12 Things You Might Have Missed From Last Weekend’s Motorsport Action

There was plenty of motorsport to watch last weekend – including FIA WEC, MotoGP and Nascar. In case you missed any of it, here are the highlights:

The headline event from last weekend was round two of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship season at Spa-Francorchamps. The No.7 Audi of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer was victorious once again, finishing 13.4 seconds ahead of the No. 18 Porsche of Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas after six hours of racing.

There were some fantastic fights all of the way through the field, with brilliant overtakes and plenty of close racing (as well as an exploding door) showcasing just what an exciting series the FIA WEC is in 2015.

3. Lorenzo returns to the top step

Jorge Lorenzo won his first race of the 2015 MotoGP season at Jerez circuit in Spain, after starting from pole position. He finished five seconds clear of Marc Marquez, who just held off Valentino Rossi despite racing with a broken finger. That must have been uncomfortable.

Dale Earnhardt Jr just held off his team-mate Jimmie Johnson to win Sunday’s Geico 500. It was his first victory at the Talladega Superspeedway since 2004, and he becomes the eighth driver of the 2015 season to win a race. Johnson and Paul Menard completed the top three.

Trevor Bayne triggered a huge crash on lap 47 of the Nascar Sprint Cup race. It involved 15 cars and brought out the red flag. That was one expensive pile-up!

6. Strangest race car livery ever?

Bubba Wallace competed with a very distinctive livery during last weekend’s Nascar Xfinity race, featuring SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends from Bikini Bottom. We can’t decide whether it is awesome or just very odd…

Joey Logano raced to his second victory of the 2015 season in the Nascar Xfinity series, holding off several late charges at Talladega from Brian Scott, Austin Dillon and several others to take the chequered flag at the front of the field.

The race was disrupted by a big multi-car pile-up, which brought out the red flag and sent cars scattering across the track and grass.

Sunday marked the start of running for the Indianapolis 500, with practice and rookie orientation being completed at the iconic oval track. Juan Pablo Montoya was fastest after hitting 226.772mph in the afternoon.

9. DTM season kicks off

The new DTM season began last weekend, with two races at the Hockenheimring. It proved to be a clean-sweep for Audi, as Jamie Green took victory on Saturday and Mattias Ekstrom won on Sunday.

FIA World Rallycross debuted at the Hockenheimring, as a support event to the DTM. Petter Solberg took victory from Reinis Nitiss and Timmy Hansen. The Norwegian led from start to finish to win round two of the season.

11. Frantic action in V8 Supercars

V8 Supercars was also in action, with Mark Winterbottom taking victory in the opening race of the UBET Perth SuperSprint weekend. It was his first championship win of the year. He went on to triumph in race two, with Will Davison just holding off Craig Lowndes at the Barbagallo Raceway to win race three.

12. Best of the rest

There was plenty of other motorsport action. The FIA Formula 3 European Championship season continued in Germany, with Antonio Giovinazzi, Felix Rosenqvist and Charles Leclerc winning. Meanwhile Jose Maria Lopez and Norbert Michelisz won the two FIA World Touring Car Championship races in Hungary and Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli took victory in Super GT.