sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Sheldon Creed wins Gander Truck Series at Worldwide Technology Raceway

Sheldon Creed scored his third win in the 2020 Nascar Truck Series on Sunday after a late leap to lead after holding off the former series champion, Brett Moffitt by 0.881 seconds taking home the trophy. The 22-year-old also won a total of $155,000 in race bonuses, this was his second win this month, with the Truck Series having only three races. However, the Sunday’s race did not come around without drama as car No.2 driven by Sheldon Creed(GMS Racing) collided with car No.38 steered by Todd Gilliland(Front Row Motorsports) with just 40 laps remaining. This got Gilliland’s Ford out of action as he had to pit immediately. The American went on to finish a disappointing 24th even after being the winner of the 1st and 2nd stage of the race. Sheldon creed went on to apologise to Todd Gilliland, “Feels great, but I want to start by apologizing to the 38 (Todd Gilliland), It’s so hard to pass here and I got down into his inside and just was really loose getting in, He was really close to my door.” “They were having such a good day and me and Todd are buddies, I hate doing that to him. They are a strong team. He owes me one,” the 22-year-old Californian added. However Todd Gilliland was frustrated,“I think he (Sheldon Creed) knows what happened and I know what happened, He just drove in there over his head and got us. That’s racing. I just hate it.” Austin Hill(Hattori Racing Enterprises) finished 3rd as he continued as the leading champion by points. He was closely followed by Sam Meyer(GMS Racing) who had lead for 24 laps but was later beaten by Creed after the race restart with only 13 laps remaining. “I was just trying to play games on the restart and it didn’t work out in my favor obviously,” said the 17-year-old, “That’s what I get for playing games, I was a sitting duck really, I am proud of my GMS guys today.” Stewart Friesen(Halmar Friesen Racing) ended the Sunday battle 5th which was very commendable for the Canadian in a season that was not in his favour. The newbies Raphael Lessard(Kyle and Busch Motorsport) and Zane Smith(GMS Racing) finished 6th and 7th respectively.

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Lewis Hamilton pays tribute to Chadwick Boseman after his Belgium Grand Prix win

The defending champion Lewis Hamilto won his 89th grand prix this sunday at Spa-Francorchamps. This puts him two wins away from Michael Schumacher’s record 91 wins and may also equal the veteran’s seven title wins if he wins this year. The Mercedes’ driver only made one pitstop on lap 11 after the safety car came out after Antonio Giovinazzi(Alfa Romeo) and George Russel(Williams Racing) incident that saw their two cars off the race. The next 33 laps for Hamilton were successful although he had expressed concerns over his hard tyres which were vibrating. After finishing the race he did a ‘wakanda salute’ on the podium paying tribute to Chadwick Boseman who was the main actor in the movie ‘black panther’. The black american actor passed on Friday night after a 4-year battle with colon cancer. The 35-year-old had dedicated his pole position to Chadwick Boseman on Saturday. “Today’s a really important pole for me because I woke up to the saddest news of Chadwick passing away” “It’s been such a heavy year, I think, for all of us and it just really, really broke me so it was really not easy to get back in focus coming into today, with that hanging on my heart.” said Hamilton on Saturday after getting the pole position. His dedication to the ‘Black Panther’ actor paid off with his undisputed win at Spa. “As a kid, dreaming of superheroes, and finally seeing a superhero of the same colour for me was really a remarkable moment for the black community, I broke down when I heard the news,” said Hamilton after the race.

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Pierre Gasly gets the driver of the day after presenting a good show at Spa

Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly presented an impressive performance at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday evening’s Belgium grand prix. He finished the race position 8 which was a good performance and also a tremendous improvement from the Spanish Grand prix at Catalunya. The frenchman dedicated his success to Anthoine Hubert who passed on a year ago after a crash in the 2019 Formula 2 race at Spa. This was not the only factor giving him ‘the best driver of the day’, his car was the only one on the grid to start on the hard tyre and he also decided to stay out when the safety car came out after a crash that involved Antonio Giovinazzi(Alfa Romeo) and George Russel(Williams Racing). What impressed many was the impressive pass that he pulled off as he tried to pass Racing Point’s Sergio Perez while they were running downhill from La Source to Eau Rouge. The 24 year-old managed to squeeze between the RP20 and the barrier. “Honestly I thought we were in the wall,” Pierre Gasly recalled “I’m not kidding I was inside…I was like I can’t move more than that. And at that point we’re probably going 280 or 300km/h”. “Sergio is a hard racer,” Gasly continued “I knew it but there for sure, My heartbeat went slightly high when he started to squeeze me, but I was committed and I was like, there is no way I’m gonna lift, I’m gonna make this move work, and it was a great one.” Pierre Gasly also pulled off another pass on Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who tried to hold him off. He later commented on Ferrari’s problems saying he had seen their struggle with higher and lower wings and it was painful for him considering their achievements, however he was happy to be ahead of them. The AlphaTauri driver also admitted it wasn’t easy for him in the fist laps due to the hard tyres.”so I tried to keep it clean, stay close to the guys ahead. I was happy to make these two positions on lap one, because we didn’t expect that.”

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Jonathan Rea dominates Aragon WSBK as Bautista wins his first podium.

Jonathan Rea(Kawasaki Racing team WSBK) won the second race feature in Aragon with a 10 point championship lead despite a late mistake which saw his rivals closing in on him. Chaz Davies(Aruba IT Ducatti team) finished second despite trying very hard to overtake Rea who made a mistake on lap 14, he also tried to be top around turn 1 in the 15th lap but the reigning champion was able to hold him off. It was a fantastic day for Honda WSBK Team’s Alvaro Bautista who finished third in the Sunday afternoon’s race. He had started by being fourth which was also a best for his team, he got ahead of Redding(Aruba IT Racing) in the early stages of the race claiming his first podium for Honda since 2016 Magny-course. Bautista was the only rider to go on Pirelli SCX tyre. Team GoEleven’s Michael Reuben Rinaldi fought his way to complete 5th after Redding who finished 4th after being overtaken by Bautista and Chaz Davies. Michael van Der Mark finished 6th while the sister Honda bike with Leon Haslam finished 7th. Toprak Razgatlioglu(PATA Yamaha WSBK) completed the race 8th. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) ended the Sunday afternoon race in ninth and Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team) completing the top 10. The 8th, 9th and 10th position contenders were separated by a split second. The 11th place was closely followed by Xavi Fores(Kawasaki Pucceti Racing) as GRT Yamaha Junior team’s Garett Gerloff ranked 10th. The group of five riders from the 7th to 11th were having a really close competition fighting for 7th. BMW Motorrad rider Tom Sykes earned his points in the 12th position as his teammate Eugene Laverty finished 14th. The two BMW 1000RR’s were seperated by Federico Caricasulo(GRT Yamaha Junior team). Maximilian Scheib finished 15th closing the points. Loriz Baz(Ten Kate racing Yamaha) crashed in the fifth lap around turn 15 as Roman Ramos(OUTDO Kawasaki TPR) and Marco Melandri(Barni Racing) were also unable to finish the race.

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

2020 Belgian Formula 1: Lewis Hamilton leads Bottas home for a 1-2 Mercedes victory

Mercedes’ driver Lewis Hamilton won the Belgium grand prix at Spa-Francorchamps followed by his teammate Valtteri Bottas having a gap of 8.448 seconds between the two Mercedes’ cars. This made it the 4th victory for the brit to have earned at Spa. Redbull’s Max Verstappen finished third in the race making it his 7th podium in the 2020 Formula 1 season(a podium for every race so far). Max was 15.455 seconds slower than Hamilton. Bottas had tried to keep his teammate Lewis behind him in the onset of the race but was forced to remain behind through the La Source turn as he went to the outside. Thanks to the tow from Hamilton, Bottas was able to maintain his position but lost some speed through Eau Rouge which made him experience a challenge from Max’s Redbull. The Renault Formula 1 team has a reason to smile after Daniel Ricciardo finished 4th in the race only missing Verstappen by a mere 3.422 seconds. Esteban Ocon finished 5th after overtaking Verstappen’s teammate Alexander Albon in the final stages of the race. Maclaren’s Lando Norris followed in closely finishing seventh just 1.062s behind the No.6 Redbull. However, his conterpart at Mclaren Carlos Sainz did not start his race as his Mcl 35 car experienced a power unit problem which led to a faulty exhaust system. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took the 8th position as Daniil Kvyat, his teammate finished 11th missing the window to earn himself some points which were scooped by the Racing Point duo,Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez who got the 9th and 10th position respectively. The troubled Ferrari SF1000 drivers Sebastian vettel and Charles Leclerc Finished 13th and 14th respectively. There was a huge incident on the track as Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi lost control of his C39 and crashed on to the barriers on the outside of turn 14, due to the intensity of the crash a tyre from the Alfa Romeo bounced back onto the track as Kimi Raikonnen was able to manoeuvre through but it was too late for Williams’ driver George Russel to avoid the same. The Williams’ FW 43 hit the tyre rupturing the suspension system. The car went on to hit the barriers prompting the immediate deployment of the safety car, a lot of debris had remained on the track but was cleared for the race to continue. None of the drivers got hurt.

