Last weekend motorsport treated us to contrasting levels of drama in the respective World Championship fights in Formula 1 and MotoGP.

Formula 1

The rescheduled Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang in Malaysia had everything going on including torrential downpour (Sky Sports), a software issue and a late (an hour and a half no less) start. But when the checkered flag came out, it was Max Verstappen holding high the trophy in winning his first race this year.

A week before, Verstappen fell short (by just 0.196 seconds no less) to Kimi Antonelli’s teammate George Russell in Baku. But fate dealt a cruel card to Russell’s Mercedes which, with just five laps to go, pulled over (apparently suffering from a power-unit issue). Antonelli finished second with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton completing the rostrad in P3 (Formula1.com).

Antonelli’s championship lead has now been extended to 84pts from his Mercedes teammate (was 66 before Malaysia) with just seven races to the end of the season.

MotoGP

There was drama of a different order at Motegi in Japan where championship frontrunner and defending world champion Marc Marquez moved to just two points adrift of Jorge Martin (on the Aprilia) after Marquez stormed to victories in both the sprint race as well as the feature race. In the main event, Marquez made his pass on Martin happen just before half-distance after which there was no looking back for the latter (MotoGP.com).

What next?

The runaway nature of Antonelli’s lead in Formula 1 has somewhat taken the gloss off the championship fight as we can only count down the remaining races till he eventually gets confirmed as world champion (imagine being so calm about it too!).

On the other hand, MotoGP’s two-point gap between the title contenders, an overtaking manoeuvre apart, puts so much more pressure on them to perform without fail to clinch or retain the crown respectively. F1 next heads to Singapore (9-11 Oct) and MotoGP to Indonesia. Don’t be without you!

Written by

Dee