It is starting to get hot outside isn't it? The summer heat leads to tightening championship races. Each lap has a little more tension. Drivers are trying to protect leads and others are clawing at deficits. Some are getting desperate.
June is entering its final days and we had a pair of 24-hour races from historic racetracks. Most series are in the middle of the campaign. We are approaching the point of when there are more races behind us than ahead of us. Summer does not seem so joyful knowing that fact. Of course, there will always be an abundance of headlines to skim.
Once again, this is just for fun. In case you are new, this is my gut reaction to headlines without reading the article. Of course, the gripes I have may be answered in the article.
We start with IndyCar.
Why IndyCar chose Red Bull's aeroscreen for 2020
I am not sure it is so much IndyCar choosing what Red Bull was working on but the two parties working toward the same thing and leading to collaboration toward one work instead of two separate but very similar solutions.
All else I can say is this evolution or next generation of aeroscreen will be greatly welcome to the grid and it seems to have taken the best elements of the halo and the aeroscreen and combined the two to make what should be a great safety innovation that will protect drivers for many years to come.
Rossi says where he races in 2020 is "in God's hands"
That sure leaves an impression. It kind of ends the beating around the bush when it comes to the questioning. Once you bring God into the discussion it kind of gets hard to ask any more questions.
On to Formula One...
Verstappen questions logic of in-race F1 penalties
On the flip side, what is the logic of post-race penalties?
I am sure there are just as many people that would be pissed off if Sebastian Vettel was penalized five seconds after the checkered flag and I would guess more people would be upset to see Vettel take the checkered flag and then get a five-second penalty.
There are many different wants to administer penalties but there needs to be a timeliness to the penalties. If something happens on lap three, why wait for 90 minutes for it to be applied? All sports have in-competition penalties. There has to be the same in motorsports, regardless of the series. Not everything can be retroactively applied.
Hamilton: Blame rulemakers, not drivers for boring F1 races
He isn't wrong... drivers can only do so much with the car. Drivers could take more chances but if those chances are more likely to end in disaster than triumph than is it really on the drivers?
You could say the rule makers and the implementation of penalties is a reason for boring races but it is also the downforce, the tires, DRS and others are out of the hands of the drivers. They do not decide to have those. The FIA makes those decisions and then the drivers have to do the best they can.
Modern F1 drivers too fit for mistakes - Tost
He isn't wrong either... and fittest is a good thing. Every athlete is more fit than before. Every athlete is seeking another level and Formula One drivers are no different. I don't know what the solution is but everyone will say make the cars more difficult to drive, which is one solution, but we cannot make the races any longer. Formula One cannot make every grand prix a four-hour event. It is one of the consequences of a highly competitive nature of the series.
Jacques Villeneuve says young, talented drivers' dream of racing in F1 is about over
As long as Formula One teams are paying drivers $20 million a year the dream is always going to be Formula One.
No driver is dreaming of only making $1 million, if they are lucky, in IndyCar and then having to worry every year about having the funding to return to IndyCar.
Only Americans are dreaming of NASCAR and they can make a nice living without going abroad.
The one that makes sense is sports cars especially if it is with a manufacture because those gigs pay but you are not going to get the same mega-salary that you could get driving for Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull or McLaren.
The talented drivers are still going to be heading to the series with the most money. The Golden Goose is still laying eggs.
How about some sports car headlines?
INSIGHT: Hypercar Prototype gets rules, first cars... now what?
How perfect? The "now what?" phase. We wait and wait and eventually everyone will get angry when the next generation of regulations come up.
Now, we wait while Toyota and Aston Martin get to develop their machines and we wait and see if anyone else joins the fray.
INSIGHT: Can 'Success ballast' save LMP1?
I mean, LMP1 only has one season left so save? No.
Make the 2019-20 season a little more competitive? Probably not.
Also, does LMP1 need to be saved with the hypercar regulations coming in 2020-21? I think we are good with another Toyota pummeling in 2019-20 because we know change is on the horizon.
Now to a familiar name and face...
Trackside: Off-contract De Silvestro's unfinished business
I would argue it is in IndyCar. Simona de Silvestro has had a tough time in Supercars. The results are not spectacular and I think it goes to show how difficult that series can be but de Silvestro's IndyCar record is something to be proud of and suggest more is there.
I am not going to say de Silvestro was destined to be champion but for someone whose career is remembered for driving the oldest chassis on the grid and finishing fourth and being the one driver to run an entire season with the Lotus engine package, she got everything she could out of those entries and the one break she got with KV Racing was just a glimpse of her capabilities.
She may have only finished 13th in the championship in 2013 but she had a runner-up finish at Houston. She had nine top ten finishes from 19 races and she ended that season with five consecutive top ten finishes, including her first top ten finish on an oval, albeit three laps down but she kept the car running on a night when others were breaking down.
The problem is de Silvestro has been out of sight and out of mind. It has been four years since her last IndyCar start. It doesn't seem that long ago. I don't know who would give her a shot. It is nice she has been able to make a career in Australia but I am sure there are many people that would love for her to return to the United States.
Penske hints at wildcard Supercars entry
For the longest time I wanted Will Power and Simon Pagenaud together for the Bathurst 1000 but I would be open to Juan Pablo Montoya pairing with Power or Montoya and Dane Cameron carrying on their IMSA success to Australia.
The disappointing thing is Penske is open to a wildcard Supercars entry but how come we can't get Montoya, Power, Scott McLaughlin or Hélio Castroneves in more NASCAR races or Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney or Ricky Taylor trying out an IndyCar? Come on, Roger! Loosen up a bit.
We will close in the United States...
Greg Biffle adjusting to radically different NASCAR in Truck Series return
I got to admit I like the idea of taking a driver that has been out of a series for an extended period of time and putting them in a race. Biffle may have last raced a NASCAR Cup car in 2016 but he had not been in a Truck Series race since 2004.
I kind of want to see Sam Hornish, Jr. return to IndyCar not because we never got to see one of the best pre-unification never get to race in a united field but because he has been gone for 12 years and I would love to hear his feedback on the car. The closest thing we have had in recent years was A.J. Allmendinger when he did seven races for Team Penske in 2013 and when Jacques Villeneuve returned to the Indianapolis 500 in 2014, 19 years after his last start in that race.
I want to see Juan Pablo Montoya return to Formula One for a one-off. That is never going to happen but I would love to see it.
INTERVIEW: Kurt Busch on respect, results – and why he wants to race at Le Mans
Because everyone wants to race at Le Mans. Very few drivers say they don't want to race a race. Plus, Busch has been a full-time NASCAR driver and he has run the Indianapolis 500. Why not run Le Mans?
Although, he must be going with tempered expectations. He wouldn't get an LMP1 or hypercar shot. His best chance would be in a GTE entry and he might have to settle for being a professional driver in a GTE-Am lineup and if that were the offer on the table would he still want to go to Le Mans?
Summer is here, plenty of racing and headlines are ahead of us.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
