Will Power dominated last Sunday’s inaugural IndyCar race on the streets of Baltimore. The Australian took his seventh pole of the year and led most of the way to win easily from Oriol Servia and Tony Kanaan. Championship leader Dario Franchitti qualified fourth and ran third for most of the race, but finished fourth after the field was scrambled by a late, full-course yellow. Power’s win – his sixth of the year – pulled him to within five points of Franchitti with three rounds to go in this year’s IZOD IndyCar championship.

“Oh man, that was the toughest race I’ve done all year,” declared Power. “Honestly, I’ve never driven so hard in my life. Before the last stop they said I had 10 laps to get enough of a gap if you want to win this thing, and I just gave it everything. I’m exhausted. I was thinking in my head, I want to win this championship. We’re coming.

Franchitti was no match for Power in Baltimore and now has a serious battle on his hands if he’s to win his third title in a row and his fourth since 2007. “Getting stressed about it doesn’t make you go any faster,” he said. “You just go out each week and do your best. That’s what we’ve done when we won the last three championships and that’s what we’ll do this time.”

Graham Rahal enjoyed his best race of the season in Baltimore. He qualified second and led Power for a few corners on the opening lap before settling into second place hard on his tail. But Rahal was caught out by the late yellow, which meant he had to pit under the green flag for his final splash of fuel. The stop dropped him into the midfield and he was able to finish no better than 10th.

“The strategy killed us but it wasn’t our fault,” said Rahal. “The officiating was terrible, if you ask me. Why did we stay yellow for so long? There were no cars on the track. We didn’t need to stay yellow for 10 laps. [President of competition and racing operations Brian] Barnhart said in the drivers meeting that he wasn’t going to wait to figure any scoring problems out. We needed about 10 or 12 laps of hard running to pull that gap and unfortunately we didn’t get it.

“If they had said there was a lot of oil on the track and we were going to be down for another five or six laps then I would understand. I’m really disappointed. Between Will and I we were the class of the field. We had everybody covered by half a second.”

Kanaan’s third place was particularly impressive after the Brazilian crashed heavily in morning warm-up when his brakes failed. Kanaan had to start the race from the back of the field in a hastily prepared spare car.

Three races remain in this year’s championship – the Motegi road course in Japan in two weeks’ time followed in October by two high-banked oval races in Kentucky and Las Vegas.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Will Power led a Penske clean sweep at the Infineon Raceway (Sears Point) road course on Sunday. The IndyCar Series title hopeful qualified on pole and led all the way, save for pitstops, to score his fifth win of the year ahead of team-mates Hélio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe. Power’s victory allowed him to close to within 26 points of championship leader Dario Franchitti.

It was the first top three sweep for Team Penske since 1994 when Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy scored no fewer than four 1-2-3 finishes for Roger Penske’s CART team. Meanwhile Brad Keselowski won again for Penske’s NASCAR team at the half-mile Bristol bullring on Saturday night. Roger himself was on the scoring stand in Tennessee, and after flying west to California did the same at Sears Point.

‘The Captain’ is one of America’s leading entrepreneurs as well as one of its top team owners, and he was delighted to see his NASCAR and Indycar teams perform so well. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had this kind of run on the Indycar side,” said Roger. “And then for Brad and Kurt [Busch] to run so well and Brad picking up that win it’s an awesome time and a credit to all our people, whether it’s the Indycar or NASCAR side. What a run here, I just can’t believe it. There’s a lot of competition [in IndyCar] and I think we had a good set-up this weekend, just a little bit better than Ganassi.

“But we’ve got a lot of work to do. We want to win this championship. We’ve been ahead and fell behind and now maybe we’re making a surge. But Dario and [Scott] Dixon are outstanding and when you get on the [Sprint] Cup side, man, it’s a whole other story.”

Four races remain in the IndyCar championship – two street or road races and two ovals. Franchitti has 475 points to Power’s 449, while Dario’s Ganassi team-mate Dixon is third and another 49 points behind Power. Franchitti and Dixon qualified fourth and fifth at Sears Point and finished in the same places, unable to offer a challenge to Penske’s cars.

Giorgio Pantano, the 2008 GP2 champion, stepped into the injured Justin Wilson’s Dreyer & Reinbold car and drove an excellent race to finish sixth. Pantano did so without the benefit of testing and was able to shoulder out Sébastien Bourdais in one of Dale Coyne’s cars, but was penalised for diving inside the Frenchman to steal sixth place on a late-race restart. Pantano was unaware of IndyCar’s strict restart rules, which don’t allow such aggressive manoeuvres, and the disappointed Italian then found himself moved back to the tail of the unlapped finishers.

IndyCar races again this weekend at a new street circuit in Baltimore, followed by a visit to Japan Motegi’s road course and two oval races in October at Kentucky and Las Vegas. It will be interesting to see if Power can run down Franchitti to win his first IndyCar title and stop the Scot from taking his third championship in a row.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Marcos Ambrose underlined the point that he is NASCAR’s top road racer these days as he came from the back of the grid to win Saturday’s second-division Nationwide race at Le Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montréal. It was Ambrose’s second road course win in six days coming hard on the heels of his first Sprint Cup victory at Watkins Glen.

But the story of the day was Patrick Carpentier’s retirement. The French-Canadian ran the last race of his career in a Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota sponsored by race backer NAPA Auto Parts. He qualified eighth and ran with the leaders until getting involved in a couple of fender-banging incidents, eventually crawling to a stop on the track.

Carpentier is one of a number of drivers whose careers were overshadowed, if not diminished, by the CART/IRL war. A native of Ville la Salle, outside Montréal, Patrick won the Canadian Formula Atlantic championship in 1992 and the Toyota Atlantic championship in ‘96 with a record nine wins. He broke into CART’s Indy Car World Series in ‘97 with the late Tony Bettenhausen’s team and took rookie of the year honours before joining the top-ranked Player’s/Forsythe team in ‘98.

Carpentier drove for Forsythe (below) for six years and established himself as one of CART’s top drivers. He scored his first win in the 2001 Michigan 500, beating Dario Franchitti by a car length, and enjoyed his best year in ’02, winning at Cleveland and Mid-Ohio and finishing third in the championship. In 2003 he won from pole at Laguna Seca and won there again in ’04 when he finished third in the points.

But by then CART had been driven into bankruptcy as top teams like Penske, Ganassi, Andretti-Green and Rahal defected to the IRL. Champ Car replaced CART for three years, while Carpentier also switched to the IRL in 2005 with a less than stellar team for what was his last year racing Indycars. He made his NASCAR debut at the end of 2007 and ran most of the Sprint Cup season in ‘08, taking one pole. In ‘09 he ran a handful of races but it was clear his career was coming to an end.

Patrick has run a few more NASCAR races over the past 18 months and went to this year’s Indy 500 in an uncompetitive car only to crash while trying to make the field. He celebrated his 40th birthday on August 13 and decided a few months ago to conclude his career in the Nationwide race in Montréal, where he was enthusiastically applauded as a national hero.

Carpentier is a fast, clean driver and a gentleman at all times, on and off the track. He is an amiable, good-humoured man who honoured a bet after winning at Mid-Ohio in 2002 by running a lap of the track on foot in the nude, save for a small chequered flag wrapped around his loins. But he is much more than that – an intelligent, softly spoken man who splits his time between Las Vegas and Quebec. Married in 1998 to the equally low-key but charming Anick, the Carpentiers have a daughter Anais and son Loic. We wish them the best in their new life after racing.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Maybe it was the full moon. Maybe it was the fact that 13 years had passed since Indycars last raced at the one-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway. But the Izod IndyCar Series put on an action-packed race at the track with fierce competition and passing galore as well as a wild, much-disputed finish.

