All posts by Motorsports Tribune

By: NASCAR Wire Service On a cold, cold day in Texas, Ryan Blaney continued the hot streak of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, winning Saturday’s My Bariatric Solutions 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race in thoroughly convincing fashion. Blaney won the first stage in a runaway, led 132-of-200 laps and beat runner-up Christopher Bell to the finish line by 2.327 seconds. The victory was Blaney’s first of the season, his first at Texas Motor Speedway and the seventh of his career. Furthermore, Blaney was the third different driver to pilotRead More

By FIA Sebastian Vettel will make his 200th grand prix start from the front of the grid after the Ferrari driver claimed his 51st career pole at the Bahrain International Circuit ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Mercedes Valtteri Bottas. Defending champion Lewis Hamilton finished in fourth place but the Mercedes driver will drop to P9 on the grid due to an unscheduled gearbox change. Räikkönen set the early pace in Q1, his first flying laps, on soft compound Pirelli tyres, yielding a time of 1:29.951. Ferrari team-mate Vettel slotted into P2Read More

By FIA After taking top spot in Friday’s second practice session, Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen doubled up with the fastest time in final practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Finn, who escaped sanction for an unsafe release on FP2, set a supersoft-shod lap of 1:29.868 with around 20 minutes remaining in the session. The time was good and the Finn might have expected it to be challenged but in the end only Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo got anywhere close, with the Dutchman finishing 0.525s behind theRead More

By INDYCAR AVONDALE, Arizona – Sebastien Bourdais continued his sizzling start to the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series season, setting the fastest speed in Verizon P1 Award qualifying today to earn the pole position for the Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Phoenix Grand Prix. Following a victory in the season opener at St. Petersburg, Florida, on March 11, Bourdais averaged 188.539 mph for his two qualifying laps around ISM Raceway’s 1.022-mile oval in the No. 18 Team SealMaster Honda for Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan. Bourdais earned the 34th pole positionRead More

By INDYCAR AVONDALE, Arizona – INDYCAR announced that veteran racer Oriol Servia has been named a pace car driver for some Verizon IndyCar Series events this season, beginning with this weekend’s Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Phoenix Grand Prix at ISM Raceway. Servia will split duties with Sarah Fisher, who has been an INDYCAR pace car driver since 2016. “Sarah has done a great job for us but she was unavailable for all of the races,” said Jay Frye, INDYCAR president of competition and operations. “Oriol is a pro andRead More

By FIA Kimi Räikkönen went quickest in second practice ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix but the Ferrari driver may be facing a grid penalty due to a possible unsafe release from the pit lane late in the session. The Finn was quickly into the action as the session got underway and set an early benchmark of 1:30.689 on soft compound Pirellis that was later passed by team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas. Räikkönen then wasted no time in getting his qualifying simulation out of the way, beingRead More

By FIA Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo edged a tight battle for early supremacy in Bahrain, beating rivals Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen by over three tenths of a second in the opening practice session at the Bahrain International Crciut. While the opening session at the Gulf circuit is notoriously unreliable due to its daylight timing ahead of a night race, Ricciardo will take confidence from his late charge up the leaderboard. After an early run on medium tyres, the Australian spent the bulk of the session inRead More

By IMSA Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The 100-minute BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach reverts to a two-class race in 2018, featuring the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype and GT Le Mans (GTLM) classes. The same two classes also were featured at Long Beach in 2014 and 2015. The Prototype Challenge class participated in 2016, while the GT Daytona (GTD) class raced in Long Beach last year. The entry list for the BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach features 22 cars, withRead More

By IMSA Wire Service Daytona Beach, Fla. – Following an extremely productive and positive meeting held on March 18 between IMSA, the FIA World Endurance Championship and Sebring International Raceway organizations, some key changes have been jointly agreed for the 2019 race weekend. Presented by IMSA and the WEC, the March 13-16 event will feature more racing, more cars and a heightened experience for fans with the WEC’s sixth round of its Super Season now becoming the 1000 Miles of Sebring (or 8 hours, whichever comes first) and taking placeRead More

KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina – Arjun Maini will continue as a Haas F1 Team development driver in 2018 while simultaneously competing in his first full season in the FIA Formula 2 Championship with Team Trident. Maini, a 20-year-old from Bengaluru, India, is paired with 19-year-old American Santino Ferrucci. Both are Haas F1 Team development drivers and both compete for Team Trident. Each will be embedded with Haas F1 Team at every opportunity, attending races and tests throughout the year. “I’m extremely proud to be a part of Haas F1 Team,” MainiRead More