Leonardo Panayiotou, a four-year-old go-karter at the same track Lewis Hamilton first made his mark, has received £15,000 in sponsorship to pursue his motor racing dream. Despite his tender age, Leonardo races a 60cc kart as speeds of up to 50mph. A consortium of sponsors spotted the youngster racing at Rye House Kart Raceway, in Hertforshire, and came forward with the money. His dad Jason said:
“He lives and breathes motor racing. He was born to drive. He’s even beginning to beat me now and I’ve been racing for 15 years. It’s a bit embarrassing.”
The other day we told you that A1GP had descended into farce. Grid Crasher is not sure what the official next stage down the scale from farce is, but A1GP is there! Britain, India, Germany, Mexico and Canada have all confirmed they will miss the season opener at Zandvoort this weekend, and some reports are suggesting that Brazil, China, France, Portugal and Switzerland will not be on the grid either.
The icing on the cake of all this hilarity is that the Germany team could withdraw from the series permanently after it emerged that 2006-07 champion Nico Hulkenberg is still waiting for the prize money for his achievement!
There should be chicane-cutting aplenty in the Superleague race this weekend. The football club-linked teams are coming to terms with the push to pass button, which provides the drivers with extra power for overtaking manoeuvres. The 11,000rpm V12 engine is boosted to 12,000rpm for a 15 second burst after the driver presses the button on the steering wheel.
Each driver can press the button a maximum of eight times in the race, but it cannot be used for two minutes after the previous use and cannot be used in qualifying.
Dario Franchitti, a man who is rightly best-known as Mr Ashley Judd, is leaving Nascar after just one season, to return to IndyCar in 2009. The Scot, who won the Indy 500 last year, will replace fellow Brit Dan Wheldon and team up with Scott Dixon.
Dixon is delighted with the news (perhaps because Wheldon has a reputation in the IndyCar paddock as being a bit of a dick, whereas Dario is a bit of a dude). The Kiwi said: “We saw each other over the weekend and I thought there must be some rustlings going on. To have a driver like Dario on our team is going to be spectacular. We’re going to be a force next season.”
Motorsport’s new football-sponsored Superleague Formula kicked off at the weekend, with a couple of very wet races at Donington.
Davide Rigon won the first ever SF race, leading from start to finish for Chinese club Beijing Guoan. Duncan Tappy, who only found out he was driving on Wednesday, came in third for Tottenham Hotspur. However, the star of the race was Adrian Valles (pictured), racing in Liverpool’s colours. After suffering electrical problems in practice, which forced him to start from the back of the grid, Valles powered through the puddles to finish fifth.
The second race was won by Borja Garcia for Sevilla. Valles improved on his first-race finish with a solid third place (achieved despite starting 12th on the grid); Spurs’ Tappy showed he will be a force in the series in finishing fifth. The results mean Liverpool and Spurs lie joint second in the table, behind Beijing Guoan.
Witness the most fantastic pile-up in auto racing history!
Daytona, 1960: This is what can happen when you let 68 cars roar around a tight, banked oval circuit. More than half of the field was wiped out in a single crash. Amazingly, no one was badly hurt.
