Indy Racing League - 2015

The Motorsport season of the New World is reaching full speed this weekend. After the two classic endurance appointments
of Daytona and Sebring, it's time now to welcome the IndyCar Series 2015 together with the little sister IndyLights

Following is a brief update on the most reverred open wheels series in the U.S.

TEAM and DRIVERS

With almost every team making changes for the upcoming season, a little summary can be very helpful:
A J Foyt will race two cars this year for the whole season, with Sato confirmed and Hawksworth moving from Bryan Herta Autosport.
Andretti is committing with four cars for the whole season. Hinchcliffe is leaving the family to join Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, while Simona De Silvestro and Justin Wilson share car n. 25
Bryan Herta doubles his presence with two cars appointed to Howard, coming back in the series and Gabby Chavez, fresh winner of the last Indy Lights season.
CFH Racing is born from the merging of Ed Carpenter and Sarah Fisher and it will have three cars for carpenter, newgarden and filippi. Mike Conway is leaving to join the Toyota team in the WEC.
Ganassi doesn't change much except for Briscoe leaving the seat to the young Karam, already involved in the 2014 Indy500.
Dale Coyne will partner with Huertas and the Italian rookie Francesco Dracone, while Wilson is joining Andretti for at least the Indy 500.
KV Racing is relying on European drivers for this season with Sebastian Bourdais and the other rookie Stefano Coletti from GP2. The other Sebastian, Saavedra, won't race this season.
Rahal Letterman is downsizing, leaving only one car on track for Graham and Filippi moving to CFH.
Schmidt Peterson changes both drivers: Jakes and Hinchcliffe for the Russian Aleshin and Pagenaud moved to Penske.
Penske expands to four cars and welcomes Simon Pagenaud.


CALENDAR

The calendar has been shortened from 18 to 16 race. Actually it was supposed to be 17 but the last minute cancellation of the
season opening race in Brasilia, Brazil, due to some sudden political changes has further reduced the number of races.
The only race entering the 2015 calendar is the Gran Prix of Louisiana, while the double race of Houston won't take part in this season
as well as one of the 2 in Toronto.  


RULES

On the field we'll see much more sofisticated looking cars, due to a new aerodinamic
package provided by Honda, which reminds us of the F1 aerodynamic kits for the years
2008-2010.
Several are also the changes that we will notice on track. First of all no standing starts
in 2015. Too many, in fact, the failures during the starting procedure in the last couple
years, some of which led to dangerous pile ups (last of them at the Indianapolis Gran Prix
with Saavedra walking out of a completely destroyed car). Pit selection will be based on the
team performance in the previous race and not more on the driver's performance
Prior to the race, the qualification groups will be based on the last session of practice
and not anymore on the first one.

The point system has also been revisited by moving the double point assignation from MAVTV
and Pocono to Sonoma that will be the only one beside the Indy500 to award double points.

 
Time now to get ready! The Firesonr Gran Prix it's just around the corner!!



Picture from bu30sports.com

F1 - 2015 - Round 1 - Australia

This new season started, quite frankly, in a sadly, desolating way. Too much drama is still monopolizing the attention around the circus, leaving little if no space to the passion and the entertainment that the top racing league in the world should be able to provide.
The head shaking starts on Friday when the Manor team realizes, after having shipped the whole team to Australia, not exactly around the corner from their headquarter, that all the data they were supposed to carry on their computer are gone, cleared after the team was ready for bankruptcy only a month ago. Hard to believe but hey, at least this is looking like is going to be a really funny season, at least. Yes cause the prank goes on with Sauber, with a plot that can be movie material: "two cars for three drivers". Van der Garde drives, Van der Garde doesn't drive, yes, no, yes....no.  
Your getting ready for the race, expecting to see a very short grid with the  Manors gone and Bottas out for injury, just to realize that we're missing some more people! How do you feel as a Team Manager when one of your cars can't even make it to the starting line? Well , ask Horner and Boullier, whose drivers Kvyat and Magnussen leave the garage in a F1 car and they return back a couple minutes later on their feet.
Sure these are just coincidences and obviously everybody worked really hard during the off-season. Proof of this is the improvement on the lap time with the fastest lap faster by 1.5 seconds from last year's and a race time shorter by a minute overall. Problem is that nobody really got closer to Mercedes and now, thanks to the newly restricted updating opportunities given to the teams from the 2015 rules, it will be a miracle if we won't follow a double race within the next 19 races.


