Friday wrap: Loeb holds top spot in Trier

Sebastien Loeb holds an advantage of 20.4s in his pursuit of a ninth ADAC Rallye Deutschland victory heading to the overnight halt at the end of a thrilling opening day of action in the vineyards north east of host city Trier.

Loeb, winner of the FIA World Rally Championship for the last eight years, was fastest on four of Friday’s six all-asphalt stages in his Citroen DS3 WRC. Petter Solberg is second with factory Ford team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala third, 9.0s down on the former world champion.

“For sure I am happy,” said French legend Loeb. “We are leading, that’s really good and we started to increase a little bit our lead. I am pushing hard because I am feeling comfortable in the car and I am able to make some differences so that’s good.”

Solberg was hampered slightly by a brake issue in the morning, while Latvala - who outlined the pace of Ford’s Fiesta RS WRC on asphalt with a brace of stage wins in the afternoon - lost precious time in the morning with a few wrong calls on tyre compound choice and set-up.

Despite the recurrence of the gearshift problem that plagued him in the morning, Thierry Neuville completed day one in a strong fourth overall for the Citroen Junior World Rally Team, 5.1s behind Latvala.

Dani Sordo, in a Prodrive WRC Team MINI, snatched fifth from Mikko Hirvonen on the day’s final stage with the third fastest time even though the Spaniard said he struggled to change from sixth to fifth gear. “I had to be careful because of this but the time is coming better and better and that is the important thing,” he said.

Hirvonen, meanwhile, lacked confidence in the morning and then reckoned he had been overdriving so backed off in an attempt to improve his performance.

Ott Tanak is seventh after surviving several overshoots in his M-Sport Fiesta. The Estonian had been faster than Loeb at one point on stage four only to miss a junction and lose time.

Mads Ostberg overcame brake problems in the morning to hold eighth overnight for the Adapta World Rally Team with Chris Atkinson ninth on his debut for WRC Team MINI Portugal. “It’s been good, it’s been a 100 per cent learning experience but it’s been good fun,” said Atkinson. “The team are great, of course I want to be faster but I’ve not been on Tarmac for three years so I know my times can be a lot faster.”

Sebastien Ogier completes the top 10 in his Volkswagen Motorsport Super 2000-specification Skoda Fabia as a right-rear puncture slowed team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen on day one’s final stage and dropped him behind Nasser Al-Attiyah. Sepp Wiegand, in a third Volkswagen-run Skoda, is 14th and the top German driver.

Martin Prokop’s hopes ended when fire destroyed his Fiesta on stage three. Evgeny Novikov damaged the rear of his similar car on the opening test, while an off on stage three resulted in Daniel Oliveira’s retirement from the day. Paulo Nobre failed to get beyond stage two in his MINI.

OVERALL CLASSIFICATION Pos   No Driver Co-Driver Vehicle Cls Total Time Penalties Diff Fastest (Prev) 1 1 S. LOEB D. ELENA CITROEN DS3 WRC WRC 1:22:18.0 **:**.* **:**.* 2 4 P. SOLBERG C. PATTERSON FORD FIESTA RS WRC WRC 1:22:38.4 +20.4 +20.4 3 3 J. LATVALA M. ANTTILA FORD FIESTA RS WRC WRC 1:22:47.4 +29.4 +9.0 4 8 T. NEUVILLE N. GILSOUL CITROEN DS3 WRC WRC 1:22:52.5 +34.5 +5.1 5 37 D. SORDO C. DEL BARRIO MINI JOHN COOPER WORKS WRC WRC 1:23:04.7 +46.7 +12.2 6 2 M. HIRVONEN J. LEHTINEN CITROEN DS3 WRC WRC 1:23:06.9 +48.9 +2.2 7 5 O. TANAK K. SIKK FORD FIESTA RS WRC WRC 1:23:35.9 +1:17.9 +29.0 8 10 M. OSTBERG J. ANDERSSON FORD FIESTA RS WRC WRC 1:23:46.7 +1:28.7 +10.8 9 12 C. ATKINSON S. PREVOT MINI JOHN COOPER WORKS WRC WRC 1:24:52.8 +2:34.8 +1:06.1 10 22 S. OGIER J. INGRASSIA SKODA FABIA S2000 2 1:26:01.3 +3:43.3 +1:08.5

  WITH http://www.wrc.com

WSBK Moscow: Davide Giugliano on provisional pole

In today’s World Superbike first qualifying session at the Moscow Raceway, Davide Giugliano took the provisional pole. In the final minutes of the session the Althea Ducati rider posted a flying lap of 1.35.074 and finished 0.210s ahead of his team mate reigning World Champion Carlos Checa.

