Frontstretch Newsletter: April 30, 2021
Volume: XV, Edition LXV
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- Today is pull-in day for NTT IndyCar Series teams at Texas Motor Speedway. There is no on-track action activity scheduled. NASCAR Cup Series transporters will leave the shops no later than Midnight tonight for the 15 hour haul to Kansas. Camping World Truck Series teams are likely already on the road.
- At Circuit of the Americas, SRO America teams will be practicing today ahead of their races on Saturday and Sunday. However, lightning has delayed on-track sessions.
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updates!!
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Around the World in Motorsports: April 29-30
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- Mercedes-AMG's Valtteri Bottas was fastest in Free Practice No. 1 at Portimao with a lap at 130.670 mph. This was two-hundredths of a second faster than Red Bull's Max Verstappen. Sergio Perez was third in the second Red Bull, while Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was fourth. Lewis Hamilton was fifth.
During the first session, some concrete was pulled away exiting turn 14, resulting in the second session being delayed by 10 minutes to allow for the fixes to dry.
- In Free Practice No. 2, Hamilton was fastest with a lap at 130.361 mph after the winds kicked up at the Algarve International Circuit. Hamilton's lap was one-seventh of a second faster than Verstappen. Bottas was third, then Carlos Sainz Jr. and Alpine's Fernando Alonso.
- In Qualifying for Saturday's 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Dempsey-Proton Racing's Christian Ried had a huge crash at Radillion after losing control cresting the hill. This brought out a red flag. Almost immediately after the green came back out, Team Project 1's Egidio Perfetti had effectively the same crash at the same place to bring out another red flag. Both teams are scrambling to fix
their Porsches ahead of Saturday's race.
Once everyone finally got back on track, cool weather resulted in fast lap times. Toyota GAZOO Racing's Kamui Kobayashi won the overall pole with a lap at 129.752 mph, the fastest lap of the whole weekend. Kobayashi's lap was half a second faster than teammate Kazuki Nakajima. Signatech Alpine was third, 1.9 seconds back.
LMP2 saw United Autosports' Filipe Albuquerque go fastest with a lap at 127.996 mph, good enough to split the Toyotas from the Alpine and qualify third overall. He was one-third of a second faster than G-Drive Racing's Nyck de Vries, followed by Racing Team Nederland's Giedo van der Garde, then Realteam Racing's Norman Nato and
In GTE-Pro, Porsche GT Team's Kevin Estre trounced the field by over a second with a lap at 119.397 mph. AF Corse's Miguel Molina qualified second, then Richard Lietz and Alessandro Pier Guidi.
Finally, TF Sport's Ben Keating won the GTE-Am pole in his Aston Martin with a lap at 116.346 mph. This was nearly a second quicker than the similar Aston Martin of Paul Dalla Lana. Dempsey-Proton Racing's will start third, then AF Corse's Thomas Flohr and Francois Perrodo.
- Thursday's first WEC practice session of 2021 saw United Autosports' Filipe Albuquerque got fastest overall in his LMP2 ORECA 07-Gibson with a lap at 126.264 mph, faster than any lap turned in during the Prologue test earlier this week.
Albuquerque's lap was a quarter of a second faster than Signatech Alpine's Matthieu Vaxiviere in the Alpine A480-Gibson, the quickest of the Hypercars. Realteam Racing's Norman Nato was third, then the No. 28 Jota Sport entry of Stoffel Vandoorne. Dragonspeed's Ben Hanley was fifth quickest. The fastest of the Toyota Hypercar drivers was Mike Conway in seventh.
Porsche GT Team's Kevin Estre was fastest in GTE-Pro with a lap at 117.387 mph. The lap was three-hundredths of a second faster than teammate Richard Lietz, while the Ferraris of Alessandro Pier Guidi and Miguel Molina were close behind in third and fourth. Corvette Racing's best lap from Antonio Garcia was nearly a full second slower than the others.
GTE-Am was topped by Team Project 1's Matteo Cairoli with a lap at 116.971 mph. This was nearly three-tenths of a second faster than the similar Porsche of Dempsey-Proton Racing's Matt Campbell. Alessio Picariello was third, then Andrea Piccini and Marcos Gomes.
- Friday morning's second practice session saw Signatech Alpine's Andre Negrao set the quick time with a lap at 126.967 mph in his Hypercar. His lap was three-hundredths of a second faster than Toyota GAZOO Racing's Brendon Hartley. Albuquerque was fastest in LMP2 and third overall with a lap at 126.621 mph, one-third of a second slower than Negrao. G-Drive Racing's Nyck de Vries was fourth
fastest, while Inter Europol Competition's Alex Brundle was fifth.
