Pastor “Crashdonado”

Pastor ‘Crashdonaldo.’

A name used by many to describe Pastor Maldonado, a driver who could quite possibly be the most overrated Formula 1 winner of all time.

I don’t like bagging drivers – and I completely respect them for what they do for y’know, a day job. But seriously, after the incident at Bahrain, how dare you flip poor Esteban Gutierrez! And not to mention he flipped Gutierrez mid-corner just coming out of the pits? That’s simply not on.

I feel sorry for Esteban, and in his defence the rollover was very stylish. I completely agree with him in saying, “What was that!?”

Now what made me REALLY laugh, was this crash at Round Five of the Championship in Shanghai.

“I crashed,” Maldonado said.

“Oh,” Lotus said.

“I’m sorry,” Crashdonaldo continued.

But wait, it gets better. Check out how his pit crew at Lotus reacts right here.

Clearly, Lotus is ecstatic about Maldonado replacing their beloved Kimi Raikkonen.

Of course there’s more (yes, this is an article about Maldonado crashing). Check out Maldonado crashing out in Q1 at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Oh, but it couldn’t hold it in for the race despite only qualifying 22nd, so this happened.

By the way, here’s a fun fact. Maldonado was supposed to be banned from the Monaco circuit after a race when he was racing Formula Renault a few years ago. He didn’t obey a yellow flag, and he actually injured a marshal. Of course, his investors jumped in and paid for the injured to come good; therefore he got away with not being banned. What!

This year he actually made it around the Monaco circuit, his first time of not retiring since, ever.

We all have our point of view, but I’m sure this article may have made your point a little clearer. We are only halfway through the Formula 1 season, and he’s pretty much crashed at every race.

You could say this article made you LOLdonaldo.

Todd Hazelwood Impresses with Fourth in Practice

Dunlop Development Series, Todd Hazelwood Racing

Todd Hazelwood

EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD Todd Hazelwood has performed above his own expectations, finishing Practice 2 in an impressive fourth position during Round 3 of the Dunlop Development Series, held at Barbagallo Raceway in Perth.

The South Australian was sitting in second during the halfway mark of Practice 2, but after other teams putting fresh tyres on Hazelwood fell back to fourth.

Hazelwood is impressed with today’s practice efforts, and is looking forward to his first career race at Barbagallo Raceway tomorrow.

“It was a great day having my first laps at Barbagallo, after watching it for years on TV it was great to experience it behind the wheel for the first time,” Hazelwood said.

“Really enjoying the layout of the track, it has some really cool aspects and I am really looking forward doing more laps tomorrow.

“Very pleased to finish fourth overall in practice today, my team and I have looked through the data and there is more to be gained for qualifying and Race 1 tomorrow.

“Hopefully we can repay our supporters with a strong result tomorrow.”

Hazelwood finished 10th in Practice 1, despite never turning a lap at the Barbagallo circuit.

The teenager is also leading the rookie standings in the Dunlop Development Series championship, while currently placed 11th overall in the series.

Tomorrow Hazelwood will be on track for qualifying at 11:00am (AWST) for qualifying and 13:25pm (AWST) for Race 1, with the Dunlop Development Series race also televised live on Channel Seven (check your local guides for times).

Race schedule – Perth 400 Barbagallo Raceway

Saturday:11:00: Qualifying 1 (40 minutes)
13:25: Race 1 (38 laps) live on Seven

Sunday: 11:40: Race 2 (38 laps)

Australian Ambrose gets hit with 25k fine

Australian V8 Supercars, NASCAR, On The Record

Photo: Sangjib Min

Sprint Cup NASCAR driver Marcos Ambrose has been fined $25,000 for punching fellow driver, Casey Mears, after an on-track altercation in last Saturday’s Toyota Owners 400 at the Richmond International Raceway in Virginia.

Mears was fined $15,000 after pushing and intimidating the Australian, enticing Ambrose to punch him in the face , after a disagreement about the result of a large crash.

Mears talked to Fox Sports 1’s Race Hub and said he and Ambrose are okay.

“At the end of the day, none of that should ever happen,” Mears said.

“But in the heat of the moment, when you get out of your race car, and some stuff just happened that you didn’t like, we started going at each other, and before we knew it, it escalated very quickly.”

Ambrose finished the race in 18th, alongside Mears in 19th place.

