Burton becomes youngest victor at Martinsville
MARTINSVILLE, VA.
Harrison Burton played the spoiler for a second consecutive week by winning Saturday at Martinsville Speedway to disrupt the NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs.
Burton became the youngest winner in Martinsville history at 20 years, 22 days, breaking the mark set by his father, Jeff, in 1990 when he was 23. It was Burton’s fourth win of the season and, just like last week, spoiled the championship picture.
Burton’s back-to-back wins prevented Noah Gragson and Ross Chastain from advancing to next week’s Xfinity Series championship race at Phoenix. The title will instead be decided among Chase Briscoe, Austin Cindric, Justin Allgaier and Justin Haley.
The Xfinity Series is crowning its first new champion in three years; Tyler Reddick was promoted to Cup after winning the last two crowns.
Gragson a week ago at Texas was cruising to the checkered flag and an automatic berth in the finale when Burton hurtled past him and snatched the win. It put Gragson in a mustwin situation Saturday at Martinsville, where the Xfinity Series raced for the first time since 2006.
But Burton was fairly dominant in his Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing and wasn’t challenged at the end. Allgaier finished second with enough points to advance into the championship race, while Gragson finished third and below the cut line.
Chastain, who also likely needed to win to advance, finished fifth.
FORMULA ONE
Formula One is back at Imola for the first time since 2006 and drivers have been raving over the “old-school” layout of the Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit.
After all, the track situated in Italy’s auto racing heartland will forever hold a place in F1 history as the site of Ayrton Senna’s death from a high-speed crash in 1994. Not to mention happier memories such as victories by the likes of Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.
The narrow track and quick chicanes, however, don’t appear to be suited for modern-day F1 racing — especially compared to the far-flung newer circuits.
Just ask Lewis Hamilton, who only last weekend eclipsed Schumacher by winning a record 92nd F1 race in Portugal.
“I’m pretty certain you’ll see a boring race tomorrow,” Hamilton said after qualifying second Saturday at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix behind Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas. “After Turn 1 it is going to be a train as there is nowhere else to pass.”
Hamilton suggested that the two keys to victory come in qualifying and the start.
“It’s perhaps a little bit like Monaco in that sense,” he said. “I think strategy is going to be interesting tomorrow. But there’s usually only a couple of options.”
Formerly the site of the San Marino GP, Imola returned to F1 when the season was rescheduled because of the pandemic.
Bottas clocked 1 minute, 13.609 seconds and was a slim 0.097 faster than Hamilton.
While Bottas had the last word, he acknowledged that “no one had a perfect lap” on a circuit that nearly all of the drivers hadn't raced in F1 before — especially considering that there was only one practice session in the abbreviated weekend.