The expected epic battle between the diesel-powered Audis and Peugeots for the overall win at the 57th Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race Saturday came down to the last lap, with Allan McNish’s Audi R15 TDI leading the Peugeot 908 HDI of Franck Montagny across the finish line by 22.279 seconds. Third was the other Audi, driven by a team led by Lucas Luhr, two laps behind.
Despite mechanical limitations enacted to slow the Audi and Peugeot diesels, they dominated, especially given the mechanical problems suffered by their main competition, the pair of brand-new gasoline-powered Acura ARX-02s…. Details
Thanks in part to A.J. Allmendinger’s spot-on performances in qualifying this season, Richard Petty Motorsports is all but certain to get a breather when the Cup Series travels to Martinsville next week.
Barring a disaster of epic proportions Sunday at Bristol, all of RPM’s cars will be locked into a Cup event for the first time in 73 races — meaning that vice president of competition Mark McArdle won’t have to agonize during qualifying for the March 29 Goody’s Fast Relief 500.
All four Petty cars are comfortably in the top 35 in 2009 owner points, and all four are…Â Details
Stick-in-the-muds worked themselves into a lather over Formula One’s planned reforms — proof, if nothing else, that even in the fast lane, tradition can still be a drag.
And finally, in a stark display of the power that F1 teams wield, they got the sport’s bosses to back off.
The score: teams 1, bosses 0. It’s a result that could bode ill for those — led by Max Mosley, head of F1’s governing body — who want shock therapy to wean the sport off its high-spending habits so that it survives the global credit crunch.
Mosley’s governing body, the FIA, said Friday it would freeze plans to shake up how F1’s championship winner … Details