SATURDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Huge news from Brands Hatch in England.
CANADIAN XAVIER COUPAL (23) WENT ON TO FINISH SECOND BEHIND AMERICAN NEIL ALBERICO (21) IN HIS FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL HEAT AT BRANDS HATCH IN ENGLAND TODAY. BRAVO!
Last week, I wrote a column in Toronto Star Wheels about Grote Industries and Brian Graham Racing taking a young Canadian to the Formula Ford Festival in Britain - a frantic two days of racing in which a poor finish in any of the heats or quarter/semi finals can sink you.
So Team Canada driver Xavier Coupal of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., went out today and finished second in his first race, a scant 0.334 seconds behind American Neil Alberico.
Fingers crossed that Coupal can keep up the good work Sunday.
SATURDAY MORNING UPDATE
Lewis Hamilton edged Sebastien Vettel on Saturday to win pole position for Sunday's Korean Grand Prix.
The last time a Red Bull-Renault wasn't starting first at a Grand Prix was at Abu Dhabi last year.
Hamilton's McLaren-Mercedes teammate Jenson Button will start third with Mark Webber fourth in the second Red Bull. Felipe Massa again outqualified his Ferrari teammate, Fernando Alonso, and will start fifth with his teammate in sixth.
Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes will go off seventh and Vitaly Petrov will start eighth in his Renault. The Force India cars qualified ninth and tenth but didn't try to improve their positions in the final qualifying sesssions.
TV reminders: The F1 race will be live on TSN at 1:55 a.m. and repeated at 8 a.m. Sunday on TSN2. The NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Charlotte can be seen tonight on TSN2 at 7:30 (pre-race) and 8 (green flag). It will be preceded at 5:30 by a replay of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series' Kawartha 250. The final race of the IZOD IndyCar Series season can be seen Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. It comes on a half-hour earlier on ABC Buffalo channel 7 (Rogers 18, Cogeco 09).
Oh, and Carl Edwards won the Nationwide race at Charlotte Friday night with Kyle Busch second and Trevor Bayne third.
FRIDAY EVENING UPDATE
Veteran open-wheel star Tony Kanaan won the pole Friday for Sunday's final race of the IZOD IndyCar Series season with a blistering time of 222.078 miles an hour around the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Kanaan went out late in the 90-minute session to knock Oriol Servia off pole. The difference between the two cars was .0057 second. Ed Carpenter, who's a master oval-track racer - he won the race at Kentucky Speedway two weeks ago - will start third.
Danica Patrick, who started the weekend off with a bang by turning fastest time in first practice Thursday - about two miles an hour faster than Friday's pole speed - will start ninth.
The two drivers in contention for the championship, Will Power and Dario Franchitti, both had poor qualifying sessions. Power will go off 17th and Franchitti will start 18th.
Interestingly, the two racers trying for the Sunoco Rookie-of-the-Year award, James Hinchcliffe of Oakville and American J.R. Hildebrand, will also start together with Hinchcliffe 14th and Hildebrand 15th.
Canadian Alex Tagliani will go off fourth. Paul Tracy will start 27th.
Kanaan, ever the comedian, said after qualifying that his pole run might have looked hard but wasn't. "There's really nothing to it," he said. "You just have to remember to turn left . . . four times."
On another racing front, Mosport announced Friday that the American Le Mans Series race originally scheduled for Sat., July 21, 2012 will be held on Sun., July 22. As the ALMS will run with IndyCar at a number of venues next season, there was speculation (mine) that the 2012 Toronto IndyCar race would be moved from the CNE street course to Mosport but that obviously isn't the case.
I suggest there was an effort made to have that happen. Maybe in 2013 . . .
And Michael Shank Racing announced it will field a team in the 2012 IZOD series. Kenny Wilden of Oakville drove races for Shank in sports cars. Is it too much to dream that Wilden might get another shot at an Indy car ride?
Earlier . . .
Danica Patrick is leaving IndyCar with a bang.
In first practice for Sunday's grand finale of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the Andretti Autosport veteran turned the fastest lap around the 1.5-mile speedway - 24.7349 seconds, which is 224.719 miles an hour.
The slowest of the 34 drivers was Jay Howard and his lap was 25.3269 seconds, a half-second slower.
Wow. Every one of the other 32 drivers who took time was in the same frame, which means the pack racing that will take place Sunday will be absolutely hairy.
"It's friggin' fast here," said Patrick in what had to be a serious understatement.
"Almost a 225 lap is like Indy speeds. The track is nice and smooth . . . we'll be three-wide there, maybe even four wide, which will be exciting. The race is going to be crazy and the crashes will be spectacular.
"Nothing would let me turn the page better than winning here."
Indy car racing's most famous personality will bring down the curtain on her open wheel career Sunday. She is contracted to join Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s NASCAR Nationwide Series team for 2012 and will also drive some Sprint Cup races for Tony Stewart's team.
