Car FYI

Photo Credit: Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd. untitled Despite the best efforts of the 20 Formula 1 drivers and teams, the ultimate winner of this weekend racing at Belgium’s Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps was the weather. Complicating Saturday’s qualifying for the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix by soaking the fast Eau Rouge section of the popular race track, rain continued into Sunday greatly hindering what was supposed to have been a 44-lap event. Instead of pole sitter Max Verstappen leading the field with his #33 Red Bull Racing RB16B race car, the vehicle at the front during the limited laps around the course was the safety car. In fact, the lap count at the end of the Belgium Grand Prix would be a series record for the shortest grand prix ever to be run by Formula 1. Conditions ahead of the start Belgian Grand Prix instantly signalled how miserable the weather competitors, track workers and race fans would have to endure as Formula 1 attempted ...

Photo Credit: Charles Coates/LAT Images/Pirelli untitled The duet performance of 20 high-performance turbocharged gasoline and an electric power unit takes to the stage at Belgium’s Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps after nearly a month-long hiatus. A favourite track among Formula 1 drivers and fans, the 20-turn, 7.004-kilometer (4.352-mile) race track is a venue many would like to claim victory. Spa-Francorchamps is also known for being tricky and potentially dangerous place to compete. A six-car accident in qualifying for the W Series companion event on the Belgian Grand Prix weekend highlighted the course’s fast and challenging Eau Rouge section. Formula 1 cars’ Saturday qualifying combined the element of rain showers reducing the predictability of grip on the track surface and would contribute to some major surprises for setting the grid for the 44-lap main event on Sunday. With the conclusion of the Q1 and Q2 in qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps, Bri...

Photo Credit: Toyota Motor Corporation untitled For the 89 th time, auto racing’s pinnacle event testing the endurance of machinery as well as human being over 24 hours was held in Le Mans, France. Running for the second time in August as opposed to its traditional June date to allow for spectators to attend, the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans instantly presented the added difficulty of a wet race track that resulted in the first two laps taking place behind a safety car. Conditions changed between dry, then wet, then dry against during the running of the daylong race on the 13.626-kilometer (8.467-mile) Circuit de la Sarthe. With 61 cars starting among four main classes on the Circuit de la Sarthe, the highest honour in 24 Hours of Le Mans to be the overall winner. At the conclusion of the 2021 edition of the great endurance event, the Toyota Gazoo Racing team stood in the coveted top spot of the podium. The #7 Toyota GR010 Hypercar driven by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayas...

Photo Credit: Chris Owens/IndyCar untitled The final oval event on the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series calender, Saturday night’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway gave fans one more chance to see the truest sensation of blazing speed of open wheel race cars this year. The Madison, Illinois track’s fast-paced challenge against competitors would ultimately serve as a massive reset to the championship. Photo Credit: Joe Skibinski/IndyCar Will Power qualified on pole for the 260-lap race on the 1.25-mile with an average lap speed of 180.618 miles per hour, the pilot of the #12 machine would control the opening lap until the second-place starter Colton took the top spot and held it for 56 consecutive laps. The yellow flag flew often in the opening one-quarter distance of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 including one occasion for a lighting malfunction. It would be the fifth caution of the race after a restart on lap 65 that had instant ...

Photo Credit: Richard H Shute/Auto Imagery Inc./Stellantis While there was plenty of action at this weekend’s NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals among several classes at Brainard International Raceway, the major drag racing sanctioning body’s elite categories were represented only by Top Fuel and Funny Car. The Top Fuel contest was decided by what would be fantastically close final round elimination between Steve Torrence and Clay Millican that lasted less than four seconds. Millican secured his second consecutive final round appearance by beating Brittany Force in what was a rematch and reversal of last weekend’s match at Heartland Motorsports Park . Torrance entered Brainard as the point leader in the Top Fuel class but had missed the finals in the previous two events. The two determined competitors launched their dragster’s away from the Christmas tree at almost identical reaction times and maintained a tight side-by-side battle until the finish line where...

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry/Getty Images untitled Leading 142 laps of the total 163-lap distance of the Toyota 200 presented by CK Power at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Sheldon Creed scored an important victory in what is the first event in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series’ 10-race, three-round playoff. Sheldon Creed and Zane Smith swapped the lead through the middle of the race before the #2 Liftkits4less.com Chevrolet Silverado of Creed took firm control of the Friday night event on lap 50. In an overtime finish at the 1.25-mile oval, Creed fended off the charge from the #88 Toyota of Matt Crafton to cross the line in first by a 0.292-second margin. Smith would have to park his #21 Chevrolet after 99 laps due to a rear gear failure. An event slowed by eight cautions, one of the more unusual breaks in the racing action was a power outage at World Wide Technology Raceway that resulted in a 48-minute red flag. Another major caution occurred during th...

Photo Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images untitled The final laps of the New Holland 250 at Michigan International Speedway featured an intense fight between drivers A.J. Allmendinger and Josh Berry not only battling against each other but with their racing image. Despite having won on the ovals four times since joining Kaulig Racing’s Xfinity Series program in 2019. Allmendinger is still working to shake off his appearance as a road racer. Winning a triumphant NASCAR Xfinity Series race on the short track of Martinsville, Berry’s transition to running larger speedways ahead of his 2022 full-season campaign would benefit greatly with a strong run on the two-mile oval. Requiring three green-white-checker overtime finish attempts with the final being for the #54 SportClips Toyota of Ty Gibbs hitting the wall coming out of turn 2, A.J. Allmendinger would pull off his second NASCAR victory in the span of a week following his surprise win in last week's Cup race on ...

