After its rain-affected Memorial Day weekend, NASCAR had another brush with inclement weather last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway, but rebounded after a brief delay. The delayed NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Monday …
After its rain-affected Memorial Day weekend, NASCAR had another brush with inclement weather last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway, but rebounded after a brief delay.
The delayed NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Monday averaged a 1.92 Nielsen rating and 3.399 million viewers on FOX, per numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com, which compares reasonably well with the 2.20/3.869m for 2022’s race on Sunday, also on FOX.
Sunday’s slightly rain-impacted WWTR Cup race averaged 1.27/2.160m on FS1, down from 1.47/2.502m last year.
The first race for the NTT IndyCar Series on the new downtown Detroit Grand Prix course averaged 0.65/1.047m on NBC. Including streaming numbers, the race averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 1.098m, per NBC Sports, which says it ranks as the most-watched IndyCar race outside of the Indy 500 since the St. Petersburg season opener (1.223m TAD) The TAD was also up a healthy 179% over last year’s Detroit race at Belle Isle, which had a TAD of 394,000 when it was telecast on USA Network.
NBC Sports reports that through seven races, the 2023 IndyCar season is averaging a TAD of 1.835 million viewers, up 2% vs. 2022.
After its washout at Imola, Formula 1 returned to action with the Spanish Grand Prix and averaged 0.58/1.040m on ESPN’s live telecast, down fractionally from 2022’s edition which ran in May (0.59/1.146m).
The NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Portland on Saturday averaged 0.46/824,000 on FS1, down in rating but identical in viewers to 2022 (0.56/824K). Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series race on FS1 at WWTR averaged 0.42/698,000, compared to 0.45/663K last year.
Last weekend’s 18-49 age demographic numbers (not including streaming) had F1 up front with 453,000 viewers, followed by NASCAR Cup (413K), IndyCar (177K) Xfinity (126K) and Trucks (124K).
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has praised the team’s subtle development of its 2023 car that has kept it with a clear advantage over rivals despite last year’s budget cap penalty. The FIA reduced Red Bull’s aerodynamic testing restriction …
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has praised the team’s subtle development of its 2023 car that has kept it with a clear advantage over rivals despite last year’s budget cap penalty.
The FIA reduced Red Bull’s aerodynamic testing restriction (ATR) time after it was found to have breached the budget cap last year, giving it less time to develop its car this year. After carrying through the clear advantage over the rest of the field it had last year into this season and going unbeaten so far in 2023, Horner says the way the team has developed the car has been impressive.
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“It enables us to be – the way that we’re strategically using the ATR because of course, we have to balance it for this year and for next year, with the development that’s currently going on,” Horner said. “So the team are just doing an incredible, incredible job being extremely efficient.
“You can see we’ve very subtly developed the car since since Bahrain, we’ve seen others bringing significant upgrades to that and the margin has remained pretty much the same from where it was in Bahrain. So that’s hugely encouraging to everybody in Milton Keynes who are doing an outstanding job at the moment.”
With Toto Wolff praising Red Bull after qualifying – stating that “Verstappen is just on a different level. It pisses me off to say that, but that is the reality. It’s a meritocracy, they have just done the best job, the driver is driving excellent, and they’re just far away.”
Horner says observers shouldn’t only praise the driver despite his recent dominance.
“Well, we spent, what, seven years trying to get back into a winning position and losing hurts. I think that we’ve worked very hard to get into this position. I think the whole team as a unit – and it’s not just Max, it’s the whole team is just operating at such a high level.
“We have a phenomenal car, we’ve got two great drivers and Max is is just continuing to evolve as a driver. He’s just becoming more and more polished, and the capacity that he has within the car is truly impressive.”
Carlos Sainz says Ferrari’s weaknesses came to the fore in the Spanish Grand Prix as he was unable to push to fight with the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers. The Spaniard started his home race from second on the grid and attacked Max Verstappen into …
Carlos Sainz says Ferrari’s weaknesses came to the fore in the Spanish Grand Prix as he was unable to push to fight with the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers.
The Spaniard started his home race from second on the grid and attacked Max Verstappen into Turn 1 but then faded as the race progressed, losing out to both Mercedes cars and then Sergio Perez late on. After his encouraging qualifying, Sainz says he knew what Ferrari’s limitations were going to be and he had to focus solely on looking after his tires.
