We’re a couple of weeks into “Motorsport Monday”, so now is as good a time as any to ask ‘How’s everyone liking it?’ I hope it’s been as enjoyable to read as it has been for me to write. The hope here is to give everyone a solid weekend/previous week recap on the happenings inside various motorsports. Is it working?
This weekend was a bit on the slow side again, with just the biggest international rally ever, the Asian LMS season ender, and other various news. Just be aware of the fact that this post is filled with spoilers. Giant carbon-fiber, multi-element, DRS-equipped, Gurney-flapped, Spoilers!
WRC Gamble Pays Off In Monte Carlo
Asian Le Mans Series Season Ender At Sepang
NASCAR Makes Up The Dumbest Rule Ever
Indy 500 Gains Presenting Sponsor
Daytona 24 Coming Soon
Craig Lowndes Injured, Replaced For Bathurst 12 Hour
Level 5 Motorsports Owner Scott Tucker In Trouble With FTC
Automatic Invites To Le Mans Announced
Monte Carlo Rally
Sebastien Ogier stormed to a commanding third Monte Carlo Rally victory in as many seasons in his Volkswagen Polo WRC. Kris Meeke and his Citroen team put up a good fight through the rally, but he struck a large rock and incurred suspension damage knocking him a few minutes out of contention.
Ogier’s teammate Jari-Matti Latvala had a horrible rally, and begins a championship bid on the back foot. During the first stage of Saturday’s afternoon competition, Latvala went off and broke his suspension. While re-entering the route, his car struck a photographer, and was later penalized for not stopping at the scene.
In second place finished the third Volkswagen of Mikkelsen. The final step of the podium was earned by Hyundai’s Neuville, after running extremely fast on snow tires late Saturday.
3 Hours Of Sepang
Giovinazzi and Gelael won again in Sepang with their Eurasia Jagonya Ayam LMP2 car. LMP3 was won by DC Racing’s Ho-Pin Tung, David Cheng, and Thomas Laurent. The GT class was won by Absolute Racing’s Jeffrey Lee, Alessio Picariello, and Chris Mies in a new Audi R8 LMS.
NASCAR’s Caution Clock
Dumb. Stupid. Idiotic. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. This is worse than a Trump presidential campaign. NASCAR needs more commercial revenue, so they introduce this bohunkus. Raspberries in your direction, good sirs.
Indy 500 Gains PennGrade Motor Oil Sponsorship
The 100th running of the Indy 500 will be called “The Indianapolis 500 Presented By PennGrade Motor Oil”. This is the first time in the race’s history that it has had a presenting sponsor. Take from that what you may.
Daytona 24 Hour Next Weekend!
Daytona is one of my favorite races of the season, and this one should be a real hum-dinger. For the record, here are my predictions for victors in each class. I’m not often right, so we’ll see.
Prototype –
#90 VisitFlorida Racing Corvette DP – Ryan Dalziel, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Marc Goossens
Prototype Challenge –
#54 CORE autosport Oreca FLM09 – Jon Bennett, Colin Braun, Mark Wilkins, and Martin Plowman
GT Le Mans –
#4 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R – Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner, and Marcel Fassler
GT Daytona –
#6 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS GT3 – Robin Liddell, Andrew Davis, Lawson Aschenbach, and Matt Bell
See the entry list here to make your own predictions.
If you’re a Porsche fan, check out my Porsche-centric guides to the race over on FlatSixes.com.
Craig Lowndes Injured
The Aussie V8 driver suffered a broken clavicle after a motorcycle accident. Surgery has been undertaken, and he is expected to make a full recovery before the V8 Supercar season opener. However, the 2014 12 hour race winner will be forced to sit out of the Mt. Panorama race, where he was going to run with Garth Tander and Steve McLaughlan. Lowndes has been replaced by Audi ace Rene Rast.
