Tag Archives: Race Recap

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Motorsports: Race Recap: Mystery, magic and consistency at the 2013 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix [spoilers]

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By Jonathon Ramsey

Hungarian Grand Prix - lead image

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For the last three years, the question many have asked about the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team is “What are they doing?” This year that question is, “What will they do next?” They lured Lewis Hamilton from McLaren. They hadn’t yet cured their tire issues, yet Nico Rosberg has still been winning races. They got away with a seriously illegal questionable tire test. And then after being shut out of the Young Driver Test and a chance to learn the new Pirelli tires, Lewis Hamilton shows up at the Hungaroring – a track where everyone (including Mercedes itself) expected the team to struggle – and puts his car on pole position.

At least this time, everyone, including Lewis and his team, was surprised. Informed that he had taken P1 from Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton asked, “Is that pole?” When he said “I need a miracle” to actually win the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix, however, that part we could believe.

Continue reading Race Recap: Mystery, magic and consistency at the 2013 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix [spoilers]

Race Recap: Mystery, magic and consistency at the 2013 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix [spoilers] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorsports: Race Recap: 2013 Chinese Grand Prix a test of tires, carnage and a fight for second [spoilers]

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By Jonathon Ramsey

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Formula One fans and commentators have spent the three weeks since the Malaysian Grand Prix discussing two things more than any other: that pass, and tires. Sebastian Vettel spent days giving his tongue an Olympic workout on the verbal gymnastics parallel bars before finally admitting he passed his Infiniti Red Bull teammate Mark Webber on purpose partly for reasons of payback, partly out of a desire to win – he doesn’t apologize for it and he would do it again.

Then came those Pirellis – every single driver and team representative interview touches on how important it is to understand the tires and manage their degradation. Two races in, though, it seems no team has any clue yet how to make the race-weekend compounds work predictably. The only thing predictable about the soft compound tires that Pirelli brought to China was that they would last for six laps, and that led to an odd qualifying session with drivers reluctant to leave the pits or even set a time.

It also led to the first pole position for an Englishman in a Mercedes-Benz since Stirling Moss did it in 1955.

Continue reading Race Recap: 2013 Chinese Grand Prix a test of tires, carnage and a fight for second [spoilers]

Race Recap: 2013 Chinese Grand Prix a test of tires, carnage and a fight for second [spoilers] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorsports: Race Recap: 2013 Twelve Hours of Sebring, cakewalk up front, grindfest out back [w/spoilers]

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By Jonathon Ramsey

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This year’s 12 Hours of Sebring wasn’t exactly a foregone conclusion because we’re still talking about racing, and anything can happen when the speeds are as high as the adrenaline and the desire. But we’re still talking about Audi bringing it’s two top-spec racers – and its huge budget and its nearly neurotic attention to detail – to a race that it uses as a test bed for The 24 Hours of Le Mans and as a way to open the endurance racing season with a victory.

Besides, 12 hours is a long time, especially at Sebring, and things didn’t go all Audi’s way. On top of that, although it was a pretty quiet race, behind the Audis things got even grimier, with plenty of battles, plenty of mechanical issues, and the new BMW Z4 GTE and Viper GTS-R being race tested. Oh, and that brand new chromed-out DeltaWing…

Continue reading Race Recap: 2013 Twelve Hours of Sebring, cakewalk up front, grindfest out back [w/spoilers]

Race Recap: 2013 Twelve Hours of Sebring, cakewalk up front, grindfest out back [w/spoilers] originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorsports: Race Recap: 2013 Daytona 500 runs 200 laps, six of them count [spoilers]

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By Jonathon Ramsey

2013 Daytona 500 start

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It’s been a huge month, leading up to the Super Bowl of NASCAR, the Daytona 500. This is the first year of the new Car of Tomorrow, the “Gen Six” car, and all of the drivers have been trying to figure out its intricacies. The Ford Fusion and Chevrolet NASCAR SS has joined the field and its street-legal equivalent, the SS, was introduced. A huge wreck in the Nationwide Series race the day before the Daytona 500 tore a car in half, tore a hole in the fence, sent car parts flying into the crowd and injured some 33 spectators.

And then, of course, making just her 11th Sprint Cup Series start, there was Danica Patrick on pole position. She’d lead the way for the 43 cars on the grid to start the 200 laps of the 2.5-mile oval called the Daytona International Speedway, with its five-story-high turns banked at 31 degrees and the 3,000-foot front stretch banked at 18 degrees.

Perhaps all that excitement is why James Franco, the honorary race starter there to promote Disney’s new film, Oz the Great and Powerful, yelled “Drivers, and Danica, start your engines!” to begin the 65th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship…

Continue reading Race Recap: 2013 Daytona 500 runs 200 laps, six of them count [spoilers]

Race Recap: 2013 Daytona 500 runs 200 laps, six of them count [spoilers] originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 24 Feb 2013 22:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorsports: Race Recap: 2013 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12-Hour race a feast of water, wrecks and yellow flags

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By Jonathon Ramsey

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For the last two years, Audi has won what’s called “The ultimate Aussie endurance race,” the Bathurst 12-Hour event at Mt. Panorama, reverentially known as “The Mountain.” It did so with factory-backed versions of the R8 LMS Ultra and factory-backed drivers sent over for the sole purpose of taking the checkered flag at the 3.861-mile course and then taking the silverware back to Ingolstadt.

Erebus Motorsport, owned by property developer Betty Klimenko, is 18 months old. You’ve read about Erebus in news about the V8 Supercar season, the team engaging in some international intrigue so it could run Mercedes-Benz E63 AMGs against Holden, Ford and Nissan which also in the series. It took second in last year’s Bathurt 12-hour race, and Klimenko said that this year they’d win it.

They’d have to get past Phoenix Motorsport, the Audi team that’s taken two wins on the trot. Phoenix had different drivers this year, but the team still had race-winning experience and there were six other R8 LMS Ultras in the field with customer racing support, and we’re still talking about Audi, a juggernaut going up against a team that, were it human, would barely be old enough to talk.

It was a crazy day on the mountain that would decide the day.

Continue reading Race Recap: 2013 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12-Hour race a feast of water, wrecks and yellow flags

Race Recap: 2013 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12-Hour race a feast of water, wrecks and yellow flags originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorsports: Race Recap: 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers, and notes from a dry lake bed [w/video]

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By Jonathon Ramsey

King of the Hammers 2013 overhead view

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It was a local guy from 90 miles away who beat them all…

The image above shows 129 Ultra4 racing rigs lined up for the start of the 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers. In case you missed Part One that explains why they’re there and why they might be doing the most difficult and absurd one-day off-road race in the world, check it out. After a week of races in other events and two days of qualifying for the big show, the men and women who made it in were lined up to do three laps of a course around the 140,000-acre Johnson Valley OHV area in California’s San Bernardino County.

Lap one was 52 miles through the desert, lap two was 63-miles long and lap three was 69-miles long, those last circuits going through some of the toughest rock trails – known collectively as The Hammers – on the planet. Drivers from 12 countries, trophy truck champions who’ve come from Paris-Dakar and the Baja 1000, guys who had spent big-money sums like $250,000 on their rigs were lined up to win, or just try and make it back before the 14-hour cutoff time.

It was a local guy from 90 miles away who beat them all…

Continue reading Race Recap: 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers, and notes from a dry lake bed [w/video]

Race Recap: 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers, and notes from a dry lake bed [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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