Chicago Recap

With the Chase field set for the 10 races to the Championship, the first stop for the 16 drivers was Chicagoland Speedway.  The race did have it's moments, first being Denny Hamlin, who started 29th, spun out on lap 2, dropping to 43rd and eventually worked his way through the field, winning the race and earning a spot in the Challenger Round.  The other moment was halfway through the race, Jimmie Johnson bumped Kevin Harvick's car, which lead him to spinning out, damaging his Jimmy John's Chevrolet, eventually finishing 42nd.  A bad restart with 5 laps remaining also affected leader Jeff Gordon, who wound up dropping to 14th at the finish.

Other than that, it was a lot of clean racing throughout the event, so the top 5 was Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth.  This race was Joe Gibbs Racing's 9th win in the last 12 races, continuing making Toyota and the race team a dominating factor in this year's Chase for the Sprint Cup.

With only 9 races remain, Denny Hamlin is onto the next round, with 11 spots up for grabs.  Kevin Harvick is in 16th in points, 25 points outside the top-12, which right now is Gordon.  Racing resumes Sunday at New Hampshire.


FORMULA ONE
If any team has figured out how to beat Mercedes, it's Ferrari.  Sebastian Vettel won the pole and cruised on to win his 3rd race of the season at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore.  Lewis Hamilton had mechanical issues with his machine and finished 18th and retired from the event.  Hamilton's teammate Nico Rosberg finished in 4th.  Joining Vettel on the podium was Daniel Ricciardo & Kimi Raikkonen.  The series races early Sunday morning (around 1am ET) at Suzuka International Circuit in Japan.