Category: Sportscars

2010 Race Calendar

During the 2009 season I thought it would be a great idea to create a race schedule in Google Calendar featuring different racing series. I was busy with accounts studies at the time and I never got around to taking it further. Early last month I decided it was worth exploring so I set up a trial with F1 and IndyCar dates. I’d add more later if I decided it looked okay. Again I let it drop when other things got in the way.

Christine from Sidepodcast recently created a calendar highlighting F1 events and the SPC / F1 Minute podcast schedules and she did a great job, enough to inspire me to get on and finish my idea.

Here it is!

(note – WordPress doesn’t allow the iFrame code that makes the embed work so I have had to leave it out for now)

My schedule includes F1, F2, GP2, IndyCar, Le Mans 24hr, ALMS, LMS, MotoGP, WRC, IRC and WTCC. I’ve also put in Dakar, Goodwood and a couple of other things. I’ll add NASCAR Sprint Cup and DTM soon – there are categories already so if you add them the events will hopefully appear in your calendar automatically.

Christine’s calendar is F1-specific and it includes Free Practice, pre-season testing and car launches. My calendar includes none of these things, only qualifying and race. I highly recommend adding Christine’s F1 calendar if you would like this extra information.

Click the “+GoogleCalendar” button to add to your own Google Calendar account. I have split events by race series so you can just pick the ones you want. I think there is a way to get them into iCal and other systems, though I don’t know how.

The calendar is set to UK time because that’s where I am and that’s most useful to me. I’m not sure but I believe when you import it, it will adjust it to your own default timezone. Have a play with it and see.

Race start times are estimates apart from F1 and Le Mans. This information is surprisingly hard to find. E.g. IndyCar.com only lists TV start times, not race starts. Many sites only give the dates and I’ve had to improvise. Then there’s the issue of timezones which I may have got wrong. I plan to make each forthcoming weekend as accurate as I can, beyond that just use this as a guide.

I’ve included qualifying for F1, Le Mans 24Hrs and IndyCar (times estimated). I don’t intend to include any more qualifying.

I hope you find this useful and please let me know if there is anything you would like to add. If the demand is there and I think it warrants adding, I’ll do so. I’m already considering Indy Lights.

As you can see I’ve also added a list version to the sidebar. When I create the new site I will have a version similar to the one above on its own page.

EDIT – WordPress does not allow embeds so I have linked them on the sidebar. This means you can pick and choose the series you are interested in! I’ve also since created calendars for Indy Lights and GrandAm.

Weekend Preview : 1-2 August 2009

Feature Events


IRL IndyCar Series

– Meijer Indy 300
– Kentucky Speedway
– Sparta, Kentucky, United States
– (12/17)
– www.indycar.com

Changes to the aero rules for this race (see previous post) should mean an improvement in the racing on this 1.5 mile oval, as it has been fairly bad on ovals earlier this season. Since side by side open-wheel racing on ovals is the hallmark and unique selling point of this series, let’s hope they work.

Note this is a Saturday night race under the lights.

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on Sky Sports 1 at 2am Sunday (repeated 11.30am and 4.30pm on SS Xtra)
USA – LIVE on VERSUS at 8pm ET Saturday

Other Events


Le Mans Series

– 1000KM do Algarve
– Portimao
– Algarve, Portugal
– (3/5)
– www.lemans-series.com

The is the first evening/night race for the Le Mans Series in Europe, and also the first visit of the series to this new circuit. The race will begin at 7.15pm local (and UK) time and run for the usual LMS distance of 1000km or six hours.

TV Guide:
UK – Eurosport at 7pm for 1h30m.


Formula Renault 3.5

– Portimao
– Algarve, Portugal

Supporting the LMS, both races are on Saturday afternoon.

TV Guide:

Race 1 on Eurosport at 12pm Saturday.
Race 2 doesn’t appear to be covered.

NASCAR Sprint Cup

– Pennsylvania 500
– Pocono, Pennsylvania, United States
– www.nascar.com

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on Sky Sports 3 at 7pm Sunday
US – LIVE on ESPN at 1pm Sunday


NASCAR Nationwide Series

– Iowa Speedway
– Iowa, United States
– www.nascar.com

NASCAR Camping World Trucks

– Nashville Speedway
– Tennessee, United States
– www.nascar.com


DTM

– Oschersleben
– Germany
– www.dtm.tv / www.dtm.com

dtm.tv should have live coverage from 1pm UK time.

