All posts by Christopher DeHarde

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer BRASELTON, Georgia — Qualifying for Saturday’s Petit Le Mans featured some welcome returns to the top of the time sheets with a few surprises thrown into the mix. Felipe Nasr gave co-driver Pipo Derani an early birthday present by qualifying the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi on  pole position. Nasr set a new lap record for DPi cars with a lap of 1 minute, 8.457 seconds around the 2.54 mile circuit. Ricky Taylor qualified second in the No. 7 Acura Team Penske DPi, justRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer All that’s left is 10 hours. Saturday’s Motul Petit Le Mans will conclude the 2019 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the newly-renamed Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta circuit near Braselton. The 2.54 mile road course will see many endings besides the championship, so let’s dive straight into that before we get into the classes. The Ford GT and Corvette C7.R will be making their final starts as factory programs in the GTLM class. Ford has decided to shutter the GT project while Chevrolet is moving onto theRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer MADISON, Illinois — Michael Cannon is frustrated. “You always remember the ones that got away, like this is one that got away,” said Cannon. “A car that’s that fast shouldn’t finish fourth, that car should be P1.” Santino Ferrucci’s race engineer for Dale Coyne Racing was happy with another top-five finish. But after leading 97 laps, the veteran engineer wanted more than fourth place. “There were 1-2 things he had concerns about after [Friday] evening’s practice and it looks like we fixed them,” said Cannon. “JustRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer MADISON, Illinois — Conor Daly couldn’t see or feel his hands at the end of of Saturday’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500, but in sixth place, it didn’t matter if he could. The Noblesville, Indiana native was driving for his IndyCar career with a vision-altering vibration from his last set of tires at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. Starting 18th with a car that was fastest in Friday’s final practice session, Daly led one lap (Lap 119) in his fourth race of the 2019 NTT IndyCarRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer MADISON, Ill. — Countless hours of examination by racing fans, drivers and other experts on Twitter on last week’s opening lap accident at Pocono Raceway can be a drain on anybody but no longer for Takuma Sato. “The important thing is to understand what happened, the facts and try to make it how we can improve, that’s the most important thing,” said Sato. “Obviously we did not want to see that happen, but it happened, whatever the reason I think the important thing is that we’veRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer MADISON, Ill. — Oil and other leaking fluids from vintage race cars could have seriously affected NTT IndyCar Series qualifying. Prior to qualifying for Saturday evening’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, a group of vintage race cars turned parade laps around the 1.25 mile oval in an hour exhibition for local spectators. Following some reports of leaking oil and fluids, the track poured some oil dry compound on the lower line around the track in Turns 1-2 which affected theRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer If there ever was a Rubik’s Cube of an oval, it would have to be Pocono Raceway. A two and a half mile superspeedway with three straightaways of differing lengths and corners of differing radii and banking gives every engineer throughout the Indy car paddock their biggest oval racing setup challenge of the year. The No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan entry performed well last year at Pocono. Driver Sebastien Bourdais finished fourth with race engineer Craig Hampson helping get the setup right, butRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer McLaren finally ended all speculation about their full time involvement in American open wheel racing by announcing a full time NTT IndyCar Series Program for the 2020 season. Run in conjunction with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, the newly-renamed Arrow McLaren Racing SP team will be a two car effort powered by Chevrolet engines. “IndyCar has been part of McLaren since our early years of racing, and the series today provides not only a commercial platform to continue to grow our brand in North America, but competitionRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin — PFAFF Motorsports won Sunday’s IMSA Road Race Showcase at Road America with a driver that was competing in his fourth ever race in America. Matt Campbell raced at the Rolex 24 this year, the Sebring 1000 miles WEC race, Lime Rock Park and now Road America with a win at America’s National Park of Speed for PFAFF Motorsports in the team’s No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R with co-driver Zacharie Robichon. The Canadian team saved fuel during the race while running secondRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin — Tommy Milner’s return to racing after injuring his left hand at Watkins Glen was, by all accounts, a success despite finishing sixth with co-driver Oliver Gavin. Milner’s car started on pole position and ran second in the closing stages of Sunday’s IMSA Road Race Showcase but the No. 4 Corvette C7.R had to stop for fuel in the final five minutes of the race. “We had a good car today for sure, the Corvette was fast,” said Milner. “We had to pitRead More