Both drivers have been put on probation until May 28, with neither suffering suspension for the post-race incident.

Ambrose, a former V8 Supercar champion, is known for his fiery attitude at the racetrack after having a similar altercation with New Zealand driver Greg Murphy at the Bathurst 1000 in 2005.

In an exclusive interview in 2012, a NASCAR journalist asked Ambrose if he had any regrets.

“Anything I regret? Yeah. There was this guy in Australia – Bathurst 2005 – and he took me out of the race.

“We had a bit of a shouting match, and I regret I didn’t punch him.”

Murphy later watched the video of Ambrose in America punching Mears.

“I didn’t think he had it in him,” Murphy said.

“Maybe he saw a picture of my head on Casey Mears’ shoulders, who knows?

“He obviously got a big shove from Casey for whatever reason that moved him aside and that was enough to get him riled up.”

Ambrose and Mears will come head-to-head at the next Sprint Cup race held at Talladega this weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbsE2weoQ4w (video courtesy of Fox Sports)

Hamilton takes hat-trick win in China

Fiasco Sports, Formula 1

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton claimed his third consecutive race victory, finishing first at the Chinese Grand Prix.

British driver Lewis Hamilton has broken a personal racing record, winning three consecutive rounds in the Formula 1 Drivers Championship.

Hamilton lead from pole, taking the chequered flag at the Shanghai circuit, finishing ahead of his German teammate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton drove away from the start, racing his own race ahead of the rest.

Rosberg endured telemetry dramas throughout the entire Grand Prix, forcing the German to report the data from his steering wheel to the data engineers, costing Rosberg at the very beginning of the race.

Red Bull Racing were unable to catch Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, with the Spaniard able to race his #14 Ferrari to third, despite clashing with former teammate Felipe Massa at the start of the race.

Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo fell shy of his first podium finish in Formula 1, crossing the line only 1.2s behind Alonso, despite starting the race on the front row.

Ricciardo and German teammate Sebastian Vettel battled mid-race, with Vettel being told by team principle Christian Horner to surrender his position to Ricciardo because the Australian was faster.

Vettel quoted, “tough luck” on the radio communications and let Ricciardo race Vettel for fourth position.

Vettel was outshone by his new Australian teammate, finishing behind the Red Bull rookie in fifth place.

Both Force India drivers scored points, Nico Hulkenberg racing his way to the end to defeat Williams driver Valtteri Bottas for sixth and Sergio Perez falling seconds shy from Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari to finish ninth.

Rookie Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kyvat finished tenth, the 19-year-old consistently scoring points.

McLaren failed to make it into the points, Jenson Button finishing 11th and Kevin Magnussen crossing the line 13th.

Rosberg still leads the Formula 1 Drivers Championship, Hamilton close behind in second.

Mercedes extend their comprehensive lead in the Constructors Championship.

Round 5 of the Formula 1 World Championship will be hosted in Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix on 11 May.

Chinese Grand Prix Results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1h36m52.810s
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	+18.686s
3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+25.765s
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	+26.978s
5	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	+51.012s
6	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	+57.581s
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	+58.145s
8	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	+1m23.990s
9	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	+1m26.489s
10	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Renault	+1 lap
11	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	+1 lap
12	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Renault	+1 lap
13	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	+1 lap
14	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	+1 lap
15	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	+1 lap
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	+1 lap
17	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	+1 lap
18	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	+1 lap
19	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	+2 laps
20	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	+2 laps
RET	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	27 laps
RET	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	4 laps

– See more at: http://fiascosports.com/hamilton-takes-hat-trick-win-in-china/#sthash.7Gj9w88L.dpuf

Are broadcasting rights killing motorsport?

Australian V8 Supercars, Fiasco Sports, Film and TV, Formula 1, MotoGP

With media deals happening in every category for 2015, are these new pay-TV deals pushing fans away from the sport?

With a sport that costs a lot of money to run with the fancy bodywork, complicated engineering and the drivers that are paid by the millions, there is also the media side of racing that costs channels millions each year, resulting in major series of motorsport no longer available free-to-air.

MotoGP is one category with a faint future on free-to-air, with fans purchasing a Foxtel sports package to watch their favourite rider or constructor win the world championship.

