Pro Mazda
Australian Anthony Martin and Brazilian Victor Franzoni have shared the two race wins in a thrilling weekend of Pro Mazda racing at Road America.
The pair battled early in Race 1 before Franzoni pulled away to win by 11.7s in the #23 Juncos Racing entry.
In Race 2, Martin started from pole and Franzoni last of 15 cars, having been thwarted by a red flag in qualifying.
The #8 Cape Motorsports driver led every lap, but had to work hard to keep Franzoni at bay on the final lap after the 21-year-old sliced through the field.
Martin held on to win by 0.18s and tie Franzoni with three wins apiece after the first six races of the season.
Franzoni leads Martin by seven points leading into the next two races at Mid-Ohio on July 28-30.
Indy Lights
Matheus Leist (Carlin Racing) led all the way in Race 1 at Road America as a sensational opening few laps saw Santi Urrutia (Belardi Auto Racing), who started 10th, eventually finish a narrow second place over Kyle Kaiser (Juncos Racing).
Zachary Claman De Melo (Carlin Racing) became an Indy Lights race winner in Race 2.
The 19-year-old started from fourth and held that position at the end of Lap 1, before passing both Urrutia and Kaiser on Lap 2.
De Melo eventually got around the outside of leader Colton Herta (Andretti Steinbrenner Racing) at Turn 1 on Lap 5, having first attempted a move on Lap 3.
The Canadian went on to win by 10.5s in the 20-lap race, Kaiser and Herta making up the podium.
Kaiser leads the championship by 27 points after nine of 16 races, the next at Iowa from July 8-9.
USF2000 Championship
Dutch teenager Rinus VeeKay (Pabst Racing) took his first and second USF2000 race wins at Road America.
Oliver Askew (Cape Motorsports) takes a reduced, 24-point championship lead over VeeKay to Iowa on July 8-9, after finishes of 17th and third respectively.
Blancpain GT Endurance Series
Bentley has taken its first endurance race win since 2014 as Vincent Abril, Andy Soucek, and Maxime Soulet teamed up in the #8 Bentley Team M-Sport Continental to win the Paul Ricard 1000km.
While the lead changed during the race as cars pitted, the #8 Bentley ultimately took the chequered flag some 29s ahead of the #72 SMP Racing Ferrari of Davide Rigon, Miguel Molina and Viktor Shaytar, and take over the championship lead.
The #1 WRT Audi R8 of Rene Rast, Antonio Garcia, and Nico Muller, rounded out the podium.
The pole-sitting #4 Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG of Luca Stolz, Adam Christodoulou, and Yelmer Buurman, emerged second from its final pit stop but a gearbox failure soon ended their hopes.
Matt Simmons finished 11th, one lap off the pace, in the #22 Nissan GT-R which he shared with Struan Moore and Matthew Parry.
The latter made up three positions in the final stint, capping off an impressive race from 25th on the grid.
“We finished 11th, so it is kind of a happy result, because it has been a great recovery from where we started,” said Simmons.
“I was P32 after lap one, so to make up 21 positions in a grid like that, there’s a lot of positives to take away.
“But again, it would have been nice to say we finished in the top 10.
“We feel good as a team and we’ll move forward to Spa and keep pushing on.”
Fellow Australian Caitlin Wood’s Endurance Cup debut ended on a sour note when veteran co-driver Tomas Enge came off second-best in an early battle and made hard contact with the fence.
Not only did the crash take the #24 Reiter Young Stars Lamborghini R-EX out of the race after just 14 laps, the Czech suffered two broken ribs as a result.
Following a test day at Spa on July 4, the Spa 24 Hours will be held on July 27-30.
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Blancpain GT Series Asia
Australians Nick Foster and Mitch Gilbert were on the podium in Round 5 of the Blancpain GT Series Asia at Suzuka, as Marchy Lee/Shaun Thong won Round 5 in the #5 Audi Hong Kong R8 and Hunter Abbott/Maxi Goetz took out Round 6 in the #999 GruppeM Racing Team Mercedes AMG-GT3.
In Saturday’s Round 5 race, Lee moved from third to first on the opening lap and held the position until Thong emerged second from the compulsory pit stops due to their success penalty.
However, a mistake from then-leader Peter Li in the #99 Craft Bamboo Porsche 911 GT3R gave Thong a lead which he would never give up.