Since everybody knows the obvious result of the race, it's time to evaluate teams and drivers on their first appearance in this season. Let's proceed rigorously by the standings:

Lewis Hamilton: 6. Let's be clear here: it will be an 8 based on the race performance: 6 tenths of a second on his teammate in qualifying, always first during the race, pushing when (rarely) needed and controlling when everything was going the right way (pretty much all the time)....but that bad joke on Schwarzenegger? (vote 10 to him for the counter-joke about the high heels!). But we said it before, funny season ahead.

Nico Rosberg: 7. It should be his year for redemption after that second place in last year season that only tastes like defeat. But he leaves Melbourne with 32 point less than last year on his teammate. The frustration is palpable on the podium, since he looks the same as he looked on the podium when he just lost his Championship last year. To cheer up invites his fella Vettel to visit the garage in Malaysia cause he thinks: lesser gap between teams, more spectacle on the track...and maybe more cars stealing points from his British teammate....

Mercedes: 9. No matter how the rules change or how well the other teams are working on their cars, it really seems that they jumped in this new era of F1 in the best way. Not only they lead but they keep doing it better and better.

Sebastian Vettel: 8. Third place in the first race with a car that last year even the mighty Alonso couldn't push that far? What better way to shake off the reputation that he was only fast with a fast car? He smiles and the team smiles back, he speaks Italian to them even though he probably spent the last couple months in the car 24/7 trying to get something out of it. There's to wonder if he's running a Rosetta Stone's program in the cockpit.

Ferrari: 8. There's light at the end of the tunnel. Finally a power unit worthy the Maranello's logo, finally the right strategy to move ahead of Massa through the pit stops. There's a different vibe in the paddock and everybody in benefiting from it, even the cold Raikkonen (7) who shows signs of the glorious days drive, even if he can't finish the race.

Felipe Massa: 6. He's the only Williams on track today and he has a chance to focus the team's attention on him to lead the team during the season. He tries to keep our hopes for somebody to be able to catch at least Rosberg high for a little bit but then he just can't.. He runs some fast laps and some slower one, almost to confuse the opponents on the strategy that his team is following but the latter ends up messing up on the strategy himself, losing the chances to grab the first podium of the season.

Williams: 6. They proof to be still the best of the rest even if Ferrari got very close, but they also proof to carry the same strategy black out that they were showing last year. There is definitely room for improvement.

Felipe Nasr: 8. First of the rookies. The youngster shows sign of pure talent, in a car that jumped ahead in performance just by sticking to the Ferrari engine. Aggressive when the fight requires it and relaxed when it's time to think clear. Right, not easy when the topic in the paddock is "who's not gonna race to leave a seat available for Van der Garde? Oh, ok, never mind."

Sauber: 7. As mentioned, the Ferrari power unit is a big upgrade this year, but you can't just drive an engine. The car seemed very well balanced and this first 14 points collected on Sunday can actually be the first of many. A little odd was the three stops strategy followed by Ericsson's (7) team but still, it will be an exciting season for the Suisse team.

Daniel Ricciardo: 6. Compared to last year he, at least, got some point out of the home Gran Prix. But be the first of the lapped cars can't be enough for a fast driver who's driving a car dominant just a couple years ago. He's surely blaming himself for some extent but it's really hard for now to know how bad this Red Bull looks like.

Red Bull: 5. If last year was a wet blanket for the Austrian team, this year looks even more concerning. If, then, the complaining against the regulament starts already just after the first Gran Prix it's not just sad but also a little embarrassing. They have the team, the resources and the drivers to be competitive. Just shake off the bad experience of last year and start fresh! Also getting two cars on the starting grid will also help.

Nico Hulkenberg: 6. It's not that bad of a race after all. On normal condition he will be fighting in the middle of the pack. Today, the middle of the pack is the bottom of the pack but seventh, after all, it's all right.

Force India: 6. Not a remarkable start of the season. The situation after the first race shows that no big improvements have been achieved. It will be hard to keep up with Sauber and with the company of good new drivers fighting for position. The new generation is approaching and the formerly new drivers risk to be engulfed and pushed back (see Perez: 5).

Carlos Sainz Jr.: 7. It's better to highlight that JR at the end of his name cause it's still kind of weird for whoever was following racing in the '80s and '90s to see that name during a F1 race. But the little Carlos is focused, he knows his business and he's all in. Even when he has to throw away 30 second during the pit stop he doesn't blink and he gets the ninth place and two points which are not a bad start.

