Motorsport News

Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso took a hard fought win in the 2018 MotoGP San Marino Grand Prix at Misano, beating teammate Jorge Lorenzo to the chequered flag. Lorenzo, who started on pole crashed out of second place promoting the close running Marc Marquez of Honda to P2, whle LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow took the final position on the podium. With the San Marino GP, Dovizioso scored Ducati's third consecutive win since 2008. The win has also promoted Dovi to second in the championship standings with a lead over three points over Valentino Rossi.

Team Mahindra Adventure's Gaurav Gill and Musa Sherif hold on to the lead on Day 3 of the 2018 Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare. The APRC-champion played safe throughout the four special stages completing in a time of 4h59m45s. Gill managed to hold on to the lead with a margin of 8 minutes over teammates Philippos Mathai and PVS Moorthy, who finished the day in a time of 05h07m15s. The big leap, however, was taken by Team Maruti Suzuki's Sandeep Sharma who moved into third place over Amrittrajit Ghosh.

Jerome Vanlalrengpuia has emerged victorious in the third edition of the Red Bull Road to Rookies Cup. The Mizoram-based racer will be heading to Spain in October this year for the Rookies Cup qualifiers representing India at the global level. In its third edition in India, the Road to Rookies Cup's final round was held at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore last weekend and Jerome took a hard-fought win, beating title contender PC Andy Lalhmangaihsanga, also based out of Mizoram. The two were tied at the top of the points table with 32 points each at end of two rounds.

MotoGP has issued the provisional calendar for the 2019 season and championship will continue to host 19-rounds, much like the current season. Promoters Dorna have also confirmed that a new venue has not been added to the calendar for 2019, despite two new tracks being announced to be added next year. MotoGP has dropped the Mexico and Finland venues in 2019, while Sachsenring and Silverstone will continue to host the premier-class championship.

Defending champion Suresh Rana with co-driver Chirag Thakur of Team Maruti Suzuki made a brilliant comeback on Day 2 of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare 2018, as he finished in fourth place after starting at the day at a distant 11th. However, it was Team Mahindra Adventure's Gaurav Gill with co-driver Musa Sherif who continued to lead the rally at the end of Day 2. The second leg of the 2000 km rally saw the drivers pace through three special states and one Super stage. Gaurav Gill completed the leg

The 10th edition of the Maruti Suzuki Dakshin Dare is being held over 2000 km and will traverse through the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. The first round of the rally saw cars compete in three special stages through dirt and gravel, with a total distance of 129 km in three special stages. The bikes, on the other hand, covered a total distance of 86.42 km across two special stages. Ace rally driver Gaurav Gill leads the on opening day of the Dakshin Dare rally in Davangere, Karnataka for cars, while Yuva Kumar takes the lead in the two-wheeler category.

Lando Norris has been announced as the new driver at McLaren for the 2019 Formula One season. The Formula 2 front-runner will be replacing Stoffel Vandoorne, who announced his departure from the team at the end of this season. Norris was one of the four shortlisted drivers for the seat after it became increasingly clear that Vandoorne will not continue with McLaren owing to poor performance. Lando will be joining the newly recruited Carlos Sainz in the McLaren garage in 2019, with the latter stepping in for Fernando Alonso, who announced his retirement from Formula 1 by the end of this season.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton consolidated his championship lead bringing home the 2018 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix. The Briton took the win in a late charge during the final stages of the race beating pole-sitter Kimi Raikkonen to the chequered flag. The win comes despite Hamilton's incident on the opening lap with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, which dropped the latter down to P16. Vettel, however, recovered to P4 in the race, behind Valtteri Bottas. The other contender for P4, Red Bull's Max Verstappen attracted a 5-second penalty in an incident with Bottas dropping down to fifth.