Through various racing-related (or racing-adjacent) connections, I’ve been fortunate to gain a number of friends and acquaintances, all of whom I enjoy discussions about racing. One of my fellow “chatnecks” (an inside joke among one subgroup) wrote up his account of this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Thanks speeddemon787! You can’t make this stuff up for this year’s 24 Hours of LeMans with Porsche winning the overall race for the second year in a row. How can you feel about Toyota’s devastating lost after dominating most of the…
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Le Mans – A Tale of Three Minutes and Two F’s
Or “How I learned to love Le Mans and hate the ACO.” I have a ritual for watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Of course, I watch as much pre-race as I can (usually through a bootleg internet stream) and through the start. My favorite times are the “golden hours” at sunset and sunrise. Watching sunset isn’t much of a challenge, but I usually fail to see the sunrise, as I invariably fall asleep about an hour before sunrise. None of our readers care about my sleep habits. You…
Read MoreF1 – Suzuka: The race didn’t matter
Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix was preceded by the threat of typhoon Phanfone, which wound up being a part of the action on Sunday. Then Alonso drops his bombshell that he’ll leave Ferrari after this season. Not to be outdone, Sebastian Vettel announces that he’s leaving Infiniti Red Bull Racing. While not an official proclamation, Christian Horner let an F-bomb slip: Seb is headed to Ferrari. Phanfone didn’t show up until Sunday, with the race starting on wet tires behind the Safety Car. Rain came in and a red flag was…
Read MoreTUSC – GT Classes Shine Brightly at Daytona
As the Tudor United Sports Car Championship kicked off on Saturday, a lot of attention was centered on the GT classes. Both GT Le Mans (GTLM) and GT Daytona (GTD) had been the brightest stars in their troubled series before the merger, and on Saturday the classes again showed the world that GT racing is becoming the big-ticket item in North America. With a number of new cars making their debut, and new teams racing with new cars for the first time, the GTLM and GTD classes saw some of…
Read MoreFlag to Flag – 18 September *Update 1:58 Eastern*
In an attempt to try something new, I would like to test a flag to flag post that will be a running microblog if you will of key stories throughout the day on the various series we cover here at the site. This will be a living and breathing post that will be compiled throughout the day with bigger stories getting a whole article dedicated. A lot of these stories will be linked to pages like Autosport and Racer, but will have a little sprinkling of opinion for good measure!…
Read MoreEpisode 203 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadShaun, Mike W, Kevin, and Doug talk about the Singapore-ish shenanigans in NASCAR (yes, we talk a bit about NASCAR), the punishment of Scott Dixon in IndyCar, more chatter about the IMS road course, and we look at potential changes in the 2014 schedule, Doug recaps the USF2000 races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and congratulates the MidWest Division SCCA drivers who brought home hardware from the SCCA Solo Nationals. In Formula 1, Massa is out and Kimi is in, tires are still up…
Read MoreFormula 1 – Team Power Rankings Ahead of Chinese Grand Prix
It has been a long three week vacation, but Formula 1 is back this week as we visit Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix. Nico Rosberg put Mercedes AMG on the top step last season, but the team doubts they can follow up the performance (I agree). Here are how the teams look after the Malaysian Grand Prix. 1) Red Bull – Say what you want about the events that happened a few weeks ago in Malaysia, but the fact is Red Bull’s form is on par with their high…
Read MoreFormula 1 – Ferrari Gamble and Lose
In a brief span of a couple laps, Fernando Alonso committed more mistakes than he had all of the 2012 Formula 1 season. It started by shoving Sebastian Vettel which led to a severely damaged front wing. The wing was completely diagonal compared to its usual horizontal position. The wounded wing shot sparks out as it made contact with the quickly drying tarmac. Common sense would say pit and change the wing. This situation was not common sense at all. The fact of the matter was the track was drying…
Read MoreFormula 1 – Post Australia Team Power Rankings
Not a lot changed amongst the top three teams after the Australian Grand Prix. While Lotus struck first blood, Ferrari had a strong team showing with Alonso and a resurgent Felipe Massa. Red Bull also performed well during the course of the weekend with tire struggles hampering their ability to take advantage of their 1-2 start. Williams had a primarily disappointing weekend. While Valtteri Bottas finished his first ever Formula 1 race, Pastor Maldonado looked like a rookie and complained all weekend about how the car was junk. Marussia surprised…
Read MoreFormula 1 – FP2 Notes; Vettel Sweeps Practice
Sebastian Vettel stormed to P1 in both practice sessions from Albert Park as the 2013 Formula 1 season kicks off. Vettel’s Red Bull was the class of the field as he and the team picked up where they left off at the end of last season. There was a lot of interesting data collected as the super soft tire compound took center stage. The new Pirelli rubber was due to be faster by approximately a second, but suffered an extremely short life with times dropping almost immediately. The real surprise…
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