Motorsport Roundup: India At The Andalucia Rally And F1 Plus MotoGP Updates

Andalucia Rally

The 4 stage, 1000km Andalucia Rally came to its conclusion with a solid run for both Hero MotoSports Team Rally and Sherco TVS Rally Factory Team. For the latter, CS Santosh finished 21st overall with teammate  Sebastian Buhler 18th and Joaquim Rodrigues running on the rally experience rules after facing problems  in the end. On the other hand, Harith Noah also had a strong run to 23rd overall, with teammate Rui Goncalves 19th and Lorenzo Santolino a strong 4th with two 3rd place finishes in the opening stages.  

Formula One

The 2020 Eiffel Grand Prix saw the inevitable with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton taking his 91st win to equal Micheal Schumacher’s all-time record of race wins. But it wasn’t that straightforward as the brit had an early fight with teammate Valtteri Bottas for the lead of the race until Bottas locked up and surrendered the lead. Shortly after Bottas retired from the race, Hamilton cruised to victory ahead of Red Bull Honda’s Max Verstappen.

Another story of the weekend was Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo in 3rd to score the team’s first podium since Malaysia 2011 and Ricciardo’s first since Monaco 2018. With Bottas’ DNF, That 7th world driver’s title is more or less a formality for Hamilton who now leads by 69 points to his teammate. The battle for 3rd place intensifies in the constructors standings with Racing Point snatching third from McLaren courtesy of Perez’s 4th place and super-sub Nico Hulkenburg’s 8th place finish. F1 action will resume at Portimao for the Portugal Grand Prix from October 23 to 25.

MotoGP

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The roller coaster 2020 MotoGP season continued to cause thrills with a wet race at the LeMans circuit. And after 22 laps of  non-stop drama, Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci became the 7th different winner of the season followed by Repsol Honda’s Alex Marquez who shined in treacherous conditions from 18th of the grid, with Pol Espargaro rounding off the podium for KTM.  In contrast, the championship contenders, Fabio Quartararo, Joan Mir and Maverick Vinales finished well down from 9th and below in the end.  

Heading into  the MotorLand Aragon double header starting next week, the top four in the championship are only covered by 19 points and with Marc Marquez expected to return to the grid, there could be even more drama heading into the latter half of the season. 

WRC

The six round of the 2020 World Rally Championship at  Rally Italia Sardegna, saw Hyundai Motorsport’s Dani Sordo take a close third WRC win by only 5.1 seconds. Following Sordo was teammate Thierry Neuville finishing just 1 second ahead of Toyota’s Sebastian Ogier. In the championship, Hyundai took the lead by just 7 points to Toyota, whereas Elfyn Evans still holds a 14-point lead over Toyota team-mate Ogier with just two rounds to go. Next up is Rally Belgium from November 19 to 22 which is the penultimate round of the 2020 season. Monza will play host to the season finale from December 4 to 6.

Indian Motorsport

The positive news for Indian motorsports keeps on coming  with a new racetrack called the Nanoli Speedway is in the works. The 2.928km, FIA Grade 3 approved racetrack will be located on the outskirts of Pune, and has been designed by Driven International with the help of Karun Chandok. The layout spans 12 corners, can be split into two configurations and will have asphalt and grass run-off areas. There’s no word of when the circuit will be functional as it has just received approval from the FIA. It could take until late 2021, maybe towards early 2022 until the track becomes fully operational. 

Elsewhere, the 2020 season for Indian motorsport was underway with the opening round of the MMSC FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Drag Racing Championship at MMRT, Chennai. Hemant Mudappa took top honors in the Super Sport 4-stroke above 1051cc class with Mohammed Riyaz winning the 851-1050cc class. Bharatraj J won out in the 165cc class with Mohammed Rafiq the quickest in the 2-Stroke Super Sport 131-165cc and the 130cc category.

On the topic of Indian motorsport resuming, FMSCI have announced the calendar for the  2020 Indian National Rally Championship season. It will be a five round season starting from December 16 at Itanagar and will finish off at Bengaluru on January 31 2021.