This was finally a bit of a weekend of respite for me in regard to this column. For weeks it has been non-stop action, and this week things seemed to slow down a little. There was Formula E in Paris, IndyCar and PWC at Barber, A NASCAR race obviously, some WTCC action, a Blancpain race in Italy, WRC in South America, Super Formula in Japan, and that’s pretty much it. Only eight major international series running this weekend, that’s no big deal, right? Of course it is awesome that we can refer to that as a light weekend these days. There was some great dicing action this weekend, and some interesting surprise victories. Read along, you’ll like it.
The racing will only continue to get hotter from here, so we’ll do our best to help keep your finger on the pulse. Just be aware of the fact that this post is filled with spoilers. Giant carbon-fiber, multi-element, DRS-equipped, Gurney-flapped, Spoilers!

Formula E – Paris

The electric action invaded downtown Paris for the 15/16 season of Formula E, and it was a scorching drive at the front that brought Lucas di Grassi his third race victory of the season. A straightforward race from his perspective, LdG was the class of the field for the entire weekend. Sam Bird had captured the pole position, but coming out of turn one lap one, it was di Grassi at the point, and from there it was just gap maintenance and good pit-stop work that earned him the victory.
There was a late race crash on lap 40 when Ma Quing Hua shoved a car into the barriers. That brought out the safety car. The SC period was intended to end shortly before the finish to give a couple of laps sprint race to the flag, but complications forced the full course yellow flags to stay out until the checkers.
LdG finished ahead of Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne in his best finish of the season. Sebastien Buemi finished out the podium in third, and kept Lucas’ points haul to a minimum. di Grassi now has an 11 point lead in the championship over Buemi, and only 4 round remain in this season. It’s getting hot!

NASCAR – Richmond International Raceway

It has long been storied that the ‘bump-and-run’ is the best way to win in NASCAR, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen one in person. All of that changed on Sunday when Kyle Busch got a push from team-mate Carl Edwards on the final lap of the motor race. Edwards bullied his way by for the victory, his second in a row.
Kyle Busch looked to be in the catbird seat following a good restart on the final yellow flag period. He’d gained a bit of ground and held his own at the front of the field. Edwards, who had led 151 laps, figured that wasn’t good enough, and shoved bumper-to-bumper with the leader and swept past. Between the pair of them lies the last four NASCAR cup victories, as the Joe Gibbs Racing team saw the most recent two victories lie in the Edwards garage, while the two victories preceeding those were taken by the Kyle Busch squad. JGR has had a good month, I’d say.
The qualification session was rained out, so the current points leader Kevin Harvick was given the pole, but couldn’t convert that into a race victory.

IndyCar – Barber Motorsports Park

Coming from the high of a Long Beach Grand Prix victory, Simon Pagenaud set the pole position time for the Honda Indy Grand Prix Of Alabama (yes, real name). He needed a little bit of help to win this race, though, as Graham Rahal had a great car and was charging hard. The run to the flag was exciting and captivating, and it was Pagenaud who eventually came out on top. He got that help he needed.
Just laps from the finish, Rahal made a run on Simon coming out of Turn 5 (a hairpin). Rahal was up the inside of Pagenaud going in to 6, but not quite alongside. When Simon turned in, Rahal made contact front-wing to rear wheel-guard, and Pagenaud was sent off into the grass. Rahal had the lead, but not for long. There was no action from Race Control on the incident, but Pagenaud made a similar run coming out of turn 5. Rahal again slightly misjudged as he was passing Jack Hawksworth a lap down, losing is front left wing. From there, it was smooth sailing for Pagenaud and he took the flag with a decent lead. Rahal recovered to finish second.
Last year’s Barber winner, Josef Newgarden, made a killer pass on Will Power with just a lap and a half to go to finish in third position.

Pagenaud on his race victory –
“We’re just on a roll. The car is amazing. First and foremost, I am so excited. OK, another green flag race, but we make it exciting for the fans in the end.
That was a good piece of driving from him [Rahal], but that was a late pass. It’s not a corner where you can pass. I went off but in the end it made me really upset, I have to say. I said I was going to pass him back, and that’s what we did.”

Pirelli World Challenge – Barber Motorsports Park

Race 1 – 
The first race of the weekend was another continuation of the Caddy-Parente battle that has been happening for the last few races. Johnny O’Connell took the pole position, but Alvaro moved into the lead shortly thereafter. From there, he just kept the race lead for the victory. There was a crash, ironically by Parente’s teammate Colin Thompson, that brought out a safety car, hindering Parente’s chances. He knows that he’s not as good as the Cadillacs on restarts. This time, though, Alvaro stayed out ahead of the Michael Cooper Caddy, and with a good restart kept his lead. They finished Parente-Cooper-O’Connell.

