Monday Motorsports: Vettel Closes Out History-Making Formula One Season

Sebastian Vettel ended the 2013 Formula One campaign in dominant fashion on Sunday at the season finale in Brazil, scoring a strong victory over his Red Bull Infiniti teammate, Mark Webber, and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. Vettel, 26, had already secured his fourth straight World Championship; Alonso was a distant runnerup in the points battle.

The victory was Vettel’s 13th for the season, tying a record held by Michael Schumacher. And it was also Vettel’s ninth victory in a row in the same season, a new Formula One record; Alberto Ascari also won nine grand prix races in a row, but it was over two seasons, the last six races of the 1952 season and the first three in 1953.

The race marked the end of Webber’s Formula One career; he has announced plans to race factory-backed Porsches in sports car endurance events starting next year.

The 2014 Formula One season begins March 16 in Australia.

In other racing news from the weekend:

¦ The Audi drivers Stéphane Ortelli and Laurens Vanthoor were crowned champions of the 2013 Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile GT Series, with their victory in the season finale on Sunday on a street circuit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Sebastien Loeb and Alvaro Parente, co-drivers in a McLaren MP4 12C, finished fourth on the track, but were elevated to second place in the official posting of the race results after 10-second penalties were assessed the original second and third place finishers.

¦ Andrew Palmer, a 19-year-old from Chicago, planned to return to classes at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., on Monday much like he has throughout this term. Yet, something is now very different in his life: Palmer is now a world champion.

In a somewhat unlikely outcome, Palmer competed over the weekend in the World Finals of the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo series, held in Rome. He finished second in the first race of the doubleheader format, won the second race and scored enough points to collect the championship title.

What was so unlikely about that?

For one, the races were held in the rain, conditions in which Palmer said he had little experience, especially compared with some of the other seasoned professionals who qualified for the event.

For another, Palmer took up auto racing only in October. That’s when he won a race in his debut weekend at Virginia International Raceway, in Alton, Va., which qualified him for the World Finals.

“It’s a surreal feeling to be world champion,” said Palmer, who became interested in auto racing through go-karting. “I am not sure the reality has really sunk in just yet.”

He added that returning to his math and economics classes this week was going to be “quite weird.”

Monday Motorsports: A Week of Triumph, Tragedy and Controversy

Jimmie Johnson clinched his sixth Nascar Sprint Cup championship with a ninth place finish in the season finale on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Matt Kenseth finished the season in the runner-up position, 19 points behind Johnson, with a second-place finish in the race, behind the winner, Denny Hamlin. Dale Earnhardt Jr. took third in the race.

Johnson avoided disaster on a restart late in the race when he and Kenseth collided. Johnson’s car sustained some damage and dropped well back in the field. But he was slowly able to recover and race his way back into an unassailable position in the season points battle.

Johnson, 38, has won the championship in six of the last eight seasons; he now has his sights set on tying the record of seven championships in Nascar’s elite series, held by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

In other racing news from the weekend:

¦ Kurt Caselli, a champion motorcycle racer, was killed Friday while leading the Baja 1000 desert race with less than 100 miles to go, near Ensenada on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

Caselli, 30, was a factory rider for the KTM team, which issued a statement Saturday saying that its investigation indicated that Caselli had struck an animal. He was taken to an Ensenada hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Caselli, of Palmdale, Calif., was a champion many times over in trials competition, motocross and other forms of two-wheeled racing.

The Honda teammates Colton Udall, Tim Weigand, David Kamo and Mark Samuels were the overall motorcycle winners with a time of 18 hours, 29 minutes and 14 seconds. B.J. Baldwin won the four-wheel category.

¦ Sebastian Vettel scored an easy victory Sunday in the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Tex. It was a record-setting eighth consecutive victory in a single season for the 26-year-old German driver – his 12th of the season – on the Formula One circuit.

Vettel, a four-time Formula One champion, has a chance to tie the all-time series record of 13 victories in a single season – held by Michael Schumacher – in the season finale in Brazil this month.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus came in second in the race, followed by Vettel’s Red Bull Infiniti teammate, Mark Webber, who is scheduled to retire from Formula One racing at the end of the season.

¦ Dario Franchitti, the three-time Indianapolis 500 champion, announced he would end the driving part of his career after being injured in an IndyCar crash in Houston last month. Franchitti, 40, sustained leg, back and head injuries when his car flipped into a fence on the final lap of a race after coming into contact with another car. A four-time IndyCar series champion, Franchitti returned to his native Scotland recently to continue his recovery.

“One month removed from the crash and based upon the expert advice of the doctors who have treated and assessed my head and spinal injuries post-accident, it is their best medical opinion that I must stop racing,” Franchitti said in a statement. “They have made it very clear that the risks involved in further racing are too great and could be detrimental to my long-term well-being. Based on this medical advice, I have no choice but to stop.”

Friends noted that Franchitti refused to use the word “retire.”

