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Motorsport

Formula 1, an unexpected early mechanical DNF from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen paves a Ferrari 1-2 finish with Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jr. now a first time winner at Albert Park

by Sports Benches

We didn’t see that coming but we now have a new Australian Grand Prix winner for 2024 and his name is Carlos Sainz Jr who drives for Scuderia Ferrari off the back of these unexpected early retirements from reigning champion and last year’s winner Max Verstappen (Red Bull-Honda RBPT) as well as Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes whose team-mate George Russell also suffered a late race crash). He too had a great race for the majority unchallenged with team-mate Charles Leclerc rounding off a 1-2 Ferrari finish since the 2022 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Looks like it will be Ferrari v Red Bull for the championship now with Sainz Jr (-11 points) and Leclerc (-4 points) not far behind Verstappen (currently on 51 with back-to-back wins) in the drivers’ standings. Plus, fellow Red Bull driver Sergio Perez has still yet to win this year despite back-to-back 2nd places in the hope of going one better that would help him keep his ride for another couple of years after he just finished 5th (-5 points).

For the Aussies, We also hoped to at least see one on the podium but Oscar Piastri didn’t do bad though just outside the Top 3 places in 4th behind his McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Lando Norris, while Daniel Ricciardo finished not far from the Top 10 in 12th despite being a lap down for Visa CashApp RB-Honda RBPT since he was in a midfield race machine.

Also, shoutout to the two Haas-Ferrari cars just rounding off the Top 10 points in Nico Hulkenberg (9th) and Kevin Magnussen (10th). So does Ricciardo’s team-mate Yuki Tusnoda from Japan after he collected a few points in 8th just behind the Aston Martin duo of Lance Stroll (7th) & Fernando Alonso (6th). And although things are still going slow at the moment over at Jack Doohan’s Alpine-Renault squad with Esteban Ocon finishing last on track (16th), but Pierre Gasly did benefit from these early race retirements on what has been an okay 13th placed finish. It remains to be seen if Alpine’s form will turn things around sooner rather than later as a mid-season driver change remains unlikely for now but Doohan hopes his time will come most likely next year depending on the team’s commitment to the sport & if Ocon and/or Gasly leaves for a better race team like Mercedes and Red Bull. F1 will now go from Albert Park in Melbourne to Suzuka in Japan who will now host early rather than later during the season as the next race (Round 4 of 22) will take place after Easter on the weekend of Sunday 7th April 2024.

If you wish to follow all other races after watching this annual Australian race since it’s free-to-air protected, Fox Sports/Kayo will be the only place here to watch live & on-demand with next day race highlights available for free thanks to Kayo Freebies.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on the returning Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix race only being shown on ESPN & ESPN + & not on ABC this weekend 

by Sports Benches

This weekend, Formula One will hit the streets of Las Vegas for the first time since the 80s and it’s going to be huge under the lights & also late on a Saturday night (10pm PT/1am ET) rather than the usual Sunday afternoon. Las Vegas will be the third US-based F1 event of the year after Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas last month as well as Miami earlier in May.They won’t go up and down again at Caesar’s Palace as it will take place around the Las Vegas Strip & also the MSG Sphere where one random guest would have the whole view’s access of the track based on top of a screen (would love to a see his reaction to that lap-by-lap from start to finish!!) ahead of everyone watching on through the grandstands. But only thing missing is that ABC won’t show the Las Vegas GP race despite having some build up content via Good Morning America. It will instead be via cable on ESPN as well as paid streaming through ESPN +. We would’ve love to have the pre-race show straight after the local news at 11.35pm ahead of the 1am ET race start through to 3am, but then half the county across the East Coast would be in bed by then while half the people in the West are still staying up until midnight by partying big for this special race. 

