JUNE 24, 2007
Here and there
Although Formula 1 had the weekend off, there was plenty of racing action around the world with Paul Tracy winning the Champ Car race at Cleveland, his first win for two years.
Although Formula 1 had the weekend off, there was plenty of racing action around the world with Paul Tracy winning the Champ Car race at Cleveland, his first win for two years. The Canadian charged through the field after early incidents to beat Robert Doornbos by half a second. Neel Jani was third.
Tracy finished the race with a car that had twice had to have a new nosecone. On the first lap he punted Graham Rahal off and needed repairs. Soon afterwards he was back for another nose after hitting Bruno Junqueira.
Championship leader Sebastien Bourdais led for the early part of the arce but went out with an engine failure.
The Indycar teams were at the Iowa Speedway where Dario Franchitti survived an incident-packed race to win from Andretti Green team-mate Marco Andretti. Scott Sharp was third on a day when most of the frontrunners either crashed or has mechanical trouble. Poleman Scott Dixon pitted before the race even started and then his Target Chip Ganassi Racing team-mate Dan Wheldon was involved in a crash. Tony Kanaan collided with Jeff Simmons while Helio Castroneves spun and lost ground and Sam Hornish Jr ran into an accident involving Danica Patrick and Ed Carpenter.
In Germany Bruno Spengler won for Mercedes-Benz in the DTM race at the Norisring, ahead of Bernd Schneider and the Audi of Mattias Ekstrom. In the F3 Euroseries race that accompanied the main event Romain Grosjean won in the rain ahead of Sebastien Buemi and Edoardo Mortara.
The British F3 races at Monza resulted in a win for Maro Engel in the first of the two races, leading home his Carlin Motorsport team-mates Sam Bird and Alberto Valerio. In the second race championship leader Marko Asmer took his sixth win of the year after a stirring battle with with Engel, during which the pair exchanged position several times. Bird was third.