Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/11/post_abu_dhabi.html
Friday
Thursday
Dani Pedrosa Signs For Two More Years With Repsol Honda
As expected, Dani Pedrosa has signed on for another two years with HRC, and will remain in the factory Repsol Honda team until the end of 2016. Reports from Spain suggested that a deal was close to completion at Assen, and the details have now been finalized. The deal means that the Repsol Honda team will remain unchanged for a further two years, with Pedrosa lining up alongside 2013 world champion Marc Marquez until the end of the 2016 season.
The deal between Pedrosa and Honda had taken a little while to complete, with Pedrosa briefly flirting with Suzuki, who are set to make a return to MotoGP in 2015. That flirtation was never completely serious, and given the salary Pedrosa was rumored to be demanding to ride for Suzuki - said to be 8 million euros - Pedrosa was not keen to leave Honda. Staying at Honda does come at a price, however. Rumors in the Spanish media suggest that Pedrosa was forced to take a cut in base salary, with compensation coming in the form of performance-based bonuses. The veracity of such claims is hard to test, as HRC did not disclose any of the details of the contract with Pedrosa. Keeping salaries secret is common practice in MotoGP, teams and factories fearing it could unleash a bidding war.
Wednesday
Tuesday
Changing the guard
There are lots of stories today about Ferrari hiring a bunch of new engineers as it tries to turn around the dismal situation at the moment. Given that the new technical boss is James Allison one would suppose that more than a few of these will be coming from Lotus. Hiring engineers is not an […]
Source: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/changing-the-guard/
Monday
Teams confirm drivers for Silverstone test | 2014 F1 season
F1 teams have confirmed their driver line-up for the two-day test which starts tomorrow at Silverstone. Jules Bianchi will take Kimi Raikkonen's place.
Source: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/07/07/driver-line-confirmed-silverstone-test/
Carlo Abate George Abecassis Kenny Acheson Andrea de Adamich
Sunday
Saturday
2014 Portim�o World Superbike Saturday roundup: Hills, Wind and Bluster
After the light-hearted fun and games on Twitter yesterday, with Jonathan Rea and Eugene Laverty poking fun at Tom Sykes and his stated dislike of the hills at Portimão, the serious business of qualifying settled all the disputes.
Friday
Volkswagen Scirocco By ABT Sportsline
There’s a reason why ABT Sportsline is one of our favorite auto tuners in the world. The German company knows how to make programs that improve the cars they work on without going overboard with the modifications. It takes a specific set of skills to do that and ABT has it down path. Its new program for the Volkswagen Scirocco is living proof of that.
The two-fold modification is made up of an extensive aero kit and an impressive performance bump that breathes new life to the Scirocco. That’s not an easy thing to pull off and yet ABT Sportsline does with the ease of a tuner that knows what it’s doing.
Other tuners may promise the same things and yet fail to live up to all the expectations they set. That’s never been the case with ABT Sportsline. Over the years, it’s produced one impressive program after another. And as long as it can build kits like this for the Volkswagen Scirocco, there’s no reason for us to start doubting their tuning capabilities.
Not that we ever did because if we haven’t said it enough, we’ll say it again.
We’re big fans of ABT Sportsline and our fandom has never wavered.
Click past the jump to read more about Volkswagen Scirocco By ABT Sportsline.
Volkswagen Scirocco By ABT Sportsline originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 4 July 2014 12:00 EST.
Thursday
Wednesday
Clint Bowyer is chasing a win, but knows that points matter too
Finding the right balance of weighting wins and points in the Sprint Cup Series has been hard at times. While ultimately, wins do matter when it comes to Chase qualification, points are pretty important too. Through 15 races, 10 drivers have a race win. That means six drivers are currently going to qualify for the Chase based off their points position.
Could more drivers win? Sure. At the current rate, it's possible that more than 16 drivers could have wins. But given the pattern of repeat winners in the Cup Series ? the last four races have been won by drivers already with a win�? it's unlikely to happen.
Clint Bowyer knows the importance of points. He also knows the importance of wins. He wants a win to get into the Chase, but wins certainly aren't everything.