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“I knew he was on a medium tire so maybe I had a bit more grip but he defended well, ran me wide and did what he had to do,” Verstappen said. “I could have taken the escape road, decided to stay legal in a way, let’s say. I had to go for it.
“Honestly I just spent the whole race managing tires because we know we are very hard on them. With this high deg circuit I just couldn’t push, we know it’s a weakness of our car and coming to a high deg circuit, two-stop race we were just managing the whole way, trying to make it to the target laps of the stint and still falling short in a few of them.
“So yeah the weaknesses of the car are coming alive at a circuit like this, with the high speed corners and how hard we are on tires. But also shows (in qualifying) we must have done a pretty good lap, I think (the race) was again a bit back to where the car is in race pace. Probably this sort of track is not great for us.”
Despite slipping to fifth in the race, Sainz was less concerned about the struggles he was facing but had his interest caught by Mercedes’ step forward.
“The biggest surprise was how close Mercedes was in this race. Our pace, we finished 45 seconds, it’s more or less where we finished in Miami where we finished in recent races. It’s just suddenly Mercedes has slotted in-between us and Red Bull and probably where Aston should have been, I don’t know what happened to Aston.”
Ferrari had some new parts in Spain that both drivers used during the race, but Sainz says there’s still more work to do to try and get more pace from the updated car.
“Last year we would have made it back to the top four, top five starting from pit lane. This year the field is tighter and it’s more difficult to make your way through. There’s work to do. Analysis to be done on this package. I trust that what we did is the right direction, now we need to start addressing our weaknesses with the bouncing, with the high-speed, and with this new package and direction hopefully we can start bringing performance.”
Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin had to work hard to find pace in its car at the Spanish Grand Prix in contrast to other venues this season. Aston Martin was second in the constructors’ championship heading into the race in Barcelona, with Alonso …
Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin had to work hard to find pace in its car at the Spanish Grand Prix in contrast to other venues this season.
Aston Martin was second in the constructors’ championship heading into the race in Barcelona, with Alonso having finished second to Max Verstappen in Monaco. The Spaniard qualified ninth and started eighth after picking up damage in qualifying, but despite a repaired car he could only gain one position to finish seventh, his worst result of 2023 so far.
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“The track was not the best for us,” Alonso said. “From FP1 we were on a completely different set-up from what we predicted so we had to work a lot during the weekend to be happy with the car, which was kind of new for us. We were always happy from FP1 while here we had to work a little bit more.
“The upgrades from the other people I think they maybe didn’t show the full potential in Monaco, Miami, street circuits, so here we saw today that maybe they are a little bit stronger. But I’m not worried, there’s going to be better weekends and worse weekends, and we will have our opportunity in Canada.”
Lance Stroll led Alonso home to ensure Aston Martin picked up 14 points on Sunday, and Alonso says the return is still a solid one given the lack of performance compared to Mercedes.
“I think we didn’t have the pace so that was the biggest problem. It was not that we were unlucky or different strategies or anything like that. It’s that we were slow compared to the Mercedes, slow on the soft, slow on the hard and we just concentrated on the Alpines, AlphaTauris and kept up the pace with the Ferraris.
“At the end of the day we outscored the Ferraris as they only scored with Carlos (Sainz). We lost points with the Mercedes but they have done a better job this weekend so let’s try the next one.”
A top ten result in the Spanish Grand Prix came as “a massive relief” for Alfa Romeo, admits Zhou Guanyu. Alfa Romeo had scored on just two occasions so far in 2023 prior to the race in Barcelona, but Zhou delivered an impressive drive to finish …
A top ten result in the Spanish Grand Prix came as “a massive relief” for Alfa Romeo, admits Zhou Guanyu.
Alfa Romeo had scored on just two occasions so far in 2023 prior to the race in Barcelona, but Zhou delivered an impressive drive to finish ninth and move the team level with Haas in the constructors’ championship. After fighting with Yuki Tsunoda before securing two points, Zhou says it’s a boost for the whole team.
“That feels like a massive relief for us, and for the team here and back in Hinwil,” Zhou said. “It was a tricky start to the season for the team. We finally got some points that we deserved, and the car was mega. I was feeling comfortable out there, taking the right chance when I had the opportunities. We executed the race.
“ I would say (it’s one of my best drives). It’s one of the one or two on the table.”
Zhou crossed the line in tenth place but was promoted due to a five-second time penalty that Tsunoda was given for forcing the Chinese driver off track, something Zhou says was an obvious penalty in his view.
