MAY 22, 2006

A busy weekend

It was a busy weekend of racing around the world with Sebastien Loeb and his co-driver Daniel Elena winning a 25th World Rally Championship event. It was the pair's fifth win in a row and Elena now becomes the most successful co-driver of all time. If the pair's success continues Loeb will break all the record for a driver by the end of the current season and will win a third consecutive World Championship.

Sebastien Bourdais is enjoying similar domination in the United States and won his third consecutive victory in Champ Cars with a win in Monterrey, Mexico. Bourdais battled with the two RuSport cars of Justin Wilson and AJ Allmendinger. Paul Tracy finished fourth ahead of Alex Tagliani (Team Australia) and Bourdais's team mate Bruno Junqueira. Bourdais is now 25 points ahead of Wilson in the championship. The Champ Car Atlantic Championship race in Monterrey was won by Graham Rahal. It was the 17-year-old's first victory in the series and his third Atlantic race.

Elsewhere in the United States Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard led Lucas Luhr and Sacha Maassen to a 1-2 victory for the Penske Porsche team in the ALMS race at Mid-Ohio. It was the first overall win for Porsche in the American Le Mans Series and only the second time that an LMP2 car has won a race overall.

Back in Germany Tom Kristensen scored his first DTM win of the season with his Audi A4 DTM at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben, After two victories for Mercedes-Benz in the first two rounds of the season, the Dane dominated and so leads the championship ahead of Bernd Schneider. The Formula 3 Eurocup events supporting the DTM race resulted in two new winners with Scotsman Paul di Resta (ASM) winning the first event and Red Bull's Sebastien Buemi (Mucke Motorsport) winning the second. The 17-year old Buemi was the sixth winner in six races. The series is now led by Argentine Esteban Guerrieri.

The British Formula 3 men were also in action with Raikkonen Robertson Racing confiming its domination with wins for Bruno Senna and Mike Conway at Donington Park. Conway was on pole for both races but lost the first to Senna.

At Brands Hatch SEAT scored a 1-2-3 in the first World Touring Car Championship race, with Yvan Muller scoring his WTCC win ahead of team mates Peter Terting and James Thompson. In the second event Alain Menu gave Chevrolet its first victory in the series ahead of the SEATs of Rickard Rydell and Thompson behind him.