SEPTEMBER 18, 2006

Around the world

With the Formula 1 teams not racing last weekend, the biggest event taking place was the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at the New Hampshire International Speedway where Kavin Harvick of Richard Childress Racing winning the first event that counts towards this year's Chase to the Cup. Tony Stewart was second but as he is not one of the 10 drivers in the Chase he does not score. Harvick now leads the Cup standings from rookie Denny Hamlin, who finished fourth at New Hampshire. The big loser of the weekend was Jimmie Johnson, the erstwhile points leader, who crashed out and is now 10th in the title race.

AJ Allmendinger had his first race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and finished 13th out of 36 runners in his Bill Davis Racing Toyota Tundra.

At Mugello the British Formula 3 teams were in action with Christian Bakkerud (Carlin Motorsport) winning his first victory after his team mates Oliver Jarvis and Maro Engel and Raikkonen Robertson's Mike Conway ran into one another at the first corner leaving Bakkerud to score a relatively easy win. In the second race Bruno Senna took the lead in the wet from Jarvis and scored a comfortable win, while Jarvis held off Conway. The championship has yet to be decided but Conway is well clear of the rest.

At Sugo in Japan Loic Duval won for the PIAA Nakajima team ahead of Benoit Treluyer and Tsugio Matsuda, both of the Mobilecast Impul team. Treluyer now leads the title by 16 points with only 20 available. In the Japanese Formula 3 which supported the Formula Nippon race there was a double win for Brazil's Fabio Carbone (Three Bond Racing) ahead of series leader Adrian Sutil.

And at the Salzburgring in Austria China's Ho-Pin Tung won the Recaro German Formula 3 Championship with one race to spare. The 18-year-old leaves Holland's Ferdinand Kool, Britain's Joey Foster and Germans Nico Hulkenberg and Harald Schlegelmilch to battle over second place in the series.