This was not what Helio Castroneves had in mind for the week after the most important victory of his career.
Castroneves spent the last few days celebrating his third Indianapolis 500 win and talking about his next challenge — hanging on to the momentum and going after his first IndyCar Series championship.
Jorge Lorenzo has taken pole position ahead of Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix with a stunning penultimate lap in qualifying.
The 22-year-old MotoGP championship leader has won two of the season’s four races so far and clocked 1:48.987 on his Yamaha, 0.021 seconds faster than Australia’s Casey Stoner.
Italy’s Loris Capirossi of Suzuki completes the front row, while world champion Valentino Rossi will start his bid for an eighth consecutive win at his home grand prix from the second row.
Williams was yesterday kicked out of the Formula One Teams Association (Fota) for breaking ranks to become the first organisation to file an official entry for the 2010 world championship before deadline – with two more teams set to follow suit. Brawn GP and the Silverstone-based Force India are understood to be ready to lodge their entries for next season, as a deal over the proposed budget cap neared resolution.
Helio Castroneves claimed the Indianapolis 500 for the third time in his career, finishing ahead of Dan Wheldon and Danica Patrick.
The Brazilian overcame gearbox issues during pit stops to come home first after 200 laps at the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway circuit.
His success, which follows on from his previous triumphs in 2002 and 2003, delivers a 15th Indy 500 title for Roger Penske’s team.
David Reutimann won the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 for his first victory at NASCAR’s top level.
Reutimann took the lead when he gambled and didn’t pit with the leaders during a caution for rain on lap 222 of the 400-lap race. His hope was that it would rain so long, racing would not resume.
After five laps as the leader run under caution, NASCAR called the cars to pit road. Reutimann nervously paced around his covered race car for the next two hours as NASCAR waited out the weather.
Jenson Button landed his fourth pole position of the season after a dramatic Monaco Grand Prix qualifying session.
The Brawn GP driver came through late to pip Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen with a time of one minute 14.902 seconds.
Disaster struck for McLaren’s world champion Lewis Hamilton, who will start last after crashing out early on.
Rubens Barrichello qualified in third for dominant Brawn, ahead of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and the second Ferrari belonging to Brazil’s Felipe Massa.
Mike Bliss raced to his first NASCAR Nationwide Series victory since 2004, catching a break to claim the rain-shortened event Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Bliss, who started from the back of the field, took the lead because he was in the right position when the caution flag came out with 39 laps to go.
RESULTS: Carquest Auto Parts 300
