Automotors

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is set to be handed his first FP1 outing with Mercedes at the Italian Grand Prix to ramp up preparations for his potential promotion to its Formula 1 line-up from 2025. The Italian, who turns 18 on Sunday, is strongly tipped to be named as replacement for Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes from 2025, and has conducted a series of private tests in W13 and W14 F1 cars …Keep reading

MotoGP stars Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin say they won’t let the 2024 championship battle come in the way of their harmonious relationship.Locked in a tense fight for the riders’ title since the beginning of the season, Bagnaia and Martin are separated by just five points at the top of the standings following the factory Ducati’s rider double win in the Austrian Grand Prix last …Keep reading

KTM test rider Pol Espargaro believes Ducati will slowly lose its stranglehold on MotoGP from next year, as the changes it has made to its MotoGP programme start to bite.Espargaro, who took part in last week’s Austrian Grand Prix as a wildcard, reckons that Ducati will immediately feel the loss of Jorge Martin, Enea Bastianini and the Pramac team in 2025.The Spaniard witnessed the Borgo Panigale …Keep reading

Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes race engineer Pete Bonnington has been promoted to head of race engineering and will stay with the Formula 1 team in 2025.Bonnington will dovetail his new role with his existing race engineering duties for Hamilton until the end of the season.A Mercedes spokesperson has confirmed the 49-year-old will then stay on with the team in 2025 as Hamilton departs to Ferrari …Keep reading

MotoGP has announced that Thailand will take over Qatar’s spot as the opening round of the 2025 season on 2 March.Usually scheduled at the latter end of the campaign in October along with the bulk of flyaway races in Asia and Oceania, Buriram has now been granted a new date at the start of March.Qatar has been the traditional venue for the season-opening race for the most of the last two …Keep reading

When the Toro Rosso team renamed itself to AlphaTauri, it pledged to become a “sister team” to Formula 1’s championship-winning Red Bull team – and this path has progressed with its RB rebrand.RB has always used transferrable components developed by the lead Red Bull team, but took on the rear suspension package part-way through 2023 in an effort to transform a dismal start to the season. This …Keep reading

Formula 1’s shutdown is over, with teams heading to Zandvoort for the first of 2024’s 10 remaining rounds. As F1 wakes up from its summertime siesta, here is a refresher of some key storylines you may have missed, and some lingering questions seeking an answer in the Dutch dunes and beyond.Red Bull is backing Perez. Will it prove to be a costly mistake?Shortly after the Belgian Grand Prix Red Bull …Keep reading

Maverick Vinales believes improving the braking performance will be “key” in catapulting Aprilia near the front of the MotoGP grid.Americas GP winner Vinales made that comment after the start/stop nature of the Red Bull Ring exposed a major weakness of the RS-GP, with both him and team-mate Aleix Espargaro struggling to slow down the bike as effectively as their rivals.The Spaniard explained that …Keep reading

Speculation in Formula 1 got intense during the summer break in the wake of a change the FIA made to the technical regulations outlawing asymmetrical braking systems.Off the back of the most recent FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting that ratified a host of revised and future rules, an added clause regarding braking systems set tongues wagging.The changed Article 11.1.2 of F1’s Technical …Keep reading

McLaren is set to “cash in” on its Formula 1 aerodynamic testing over the first part of the season, after bringing relatively few upgrades in the opening 14 races.The aerodynamic testing regulations (ATR) in contemporary F1 restrict how much wind tunnel time and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) resources can be used, with each team receiving limits. These are allocated depending on their …Keep reading