Briscoe Out For Mid-Ohio
Ryan Briscoe will be out for the IndyCar race this weekend at Mid-Ohio due to a broken wrist suffered in race one at Toronto. The Australian will however be in the booth this weekend. Oriol Serviá will be driving the #4 National Guard Panther Racing Chevrolet in place of Briscoe at Mid-Ohio. Briscoe plans on returning to racing competition on August 11th for the American Le Mans Series race at Road America. He was replaced for the July 21st race at Mosport by Mike Conway. It was not announced when or where Briscoe would return in an IndyCar
Five More Laps at Mid-Ohio
Earlier this year it was announced the race lengths of four races were being altered in hopes to reduce fuel mileage races. Mid-Ohio will be extended by five laps to ninety this year. The three other races to have lap counts altered were St. Petersburg (up ten laps to one hundred and ten), Long Beach (down five laps to eighty) and Milwaukee (up fifty laps to two hundred and fifty).
No Winner For DTM at Norisring
Canadian Robert Wickens will have to try again this weekend at Moscow Raceway for his first career win after what appeared to be his first career win at Norisring was vacated. Audi driver Mattias Ekström was the original winner of the race but was disqualified after water was poured into his pants in parc ferme. Ekström and Audi lost their appeal of the disqualification today and no winner for the Norisring race will be declared. It appeared second place finisher Wickens would be promoted as winner. Mercedes had a ten year winning streak at the famed Norisring street circuit entering this year.
It is not the first time a race at the Norisring was declared with no winner. Last year, the first race of the Formula 3 Euro Series ended without a winner after Spaniard (and current Mercedes DTM driver) Daniel Juncadella was disqualified for contact with current DTM teammate Pascal Wehrlein and Raffaele Marciello. Second place William Buller was not promoted to the top of the podium and no winner was declared for race one.
Formula One's Sabbatical From India
It was reported today Formula One will not return to India in 2014. The cause of the demise of the race held in the second most populated country was tax issues with Indian authorities. Bernie Ecclestone states a difference between Formula One and the Indian Grand Prix promoters, Jaypee over the date of the event was the cause for abandoning the event. Jaypee wanted the race to move to March with other Asian-Pacific races such as Australia, Malaysia and China. A return to India seems likely however, as the promoter did not want to have the race six months apart. The race appears likely to return to the Formula One calendar in early 2015.
