From the United States to Australia to Brazil, IndyCar drivers are keeping busy. Let's start at Road Atlanta for Petit Le Mans. The last two champions are competing but in different classes. Ryan Hunter-Reay is driving the SRT Viper in the GT class with co-drivers Dominik Farnbacher and Kuno Wittmer, while Dario Franchitti will drive an HPD ARX03-b for Level-5 Motorsports with his brother Marino and Scott Tucker in the LMP2 class. Townsend Bell is also competing in the GT class for Alex Job Racing in a Lotus Evora. The DeltaWing is making its second appearance of 2012 with Lucas Ordonez and Gunnar Jeannette as co-drivers.
Other past drivers from American open-wheel racing at Petit Le Mans are Neel Jani (Rebellion Racing/LMP1), Bertrand Baguette (Oak Racing/LMP2), Martin Plowman (Conquest Racing/LMP2), Luis Diaz (Level 5/LMP2), Scott Sharp (Extreme Speed/GT), Bruno Junqueira (RSR/PC) and Ryan Daziel (CORE Autosport/PC).
In Australia, nine IndyCar drivers from the 2012 season will compete in the Armor All Gold Coast 600 from Surfers Paradise. In the final practice for international drivers, Ryan Briscoe led all IndyCar driver and was second overall behind German sports car driver Marc Lieb. Simon Pagenuad was second amongst the IndyCar crowd (3rd overall) and Sebastien Bourdais was third from IndyCar (8th). The remaining IndyCar drivers looked like this, Will Power (12th), James Hinchcliffe (14th), Justin Wilson (17th), Mike Conway (21st), Graham Rahal (22nd) and Marco Andretti (26th). Other Americans in the field are Ricky Taylor (23rd) and Boris Said (24th). Former IndyCar driver Max Papis was 28th overall.
In Brazil, Rubens Barrichello will take part in the StockCar Brasil series from Curitiba. This is the first of three StockCar Brasil races Barrichello will being running in.
2013 American Le Mans Schedule
Released last night, the American Le Mans series will run 10 races next season starting with Sebring March 16 and ending with Petit Le Mans October 19. New to the schedule will be Austin on September 21, one day before the World Endurance Championship round at the track. ALMS and IndyCar will run the same weekend at Long Beach and Baltimore. Mid-Ohio will not be returning to the schedule.
New Jersey and F1 Postpone Race Until 2014
The Grand Prix of America has been pushed back one year. Bernie Ecclestone confirmed it. Delays in construction have caused the one year delay. SPEED's Will Buxton came up with a good idea for New Jersey. Instead of canceling the race weekend all together, why not run it else where? Buxton mentioned tracks such as Sonoma, Laguna Seca, Road America, Road Atlanta and Watkins Glen as possible replacements. Sadly, Buxton is not in charge and making a educated decision such as that are not common in Formula One.
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Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters season ends this weekend at Hockenheim. Three drivers are contending for the title. Mercedes driver Gary Paffett leads BMW's Bruno Spengler by three points with Mercedes' Jamie Green eighteen points behind. In Friday first practice, Spengler was fastest with defending DTM champion Martin Tomczyk and the Audi's of Mike Rockenfeller and Mattias Ekström rounding out the top four. Paffett and Green were sixteenth and seventeenth respectively. American Joey Hand was twelfth fastest.
MotoGP returns to Malaysia this weekend, almost one year removed from the fatal accident of Italian rider Marco Simoncelli. Jorge Lorenzo leads Dani Pedrosa by 28 points with three races remaining. Pedrosa was fastest on Friday ahead of his Honda teammate Casey Stoner and Lorenzo. The Americans were sixth (Ben Spies), eighth (Nicky Hayden) and fifteenth (Colin Edwards). Valentino Rossi was eleventh. The Gresini Honda, Simoncelli's former team, of Alvaro Bautista was ninth.
