Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus never slowed down enough to consider what a record-tying third consecutive championship would mean to their legacy. Don’t count on them doing it now. After tying Cale Yarborough’s 30-year mark as the only driver with three straight championships, Johnson and his crew chief were already thinking about going after No. 4.

They popped the champagne in Victory Lane and celebrated as if Jimmie Johnson just won another championship. Johnson moved inches closer to his record-tying third straight NASCAR title Sunday, trouncing the field at Phoenix International Raceway to deliver a knockout punch to Carl Edwards’ championship hopes.

Carl Edwards threw haymakers at Jimmie Johnson throughout most of Sunday’s Dickies 500, trying to pulverize Johnson’s lead in the Chase. But NASCAR’s playoff system has an unfixable flaw, and that helped soften the blow of Edwards’ second straight win and eighth of the season. He had to settle for a TKO on a fuel-mileage gamble, and a decent but not devastating cut into Johnson’s lead after Johnson nursed a fitfully handling car home 15th, one lap down.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton roared into the record books as Formula One’s youngest champion when he snatched the title in last lap drama at the Brazilian Grand Prix. The 23-year-old, needing only a fifth place finish in the season-ending race to become Britain’s first champion since Damon Hill in 1996, was seconds from failure for the second year in a row as Ferrari rival Felipe Massa swept to victory. Hamilton entered the last lap in sixth place after a late shower forced a change to wet weather tyres and saw Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso overtake the McLaren. With the title disappearing as fast as Massa’s Ferrari approached the chequered flag, Hamilton had Toyota’s Timo Glock to thank after the German stayed out on dry tyres and was unable to hold on to his fifth place.

Felipe Massa ha vinto il GP del Brasile, Lewis Hamilton, quinto, è il campione del mondo del 2008. Ma dietro a tutto questo c’è la storia del GP forse più indimenticabile ed emozionante della storia di questo sport. Che oggi ha eletto il più giovane iridato del suo albo d’oro. Un campione degno, oggi sull’orlo di una seconda clamorosa batosta come l’anno scorso: a due giri dalla fine si è visto togliere il quinto posto da Sebastian Vettel.

Start Race:
(more…)

Carl Edwards did his seventh celebratory backflip and headed to Victory Lane confident he’d closed in on Jimmie Johnson’s bumper in the race for the Sprint Cup title. As the champagne flowed, his spirits were dashed. Even with his win Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Edwards didn’t dent Johnson’s lead in the championship standings. With a masterful final drive to the checkered flag, the two-time defending champion rallied from a rare penalty to finish second and stretch his points lead to a commanding 183 points over Edwards with three races remaining in the Chase for the championship.

Jimmie Johnson warned everybody. He said he was comfortable being in the points lead before Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway, something that admittedly made him antsy a few years ago. He said he enjoyed the idea of controlling the championship race. Johnson is as good at leading the points as he was in playing catch-up to capture the last two titles. He turned this Chase into a one-man show Sunday, expanding his 69-point cushion over second place to 149 with a dominating victory on this half-mile track in the foothills of Virginia. Johnson led more laps (339) than in any of his five Martinsville wins, including four of the past five. He led all but eight of the final 214 laps, and would have led them all had Matt Kenseth not stayed out while the leaders pitted for the final time.

Britain’s Lewis Hamilton has moved to the brink of the Formula One title by winning the Chinese Grand Prix ahead of Felipe Massa. The McLaren driver led from start to finish, producing a superbly controlled display, but Massa kept the championship race alive by finishing second, 14.9 seconds adrift. Hamilton leads the drivers’ standings by seven points, with 94 to Massa’s 87 ahead of the final race of the season at the Brazilian’s home track of Interlagos. BMW’s Robert Kubica has been mathematically eliminated from contention.

Fondamentale vittoria dell’inglese della McLaren Hamilton che domina a Shanghai davanti alle Ferrari del brasiliano e di Raikkonen. Ipotecato il titolo Mondiale: in Brasile potrà anche non vincere.

Jeff Burton, who’d been lurking just beneath the surface of the Chase standings, suddenly surfaced Saturday night. Gambling on old tires and little fuel, Burton won the Bank of America 500 and jumped from fourth to second in the playoff points, cutting Jimmie Johnson’s lead to 69. Johnson, who’d taken two tires, dueled side-by-side with Burton for eight laps, but Burton held on and Johnson began slipping backward for the final 26 laps, finally finishing sixth.

Renault’s Fernando Alonso made it two wins out of two with a stunning triumph in the Japanese Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton failed to score despite starting on pole. BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica took second and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen also finished on the podium. Hamilton’s title rival Felipe Massa of Ferrari snatched two World Championship points in an incident-filled race that saw both he and the McLaren man serve drive-through penalties. Massa finished eighth on the track but Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Bourdais, who crossed the line in sixth, was hit with a 25-second penalty post race for a coming together with Massa - promoting the Ferrari ace to seventh.

A Fuji vince lo spagnolo della Renault Alonso davanti a Kubica e Raikkonen. Il brasiliano Massa ottavo diventa settimo grazie alla penalità di Bourdais e recupera due lunghezze a Hamilton, pure lui penalizzato al via e alla fine 12°.

Tony Stewart was awarded a win after taking the checkered flag second … Jimmie Johnson padded his Chase lead on a largely awful day for him … and that barely touches on the chaos that reigned Sunday in the Amp Energy 500. Carl Edwards knocked himself and teammate Greg Biffle back in the standings by doing what he feared “the idiots” of restrictor-plate racing, as he said, would do. This time, “I was the one …” Edwards caused the bigger of two “big ones” — the massive pileups drivers consider inevitable at Talladega Superspeedway — with only 15 laps to go, and took out a total of six Chasers, including the driver who had the strongest car of the day, crowd favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr.