Source: http://www.16thandgeorgetown.com/2012/09/for-rhr-to-win-championship.html
Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella Mбrio de Araъjo Cabral
Saturday
Lewis Hamilton takes first Formula 1 race in United States since 2007
If the cowboy hats donned on the heads of the drivers atop the podium after Sunday's United States Grand Prix were any indication, Formula 1 enjoyed its stay in the Lone Star state this weekend.
The world's most prominent racing series was back in the states for the first time since the 2007 USGP at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And from the early returns; the enthusiasm, the crowd (an announced 80,000+ attended qualifying on Saturday), and the lack of traffic problems, this inaugural race at the Circuit of the Americas just outside Austin was a success. And it'll be the most-watched race of the entire weekend.
Yeah, that's including the Sprint Cup season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
On the American scene, the date choice for the first Circuit of the Americas United States Grand Prix seemed a curious one. It was up against the NFL's early games and scheduled to end during the opening segment of the Ford 400. (The University of Texas football team was off on Saturday.) Did Bernie Ecclestone and F1 want to steal some of NASCAR's thunder? Did they want to directly compete with the Cowboys and Texans? Heck, does the sanctioning body even care enough about those U.S. factors to even consider them?
After all, this is Formula 1, the land of seemingly budgetless racing.
Mario Andretti was at the U.S. Grand Prix and said to the Austin American-Statesman, said that the two races shouldn't have been run on the same day. The man would seem to be a pretty good resource on the subject; after all, he's run in both series.
"You do have a crossover of fans," Andretti said Friday. "I know, personally, some people who are down there and would've been here. And maybe even vise versa."
The Circuit of the Americas is a 3.427 mile track just southeast of Austin-Bergstrom Airport and many drivers were worried about the track's tricky approach to turn one, especially on the first lap. The run up to the almost 180 degree turn featured a steep hill into the braking zone and into the apex, which, because of the incline, seemed like it almost came out of nowhere to the drivers.
But the first lap of the race was clean, and polesitter and points leader Sebastian Vettel sprinted out to a substantial lead over teammate Mark Webber, who took second from Lewis Hamilton on the start.
However, Hamilton dispatched Webber (who ended up retiring from an engine failure) and eventually reeled in Vettel, taking the lead after the polesitter led the first 41 laps. Hamilton held on to win by six tenths of a second. (Side note: During a mid-race pit stop, Hamilton's pit crew changed all four tires on his car in an astonishing 2.4 seconds.)
That, along with Fernando Alonso's fourth place finish, meant that Vettel wasn't able to clinch the points championship at Austin and will carry a 13 point lead over Alonso into the season's final race in Sao Paulo, Brazil next weekend.
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Button: Perez Ready For McLaren Role
Jenson Button believes that his new team-mate Sergio Perez can handle the expectations at McLaren. The Mexican will be making the first big move of his career, and some have suggested that he may not be ready for the added responsibility. However, Button says that this is nonsense and that Perez has the ability to [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/9bca4YzNmCo/button-perez-ready-for-mclaren-role
2013 MotoGP Calendar: Jerez Confirmed, Sachsenring Moved To July 14th
The 2013 MotoGP schedule took one step closer to being finalized on Tuesday. Dorna announced that two of the question marks remaining over the schedule have at last been resolved. The contract with Jerez has finally been confirmed through the next three seasons, securing the race for May 5th, and ensuring it remains on the calendar through 2015. And as predicted, the German round of MotoGP has been moved back a week to avoid a clash with the German Formula One Grand Prix, with MotoGP visiting the Sachsenring on the 14th of July.
The updated MotoGP calendar can be found below, with the most up-to-date version always available on this page. The press release from Dorna announcing the contract with Jerez and the moving of the Sachsenring date is also shown below:
Jerez confirmed until 2015 while Sachsenring moved back a week
Dorna Sports has confirmed that the Gran Premio bwin de España will take place in Jerez until at least 2015 after reaching an agreement today, whilst the 2013 eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland has been shifted back a week.
