MEDIA RELEASE/Historic Leyburn Sprints - Photos: supplied Two of Australia’s most successful international drivers of…
AUSSIES SHINE ON INTERNATIONAL STAGES
Small town Australian drivers shine once more on the international stages over the weekend, one in the America’s and two in Europe, for the couch crowd it was a long day and night of racing with the Supports at the Monaco GP, then the race itself which finished after 1am and then straight on to the Indy 500!
Daniel Ricciardo Wins in Monaco
OK Perth isn’t that small – Daniel Ricciardo hails from there and he took out the 76th running of the Monaco Grand Prix, it was probably one of the hardest GP’s he has driven but he was determine to take it out after the 2016 pitstop fiasco. Favoured to win anyway based upon being the fastest in all 3 free practice sessions and then a new lap record in qualifying saw the ever smiling Aussie set for a great GP. He had the perfect start and lead the field away, its pretty much impossible to pass at Monaco (although Ricciardo’s team mate Max Verstappen managed too as he had to start from the rear of grid after crashing in the final practice session on Saturday morning).
However after about 1/4 of the GP Ricciardo came across the team radio with “No Power” – you could see the team’s consternation as they set about to find the problem, turns out the MGU-K power recover unit which stores power during braking and then releases it again on acceleration had fail, this then in turn affected all sorts of parts of the car. Team principal Christian Horner said afterwards, ” with the MGU-K gone Daniels brakes were overheating” – in turn Ricciardo had to drive the car conservatively using only 6 of 7 gears in the Red Bull.
The Australian was losing around 30km/h to his rivals on the straights, but though Sebastian Vettel was consistently within touching distance after the Red Bull suffered the MGU-K complaint, he could not squeeze his Ferrari past. Vettel and Lewis Hamilton were suffering graining on their tyres.
“I felt a loss of power and thought the race was done,” admitted Ricciardo, who claims he suffered the issue on Lap 18 when four seconds ahead. “I was only using six gears.”
In a revelation that made Ricciardo’s controlled drive all the more impressive, Horner told Sky F1 that Red Bull nearly immediately retired his car after discovering he had lost 25 per cent of its power. “He was pulling away from Hamilton with no MGU-K – he drove an unbelievable race,” said the Red Bull boss. “He could have been in Apollo 13, I tell you, the way he was dealing with the issues today.”
Will Power Wins the Indy 500
So as you might have seen when you awoke this morning that the kid from the small town of Toowoomba won the most prestigious race in the US of A – the Indy 500 overnight. As we said it was a big day/Night of motorsport if you watched the Monaco supports and then the GP and then four hours of the Indy 500.
WILL Power took the lead in the Indianapolis 500 with four laps to go, knew he had it won when he took the white flag all alone and spent the final lap yelling to himself as he pulled away from the field.
“Man,” he said, “I think I’m going to win this!” The 37-year-old Australian did just that in a dominant performance for Team Penske. He managed his fuel strategy perfectly as Oriol Servia and Jack Harvey had to pit in the closing laps, and then made all the right moves to hold off pole winner Ed Carpenter to win his first Indy 500.
From Powers Twitter Account:
What a dream come true. Not only winning The 102nd running of the #Indy500, but sweeping the month of May. The @Team_Penske and @verizon crew made this all happen. #ThisIsMay #IndyCar
Alex Peroni Wins in Monaco – Renault Sport Series
And hailing from another reasonably small town, well city – Hobart in Tasmania the 18 year old Alex Peroni won his first Monaco race and was second in the second race of the Formula Renault Eurosport, you might know that we have been following the youngster this weekend as he has been sending us exclusive Audio Reports from the event…
Click here to see/hear all of Alex’s reports to us.
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