SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

(Photo by Chris Owens/INDYCAR)
Ten laps into the Grand Prix of Portland, Alex Palou (No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing PNC Bank Honda) was running in 16th place after starting from the pole, and his NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship hopes were in a heap of trouble. Fast-forward 100 laps, and Palou earned his series-best third victory this season and has a 25-point lead in the championship standings with just two races remaining. “We kept our heads down, and we knew the race was really long,” Palou said. “I cannot believe it. We made it (on fuel). The guys made it. They just gave me the numbers, and we just follow it. The strategy was amazing.” NTT P1 Award winner Palou overcame losing positions from the anticipated snarl in Turns 1 through 3 on the opening lap at Portland International Raceway and used a combination of impeccable driving and smart pit strategy from Chip Ganassi Racing to beat Alexander Rossi (No. 27 Andretti Autosport NAPA AUTO PARTS/AutoNation Honda) to the finish by 1.2895 seconds. Reigning series champion Scott Dixon (No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing PNC Bank Grow Up Great Honda) finished third to keep his hopes alive for a record-tying seventh title. Jack Harvey finished fourth in the No. 60 AutoNation/Sirius XM Honda, with championship contender Josef Newgarden fifth in the No. 2 Team Penske Hitachi Chevrolet. Palou leads Pato O’Ward by 25 points in the championship standings. O’Ward led 28 laps early in the race but faded in the second half in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet, finishing 14th. Two-time series champion Newgarden is third in the standings, 34 points behind Palou. Dixon is fourth, 49 points behind the leader, and Marcus Ericsson is fifth, 75 points back. Ericsson finished seventh in the No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing Huski Chocolate Honda. Two races remain in the season, with a maximum of 54 points available at each: the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey on Sunday, Sept. 19 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, Sept. 26 on the streets of Long Beach, California. (Thank you to INDYCAR Media)

(Photo by Joe Skibinski/INDYCAR)
Alex Palou gets a victory hug from Chip Ganassi after winning in Portland.

(Wayne Taylor Racing)
Ricky Taylor finished it, but Filipe Albuquerque’s earlier effort may have won the race. Albuquerque fought issues related to a blocked brake air duct, then handed the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 to Taylor, who regained control of the lead with 25 minutes remaining to lead the duo to victory Sunday in the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The victory padded the pair’s lead in the driver standings for the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. They now lead Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr, who finished third Sunday in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R, by 100 points with just two races remaining in the 2021 season. Renger van der Zande passed Nasr with two minutes left to secure second place for himself and co-driver Kevin Magnussen in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing V-Performance Academy Cadillac. (Thank you to Jeff Olson/IMSA Wire Service)

(PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports)

While Taylor and Albuquerque celebrated the victory and increased points lead in DPi, Ben Keating and Mikkel Jensen did the same in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class. Keating started first in class but dropped behind at the start. He recovered, then Jensen brought the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 home a lap ahead of runner-up Gabriel Aubry in the No. 8 Tower Motorsport ORECA he co-drove with John Farano. It gave PR1 Mathiasen five wins at the 2.238-mile road course and 25 in top-level IMSA competition. "It's important to win and extend the lead, and it's important that our best competitors finished third,” Jensen said of the points margin, now 113 with just the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in November remaining for the LMP2 class. “We go into the last round in a good position. I'm not really into the points and where we have to finish, but I am sure we are standing pretty good.” The WeatherTech Championship season resumes for the DPi, GT Le Mans (GTLM) and GT Daytona (GTD) classes Sept. 24-25 with the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. (Thank you to Jeff Olson/IMSA Wire Service)

(Richard Prince/Corvette Racing)
After running in the shadow of its sister car most of the year, the No. 4 Corvette finally emerged Sunday under the bright California sky. Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy collected their first full-points victory of the 2021 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, winning the GT Le Mans (GTLM) portion of the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The drivers of the No. 4 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R outpaced No. 3 Corvette teammates Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia to collect the 18th win of Milner’s IMSA career and the 16th for Tandy. The No. 4 Corvette shadowed the No. 3 Corvette most of the race, with Taylor and Garcia leading 68 of the first 74 laps. The decisive moment came in the final round of pit stops. Tandy stopped two laps later than Garcia but nearly cost himself the win with a hasty departure along the tight pit exit lane. Tandy locked his brakes entering the hairpin exit, slid into the dirt and briefly onto the track before veering back onto the pit exit lane to complete a legal return to the track just in front of Garcia.From there, Tandy steadily edged away for the win. Cooper MacNeil and Matt Campbell (No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19) finished third. (Thank you to Mark Robinson/IMSA WIre Service)

(Michelin Motorsport)