Toro Rosso: 7. It could have been even a better start of the season if only Verstappen Jr (7) was able to finish the race. However the future looks bright for the Italian team who secured two of the fastest young drivers around and it's getting closer to the big Austrian brother.

Jenson Button: 6. Giving him less than 6 will be just disrespectful. Finishing out of the ten with only eleven cars to the finish it's pretty depressing but it doesn't look like you can blame him too much for it. He knows this will be a dirty job since the beginning and he actually has no problem to show some muscle when he's still fighting for position but this Mclaren just doesn't go and he, gloomily, like the captain of a sinking ship, gets his job done and saves his face and the face of the team.

Mclaren: 4. There's only to hope that this was a bad nightmare, that Magnussen's engine was the only flawed one they will receive from Honda this year, that Button and Alonso, with their experience and drive, will be able to change the course. If not, this can be the saddest year for the glorious team.

    
Appointment in two weeks in the usually pouring Malaysian track of Kuala Lumpur. Fingers crossed.



Picture from bleacherreport.com

WRC 2015 Round 3 MEXICO

                                                       

March 5th. It's already the first day of Round 3 for the WRC. Three rounds, three surfaces, three weathers. We leave the freezing land of Sweden to the warm and dusty stages of Guanajuato, Mexico. A much different environment means different approach and different challenges for teams, mechanics, drivers and cars. The car that will end this 3 rounds stint with a solid result will be also the more adaptable. Quality that nowhere else but in the WRC is crucial to be competitive.
 

The shakedown on Thursday is one of those that we like the most: three different cars in the three first spots. all within 2.5 seconds. With the rest of the group pushing from behind it feels like we'll experience a very entertaining four days show.

For the record, the unbeatable Ogier (VW) sets the pace, second is Neuville (Hyundai), third Meeke (Citroen).

Stages 1-5 are the logical result after the shakedown, with the three drivers above alternating on top, with two stage victories for Ogier and Neuville and one for Meeke who also crashes on SS04, as well as Robert Kubica, and drops to the bottom of the standings.

But the trophy for the most frightening crash today goes to Ott Tanak who ends up in a lake and sinks his Fiesta.  

After SS05 the virtual podium is occupied by Ogier, Neuville and Latvala. 

Stages 6-10 Ogier always protagonist with another two stage victories as well as his teammate Latvala. The remaining stage goes to Ostberg. Neuville, who was keeping up until SS07, ends SS08 prematurely and finds himself in P19 at the end of the stint.

The Italian driver Bertelli remarkably puts his Fiesta on the podium two times in the first ten stages.

Stages 11-13 on Saturday are the set up for another good bye to the chase for victory. This time the victim is Latvala who has to succumb to a suspension failure. 

The gap between Ogier and the rest of the group relentlessly opens up. The first of the chasers is now Ostberg but more than one minute away, followed by Mikkelsen.

Stages 14-18 Ogier is now out of reach for anyone so the focus turn on the fight for second position between the two Norwegian Ostberg and Mikkelsen with the second winnig stage 18 and closing at only 4.5 seconds from the compatriot.
Besides the usual double win from Ogier, the other two stages celebrate Kubica and the local driver Trivino.

Stages 19-21 are monopolized by the head-to-head for second position but the overall standing will stay frozen atleast for the first five positions.
It's Ogier the happiest at the end of the week, bringing home all the available points jumping to an impressive 81 points in three races. Ostberg, second, precedes Mikkelsen who sits on the lowest step of the podium for the third time in three races and he's still, today, the most credible contender to the crown even if 34 points behind the French.
Good result for Evans, fourth, and Dani Sordo fifth.

The dominion of the bond Ogier-Volkswagen is proving to be more solid after every stage. It will be hard for any of the other teams to come closer but the season is just unfolded and every corner in this discipline is crucial. Nobody can afford to loose focus even for a second.

Certainly we won't and we'll be back on April 23rd from Argentina for the next appointment in the calendar.

Stay tuned!  


Credits: Picture from motrface.com - Videos from WRC.com

F1 - 2015

If you pay close attention you can hear it. It’s the sound of the V6 turbocharged engines that for the second season this year are powering the Formula One cars. Many critics have been directed to the lack of noise that those power units are carrying, lowering the entertainment for the supporters all over the world, but at the end of the season everybody forgot about that, while focusing on the head to head between the two Mercedes drivers in the chase for the title.