Following in third was Sylvain Guintoli who made it three Ducati’s in the top three, which seems to confirm the competitiveness of the twins on this circuit. Marco Melandri fell back to fourth and he was seven tenths off pace and could only improve only 0,021s from this morning’s lap time when he led the session with a big gap over the rest of the field.

Chaz Davies continues to impress as he took fifth and was the best Aprilia rider again as factory riders Max Biaggi (who had a technical issues on his RSV4 at the beginning of the session) and Eugene Laverty were only 13th and 17th respectively.

Tom Sykes finished in 6th ahead of Lorenzo Zanetti and once again a surprising Hiroshi Aoyama. Leon Haslam and Jonathan Rea closed out the top ten.

WSBK Moscow QP1 results:

01- Davide Giugliano – Althea Racing – Ducati 1198 – 1’35.074
02- Carlos Checa – Althea Racing – Ducati 1198 – + 0.210
03- Sylvain Guintoli – PATA Racing Team – Ducati 1198 – + 0.677
04- Marco Melandri – BMW Motorrad Motorsport – BMW S1000RR – + 0.698
05- Chaz Davies – ParkinGO MTC Racing – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 0.754
06- Tom Sykes – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 0.831
07- Lorenzo Zanetti – PATA Racing Team – Ducati 1198 – + 0.906
08- Hiroshi Aoyama – Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 0.914
09- Leon Haslam – BMW Motorrad Motorsport – BMW S1000RR – + 0.965
10- Jonathan Rea – Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 0.987

WITHhttp://www.twowheelsblog.com 

MotoGP Brno: Dani Pedrosa vs Jorge Lorenzo in FP2

In this afternoon’s MotoGP FP2 at Brno, Dani Pedrosa once again headed the top of the timesheets with a best lap of 1.56.858 that he posted on his 11th lap, but the Repsol Honda was unable to lower his lap times over the the rest of the 45 minutes, while Jorge Lorenzo moved in much closer to his rival and finished just 0.53s adrift and his runs were much more constant and in the low 1.57s and this despite a crash that he suffered at the ’stadium’ 20 minutes into the session.

Andrea Dovizioso had another impressive practice as he finished in third again and he was a little less than two tenths adrift with Yamaha Tech3 team mate Cal Crutchlow who moved closer to his team mate with one of his last flying laps.

Stefan Bradl moved up to fifth while Valentino Rossi was 6th and he shaved off almost seven tenths from his morning lap times and for the first time this season was a little less than half a second from the top of the timesheets, but he was on soft tires.

Alvaro Bautista and Ben Spies were 7th and 8th respectively, but both suffered lowside crashes. Aleix Espargaro finished in 9th and he too suffered a crash with his ART machine but he ended up ahead of Ducati satellite riders Toni Elias and home boy Karel Abraham.

This session was also red flagged when Yonny Hernandez crashed out and hit an air fence that had to be replaced.

MotoGP Brno FP2 Results:

01- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – 1’56.858

02- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.053
03- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.197
04- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.357
05- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 0.392
06- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 0.457
07- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 0.715
08- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.923
09- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 2.327
10- Toni Elias – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 2.370

At Monterey Motorsports Reunion 2012 – Shelby Cobra Race

The Shelby Cobra class was a featured race at the 2012 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, held August 16-19 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, California. The headline race offered spectators the opportunity to see 40 competition Shelby Cobras charging around the 11-turn, 2.238-mile road course.

The 2012 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Shelby Cobra, and besides those signed up for racing, there were hundreds more in the paddock, surrounding corrals, and even in a museum-quality Heritage Display.

Senior Photographer Tim Scott documented the featured Shelby Cobra historic race at the 2012 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, offering the following pictures that highlight the wonderful selection of competition Cobras at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. To see more from Tim, visit fluidimages.co.uk.

From http://www.sportscardigest.com