If the race started at 8pm PT/11pm ET, then that might make sense for ABC to round off its Saturday night sports programming straight after the College Football. Lots of people always stay up until 12-1am as it’s the middle of the weekend. But it looks like that it makes sense to have repeat programming rather than having just the coast tuning in to watch the race between 1-3am ET just because some people are unable to watch it by having to sleep past midnight. It’s a hard call when Formula 1 is a World Championship that mainly suits the European audience as let’s hope the continued rise of the sport in America will unlock more potential with the hope of Andretti Global-Cadillac coming in as the 11th team in 2025 or 2026, which would mean a bit more free-to-air exposure by having the Las Vegas Grand Prix being shown at last on ABC someday.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on Nine & Stan Sport no longer airing SpeedSeries next year as Motorsport Australia takes back media rights control off Australian Racing Group in a different route

by Sports Benches

We didn’t see this coming when there was an update today by V8 Sleuth that Nine and Stan Sport won’t be back covering SpeedSeries next season after two seasons thanks to the recent change of media rights control back to Motorsport Australia, not Australian Racing Group who brokered the deal with Nine/Stan at the beginning of last year.

Yes, Stan will continue to show IndyCar, Formula E, World Endurance Championship, World Rally Championship & Motocross next season as per promos during the Bathurst International weekend, but there’s no SpeedSeries on this list which has the main reason as to why these question marks has been raised. But then it would also be complicated for Motorsport Australia to keep Nine & Stan onboard covering SpeedSeries when the rest of their sanctioned competitions are covered by Seven. We don’t know how the coverage will look like going forward but we expect to see more free-to-air coverage since it will either be on Seven or SBS who both don’t have their own streaming arms, although a paid component will still be the crucial (expecting to be Fox Sports & Kayo) likewise with the Nine/Stan deal in order to keep the $$$ going for all participants involved.

As said, glad SpeedSeries is growing as seen with both TCR Australia & Trans-Am competitions as well as some International flavour with the help from TCR World Tour guys over the last two weeks including the way how the coverage is spread out by having a balance of both free and paid content, which is in a better place now than it was the start of last season. Let’s hope it stays that way going forward while Nine should finally have the WWOS logo on-air if they do air live Motorsport again.

It was also great seeing Matt White covering back Motorsport over the last two years here including his recent return commentating the Trans-Am races with Matt Naulty. He too finally appeared on Nine for the first time during Nine/Stan’s debut coverage with SpeedSeries in February last year after spending half the time out of his three-decade TV career at Seven & Ten. It remains to see where he will end up next after the Nine/Stan exit other than his daily sports radio job. For now, we wish SpeedSeries including its respective categories via its teams and drivers as well as the broadcasting talent the best of luck in the near future!!

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Motorsport

F1 News Live, Australian Oscar Piastri gets his first Sprint Race win for McLaren in Qatar

by Sports Benches

Wow!! What a day it has been from Australia’s own Oscar Piastri who dominated both the Sprint qualifying shootout & the 19-lap race itself for McLaren-Mercedes at the Qatar Grand Prix in Lusail. He had a great opening few laps & although he lost a spot to George Russell (Mercedes) for a while, but Oscar managed to regain top spot off Russell & stayed there comfortably this time through the end with the win. 

How good was that to see Oscar record his next best moment in Formula 1 as a full race win will come his way sooner rather than later hopefully to wrap it up tomorrow at 4 AM AEDT time. We thought he will be starting 3rd, but will start 6th instead because his final lap time was invalid due to exceeding track limits which was also applied to his team-mate Lando Norris.

Regardless of that, he will hope to make the most of his starting position through a decent race car by challenging up front against the Mercedes & Red Bull cars including now 3 x World Champion Max Verstappen from the Netherlands.

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Motorsport

Formula 1 News, Update on Andretti Autosport’s bid to enter as the 11th team when it comes to the commercial side

by Sports Benches

A few days after the FIA has accepted Andretti Autosport’s application to enter Formula 1 as the possible 11th team, things didn’t go off to a good start when it comes to entering commercial discussions with the current 10 teams & the sports promoter Liberty Media itself. So far McLaren is 100% supportive through boss Zak Brown who has a great business relationship with Andretti in Supercars here, as well as Renault’s factory team Alpine as a honour to initially supply Andretti their engines if accepted. Then Aston Martin said that if the sport’s ain’t broken don’t fix it despite initially being happy to see Andretti enter the sport last year, but then probably Cadillac joining forces with Andretti at the start of this year saw their heads turn & say it’s best we stay with 10 teams. Meanwhile, Ferrari is not convinced what value Andretti can offer to this sport when a few teams didn’t do so well before shutting down last decade between 2010-2016.