Network Ten are currently in their final year of televising the MotoGP, but will only retain full live coverage of the MotoGP until the end of 2014. Fox Sports are broadcasting every Moto2, Moto3 and MotoGP practice, qualifying and races live in 2014.

Another broadcasting amend includes the new contract in V8 Supercars, with Seven losing the rights to Network Ten, Foxtel and Fox Sports, with only six of the races in the 2015 championship to be available on free-to-air channels.

Former TEN CEO and current CEO of V8 Supercars James Warburton signed the new broadcasting rights deal, including a $241 million media deal with Foxtel, Fox Sports and Network Ten for all media rights including $196 million cash and $45 million of advertising, making this deal the biggest in V8 Supercars history.

The new deal means that only the Adelaide, Townsville, Sandown, Bathurst, Gold Coast and Sydney V8 rounds will only be shown free-to-air.

“This is a tremendous and significant deal for our sport,” Mr Warburton said.

“It is a great boost to our amazing race teams and fans and will lead to unprecedented coverage on multiple platforms for our sport, never before seen on such a scale.”

Formula 1 is set to stay on free-to-air with the coverage supported by Network Ten, the only major motorsport category worldwide not under the Fox banner in 2015.

Currently on free-to-air channels in Australia, only the Formula 1 and V8 Supercars are shown live to racing fans.

Other categories shown within free-to-air are broadcasted a week or so later, including ONE HD’s coverage of the World Series Sprintcars, Australian Rally Championship and NASCAR.

Fans have expressed concern about the new broadcasting rights, stating it is another expense they cannot afford.

After interviewing fans at Winton Raceway during the V8 Supercar event at the Winton 400, most said they were outraged and disappointed about spending money every month to watch motorsport.

Nothing yet has been confirmed towards the coverage for motorsport after 2015.

By Loren Hazelwood. @LorenHazelwood

– See more at: http://fiascosports.com/are-broadcasting-rights-killing-motorsport/#sthash.W2qBiesK.dpuf

Todd Hazelwood Secures V8 Development Series Drive for 2014

Australian V8 Supercars, Dunlop Development Series, Todd Hazelwood Racing

Todd Hazelwood with team owner Matt Stone.

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN Todd Hazelwood has confirmed he will race the 2014 Dunlop Development Series, racing with Queensland-based team Matt Stone Racing.

The 18-year-old will race in an ex-Stone Brother Racing’s Ford FG Falcon, making his debut with the team at his home round in Adelaide, the Clipsal 500.

Hazelwood is excited to announce his new venture into the series and believes this is a massive step forward for his racing career.

“I’m very proud and excited to be part of this year’s championship, it was a huge challenge by everyone involved to make this happen and I can’t wait to kick the year off at my home event, the Clipsal 500,” Hazelwood said.

“The year will be a steep learning curve for me and I will be going into the championship with a realistic mindset … but like anyone else in the field, I want to perform at my best and I believe I have one of the best packages to do that.”

The teenager had his first test day with the team last week at Queensland Raceway, which was a great success.

“My first test day last week was very productive and it’s a pleasure to work with such an experienced and professional team, they know how to maximise the potential out of both the driver and the race car which will be a massive bonus for my first season.”

Team owner Matt Stone was also impressed with Hazelwood’s first test and looks forward to the first round in Adelaide.
“It’s good to run a rookie again in a V8 and we were impressed with Todd’s ability to quickly adapt to driving a V8 and had a very productive day testing,” Stone said.

“We have faith that Todd has the skill to drive the car competitively at Clipsal and we will be working on his race-craft and comfort ability with all the other cars around him.

“It can be very daunting racing a V8 around a street circuit but we have every faith that Todd will continue to impress.”

Hazelwood also has worked hard in the off-season to gain the support of Tecalemit, Airtec, Repco, Da Mario’s Pizza, Slape & Sons, Gadget Graphics and Winning Spirit.

Repco and Airtec Join Hazelwood for 2014 Racing Campaign

Formula 3 Australian Drivers Championship, Todd Hazelwood Racing

TODD Hazelwood has secured more support for the 2014-racing season, with Repco Australia and Airtec Corporation announcing their bronze sponsorship for the South Australian.

Airtec Corporation will be continuing their support from Hazelwood’s successful season in the Formula 3 Championship, where the teenager finished second in the national series.

