Best and Worst of the Racing Weekend: Formula One, IndyCar and NASCAR
By Kayla Gipson
Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish Grand Prix, while Will Power won the IndyCar Grand Prix and Martin Truex Jr. won at Kansas.
That was pretty easy stuff to figure out, only a Google search away for many. However, what happened during the races are a different stories. From each race this past weekend, we take a look at the best and the worst things to occur.
Formula One
Best of the Spanish Grand Prix
Close to the end of the F1 race, the battle between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton was interesting to say the least. When Vettel came out of the pits, the wheel to wheel action between the two was exciting to watch.
At one moment, the two made contact. Hamilton told his team “That was dangerous! I came up along side of him and he pushed me wide.” Lewis Hamilton took race lead with twenty laps to go and went on to win.
Worst of the Spanish Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton had the best luck of the weekend. His teammate, on the other hand, not so much. Valtteri Bottas blew an engine not long after Hamilton took the lead.
Some may argue that the worst part might be when Vettel was three seconds behind Hamilton at ten laps to go. For the second race in a row, Vettel almost ran into Felipe Massa. He still earned a podium finish by finishing in 2nd place right behind Lewis Hamilton. Daniel Ricciardo finished in 3rd.
IndyCar
Best of the IndyCar Grand Prix
This category of all three racing series belongs to Graham Rahal. In the IndyCar Grand Prix, he started in 20th. He started knocking off one position at a time before finishing the race in 6th.
After Rahal got out of his car to talk to the reporters, some reporters noticed blisters on his hands and fingers. I don’t know how else you can top that, going from 20th to 6th and have blisters on your hands and fingers.
Worst of the IndyCar Grand Prix
Helio Castroneves’ tire change strategy turned into a bad call. Everyone knew what Castroneves was doing when he put a new set of tires on. He wanted to battle with his teammate in the final laps. To do that however, he needed to change his tires, and he needed to change them to blacks, the slower compound.
It didn’t work out like it planed to as Castroneves finished fifth. Castroneves said in an interview with IndyCar.com reporter Phillip Wilson
"When I saw him come out in first place after we pitted, I said, ‘oooh, this is going to be a tough one, especially on the blacks.’ What a shame. Great job to Will. Great job for Team Penske."
NASCAR
Best of Kansas
Both the Camping World Truck series and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series provided exciting finish in both races. The past few years, 1.5-mile tracks have been getting a bad rap. They haven’t provided the same kind of thrilling action like short tracks and road courses do.
Other than two incidents that happened in both races, the Truck and Cup series races were great, even though they were on the 1.5-mile Kansas track.
Worst of Kansas
NASCAR takes the honors for the worst of the weekend. But it’s not for what NASCAR did. It’s for what happened on the track.
First is the heart-break of Ben Rhodes. Rhodes was battling with Kyle Busch in the Toyota Tundra 250. Rhodes was able to pass Busch with 26 laps to go. He kept a steady one second lead over Busch until eight laps remained.
Ben Rhodes then blew an engine. While trying to hold back tears, Rhodes told reporters “we did everything right all night long.”
Second is the wreck between Joey Logano, Danica Patrick, and Aric Almirola.
At lap 199 during Saturday night’s Cup race, Joey Logano broke a rotor coming around a turn. This caused him to run into Danica Patrick.
As those two slid up into the wall, Aric Almirola had nowhere to go and went full speed into them at around 200 miles per hour.
After a red flag delay, Almirola was lifted out of his car and transported to a local hospital in Kansas where he was diagnosed with a compression fracture to the T5 Vertebrae. He was released the next day on Sunday.
Almirola will be talking to doctors in Charlotte, and another press release statement from Richard Petty Motorsports, the team for which he drives, is not expected until Wednesday.
Other than leaving on bad news, here is some good news. The next race weekend, which is two weekends from now, is a race fan’s weekend. F1 goes to Monaco, IndyCar has the Indy 500, and NASCAR has the Coca-Cola 600.