harles Leclerc beat Max Verstappen to the top spot of the late-afternoon opening practice session at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver took top spot on the second push lap of a new set of soft tires as the session clock expired, pipping Verstappen by 0.116s — though the Dutchman used a set of hard tires for his best lap, distorting the gap.
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is run at night, so track conditions during first and third practice in the afternoon are not representative of qualifying and the race. The track surface was also very dusty at the beginning of the session, particularly off line and in the pit lane, and drivers struggled with gusty conditions around the seaside circuit.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc claimed a commanding victory at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix after preseason favorites Red Bull Racing had both cars retire from the race with engine problems.
Carlos Sainz followed the Monegasque home to complete Ferrari’s first 1-2 finish in more than two years, while Lewis Hamilton was a late beneficiary from Red Bull’s misfortune to claim an unlikely podium finish.
Poleman Leclerc started the race strongly, sweeping across the track at launch to cover the apex ahead of Max Verstappen, who started alongside him on the front row.
Continue reading on RACERCharles Leclerc has flipped the script on reigning champion Max Verstappen to snatch pole from the Dutchman at the death in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Verstappen had been in a commanding position throughout the weekend, including the early stages of qualifying, but Ferrari had a little extra in hand for Q3, with Carlos Sainz leading Leclerc to a provisional front-row lockout.
Leclerc found time with his second lap, but Sainz couldn’t squeeze any more from a fresh set of tires, gifting his teammate top spot.
Continue reading on RACERMax Verstappen topped final practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Charles Leclerc in a difficult-to-read session.
The Dutchman was just 0.096s quicker than Leclerc, though both drivers dropped time on their final soft-tire runs. Verstappen locked up at the first turn and opted to abandon the lap for a second attempt, while Leclerc said he was missing performance in the final sector.
Leclerc appeared to be closer to the limit in his Ferrari generally, having spun off the track at turn 11 as he tried to power over the curbs. The gravel trap saved him from a crash with the barriers by feet.
Continue reading on RACERhe first day of official timed action at the Bahrain Grand Prix is in the books, and Formula 1 is finally getting some answers about the real competitive picture for the season ahead.
The answers are good for Max Verstappen and in particular Ferrari. The reigning champion led the way at the end of the all-important second practice session, the only representative hour of running before qualifying, but there almost nothing to split him from the pursuing Ferrari drivers.
The answers were undoubtedly bad for Mercedes. The team must be sick of saying, ‘I told you so’ this week, but it really did tell us not to expect much from the car in Bahrain, and not much is exactly what it delivered.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSMax Verstappen has lit up second practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix, putting Red Bull Racing at the top of the time sheet ahead of both Ferraris.
Verstappen, who was quickest at this track at the end of preseason testing, lowered the benchmark from earlier in the day to 1m31:936s. But he was pursued closely by Charles Leclerc, whose Ferrari was just 0.087s slower.
Leclerc’s best time was set on five-lap old tires and the fifth lap of a qualifying simulation run, suggesting that the C3 compound is holding its own in Bahrain this season. Indeed, the majority of the field completed competitive long-run simulations on the red-walled rubber in the second half of the session, with Verstappen’s race pace in particular looking strong.
Continue reading on RACERPierre Gasly topped the first official timed session of the 2022 Formula 1 season for AlphaTauri, leading Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in first practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Frenchman used the soft tire with around 15 minutes remaining to edge the Ferrari driver to the top time by 0.364s.
“What a lap,” exclaimed his impressed engineer. “That was nice. We get into the mojo now.”
But Ferrari’s pace was more eye-catching, for neither Leclerc nor Sainz, who was less than half a tenth further back, used the soft-compound tire yet were both comfortably within half a second of the lead. Leclerc even had time to spin his car on the red-marked rubber that would carry him to his quickest time and still finish the session second overall.
Continue reading on RACERThe hot and humid Indonesian Grand Prix will test riders and bikes to their limits in just the second round of the MotoGP season, but Jack Miller has a secret weapon inside his leathers.
He’s from Townsville.
The forecast for Mandalika all weekend is for 30 degrees and around 80 per cent humidity, and there’s a permanent risk of thunderstorms throughout. But that’s no big deal for Queenslander Miller.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSSequels are rarely as good as originals, but in 2022 Formula 1 thinks it might be onto something special.
