Musings From the Weekend: The Summer's Dying Days

We crowned a champion, ran 1000km, went North of the Border and saw Marc Márquez win again this weekend. Labor Day signals the unofficial end to summer as kids start the dog days of school, the weather will start to get brisk, colors change and the next major holiday is Thanksgiving in three months. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.

Pass of the Year Nominee
Got to start by giving praise to Ryan Blaney and Germán Quiroga for their last lap battle at Mosport on Sunday. I have never seen a NASCAR road course race that close end so cleanly. Normally you see drivers banging into one another, ignoring track limits and it's just too overly aggressive. What Blaney and Quiroga did on the final lap at Mosport was a display of what great racing is. It is respecting your competitor and taking advantage of any opening they give you.

Blaney has been impressive the last three years. From winning in his third start in the Truck Series to a pair of victories in the Nationwide Series to landing the Wood Brothers' Cup ride in 2015. Hopefully Penske hangs on to him like a son of bitch because if he lets him go, he is letting go of a sure winner.

Back to Their Roots
NASCAR is going back to Darlington on Labor Day weekend. Why they ever left, I haven't a clue. No major changes to the NASCAR Cup Series schedule. The traditional July off weekend moves to June. A few races flop dates. Other than that no major changes.

I want to give NASCAR credit though on the Nationwide Series schedule and not the good kind. They moved the standalone Chicagoland race to the Saturday night of the June off weekend. Road America moves to August when NASCAR takes another week off because there will be five Sundays in August 2015. I find it ironic they moved that race to what will likely be a week after IndyCar at Milwaukee and three weeks after IMSA goes to Road America. I've stated many times series need to have dialogue to avoid over scheduling a market. There is no reason why Wisconsin needs three major races in four weeks. It's disappointing NASCAR would choose to do this. This affects many other series including Pirelli World Challenge who raced at Road America weekend with NASCAR this year. In likelihood, IndyCar will be at Sonoma that weekend and PWC ran with IndyCar at Sonoma last week. So who do they choose to go with in 2015? It's disappointing they are forced to make a choice.

The Truck schedule will see the addition of a race at Atlanta. It's disappointed the Truck Series aren't at Richmond, Indianapolis Raceway Park, Darlington or any of the small, local short tracks such as Memphis, Mansfield, South Boston, etc. that was the backbone for the series for many years.

He's Back
He was hardly gone. Marc Márquez made it 11-for-12 in 2014 with a victory at Silverstone. Another great battle with Jorge Lorenzo while Valentino Rossi, Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso battled for third. Honda's perfect season continues. Márquez and Lorenzo went at it hard. You had slight contact, guys running wide. It wasn't as great their battle last year at Silverstone or Mugello and Barcelona this year but it was still top notch.

Apparently this will be the last race at Silverstone as Circuit of Wales has a five-year contract with a five-year option. I don't see Wales hosting the British Grand Prix. I doubt the track will ever be built. After all, how is the Formula One racing doing at Donnington? Oh, that's right.

Sad News
V8 Supercars will not be returning to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas in 2015. After running there in 2013, the series took a year over after a scheduling conflict with the X Games, which were held in Austin for the first time in the events history.

Sad to see V8SC go but I never thought the series was going to catch a big following in the United States. The races are held at rough hours for most of the United States (reasonable hours if you live in Hawai'i or Alaska). When the event was first announced, I thought it would be similar to the Surfers Paradise race which featured two 300km races with a slew of international drivers from IndyCar, sports cars and touring cars pairing with season regulars. I think if they had done that with the American series and had IndyCar, NASCAR and IMSA drivers pairing up, the events would have had a chance to be really successful but you'd have to run the V8SC races early in the year to avoid scheduling conflicts. Hopefully the series returns in the States in the near future. I think they would put on a great show at Laguna Seca.

Got To End On A Good Note
We can't end with a story like that. It's too depressing and it's a holiday. You can't be sad on holidays. To end on a positive, let's all wish former IndyCar driver and current Sauber reserve driver Simona de Silvestro who turns 26 years old today. She left IndyCar on a high note with five consecutive top fives including a career best second place finish at Houston and her first career top ten finish on an oval at Fontana. I think de Silvestro's birthday is enough of a reason to get some cake and schnapps for ourselves.

Happy Birthday Simona!

Winners From the Weekend
You know about Tony Kanaan and Will Power becoming IndyCar champion, Marc Márquez and Ryan Blaney but did you know...