The Anglo-German team was definitely the quickest one to align to the new rules introduced for the 2014 season. It was the first team to combine successfully a completely new engine, a heavily renewed Energy Recovery System, a car completely redesigned to fit the different new components, including the bigger tank. Mercedes combined all the new elements together like no one else.

Now it’s time to challenge them. Every team had finally the chance to look for redemption, to work on the cars, which won’t sustain any critical change for this season, in order to shrink the gap from the Silver Arrows.

It looks like some team worked particularly well, at least based on the pre-season tests, with Ferrari above the others. However the first real, true test is now. Starting today and ending on Sunday, the streets of Melbourne will be the judge on the work dispensed by each team during the winter.

It’s time now to take a look at what changed from last year so that we can understand better what we’ll see on the track:

Let’s take a quick look at the TEAMS and DRIVERS: The first thing we’ll notice is that the grid will be shorter. In fact only ten team will take part in the season. Caterham is the team leaving, unable to find a buyer in time to sign for the 2015 season, with Kobayashi going back to Japan in the Super Formula and Marcus Ericsson switching to Sauber. Almost same situation, but with much better ending, was reserved to the Marussia team, looking for investment that came through just a month ago, allowing the team to show up in Australia under the name Manor. With Max Chilton moving to the FIA WEC and the tragic accident involving Jules Bianchi in Japan last year, one driver will be Will Stevens, who debuted in the top series at the end of last year, while the other car will be assigned to the DTM driver Roberto Mehri for at least the first race of the season.

A couple teams changed their engine suppliers with Lotus leaving Renault for a potentially more competitive Mercedes engine, and McLaren who is ending the glorious duet with Mercedes to join a returning name that is still associated with the team of Woking, at least in the memory of the oldest of us. Honda. Another return in the McLaren family is Fernando Alonso, who is leaving Ferrari to take the seat occupied by Kevin Magnussen last year. But not just yet. The concerns regarding Alonso’s health conditions after the crash during the last tests in Spain suggested to delay the start of the season for the Asturian driver, meaning that the young Danish driver will be on the grid on this week end in Melbourne.

Consequently to Alonso’s move, the most attended team change of the season sees Vettel leaving the Red Bull family, which is sharing with the German four titles, to seat into a Ferrari. Certainly a challenge for Sebastian, given the struggle that Ferrari found itself in for the last several seasons but the same could have been said when the previous German driver showed up at Maranello. The same driver who ended up winning 5 titles with the Cavallino.

Drivers comes, drivers, goes. So the vacant seat for Red Bull had been quickly filled by the young and fast Daniil Kvyat who stepped up from Toro Rosso. The Italian team was looking for replacement for Kvyat but also for Jean Eric Vergne, whos 2015 will be pretty busy, divided between test driving for Ferrari and competing in the Formula E with team Andretti. The decision went toward a couple of promising young drivers with a particularly fine pedigree: Carlos Sainz jr., son of the WRC idol from the ’90, and Max Verstappen, son of Jos, Formula One driver himself until the early 2000.

Joining the club of who’s leaving F1 for this year, are the two now former Sauber drivers Gutierrez and Sutil, replaced by Ericsson, as said before, and the fast Felipe Nasr, moving up from GP2. There’s actually a third driver who should take part in the Australian Gran Prix. Giedo Van Der Garde signed a contract last year to take part into the 2015 season driving a Sauber and the Swiss team has now and order from Court to provide a car for Van Der Garde this week end. Three drivers for two cars, that’s probably not the best way to start a season, since as we write, there’s no certainty on who expect on the grid on Sunday!

Taking a look at the calendar we notice that we have one more race for a total of 20. The new entry is actually not new but is a big come back. The Mexican Gran Prix will be held at the same location that saw the F1 circus and supporters gather the last time on 1992.

Beside that not much has changed since the races ready to enter or re-enter the calendar weren’t meeting the requirements. That means no New Jersey, no India, no Korea.

The only other situation to be solved concerns the German Gran Prix. This should be the year, according to the agreement, to see F1 at the Nurburgring but nothing has been officialised so it will be either that or Hockenheim.