?I wasn?t one of the ones that was saying, ?It?s all about winning, it?s all about winning,?" Bowyer said Friday at Kentucky. "Common sense tells you to look at the past history and the math shows you that points are always going to prevail. He who has the most points is always going to win the championship. You?ve always been able to race your way into the Chase and I think it still will today, but right now we need a win.� We?re at the point in our program with our 5-Hour Energy Toyota that we?re desperately in need of a win and we need to throw it all out there and go for it and try to get ourselves a win somewhere. We were definitely in the hunt and after one in Sonoma.� We had a lot of confidence going in out there and we had a fast race car and by all means we were chasing a win big time.?
Right now, Bowyer is in the Chase. He's one of the six winless drivers who would make the Chase at this point, but he's not in comfortably. He's fifth of those six and 23 points ahead of Kasey Kahne and 25 points ahead of Tony Stewart. If he was in the top 10 in points, a win may not be as big of a priority. But Bowyer is 14th.
Both Stewart and Kahne are powered by Hendrick equipment, engines that Bowyer also acknowledged have been far superior to the rest of the Sprint Cup Series field. For non-Hendrick cars to currently catch up, it's all about finding the right balance.
(And no, there aren't 37 Hendrick-powered cars, Bowyer was having some fun. There are 11, and five of them are ahead of him in the standings.)
?Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick split me going down the front straightaway at Michigan and cleared me and raced each other�? had a heck of a race getting into (turn) one afterwards. I guess that?s my best way to explain superior. Once I got in the corner I could join the battle again and it was a lot of fun.� You have to enjoy that because it always comes full circle and in all fairness to the sport and everything that we do�? the engines are something that we all get to enjoy from time to time and right now that Hendrick camp, which there is like 37 of them anymore seem like they are enjoying it quite a bit.?
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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
Monday
Unfiltered Race notes: Houston Race 2 2014
Welcome to the always off-the-cuff unfiltered race notes for race two of the Grand Prix of Houston. This is just my internal monologue that runs throughout the race. Sit back and enjoy! –Prerace– Hot Hot Hot today. IMSP package of … Continue reading 
Source: http://anotherindycarblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/unfiltered-race-notes-houston-race-2-2014/
Sunday
On The Grounds: Grand Prix of Indianapolis Edition
Saturday was the day that changed it all for one mid-twenties place fan. I had convinced my younger brother to attend the inaugural GP of Indianapolis with me and I was determined to show him the intricate nuances of road … Continue reading 
Saturday
Happy Hour: Kyle Busch, road courses, rain, dancing and more
Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to happyhourmailbag@yahoo.com or @NickBromberg.We'll post them here, have a good time and everyone's happy.
A little non-NASCAR for a second. Looks like F1 wants to do standing restarts in 2015. Yeah, I realize that restarts don't happen all that often in Formula 1, but what the heck?
Standing starts are great for the beginning of the race, and they're going to be incredibly enjoyable for restarts. I'm not complaining about the potential entertainment, it just looks like a blantant attempt for more excitement.
Onto the fun.
Assuming Kyle Busch never wins a championship, who do you think would go down as the best driver to never win a title? Kyle Busch or Mark Martin? - Paul
You have to say Kyle Busch, simply because of all of the wins, right? He already has Mark Martin's record for Nationwide Series victories and on his current pace if his NASCAR career spans 25 years, he'll have over 260 wins in each of NASCAR's three series. Sure, his 200+ wins may not be the same as Richard Petty's 200 wins, but if Busch gets to 300, that's in a class by itself.
But that being said, if Busch gets to 300, he has a Sprint Cup title, right? The highest he's ever finished in the Cup Series standings is fourth while Martin has finished second five times. Do those five second place finish override Busch's hundreds of wins if he doesn't have five second-place finishes and never wins a title? Because of the Chase format (especially the new one), I don't think so. But it'd be an interesting debate.
Ultimately, Busch is going to win one. I'll be utterly stunned if he doesn't.
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@NickBromberg Do you think NASCAR will ever have a road course in the Chase or will "politics" always get in the way?