Kasey Kahne won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta.

Esteve Rabat won his second consecutive Moto2 race at Silverstone. Álex Rins won his first race of the Moto3 season.

Kazuki Nakajima and James Rossiter won the Suzuka 1000km. It was Lexus' first victory in the event since 2009. The BMW Z4 GT3 of Akira Iida and Hiroki Yoshimoto won in GT300.

OAK Racing is 2-for-2 in the 2014 Asian Le Mans Series season. David Cheng, Ho-Pin Tung and Keiko Ihara were the overall winners at Fuji. In GT, the BMW Z4 of Team AAI of Jun San Chen, Tatsuya Tanigawa and Carlo van Dam were the winners. In the CN class, the Craft-Bamboo Racing Ligier JS 53 Evo of Mathias Beche, Kevin Tse and Samson Chan were the victors.

Daniel Serra and Ricardo Maurício split the Stock Car Brasil weekend at Curitiba.

Kevin Harvick won the Nationwide race at Atlanta.

Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One heads to Monza.
NASCAR has their final race before the Chase at Richmond.
Blancpain Sprint Series is heading to Algarve, Portugal.
World Superbike is back in action at Jerez.

From The Desert to Desert With Potentially the Pass of the Year In-Between

This weekend featured NASCAR at Phoenix, the start of the V8 Supercars season with a set of passes that are early nominees for pass of the year and more head scratching as Formula One testing comes to a close and the first grand prix is a fortnight away.

Starting with NASCAR, it was another good Phoenix race. Not great, but not every race can be great. Kevin Harvick was the top car all day and earned that victory but it wasn't without challenges from Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. Harvick joins Earnhardt, Jr. as having locked up a spot in the Chase.

Is this what every week is going to be like? A different driver won't win every week but I am still skeptical this is better than the previous formats of the Chase. I am still skeptical the Chase is the way to go. If the Chase has been so successful, why hasn't NASCAR implemented in the Nationwide Series or Truck Series? And if your argument is that is because the Nationwide Series and Truck Series have close championship battle then I will ask then why hasn't NASCAR tried to make the Cup Series more like the other two instead of trying to reinvent the wheel?

As for the new qualifying format, it works but Fox has to learn that it doesn't have to be shown in it's entirety. Fox Sports 1 goes to commercial with 7:25 left in the first segment and comes back with 6:50 remaining. Do they really think we are that stupid? After three and a half minutes of commercial, we only missed 35 seconds? Come on. I can accept missing nine minutes of a half-hour session if it means finding out who wins the pole live and not twenty minutes before it is shown on TV through social media.

One other thing about the new qualifying, the first session is way too long at a half-hour in length. If you have drivers coasting around the bottom of the track like it's keirin on the velodrome at the Summer Olympics, you have a problem. Shorten the segment to ten or fifteen minutes if it means not showing ten to fifteen minutes of drivers trying to cool their cars down.

Pass of the Year Nominees Down Under
Moving on and to Adelaide. The V8 Supercars started their 2014 season this weekend. Race one saw defending champion Jamie Whincup picking up from where he left off and held off teammate Craig Lowndes for the victory. Shane van Gisbergen rounded out the podium with Mark Winterbottom the top finish Ford in fourth. Fabian Coulthard finished fifth ahead of the Nissan of Rick Kelly and Scott McLaughlin finished seventh in the return race for Volvo. Jason Bright, James Courtney and Scott Pye rounded out the top ten. The top Mercedes-Benz was Will Davison in thirteenth.

Race two saw Craig Lowndes take the victory but the battle for second between McLaughlin and Whincup had everyone talking. The Volvo driver led the defending champion at the start of the final lap and Whincup stayed on the bumper of McLaughlin until turn nine where he made a move on the outside. The two drivers ran side-by-side through nine, ten and eleven with Whincup forcing McLaughlin over the curbs and within inches of the barrier and back into third position. But McLaughlin was able to keep Whincup within his sights as they entered the final hairpin. Whincup ran wide and it opened the door for McLaughlin to swoop in and take the second position for Volvo in their second race back on the grid.

Winterbottom and Coulthard finished fourth and fifth again with Chaz Mosert in sixth. Garth Tander finished seventh ahead of the Nissans of Michael Caruso and Todd Kelly. Davison cracked the top ten in his second race for Erebus Mercedes-Benz.