Pfaff Motorsports is getting hot at the right time, putting drivers Zacharie Robichon and Laurens Vanthoor squarely in the GT Daytona (GTD) championship conversation. Robichon and Vanthoor won for the second straight race on Sunday, taking the No. 9 Plaid Porsche 911 GT3R to victory lane at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. On the heels of a win last month at Road America, Robichon, Vanthoor and the No. 9 moved into second in the GTD season standings and closed within 27 points of the lead. Robichon started in the No. 9; Vanthoor, the GTLM winner last year at WeatherTech Raceway, slid into the cockpit an hour into the race during the first pit stop. He soon passed Patrick Long in the pole-sitting No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche for second place. Following a lightning-quick final stop from the Pfaff crew, Vanthoor took the lead and held it for the final hour. Vanthoor finished 5.512 seconds ahead of Bryan Sellers in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3. Long and co-driver Trent Hindman finished third in the No. 16 Porsche. (Thank you to Mark Robinson/IMSA WIre Service)

(Formula 1 images)
A dramatic crash between title protagonists Lewis Hamilton (No. 44 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team) and Max Verstappen (No. 33 Red Bull Racing Honda) that took both drivers out of the race cleared the way for Daniel Ricciardo (No. 3 McLaren F1 Team) to claim a sensational victory in the Italian Grand Prix, giving McLaren their first race win since the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix – and a one-two to boot, as he led home team mate Lando Norris (No. 4 McLaren F1 Team), with Valtteri Bottas (No. 77 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team) taking third, in a thrilling race at Monza. Watch the race highlights here. (Thank you to F1 Media)
It was a huge day for Team McLaren at Monza.
(Michelin)
After a trio of second-place finishes in 2021, Francesco Bagnaia (No. 63 Ducati Lenovo Team) is finally a MotoGP™ winner, emerging victorious from a scintillating battle with Marc Marquez (No. 93 Repsol Honda team) to win the Gran Premio TISSOT de Aragon. The duo were in a league of their own on Sunday afternoon as the 25-point-haul fight goes down to the wire; reigning World Champion Joan Mir (No. 36 Team Suzuki Ecstar) claims the final podium spot in P3. Watch the highlights here. (Thank you to MotoGP Media)

(Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
Martin Truex Jr. (No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota) received a penalty on the opening lap of the race for crossing the start/finish line in front of pole-sitter Denny Hamlin (No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota) at the green flag. But 400 laps later Truex led the field across the line again – this time as the race winner of Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 Salute to First Responders at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. The convincing 1.317-second margin of victory over Hamlin and Christopher Bell (No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota) marked Truex’s third win in the last five races at Richmond, his fourth win of the 2021 season and, most importantly, gave him that coveted automatic bid into the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Truex, who led a total of 80 laps, took the lead for good – pacing the field for the final 51 laps – after a series of green-flag pit stops in the final portion of the race. Just before the pit sequence, another JGR teammate, Kyle Busch, had positioned himself to be a factor at the checkered flag. Instead, Busch received his second pit road penalty of the night – a speeding violation during his green-flag stop with 55 laps remaining. At the time, it dropped him to 10th place, the last car on the lead lap after he had been out front for 39 laps just before the pit-stop exchange. He ultimately finished ninth. Watch video highlights here.  (Thank you to Holly Cain/NASCAR Wire Service)

(Trans Am Series images)
Leaving nothing to chance, Chris Dyson (No. 20 ALTWELL CBD Ford Mustang) pulled away from the field to win another spectacular Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli race on Sunday to complete a doubleheader weekend of combined-class racing at Watkins Glen International. (VIDEO: TA Race Highlights) After winning Saturday’s race, Dyson continued his march toward his first TA title by beating Boris Said (No. 2 Pancho Weaver Technique/SRI Dodge Challenger) by 5.848 seconds on Sunday. Guy Smith took third in Dyson Racing’s No. 21 Amamos LaVida Tequila Ford Mustang, beating out Amy Ruman (No. 23 McNichols Corvette) in a thrilling late-race battle. “God bless the empire state, God bless New York, I am so proud to be back here,” said Dyson, who made his professional debut at The Glen 20 years ago.  “It was just magnificent up here today. We made some tweaks overnight, and it worked out fantastically for us today. The ALTWELL CBD Ford Mustang feels so good and was fast every single lap. I could push; I could drive into a pace; we definitely had our hand in it today the whole way. I’m really proud we got a one-three finish for the team, so that’s terrific for the points. To win two in a row here at Watkins Glen is very satisfying for us.” Saturday afternoon's100-mile race at Watkins Glen saw Tomy Drissi cross the line first, but it was Dyson who claimed the victory after the post-race review showed that Drissi passed Dyson under yellow conditions. In only his second time behind the wheel of a TA machine, Dyson's teammate Guy Smith (No. 21  Amamos LaVida Tequila Ford Mustang) made it a one-two finish for CD Racing. (Thsnk you to Trans Am Series Media)