It was only a few short weeks ago that Jimmie Johnson celebrated his record fourth-straight Sprint Cup championship, and yet the start of SpeedWeeks at Daytona is a little more than 30 days away. So, with another offseason about to fly by like cars in qualifying laps for the Daytona 500, it's time to look ahead and make 10 observations and predictions for the upcoming season.
He has played kings, princes, captains and professors on stage and screen, but now actor Patrick Stewart will have a new title all his own: "Sir."
With just a few days and hours left in 2009, it's a chance to look back and reflect on the year that is about to come to a close before wiping the slate clean to begin a New Year.
JR Hildebrand was a surprising selection by Force India for F1's young driver test this week at the Jerez circuit in Spain. Still, he delivered a solid, competitive 131-lap performance. It was an impressive first time attempt in an F1 car, while running against 17 of the world's best young drivers -- several with experience as F1 test drivers.
Based upon how it's turned out, this has been a pretty mild and tame Sprint Cup season in terms of driver movement and drivers entering the series -- the so-called silly season.
LONDON (AP) -- Renault has appointed Bob Bell as temporary new head of its Formula One in the aftermath of one of the sport's biggest scandals.
MONTREAL (AP) -- Formula One is set to return to Montreal next year.
Team US F1 mobilized this week for the 2010 Formula One World Championship. Announced in late February, the team founded by Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor finally completed the lengthy F1 approval process with the signing of the Concorde Agreement.
Jewish groups on Wednesday rejected as inadequate an apology by Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone for remarks in which he praised German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The two biggest racing series in the world, Formula 1 and NASCAR, don't have much in common. NASCAR's big, bulky stock cars pale in comparison to F1's open-wheel marvels of engineering precision, with the wind tunnel meaning just as much to a team's finish as the driver in the cockpit. With side-by-side racing difficult in F1, there are more lead changes in one stock car race than there are in one-third of an F1 season.
It was only a few short weeks ago that Jimmie Johnson celebrated his record fourth-straight Sprint Cup championship, and yet the start of SpeedWeeks at Daytona is a little more than 30 days away. So, with another offseason about to fly by like cars in qualifying laps for the Daytona 500, it's time to look ahead and make 10 observations and predictions for the upcoming season.
He has played kings, princes, captains and professors on stage and screen, but now actor Patrick Stewart will have a new title all his own: "Sir."
With just a few days and hours left in 2009, it's a chance to look back and reflect on the year that is about to come to a close before wiping the slate clean to begin a New Year.
JR Hildebrand was a surprising selection by Force India for F1's young driver test this week at the Jerez circuit in Spain. Still, he delivered a solid, competitive 131-lap performance. It was an impressive first time attempt in an F1 car, while running against 17 of the world's best young drivers -- several with experience as F1 test drivers.
Based upon how it's turned out, this has been a pretty mild and tame Sprint Cup season in terms of driver movement and drivers entering the series -- the so-called silly season.
LONDON (AP) -- Renault has appointed Bob Bell as temporary new head of its Formula One in the aftermath of one of the sport's biggest scandals.
MONTREAL (AP) -- Formula One is set to return to Montreal next year.
Team US F1 mobilized this week for the 2010 Formula One World Championship. Announced in late February, the team founded by Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor finally completed the lengthy F1 approval process with the signing of the Concorde Agreement.
Jewish groups on Wednesday rejected as inadequate an apology by Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone for remarks in which he praised German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The two biggest racing series in the world, Formula 1 and NASCAR, don't have much in common. NASCAR's big, bulky stock cars pale in comparison to F1's open-wheel marvels of engineering precision, with the wind tunnel meaning just as much to a team's finish as the driver in the cockpit. With side-by-side racing difficult in F1, there are more lead changes in one stock car race than there are in one-third of an F1 season.
It is 9:30 am at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and already it's intensely hot. We're here to interview Japanese driver Kazuki Nakajima for Talk Asia, but we also get an insight into the intriguing world of Formula 1.
Racing dynasties aren't new to motor sports. Former Formula One world champions Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve both had fathers with equally illustrious racing pedigrees.
This is the week when drivers, mechanics, marketing executives and even the traveling slobs known as the "motorsports media" put on fancy clothes and tuxedos for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards Banquet.
FORT WORTH -- Jimmie Johnson can't help but laugh when he considers how obsessed people have become trying to find a way to revise the Chase as he moves closer to his third-straight championship.
Jacques Villeneuve, the reigning Formula 1 World Champion, approached Jeff Gordon, the reigning Sprint Cup champion, in 1997 with a plan that could have taken Gordon to F1. Gordon was interested and agreed to listen.
Sitting in the Bill Davis Racing transporter Saturday afternoon, two hours before driving in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series race at Las Vegas, Scott Speed reiterated that he's in no rush to get into Sprint Cup.
Scott Speed is too continental for an American, too American for Europeans.
British driver Lewis Hamilton was subjected to racist abuse from some of the crowd in Barcelona. Will tougher sanctions from the authorities put an end to the problem?
One of the great things about covering races is that you never know who you'll meet in the garage. Back in September at Richmond International Raceway, while most people were focused on the race to the Chase, two-time Formula One World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi was being escorted around by Brent Dewar, General Motors North American Vice-President for Sales, Service and Parts.
