Last weekend was one of the busiest of the year for motorsports. Charles Leclerc took his Ferrari to victory in Australia, Josef Newgarden scored his second IndyCar win of the season and third for Team Penske at Long Beach, William Byron became the first two-time NASCAR Cup winner at Martinsville, and the duo of Sebastian Bourdais and Renger van der Zande took their Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi prototype from first to last and back to first in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
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The Ferraris appear to have stolen a march on the rest of the Formula 1 field with Leclerc taking his second win of the season from the pole. Teammate Carlos Sainz never got the chance to show his stuff, spinning into the gravel trap early on. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had a second mechanical DNF, thought to be a fuel system issue, while teammate Sergio Perez came home second. Mercedes finished third and fourth with George Russell scoring his first podium for the Silver Arrows and taking over second in the drivers’ championship.
Mercedes is also second in the constructors’ points chase, despite a troublesome handling issue they can’t seem to solve. The next race is next weekend at the 70-year-old Imola track in Italy, giving Mercedes and Red Bull some time to solve their problems and catch up to the flying Ferraris.
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Josef Newgarden used brilliant pit strategy to take the lead late and held off a charging Romain Grosjean and defending IndyCar champion Alex Palou to take his second win in a row in the NTT IndyCar series.
Colton Herta looked to be on his way to his first season win until he stuffed it into the wall. Jimmie Johnson also had his issues after a brilliant drive in Texas, injuring his hand in a practice crash and crashing again in the race. Johnson is confident his hand will be healed in time for the Indy 500, but he has to get through the Barber Motorsports Park and Indy road course races first. Barber is coming up May 1.
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Hendrick drivers dominated Martinsville with Byron and Chase Elliott leading all but six laps between them. Byron held off Joey Logano after an overtime restart to take the win.
The Xfinity race provided most of the excitement with 16 cautions and a late-race restart wreck that involved 2/3 of the field. Brandon Jones took the win, A.J. Allmendinger won the $100,000 Dash for Cash, and Kyle Gibbs got a $15,000 fine for hitting Sam Mayer’s car after the checker and starting a fight in the pits.
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This weekend NASCAR is going back to its roots with a dirt race at Bristol. Logano won last year’s inaugural event, but this year will be a different ball game with the Next Gen car.
Stewart Friesen did test runs last week with a test car, trying multiple configurations to see what works on dirt and what doesn’t. The good news is that the car looks faster than the old car on the Bristol oval, and with a night race this year the 2021 dust problem should be nonexistent. NASCAR has issued a list of “Dirt Event Debris Shields” to protect the underwing and diffuser as well as screens for various vents. Spring bags are also allowed on the damper assemblies to keep dirt out of the springs and dampers.
The Camping World Trucks will qualify Saturday at 1:30 p.m. with Cup qualifying at 3 p.m., both on FS2. The Pinty’s Truck Race on Dirt airs at 5 p.m. on FS1. Sunday, Fox will broadcast the Food City Dirt Race at Bristol at 3 p.m. Happy Easter!
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