V8 Supercars

– Norton 360 Sandown Challenge
– Sandown, Australia
– www.v8supercar.com.au


Indy Lights

– Oschersleben
– Germany


F3 Euroseries

– Kentucky Speedway
– Kentucky, USA

Superleague Formula

– Donington Park
– Leics., England, UK

World Rally Championship

– Rally Finland
– www.wrc.com

Kimi Raikkonen has entered his home round of the WRC in a Super 2000 spec Abarth. After the first day’s stages he’s performing among the top runners in his class and in the top 20 overall!


Intercontinental Rally Challenge

– Rally Vinho Madeira
– Madeira, Portugal
– www.ircseries.com


British Touring Car Championship

– Snetterton
– Norfolk, England, UK

TV Guide:

UK – The usual six hours (3 x BTCC plus lots of support races) on ITV4 from 11.30am!

* * * *

Sources:
Live Sport on TV
RadioTimes.com
and several of the series sites mentioned above

Weekend Preview: 25-26 July 2009

Feature Events

FIA Formula 1 World Championship

– Formula 1 ING Magyar Nagydig
– (ING Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix)
– Hungaroring, nr.Budapest, Hungary
– (10/17)
– www.f1.com

F1 returns to the dustbowl of the Hungaroring, where as usual the forecast is for high temperatures. The dust of the surrounding area has a tendency to get all over the track and make grip very hard to come by, it is this in combination with the circuit layout itself that tends to prevent good racing at this notoriously boring race track – though the changes to turn one a few years ago have created a divebomb-braking opportunity for the brave/crazy (if not in the F1 race, definitely in the GP2 support races!).

I am not a fan of this event although it did bring F1 to Eastern Europe as long ago as the mid-1980s, and track improvements over the last two decades have improved racing.. a bit..

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on BBC One at 12.10pm Sunday, race starts at 1pm
(qualifying on BBC Two at 12.10pm Sat)
USA – HEAVILY DELAYED on FOX at 3pm ET.


IRL IndyCar Series

– Rexall Edmonton Indy
– City Centre Airport, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
– (11/17)
– www.indycar.com

This is the second visit to Edmonton for the IndyCars but the 5th (I think?) running of the event, with this being a former Champ Car venue – but any advantage the CC guys had has now been erased and there should be a nice level playing field, apart from the actual track surface of this bumpy airport circuit!

Of note this year is the first visit to the circuit of the supporting Indy Lights series.

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on Sky Sports 2 at 10.45pm Sunday (directly after NASCAR)
USA – LIVE on VERSUS at 5pm ET Sunday


FIM MotoGP

– British Grand Prix
– Donington Park, Castle Donington, England
– (11/17)
– www.motogp.com

The final visit to Donington for the premier motorbike series, for now at least, as it moves in the opposite direction to F1 and will pitch up at Silverstone in 2010, with apparent mixed feelings from the riders. Some love Donny, some can’t wait to leave. I think it makes a great motorbike track with the sweeping curves.

Living in the UK I know the forecast for the weekend. Saturday is due to be warm and sunny so qualifying should be representative – but rain is due to appear for the race on Sunday.

(I can never remember if DP is in Northants or Lincs)

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on BBC ONE at 3pm Sunday (directly after F1), race start 3.30pm
USA – SPEED claims 6pm ET, which is not possible because the race starts at 8.30pm ET.


Other Events


GP2 Series

– Hungaroring
– Budapest, Hungary
– (6/10)
– www.gp2series.com
– (F1 support with F.Master, FBMW Europe and Porsche Supercup)

TV Guide:
UK – Eurosport 2
– Race 1 @ 4.45pm Saturday (this may be slightly delayed due to MotoGP coverage)
– Race 2 @ 7pm Sunday (very delayed – I can’t see any live coverage)


World Superbikes

– Brno
– Brno, Czech Republic
– www.worldsbk.com
– (with Supersport, etc.)

