What you need to know …
… about Sunday’s Daytona 500
- Denny Hamlin won Sunday’s Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, the season-opener for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
- This was Hamlin’s second Daytona 500
- Hamlin drives for Joe Gibbs Racing; the team’s co-founder, J.D. Gibbs, passed away on January 11th, 2019 at the age of 49 after a long battle with a degenerative neurological condition
- Hamlin’s teammates Kyle Busch and Erik Jones finished second and third respectively; Joey Logano (fourth) and Michael McDowell (fifth) rounded out the top five
- The race was slowed 12 times for 47 laps, including the two stage breaks
- Six of the cautions were for multi-car incidents, two of which brought out the red flag: one for 24 minutes and 57 seconds, the other for 14 minutes and 41 seconds
- The largest incident of the day was on lap 191 when 21 cars were collected in an accident
- Only four cars out of the 40-car field were not involved in any crashes: Busch, Hamlin, Ross Chastain, and Corey LaJoie (LaJoie blew out a right front tire early in the race, but the official reason for the caution is listed as “debris”)
- The race saw nine different leaders for 207 laps, with Matt DiBenedetto leading the most (49)
For more information: Race recap … Story from KTT’s Caleb Whisler about Michael McDowell’s post-race comments … Story from KTT’s Zach Catanzareti about Ryan Preece’s top-10 finish
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… about Formula E’s Mexico E-Prix
- Lucas di Grassi earned his first win and podium finish of the current Formula E season in the 2019 Mexico E-prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City
- di Grassi literally earned the victory at the last second, passing then-leader Pascal Wehrlein mere inches from the finish line as Wehrlein’s car ran out of battery power
- Wehrlein was also assessed a five-second penalty after cutting the chicane on the last lap, moving him from a second-place result to a sixth-place result
- Oliver Rowland and Sebastian Buemi ran out of power on the last lap, too, after running in the top five for most of the race
- Due to a nasty crash between Nelson Piquet Jr. and Jean-Eric Vergne in the opening minutes of the race, the decision was made to red flag the event and add 26 minutes to the end of the normally 45-minute race to make up the difference
- Antonio Felix Da Costa was awarded second place; Edoardo Mortara third; Jerome d’Ambrosio fourth; and Andre Lotterer fifth
- d’Ambrosio currently holds a seven-point lead over Da Costa
For more information: Story from electrive.com’s Bjorn Hesse … Story from AutoX.com’s Divyank Kushagra Bansal … Mexico E-Prix full race results
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… Formula One pre-season testing
- Monday, February 18th will be the first of an eight-day test session for Formula One drivers and teams at the Spanish Grand Prix venue Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya
- The test session will take place from February 18 to February 21, and February 26 to March 1
- Each F1 team can run one car over the course of the session
- Williams drivers Robert Kubica and George Russell were going to share driving duties on Monday, but the team has decided not to run due to delays in preparing their car
- Reserve drivers Pietro Fittipaldi and Nicholas Latifi will also be participating
For more information: Story from MotorsportWeek.com’s Phillip Horton, including the driver line-up … Story from Autosport.com’s Scott Mitchell … Story from Formula1.com’s Matt Maltby and Greg Stuart
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