Sparks fly at Indy, another Aston podium in Monaco: Your week in motorsport

Sparks fly at Indy 500, Kiwi’s out of contention.

It was an action packed finish to the Indy 500 this morning with Penske driver, Josef Newgarden claiming his first victory of the iconic race. The 19th for the Penske team Owner, and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner, Roger Penske.

Hall of famer, Scott Dixon, lead home the Kiwi contingent in 6^th, Scott McLaughin ended the race in 14^th.

Dixon was looking like a strong contender, but his race was undone due to a wheel vibration that caused an early pit stop. The Kiwi couldn’t get the critical track position back until the very end of the race.

With 17 laps to go a spectacular crash saw Felix Rosenqvist and Kyle Kirkwood collide sending Kirkwood into the wall and flipping the car which slid down the track with sparks flying. The in car footage shows Kirkwood’s helmet mere centimetres from the blacktop throughout the lengthy slide. The impact with wall also sent a wheel flying over the catch fence and into a carpark, thankfully no drivers or spectators were injured.

In the final laps of the race another crash saw race control move Newgarden from fourth to second behind race leader, Marcus Ericsson. It was a frantic sprint, but Newgarden was able to slingshot Ericsson in the dying stages for the win.

“Just pure emotion,” Newgarden said. “I was trying to stay locked in. I was emotional the whole last 10 laps because I knew we were in position to fight for the win. I can't talk highly enough about the team. They worked so hard all month.”

Season best result for Aston Martin at Monaco

Aston Martin have yet again reaffirmed their capabilities in Formula 1 with veteran Fernando Alonso taking P2 at the Monaco Grand Prix today.

While Red Bull is seemingly unstoppable this season – winning every race so far – Alonso’s second place behind Max Verstappen is a clear sign Aston Martin is not a mid-field team any longer. With more facility investment yet to yield benefits, future seasons for the marque are looking positive.

The weather made tyre selection challenging and critical. Verstappen got away immediately maintaining his P1 starting advantage over Alonso into turn one, Verstappen on medium compound tyres and Alonso on hard compounds.

A rain shower hit the track creating several off-track excursions and close encounters with the barriers, strategies quickly changed and there was a flurry of pit lane activity.

Alonso initially swapped to mediums, but as the rainfall increased was forced back into pits for an intermediate tyre. Most other teams in contention made the same call.

Verstappen was very lucky to escape damage as he contacted the wall before his stop, but Red Bull made the correct call to put the Dutch driver straight onto intermediates which would ultimately see him drive away with yet another win. Some 28 seconds ahead of Alonso.

Alonso has taken the podium 4 time consecutively, and has only been off the podium once this season.