Sardinia WRC, Iowa IndyCar
Live Text
Sort by
As Race Centre Live goes into the European evening/American afternoon with IndyCar and NASCAR qualifying, we'll also summarise some of today's racing action elsewhere.
NASCAR - Sonoma: Jimmie Johnson crashed late in a brilliant charging back-to-front performance at Dover last week, but still has a very comfortable Sprint Cup championship lead.
Championship standings after 15 of 36 rounds:
1 Jimmie Johnson 538
2 Carl Edwards 507
3 Clint Bowyer 489
4 Kevin Harvick 476
5 Matt Kenseth 456
6 Kyle Busch 452
(43 points for a win)
Full season statistics on FORIX
Championship standings after 15 of 36 rounds:
1 Jimmie Johnson 538
2 Carl Edwards 507
3 Clint Bowyer 489
4 Kevin Harvick 476
5 Matt Kenseth 456
6 Kyle Busch 452
(43 points for a win)
Full season statistics on FORIX
Ricky Stenhouse Jr
NASCAR - Sonoma: Nearly time for the NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers to get their first taste of the series' new road course qualifying format at Sonoma.
Meanwhile at Road America, the Nationwide drivers recently finished qualifying, and it was a first pole position of a frankly odd year for AJ Allmendinger, who is in Penske's car this weekend.
Owen Kelly, generally seen these days as an enduro co-driver in V8 Supercars, will join Allmendinger on the front row for this afternoon's race.
AUTOSPORT Live is providing full as-it-happens coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hours right through to the chequered flag tomorrow afternoon.
Breaking news
Le Mans 24 Hours: Audi continues to lead a race overshadowed by the death of Aston Martin GT racer Allan Simonsen.
Le Mans hour four report
Le Mans hour four report
Breaking news
IndyCar - Iowa: Here's the full report on Tony Kanaan leading the way in the sole free practice session ahead of qualifying at Iowa Speedway.
IndyCar Iowa practice report
IndyCar Iowa practice report
Checkered flag
IndyCar - Iowa: Kanaan remains on top as the chequered flag waves. Power moved up to second ahead of Andretti.
IndyCar -Iowa: Tony Kanaan jumps up to P1 with a 184mph lap, while Will Power has moved into P3. Less than five minutes left.
IndyCar - Iowa: OK, times are starting to creep up now. Dixon and Carpenter have both posted times in the 181mph range and moved up to P2 and P3.
IndyCar - Iowa: Top three in practice is still Andretti, Hunter-Reay and Newgarden. While we wait for something interesting to happen, here's the running order for the single-lap qualifying session. Remember, 'qualifying' only sets the fields for the heat races, not for the actual main race tomorrow:
1. de Silvestro 2. Kanaan 3. Dixon 4. Newgarden 5. Tagliani 6. Rahal 7. Wilson 8. Servia 9 Vautier 10. Pagenaud 11. Power 12. Andretti 13. Jakes 14. Saavedra 15. Castroneves 16. Hunter-Reay 17. Bourdais 18. Carpenter 19. Sato 20. Franchitti 21. Viso 22. Kimball 23. Hinchcliffe 24. Beatriz
1. de Silvestro 2. Kanaan 3. Dixon 4. Newgarden 5. Tagliani 6. Rahal 7. Wilson 8. Servia 9 Vautier 10. Pagenaud 11. Power 12. Andretti 13. Jakes 14. Saavedra 15. Castroneves 16. Hunter-Reay 17. Bourdais 18. Carpenter 19. Sato 20. Franchitti 21. Viso 22. Kimball 23. Hinchcliffe 24. Beatriz
Green flag
IndyCar - Iowa: Session restarts with about 30 minutes remaining.
The mood in the press room has gone flat following the sad news coming out of Le Mans. This journalist has a lot of memories of Allan Simonsen being very fast in a Ferrari 360 GT in the Australian GT championship a few years ago.
The mood in the press room has gone flat following the sad news coming out of Le Mans. This journalist has a lot of memories of Allan Simonsen being very fast in a Ferrari 360 GT in the Australian GT championship a few years ago.
Tragic news from Le Mans. Aston Martin driver Allan Simonsen has died following a high-speed crash on lap four of the 24 Hours.
The Dane was 34 years old.
Allan Simonsen killed in Le Mans 24 Hours accident
The Dane was 34 years old.
Allan Simonsen killed in Le Mans 24 Hours accident
Yellow flag
IndyCar - Iowa: Yellows for track inspection, with Marco Andretti on top - his fastest lap was over 183mph, which is 3mph faster than anyone else has managed to go so far.
IndyCar - Iowa: Just over 15 minutes into practice, and Marco Andretti is the current leader ahead of team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay. Not much is happening on the track, but there's a bit of news filtering out from the paddock that Panther Racing has split with chief engineer David Cripps.
Helio Castroneves
Wins at Texas Motor Speedway and the Milwaukee Mile went to Helio Castroneves and Ryan Hunter-Reay respectively, and they're now edging clear in the championship.
Championship standings after nine of 19 rounds:
1 Helio Castroneves 299
2 Ryan Hunter-Reay 283
3 Marco Andretti 249
4 Takuma Sato 223
5 Scott Dixon 221
6 Tony Kanaan 215
(50 points for a win)
If you're looking for Dario Franchitti and Will Power, they're back in 10th and 11th.
Full IndyCar season statistics on FORIX
Green flag
IndyCar - Iowa: Green flag for the first IndyCar practice session. Actually this is the only practice session before qualifying and the heat races.
BTCC - Croft: Joe Girling is OK after his qualifying shunt, but the team is not sure it can fix the Chevy Cruze for tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
WRC - Italy: And Robert Kubica secures his second consecutive WRC 2 victory by a massive margin.
