MOTORSPORT: Toyota rules the world

After its Le Mans and Dakar successes of the past few months, Toyota has taken a clean sweep of the top three places in ‘The Great American Race’ just a day after winning the World Rally Championship’s only pure winter event.

The Joe Gibbs Racing Camrys of Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Erik Jones landed the trifecta in the longest of 61 Daytona 500s – it became the Daytona 517.5 (miles, almost 805km) because of multiple crashes, one involving 21 cars, in the closing stages.

It is the first top-three sweep in NASCAR’s biggest race since that by Chevrolet powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports in 1997.

Hamlin’ victory, his second in the Florida classic after winning in 2016, came after a winless 2018 and five weeks after the death from a brain disease of his team’s co-founder Jason Dean Gibbs, eldest son of 78-year-old Joe, the team principal and former triple SuperBowl-winning Washington Redskins gridiron coach.

“This one’s for JD,” Hamlin said.

Roger Penske’s reigning NASCAR series champion Joey Logano and Michael McDowell of Front Row Motorsports finished fourth and fifth in the Cup series debut of Ford’s Mustang.

They were followed by six Chevrolet Camaros and then Penske’s 2012 champion Brad Keselowski.

Toyota is leading the World Rally Championship manufacturer points and its Estonian Ott Tanak the driver standings after a comfortable win in the tricky conditions of Rally Sweden.

While Tanak scored the maximum 30 points from the second round of this year’s championship – 25 for the event win and another five for being fastest on the final Power Stage – six-time world champion and last month’s Monte Carlo Rally winner Sebastien Ogier crashed his Citroen into a snowbank on the first of the three days.

Toyota already won the manufacturer title last year, its second back in world rallying, but Tanak is leading the driver standings for the first time in his career, despite four 2018 victories – more than any of his rivals.

The battle for second in Sweden was tight, with Finn Esapekka Lappi in a Citroen C3 finishing 3 seconds ahead of Belgian Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai i20, with Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen in another Hyundai and Welshman Elfyn Evans in a Ford Fiesta close behind and Irishman Kris Meeke sixth in another Toyota Yaris.

Finn Jari-Matti Latvala buried his Toyota in a snowbank on Friday and the 25 minutes it took to dig it out ended any hope of a repeat of his 2017 victory in his record 197th WRC start.

Another Finn, Teemu Suninen, was an early leader but buried his Ford Fiesta in a snowbank on Saturday and later crashed it into a tree.

Nine-time world champion Sebastien Loeb had what he called “a complicated weekend” in the third Hyundai in the second of his scheduled six events for the Korean manufacturer and was seventh, almost 1 minute 50 seconds behind victor Tanak.

Dual champion and five-time Sweden winner Marcus Gronholm crashed his privateer Toyota on the first day in his first WRC outing for nine years.

Going to next month’s gravel rally in Mexico, Tanak has 47 points to Neuville’s 40 and Ogier’s 31, while Toyota’s 58 points is one more than Hyundai, with Citroen on 47 and M-Sport Ford 30.

The Formula E electric open-wheelers are creating some crazy racing, with a delay of more than 25 minutes after an early crash in the latest round of the fifth season in Mexico and cars running out of energy at the extended finish.

Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi, the season three champion, stole the win for Audi as German Pascal Wehrlein’s Mahindra entry ran out of puff metres from the finish.

Portugal’s Antonio Felix Da Costa of the BMW Andretti team and Switzerland’s Edoardo Mortara of Monaca-owned, Mercedes-related Venturi were classified second and third after a five-second penalty on Wehrlein.

Nissan’s Swiss former champion Sebastien Buemi and Brit Oliver Rowland were others to fall short of energy after running up front.

The series heads to Hong Kong for its fifth round on March 10 with Indian team Mahindra’s Belgian Jeromo D’Ambrosio leading on 53 points, from Da Costa on 46, Englishman Sam Bird of Envision Virgin Racing 45, Di Grassi 34 and Wehrlein 30.

Mahindra leads the teams championship with 83 points to Envision Virgin’s 73, BMW Andretti 64, DS Techeetah 57 and Audi 56.

Seven-time Targa Tasmania winners Jason and John White have finally won their shorter ‘home’ event, Targa North West – the first round of this year’s CAMS Australian Targa Championship.

The Devonport driver and co-driver uncle, in a Dodge Viper ACR Extreme, finished almost 1½ minutes ahead of reigning series champion Paul Stokell and his new co-driver, Kate Catford, in their Lotus Exige.

Hobart surgeon Michael Pritchard and his co-driver Adam Butler were third in a Porsche GT3 RS.

Jason White said winning Targa North West at last was “a monkey off the back” – last year’s retirement cost them the championship – and he was now intent on equalling Jim Richards’ record eight wins in Targa Tasmania, which starts in Launceston on April 29 and ends in Hobart on May 4.