Autoextremist.com ~ the bare-knuckled, unvarnished, high-electron truth...

(Photo by Chris Owens/INDYCAR)
Scott Dixon (No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing PNC Bank Honda) benefited from a well-timed caution period near the midway point of the race and then drove away to dominate the NTT INDYCAR SERIES GMR Grand Prix Saturday on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It marked the first victory in this event for the five-time series champion Dixon, who had finished second in this race for the last three years. “So good to be racing here again at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” Dixon said. “We’ve had so many runner-up spots here on the road course. We got lucky. The strategy, the team just nailed it. We got lucky with that caution. But as soon as we got the balance right, the PNC Bank No. 9 just checked out.” Dixon stays perfect in the 2020 season, as he also won the season opener June 6 on the Texas Motor Speedway oval.
(Photo by Chris Owens/INDYCAR)
Saturday marked the 48th career INDYCAR victory for Dixon, who is now just four wins behind Mario Andretti for No. 2 on the all-time series list.

(Photo by Chris Jones/INDYCAR)
Graham Rahal (No. 15 RLL Racing Fifth Third Bank Honda) finished second, 19.9469 seconds behind Dixon. Rahal made just two pit stops, one fewer than Dixon and the other contenders.

(Photo by Chris Jones/INDYCAR)
Simon Pagenaud (No. 22 Team Penske Menards Chevrolet) rebounded from a tough qualifying session Friday, jumping from 20th starting spot to finish third. The heat was magnified by the new closed cockpit design of the cars, clearly something that needs to be worked on before the upcoming races. Colton Herta No. 88 Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana Honda) finished fourth, while Rinus VeeKay (No. 21 Sonax Chevrolet) bounced back from a tough debut last month at Texas to become the top-finishing rookie in the race, with a fifth-place result. The next NTT INDYCAR SERIES event is a doubleheader next weekend, the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Race 1 is Saturday, July 11 (5 p.m. ET, NBCSN), with Race 2 on Sunday, July 12 (12:30 p.m. NBC). (Thank you as always to INDYCAR Media.)

(Multimatic)
Harry Tincknell and Jonathan Bomarito (No. 55 Multimatic Motorsports Mazda RT-24P DPi/Michelin) won Saturday’s two-hour, 40-minute IMSA WeatherTech 240 At Daytona. Tristan Nunez and Oliver Jarvis (No. 77 Multimatic Motorsports Mazda RT-24P DPi/Michelin) finished second to make it another 1-2 for Mazda. The No. 55 machine dominated most of the second half of the race, taking the lead for the final time at the end of the pit stop sequence with just over 30 minutes remaining. Tincknell took the checkered flag 10.168 seconds ahead of Jarvis to win the first WeatherTech Championship race since January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona. It was his third career win in the series and Bomarito’s ninth in IMSA competition. The start of the race was delayed 40 minutes due to lightning just before the scheduled start. Early evening rains also left the track damp in many areas, but with no more rain expected, some teams elected to start on Michelin rain tires, while others gambled on slicks. Joao Barbosa and Sebastien Bourdais (No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R/Michelin) finished third.The race was run without a full-course caution. It was the series’ 12th caution-free race since 2014. Next up for the WeatherTech Championship is the Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring on Saturday, July 18. (Thanks to IMSA Wire Service for all of the info.)
(IMSA)
Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor (No. 3 Corvette C8.R/Michelin) will go down in the history books as the driver pairing to deliver the milestone 100th IMSA victory for Corvette Racing. It also marked the first win for the new, mid-engined Corvette C8.R race car. Corvette Racing’s 100th victory in IMSA competition has been coming for more than two years. The last one came in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in April 2018. Fuel strategy was the name of the game in the GTLM class Saturday night at Daytona, and while every car in the class led at one point or another throughout the evening, it was the No. 3 Corvette team that hit the strategy just right. Garcia won by 1.977 seconds ahead of defending WeatherTech Championship GTLM champion Earl Bamber in the No. 912 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR-19/Michelin, co-driven by Laurens Vanthoor. “The engineers spotted very early how close we’d have been with fuel and how early we should start working on that,” Garcia said. “Jordan did a great job and saved a lot there and I saved another one. We didn’t know about the 912. We didn’t know if they could make it or if we were fighting them and the 911. We were expecting the Porsche to follow the 4 car (Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin), but we realized it was a fight. As soon as I had an opportunity early in the stint when I knew my tires were good, I waited for Earl to make a little mistake, and because I was able to follow very close I took advantage of that position. After that I worked my way through traffic really, really well.” It was Taylor’s first GTLM win after moving from his father’s Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi team to the Corvette factory program this season. Nick Tandy and Frederic Makowiecki (No. 912 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR-19/Michelin) finished third.

(Photo by Richard Prince for Corvette Racing)

(Michelin)

Saturday's IMSA WeatherTech 240 At Daytona belonged to AIM Vasser Sullivan in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD class. Jack Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz (No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3/Michelin) led 81 of 87 laps. Telitz held steady from the start in tricky, slippery conditions, and as Hawksworth took over, the No. 14 Lexus held a double-digit lead at times, but that lead waned as the minutes went by. They were pressured by their teammates, Townsend Bell and Frankie Montecalvo in the No. 12 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3/Michelin, who crossed the line 6.915 seconds behind its team car at the end of the race. For Townsend Bell, the victory capped off quite the adventurous day. Montecalvo qualified third as Bell actually started his day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to do his commentating gig at the IndyCar Series race for NBC. After the race, he hopped on a private jet with team owners Jimmy Vasser and James “Sulli” Sullivan to fly down to Daytona to compete. The flight experienced cabin pressure issues, however, and inclement weather forced them to land in Jacksonville. They completed the hour-and-a-half drive to the Daytona just before the call was made to start engines. “Frightened is probably accurate,” said Bell of his experience. “We had an issue in the sky, any time the pilot is pulling out the owners manual mid-flight is generally not a good sign. It was one of those things where we could tell even on take-off, your ears, the pressurization was kind of in and out. I could hear the pressurization pump in the back of the plane going. I went up to talk to the pilot and they said ‘We know we are working on it.’ We had to level off at like 12,000 feet while they worked on it. Then they said we’re not going to be able to do this, we have to go back to Indy. I said there is no way, after all the effort put into this, that I’m missing this race.” It's a good thing he didn’t. The 1-2 finish for Lexus is the best performance yet for the team, which first joined the WeatherTech Championship GTD class in 2019. Mario Farnbacher and Matthew McMurry (No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3/Michelin) finished third in GTD.

(Photo by Dan Istitene/Formula 1/Getty Images)
Valtteri Bottas (No. 77 Mercedes-AMG Petronas) won a chaotic first Grand Prix of the new F1 season in Austria. Bottas, who led every lap in a peerless performance, crossed the line just 0.6 seconds clear of Lewis Hamilton (No. 44 Mercedes-AMG Petronas), but Hamilton was demoted to fourth following a five-second time penalty, after he was involved in a crash with Alex Albon (No. 23 Red Bull Racing Honda) in the closing stages. Charles Leclerc (No. 16 Scuderia Ferrari) was moved up to second, while British driver Lando Norris (No. 4 McLaren F1 Team) captured the first podium of his career to finish third. Albon pitted for fresh tires during the second of three safety car periods. When the restart happened with ten laps left, Albon forced his way around the outside of Hamilton at Turn 4, but on the exit Hamilton refused to concede the position and - bang! - Hamilton's left front tire hit Albon's right rear. Albon ended up in the gravel, ending his chances. The stewards blamed Hamilton, and it marked the second time in three races the pair have collided.