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“It was very straightforward. I was ahead before braking into Turn 1. Mid-corner, I was actually giving a lot of space and then I saw he wasn’t stopping, tried to release the brake, ran me off, which I had to take avoiding action on the escape road, otherwise we would be crashing together.
“That was tricky after that, because I had so much rubbish on my tires. In the end, I was able to keep behind in the right position and get the position back.”
The result came with Zhou’s teammate Valtteri Bottas struggling massively in Spain, with the Finn believing he had an issue with his car in much the same way Charles Leclerc felt for Ferrari on Saturday.
“For me it’s pretty clearly there was something not right with the car, because I was more than one second per lap off, just sliding around,” Bottas said. “Whether it was a mechanical or aero issue I cannot say, because the balance was not, like, way off, but it was just lack of overall grip. So, we’ll see if there’s something damaged in the car…
“Either something mechanical has been installed wrongly, before qualifying, something that affects the ride height or something, or there’s something aero wise. I would have thought so.
“I’m really pleased that we got two points – I just had a chat with Zhou and he was saying the pace was quite good. It’s good, but not for me! It’s good to see that the upgrades are doing the job.”
Yuki Tsunoda believes his penalty in the Spanish Grand Prix was “ridiculous” and “really unfair” after losing out on points for forcing Zhou Guanyu off track, Zhou had tried to overtake Tsunoda around the outside of Turn 1 with 12 laps remaining but …
Yuki Tsunoda believes his penalty in the Spanish Grand Prix was “ridiculous” and “really unfair” after losing out on points for forcing Zhou Guanyu off track,
Zhou had tried to overtake Tsunoda around the outside of Turn 1 with 12 laps remaining but the AlphaTauri driver held on, with Zhou taking to the escape road and protesting he had been forced off. The stewards investigated the incident and handed Tsunoda a five-second time penalty that demoted him from ninth at the checkered flag to 12th, stating that “Car 24 was in front at and after the apex of Turn 1 and hence under the Driving Standards Guidelines was entitled to racing room”.
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In response, Tsunoda said: “It was a ridiculous penalty and it feels really unfair. That’s it.
“I left him room and I feel like he just gave it up in the early stages and went outside. He got caught out and there was still space outside there. I gave pressure but there was still space. I understand why it was a penalty but it feels very harsh.”
Tsunoda himself felt he was also wronged because he wasn’t given the opportunity to argue his case despite the incident occurring late in the race, even though stewards attempt to decide on racing incidents without driver input.
“I didn’t hear those things and I only heard after the checkered flag. I was really happy but after the radio … I was a bit curious if the team actually fight back to not get a penalty. But anyway, I guess they did. But it’s good to have a bit of discussion with the FIA because they gave five seconds without any discussion and then the race is over. It feels unfair.”
From Zhou’s point of view, the Alfa Romeo driver felt he had to take evasive action or the pair would have collided.
“At the end, I knew I had the pace to take Yuki,” Zhou said. “I had DRS, I was half a car ahead going into the corner, but I wasn’t given any space and didn’t have any other choice than to take the escape route to avoid contact.”
Max Verstappen wants Red Bull to keep improving despite his dominant performance at the Spanish Grand Prix extending his run of victories to three races. Red Bull has won every race so far this year but after seeing Sergio Perez perform well in …
Max Verstappen wants Red Bull to keep improving despite his dominant performance at the Spanish Grand Prix extending his run of victories to three races.
Red Bull has won every race so far this year but after seeing Sergio Perez perform well in Baku, Verstappen has hit back with wins in Miami, Monaco and now Barcelona. His latest success came after setting the pace in every practice session, taking pole position and leading every lap — as well as setting the fastest lap — but he says Red Bull shouldn’t become complacent.
“It’s a good period, but we have to keep on working and trying to find more performance,” Verstappen said. “I’m happy in the car and I think the last few race weekends have been definitely a lot more positive for me. But this is one weekend where I think it went really well, but we also know that maybe some other tracks it will not be like this. So still a lot of races to come where we have to perform really well to try and win the race.”
The only real challenge Verstappen faced on Sunday was when Carlos Sainz attacked him around the outside of the first corner, but from there on he was untroubled by any other rivals.
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“I think it was important…to try and keep the lead into Turn 1. I know it was quite tight but I actually had a really good start, and then from there I just tried to manage the pace on the medium. I knew everyone behind me mainly was on a soft and especially those last eight laps of that stint I could really create a big gap.