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Jonathan Rea emerges Victorious on Sunday’s Prosecco DOC Aragon superpole.

Reigning champion Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) secured the pole position for race 2 after closing in on Scott Redding’s championship lead. Rea had fallen behind Ten Kate Racing Yamaha’s Loriz Baz in the onset of the race which was similar to Saturday’s race but it only took two turns to regain the victory and even went further pulling away from the group of riders that was following him. The 33-year old was followed by saturday’s winner scott Redding(Ducatti Aruba IT Racing) and Michael van der Mark (PATA YAMAHA WorldSBK Official Team) came in third. Alvaro Bautista(Honda WSBK Team) came in fourth after a battle from the 7th position. This turned out to be his best position in the season and he will be able to battle for the podium in the Sunday afternoon’s race. Alex lowes ended the session in sixth place on his Toprak Razgatlioglu Yamaha while Michael Reuben Rinaldi (Team GoEleven) followed him closely in the 7th position. Loris Baz ended up 9th taking the 3rd row for Sunday afternoon’s race though he had exhibited promising moves on the first lap but later fell back. There was however an incident that occurred after Tom Sykes(BMW Motorrad WSBK) went off the track around turn 8 and 9 after a fierce battle with Chaz Davies(Aruba IT Racing Ducatti). He made contact with Leandro Mercado (Motocorsa Racing) as he was struggling to get back on track by making speeding Mercado hit him ,Tom Sykes was able to continue with the race after bouncing on the gravel trap as Mercado was taken for medical checkup. This incident is still under investigation.

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Scott Redding wins the superpole at Aragon as Chaz Davies follows

Saturday was a good day for the Aruba IT Ducatti racing team after getting 1-2 finish in the first WorldSBK race at Aragon. Scott however had started by being third in the first Prosecco DOC Aragon round after passing Loriz Baz around turn 1,who later continued to drop to the bottom. Jonathan Rea also had a rather slow start as he dropped from pole position to fourth but later managed to regain his lost positions after passing his teammate Alex on turn 12 to regain his lead. Alex Lowes later suffered a crash at the exit of turn 3 and found himself lucky as the other riders were able to navigate around the fallen Kawasaki rider. Despite the severity of the crash, the race was able to continue without any interruption. Scott Redding’s teammate, Chaz Davies made a very remarkable improvement after moving from 9th to 2nd and even challenging his teammate through the last laps showing the strength of the Ducatti Paningale V4R around the track. Despite Redding’s win at Aragon, he ended up ranking 8th in the overall classification and the third fastest Ducatti on the track as Chaz finished first and Team GoEleven’s Michael Reuben Rinaldi ranked 2nd. The feeling wasn’t great today but, in the afternoon, when we had Superpole and Race 1, the bike started to feel like my bike and I could use it how I wanted. The rest of the weekend, I’ve struggled a lot. You can see in the lap times I was struggling to go fast, and I really was not enjoying the weekend so far. The team did not give up on me and I didn’t give up on them, we worked together as a good team would, and we put together the package for the race. “This was the first time I was running these lap times in the race, so it was a bit unknown, I didn’t feel super comfortable.” Scott Redding said. “I was worried about tyres and the guys behind me and I wasn’t really focused on my own lap time.” ” I felt good, I felt like I could hold my own and that was the main thing. Going into the race, I felt like we needed to fight for a podium here. When we got off the start behind the Kawasakis I felt like I could win the race and that give me some motivation. I got passed by Jonny, I tried to make a gap but there was no gap coming. I was happy with him behind. I knew I had quite a good pace in the straights, so I didn’t have to always worry about battling.” added the 27-year-old.

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

William Byron takes first cup in the season finale.

Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron earned his first victory in his career on Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 season finale. In the two lap overtime restart, Byron grapped the lead from Denny Hamlin and held off his teammate Chase Elliot to take the victory. Byron said he had confidence in his team starting with the crew chief(Chad Knaus) and the guys who could get all the tyres in the pit stops and make the most of it. “It’s been a hard couple of years in the Cup Series and trying to get my first win and gel with this team.” ” These guys did an awesome job today and got us in the playoffs and it’s amazing.” “This is probably the hardest track to points-race.” William Byron continued. ” We had a great Stage 2 and kind of got back in the pack and got shuffled when everyone went singlefile, I thought my hopes were up there. And we were racing around Matt DiBenedetto (No. 21) and Jimmie Johnson(No. 48) in the final stage and I was like man, I’ve got to really make something happen.” An incident however occured at the front of the field involving 11 cars including Jimmie Johnson’s car and Joey Logano’s Team Penske Ford which had won the first two stages of the race. William Byron was a part of the close contact racing incident and his team was worried whether his car was damaged. Their strategies however paid off because Byron stayed out in the race restart instead of pitting and became the race leader when the caution came out. This happened on lap 152 when Tyler Reddick(No 8) cut infront Kyle Busch to take the lead of turn 4 making contact with Kurt Busch(No 1) making him get into Erik Jones(No 20) and triggering the crashes. Among other drivers involved in the incident were Martin Truex Jr(No 19), Ricky Stenhouse Jr(No 47), Michael McDowell(No 34), Ryan Newman(No 6), Ryan Preece(No 37) and Austin Dillon(No 3). Seven-race winner Kevin Harvick who is the regular season champion, is the top taking a 10-point advantage into the playoffs over six-race winner Denny Hamlin. Byron moved up to a 9th place seeding thanks to his win. DiBenedetto starts his first ever playoffs ranking 16th

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Reasons behind Ferrari’s woes following double elimination in the qualifiers

This year’s qualifiers turned out to be the worst for the Ferrari team after Leclerc and Vettel ended up ranking 13th and 14th in the overall qualifying standings, they also had the worst second round qualifiers after they had been both eliminated. Sebastian Vettel said they had tried everything and also put a lot of effort the previous night to make things a little better. They had tried to add more downforce to the car but things got even worse through the second qualifying round as Charles Leclerc ended up 17th and Vettel last. Miserable enough is that their two cars were slower than their pace at Spa-Francorchamps last year having a gap of 1.317s as willims turned out quicker by making a 2.424s difference from 2019. A close comparison to the stats shows that the SF1000 is slower and less stable than the 2019 car, the 2020 car also lifts along the flats which is unlikely in other cars. Data and analysis which were pulled out from the speed trap at the top of the Kemmel straight shows that Charles Leclerc is 12km/hr slower than 2019 having recorded a speed of 345km/hr, this shows that lack of power is also a problem. Trying to solve the power issue problem they reduced the downforce from the SF1000, but they ended up creating a problem with getting the tyres to the right window so the drivers are lacking grip both when accelerating and braking and this badly influences their performance. However their car has made it two times to the podium with Leclerc despite their struggles this season, it shows their strategies have not paid off. They could end up being in the midfied in the constructors’ championship which is unheard of from the team that ranks among the top. It could be their worst performance since 1980(40 years ago).

