Victory for Massa, Rahal, and Edwards.
By: Drew Hierwarter
Can you find Bahrain on a map? Go ahead and try, I’ll wait.
I didn’t think so, I couldn’t either.
Bahrain is a tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Saudia Arabia. Oil was discovered there in 1932 and today it has the fastest growing economy in the Arab world. And what does any of this have to do with motor sports? Since 2004, Bahrain has hosted a race on the Formula 1 World Championship circuit. In addition to oil, tourism is a large part of the Bahrain economy and bringing a Formula 1 race to this tiny dot on the map has been a welcomed addition.
Not so welcome for Formula 1 championship point leader Lewis Hamilton however. This past Sunday Hamilton saw his lead disappear right off the start as he selected the anti-stall activator by mistake. Cars streamed around the stumbling McLaren and Hamilton was in tenth place by the first turn. Then he compounded his problems by collided with Alonso on the second lap knocking off his nose wings and requiring a stop in the pits to replace the nose piece. Now in nineteenth place, Hamilton was well out of contention and only managed to get up to thirteenth by the end of the day.
The race was all Ferrari as teammates Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen finished 1-2. Massa was dominant and never put a wheel wrong through the entire race. The two red cars were followed across the line by the BMW Saubers of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld. The race showed that Ferrari and McLaren are still the power teams in Formula1 but BMW Sauber is now ready to step up and take its share of the glory.
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Half a world away, another open wheel race series, the Indy Racing League, began its second race of the year in very different conditions. The temporary airport/street circuit in St. Petersburg,
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Carl Edwards got to perform his third victory back flip of the young NASCAR Sprint Cup season on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Edwards had to hold off a late race charge from Jimmie Johnson on a green-white-checkered finish that resulted from the blown engine of Martin Truex. Edwards led 123 laps on his way to the win on a track that Roush-Fenway cars have traditionally done well at. Kyle Busch finished in third, followed by Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin. Sprint Cup points leader Jeff Burton was sixth, followed by Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer who rounded out the top ten. The Hendrick cars continue to fail to find victory lane. Dale Earnhardt, Jr., did win the pole and ran in the top ten most of the day but he faded to a twelfth place finish at the end. Casey Mears was twenty-second. The biggest surprise was Jeff Gordon. He fought a very ill-handling race car through the first third of the race when he finally lost control completely and hit the wall. He finished forty-third for only the second time in his career. It’s amazing that these guys missed the set-up so badly that even somebody like Jeff Gordon couldn’t drive it. With Earnhardt on the pole and Johnson finishing second, it makes one wonder just how much information are they sharing back at the shop?