FTC Seeking Damages From Scott Tucker
The Federal Trade Commission submitted papers in Nevada federal court on Wednesday seeking $1.32 billion (with a ‘b’) in damages from Tucker and his late brother Blaine. The content is reported to have targeted the pair for “engaging in a scheme to deceive payday lending customers” through AMG Services. AMG Services allegedly charged their payday loan customers undisclosed fees, through which Tucker profited at least 419.8 million dollars.
Tucker and Level 5 Motorsport were known for carrying out the most professional and highest order racing team in existence for a number of years. Whatever racing the team was involved in, was done with absolutely no expense spared. Scott Tucker was the John Hammond of the racing world. For the best evidence of that, go listen to “The Level 5 Special” episode of the Dinner with Racers podcast (found here).
Le Mans Entries Start Rolling In
The first 15 cars have been announced with entries to the 24 hour endurance classic. Here they are.
LMP1 – Porsche (2015 Le Mans Victory)
LMP2 – KCMG (2015 Le Mans Victory)
GTE Pro – Corvette Racing (2015 Le Mans Victory)
GT Am – SMP Racing (2015 Le Mans Victory)
Greaves Motorsport, Formula Racing, Marc VDS, TDS Racing, and Team LNT gain 5 of the offered spots for their efforts in the European Le Mans Series.
Race Performance, Clearwater Racing, and DC Racing earn the three guaranteed entries for winning their respective classes in the Asian Le Mans Series.
Michael Shank Racing and Scuderia Corsa have been awarded places by IMSA.
Three of those spaces will go unused. Porsche are only running two cars at Le Mans this season, KCMG has discontinued its LMP2 program, and Marc VDS racing has closed its doors (with the most awesome press release ever).
[Photographs Sourced From Racer.com/Motorsport.com/NASCAR.com]
Hooniverse Motorsport News for January 25th, 2016
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I can’t think of anything pithy to say about the NASCAR caution clock because I can’t stop facepalming.
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Either I am not getting it, or they really are going yellow every 20min? For how long? And, last but by far not unimportant: why, wtf?! Who’s supposed to raise one’s level of caution anyway – drivers, audience?
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It could be worse. They could have a DRS zone.
The cars have gotten too easy to drive. This means long green flag runs and pit stops with little passing, and that’s super boring. I’d prefer less downforce or harder, skinnier tires, but NASCAR chose this. Big deal.
Keep in mind that it’s just racing and racing isn’t important. SO what if you don’t think it’s pure? Just wait and see if the action on the track is more entertaining. If it is, it’s a good change. If you hate passing, there are many other, more respected series you can watch.-
Oh, we don’t have NASCAR here at all – that image up there is my first exposure to this novel and innovative attempt of making racing more interesting, so I didn’t follow any of the discussions regular spectators and media certainly had, and hence my questions, which you partly answered (why), thank you.
Still open: For how long is the yellow flag on? Why “caution”?-
A NASCAR caution is pretty much equivalent to a safety car period in FIA-sanctioned racing; drivers have to reduce their speed and be aware of safety workers, track maintenance equipment, etc. while lining up behind the pace car (= safety car) and maintaining their place in the running order. They usually last several laps, while safety workers address the cause of the caution period (debris on the track, a wrecked or disabled car in an unsafe place, a drunken idiot sitting on top of the turn-4 catchfence…) Depending on tire/fuel strategy, most cars use the caution periods to take a pit stop, with lead-lap cars allowed to pit during the 1st lap that pit road is open (after everyone’s lined up where they should be) and backmarkers pitting the next lap (so they aren’t in the way of the frontrunners.)
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“Who’s supposed to raise one’s level of caution anyway – drivers, audience?”
The audience.
NASCAR want the audience to wake up once every 20min to watch the commercials.
(I guess the drivers could watch the commercials too — because clearly no-one is going to be doing any racing whilst they are on.)
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I have not read the post yet, sadly I’m at work, but a question is burning me: has anyone payed for “motor trend on demand”? is it any good?
