Formula One
In 75 races as teammates, Aric Almirola and Marcos Ambrose had never before run in the top five together. They finally broke through at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway on Sunday, where Richard Petty Motorsports scored its best overall day as an organization in years.
Almirola finished a careerbest third at Bristol, while Ambrose was fifth. It marked the first time since Almirola moved into Petty’s iconic No. 43 Sprint Cup seat in 2012 that both drivers finished in the top five in the same race.
Now they head to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., looking for another big finish.
“Last week gave our team a lot of momentum going into this weekend,” Almirola said. “It showed that all of our hard work and all the investment from our partners is paying off. We have shown speed everywhere we’ve gone this year, we just haven’t seen the results to prove it. We did just that last week.”
For Ambrose, his finish at Bristol was his first top-five since Bristol in August 2012. Last season was a disappointing year of only six top-10 finishes for the Australian.
But California will be a different animal.
“We have a lot of confidence that we can continue this level of performance,” Ambrose said. “California is a tough track, really fast with a lot of grooves, but we’re ready to step it up there and get a good finish. We haven’t had the results we have wanted there, but we’ve put in work with these new rules to get better. I know the guys will be busy this weekend so we get the best car possible for Sunday.”
In eight previous starts at Fontana, Ambrose has yet to finish on the lead lap. His best finish was 21st in 2012 and his average finish is 28th.
Almirola was a career-best 14th at Fontana last year — but it raised his average finish to 29th in six career starts.
But he likes the way his team has started the year and feels good headed to California.
“We’ve had a lot of positives,” he said. “We didn’t run very good at Vegas. We struggled really bad there, but at Daytona we had a great car. We went up and led some laps and had a really strong car there. At Phoenix, we had a good car and ran in the top-10 all day and then those last couple of restarts we didn’t have very good restarts and I finished 14th or 15th, so we’ve had good cars, we’ve had good runs. This is how we expect to run.
“We were not very happy with how our season went last year and we’ve made a lot of changes and all of those changes seem to have been positive.”
Formula One team Red Bull has officially appealed to motorsport’s governing body over Daniel Ricciardo’s disqualification from last weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
The Australian driver thrilled the home crowd with a second-place finish behind German winner Nico Rosberg to secure what looked like his first career podium on his debut for Red Bull, where he replaced veteran driver Mark Webber during the offseason.
However, he was stripped of the result due to a technical breach.
Race stewards said his car violated fuel-flow rules introduced this year which limit cars to 100 kilograms of fuel during the race.
The FIA subsequently disqualified Ricciardo, elevating McLaren drivers Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button to second and third.
IndyCar Series
J.R. Hildebrand will drive a second entry for Ed Carpenter Racing in the Indianapolis 500.
Hildebrand will drive the No. 21Chevrolet for ECR. The team said Thursday a sponsor will be announced at a later date.
Team owner Ed Carpenter will drive ECR’s other entry in his IndyCar season debut. Carpenter is only racing on ovals in 2014. He won the pole for the Indy 500 last year.
» IndyCar will award double points for the three “Triple Crown” races and award points based on qualifying for the Indianapolis 500.
The three “Triple Crown” races are the only 500-mile events on the schedule: The Indianapolis 500, the July race at Pocono and the season finale at Fontana.
A win in those races will now be worth 100 points instead of 50, with second worth 80 instead of 40, all the way down to positions 25th on. Those drivers will now receive 10 points instead of five.
Qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 will award 33 points to the pole-winner with each position on down earning one fewer point.