Friday
2012 season in the rear view: Marcos Ambrose
Vitals: 18th in the points standings. 1 win, 3 top 5s, 8 top 10s. 4 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Hey, we have a winner! Being the lowest ranked winner in the points standings isn't much of an honor, but Marcos Ambrose's win was sure fun to watch. Let's watch it again.
That win was followed by two top five finishes, suddenly making Ambrose a legitimate Chase contender as the Sprint Cup marched towards the final race before the Chase at Richmond.
Moment to forget: And then things started sputtering from there. In the 12 races since his fifth place finish at Bristol, Ambrose's highest finish was a 12th place at Kansas Speedway. In that stretch, Ambrose had three crew chiefs (Todd Parrott, Mike Ford and Drew Blickensderfer) and finished outside the top 20 six times, including crashing at Talladega and then at Texas after losing a tire.
The wrap: After Richmond, Ambrose was 15th in the points standings, but was 17th after Chicago and then settled into 18th. He showed enough flashes at non road courses to stay inside the top 20 for the final 26 races, but was only a true threat to win at Watkins Glen.
Johnson tries very hard to rattle Keselowski in final pre-championship press conference
Jimmie Johnson did his best to rattle Brad Keselowski on Thursday at the Sprint Cup championship contenders' press conference. But Johnson may have ended up unintentionally proving that Keselowski is the worthy rival Johnson's needed all these years.
Since Johnson began winning championships back in 2006, he's vanquished a host of the best names in NASCAR: Gordon, Edwards, Martin, Hamlin, Harvick. Since 2006, he's never gone toe-to-toe with a fellow driver heading into the final race and lost. But then, he's facing a far tougher challenge now than in any of his five championship seasons. He sits 20 points behind Keselowski, requiring both a strong finish from his own team and a weak one from Keselowski.
[Related: Final Chase Power Rankings]
"Brad," Johnson said, mock-helpfully, "if you'd like me to call later and remind you ... of guys that didn't pull off the season finale as they would hope."
With talk to Twitter and families, along with some attempts at baiting that fell flat, this year's conference was far tamer than the past two years. In 2010, Johnson and Harvick tag-teamed Hamlin with such psychological ferocity that Hamlin's legs were shaking. And last year, Tony Stewart hammered Carl Edwards until Edwards could find his footing. You could argue, perhaps, that the winner of the psychological battle on Thursday was able to turn that victory into a major win on Sunday.
If that's the case, Johnson has reason to be worried. He used the exact same "all the pressure's on him" lines on Keselowski that worked so well on Hamlin two years ago:
"The magnitude [of an impending championship] sets in at some point," he said. "I've been the guy leading the points ... You're forced to answer questions that you're not used to answering, that you don't want to answer, and it builds through the course of the week. Again, it hits everybody differently, and there's no guarantees how it'll hit him.� But I know from my own experience that there have been those moments.� Fortunately I responded well to them.� We'll see how the weekend goes."
[Also: Jeff Gordon fined $100K, docked 25 points for wrecking Clint Bowyer]
But this time around, Keselowski wasn't biting. Indeed, Keselowski indicated he'd double down on the aggressive approach that's gotten him this far:
"One of my favorite movies in the whole wide world is this documentary on Ayrton Senna, and there's this really powerful scene in that movie that sticks with me when I think about this weekend," he said. "I think about this scene in the movie when they talked about him at Monaco, which was his ?? just his phenomenal track that he was so strong at and how he had this huge lead over his teammate ... and they were coming down to the closing laps of the race, and they told him to slow down, you have a huge lead, don't worry, just slow down, just�?? and he wrecked. And I think of that as I approach this weekend.� I'm going to go out there and play my game, race my way.� That's got us to this point, and if we do that, we'll be fine."
2010 was a decisive knockout for Johnson. 2011 was a split-decision win on points for Stewart. 2012? To be the man, you gotta beat the man, and Keselowski weathered Johnson's best shots. The Blue Deuce gets the win on Thursday; we'll see how that translates on Sunday.
