Tag: Austin

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Moto3: Alonso Annihilation In Austin!

Image Credit: @AsparTeam on X

Total dominance from the Colombian teenage sensation David Alonso (CFMOTO Aspar Team) this weekend in Austin, Texas. Quickest in practice, pole position and an easy race with Alonso leading every lap of it.

Alonso would have been unaware of the chaos and drama behind him, especially the terrific fight for the remaining podium places. Daniel Holgado (Red Bull GASGAS Tech3) and Angel Piqueras (Leopard Racing) finished the Grand Prix with a photo finish. Holgado finished 2nd and Piqueras just a bike wheel behind in 3rd. 

Holgado continued his great run of form and hasn’t finished outside of the top 3 so far this season. The championship lead cut down to just 2 points to Alonso as we head to Jerez in two week’s time.

Image Credit: @AsparTeam on X
Image Credit: @AsparTeam on X

AS IT HAPPENED

Unfortunately due to illness, Jose Antonio Rueda (Red Bull KTM Ajo) was unable to compete in today’s race despite the excellent qualifying session yesterday. This promoted everyone up the grid one slot and Collin Veijer (Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP) up onto the front row.

After the antics in yesterday’s sessions, most of the field had a long lap penalty and some a triple long lap penalty to take during the Grand Prix.

A great start from pole position from Alonso and Filippo Farioli (SIC58 Squadra Corse) went down on the first corner with several riders taking evasive action to avoid any collision. Farioli far too late on the brakes went into the back of Veijer and Veijer lucky to stay on the bike past turn 1.

Joel Kelso (BOE Motorsports) collided with Holgado into turn 8, luckily both riders stayed on their bikes. Alonso with the chaos behind him gained a half a second lead at the front on the opening lap.

Holgado into turn 12 went up the inside of Veijer and back up into 3rd. Ivan Ortola (MT Helmets – MSI) and Stefano Nepa ( LEVELUP – MTA) crashed out with Ortola too keen to get by. Ortola confused in the melee almost re-joined the race on the wrong bike. Holgado after the incident with Kelso got by Matteo Bertelle (Rivacold Snipers Team) and back up to 2nd place as we headed into lap 2.

 

Into lap 2 and Alonso pulled away at the front with Piqueras, Taiyo Furusato (Honda Team Asia) and Veijer all getting by and swapping places with Holgado.

With all of the field fighting behind, Alonso started lap 3 over 2 seconds clear at the front. Piqueras lead the chasing pack with Holgado 3rd and Furusato in 4th.

Yellow flags waved in sector 1 as Luca Lunetta (SIC58 Squadra Corse) crashed out with 11 laps to go. Lunetta able to re-join but would end up finishing in last place. Alonso now had a 3.5 seconds lead at the front. The chasing pack of 6 riders lead by Holgado but Holgado was unable to break away from Piqueras and co. behind.

Holgado, Piqueras, Yamanaka (MT Helmets – MSI) and Veijer all in a fantastic fight for the 2nd and 3rd podium places here in Austin. At the half way point of the race, it was Alonso’s to lose with a huge advantage of 4 seconds at the front. Kelso caught up to the chasing pack and now a group of 5 emerged to fight it out for the podium places.

5 laps to go and Holgado set the fastest lap of the race, reducing the gap to 3 seconds to Alonso ahead in the lead. Kelso crashed out at turn 1 to remount and was still in the top 10 as Kelso re-joined in 8th place.

Alonso’s gap shrunk by over a couple of seconds as Veijer went down in sector 1 through the fast twisty section with Yamanaka and Holgado narrowly missing Veijer and his bike. The crash handed breathing room for Piqueras and was on target for his first ever podium for Leopard Racing.

3 laps to go, Alonso lead with Piqueras 2nd and Yamanaka in 3rd. Holgado and  Yamanaka fought it out through the twisty section for 3rd place. Veijer retired on lap 12 after a more than eventful Grand Prix for the young dutchman. Hit multiple times from other rider’s before a high speed crash himself. Through turn 12 and up the inside of Yamanaka, Holgado moved back up into 3rd place.