“Then we went onto the hard tire and I actually expected them to be a little better but somehow they didn’t have a lot of grip and I was actually sliding around quite a bit. Of course the pace was still OK, but I couldn’t really create much more of a gap like I would have liked. But then we just did the amount of laps we had to do on that tire and pitted for the soft and that felt a lot nicer to drive.”
There was also some slight chatter on team radio as Verstappen received a black and white flag for exceeding track limits — leaving him one error from a 5s time penalty — but he says it wasn’t a point of concern as he still went on to set the fastest lap.
“I went over the white line three times! It happens sometimes; some tracks it’s a bit easier to do and I was struggling a little bit with the harder tires to keep it within the white lines, but I knew once…I had that last warning that I had to keep it within the white lines, but it’s not an issue really.
“I kept it within the white lines, I just went a bit faster on the lap, so I didn’t do anything wrong. They don’t know how much pace I have in the car when they tell me, ‘This is the fastest lap, don’t bother.’ But I knew that I could do it, so I just had to keep it within the white lines, but this is something I think we can laugh about already. I was laughing about it with Helmut (Marko) after the race so I’m pretty sure that they’re quite happy.”
Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes’ race pace and ability to get both cars on the podium at the Spanish Grand Prix made for a “very special” result for the team. George Russell climbed from 12th to third behind Hamilton, who had comfortably cleared Lance …
Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes’ race pace and ability to get both cars on the podium at the Spanish Grand Prix made for a “very special” result for the team.
George Russell climbed from 12th to third behind Hamilton, who had comfortably cleared Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz to end up as Max Verstappen’s nearest challenger in Barcelona. With Mercedes moving up to second in the constructors’ championship and becoming the first team other than Red Bull to score a double podium, Hamilton says the race takes on added significance after recent upgrades were introduced.
“This one was very special,” Hamilton said. “I think we got a great reception from the crowd here. And to be able to share the podium with my teammate is really special, given just the journey that we’ve been on together to try and close the gap to the guys ahead. This is a really amazing day for us.
“The car felt great today. Friday was a real struggle with the balance; it was way out the window. It was very, very hard to drive, very unpredictable, and then we did some great work overnight. We’ve got a great team with Mick (Schumacher) back at the simulator on Friday night — he did some great work which helped us get on the right track on Saturday.
“I think we did pretty decent work in trying to understand the different downforce levels. And the race today…the car felt great, honestly. I couldn’t match the times that Max was doing, but I think…for George to come from 12th to third is just remarkable. A really awesome result for us as a team.”
Perhaps the biggest threat to Hamilton’s race was contact with Lando Norris at the second corner, with the McLaren driver running into the back of the Mercedes and damaging his own front wing.
“I just felt a big hit from behind. Obviously Max and Carlos went quite wide and deep into Turn 1. But then they were coming back across, and I basically got in the wake so I had to be patient, and then I got a hit from behind.
“I think it was a shame for Lando because he did such an amazing job yesterday. It’s great to see McLaren up there on the second row. And I think today, probably, even if he was ahead of me going into the corner, we would have overtaken him because we had slightly better pace I would say, race-trim wise. It ended up not being a great result for him. If he was just a little bit more patient today, I think he would have probably had a better result, but we live and we learn.”
Mercedes has been fined €10,000 ($10,700) for a breach of parc ferme regulations relating to Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s physiotherapists in the Spanish Grand Prix. The FIA has been clamping down on driver physiotherapists in parc ferme over …
Mercedes has been fined €10,000 ($10,700) for a breach of parc ferme regulations relating to Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s physiotherapists in the Spanish Grand Prix.
The FIA has been clamping down on driver physiotherapists in parc ferme over the last year, with a document released ahead of each race outlining the post-race procedures highlighting the fact that, “Driver physios must wait outside the cool-down room behind the podium until the podium ceremony has concluded following the instructions given to all teams by the Media Delegate.”
In Austria last year, the physiotherapists for the top three of Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Hamilton were all found to have breached the instructions, leading to suspended €10,000 fines at the time. Those fines expired at the end of last season, but Mercedes is the first team to be summoned for a similar topic since.
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“The Stewards received a report from the Media Delegate, which was subsequently confirmed by video evidence, that the physios / drivers’ assistants of Cars 44 and 63 entered parc ferme in violation of the Post Race Interview and Podium Ceremony Procedure that was published prior to the race ‘for the orderly conduct of the event’.
