Happy Halloween as the motorsports world provides us with a few treats this weekend. Two championships will be decided while Texas is busy with two major events and China plays host to sports cars. Normally we start with series with the fewest races remaining but with Circuit of the Americas being the center of the Formula One world, we start with the United States Grand Prix.
United States Grand Prix
Formula One returns to the United States and Lewis Hamilton enters having won the last four races and two of the last three United States Grands Prix. The Brit has a 17-point lead over his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg. Hamilton is a win away from becoming the all-time leading British driver in victories. He is currently tied with Nigel Mansell at 31 victories.
Daniel Ricciardo's championship are still alive but the Australian will have to pick up multiple victories along with multiple stumbles from his Mercedes rivals as Ricciardo trails Hamilton by 92 points with 100 points left on the table. With his third place finish at Sochi, Valtteri Bottas jumped Sébastien Vettel and Fernando Alonso to fourth in the World Championship. The Finn is two points ahead of the four-time world champion and four points ahead of the two-time world champion. Jenson Button makes it three champions in a row in the champion as he is seventh having scored 94 points so far this season.
Nico Hülkenberg is eighth with 78 points, five ahead of Felipe Massa. Kevin Magnussen rounds out the top ten with 49 points. The Dane is two points ahead of former McLaren drivers Sergio Pérez and Kimi Räikkönen.
Hamilton has two victories and a fourth in his three United States Grand Prix starts. He could join Michael Schumacher, Graham Hill and Jim Clark as the only drivers to win the United States Grand Prix at least three times. Rosberg has only finished in the points once in the United States and it was ninth last year. Vettel's victory last year was the first time a manufacture other than Ferrari or McLaren had won the United States Grand Prix since Alan Jones won at Watkins Glen in 1980. Jones is the only Australian to win the United States Grand Prix. Ricciardo has yet to finish in the points in the United States.
As we all know, this United States Grand Prix will only feature 18 cars after Caterham and Marussia pulled out due to financial issues.
Baku World Challenge
The battle is between Maximilian Götz and the #28 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini pairing of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Hari Proczyk. The German driver of the #84 HTP Motorsport Mercedes leads the Lamborghini pairing by 27 points with 33 points left on the table as Blancpain Sprint Series heads to the capital of Azerbaijan. Götz and his co-driver Maximilian Buhk have won three races this year while Bleekemolen and Proczyk have four wins but only one has come in a championship race.
The battle for fourth in the championship is between the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT teammates. The #2 of Enzo Ido and René Rast lead the #1 of Laurens Vanthoor and César Ramos by one point. Vanthoor and Ramos won the qualifying race at Zolder two weeks ago.
Vanthoor is still in contention for the Blancpain GT Drivers' Championship, a combination of points from the Sprint and Endurance Series. Vanthoor trails Götz by 23 points. In the Blancpain GT Teams' Championship, Belgian Audi Club Team WRT leads HTP Motorsport by 17 points. Last year, Vanthoor won at Baku with Stéphane Ortelli as his co-driver. Ortelli will run the #9 Audi with fellow Monegasque driver, GP2 driver Stéphane Richelmi.
Other notable teams entered for Baku are the Boutsen Ginion McLarens with Kevin Éstre and Rob Bell in the #15 and Chris van der Drift and Frédéric Vervisch in the #16. Trackspeed will run Richard Westbrook and Norbert Siedler in the #31 Porsche 997 GT3 R.
World Superbike Season Finale
Tom Sykes looks to make it back-to-back World Superbike championships this weekend in Qatar but he has Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli breathing down his neck, 12 points back and coming off six consecutive finishes in the top two. Skyes is looking to become the ninth rider to win multiple World Superbike championships and the fourth in win championships in consecutive season. Another title for Sykes would the ninth for a British rider and would tie them with the United States for most World Superbike championships. Guintoli is looking for his first title in his sixth season in World Superbike and he would be the first French champion since Raymond Roche won in 1989.
This is the first time World Superbike has visited the Losail International Circuit since 2009. Sykes' lone appearance at Losail was in 2009 when he was Ben Spies' teammate at Yamaha. He finished seventh and fifth in the two races. Guintoli has never raced at Losail in World Superbike but has made five starts between 250cc and MotoGP at the track with his best finish being sixth in the 2006 250cc race. James Toseland is the only Brit to have won in World Superbike at Losail. He won race one in 2006 and race two in 2007.
Guintoli's Aprilla teammate Marco Melandri is third in the championship, 11 points ahead of Honda rider Jonathan Rea. Melandri finished second in the 2005 Qatar Grand Prix to Valentino Rossi. Sykes' Kawasaki teammate Loris Baz rounds out the top five.
6 Hours of Shanghai
Toyota enters China having won their fourth race of the season with Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi. The drivers of the #8 TS040 have a 29-point lead over the #2 Audi of Marcel Fässler, Benoît Tréluyer and André Lotterer. Tom Kristensen and Lucas di Grassi are 11 points behind their Audi teammates after the German manufacture was shut out of the podium at Fuji last month. Alexander Wurz, Stéphane Sarrazin and Kazuki Nakajima made it a Toyota 1-2 at their home race and Wurz and Sarrazin are 21 points behind the Dane and Brazilian.
Four points outside the top five is the #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani who have finished fourth in three of five races. Despite two podiums, the #20 Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley are eight points behind the #12 Rebellion Racing of Mathias Beche, Nicolas Prost and Nick Heidfeld.