Ryan Hunter-Reay scored his first win of the year in Sunday’s race. He beat Oriol Servia and Scott Dixon, while championship rivals Dario Franchitti and Will Power were eliminated in separate accidents on restarts. Franchitti qualified on pole and dominated the first half of the race, running away on his own before he was hit by Takuma Sato on a restart, spinning into the wall. Sato later apologised to Franchitti, admitting he got too close to Dario (below) because he had some debris and tears in one eye.

Power was eliminated after Danica Patrick spun in front of him on a late-race restart in slippery conditions and registered his disgust with IndyCar officials by waving his arms and a pair of raised fingers at them. A gaggle of cars were involved in the collision, leading to a red flag. After a delay the stewards set the results to before the final restart, handing Hunter Reay the win. Power’s gesture was just a small part of a gale of disgruntled drivers and team owners seething in the pitlane at the end of the race. Servia and the Newman/Haas team disputed Hunter-Reay’s win, while everyone questioned the wisdom of the final, disastrous restart.

Third-placed Dixon said: “Obviously everybody’s a little confused with what went on during the day, but the racing was good. There was lots of passing. For me, at about lap 200 it felt like we were 500 miles in already. I thought it was a hell of a race.”

Hunter-Reay agreed: “Man, the racing was so difficult with the traffic. You had to time it just perfect. This track is a lot of fun. If I had it my way we’d be coming back here for many years to come. All the drivers really respect this place. They’ll tell you this is one of the toughest ovals they’ve been on in their life.”

IndyCar’s president of competition and racing operations Brian Barnhart (below) admitted he had erred in calling for the final restart. You have to tip your cap to Barnhart for his uncommon candour, remarkably unlike anything one might hear from the FIA.

“It was a challenging day for us from the get-go with the late start we had for television and knowing we had bad weather coming in,” said Barnhart. “Then we had to make some difficult calls from a race control point of view, when you have indecisiveness about what the weather is doing and whether you have safe conditions to continue racing. When it rains hard your decision is a pretty easy one to make, but when you have light moisture like we had today it’s tough to make that call.

“Obviously, towards the end of the race with the attempted restart we made the wrong one. It just makes you feel sick to your stomach because you know after the fact that you chose poorly. It was clearly my fault.”

A messy day then, but without doubt an old-fashioned motor race of the first order.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Sunday’s IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio was dominated by Chip Ganassi’s team, with Scott Dixon winning convincingly from championship leader Dario Franchitti. Dixon was the man to beat all weekend, scoring his first pole and win of the year. In the end he drove away on his own to win easily – his third victory at Mid-Ohio in five years. It was also his 26th IndyCar career win and kept his remote title hopes alive as he chiselled into Franchitti’s lead and closed to within 31 points of second-placed Will Power.

“A superb job by Team Target to get a 1-2 today,” said Dixon. “To put a dent in Dario’s lead is tough, but it’s good for Dario’s fight and to get pole and win today is fantastic.”

Franchitti extended his championship lead with a solid drive to second. “Scott had one of those days,” he said. “He was in a different zip code. He deserved to win it. From the time we came here for the test he’s been on a mission.

“But a good points day for us, despite Will [Power’s] best effort at the start to spin me around. He hit me twice on the first lap, pretty hard actually going into the turn. But this is a tough race and the way the surface and tyres interact it’s easy to make a mistake.”

Power, Franchitti’s primary title rival, ran fourth through the early laps but hit bad luck. An unfortunately timed yellow flag just before he was scheduled to pit meant he had to wait a lap for the pitlane to be opened, then stop while the field was running slowly behind the pace car. As a result he rejoined near the back and eventually made it home 14th, falling 62 points behind Franchitti.

Power said he was simply racing hard with Dario when they collided on lap one. “I was just trying to get past him at the start. It was as simple as that. He went around the outside and I hit his back wheel. It was sort of similar to Toronto. I’m just racing, that’s all.”

Canadian rookie James Hinchcliffe (below) led 26 laps at Mid-Ohio in one of Newman/Haas’s cars. Hinchcliffe took the lead after he found himself on a slightly different pitstop sequence from Dixon and the other frontrunners. The rookie looked good, holding off Dixon for many laps before having to stop for fuel. Later, in the thick of the midfield, he spun off, eventually finishing 20th.

“We caught a lucky yellow and the team got us up front,” said Hinchcliffe. “But we showed we had pace today. On the radio they were telling me I had to save fuel and keep Scott and Dario behind. I said, ‘Save fuel and keep five championships behind me? No problem.’

“But the car was great and the guys were awesome in the pits. When we came in I wanted black tyres because I’d run so well in the last stint on them, but we knew they didn’t come up to temperature as quick. But then the yellow [flag] came out and pretty much everybody around me was on reds, so I knew we were in trouble. We lost a couple of spots on the restart and I was just trying to keep up and lost it in the Keyhole. It was pretty devastating.”

Six races to go – three ovals, two road courses and one street race – and if Power and Team Penske are to beat Ganassi’s operation, they need to get some momentum going.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Last weekend’s Edmonton IZOD IndyCar race was exactly what Will Power needed following collisions in Toronto two weeks earlier with Dario Franchitti and Alex Tagliani. Power rebounded from that unhappy day to score a clean victory in Edmonton, his fourth of the year. The Australian led most of the race after passing polesitter Takuma Sato and held on to win by 0.8 seconds from Penske team-mate Hélio Castroneves and championship rival Franchitti. Thus did Power pull himself to within 38 points of the Scot with seven races to go in this year’s championship.

“We really needed to come here and win, just to get the confidence back in the team,” said Power. “That was so hard at the end, certainly under braking trying to keep Hélio behind. Man, I’m really, really happy. I thought I had to be more aggressive in the race because we can’t lose any more points to Dario. A good day – I just drove every lap like qualifying. We’ve got to keep chipping away, just like Dario did with us last year.”

Following the race Power and Franchitti talked for the first time since their collision in Toronto. “I just went up and said ‘Good job’ to Will and then we talked about the race,” said the Ganassi driver. “For me, Toronto is in the past. I totally screwed up the last restart today and that got us back to 10th. But when I got into clean air I went a second a lap quicker and caught the five seconds up on Will and Hélio. But once I got there I couldn’t do anything with them.”

Castroneves enjoyed his best result of the year so far. He and Power ran into each other in this race last year and Hélio was fined for physically assaulting race officials. But this year the Brazilian kept his nose clean. “I had a chance to do something with Will but it was a bit tough,” he said. “I needed a solid result and we got it.”

The reconfigured Edmonton track left most drivers cold. The old track was much faster and challenging, but the new layout is littered with slow corners resulting in a number of incidents although they were fewer in number than in Toronto. Pole-winner Sato fell to fourth after he was passed in one fell swoop by Power, Franchitti and Scott Dixon before he was hit and spun by Ryan Hunter-Reay. But the biggest loser from these incidents was Dixon who looked like a top-three finisher until IndyCar’s resident wild man EJ Viso drove into him. Dixon lost five laps while his car was repaired and although Scott retains third in the championship he’s now 108 points behind team-mate Franchitti.

“You get sick and tired of people doing bonehead moves,” said Dixon. “I saw it coming in the mirror but I had nowhere to go. Coming from six cars back and taking out somebody – I don’t know if [Viso] was looking at somebody in the stands or not really paying attention. It ruined a good day for us. We had a great car that I think had possibilities to win as long as everything went right, but unfortunately this has been the way our season goes this year. We’ve been qualifying well and been up front but it hasn’t been going our way.”

So this year’s championship battle is a repeat of last year’s duel between Franchitti and Power, although this time the situation is reversed with the Australian playing catch-up. Can Franchitti win his third title in a row and fourth consecutive crown for Chip Ganassi? Or will Power come through to take Penske’s 13th title and the first since Sam Hornish in 2006?

