year ago because of COVID, and most of the races in the years prior to the cancellation were won by NASCAR stars Christopher Bell and / or Kyle Larson, both of whom started their careers small. They are both re-registered.
But back to Formula 1. You get the feeling that even some of the participants are getting tired. How else can you explain all the nonsense that has been going on in the past few weeks, with one team accusing another of cheating. That’s pretty serious. It could explain why Mercedes’ Toto Wolff is pretending the allegations are a personal insult. But Christian Horner, of the allegations, always seems to have a wink. It’s like he knows what he’s saying isn’t true, but he does it to keep the sport in the spotlight. Always remember: these guys are in business together and may do a bit of back and forth, but in the end, the sport – and their livelihood – depends on how many people are watching and how much money is invested.
Sport needs all the help it can get. Lewis Hamilton won – again – the first Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday. He’s never been out. Lights out and he was gone. Max Verstappen came second and Fernando Alonso came third in what was probably the best story of the weekend. Our Lance Stroll had a good race finishing sixth while Nicholas Latifi was 15th when he had a blowout and ended up behind the wall. He was ranked 19th. Lewis is eight points behind Max in the drivers’ title; Mercedes has a five point lead in the constructors’ championship. For a full story, please click here.
Notebook notes
Lewis Hamilton wore a newly painted helmet in Gay Pride colors in support of the LGBTQ2S + community. That was nice to see. But he wore it in Qatar. Will he be wearing it in Saudi Arabia from December 3rd to 5th? We’ll find out.
Kyle Larson, the NASCAR Cup champion who is now the best racing driver in North America, will attend one of the two remaining F1 races as a guest of Haas F1. I really hope he goes to Abu Dhabi in the UAR. Saudi Arabia is a place where they kill, torture and – even though it was in Turkey – dismember people. You never know. See what China did to its female tennis ace. (Can someone explain to me why we have something to do with this country? Tigers don’t change their stripes. In the sixties I wrote stories in Globe & Mail about the great leap forward and the Red Guards who were transformed by Mao, to murder their neighbors. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Maybe millions. And Reuters correspondent Anthony Gray couldn’t leave his house. One night he knocked on the door and found that the guards had hung his cat. Nice people.)
Brothers André and Rene Leblanc drove their Four Star Motorsports-prepared Subaru WRX STI to victory in the Lincoln Electric Rally of the Tall Pines near Bancroft this weekend. With one rally remaining, they are back at the top of the Canadian Rally Championship. In the meantime, Jerome Mailloux and Olivier Martel drove their Test Racing Subaru WRX STI to victory in the Tall Pines, thus winning the Eastern Canadian Rally Championship. The rallies took place at the same time.
Ron Capps, who won the NHRA Funny Car Championship in 2021 announced at the weekend that he is leaving Don Schumacher Racing. After 17 years and two championships, Capps said he would move on. He gave no indication of where he would go next year. It wasn’t a good month for the Schumacher team. Aside from Capps, Antron Brown, Matt Hagan and Leah Pritchett all said they would go to Brown to build his own Top Fuel team and Pritchett and Hagan to drive Top Fuel and Funny Cars for the new Tony Stewart drag racing team.
Plan now to take part in the VARAC Vintage Grand Prix weekend from June 16-19 at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park next season. There will be a steam whistle roving paddock dinner, a free rock ‘n roll show and a banquet. Sounds like fun.
Christian Horner questioned the yellow flag displayed in Saturday’s final qualifying when Pierre Gasly’s car suffered a blown tire on its final lap. Hamilton was past Marshall Station by this point, but everyone else had to take off, which guaranteed him pole. I watched in my family room and said loudly, “What about the yellow? He is far from the racing line. There’s no need to destroy everyone’s lap. ”Max didn’t answer, which earned him a starting penalty of five positions. Horner called the Flagger a “Rogue Marshal”. That earned him a threat of retaliation, and to get out of there he had to apologize and promise to go to Marshal School next February.
I do not know where those marshals get off. The NFL will throw a flag and then huddle together before announcing there was no foul and picking it up. That should have happened on Saturday. Mistakes are made. But these people are all powerful and perfect too, it seems. I remember the first Molson Indy Toronto in 1986. On the right hand side of the driver in the first corner (Princes’ Gates) the concrete blocks of the retaining wall were against the curb, except right on the corner by the gates where there was a slight gap . This young marshal came up to me (I was “controlling” the corner) and said the gap had to be removed or she wouldn’t let the race start. I said “are you crazy?” She said she didn’t care and didn’t care (which was impossible) or no race. I went and got a guy from the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) who was in charge of marshals and other track workers and asked if she could really do that. “Yes, she can,” he said, “but I’ll take care of it,” and had her transferred to another marshal’s post.
Something is wrong when a marshal – she wasn’t older than 20 or 21 – can get to grips with a race on international television with 60,000 spectators in the stands and the crème de la crème of IndyCar racing. It wouldn’t have been a bad thing if she summoned the chief steward to voice her concerns, but that she had the power to act arbitrarily was (at Molson Indy) and is (an unnecessary flag in Qatar) insane.
QUOTES: (Latifi, from Toronto, after qualifying on Saturday) – “Both the car and the lap felt good today and I really enjoyed driving this track. it was actually one of the funniest qualifying sessions of the year. It’s a bit disappointing that this feeling isn’t reflected in our pace, especially since I expect the qualifying position to play an important role in tomorrow’s race. ”
(Stroll from Montreal, after race Sunday) – “The car felt very good today and I am very satisfied with our performance. I made up a few places on the first lap and on the first stint it was clear that we had good pace. I overtook Tsunoda to 75 middle and then, after catching up with the guys in front of me, undercut Sainz to move up to sixth after stopping for the Hards. Overall, everything went perfectly for us today and getting eight points at the end of this triple header is a very satisfying reward for all of our hard work. “
Electric formula (aka Formula E) has started a new short episodic documentary series, Formula E: Unplugged, with all episodes available for free on Formula E’s YouTube and Facebook pages at https://bit.ly/3nELcZI.
The series with 15 episodes x 15 minutes leads viewers through the 7th season of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship and shows what it takes to deliver international motorsport against the background of the challenges of the global pandemic. The spectators will see how drivers, engineers, team crews and executives are pushed to their limits in the first season of Formula E as the official motorsport FIA world championship. From the season opener in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, to the climax in Berlin, via Rome, Valencia, Monaco, Puebla (Mexico), New York and London, the Formula E: Unplugged cameras capture the triumphs and challenges of life in the Formula E paddock a .
Well, IndyCar is left behind again. There has been a lot of talk last season about how IndyCar had to capitalize on F1’s success with its Netflix series and how IndyCar had to try the same. Then if they did, great. Now it would only be flattering. A bit like turbo. Do you remember that the movie Cars was really just a big advertisement for NASCAR? So IndyCar paid DreamWorks to produce Turbo, which bombed. You should have waited and then did it. I should be in marketing.
Speaking of which Formula Electric, why doesn’t Tesla have a team in the series?
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