AUGUST 29, 2005

A busy weekend for all but F1

It was a very full weekend for motorsport with all the major series in action apart from Formula 1. In Germany Sebastien Loeb won his eighth victory of the year to move close to a second consecutive World Championship for Citroen.

In Montreal the Champ Car World Series had a disappointing weekend with only 36,200 spectators present to see the action which resulted in victory for Newman Haas Racing stand-in driver Oriol Servia in a dramatic showdown. Former F1 men Timo Glock and Justin Wilson second and third. Championship leader Sebastien Bourdais was fourth and increased his lead over rival Paul Tracy, who once again made a mistake which compromised his chances, this time hitting a wall as he came into the pits. Glock took the lead after a late-race caution which came just after he had completed his final pit stop. Up to that point the race had been dominated by Bourdais. Glock came under increasing attack in the closing stages from Servia and eventually drove over a chicane to stay ahead. Race Control ordered him to cede the position and victory to Servia.

Meanwhile in California another ex-F1 man Ryan Briscoe was the star of the show at Sears Point Raceway. Starting from pole position the Ganassi driver led until an early stop and was then charging back through the field when he ran into Danica Patrick and took out Helio Castroneves in the process. The Brazilian later blamed the Australian for a lack of patience. This left Bryan Herta leading Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon and Giorgio Pantano. After the first major pit stops another ex-F1 man, Tomas Enge, but the impulsive Czech pushed too hard and spun, allowing Tony Kanaan to close right up. At the second pit stops Kanaan stayed out longer and emerged in the lead, but with a lighter fuel load. However a caution gave Kanaan the chance to go all the way to the flag, leading home Buddy Rice and the Red Bull Team Cheever duo of Alex Barron and Patrick Carpentier. The win takes Kanaan up to second in the championship behind his team mate Dan Wheldon.

At Fuji Andre Lotterer won the Formula Nippon race for the PIAA Nakajima team, beating the Le Mans Company's Tatsuya Kataoka and Yuji Ide (Mobilecast Impul). Ide's third place gave Impul the team championship while Satoshi Motoyama stays ahead in the drivers' championship, despite failing to score at Fuji. Ide is now only four points behind while Richard Lyons is still in the hunt, eight points behind Motoyama. With two races to go the title is still up for grabs.

In Formula 3 Lewis Hamilton won the Formula 3 Euro Series title with an 11th race victory on Sunday at Zandvoort while Sebastian Vettel (Mucke Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes) finished second but was later disqualified for an underweight car, which gave Giedo van der Garde (Team Rosberg Dallara-Opel) the runner-up spot. In the first race rookie Guillaume Moreau (Signature Dallara-Opel) scored his first win ahead of Vettel and Franck Perera (Prema Powerteam Dallara-Opel) after Hamilton retired as a result of a first corner collision with his ASM team-mate Adrian Sutil.

The British F3 series was in action at Silverstone with three races (one rescheduled from a rained-out event at Spa). Victory in the first race went to American rookie Charlie Kimball but his more experienced Carlin Motorsport team mate and championship rival Alvaro Parente won the other two races to increase his lead in the series. Kimball is now solidly second in the championship but has his work cut out to catch Parente.

The DTM race in Zandvoort was won by McLaren protege Gary Paffett, who now leads the championship for AMG Mercedes, ahead of his title rival Mattias Ekstrom (Audi) and former F1 man Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Opel).

And at Oschersleben there was much celebration as another former F1 racer Alex Zanardi scored his first win in the FIA World Touring Car Championship. Zanardi, who lost both his legs in a crash in Champ Cars in 2001, led home BMW colleagues Jorg Muller and Andy Priaulx.

Priaulx had previously won the first race of the weekend.