“Article 9.15.1 of the FIA International Sporting Code places the responsibility for the actions on the part of any person providing a service, on the Competitor to whom the service is provided.”
As part of last year’s incident in Austria, the FIA warned that team personnel could lose accreditation for regular breaches as it looks to eradicate the practice of drivers interacting with their physiotherapists prior to the end of the podium procedure. However, the stewards again opted for a fine on this occasion.
Max Verstappen scored a rare grand slam victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, leading every lap from pole and logging the fastest lap of the race on his way to a commanding 24-second victory. Verstappen’s win was only very briefly in doubt at the start …
Max Verstappen scored a rare grand slam victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, leading every lap from pole and logging the fastest lap of the race on his way to a commanding 24-second victory.
Verstappen’s win was only very briefly in doubt at the start of the race, when a strong launch by front-row starter Carlos Sainz had them running side by side into the braking zone at Turn 1. But the Dutchman had the inside line, which forced the Spaniard to yield and concede the place and consolidate second.
Verstappen was rarely spotted after that, building enough of a buffer to comfortably hold the lead after his two pit stops and stamp his authority all over the race, extending his championship lead to 53 points.
“It’s a big pleasure to drive with a car like this,” he said. “A win here, it’s incredible.
“We had another strong weekend and that’s of course what I like to see from myself and the team, and hopefully we can just keep that up throughout the year.”
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Sainz was hopeful of holding second, but his Ferrari was no match for the resurgent upgraded Mercedes car, with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell charging up the field to complete the podium.
Hamilton launched from fourth but was lucky to make it to the end of the first lap without a puncture after Lando Norris nosed his rear-left tire through Turn 2. The McLaren car lost its front wing, but the Mercedes was able to continue to pursue a podium finish.
Sainz pushed Verstappen hard into the first turn, with the resulting concertina spoiling Norris’s day. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Sainz attempted to pre-empt the undercut by switching from softs to mediums on lap 15, but Hamilton reported his soft tires were holding up fine and extended his stint. The Briton ran nine laps deeper into the race before making his first stop and rejoined 2.4s behind the Ferrari. He took just four laps to catch and pass Sainz before galloping to a secure second place.
“What a result for our team,” Hamilton said. “We definitely didn’t expect to have the result we had today.
“A big, big thank you to everyone back at the factory for continuing to push to bring us a little bit closer to the Bulls.”
Sainz’s podium hopes were fading fast, and it was the impressive Russell who would deprive him of a home rostrum.
Russell climbed from 12th to eighth on the first lap and ran even deeper than Hamilton before making his first stop. He entered the lane from second place, rejoined fifth and swept past Lance Stroll and Sainz in just 10 laps, passing the Ferrari with a big lunge into the first turn.
“Kudos to the team for giving me a really great car today,” he said. “That was a really fun race for us.
“A sign of things to come hopefully for us and the team.”
Sainz’s misery wasn’t yet finished, with Perez next to charge through from his out-of-position 11th on the grid. The Mexican was up to fifth after his last stop, which put him on a fresh set of softs up against Sainz’s nine-lap-old hards.
The Ferrari driver never stood a chance, and with 13 laps to go he was deprived of fourth place with a move in the DRS zone.
Sainz was at least able to keep ahead of the Aston Martin drivers, with Lance Stroll enjoying a rare day as the lead teammate in sixth ahead of home favorite Fernando Alonso in seventh — although the Spaniard refused to use his superior late-race pace to pass the Canadian in the closing laps.
Esteban Ocon held his place at the head of midfield for Alpine in eighth, albeit two places down on his grid spot after Russell and Perez’s recoveries.
Yuki Tsunoda took the flag ninth but was demoted to 12th after serving a five-second penalty for forcing Zhou Guanyu off track at the first turn.
Zhou had lined up a move around the outside of the turn late in the race but felt he was run out of room and bailed into the run-off zone, an incident to which the stewards took a dim view. The penalty promoted Zhou to ninth and Pierre Gasly into 10th, the Frenchman scoring the final point of the grand prix after a successful late defense against Charles Leclerc’s limp recovery from a pit-lane start following his mystifyingly uncompetitive qualifying performance.
Oscar Piastri finished 13th and lapped ahead of Nyck de Vries and Nico Hulkenberg, whose impressive seventh on the grid was undone by terrible soft tire wear in his first stint.
Alex Albon was 16th ahead of the damage-affected Norris, Kevin Magnussen, Valtteri Bottas and American rookie Logan Sargeant.
