All posts by Motorsports Tribune

By IMSA Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Let’s get one thing straight right off the top: there’s still a long, long way to go in the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. With just two races in the books – albeit two really big ones in the Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts – the championship race is close in all three classes. And to be exact, each of the GT classes still has nine races remaining on the schedule,Read More

By IMSA Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In the world of endurance sports car racing, there are a few special trophies that every driver wants to hoist before their careers are complete. For Porsche factory driver Nick Tandy, this month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts provided the opportunity to “complete the set” of crown jewel victories. He’d already won the Rolex 24 At Daytona in 2014 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Le Mans (GTLM) class, and the following year, picked upRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Clint Bowyer was so excited he started his celebratory burnout at the entrance to Turn 3 at Martinsville Speedway, flirting perilously with the outside wall. Bowyer had ample reason to start the party early, before he got to the frontstretch for a traditional smoke show. With his victory in Monday’s snow-delayed STP 500, he had just ended a winless streak in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series that had reached 190 races, dating to the fall race at Charlotte in 2012. The victory didRead More

By Brian Eberly, Contributing Writer Saturday at Martinsville Speedway was great for Ben Rhodes and the ThorSport Racing organization. The 21-year-old driver kicked off the day by putting the No. 41 Ford on the pole for the fourth race of the 2018 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season. Teammates Matt Crafton and Grant Enfinger qualified second and third, respectively, to give ThorSport Racing their first 1-2-3 qualifying effort in team history. The pole was the third of Rhodes’ career in his 54th Truck Series start and his second at the 0.526-mileRead More

By NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. — In a race delayed for two days by a freak snowstorm in southern Virginia, John Hunter Nemechek charged to the front on a restart with 31 laps left on Monday and held off Kyle Benjamin to win the Alpha Energy Solutions 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race by a mere .106 seconds. The victory was the first at Martinsville for Nemechek, who had two previous runner-up finishes at the .526-mile short track. This time, despite Benjamin pounding his rear bumper in theRead More

By FIA Sebastian Vettel took a sensational Australian Grand Prix victory, taking advantage of a mid-race safety car to beat arch-rival Lewis Hamilton. The defending champion was forced to settle for second place ahead of the second Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen. Local hero Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth. Hamilton led away comfortably at the start, dismissing a brief challenger from Raikkonen as they made their way through the first corners. Vettel held third place but behind Haas’ Kevin Magnussen got the jump on Verstappen who dropped to fifth ahead of Grosjean,Read More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton took his first pole position of the 2018 season in imperious fashion, beating Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen and third-placed Sebastian Vettel by nearly seven tenths of a second. It was a bittersweet sesssion for Hamilton’s Mercedes team, however, as the defending team-mate, Valtteri Bottas, crashed out heavily at the start of the final session. Räikkönen set the pace early in Q1, eventually rising to a time of 1:23.096s ahead of the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. The order changed when Hamilton began to put togetherRead More

By FIA Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel grabbed top spot in final practice for the Australian Grand Prix with a late surge on ultrasoft tyres at the end of a we-dry session at Albert Park. With the track damp and greasy until the closing stages most teams opted to play safe and remain on intermediate tyres during the final minutes of the session, with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen setting the pace with a lap of 1:31.680 on the green-banded tyres with just a minute to go. Vettel, though had bolted onRead More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton remained in control of the Albert Park timesheets at the end of the second free practice session in Melbourne. However, the defending champion was closely shadowed by Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, with the Dutch driver finishing just over a tenth of second behind his Mercedes rival. After early sparring on the soft and supersoft tyres, the session’s qualifying simulations saw Hamilton charge to the front of the pack with a time of 1:23.931s set after had bolted on a set of Pirelli’s purple-banded ultrasoft tyres.Read More

By FIA Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the first practice of the new season, as the 2018 FIA Formula 1 World Championship campaign got underway in Melbourne. The defending champion beat Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas by over half a second as running got underway at the Albert Park circuit, with Max Verstappen a further two tenths of a second off the pace. With the temporary circuit lacking grip, teams played a waiting game in the early stages and more than 20 minutes before Williams rookie set the first timed lapRead More