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2 April: Today in Racing

Editor02.04.2020

Carlos Reutemann took advantage of Ferrari teammate Gilles Villeneuve crashing out of the lead to win the 1978 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach from Mario Andretti in a dominant weekend for the red cars as they dominated practice, qualifying and one of them led every lap of the race.  

The next GP on this day was Australia in 2006 where Renault's Fernando Alonso won from Kimi Räikkönen in a McLaren and Toyota man Ralf Schumacher, while pole man Jenson Button’s BAR engine blew to see him stop metres from the finish line to lose fifth. Before Grands Prix were Formula 1, Guy Moll became the youngest ever Monaco winner in an Alfa Romeo B/P3 in 1934 until Lewis Hamilton won in 2008, while Hans Hermann's Mercedes won the ’39 Pau Grand Prix in France.  

There was much race action in 1922 as Italian privateer Count Giulio Masetti celebrated won the Targa Florio in Sicily driving a 1914 Grand Prix Mercedes painted Italian racing red. Across the pond, Tommy Milton, Pietro Bordino, Jimmy Murphy and Frank Elliott won each won a heat of the 1922 Beverly Hills AAA Champ Car weekend before Milton went on to win the Main race.

Much more recently, Tom Sneva, Robby Gordon, Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon won Indycar races on this day and sticking to single-seaters, Alex Yoong won the 2008 Chinese A1 GP Sprint for team Malaysia, while Tomas Enge took the Feature race for the Czech Republic. Lucas di Grassi took the 2016 Formula E Long Beach US ePrix.  

World Rally Championship action on this day saw Björn Waldegård and Lars-Erik Torph deliver a Toyota Celica 1-2 in the 1986 Safari Rally over Markku Alén’s Lancia 037, while Ian Duncan took another Toyota Celica win in the East African epic over Kenjiro Shinozuka’s Mitsubishi Lancer and Didier Auriol in another Celica in 1994. Colin McRae meanwhile took his Ford Focus to 2002 Rally Catalunya honours over Richard Burns’ Subaru Impreza and Carlos Sainz in another Focus  

In another relatively quiet day in NASCAR history, Tim Flock, Cotton Owens and Cale Yarborough all took Grand National wins on 2 April over the years, while Darrell Waltrip, Harry Gant, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brad Keselowskitook won Cup races. Shane van Ginsbergen won the only Australian Supercar race on this day.

In other race and auto news over the years, Armand Peugeot set up his own eponymous car company in this day 1896 and 3-time F1 world champion Jack Brabham, Italian sportscar racer Gino Munaron, multiple motorcycle world champion and F1 driver Mike Hailwood, sportscar and rally star Guy Frequelin and single seater racer Nicolas Lapierre share 2 April birthdays.

The Royal Automobile Club banned hillclimbs on public roads in the United Kingdom because of difficulty in controlling spectators in areas where the public had the right of access in 1925 after Francis Giveen's Bugatti crashed into the crowd at the Kop in Buckinghamshire. That proved a tough blow for British motorsport. NASCAR racer Alfred Thompson died a day before his 46th birthday after starting the Charlotte race late race and not feeling well — his car stopped on track after he suffered an acute coronary occlusion. (Photo: Motorsport Images)

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