CHAVES 2014 Indylights Champion

Our best congratulations to Gabby Chaves, fresh winner of the Indylights 2014 Championship.

After grabbing two second positions in Sonoma last week end, both times behind Harvey who reached him at the top of the standing with 547 points, Chaves has been awarded the Championship title after the count of runner-up finishes, five to one in favour of the Colombian-American driver.

Congratulations also to the Belardi Auto Racing Team for the great season and for the commitment to join the Series in 2015.

Video - WRC - ADAC - Germany

Here's the recap of the ADAC rallye 2014 in Germany from wrc.com.

Stages 15 to 18 are only available at: wrc.com

IRL Sonoma 2014 - Recap

Sonoma, Aug 24th. With only the double appointment at Fontana left in the calendar, the rush to the championship gets fiery.
Will Power, starting from the pole, has a real opportunity to weaken Castrovenes (who starts in P6) dreams of glory.
However, the windy road course of Sonoma is famous for the ability to shuffle driver's ambitions and results.

The green lights are on and it takes only a bunch of seconds to witness the first episode of the race. At the top of the hill there's a pile up and Castroneves, at that point in the middle of the pack, gets involved and needs to pit right away.
Power leads now with even more advantage on the Brazilian. Everything goes smooth for about 30 laps, where Power keeps the lead after the first round of pit stop, but then Huertas goes wide and a caution is called.
Lap 36, we get to the green and after only half of a lap there's another contact between Saavedra and Bourdais and another yellow comes out. This time Power stops and when he gets back he's in the middle of the group, the green is deployed and, at the same hairpin that caused the previous yellow, he spins.
Conway is in the lead now, followed by Kanaan. Power is second last while Castroneves is 18th.

After lap 60 the last session of pit stops is already on the go and Rahal gets in first position. Conway, Kanaan and Dixon follow.
Kanaan stops for the last time, while Dixon is getting very close to the back of Conway.
Three laps to go and Rahal can't stretch the fuel anymore. It's time for a very painful pit stop that means giving up the leadership.
Dixon sees the leader entering the pit lane and takes the chance, all he needs is to get a good exit from the last hairpin before the finish line and to push to pass Conway right in from of him right now. Everything goes as planned for Scott that closes the second turn of the track in first position.
Conway is probably being told to cruise to the end and he finds himself in third position, not able to reply to Hunter-Reay's attack.
The last lap sees the duo Dixon Hunter-Reay confortably getting to the finish line. The same can't be said for Conway that runs out of fuel at the very end of the lap, giving away the third place to Pagenaud and closing his race at walking speed in 14th position.

For the Championship, Power closes in P10 and Castroneves in P18. Nothing has been decided yet, given the double points yet to be assigned in Fontana, but something tells me that Castroneves would happily trade his position at -51 pts for the Power's one.
Stay tuned!

Indy Racing League - Sonoma - 2014

Watch the full Indy Car race from Sonoma

GP2 Series 2014 at SPA

What an amazing weekend for the guys of GP2!

Race 1 takes place on Saturday, a very unpredictable Saturday due to the weather conditions.
The race starts wet, with Vandoorne pulling out the best start. It takes only seconds and the rain starts coming down very heavily. Behind the Belgian driver, everybody else is lost in a cloud. Upon the very few clear things to highlight from the mist, Palmer is in eight position and Marciello puts up a blinded show picking up several positions. But the rain is just too much and on the second lap Daly goes out, followed in order by the yellow flag, the safety car and, a lap later, the red flag.
Race is suspended in the hope of a sudden change of conditions.
The weather turns just a little lenient after about 20 minutes and the race restarts. This time Ceccotto takes the lead, followed by Vandoorne and Marciello but he goes wide later on.
It takes a bunch of laps for the drivers to get the confidence to start trying some moves and on lap 9 Marciello passes Ceccotto for the second position.
The award for the best overtake of the day (and probably not only) goes to Markelov that goes around Dillmann on lap 11.
Another couple of laps and it's time for a pit stop for most of the drivers. The leader Vandoorne goes in on lap 17 and Marciello, waiting another two laps, chops the gap from 4.6 to 2.6 secs. The two are in another race, lapping many times between 2 and 3 seconds faster than everybody else and with only 3 laps to go Marciello takes the lead that will give him his first victory in GP2.

It's Sunday morning and it's time for Race 2. the track is almost dry but not enough to not to think about it, especially in the several fast corners around the mighty SPA. Abt and Markelov fill the first row, Palmer starts from third.
At the lights is Nasr that gets the better traction, even with a minimal "jump and stop" a couple tenths of a second before the start. Palmer goes wide in the first turn, rejoining the track a bunch of positions back.
Marciello and Markelov get too close at the end of the Kemmel straight and, while the first spins and finds himself in P24, the second retires the car some laps further in the race.
Vandoorne, second in Race 1, sits in seventh position.
The whole race sees Ceccotto chasing Nasr, with the gap between the two fluctuating within a couple seconds. It won't be enough for Ceccotto that will finish in second place behind Nasr, with Palmer joining them on the podium after keeping the door close on the faster Evans.
To be mentioned the amazing comeback of Coletti, 24th on the grid and 7th under the checkered flag. On a race without interruption this is quite of an inpressive result.

Video GP2 Series 2014 Spa - Belgium

To whomever missed the action from the GP2 Series in Spa this past weekend, here are the video of the two races that took place on Saturday and Sunday.

F1 SPA - Recap

Is anyone out there still complaining about Formula One being boring?!?!?
Put together a Real race track, a bunch of  F1 turbo cars close to each other in performance and a handful of good drivers. Add a wet practice that further mixes the cards and an internal battle between the two drivers of the same team, that are also leading the Championship.....If this doesn't look yet like a race from the nostalgic '90s,  include also a touch between those two drivers that basically sends one of them out of the race and the recipe for a great Gran Prix is served.

