Scores from week 15:

MotoGP Le Mans, DTM Brands Hatch, NASCAR Charlotte:

Dani Pedrosa dominated a wet race at Le Mans. Cal Crutchlow’s second place was impressive given that he rode with a fractured shin. There was lots of position swapping as riders dealt with the slippery conditions and made small mistakes. Valentino Rossi actually crashed on lap 18, but got back on his bike to finish 12^th.

NASCAR had their all-star race at Charlotte. Joining the lineup of past winners were Jamie McMurray and Ricky Stenhouse with their field-topping runs in the Showdown, and Danica Patrick who got into the race on the fan vote, receiving both cheers and boos when it was announced. Jimmie Johnson and his team simply made all the right moves and adjustments at the right times to give him a strong position and a fast car for the final 10 lap sprint, which he duly won. It was really an uneventful race, and very long with a rain delay that pushed the finish past 11 p.m. local time.

Mike Rockenfeller dominated at Brands Hatch, taking the lead in the championship with his victory. Behind Bruno Spengler in second, Gary Paffett actually crossed the line in third place, but was later penalized five seconds for not slowing sufficiently under a yellow flag, demoting him to sixth. That gave third place to the Mercedes driver Robert Wickens who none of us picked. Nor did we pick Marco Wittmann in fourth or Joey Hand in fifth. So most of our picks failed to deliver good points: Dirk Werner was 12^th, Martin Tomczyk was 13^th, Jamie Green was 15^th, Andy Priaulx was 19^th, Edoardo Mortara was 21^st, and Augusto Farfus was 22^nd and last after mechanical failure.

Player’s Scores:

Congratulations to Sebastian who notches up his seventh win of the season. Rubbergoat also had a good week with a 300+ score and well ahead of the rest of us. Special shout-out to greased lighting whose brave choice of four NASCAR picks worked out with all four drivers finishing in the top 10.  No changes in the standings …

Standings:

Scores from week 14:

F1 Catalunya, ALMS Mazda Raceway (Laguna Seca), NASCAR Darlington:

Fernando Alonso dominated his home F1 race in Barcelona, winning at the end by more than 10 seconds. With Raikkonen second and Vettel fourth, the championship tightens up, with Vettel holding the top spot. Felipe Massa had a great race, finishing third after a qualifying penalty put him ninth on the grid for the race. A combination of us picked the top 6 finishes. Among our other picks, Jason Button was eighth, Lewis Hamilton was 12^th despite starting at the front of the grid, and Romain Grosjean was last after experiencing mechanical failure (he started in pole position).

NASCAR was a surprisingly uneventful race, dominated largely by Kyle Busch. But in the last round of pit stops Matt Kenseth’s team made all the right adjustments allowing him to drive past Kyle and win the race. Jimmie Johnson had a pretty solid race, finishing fourth. Brad Keselowski got tangled up in one of the rare incidents of the day, leaving him down in 34^th place.

Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf in the #6 Muscle Milk HPD (Honda) won the ALMS race at Laguna Seca for the second straight year. It was Luhr’s 43^rd ALMS victory – the most of all time. The #12 Rebellion had a strong race, leading for more than half of the event. Pat’s pick of the #551 Level 5 P2 car was inspired, with the team finishing a strong 3^rd. My picks were a disaster – the two Extreme Speed HPDs had early problems finishing 16^th and 34^th, and the #16 Dyson suffered fuel pressure failure and finished 35^th – second to last.

Player’s Scores:

Congratulations to Pat who squeaks out a one point win over Chris. That’s the closest margin of victory so far this year. No changes in the standings …

Standings:

Scores from week 13:

(Sorry about the poorly formated tables – I have a new computer and have not yet loaded the needed software to make it look better).

WRC Rally Argentina, MotoGP Spain, NASCAR Talladega, Indycar Brazil, WEC Spa-Francorchamps, DTM Hockenheim:

Sebastian Loeb hasn’t driven an all-gravel rally since October last year (in Italy) – that’s more than six months ago, but he still won Rally Argentina, his eight win in a row in that country. As Sebastian Ogier said, “to beat Seb you need not only a good pace, you also need to be consistent and have no problems.” For Ogier the problems were an off on SS7 that cost him 40 seconds, and then a puncture on SS8 that cost him 10 seconds; but that was enough to make catching Loeb impossible. Jari-Matti Latvala got his first podium of the year in the Volkswagen, just beating Evgeny Novikov who was ahead until the penultimate stage. Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen suffered electrical problems on Friday which cost him a lot of time, relegating him to sixth at the end of the event.

