Priaulx, Plato win maiden Race of Champions Nations Cup for England

By Nov 20, 2015, 5:28 PM EST
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LONDON – England has won its first Race of Champions Nations Cup on home soil after touring car drivers Andy Priaulx and Jason Plato defeated Formula 1 stars Sebastian Vettel and Nico Hulkenberg 2-1 in the final.

Priaulx and Plato fought all the way through from the first round to lift the trophy, delighting 16,000 home fans on a cold night at the former Olympic Stadium in London.

The Race of Champions pits drivers from a number of different championships up against each other in a series of challenges, using cars such as the Mercedes AMG GT, a Euro NASCAR and KTM X-Bows.

The opening preliminary round saw Plato and Priaulx in Team England 1 knock out Team Brazil’s Felipe Massa and Nelson Piquet Jr., while Team Young Stars of Jolyon Palmer and Pascal Wehrlein also made it through to the quarter-finals after beating Team All-Stars in a decider.

In the first quarter-final, IndyCar driver Ryan Hunter-Reay defeated World RX champion Petter Solberg for Team Americas, but was edged out by just one-tenth of a second in the decider to nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, sending Team Americas out at the hands of Team Nordic 2-1 following Jose Maria Lopez’s loss.

Former Red Bull teammates Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo renewed their rivalry when Team Germany faced Team Australia, with Vettel taking the bragging rights by half a second. Nico Hulkenberg followed Vettel’s lead, beating motorcycle racing legend Mick Doohan to send Germany into the semi-finals.

Not wishing to be outdone by the first England team, 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button and Blancpain GT driver Alex Buncombe beat David Coulthard and Susie Wolff of Team Scotland 2-0. Button’s victory over Coulthard was by just 0.005 seconds, but was enough to take Team England 2 through.

The final quarter-final pitted the two round one-winning teams up against each other, with Team England 1 winning in a decider after Priaulx edged out Palmer by just two-tenths of a second, setting up an all-English semi-final.

Defending Nations Cup champions Team Nordic’s title defence ended in the semi-finals as Vettel and Hulkenberg both won their races for Team Germany, defeating Kristensen and Solberg to move into the final. They were joined by the touring car duo of Plato and Priaulx, with the latter winning the decider.

In the first final shoot-out, Priaulx produced two perfect laps to beat Vettel and take England 1-0 up, only for a mistake by Plato in the second heat to allow Hulkenberg to level the score, taking the Race of Champions Nations Cup to a decider.

Priaulx once again was on form, eking out a lead over Hulkenberg in the first lap despite clouting the first kerb. He managed to extend this on the final tour of the course, giving him a one-second margin of victory to secure the Nations Cup for England.

“Tonight it all just hooked up,” Priaulx said. “Germany have won it a few times so it’s nice to have a turn – and nice for me to win a race for once!

“I’ve been to the ROC Nations Cup final three times so to do the job is great. This competition is tough and it gets tougher every year so you have to be on your A-game here because every race is like a qualifying session. It’s so easy to make mistakes but I’m really chuffed.

“Thanks to Fredrik Johnsson and all the guys at ROC for bringing us here. It’s brilliant to get the chance to race in front of our home crowd in London – what more could we ask?”

Vettel had been chasing a seventh Nations Cup title in London, but was gracious in defeat.

“It hurts – a lot – but Andy drove fantastically tonight, so well done,” Vettel said. “They deserved to win and it’s especially nice in front of your home crowd. If you’re in the final you want to win but someone has to lose and unfortunately it was us today.

“We tried everything but it was their day so I’m also very happy for them. I had a lot of fun anyway and I’m looking forward to tonight. The nice thing about this event is that it’s an opportunity for us to hang out with other drivers and a lot of them have become friends over the years. So thanks to everyone for coming out, it’s very cold but a great night.”

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)