The Week That Was In Motorsport: June 29- July 05

Formula One 

After a seven month long gap, the 2020 Formula One season finally got underway at the Red Bull Ring in Austria and what a way to kick off the season. Qualifying saw Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas take pole with his teammate Lewis Hamilton being demoted to fifth from second at the 11th hour. This saw McLaren’s Lando Norris lining up third behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. 

While the race got off to a relatively clean start, it wasn’t long until the race started becoming a race of attrition. A total of 9 drivers retired solely due to electrical issues. In the end Bottas took the win ahead of a surprise 2nd from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. McLaren’s Lando Norris claimed his maiden F1 podium after Hamilton was demoted to 4th due to a five second penalty caused by an incident with Red Bull’s Alex Albon.

Bottas currently leads the standings ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris with Mercedes leading proceedings in the constructors standings ahead of McLaren in 2nd and Ferrari in 3rd.  F1 action returns next week at the same venue on July 12. 

Formula 2

Despite looking strong throughout practice, Jehan Daruvala’s F2 campaign got off to a messy start. Starting 7th for the feature race, a lap 1 incident with Carlin teammate Yuki Tsunoda dropped him at the back but he recovered to 12th in the end. Retaining 12th for the sprint race, Jehan was involved in another incident. This time with Luca Ghiotto that resulted in a 5-second time penalty. While he finished 14th on the road, his penalty dropped him down to 16th in the end. On a positive note, there is another round at the same venue next week so Jehan Daruvala can hope to take the learnings from Round 1 and hope for a cleaner weekend overall.

MotoGP 

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While there is still a couple of weeks before the 2020 MotoGP kicks off at Jerez, some controversy has been brewing behind the scenes. The FIM MotoGP Stewards have been notified of riders potentially breaching the FIM Grand Prix Regulations covering practice and testing, specifically Article 1.15.1. c) Rider Training and Track, regarding the type of machines permitted for rider training. This rule prohibits the MotoGp, Moto2 and Moto3 classes to conduct private testing in 2020 unless they are riding for Manufacturers that qualify for concessions. The riders that may have broken these rules will be investigated at the season opener in Jerez. 

WSBK 

Another piece of the 2021 rider market puzzle has been put in place as current Yamaha rider Michael van der Mark has been signed up by the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team for the 2021 season. The three-time WSBK race winner is currently 5th in the WSBK rider standings after round 1 with potentially 11 more to go starting with the Spanish GP in Jerez on August 02.

WRC

A revised calendar for the 2020 World Rally Championship season has finally been unveiled after the season was put on hold after round 3 due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Round 4 kicks off at Rally Estonia on the weekend of September 4-6, but the originally planned 13 round season will be reduced to eight and will conclude with Rally Japan on November 19-22. Toyota currently leads the manufacturers’ championship with 110 points over Hyundai, at 89 points. 

Formula E

The recently ousted ex-Audi driver Daniel Abt has received a lifeline for the six remaining races of the 2019-20 season by joining the NIO 333 team to replace Ma Qinghua. There were also some future announcements in the form of Williams Advanced Engineering acquiring an exclusive contract to supply batteries for the Gen 3 car that’s set to debut in the 2022-23 season. Another change for the Gen3 car is that Hankook will replace Michelin as the official tire supplier for the 2022-23 season.

Indian Motorsport

The FMSCI issued a statement where they are aiming to resume Indian motorsport by September 2020 and are just waiting for governments to ease lockdown restrictions and lift the ban on sporting events in the country. The reason for this statement was a clarification against what president J Prithviraj hinted that racing events in India were unlikely to begin until at least January 2021. 

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