Frontstretch Newsletter: Brendon Hartley Wins Le Mans Pole; Charles Leclerc Fastest in Baku Free Practice

Published: Fri, 06/10/22

Frontstretch Newsletter: June 10, 2022
Volume XVI, Edition XCV

What to Watch: June 10-12

- NASCAR teams are loading in today at Sonoma Raceway. NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams are practicing this afternoon at 6:05 p.m. ET. However, that session will not be televised.

Saturday will have Truck qualifying via tape delay at 2 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. At 2:30 p.m., ARCA Menards Series West teams will compete in the General Tire 200k. This can be seen on FLORacing.com (subscription required).

NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying coverage will start at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday on FOX Sports 2 due to baseball commitments. The DoorDash 250k for the Camping World Truck Series is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. It will be preceded by a half-hour edition of NASCAR RaceDay - CWTS Edition, but that would be dependent on whether the Oakland Athletics-Cleveland Guardians game at 4 p.m. ET finishes on time.

Sunday sees the NASCAR Cup Series take on Sonoma. Coverage starts at 2 p.m. with NASCAR RaceDay on FOX Sports 1.

- In France, the 24 Hours of Le Mans will go green at 10 a.m. ET Saturday morning. Live coverage starts at 9:30 a.m. ET tomorrow on Motor Trend and will be on there for 25 hours straight.

- INDYCAR teams are at Road America this weekend. Opening practice will be at 4:25 p.m. ET this afternoon on Peacock.

Saturday sees teams out on track for a morning practice, followed by qualifying at 1:45 p.m. ET. Both sessions will stream on Peacock. The race itself will start at 12:30 p.m. ET Sunday on NBC.

FOLLOW THE FRONTSTRETCH THIS WEEKEND THROUGH OUR COLLEAGUES:

SONOMA:

Bryan Nolen (@TheBryanNolen)

ROAD AMERICA:

Christopher DeHarde (@CDeHarde)

Also, don't forget to follow our Twitter page, @Frontstretch as well for updates!

TV Schedule: Here

Around the World in Motorsports: June 9-10

- In Free Practice No. 1 in Baku, Red Bull's Sergio Perez was quickest with a lap at 127.309 mph. The lap was .127 seconds quicker than Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Max Verstappen was third, then Carlos Sainz Jr. and Alpine's Fernando Alonso.

There were two virtual safety car periods during the session. Haas' Mick Schumacher suffered a water pressure issue and stopped on-track early on before setting a competitive time. He ended up 13 seconds off the pace. Later on, Williams' Nicholas Latifi's car simply died on course and rolled to a stop.

- Free Practice No. 2 in Baku saw Leclerc top the chart with a lap at 130.086 mph. Leclerc's best lap was nearly a quarter of a second faster than Perez. Verstappen was third once again, then Alonso and Sainz.

- Free Practice No. 3 at Le Mans saw Toyota GAZOO Racing's Kamui Kobayashi go fastest with a lap at 147.397 mph. Kobayashi was three-tenths of a second faster than teammate Brendon Hartley. Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus' Olivier Pla was third fastest, then Ryan Briscoe and Signatech Alpine's Nicolas Lapierre.

LMP2 saw a United Autosports one-two as Filipe Albuquerque was fastest with a lap at 144.485 mph. The lap was six-hundredths of a second faster than teammate Alex Lynn. Team WRT's Robin Frijns was third fastest, then COOL Racing's Yifei Ye and JOTA Sport's Antonio Felix da Costa.

GTE-Pro was led by Corvette Racing's Nick Tandy with a lap at 131.211 mph. This was nearly a half-second (.48 seconds) quicker than Porsche GT Team's Richard Lietz. Antonio Garcia was third in the second Corvette, then Michael Christensen in the second Porsche. AF Corse's Antonio Fuoco was fifth in the best of the Ferraris.

GTE-Am was led by Team Project 1's Mikkel Pedersen with a lap at 130.047 mph, good for sixth of all GT teams. The lap was .232 seconds quicker than the Aston Martin of TF Sport's Henrique Chaves. Proton Competition's Alessio Picariello was third in his Porsche, then Northwest AMR's David Pittard. Sebastian Priaulx was fifth.

