Macau Grand Prix: Prema's Euro F3 champion Schumacher tops practice Schumacher was hovering around the fringes of the top 10 before he picked up a massive tow from Callum Ilott late in the session and vaulted his Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes to the top of the times.
Prema boss Rene Rosin said that this was Schumacher's only push lap of the session, in which he was leaving plenty of margin - it also included a pass on Ilott on the brakes into Lisboa. As Schumacher pitted on the final lap, F3 returnee Ilott regrouped and set a time just 0030 seconds adrift of the German at the chequered flag in his Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen. "I gave the tow to Schumacher, so lucky boy there," said GP3 racer Ilott. "It was a good session and we kept it on track, although I had one little moment at Police. That's pretty normal, but that's the one that they caught on camera!".
Third fastest was Juri Vips, the Macau rookie also surviving a moment at Police, although in his case it damaged the left-rear rim and tyre in the early stages of the session. Newly appointed as a Red Bull Junior, Vips returned to the circuit and was top of the times on a fantastic Macau debut until the late improvements from Schumacher and Ilott. "That put [me] on the back foot," said the Motopark starlet of his incident, "but in a way it's good that I made a mistake early and found the limit.
"Everyone else at the team was not liking it that much though, because they had been telling me to take it easy and not put it in the wall. Two more Motopark drivers, 2017 Macau GP winner Dan Ticktum and BMW DTM racer Joel Eriksson, completed the top five. Both ran into traffic in the closing stages of the session when the quickest times were set, but each reported that all was well with their cars.
Sacha Fenestraz posted the sixth quickest time in his Carlin machine, just ahead of the second-best Macau rookie, Prema's Robert Shwartzman. The usually smooth-driving Alex Palou looked uncharacteristically spectacular on the circuit as he put the lead B-Max Racing entry eighth in the times, on the Japanese team's first weekend since its tie-up with Motopark. Runaway Japanese F3 champion Sho Tsuboi was a strong ninth quickest for TOM'S, while Jake Hughes rounded out the top 10 on his F3 comeback with Hitech GP.
There were no red flags in the session and very few incidents, although Macanese Charles Leong only got two laps in with his Hitech car before pitting with damage. How NASCAR legend David Pearson changed its history. Coming in NASCAR's heyday, when the charismatic Petty highlighted a generation of drivers that captured America's imagination beyond its southern roots, as sponsor cash poured in, Pearson, who died earlier this week aged 83, stood apart.
Pearson was the driver Petty feared, even during the days in which Petty fought NASCAR's grandfather Bill France Sr through the media and with protests during the fight for better safety and standards. Daytona was often the battleground over NASCAR's open war as the series expanded, ahead of the arrival of the daunting Talladega that had drivers concerned.
Fitting then, that the unassuming Pearson - who backed Petty in the safety battle - showed the high stakes of Daytona against Petty. Considered the most dramatic NASCAR race of all time, it was also the sort of race that made Pearson's style of driving Alain Prost-like before the Frenchman's nickname of the professor became synonymous with him. So much so that Pearson was often overlooked as a leading star of NASCAR in favour of the more flamboyant Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough, alongside Petty. This was largely because Pearson never stood out in a race.
"You never saw Pearson in a race - particularly at a superspeedway - until the end," said legendary NASCAR track owner 'Humpy' Wheeler in Joe Menzer's excellent book, The Wildest Ride. "The last ten percent, he'd show up. Where was he the rest of the time? He was buried back in eight or ninth or tenth, just waiting.". That's exactly how he played the 1976 Daytona 500, coming into the race with a reputation of winning the big races, often with the bigger prize pots, but having failed to win at Daytona.
With 12 laps to go, Pearson had a chance to end that statistic. Petty led, but in the era of the slingshot pass on the superspeedway, the Wood Brothers driver stormed past Petty into Turn 3. "I got him," he was said to have shouted over the radio to team boss Eddie Wood. But on the final lap shortly after, Pearson shouted the infamous line: "The bitch hit me!".
Through Turn 4, Petty had nudged half a car length past Pearson, but the right rear of the iconic #43 Dodge tapped the left-front of the #21 Mecury and sent it nose-first into the wall as Petty crashed and spun to the infield. Remarkably, Pearson reacted quickly and saved his car by revving his engine to keep it alive as Petty erred and forgot to hit the clutch as he spun off. That split decision was the decider, as the severely damaged Mercury crawled to Victory Lane. Soon after, Maurice Petty - Richard's brother - stormed the car. Pearson would recall: "It really was pretty simple.
"He asked me what happened and I told him. The bitch hit me. It was a rare soundbite for Pearson, a man who liked to do the talking on the track, who saw no issue in Petty failing to seek him out to discuss the clash. This was a driver who grew up in the rural lifestyle of South Carolina, his first car experience proving to be a 1938 Ford so ugly his mother offered him $30 to get rid of it.
He accepted and cannily bought a '40 Ford which he hid out of sight from his mother and used in early races. By 1960 he was at NASCAR's highest level after friends set up "the David Pearson fan club" on the local radio, which combined with his father's money, bought him a second-hand car from NASCAR regular Jack Smith.
That same year he was rookie of the year despite driving a selected schedule, and six years later he won his first title with legendary owner Cotton Owens, the first of three crowns. A desire to race less often began a famous partnership with the still-existing Wood Brothers outfit, which he was best known for, particularly for his championship finish of third in 1972 despite running a schedule of 19 of 30 races.
The young team boss Glen Wood had been running AJ Foyt, but was looking to prioritise only the big races with the larger cash prizes, which suited Pearson down to the ground. He beat famous rival Petty in his first race with Wood Brothers at Darlington in 1972 in what would become the greatest rivalry NASCAR had seen at a time when it was becoming ever-more mainstream.
NASCAR's all-time record race-winner in Petty may have beaten Pearson in that regard, but Petty certainly knew he had met his match. After all, in 63 1-2s between the duo Pearson won 33 races. Great stories such as that are often a trademark of NASCAR's stars, and regularly told by Glen Wood and his brother Leonard, such as Pearson's regular reminders that he "don't need no practice" despite assurances that the car certainly did.
After an acrimonious exit from star team Holman-Moody over money, Pearson was grateful for the change of pace. That fairy tale story would end bizarrely. By the end of the 1970s, Pearson and the Wood Brothers were no longer contenders, and it was a growing source of frustration.
At the 1979 Grand National race at Darlington, oil hit Pearson's windscreen. To his anger, it wasn't cleared at his pitstop and forced him to return to pitlane shortly after. Pearson had failed to notice the pitcrew working on his left-side tyres and bolted out of the box the moment the right tyres were re-attached, grinding to a halt at pit exit. That evening, the partnership was over. Pearson denied the pitstop played a role in it, instead stating "it was just time to split up.".
He would compete at the highest level until 1986, and considered a return in '89 before pain during testing for Wood Brothers convinced him otherwise. But 105 wins from 574 races, including 301 top fives and 113 poles was enough for him to regularly be voted as one of NASCAR's best-ever drivers. Inducted into the hall of fame in 2011, NASCAR's reasoning summarised the man perfectly.
"The model of NASCAR efficiency during his career. With little exaggeration, when Pearson showed up at a race track, he won.". Sebastien Ogier: Winning sixth WRC title 'won't change my life'. Ogier heads into the the final rally of 2018 with a three-point lead over Hyundai's Thierry Neuville, with Toyota driver Ott Tanak 20 points behind Neuville.
Neuville and Tanak are yet to win a WRC title and Ogier believes his experience can be an advantage. "We all have experience now, maybe I have a little bit more than them," said Ogier. "But the only thing that I really have [over Neuville and Tanak] is the titles, and that gives me the chance to be a little bit more relaxed. "Of course, if I get a sixth one it will be nice, but it won't change my life so much - it's not like winning the first one. "I have a small advantage for that, but the pressure is on.
Ogier began the Australia weekend by going fastest in the Wedding Bells stage shakedown. But the Frenchman knows that the running order will harm his chances in the opening stages, unless the forecast of rain proves true. "If it stays dry, it won't be an easy start to the rally for me," he said. "I will suffer from being first on the road. "I always hope there will be some humidity Friday morning on the road, otherwise I expect to lose time. "But if there's more rain coming in the weekend, then it can become a very challenging rally.
"If it's changeable weather, it'll be changing for everyone. In these conditions, of course it will be tricky. We'll have to handle it well. "I would prefer these [wet] conditions over it being dry, because if it's dry clearly I'm going to suffer at the start of the rally and it's clear that it makes it harder for me. "If it rains, it's hard for everyone. Rain is currently forecast for all three days of the event, with chances of rainfall ranging from 40% on Friday to 80% on Saturday. Brawn: F1 2019 simulation tests show 'tangible' overtaking gains.
Ahead of a much bigger overhaul of the cars that is planned for 2021, smaller changes are being made for next year, focused on key areas including the front and rear wings, brake ducts and bargeboards - illustrated in the above image by Autosport Media UK's Emma Wright. The hope is that simplifying the aerodynamic profile of certain parts of the car will make it easier for drivers to follow closely in battle.
"Once again we saw in Brazil that when the performance level of two cars are more or less the same, then overtaking is almost impossible," said Brawn. "That raises the question as to how to make it easier to make a move on the car in front. "During 2018, we have made significant progress in defining next year's technical regulations, especially regarding the key area that is the front wing and in the last few weeks, we have worked out the fine details.
"Our simulation work and from what the teams, with which we have worked closely on this, tell us [is that] the effects are tangible, even though we are well aware that the real proof will only come next March in the Australian Grand Prix. Brawn was keen to point out that the upcoming changes are just the beginning of the process, even though expectations that the on-track spectacle will improve next year are continuing to build.
"The changes introduced are a first important step, but not necessarily an exhaustive one, towards defining the new technical and sporting regulations that will shap the long-term future of Formula 1," he said. "It's a foretaste of what we are defining for 2021 and we are pleased with what we have already achieved for 2019, but clearly we have high hopes, even in the short term. "This year, Formula 1 produced some really exciting racing, I'm thinking immediately of Baku, Shanghai, Silverstone and Mexico City and there is every sign that there will be more of the same next year.