Photo Credit: Sean Gardner/Getty Images untitled Hosting just a single NASCAR Cup Series event for 2021, the two-mile oval of Michigan International Speedway features a wide, well-banked surface inviting for a high speed competition with several racing lines for drivers to explore. The Hendrick Motorsport entries of Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott led the field of the 200-lap FireKeepers Casino 400 to green looking to put an end to a dry spell at the Michigan track. Jeff Gordon’s 2014 season win at the oval was the last Cup victory for the NASCAR superteam in the Irish Hills area. As a Chevrolet team Hendrick Motorsports was also trying to break Ford Motor Company’s streak of six consecutive wins by their stable of drivers entering the 2021 race weekend. Photo Credit: Logan Riely/Getty Images Chase Elliott won the race’s first stage at lap 60 while Kyle Busch took the second stage that ended in dramatic fashion. Brad Keselowski and Austin Dillon ba...

Photo Credit: Nissan Canada untitled The charm of an affordable sports car is a timeless, enticing way for drivers to experience the truest thrill of motion. During the 1960s and into the 1970s, the appetite for fun-to-drive performance vehicles led to the creation of the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro as well as the popularity of small British sports cars such as the MGB. Nissan seeking to expand their reach as an automobile company globally under the Datsun brand realized the importance of stimulating sales was by offering an attractive, exciting sports car. Debuting in October 1969 as the Fairlady 240Z, the sports car was mercifully recognized in North America as the 240Z thanks to the then-president of United States operations Yutaka Katayama taking proactive measures to remove vehicle’s badging before being sent to dealers. Since the 1970 model year Z sports cars, Nissan had an iconic symbol of accessible performance that was recently reflected with the 370Z. N...

Photo Credit: Genesis Motor North America untitled Launched in late 2015 as a luxury branch connected to South Korea’s Hyundai Motor, the Genesis brand has made impressive inroads to the premium vehicle marketplace in a short time. Today, Genesis constructs a brand lineup tailored under the design philosophy of ‘Athletic Elegance’ promoting well-appointed sedans and sport utility crossover vehicles. While finding the ability to compete against the longer-established luxury automobile marques such as Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac and Lexus, the not-even six-year-old marque is also in an enviable position of being able to quickly define their image of premium motoring as electrification grows. Genesis’ first fully-electric vehicle, the GV60, lends itself to adapting modern and even-more modern luxury touches. The Genesis GV60 is based on the Hyundai’s E-GMP (Electric-Global Modular Platform) that is also being used with the IONIQ 5 set for a 2022 ...

Photo Credit: Richard H Shute/Auto Imagery Inc./Stellantis untitled It could be said it was a forceful Sunday at the Heartland Motorsports Park drag strip located in Topeka, Kansas. The Menards NHRA National Presented by PetArmor for the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series featured two members of the three prominent categories participating in the weekend with victory in the finals. In Funny Car, 72-year-old drag racing great John Force captured his 154 th career final round victory as his Peak Performance Chevrolet Camaro SS beat J.R. Todd’s DHL Toyota machine. Despite Todd’s superior 0.058 reaction time, Force assembled a stronger run with a 4.015-second ET compared to a 4.453 ET. At the top of the NHRA Funny Car points standings, Force briefly celebrated his win before turning his attention back to track as his daughter lined up in Top Fuel in a final round match with Clay Millican. The fastest in qualifying, Brittany Force defeated Steve Torrance in the...

Photo Credit: Mike Maez/Gooding & Company untitled Arguably the zenith of automotive engineering in the 1990s and one of the greatest performance cars ever built, the McLaren F1 instantly generated an aura of motoring greatness. Conceived by a championship-winning Formula 1 team with a design first penned by Gordon Murray, the ultimate dream car of its era featured a super-aerodynamic shape sculpted around a unique three-passenger cockpit where the driver is seated in a central position. The McLaren F1's propulsion from a 6.1-liter twelve-cylinder engine supplied by BMW generating 618 horsepower has the capacity of pressing to speeds up to 240 miles per hour (386.24 kilometers per hour) when performance is unrestricted. The creditable pedigree and performance of the supercar would be amplified as the car’s GTR racing variant won in multiple classes of sports car racing with overall victory in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans being a highlight.   Only 64 road-legal e...

Photo Credit: Walt Kuhn/IndyCar untitled Six days after an unforgettable first street course race won by Marcus Ericsson, NTT IndyCar Series drivers and teams return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time since May’s 500-mile race. A race held in conjunction with the NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series race weekend on the 2.439-mile road course connected to the famous oval track, IndyCar presented the most familiar sight having competed on the exact circuit 10 times before the 85-lap Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix. Containing the healthy field of 28 open wheel cars that included 2021 Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and RC Enerson driving for the #75 Top Gun Racing team, the Indianapolis road race also featured the debut of Danish driver Christian Lundgaard competing in the third car for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Pato O’Ward driving the #5 Arrow McLaren SP car took the pole position on Friday with a 1-minute, 10.7147-se...

Photo Credit: Stacy Revere/Getty Images untitled While the elite NASCAR Cup Series raced for their first time on the road course of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Xfinity Series car already had experience battling on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile circuit with Chase Brisoce winning the inaugural event. With Briscoe focused on his hunt for NASCAR Cup Series rookie of the year honours in 2021, a different driver would be the Saturday’s Pennzoil 150 at the Brickyard would fight for claim the win. The #16 Chevrolet of A.J. Allmendinger started on the pole for the 62-lap race but his third place starting Kaulig Racing teammate Justin Haley’s #11 car leaped into the lead into the first corner as Allmendinger ran wide. Action on the road course quickly turned chaotic as the 36-car field exited turn six of the opening lap. Several drivers including Harrison Burton, Brandon Jones, Kevin Harvick, Alex Labbe and Josh Bilicki hopped a curb that was placed on the exit of the s...