Now, for the most nerd of us, let’s take a look at the main changes in terms of SPECIFICATIONS and REGULATIONS: The number of power units available per car during the season has dropped from 5 to 4. Following such restriction there won’t be any penalty for the replacement of the whole power unit while penalties remain in effect for the substitution on parts of it.

The development of the engines has been cut by half for this season, leaving even less room for improvement for whoever is struggling….

The Front-and-Rear Interconnected suspensions have been banned.

On the safety side, following the brutal accident occurred to Bianchi in Japan, the cockpits have to be reinforced to give more protection around the head area, the starting time for several races has been anticipated in order to avoid racing close to dusk and a new procedure called Virtual Safety Car has been introduced to be used in sudden risky situation not manageable by the actual safety car.

A new 10 seconds penalty in the pit has been introduced to sanction unsafe releases and the double points assigned in the last race have been abandoned (TG!)

In case of race suspension, the cars will line up in the pit lane instead of the starting grid.

….And now the best of all! The drivers are banned from changing their helmets design!!!! The council of F1, after a long and solemn evaluation, declared that changing helmet design may cause trouble for the fans to recognize the drivers….Thanks chiefs, always thinking about us! Just in case the cars and numbers they are driving wasn’t enough to identify them…Now we’ll actually know who’s behind the wheel, just in case they switch cars right before the start. AMAZING

WTCC - Round 1 - Argentina RECAP

                                                       Picture from Tuttosport.com

Four months went by relatively fast and the WTCC is back in 2015 for it's eleventh season.
The location is the Termas de Rio Hondo, Argentina, the cove of the 2014 World Champion and local idol Jose' Maria Lopez.
El Pechito, who rose to the attention of the Citroen team two years ago on this track, had one goal in mind: start this season the same way he finished the last one. All the elements are there to make it happen: a dominant car that is still a couple steps above the competitors, a track that he knows inch by inch and that he calls home, a multitude of fans cheering for him.
The first sign that this was going to be a good week end for the Argentinian was the pole gained on Saturday against his fellow Citroen drivers by almost a second from Muller, Loeb and Ma.
Fifth position and last point assigned for the qualifying goes to Monteiro and his Honda.

Race 1 starts relatively clean, with Ma abandoning the head of the group with a very slow start and with Filippi and Thompson out in the first lap.
Bennani, with the private but still rocket fast Citroen, struggles to keep it cool and hits Huff on lap three. Result is a broken suspension for the British and an investigation pending on the Moroccan.
Valente goes wide on the following lap and crashes, while Coronel has a problem with his turbo system on lap 5 and is out as well.
The race is, at this point, split in two: The Citroen run for victory and the race for the best of the rest.
In the second group, the two Honda of Monteiro and Tarquini march in front, with a good come back from Michelisz up to P7. the other two Citroen of Bennani and Ma are respectively sixth and eight.
Not much happens in the last laps of the race, therefore Lopez, Muller and Loeb monopolize the podium, with the Honda of Monteiro and Tarquini right after them. A drive-through penalty inflicted on Bennani for the accident with Huff relegates him to 13th position.

Just the time for some handshake and to heal from the wounds of Race 1 and it's time to show up on the grid for the second race.
With the reversing of the first 10 cars qualified for Race 1, the grid sees Thompson, Coronel, D'Aste and Tarquini in the first two rows,while Loeb, Muller and Lopez in P8 P9 and P10.
At the start, Thompson has some problem that will push him to retire later on and D'Aste is pushed out of the track, on the mud, and his destiny will be the same as Thompson's.
At the first transit on the finish line the Citroen is already in the leading positions with Ma and Loeb. Coronel and Tarquini follow but the Chevy driver gets a little too aggressive trying to defend the position from the Italian attacks and he ends up on the grass and out of the race. As a result, the safety car makes it's first appearance of the season to give time to the marshals for some debris cleaning.
At this point Lopez climbed up to the fourth position which will become third when Ma, who run wide right before the safety car, has no choice but to stop for a quick radiator clean up to keep the engine temperature under control.
After three laps the safety car is in and only one lap after Tarquini can't contain the exuberance of the local idol Lopez who moves in P2.
Borkovic is out in lap 8 and Bennani moves from offender to victim when he gets hit by Muller on lap 10. The French will damage his car and will end the race in eleventh position.
The last five laps are all about Ma chasing Michelisz for 6th position ad the usual Honda duel between Monteiro and Tarquini, with the Portuguese stealing the third position with only one lap to go.
Loeb built enough gap to win with tranquility in front of Lopez who leads the Championship with 48 points out of 55. Third is the fast Monteiro, followed by Tarquini and Bennani.

