Dakar Rally, Stage 7: Ricky Brabec scores first stage win; Skyler Howes finishes third

By Jan 10, 2021, 12:03 PM EST
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As the Dakar Rally enters its second half, Ricky Brabec scored his first win in Stage 7. Based on his experience in the first six stages, that is not the position he wanted, however.

Navigation has been cited as an issue in each stage of the 2021 Dakar Rally, which leaves Brabec and the other competitors playing a game of cat and mouse.

“I think the strategy is to not open!” Brabec said in a release after completing the stage. “I think everyone that’s opening is just losing a little bit of time. So we’re trying our best. We just have to stay focused.”

“There’s five days left, and we’re going to try just to finish in the top seven every day and see if we can make up a little bit of time.”

While Brabec may not be happy about opening the course, his Stage 7 victory vaulted him five spots from 13th to eighth and closed the gap to leader Jose Florimo by 2 minutes, 7 seconds.

Florimo finished second in Stage 7.

Brabec’s strategy has been one of consistency so far, but that often brings its own kind of speed.

“Definitely didn’t feel like we were finishing up front, but it’s good to get this feeling,” Brabec said on Instagram.

HOW TO WATCH ON NBCSN: Information, schedules for the Dakar Rally

It was also a good day for American privateer Skyler Howes, who finished only 12 seconds behind Florimo. On the strength of his third-place finish, Howes climbed to seventh in the standings with 12 minutes, 27 seconds to be made up on the leader.

“Things were kinda dicey this morning in the wet camel grass,” Howes said in an Instagram post. “Felt like I was on edge for the first 100km. A lot of swaps and bucks going on. But after we got out into the desert and the dirt dried up I started feeling good!

“A lot of the stage looked just like Utah so I felt right at home.”

In other divisions Sunday:

Cars: There was a new winner in cars as well.

Yazeed Al Rajhi beat overall leader Stephane Peterhansel to the final checkpoint but was able to shave only 48 seconds off his lead. It was the second career stage win for the Saudi driver and the first of his 2021 rally.

“Now, I just want to do well every day, that’s our goal,” Al Rajhi said afterward.

Peterhansel finished second in Stage 7 while Nasser Al-Attiyah, the driver second in the overall standings, was 2 minutes behind in fourth. Peterhansel would have gained more distance on his rival if not for the time he lost repairing a wheel after hitting a rock 25 miles from the finish.

Al-Attiyah also had a difficult stage.

“Tackling the marathon stage after a rest day wasn’t easy,” he said. “We suffered a flat tire and, from then on, we were extra cautious to avoid breaking things. We’re still close to Stephane, and there’s a long way to go. It’s hard to beat a buggy with a 4×4.”

Carlos Sainz finished third in the stage and kept his third-place overall ranking.

Side by sides/lightweight/light prototypes: Francisco Lopez Contardo was back on top with his third stage win of the season. He beat Stage 2 winner Saleh Alsaif by 5 minutes, 12 seconds. No other driver has more than one stage win.

With this win, he gained 10 minutes, 30 seconds on leader Aron Domzala, who finished fifth in the stage, but Contardo remains third in the overall standings.

American Austin Jones entered the stage a mere 40 seconds behind Domzala, but his seventh-place finish in Stage 7 was more than 9 minutes off the leader’s pace. During the rest day, Jones said his strategy was to avoid mistakes and ‘do the right thing at the right time’, and that he expects to do better in the rockier stages.

Quads: Manuel Andujar became the second rider to win multiple stages, but the major storyline for this class was the departure of Nicolas Cavigliasso.

Cavigliasso broke a clutch with less than 60 miles remaining in the stage and was forced to retire. That handed the overall lead to Andujar by an advantage of 20 minutes, 55 seconds over Alexandre Giroud.

Trucks: For the second consecutive stage, the Kamaz-Master team swept the podium. This time it was Dmitry Sotnikov across the line first, ahead of Airat Mardeev and Anton Shibalov. Sotnikov’s fourth stage win gave him a comfortable lead of 45 minutes, 56 seconds over Shibalov.

STAGE 1 RESULTS: Carlos Sainz, Toby Price open with victories

STAGE 2: Ricky Brabec jumps to second; Andrew Short withdraws

STAGE 3: American privateer Skyler Howes takes lead

STAGE 4: Four Stages, four bike winners; Al-Attiyah wins three consecutive in cars

STAGE 5: Kevin Benavides new leader in bikes

STAGE 6: Toby Price retakes the lead; Peterhansel distances the competition

STAGE WINS

Cars: Nasser Al-Attiyah 3 (Stages 2, 3, 4); Carlos Sainz 2 (Stage 1, 6); Giniel de Villiers (Stage 5); Yazeed Al Rajhi (Stage 7)

Bikes: Joan Barreda 3 (Stage 2, 4, 6); Toby Price 2 (Stages 1, 3); Kevin Benavides (Stage 5); Ricky Brabec (Stage 7)

Side-by-sides: Francisco Lopez Contardo 3 (Stage 3, 5, 7); Austin Jones (Stage 1); Saleh Alsaif (Stage 2); Aron Domzala (Stage 4); Khalifa Al Attiyah (Stage 6)

Lightweight prototypes: Seth Quintero 4 (Stage 2, 3, 5, 6); Cristina Gutierrez Herrero 2 (Stage 1, 7); Kris Meeke (Stage 4)

Quads: Nicolas Cavigliasso 2 (Stage 3, 5); Manuel Andujar 2 (Stage 4, 7); Alexandre Giroud 2 (Stage 1, 6); Pablo Copetti (Stage 2)

Trucks: Dmitry Sotnikov 4 (Stage 1, 2, 4, 7); Siarhei Viazovich (Stage 3); Andrey Karginov (Stage 5); Airat Mardeev (Stage 6)

Watch highlights from Stage 7 of the Dakar Rally on NBCSN at 6:30 p.m. ET today.

‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
IndyCar Detroit downtown
James Black/Penske Entertainment
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DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

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

JOSEF’S FAMILY TIES: Newgarden wins Indy 500 with wisdom of father, wife

Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and two red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500