WSBK : Double Turkish delight for Eugene Laverty at Istanbul

Eugene Laverty is the ’sultan’ of the Intercity Istanbul Park circuit. The Aprilia rider after his victory in race 1, repeating himself in race 2 in the inaugural World Superbike championship in Turkey.

Race 2 seemed a copy of race 1 with Tom Sykes on the holeshot and trying to get away but this time trailing him was Sylvain Guintoli while the other Aprilia factory rider fell back to fifth.

However Laverty wanted another podium as he picked off the riders in front of him and then relentlessly hunted down Sykes and passing with just five laps remaining in the race. Once past the Kawasaki rider, Laverty just slipped away and raced to the finish line uncontested for the victory - his sixth of the 2013 season.

 

Despite being on the top of the timesheets, Sylvain Guintoli managed to take home a third place podium, but he was expecting much more as he is now eight points behind Sykes in the standings.

Marco Melandri was fourth. The BMW rider lost a inordinately amount of time battling with his former MotoGP and Gresini team mate Toni Elias, who would outbrake the Italian every time until Melandri changed his tatics and managed to get past him, but it was too late to chase after the leaders of the race. Elias had a fantastic World Superbike debut taking a fifth place and fighting off Chaz Davies on the final lap for the position.

Jules Cluzel and Leon Haslam would also battle throughout the race for seventh place, with the position going going to the Suzuki rider, while Davide Giugliano and Michel Fabrizio completed the top ten.

For the first time in 26 years there were only 15 riders on the starting grid as Ayrton Badovini sat out race two, his injured ankle bothering him too much. Mark Aitchison took 11th ahead of Federico Sandi, Vittorio Iannuzzo, while Tolga Urpak and Yunus Ercelik went to points again.

2013 WSBK Istanbul Race 2 results:

01- Eugene Laverty – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – 18 laps in 34’58.775
02- Tom Sykes – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 1.708
03- Sylvain Guintoli – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 4.052
04- Marco Melandri – BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team – BMW S1000RR – + 10.860
05- Toni Elias – Red Devils Roma – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 12.171
06- Chaz Davies – BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team – BMW S1000RR – + 12.396
07- Jules Cluzel – FIXI Crescent Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – + 17.434
08- Leon Haslam – Pata Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 17.683
09- Davide Giugliano – Althea Racing – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 25.770
10- Michel Fabrizio – Pata Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 38.735

via TWOWHEELSBLOG

Jorge Lorenzo takes second consecutive victory with Misano win

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Jorge Lorenzo was simply majestic at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli , taking his fifth victory of the season and his second consecutive win after Silverstone, while Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa once again completed the podium.

The reigning World Champion literally won the Italian GP race on the first lap after giving Dani Pedrosa and the rest of the field a blistering and impossible 1.2 second gap by end of the first lap.

With his punishing and regular rhythm Lorenzo was never contested for the lead in the entire 28 lapper as he crossed over the finish line with a very comfortable margin.

The race was livened up by the very intense in house battle between the two Repsol Honda riders, that was once again won by the rookie over the veteran. Marquez seemed to be in serious difficulty in the first part of the race with a bad start despite sitting in pole position and having trouble finding his usual rhythm and then committing an error at the Quercia that let Valentino Rossi take third.

Regrouping and after losing almost a second from Rossi, in just two laps he hit back and barged through at the Tramonto forcing Rossi slightly wide, and then set his sights on his team mate who was more than a second ahead of him.

It didn’t take long as the dicing between the two began. In very tight and aggressive pass at turn 2 Marquez dived under his teammate take 2nd, while Pedrosa answered back at the Tramonto and with barely the time to take a breath, Marquez was back in front of his team mate after out braking him into the Carro, and then Pedrosa ran out of aggressiveness and speed as he began to fade.

The same thing happened to Valentino Rossi who would take another lonely fourth place, but he unexplainable faded hard in the final seven/eight laps of the race, he no doubt will be highly disappointed as he wanted a podium in his home race.

Stefan Bradl would take fifth in a last lap battle with Cal Crutchlow, while Alvaro Bautista was seventh.

The Ducati Challenge was won by Andrea Dovizioso ahead of Nicky Hayden and Michele Pirro while Andrea Iannone binned his GP13 during the 3rd lap.

For the first time this season Aleix Espargaro wasn’t the best CRT rider. The Aspar rider who was in the enviable position of starting fifth made a jump start and was punished with a ride through that dropped him into 13th giving the top CRT honors to Colin Edwards in 12th.

2013 MotoGP Misano race results:

01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 28 laps in 44’05.522
02- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 3.379
03- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 7.368
04- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 15.062
05- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 22.355
06- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 22.599
07- Alvaro Bautista – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 31.059
08- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 42.702
09- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 44.858
10- Michele Pirro – Ignite Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 47.818

Bonhams at the 2013 Goodwood Revival: A field of dreams

Atten-shun! Stand by your beds, it’s Revival time – and one of the meeting’s many highlights is the annual Bonhams sale, held in a big marquee just over the road from the West Sussex circuit...

As ever, Classic Driver tries to pick some cars both eminently ‘Goodwoodable’ (a state of mind, rather than sure-fire entries to the event itself), as well as good, all-round classics.