It looks like the leitmotif of this season will be, again, "how the hell are we gonna beat the Citroen", with a open Championship dispute inside the French team. However, there are other 22 races on tracks that can favorite or no the Elysee of Loeb & Company, plus, the internal fight for the title has the capacity to keep in the run some of the outsiders, Honda in primis.

Our next appointment is in April, in Bennani's Morocco. Until then, as usual, stay tuned!

VIDEO WTCC Round 1 Argentina

Watch down here the first round of the WTCC 2015 in Argentina.

Soon coming the recap of the two races.

Enjoy!

Video from AutoMotoSportTV Youtube Channel

WTCC 2015

It's time for a new season.
While the engines are cooling down after the first practice in Argentina, let's take a quick look at what has changed for the 2015 season.

Starting from the grid, we will find the same Honda drivers as last year, with the addition of Borkovic, moved from Chevy to the Italian Proteam Racing and Rydell, back to the WTCC with team NIKA.
Similar situation for the French Citroen: same official squad plus the fast Bennani who moved from the Proteam Racing owned Civic.
Lada, backed by the new strong Russian sponsor Rosneft, keeps the three drivers from last year but is introducing the new car, much more similar to the Cruze, that replaces the retiring Granta: the Vesta.

Chevrolet supplies four team, including the coming back Craft Bamboo who's placing at the wheel of its Cruze the young Demoustier,involved last year in the Blancpain Endurance Series. Filippi (John) replaces Pepe Oriola in the Campos Racing Team. The Spaniard will join other two departing drivers, Morbidelli and Engstler, in the brand new TCR International Series.

Morbidelli is leaving the seat of his All-Ink Chevy to the other Italian D'Aste who is back after a year away from the Championship. The All-Ink team has also lost the other driver, Munnich, who is still owning the team but is focusing for this year in the Rallycross, and for now that's the last seat available for the WTCC.

Sadly, after nine years, since the FIA World Championship format has been in force, we have to say goodbye to one of the most iconic makers in the history of touring. With the departure of Engstler, in fact, BMW won't take part to the Championship.

Take a quick look at this year calendar and you'll notice that a little revolution took place. The only thing to remain the same is the number of events, twelve, that makes the season run on 24 races. 

That aside, the list of changes is quite long, with some disappointing decisions but also with some very exciting news.

The season is starting this Sunday, a month before the first race of 2014, and it starts in Argentina. But then we'll have two full months of stop between July and September, which is just a little shorter than the period between last season and this one...

Sadly, this year we won't see some of the best tracks like Spa-Francorchamps, Salzburgring and Macau. But at the same time we won't have to stare at that desolated, unsafe and embarrassingly unorganized location of Beijing (see last year's endless attempt to recover the cars of Munnich and Borkovic).

On the other end, the list of tracks entering the calendar in 2015 starts with the brand-new Thai circuit of Chang, which will also host a Superbike event this year, the street circuit of Vila Real in Portugal, that will host the event for the next three years, the well known Circuit of Losail and, last but not the least, the world famous German track also known as Nurburgring-Nordschleife. Yes people, a FIA World Championship event returns to the legendary track so we all sim-racing aficionados can invest some time in trying to beat the lap time of our favorite racers! 

Last change is the venue of the Japanese event, not Suzuka this year but the equally exciting Motegi.

As for us, we can't wait for the season to unfold and we'll be here to report on these 24 raceswith the same passion as usual.

Stay tuned!!

WRC 2015 Round 2 SWEDEN

Shakedown, Rally and Power Stage. There's really not much more to win in a round of the World Rally Championship. Certainly there's not more than 28 points to collect and when they all go in the pocket of the winner of the first round in Montecarlo, it may seem that the supremacy of the pair Ogier-Wolksvagen has already set the pace for the upcoming events in just two rounds.

The German-French powerhouse didn't have it easy though, this is still racing on the seconds and when you're speeding at 200 km/h on a sheet of ice, jumping between a forest of  conifers, the smallest mistake can end up in compromising your day. if not the whole round.

