This week in motorsports featured three major races, ranging from NASCAR, IndyCar and F1.
The IndyCar Thermal Club Grand Prix in Thermal, California took place this past Friday. In that competition, Chip Ganassi driver Alex Palou took the top spot with a time of just over a minute and 40 seconds. Saturday has a lot in store during Qualifying, as Alexander Rossi, Marcus Ericsson, Colton Herta, Christian Lundgaard, Pato O’Ward and Palou made the Firestone Fast Six, with O’Ward taking pole position by almost two-tenths of a second. O’Ward was followed by fellow Arrow McLaren driver Lundgaard, and he was followed by Palou, Herta, Ericsson and Rossi.
At the start of the race, Devlin DeFrancesco of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing took out Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske, with McLaughlin retiring later in the race due to the overheating issues from the wreck. O’Ward and Lundgaard both had an amazing start to the race, as they were far ahead of everyone except Palou. On lap 50, Palou and Lundgaard had an amazing clean fight for second place, as the two drivers fought for four consecutive corners, with Palou eventually taking second from Lundgaard. On lap 56, Palou outbroke O’Ward for the lead of the race and kept the lead for the remaining 10 laps. Palou won the race with O’Ward finishing in second, and Lundgaard taking third overall.
Now onto China and F1, there would be a sprint and main race. In the one and only practice session, Lando Norris topped the charts with a lap time of a minute and 31 seconds. The sprint qualifying was electric, as Lewis Hamilton took his first ever pole for Ferrari. Max Verstappen added onto the excitement of almost dethroning the Ferrari driver. Eventually, Verstappen fell just 18 thousandths of a second off of Hamilton’s time. The 19-lap race was not as exciting, as Lewis took his first Sprint win for Ferrari, and nobody made any big moves in the standings.
During the Race Qualifying, Oscar Piastri took pole position followed by George Russell and teammate Lando Norris. During the race, Piastri led most of the laps en route to his first win of the season. The rest of the podium consisted of Norris in second and Russell in third. But the biggest story of the grand prix weekend was Ferrari drivers Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, along with Alpine driver Pierre Gasly, getting disqualified from the race, all for different reasons. Hamilton was disqualified after his skid block was 0.5mm less than allowed. That means Hamilton’s car was closer to the ground than his competition, giving him an advantage in the corners. Leclerc and Gasly were both disqualified for their cars being underweight. Leclerc’s car was one pound underweight, while Gasly’s was not made clear.
Finally, there was the NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. For Qualifying, No.48 Alex Bowman took pole position and was followed by No.21 Josh Berry who took a win just a week ago. The opening stage of the race had no accidents as No. 12 Ryan Blaney took first place followed by Bowman, No. 19 Chase Briscoe, No. 5 Kyle Larson, No. 2 Austin Cindric, No. 24 William Byron, No. 16 A.J. Allmendinger, Berry, No. 4 Noah Gragson and No. 22 Joey Logano. Stage 2 also had no accidents as No. 11 Denny Hamlin took home the playoff point, followed by Larson, Blaney, Byron, No. 23 Bubba Wallace, Bowman, Cindric, No. 77 Carson Hocevar, No. 9 Chase Elliott and No. 45 Tyler Reddick. With 59 laps to go in the race, Blaney’s engine blew out, causing him to have his third “Did Not Finish” in a row, simultaneously bringing the caution flag out. Blaney led two-thirds of the race before his engine blew up. With seven laps to go, Larson overtook his teammate Bowman for the lead of the race and took home the win. Larson was followed by Bowman, Wallace, Briscoe, Hamlin, No. 17 Chris Buescher, Allendinger, Reddick, No. 60 Ryan Preece and No. 7 Justin Haley. Larson also won the Truck Series race on Friday and finished fourth in the Xfinity Series race on Saturday.
It was a wild weekend all around, from closing lap passes from Larson and Palou to Piastri’s dominance. What an amazing week for racing!