SAN JOSE, Calif. (Feb. 17, 2014) – K-PAX Racing, winners of three GT Class championships in the Pirelli World Challenge sports car series, today announced it will field a pair of McLaren 12C GT3 cars in in its quest to win a fourth championship in 2014. Driving the McLarens will be Alex Figge, 33, of Denver, Colo., a veteran sports car and open-wheel racer who has won five Pirelli World Challenge races in the last three seasons and Robert Thorne, 23, of Littleton, Colo., a talented road racer who most…
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Formula 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 – 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…
Read MoreFormula 1 – Preseason Team Power Rankings
Welcome to the 2013 Formula 1 season! Well…sorta I suppose. Cars are not on the grid in Australia, but we are through launches and only a few weeks from the opening round of the 2013 campaign. We have had two testing sessions occur with one left in Barcelona. Testing is never a really good way to tell anything, so we will launch the first power rankings of the season anyway. I will break them up into team and driver’s rankings separately as a driver performance does not always match the…
Read MoreF1 – McLaren Announce 2013 Launch Date
McLaren has announced today that it will launch its 2013 challenger on the 31st of January. This gives us now two confirmed launch dates as we get ready for the holidays and the frenzy that follows. Think back to last season, McLaren was the only team that opted to not run a step nose on its machine. The car was one of the better if not the best looking one in the paddock because of it. The interesting point of this launch will be the start of the Button/Perez era.…
Read MoreEpisode 158 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWhile Mike is off playing with bears in the woods somewhere in the Smokey Mountains, Shaun and Doug talk about the confirmation of Red Bull Media House as the 2013 Promoter for the WRC, the reconfiguration of the WRC classes, Formula 1 silly season with Hamilton to Mercedes and Perez to McLaren, and we spend a lot of time talking about the IZOD IndyCar Series 2013 race schedule. Sit back and enjoy as we stagger, stumble, and stutter our way through this week’s motorsports…
Read MoreEpisode 155 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun, Mike, and Doug as they rehash the weekend that was Monza for the Formula 1 traveling circus. We also preview Rally GB and talk a little bit more about the ALMS/Grand-Am merger (buyout). This is it! Championship week for the IZOD IndyCar Series and also the Mazda Road to Indy for those title that have yet to be decided. Sit back and enjoy the show and as always, thanks for the download!
Read MoreEpisode 136 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and Doug as they look back at IndyCar in Brazil and WRC in Argentina. That and lots of great discussions on engines. Could this be the beginning of the end for Lotus? Not if INDYCAR has anything to do with it.
Read MoreEpisode 135 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and Mike this week as they recap the Bahrain Grand Prix. Did the media over hype the violence? We also break down the event by session. We look ahead to Rally Argentina as the WRC is set for its first enduro rally of the year. IndyCar? Oh yeah, we got plenty of that. We talk all about engines, the 500 entry list up till now and make our predictions for this weekends action in Brazil. As always, thanks for the download and…
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