Team-mates and title rivals Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson at Homestead

Continue reading SPOILER ALERT: NASCAR Nextel Cup wraps up at Homestead

SPOILER ALERT: NASCAR Nextel Cup wraps up at Homestead originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Fans had been looking forward to it for years, and now it's come to a close. For 2007, Formula One stepped out of the dominating shadow of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, the first season since his retirement, and came to today's final race of the season in a close three-way battle between Ferrari's "iceman" Kimi Raikonnen and McLaren's feuding fraternity of defending champion Fernando Alonso and amazing rookie Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari's brave Brazilian Felipe Massa having fell out of contention earlier in the season.

The 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix was a thrilling end to a thrilling season and a gripping race in its own rite. SPOILER ALERT: Follow the jump to find out who won the race, who took the title and how it all went down.

Continue reading Three-Way Title Race comes to a close at Brazilian Grand Prix

Three-Way Title Race comes to a close at Brazilian Grand Prix originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

BREAKING: Colin McRae dies with son in helicopter crash originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nothing gets the sporting press as excited as the prospect of a former champion coming out of retirement. When it's a race driver, the motoring press jumps on it too. So it's no surprise, then, that the rumors of Mika Hakkinen's purported return to Formula One have been spreading like margarine.

The Finnish driver (please, no finish-line jokes) won the title two years running in '98 and '99 behind the wheel of a McLaren, before retiring in 2001. He began driving again for Mercedes-Benz (McLaren's engine partner) in DTM (German touring cars), but Hakkinen's been seen getting in and out of the cockpit of McLaren formula race cars several times this year, leading to speculation that he could be coming back to drive for McLaren.

The rumors could very well be true. McLaren's two drivers have both left the team: Kimi Raikkonen (another talented Finnish driver) to Ferrari and Juan Pablo Montoya for NASCAR. World champ Fernando Alonso joins the McLaren line-up for next year, but the team has yet to announce their second driver. Test driver Pedro de la Rosa could get the job; so could protégé Lewis Hamilton. But some have speculated that McLaren chief Ron Dennis would rather go with a tested-and-true champion like Hakkinen. (Another interesting piece to the puzzle is Hakkinen's recent appointment by McLaren sponsor Johnnie Walker as its ambassador for responsible driving.)

Mika and Ron are known to have stayed close even after Hakkinen's retirement, opening the door to a number of alternative explanations: Mika might have simply gotten the urge to drive an F1 car again, for nostalgia. Ron might have asked Mika to give his old team some developmental feedback on the car while they wait for Alonso to be released from his Renault contract. Or maybe, just maybe, Dennis is trying to keep Pedro and Lewis on their toes with the mere suggestion that neither one of them is guaranteed the seat (and doing a damn fine job at it, too).

Hakkinen might be pushing 38, but he was widely regarded as Schumacher's greatest rival (including by Michael himself). And who knows what Mika might accomplish with Schumi now retired.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

Return of the Hakk? Maybe, maybe not originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 23 Nov 2006 17:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's surely a credit to stock car racing that F1 drivers have been migrating to NASCAR. In the new parody movie Talladega Nights, it seems like a joke that the antagonist (pictured) is a French F1 driver come over to America to race stock cars, but that's looking less and less like a joke as it becomes reality.

McLaren recently released its departing driver Juan Pablo Montoya from his contract early so he can begin testing stock cars. And the speculation continues to mount that former world champion Jacques Villeneuve is planning to move to NASCAR as well. Other former F1 drivers have gone back down the totem-poll to sports-car racing, endurance racing, Indy cars, and touring cars, but Jacques indicated his intentions by asserting that NASCAR was not, in his bespectacled eyes, a step down from F1.

The latest reports claim that the French Canadian son of legendary Ferrari driver Gilles Villeneuve has already signed a contract with Roush Racing. Roush drivers won the Nextel Cup in 2003 and 2004, and the team is considered to be Ford's leading NASCAR challengers. In addition to the five cars run in the top-tier Nextel Cup, Roush also runs six cars in the lower Busch Series and two Craftsman trucks. While it's not yet clear where the former Indy 500 winner would start (nor, for that matter, confirmed that he will), he'd be joining a winning team with the apparatus to give him the opportunity to win. After racing for Williams, BAR-Honda, Renault, Sauber and BMW, JV's been given no shortage of opportunities to win in F1 - time will tell if his fortunes will turn for the better in NASCAR.

[Source: GrandPrix.com]

Reports: Villeneuve signed NASCAR deal with Roush originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 04 Oct 2006 09:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Simon Evans and his wife/co-driver Sue took the Australian Rally Championship in their Toyota TRD Corolla after finishing a close second on their home turf at the NGK Rally of Melbourne this past Sunday.

Going into the Melbourne rally, the Evans' only needed an eighth place finish in Melbourne to secure the title, and they nearly took first place, only surrendering to Mitsubishi's Scott Peder on a technicality after the two were deadlocked.

All the jokes about the wife giving directions aside, there are doubtlessly many single gearheads out there who wish they could find a spouse to share in their passion.

Follow the link for the full race report.

[Source: Rally.com.au]

'Till checkered-flag do us part: Husband & Wife team claim Austalian rally championship originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 27 Sep 2006 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.