Plus, Williams said that the price money pot will get smaller if they join in, as well as having to look after their big 900 + staff first where they’re happy with the direction F1 is heading right now. Although they wouldn’t be against having a new manufacturer like Cadillac/General Motors, just not a new team like Andretti. The score is 2-2 all right now as don’t think any other existing 10 teams will lend its support to Andretti. Red Bull/Alpha Tauri’s concern is the distribution of profits which is what WillIiams said the other day, while Haas would still straight out just say no like Aston Martin. All we can hope for now is for Toto Wolff from Mercedes to be 100% convinced on what Andretti has to offer in Formula 1 like the resources, budget, etc. I’m sure that will help Ferrari & Alfa Romeo/Sauber change their minds on how a potential 11th entry will look like when competing v 10 teams on-track.

The good news is that the 10 teams will have no say on whether or not if Andretti is the correct 11th team to join F1 as we can hope from Liberty Media now is for them to be on the same page as Andretti. That way, not they can work something out in order to give Andretti the opportunity to make a competitive name for themselves in Formula 1, but also help ensure the current 10 teams some stability when it comes to the commercial value as well. So the anti-dilution fee will no longer settle at $200 million, they should instead work at a counter offer of $400 million for the first year, then $500-600 million afterwards if Andretti can post regular Top 7-10s + occasion Top 3s – everyone wins.

Growth/Expansion should be taken one step at a time. Since F1 has reduced a 10-team series back in 2018, that Netflix documentary + seeing all teams being competitive saw its value rise overtime that comes with 2-3 US races now (Austin, Miami & Las Vegas). That is something Rugby Australia & Super Rugby needs to learn if they wish to become competitive by winning games again by having three strong teams instead of five right now. A US-based team is something the sport’s fans love to see as the next step, we just hope to see both Andretti & Liberty Media reach an agreement in three ways:

  • Ensure the 10 teams their financial security by growing the prize money pot as long as Andretti is willing to pay double the anti-dilution fee of $400-500 million.
  • Give Andretti the chance to show its worth in Formula 1 from their own home in the US when it comes to a manufacturing, resources & competitive standpoint.
  • And keep F1’s value intact while growing even further where all 11 teams thrive that will in turn have a lot more US-based fans alongside Andretti as the years goes by.

It’s going to be a difficult couple of months but let’s hope Andretti will finally be accepted before taking their next steps towards producing their first Formula 1 car at the earliest given time possible.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on Andretti being formally approved by the FIA as the 11th Formula 1 team yesterday but it’s not over yet with a new battle coming up from the 10 teams

by Sports Benches

Another huge news out of Motorsport yesterday that the FIA governing body, who runs Formula 1, has formally approved Andretti’s bid to enter the top flight as the next possible 11th team. 

It’s been a long process so far where they passed the first two phases with one final big hurdle left, which is the sport’s commercial group where they run the media side of things including global broadcast rights as well as looking after the existing ten teams when it comes to prize money, etc. We’ll have to really, really wait & see if all of these teams will be sold of Andretti’s idea in the hope of having really good competitive on-track competition alongside a really good race car.

So far most teams are against it where they’re happy where they are right now while expressing concerns of having a smaller cut of the prize money. But at the same time, Andretti is 100% serious about being competitive where they’re not bereft of financial support while hoping to take America’s relationship with Formula 1 to the next level thanks to their own team.

How good would it be where Andretti is also constructing their world-class headquarters right now that is akin to other big Motorsport powerhouses like McLaren? That would be a huge boost to their Formula 1 goals if the ten teams do give them a chance that can reflect Andretti’s all-round value on the world stage. Although half of the resources will be based in Europe, but they can be the first team to build a Formula 1 car right at their own home in Fishers, Indianapolis.

Yes, that can be a bit odd since all of the Formula 1 cars are currently built across Europe. But it also be great if the US has their own cutting edge of the way they run Motorsport which is huge & I for one would love to see Andretti-Cadillac show the sport how it’s done for their own country. Speaking of the US, they will of course save a spot for a home-grown driver which is most likely going to be Colton Herta, while a team-mate will be experienced racer like Daniel Ricciardo, who is so popular over there even though he’s one of us from Australia. It’s going to take time for the 10 teams to really pay attention to Andretti’s wish of competing in Formula 1 by saying yes this time, but let’s hope it happens before they start racing in 2025 or 2026.

