After the DQs of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at last week’s U.S. Grand Prix at COTA, a humorous story has emerged from the race. Aston Martin was not happy with their failure to advance out of Q1 so they decided to make changes to their cars before the race.
This meant that they violated ‘Parc Ferme’ rules and would be forced to start the race from pit road. However, Lance Stroll finished the formation lap by lining up on track and not on pit road. His crew quickly came out to get him, found an opening in the pit wall and rolled him into place on pit road.
Of course, post race, he got summoned to the principal’s office (the stewards) to be reprimanded, fined, chastised, exiled to Siberia, etc., etc.!! BUT, upon further review, there was nothing in the voluminous FIA Rule Book about what he had done. Therefore ‘no harm, no foul’ leaving the stewards looking a little sheepish!
Max Verstappen is rightly upset with the disqualification of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc after last week’s F1 race at COTA. And his logic makes a LOT of sense.
They only checked four cars and two were DQ’d. That’s a fifty percent failure rate. Why then, he asked, were other cars not checked?? Maybe half the field would have failed. Interesting. BTW – Max does NOT like the Sprint races. I like them as we get two races instead of just one. Three practice sessions plus qualifying equals boredom.
Everybody knows that racing is expensive so any chances for saving money are few, far between and MUCH appreciated. Well, I stumbled onto an engine deal that should save racers a bunch of money.
Nagy Racing sponsor humberviewparts.ca has started an engine rental program for stock car motors. From what I can tell this is a great deal for any racer taking the deal.
Apparently, there was a drop in attendance at last week’s U.S. Grand Prix at COTA. It dropped from 440,000 to ‘only’ 432,000 this year. Oh, the horror!! LOL Name another sport which can claim that type of numbers.
NASCAR CUP SERIES: Martin Truex grabbed the pole for the Xfinity 500 Sunday at Martinsville Speedway ahead of Ty Gibbs, both in Toyotas and Chase Briscoe (Ford).
Hard to believe but the race ran clean for over 100 laps until lap 104 when Alex Bowman got spun by Austin Dillon for the first yellow flag. Denny Hamlin won Stage 1. Four laps after the restart Kyle Busch brought out the caution with a flat tire. On lap 216 Ryan Newman spun coming out of Corner 4. Caution. Ryan Blaney won Stage 2.
On lap 273 Joey Logano bump drafted Ty Gibbs, with the emphasis on BUMP, who spun for a caution. It was humourous to see Daniel Suarez driving around the track with the right rear tire way back from its normal spot. The car was, pick one – crabbing, dog tracking and/or bent!!
On lap 303 Carson Hocevar tapped and spun Gibbs in Corner 2 for a caution. Brad Keselowski pitted with the ‘lap down’ cars and his car caught fire. Lap 323 saw Erik Jones make a bit of contact with Michael McDowell who spun for another caution. On the subsequent caution period the Camaro pace car stopped on track and had to be towed to the pits!! Write your own jokes!!
Hard to believe but they ran the last 170 laps without a caution! Ryan Blaney won ahead of Aric Almirola and Denny Hamlin.
The final four in points heading to Phoenix are Blaney (Ford) with this win, Kyle Larson (Chev), William Byron (Chev) and Christopher Bell (Toyota).
Their next race is Phoenix, Sunday on TSN 5 and NBC at 3 P.M.
NASCAR XFINITY SERIES: Sammy Smith (Toyota) got the pole for Saturday’s Dead On Tools 250 at Martinsville Speedway. Starting second was Justin Allgaier (Chev) and Cole Custer (Ford). The first yellow came out on lap 6 when Joe Graf, Jr. had a left rear tire go flat and spun.
On lap 42 back marker Kyle Sieg got into the wall after something appeared to break in the right front on corner exit. Under the caution Sam Mayer must have been texting or something as he hit the car ahead of him hard but kept going with some front-end damage. Allgaier won Stage 1.
On lap 88 Ryan Sieg spun for another yellow. Sammy Smith won Stage 2. On lap 153 Layne Riggs spun after a tap from Mayer bringing out another caution. On lap after the lap 161 restart Akinori Ogata spun in Corner 1 for another yellow. On lap 176 Parker Kligerman had problems again with a flat right front tire.
Caution. On lap 200 Ogata spun again this time in 4.
Caution. One lap after the restart Ryan Ellis and J.J. Yeley get together on the front stretch for another caution. Twelve laps later Kaz Grala spun. Yellow. With 13 laps to go Anthony Alfredo loops it in 4. Caution.
Jeff Burton had a great line during the caution. Custer’s crew chief had stated on the radio that ‘it was going to get crazy here.’ Burton says ‘gonna get? I thought it had already been crazy’!! Good one.
With 7 to go Myatt Snider and Jeb Burton got together on the back stretch and collected at least 12 cars. Yellow then red as the track was blocked. A very long cleanup and there was a lot of oil dry to sweep off the track.
And then they showed a FULL MOON!! That explains a lot!! LOL Meanwhile the cars were back running under yellow and sharing the track with lots of service vehicles!! The green finally came out with three to go and excitement reigned supreme!! On the last lap they wrecked and when I say ‘they’ I mean almost the whole field. The shortest track on the circuit seems to wreck the most cars. Go figure.
At the flag it was Allgaier with the win over Sheldon Creed and Sammy Smith. And a very emotional (and touching) Winners Circle interview with Allgaier. Well done.
In the points the top four cars going to Phoenix will be John Hunter Nemechek, race winner Allgaier, Cole Custer and Austin Hill. One Toyota, one Ford and two Chevs.
Their next race is Phoenix, Saturday on TSN 5 at 7 P.M.
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NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS: Their next race is Phoenix, Friday on Fox Sports Racing at 10 P.M.
Formula One the ‘Gong Show’ continued in Saturday’s qualifying at Mexico for Sunday’s F1 race. The screen was constantly lit up with ‘the stewards are investigating this,’ … ‘the stewards are investigating that,’ … ‘driver X driving too slow on out lap,’ … ‘driver Y holding up cars on pit road,’ etc.
Wow, when will the top racing series in the world get their ‘stuff’ together? At the end of Q2 it was announced that the top three drivers were ‘under investigation’ by the stewards. One for stopping, one for going too fast and one for going too slow!!
Wow. I guess we’ll have to wait overnight to learn the results of the multitude of ‘investigations’!!! Update – on Sunday morning it was announced that ‘no further action would be taken’ on the investigations.
Having said that qualifying was interesting with the top spot changing often. At the end it was the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz over Max Verstappen.
In a repeat of COTA, Aston Martin decided to work on Stroll’s car after qualifying thus violating the ‘parc ferme’ rules meaning that Lance would, once again, start from the pit road. And those weren’t little changes as Aston changed the floor assembly, sidepod bodywork panels, rear beam wing, rear anti-roll bar and front brake friction material as well as suspension set up tweaks.
Alonso was under investigation even before the race started for speeding on pit lane!!
Another disastrous start for the top racing series in the world!! Verstappen pulled up even with Leclerc while Perez joined them to make it three-wide going into 1. TILT!! Checo made contact with Leclerc and spun off at the end of the front straight.
Max, shockingly, got the lead. I’m sure the Tifosi will be, justifiably in my opinion, crying foul!! Five laps in and a piece of Leclerc’s front wing fell off and landed right in the groove on track for a virtual safety car. And, of course, the stewards had to ‘investigate’ Leclerc for driving too long with the damaged (by others) left front wing end plate. D’oh.
At lap 33, just before the halfway mark, Kevin Magnussen had a hard off after something broke in the rear suspension thus tearing up his Haas very badly. To add insult to injury a small fire started at the back of his car. Full course caution. Then full course red to check the barriers that Kevin had impacted. And the drivers all got out of their cars.
On screen message: ‘all cars may overtake the safety car’? Huh?
Apparently, a rolling restart was not in the cards and once again they had a standing start. Fortunately, they pulled it off without any ‘close contacts of the worst kind’!!
On lap 49 Yuki Tsunoda tried a Hail Mary pass on the outside of Piastri but they touched with Yuki going off track. This resulted in a local yellow only and another investigation by the stewards. At the flag it was Verstappen over Hamilton and Leclerc. And, of course, Max wore a sombrero to the podium!! LOL
In the Drivers’ Championship, Verstappen leads Perez by 251 and Hamilton by 271.
In the Constructors’ Championship Red Bull leads Mercedes by only 360 and Ferrari by 381.
Their next race is Brazil, Sunday at 11.55 A.M. on TSN 5.
NHRA: Good news – there were full fields at the Nevada Nationals in Las Vegas. Mike Salinas qualified number 1 in Top Fuel with a 3.680. Robert Hight was number 1 in Funny Car with a 3.851. Mike Castellana topped Pro Mod with a 5.740. Kyle Koretsky was top in Pro Stock with a 6.589. No surprise here but Gaige Herrera put down a 6.760 in Pro Stock Bike. Greg Stanfield was the quickest of the four entries in Factory X running a 7.045.
What I found most interesting was that they also had the Summit runoffs there as well and the one that stuck out for me was the Summit Street Legal EV. Seven Teslas and one Mach E. The dials ran from 11.60 to 13.00. WAY cool!!!!
Mike Salinas came out of the ‘number one’ spot to take out Justin Ashley in Top Fuel. There were 6 upsets (lower qualified car wins) and only 1 tire smoker and that was in the final.
Robert Hight, also ‘number one,’ beat ‘number two’ Bob Tasca in Funny Car. 3 upsets and 9, count ‘em, 9 smokers. Mike Castellana, ‘another number one,’ took out Kevin Rivenbank in Pro Mod.6 upsets and 4 smokers. Erica Enders took out Greg Anderson in Pro Stock. 4 upsets and 4 smokers. No surprise here but Gaige Herrera topped Eddie Krawiec in Pro Stock Bike. 3 upsets. No results for Factory X.
In the Summit ET Motorcycle final local Ontario bike racer Mike Konopacki lost to Patrick Roetto by 0.033 seconds!!
Leah Pruett leads the Top Fuel points by 4 over Doug Kalitta and by 13 over Steve Torrence.
Matt Hagan leads Funny Car by 31 ahead of Bob Tasca and by 61 over Hight.
Kris Thorne leads Pro Mod by 31 over Canadian Justin Bond and by 50 on Castellana.
Erica Enders leads Pro Stock by 81 ahead of Greg Anderson and 89 over Dallas Glenn.
Pro Stock Bike has Herrera 156 up on Eddie Krawiec and 174 ahead of Matt Smith.
Their next race is Pomona, Sunday, November 12.
TORONTO MOTORSPORTS PARK: Their next race is Test & Tune, this weekend.
Any comments can be sent to Dave Mathers via email at motionman@rogers.com or by Facebook Messenger.
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