It’s been almost 100 days since the spectacular but controversial season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton started the race tied on points after 21 rounds of epic racing, but Verstappen emerged a first-time champion after overtaking Hamilton for the lead on the final lap of the race.
Could it possibly get any better than that?
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSYou would never have believed this time last year that we’d be talking about a potential derailment of Daniel Ricciardo’s career.
Just 12 months ago Ricciardo was suiting up for his first race as a McLaren driver. He’d spent two years at Renault, where his podium-getting performances in lacklustre machinery burnished his reputation to new heights, and he was starting at Woking as one of the grid’s most highly-rated drivers.
He’d been brought to McLaren to lead the team into its next title-winning era. A proven race winner, he’d get the most from the car and help direct development under new rules.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSMotoGP will spend the weekend at an idyllic Lombok resort town, but the first Indonesian Grand Prix in 25 years will be anything but relaxing.
MotoGP doesn’t race around street circuits, but the designers of this brand-new track have penned a metropolitan-style layout to test riders in what will be a unique challenge.
The sport arrives in South-East Asia with a new title leader, Enea Bastianini, but the young Italian will have his work cut out from him to hold his advantage on a circuit that will advantage the Japanese bikes over the grunt of his Ducati.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSThe memories of the controversial 2021 title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix have barely faded, but this weekend new world champion Max Verstappen and the ousted Lewis Hamilton will renew their rivalry for a much-anticipated sequel.
It’s one thing to make it to Formula 1, but it’s another thing entirely to stay there.
That’ll be the truism ringing in the ears of F1’s nine uncontracted drivers in 2022, whose first job will be to ensure ongoing gainful employment into 2023 and beyond.
You’ve got to be in it to win it, and with almost half the grid’s seats up for grabs, the 2022–23 silly season has a great deal of potential to be very silly indeed.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSFor the last two years MotoGP had been living in a fundamentally Marc Márquez-free universe in which riders who aren’t the 29-year-old Spaniard have been free to carve up the premier-class championship for themselves.
Your perspective on these two years will likely vary wildly depending on why you watch MotoGP and which riders you’re a fan of.
But if you’re Honda boss Alberto Puig, they’re an aberration.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSOffering Aussie Formula 2 champion Oscar Piastri to McLaren as a reserve driver was a sign of goodwill from his Alpine Formula 1 team ahead of an uncertain future on the sidelines, according to Sky Sports F1 pundit Ted Kravitz.
Alpine announced during the final three days of testing that it would offer its rising star to McLaren in the event either Lando Norris or Daniel Ricciardo were unable to compete and if existing reserves Nyck de Vries, Stoffel Vandoorne and Paul di Resta were unavailable.
The announcement was unrelated to Ricciardo’s COVID diagnosis, and the McLaren driver is expected to be in the car for this weekend’s first race.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSIf Formula 1 awarded points based on how strenuously a team denies it has a fast car, Mercedes would already be well on the way to the 2022 championship.
It’s Mercedes’s great unheralded strength. More than building championship-winning machines, the team from Brackley is expert at insisting that it’s not the favourite ahead of the first race.
Let’s revisit some of Hamilton’s preseason appraisals of years past.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSThe 2021 season must feel like a distant memory for reigning champion Fabio Quartararo.
It’s been less than five months since the 22-year-old made himself France’s first motorcycle world champion — less than five months since El Diablo flossed with a giant CGI devil after clinching the title in Misano.
But those heady times must’ve felt like a lifetime away as he crossed the line ninth and more than 10 seconds behind Qatar Grand Prix winner Enea Bastianini.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSThe Formula 1 pre-season closed in Bahrain on Saturday night, and through the haze of testing uncertainty came one seemingly irrefutable fact: Red Bull Racing is the team to beat.
It’s notoriously difficult to deduce an accurate competitive order from pre-season testing times. It’s impossible to know for certain fuel levels and engine modes, and with lap times being set at different times of day, when the track is in different conditions, no two laps can be directly comparable.
But after six days of testing at two different tracks we can begin to sketch the basic outline of the field ahead of next weekend’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, and some undoubted winners and losers are starting to take shape.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTS