Motorsport Roundup: Verstappen Wins On Home Ground, Maini Continues DTM Consistency, And Vinales To Debut For Aprilia

The last seven days had no dearth of motorsport action to talk about. It includes races at Formula One’s Dutch Grand Prix and the fifth round of the DTM season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. There was also plenty of action in the driver and rider markets with a variety of announcements up and down the grid.  Here’s all the deets from the week gone by: 

Formula One

Formula One’s return to Zandvoort after 36 years for the Dutch Grand Prix saw home hero Max Verstappen take top honors for Red Bull Racing Honda. The pole sitter dominated the race, with the two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finishing in second and third respectively. This win means Verstappen retakes the lead in the driver’s standings and has a three-point gap to Hamilton. In the constructors standings, Mercedes still lead Red Bull Racing Honda by 12 points.

 

There were also big announcements off-track in the driver market with 2007 world champion Kimi Raikonnen announcing his retirement from Formula One after this season. And replacing the Finn will be fellow countryman Valtteri Bottas who will depart from Mercedes. This essentially paves the way for George Russell to inevitably be announced as a Mercedes driver and partner Hamilton for the 2022 season.

MotoGP 

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While Maverick Vinales may have had an abrupt end to his Yamaha contract, we’ll be seeing him back on the MotoGP grid pretty soon as the Spaniard will make his Aprilia debut at the 2021 Aragon Grand Prix, well ahead of his scheduled 2022 debut with the team. The Aragon Grand Prix is scheduled to take place next week on September 12.

DTM

 

Round 5 of the 2021 DTM season at the Red Bull Ring, Austria, continued Arjun Maini’s positive momentum, with the GetSpeed Mercedes driver qualifying third on the grid for Race 1. The Indian driver eventually finished sixth in the end, and followed that up with a seventh place finish in Race 2. Another strong haul of results from Maini heading into the final three rounds of the 2021 DTM season.

Formula E

With all eyes on the upcoming 2021/22 season, the driver market is in full swing with Maximilian Gunther moving to Nissan e.dams from BMW i-Andretti post the latter’s exit from Formula E. He’ll be partnered by Sebastian Buemi. Mahindra Racing is also set to announce its driver lineup soon.

Indian motorsport 

Back home, we had a bit of off-road action with the Rainforest Challenge (RFC) India 2021. Among the 21 teams competing, it was the pair of  Kabir Waraich and co-driver Dushyant Khosla of Gerrari Offroaders Chandigarh who took top honors with a score of 2155 out of 2600. This means, the pair will get a free entry to the RFC Global Series Finale in Malaysia.

Next week will see Formula One’s triple header set of races come to a close at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix. MotoGP will return to racing action with the Aragon Grand Prix, with the fifth round of the 2021 Formula 2 Championship commencing at Monza.