2 laps to go and Holgado moved ahead of Piqueras into 2nd place late on the brakes up the hill into turn 1. Yamanaka and Piqueras both fighting for their first ever podiums in Moto3. Piqueras up the inside of Yamanaka and started the last lap of the race in 3rd place hunting down Holgado.

Onto the last lap and Piqueras was on the back wheel of Holgado and looked to take 2nd place away from the Red Bull GasGas rider. Down the long straight, Piqueras went up the inside of Holgado into 2nd. Holgado though patiently waited to attack and into turn 19 Holgado made his move. Up the inside of Piqueras and we had a photo finish on the line between the pair of them.  Holgado took 2nd place by just a bike wheel ahead of Piqueras who finished in 3rd.

Image Credit: MotoGP
Image Credit: MotoGP

With all of the carnage behind him, David Alonso kept his cool and cruised to victory in Austin. Alonso capped off a fantastic weekend today and was dominant in every session.

Race Classification 

Image Credit: MotoGP
Image Credit: MotoGP

Championship Standings

Image Credit: MotoGP
Image Credit: MotoGP
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Watermelons were smashed: Ross Chastain’s week as a first-time NASCAR Cup winner

Watermelon farmer turned NASCAR Cup racer Ross Chastain smashed out his first career win at Circuit of the Americas in final lap brawl.

On the hottest day of the year just outside of Austin, Texas, the NASCAR race at COTA came down to an overtime finish between Ross Chastain, road-course ringer AJ Allmendinger and Hendrick’s Alex Bowman.

On the final restart, it was Richard Childress Racing’s Tyler Reddick who led the field to green with Ross Chastain right beside him in second, but Chastain used the chrome horn and power moved by Reddick in the S’s to retake the lead.

Reddick would fall back to sixth while Chastain would take the white flag and would lead the break away with AJ Allmendinger and Alex Bowman in tandem.

Ross Chastain racing witth AJ Allmendinger right behind him (Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images)

Allmendinger closed up to Chastain in the turn 12 heavy braking zone and would continue to fill his mirrors up in turns 13 and 14 before sticking his Camaro up the inside of Chastain in turn 15, consequently pushing Chastain wide after he tried to cover him off.

Chastain would get passed by Bowman too after he dived past him on the inside of 18 while Chastain returned the favour to Allmendinger going into the penultimate corner, using him as a braking block. Allmendinger’s car stepped out on him and flew into Bowman who was alongside him. Allmendinger ended up backwards in the sand while Bowman had to take evasive action to avoid him. Chastain went on to take the checkered flag.

The highly anticipated ritual-like smashing of the watermelon was performed by Chastain on the straightaway from on top of his ONX Homes/iFly Camaro. Chastain was so thrilled he ate the juicy fruit while being interviewed, saying to FOX, “it’s never tasted sweeter.”

Ross Chastain, celebrates further by eating the smashed watermelon (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

It was also Trackhouse Racing’s first Cup win and was quite the birthday present for co-team owner Justin Marks.

Celebrations continued throughout the first half of the week with Chastain’s own Melon Man Brand, a grassroots lifestyle organisation uniting all watermelon lovers, putting up pre-orders for a most appropriate T-shirt on Tuesday to mark the iconic moment.

Co-team owner Mr. Worldwide also put out a congratulatory post to his driver and team.

It was not the end of Ross’s ‘victory lap’ either. On FOX’s own NASCAR Race Hub, Chastain taught Jimmie Johnson’s former crew chief Chad Knaus the arts of watermelon smashing.

Back at the race shop on Tuesday, Team Trackhouse were all bought a celebratory breakfast. Watermelon may or may not have been present.

Back to Sunday’s race, other drivers had found to be fast throughout the race, most notably Team Trackhouse teammate Daniel Suárez, who after starting second would take the lead away from polesitter Ryan Blaney on the opening lap. Suárez would go onto win the first stage of the race. He had a not so fun experience on the restart however, finding himself spinning around while in a five-wide mess in turn one. Denny Hamlin, in desperate need of points, would sacrifice track position and stay out to win stage two.