Currently, I have no (legal) way of watching any racing series. -
For the Rolex 24 I’m pulling for either Ford or BMW Team RLL: Ford because I want to see the GT win its first outing in the US and BMW because I’m just a huge fan of Team RLL and the new M6 looked strong at the roar. In fact, I’m putting a beer on BMW winning with the guy crazy enough to drive down to Daytona with me next weekend. He thinks the Ferrari 488 will reign supreme… ha.
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New cars with turbos make me wary. It’s relatively untested.
Corvette.
I want to say Porsche, but I don’t vote with my fan heart.
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Podiums will include (in no particular order):
P – Deltawing, Ligier, Mazda
PC – Clean sweep by Oreca
GTLM – BMW, Ford, Corvette
GTD – Audi, Lamborghini, Viper-
I really want to root for DWING, especially now that the Mexican Albatross is off of their back.
Obviously you guys found a lot of downforce somewhere, and as long as your transmissions hold together, there’s a good chance at being there. Traffic will be the hard part. I still think it’s hard to vote against the DPs with Daytona infield traffic.
You’re really reaching with that PC vote…-
Especially in a 24-hour, racing is a very bipolar mix of windmilling at the edge and playing it safe.
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Audi and Lamborghini have five cars each in the running so I sure hope at least one will make it to the podium!
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Can you have parts cars, or did somebody try this earlier so it’s banned now?
I’ll spare me the flames for joking about both Audi and Lamborghini being Volkswagen Group, as are those Porsche-branded cars…-
Parts cars?
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A car for parts, hardly competing but circulating around the track, happy to give its gearbox to the leading “VW” if needed. somewhat like the domestiques in road cycling.
Key issue is whether it’s allowed to transfer parts from one car to another out on the track. -
Is this in regards to WRC or Daytona?
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All the races! WRC is maybe too tight a competition (DNF vs. last, the rest is 10min ahead), but in 12- and 24-hr racing, the sheer fact of arrival is worth some struggle.
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We normally carry multiple spare everything, except for
the kitchen sinka tub. I don’t think the rules allow the change of an engine or gearbox in the race, but bodywork often happens, suspension is not out of the question, and brakes are near mandatory. Drivetrains are mainly in case something happens in practice, and if you do a tub, those have to be flown in.
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Just go away, NASCAR. It’s time.
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NASCAR was always on in my household growing up. My father loved it, I loved it, and some of our friends and family did as well (this is an hour north of NYC, mind you…not the south). As I got older I grew less and less interested. The sport needs to evolve, but its history in conjunction with its “change-is-bad” fanbase will prevent it from doing so. It needs elements from the likes of Aussie V8 Supercars, and the excitement of Stadium Supertrucks…for now, it’s just the same thing on repeat. There’s only so many times you can watch the same tracks, with identical cars, at identical speeds. There’s no standout personalities any more, and it’s utterly monotonous. It needs a refresh but that will never happen. NASCAR will only die if sponsorship dies, but the viewership it just too big as-is. The best days of NASCAR are long behind us.
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Same for F1, Indy, sports cars, and prototypes.
Is there anywhere to stream the Daytona 24?
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IMSA.com, definitely from 10PM to 7AM, possibly at other times when it’s jumping across different Fox Sports numbers. There’s also live timing at IMSA, which will be most of my ‘watching’.
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I can usually get a better picture of the race from the timing screen anyway, barring crashes. Also, they never show the damn GTD race on the TV broadcast, which is a shame because it’s almost always a barn-burner.
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There should be streaming on imsa.com. The whole race was streamed there last year, but there is no word yet as to whether that will happen.
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They didn’t publicize the streaming of it last year concurrently with the broadcast, probably because of potentially grumbling sponsors/advertisers. Even when IMSA.com isn’t showing the cut-picture broadcast, you can stream in-car video with IMSA Radio audio on IMSA.com.
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So, is the Caution Clock just for the Truck Series or is it NASCAR-wide? Best case scenario, it’s probably a test program before rolling it out to the higher levels. I’d feel better if this were being published on April 1st.
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Currently it’s just for trucks.
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