You, too, could play Emanuele Pirro by bidding on Lot 236, the historic racing 1962 Jaguar E-type S1 3.8 FHC (£60,000 – 80,000). Or, for £140,000 - 180,000, there’s another racy Jaguar, the 1951 XK120 that competed in the New Zealand International Grand Prix.

On the Ferrari front (with British connotations as it’s finished in a fine Racing Green), there’s a LHD 1961 250 GT Series II Cabriolet by Pininfarina. And we always like the understated 330/365 GTC series of the mid-60s. Two cars will be offered by Bonhams, both RHD, a red 1967 330 GTC (£280,000 – 340,000) and a white 1969 365 GTC, once owned by Eric Clapton, for £380,000 – 460,000.

Top-sellers are likely to be one of the pre-War cars, headlined of course by the ex-Scuderia Ferrari 1935-36 Alfa Romeo 8C-35 (£5.5m – 6.5m). There’s also the ex-Works 1931 Invicta 4½-Litre S-Type 'Low Chassis' for £900,000 – 1.2 million.

And anything ‘fun’? Of course, how about the magnificent, polished metal 1992 Airstream 350LE Class A Motorhome, the ideal solution to the problem of finding Revival accommodation for years to come? Estimate: £70,000 – 90,000.

Photos: Bonhams

via Classic Driver

DRIFT FORMULA D TEXAS: THE MONSTER QUALIFIER IS BACK

It goes to show that when you get knocked down, you have to get back up again. Our very own Vaughn Gittin, Jr. qualified first at round six of the Formula Drift Pro Championship at Texas Motor Speedway.

You guys may or may not have been following the controversy in the drift world regarding a penalty given to Vaughn’s team which caused him 30 championship points. You can read about it in detail here on the Formula Drift website.

Either way Vaughn took it in stride, even though the penalty bumped him down from fifth to sixth place. His score of 92.6 was achieved with an entry speed of over 103 mph.

Second also went to a Speedhunters driver: Fredric Aasbø the Norwegian Hammer. Fredric has never been so close to earning his first championship as he’s sitting in fourth place.

It seems the one who always beats him is himself. This may come as a surprise to you guys, but Fredric has never won a Formula Drift Championship event. With the Texas bracket I could see him meeting Michael Essa in the top eight.

The third qualifying spot went to the championship leader, Chris ‘The Force‘ Forsberg. This year’s race for glory is closer than ever with just three points separating the top three drivers.

Chris looked very at home on the long sweeping high speed track. His entry speed was just a hair under 100mph, but he kept his speed very high throughout the course, a little over one mile per hour faster than Fredric and Vaughn.

This event will determine how close the race will be come Irwindale. There is a good chance the top three drivers will increase their gap with the rest of the field.

If you check out the bracket you will see that Chris will have a tough time in the top 16 when he will most likely meet Justin Pawlak. Both drivers have two wins each so it can go either way.

If Chris makes it into the top eight then he will most likely meet up with Daigo Saito. Here is where it gets tricky – both drivers have only met each other twice.

They have one win each. Daigo will definitely have to win this battle if he wants to take the lead for his second championship. On top of that Daigo had the highest entry speed so far with a 107.7 mph. I’m actually really looking forward to this battle, so hopefully it happens.

I’ve always liked watching Forrest drive and his S14 is one of my favorite cars on the grid. His entry speed was just 92 miles an hour, much slower than many of the other drivers who made it into the top 32 bracket, but he still had a very high score due to style, angle and line.

Toshiki Yoshioka seemed to have been struggling all year with his BRZ, but after four events it seems like he’s finally dialed it in as he qualified in tenth position.

There were a few notable names absent from the top 32 bracket. Including Darren McNamara, who was seventh in the championship standings. He will be bumped down significantly for not making it into the top 32.

Also absent was Ryan Tuerck, who was just shy outside of the top 32. He looked great during practice, but it seems like he just pushed a little too hard on his qualifying runs.

Also absent was Tyler McQuarrie. This was not his year, but I guess there’s such a steep learning curve with owning your own team. Vaughn seems to be learning that first hand as well.

As usual there were a fair amount of spills and thrills, including a crazy jump drift performed by Corey Hosford.

Mike Essa has such a good chance of taking his first championship, and as a privateer no less. If he does get into the top eight which looks very likely, he will face Fredric Aasbø.

Interestingly enough, they have only met once in battle and that was last year at Palm Beach in his BMW Z4. Mike won that battle, but we will see how he does in the BMW E46.

Let’s hope that cowboy hat brings him good luck in the lone star state, because he’s going to need it. His side of the bracket is super stacked.

It’s crazy because Forsberg and Daigo are going for their second championship.

While Fredric Aasbø and Michael Essa are going for their very first one.

There’s also a chance that we could revisit the Daigo vs. Fredric battle. Up until New Jersey of this year Daigo had never beaten Fredric, but now Fredric is leading two to one.

Even with a huge points deficit, there is still a chance for Vaughn to battle his way to his second championship. He’s in a great position qualifying in first – on top of that he got a good head start in recovering some of those points.

I guess we will have to see as the drivers battle it out on one of the fastest tracks they have ever drifted on.

Photos by Larry Chen