The #51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander is well on it's way to it's second consecutive championship in GTE-Pro as Bruni and Vilander has won three of five races this season. The pairing has a 49.5-point lead over Porsche driver Frédéric Makowiecki as the Italian and Finn could lock up the World Endurance Cup for GT Driver with two races to go. Richard Lietz is 58 points back after missing two races and Jörg Bergmeister is 70 points back.
While Ferrari has dominated GTE-Pro, Aston Martin has been wiping the floor with the competition in GTE-Am. Kristian Poulsen and David Heinemeier Hansson has three victories and two second places finishes. The drivers of the #95 Vantage GTE lead their sister #99 of Christoffer Nygaard, Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana by 39 points and the #88 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR of Christian Ried, Klaus Bachler and Khaled Al Qubaisi are 49 points back. AF Corse did not enter any car in GTE-Am for Shanghai leaving the #90 8Star Motorsports Ferrari as the only 458 Italia in the class.
The LMP2 field has nearly doubled in size for the Shanghai round. Sergey Zlobin leads the LMP2 championship by 16 points over the #26 G-Drive Ligier-Nissan of Julien Canal, Olivier Pla and Romain Rusinov. Zlobin will be joined in the #27 SMP Racing Oreca-Nissan by Nicolas Minassian and Maurizio Mediani. Thirty points back of Zlobin are KCMG Oreca-Nissan drivers Richard Bradley and Matthew Howson. The Brits will be joined by Swiss driver Alexandre Imperatori in Shanghai. Extreme Speed Motorsports has entered two HPD ARX-03bs for Shanghai. Scott Sharp, Ryan Dalziel and Ricardo González will pilot the #30 with Johannes van Overbeek, David Brabham and Ed Brown in the #31. OAK Racing racing has entered Asian Le Mans Series championship leaders David Cheng and Ho-Pin Tung in the #35 Morgan-Judd. They will be joined by journeyman gentleman driver Mark Patterson.
Last year, Lotterer, Tréluyer and Fässler won at Shanghai while G-Drive won in LMP2. Stefan Mücke and Darren Turner won in GTE-Pro and they could make it back-to-back this weekend while 8Star Motorsports won in GTE-Am and could also double up from China.
Fort Worth
Jeff Gordon leads the points after finishing second at Martinsville. The four-time champion is three points ahead of Ryan Newman. Joey Logano is a point behind Newman and won at Texas this past April. Matt Kenseth is fourth in the standings, a point behind Logano. Kenseth's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin is three points behind him. Their future Joe Gibbs teammate Carl Edwards is 15 points behind Kenseth. Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick are 26 and 28 points back of fourth respectively after accidents at Martinsville.
Logano is the most recent winner at Texas but Edwards is one of two drivers with three victories at Texas. His last Texas victory was in 2008. Jimmie Johnson is the other driver with three Texas victories and he has won the last two fall races at the 1.5-mile track. Kenseth and Hamlin both have two victories with both of Kenseth's coming in the spring while Hamlin swept the Texas races in 2010. Newman and Gordon each have one win at Texas.
Keselowski and Harvick have yet to win at Texas in the Cup series. Keselowski has one top five and three top tens in 12 starts. He finished second in the 2012 fall race. Harvick has three top tens and eleven top tens in 23 starts. His best finish is third in the spring of 2006. Harvick finished 42nd at Texas in April and has only led six laps in his career at Texas.
Only once has the Texas Chase race been won by a non-Chase driver. That was Tony Stewart in 2006.
Over/Unders
1. Over or Under: 45.5 laps led by Mercedes at Austin?
2. Over or Under: 3.5 German cars finishing the top five in the Baku championship race?
3. Over or Under: 3.5 podium finishes for British riders at Qatar?
4. Over or Under: 150.5 laps run by the #9 Lotus CLM P1/01 of James Rossiter, Pierre Kaffeer and Lucas Auer?
5. Over or Under: 2.5 Chase drivers finishing ahead of Matt Kenseth at Texas?
Last Week's Over/Unders
1. Over: 5 non-Spaniards/Italians finished in the top ten (Stefan Bradl (German), Bradley Smith and Scott Redding (British) and Yonny Hernández (Colombian).
2. Under: Sébastien Ogier won Rally Catalunya by 11.3 seconds over Jari-Matti Latvala.
3. Under: José María López scored 38 points at Suzuka.
4. Over: Two podiums finishers at Surfers were from outside the top ten in the championship (Micahel Caruso and Tim Slade).
5. Under: Jeff Gordon led 130 laps, the most at Martinsville.
Predictions
1. At least 17 cars will finish the United States Grand Prix.
2. Maximilian Götz wins the Blancpain Sprint Series championship.
3. Sylvain Guintoli's consecutive podium streak ends at Qatar.
4. Extreme Speed puts a car on the LMP2 podium.
5. At least one Chase driver will finish outside the top twenty-five at Texas.
Last Week's Predictions
1. Second time is the charm, Marc Márquez ends his winless streak at Sepang (Correct).
2. Sébastien Ogier clinches the title in Catalunya (Correct).
3. José María López clinches the title at Suzuka (Correct).
4. Mark Winterbottom will end his streak of 11 consecutive races without a top five (Correct. He finished 4th in race one from Surfers).
5. A non-Chase driver wins at Martinsville (Correct. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won).
Overall: 5/5. Running Tally: 19.5/35
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