All posts by Motorsports Tribune

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR announced Wednesday a well-received change in its national series qualifying procedure beginning with this week’s triple-header at Dover International Speedway. Going forward, qualifying will feature single-car runs as opposed to the group procedure used by NASCAR for the past five seasons and up to this point in 2019. The modification was well-received by teams and NASCAR is hopeful a return to the tried-and-true format used for decades will improve the show both competitively and for the fan’s sake. TheRead More

By IMSA Wire Service If Helio Castroneves is comfortable heading into this weekend’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio – and the Brazilian driver says he is – that could make many of his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors somewhat uncomfortable. Last year, Castroneves and his No. 7 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international (DPi) co-driver, Ricky Taylor, partnered to lead a 1-2 sweep for the team in the first IMSA race on the 2.238-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course since 2013. Castroneves also took the Motul Pole Award inRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Chase Elliott seized the lead in the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway during a four-lap shootout to the finish and took the checkered flag under caution after Kyle Larson barrel-rolled behind him. Elliott’s victory broke a Chevrolet drought in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series dating to last October at Kansas Speedway and broke a seven-race Ford stranglehold on the 2.66-mile track. The first driver not from Team Penske or Joe Gibbs racing to win this season, Elliott crossed the stripe aheadRead More

By FIA There was payback in Baku for Valtteri Bottas as the Finn won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix one year on from being denied almost certain victory in the city due to a late-race puncture. There was no repeat of that kind of drama in today’s fourth F1 race at the notoriously tricky street circuit and after resisting pressure off the starting line from team-mate Lewis Hamilton, Bottas delivered a faultless performance in a largely incident-free race to take the fifth F1 win of his career. Second place for Hamilton ahead of Ferrari’sRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Picking up significant speed from the first round of knockout qualifying to the second, Austin Dillon won the pole for Sunday’s GEICO 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Covering the 2.66-mile distance in 49.734 seconds (192.544 mph) in his No. 3 Chevrolet, Dillon edged first-round leader Aric Almirola (192.131 mph) for the top starting spot by .107 seconds. In Saturday’s first round, Dillon had run 192.108 mphRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. – Tyler Reddick overcame a pit road speeding penalty and damage to the right side of his No. 2 Chevrolet to win Saturday’s MoneyLion 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. With the right side of his Richard Childress Racing Chevy heavily taped after a brush with the outside wall, Reddick crossed the finish line at the end of a two-lap closing dash .127 seconds ahead of runner-up Gray Gaulding, who drove his No. 08 Chevrolet to the first top-10 finishRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas took his second pole position of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship at the end of a marathon, incident-packed qualifying session that saw two red flag periods for separate crashes involving Robert Kubica and pole position contender Charles Leclerc. Bottas made the best of a tight final run in Q3, maximising a good two to edge team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.059s, with Sebastian Vettel third ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen. In Q1, Vettel led the early exchanges, setting a time of 1:42.348.Read More

By FIA Charles Leclerc went quickest in final practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as both he and second-placed Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel eclipsed their rivals by more than a second. In the qualifying simulations at the end of the third practice session at the Baku City Circuit, Leclerc set a time of 141.604 to take top spot. Vettel, who had languished some way off his young team-mate’s pace during the session, then delivered his own telling lap to take P2 just 0.198s behind the young Monegasque driver. The emphaticRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service It was the last question reporters asked Martin Truex Jr. on Friday before opening practice at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and it was the biggest smile they received. How important was it for the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup champion to score his first win of the season – and first since joining Joe Gibbs Racing team – two weeks ago at Richmond, Va.? “It definitely felt good’’ Truex said, adding with a grin. “It was nice to go into an off-weekend with a winRead More

By INDYCAR INDIANAPOLIS — INDYCAR announced today that the Advanced Frontal Protection debris deflector recently introduced as the sport’s latest safety initiative will be used in competition sooner than expected – beginning at next month’s INDYCAR Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The titanium AFP, which provides frontal protection for drivers, was tested earlier this week at IMS by INDYCAR teams in an open test on the 2.5-mile oval. INDYCAR President Jay Frye said the sanctioning body is satisfied the AFP is ready for use in all NTT IndyCar Series racesRead More