Heading into Saturday night’s IndyCar 300 lap race at Iowa Speedway, Andretti Autosport had won four straight and five of seven races at the track. The other two races were won by Chip Ganassi Racing. For most of the race, it looked like CGR’s Tony Kanaan would end Andretti dominance but a great strategy call and a hard charge at the end made it five in a row for AA with Ryan Hunter-Reay taking the checkered flag.
Sports
Formula One: 2014 Silverstone In-Season Test Recap
Once again, the constructors of the Formula One World Championship stayed at the track after a Grand Prix for an in-season test. For the final in-season test, Formula One stayed home for a couple of days for some running at Silverstone. It was the final time during the season that the teams would get track time outside of race weekends so who would be quickest?
IndyCar – Pocono 500: A Second Time For Firsts
When he was dropped from Formula One by McLaren, many people thought that Juan Pablo Montoya was done in motorsports. His prime was behind him and he was going from the pinnacle of motorsports to stock cars, a discipline that he never run before in his life. Naturally, that run wasn’t as successful as his time in CART or F1.
After his NASCAR contract expired at the end of last season, it looked as though Montoya was going to spend the rest of his careers in sportscars. Instead, Roger Penske snapped up the long-time Ganassi driver to run in IndyCar and what an inspired move it was. It started something of a career resurgence for Montoya capped off (thus far) with a win in the Pocono 500.
F1 British Grand Prix: All You Need is Luck
As the old saying goes, sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good. Lewis Hamilton would certainly tell you that after the season that he’s had so far. Heading to Silverstone, he’s had Mercedes’ only two DNFs along with a 2nd in Monaco because of a yellow flag caused by his teammate, Nico Rosberg.
This time, it was Rosberg who was bitten by bad luck. His first retirement of the season cleared the way for Hamilton to be the one to take advantage. With Rosberg suffering a gearbox failure, it was Hamilton who picked up the win in his home Grand Prix.
IndyCar – GP of Houston: Sweeps Weekend
One of the storylines that troubles the rules makers in motorsports is if dominance sells. Last weekend, we saw two races dominated by two different groups but the result was dominance. On the Saturday portion of the Houston doubleheader, it was the Colombian contingent of drivers mimicking the success of their country’s World Cup team with a sweep of the podium. Sunday saw a team dominate with Schmidt-Peterson scoring their first-ever one-two sweep.
F1 Power Rankings: British Grand Prix
After a trip to Austria for the return of Red Bull’s home Grand Prix, is it time for someone to spoil the home festivities in Britain? The British Grand Prix is the home race for the vast majority of teams with all but three having a factory in England near Silverstone.
Will the likes of Ferrari, Sauber or Toro Rosso spoil the party? Probably not but does that mean that a British driver will join a British team on the top step of the podium? Well, there’s one man who the Power Rankings says has a good chance.
F1 Austrian Grand Prix: That’s The Pits
There’s one way that every race fan wants a race to be decided: On the race track. However, you could make a reasonable argument that yesterday’s Austrian Grand Prix was decided in pit lane. The cars with the best strategy and best pit stops made it to the front. He might not have had the fastest car but Nico Rosberg had the fastest race en route to his third win of the season.
F1 Power Rankings: Austrian Grand Prix
After a one-race trip to the Americas for the Canadian Grand Prix, it’s a return to Europe for the return of the Austrian Grand Prix. The A1 Ring has been slightly updated since the last time that Formula One raced there. One thing that hasn’t changed is the rules governing team orders. Well, the rules changed and changed back. Not that team orders were ever an issue in Austria.
IndyCar – Texas 600: Two-Driver Two-Step
While it’s certainly and advantage to run week in and week out on the IndyCar circuit, that doesn’t mean you have to run every race to succeed. Since the team owner became a part-time driver, the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing car became a threat with road course specialist Mike Conway handling the races with right turns and Ed driving only on the ovals. The results have seen Conway win at Long Beach and Carpenter start the Indy 500 on pole.
So it should come as much of a surprise that the so far winless driver of the #20 car was able to correct that quite quickly. In only his second start of 2014, Ed Carpenter put in a stellar race to pick up his first win of 2014.
F1 Canadian Grand Prix: Perfect No More
When previewing the Canadian Grand Prix, I often referred to it as one of the most exciting races on the Formula One calendar. Once again, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve played host to a race so exciting and so dramatic that you couldn’t pull yourself away because you would certainly miss something. In fact, the action was so continuous and intense that the cameramen and FOM race feed missed a whole pile of it as it was happening because they were too interested in crowd reaction shots.
While Mercedes looked like they could be the first team to sweep a Formula One season, the racing gods decided that this wasn’t their year. Instead, ERS failures on the Mercedes cars resulted in a dramatic final stint in which the field caught but couldn’t pass Nico Rosberg. Well, the field bar Daniel Ricciardo who pulled off an epic pass with two laps to go to win his first Formula One Grand Prix.
The Lowdown 