Daniel Suárez spinning out in turn one (Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images)

Ford drivers Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric would also be at the front throughout much of the race but not when Cindric brought out the first non-scheduled caution of the day for spinning coming out of the turn 10 kink, with Christopher Bell narrowly avoiding him by a whisker. The race would go to overtime when Kurt Busch, Kyle Larson, and Joey Logano came together in the turn one sandpit.

Bowman, Bell, Elliott, and Reddick made up the top five finishing order.

Featured Image: Ross Chastain, celebrates after winning at COTA (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

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2021 US GP: A premature Mexican standoff, with a predictable winner

Max Verstappen took a closely fought win at Austin, but his Red Bull was good enough for him to get the 25 points, with the strategy being the tip of the iceberg.

The US Grand Prix proved to be less of a write-off for Red Bull and Verstappen than they thought. Coming in to this week’s race, team principal Christian Horner, team advisor Helmut Marko, and even Verstappen himself didn’t believe that their car had any chance beating the Mercedes at COTA – and for good reason.

Before last Sunday’s race, Mercedes had only lost twice at that track: in 2013, to Sebastian Vettel, and in 2018, to Kimi Raikkonen. Lewis Hamilton had won four times, with Valtteri Bottas getting the win in 2019.

Kimi Raikkonen took what is likely his last ever win in Formula One at the US Grand Prix in 2018 – Courtesy of Scuderia Ferrari Press

All the odds were in favor of a Mercedes win once again, but it did not pan out that way.

The reason for this ‘upset’ – if you can call anything an upset during this up and down season – lies primarily in the temperature of the track.

Red Bull are known to be able to hold their tires in a better shape even in hot conditions. Austin proved to be one of those occasions where the sun blasted on the track for the whole three days of the event, and especially on Sunday, when the forecasted rain never came by – not even a cloud!

As a result, Verstappen was in an advantageous position, since he was able to maximise the potential of his tires, without worrying to much about their longevity. He, of course, managed his pace in order to preserve the tires’ life, but he didn’t hold back when he didn’t have to.

Verstappen drove a superbly consistent race to hold off Hamilton for the victory on Sunday – Courtesy of Red Bull Content Pool

On the other hand, Lewis Hamilton and the Mercedes had to play it safely for the better part of the race. They knew that they had to get Verstappen at the start, and they succeeded, since that was the only way that they could win the race given the circumstances. But they saw that Verstappen had the pace to keep up with Hamilton, staying below the one second-mark during the first 10 laps of the race, and that he pitted earlier than predicted. They then understood the necessity of going longer on their stints to try to combat the Austrians’ undercut attempts.

“I had a great start. The goal was to get in the lead and I finally got a good start – I’ve not had as good a start as that for a long time so I was really happy with it,” said Hamilton.

“Then it was just about staying clean and coming out ahead and holding onto it. It felt good at the time, to get into the lead, I thought ‘okay, this is step one’ but, as I said, they were just too quick.”

Hamilton took the lead on the first lap, before being pegged back by the rapid Verstappen – Courtesy of Mercedes F1 Media

Indeed they were.

It was the confidence of Verstappen to keep a competitive pace with a semi-worn set of tires, especially on his last stint with the hard compound, that won him the race.

Based on the teams’ calculations, a car that wanted to overtake another car in front of it had to be at least 1.2 seconds faster than it. Hamilton was at the very best 0.6 seconds faster than Verstappen in the latter stages of the race, and when he got close to DRS range, he lost some of the downforce due to the Dutchman’s wave of dirty air, and the tires not gripping for Hamilton as much as they did before.

Red Bull played it out beautifully, but they did have the odds with them – even though they didn’t think they did until Saturday afternoon.