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2012 season in the rear view: Mark Martin
Vitals: 26th in the points standings. 0 wins, 4 top 5s, 10 top 10s. 5 DNFs. (24 races)
Moment to remember: Sometimes, a driver's moment to remember on the season isn't one to remember because it's a positive one. And for Mark Martin, that's definitely the case.
Martin qualified on the pole at Michigan (one of four he scored all season) and was the class of the field. However, while leading what would have been his 55th lap of the day on the 65th lap of the race, Martin lost control of his car off of turn four and went skidding through the infield grass.
What happened next was one of the most replayed moments of the season. Martin's car barreled towards the edge of an opening from the garage to pit road and his car was impaled by the end of one of the walls at the opening just in front of the left rear tire.
It was a point of impact that could have had far more severe consequences if Martin had hit a few feet closer to the front of the car. Will it lead to new designs in the openings on pit road walls? We'll see.
Moment to forget: Martin suffered three engine failures in a span of seven races in the spring and early summer. All of those were at intermediate tracks.
The wrap: Even with those engine failures and the two accidents that put him out of races five times, his average finish was 15.2. One problem... his average start was 9.2. All too often was Martin a factor at the beginning of the race, only to fade to Bolivian at the end. He's back for a similar schedule again in 2013, and if another year with Rodney Childers and the rest of the No. 55 crew can help fix the propensity to fade in the latter stages of races, watch out victory lane.
Thursday
2012 season in the rear view: Joey Logano
Vitals: 17th in the points standings. 1 win, 2 top 5s, 12 top 10s. 3 DNFs.
Moment to remember: Logano started and finished first in the spring Pocono race, leading 49 of the race's 160 laps. And he made his pass for the lead on Mark Martin on lap 157 with authority.
After looking to the inside down the frontstretch, Logano entered turn one on Martin's bumper and made slight contact with Martin's rear. That was enough to move Martin up the track and opened the inside for Logano to shoot through for the lead.
It was a risky move; had Logano hit Martin harder, it could have sent Martin (and Logano) careening into the fence. Had Logano backed off, he would have lost his momentum and may never have gotten to Martin's bumper again. He had his run, he went for it, and he got it, notching his second career Cup Series win.
Moment to forget: That win at Pocono put Logano in the thick of Wild Card contention at 14th place in the points standings. He would never be any higher. The following week at Michigan, Logano crashed on the backstretch after moving to avoid David Gilliland and finished 35th, falling to 15th in the standings.
The wrap: So, how did Logano end up 18th in the points standings with 12 top 10 finishes? Easy answer: 13 finishes below 20th place. The Loganocoaster was climbing and diving at a high rate of speed throughout 2012 and there were more valleys than peaks between that Pocono win and the Chase. In the 12 races that Logano had to grab a second win and really be a Wild Card contender, he finished in the top 10 three times and 30th or worse three times. If the Loganocoaster is a little more even-keeled in 2013, he could be a Chase contender in his new ride at Penske Racing.
How have Brad Keselowski and Jimmie Johnson fared at Homestead?
During his run of five consecutive titles, Jimmie Johnson entered the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway trailing just once, and that was in 2010, when he beat Denny Hamlin. And if he wants to hoist the trophy again on Sunday, he's going to have to do it once again.
By the average finish numbers, Homestead hasn't been Johnson's best track; his average finish is 13.5. But that's a little deceiving. He finished 25th in his rookie season in 2001, 40th when chasing Tony Stewart for the title in 2005 and was 32nd last year, the first Chase he wasn't in contention for at Homestead.
Every other race, Johnson has finished in the top five all but once. When falling short to Kurt Busch in 2004, he finished second. (If Johnson would have swiped the lead from Greg Biffle before that race's final caution, he would have won the title.) In his championship seasons, his performances have gone like this:
2006: 9th (won by 56 points)
2007: 7th (won by 77 points)
2008: 15th (won by 69 points)
2009: 5th (won by 141 points)
2010: 2nd (won by 39 points)
Hell, in 2008, that margin was after Carl Edwards gained 62 points on Johnson by winning the race. When Vader can smell the championship, he can usually put it away. However, given the 20-point deficit to Brad Keselowski, it may be too difficult to overcome.