Airtec are a name to remember for digital tyre inflation, with their innovative technology suitable for a wide range of industries including mining, military, aviation, tyre retailers, service stations, mechanical workshops and transport.

“After a successful 2013 National Formula 3 championship, Airtec Corporation are again pleased to support Hazelwood Racing in 2014 and we are sure Todd and his team will achieve some great results in this years championship,” says managing director of Airtec David Hewett.

Repco Australia have joined Hazelwood’s racing career for 2014, with the automotive parts company having had a long history being involved with motorsport in Australia, and the 18-year-old is proud to be associated with a company with such an impressive racing history.

“It’s fantastic to be involved with great house-hold brands like Airtec and Repco Australia, and I look forward to what they bring for my 2014 racing season,” said Hazelwood.

Hazelwood is set to announce his racing plans for 2014 in the next coming weeks.

Todd Hazelwood Revved-Up for Round Five

Formula 3 Australian Drivers Championship, Todd Hazelwood Racing

AFTER taking his maiden round win in the Forpark National Formula 3 class at Sydney three weeks ago, Todd Hazelwood is more than ready to jump back in the Formula 3 for the fifth round of the Australian Formula 3 Drivers Championship.

Despite never having raced at the Ipswich circuit, Hazelwood is confident he can once again produce strong results in the Forpark National class at Queensland Raceway this weekend.

“I’m hoping to add another strong result to my debut Formula 3 season this weekend at Queensland,” Hazelwood said.

“My rivals have past-experience at the track, but we have proven this year that we are fast straight out of the gate and can challenge for the win by the end of the weekend.

“The track looks fast and challenging and I am looking forward to racing around the technical circuit for the first time.”

Todd Hazelwood is currently second in the Forpark National class, hoping to close the gap on the championship leader.

To follow Todd Hazelwood’s progress throughout this weekend for the fifth round of the Australian Formula 3 Championship, like Todd Hazelwood on Facebook, follow Todd on Twitter or watch the live streaming of Sunday’s races at www.thenationals.com.au.

Racing schedule: Shannons Nationals Queensland Raceway

Friday
09:55 Practice 1 (30 minutes)
13:25 Practice 2 (30 minutes)

Saturday
09:25 Qualifying (20 minutes)
15:35 Race 1 (10 laps)

Sunday
08:25 Race 2 (8 laps)
11:40 Race 3 (14 laps)

Hazelwood Steers Clear for Podium Finish

Formula 3 Australian Drivers Championship, Todd Hazelwood Racing

Todd Hazelwood leading the pack. Photo by Dirk Kynsmith

FUJITSU Racing’s Todd Hazelwood has stayed out of trouble in today’s eventful race one to finish in second place for the Forpark National Formula 3 series for the third round of the Australian Formula 3 Drivers Championship.

This success continued from Hazelwood’s fine form in qualifying, only just being pipped for pole position to start second on the grid.

Hazelwood decided to play a smart race, staying out of trouble in an eventful race one which included three safety cars and was shortened by one lap, but full race points were rewarded.

“Race one was very eventful, I thought it was best to keep the car straight,” Hazelwood said.

“My results today proved that being smart and keeping out of trouble was the best option for myself.

“Hopefully tomorrow we can have a race under green conditions.”

The South Australian believes he still has the pace to go one better tomorrow.

“I believe the Fujitsu Racing Dallara prepared by R-Tek Motorsport is on fire this weekend, and hopefully we can show that in races two and three tomorrow.”

Todd Hazelwood will hit the Hidden Valley circuit tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM for race two and 12:20 PM for the prestigious City of Darwin Cup race.

To keep track of Todd Hazelwood Racing’s progress at the Skyctiy Triple Crown, like his page on Facebook or follow Todd Hazelwood on Twitter.

Media by Loren Hazelwood

Motor sport media, marketing and content specialist

Racing

Pastor “Crashdonado”

Todd Hazelwood Impresses with Fourth in Practice

Australian Ambrose gets hit with 25k fine

Hamilton takes hat-trick win in China

Are broadcasting rights killing motorsport?

Todd Hazelwood Secures V8 Development Series Drive for 2014

Repco and Airtec Join Hazelwood for 2014 Racing Campaign

Todd Hazelwood Revved-Up for Round Five

Hazelwood Steers Clear for Podium Finish