Let’s start out with the major news in the racing world from the week. F1 President and CEO Stefano Domenicali said that the Imola Grand Prix might not be on the F1 calendar soon. He said that “It will be increasingly difficult to have two races in the same country because interest in F1 is growing and it’s a situation we will have to deal with in the coming months.”
There are only two countries that have multiple races on the F1 calendar, Italy and the United States. There was also a trademark filed by Formula One for the “Chicago GP” in mid-2024 and rumors that were floating around just after the trademark was filed that F1 was looking at its addition to the calendar post-2026. If that’s the case, it would mean F1 would have four races in the United States while one of the most iconic tracks on the grid would no longer be on the calendar.
Katherine Legge, of England, prepares to drive during practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Moto Speedway in Indianapolis, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)
Exciting NASCAR news came out on Tuesday, April 15. Katherine Legge, who made her Cup Series debut in Phoenix earlier this year, announced she would race 12 more races in NASCAR this year, with five in the Cup Series and seven in the Xfinity Series. She starts her 12-race stint this weekend in the Xfinity Series Rockingham race and ends it in Richmond with the Cup Series. In the Xfinity Series, she will be racing with Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport and in the Cup Series she will be racing with Live Fast Motorsports. Other than racing in the NASCAR Cup, Xfinity and ARCA Menards series’ she also has experience in IndyCar, Champ Car, Formula E, Formula Renault UK and British F3.
Now, let’s move on to the racing that happened this past weekend. On Friday, April 11, the Craftsman Truck Series took place at Bristol where Daniel Hemric started on pole after qualifying got cancelled earlier in the day due to rain while Tyler Ankrum, Chandler Smith, Corey Heim and Jake Garcia completed the top five. During the race, there were eight cautions that took up 66 yellow flag laps out of a possible 250 laps.
Stage one of the Truck Series Race was won by Smith with Ben Rhodes, Ankrum, Layne Riggsgs and Hemric round out the top five, while Stage Two was won by Bayley Currey with Smith, Kaden Honeycutt, Ankrum, Heim Tanner Gray, Crafton, Garcia, Rhodes and Day following behind.
The most important part of the race came at lap 237, as a caution came out with just 13 laps to go. During the restart, Smith took a steady lead with Larson, who was behind Smith at the restart jumping second place Heim in the order and with just six laps to go Larson could not catch Smith who earned his first win of the season. The rest of the top 10 was Larson, Heim, Ankrum, Rhodes, Riggs, Garcia, Honeycutt, Caruth and Gio Ruggiero.
Moving on to the Saturday Xfinity race, also at Bristol, where Kyle Larson started on pole with Connor Zilisch, Carson Kvapil, Justin Allgaier, Ryan Sieg, Sam Mayer, Nick Sanchez, Sammy Smith, Parker Retzlaff and Harrison Burton starting behind him. During the race, there were five cautions taking up 44 yellow flag laps out of a possible 300.
Stage one was won by Mayer and was followed by Sieg, Larson, Smith and Allgaier. Stage two was won by Larson with Allgaier, Smith, Kvapil, Zilisch, Love, Jones, Corey Heim, William Sawalich and Mayer completing the rest of the top 10.
The race was mostly led by Larson who won easily and without contest. The win was also Larson’s 16th victory in the Xfinity Series and his first in the series this season.
Onto the NASCAR Cup race where Alex Bowman took pole with Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and following behind to make the top five.
Stage one was won by Larson and was followed by Hamlin, Haley, Bowman and Hocevar, while stage two was also won by Larson with Bowman, Bell, Hocevar, Hamlin, Haley, Gibbs, Blaney, Chase Briscoe and Tyler Reddick following behind.
The Cup race, much like the Xfinity race, was dominated by Larson but this time Larson led 411 out of 500 laps. Larson was not able to complete the NASCAR sweep which is winning the Cup, Xfinity and Truck races but he was able to get two out of three wins.
The next Cup Series race is at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, April 27 at 3 p.m.
Now onto Formula One for the Bahrain Grand Prix, where Oscar Piastri qualified in pole position followed by Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Pierre Gasly and Kimi Antonelli. The Bahrain Grand Prix was exciting all around with a lot of good overtaking for the most part. Piastri led the majority of the laps and held over a 15 second lead to Russell at the end of the race for his second win this season. The last podium spot went to Lando Norris who overtook Leclerc with five laps to go to keep his championship lead over his teammate Piastri.
Then there was IndyCar where Kyle Kirkwood took Pole position followed by Colton Herta, Alex Palou, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Ericsson and Scott McLaughlin.
The IndyCar race was mostly between Andretti Global’s Kirkwood and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Palou. Kirkwood would end up winning the race by just over 3.2 seconds to Palou who fought till the very end. The difference was a quick pitstop by Andretti, which prevented the undercut and kept Kirkwood ahead of Palou for the rest of the race. The last podium spot went to Christian Lundgaard who gained nine positions throughout the race after he didn’t qualify very well in qualifying.