Happy Birthday to former ChampCar star and recent NASCAR recruit A.J. Allmendinger (born 12/16/81)

From SpeedTV.com comes an excellent round up of the last Formula One testing activity of 2006.

McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton set the pace on this Friday’s testing activities at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit, the sport’s final day of action in 2006. With a best mark of 1:19.493, the Briton edged Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen by 0.1s.

The spotlight at the Spanish track, however, was on two debut drives: reigning double world champion Fernando Alonso made his first-ever McLaren appearance, while IndyCar Series standout Marco Andretti had his maiden F1 outing with the Honda team.

With father Michael in attendance, 19-year-old Marco completed 67 trouble-free laps to set up a fastest time of 1:21.888, two seconds off Honda’s official tester, Christian Klien. Andretti ended up credited with the 14th spot on the timesheets, just 0.5s slower than the car ahead of him, the Williams-Toyota of experienced Austrian Alex Wurz.

 Alonso, meanwhile, drove a sponsor-free McLaren and had to don all-white gear to be allowed an early release from his Renault contract. The Spaniard covered 95 laps to clock the seventh-fastest time of the day, although just 0.257 off Hamilton’s pace.

Triple Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais completed his three-day test with Scuderia Toro Rosso showing yet more progress. After improving by a full second yesterday in comparison to his Wednesday performance, the Frenchman lowered his best time by another 0.3s to 1:21.277, good enough for 12th in the 15-car field. Bourdais also ended up ahead of STR teammate Scott Speed, who completed only 14 laps after complaining of a sore hand, a consequence of his crash at the Sito Pons turn yesterday.

According to autosport.com, Grand Prix driver, Heikki Kovalainen and Rally driver, Marcus Gronholm of Finland beat the one-man Team USA to win the Race of Champions Nations Cup in Paris. The Finnish pair won the final 2-1 against Rally and Moto-X star Travis Pastrana, who had to uphold American honour by himself after both NEXTEL Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson and Grand Prix driver Scott Speed were forced out by injury.The American driver had to compete in every heat and took some impressive scalps in the competition, including Gronholm (below), Colin McRae and David Coulthard.

Meanwhile former DTM Champion Sweden’s Mattias Ekstrom staged an upset by defeating home favorite Sebastien Loeb to win the individual Race of Champions

Tragically former Grand Prix driver Clay Regazzoni was killed in a car crash in Italy yesterday, Friday 15th December 2006. He was 67 years old.The Swiss driver is reported to have collided head on with a truck on the A1 Motorway near Parma, Italy.

During his career Regazzoni drove for Ferrari (above), BRM, Ensign, Shadow and Williams and gave the Williams team their first Grand Prix win at the 1979 British Grand Prix (below). That victory turned out to be the last of his five wins.

He returned to Ensign for the 1980 season but was crippled in a horrifying crash at Long Beach when his brakes failed at the end of the straight and he ended up hitting a concrete wall at full speed. Being confined to a wheel chair didn’t dampen his competitive spirit and he could be found competeing in sports cars, historic rallies,  as well as off road events such as the Paris-Dakar Rally as well as commentating on F1 for Italian TV.

I always remember him as one of the great “gentleman” drivers of his era, a man of courage, talent and natural speed combined with an ever present twinkle in the eye and a cheeky grin.

His untimely death is an ironic tragedy.

What better way to remember him that watching him at work behind the wheel of an F1 car.. 

Happy Birthday to long time Indy Car driver Wally Dallenbach Sr. (born 12/12/36),

and former Formula One World Champion, CART Champion and Indy500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi (born 12/12/46)