The lowdown: Danica Patrick wasn’t happy because slow-ass Duno blocked her in morning practice for last weekend’s Honda Indy 200 (won on Sunday by Ryan Briscoe, for the record - but who gives one about that, really).
Danica, being a feisty little thing, confronts Duno. Duno is from Venezuela (capital city: Feisty). Sparks - and towels - fly. Luckily, a camera was there to capture the catfight.
We aren’t cynical souls, but wouldn’t a bitter Patrick vs Duno rivalry be great for IndyCar ratings? Shame Duno is so damn slow.
If you were as absorbed as us in Sunday’s Monaco GP, then you might have missed the result of some smallsville hick race in Indianapolis on the same weekend.
Scott Dixon, pictured above with his huge winner’s trophy (looks a bit like an upside-down Dalek, no?), took the chequered flag, thereby making good on his pole position, which he secured more than one week ago - being Yanks, they stretch out the race weekend to almost one month.
Indy 500 plagued by Democrats, bad weather and loads of crashes
We got a bad feeling – the sort of feeling Mr T might have before not gettin’ on a plane - about this Sunday’s Indy 500, at least based on the series of unfortunate events that have marked the endless build-up to this Sunday’s big race. It’s enough to make us think that ex-First Lady Hillary Clinton has cursed the event - the Democrat loser-in-waiting turned up at the Indianapolis Speedway a couple of weeks ago, whilst campaigning for the Indiana primary.
Yeah, you might want to watch out for that… too late. We’re not sure if this was the fault of Danica Patrick or Chuck Buckman, the excellently named mechanic who she nailed (he suffered concussion and remains in hospital). However, we do know that lovely Danica cried like a girl after the incident, because Tony Kanaan, her team-mate at Andretti Green, said so:
“When I came in, she had tears in her eyes, so I hugged her and she cried a little more, so maybe that was a bad move on my behalf.”
Wednesday’s practice session for this weekend’s Indy 500 was wiped out after heavy showers turned the track into a slippery oval of death. With more rain forecast for the next few days, teams are understandably concerned that a lack of track time will affect their chances in Sunday’s race.
Helio Castroneves, twice a winner in the big one at Indianapolis, admits that the situation sucks: “With only one day of track time under our belts, we’re not quite where we want to be with the car,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll get some clear weather before Pole Day (Saturday) so we can fine-tune the qualifying trim. We had a productive day yesterday, but we certainly still have some work to do before qualifying.”
Danica Patrick, who recently became the first woman to win a top-level motor race, says she’s interested in testing in a F1 car. Speaking to Autosport, she said: “Every driver would love to drive a Formula One car at some point in their life, so yeah… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a real, proper test.”
Since Danica’s win at Motegi last month, everyone wants a piece of her, including Honda’s F1 team, which has admitted it would give her the chance to show what she can do – Honda also supply her Andretti Green IndyCar team.
Long Beach, California: Aussie driver Will Power (yes, really – let’s hear it for Mr and Mrs Power…) goes down in the history books as the last man to win a Champ Car event. He cruised to a comfortable win in Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. And so the series, which was partly absorbed by the new, unified IRL (Indy Racing League) for this season, is no more.
Why the first lady of IndyCar is too slow for Formula 1
Danica Patrick’s victory in Japan at the weekend has given a huge boost in the arm for IndyCar, and naturally motorsport fans will now speculate on what might happen if Patrick were to compete in Formula 1. She’d suck, that’s what would happen – like most oval drivers who attempt to compete in F1.
Patrick only ever picks up points on easy peasy oval tracks – on road circuits she has shown again and again to be a mediocre, mid-grid driver, failing even to beat Champ Car runners in patched-up cars. F1’s twists and turns would not suit her at all.