Let's step back now to the first event on Thursday, the shakedown.
Teams and drivers moved from the cold hills surrounding Montecarlo to the freezing taiga of Sweden. -25 C will be the average temperature for these four days and snow and ice won't be a variable here, but a constant.
Ogier is the quickest one to find the feeling with the conditions and the studded tires but he won't feel lonely. The club of  fast drivers sees many memberships today and at the end of the stage Kubica, Meeke, Mikkelsen and Latvala are all crowded in within a second from Ogier, keeping each other warm.

SS1 on Thursday and SS 2 to 4 on Friday morning are prerogative of the VW army which places in order Ogier, Latvala and Mikkelsen at the top of the standings. Close after them we find Ostberg, Neuville and Meeke, all within a second from the leader.

But Friday is preserving its fireworks for later on. Between SS 6 and 9 the standings looks more like a roulette table, due to the many accidents that pushed most of the top drivers to the "peloton". Victims of this crazy afternoon are, among others, Ogier, Latvala,  Evans and Meeke.
Protasov, Latvala, Mikkelsen and Neuville are the winners of the four stages and the standings after SS 9 is quite different from the morning: Mikkelsen, Neuville, Ostberg and Ogier within 30 seconds, with Latvala almost a minute after Kubica in 23rd position.

SS 10 to 14. Some of the top drivers are looking for revenge and they have to make up a lot of time to gain back the best positions. For sure Ogier put this thought on the snow better than everybody else, winning four of the five stages and starting to breathe on the neck of Mikkelsen. The Norwegian is still in first position but only less than two seconds ahead of his French teammate. Third is Neuville, still hanging on before Ostberg and Tanak. Sixth is the brilliant New Zealander Paddon thanks to consistent placements in all the stages.

Saturday ends with Stages 15 to 18 and with another move to the top of the standings. While Mikkelsen was making sure to keep his teammate Ogier behind, is the Belgian Neuville, with his Hyundai, to enjoy a pretty sweet Saturday Night, thanks to two stages wins and as much good finishes. Only one day to go and the virtual podium sees Neuville, Mikkelsen and Ogier in just 10 seconds....it might be freezing in here but the pressure will make somebody sweat tomorrow!

Sunday is the day where everybody prefers to be in first position, even better if it's Sunday night, and the quest seems to be a job for three. It is in fact the same trio to occupy the first three position before the Power Stage even if Mikkelsen is now back in first place, followed by the shadow of the the Polo who speaks French. Neuville is in third but still plenty in the mix: 4.6 seconds are not that much after all, it's pretty much how long it will take you to get to the end of this paragraph. Not bad eh?

SS 21, the Power Stage. If one of the first three wins this stage, he will most likely win the Rally  plus he will cash the three extra points. As anticipated at the beginning, is Ogier who gets the en plain. Neuville sits on the second step of the podium, while Mikkelsen breaks under pressure and ends up on a snowbank which pushes him some forty seconds away from the lead to a not too bad third place overall which doesn't taste that sweet to the Norwegian that was just a step from winning his first WRC Rally. 

After the top three, within 5 minutes from Ogier we have Tanak, Paddon, Evans, Meeke and Prokop.

  

The Championship standings is almost monopolized by the French Ogier who took an important jump ahead from the rest of the field, 23 points from Neuville and Mikkelsen, tied in second position, and 31 points from Latvala who ends the Swedish campaign in twelfth position collecting no points.

Next stop Mexico, from the hard winter to the boiling temperatures of Leon, from snow and ice to gravel and rocks. Will anybody be able to shorten the gap from the flying French?

On March 8th we might have an answer.

For more info and references to the videos, visit the official page of the WRC: http://www.wrc.com/en/

  

WRC - 2015 - MONTECARLO

Wow! What a start for the 2015 WRC season!!

If the win by the 2014 Champion Sebastien Ogier doesn't come as a big shock, this four-days event turned out to be a concentrate of excitement!

Many eyes were focus on the big return of the Roy, Sebastien Loeb, for a one rally deal with the car that he won the championship with for nine years in a row.
The French wasn't able to grab the eight victory on the streets of the Principality but what a great show for the many fans hanging on the edges of the tortuous streets of Monaco!