Dani Pedrosa got his first win of the year in Spain. He led from lap one (from the front row of the grid, although not from pole). Marc Marquez finished second, but only after a dramatic moment with Lorenzo when they came together on the last lap. Valentino Rossi had a quiet and lonely race in fourth after being dispatched by Marquez early on.

NASCAR was, not unexpectedly for Talladega, wreck filled, with two “big ones”. At the end of the David Ragan posted a surprising win for the underfunded Front Row Motorsports team, with his team mate David Gilliland drafting him home and getting second place in the process. Carl Edwards was third, and top finisher among the expected contenders.

James Hinchcliffe won the Indycar race in Brazil by passing Takuma Sato on the final corner of the last lap after Takuma made a mistake that got him sideways under braking. Will Power’s car caught fire on lap 19, and that was the end of that. Ryan Hunter-Reay has the lead at one point early on, but faded to 11^th.

Audi swept the WEC race at Spa-Francorchamps, starting 1 through 3 on the grid and finishing 1 through 3 in the race. The Audi third car was the surprise as it was set up for Le Mans and not Spa, but it was still fast enough to beat the #8 Toyota. The #7 Toyota was showing strong at the half way point in the race, but their regenerative braking system failed, and being an integral part of the actual braking system it led to brake failure and retirement.

In the season opener for DTM at Hockenheim, BMW were fastest, finishing 1^st and 2^nd, successfully following up with their fastest time at Hockenheim in pre-season testing. It was a particularly impressive result for Dirk Werner having started 20^th on the grid. The Mercedes were the next strongest finishing 3^rd and 4^th. Bruno Spengler was fifth after some banging of wheels with Gary Paffet. Not sure what happened to Jamie Green – he finished 14^th.

Player’s Scores:

Congratulations to me for breaking Sebastian’s winning streak. My choice to pick mostly among the more predictable series that are already “established” this year – WRC and MotoGP – paid off.  Rubbergoat finished a strong second, only thwarted by the #7 Toyota’s problems. No changes in the standings, although I’m now only 10 points from Drewe for third place …

Standings:

Scores from week 12:

NASCAR Richmond, Virginia:

Juan Pablo Montoya lost the NASCAR race in Richmond. That’s apparent from the results above, but with four laps to go in the race it looked like he had his maiden oval win in the bag. Kevin Harvick with four fresh tires was charging through the field, got into second, and was slowly closing the gap to Montoya. But it didn’t seem like it was going to be enough. Juan Pablo was doing a fine job on worn tires keeping enough of a gap that it looked as if he’d win if the race went the distance without a crash. But it wasn’t to be. Four laps from the end Brian Vickers hit the wall. Montoya and Harvick went in for four tires, along with most of the leaders. When the race resumed it was a green-white-checker, and Harvick had no problem besting everyone. Behind him there was plenty of banging and bumping, and the usual soap-opera games began right after the checkered flag with Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, and Martin Truex Jr. all showing their displeasure with Kurt Busch’s aggressive driving.

Just outside the top 10, Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson finished 11^th and 12^th respectively. Tony Stewart was 18^th after Kurt Busch ran over him in the final dash. Kasey Kahne was 21^st, Kyle Busch 24^th. Brad Keselowski was 33^rd after damaging his car in an earlier wreck. Marcus Ambrose and Mark Martin both had strong showings early in the race, but both had problems leaving them 36^th and 38^th respectively. Not sure what happened to Greg Biffle and Brian Keselowski, but they finished 36^th and 40^th.