"It's never easy to win, but it has been a good weekend - although very difficult with dust and intercom problems," he says.
"But we never lost concentration and whenever we weren't sure of our pace, we just took it carefully.
"To learn rallying, there is no other way than doing rallies. And if I go slowly, I don't learn anything..."
"It's never easy to win, but it has been a good weekend - although very difficult with dust and intercom problems," he says.
"But we never lost concentration and whenever we weren't sure of our pace, we just took it carefully.
"To learn rallying, there is no other way than doing rallies. And if I go slowly, I don't learn anything..."
Trophy
WRC - Italy: Sebastien Ogier comes through and takes a commanding fourth win of the season ahead of Thierry Neuville, Jari-Matti Latvala and Dani Sordo.
Checkered flag
Superstars - Zolder: Picked it! Gianni Morbidelli takes his first pole of the season, ahead of Tonio Liuzzi.
1 Morbidelli; 2 Liuzzi; 3 Kuppens; 4 Ferrara; 5 Mugelli; 6 Giammaria; 7 Berton; 8 Larini; 9 Biagi; 10 Sini.
1 Morbidelli; 2 Liuzzi; 3 Kuppens; 4 Ferrara; 5 Mugelli; 6 Giammaria; 7 Berton; 8 Larini; 9 Biagi; 10 Sini.
Twitter
IndyCar - Iowa: Iowa has its own not-at-all-overcomplicated qualifying system based on a series of heat races. The time difference means that you'll miss it on Race Centre Live, but Ganassi team manager Mike Hull took to Twitter earlier this week to explain how it works, complete with a handy diagram.
WRC - Italy: Jari-Matti Latvala reaches the finish and will be third. That's a very pleasing result after a puncture cost him two minutes within eight kilometres of the rally start on Friday morning.
"Overall, I wanted to win, but I think speed-wise I'm one more step forward," says Latvala, whose second place in the standings becomes more secure.
"Overall, I wanted to win, but I think speed-wise I'm one more step forward," says Latvala, whose second place in the standings becomes more secure.
WRC - Italy: Martin Prokop takes fifth, his best result of 2013 so far.
He was still a long way behind the works cars, but his comfortable margin over Evans and Kosciuszko will be encouraging.
He was still a long way behind the works cars, but his comfortable margin over Evans and Kosciuszko will be encouraging.
Checkered flag
BTCC - Croft: Well, that's it! The final order is: Turkington, Plato, Neal, Shedden, Jordan, Collard, Wrathall, Tordoff.
Lea Wood pipped newcomer Jake Hill to S2000 'pole'.
Lea Wood pipped newcomer Jake Hill to S2000 'pole'.
WRC - Italy: Michal Kosciuszko is through and he doesn't quite beat Elfyn Evans.
The Welshman holds on to sixth on his World Rally Car debut by just 0.6 seconds.
The Welshman holds on to sixth on his World Rally Car debut by just 0.6 seconds.
WRC - Italy: Evans finishes the stage. At the final split it looked like he would just keep sixth.
WRC - Italy: By split four, Evans has pulled some time back, looks like the Welshman will just pip Kosciuszko... but the stage isn't over yet...
WRC - Italy: After the first two splits of the final stage, Kosciuszko is on course to beat Evans to sixth - by just one tenth of a second!
WRC - Italy: Mads Ostberg finishes and will be eighth. This season isn't going as he planned.
Before Sardinia he declared it would be absolutely flat-out for the rest of the year after numerous disappointments, but he after crashing on Friday night in Italy, he admits keeping the car in one piece is good too.
Before Sardinia he declared it would be absolutely flat-out for the rest of the year after numerous disappointments, but he after crashing on Friday night in Italy, he admits keeping the car in one piece is good too.
Stopwatch
BTCC - Croft: Colin Turkington moves on to pole with 1m24.465s with his WSR BMW. Team-mate Rob Collard goes sixth.
PG Andersson
WRC - Italy: First car to the finish is PG Andersson on his WRC return. It's been a troubled rally for the AT Ford with multiple problems, and he looks set to be classified 13th or 14th once the whole field is through.
IndyCar - Iowa: Looks like a couple of days worth of uncomfortable conditions await the IndyCar field at Iowa, with temperatures of 32.C at 90 per cent humidity forecast for today, and similar temperatures tomorrow with thunderstorms thrown in for good measure. Indy Lights are currently opening proceedings with their first practice session.
Green flag
BTCC - Croft: We're back under way and it's a mad dash for the last four minutes of the session. The target time is Jason Plato's 1m24.613s.
Lights out
WRC - Italy: The final stage of Sardinia is live. Sebastien Ogier and Robert Kubica on the cusp of crushing outright and WRC 2 victories respectively.
Red flag
BTCC - Croft: Session red-flagged with four minutes to go as Joe Girling crashes heavily. He's OK.
Superstars - Zolder: Pole contender Laurens Vanthoor has stopped on circuit somewhere without setting a time. Would seem his session is done and he'll be starting at the back tomorrow.
BTCC - Croft: Jordan improves but manages to lose fourth to Colin Turkington, who pops the WSR BMW up onto row two with 5 min to go.
WRC - Italy: Late drama in WRC 3 as leader Stephane Consani battles to sort electrical catastrophes in his Citroen at the end of the penultimate stage.
BTCC - Croft: Shedden improves to third. He set two purple sectors, but lost out in the final sector.
By: Matt Beer, David Evans, Peter Mills, Jamie O'Leary, Glenn Freeman, Andrew van Leeuwen, Kevin Turner, Mark Glendenning
Published:
Lap:
