Yahoo Autos This Weekend in Auto Racing (June 19th, 2021)
Formula 1 - French Grand Prix
Sunday, June 20th - 9:00 a.m. ET - ESPN - Streaming on the ESPN app
After two dramatic temporary street circuits, the French Grand Prix marks a return to traditional Formula 1-style tracks at Paul Ricard, a famously flat and runoff-heavy track that sits in direct contrast to both Monaco and Baku. After two unique races, Mercedes had some reason to hope that the balance of power could swing back into their hands this weekend. Instead, Max Verstappen has another pole, this one by 2/10ths of a second.
Lewis Hamilton, of course, will still start second, and Valtteri Bottas will start from third, what seems to be his traditional spot on the grid. Notably, the four cars from Red Bull and Mercedes are all within half a second of one another, while the car in fifth, the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, is 8/10ths behind Verstappen's pole time. While Ferrari had encouraging pace the past two grand prix weekends, they have regressed back from the top tier in qualifying.
After their double DNF in the last race, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton remain in a virtual stalemate at the top of the driver's championship standings. If Verstappen wants to win a world championship, he needs to start pulling away before Mercedes figures something else out. That means winning this one from pole, if he can.
IndyCar - Road America
Sunday, June 20th - 12:00 p.m. ET - NBC Sports Network - Streaming on the NBC Sports app
Road America has survived 65 years as a 4-mile course near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, by being one of the best tracks in the world. Since IndyCar returned to the track in 2016, it has not disappointed.
Last year's double-header ended with a race in which Felix Rosenqvist, then with Chip Ganassi Racing, passed Patricio O'Ward over multiple corners in the second-to-last lap to grab his first career win. In the time since, O'Ward has become the force of the series. He charged from fifth to first on a seven-lap restart just last weekend, making Road America his first-ever race as the series championship leader.
Rosenqvist, meanwhile, is out this weekend, still recovering from a dramatic crash at Detroit's Belle Isle. O'Ward, now his teammate, will instead be joined at Arrow McLaren SP by former McLaren F1 driver Kevin Magnussen. As he has never actually tested an IndyCar, the long-time F1 driver faces a difficult uphill climb before tomorrow's race. He put in a best lap of 20th in the second practice session, 1.6 seconds off the leader in a 25-car field.
NASCAR - Nashville Superspeedway
Sunday, June 20th - 3:30 p.m. ET - NBC Sports Network - Streaming on the NBC Sports app
This is a strange one.
Despite the name, Nashville Superspeedway is a 1.3-mile track about 45 minutes outside of the city. It is a concrete track, opened by the independent Dover Motorsports Inc. amid a track-building boom in 2001 but never successful or well-connected enough to host a Cup Series race in its early days. The group shuttered the track after a disappointing 2011 season before a surprise re-opening ahead of this season. Now, the track that has been closed for about as long as it ever existed is hosting a very belated first-ever Cup Series race.
That story is much more interesting than the actual Nashville Superspeedway. While a concrete 1.3-mile oval is on paper a more interesting proposition than any traditionally-paved 1.5 mile track, this is still a D-shaped oval with moderate banking. This makes it unique, but unique in a way that is not actually conductive to enjoyable racing at all. The lone encouraging sign is that Nashville will be using the 750 horsepower, lower downforce package that NASCAR uses on shorter tracks for this event, but even that package is still less powerful and less compelling than what these cars were running before NASCAR's process of experimentation began in 2015.
With a full compliment of practice and qualifying available this weekend, drivers who have struggled without those sessions may have a new-found advantage. Perhaps more importantly, the only drivers with experience at the track will be those who specifically ran lower-level races between 2001 and 2011. Both of those factors greatly benefit Kyle Busch, who was a master at this track in what is now the Xfinity Series back when this was a standalone race for that category. In a world where Hendrick Motorsports was not coming off four consecutive wins, plus a fifth in last weekend's non-championship race, that would be enough to make Busch a favorite.
You Might Also Like
