The racing weekend that was

A great weekend of racing: Formula 1, MotoGP, and NASCAR.

Formula 1, at Silverstone, UK:

The new Wing complex

Round nine, the Santander British GP, was run at the Silverstone Circuit. The track first hosted a GP back in 1948, and in 1950 under the sanctioning body of the F.I.A. Before that it was a WWII Royal Air Force bomber station. Recently, it has undergone a radical redesign to transform it into a "Arena" circuit configuration to bring the spectators closing to the action

Weather played a major role during the weekend, with torrential rain and flooding on Friday's practice and Saturday's qualifying. The fans were even asked to stay a way from the track on Saturday.
However, on race-day the sun came out and threw off everyone's racing strategies, for the teams had no data on slick racing tires at Silverstone. The race would be wide open.

Alonso leads Webber at the start

From the start of the race Mark Webber, driving for Red Bull , took the fight to Fernando Alonso and kept up the pressure throughout the race. And in the closing laps, Ferrari executed their tire strategy to perfection, as the Ausie native Webber exerted considerable pressure on the Spaniard hoping to force him into making a mistake. While the battle for first continued Vettel was coming on strong, still in third. With four laps to go, and in spectacular fashion, Webber took first in a daring move on the outside, as Alonso's tires started to fade.
The Spaniard drove a great race but the Red Bull was just quicker. Monday's headlines would read: "Webber out-duels Alonso for Silverstone win."

Vettal in his RB8

Both Lotus' ran strong. The man of the day would be Romain Grosjean who drove very well, who after a first lap incident with Paul di Resta, made it all the way back to sixth place. His team mate Kimi Raikkonen, also ran well passing Schumi and Hamilton in the closing stages for fifth. Also worth mentioning was Ferrari's Felipe Massa who drove like his old self.

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi gave Schumi a very tough time but when Kamui pitted he locked the fronts and slid into some of his crew, sending them flying. He immediately apologized to his mechanics for misjudging his entry.

1st place finisher Webber celebrating

Race results (top 5): 1. Mark Webber,  2. Fernando Alonso, 3. Sebastian Vettel, 4. Felipe Massa, 5. Kimi Raikkonen.
At least we didn't have Schumi in the post race interview screwing everything up or not knowing where he was on the track.

Round ten will come at Hockenheim in Germany on July 22 next. For more info, please click here.


MotoGP, at the Eni Motorrad GP of Germany:
Round 8 of the MotoGP was run at the Sashsenring which is the shortest and slowest tracks on the championship.

Pedrosa ahead of a sliding Stoner

The factory RCV riders were in a class of their own throughout the race and had exchanged the lead many times. For the final eleven laps Dani Pedrosa was ahead of his team mate and reigning world champion Casey Stoner. The Ausie native was determined to win the race pushed really hard on the final lap. However, as he explained later on, it was not meant to be, as he fell off his Honda on the last lap of the race and was unable to continue.
The German marshals were not very cooperative.

"I had planned to go for my "win or bin" effort in the last corner, not that one!", lamented Casey Stoner after the race.

As for Dani Pedrosa, he finally broke the casey Stoner/Jorge Lorenzo victory strangelhold on MotoGP in 2012 with this win. His drive could be summed up as follows: He took a holeshot into Turn 1, but was then passed by Stoner on lap 2, but he made what turned out to be the winning pass on lap on lap 19 when he out-braked Stoner into turn 1.

Italian Andrea Dovizioso rode a great race to get his second third-place finish in two weeks. With this he stakes his claim to the factory Yamaha seat, after he beat Ben Spies for third place, again.

Next race, the Gran Premio d'Italia TIM, at Mugello on July 15 next. For more info, please click here.

AJ Allmendinger suspended

NASCAR, at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona Int'l Speedway:
Just a couple of hours before the start of the race Nascar temporarily suspended AJ Allmendinger for failing a random drug test. Team owner Roger Penske had to scramble to get Sam Hornish Jr back to Daytona to drive the no 22 car. He did so with just 8 minutes to spare, thanks to the track be situated next to the Daytona's airport, and of course, having access to private jets helps too. For more info, please click here.

The track was patched up very nicely after JP Montoya's fiery incident jet dryer truck incident in back February.

Racing under the lights at Daytona

Lap 81, the first caution came out due to Sam Hornish Jr blowing a tire and wrecked on the back stretch.  The caution enabled Stewart and Keseloski, who were half-lap down, to catch up.

However, in the ensuing pit stop Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon whent three-wide and touched on the way to the exit to pit road, sending Newman's Chevrolet spinning into the back of Keselowski's Dodge, which was still getting service. Alert and nimble crew members scattered and jumped for safety and luckily nobody was hurt.

Lap 124, a seven-car wreck saw Jimmie Johnson's car destroyed, caused Greg Biffle to be penalized for stopping under yellow. His team mate Matt Kenseth who was pitting with him continued down the pit lane with out stopping. Both drivers were committed to pitting before the yellow came out.

Lap 153, Denny Hamlin made an ill-fated move that exiting the tri-oval which caused a wreck that thinned the field for the final restart. All of Joe Gibbs Racing cars as well as Michael Waltrip's were involved.

Steward ahead of the massive wreck

At the last restart, Kenseth led with Stewart to his outside and Biffle behind him. However, Stewart out-foxes Kenseth as he skillfully side-drafts and unhooks himself from the teammates and pulls ahead while Kenseth waits for Biffle. As Stewart approached the checkered flag, a massive wreck in Turn 4 skewed the finishing order behind him, unfortunately for those who had been driving well all night. Yet another wild finish.

Stewart, on his 47th career win and 4th at the July race in Daytona: "I'll trade all [the July Daytona wins] in for just one Daytona 500. ... But all of 'em are special, and it's cool to do this.

The top five are as follows: 1. Tony Stewart, 2. Jeff Burton, 3. Matt Kenseth, 4. Joey Logano, 5. Ryan Newman. Click here to watch the "race rewind" video.

Next race will be Lenox Industrial at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 15. For moore info, please click here.

Check back for a report on NHRA.

Thanks for reading.

Source: Nascar, Wikipedia, Crash.net, Foxsports, MotoGP, Formula One,
Photo credit: Getty Images for Nascar, FoxNews, Dailymail.co.uk, Crash.net