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Welcome to another ‘week in motor sport’. This week I talk to Damien Smith and Rob Widdows about the British Grand Prix as well as the contact between Will Power and Dario Franchitti in the Indycar race in Toronto.

There was so much to say about the Grand Prix at Silverstone that we have gone on a bit longer this month, so I’m afraid it is split into two parts.

We were very fortunate to be joined by Emagine Productions this week who filmed and edited the interview. We hope you enjoy it…

Part 1

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 2

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or, if you’d like to download it…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Dario Franchitti added to his IndyCar championship lead in Toronto as he scored his fourth win of the year, with team-mate Scott Dixon right there in second. This was Dario’s third win in Toronto and the 30th of his IndyCar career, pushing him 55 points ahead of title rival Will Power who failed to finish the race after collisions with Franchitti and Alex Tagliani. Power and Franchitti collided while battling for the lead resulting in Power spinning and stalling. Power’s race then ended when he was hit in the tail by Tagliani.

The Toronto street circuit is very tight and often littered with crashes. This year’s race was no different with plenty of accidents, full-course yellows and disgruntled drivers. Power was particularly unhappy, venting his disgust with Franchitti after crashing out of his second race in a row.

“It’s pretty typical, a pretty dirty move,” said Power, “but does anyone ever penalise this guy? I left the inside open under braking and I’m really disappointed with Dario. I’ve always raced him clean and he always races me dirty. At St Pete he drove me into the wall and I didn’t say anything and he did it again today.

“And Tag hit me. Pretty typical for him. He just took me out completely. Man! Two races in a row we’re out. But I’m disappointed with Dario. He whinges about everyone and he’s the guy who races the most dirty and never gets a penalty from IndyCar. It’s not right.”

Franchitti provided his point of view. “It was wild!” he said. “Every single restart was wild. The marbles were really tricky on those restarts. We were sliding around and it was crazy. Obviously there was contact with Will and if he’s pissed off he’s quite right to be pissed off. I was going for it on the inside. I hesitated and he braked really late and I thought that was pretty impressive. But he went wide because of that so I saw a gap and went down the inside, and he came down and closed the door just as the wall was coming out. So I made contact with him. I’m sorry about that. That’s not the way I want to race.

“Ultimately I will take more than 50 per cent of the blame on that one. But I think he’s due some of the blame too. He just kept coming down and I was hugging the wall. Like I say, that’s not the way I want to race and I’ll definitely talk to him about that. I see it as a racing incident. I ran through that hairpin side-by-side with guys on the inside and outside all day long and Will didn’t give me room.”
Al Unser Jr, Brian Barnhardt’s driver expert in IndyCar’s control room, said there was never any talk of penalising Franchitti. “This was a melee of a race,” he admitted. “But between Franchitti and Power there was never any penalising issue to either driver.

“The #12 car [Power] knew the #10 [Franchitti] was there and was trying to close the door. Kanaan and Briscoe was the same. If Tony would have given Ryan just a little more room they would have been OK, and there was another example at the end of the race between [Graham] Rahal and [Ryan] Hunter-Reay. We had too many instances where the drivers were not giving up any ground.”

IndyCar racing may not enjoy the best of cachets these days, but there’s no denying that it’s a fearfully competitive form of motor racing.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Dario Franchitti led most of the IndyCar Series race in Iowa on Saturday night, but a slow late pitstop dropped the Scot down the order and opened the door to an impressive win for Marco Andretti. The 24-year-old has struggled in recent years and again this season as one of four drivers in father Michael’s Andretti Autosport’s team. In fact, Marco had not won a race in 79 starts, since his first IndyCar victory at California’s Sears Point road course in 2006 – his rookie season.

Tony Kanaan chases Iowa winner Marco Andretti

So it was good to see Andretti score a deserving win on the 7/8ths-mile Iowa oval as he chased Franchitti through the middle of the race and battled back and forth with Tony Kanaan in the closing stages. Andretti clung resolutely to his lead over the last 19 laps despite Kanaan’s best efforts. “Knowing TK,” said Marco, “I knew he would do exactly what I did to him. He’d make his car very wide. I didn’t want to wait until two [laps] to go because he was just going to chop me and I would have been done. I knew I had to get it done earlier and make my car wide.”

Andretti was by far the most competitive of his father’s four cars in Iowa with Ryan Hunter-Reay finishing eighth, Danica Patrick 10th and Mike Conway taken out by Ana Beatriz in an early accident. Kanaan enjoyed another competitive race, and plainly his presence at KV Racing this year has helped push the team to new heights. Kanaan qualified third in Iowa while team-mate Takuma Sato took pole position and led the opening laps. Sato became the first Japanese driver to take an IndyCar pole and ran well in the race until losing control and crashing on the Iowa track’s notorious Turn 2 bump.

Dario Franchitti congratulates Michael Andretti on his son’s win

Championship leader Franchitti set the pace through the first two-thirds of the race but came out of the pits from his second stop behind Andretti. In traffic Dario’s car wasn’t as good as in clean air and he slipped back as the car got more and more tail-happy. He finished fifth but continues to lead the championship after Will Power crashed in Iowa. Franchitti’s Ganassi team-mate Scott Dixon drove well, coming through the field to finish third after qualifying a disappointing 23rd.

Power qualified fifth but damaged his car in a collision in the pits with Charlie Kimball. Later in the race the Team Penske driver crashed, losing valuable ground to Franchitti in the title chase. After eight of 17 races Franchitti leads with 303 points to Power’s 283. Dixon is third with 230 points followed by Oriol Servia (214) and Kanaan (211).

Polesitter Takuma Sato is pursued by team-mate Kanaan

Iowa was the last of three consecutive weekends of racing on oval tracks for IndyCar. The series has next weekend off before a pair of Canadian races in July at a street track in downtown Toronto and an airport circuit in Edmonton. It will be interesting to see if Power and Team Penske can put any pressure on Franchitti and Chip Ganassi’s team, and whether the likes of Andretti, Kanaan, Dixon or Servia can pull themselves into the championship hunt.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Another week, and another ‘week in motor sport’! This time I sit down with editor Damien Smith – despite the fact that the magazine is on deadline – and chat about possible driver movements in the McLaren camp, the possibility of the BBC dropping Formula 1, the situation at Citroen in the WRC and Dario Franchitti’s run of form in the IndyCar Series.

We are creating an audio file at the moment so if you don’t want to watch it, just download that on Wednesday 22nd…

As always though – let us know what you think about all the news.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

At the historic Milwaukee Mile on Sunday, Dario Franchitti scored his third win of the year and the 29th of his career, moving him into a tie with Rick Mears for ninth place on Indycar’s all-time winners’ list. The Scot is now also tied with Will Power for the points lead in this year’s IZOD IndyCar Series after qualifying on pole and leading most of the Milwaukee race. Franchitti was challenged only by Tony Kanaan and Hélio Castroneves, but the former crashed with 30 laps to go and Castroneves was forced to pit from the lead when his left rear tyre started losing air.

Franchitti won the title in 2009-10 with Chip Ganassi’s team, having first claimed the crown in 2007 with Michael Andretti’s outfit. So he’s chasing his third consecutive and fourth championship in the last five years. At 38, Dario is in his 14th season of racing Indycars, and following an unhappy experiment with NASCAR in ’08 he’s resoundingly established himself as IndyCar’s man to beat.

“The championship will take care of itself if we can keep winning races,” he said. “The car was fast all day but that was a tough race. Kanaan was really strong and it was a typical race with Tony. You can race with him inches apart. He gave me room and I gave him room. There’s a lot of respect.

“But then you race with Hélio and you’d think after last year’s penalty the guy would quit the blocking stuff. But he pushes you one way down against the wall and if you try the outside he pushes you up into the marbles. I don’t know what it takes for this guy to understand that blocking is not allowed.”

Graham Rahal enjoyed his best race of the year to finish second at Milwaukee while Oriol Servia kept himself in the title hunt with a strong run to third. Will Power recovered from a poor qualifying run to come through the field to finish fourth, good enough to keep Franchitti from passing him in the points.

After seven of 17 races, this year’s IndyCar championship is shaping up as a reprise of last year’s battle between Franchitti and Power. They’re both on 271 points, followed by Servia in third with 198 points and Scott Dixon in fourth with 195. In recent years Franchitti has quietly emerged as one of the most accomplished drivers in the 100-year history of Indycar racing. If he can win a third title in a row his place among Indycar’s greatest drivers will be assured.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

This year’s 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500 turned into one of the most exciting races anyone has seen at the historic track. The outcome was impossible to predict through the closing laps as the field shuffled itself while fuel strategies played out. For a while it looked like Dario Franchitti and Chip Ganassi’s team had played their cards perfectly, with the Scot stopping for fuel under a late yellow and then moving towards the front as the leaders peeled in for their stops.

But then Franchitti started running low on fuel, and instead of assuming the lead had to make another visit to the pits. That left rookie JR Hildebrand to lead the chase and he looked set to score a surprising win before it all went wrong as he lapped Charlie Kimball’s car into Turn 4 on the final lap.

“Knowing that the cars in second and third were coming [on] pretty strong I decided that rather than downshifting to risk slowing the car down coming onto the front straight,” said Hildebrand. “It was a move I had used earlier in the race to get around some slower cars but I guess with the tyres worn there were a bunch of marbles on the outside. Once I got up there, there wasn’t a lot I could do.”

In a flash Hildebrand was in the wall (below), and as his car skated toward the start/finish line Dan Wheldon shot past to lead the race’s final few hundred yards. It was the first time Wheldon had led all day but it was the right time to be in front as he scored his second Indy 500 victory, crossing the line two seconds ahead of Hildebrand’s churning wreck.

Wheldon first won at Indianapolis in 2005 when he was driving for Michael Andretti’s team. This year the Briton found himself without a ride but was hired a few months ago by Bryan Herta to drive his car on a one-off basis at Indy. Wheldon may not be the world’s greatest road racer but he’s an ace on ovals, finishing second at the track the past two years. He qualified on the outside of row two for this year’s 500 and was in the hunt all the way, running third or fourth for most of the distance in company with poleman Alex Tagliani, Chip Ganassi team-mates Franchitti and Scott Dixon, and Oriol Servia in Newman/Haas’s lead entry.

In the closing stages Wheldon and Herta’s team, led by veteran engineer Steve Newey, played their fuel strategy perfectly. As the 200 laps ran out Wheldon was in second place, closing fast on Hildebrand, and when he crashed Wheldon was perfectly placed to score a popular victory for a small team with only one race in its schedule this year.

“With 20 laps to go they said on the radio, ‘You’re one of the guys that can make it to the end, but you’ve got to make sure you get everything out of the car that you possibly can’,” explained Wheldon. “So I said to myself I’m going to move the weight jacker every lap to optimise every corner and adjust the rollbars to maximise everything. I was able to catch traffic without having to lift and I started pressing the overtake button. On the last lap I was trying to deal with some lapped cars in turns three and four and in the corner of my eye I saw JR hit the fence. I just carried on by and at that point I knew it was mine.”

Dan Wheldon cools down with the traditional quart of milk after his Indy win

A great win for Wheldon then, and a jump-start surely for his stalled career. Former driver Herta says his plan is to concentrate on putting together a full season for Wheldon in 2012 rather than trying to add some races this year.

As Wheldon took the flag Hildebrand scraped home in second followed by Graham Rahal, Tony Kanaan and Dixon, while a deeply disappointed Franchitti was 12th, the last driver to complete the full race distance. Team Penske’s three cars were surprisingly uncompetitive with Will Power and Hélio Castroneves finishing a lap down in 14th and 17th and Ryan Briscoe eliminated in a collision with Townsend Bell.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Mike Conway truly arrived in IndyCar racing last Sunday by scoring a convincing win for Andretti Autosport in the Long Beach Grand Prix. The former British F3 champion and Macau GP winner took the lead during the final round of pitstops and drove away from Ryan Briscoe and Dario Franchitti to record his first IndyCar Series victory, beating Briscoe by six seconds. Will Power led the opening laps but was punted into a spin by Penske team-mate Hélio Castroneves. Power recovered to 10th but lost the championship lead to reigning champion Franchitti.

Mike Conway wins at Long Beach

Conway started racing Indycars two years ago but was sidelined by a back-breaking accident on the final lap of last year’s Indy 500. He was out of action for the rest of the year before being signed to drive one of Michael Andretti’s four cars. Conway is a man of few words but a fierce racer who showed his stuff at Long Beach with a great drive through the field following a poor first pitstop while running third. The Brit locked his brakes and slid into his pit, losing time with a tyre change.

“From there it was a case of trying to pass as many cars as I could,” he said. “It was tough but we came out on tyres the car liked. On restarts it was awesome. The rest of the guys were struggling for grip and we were just charging through. It was nice to fight for the lead with Ryan and Dario.

Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay

“At the beginning I was just controlling the gap between Ryan and Will and saving fuel, and once we dropped back in the pack it was a fight to stay where we were. The restarts and the strategy worked out for us and we were on fire at the end. We were able to push by the guys and before I knew it I was in the lead.”

Conway said he had been fully motivated to recover from his accident. “Initially when I saw the injuries I had I wasn’t sure when I’d get back. Things like that can definitely stop your career, but I was determined to get back to fitness and back in the car. To win in my third race back is awesome and I can’t thank Michael enough for believing in me and the team for doing such a great job.”

Andretti said he had no doubts Conway would produce results. “Mike showed signs of brilliance last year at the beginning of the season. There was no question in my mind that he’d come back. I felt he was going to be hungrier than ever. The first time he got in a car with us he was up to speed in about four or five laps.

“Not only is Mike a great talent but he fits in with the other three drivers. We have great chemistry between the drivers and because of that I feel really good about the rest of this year. I think we’re going to be strong.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Will Power scored a dominant win in Sunday’s IndyCar road race at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. The Penske driver led from start to finish after qualifying on pole, beating Scott Dixon by 3.3 seconds. Dario Franchitti finished third but lost the IZOD IndyCar Series championship lead to Power, who led the series through most of last season only to lose out to his Scottish rival at the final race.

At this early stage of the season it looks as if this year’s championship battle will be a repeat of last year, with Power and Franchitti in charge. “It’s the second year our team has been together and we’re just more solid,” said Power. “I’m going to be a lot better on ovals this year and I’m very determined. I want to win this championship.

The race was littered with full-course yellows – six in all covering 20 of 90 laps – but Power was able to pull a small gap to Dixon at each restart. “I got the jump on him every time,” he said. “I knew if I had the inside line into Turn 1 it wouldn’t be a problem. But man, it was just yellow after yellow after yellow! But it was one of the most relaxing races I’ve ever had. I was just really cruising, but pushing hard. It was an awesome day.”

Dixon wasn’t happy with most of the restarts. “We were told in the drivers’ meeting that the left lane has to be left of the centre line, but he [Power] was to the right of the centre line. I was pretty much on the grass on some of those restarts. I understand why he was doing it. He was trying to stay on the clean side of the track but you can’t have the inside and the clean side. That’s not how it works.”
Power was adamant he’d nothing wrong: “He drove up beside me at one point to complain. I thought, what dude? What was I doing wrong? I was just maintaining speed. I don’t know what he was complaining about.”