Porsche has employed, through its sponsored teams or directly, a who's who of drivers in its more than 50 years racing in the U.S. The Americans who were factory drivers for the German manufacturer comprise an exclusive club. They include Mark Donohue, Dan Gurney, Al Holbert, Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood, arguably the greatest sports car drivers in American history.
A funny thing happened to Juan Pablo Montoya. On the way to a legendary Formula One career he found a home in NASCAR.
Formula One doesn't have the Chase, and its technical specifications allow equipment to be as unequal as money can buy. It's diametric to the Nextel Cup in how many teams and drivers have a chance to win the championship in a typical season.
Any bona fide NASCAR historian can tell you that Jeff Gordon's first Nextel Cup race in 1992 was also Richard Petty's last, marking a transition from the great champion of the past to the great champion of the future. They should also take note of what is happening this weekend, on two different tracks in two different series.
Motorsport's governing body slaps McLaren with a $100 million fine over the possession of a rival's confidential data
Bounced out of his seat with Toro Rosso in Formula 1 at the end of July, Scott Speed will attempt to resume his career back home in the USA. Speed, who was pushed out after a run-in with team management at the European Grand Prix last month, will begin his comeback effort this weekend at Michigan, where he and agent Glen Hinshaw will meet with several NASCAR teams.
Perhaps you know a Formula One fan or two, but likely not. This would be a good week to spot them, however, as Sunday marks the F/1 circuit's annual visit to the United States. The U.S. Grand Prix in Indianapolis is like Christmas for these fans; it only comes but once a year. As passionate as these fans are about Formula One, but they make up only a small portion of the racing fans in the United States.
At 3:30 p.m. last Friday, in the paddock at the Canadian Grand Prix, a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes press attach� set up a standard interview backdrop of three panels festooned with logos. Within minutes two dozen TV cameramen had assembled in front of it. Never mind that the man they hoped to film, Lewis Hamilton, wasn't due for another hour. They stood vigil because, at this moment in the world of auto racing, there would be no greater horror than for the 22-year-old British driver to materialize with no minicam present to record the moment. The attach� reappeared 20 minutes later with assurances that a 4:30 appearance still held and mercifully authorized the assembled mad dogs and Englishmen of the press to get out of the afternoon sun. But that's how it is with Hamilton these days: People gather for the possibility. With a front-running drive to his first Grand Prix victory on Sunday in Montreal, Hamilton moved to the top of the points standings in only the sixth race of his
Formula One team McLaren is being investigated for a possible rule breach at the Monaco Grand Prix
In Spain, they're gonzo over Fernando Alonso, the cool-as-a jewel thief Formula One driver who two years ago, became the series' youngest champion when he ended the five-year reign of Michael Schumacher. When Alonso repeated the feat last year, he added youngest two-time champion to an already glittering resume.
On the opening lap last week in Texas, Ricky Rudd was hit from behind, sending him over the top of David Ragan backwards. More than knocking him out, the incident was a microcosm of Rudd's season, which has been moving backwards since he took the green flag for the Daytona 500.
You know all about the move of talented Columbian driver Juan Pablo Montoya from Formula One to NASCAR. But what about another F1 personality who has also decided to do his racing business in the U.S.?
Two races into the Nextel Cup season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was down and, some thought, nearly out of Chase hope. He was 40th in the points and another bad result or two would send the No. 8 team into a panicked freefall that would bury them deep. Further, with the season lost, the theory went, Earnhardt would have setled his contract dispute with Dale Earnhardt Inc., by signing with another organization for next season.
Has Juan Pablo Montoya's honeymoon in NASCAR ended?
The winds of change have swept across Formula One at hurricane strength for the 2007 season, which opens this weekend in Australia. Fernando Alonso, the winner of the past two world championships with Renault, has switched to McLaren-Mercedes. Kimi Raikkonen has moved into the retired Michael Schumacher's Ferrari. And a slew of technical restrictions has been instituted in hopes of placing an increased emphasis on teams and drivers.
Jimmie Johnson finds himself in an unusual position this week. For the first time in nearly three years, JJ isn't among the top 10 in the Nextel Cup points for the first time in nearly three years. His 105-race streak began March 9, 2004 at Atlanta and ended with last Sunday's 39th-place finish in the Daytona 500.
The most important imports in the Daytona 500 Sunday are not the three Toyota Camrys that will be in the field for the first time. Instead it will be Juan Pablo Montoya, the Colombian-born rookie driver.
Despite rumors to the contrary, the United States Grand Prix appears as if it may continue to call the Indianapolis Motor Speedway home after the one-year current extension to its contract expires after the race this June.
Formula One star David Coulthard is an elite driver whose reflexes seem faster than a Venus Flytrap.
Throughout the Formula One calendar, tens of millions of dollars are splashed around the track.
If you drive a car, then chances are Andy McDougall and Dan Jamieson have played a role in the types of products you put inside your vehicle.
Despite a bad season this year, German Formula One driver Michael Schumacher, 36, is still the best in the sport, with 84 wins and seven world championships under his belt so far.
Diamonds might be forever but not when embedded in the nose of a Formula One racing car, as the Jaguar team discovered.
When people ask me where I got my love of adrenaline, I blame it on my father. As my three older brothers and I grew up, my father fueled our budding thrill addictions with his own: snow walks in t...
They're seldom seen in the U.S., but the Formula 1 cars that compete on the Grand Prix circuits of Europe, South America, and Japan are the world's most technologically advanced autos. F1 cars bris...
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