The Motorsport Thread - 2012

I'm surprised Alonso wasn't up with the McLarens, he was the man to beat going into Q3. Excellent lap for Di Resta, shame he has to take a 5 place penalty but thats still a top 10 start.

Congrats to Lewis.
Not really a surprise given McLarens success, and success in general, from pole.

Perez with another 2nd, certainly outdone Kam this year.
Glad to see both Ferrari's have a good day, especially Alonso from 10th to the podium (though sorry, it's still just not as impressive as it used to be).

Both RBRs retire, what a season! Though by this point this top 10 is fairly standard.

Excellent drives by Hamilton, Perez and Raikkonen, who really shouldnt have been so high up after 1 stopping so early with a car on one of its weaker tracks. I'm really surprised at the move that Vettel pulled on Alonso, given all the talk recently about driving standards and that the FIA would be watching closely he was asking for a penalty.

Some good news, Kubica won a national rally in Italy today by a minute, his first competetive event since his accident.

He's said 14 recently. It's taking a long time for the dexterity in his right hand/arm to recover so he currently wouldn't be able to opperate a singel seater given the close confines of the cockpit. A rally car has a bit more elbow room so he's fine with that, and looking to enter another rally next weekend as well.

Oh, and the Zanardi medal tally is 2 golds (time trial and road race) and 1 silver (relay). Talk is he'll be doing the Indy 500 next, possibly with old boss Chip Ganassi.

sleeper wrote: I've just found out that Professer Sid Watkins passed away last night. Since the late 70's he's the man that has pushed hardest fo an improvement to safety at Grand Prix, particularly in the area of medical facilities, fast response personel and cockpit safety. Without him there are many drivers currently alive that wouldnt be. A great man, RIP.

F1 news is total zilch here, and it just slips my mind too often to check :(

Remember, 3 times Ive seen F1 news here on ESPN. Schumi's record title, Hami's first win, Kubica's crazy accident.
I wish him the best, gunna be quite a struggle.

I'm pretty much totally removed from NASCAR these days but I would love to finally see Dale Jr win a title.
Biffle and Stewart would both be awesome wins.

The race for the IndyCar championship at Fontana just finished! and man, it was an absolute nail biter. I will refrain from saying the outcome of the championship race between Power, and Hunter-Reay, but Ed Carpenter won the race, going past Franchitti right before Sato crashed on the last lap, which made the race finish under yellow. (......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................)

Edited by Sheavy - September 15 2012 at 23:13

It will probably be up on youtube soon, I'd watch it when you get a chance.

Carpenter seems to bemaking a specialty of winning the end of season races. And when was the last time an owner driver won a race, I'm thinkin it'll be either Andretti after he bought into Team Green or Adrian Fernandez but that would probably go back to his CART days.

Sheavy wrote: ^ Andretti won in Toronto in 2001, racing for Team Green. Not sure if Fernandez ever won anything after that as an owner/driver.

I remember watching that race live, back when Eurosport cover the Champ Car World Series (bloody good race it was too). I've just done a bit of research and found that Andretti won at Long Beach the following year as well, but it wasn't until the end of 2002 that he bought into the team, so the only time he was an owner driver where the first few races of 2003.

As for Fernandez, he won the Champ Car race at Portland in 2003, and at the Kentuky, Chicagoland and California Speedway's in 2004 in the IRL, all for his own team.

I guess I've answered my own question then.

Oh, and congratulations to Toyota for winning their first sportscar race in Prototypes since the early 90's, Wurz and Nicolas Lapier comprahensively beat the Audi's at Interlagos yesterday in the WEC.


Edited by sleeper - September 16 2012 at 14:30