Motorsport News

Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas dominated the 2019 Australian Grand Prix as the lights green for the Formula 1 season. Bottas edged past teammate Lewis Hamilton to secure his first win of the season and his first since the 2017 Abu Dhabi GP, with the Briton coming in second by a distant 20.886s over the race leader. Taking the final spot on the podium was Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen with the new Honda engine, marking the manufacturer's first podium finish since the 2008 British GP. In a surprise twist Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel finished fourth at the end of the race with newbie Charles Leclerc coming in fifth.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver Lewis Hamilton claimed the first pole of the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, beating teammate Valtteri Bottas. It's a front-row lockout for Mercedes, while Scuderia Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel will start in third place in the first race of the 2019 Formula 1 season. Hamilton posted a time of 1m20.486s as he went on to secure pole, 0.112s ahead of Bottas. He has also become the first driver to secure most poles (eight) at a single race track, matching the scores of Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna. The latter was leading qualifying at the start with an advantage of 0.457s but the world champion managed to post a better time with the second set of softs in Q3.

The new all-electric MotoE electric motorcycle championship had all of its racing bikes destroyed in an overnight fire at Jerez on March 14, 2019. The 18 Energica Ego Corsa electric bikes were at the MotoE paddock and were at the track for a three-day pre-testing. All the bikes had taken to the track on the opening day on Wednesday, while the incident reportedly happened at 12.15 am (local time) in the early hours of Thursday. According to reports, the fire completely engulfed the paddock structure destroying all the bikes, and has put the series in jeopardy for 2019.

FIA Director of Formula One, Charlie Whiting passed away this morning March 14, 2019, in Melbourne at the aged of 66 years. The death is a result of pulmonary embolism, three days before the Australian Grand Prix would will open the 2019 F1 season. Whiting had begun has F1 career in 1977 working with the Hasketh team and later moved to Brabham in the 1980s. He joined the federation in 1988 and had been the Race Director since 1997.

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the iconic Porsche 917 race car, which brought the German automaker its first win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1970. The 917 has been the legend for Porsche and to celebrate its birthday, the manufacturer has commissioned the 'Porsche 917 Concept Study' that pays homage to the original. The new 917 concept will be on display fat a special exhibit at the Porsche Museum and will run from May 14 to September 15 later this year. The exhibit will also have 10 different 917s on display from Porsche's racing heritage.

Formula 1 drivers do set the fastest lap times during every race but there hasn't been a reward or incentive of sorts for achieving the feat. That will change though with the upcoming F1 season which starts this weekend. F1 bosses and the FIA were in discussions to award additional points to drivers and teams for setting the fastest lap time during the race. The Strategy Group gave it the green light, followed by the Sporting Working Group. The F1 Commission and ratification by the World Motor Sport Council also followed suit. The new award rule will be enforced from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix to be held on Sunday.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary in the country, Volkswagen Motorsport India, part of the Volkswagen India Group, has revealed a special Winter Project Car. Using the Volkswagen Polo body shell, the Polo RX Winter Project car has been developed completely by the factory team's engineers and technicians in India and is a one-off build that can be bought by anyone for track day purposes. The Polo RX is a rear-engined, rear-wheel drive car that is powered by the same engine that is also used on the Volkswagen Ameo Cup car. The team used its "winter" break to come up with the Polo RX track car, which is how it earns the name.

Indian riders Aishwarya Pissay and Ashish Raorane completed the 2019 FIM Bajas World Cup rally in Dubai over the weekend. Both riders entered as privateers in the international rally, although Pissay was backed by TVS Racing. The two-day rally saw the riders compete on the sand dunes of Dubai with Ashish finishing 22nd, while Aishwarya finished 26th in the overall standings.