I’ve been loosely following the races as well as I can, and I’ve been really getting into it. Brit LewisHamilton grabbed his first win of the season in the last race in Azerbaijan after a mistake by Sebastian Vettel and a late puncture for Valtteri Bottas pretty much let walk to the finish line and cinch his victory.

He followed it up with his second win though, with Barcelona proving an easy race to the flag.

Making a textbook start from pole, Hamilton was untroubled to win his second race in a row and second successive Spanish GP with a textbook drive. Max Verstappen finished third with his first podium of the season with Valtteri Bottas completing the winners set in second.

Bottas made it Mercedes’ first 1-2 of the season, while Verstappen made the podium for the first time in 2018 by using a slow Ferrari pit stop to his advantage to jump Vettel with 25 laps remaining. A remarkably scrappy race, just 14 of the 20 starters finished.

PS.

A lot of questions I had before I went were along the lines of ‘how did you get accommodation near the track at such short notice?’ and it was all thanks to my timeshare. A lovely little property a relatively short distance from the circuit, it was perfect to get too and from the action every day. I wish I’d known about F1 sooner, I’d have done this more often. Unfortunately I am looking to get out of the agreement, as other commitments are getting in the way. I have even found a company which could help me but there are some negative opinions around the internet… Does anyone know if this is true about Mercantile Claims?

Beginning at Daytona International Speedway, it included thirty-five races, which ended with the Ford 300 at Homestead Miami Speedway.

Joe Gibbs won the owners’ championship, while Brad Keselowski won the drivers’ championship during the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway, two races before the final. Toyota took the manufacturers’ championship.

Brad, who began his NASCAR career in 2004, is the second of only four drivers that have won a championship in both the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series, and the twenty-fifth driver to win a race in each of NASCAR’s three national series.

Of Polish descent, Keselowski was born in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and grew up in a racing family. His older brother, Brian, is also an active racing driver.

His racing education began young. Keselowski spent much of his adolescence working at his father’s race shop; swept and mopped floors, and mowed the grass.

Winner was Jamie McMurray, of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, in a Chevrolet.

And he was on hands and knees in tears after claiming victory.

Recognition for a man who doesn’t like the spotlight, yet has taken the two biggest races of the Sprint Cup season in the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400.

But McMurray has done his best to downplay it all.

Two weeks after his Daytona 500 win, after appearances on “Late Show with David Letterman” and “Regis and Kelly,” he was back in his Mooresville, North Carolina, garage working on his biggest passion outside of family – go-karts.

Indeed, McMurray would just as soon spend an uninterrupted day inside the shop he rents from former Roush Fenway Racing teammate Matt Kenseth than to make a public appearance that might promote his driving career.

Dignity and respect, heartbreak and misfortune – he has taken them all in his stride.

Driver of the GoDaddy.com-sponsored Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, he has ridden an emotional rollercoaster throughout his career.

Cruelly, never has he received the treasures that are usually rewarded to those who diligently seek to be the best.

Martin has been through many battles during his years in the NASCAR cup series. He has logged hundreds of thousands of laps and his number of races are deep into three figures.

Starting back in 1981, 2010 marked his fourth decade as NASCAR’s oldest full-time cup driver.

Yet despite many tries he has never been crowned Daytona 500 champion.

Fate almost dealt him a winning hand in 2007, when he finished second behind Kevin Harvick by a mere 0.02 seconds.

Martin had just switched teams and manufacturers. He came over from Roush Fenway Racing after a 19-year stretch driving the Valvoline/Viagra-sponsored Ford to take over part-time driving duties with Regan Smith in the No.01 U.S. Army-sponsored Ginn Racing Chevrolet.

Always a gentleman around the garage area, he never once complained when NASCAR failed to throw a caution after Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Busch caused a wreck, which involved 17 cars on the last lap.

Martin led the last 26 of 27 laps of the race before cars started crashing on the final lap, but the caution surprisingly never came out.

Had NASCAR waved the yellow flag, Martin would have been declared the winner. Instead, it was Harvick who came from seven cars back to overtake him at the finish line.

“All I asked for was a chance to win, and they (Ginn Racing and the No. 01 U.S. Army Team) gave me that. I never asked for the trophy, I just asked for a real shot at it, and that’s exactly what I had—my best-ever opportunity to win the Daytona 500,” said Martin.

“I just can’t tell you how bad I wanted it. We gave it our best shot—we were within inches of getting it done.

“When I looked up there at the end, I was minus any pushers. I didn’t have any help to get it done, and that’s the way it goes.”

Ron Hornaday Jr. has proved that NASCAR championships can be won by the over-50s, showing the younger generation truck driver that age is just a number.

Equally, 14-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force.

He has won at the ages of 51, 52, 53, 55 and in 2006 at the age of 57.

Martin’s 2009 season was one of his strongest since 1998. He took his Roush Fenway Ford to the victory lane seven times, while finishing second behind Jeff Gordon, who grabbed his third championship with 13 wins.

Ganassi Racing left Dodge after the 2008 season to merge with D.E.I.

The only Dodge teams that were left in 2009 were Richard Petty Motorsports and Penske Racing.

Between the two teams, they were able to each put a driver in the chase along with those same two drivers picking up two wins apiece during the season.