AF Corse's James Calado was fastest in GTE-Pro with a lap at 117.312 mph. This was a quarter of a second faster than Porsche GT Team's Neel Jani. Daniel Serra was third, then Estre. Finally, Dempsey-Proton Racing's Jaxon Evans was fastest in GTE-Am with a lap at 116.771 mph. He was five-hundredths of a second faster than AF Corse's Giancarlo Fisichella, then Matteo Cressoni, Picariello
and Nicklas Nielsen.
- The final free practice session saw Toyota GAZOO Racing finally flex their muscle. Kamui Kobayashi was fastest overall with a lap at 127.877 mph. This was nearly three-eighths of a second faster than teammate Kazuki Nakajima. Signatech Alpine's Nicolas Lapierre ended up sixth overall, 1.6 seconds back.
Albuquerque was fastest in LMP2 once again with a lap at 126.592 mph, good for third overall. Albuquerque was one-sixth of a second faster than G-Drive Racing's Roberto Merhi. De Vries was third, then Nato and Giedo van der Garde.
Porsche GT Team's Estre was again fastest in GTE-Pro at 118.748 mph, seven-tenths of a second faster than teammate Lietz, while Cairoli was fastest in GTE-Am at 117.344 mph. Cairoli's lap was four-tenths of a second faster than Campbell.
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| | Atlanta Motor Speedway to Open to Full
Capacity for July Races
Atlanta Motor Speedway announced Friday morning that their intention is to open up the track to full capacity for their July NASCAR race weekend.
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| | Dover to Have 20,000 Fans for its Race
Weekend
Dover Motorsports Inc. announced in an earnings release that the state of Delaware will allow them to have up to 20,000 fans for their sole Cup race weekend on May 14-16.
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| | Compass Racing Announces 2021 WeatherTech
Sprint Cup Plans
Compass Racing announced Thursday that the team will field a new Acura NSX GT3 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship's WeatherTech Sprint Cup in 2021. Mario Farnbacher and Jeff Kingsley will
drive.
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Photos are courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography, NASCAR Media via Getty Images and Compass Racing.
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Frontstretch Folio: Buschy McBusch Race 400
by Phil Allaway
This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series travels to Kansas Speedway for the first of two visits in 2021. Coverage of the Buschy McBusch Race 400 starts with NASCAR RaceDay at 1:30 p.m. EDT on FOX Sports 1. Race coverage begins at 3 p.m. with the green flag around 3:10. It can be
heard on MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
Records and
facts
Last year's Super Start Batteries 400 was run on a Thursday night. It ended up being a start-and-stop affair, especially towards the middle of the race. 11 cautions slowed the race down for 47 laps. Ryan Preece took a nasty hit on the inside wall in a crash with Matt Kenseth and Bubba
Wallace.
Denny Hamlin was able to get past Kevin Harvick with 13 laps to go and held on to take the victory. Brad Keselowski was second, then Martin Truex Jr., Harvick and Erik
Jones.
Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano all have three wins at Kansas, which is tied for the most all-time along with the now-retired Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. Five separate drivers have two wins each. Of the three active drivers with
three Kansas victories, only Hamlin has a win there that came before the track was reconfigured in 2012.
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Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 1.5-mile tri-oval, 267 laps (400.5 miles)
Banking: 17-20 degrees
Frontstretch: 2,721 feet, banked 10
degrees
Backstretch: 2,207 feet, banked 5
degrees
Grandstand Seating: 64,000
Pit Road Speed: 45 mph
Pace Car Speed: 55 mph
Opened: 2001
Website: http://www.kansasspeedway.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KansasSpeedway
Twitter: http://twitter.com/kansasspeedway
Say
What?!
"Kansas Speedway has done a really good job with their banking. There’s a line right up by the fence that has a
little extra grip. There’s an angle up there that I don’t think many tracks have figured out yet, but Kansas got it right. You can run from top to bottom there. The bottom groove is the preferred groove at the beginning, but it becomes too tight to try and run around there in turns one and two sometimes depending on what the balance of your race car is. I’ve enjoyed that track a lot ever since they repaved it. I wish every track could do as good as a job as Kansas has with repaves." - Austin
Dillon
"I’m looking forward to it. We have some good momentum as everybody has seen, so that’s encouraging. At the start
of the season we had a lot of things out of our control that happened. There’s nothing we could do about that, and now we’re kind of on a roll and showing the strength that we do have as a team, that we’ve known that we had, so that’s awesome. It’s super encouraging. I’m feeling good about it. Obviously, we had a shot to win at Talladega, which is great, and a top 10 the week before, so a top 10 and a top five and going on to Kansas we have Menards and Dickies on our Mustang this week, so the
car looks good — nice and bright — and our mile-and-a-half program is really strong." - Matt DiBenedetto
"Kansas [Speedway] is pretty far up on my list of favorite 1.5-mile tracks because you can move around and run
anywhere. There are so many different lanes you can run. It has a lot of grip, but it changes as the track goes and as it gets rubbered-in, you have to move away from what worked earlier. A lot of time, it ends up against the outside wall, which is always fun as a driver. But you still have an opportunity there to get your car driving well through the bottom or the middle, and being able to make moves and move up through the pack. That has been the best part of Kansas over the last few years. I
enjoy the racing there more than anything and what the track brings to the racing." - Erik Jones
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.