TV Guide:

UK – Eurosport
– Race 1 LIVE @ 11am Sunday
– Race 2 DELAYED @ either at 3.40pm or 6pm (Eurosport’s website sucks)

NASCAR Sprint Cup

– Allstate 400 at the Brickyard
– Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Speedway, Indiana, United States
– www.nascar.com

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on Sky Sports 2 at 7pm Sunday
US – LIVE on ESPN at 2pm Sunday


NASCAR Nationwide Series
& NASCAR Camping World Trucks

– O’Reilly Raceway Park
– Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
– www.nascar.com

Firestone Indy Lights

– Edmonton
– Alberta, Canada
– (IndyCar support)

IMSA Atlantics

– Autobahn Country Club
– Joliet, Illinois, United States
(with Star Mazda)


FIA GT

– Total 24 Hours of Spa
– Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
(with European GT4 and British F3)
– www.fiagt.com


Super GT

– Sugo
– Sugo, Japan


Silverstone Classic

– Silverstone Circuit
– Silverstone, Northants, England, UK

A multitude of historic racing series at what used to be known as the Coys Historic Festival.
Featuring: GP Masters, Pre-66 F1, the David Leslie Memorial Trophy for 90s Tourers, BRDC Historic Sportscars, Classic Group C and a lot more.

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE all weekend on MotorsTV

* * * *

Sources:
Live Sport On TV
RaceFanTV
SkySports.com
Eurosport.co.uk
BBC.co.uk
SpeedTV.com

The War Ends Before It Begins

24 hours ago Max Mosely and Luca di Montezemelo were sat discussing the FIA/FOTA fiasco, with Bernie Ecclestone also present presumably as moderator as well as looking after his own interests. The trio reportedly discussed the issues for most of the night in order to strike a deal before Wednesday’s crucial FIA World Motorsport Council (WSMC) meeting, in which frankly anything could have happened.

Thankfully the time pressure of the deadline meant common sense broke out and the following agreements were announced:

– There will be no FOTA breakaway, instead they will report back tomorrow with cost-reduction proposals.
– Budgets are to be reduced to “early 1990s levels” within two years. Curiously the method for achieving this was not stated so the budget cap may not be the answer.
– The 1998 Concorde Agreement, which determines the distribution of revenues, methods for agreeing regulations, and more, has been amended and extended to 2012. This means all teams are committed to that date.
– There will be 13 teams in the 2010-2012 Formula One World Championship, this is the list per the press release:

SCUDERIA FERRARI MARLBORO
VODAFONE McLAREN MERCEDES
BMW SAUBER F1 TEAM
RENAULT F1 TEAM
PANASONIC TOYOTA RACING
SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO
RED BULL RACING
AT&T WILLIAMS
FORCE INDIA F1 TEAM
BRAWN GP FORMULA ONE TEAM
CAMPOS META TEAM
MANOR GRAND PRIX
TEAM US F1

The latter three operations will use the cheap Cosworth engines, it is currently unclear if those will be under 2006 regulations since 2006 was the last year Cosworth competed (as a nod to cost-saving). If so this would give them a 2000rpm advantage over the other teams, and not have to run to the multi-race engine rules. While this is clearly unfair, it could be the new teams’ chassis will be so far behind the established teams, for the first couple of years anyway, that it all balances out nicely – should the new teams catch up, they can expect these breaks to be lifted.

You can read the FIA press release on their own website.

* * * *

Within the press release were some other nuggets relating to other FIA series.

World Rally

– The new 1.6 litre turbo engine will be brought in ahead of schedule in 2011.
– Events can now be more flexible. Instead of running to a set 3-day timetable, they may run 2, 3 or 4 days as long as it finishes on a Saturday or Sunday. They may include different surfaces.
– The 2010 calendar is out and you can see it in the link. Looks like the move to a winter championship schedule has been quietly dropped.

World Touring

– Yokohama is the sole supplier for the next three years.
– Autosport reported the 1.6 litre engine will be used in WTCC in 2011 as well, and that it’ll be a spec engine, but the release doesn’t mention this.
– The 2010 calendar is out, check it out in the link. Algarve and Zolder are in. Pau is out. Valencia and Imola move around, assuming Imola is the Italian round.

I find the whole idea of the top rally and touring car series running 1.6 litre engines to be laughable. At least the rally cars will be turbocharged.

World GT

– Stephane Ratel’s plan to expand FIA GT into a new FIA GT1 World Championship has been authorised. GT2 will split into a new European series of its own races, many of which will run on GT1 weekends alongside GT3 and GT4.
– GT1 will be for pro drivers, GT2 for pro-am, and GT3 for non-professionals.
– The Bucharest street race next year is out, instead they’ll go to Budapest (I’m assuming this means the Hungaroring).

It seems like a good idea and I really hope it works for them, despite my reservations at losing the element of class traffic from sportscar racing.