Vettel on F1 pole, stories behind top motorsport stories

Sebastien Vettel's run toward what will undoubtedly be his third world driver's championship in three years continued today at the Circuit of the Americas outside Austin, Tex.

Vettel drove his Red Bull-Renault to pole position over McLaren-Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, with his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber third.

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean qualified fourth with his teammate Kimi Raikkonen fifth. Positions six through ten: Michael Schumacher, Mercedes; Felipe Massa, Ferrari; Nico Hulkenberg, Force-India; Fernando Alonso, Ferrari and Pastor Maldonado, Williams.

Grosjean will have to serve a five-starting-position gearbox change penalty, which will see him start ninth, moving Alonso up a spot. But it's a deep hole for the Spanish driver as he tries to catch the surging Vettel with just the race tomorrow and the one next weekend in Brazil to go. 

Vettel has had a perfect weekend, to date. He was fastest in all three practice sessions before winning the qualifying time trials. He will be tough to beat tomorrow.

Meantime, here's some other racing information to chew on:

There are always two sides to a story, and stories behind stories.

Here are two of them — one in NASCAR and one in IndyCar.

Going into tomorrow’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the 2012 Sprint Cup Series championship will be decided between Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski, there are still postscripts being written about last Sunday’s brawl in Phoenix between crew members for Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer.

Bowyer is still crying the blues about being crashed out of the race on purpose by Gordon. You would think that this sort of thing never, ever, happened in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing. As if . . .

For his part, Gordon said the little fender-bender between them that had happened several laps before he executed his “payback” was the “last straw” after what he called a season of being “run over” by Bowyer.

Now we have Hendrick Motorsport owner Rick Hendrick explaining why he hasn’t been shedding any tears over his driver’s crashing of Bowyer.

It turns out that at Martinsville earlier this year, Hendrick - for sentimental reasons - really wanted someone on his team to score the company’s 200th win in Cup competition. And guess who got in the way? Correct. Clint Bowyer, who’d crashed out both Gordon and Jimmie Johnson near the end of that race that one or the other of the Hendrick cars had dominated all day.

So, as is usual in pretty much any situation, be it politics or car racing, there is way more there than meets the eye. Who is right and who is wrong is immaterial because nobody is innocent.

Speaking of way more there than meets the eye, I was talking to a guy the other day about the dismissal of IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard. Any number of fans and high-profile racing writers are still bleating about the injustice of it all but the guy I was talking to, who is a world famous racing driver, told me this:

“Bernard was a babe in the woods. He had no idea how to handle the owners, who are pirhanas. If you get them upset, they’ll eat you alive.

“Last spring, General Motors filed a protest because Bernard let Honda make changes to their turbocharger after the season started. Chevy argued you can’t change the rules after the game starts. Chevy lost the protest. GM was beyond angry, and some of the most powerful owners in IndyCar were seething.

“It was all downhill for Bernard after that.

“It came to a head a month or so ago when the IndyCar board was told to either get rid of him or a major supporter would pull out. Whether that was a sponsor or a manufacturer, I’m not saying. But the board had to do it, or else.”

To sum up: both Clint Bowyer and Randy Bernard had it coming. They, and their supporters, won’t agree but that’s beside the point. Newton’s third law of motion is in play here: for every action, there is an equal re-action.

If Clint Bowyer doesn’t take out Gordon and Johnson at Martinsville last spring, and Bernard tells Honda to hold off making changes to the turbo till 2013, maybe none of this happens.

Maybe . . .

Comments

[John Sabyan]

Come on Norris !!! I have been a fan of yours since the early Oswego days,but I totaly disagree about Boyer. He did not puposly take out Johnson and Gorden at Martinsville. He was hit from behind by evnentual winner Newman,and pushed into the other two drivers causing them all to wreck!! I am by no means a Boyer fan (smoke),but I think Jeff could have got even at say Daytona,and claimed his racecar was not handling,instead of taking out the guy who quite likely would have been in second place in points or could have finished second after Miami. I am not even going to sugjest that it had something to do with team car's ????? I know Jeff has had a very frustating season,but I alway's thought he had more class.

[Adam]

Marshal Pruett on speedtv.com had a series of articles analysing why Bernard might have gotten fired. There are a series of missteps and misunderstandings, not just the turbo-gate a Long Beach.
The restart at Loudon in the rain; the price of the Dallara and cost of spare parts - promises vs.delivery; the negotiating style; the drivers not wanting to race at Las Vegas and the outcome; Bernard was always considered an outsider; the doubleheader weekends in 2012 (you mentioned that earlier); etc,etc..

[Night]

Adequately well adequately consider just what we have below. It resembles yet another terrific website that a load of customers become commenting on. Thank you just so much with respect to the informative info and also comprehension, I subscribed to the comments in case someone prefers to turn up and have a controversy on this material