Foster, in the #88 Craft Bamboo Porsche 911 GT3R, passed Gilbert and then Li after his pit stop to take second.
Gilbert, in the #86 OD Racing Audi R8, took advantage of traffic to take the final podium position off Li.
In Sunday’s Round 6 race, a tyre failure cost Gilbert and co-driver Aditya Patel a probably victory.
Goetz was assured at the start in wet conditions, pressuring leader Alessio Picariello when the pit stops began after starting fifth.
Goetz’ co-driver Abbott inherited the lead after the pit stops, but was soon passed by Patel before the OD Racing entry blew a tyre while leading with 15 minutes of the hour-long race remaining.
That handed the lead back to Abbott, who ran first for the rest of the journey.
Foster and co-driver Devon Modell finished fifth but Gilbert/Patel were a DNF.
Abbott leads the championship, with Gilbert/Patel third.
The fourth of six events is Fuji, on August 19-20.
Formula 2
Charles Leclerc has taken another Feature Race win and finished runner-up in the Sprint Race despite again crossing the line in the lead at Baku.
Leclerc led the field away and held the effective race lead all the way through.
After two Safety Cars and a Virtual Safety Car, it was a red flag that brought an early end to proceedings when Sean Gelael hit the wall and was collected by Sergey Sirotkin, blocking the track.
With the top eight reversed for the Sprint Race, Leclerc drove through to second position by the time word came from race control that the Monegasque would be issued a 10s time penalty for failing to observe yellow flags.
Norman Nato, safe in the knowledge of the penalty, let Leclerc past next time around and went on to take victory as he crossed the line less than 1.3s behind the Ferrari junior driver.
Leclerc holds a sizeable 42-point lead heading to Austria for Round 5 on July 7-9.
World Touring Car Championship
Medhi Bennani (Citroen) dominated the Opening Race in Portugal, making his way from fourth on the grid to first by the end of Lap 1 and never being headed thereafter, despite the introduction of a Joker lap in Vila Real.
Norbert Michelisz (Honda) took an all-the-way win in the Main Race, while fellow front-row starter Rob Huff (Citroen) rebounded to fifth after falling as low as 11th when he stalled at the start.
Tiago Monteiro (Honda) is the new championship leader ahead of Round 6 in Argentina from July 14-16.
Pirelli World Challenge
Adderly Fong and Patrick Long each took a win and a second place in Rounds 4 and 5 of Pirelli World Challenge GT Class at Road America.
Fong (#88 Absolute Racing Bentley Continental) qualified on pole and survived Lap 1 contact with Johnny O’Connell (#3 Cadillac Racing Cadillac ATS-V.R), which saw O’Connell spin, before holding off Long (#58 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R) to win the Saturday race by 0.685s.
Long outbraked Fong at the start of the Sunday race and while the Hongkonger went with the American all the way, he couldn’t find a way past as Long won by only 0.239s.
Long now leads the GT Sprint standings by 17 points over Alvaro Parente (#9 K-PAX Racing McLaren 650S), who finished sixth in both races.
GT is again in action at the next Pirelli World Challenge event at Mid-Ohio on July 28-30.
Speedway Grand Prix
Jason Doyle has moved into the joint lead of the Speedway Grand Prix championship, just six days after breaking his right foot in a crash in Speedway Ekstraliga competition.
Doyle, who needed crutches to get around the paddock, rode through the pain to finish fourth in the final in Denmark, which was won by Pole Maciej Janowski.
Doyle leads Patryk Dudek on a countback after Round 5, with Round 6 to take place in Wales on July 22.
Pikes Peak International Hill Climb
Romain Dumas has taken overall honours at Pikes Peak in a time of 9:05.672s.
The Frenchman Dumas (2017 Norma MXX RD Limited) was nearly half a minute quicker than runner-up Peter Cunningham (9:33.797s, 2017 Acura TLX GT).
Australian Rennie Scaysbrook was second in Heavyweight Motorcycle class (seventh outright, 2017 KTM 1290 Super Duke R), David Rowe seventh in Unlimited class (58th outright, 1985 Audi Quattro S1E2), and Tony Quinn classified eighth in Unlimited (68th outright, 2015 Ford Focus).
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