With the usual caveat in this weekly series that Keselowski's average finish is not a reliable indicator of possible performance, Keselowski's average finish is 20.2 in four races at Homestead. Here's how his four races have broken down:
2008: 23rd
2009: 25th
2010: 13th
2011: 20th
As you surely know, Keselowski needs to finish just 15th or better and Johnson can't win the championship. If he doesn't perform strongly on Sunday and scores an average 20th-place finish? Well, that 20-point cushion comes in handy. Under the current points structure, Johnson would need to duplicate his 2010 effort to win the championship. Every other of his Homestead finishes wouldn't be enough.
On to the other Chasers for the final time this season:
Kevin Harvick: Harvick has the highest average finish of any of the Chasers at Homestead at 7.9 despite not having a win at the track. That's thanks to five top fives and nine top 10 finishes in 11 starts. He finished eighth last year.
Martin Truex Jr.: Other Junior's average finish is 10.2 and he finished third here last year. He's a dark horse to steal the win Sunday given the way he's performed at 1.5-mile tracks this season.
Hamlin: Throwing away a 33rd place finish in his first Homestead race, Denny Hamlin's worst Homestead performance (14th) came in that fateful 2010 race when he entered with the points lead, qualified poorly and then spun early. His average finish is 10.4 and he won this race in 2009.
Jeff Gordon: Gordon has 10 top 10s in 13 Homestead starts and his highest finish is a third place in 2006. If he wants to exceed his 11.3 average finish, he better stay the hell away from Clint Bowyer.
Tony Stewart: Last year was Stewart's first win on the new Homestead configuration after winning the first two races at the track in 1999 and 2000. Smoke's average finish is 11.5 in 13 races.
Bowyer: His average finish is 13.8 and he has three top 10s in six races. And his key to a good performance may be pretty simple too: Stay the hell away from Gordon.
Kasey Kahne: Kahne has the best average starting position of any driver at Homestead at 7.2, but his average finish is 14.8. In his two races at Homestead with Red Bull Racing, he finished sixth and seventh.
Biffle: The Biff reeled off three straight wins at Homestead from 2004-2006, but since then it's been a load of blah, with finishes of 13th, 18th, 14th, 10th and 35th. That's why his average finish is 15.3.
Matt Kenseth: Kenseth won this race in 2007 and has an average finish of 16.3. His is so low because in his first five Homestead races, his highest finish was 19th. Yes, Flatline was probably very happy about the move to progressive banking.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.: In 12 Homestead starts, Junior has no top fives and no top 10s. None, nada, zip, zero, zilch. But he was as close as he's ever been last year, finishing 11th. This year, he gets that top 10. His average finish is 23.1.
Jay Chamberlain Karun Chandhok Alain de Changy Colin Chapman
Jerez WSBK And Ducati MotoGP Test Day 4 Times: Hayden Posts Fastest Ducati Lap Of The Year
The penultimate day of combined testing for the MotoGP and World Superbike teams at Jerez brought good news for Ducati, in both series. Nicky Hayden ended the day as fastest, posting the fastest timed lap set by a Ducati this year at Jerez, just a hair outside the 1:39 bracket at 1:40.090. That is nearly half a second quicker than the time he posted during qualifying back in April, despite cold conditions which made it difficult to get the Bridgestone tires up to temperature. Hayden was the fastest man of the day (using the chassis raced at the end of the 2012 season, not the evolution brought to the track for testing), three quarters of a second quicker than Marco Melandri on the BMW Italia WSBK machine. Melandri picked up the pace quickly at the test, closing in on the times set by Eugene Laverty and Tom Sykes, both of whom have now flown home, Aprilia and Kawasaki having completed their test programs.
Wednesday
Tuesday
Brad Keselowski fined $25K for in-car tweeting
Here's a clear case of NASCAR being shocked, shocked to learn that one of its most popular tweeting drivers carries his phone with him at all times ... even during races.
