On the one hand, the difference between Kevin Harvick's Chevrolet and Carl Edwards' Toyota was about eight inches at the end of Sunday's Good Sam 500. It's hard for a finish to be closer than that. On the other, Harvick has won six of the last eight races at Phoenix International Raceway and has taken the checkered flag eight times in his Sprint Cup career at the desert mile. It's hard for a driver to be more dominant in NASCAR than that. Harvick framed the finish in emotional terms afterward in his media conference. "I don't think there's any real love lost between the two of us," Harvick said in reference to Edwards. "You know, I knew that I was going to get hit, and I'm going to hit him in the same type of manner, just fo...

With Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari lurking dangerously in their rear-view mirrors, Mercedes wouldn't be blamed for enforcing stricter team orders on Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in the 2016 Formula One season. Having enjoyed a comfortable advantage over the rest of the field since 2014, the Silver Arrows have allowed Hamilton and Rosberg to race without any real fear of the consequences. But despite the challenge posed by Ferrari, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has confirmed his drivers will not only be allowed to fight evenly, but they will be given more freedom than at any stage over the last two years in 2016. McLaren-Honda racing director Eric Boullier, meanwhile, has urged Fernando Alonso to sign a new contract beyond the 2017 season, desp...

The Good Sam 500, an ode to the metric system, was the most uneventful race of the season. Only four drivers led laps: Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Each finished in the top five. Anyone who withstood the relative monotony of the first 309 laps was rewarded by a thrilling finish between Harvick and Edwards. There was no shortage of bumping as the fresher-tired Edwards and the aged-tired Harvick battled through Turns 3 and 4. The result was the closest in the history of Phoenix International Raceway and the eighth win for the undisputed king of cacti. "Boys," said Darrell Waltrip during the broadcast, "That was a pretty amazing finish. Take a bow. You deserve it, buddy." "It is hard to beat Kevin Harvick," sa...

NASCAR's foray into Phoenix proved to be fruitful for Kevin Harvick, who took home the checkered flag over Carl Edwards in a nail-biter.   It looked like Harvick would cruise to an easy victory down the stretch, as he held a huge lead over Dale Earnhardt Jr. before a late caution forced a reset. When things finally got started, Edwards made a late move to finish within an eyelash of the win, via NASCAR: Harvick's victory was an historic one at Phoenix, as Jayski noted after the race: Here's the full leaderboard from Sunday's race at Phoenix International Raceway: This year's Good Sam 500 was all about four drivers. Pole-sitter Kyle Busch held the top spot for 75 total laps before relinquishing things to Earnhardt, who went...

Kevin Harvick bumped Carl Edwards on the final lap to hold him off and capture the checkered flag in a photo finish in Sunday afternoon's Good Sam 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. The win continued Harvick's dominance on the desert track where he's won six of the last eight races. Harvick led a race-high 139 laps for his first win of the season. He finished .01 seconds ahead of Edwards, the closest finish in Sprint Cup Series' history at Phoenix. Edwards led 65 laps and seemed on the verge of passing Harvick, who elected not to pit when the caution came out with just five laps remaining, but he was stopped by some clean, hard-nosed racing and settled for a second-place finish.  Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. round...

The new qualifying format has been the big story this offseason when it comes to new Formula One regulations. Plenty of fans and drivers are complaining that the live elimination system unnecessarily complicates a qualifying process that wasn't broken—although it has never been tested, so no one knows for sure how it will work. If you want to see unnecessary complication, though, look no further than the new 2016 tyre regulations. Compared to those new rules, the revised qualifying format looks positively simple. The previous tyre rules could be explained to an F1 neophyte in just a couple sentences: Pirelli had four different dry-weather compounds—hard, medium, soft and supersoft—and selected two for each race. As long as...

Kyle Busch's recent dominance at Phoenix International Raceway continued Saturday, as the reigning Sprint Cup champion won the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200 in the Xfinity Series. With the victory, Rowdy has now won five of the past seven Xfinity Series races at Phoenix, including each of the last two. He has also now won three consecutive Xfinity Series races this season. According to Tom Jensen of FoxSports.com, Busch's streak has been authored in dominant fashion to boot: Following his fantastic run, Busch was in a celebratory mood, as seen in this Vine from NASCAR's official Twitter account: He led a remarkable 175 of 200 laps and managed to hold off Erik Jones to take the checkered flag and ...

Kyle Busch's recent dominance at Phoenix International Raceway continued Saturday, as the reigning Sprint Cup champion won the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200 in the Xfinity Series. With the victory, Rowdy has now won five of the past seven Xfinity Series races at Phoenix, including each of the last two. He has also now won three consecutive Xfinity Series races this season. According to Tom Jensen of FoxSports.com, Busch's streak has been authored in dominant fashion to boot: Following his fantastic run, Busch was in a celebratory mood, as seen in this Vine from NASCAR's official Twitter account: He led a remarkable 175 of 200 laps and managed to hold off Erik Jones to take the checkered flag and ...

By Christmas Eve, Pascal Wehrlein was not expecting any extra-special gifts to come his way. The momentum that surrounded the 21-year-old following his victory in the DTM (German touring car) series, a championship he claimed with near-perfect timing following the Manor Formula One team's confirmed switch to Mercedes engines last October, was fading rapidly. At a time Will Stevens told Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde he was "100 per cent confident" of retaining his place and Rio Haryanto had been granted £10 million by the Indonesian government to pursue the other seat, the Mercedes-affiliated driver had become an outsider in the struggle to join the Mercedes-affiliated team. Having previously told ...

By Christmas Eve, Pascal Wehrlein was not expecting any extra-special gifts to come his way. The momentum that surrounded the 21-year-old following his victory in the DTM (German touring car) series, a championship he claimed with near-perfect timing following the Manor Formula One team's confirmed switch to Mercedes engines last October, was fading rapidly. At a time Will Stevens told Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde he was "100 per cent confident" of retaining his place and Rio Haryanto had been granted £10 million by the Indonesian government to pursue the other seat, the Mercedes-affiliated driver had become an outsider in the struggle to join the Mercedes-affiliated team. Having previously told ...