Musings From the Weekend: Easter Eggs, Raindrops and Mops

Easter weekend is a dull... well non-existent weekend for motorsports in the United States. No NASCAR, no IndyCar, no IMSA, not even the NHRA and I can live with that. Give me the day with the family. With that said our friends in Europe were smart enough to take Easter Monday off making it a three-day weekend (maybe four? Does Europe take Good Friday off?) and making having a race a little more sustainable.

Toyota Wins Silverstone
We will start at the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship season opener and how Toyota took advantage of Audi's hour from hell. As the rain began, the #1 Audi of Lucas di Grassi spun off, ending the defending champions day. The #2 Audi dropped off the lead lap and then had it's own accident halfway through the race with Benoît Tréluyer behind the wheel. It was the first time multiple Audi's retired from an event since 2011 Petit Le Mans.

Toyota took advantage and went 1-2 as the race ended a half-hour early due to heavy rain. The team of Anthony Davidon, Sébastien Buemi and Nicolas Lapierre lead their teammates Alexander Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and Stéphane Sarrazin by six points in the championship. The #20 Porsche finished third with Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber piloting the car on debut.

With Audi's naught from round one, it sure made their championship defense interesting. I'm sticking with my prediction Porsche wins Le Mans and Spa can't come soon enough.

Other winners from the weekend was the #26 G-Drive Morgan-Nissan of Romain Rusinov, Olivier Pla and Julien Canal in LMP2. G-Drive has won the last three WEC events and five of the last six dating back to their exclusion from Le Mans last year.

In GTE Pro, Porsche started with another victory for the 911 RSR. The car won the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring in IMSA. Marco Holzer, Frédéric Makowiecki and Richard Lietz were in the winning #92 while Jörg Bergmeister, Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy finished second in the #91. Aston Martin's Stefan Mücke and Darren Turner rounded out the GTE Pro podium.

Wouldn't it be great if Corvette and Viper entered one car into the WEC? I understand why the compete in IMSA but they only time they compete against the best of the best is at Le Mans. Wouldn't it be great to see what they could do over the course of an eight round championship?

In GTE Am, the all-Danish #95 Aston Martin of Nicki Thiim, David Heinemeier Hansson and Kristian Poulsen took victory with their teammates, the #98 of Christoffer Nygaard, Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana in second and the #81 AF Corse Ferrari of Sam Bird, Michele Rugolo and Stephen Wyatt in third.

WEC next competes at Spa on Saturday May 3rd.

European Le Mans Series opened their 2014 season at Silverstone and had thrilling three car battle for the overall victory down to the final lap. The #41 Thiriet by TDS Racing Morgan-Nissan of Tristan Gommendy, Pierre Thiriet and Ludovic Badey won 3.828 seconds over the #34 Oreca-Judd of Race Performance driven by Michel Frey and Franck Mailleux. The Morgan-Judd of Newblood by Morand Racing finished 4.731 seconds back in third with Christian Klein, Gary Hirsch and Romain Brandela.

Duncan Cameron, Matt Griffin and Michele Rugolo won in GTE driving the #55 AF Corse Ferrari with the #96 Team Ukraine Ferrai of Andriy Kruglyk, Sergii Chukanov and Alessandro Pier Guidi winning in GTC.

The second round of ELMS takes place May 18th at Imola.

Mercedes Mops Floor at Shanghai
Lewis Hamilton led every lap at China and Mercedes has led all 224 laps of the 2014 Formula One season as the teams begin their European stretch of the championship in three weeks. It was Hamilton's third consecutive victory but he is still second in the championship, four points back of Nico Rosberg as his Mercedes teammate has one victory and finished runner-up to Hamilton in his three victories.

Fernando Alonso finished third and is now third in the championship while his Ferrari teammate Kimi Räikkönen continues to struggle. For the second race Daniel Ricciardo finished ahead of Sebastian Vettel as the Australian continues to search for his first career podium after being disqualified from second at his race in Australia. Nico Hülkenberg is still the top German driver in the championship, three points ahead of Vettel for fourth.

Mercedes not only mopped the floor at Shanghai but has mopped the floor at every race this season by scoring every pole and fastest lap along with every victory and lap led. Had Hamilton's engine held up at Australia they would probably have the maximum 172 points in the Constructors' Championship.

Other winners from the weekend: Audi drivers Laurens Vanthoor and César Ramos won the qualifying race at the 2014 Blancpain Sprint Series opening round while Mercedes drivers Maximilian Buhk and Maximilian Götz won the main race.  G-Drive Audi's pair of Stéphane Ortelli and Grégory Guilvert lead the Sprint Series points after finishing fourth and second at the two races this weekend. Alex Zanardi finished fourteenth and thirteenth in his Sprint Series debut this weekend.

In WTCC, Yvan Muller won the first race at Paul Ricard while his Citroën teammate José María López took the second race. López leads the championship with 86 points, 12 ahead of Sébastien Loeb who finished second and sixth over the weekend. Muller is third in the standings, twenty points back.

Coming up this weekend: NASCAR under the lights at Richmond, IndyCar and the Road to Indy bandwagon at Barber, MotoGP returns to Argentina for the first time since 1999, World Superbike at Assen and V8 Supercars in New Zealand.