Will Formula One at Valencia be a bit more exciting than usual this year? The winners may revolve, but the main contenders have emerged.
The World Rally Championship visits New Zealand (which now alternates on the calendar with Australia). This is another gravel (with some bits of asphalt) event, so again the gravel results from last year are above, and this season all events, except the first two, have been on gravel. Dani Sordo is back with Mini. Henning Solberg is listed again, but withdrew from the last three events at short notice. Still no sign of the injured Wilson. Unfortunately, it does start a few hours before the deadline.
What, Indycar again! Iowa is the fifth race in five weekends. This oval is seven-eighths of a mile. They are holding some short qualification races, although I do not imagine this will make much difference. Shorter ovals tend to favour the all-round drivers, and form at Milwaukee last weekend might be helpful.
The Sprint Cup reaches the first of its two road-course rounds, this one at Sonoma (previously known as Infinion). There will be some road-course specialists appearing for smaller teams. There are three drivers that finished top-ten at the last three there, Jeff Gordon, Ambrose, and Johnson. Races on road-courses are about as predictable as NASCAR gets, but it is still pretty haphazard.
The usual suspects in F1, and WRC especially, have become obvious. There have only been three Indycar oval races with the new cars, and contrasting ovals at that, so how much to pick from Iowa will be a difficult call, as it is for the NASCAR non-oval race. I would think about picking those you have most trust in to deliver a top-six result.
Formula One Links:
2012 Championship points-table
2011 Championship points-table
2012 Results-table (Wikipedia anchored link)
2011 Results-table (Wikipedia anchored link)
2011 Valencia Result
2010 Valencia Result
2008 Valencia Result
WRC links:
Entry List
2012 Results-table (Wikipedia anchored link)
2011 Results-table (Wikipedia anchored link)
2010 New Zealand Result
2008 New Zealand Result
2007 New Zealand Result
Indycar links:
2012 Standings (has option to view oval or non-oval points)
2012 Points/Results table (Wikipedia anchored link)
2011 Points/Results table (Wikipedia anchored link)
2011 Iowa Result (below report (Paddock Talk))
2010 Iowa Result (below qualification result)
2009 Iowa Result
NASCAR links:
Entry List (Page usually turns up by Tuesday.)
2012 Championship points-table
2012 Championship results-table (Wikipedia anchored link)
2011 Championship points-table
2011 Championship points-table without Chase (Can be used to access drivers’ stats pages)
Driver stats page (Brad Keselowski) (Use the ‘SELECT DRIVER’ menu towards the top-right to reach the other driver-pages)
2011 Sonoma Result
2010 Sonoma Result
2009 Sonoma Result
If you want to leave a comment on this page, that is fine, but, as this page is effectively an extension of the weekly post, I suggest that it will be more cohesive if comments are left there instead.