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The Critic's Annex: General Tire 200
by Phil Allaway
On Saturday, the ARCA Menards Series returned to Talladega Superspeedway for 200 miles of action. Unlike the Cup and (especially) Xfinity races, this race has one instance that clearly stands out.
With five laps to go, Derrick Lancaster had contact exiting turn 2 with Drew Dollar, resulting in Lancaster sliding into Corey Heim before launching into the outside wall and bursting into flames. While Lancaster was able to walk with assistance to the stretcher after the crash, he is still in the hospital as of this writing. He spent multiple days on a ventilator and still has a long road in front
of him.
This was a frightening incident. Fire suits are great these days, but they only protect you for so long. Long story short, Lancaster's Toyota was on fire for well over 10 seconds before he could get the car stopped. The time he was in the car after it stopped before he could get out likely resulted in the extensive burns that he suffered in the incident.
FOX Sports 1 didn't have the best coverage of the wreck as it happened. They had a good shot from the tower cam, then switched away. As a result, you couldn't see the impact live. They cut away, then back with Lancaster's car on fire. Maybe not the best production here.
It was obvious to everyone involved that this was serious since the car was on fire for nearly the entire backstretch before coming to rest in the grass inside of turn 3. The AMR safety team was not the quickest on Saturday, but in their defense, they can't move until they get the signal from series officials. Also, given the size of Talladega Superspeedway, it can take a while for them to get
there. In the future, they may need to have more crews out there.
Jamie Little was back on play-by-play for her second go-around along with Phil Parsons. This time, Little and Parsons were joined by Ryan Blaney. Blaney has been getting a lot of booth reps recently and I found him to be quite informative. His performance was really no different from his recent Xfinity work.
The race was marked by a fairly amount of standing water above the yellow line, especially early on in the event. It does make sense knowing how hard it rained Saturday morning at Talladega. That said, it was rather unnerving to watch because I thought that someone was going to wipe out.
There was a near crash on lap 60 when Benny Chastain made a series of errors when the leaders were approaching to put him two laps down. First, he nearly forced leader Bret Holmes below the yellow line due to a misguided dive to the inside as the lead pack was approaching. Then, Chastain clipped the apron himself and slid back up the track in the tri-oval. This move forced Drew Dollar into
Nick Sanchez. Yeah, that's not going to work and it doesn't matter how old you are.
Blaney did take Chastain to task for this series of moves, but did so in a calm fashion. He basically said that Chastain needed to pick a lane. In this case, it would have been the high line.
Bump drafting is always going to be a story at Talladega, no matter the series. Prior to the start of the race, FOX Sports noted that ARCA allows bump drafting on the straights, but not in the corners.
A bump draft in the tri-oval was the cause of the crash involving Ty Gibbs, John Ferrier and Greg Van Alst. Given what we know, this probably should have led to a penalty for Sanchez, but that didn't happen. The most interesting part of this coverage was the spotter audio for Sanchez. Tyler Green, Sanchez's spotter, was hard on him for causing this incident. You don't see that very
much.
Corey Heim won this race Saturday, but he did so with what seemed like a shock issue. Back on Tuesday at Frontstretch, I talked about how bumpy the track seemed to be crossing the new tunnel under the entrance to
turn 3. No one made it seem bumpier than Heim.
The Lancaster incident resulted in the race running long. Viewers got a look at the unofficial results (with the wrong number being used for Andy Jankowiak, who ran No. 73 instead of No. 28). You did hear from Heim, but only on the radio. At the end of the interview, Bill Venturini cut in and told him to get to the start-finish line in under a minute since the broadcast was going to
end. Perhaps there was a start-finish line interview, but that didn't happen on the broadcast since FOX Sports 1 left the air almost immediately after the radio interview.
I still believe that Little has a ways to go to improve her craft as a play-by-play commentator. Her call of the finish Saturday left a lot to be desired. It's one thing that Blaney and Parsons more or less did the call themselves,
it's another that Little just seemed late to the party. It's almost like she has a lack of confidence in herself. I hope that with the reps she's getting this year, that can improve. I have no doubt that FOX Sports is giving her copies of the races that she's calling and that she's watching them through to critique herself. When Dr. Jerry Punch was on play-by-play for ESPN, he'd watch them while on the treadmill.
From what I'm seeing, Little needs to be more assertive in the booth. As far as I'm concerned, the play-by-play commentator is the leader in the booth. Parsons will have your back (and so does Blaney), but it's your call and you set the tone. Something like that can take some getting used to. That's why FOX Sports is starting Little here instead of throwing her to the wolves. She
gets another chance tomorrow. We'll see if anything changes.
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.
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