Race of Champions 2010

[Schumanoid]

The 2010 Race of Champions will be held at Düsseldorf’s ESPRIT arena on November 27-28.

Confirmed drivers:

* Michael Schumacher
* Sebastian Vettel
* Alain Prost
* Sébastien Loeb
* Mick Doohan
* Heikki Kovalainen
* Tom Kristensen
* Andy Priaulx
* Travis Pastrana
* Carl Edwards
* Alvaro Parente
* Filipe Albuquerque

http://www.raceofchampions.com

[ENGLAND]

boring F1 drivers...

[Rus-Evo]

Travis Pastrana!!!!!

[revngo]

Ooooh Carl Edwards

Must put that in my "to watch" diary

[Paolo_Lasardi]

Albuquerque takes shock RoC win

By Matt Beer Sunday, November 28th 2010, 14:56 GMT


Filipe Albuquerque defeated three-time winner and World Rally legend Sebastien Loeb to take a shock victory in the Race of Champions in Dusseldorf.

Sometime Red Bull protege and GP2 driver Albuquerque - now a GT racer - breezed through the qualifying rounds to take on Loeb in the final, and a win each in the first two races of the three-round showdown, including a 0.02-second photo-finish triumph for Loeb in the second one, set up a decider in RoC buggies.

Loeb appeared to hold the early edge, but Albuquerque had a superb second lap and the 25-year-old Portuguese driver came through to pip Loeb at the line.

Albuquerque had won all of his heats, then defeated countryman Alvaro Parente in the quarter finals before taking on Sebastian Vettel in the semis. Vettel looked set for a narrow win after the first lap, but Albuquerque fought back to overturn Vettel's 0.4-second advantage and snatch victory by a tenth, silencing the home fans.

Vettel had already eliminated the crowd's other hero Michael Schumacher when the results of the heats pitched the two Germans against each other in the quarter finals.

Loeb saw off Tom Kristensen in the quarter finals and Andy Priaulx in the semis - winning the latter contest before locking up his Audi R8 and nudging the barriers after the chequered flag. Priaulx had earlier beaten Bertrand Baguette in the quarter finals.

Heikki Kovalainen's return to the event he famously won in 2004 proved to be an unhappy experience. After his Team Nordic pairing with Kristenen was knocked out early in the Nations' Cup, today he crashed heavily in the afternoon's very first heat.

During a narrow defeat to Loeb, Kovalainen clipped the barriers at the final corner and broke his Audi R8's rear suspension. This pitched the car into a spin as he tried to brake on the slowing-down lap, and after demolishing the inside barriers, Kovalainen had a heavy impact with the outside wall. Both Kovalainen and his passenger - his girlfriend Catherine Hyde! - were unhurt but the Lotus driver withdrew from the event to get precautionary checks in hospital, having been briefly knocked unconscious.

Spins in heats helped Alain Prost, Travis Pastrana, Mick Doohan and Tanner Foust to early exits. Also eliminated before the quarter finals were Jason Plato, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Carl Edwards.

[Paolo_Lasardi]

Kovalainen in bed with heavy concussion


He will have more tests in the next few days

Tuesday 30 November 2010 - 09h34, by GMM
Heikki Kovalainen has been ordered to bed for a few days to nurse "heavy concussion" sustained at the weekend in Germany.

After clipping a wall, the Lotus driver crashed at the start of the Race of Champions evening in Dusseldorf when the throttle of his Audi R8 stuck open.

Finn Kovalainen, 29, was knocked unconscious for 30 seconds and sent to hospital for checks.

He then had some more checks in Switzerland on Monday and confirmed that he was "put to bed at home as a precaution" due to "heavy concussion" and a headache.

Kovalainen wrote on Twitter that he will have more tests in the next few days "as (my) head took a big hit".

His girlfriend and passenger Catherine Hyde was also injured in the crash, confirming a hairline fracture of her pelvis and hip, and damaged leg muscles.

"Both of us (are) on bed rest for a while," she said.

[lightmas]

Crazy really. Relatively small crash compared to ones we see all the time in F1 and other categories and they walk away without a concussion.