Felipe Massa on top in first post-Silverstone test - MotorSportsTalk

Felipe Massa has finished fastest on the first day of the post-British Grand Prix test at Silverstone today.

Following a miserable weekend of racing, the Williams driver recorded a fastest lap time of 1:35.242 to finish ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Rosberg at the top of the timesheets.

With few major updates expected to be brought to the cars until after the summer break, this week’s two day test was about drivers ironing out any minor issues with their cars and allowing the teams to try out junior members of their racing team.

GP2’s Stoffel Vandoorne and World Series by Renault driver Will Stevens both got a chance to try out some F1 machinery at Silverstone today for McLaren and Caterham respectively. Vandoorne ran well to finish 6th, while Stevens put in 95 laps at the bottom of the standings. Both will hope that this experience will put them in the frame for an F1 call-up in the next two to three years.

Marussia’s Jules Bianchi put in a strong display to finish fifth for the Anglo-Russian team, although his day did end early after a fire on his car. Max Chilton will take over the MR03 tomorrow, with Bianchi stepping in at parent team Ferrari for the rested Kimi Raikkonen.

Adrian Sutil finished fourth for Sauber, with Sergio Perez coming seventh for Force India. Jean-Eric Vergne had a disastrous day, finishing eighth and bringing out three red flags due to a variety of problems. Perez was also responsible for one of the stoppages, with there being five in total.

Pastor Maldonado came home in ninth for Lotus ahead of Ferrari test driver Pedro de la Rosa, who was over 2.5 seconds off the pace in tenth. Will Stevens propped up the timesheets.

The teams will be back at Silverstone tomorrow for the final day of in-season testing in 2014.

Silverstone Wednesday line-up

Mercedes – Lewis Hamilton
Red Bull – Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari – Jules Bianchi
Williams – Valtteri Bottas
Force India – Daniel Juncadella
McLaren – Kevin Magnussen
Toro Rosso – Daniil Kvyat
Lotus – Charles Pic
Marussia – Max Chilton
Sauber – Giedo van der Garde
Caterham – Julian Leal (morning); Rio Haryanto (afternoon)

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INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports