Weekend Preview: 18-19 July 2009

Feature Events

MotoGP

- Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland
- Sachsenring, Germany
- (9/17)
- www.motogp.com

Last weekend we had the German F1 GP, the 9th race of 17, and either due by design or coincidence this week sees the German MotoGP, also the 9th race of 17 but this time on the opposite side of the country to the Nurburgring over at the Sachsenring circuit between Dresden and Leipzig.

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on BBC Two at 12.50pm Sunday, race starts at 1pm
(qualifying on BBC Red Button on Sat)
USA – LIVE on SPEED at 6pm ET Sunday
(amazing, the US gets a live MotoGP race!)

Support races are live on Eurosport and the BBC Red Button from 9.30am.

American Le Mans Series

- The American Le Mans North East Grand Prix
- Lime Rock Park, Connecticut, United States
- (5/10)
- www.americanlemans.com

The long hiatus to allow teams to compete at Le Mans – and recover – is finally over! This is a 2h45m event on the little Lime Rock circuit which last year was just a little bit frantic! Slightly fewer cars this year of course, but those up front will be trying just as hard.

TV Guide:
UK – Heavily Delayed on MotorsTV at 9.30pm on Monday 27th July
USA – LIVE on SPEED at 2pm ET Saturday

UK fans if you want to follow this event live I suggest listening to www.radiolemans.com instead! Should be at 7 or 8pm Saturday?

Other Events

FIA World Touring Car

- Brands Hatch
- Kent, England, UK
- (8/12)
- www.fiawtcc.com

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on Eurosport
- Race 1 @ 11.45am Sunday
- Race 2 @ 1.30pm Sunday

FIA Formula 2

- Brands Hatch
- Kent, England, UK
- (4/)
- www.formulatwo.com
- with Formula Master

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on Eurosport
- Race 1 DELAYED @ 6.45pm Saturday
- Race 2 LIVE @ 12.30pm Sunday

Elsewhere – Live streaming on www.formulatwo.com
Race 1 starts at 2pm on Saturday, Race 2 at 12.45pm Sunday

DTM

- Zandvoort
- Holland
- (4/10)
- www.dtm.com for news
- www.dtm.tv for live streaming and other video

The annual visit to Holland for the Germans appears likely to receive no UK TV airing following the collapse of Setanta Sports, as unlike GP2 no other broadcaster has stepped in to pick up the rights.

There should be live streaming on www.dtm.tv though! It is due to kick off at 1pm UK time.

Superleague Formula

- Zolder
- Belgium
- (6/11)
- www.superleagueformula.com

No TV deal here either for the same reasons as DTM, although I’m a little less bothered about this one!

World Series by Renault

- Le Mans Bugatti
- Le Mans, France
- (6/9)
- www.worldseriesbyrenault.com

There is a 30 minute update at 10pm Sunday on Eurosport, otherwise coverage seems as patchy and randomly-timed as ever.

Atlantic Championship

- Lime Rock Park
- Connecticut, USA
- (4/10)
- www.atlantic-championship.com

Grand-Am Rolex Series

- Barber Motorsport Park
- Alabama, USA
- (8//12)
- www.grand-am.com

Formula 3 Euroseries

- Zandvoort
- Holland
- (4/10)
- www.f3euroseries.com

NASCAR Nationwide Series

- Gateway International Raceway
- Madison, Illinois
- www.nascar.com

NASCAR Camping World Trucks

- Kentucky Speedway
- Sparta, Kentucky
- www.nascar.com
- with ARCA Re/Max

* * * *

I think that’s everything, if you spot anything I’ve missed or if you are attending any of these events be sure to leave a comment!

For those in the UK who missed the Goodwood Festival of Speed show on Tuesday, it will be repeated on ITV4 on Sunday at 5pm – don’t miss it!

Weekend Preview: 27-28 June 2009

Feature Events

IndyCar Series

- SunTrust Indy Challenge
- Richmond International Raceway, Richmond, Virginia, USA
- (8/17)
- 300 laps
- www.indycar.com

A Saturday evening race as darkness falls at the short oval where traffic will be an issue, it could cause problems or it could help the racing as the better drivers through lapped traffic will run well.

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on Sky Sports 1 at 1:30am Sunday morning
USA – LIVE on VERSUS at 8pm ET Saturday night for an 8.45pm green flag (why not a nice easy 9pm??)

Support races: USAC Silver Crown, USAC Sprint Car

MotoGP

- Alice TT Assen
- Assen, Holland
- (7/17)
- www.motogp.com

MotoGP is also on a Saturday as is the tradition at Assen.

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on BBC Two at 12:40pm Saturday afternoon
Delayed on Eurosport

Support races: 250cc and 125cc available on the BBC Red Button

Other Events

NASCAR Sprint Cup

- Lenox Industrial Tools 301
- New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon, New Hampshire, USA
- (17/36)
- www.nascar.com

TV Guide:
UK - LIVE on Sky Sports 1 at 7pm Sunday
USA – LIVE on TNT at 1.30pm ET Sunday

(The Nationwide Series at Loudon on Saturday night, Trucks are at Memphis also on Saturday)

For all other events I will list the UK time (BST not GMT) and channel only, if you are elsewhere you will have to look it up (check their website).

World Rally Championship

- Rally Poland
- (5/10)
- Eurosport and Dave
- www.wrc.com
This is the first time Rally Poland has been a part of the WRC.

DTM

- Norisring
- Nuremburg, Germany
- (3/8)
- live web streaming: just before 1pm Sunday
- www.dtm.tv
The UK TV deal collapsed when Setanta Sports did, let’s hope someone else picks it up. Check the webstream if you can, Norisring is nuts!
(supported by F3 Euroseries)

Superleague Formula

- Magny-Cours, France
- (1/6)
- Eurosport 2: Race 1 at 10am, Race 2 at 1pm followed by the new ‘extra time final’
- there may be live streaming on the website? I refuse to look at it.
- www.superleagueformula.com
The whole idea is a bunch of hokum clearly, but it features interesting if unspectacular drivers such as Enrique Bernoldi, Giorgio Pantano, Antonio Pizzonia, Yelmer Buurman, Adrian Valles, Tristan Gommendy and Ho-Pin Tung, all in powerful V12 single-seaters.

(also on the bill: Euroseries 3000, this is the series which picked up the old Lola A1 cars, no telly coverage as far as I know)

FIA Formula 2

- Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
- (3/8)
- Eurosport: Race 1 live 12pm Saturday, Race 2 delayed 11:30pm Sunday night but there is live streaming online
- www.formulatwo.com
The first visit to Spa for this series should be a bit of fun!
(with the International GT Open and the Dutch Supercar Challenge)

Formula Nippon

- Fuji, Japan

Grand-Am Rolex Series

- Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington, Ohio, USA
- (6/12)
- www.grand-am.com

Super GT

- Sepang, Malaysia
- (4/9)
- www.supergt.net/en

* * * *

For those in the UK, don’t forget Top Gear on BBC2 at 8pm Sunday!

I will be quiet on the blog and on Twitter for a few days because I’ll be offline, if anything crazy happens I’ll text it in but won’t see responses until Sunday at the earliest. Enjoy the weekend!

Superleague Formula

I'm not convinced of this.

Superleague Formula, the crossover between motorsport and football, say they have a large amount of market research telling them that such a crossover is going to be a bit hit. They would say that, of course, or they wouldn't have launched the series.

Now I'm not big fan of footie - except when England are playing, of course - but I'm sceptical. I know football fans will buy anything with their team logo on it but I'm not sure they'll stick around if their team does not perform. Many are die-hard supporters but a great deal are not, they drift away when their team does badly and only fill the stadium when the team starts winning again.

I have no idea how this is going down in the football press - if indeed it is at all. I would be interested to hear more. Certainly the racing press is as sceptical as I am but they are also wary because they said the same things about A1GP, so they are giving SF the benefit of the doubt for the time being. A1GP was supposed to die halfway through the first season, it did not, sure it has huge financial problems but I believe it is improving and recovering - and I seriously doubt an operation like Ferrari would invest in a new car and engine for a dying championship.

Grand Prix Masters died instead, and that was supposed to be huge. Perhaps this says as much about the racing press as it does about the series concerned.

The first SF event will be held at Donington Park in less than a fortnight, interestingly the first A1GP group test will be held there just 9 days later so we may well get an intriguing laptime comparison should they choose to run on the same layout. I am going to research the teams running each 'franchise' (ugh, hate that word) and do a little preview when we are nearer the time. SF, like A1 before it, is starting off with known racing teams running each operation and like A1 perhaps the idea is that each franchise will later take over their own team.

The other point is that SF doesn't seem to have run anything like the number of test miles as A1 has. Okay, A1 has done this before, but even then they ran a lot of miles. They still encountered problems in the first few races. SF are going to encounter some big teething problems.

The only thing two things impressing me about SF are the chassis based on the superb Panoz DP01 Champ Car, and two of the drivers, Robert Doornbos and Ryan Dalziel. The rest of the field are makeweights. As I say, I'll run through them in a preview in a week or so.


The official website of SF is www.superleagueformula.com.