¦ Sébastien Ogier won the Wales Rally of Great Britain on Sunday, capping off a title-winning season in the World Rally Championship. Ogier won nine events in the series this season and finished comfortably ahead of Thierry Neuville in the points tally. Neuville, driving a Ford, came home third in Wales, behind Ogier’s Volkswagen teammate, Jari-Matti Latvala.

¦ Austin Dillon narrowly defeated Sam Hornish Jr. for Nascar’s Nationwide series championship title, with a 12th-place finish in the season finale Saturday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Hornish, who came up just three points shy of the title, finished the event in eighth place.

The finish was not without controversy. Nascar officials were criticized for taking an unusually long time to clean up after a wreck late in the race – a development that seemed to preserve the chances of Dillon, whose ill-handling car was fading from contention. The ensuing 12-lap caution period tied a record for laps under a yellow flag, leaving only five green flag laps in the race. It wasn’t enough time for Hornish, who had an early race lead, to regain his advantage in points. Roger Penske, who owns Hornish’s car, said Nascar’s handling of the situation was “very disappointing.”

Dillon, who along with his brother Ty, were publicly criticized last month by their departing teammate Kevin Harvick as “rich kids” who have “had everything handed to them with a spoon,” clinched the title without having won a race on the 33-event schedule.

Wheels: Monday Motorsports: DeltaWing Swoops Into Third at Road America

Wheels: Monday Motorsports: Vettel, Johnson, Castroneves Score Weekend Racing Wins

Rogerio Barbosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Sebastian Vettel leading the race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal on Sunday.

Sebastian Vettel made easy work of the competition to win Sunday’s Formula One race in Montreal. Vettel’s victory extended his lead in the championship points standings over Kimi Raikkonen, who finished ninth after a trouble-plagued race. Fernando Alonso finished second and also moved ahead of Raikkonen in points. Lewis Hamilton was third.

Hamilton led three early laps, when Vettel made a pit stop. Otherwise, the race was all Vettel.

After the race, it was announced that a course worker had been killed during the event when a recovery vehicle removing a disabled car from the course ran him over.

In other racing news:

• Jimmie Johnson proved unstoppable Sunday in the Nascar Sprint Cup event at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania. Greg Biffle said he considered himself fortunate to finish second, 1.2 seconds behind. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was third and Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman rounded out the top five.

It was Johnson’s 63rd career victory in the series, and helped him pad his lead in the points standings as he campaigns for a sixth championship. Only Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, with seven championships each, have won more titles.

• Helio Castroneves, known for climbing the fence between the race track and the grandstands after his victories, was up to his old routine again after winning Saturday’s IndyCar series Firestone 550 at Texas Motor Speedway.

It was first victory of the year for Castroneves, but his consistency through the eight races in the series so far this year has him atop the point standings, ahead of Marco Andretti, who came in fifth at Texas.

Ryan Hunter-Reay came in second Saturday, followed by Tony Kanaan and Ed Carpenter.

Jean Francois Monier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro Hybrid driven by Loïc Duval competes during the test day of the 90th Le Mans 24 hours endurance race.

• Loïc Duval, driving an Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro, was fastest Sunday in a two-segment practice day at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. The practice was a major tune-up for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will be held June 22-23.

Duval crashed in the morning session, but came back in the afternoon stint to post a stunningly fast time. He was three seconds faster than the next driver on the time sheets, Lucas di Grassi, who was also driving an Audi. Third quickest was Andre Lotterer in another Audi.

No further on-track activity is scheduled for the entries until the days immediately preceding the classic endurance event, which in 2013 is celebrating its 90th anniversary.

• The noted land speed racing pioneer Walt Arfons, who also developed jet-powered race cars as well as the parachutes needed to stop them, died June 4 at age 96 in an Akron, Ohio, hospital, a family member confirmed last week.

Arfons, who, along with half-brother Art and later with Craig Breedlove, traded many speed records in the 1950s and 1960s, was a self-taught engineer and inventor. His fascination with speed led him purchase a war surplus jet and try to adapt its power to land speed racing. It was a dangerous endeavor that resulted in many crashes, injuries and scrapes with death, but his so-called “Green Monster” cars became racing icons.

His perfection of jet engine use in racing also led him to adopt the now widely used drogue parachutes that safely stop drag racing machines.

Art Arfons, with whom Walt Arfons had a falling-out over safety concerns in their head-to-head duels, died in 2007. Walt’ son, Craig, was killed going for a speed record in a powerboat in 1989.

Wheels: Monday Motorsports: Raikkonen’s Lotus Wins Formula One Opener

Rob Griffith/Associated Press Kimi Raikkonen of Finland controling his car on turn two Sunday in the Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia.

Kimi Raikkonen seemed to outsmart the competition in the season-opening Formula One race on Sunday, scoring a victory for Lotus in the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The Finn managed to conserve his tires well enough – while maintaining a strong pace – to make only two pit stops in the race. The other top contenders had to stop three times.

