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Saturday
Cup Start-And-Parks Dwindling
The practice of starting-and-parking has been a much discussed topic over the last couple of years. If you aren’t aware, starting-and-parking refers to a system in which teams enter a race and pull into the garage after only a few laps with a perfectly good race car in order to collect prize money. Teams can […] 
Friday
Motor racing and politics
With the Russian Grand Prix coming up, the F1 world must again face the question of whether sport should be treated as something unconnected with the real world, or whether it should be treated as an integral part of the political landscape. It is not an easy question to answer because, on the one hand, […]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/motor-racing-and-politics/
Thursday
Brad Keselowski takes lead with three-wide pass, wins at Chicago
Brad Keselowski saw Kevin Harvick and Kyle Larson battling for the lead ahead of him and as Larson went high and Harvick went low heading into turn one, Keselowski took the middle.
It was the right option.
Keselowski stormed past both drivers and held on for the lead through a last restart to win the first race of the 2014 Chase for the Sprint Cup on Sunday at Chicago.
Larson and Harvick were having a fantastic battle off a restart with 18 laps to go. Larson had the lead and Harvick, who restarted second, was able to hang with him. The two ran side by side for virtually the entirety of two laps, but the great racing came at a price.
Keselowski was hanging around in third and got an incredible draft of the huge hole in the air the two were creating with 16 laps to go. As Harvick headed to the white line and Larson went towards the wall, Keselowski cut the middle and was clear by the time he was on the backstretch.
"I'm not really sure," Keselowski responded when asked how he made the pass in victory lane. "I'll have to watch the ESPN replay to figure it out. But we obviously had a great car ... these Fords have really come together for a strong Chase run."
Last week, Keselowski won the last race before the Chase at Richmond for his fourth win, a victory that gave him solitary possession of first place for the Chase. With the win at Chicago, he keeps first place in the Chase and may put him in place for a repeat. Keselowski won at Chicago en route to the 2012 title. (Oh, and Keselowski is also guaranteed a spot through the first elimination round of the Chase.)
It was a win that came without the benefit of great track position too. Keselowski and his teammate Joey Logano have been the masters of qualifying this season but Friday's qualifying session was washed out. The lineup was set on practice speeds and both Penske cars started in the 20s. It ultimately didn't matter.
And neither did late pit stop trouble. Keselowski had to pit a second time under caution on lap 184 because of a potential loose wheel. He restarted 17th after starting at the back of the field but quickly sliced and diced his way up through the field. He was ninth within 25 laps and two more late cautions helped his ascent.
Jeff Gordon finished second and he's second in the points standings, seven behind Keselowski. Larson finished third while Joey Logano was fourth and Harvick was fifth.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Wednesday
Watch Tony Stewart's press conference at 1 p.m. ET here
Tony Stewart will meet with the media at Atlanta Motor Speedway at 1 p.m. ET on Friday. It's his first media availability since he struck and killed Kevin Ward in a sprint car race in upstate New York on August 9. Watch the session live at the video feed above.
Stewart is making his return to the Sprint Cup Series this weekend at Atlanta, where he'll race Sunday night. It's his first Sprint Cup race since the accident.
The investigation into the accident by the Ontario County (N.Y.) Sheriff's Department is still ongoing. We'll have further coverage of Stewart's return after his press conference Friday afternoon.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Tuesday
Joey Logano wins and puts both Team Penske cars into the next Chase round
New Hampshire has been very kind to Joey Logano.
Statistically, Logano hasn't been great at the one-mile track (his average finish entering the race was 19.3), but it's the site of Logano's first Sprint Cup Series win and now his latest one as he pulled away from Kevin Harvick on multiple late race restarts to win on Sunday.
He's now guaranteed to advance to the next round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup along with last week's winner and Team Penske teammate Brad Keselowski after next week's race at Dover.
The race featured 15 cautions, the second-most in New Hampshire history, and after Logano took the lead from Harvick under green with more than 20 laps to go, he held on to it over the course of three restarts.
Logano got to the front with a strategy call that looked iffy at the time. Track position is always a dominant theme at New Hampshire and the first half of the race had largely been a green-flag affair. On lap 247, some 30 laps after the leaders last pitted, Logano's crew chief Todd Gordon called him down to pit road for four tires.
The call put Logano back in the pack, but it didn't matter. With fresher tires than the cars ahead of him, he sliced through the field.
"I thought we gave it away at that point," Logano said of pitting. "Man, four tires were good and we had some good restarts and were able to get ourselves back up there and had to work hard. This is my home race track. This is the coolest place to win for me. I could never pick a better place to win. I watched my first Cup race here when I was five and I won that other Cup race here and I just felt that I had to win one here the right way."
The "other" Cup race Logano refers to was on June 28, 2009. Logano, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing in his first full season in the Cup Series replacing Tony Stewart, played the fuel strategy game with then-crew chief Greg Zipadelli. It was his only choice after a cut tire and a car that was nowhere near the fastest on track. But it worked. When rain arrived to call the race early with 27 laps remaining, Logano was the leader.
There was no such trickeration on Sunday. He had one of the fastest cars throughout the course of the race and while Harvick, who ultimately finished third, felt Logano might have been accelerating too quickly on those restarts, he didn't have a car quick enough to chase Logano down once the lead had been established.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Roberto Bussinello Jenson Button Tommy Byrne Giulio Cabianca
Monday
The Home Racers Assessed
The German Grand�Prix provided an opportunity to add the garnish to an already euphoric population, who are still celebrating their World Cup win. With four countrymen on the grid, and one driving a silver arrow, there was a high chance of German success once the lights went out. The Hockenheimring gave Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/b0XFeG5hVG0/the-home-racers-assessed
Sunday
2014 Singapore Grand Prix in pictures | F1 Pictures
The 2014 Singapore Grand Prix in pictures.
Source: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/09/21/2014-singapore-grand-prix-pictures/
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