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Alonso takes victory in China
- Details
- Category: Formula1
- Published on Monday, 15 April 2013 08:15
- Written by Blair Bartels
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso has taken a dominant victory in the Chinese Grand Prix, taking an early lead that was unchallenged to lead home Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton, who only just held off a late race charge on soft tyres by Sebastien Vettel.
Starting off pole, Hamilton led the field away while a slow start from Raikkonen allowed the Ferraris of Alonso and Felipe Massa into second and third, although the Finn was able to hold off Nico Rosberg into turn one. Both Ferrari’s then made their way past Hamilton on lap five as the soft tyres all got towards their used by date.
Hamilton and Alonso both stopped on lap six, with Massa making the crucial mistake of staying out for one extra lap on what were destroyed soft tyres, leaving Alonso to skip away while Raikkonen worked on catching and passing Hamilton, but not before Sergio Perez moved across on the Finn, damaging the nose cone on the Lotus, although only minimally and the team elected not to change it.
V8 Supercars return to sprint racing at Symmons Plains
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- Category: V8Supercars
- Published on Tuesday, 02 April 2013 10:19
- Written by Blair Bartels
This weekend sees the V8 Supercars return to shorter sprint-style races at Tasmania’s Symmons Plains raceway.
The meeting is the first to feature the new twin 60-kilometre races format on Saturday, with two 100 kilometre races on the Sunday. Crews will still cover the same distance as last year on each day, but in twin races which are bound to create harder racing.
Combined with a raft of race winners over the start of the season, the Tasmania round is set to be hugely exciting. The short track always creates exciting racing, as does the turn four hairpin, one of the slowest corners in Australian motorsport.
Read more: V8 Supercars return to sprint racing at Symmons Plains
New Zealand Rally Championship starts this weekend
- Details
- Category: Rally
- Published on Tuesday, 02 April 2013 10:33
- Written by Blair Bartels
This weekend sees the opening round of the Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally Championship, the Rally Otago.
Running over two days, the event is based in Dunedin and heads as far north as Oamaru with several stages on day two also running south and south-east of the host city.
As defending champion, Richard Mason is top seed but a new system means that the top five will select their running order, meaning that Mason, Hayden Paddon, Chris West, Alex Kelsey or Emma Gilmour could all be first on the road. With wet weather forecast, the possibility of running first on the road is not as bad as first thought.
Read more: New Zealand Rally Championship starts this weekend
Hyundai V8 SuperTourer under build
- Details
- Category: V8 Supertourers
- Published on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 21:42
- Written by Blair Bartels
V8 SuperTourer Managing Director Mark Petch has confirmed that a Hyundai i45 V8 SuperTourer is currently under construction in New Zealand.
Although no official announcement has come from either V8ST or Hyundai NZ, Petch made the somewhat unusual move of announcing on the ten-tenths motorsport forum that chassis number 22 is carrying the bodywork of a Hyundai i45.
The SuperTourer format of a controlled engine works well for Hyundai, with no requirement for the manufacturer to produce its own V8 engine.
ITM400 Auckland confirms four race format
- Details
- Category: V8Supercars
- Published on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 21:38
- Written by Blair Bartels
It has been confirmed that the ITM 400 Auckland, New Zealand’s round of the V8 Supercar series to be held at the newly revamped Pukekohe Park Raceway, will be contested over four 100km sprint races.
Two races, each 100km in length, will be held on both the Saturday and the Sunday, with a 15 minute qualifying session on each day also. That equates to 30 laps per race and with no pit-stops, it will be hard, action packed racing in each of the four races.
“This is back to a pure sprint format with no pit stops, so strategy doesn’t really come into it. Expect some desperate manoeuvres as the pressure to get to the front gets a bit much for some,” says ITM 400 Auckland ambassador and former Pukekohe V8 Supercar round winner, Greg Murphy.
Jamie Whincup was in town for the announcement along with the old-style V8 Supercar being driven in the Dunlop series by Casey Stoner and took the opportunity to take Mayor Len Brown for a high speed ride to work.