? Chris Nulty (@RealChrisNulty) June 26, 2014 Yes, I think NASCAR does, because I think the schedule eventually gets overhauled. I don't think that overhaul will be next year or maybe even the year after, but after messing with the Chase so many times, the schedule has to be fiddled with as well. Especially if interest continues to stagnate or trend downward.
What road course will it be? That's an incredibly intriguing question. How would a race at the Circuit of the Americas sound? Great, right? Yeah, but politics may get in the way of that one. Texas Motor Speedway would be none too happy with having a Cup race within 500 miles of its radius and there's the whole "F1 at COTA on the same weekend as Cup at TMS in 2014" thing.
And you know what I think would be an incredibly fun idea? What about adding a roval to the Cup schedule? Many cup ovals have infield road courses and you could race at a track with an existing date without having to do any date-swapping. Would that make things logistically tough for the normal infield operations? Yes. Would it be a worthy experiment? In my eyes, definitely.
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.@NickBromberg 42 Cup cars, big deal or no? Rainy results, enough to let Cup Series try it? Teams u want to see do Colombian goal dances.
? Brian Cullather (@Briancullather) June 26, 2014 By itself, the lack of a full field doesn't really change anything for me as I wrote yesterday. It's a symptom of a problem in NASCAR's top three series for sure, but that problem is there whether or not there's 43 cars entered at Kentucky. However, is the symptom a big enough problem for outrage? It's certainly not impacting the racing that people are going to see Saturday night.
For the second question, I don't think so. It'd be a pretty radical departure for NASCAR to strap on rain tires to the Cup cars after the strong reluctance to do so at this point.
And as far as the dancing goes? This is easy. If you haven't seen the Colombian goal dances, you can click here and here for them. And I'm picking Stewart-Haas Racing. Tony Stewart getting his groove on would be hilarious, Kevin Harvick would have to smile, the intrigue of Kurt Busch's rhythym would be tantalizing and there's Danica Patrick, who'd be liable to bring her puppy out to dance with her. Let's make this happen, SHR.
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Can you tell me if there are 43 drivers on the track or just 1 I believe all drivers should be given some air time - I get tired of hearing about the one and only Jimmy and I believe a lot of others feel the same. It is getting to where the MUTE button is used quite often ? wish they would change their broadcast and give more time to the other drivers. - Judy
While I get how fans of teams who don't win races or run at the front regularly can get frustrated at the attention paid to drivers at the front of the field, asking for equitable time is a pipe dream. It's basically the NASCAR version of primetime games on national television in all other sports. There's a reason that the bigger-market teams and most successful teams are put in those games. They attract the most eyeballs. Are you good and/or popular? You're going to get covered more than everyone else It's that simple.
Friday
Top FIVE Drivers ? Austrian Grand Prix
Following an 11-year hiatus from Formula One, the Austrian Grand Prix made a triumphant comeback last weekend, providing fans with more competitive action. In addition to the circuit?s long-awaited return, Williams locked out their first front row of the grid in more than a decade. That provided a different complexion to a race in a [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/d-Tym4lIKCc/top-five-drivers-austrian-grant-prix-2
Thursday
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had to pump gas to pay off his first speeding ticket
Dale Earnhardt made Dale Earnhardt Jr. work off his first speeding ticket.
Junior said Tuesday on the Dan Patrick Show that he got it while driving home. He and his dad had left separately, so he was ahead of the elder Earnhardt when it happened. His dad then drove past him pulled over and stopped at a gas station to wait for Junior, who pulled in behind him.
"He says 'Did he write you a ticket?' I said 'Yeah' he says 'Looks like you need to get a job.' So I went down to a gas station up the road from the house and applied for a job there. Pumped gas for several months to pay for that ticket."
Junior also said his first truck was a 1988 Chevrolet S10 pickup. And he just had a replica of that truck restored.
It's a fantastic interview and worth the listen the entire way through. Junior talks about his relationship with road course racing (hint: he's not in love with it) and that he stayed up until 5:00 a.m. Monday morning celebrating his win at Pocono.
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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! Follow @NickBromberg
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