Race three saw a massive accident take out Jason Bright after he flipped twice and landed on his roof. He would be ok. Whincup was leading when he was issued a penalty for a illegal crew member worked on the car. This handed the lead over to Courtney and he was able to hold off a hard charging Lowndes for the victory. Van Gisbergen picked up his second podium of the season with Coulthard finishing fourth. Rick Kelly was the top Nissan in fifth. Tim Slade finished sixth ahead of the Fords of David Reynolds and David Wall. James Moffat finished ninth with Dale Wood in tenth.

Whincup finished fifteenth and was penalized twenty-five points after avoidable contact with Nissan drive Michael Caruso. Lee Holdsworth was the top Mercedes-Benz in sixteenth. Both Volvos of McLaughlin and Robert Dahlgren retired from the final race of the weekend.

Lowndes leads the points standings after round one with 282 points. Coulthard is second, 52 points back. Van Gisbergen is third, 61 back. Rick Kelly is fourth, 84 back and Courtney is fifth, 90 points back after being penalized twenty-five points for avoidable contact in race two. Winterbottom is  93 points back in sixth and Whincup is seventh, 108 points back after his penalty.

V8 Supercars will run their annual non-championship round at the Australian Grand Prix in a fortnight with their next championship round being the Tasmania 400 form Symmons Plains Raceway March 29-30th.

Formula One Testing Wraps Up From Bahrain
The new 1.6 liter, turbocharged V6 engines Formula One has adopted for 2014 has been giving many in the Formula One headaches and has everyone wondering if anyone will run the full distance of the season opener at Melbourne. The Mercedes-powered teams appear to have the upper hand after accumulating 17,994 KM. Ferrari engines were able to accumulate 10,214 KM with two fewer cars than Mercedes (four teams have Mercedes engines, three have Ferrari engines). The four Renault teams struggled to completed 8770 KM in testing.

Felipe Massa was fastest at this final four-day test at Bahrain driving for Williams-Mercedes but the factory Silver Arrows of Lewis Hamilton was only 0.020 seconds back of the Brazilian. Nico Rosberg completed the most laps in preseason testing and was third with Valterri Bottas in fourth. Fernando Alonso rounded out the top five, over a second back of his former Ferrari teammate.

Force India's Sergio Pérez was sixth ahead over two seconds back of Massa with Kimi Räikkönen in seventh with Pérez's teammate Nico Hülkenberg in eighth. Jean-Éric Vergne was the top Renault-powered car in ninth with Daniel Ricciardo rounding out the top ten driving for Red Bull.

Kevin Magnussen was eleventh fastest. The McLaren rookie completed the third most amount of laps in testing, behind only Rosberg and Alonso. The 2013 GP3 champion Daniil Kvyat was twelfth for Toro Rosso ahead of the Sauber-Ferrari of Adrian Sutil and the Marussia-Ferrari of Max Chilton. Jenson Button rounded out the top fifteen.

Jules Bianchi was ahead of Esteban Gutiérrez with Sebastian Vettel over four seconds back and leading five Renaults rounding out the field. Caterham's Marcus Ericsson and Kamui Kobayashi were nineteenth and twentieth with Kobayahsi over five seconds back. The Lotus-Renault of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado rounded out the test with Grosjean over six seconds back and Maldonado 7.341 seconds back of Massa.

Part of me thinks Red Bull is playing possum with everyone and when the cars touched down in Melbourne they are going to come out guns a blazing and win by a country mile but nothing has been overtly positive out of the Red Bull camp. The Mercedes teams appear to have the most reliable engine and quickest engine and the only team that appears capable of giving them any trouble is Ferrari.

As much as we want to say it is just testing, remember the Brawn GP cars came out and were wicked fast in preseason testing in 2009 and everyone thought it was just going to be testing success and nothing more. Then after winning six of the first seven rounds, Jenson Button was being crowned champion and Brawn GP took the manufactures' title in a cakewalk.

I think it is great to see Williams up at the front after the disastrous 2013 season and it would be cool to see if Hülkenberg break through and not only get a podium but get a victory but I am hoping the Renault teams are able to pick it up over the final two weeks so the gap from top to bottom isn't so great.

But there is always the chance something goes wrong in the race when the cars are going at the maximum and stressing every component to the car that just can't be replicated in a test. You could see teams be able to do 56 laps at Melbourne but have it all go horribly wrong two laps until the finish.

It's all very intriguing. Speed will not matter if your car isn't reliable and reliability hasn't been this tested in Formula One in such a long time.