All posts by Christopher DeHarde

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio— In a near carbon-copy of last year, an Acura NSX GT3 finished behind a Lexus RC F GT3 for the GT Daytona class win in the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. On a late race restart, Jack Hawksworth navigated his No. 14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus to the inside of Mario Farnbacher’s No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura for the GTD class lead coming to The Keyhole. After the British racer completed the pass, the fight was on for theRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio— Mazda Team Joest had a lot of data to analyze after finishing fourth at the most recent round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on the streets of Long Beach and the results came back with a pole position for Oliver Jarvis ahead of Sunday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. After Acura Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves kept constantly upping the pressure, Jarvis came through with a fastest lap of 1 minute, 10.705 seconds to average 114.967 mph. Castroneves was secondRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio– The GT Le Mans and GT Daytona class pole position battles came down to a fight for optimal track conditions and Sebastien Bourdais and Richard Heistand played that game perfectly to earn pole positions for their respective classes ahead of Sunday’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Bourdais piloted his No. 66 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT around to a fastest lap of 1 minute, 19.124 seconds around the 2.258 mile permanent road course toRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LEXINGTON, Ohio– Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course could have easily been renamed Mud-Ohio after rain kept hitting the track and the surrounding grass parking lots all throughout Friday morning and into the early Friday afternoon but the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship maintained their schedule on the first day of the Acura Sports Car Challenge, the first normal round of the 2019 season. With Friday’s morning practice conducted entirely in the wet, only 22 cars turned complete laps out of 36 on the entry list. Juan Pablo MontoyaRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer Marco Andretti will pilot the No. 98 U.S. Concrete Honda for this year’s 103rd Running of the Indianapolis 500 with  a tribute livery celebrating the 50th anniversary his grandfather Mario’s victory of the iconic race in 1969. The Andretti-Herta Autosport with Marco and Curb-Agajanian entry has No. 98 styled similarly to the font used by the No. 2 on Mario’s entry from 1969 and has the numbers on the flick-ups in front of the rear wheels instead of on the rear wing itself. “I’m really happyRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LONG BEACH, California– Tristan Nunez took no prisoners at the start of Saturday’s BUBBA Burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach and it showed. The No. 77 Mazda Team Joest RT24-P DPi went from fifth to third at the start of the 100-minute race but ultimately finished fourth with co-driver Oliver Jarvis in the third race of the 2019 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The Florida native muscled his way past Juan Pablo Montoya’s No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPi and got into third placeRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LONG BEACH, California– Juncos Racing has had a tough time getting settled in its first season in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship but Saturday’s BUBBA Burger Grand Prix at Long Beach gave the team their first taste on the positive side of things. The No. 50 Cadillac DPi started 10th in the 11 car class but used a one pit stop strategy to vault them into the lead during a full course yellow period. After the No. 55 Mazda DPi came to a stop on trackRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LONG BEACH, California– Simon Pagenaud has been on the hot seat at Team Penske in 2019. The 2016 NTT IndyCar Series champion has been overshadowed by teammates Will Power and Josef Newgarden but scored his best finish so far in the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season with a sixth place finish in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Starting fifth, Pagenaud stayed in the top ten throughout the 85 lap race but got jumped at the start by Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal. From thenRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LONG BEACH, California– Dirk Mueller had it all, except for maybe a pint or two of fuel. The BUBBA Burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach was coming to a close and the German driver was second in the GT Le Mans class in the third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The No. 66 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT came out of Turn 8 on the final lap trying to catch eventual GTLM class winner Earl Bamber’s No. 912 Porsche but with noRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer LONG BEACH, California– Acura picked up the title sponsorship for Sunday’s NTT IndyCar Series race on the streets of Long Beach but in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Acura has a large presence with Acura Team Penske and the pressure is on to win Saturday’s BUBBA Burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach. The Southern California Toyota dealer association sponsored the classic street circuit race but with the new sponsorship, the pressure is on at Team Penske to put their Acura ARX-05 DPi machines inRead More