Sports car racing may be confusing, but that’s no excuse for this graphic (PHOTOS)

By Aug 27, 2014, 11:24 AM EDT
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Yes, between the FIA World Endurance Championship (LMP1-H, LMP1-L, LMP2, GTE-Pro, GTE-Am), TUDOR United SportsCar Championship (P, PC, GTLM, GTD), Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge (GS, ST) and Pirelli World Challenge (GT, GT-A, GTS, TC, TCA, TCB) you have 15 different classes and two in-category subclasses (LMP1-L and PWC GT-A, respectively), so sports car racing is confusing.

Still, if you’re promoting an event, that’s still no excuse to not do some basic research as to which cars fit into which class when you’re creating a promotional poster for said event.

Hat tip to Rebellion Racing for finding this gem off the cotaexperiences.com website, in advance of the FIA WEC/IMSA combined weekend Sept. 19-20 at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.

This GTE-Am group shot is littered with errors.

For 8Star Motorsports, the car pictured is a pre-bodywork update Corvette Daytona Prototype, that 8Star ran in the 2013 GRAND-AM Rolex Series DP class. 8Star this year runs a year-old Ferrari F458 Italia in the FIA WEC GTE-Am category; it also runs a PC class Oreca FLM09 in the TUDOR Championship, but its PC car would be just as irrelevant to GTE-Am as is this older DP.

AF Corse is misspelled as “AF Course.” And the chassis is the older model Ferrari F430 GT, which has been out of commission since 2010, before the introduction of the F458 in 2011. What’s particularly egregious here is that AF Corse ran no less than seven combined GTE-Pro and GTE-Am F458s in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans… yet this creator decided to grab a four-year old car because, hey, it’s a red Ferrari, who’s going to know the difference?

The errors roll on in GTE-Am with the next car, which is a whopper. A customer Lola-Aston Martin LMP1 car from maybe 2007 or 2008 is utilized in the place of where the factory Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage should be placed. And again, come on guys, basic research here… AMR ran four Vantages at this year’s Le Mans, and actually won the GTE-Am class with the “Dane Train” No. 95 car. Instead, they’ve gone for this car. I’ll let Twitter user Fred Smith point out how much skill it takes to get a car this wrong.

Lastly, ProSpeed Competition rounds out this page with something that’s actually in range. The team had an older Porsche 911 GT3 RSR in its arsenal, and I believe the No. 75 car pictured here is the one drafted into last-minute action at this year’s Le Mans, and then shifted from the GTE-Am to GTE-Pro class where Jeroen Bleekemolen and Cooper MacNeil drove the race on their own. But this ProSpeed photo wouldn’t fit the comedy of errors without being wrong itself, too. The team runs a 991-spec Porsche 911 RSR in the FIA WEC this year, so the photo’s still wrong.

Like Rebellion Racing, which competes in the LMP1-L category with its Rebellion R-One Toyota, Aston Martin poked a bit of fun at this perplexing quartet when discussing the loved/hated acronym we all know from sports car racing: BoP (Balance of Performance).

The actual cars these teams – and the rest of the FIA WEC field – will be at Austin Sept. 19-20.

IndyCar Detroit GP starting lineup: Alex Palou wins first pole position on a street course

By Jun 3, 2023, 4:00 PM EDT
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DETROIT — Alex Palou won the pole position for the second consecutive NTT IndyCar Series race and will lead the Detroit Grand Prix starting lineup to green on a new downtown layout.

The 2021 series champion, who finished fourth in the 107th Indy 500 after qualifying first, earned his third career pole position as the first of three Chip Ganassi Racing drivers in the top four (Scott Dixon qualified fourth, and Marcus Ericsson sixth).

Scott McLaughlin will start second, followed by Romain Grosjean. Coming off his first Indianapolis 500 victory, Josef Newgarden qualified fifth.

INDYCAR IN DETROIT: Entry list, schedule, TV info for this weekend

It’s the third career pole position for Palou and his first on a street course — a big advantage on a nine-turn, 1.645-mile track that is expected to be calamitous over 100 laps Sunday (3 p.m. ET, NBC).

“It’s going to be a tough day for sure,” Palou told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “It feels good we’ve had a great car since the beginning, and it was just about maximizing. They did a great strategy on tires and everything. We need to finish it (Sunday).

“I got off a lot in practice. We wanted to see where the limit was, and we found it. It’s a crazy track. I think it’s too tight for Indy cars and too short as well, but we’ll make it happen.”

QUALIFYING RESULTS: Click here for Detroit GP qualifying speeds | Round 1, Group 1 | Round 1, Group 2 | Round 2 l Round 3

The narrow quarters (originally listed as a 1.7-mile track, its distance shrunk by a couple hundred feet when measured Friday) already were causing problems in qualifying.

