SPARTA, Ky. — Kurt Busch earned his first NASCAR Cup Series win of the season by outracing his younger brother in overtime Saturday night in a door-to-door finish at Kentucky Speedway.
Joey Logano had the victory in hand until a spin by Bubba Wallace with six laps remaining sent the race into overtime.
Logano and Kyle Busch lined up side-by-side on the restart for what was expected to be a race for the victory, but both Erik Jones and Kurt Busch shoved their cars into the mix for an intense final two laps. The Busch brothers touched as they raced for the lead, both cars wiggled, and it appeared Kurt Busch was headed into the wall. But he recovered to squeeze past his brother just before the checkered flag.
It was the first win of the year for Busch and his new Ganassi team.
INDYCAR: Indianapolis 500 winner Simon Pagenaud will start from the pole for Sunday’s race through the streets of Toronto.
Pagenaud has been on a tear around Exhibition Place all weekend, as his Team Penske Chevrolet has been consistently fast. He paced Saturday morning’s final practice on the 11-turn, 1.786-mile street course, then edged reigning series champion Scott Dixon for the top starting spot.
“This is the best you can feel in racing, when you achieve what you expect,” said Pagenaud, who won the Indy 500 in May from the pole.
Dixon said after qualifying he’s been bothered almost a month with “tennis elbow” – an inflammation of the tendons in the elbow – from working in the simulator, and the discomfort has been problematic on Toronto’s rough street circuit.
“It’s been a bit of a nightmare,” Dixon said. “I got it the week of Texas and then I had it all the way through at Le Mans, and then at Road America it was really bad in the race. So we’ve been trying to do some therapy with it, but tennis elbow, there’s no easy fix. It might be an offseason project, we’ll see.”
Dixon teammate Felix Rosenqvist qualified third for Chip Ganassi Racing, followed by Indy 500 runner-up Alexander Rossi for Andretti Autosport as Honda drivers took spots two through four.
IndyCar points leader Josef Newgarden qualified fifth, followed by Ed Jones.
Marco Andretti, Sebastian Bourdais, Spencer Pigot and Takuma Sato qualified seventh through 10th.
The day got off to a hot start when Sato confronted Bourdais following the morning practice session. Bourdais was still in his cockpit when Sato approached and appeared to grab the Frenchman. Bourdais climbed out of his car throwing haymakers, and a team representative tried to separate the two drivers. But the scuffle continued another few seconds and Bourdais said later Sato seemed to overreact to an on-track pass.
“I passed him on the out-lap … I’m not sure it deserved that kind of reaction, but it doesn’t matter,” Bourdais said. “If there was anything, I’m the one who should be pretty (mad). He pretty much ruined our race in Texas from three laps down and blocked us the last three stints. I’ve never asked him for anything. We know he races hard, but with that little incident, I’m not so sure what should happen to him.”
Sato later said of his emotions “I’m cool,” and thought the scuffle was triggered by Bourdais, who Sato thought was aggressive on track and then blew up after Sato grabbed Bourdais by the collar of his firesuit while Bourdais was in the car.
“He was excited. It wasn’t me,” Sato said. “Passing me was absolutely pointless. It was just one lap. He went blasting by me and then turned into Josef Newgarden. What was the point?”
In a contract year with Penske and aware of rumors that Rossi was set to replace him inside IndyCar’s top team, Pagenaud swept both races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May and earned a promise from Roger Penske that his contract would be renewed. But Pagenaud’s success has been limited to Indy, as the Frenchman doesn’t have another top-five finish anywhere else this season. His average finishing position in the eight races outside of Indianapolis is 9.88.
FORMULA ONE: Valtteri Bottas was six milliseconds faster than Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to take pole position for the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, England.
It will be the first time since 2014 that Hamilton hasn’t started from the front at his home race as he chases a record sixth victory on Sunday.
Bottas opened the season by winning two of the first four races but hasn’t even been on pole since the Spanish GP in May.
“It was very good again,” Bottas said. “It reminds you why you do this. It’s been pretty close all weekend and today with Lewis.”
Hamilton has a 31-point lead over Bottas in the championship standings.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc qualified third, and Max Verstappen of Red Bull will start in fourth position.
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