In the round-up: More points will be awarded for pole position for the Indianapolis 500 following a shake-up of the qualifying format.
In brief
Indianapolis 500 qualifying format gets shake-upThe pole position winner for the Indianapolis 500 will earn 12 points this year – worth almost one-quarter of a regular race win – up from nine last year.
The structure of the two-day qualifying format has also changed. On Saturday the positions of the cars which will start from 13th back to at least 30th place will be set. The back row of three cars will also be determined if there are no more than 33 entries in the field.
If more than 33 cars are entered, the last three places and any bumped drivers will be decided in Last Chance Qualifying on Sunday. Later on the second day the Top 12 Qualifying session will decide the third and fourth rows of the grid. Finally the Fast Six session will determine the pole-winner and the five drivers closest to them.
American driver would be ideal for F1 – Stroll
Lance Stroll said that, looking toward the Miami Grand Prix, he was “really looking forward to it and I think it’s great for the sport, is great for Formula 1 and the American market.
“It feels like Formula 1 is doing great right now, the business is really building. So it’s exciting.”
Stroll, who is Canadian, has not had a home race since 2019. He said that “I think to have an American driver, that’s ideal for the US to increase their interest in Formula 1,” however, he added that “Canada’s my home race and will always be.”
Brown bought first kart pawning winnings from Wheel of Fortune
McLaren CEO Zak Brown shed light on how he got started in motor racing in a talk he gave at the Oxford Union recently. Brown said he bought his first kart after speaking to Mario Andretti, using winnings from the teenage edition of game show Wheel of Fortune.
“We went back to the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1987 and got a chance to meet Mario Andretti, one of my heroes,” Brown…