Colton Herta, who has four career poles on street courses, qualified 24th after failing to advance from the first round because of damage to his No. 26 Dallara-Honda. It’s the worst starting spot in an IndyCar street course race for Herta (and the second-worst of his career on the heels of qualifying 25th for the GMR Grand Prix three weeks ago).

Andretti Autosport teammate Kyle Kirkwood also found misfortune in the second round, damaging the left front of his No. 27 Dallara-Honda despite light wall contact.

“I’m disappointed for the crew because that was a pole-winning car,” Kirkwood told NBC Sports’ Kevin Lee. “Man, I barely touched the wall. I touched it way harder in all the practices, and it’s just like the angle at which the wall was right there, it caught the point and just ripped the front off the car.

“If the wall was rounded, that wouldn’t have happened. That’s just unfortunate for the guys, but it’s my mistake. It’s hard enough to get around this place let alone race around it. We’ll see how it goes.”

Many IndyCar drivers are expecting it to go badly, which isn’t uncommon for a new street layout. The inaugural Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tennessee, was the biggest crashfest of the 2021 season with 33 of 80 laps run under caution plus two red flags.

It could be worse at Detroit, which is the shortest track on the IndyCar circuit. It also features the series’ only split pit lane (with cars pitting on opposite sides and blending into a single-lane exit), a 0.9-mile straightaway and a hairpin third turn that is considered the best passing zone.

“If there’s one day you need to be lucky in the year, it’s tomorrow,” Grosjean told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “A lot is going to happen, and it’s being in the right time at the right place.”

Said Dixon: “Expect probably a lot of unexpected things to happen. We’ll try and get through it. I think it’ll be similar to Nashville and maybe the last man standing is the one who gets the victory.”

With the field at 27 cars, Palou estimated the length of the course leaves a gap of about 2.4 seconds between each car, which he preferred would be double. During practice Friday, there were six red flags and 19 local yellows as teams tried to sort out the tricky and tight layout.

“I don’t know what the perfect distance is, but I would say adding 30 seconds to a track or 20 seconds would help a lot,” said Palou, one of many drivers who also said the streets were too bumpy despite work to grind down some surfaces. “We have a lot of cars. It’s crazy. It’s really good for the series, for the racing. But when it comes to practice, and we have 10 red flags, 25 yellows, it’s traffic all the time.”

It seems certain to be a memorable reimagining of the Detroit GP, which was moved downtown by IndyCar owner Roger Penske after a 30-year run at the Belle Isle course a few miles north.

McLaughlin, who drives for Team Penske, believes the race will be very similar to Nashville, but “it’s just going to be up to us with the etiquette of the drivers to figure it out along the way. I think there’s going to be a lot of passes, opportunities.

“With the track, there’s been a lot of noise I’ve seen on Twitter, from other drivers and stuff,” McLaughlin said. “At the end of the day, this is a new track, new complex. I think what everyone has done to get this going, the vibe is awesome. Belle Isle was getting old. We had to do it.

“First-year problems, it’s always going to happen. It’s just going to get better from here. The racetrack for the drivers is a blast. We don’t even know how it races yet. Everyone is making conclusions already. They probably just need to relax and wait for (Sunday).”

Here’s the IndyCar starting lineup for Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix (qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, engine and speed):

ROW 1

1. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 1 minute, 1.8592 seconds (95.734 mph)
2. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 1:02.1592 (95.271)

ROW 2

3. (28) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 1:02.2896 (95.072)
4. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 1:02.4272 (94.862)

ROW 3

5. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 1:02.5223 (94.718)
6. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 1:02.6184 (94.573)

ROW 4

7. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 1:02.1817 (95.237)
8. (60) Simon Pagenaud, Honda, 1:02.1860 (95.230)

ROW 5

9. (6) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 1:02.1937 (95.219)
10. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 1:02.2564 (95.123)

ROW 6

11. (11) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 1:02.2958 (95.063)
12. (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 1:04.6075 (91.661)

ROW 7

13. (7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 1:02.5714 (94.644)
14. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 1:02.1911 (95.223)

ROW 8

15. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 1:02.9522 (94.071)
16. (77) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 1:02.2644 (95.111)

ROW 9

17. (29) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 1:03.0017 (93.997)
18. (45) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 1:02.6495 (94.526)

ROW 10

19. (55) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 1:03.1599 (93.762)
20. (78) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 1:02.9071 (94.139)

ROW 11

21. (18) David Malukas, Honda, 1:03.2126 (93.684)
22. (14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 1:02.9589 (94.061)

ROW 12

23. (06) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 1:03.3879 (93.425)
24. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 1:03.4165 (93.383)

ROW 13

25. (30) Jack Harvey, Honda, 1:03.7728 (92.861)
26. (51) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 1:03.7496 (92.895)

ROW 14

27. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 1:03.8663 (92.725)