Fernando Alonso came in second, in one of Ferrari’s better season-opening results. Sebastian Vettel, the defending season champion and the fastest in practice and in qualifying, brought his Red Bull machine home in third. He complained afterward of extreme tire wear problems.

At times, because of the varying pit stop strategies that were gradually played out like poker hands, it was difficult to tell who would come out on top at the end.

Raikkonen said he was pleased with the speed of his Lotus, but he cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from the result in Melbourne. “It could be a completely different result next week in Malaysia,” he said in interviews after the race. “The difference today was that we got our tire strategy absolutely right.” (f1.com)

The full schedule for the 2013 Formula One season is at the bottom of this post.

In other motorsports news over the weekend:

• Kasey Kahne’s Chevrolet SS pulled away from the field on a final restart after a caution period and scored a victory Sunday in the Nascar Sprint Cup event at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee.

The victory, the 15th of Kahne’s career in Nascar’s premier series, was his first at Bristol and his first of the season, which is now four events into a 36-race run. The runner-up was the pole-position starter, Kyle Busch in a Toyota, followed by the Ford of Brad Keselowski.

Keselowski, the defending series champion, moved into the points lead for the first time this year, as former points leader Jimmie Johnson damaged his car when a tire blew late in the race. The sixth place finisher at Bristol, Dale Earnhardt Jr., moved into second in points, nine behind Keselowski.

The series next moves to Fontana, Calif., for an event March 24. (nascar.com)

• Audi finished one-two in the Sebring 12-hour endurance race Saturday, as Marcel Fassler, Benoit Treluyer and Oliver Jarvis took turns at the wheel of the No. 1 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro. It was the first victory for a hybrid-powered vehicle in the endurance classic in Sebring, Fla., according to the organizers,

Treluyer, who had to make a fuel stop with just 20 minutes to go, was at the wheel for the close victory over the No. 2 Audi of Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Lucas di Grassi. Each Audi completed 364 laps around the 3.74-mile road course. The two Audis traded the lead 21 times. The third place Toyota of Neel Jani, Nick Heidfeld and Nicolas Prost was a distant five laps behind.

In GT competition at Sebring, the Corvette driven by Tommy Milner passed the skidding Ferrari of Matteo Malucelli in the final 13 minutes for the class victory. Malucelli, apparently feeling the pressure from the fast-closing Milner, who codrove with Oliver Gavin and Richard Westbrook, slid off the course twice in the span of a single lap.

• Top Fuel champion Antron Brown, who has escaped serious injury in two fiery crashes in his most recent races, bounced back Sunday with a victory in the N.H.R.A. Gatornationals in Gainseville, Fla. He beat Clay Millican in a razor-close duel to the line in the finale.

Brown’s strong performance gave him the series points lead, despite his fiery mishaps of late.

Johnny Gray, who says he’s retiring at the end of the season, took the victory in the Funny Car class. Quicker reaction time gave Allen Johnson a victory over Jeg Coughlin Jr. And in Pro Stock Motorcycle, Hector Arana Jr. took the win. (nhra.com)

• Cameron Beaubier won the 72nd Daytona 200 motorcycle classic on Saturday, riding a Yamaha YZF-R6 to a decisive victory. His teammate Garrett Gerloff, coming back from a leg-breaking crash at Daytona a year ago, was a distant 22 seconds behind. Bobby Fong of the RMR team was third. (amaproracing.com)

• A 17-year-old sprint car driver careened off the track at Marysville Speedway in California on Saturday, and killed two spectators – one of which was his 14-year-old cousin. Authorities were still investigating the cause of the crash involving the driver, Chase Johnson, who was uninjured, and his cousin Marcus Johnson, and 68-year-old Dale Wondergem. (The Associated Press)

Schedule for Remaining Formula One Races

March 24, Petronas Malayasia Grand Prix, Kuala Lumpur.
April 14, UBS Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai.
April 21, Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, Sakhir.
May 12, Grand Prix of Spain, Catalonia.
May 26, Grand Prix of Monaco, Monte Carlo.
June 9, Grand Prix of Canada, Montreal.
June 30, British Grand Prix, Silverstone.
July 7, Grand Prix of Germany, Nürburgring.
July 28, Hungarian Grand Prix, Budapest.
Aug. 25, Shell Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps.
Sept. 8, Grand Prix of Italy, Monza.
Sept. 22, Singapore Grand Prix, Singapore.
Oct. 6, Korean Grand Prix, Yeongam.
Oct. 13, Japanese Grand Prix, Suzuka.
Oct. 27, Airtel Indian Grand Prix, New Delhi.
Nov. 3, Ethihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Yas Marina.
Nov. 17, United States Grand Prix, Austin, Tex.
Nov. 24, Grand Prix of Brazil, São Paulo.