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Motorsport

What if Toyota re-joined Formula 1 by forming a works partnership with McLaren?

by Sports Benches

Image Credit: Lukas Reich via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

The McLaren-Toyota links are growing where they had a great relationship of using Toyota’s wind tunnel facilities over in Germany for a few years before their own particular building was completed lately going forward. But it doesn’t stop there as McLaren has extended its relationship with the Japanese car manufacturer by hiring one of their factory drivers from the sportcars program in 29-year-old Ryo Hirakawa, even though McLaren currently uses Mercedes Benz.

He too has an excellent racing record, having won the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year as well as an World Endurance Championship (almost back-to-back now) & 2 x Super GT titles.

It will be no surprise if Toyota goes back to Formula 1 at some point as early as 2027 or 2028, but I assume it would just be an exclusive engine supply deal with McLaren – nothing else. That way, we could see some Toyota and/or Toyota Gazoo branding as part of the paint scheme if the relationship does go even further – as long as they’re on the same page so they can run up front & win races all the time unlike McLaren’s disastrous time with Honda back in 2015-2017.

As far as Ryo is concerned, we also hope he will be racing F1s on Sunday someday like Yuki Tsunoda who is at Alpha Tauri. But I guess he will just be there to gather data in the McLaren car & send feedback to Toyota as part of the plans rather than seeing him trying to oust either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri, whom both of these youngsters are both untouchable. If Ryo was to be on race days, he would be racing for a 2nd Toyota Formula 1 team like Williams again unless Piastri does very badly between now and the end of 2026 or else see Lando end up at Audi in three years time.

He’d be about closer to age 34-35 which is kinda close to impossible, but age isn’t a factor though if you look at Fernando Alonso (Spain) who is still doing well in the Aston Martin-Mercedes car right now at age 42. It’ll be nice to see him race at Monaco though to try and win there, so he can be one step closer towards completing the Triple Crown (Monaco, Le Mans & Indianapolis 500). Plus, McLaren also has an IndyCar team too. Maybe they can help Ryo out for a one-off ride at the (Indy) 500, but it will most likely be 2025 unless they can find a partner with a small Chevy IndyCar team since they got Kyle Larson onboard for the next big occasion. 

All in all, McLaren would choose their next engine partner that has never won a Formula 1 race before in Toyota, despite delivering numerous podium finishes when they previously raced as a fully fledged factory team between 2002-2009. But it seems both partners are willing to take baby steps from the ground up that began with McLaren using Toyota’s wind tunnel to now accessing their driver talent pool. Hopefully, McLaren can learn from their poor experience a few years ago with Honda, while Toyota will promise them at the same time to give the race-winning chassis they need with a good quality powertrain as they’re currently dominating in Sportscars, Rally-Raid & Rallying. 

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Motorsport

An update on the Liam Lawson to Williams links on loan where he would’ve gone & be a perfect replacement for Sergio Perez at Red Bull Racing for 2025 but it’s still unlikely

by Sports Benches

Image Credit: Lukas Raich via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

There’s a little more to it a few days ago about the possibility of Liam Lawson racing on loan at Williams-Mercedes from Red Bull next season alongside fellow past Red Bull & Toro Rosso alumni Alex Albon from Thailand.

Last weekend, it was announced that Daniel Ricciardo will be back at Alpha Tauri while they hold on Yuki Tsunoda for another year due to the Honda links they bring into RB’s feeder squad when it comes to the engines + funding. It seems that won’t go away until at least the end of 2025 where Liam should be racing F1s by then in place Ricciardo before RBR & AT will switch to Ford engines from 2026, so that Yuki may join Aston Martin since they will be the next Honda’s works outfit. 

It would’ve been great to see Liam get a full season experience at Williams beforehand next season where he can be a perfect replacement for the under-fire Sergio Perez as Max Verstappen’s next team-mate at the flagship organization in 2025. But then that door is also closed when Williams wanted to retain American Logan Sargeant despite him crashing all the time.

