Opinion: We Have a Title Fight on our Hands

The finger is back. (Photo: CNN)

I finally have some time to myself, so I'll go ahead and put in another post.

I live on the east coast of the United States, so the Australian Grand Prix went lights out at 1 AM my time. But come on, this was the first Formula One race in nearly four months. There was no way I was going to sleep through this one.

I went to bed around 8:00 and set an alarm for midnight, giving me a chance to watch F1 Countdown on NBCSN. Leigh Diffey, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett are better than ever. No wonder Sports Illustrated listed them among the honorable mentions for best broadcast team in 2015.

The race itself started off interesting enough, with Daniel Ricciardo's car getting stuck in sixth gear before the start. He would eventually recover to start the race two laps down, only to retire with similar issues after 25 laps.

But the story of the day was Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari, who used pit strategy to their advantage to take the victory in the opening grand prix of the season. The Mercedes men of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finished second and third respectively. Vettel, however, proved that this season may not be a walk in the park for Mercedes like they've been used to the past three years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he was voted Driver of the Day in a landslide.

(And yes, I went back to bed after F1 Extra and slept in until 8:00am. I actually got a full eight hours of sleep.)

I still want to be cautious with the belief that we could see a legitimate battle for the championship this season. (Keep in mind, Ferrari and Vettel have won early season races before.) But Vettel's pace matched Hamilton's when it mattered most, and a brilliant strategy by Ferrari won them one of the most thrilling races we've seen in a long time. Personally, I cannot wait for China!

Also, in other news, McLaren's Fernando Alonso has just announced his immediate retire...alright, you get the joke. Happy April 1st.

Australian Grand Prix Preview: Wehrlein out, Giovinazzi in

Photo: Formula1.com

Sauber F1 Team have made a driver change before tomorrow's (tonight's? depends where you are in the world...) Australian Grand Prix.

Pascal Wehrlein, still recovering from his accident at the Miami Race of Champions, will be replaced by Ferrari reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi for the race. Wehrlein received medical clearance to drive this weekend but insists his fitness is still not where it needs to be (again, further proof drivers are athletes). As of today, he plans to be back in the car for China in two weeks.

Giovinazzi will one of two drivers making his Formula One début in Australia (Williams' Lance Stroll is the other). He finished second in the GP2 Championship last season to Frenchman and Red Bull development driver Pierre Gasly, whose hopes of earning an F1 ride this year ended when Toro Rosso re-signed both Daniil Kyvat and Carlos Sainz Jr.

Lewis Hamilton will start on pole alongside Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton's new teammate, Valtteri Bottas, starts third.

Also, as an American, I must give a shoutout to Haas F1 Team. Romain Grosjean starts sixth tomorrow, which is where he finished for Haas at Australia last season.

Broken Streaks

Photo: NASCAR.com

It's hard to believe either of these guys went over three seasons without a single victory.

Ryan Newman stole the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway this afternoon, inheriting the lead after choosing to stay out of the pits after a late-race caution and holding off Kyle Larson for the win. It was Newman's first victory in 127 races, his last win coming at Indianapolis in 2013.

Richard Childress, Newman's team owner, also won his first Cup race in quite a while. The last time Richard Childress Racing won a Cup race was, ironically, at Phoenix, also in 2013, with Kevin Harvick behind the wheel.

While Newman and Childress were the feel-good stories of the day, one has to feel for Larson. The fourth-year driver recorded his third consecutive second-place finish and fourth in the last five races.

Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark

Photo: Motorsport.com

All Hamlet references aside, something is definitely rotten in Honda's 2017 power unit.

McLaren driver Fernando Alonso insists that McLaren's preseason testing struggles can be deduced solely from the team's Honda engines, which have struggled to keep pace with those of Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault. When asked about McLaren's current situation, Alonso replied, "I don't think we are too far back in terms of chassis side. We have only one problem: that is the power unit. There is no reliability and there is no power. We are 30 km/h down on the straight, every straight."

Since their power unit switch from Mercedes to Honda in 2015, McLaren have struggled mightily and have yet to record a single podium with their new engine partner. While the team's performance has improved somewhat since the change, McLaren still are not the team that they once were.

One has to wonder if Alonso's patience is wearing thin. The double World Champion will be 36 this summer and is in the final year of his current contract with McLaren. While a bad year may not force him out of Formula One, it may force him into joining a new team if he wants a chance to win a third World Championship.