Player’s Scores:

I’m not sure why the rest of us bother – Sebastian wins again. As can be seen above, the difference was picking Harvick – a pick the rest of us didn’t seem to consider. No changes in the standings, although Chris and I closed the gap to Drewe ahead of us with our 100+ scores …

Standings:

Scores from week 11:

F1 Bharain, MotoGP Austin, NASCAR Kansas, Indycar Long Beach, ALMS Long Beach:

Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team got the tire strategy right and won the Bharain GP. The pole setter and initial leader Nico Rosberg quickly suffered tire issues (he made four tire stops), and Alonso who had a good start suffered a broken DRS that needed two pit stops to fix. They finished ninth and eighth respectively. Kimi Raikkonen had a great race, starting the race ninth but finishing second. Romain Grosjean’s third and Paul di Resta’s fourth look like surprises – none of us picked them. Felipe Massa drove into Adrian Suttel at the start of the race, damaging his wing – he ended up in 15^th place.

At 20 years old, the rookie Marc Marquez became the youngest rider to win a MotoGP event in Texas. Dani Pedrosa finished second making it a Honda one-two.

Greased Lightning was the only one to pick NASCAR this week and did well picking Jimmie Johnson who finished third at Kansas, but got burned by the Busch brothers, with Kurt finishing 15^th, and Kyle 38^th after a big wreck that took out Joey Logano too.  Matt Kenseth won the race by taking only two tires on the last stop before the end of the race, and winning the race off pit lane.

At Long Beach in California Takuma Sato in the Foyt Racing Honda became the first Japanese driver to win an Indycar race. An interesting stat I read was that the last time an A.J. Foyt Racing car won a road or street course race was in 1978 when A.J. himself won at Silverstone. Graham Rahal finished second – a great result for team that started the year struggling. Justin Wilson had the drive of the race, starting 24^th, but getting through the field to finish third. Ryan Hunter-Reay crashed out, admitting that he was simply pushing too hard. Tristan Vautier ran into Will Power in the pits, and then Will stalled the car trying to get going after the tangle – he ended up 16^th. James Hinchcliffe and Tony Kaanan got together with the result being a 26^th place finish for Hinchcliffe (my pick L).

With the Audi Joest’s being absent from the Long Beach race (sorry Chris, but both the main post and Sebastian’s link pointed out their absence), the #6 Muscle Milk car won the race as expected, but apparently it was not easy. It was a caution filled race, and half way through Lucas Luhr was only running mid-pack when Klaus Graf took over. Graf battled through the field to take the lead from the #12 Rebellion with 47 minutes remaining in the short 2-hour race. The Dyson (another of my picks) crashed out of the race (causing one of the cautions) just before halfway, being classified at the end of the day in 31^st place.

Player’s Scores:

Congratulations once again to Sebastian who wins this week, with Drewe in second place. Both avoided the disasters that befell the rest of us – the Dyson crash that caught out three of us, the Busch brother for greased lightning, and the unfortunate pick of the Joest cars by Chris when they weren’t at Long Beach. No changes in the standings – Sebastian keeps the top spot, and Drewe closes slightly on Rubbergoat for second …

Standings:

Scores from week 10:

F1 Shanghai, WRC Portugal, NASCAR Texas, WEC Silverstone:

Fernando Alonso won his 31^st F1 race in China in comfortable fashion. At the end of the race the team advised him not to push too hard, and he replied he wasn’t. Raikkonen did well to hold onto second with a damaged front nose and wing from an early incident, and Hamilton was grateful for third given the bad state of his tires by the end of the weekend. Webber had a miserable race, starting in the pit lane, crashing into Vergne later in the race while pitting, and then lost a wheel following the pit stop; and to top it all he’s been given a three grid penalty at next week’s Bahrain race for causing the Vergne crash. Rosberg retired with mechanical issues.

Portugal was considered the first “real” gravel rally in the WRC, due to there being no extraneous factors such as snow or altitude (Mexico) to contend with, so it was good to see the different manufacturers mix it up on the stages. All three manufacturers (Volkswagen, Citroen, and Ford) won stages. But when all was said and done Ogier in the Volkswagen came out on top again – there’s talk that he’s the new Sebastian (Loeb). Mads Ostberg crashed out on stage 3 after mishearing a pace note (he heard five-left-minus when the corner was four-left-minus; think of driving down from 12 noon and the angle of hanging a left to 5 – that’s fast, and much faster than turning to 4, hence – crash!). Dani Sordo crashed out on stage 6. Former F1 star Robert Kubica competed in his first gravel rally in the WRC 2 class. He had a good grip of second place in that class until he was forced to retire with multiple mechanical problems. But it was an incredible performance up to the point of retirement.