Even though Sargeant may not be back & Liam missing out, Williams would elect to have last year’s Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich from Brazil instead in his place. All can Liam do now is learn from both Red Bull teams, then step up to Alpha Tauri in 2025 and go from there to achieve something big so he can go on & race for the main team in 2-3 years time. It’s the same for Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris who had to sit a year out before earning their first moves onto the big time. Let’s hope more Kiwis can follow his lead when it comes to earning their stripes from the ground up to all the way at the top level.

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Formula 1 News, Thoughts on Jack Doohan racing in the World Endurance Championship next season with Alpine’s Hypercar machinery instead of a 3rd season in Formula 2

by Sports Benches

Image Credit: Lukas Raich via Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0 International

Well, Jack Doohan may not have the best start, but he has still managed to make up lost time where he sits fourth right now in the Formula 2 drivers points with one round (two races) left in Abu Dhabi at the end of November. The good news is that he will be staying with Alpine for another year as their reserve driver, so we will get to see Jack race these F1 cars on a couple of occasions as required during practice sessions. We’ll have to wait and see if he can replace at least replace either Frenchmen of Pierre Gasly or Esteban Ocon in either 2025 or realistically 2026.

The bad news is that he may not be racing Formula 2 again for one more year at Virtuosi Racing in 2024, even though he might be allowed one more season before the maximum limit for a driver to race in this 2nd Tier series of 3 years unless you win the Drivers’ Championship. Although he could racing in the World Endurance Championship instead also within the Alpine umbrella for new their Hypercar programme which is the top class. It sounds like he’s following the path of Mark Webber, who came through the junior open-wheel ranks before he did 1-2 years of Endurance Racing; then he had a decorated decade of racing Formula 1s & rounded off his driving days back in Enduros with Porsche between 2014-2016.

Image Credit: Chris Game via Wikipedia, CC BY 2.0

Whatever path that might be for the young 20-year-old, if he chooses WEC with Alpine, let’s hope he can not only win the 24 Hours of Le Mans but also stop Ferrari & Toyota in its tracks with the series championship too. Yes, he has been a proven race winner several times before and have not won any championships so far despite being so close.

However, he needs to continue racing with the proof of taking home good regular results so Alpine can hopefully promise him a Formula 1 ride someday. They haven’t had their own in-house driver into the main squad from the lower levels before that reflects their driver development pathway following the fracas of fellow Aussie & former Alpine academy member Oscar Piastri where he ended up at McLaren instead in 2023.

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Motorsport

F1 Live Race Today at Suzuka: Max Verstappen unstoppable with Aussie Oscar Piastri’s first podium in P3 for McLaren while NZ’s Liam Lawson finished 11th in Alpha Tauri

by Sports Benches

Yes, today’s Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix race was crazy earlier on where we saw a few cars make contact into each other that led to some DNFs along the way. But it was a great day though with Max Verstappen being unstoppable in the Red Bull-RBPT Honda before he was joined by both McLarens to round out the Top 3 as Lando Norris finished 2nd followed our Aussie own Oscar Piastri, who scored his first podium finish in 3rd. We wished Oscar would’ve chased down Max from 2nd, but then he was blocked by the race winner immediately after the race start where Lando took a great view on the outside from 3rd to 2nd before he couldn’t get on hold onto Max as the race progresses. There will always be another Oscar moment after his mother couldn’t be there to watch her son race in-person today, but it looks like we will see him win races & hopefully a World Championship someday thanks to his latest four-year contract extension a few days ago with McLaren.

And shoutout to New Zealand’s Liam Lawson down in 11th for the Alpha Tauri-RBPT Honda outfit. He had a great battle with his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda from the start, although he was losing some track position for a while. But he had a great last half run though nonetheless, having made up some lost time where he got around Yuki before being way ahead of him en route towards another good result – despite being a lap down in his 4th race. Again, this is one driver who deserves a full-time seat. But there’s nothing we can do about it unless Williams can loan him out (which is unlikely) following the news yesterday that Alpha Tauri will retain both Yuki and the injured Daniel Ricciardo next season. Next stop, Lusail International Circuit in Race 17/23 this season under the lights for Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday 8th October/Monday 9th October at 4am AEDT here.

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