She won't be waiting for 2012, though. In fact, she'll be racing in several Nationwide Series races between now and the end of the season.
Her'es how fast they were going at Las Vegas Thursday.
Oriol Servia went 24.8114 to set the second-fastest time and Ryan Hunter-Reay was third at 24.8267 seconds.
Notables: Dario Franchitti (shooting for his third consecutive championship) was ninth at 24.8737 seconds; Ed Carpenter, who won the oval race at Kentucky on a similar speedway two weeks ago, was 13th at 24.9956; Will Power, the only other driver in contention for the title and trying for his first IndyCar championship, was 14th at 25.0131; James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, leading the race to be Sunoco Rookie-of-the-Year, was 15th at 25.0156; Paul Tracy of Scarborough was 21st at 25.0990 and Alex Tagliani of Montreal was 23rd at 25.1027;
Dan Wheldon, the Indy 500 winner who will try to come from the back of the pack (he'll start last, regardless of how fast he goes in practice or qualifying), turned a lap of 25.1012 seconds, good for 22nd fastest and J.R. Hildebrand, the American driver in a tustle with Hinchcliffe for the rookie award, was 24th fastest with a time of 25.1102 seconds.
Meantime, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, scene of this week's Saturday night Chase race, Tony Stewart won the pole, followed by Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. Other Chase contenders:
Ryan Newman, sixth; Jimmie Johnson, ninth; Kevin Harvick, 14th; Dale Earnhardt Jr., 15th (boy, did Jimmy Spencer ever tear a strip off him this week for asking after the Washington Redskins in the middle of the race last week in Kansas), Denny Hamlin, 17th; Kurt Busch, 20th; Jeff Gordon, 23rd; Kyle Busch, 25th and Brad Keselowdki, 26th.
Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto, a champion karter, won the Formula BMW-USA championship. This earned him a Red Bull sponsorship.
When he went to Europe to drive in Formula 2, Helmut Marko, the ex-F1 driver in charge of driver development for Red Bull-Renault Racing, told him he was expected to win.
Wickens finished second in the series and was stripped of his sponsorship.
Said 'Dr.' Marko: “See ya.”
Wickens was not surprised. “They expected me to win, and I didn’t,” he said.
Jean-Eric Vergne of France is a Red Bull sponsored driver who’d previously won the British Formula 3 championship.
He was entered in this year’s World Series by Renault, in which he finished second.
(Do you see where I’m going with this?)
You would expect that Vergne would be stripped of his sponsorship – particularly since the guy he lost the championship to was none other than Canadian Robert Wickens.
But instead of ‘Dr.’ Marko saying “See ya,” Jean-Eric was at the Korean Grand Prix today to drive a Toro Rosso F1 team car in first practice.
Hmmm. I wonder why?
Actually, I’ll tell you why.
Robert Wickens is a North American and Jean-Eric Vergne is a European.
F1, despite calling itself a “world’ series, is a European series complete with Eurocentric attitudes and prejudices.
Which explains why Robert Wickens, a Canadian who lost, got his walking papers and Jean-Eric Vergne, a Frenchman who lost, got promoted.
Vergne replaced Jaime Alguersuari in the Toro Rosso.
First practice in Korea today (Friday - Thursday night in Canada) was pretty much ruined by rain. Michael Schumacher was "fastest" with a time of 2 minutes, 02.784 seconds, followed by Sebastien Vettel (2.02.840) and Paul Di Resta (2.02.912).
Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa went out for one slow lap and retired to the garage where it was dry. Lewis Hamilton was seventh fastest and Mark Webber was 10th.
Vergne was 13th fastest, but was about five seconds slower than Schumacher's time.
In the second session, which dried up enough for the guys to get down to work, Lewis Hamilton was fastest with a lap of 1:50:828. His McLaren-Mercedes teammate Jenson Button was second at 1:50:932.
Third through fifth fastest were Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber. Sixth through 10th quickest were Alguersuari (nothing like having to sit out a session to motivate a fellow . . .), Felipe Massa, Nico Rosberg, Sebastien Buemi and Paul di Resta.
re: Wickens.
I'm sure this news didn't help his cause.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1065181
Maybe they should be renamed Red Bullsh_t. A year and half back they also cancelled the Air Races claiming insurance issues (ie: sales slowing) but my take on F1 is that if Adrian Newey left, RBR would not be one of the top 3 teams.
Posted by: APP | 10/14/2011 at 07:52 AM
Hey Norris, I agree that there seems to be an injustice, but when Wickens was dropped from the Red Bull Junior squad, there was also another group of drivers to go as well. We can only hope that we see Wickens race in F1 next year. Like many Canadian fans of racing say, if he were a hockey player, he'd be a star like Sidney Crosby, there's the real injustice!
Posted by: Jason Stalker | 10/14/2011 at 10:38 AM