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

Daniel Ricciardo: The man to watch at Spa- Francorchamps

Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo is just the man to watch in the Belgin grand prix. This is after he ended up ranking 4th in the Saturday’s qualifiers. The Renault team has been struggling to remain in the mid-field battle after enduring a tough time at Catalunya in Spain, but the Saturday qualifier gave them high hopes as Ricciardo’s teammate Esteban Ocon finished 6th. This may have all been contributed by the downforce options that the team tried out making the RS20 ‘come alive’ as Daniel described. “We are pretty light, we feel this was a characteristic of the car last year. I feel like for whatever reason, the cars seems a bit more happier with a little bit less load on it” said the 31-year-old. “Obviously you can’t run this low around a circuit like Barcelona, but when we do come to these more high speed flowing circuits it just seems like it’s in a better place with a smaller rear wing.” This was his ever best qualifying perfomance at Spa being his 10th visit to the track. The Australian had turned out second in thecond free practice session on Friday before stopping on the track after the team spotted a hydraulics issue. He also expressed a feeling that the R.S20 felt faster and ‘fun’ than the last year’s car. Ricciardo also added that his team was very nervous and had their expectations high on the Saturday’s qualifier but it all paid up to see him in the second row also saying that the car had a little lower downforce than other cars on the grid which gave the best for the first and third qualifying rounds though the second run was compromised. Ocon was also happy ranking 6th in the run saying, “It’s been strong all weekend, we put the car down and compared to Barcelona, it’s handling so much better, so with all the changes we did coming into this race” “It gave us confidence, we have seen it is working on track, so we can work with a lot more calm and easy spirits. It feels good, I’m happy.”

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

WorldSBK Free Practice: Chaz Davies tops FP1 as Rea fights back in FP2

MOTUL FIM WorldSBK Free Practice took place in MotorLand Aragon circuit. The Free Practice which holds two rounds(FP1 and FP2) was intense as the riders exhibited close competition trying to get to the top. Chaz Davies lead in the first practice round after setting a record 1m 50.543s making it his eighth win at Aragon with the Ducati Paningale V4-R. Davies ranked sixth in the second practice round but the first round was enough to place him still on top in the practice standings. Davies’ teammate at Ducati, Scott Redding ranked eighth overall after ranking 3rd in the second practice session which was an improvement after finishing 11th in the first practice. The race was very tight having all the five bike manufactures having a very close competition shown by nine riders. Team GoEleven’s Rinaldi finished second overall a tenth of a second away from his teammate davies as the Kawasaki champion Jonathan Rea ranked third in the standings. Rea’s teammate at Ducati Alex Lowes had a successful practice session despite having a crash around turn 14, he ended up ranking 10th overall. Team Honda’s Alvaro Bautista however had a challenging practice session after experiencing a crash and technical issues making him miss the second practice session, although he did out and in laps around the Aragon track. His teammate Leon Haslam ended up ranking 11th. Tom Sykes on his BMW 1000RR ranked fifth in the overall standings . The BMW Motorrad rider who had a successful week after renewing his contract with the team had experienced a technical issue in the first practice session. Eugene Laverty who is his teammate ended up 16th in the session. Kawasaki Junior Racing team’s Garret Gerloff finished the day ranking 12th as his counterpart Federico Caricasulo ranking 14th as Orelac Racing rider Maximilian Scheib seperated the team riders by ranking 13th. Xavi Fores(Kawasaki Pucceti Racing) finished in the 15th place a tenth of a second fastest than Melandri(Barni Racing Team) who ranked 17th. Roman Ramos from OUTDO Kawasaki finished 18th on his return to WSBK. 19th and 20th place was taken by Sylvain Barrier (Brixx Performance) and Leandro Mercado (Motocorsa Racing) respectively.

sheldon creed wins gander truck series at worldwide technology raceway

The latest 24 Hours of Le Mans entry list

Automobile Club de l’Ouest released the latest entry list to the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Tuesday 25.08.2020. The federation had cancelled the race which normally runs in June and later pushed it to September due to the covid 19 pandemic. The list comprises of 59 teams in the different racing classes. The LM P1 class will comprise 6 teams, LM P2 will have 23 teams, LM GTE Pro consisting of 8 teams and LM GTE Am 22 teams. Get the full list here. The race had been rescheduled from 13-14th June to September 19-20th having close to half of the race happening in darkness unlike races in the previous years. This means that the teams have to come up with new racing strategies. There will be no spectators for the first time ever due to the covid 19 pandemic.