A good couple of days for Romain Grosjean

Romain "Linguini"Grosjean

I once heard a WRC team boss being asked about young drivers who crashed a lot, "You can teach slow" he answered "but you cannot teach speed". Meaning, if you have someone who can go 11/10ths but makes mistakes, the possibility exists you can get through to him to dial back to 10/10ths, a 9/10th driver will...be a good enduro racer.

I don't think anyone is really surprised Lotus confirmed Romain Grosjean for 2013, no doubt he has the speed, he was robbed of a GP win in 2012 in Valencia and has been a quick qualifier. I'm sure Lotus got a great deal on him considering the "annus horribilis" he had in 2012.

The official announcement cane right after Grosjean won the Race of Champions in Bangkok this past week end, defeating Tom Kristensen in the final.

The annual event was shown on YouTube via the Drive channel.
It was....rough.   Despite incessant twitter updates from @Drive, it was not shown live so results were known nine hours before the "broadcast". When time came to watch the festivities, many people just got a big fat "please stand by" sign on YouTube.
I tried for about a half hour and just gave up. You can see segments of the race now on Drive today though I'm not sure why they chose not just stream the live commentary from the Radio Lemans crew.

Maybe next year.



Earlier in the competition, ironically it was Vettel who crashed out...

Race of Champions used to be really good

The Race of Champions, started in he late 80s by Michel Mouton as a memorial for Henri Toivonen, used to be pretty badass when it was run on a proper super special stage in the Canary Islands, certainly a far cry from the sanitized go kart track of the current version.
If you do plan of watching this year's edition, you can see it streamed live on YouTube on the Drive channel this week end.



Of course the whole concept was really invented in the US fifteen years earlier with the International Race of Champions.  That too eventually became a bit of a joke but for one season, in 1974 it was glorious.   The winner that year was Mark Donohue and the cars, identically prepared Porsche Carrera RSR.
 I got to warn you though, this clip cuts off before the end of the race. If you know of a complete one please let us know.

Perkele! Audi fail tosses Heikki in the wall as an Ühr rolls

a suspension failure on the Auri R8 LMS tosses Heikki Kovalainen into the barrier injuring his passenger and almost into Seb Loeb at today's Race of Champions in Dusseldorf. (Perkele? check here)



Speaking of Audi fails, ROC founder Michelle Mouton got behind the wheel of a priceless original Uhr Quattro and rolled it. Tough car, window did not even crack. Finally some excitement at the ROC!



More ROC videos after the jump.

The Champ vs the Gramps



The surprise winner was Felipe Albuquerque...who? I guess just like a few years ago, Heikki who?

2010 Race of Champions

AKA world class drivers do autocross . It's this week end, Stay tuned for news and videos as they become available.
This year's lineup includes Sebastians Vettel and Loeb, grandpas Schumacher, Prost and Doohan and bunch of Le Mans and touring car drivers. The US is represented by Carl Edwards, probably will get injured somehow Travis Pastrana and yes...Tanner Faust.





end of post

Race of Champions 2008 Live!

Sunday at Wembley Stadium. Twentieth Edition.






2008 Line-Up

Germany
Michael Schumacher - 7 times F1 World Champion
Sebastian Vettel - youngest ever F1 GP winner

F1 Racing Britain
David Coulthard - F1 veteran, 13 time race winner
Jason Plato - 2001 BTCC champion

Autosport Britain
Jenson Button - F1 star, 2006 Hungarian GP winner
Andy Priaulx - World Touring Car Champion 2005-07 and 2004 European Touring Car Champion

All-Star
Troy Bayliss - multi World Superbike Champion, MotoGP race winner
Jaime Alguersuari - youngest ever British F3 champion

France
Sebastien Loeb - 5 times World Rally Champion, twice Champion of Champions
Yvan Muller - 2008 World Touring Car Champion, multi-times Andros Trophy winner

Scandanavia
Tom Kristensen - 8 times Le Mans 24 Hours winner, DTM star
Mattias Ekstrom - double DTM champion, double and reigning Champion of Champions

USA
Carl Edwards - 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup runner-up
Tanner Faust - American rally star

Ireland
Adam Carroll - GP2 and A1 race winner
Gareth MacHale - national rally star

2008 Cars

Ford Focus WRC 08
KTM X-Bow
Abarth 500 Assetto Corse
ROC Buggy
RX 150

http://www.raceofchampions.com/cars/

Henri Toivonen Memorial Trophy - Champion of Champions
2007 @ Wembley - Mattias Ekstrom
2006 @ Saint-Denis - Mattias Ekstrom
2005 @ Saint-Denis - Sebastien Loeb
2004 @ Saint-Denis - Heikki Kovalainen
2003 @ Gran Canaria - Sebastien Loeb
2002 @ Gran Canaria - Marcus Gronholm
2001 @ Gran Canaria - Harri Rovanpera
2000 @ Gran Canaria - Tommi Makinen
1999 @ Gran Canaria - Didier Auriol
1998 @ Gran Canaria - Colin McRae
1997 @ Gran Canaria - Carlos Sainz
1996 @ Gran Canaria - Didier Auriol
1995 @ Gran Canaria - Francois Delecour
1994 @ Gran Canaria - Didier Auriol
1993 @ Gran Canaria - Didier Auriol
1992 @ Gran Canaria - Andrea Aghini
1991 @ Madrid - Juha Kankkunen
1990 @ Barcelona - Stig Blomqvist
1989 @ Nurburgring - Stig Blomqvist
1988 @ Montlhery - Juha Kankkunen

ROC Nations Cup
2007 - Germany (Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel)
2006 - Finland (Heikki Kovalainen, Marcus Gronholm)
2005 - Scandanavia (Mattias Ekstrom, Tom Kristensen)
2004 - France (Jean Alesi, Sebastien Loeb)
2003 - All-Star (Fonsi Nieto, Cristiano da Matta, Gilles Panizzi)
2002 - USA (Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Colin Edwards)
2001 - Spain (Jesus Puras, Ruben Xaus, Fernando Alonso)
2000 - France (Regis Laconi, Yvan Muller, Gilles Panizzi)
1999 - Finland (Tommi Makinen, JJ Lehto, Kari Tiainen

Schumacher to earn more NOT racing that most professional drivers racing.

According to Bild-Zeitung, Michael Schumacher will earn 35 million Euros in the next seven years in a deal orchestrated by his manager Willi Weber. At the Race of Champions, Schumacher was for the first time wearing a (rather ghastly looking) white driving suit with space rented out at the tune of 5 million Euro a year until 2014.

The sponsors, Deutsche Vermögensberatung, Shell and Omega have been associated for a long time. And I'm sure Puma and Alpine Stars chipped in something.

It is worth noting that Schumacher, who gave 7.5 million Euro to the Tsunami relief fund in 2005, reserved the largest patch on suit for ICM, a spinal chord injury research institute in France. He has donated his 500.000 Euro purse from the Race of Champions to that cause.

Race Of Champions

By now you probably know that Matthias Ekström won again beating Schumacher in the final and that Germany won the Nation's Cup. It's always a bit of a hokey event but this year's ROC had a much better track layout and Aston Martins DBS which sounded quite nice.

Schumacher was really itching to win this one, but in the end he had to be saved by Sebastian Vettel in the Nations Cup after stalling his car and was beaten convincingly in the final by Ekström.   Maybe he should have taken some clippers to the fenders off of the sedans so he could keep an eye on his wheels!...

I will not post the final which was actually pretty good but here are a few random races in the different cars, enjoy and be sure to watch the complete show on SpeedTV later in the month.