On Sunday, with the rest of NASCAR focused on the sprawling Jeff Gordon-Clint Bowyer fight and the race red-flagged, Keselowski whiled away the time by taking out his phone and tweeting a few thoughts, responses and jokes with fans. It was reminiscent of the Daytona 500, where Keselowski did the same thing during the Juan Pablo Montoya-incited fireball. The publicity from that netted him hundreds of thousands of new followers.
Alas, NASCAR was not nearly so amused, fining Keselowski $25,000 for his offense. Drivers are not permitted to carry electronic devices in their cars, and that includes smartphones. Keselowski has said that he carries the phone to notify his family in the event of a wreck. (He also tweeted a picture of Victory Lane in Bristol in March, though a defense attorney would note that there's no proof Keselowski wasn't handed that phone as he climbed out of his car.)
Anyway, this might be one of those fines that NASCAR should just kind of forget to collect. As long as Keselowski isn't actually tweeting under a green flag, where's the problem? We mean, it's not like he's smoking or anything:
Keselowski races for the Sprint Cup championship on Sunday, and if he wins, you can bet there'll be some tweeting going on.
Kimi Raikkonen ran into a dead end during the Brazilian Grand Prix
When we last saw fabled driver Kimi Raikkonen around these parts, he was getting his first F1 win since returning to the series by winning at Abu Dhabi.
During Sunday's rainy F1 finale at Brazil, Raikkonen was exporing new territory. And it didn't work out so well.
After sliding off-track in a corner, Raikkonen saw an opening in the wall beyond the track and pointed his car towards it. The only problem was that the access road didn't go anywhere. After gunning it up a hill, Raikkonen was forced to turn around and re-enter the circuit through the entrance he came in.
But the awesomeness doesn't end there. Instead of taking the access road back towards the track ? that would have been the long way around, after all ? Raikkonen veered his car to the right through the grass and rejoined the race. He finished 10th.
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Monday
PBM Press Release: Yonny Hernandez And Michael Laverty To Race For PBM CRT Team In 2013
Paul Bird Motorsport today officially announced their 2013 line up, confirming that Yonny Hernandez and Michael Laverty are to race for the team in MotoGP next season. Hernandez is to race an Aprilia ART, as James Ellison did during 2012, while Michael Laverty is to race a British-built machine featuring a chassis built by GPMS Technology and powered by a modified Aprilia engine.
Bikesportnews.com spoke to Laverty about his move to MotoGP in 2013 at the recent Motorcycle Live show in the UK. The interview is shown below, while the official press release from PBM is displayed below the video:
Year:
2013 
Into The Crystal Ball? One Last Time For 2012 Edition
As the indycar world turns finds itself at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California for the final episode of the 2012 season. Ryan Hunter-Reay and Will Power are in heated competition to claim their first championship and the right to … Continue reading 
Jimmy Daywalt JeanDenis Deletraz Patrick Depailler Pedro Diniz
Sunday
Bruno Senna: ?I have learned a lot and improved?
Having lost his Williams seat to Valtteri Bottas Bruno Senna says he?s happy with his 2012 season. Senna has scored points regularly this year, although he hasn?t been as fast over one lap as team mate Pastor Maldonado. ?Since the … Continue reading 
Source: http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/11/28/bruno-senna-i-have-learned-a-lot-and-improved/
Open-Wheel Timeline, Part 1? The Sanctioning Bodies
The history of American Open Wheel Racing and its respective national championships are as confusing and intricate as any other aspect of the sport. Controversy between the various sanctioning bodies, participating manufacturers and of course the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has … Continue reading 
Hamilton ?Happy? With Mercedes Switch
Lewis Hamilton insists that he does not regret his decision to join Mercedes. The Briton will leave McLaren ahead of the 2013 season, ending his career long association with the team. Some believed that the 2008 World Champion was having regrets about the move, but claims he is very happy: “No, I’m really, really happy [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/XHtwzlNRowM/hamilton-happy-with-mercedes-switch
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