This weekend has been full of mixed emotions for motorsport fans. There was a full and exciting weekend of racing to be enjoyed with races from many different disciplines taking place. A nasty accident at the Japanese Grand Prix has left Jules Bianchi on life support, which is at the forefront of many minds at the present moment.

Formula One

There was doubt about the Japanese Grand Prix as early as midday Saturday due to typhoon ‘Phanfone’, which was bearing down on the Japanese mainland. Weather reports had confirmed that wind speed was as fast as 150mph with the power to take down trees and still Bernie Ecclestone released an ignorant statement saying “if its rains, the teams will race”. Many have criticised him for caring only about money and not about driver safety.

The rain poured down on the Suzuka circuit which left the track in an awful condition and still the race went ahead, even though the FIA had admitted earlier they may have made a mistake about whether the race should go ahead. This proved to be a worse decision than they could have imagined when the wet conditions caused Adrian Sutil to crashed out unharmed which meant a recovery vehicle was brought out to deal with his car. Bianchi lost control on the very same piece of track and collided with the unforgiving recovery vehicle. Bianchi was declared unconscious and it was believed he would be taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital but unfortunately the helicopter could not fly due to the awful weather. He was taken into surgery and came out stable without life support but new information has emerged that he may well need another surgery and has had to be placed back on life support.

89 89 Retweets 16 16 likes Lewis Hamilton took home another victory, although at this point the race had been red flagged and the final lap was under safety car. Hamilton had managed to snatch the win from teammate Nico Rosberg, just after this there was a pit stop period which meant Hamilton could hold on to his lead as Rosberg was unable to catch him. Sebastien Vettel was able to clinch third and was followed closely behind by his teammate Daniel Ricardo. Mclaren’s Jenson button held third for much of the race but his pit stop meant he was unable to resume his position before the race was ended and finished up in fifth, which was a disappointing for the Brit as he had given a good performance all race.

Hamilton has now grabbed an extra five points over Rosberg to add to his lead meaning he is now ten points ahead of his teammate although this has not been his chief concern after the race, as is the case with all of the drivers as they offer their prayers for Bianchi.

WRC

Volkswagen have had another fantastic weekend at the Rallye De France-Alsace leg of the World Rally Championship. VW drivers Jarri Matti Latvala leads for most of the weekend, only overtaken briefly by teammate Adreas Mikkelsen who was unable to keep pace and conceded first place to his fellow Finnish driver. Citroen driver Kris Meeke was a full 20.5 seconds behind Mikkelsen to round off the podium. Robert Kubica has been on course to achieve fourth which would have been his best ever result but unfortunately spun out right on the last stage, instead Sordo claimed the position.

Latvala is even more pleased than normal with this win as it has broken his ‘asphalt curse’ as he has never won on an asphalt track. He came so closed to breaking the curse in Germany but unfortunately crashed on the final morning.

WTCC

Rob Huff has made history in the Beijing leg of the FIA World Touring Car Championship by bringing home the first ever win for team Lada. The win, in reality, came out of the WTCCs reverse grid system in which the top ten from race one are reversed for race twos grid. This is not to say that Huff didn’t race a fantastic race because he certainly did but the chances of him being at the front without the reversed grid system would have been small.

 

Motorsport.com reported that “There were heartfelt hugs and tears among the ‘red boys’ as they gathered around the winning Granta and were supportively cheered at by the entire WTCC community”.

It was a British weekend in the WTCC as Tom Chilton claimed a win in the first race of the afternoon. He had managed to take pole position in the morning, to the surprise of many, and simply outclassed all the other drivers as they could get nowhere near him. The battle for the driver’s cup currently remains open with just two more weekends of racing ahead of them. The manufacturers title is being lead by quite a significant number of points by Citroen but C-Elysee are still in with a chance of stealing the title. That’s it for this weeks racing round up! If you missed any motor sport from last weekend then check out last week’s racing round-up here. Something different? Check out the hybrid Lamborghini Asterion.