All posts by Motorsports Tribune

Just two days after the Bahrain Grand Prix, Formula One teams were back in action at the Sakhir Circuit, with Lewis Hamilton topping the timesheet for Mercedes as F1’s first in-season test of 2017 got underway. The session start was briefly delayed while shopping containers were removed from near to the pit lane exit and Hamilton too suffered an early setback as his Mercedes ground to a halt soon after running began. His car was recovered to the garage and after an electrical fault was identified and rectified last Sunday’sRead More

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel took his second victory of the season in Bahrain as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton recovered from a poor start and a penalty to finish in second place ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas. Hamilton exerted intense pressure in the final stages, chopping deep into a 13-second deficit to Vettel but the German kept a cool head to thread through traffic and take the flag with 6.6 seconds in hand. Had Hamilton not earlier been penalised for holding up Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo during a pit stop, the battle mightRead More

By Road to Indy Following a shakedown test on Monday at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill., the brand new Mazda-powered Tatuus PM-18 wrapped up two days of development testing yesterday evening at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. Mazda factory sports car driver and USF2000 driver coach/steward Joel Miller handled driving duties for the state-of-the-art next-generation chassis that will make its competition debut in the 2018 Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires. Miller, who holds a Mechanical Engineering degree, also conducted prototype development of theRead More

Valtteri Bottas claimed pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix, edging team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just two hundredths of a second to claim the first front-of-grid start of his career. Sebastian Vettel was third for Ferrari ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo and the second Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen. Pascal Wehrlein got things underway in Q1 with a time of 1:33.502, but that was soon eclipsed by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and then by Bottas, who elected to run with soft tyres as he set a P1 time of 1:31.041.Read More

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen set the quickest time of final practice in Bahrain, finishing a tenth of a second ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was third. Verstappen’s running in yesterday’s second practice session was compromised when a T-wing broke off Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes and damaged the floor of the Red Bull man’s car, but he recovered this morning to confirm the Milton Keynes competitiveness here with a best time of 1:32.1934, 0.110 up on Hamilton. Verstappen’s qualifying simulation wasn’t without its issues, however, as midway throughRead More

Sebastian Vettel went quickest in the second free practice session ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, before a mid-session “complete shutdown” of his Ferrari that left him briefly stranded on the track. The German’s P1 time came just before half an hour of the evening session, run under floodlights, had elapsed. Bolting on a set of supersofts, the Ferrari power to through a lap of 1:31.310. Later, however, during a longer run in the final 40 minutes of the session Vettel’s car slowed dramatically before the German reported a “completeRead More

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel topped the timesheets as practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix got underway at the Sakhir Circuit, with the German finishing four tenths of a second clear of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo. It wasn’t a wholly successful session for Ferrari, however, with Kimi Räikkönen stopping on track early in the session with smoke rising from the back of his car. It left the Italian squad bookending the timing, with Räikkönen 20th and last on the sheet. Vettel’s P1 time, set on soft tyres, came with around halfRead More

With a distinctive name like Sting Ray Robb, perhaps there could be no better profession than that of a race car driver. The 15-year-old Idaho native has already garnered an impressive list of accomplishments, and the future continues to look bright as he joins the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires. Robb has won numerous national and international karting events and earned trips with Team USA to the Rotax World Finals in both Spain and Portugal. The resulting notoriety led to a test with California-based World Speed Motorsports andRead More

Two Indianapolis businessmen, Mike Harding of Harding Group and Dennis Reinbold of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, have formed a technical alliance for the 101st Running of the Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil and will field an entry for driver Gabby Chaves. The Harding Group has been an instrumental partner with Indianapolis Motor Speedway in paving projects and client hospitality. For the first time this May, the company will field a car in the Indianapolis 500 with the formation of Harding Racing announced today. Chaves will drive the No.Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Texas -– Jimmie Johnson proved on Sunday that you can’t keep a good driver, a good car and a good team down for long—even if you change the playing field at one of his favorite race tracks. The seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion passed Joey Logano for the lead on Lap 318 of 334 and pulled away for his first victory of the season in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at newly repaved and reconfigured Texas Motor Speedway. The winRead More