Dixon freely admitted he didn’t have the speed to pass Power. “In the end I’m not sure that we had enough,” he said. “We definitely tried and I burnt the tyres off towards the end of each stint. I think he just had a better balance and better speed on older tyres. But it was still a good result.”

Franchitti was delighted to come from seventh on the grid to third at a track where he struggled both last year and in recent testing. “I don’t think our balance was as good as Scott and Will’s over the long run, so I was abusing the tyres a bit more,” he said. “I tried to drive the car within the tyre and my lap times were getting slower as a result. But it was a pretty good result.”

After two of 16 IndyCar races Power leads Franchitti by seven points. Tony Kanaan came from the back of the grid to finish sixth in Alabama and is third in the points, ahead of Dixon and Simona de Silvestro, who was ninth in Alabama. Round three follows this weekend with the 37th running of the Long Beach Grand Prix in southern California.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

We may be one of the oldest motor racing magazines in the world, but we do like trying new things. Our latest idea was to record a very brief round-up of the news each week so that every Monday you can log on to the Motor Sport website and watch a video clip that neatly sums up all that’s happened in the motor racing world over the past seven days.

Well, we’ve given it a go. It may be a little longer than we anticipated and our attempt at a newsroom feel – recording it in front of everyone in the office – may not have been 100 per cent successful, but it’s a work in progress. If any of you heard our first audio podcast you’d be amazed…

So, hopefully the days of reading hundreds of news stories every Monday morning are gone. Maybe…

Let us know what you think as this really is a first attempt. We hope you enjoy it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or, if you want to download it…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

After crashing during Saturday’s practice session, Dario Franchitti bounced back to drive a perfect race at St Petersburg on Sunday. The double IndyCar champion took the lead from pole winner Will Power early in the race and drove away to win the IZOD IndyCar Series season-opener in the streets of the Florida city. Once the race got underway nobody could match Franchitti’s pace and the Scotsman – a recent Motor Sport Hall of Fame inductee – won comfortably from Power and Tony Kanaan. It was the first time Dario has won the opening race of the season and the 27th victory of his IndyCar career, pushing him into a tie with Johnny Rutherford for 10th on the all-time winners’ list.

“I want to thank the Target team for keeping fighting,” said Franchitti. “They definitely taught me never to give up. What a brilliant team! Anybody who questions their fire and motivation to go for it saw what we did today. The will to win goes right through the team.”

Power was Franchitti’s primary championship rival last year and is expected to play the same role this season. “Dario was so quick,” he said. “I didn’t have the car for him. He was just crazy fast.”

A multi-car melee at turn one on the opening lap seriously delayed Franchitti’s team-mate Scott Dixon and Power’s team-mates Hélio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe. The collision also eliminated Andretti Autosport’s drivers Marco Andretti, Mike Conway and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Young Andretti appeared to be the culprit.

It took a few more tries to get the race going and among those to profit from a series of early accidents were Tony Kanaan and Simona de Silvestro. In his first race with KV Racing Kanaan came through to finish third, chasing hard after Power for much of the distance. But in the closing laps he was fully occupied keeping de Silvestro behind him. The Swiss woman drove a great race for Keith Wiggins’s little HVM team to finish hard on Kanaan’s tail and well clear of fifth-placed Takuma Sato.

So Franchitti has cast himself once again as IndyCar’s title favourite. Can he win a third consecutive crown and a fourth in a row for Chip Ganassi’s team? It’s a tall order, but the erudite Scotsman clearly is up for the challenge.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

When Dario Franchitti first went to the Indianapolis 500, he tried to approach it like any other motor race. But as he admits during his lunch interview with Simon Taylor in the May issue of Motor Sport, he couldn’t help being affected by ‘The Brickyard’. The size and scale of the place, the buzz surrounding the town through the month of May, how much it mattered to everyone around him: he knew this was special, and for a driver with a rare passion for racing history and an obsession with Jim Clark, Dario couldn’t avoid the magical draw of America’s greatest race.

That it remains in 2011, despite the scars of the split that almost destroyed the sport of Indycars. The ‘500’ was the glue that kept single-seater oval racing intact in an era dominated by NASCAR. The race – the event – was quite simply too big to go down.

This May Indianapolis will celebrate the 100th anniversary of a yearly occasion that fired a nondescript Midwestern city into the consciousness of any true sports fan anywhere in the world. It is a landmark that we at Motor Sport felt compelled to celebrate – which is why we have dedicated a sizeable chunk of the May issue to the wonderful history of the race.

So why should a British magazine get so excited about an event in which 33 drivers only turn left around a four-corner rectangle for 500 miles? Read Robin Miller’s article on his own personal relationship with the Speedway to find out. The determination, strength and humour of the racing spirit is the oxygen that gives life to our magazine, and Robin’s piece is high on it! At the Speedway, it’s so strong you can taste it, as John Cooper, Colin Chapman, Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell, Dan Wheldon, Franchitti and many others from ‘over here’ found out when they travelled ‘over there’.

Britain’s relationship with the 500 has ebbed and flowed over the century, but it’s always existed. Take the Speedway’s great historian Donald Davidson: you wouldn’t know it speaking to him now, but he’s a Brit. But on his first visit to the Speedway in 1964, he knew he’d found his true home. As the locals found out, no one has more understanding and knowledge of the race, and he was the obvious choice to put a 100 years of racing history into context.

Now, that sounds like the subject of a doorstop-sized book, so how could we distil it into a magazine article? Donald thought long and hard. What he came up with – the greatest, most dramatic finishes in the 500’s history – does so beautifully. Even if you’re an Indy doubter, I’d urge you to read it.

The British theme continues via Ian Wagstaff, who has written a recent book on the subject. We’ve steered clear of the rear-engined revolution of the 1960s because so much has already been said, as any regular reader of Motor Sport will know. No, too obvious for us! So Ian tells the story of the second British invasion of Indianapolis that in its own way changed the shape of the race as much as the pioneering years of the mid-60s.

Add the interview with Dario and another with the Unsers – the first family of the 500 – and I hope you’ll find it does justice to 100 years of incredible speed and action.

Now, I know US oval racing is not everyone’s shot of bourbon. So as usual there is plenty more in the May issue to keep you reading for the month. Nigel Roebuck is typically forthright in his assessment of Formula 1’s recent entanglement in real-world politics, and as usual he puts the Bahrain debacle in context beautifully by reflecting on previous occasions when the sport has found itself on dodgy ethical ground. Then there’s his description of the Cuban Grand Prix – a race at which Juan Manuel Fangio found himself being kidnapped. Writing about it in 2011, it’s hard to imagine it actually took place. Fernando, count yourself lucky…

Nigel also sits down with Stirling Moss to revisit what many consider his greatest race, the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix – yes, another anniversary, this time just a mere half-century ago. We also print an edited version (God, he’d go mad at us for cutting his copy!) of Denis Jenkinson’s original race report for Motor Sport and reproduce some of his beautifully neat and detailed notes from the weekend when Moss beat the ‘Sharknose’ Ferraris.

Alan Henry talks to Ron Dennis about his formative years in team management, in Formula 2 during the early 1970s; Patrick Head recalls the breakthrough years of the Williams FW07; and Tiff Needell opens his personal scrapbooks to show us his collection of racing photos that he snapped from the spectator banks of the 1960s – when his love of the sport took hold.

And if that’s not enough, don’t miss our free supplement* on the Motor Sport Hall of Fame, in association with TAG Heuer, which took place in London during February. It seems like ages ago already. Before we know it, we’ll be heading back to the Roundhouse in 2012 for the next one…

*Available in the UK only

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The Dario Franchitti podcast may have only just gone live, but we’ve already lined up our next one!