Race 2 – 
In the weekend’s second GT race, it was Michael Cooper who came out on top for the first time. Parente started from the pole, but this time it was Cooper who swept past from second on the grid to take the early lead. This time the race remained green, and Parente with the lighter car is easier on his tires. As the race went on, Parente’s car kept getting better, while Cooper wore his tires off. Parente spent the second half of the race essentially glued to the rear bumper of Cooper’s ATS-V.R, but could not find a way by. Johnny O’Connell caught up to the tail of Parente as well, and applied pressure, but couldn’t make the pass stick to take second and settled for 3rd in a hard fought battle. The Effort Racing duo of Pat Long and Michael Lewis took fourth and fifth respectively.
Sportscar365.com has some excellent photography in their gallery from the weekend. 

WTCC – Budapest

I’ve been feeling a bit underwhelmed by WTCC lately, so I’ll just let this highlight video do the talking for me. The rain helped make the action a little more exciting, but only enough for like a few dozen words on the subject. Enjoy, or don’t.
Mehdi Bennani (Sebastien Loeb Racing) won race 1 in a privateer Citroen while the factory teams bungled strategy. Jose Maria Lopez won race 2 for Citroen.

Blancpain Endurance – Monza

The Garage 59 McLaren held on for the endurance race victory at Monza this weekend with Shane Van Gisbergen, Rob Bell, and Côme Ledogar aboard the car. The team was properly quick throughout the weekend, but faltered a bit in qualifying. It was SvG in for the final stint, and he succeeded in holding of a hard charging Maximillian Buhk for the team victory by just 3 tenths of a second. Buhk had begun his stint some 10 seconds in arrears of the McLaren on track, but whittled that lead down to a miniscule number by the finish. Really, that guy deserves some applause.
The victorious McLaren team started from 16th on the grid, and it was Rob Bell who did a lions share of the work pulling the car up into contention. Bell made quick work of the field and managed to end his stint in the car having moved up to 3rd overall. Good strategy and competent driving from Ledogar and van Gisbergen had the team far ahead by the final run.
 
Starting 16th on the grid, Bell maneuvered his McLaren up to the fifth in no time and went on to chase down the No. 8 M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 of Andy Soucek and No. 23 Nissan GT Academy Team RJN Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 of Lucas Ordonez.
Right before the first round of pitstops, Bell managed to overtake both the Bentley and Nissan to hand over the car to Ledogar in third.
In third it was the number 8 Bentley of Soucek, Soulet and new recruit Reip. The big Bentley had a reasonably quiet race in third once it passed the No. 23 RJN Nissan (who finished 4th) near the first hour and captured the final podium step some thirty seconds back from the winners.

Super Formula – Suzuka

In what is probably the best open wheel series that gets little to no international audience, Super Formula began this weekend in Japan. Naoki Yamamoto took the season opener victory in resounding fashion with a lights-to-flag win for the Mugen team. At the start he pulled out a three second gap in just a few laps.
Kunimoto maintained second position throughout the race, but McLaren protege Stoffel Vandoorne moved from fourth to third to secure a podium position in his first race in the series. Cool beans, I like that kid.
Look at this field, though, why are we not seeing this on television. These guys are aces.

WRC – Argentina

Hayden Paddon took his first victory in WRC this weekend for Hyundai in his i20 race car. This is awesome, as it means Seb Ogier finally has some competition. The VW has been so dominant of late, and it is really cool to see Hyundai finally get theirs. Volkswagen came into the weekend aiming for their 13th overall consecutive victory, but that was dashed with Paddon’s win. This was the first win for a New Zealander in the decades long history of World Rally.
The victory was still uncertain coming into the last stage, as Paddon was only just over 2 seconds ahead of Ogier. That last stage, however, he gave it all he had and gained an additional 11 and a half seconds just on that one rock-strewn mountain pass. Watch out folks, now that Paddon has a well sorted car under him, he will be aiming for the top spot more often now! And to cap it off, Paddon just turned 29 on Friday. He’s got plenty of time to grow into a multi-year champion.
Jari Matti Latvala was leading going into the final day, but a crash ceded the lead to Paddon, who capitalized well.

Hayden on his win –
“I can’t believe it, I really didn’t think I stood a chance before the last stage after losing time to Ogier this morning. I gave that last stage everything I had. Tight and twisty roads like El Condor aren’t my strength but I drove the stage of my life.”
Ogier on his loss –
“The last stage was incredibly rough. I had a clean drive but I didn’t dare take the maximum risk because there were big ruts. Well done to him, he did a great job on the last stage.”

Regarding Last Weekend’s WEC Race

Audi have decided not to appeal their exclusion from the race results, making Porsche the official victor. 
Brendon Hartley was given a stern talking to following his shunt. 

Stuff You Should Read

Will Buxton’s take on Rosberg’s ‘near certainty’ of championship victory for Racer.com.
Trans Am’s Watkins Glen race will be open to spectators because a sponsor has decided to pay the fee to open up the track for that weekend.
Nissan is contemplating supplying engines for WEC LMP1 Privateer entries. You know, because they have an LMP1 engine laying around doing nothing.
[Sources and Photos from DailySportsCar.com, SportsCar365.com, Racer.com, Motorsport.com, and series PR sites.]