UPDATE: Well, here's further proof the situation is rotten: McLaren's troubles have left Honda 10,500 km behind Mercedes in terms of distance logged this preseason. Of course, Mercedes supplies engines for three constructors (Mercedes, Williams, Force India) while Honda only supplies for McLaren, but it's still a staggering number that represents just how much trouble Honda has endured so far.

Two Races in the Books

Photo: NASCAR.com

I've finally got some time to myself so I'll go ahead and put in a blog post now.

Ford is now 2-for-2 on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, with Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski earning victories at Daytona and Atlanta respectively. Kyle Larson could easily have won both of these races, but a lack of gas and a puzzling decision to run the high line have taken both potential race victories away from the Chip Ganassi driver.

I can also give an honest opinion of the stage format now that I've seen it at a non-plate track: it's not bad, certainly not as bad as I originally thought it might be. My only concern is that it turned the Daytona races into bigger wreckfests than they already are, but other than that, the racing isn't too different from past season. (I also wish they wouldn't throw the caution once the stage ends, but beggars can't be choosers.)

On another note, hold the phone on Atlanta's repave. It may not happen after all. Apparently the drivers like the track as is, so the project is going to be reconsidered. The track could certainly use one though...

Opinion: Having Only Forty-Two Cars at Daytona is a Crime

Photo: Tommy Baldwin Racing Facebook

I've followed NASCAR full-time for the last ten seasons. The first time I watched the Daytona 500 (2007), sixty-one cars showed up for qualifications.

Sixty-one.

Yes, do the math. Sixty-one > forty-three. Eighteen cars went home that day.

Now, looking at other years around that time, this was still a rather large number, even for the biggest race of the year. But next week at Fontana, fifty-one cars showed up with the intention of racing on Sunday. A sizable amount (eight) still failed to qualify. On any given weekend, there were always multiple cars that would fail to qualify and end up going home before the featured event.

Ten years later, as I sit here write this blog post, forty-two cars, one fewer than would have made a full field back then, have just finished qualifying for the 2017 Daytona 500. Today, only forty cars make the field, so two drivers will unfortunately have to watch the race from their motorhomes.

Obviously, two is not nearly as many as eighteen.

There are many possible explanations for why the entry list is only two-thirds the size it was a decade ago. Yes, the economy is not great, and yes, that has caused several teams to downsize and even close entirely.

But NASCAR also has a new system in place: the charter system. Thirty-six teams are awarded charters by NASCAR at the beginning of every season. The process is too complicated for me to have any desire to explain it here, but the bottom line is this: if a team has a charter, they are guaranteed a spot in each race that season.

That leaves only four open spots for non-chartered teams to fill.

Not only that, but teams with possession of a charter also earn more money and added benefits than teams without one. At the end of the day, if a team has no charter, they are going to have a hard time surviving in the sport.

I understand NASCAR's thinking here. Chartered teams receive added benefits and thus are more likely to be able to sustain themselves for years to come. It thus becomes easier for chartered teams to stay in business.

But thinking like that, in my opinion, is counterintuitive.

The flip side of the charter system means that it becomes much harder for "open" non-chartered teams to stay in business. Without major sponsorship and the other benefits a charter itself brings to a team, it becomes virtually impossible to operate without losing an excessive amount of money. Since Daytona is the biggest race of the season, it's highly probable we'll see a few short fields of less than forty cars this season.

The start-and-parks are non-existent in the Cup Series nowadays. Virtually all of the smaller, unsponsored, part-time teams have had to merge or close their doors in the past few years. And as ESPN's Ryan McGee argued when this system was launched, "I worry that they're making the Charter Club a little too exclusive."

It appears McGee may be right, because there are only forty-two cars at the track at Daytona this February.

Frankly, that's a crime.

Stewart Returns to Indy...As a Sponsor

Photo: Motorsport.com

Tony Stewart may not be racing in NASCAR full-time anymore, but that doesn't mean he's done with racing. 

In fact, if you thought he was, you couldn't be more wrong. In addition to running at least 71 other races in 2017, Stewart's foundation will return to Indianapolis as a sponsor for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in the Indy 500.

Stewart will be promoting his Team One Cure program aimed at helping develop and research cancer treatments in both animals and pets, explaining, "We learned that with the One Cure program, cancer treatment breakthroughs are happening through collaboration between scientists and doctors working with both people and pets. It perfectly fits with my foundation’s missions to help children and animals."

Stewart's history at Indianapolis as a driver is a mixed bag when it comes to IndyCar. In five starts, he failed to finish the race twice but also earned three top-ten finishes, with a best of fifth in 1997. The three-time NASCAR Cup champion also won the 1997 Indy Racing League championship, only further adding to his impressive motorsport resume.