We wanted to record a preview to the Formula 1 season after the Australian Grand Prix (even the most experienced F1 team principals are still guessing who’ll be where following a few test sessions), so we scheduled one for the evening of Tuesday March 29. Editor Damien Smith then visited Sebring for the 12 Hours and bumped into one of his old friends, Allan McNish. I think you can guess where this is going…

Anyway, Allan said he’d be delighted to come to the Motor Sport office and chat about sports cars, Le Mans and even the upcoming/just started Grand Prix season.

The Scot is always great value, and his knowledge and forthright views on everything to do with motor racing is second to none. If you want to ask the two-time Le Mans winner a question then now’s the time… just click here.

We hope you are enjoying the Dario Franchitti podcast and do remember to keep up to date by subscribing to them – for free – on iTunes.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Well here we are, the March podcast! Dario Franchitti has not only won the IndyCar series three times and the Indianapolis 500 twice, but he is also a great podcast guest as we’re sure you’ll agree.

Many thanks to the Royal Automobile Club this month, who very kindly let us record the podcast in its Pall Mall HQ.

We hope you enjoy it and – as always – do let us know what you think.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The 2011 Motor Sport Hall of Fame was considered another huge success. Sir Jack Brabham, Sir Frank Williams, Jody Scheckter and Dario Franchitti were all inducted on the night and some 450 people came to watch, chat and of course, have a few glasses of champagne.

In case you couldn’t make it, here’s a small highlights reel to show you how it all happened.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine paid tribute to four inspirational racing icons last night at the Roundhouse, London, by inducting them into the prestigious annual Motor Sport Hall of Fame, held in association with TAG Heuer.

Sir Jack Brabham OBE, Sir Frank Williams CBE, Jody Scheckter and Dario Franchitti were all honoured with awards on stage in front of a star-studded audience. Collecting the award on behalf of Sir Jack was his son David Brabham, with the legendary Sir Stirling Moss OBE making the presentation.

Having won three Formula 1 titles in 1959-60 and 1966, Jack Brabham is the oldest surviving World Champion. In 1966 became the only man to ever win the F1 drivers’ title in one of his own cars, having founded the highly successful Brabham racing team.

Frank Williams received his award from legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker, who spoke fondly about the endless passion and commitment to Grand Prix racing that the Wiliams team founder has shown since the late ’60s.

The third inductee of the evening was Ferrari’s 1979 World Champion Jody Scheckter. TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Christophe Babin and five-time Grand Prix winner John Watson bestowed the honour on the South African racer. Scheckter had a sensational career, driving for McLaren, Tyrrell, Wolf and Ferrari. He was the last driver to win a world title for Ferrari until Michael Schumacher did so 21 years later.

Completing the line-up of 2011 Motor Sport Hall of Fame inductees was three-time IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti. Highly respected for his achievements in America, the Scot is also a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and undoubtedly Britain’s most successful motor racing export to the US.

The great and good of F1 gathered for the awards, with personalities including Christian Horner, Eddie Jordan, John Watson and Karun Chandhok in attendance on the night. Celebrity faces were also seen gracing the red carpet outside the iconic Roundhouse and mixing with the motor sport fraternity. James Martin, Chris Rea, Nick Mason and Johnnie Walker all joined the exclusive event.

Commenting on his accolade, Sir Frank Williams said: “Number one I must remind myself not to let my ego get the better of me, because this is an amazing magic. It is an honour, something I will try not to brag about.”

In 2010 Mario Andretti, Tony Brooks, Jacky Ickx and Ron Dennis were inducted at the inaugural Motor Sport Hall of Fame event, along with founding members Enzo Ferrari, Tazio Nuvolari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Stirling Moss, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Chip Ganassi’s Grand-Am team added to its already stunning record in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona last weekend when its pair of BMW-powered Riley Daytona Prototypes finished one-two. Defending Grand-Am champions Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas shared the winning car with Graham Rahal and Joey Hand, while Scott Dixon/Juan Pablo Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Jamie McMurray drove Ganassi’s second car. This was Ganassi’s fourth Rolex 24 win but only its first one-two. The team scored three straight wins in 2006-08 and finished runner-up in 2009-10.

Last weekend’s sweep further embellishes Ganassi’s reputation. His teams scored successive wins in last year’s Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400, and now the Rolex 24. Some people are calling it ‘The Chip Slam’. Grand-Am team leader Pruett, by the way, now has four Daytona 24 Hours wins to his name and has been on the podium in 14 of his 26 starts in the race.

Ganassi’s previous Rolex 24 wins came with Lexus (Toyota) engines, but Chip’s Grand-Am team switched last year to BMW power. Pruett and Rojas won the championship for BMW last season and have now scored the German manufacturer’s first Daytona victory since 1976, when Brian Redman/John Fitzpatrick/Peter Gregg won the 24 Hours in a factory BMW 3.5 CSL.

Neither of Ganassi’s cars enjoyed trouble-free runs last weekend. Montoya used his NASCAR fender-banging style to good effect on a number of occasions, but that also meant his crew had to twice change the car’s nose. Joey Hand made his debut with Ganassi’s team and did an excellent job in the winning car. Last year he drove for Bobby Rahal’s BMW GT team in the American Le Mans Series and has served a long apprenticeship in open wheel and sports cars. Hand lapped as quickly at Daytona as any of Ganassi’s drivers, and recovered well from a Sunday morning pit penalty after he was mistakenly waved out too early and hit one of his used tyres.

An indication of the thorough professionalism of Ganassi’s team was a decision during the race’s second hour to change the gear clusters in both cars. Warmer weather than anticipated and a change in wind direction meant both Ganassi cars were hitting their rev-limiters on the banking, so each car was brought in under successive yellows to remove the short gears and install a new stack of ratios.

Finishing third behind Ganassi’s cars were last year’s winners. The Action Express team ran two Riley-Porsches this year with João Barbosa/Terry Borcheller/Max Papis/Christian Fittipaldi finishing a strong third after the team’s other car was delayed by a few incidents. Martin Brundle/Mark Blundell/Mark Patterson/Zak Brown were an excellent fourth aboard United Autosports’ Riley-Ford run by Mike Shank Racing (see Damien Smith’s blog).

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

What a start to the year. The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona kicked off the 2011 season in incredible style at the weekend. Chip Ganassi Racing’s ‘super team’ took the spoils with a one-two in their BMW-powered Rileys, but this was no steamroller performance. The race was only decided in the final lap in which we dared to hope that a small miracle could come true for a certain British pair making a racing comeback in Florida.

It’s been a long time since Martin Brundle last donned a crash helmet for a serious motor race – 10 years, to be precise. The 51-year-old needed little convincing by his old mate Mark Blundell to have a crack at the Rolex 24, a race he won 23 years ago with Jaguar.

For Mark too, it was a giant challenge. At 44, he’s younger than Brundle, but race driving has taken a back seat since his last Le Mans start in 2003. However after racing at the Spa 24 Hours last year in an Audi R8 GT3, Blundell accepted the challenge set by United Autosports boss Zak Brown to make his first start at Daytona.

The pair, joined by Brown and Mark Patterson, lined up in a Riley-Ford run on behalf of United Autosports by Michael Shank Racing. Their high profile meant a flurry of media interest, but the biggest pressure came from within. Both wanted to know: could they still do it?

The answer is emphatically yes. Brundle qualified a respectable ninth in what was a truly competitive field featuring Formula 1 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, Indycar ace champions Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon, and NASCAR heroes – including the Sprint Cup’s greatest star Jimmie Johnson. In the race the British pair gradually moved up the field through the night. On Sunday morning, the white Riley had risen to third place and a podium – something they wouldn’t have dared to expect – was within reach.