At the end, is the Australian Ricciardo to jump on the highest step of the podium after 44 laps rich of battles on track as well as at the pits.
Is the most concentrated car-driver duo, combined with the best strategy, that goes home with 25 points in its pocket. Not the result that most of the experts were going to bet on, considering that the first two cars in grid were, as usual this year, the two Mercedes of Rosberg and Hamilton and third and fourth in line we had two sharks like Vettel and Alonso.

The focal moment of the race unfolded itself already in the second lap of the race. Rosberg sees an opportunity to put himself in an overtake position beside Hamilton and goes. Hamilton follows the regular racing line maybe unaware that behind, the other Mercedes was already on his rear tire. They touch, Rosberg loses the right side of his front wing and has to stop and replace it, Hamilton ends up with a flat tire in the first session of the longest Gran Prix track of the season and he need his time to come back to the pits to get assistance. He will never be able to come back in the fight for points and he will retire his car for better days.

The other Mercedes driver, Rosberg, gets back in the crowd, chasing and being chased until he ends up in second place that means 18 points that weight like gold, an hurricane of boos from the Hamilton's fans, copiously poured in the stands around the finish line, and one of the most critical debriefing in his racing career.

Williams's Bottas complete the podium with another brilliant performance that is becoming more of a constant than a news.
News is, instead, the P4 for the red dressed Raikkonen that gets the best finish of this season and puts his car ahead of his teammate, again for the first time in this season.

Here's the classification for the point at the end of the race:

1. Ricciardo  Red Bull  25pts
2. Rosberg  Mercedes  18pts
3. Bottas  Williams  15pts
4. Raikkonen  Ferrari  12pts
5. Vettel  Red Bull  10pts
6. Button  McLaren  8pts
7. Alonso  Ferrari  6pts
8. Perez  ForceIndia  4pts
9. Kvyat  ToroRosso  2pts
10. Hulkenberg  ForceIndia  1pt

The Championship standings after Spa:

1. Rosberg  220pts
2. Hamilton  191pts
3. Ricciardo  156pts
4. Alonso  121pts
5. Bottas  110pts

Blancpain GT Series - RECAP

It's been a week end far from boring for the Blancpain GT Series circus, busy on the Slovakia Ring for the fourth appointment in calendar in the Sprint Series.

The Qualifying Race held on Saturday started with a shocking accident that saw Enge's Lamborghini rolling over and over in the very first lap of the race. Fortunately the drivers was fine but that was the end of the week end for the Reiter Engineering Team and for the duo Enge-Rosina. First Red Flag of the race to clean up the mess.
At the restart is the weather that takes control, after a couple of laps with zero visibility, the track started to be more drivable, just in time to give some confidence to the driver and then pouring rain again, couple of spins here and there, some car wandering around the soaked grass siding the circuit: safety car. The pit is open now and many take the chance to stop.  Not Winkelhock that practically gives up the lead because the race is stoppe for the second time after a couple of laps under safety car and his team will have to change driver on the third stint of the race.
The last 25 minutes are still enough to set aside another couple surprises, mainly igned Audi, with the at that point leader of the race Ide spinning at 6 minutes to the end and Abril that, after a very catchy come back until P4, goes wide in the last lap, ending in sixth position.
Is however another Audi to see the checkered flag first, with the duo Ramos-Vanthoor grabbing another victory and 8 points for the standing.

The main race takes place on a dry Sunday, but it doesn't take more than one turn for the drama to begin. Ramos and Proczyk start from the front line but none of them is fast, the group is packing on the way to turn 1 and when Ramos tries to gain some positions back, he gets on the brakes way too late and from the inside of the turn takes out in the sand a copious group of contenders upon himself.
The rest of the race is an engaging challenge between Bmw, Audi and Mercedes that sees, lastly, the two Bmw of Jager-Baumann, first win of the season, and Bueno-Jimenez, taking advantage of a better set-up for a dry race.

At the end of the two races we have:

Qualifying Race:

1. Ramos-Vanthoor   Audi                                         8pt.
2. Proczyk-Bleekemolen  Lamborghini                       6pt.
3. Verdonck-Gotz  Mercedes                                    4pt.

Main Race

1. Jager-Baumann   Bmw                                         25pt.
2. Bueno-Jimenez   Bmw                                         18pt.
3. Ide-Rast     Audi                                                  15pt.

Blancpain GT Series Slovakiaring Aug 22-24 2014

Aug 22 - 24 2014. The Blancpain Gt Series stops at the Slovakia Ring for Round 5 of the 2014 Championships.

Tons of action and close calls, so usual in this category, plus an unpredictable weather, made the two races, qualifying and main race, impossible to turn away from.

Here below the full coverage of Practice Race and Main Race.

Enjoy!

Video Indy Lights Milwaukee Aug 17th 2014

WATCH THE RACE HERE

Video DTM Nurburgring Aug 17th 2014

Busy Weekend Ahead!

Right, this week we have enough material to close ourselves in the living room for the next four days!!

It all starts today with the youngsters of  the Indy Lights tasting the ground in Sonoma for a very busy four day schedule, and with the World Rally Championship stopping in Germany for one of the most iconic appointments of the season.
Then tomorrow the mayhem begins, with the next categories (rigidly listed in alfabetical order) going down on track for their practice sessions: Blancpain GT Series, F1, GP2, GP3, IRL, Tudor United Sportscar Championship and V8 Supercars.

Enjoy the races and keep an eye on our session On track this Week to keep up to date on the upcoming events!

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