The opening day on Thursday sees Loeb first, Ogier second and Latvala third, all three in just half a minute.
By Friday night Loeb leaves the top of the standing, dropping down to 15th position, due to an accident that compromised a suspension which made impossible for the car to safely transfer and make it to the team mechanics. Same fate as the Polish Kubica a day earlier. Is Mikkelsen to raise to third position, with Tanak just behind him.
Saturday ends with the first three positions frozen from the night before, with Ogier leading on Latvala by 42 seconds and Mikkelsen just over one minute behind the Finnish.
Sunday, between the mighty Col De Turini and the streets of Montecarlo , is the usual, crazy show. Ogier comfortably manage the margin on Latvala and ends up winning with almost a minute on the Finn, while Mikkelsen can sit on the lowest step of the podium. Ostberg, Neuville and Sordo are the other drivers within five minutes from Ogier.


Here below the link to the recap from the official WRC website.

Have a great time!

POLLS POLLS AND POLLS!!!!

Big news this year!!

Share your prediction on your favorite races!

As you can see, click on the first link in the right column and take part in our poll!

Starting today you can pick the driver that you think will win the race! Compare your prediction with all the other followers but hurry, the clock won't wait for you!

TUDOR UNITED SPORTSCAR CHAMPIONSHIP 2015

On January 24th and 25th, on the glorious track of Daytona, the International Motor Sport Association will host the first round of the 2015 racing season.
The top series will open the year 2015 with the classic Rolex 24, the first big endurance race of the year worldwide.

This year the calendar has been shortened by one race since Championship won't stop in Kansas and Indianapolis but it will race at Lime Rock, Connecticut.

Unfortunately this year the calendar is not the only thing losing lines. Even the lists of teams participating in each class are smaller: The teams in the Prototype class moved from 13 to 12; the Prototype Challenge class from 8 to 7; the GTLM from 9 to 7 and with the SRT Team leaving we won't see the Viper fighting on the race; the Gt Daytona class from 23 to 15.

Many are the seats changing for the drivers but it's exciting to verify that many top notch drivers are listed to take part into this season, keeping the quality of the race one of the best in the world.

As North America officially opens the 2015 motorsport season, we're looking forward for an exciting year ahead.

Stay tuned!

World Rally Championship 2015

Let's take a quick look at the upcoming new season of the WRC.

Not many changes in the constructors officially participating in the Championship. Here below a quick look at the 2015 cars:

The list of teams competing for manufacturers points sees the entry of the Italian team FWRT s.r.l. with a Fiesta RS WRC, assigned to the driver and co-pilot Lorenzo Bertelli and Giovanni Bernacchini, which will replace the Robert Kubica Team.

The Polish driver will still drive his own Ford this year but the manufacturer won't benefit from any point scored from him.

Talking about drivers, it's a big surprise to see again Sebastian Loeb, even only for the Rallye of Montecarlo, behind the wheel of a Citroen, with his buddy of many victories and Montecarlo resident Daniel Elena.
Ott Tanak gained a seat in the official Ford M-Sport WRT, replacing the retiring Mikko Hirvonen.

In the Hyundai family the new entry is Kevin Abbring, with his co-driver Sebastian Marshall, who'll replace the French Bouffier, moved to the Ford M-Sport team but not competing for manufacturer points, the Finnish Junno Hanninen who will race only in the Swedish round with a private Citroen and the Aussie Chris Atkinson.

The calendar remains pretty much untouched except for the wise move to switch the rounds of Argentina and Portugal, for a much more economic sequence Mexico-Argentina-Portugal-Italy.

The Rally of Portugal is moving back in the Porto area, after been relocated in the southern region of Algarve since 2002.


The appointment is for Thursday Jan 22nd at the glamorous Place du Casino, Monaco, to begin the 43rd World Rally Championship.

See you

Happy new year

It's back!

Our new Motorsport season 2015 is finally here!

Thursday the spotlights will turn on the sharp and tortuous streets of Montecarlo, where the 2015 World Rally Championship will be hosted in its first appointment, for four days, until Sunday.

Same day, other continent, the IMSA teams will be down on the Daytona International Speedway to warm up for the Rolex 24, scheduled between Saturday and Sunday.

Different scenarios, different weather, different cars, tracks and drivers but same passion: Speed, drive at the limit, as on ice as it is on tarmac, adrenaline, engines roaring.

Yes, the 2015, our 2015, it finally begins!



Coming soon we'll look close at each category to find what's new and what to expect.

About us, we just made some minor changes in the categories that we'll follow: we had, unfortunately, to let EuroV8 and Asian LMS go but we're happy to welcome in our schedule the Super GT!


Stay tuned for the next update!

And again, Happy new year!