The session was red-flagged partway through due to a crash for TDS Racing x Vaillante's Philippe Cimadomo in the Porsche Curves. This was the third incident of the weekend for Cimadomo, a 62-year old French amateur racer. The stewards had seen enough and brought Cimadomo and management for TDS Racing x Vaillante in for a meeting.

In that meeting, the stewards, on recommendation of Race Director Eduardo Freitas, booted Cimadomo out of the No. 13 ORECA 07-Gibson for the remainder of the race weekend "...for the safety of himself and other competitors." Cimadomo does have the right to appeal the decision, but appears to have decided not to.

TDS Racing x Vaillante has tapped Nyck de Vries to replace Cimadomo. Due to de Vries' platinum driver rating by virtue of his Formula 2 championship and participation in the ABB Formula E World Championship, the team is now ineligible to participate in the LMP2 Pro-Am subclass. They will now run in the regular LMP2 class.

- Free Practice No. 4 Thursday night saw Toyota's Jose Maria Lopez top the chart with a lap at 146.318 mph. Lopez's lap was .362 seconds faster than teammate Sebastien Buemi. Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus' Pipo Derani was third, followed by teammate Richard Westbrook and Signatech Alpine's Andre Negrao.

LMP2 saw Lynn top the charts with a lap at 143.494 mph, sixth overall. Lynn's lap was nearly two-tenths of a second faster than Panis Racing's Job van Uitert. JOTA Sport's Jonathan Aberdein was third fastest, then Prema's Robert Kubica and Will Stevens in JOTA Sport's No. 38.

GTE-Pro was another Corvette one-two with Nicky Catsburg fastest with a lap at 130.984 mph. Catsburg was a mere two-hundredths of a second faster than Tommy Milner. Porsche's Gianmaria Bruni was third, followed by Laurens Vanthoor and AF Corse's Miguel Molina.

Finally, Dempsey-Proton Racing's Harry Tincknell was fastest in GTE-Am with a lap at 129.670 mph. Tincknell was two-tenths of a second faster than teammate Jan Heylen. AF Corse's Louis Prette was third in his Ferrari with teammate Nick Cassidy in fourth. Kessel Racing's Mikkel Jensen was fifth.

- In the wee hours of this morning, Jonathan Davenport was able to hold off Chris Madden on a Green-White-Checker to win the Eldora Million. Combined with a victory earlier on Thursday, Davenport went to bed having won $1,014,022. Madden was second, then Devin Moran, Tim McCreadie (who cut a tire to set up the Green-White-Checker) and Chris Ferguson. Since the first 83 laps of the race were green, only these five drivers were on the lead lap at the finish.

Today's Top News:

Brendon Hartley Wins 24 Hours of Le Mans Pole

Toyota GAZOO Racing's Brendon Hartley claimed the pole Thursday for this weekend's 24 Hours of Le Mans with a lap at 149.119 mph. It is the sixth consecutive Le Mans pole for Toyota.

ARCA Introduces $50,000 Bonus If Driver Wins Both Dirt Races

ARCA announced Friday that they will ante up $50,000 if any driver can win both of the 100-mile ARCA Menards Series races at the Illinois State Fairgrounds and the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds later this summer.

Photos are courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography and Gabi Tomescu of FocusPackMedia.de.

Have news for Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at frontstretcheditors@googlegroups.com with a promising lead or tip.

Newsletter Exclusives:

Frontstretch Folio: Toyota/Save Mart 350k

by Phil Allaway

This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to the West Coast for their first of three road races this season. Coverage of the Toyota/Save Mart 350k can be seen on FOX Sports 1 starting at 2 p.m. ET Sunday with NASCAR RaceDay. The green flag is scheduled to fly around 3:45 p.m. The race can also be heard on PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90). Note that this year's race will be back on the short course at Sonoma Raceway for the first time since 2017.

Records and facts

Last year's Toyota/Save Mart 350k was dominated by Kyle Larson, who led 57 of 92 laps. However, unlike a lot of Sonoma races in recent years, the final laps were marked by a series of wrecks.

Larson took the lead for good after a round of green-flag pit stops wrapped up on lap 76. A wreck involving Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Anthony Alfredo and Alex Bowman in turn 4 resulted in a Green-White-Checker restart. Larson was able to stretch out a small lead and hold on to take the victory.

