Briefly
Ballou’s future is still unknown as F1 remains an option
Alex Palou says he’s still several months away from deciding where he’ll race next year, and that could include moving from IndyCar to Formula 1.
Palou leads the IndyCar standings by 72 points, the largest margin anyone has held since 2020, and is nearing the halfway point of the season. He has won three of the last four races and has had a Formula 1 test with McLaren, although his next such outing will not be until after the IndyCar season ends in September.
His contract for 2024 has expired and he has been closely linked with joining McLaren’s IndyCar team, but Palou also has his eye on getting into F1 and current boss Chip Ganassi wants to stick with him as long as possible. When will the decision be made for next year?
“I don’t know, I honestly don’t know, but that day will come,” Ballou told media including RaceFans. “Maybe after two months, three, four I don’t know.”
However, Baloo suspects that his results will affect his plans. “I don’t think that by winning more races we will get one seat or another, or one seat in F1. I don’t think that having different results will affect our season next year.
“I think what we actually did in 2021 was a big achievement that I’m really happy about; I won my first championship in my second season in IndyCar. So I don’t think what we’re doing this year, it’s very different from what we did in ’21. So I don’t think it’s going to change it.”
AlphaTauri ‘never set the strategy right’ in Montreal – Drivers
AlphaTauri heads to the Red Bull Ring this weekend having finished no higher than 12th in the last four races and at the bottom of the constructors’ standings. The team did not enter any of its cars in Q2 at the Canadian Grand Prix. Yuki Tsunoda finished 14th and Nyck de Vries was 18th in the race.
“I enjoyed the Montreal experience, but as a team we were lacking a bit on track and we also didn’t have the best weekend on all fronts,” said de Vries. “Personally, but also with the team, I didn’t always make the right calls and decisions, and that ultimately resulted in a non-competitive weekend and no points on the board.”
Tsunoda said the team “couldn’t pull it all together”, which “was a shame because we might have had the speed to score points”.
“I tried to recover as much as I could (from starting 19) and we knew we had to be aggressive with our racing strategy. Maybe we didn’t get it quite right, but I feel like there’s a lot we can learn from that weekend, and we won’t make the same mistakes in the future.” “.
WEC Hypercar lineup changes for Monza
More changes have been announced to the hypercar’s entry for the next round of the World Endurance Championship, the Six Hours of Monza.
Glickenhaus Racing confirmed Romain Dumas and Olivier Bla will remain in the American team’s car after playing the first four rounds of the season, while Nathaniel Berthon replaces Ryan Briscoe to form a full French line-up.
Meanwhile, Proton Competition’s Porsche 963 is finally getting in on the action, with the trio of Gianmaria Bruni, Neil Jani and Harry Tincknell announced some time ago.
Evans is optimistic despite Jaguar’s slump
Jaguar’s Mitch Evans fell back in the race for the Formula E title last weekend at Portland Erics, coming from 20th to fourth while title contenders Nick Cassidy and Jake Dennis finished first and second.
“We had a race plan and executed it well. I know it sounds crazy, having started 20 and finishing P4, but I think it could have been,” said Evans, who is now 32 points behind leader Dennis with four races in Rome and London. be a little better.”
“I’m looking forward to Rome, but it’s obviously a different game in Gen3, as we saw in Jakarta. We won there last year and really struggled this year. In the last few races I feel like we haven’t had the pace as in the previous races, but we go to Rome with hopes. Great and good memories.
“It’s coming into that part of the championship where you have to be perfect and run clean races, but I’m ready for that.”
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Tramnitz leads tests, Kamara fastest in FREC FP1 at Spa (FREC)
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Detroit’s next upscale boutique hotel will open this summer (Detroit Free Peace)
Detroit supporters and tourism officials have said for years that the city needs significantly more hotel rooms to better compete with other cities for hosting large events and conventions. Occupancy at downtown hotels has been strong in recent weeks, with some hotels selling out entirely for special weekends, thanks to the arrival of visitors for the Taylor Swift, Detroit Grand Prix and Motion Festival.
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On this day in motorsports
- 20 years ago today Ralf Schumacher won the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring ahead of his Williams teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, after an engine failure ended Kimi Raikkonen’s race.