In WEC the number 2 Audi past the number 1 Audi with just 5 minutes to go to win the 6 hour opener at Silverstone. The number 7 Toyota suffered early tire problems but managed to stay with the number 8 Toyota, with both only a lap behind the Audis by the end of the race. The Strakka crashed out of the race in hour 2 (and took out an LMGTE Amateur Ferrari in the process).

No one picked NASCAR this week, and it was an unexciting event at Texas. Three cars seemed to have the measure of the Saturday evening race – Jeff Gordon whose car failed him with 24 laps to go, Martin Truex Jr., and Kyle Busch. Kyle came out on top.

Player’s Scores:

Congratulations to the week’s winner Drewe, who edged out Sebastian by just 3 points. With a poor performance by me, and Chris missing the week, that climbs Drewe up to third in the standings. Sebastian still has a solid hold onto first …

Standings:

Scores from week 9:

MotoGP Qatar, NASCAR Martinsville, and Indycar Alabama:

Jimmy Johnson won the NASCAR race in Martinsville in dominating fashion – he led 346 of 500 laps. It was his eighth win at the track. The win also puts him atop of the championship standings. No fisticuffs this week in NASCAR, with the only drama coming 13 laps from the end when Kurt Busch’s car suffered brake failure, hit the wall, and burst into flames. Kurt got out unharmed.

In Indycar Ryan Hunter-Reay started on pole and managed to hold of tough challenges from Will Power, Helio Castraneves and Scott Dixon, to go on for the victory at Barber Motorsports Park. Quite a few players suffered with the Indycar results: Dario Franchetti’s race finished with an electrical problem just 41 laps in; poor qualifying started James Hincliffe at the back of the field where he got collected in the Graham Rahal/Oriol Servia contact on the opening lap to end his race; not sure what happened to Simona de Silvestro, but she finished a lowly 18^th.

The opening race of MotoGP was dominated by Jorge Lorenzo, with a race-long fight for the other podium positions. The ride of the race had to be Valentino Rossi, who started down on the third row but battled his way up to second place.  Stefan Bradl was fifth when Rossi caught and passed him, and when he pushed hard to hold on to Rossi he lost the front end and crashed. The much touted rookie, Marc Marquez delivered on expectations, holding third for much of the race, then second, until Rossi took him with three laps to go. But Marquez wasn’t done, and passed Rossi on the next lap, which Rossi immediately answered with another pass of his own. Marquez tried again on the last lap, but it wasn’t enough with the doctor crossing the line just 0.211 seconds ahead.

Player’s Scores:

Congratulations to the week’s winner Sebastian … again! Now three in a row. I don’t know if there’s a record for wins in a row in the motorracinggame, but Sebastian is beginning to show professional bookie like success. In the standings Sebastian gets the number one spot. Good scores by me and Chris put us both ahead of Drewe …

Standings:

The “Picks Made” section in the “picks” site will now show who’s made picks, and a list of any drivers picked, but will not show who picked which driver. If you monitor it closely (watching for each entry as it’s made), it should be possible to figure out who made what picks, but it won’t be easy. I made this change so that people could verify that their picks were recorded, also it’s more akin to how it was when people posted their picks to the blog – then by trolling through the blog you could see who picked whom, but it took a little effort. Let me know if you like or object to this change.

No scores from week 8 since there was no racing – the only time this happens in our season.

Standings:

Scores from week 7:

Indycar St. Petersburg, NASCAR Fontana, and F1 Malaysia:

The Indycar  race was dominated early by Will Power until J.R. Hildebrand strangely decided to drive over him during a late race caution, relegating Power to a 16th place finish. That left the race with a three car battle between Castroneves, Hinchcliffe, and de Silvestro. Hinchcliffe passed Castroneves on the last restart and went on for the win. Marco Andretti got around de Silvestro with two laps to go for third, Simona then couldn’t quite hold back Kannan and Dixon, but 6th was a great result for the 24 year old. It took Danica Patrick four seasons to win her first Indycar race, and this is Simona’s fourth season, so …? Simon Pagenaud’s day ended early with a mechanical problem; Dario Franchitti crashed 16 laps into the race, blaming himself for pushing too hard on cold tires. Chris picked Ryan Briscoe, who was listed on the Indycar site with Penske, but apparently that was just for the possibility of a partial season with the team at events like the Indy 500; he was not at St. Pertersburg.

