World Rally Champion Sebastian Loeb continued to stamp his authority on the 2007 season with a dominant win on the Rally Mexico this weekend. Loeb’s Citroen proved as effective on the loose gravel as it has been on tarmac with the Frenchman ending up just under 56 seconds ahead of second placed Marcus Gronholm in his Ford.

The Top 10 Finishers were:

1.  Loeb       Citroen     3h 48:13.3
2.  Gronholm   Ford            + 55.8
3.  Hirvonen   Ford          + 1:27.7
4.  Sordo      Citroen       + 1:43.7
5.  Atkinson   Subaru        + 2:24.1
6.  Stohl      Citroen       + 3:45.5
7.  Latvala    Ford          + 4:10.8
8.  Wilson     Ford         + 12:22.6
9.  H Solberg  Ford         + 14:15.7
10.  Higgins    Mitsubishi   + 20:31.2

It seems that if the plans of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to host a MotoGP motor cycle race come to fruition it will force a change on the way that F1 races around the mixed road/banked oval course at the USGP.  F1 is the only series that runs at Indy in a clockwise direction making the banked oval Turn 1 into the controversial high exit speed Turn 13. This is deemed too dangerous for bikes, and hasn’t exactly been trouble free for Grand Prix cars either, and so direction of travel may be reversed for all events held in 2008 onwards (the projected date of a possible Indy MotoGP). With the change all events at the fabled speedway will run in the same counter-clockwise direction, IRL Indy 500, NASCAR Brickyard 400, F1 USGP and MotoGP.

It also seems that the F1 teams may be doing an about turn on their opposition to earlier plans to follow ChampCar’s lead and mark different compounds of tires so that the fans know who is running a soft or hard tire. Although it seems that the ChampCar red sidewall maybe impractical for F1, a new revision to 2007 Formula One Sporting Regulations states that “Each tyre supplier (sic- of course there is only one for 2007 – Bridgestone) must undertake to provide no more than two specifications of dry-weather tyre at each Event, each of which must be of one homogenous compound and visibly distinguishable from one another when a car is on the track.” No information has yet been posted on how Bridgestone will apply a visible marking.

Juan Pablo Montoya scored his first NASCAR stock car race victory over the weekend with a controversial win at the Busch series race in Mexico City. Montoya was clearly the class of the field and the fastest car on circuit. A refueling mix up during an early pit stop dropped him to deep in the field. What followed was vintage Montoya as he carved his way back through the pack to second place behind Ganassi team-mate Scott Pruett.  With seven laps to go Montoya made an agressive move down the inside of his team mate at turn one.

“I braked a little bit later than him, went for the inside, I was there and I thought he saw me because he was coming quite wide, and when he came across I thought ‘Oh my god’. I had just no room to go. I tried to back off, but it was too late.” Montoya later told reporters. Pruett spun and eventually finished fifth, while Montoya went on to claim his first win in a NASCAR sanctioned event.

Montoya’s move was hardly a surprise to anyone who has seen him race over the years, he is a brave and agressive driver who will make a move for any open space of tramac that offers an overtaking opportunity. He is a driver who plays the odds, sometimes it doesn’t work (like the 2006 USGP where he also collided with his team mate), sometimes, like this one, it does.

2005 IRL Champion and Indy500 winner Dan Wheldon has hinted that if his 2007 season proves to be as strong as his 2005 season then he may condsider a switch to stock cars sometime in the near future.

In a report on Autosport.com Wheldon is quoted as saying, “I’m lucky to have an owner that has a NASCAR team and an IndyCar team,” he said. “If Chip (Gannasi) wants to pull a fourth Cup entry together, then I know the perfect man to put in that car. Right now, NASCAR is the biggest stage by far. I’ve been to a lot of the races, and it’s definitely something I’m interested in.”

During this week’s testing at Bristol NASCAR officials have hinted that they may revise their plans to phase in the so-called Car Of Tomorrow (COT) over the next two seasons and accelerate the program making the controversial new design the only car eligible to run in the 2008 Nextel Cup season.

According to a report on Autosport.com the escalating costs and complex logistics of running both the current and future specs in the same year, have led teams to push for the full implementation of the Car of Tomorrow for next year. “It’s just a pain for the teams to run two parallel programs with two different race cars,” John Darby, Nextel Cup Series Director said at Bristol on Wednesday. “It’s a pain for us to manipulate, and work and apply two different rule books and two different inspection procedures. A lot of what’s happening is settling in all the competitors that this is the future, this is the car, so why are we going to wait for three years? I really don’t expect that we will.”

During the Car of Tomorrow test at Bristol on Wednesday, Darby has received further feedback from the teams that indicate an early switch to the Car of Tomorrow is more than logical.