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Mexico Grand Prix Preview with Austin Taste, Ariba Ariba

GP MESSICO F1/2016 – CITTA’ DEL MESSICO (MESSICO) 27/10/2016
© FOTO STUDIO COLOMBO PER PIRELLI MEDIA (© COPYRIGHT FREE)

Last back to back race of the season, directly tickets from Texas to Mexico City were booked by the Formula 1 staff, some had to climb Trump’s wall in order to arrive in Mexico, but everything is almost ready for the 18th race of the season.

Max Verstappen as another Speedy Gonzalez, will have to control his nerves and the “stab in the back” pain from FIA, must race as a normal racing driver under the official rules. Kimi Raikkonen from the other hand, the cool type that we all love, will go to Mexico with one purpose, to support Sebastian Vettel from Friday till the chequered flag. The Finn, was second in Austin and was looking very comfortable, but suddenly Ferrari discovered that he was going to run out of fuels, the order was clear “Save fuels, Kimi” and to our big surprise, Kimi stepped aside and let Vettel pass second, he almost lost the third place from Max, but as many said on the social media, one Finn supports the other, and Mika Salo advised the stewards to give 5 second time penalty to Max Verstappen after the chequered flag.

Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, United States of America.
Sunday 22 October 2017.
World Copyright: Steven Tee/LAT Images
ref: Digital Image _R3I1833

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the 3.7-4 world time champion Lewis Hamilton. The Brit had an easy weekend in Austin, no pressure for him, he read the script and followed exactly Mercedes’ plan. The track suited perfectly to Lewis and his sixth victory in COTA proves that, now the Champ has to finish fifth or above in Mexico in order to celebrate his fourth world title.

AUTÓDROMO HERMANOS RODRÍGUEZ

Laps: 71

Circuit Length: 4.304 km

Race Distance: 305.354 km

Lap Record: 1:20.521 (Nico Rosberg – 2015)

Mexico Grand Prix re-appeared in the Formula One calendar in 2015, after a long absence. Nico Rosberg was the driver who took the chequered flag in that year. Last year Lewis Hamilton won the Mexican Grand Prix, and he will try to repeat his success this season as well.

It is a home race for Sergio Perez, the fans will cheer for him and hopefully he will not complain about Oconstistency’s pace.

Sergio Perez – “Racing at home means a lot for me. It’s always a busy week, both for me and the team, but being at home makes all the hard work we put in for our fans and our partners worthwhile. It’s definitely the most enjoyable weekend of the year for me. It’s a great race for everyone involved in Formula One. There’s so much passion and the whole week is a big celebration. Everyone in Mexico City is looking forward to the race.The track is quite fun to drive and being on those long straights is special. Because of the altitude, even though you’re running high wings, you still achieve very high speeds and it’s really hard to stop the car under braking – in that sense it feels like a bit like Monza.I am lucky I get to race in my country in front of my fans. Their support means so much to me and it’s inspiring to see fans waving the Mexican flag in every grandstand. I really want to give them a special result to celebrate.”

GP MESSICO F1/2016 – CITTA’ DEL MESSICO (MESSICO) 30/10/2016
© FOTO STUDIO COLOMBO PER PIRELLI MEDIA (© COPYRIGHT FREE)

Felipe Massa – “First of all, it’s a shame to see what’s happened, it’s so sad to see the people losing their lives and also their homes from the earthquake so that’s really, really sad. I think we need to help them and get as much support for them. We need to pass the message to people around the world. That is the most important thing. Secondly, they are really in love with Formula One and they go crazy for the race. When you see the people in the grandstand and around the roads, they are proper Formula One fans and I think it’s fantastic to race there. I always enjoy it, I go with some friends, my father and we always enjoy the atmosphere there. It looks very similar to São Paolo so you also feel at home. I really hope we can have an important race for them in this difficult moment.”

In the American Grand Prix, Mercedes AMG celebrated their fourth consecutive constructors’ title, despite their bad start this season, the team managed to overcome their problems and the hard work paid off for them as they won the world title, massive congratulations to every member who contributed to the success.

Max Attack – Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen On How To Overtake & Win Races In F1 | M1TG

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