He was .614 seconds ahead of teammate Chase Elliott at the finish. Martin Truex Jr. was third, followed by Joey Logano and Kyle Busch.

Among active drivers, Truex has the most victories at Sonoma Raceway with three. Kyle Busch has two wins, while Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Larson each have one.

All-time, Jeff Gordon is the winningest Cup driver at Sonoma with five wins. He swept the three races run on the 1.949 mile short course (1998-2000), then won two more once the short course was reconfigured into the 1.99-mile configuration in 2001. Truex and Tony Stewart have three career wins at Sonoma, while Kyle Busch, Ernie Irvan, Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd all have two wins at Sonoma. Only Rudd and Truex have won on both the short course and the long course.

For the long course, Irvan, Wallace and Rudd each claimed two wins. The other events were won by Davey Allison (1991), Geoff Bodine (1993), Dale Earnhardt (1995) and Mark Martin (1997).

Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 1.99-mile road course, 110 laps (218.9 miles)

Grandstand Seating: 47,000
Pit Road Speed: 40 mph
Pace Car Speed: 45 mph
Opened: 1968 (as Sears Point Raceway), first Cup race in 1989

Website: http://www.racesonoma.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/racesonoma

Twitter: http://twitter.com/RaceSonoma

Pre-Race Schedule:

Practice: Saturday, June 10, 4:35 - 5:15 p.m. on FOX Sports 2

Qualifying: Saturday, June 10, 5:30 p.m. on FOX Sports 2

Say What?!

"I’ve always had some good speed at Sonoma (Raceway) and it’s my home track. It’s always fun to see my friends and family, and it was cool to get my first win at my home track last year. But that was with last year’s car and on the longer track. Hopefully, we can get another pole there this weekend, lead some laps and challenge for the win again." - Kyle Larson

"I’ve gotten better through practice and working on the simulator. Sonoma is one that I’ve only raced at once and now we’ve changed configurations again so it’s like starting over. Hopefully, the learning period is not too large. Sonoma is an abrasive track and wears tires out.

"Oddly enough, I never went [to Sonoma Raceway] as a kid. It was seven hours from where I was born but it was the closest track that we had. I always watched on TV and wondered what it was like down there. I was never in Napa Valley. It’s kind of weird for me. It’s the closest one to home but it was so far away it never made sense to go. I definitely liked going there for the first time. I got to spend a couple of days exploring the area last time I raced there. I went out early and got to go home. It was cool to spend some time in the area but for me it is a weird sensation because it does feel really far from home." - Tyler Reddick

"Last year was tough. Sonoma is a super technical track, and the only experience I had there was in the ARCA West race the day before, so I didn’t have a whole lot to use to prepare. I think I’ve become more confident as a driver. Last year, I was trying really hard to learn how to race in the Cup Series while not messing up other drivers and I realized I had to get over that. I learned a lot more by getting up there and racing these guys to see what I could figure out from how they drive certain tracks. This season has been good so far. We got off a little after the Phoenix win, and COTA didn’t really go the way we wanted, but I’m excited to get to another road course and see how it goes. This car is much better on road courses than what we’ve had in the past and I think this is a chance for us to get another really good finish and maybe another win to secure our spot in the playoffs a little more than it is now." - Chase Briscoe

Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.

Today at Frontstretch:

4 Burning Questions: Will Kyle Busch Go Winless in Trucks for the 1st Time in a Decade?

by Stephen Stumpf

Friday Faceoff: Who’s the Ideal FOX Cup Broadcasting Crew?

by the Frontstretch Staff

Fire on Fridays: All Eyes Turn to Martin Truex Jr., Zane Smith & Trackhouse for NASCAR Silly Season

by Michael Massie

Stock Car Scoop: How Will NASCAR’s Next Gen Take to Sonoma?

with Adam Cheek and Bryan Nolen

Thinkin’ Dirty: 2022 Eldora Million

by Bryan Keith

NASCAR 101: Making Right Turns in Wine Country at Sonoma

by Adam Cheek

Tomorrow at Frontstretch.com:

We'll have recaps and breakdowns of all the action from Sonoma, Road America and Le Mans.

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