Sadly, in the final two hours Brundle was powerless to avoid slipping down to fourth. But for these old friends, ex-F1 team-mates and Le Mans winners, it had still been an incredible performance. Brundle and Blundell leave Florida to return to their day jobs at the BBC and in driver management respectively with their heads held high.

The Daytona 24 Hours is a spectacle that is simply unforgettable for anyone lucky enough to witness it. The giant superspeedway looks spectacular as night falls, and the Grand-Am sports cars put on a terrific show. The stats give some insight: 52 lead changes among 12 cars, although the large number of NASCAR-style safety car periods play a large part in keeping the pack together. There were 23 in total, with 125 of the 720 laps run under yellow – including a caution period of nearly three hours early on Sunday morning because of heavy fog.

The final safety car was called right at the end as Sascha Maassen limped back to the pits with a broken right rear wheel, shedding bodywork on the way. It led to a one-lap shoot-out after 24 hours of hard racing. Scott Pruett in Ganassi’s 01 car kept the lead he’d only taken at the final pitstops, but behind him team-mate Scott Dixon withheld a last-ditch challenge from 2010 winner João Barbosa in the Action Express Riley-Porsche.

After a stellar 2010, this was a perfect start for Ganassi and Grand-Am’s pacesetters Pruett and Memo Rojas (above with Montoya). They were joined by team debutants, the impressive BMW ALMS racer Joey Hands and new Indycar signing Graham Rahal, who claimed a Rolex Daytona watch 30 years after his father Bobby’s win at the speedway

Back in the United Autosports motor home after the race, Brundle and Blundell were a little subdued. They’d been so close to an amazing podium, but as Martin said they had to be satisfied with the pace they’d shown. They’re getting on, but old pros don’t forget how to do it.

* You can read more on Brundle and Blundell’s Daytona campaign in the April issue of Motor Sport, on sale on Friday February 25.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

It has become a custom for me to offer some predictions for the season ahead. Actually, it has become a source of much amusement and derision among my colleagues, who are never shy of reminding me how unreliable my predictions are. I will, however, continue the custom for those of you who enjoy a bit of harmless amusement.

So, here’s what may happen as we move through a new season of motor racing in 2011. In no particular order:

1. Sébastien Ogier will be a lot closer to Sébastien Loeb and will challenge for the World Rally Championship title.
2. Valentino Rossi will win a race on a Ducati.
3. Audi will win Le Mans.
4. Red Bull will start the season winning Grands Prix.
5. Paul di Resta will impress in the Force India (if he actually gets to drive one of the cars Rob… Ed).
6. Dario Franchitti will win the Indycar championship.
7. Felipe Massa will be replaced at Ferrari during the year.
8. Rubens Barrichello will retire at the end of 2011.
9. Dean Stoneman will be on the podium in GP2.
10. Ferrari will threaten to leave Grand Prix racing if the rules for 2013 are not changed to accommodate a V6 turbo engine.

All nonsense? Yes, probably, but let’s be bold this year. You will have your own thoughts on the season ahead, or you may decide to keep them to yourselves, which is probably more sensible. But remember, I did predict that Vettel would win the Formula 1 title in 2010

While we’re listing things, here’s 10 events not to miss in 2011. Again, in no particular order:

1. The Monaco Grand Prix – F1 cars are as exciting as ever they were on this circuit. Pure drama, with or without overtaking.
2. Indycars on any of the ovals. Still a thrilling spectacle.
3. IRC Ypres Rally. An easy drive from the UK and a lovely town with the service area in the main square.
4. The Goodwood Revival. Simply the best.
5. MotoGP at Mugello. Take a walk around the circuit and be amazed.
6. BTCC at Brands Hatch. Audi joins the fray this year. Great circuit.
7. WRC Rally New Zealand. Breathtaking scenery.
8. Algarve Historic Festival. Sunshine, beaches and mouth-watering cars.
9. The Brazilian Grand Prix. Crackling atmosphere, always a good race.
10. Midget cars on any dirt oval. You can combine this with the Indy 500.

Go on, treat yourself. It will only be more expensive next year. Whatever you do, wherever you are, let’s look forward to another great season.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

In the spirit of the holiday season, I want to share my best hope for IndyCar racing in 2012 when it adopts its new 2.4-litre, twin-turbo V6 formula with adjustable boost for road courses versus ovals. The mantra, of course, from the likes of Mario Andretti (below) and Bobby Unser to Dario Franchitti and Will Power, is more horsepower please. IndyCar is expected to set the boost to produce around 750bhp on road and street circuits with a little less on ovals.

Three-time Indy 500 winner Unser is among those who hope the 2012 Indycar will prove to be a spectacular machine, requiring more judicious use of the throttle in the grand tradition of the great Indycars of the past. “The fact is Indycars just got too easy to drive,” he says. “They don’t have enough horsepower and they drive around running wide-open all the time with the throttle on the floor. They have to make the cars more difficult to drive and more impressive like Indycars always were. If they don’t, they’re not going to make heroes out of Franchitti and Power and these guys.”

Power, winner of five races and IZOD IndyCar championship runner-up this year, agrees: “They’ve got to have 750bhp-plus. That’ll make the racing better because it’ll be harder to drive and the cars will look more spectacular. More horsepower also means the tyres will go off, which makes them more spectacular. I remember when I was a kid going to the Surfers Paradise race when they had 900bhp and the ground would rumble. It was unbelievable and it just looked and sounded fast. They revved to 17,000rpm

“That’s what they need. It’s like when you go to a drag race. When they put 6000bhp or whatever it just shakes the ground. So there are many good reasons to have a lot of horsepower on the road courses.”

Franchitti agrees wholeheartedly with Power, but Dario cautions against the downside of increased power and acceleration. “Having more power obviously makes the straights shorter so it’s harder to pass,” he observes. “That’s the downside. It’s easier to pass on tracks we’ve been going back to with today’s car that we used to race on with 900-1000bhp CART cars, because you get a longer draft with this car. With the CART cars the straight was over so quickly that you couldn’t make those passes.”

Scott Dixon believes a substantial push-to-pass power boost will be available with 2012’’s turbocharged engines, which should help passing. “I think the idea is to have a push-to-pass that gives you a large amount of power, kind of like Champ Car did,” he says. “That could make for more passing.”

More power and more passing – an ineluctably mythic mix. All of us want to see it. Can it be made to happen?

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

One of motor racing’s truly great guys passed away in Indianapolis this week. John Anderson, known to all as ‘Ando’, suffered a heart attack while playing racquetball on Thursday. An Australian who came to the United States more than 30 years ago, Ando was an old-school master mechanic and fabricator who could build anything and everything. He was also a very funny man, a hilarious storyteller and a kindly soul.

Anderson worked in Formula 5000, Can-Am, Indycars and the American Le Mans Series and became one of the finest team managers in the business. In recent decades he was a key man at PacWest, Team Green and Andretti-Green, running Dario Franchitti’s car at Andretti-Green in 2007 when he won his first Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar title. In 2008 and ‘09 Anderson ran Gil de Ferran’s ALMS team and spent three months last winter trying to salvage Peter Windsor’s USF1 outfit.

Ando was also an enthusiastic amateur aviator who loved to fly his own light plane. But most of all he was a tireless worker who could motivate people like few others with his superb skills, sharp eye and bottomless pit of humour. Our thoughts this week are with John’s wife Lesley, his extended family and many friends around the world.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Good news this week for Graham Rahal and JR Hildebrand (below). This talented pair of young American racers has landed quality IndyCar rides for 2011, which is a good thing not only for them but also for Indycar racing as a whole and US race fans too. Rahal will drive for a new Chip Ganassi team with Charlie Kimball as his team-mate, while Hildebrand replaces Dan Wheldon at Panther Racing. Rahal, 21, will lead Ganassi’s new team with sponsorship from Service Central and Hildebrand, 22, takes Wheldon’s seat in Panther’s National Guard car.

