Hamilton pleased with Austria pole at weaker circuit - MotorSportsTalk

Lewis Hamilton felt pleased to have capitalized on the damp conditions in qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix and captured pole position at the Red Bull Ring, one of his weaker circuits.

Hamilton entered the weekend trailing Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg by 24 points in the drivers’ championship, with the German driver also having won the previous two races in Austria.

However, a sharp rain-shower during Q2 left the track wet for Q3, making the final session a matter of timing as drivers looked to get in a lap with the driest possible line.

Hamilton nailed his final lap to take pole, while Rosberg is set to start seventh on Sunday after being hit with a grid penalty for a gearbox change.

“This is definitely one of those tracks that I have to keep working at and I’ve been building up to today’s qualifying session,” Hamilton said after the session.

“It’s not an easy track to execute the perfect lap and admittedly it’s not my best circuit. As a driver I’m someone who brakes nice and deep and here you have to lift off the accelerator early, keeping your minimum speed high, which is not something I’m used to doing.

“The track dries up so quickly here – it’s a great feature of this circuit and made qualifying really interesting.

“Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit cooler which will help me in managing my tires and I can get off to a good start.

“The race will be interesting and I’m hoping it will be a good day.”

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff praised both Hamilton and Rosberg for their efforts in the damp conditions, having provisionally locked out the front row before his penalty.

“Qualifying was one of those sessions where it’s much easier to make mistakes than get everything right – and it was all about hitting that perfect window for the final lap on dry tires, because the conditions were changing so fast,” Wolff said.

“We managed to get both cars onto the right tires, then the drivers didn’t put a foot wrong to take the top two positions; both of them put in great laps right at the end.

“Looking at tomorrow, we have some different approaches at the front of the grid in terms of tire choice, plus Nico will be on a recovery strategy to make up ground after his penalty, so I think there’s still plenty of action to come.”

The Austrian Grand Prix is live on CNBC and the NBC Sports app from 7:30am ET on Sunday.

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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