Kurt Busch, who had his best season in 2009 with Penske Racing, joined the team in 2006 after coming from Roush Fenway Racing, where he won a championship in 2004.

Busch was involved in a wreck to start out the 2009 season along with his brother Kyle and seven other drivers when Dale Earnhardt Jr. got into the back of Brian Vickers after Vickers tried blocking Earnhardt who were both a lap down.

Busch rebounded the following week at Auto Club Speedway finishing fifth and would eventually finish fourth in the final point standings while driving the Miller Lite sponsored Dodge Charger for Penske Motorsports.

Busch also picked up one of his two wins at Atlanta on March 8 and the other during the chase at Texas on November 8 while finishing out the season with 10 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes.

Meanwhile, Kasey Kahne, driver of the Richard Petty Motorsports Budweiser sponsored Dodge, won his first race of the season after a hard fought battle with Stewart Haas Racing driver and owner Tony Stewart at Infineon Raceway after four, late double-file restarts.

The victory was Kahne’s first ever road course win, along with breaking a 10-year winless drought for Petty, whose team hadn’t visited victory lane since 1999.

Kahne’s second win came after beating Kevin Harvick at Atlanta during Labor Day weekend.

Sadly that was it for Richard Petty Motorsports who decided to merge with Yates Racing, who carried Ford as their manufacturer with the Fusion.

So without any outside help from his counterparts, Penske Racing became the one and only organization to carry the Dodge logo in 2010.

Dodge, which had not won a championship since 1975 when Richard Petty claimed his sixth NASCAR Cup Championship, decided to put all of their resources into one organization in the hope it paid off.

Around the same time Penske replaced the weakest link in his chain of drivers when he let go of David Stremme after signing Brad Keselowski to a three-year deal.

Sam Hornish Jr., who had his best season in 2009 after coming over to Penske in 2007, ran his first full season in the Cup Series in 2008 in the Mobil One-sponsored Dodge Charger.

Hornish showed signs of improvement during the 2009 campaign with two top-five and seven top-10 finishes while keeping his team within the top 35 in points, to ensure himself starting spots in the first five races of the 2010 season.

Hornish came over from Penske’s IRL team after becoming the first driver to win three championships in the series along with his one and only Indianapolis 500 win back in 2006.

Lots of issues faced Penske.

Just how well could they perform under pressure.

How well would the R6P8 engine perform.

Penske is known as an owner who accepts all challenges.

But looking at Dodge’s track record from a much broader view, it might be safe to say that Penske probably bit off more than he can chew.

Only in Hollywood does the last man standing ever walk away the victor, and unfortunately, NASCAR is not a sport that is scripted.

Fairy tale endings are few and far between.

“She’s not Dario Franchitti and she’s not Tony Stewart. She’s not really shown over there [in the Indy Racing League] and won races and done stuff over there numbers-wise. She’s just a marketing machine. Let’s look at the facts and be blunt about it.

“If she gets in that car and doesn’t win races it’s not the car, it’s not the engines, and it’s not the team. They only changed one thing. If she’s successful, she’ll have a huge long-term impact on the sport.

“But if she’s not successful the only impact she’ll have on the sport is she wasted two or three years on a car that a good driver could have been in and could have been developing.”

He was speaking at the Sight and Sound in Nashville, unofficial start of the NASCAR racing season.

For once, Petty just may have hit on something that actually makes sense, other than some misguided commentary that he has made himself famous for since turning TV analyst.

Of course, it didn’t take long for the fans to slag him off for what they felt were observations that he had no right speaking about, especially given a less than impressive career in the NASCAR series.

I really had to scratch my head on this one. “What does a driver’s past career have anything to do with him making an observation which happens to be part of his job?

“He does have fact to back-up his observations, which is a lot more than some fan just saying he is wrong because of his past NASCAR career, which has nothing to do with Patrick coming into the series.”

Petty’s observations were based on Patrick’s numbers that she put up while driving in the IRL for five seasons, not the numbers that she has put in her bank account since the IRL made her their very own cash cow.

It’s not really what could be classified as talking bad about her, but as Petty put it, what’s wrong with being blunt without sugar coating the truth?

Patrick’s success in the IRL is the biggest misguided truth in the entire motorsports world.

It is measured by a bust size and good looks.

If you put a moustache on her and changed her name to Danny, she would not be getting the recognition that she is receiving.

One win and three poles in 81 starts, does not account for a successful career no matter how hard her fans try to manipulate those numbers, especially when she has yet to prove that she can handle a 3,500-pound race car in the NASCAR series.

The fact of the matter is, the only reason she is getting this much publicity is because she is a female trying to make it in one of the toughest, and most popular motorsports series in the world today.

She is selling herself as a sex symbol than a race car driver.

With this alone she has basically closed the door for any other female to have a legitimate chance in the series, unless they can match her willingness to tease those who are willing to take notice of her unique marketing techniques.

Whether or not she is NASCAR’s saving grace, or for that matter if she will make it in this gruelling series will not be seen until she takes to the asphalt and concrete battle grounds.

As far as how much of a time frame will she be given to prove herself, is another area.

She will continue to be scrutinized until she can prove that her career is not based off her marketing power and more on her driving abilities.

“Patrick is stepping into a situation with a car that has won races,” said Petty.

The opportunity is there.