NASCAR had an enthralling finish in California. Logano and Hamlin got into it again battling for the lead, this time with Hamlin ending up in the hospital with undisclosed back issues after hitting the wall hard. In the restart Logano drove Stewart down onto the apron, upsetting Stewart, but allowing Kyle Busch to drive around the outside of them both to the victory. Logano was able to hold onto 3^rd, but he and Stewart got into fisticuffs after the race. Earnhardt Jr. got 2^nd place, which was enough to put him atop of the NASCAR points standings. Brad Keselowski started at the back of the field, made progress, but apparently a bad pit stop put him back to the back again late in the race – he finished 23^rd.

Unfortunately Sebastian Vettel won the F1 race in Malaysia. Unfortunate that is for Vettel who got instructions from the team to stay behind Mark Webber at the end of the race. He said he didn’t hear the instructions (really? … how much do the F1 teams spend on communications? … probably more than my entire racing budget for the year). To make matters worse, he’d earlier complained on the radio that “Mark is too slow”. Oh by the way, Vettel now heads the championship table! Third place to Hamilton was also secured under team instructions, this time with Rosberg being asked to stay behind. Apparently the radios in the Mercedes work, because Rosberg complied with the orders and ended up fourth. Hamilton had an embarrassing moment when he dove into the McLaren pits for a stop before he realized he was driving a Mercedes. Jenson Button’s team botched a pit stop putting him in 14th, and then he retired with two laps to go. And Fernando Alonso crashed out on lap 2.

Players Scores:

Congratulations to the week’s winner – Sebastian, who simply seems to have made solid picks. That’s two in a row for Sebastian. Drewe was a close second. Pat’s two NASCAR picks didn’t work out, but in contrast Greased Lightning’s two NASCAR picks – the Busch brothers – helped bag him third place. In the standings Rubbergoat holds onto the lead, but now by a slender one point over Sebastian …

Standings:

Picking F1 is probably the safe route for this week. While the opener in Australia did see a six different leaders, it should be more predictable that NASCAR and Indycar. Sebastian has a summary here: http://themotorracinggame.wordpress.com/2013-guide-and-links-week-seven/. Please make your picks at: http://www.roadracetracks.com/motorracinggame.shtml.  

Scores from week 6: 

NASCAR Bristol, F1 Australia, and ALMS Sebring:

WRC driver wins in F1! Well, that’s the rally fans perspective, and apparently it was somewhat unexpected that Kimi Raikkonen won Australia in the Lotus. Other leaders included Vettel, Massa, Alonso, Hamilton, and Sutil in an impressive Force India performance. Ultimately it seemed to be the pit strategy that got Raikkonen the win with his two pit stops versus three pit stops of the other contenders.

NASCAR had a number of minor crashes throughout the race, which is usual on the short track in Bristol. The most significant of the crashes was Jeff Gordon’s on lap 390 (of 500). He was leading and was looking strong when he blew a tire, hit the wall, and took out second place Matt Kenseth. The NASCAR soap opera also got a boost when Denny Hamlin took out Joey Logano who was in second at the time, and at the end of the race there was pushing and shoving and an exchange of words between them. When all was said and done, Kasey Kahne came home with a solid win.

ALMS’ opener at Sebring was dominated as expected by the two Joest Audi’s, followed by Rebellion. Dyson’s Lola/Mazda retired after 5 hours with a mechanical failure. The DeltaWing racing against the P1 cars for the first time was not able to show what it was capable of, also retiring with a mechanical problem early in the race.

Players Scores:

Congratulations to the week’s winner – Sebastian, who had an inspired pick with Massa, and gained strong points with his Kyle Busch pick – he was well ahead of the rest of us. We had a new player e-mail me before the racing began, but the time was short, so I was not in a position to help with the ALMS picks, so “greased lightning” missed out on some good points by not picking the second Joest, and was hurt with Rosberg’s retirement in F1. In the standings Sebastian climbs into second and Drewe drops to 5^th by missing this week…

Standings: