As usual, the mixed conditions in Monte didn't provide any clear pointers to the season ahead, except that the Citroen is still an unpredictable handful and that Toyota may have a line up that poses a credible threat to Hyundai's hopes of taking the manufacturers title. I'd expect a really strong run from all three Yarises (Yarii?) in Sweden in 10 days time.
I thought so too at first, but there wasn't any soreness from Almirola. He acknowledged he was having to go all over the road to check the cars behind him (and he moved quite suddenly and late against that final push from Dillon; the commentators saw it before he did). This is from autoweek.com:
__________________________________________________ ____
Aric Almirola was remarkably composed just moments after losing the Daytona 500 in the most heartbreaking and dramatic fashion possible.
The 33-year-old was leading with one lap to go but was forced to block both lanes on the backstretch to maintain his advantage. He blocked Austin Dillon on the high side, then Denny Hamlin on the bottom, before blocking Dillon again up top.
Dillon went low to pass and Almirola responded, spinning off the bumper of Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet. Dillon went on to win the race and Almirola was forced to wonder "what if" in the infield care center. But instead of criticizing Dillon for turning him into the wall, Almirola took equal blame and said the incident was a byproduct of racing for the win in the sport’s biggest race.
"It was the last lap and we’re all trying to win the Daytona 500," Almirola said. "It’s the biggest race of the year and it’s a career-changing race, so we were just racing really aggressively. I put every move I knew to try and stay in the lead and, unfortunately, I just wasn’t able to hold on.
"He got to my back bumper and was pushing and just hooked me. My heart is broken, but the beauty is we’ll go to Atlanta and we’ve got an incredible race team here at Stewart-Haas Racing and we’ll have another shot next week."
Almirola repeated over and over, while standing outside of the infield care center, that he didn’t think Dillon was overaggressive. In fact, Almirola admitted to blocking the eventual winner.
"I saw him come with the momentum and I pulled up to block and did exactly what I needed to do to try to win the Daytona 500," Almirola said. "I wasn’t gonna just let him have it. I wasn’t gonna just stay on the bottom and let him rail the outside, so I blocked and he got to my bumper and pushed and I thought I was still gonna be okay and somehow I got hooked."
__________________________________________________ ____
It really is a different kind of racing from open-wheelers, isn't it?
This is old news now, but I've only just noticed it.
British team Carlin Motorsport - whom many past and present F1 drivers have driven for in various other formulas - are entering the 2018 IndyCar season. They've brought Max Chilton and Charlie Kimball in, transferring them from Chip Ganassi Racing, who are dropping from four to two cars.
As it also says, Carlin are entering F2 this year, with Lando Norris one of their drivers.
Damn, I hadn't heard of this channel before and just assumed the 500 was on pay channel Premier Sports. Was this just a one off for the 500 or will they have any other live Nascar? Their schedule next weekend has trucks and Xfinity highlights but nothing live.
Re Red Bull that probably won't be the colour scheme, no. Teams like to test in dark colours as it's harder for rivals to see what they've done to the car.
FreeSports is part of Premier - it's the channel they use to try to drive subscriptions (a bit like BT Showcase but moreso).
Last year they had the odd truck and Xfinity race live but no live Cup races that I recall. I don't know whether or not the plan is the same for this year but, if you have Sky, you can get two months of Premier for £1 using the code NASCARFANSUK on Premier's website.
They've lost a fair bit of business I think after the Australian Rugby League (NRL) went to Sky this year. Ice Hockey, NASCAR and the Belgian and Portuguese football leagues are the most high-profile things remaining I think.
Sam Tordoff (I'm assuming that's who you mean) has his own sponsor in GardX (similar to the situation with Andrew Jordan and Pirtek) so therefore he'll race a Motorbase Focus RS but with his own colours. However, there is now a seat available in a Shredded Wheat car as Mat Jackson and Motorbase ended their 7 year association on Friday, just before warm weather testing begins. Not spoken to David about the reasons why, but strong rumours that Jackson wasn't happy with the team being so strong and no longer being no.1 driver and had begun to pursue other drives.
Second time for James Cole at Motorbase too as he was in the "half season" in 2015 team that pretty much swept all before them and possibly would have won the overall title thanks to the NGTC engines - which had the doubly desired effect of making the car much faster and pissing off one J Plato - and that for a number of races, as they were so far down the overall rankings, that success ballast wasn't much of a factor.
Comment