Evans bounces back after Bird strike, double podium for Leitch, and Kiwis grab points in Detroit. Your week in motorsport.

Bird strike for Evans. Again.

Mitch Evan’s Jaguar TCS racing Formula E team mate, Sam Bird, has collided with the Kiwi for the second time this season and taken Evans out of another race. The collision occurred in Race one of the Jakarta round, where Evans was looking to repeat past success and potentially move up the Championship standings. The Jaguar drivers were in P8 and P9 respectively when Bird who looked like he was getting a tow from Evans, overcooked his braking into turn one and failed to avoid contact with Evans from behind. The impact was enough to spin Evan’s into the barriers and end his race. Bird continued on. It’s the second time this season Bird has ruined Evan’s race and given Evan’s strong standings in the championship, the Kiwi is naturally disappointed to say the least.

"I don't really want to comment too much on it," said Evans. "I was having a tough race anyway, I was struggling a lot with the pace. The car was very difficult to drive. Obviously, the accident was unfortunate. Unfortunately, it's the second time this year so it hurts. We missed a few points which is not good. The main thing is to try and make the cars fast for tomorrow." The Kiwi concluded, clearly frustrated.

Jaguar TCS Racing boss, James Barclay said following the race the incident was being dealt with internally, but the team were focussing on race 2.

And Evans bounced back with a great recovery, qualifying and finishing in third. The result very much keeping his title fight alive with 5 races to run in the season.

“To be honest starting the day, I wasn’t expecting a podium, it’s been a really trying, testing weekend for the whole team. We have tried every set up we can to get the car to perform around here, it’s weird on the back of our last few races and our performance here last year, but this week we have been out of the window. So yeah, huge recovery, to get a podium, I’m happy for that, but you could see in the race it wasn’t our usual pace, it’s a bit of a mystery.”

Evans will need to return to his recent race winning pace for the rounds ahead to maintain his title fight. He currently sits fourth in the Championship, 25 points off the lead. A race win is 25 points, so the card can still fall Evan’s way.

Two podiums for Brendon Leitch at Paul Ricard

Brendon Leitch has taken the podium in each race of the weekend’s Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe races at Paul Ricard Circuit in France. Competing with Leipert Motorsport, Leitch is contesting his first full season of GT racing as a solo entry in the Pro class.

With an enormous grid of nearly 50 cars, and a mixed bag of amateur and pro drivers, the Kiwi drove well and navigated traffic in race one, starting from 10^th on the grid, moving up five spots before passing competitors Nigel Schoonderwoerd and Alex Au inside the final 10 minutes to finish third.

Race two Leitch started in P7 and again drove a clean race and was sitting in 6^th with just 3 minutes remaining. Leitch was on the rear bumper of Belgian driver, Amaury Bonduel, who was in turn battling closely with Swedish touring car convert Oliver Söderström, with the pressure cooker on high it proved too much for Bonduel and Söderström who hit awkwardly. Leitch wasted no time to move wide and leapfrog into third.

Kiwis grab points in Detroit

Kiwi Hunter McElrea has had a tough weekend in the Indycar NXT feeder Championship. Having qualified well in P2 McElrea made early contact with Andretti Autosports Teammate and polesitter, Louis Foster during a chaotic start to Race one in Detroit. For the incident, McElrea was handed a stop-and-go penalty which hurt his race. But with time and a much cleaner race, the Kiwi was able to rebound, picking off the field to finish seventh. McElrea gathered more points in Race 2 fininish just off the podium in P4.

Meanwhile in the main Indycar event, Kiwis Scott Dixon, Scott McLaughlin and Marcus Armstrong all had their elbows out on the narrow street circuit. As cars hustled for position wheel to wheel contact between all drivers made for plenty of exciting moments in the early stages. Dixon wisely chose to sit in third behind Alex Palou and Will Power, getting a tow from the from runners and allowing them to battle and burn fuel. Dixon and his Chip Ganassi Racing team made a play for the race lead on lap 66, Dixon the first to pit, while most of the field would follow on lap 67 including Palou and Power. The race leaders managed to exit pit lane just ahead of Dixon, but with the heat in his tyres Dixon applied plenty of pressure looking to force a mistake or jump into the lead but he didn’t risk his race in doing so and eased back into P3.

With the flurry of pit activity and cars coming out on green tyres, Kiwi Scott McLaughlin was tagged by former F1 driver, Romain Grosjean. The contact spun McLaughlin who dropped several positions. Five laps later Grosjean would also clip the wall and take himself out of the race.

Lap 91 and it was all on for lead, Alex Palou slid his car slightly under heavy braking which saw Will Power look to seize the opportunity, meanwhile, Scott Dixon had also closed the gap and was sitting on the inside of the turn. Palou shut the gap and Power came across bumping over the front of Dixion’s car. The incident saw Dixon lose two positions.

"Kind of a frustrating day today, the track was difficult, caught out our a lot of people. I think we had a car with the pace for a win, but I just couldn't get it out of it today." Said Dixon post race.

Rookie, Marcus Armstrong avoided drama and capitalised on McLauglin and Grojean’s misfortune, droving another stellar race to end in P8. McLaughlin would catch the Cantabrian in the final laps for P7, but Armstrong just keeps getting better in his first season of Indycars and the US series looks to suit his expertise after many years of tight European single-seater racing.

Dixon would claim Fourth in the last two laps, Mclaughlin Seventh and Armstrong Eighth.

Alonso’s podium run ends in Catalunya

Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso’s impressive run of podium finishes ended this weekend at the Spaniard’s home circuit of Catalunya. A shame for the veteran’s many Spanish fans especially given how he has been flying this season. Aston Martin team mate, Lance Stroll, drove to P6 while Alonso finished in P7. Red Bull and Verstappen claimed the race win from Mercedes Benz and Lewis Hamilton, George Russell drove a spectacular race from 12^th to round out the podium.