Rahal drove for Newman/Haas Racing in 2007-09, scoring his first IndyCar win in the St Petersburg street race in ‘08. Lacking sponsorship, Graham has worked through a patchwork season this past year driving for four different teams. He also spent the year working hard to find a sponsor and landed Service Central, a national tyre distribution and automotive service centre chain. Thanks to this backing Rahal has been able to broker a deal with Ganassi.

“Now the pressure’s on me to succeed,” said Rahal (above), son of CART and Indy winner Bobby. “What I look forward to most is when you’re with a team like Ganassi you don’t have to worry about anything but driving the car and going fast. I’ll be able to focus on having my head as clear as I can when I show up at the race track.

“I just can’t wait. There’s a tremendous amount of experience there. Between Dario [Franchitti] and [Scott] Dixon you’ve got five championships and three Indy 500 wins, and you know that Chip only does things in the best way possible.”

Rahal’s team-mate Kimball, 25, is the son of former Indy and F1 designer Gordon and is sponsored by healthcare company NovoNordisk. Charlie finished fourth in last year’s Indy Lights championship and in 2005 became the first American in 11 years to win a British Formula 3 race.

Ganassi’s new team will be run out of drag racer Don Prudhomme’s shop in nearby Brownsburg. “That’s primarily because we don’t have the room here,” said Chip’s IndyCar/Grand-Am managing director Mike Hull, who stressed it is not a ‘satellite’ team. “Our intention is to run it in the same manner that we run our other race teams and draw from the resources that we have here.”

Hildebrand’s move to Panther comes after he tested successfully for the team last week. He won the 2009 Indy Lights title and ran two IndyCar races last season driving for Dreyer & Reinbold. He also tested a Force India F1 car near the end of last year.

Panther has been looking for an American driver to replace Wheldon, who had driven for the team for two years. The Briton won the Indy 500 with Andretti-Green in 2005 and finished second to Dario Franchitti at Indy this year, but he has been disappointing in road and street races.

Panther team boss John Barnes has been searching for an American who can perform on all types of track and believes he has the right man in Hildebrand. “We knew by lunchtime on the first day of our test that we’d found our next driver,” he said.

These signings are great news for Rahal, Kimball and Hildebrand, but they’re also very good for IndyCar. American open-wheel racing desperately needs some top-class home-grown talent to help draw crowds and media interest. Everyone hopes that with solid teams and sponsorships behind them these three drivers will be able to produce the goods.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Peugeot swept the American Le Mans Series season-closer at Road Atlanta, with Pedro Lamy/Franck Montagny/Stéphane Sarrazin winning Petit Le Mans by just over a minute from the similar 908 HDI of Marc Gené/Alex Wurz/Anthony Davidson. The Peugeots finished two laps clear of the lead Audi R15 driven by Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish, while Duncan Dayton’s Highcroft HPD ARX-01c was fourth to take the team’s second straight ALMS title with David Brabham/Simon Pagenaud/Marino Franchitti at the wheel. The Highcroft team has won three races this year and its trio of drivers completed the season without damaging a single piece of the car’s bodywork – a superb achievement.

The GT2 championship has been a feature of this year’s ALMS with teams from Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette and BMW fighting for the championship. In fact, Petit Le Mans was a classic as the factory Corvette team came through to score its first win of the year after the leading Risi Ferrari ran out of fuel on the last lap. Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen/Emmanuel Collard drove the winning Corvette, finishing 10th overall.

But the GT2 drivers’ championship was taken by Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Long aboard the Flying Lizard Porsche 911 RSR, while Bobby Rahal’s BMW team took the GT2 team championship with Bill Auberlen/Tommy Milner/Dirk Werner finishing fourth in class and 13th overall.

Porsche’s new 911 GT3R hybrid made its second competition appearance at Petit Le Mans. Driven by Timo Bernhard/Romain Dumas/Mike Rockenfeller the car ran untroubled all the way to finish 18th overall. It races next at the Zuhai Intercontinental Cup in November with ALMS GT2 champions Bergmeister and Long at the wheel.

A bonus to this year’s Petit Le Mans was perfect weather with bright, sunny skies all weekend, a sharp contrast to last year when heavy rain cut the race short and left everyone dissatisfied. But this year the 1000km race ran unimpeded with a record field of 45 starters and a record crowd too of 124,000 spectators over three days – 11,000 more than the previous Petit Le Mans record.

Meanwhile Dario Franchitti qualified on pole and led most of the final IndyCar race of the season at Homestead to beat Will Power to the championship. A late stop for fuel dropped Franchitti to eighth and Ganassi team-mate Scott Dixon came through to win the race. Power had a disappointing race, falling down the field and then slithering into the wall and retirement as Franchitti drove faultlessly to take his second straight IndyCar championship.

Dario won the IndyCar title in 2007 with Andretti-Green Racing before giving NASCAR an abortive try in 2008. Returning to Indycars with Chip Ganassi’s team Franchitti has shown himself to be the class of the field, winning his second Indy 500 this year and relentlessly pursuing and beating Power and Team Penske to the crown. Dario is not only a great racing driver but also a big fan of  Motor Sport magazine, and someone who knows as much about the sport’s history as any driver. Everyone at Motor Sport congratulates Franchitti on an extremely well won championship.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

It’s easy to poke fun at NASCAR’s ‘Chase for the Cup’ but the championship play-off among the year’s top 12 drivers – run over the final 10 of 36 races – can certainly shake up the status quo. The point was made in last weekend’s opening round of the Chase at the one-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where Clint Bowyer led most of the race and came through to win after leader Tony Stewart ran out of fuel. Bowyer was the 12th and final qualifier for this year’s Chase, but his New Hampshire win vaulted him to second in the points behind Denny Hamlin.

Bowyer was the man to beat on Sunday, leading 177 of 300 laps, only to be stuck in second place behind Stewart towards the end as both drivers struggled to save fuel. But Stewart’s engine stuttered and died on the penultimate lap allowing Bowyer to sweep through and score his first Sprint Cup victory in 88 starts going back to the spring of 2008. Bowyer, 31, drives for Richard Childress’s three-car Chevrolet team, for whom he has raced since joining NASCAR’s top league in 2005. A dark horse going into the Chase, Bowyer has suddenly emerged as a championship contender.

Bowyer, from Kansas in the heart of America’s vast Midwest, won NASCAR’s second-division Nationwide championship in 2008. His best season to date came in ’07 when he finished third in the points, while Childress’s team has not won the Sprint Cup since Dale Earnhardt took the last of his seven titles with RCR back in 1994. NASCAR legend Earnhardt won six of his seven championships with Childress’s team.

Denny Hamlin, winner of a series high six races this year, finished a strong second in New Hampshire and leads the championship by 35 points from Bowyer. Third in the championship at this stage is Kevin Harvick, who was fifth in New Hampshire in another Childress Chevrolet. Defending NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson had a bad race, finishing two laps down in 25th place after damaging his car in a mid-race multi-car collision.

Meanwhile, Dario Franchitti continued to chisel into Will Power’s IndyCar points lead as he beat Power at the 1.5-mile Twin Ring Motegi oval in Japan. Hélio Castoneves, who qualified on pole, led most of the race to score his third win of the season and the ninth this year for Team Penske. Championship leader Power came through to finish third for his best oval track result of the year after running fourth or fifth for most of the race.

Franchitti drove a strong race in Japan, moving up from fourth on the grid to finish second and close the gap to Penske driver Power to just 12 points with one race remaining. The IndyCar season comes to a close with a Saturday night race on the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami oval on October 2, with everything to play for between Power and Franchitti.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine