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Renault

Motorsport

Formula 1 News: Thoughts on Renault still wanting to abandon its own 2026 engine project by becoming a customer outfit to Mercedes-Benz for their Alpine F1 Team

by Sports Benches

Last week, Alpine officially signed our Aussie Jack Doohan as a full-time driver to the replace the Haas-bound Esteban Ocon next season alongside Frenchman Pierre Gasly. But we still don’t know what’s going to happen beyond 2025 when the new engine regulations come in and Renault – who manages Alpine – still wishes to abandon their engine project to cut costs, so they can use Mercedes as one of their privateer teams rather than continue being a fully fledged factory team.

If they really wanted to be a customer team, it’s going to be weird when a big car company like Renault via Alpine makes their own sports cars on the road but not for Formula 1 as if they’re running Lotus or Aston Martin. 

I don’t recall a single thing about Alpine working with Mercedes on a road car project before. Although they’ve did work with Caterham and Lotus for a brief time before, but then neither of those joint venture projects came out because there’s less competition to produce and get back in this small sports car market.

What Renault should’ve done is to just sell off Alpine to Andretti if they didn’t really want to run a team that isn’t their own engine. However, we still don’t know when they will finally admit that they can no longer run a Formula 1 team should they become a customer team to Mercedes.

As it stands for now, they are not keen on selling even it’s for a billion dollars when Formula 1 currently enjoys running 10 teams to maximise & protect its financial value rather than thinking anything expansion to let Andretti-GM in.

All we can hope for Renault is to get a supportive OEM partner to help finish off the project like IImor or Mecachrome in the hope of closing their rivals upfront by competing for regular podiums and victories again. If not, they can finish this off by themselves in-house if they really want to for the best of Renault given their long history of racing in Formula One.

That will be a huge ask though as hoping Alpine doesn’t succumb to its complete collapse at some point and Jack would then have to find another ride or at least admit they can’t compete in Formula 1 anymore, and a new team like Andretti or Hitech can come take over Team Enstone where this place was the home to many World Championships back in the 90s and early-mid 00s.  

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Motorsport

Thoughts on Australian Jack Doohan son of former 500cc World Champion Mick now set for his big break in Formula 1 next year with the Alpine F1 Team alongside Pierre Gasly

by Sports Benches

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for all year long as the Alpine F1 Team have finally settled their 2nd seat to replace the Haas-bound Esteban Ocon today for their upcoming 2025 Formula One Season alongside Frenchman Pierre Gasly and it’s none other than our Aussie own Jack Doohan from the Gold Coast, Queensland. His big announcement today won’t impact Alpine’s future plans that much in the meantime going into the new engine rules era from 2026 at Enstone when it’s looking more and more likely now that they will ditch their own Renault engines by becoming a privateer outfit with Mercedes-Benz. 

Then it remains to see what happens after that if Alpine still wants to be a Formula 1 outfit after 2026 as they could either be morphed into Hitech since Oliver Oakes has just taken over the Team Principal job at Alpine or else Andretti can take over for at least $1 billion dollars & they can finally race Formula 1 when the sport doesn’t feel confident about expansion at this time.

Great to hear that Alpine has made an excellent choice by bringing Doohan into a full-time race seat where he might not have collected a season championship so far in his career but he too can do well across qualifying and race day with a few wins under his belt as proved in Formula 3 and Formula 2 in the past. Don’t forget he’s also the son of former legendary 500cc motorcycle Grand Prix champion Mick Doohan as sure he has the family racing calibre to make his mark albeit at the different highest levels of Motorsport in four-wheels of Formula 1 rather than two-wheels which is MotoGP.

Yes, Mick Schumacher was also in the mix having also took part in a top-secret test recently for Alpine alongside Doohan where they were both family friends for a long time with Mick being named after Jack’s dad while Jack was given a go-kart by Mick’s dad Michael who won so many World Championships throughout his career as hope is all well with him following his unfortunate skiing accident a decade ago.

But again, even though Mick first came into F1 with the Formula 3 and 2 championships, he didn’t set the world alight when he was at Haas a few years ago & if he wants to go back at the top-level again, then taking the risk at Audi which is currently Sauber in the short-term under Ferrari engines would be his last best hope ahead of its big break in 2026 with fellow German Nico Hulkenberg.

At the end of the day, it’s up for Doohan to score regular Top 7-10s with some podiums or even 1-2 wins onboard since there’s only 20 Formula 1 seats to battle upfront nowadays. Let’s hope he does well with our best backing from Australia as he will be the third driver there on the grid alongside McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and also Racing Bulls’ Daniel Ricciardo if Riccardo can keep his ride within the Red Bull family next season.

Depending on Sergio Perez’s performance later this year, we could see Ricciardo going back to Red Bull again or else he will be given the flick with NZ’s Liam Lawson getting a full-time ride after all in Ricciardo’s current spot at Racing Bulls.

Looks like F1 is growing across the Trans-Tasman in both Australia and New Zealand with as many as four drivers on the grid and with Doohan, it remains to be seen which race number he could take ahead of his F1 race debut next season.

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Motorsport

2024 24 Hours of Le Mans back on 9Go for the first two hours with a four way manufacturer Hypercar battle for outright 1st

by Sports Benches

The big Saturday night of sports isn’t done just yet off the back of the Super Rugby semi-finals weekend and the end of the Australian Swimming Olympic Trials where the Olympics might not have started in France just yet, but there’s an annual Endurance race going on right now in the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans Endurance Race from Circuit De La Sarthe & it’s back on free-to-air 9Go for another year through the first two hours window. Glad to see Nine have the authentic sports logo watermark with the Olympic Rings on it which looks really nice, especially during an Olympic year like this. I hope they can keep on doing this by having the WWOS badge more often like they do to other sports by treating their free-to-air limited LIVE motorsports coverage better should they be back airing the World Endurance Championship and 24 Hours of Le Mans next year. It’s been a long time coming since Nine didn’t put the WWOS logo at all for their former SpeedSeries coverage including the previous 24 Hour of Le Mans race last year – despite wearing one before at times two years ago until Motorsport Australia re-took the SpeedSeries media rights off ARG that ended the mixed paywall/free experiment & Seven came back to air the races once again from earlier this year. Seven also didn’t have any issues when putting on their sports logo unlike Nine.

Looking at the race itself, it’s been a Ferrari race so far where one car has been leading up front over the first 30 mins-1 hour before another works Ferrari of the same Hypercar factory team got away with the lead after the leading car just couldn’t hold onto outright 1st on the outside. But don’t forget they’ve got greater competition from the US such as the No.31 Porsche Penske team as well as the No.3 Cadillac while we wouldn’t rule out Alpine as well with Mick Schumacher’s (one of the Alpine F1 frontrunners alongside Australia’s own Jack Doohan to replace Esteban Ocon for next season) No.36 running in between 10th-15th for Signatech. If you wish to watch the rest of the 24 Hour Endurance event, Stan Sport is the only place to see all along until the end of Sunday night. For new viewers, it’s a seven day free trial and if you like it, it will cost you $25 a month.

From there, you can also watch on-demand replays and highlights at any time as well as every other World Endurance Championship race LIVE uninterrupted without having to break away with an ad-break or two at all. Although you can watch IndyCar there in the meantime at least until the rest of this season, but keep an eye out for 2025 as they could end up on Foxtel/Kayo once again since the US rights have just changed hands recently where it’s now heading to FOX from NBC.

We also know Leigh Diffey, who called the 24 Hour of Le Mans for Eurosport last year, will be staying with NBC having called the Indianapolis 500 over the last seven years & he’s still expected to replace Rick Allen for their NASCAR Cup Series coverage as their main announcer after the Olympics is over with Track & Field. His first Cup race full-time would be straight after the network finishes its IndyCar tenure at Nashville while The CW will begin airing the Xfinity Series races relatively early at the same time during the Playoffs with Allen it before the network takes full control at least the next seven years going into 2025.

For now, it’s a Ferrari 1-2 up front (No.50 over No.83 a few mins ago) under wet weather going into the evening, then darkness and hopefully bright weather into the next day where both cars really want to win that one ultimate prize.

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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

What to look forward to from Jack Doohan despite not racing this year in the hope of earning a seat at Alpine F1 Team in 2025

by Sports Benches

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

Another Aussie driver to keep an eye on other than Oscar Piastri & Daniel Ricciardo is 21-year-old Jack Doohan, who will simply be backing up for Alpine this season in a simulator and reserve role – just like New Zealand’s Liam Lawson for Visa CashApp RB despite his good limited outings while Ricciardo recovered from a broken hand last year. His racing record through the ranks might not be the best but he too can bag a few podiums and race wins, having gone so close (runner-up) three years ago in Formula 3 as well as finishing 3rd last year following an underwhelming first half campaign in Formula 2. He could’ve also gone over to the World Endurance Championship or even attempt IndyCar such as the Indianapolis 500. But don’t think going for the Triple Crown or achieving anything outside Formula 1 will mean that much to them these days as this is still the top ranked Motorsport competition in the world & that is something Jack would want to do on race days in 2025.

Lewis Hamilton recently confirmed he will be leaving Mercedes for Ferrari next year & someone from Alpine in Esteban Ocon could potentially be his replacement alongside George Russell. Let’s hope Jack can do well when being given the chance on Friday practice sessions throughout the year in the hope that Alpine will be worthy of giving him a shot next year, so they can forget about having previous conflicts with Piastri who hopped onto McLaren instead at the end of the 2022 season.

If not, Williams should try him again had Logan Sargent been unable to obtain enough Super Licence points that would’ve denied him a 2023 Formula 1 seat. But now he is still not getting up to speed following a very poor rookie year as another bad season would see him head out of the door for good. Let’s hope Jack can be like his legendary motorcycle grand prix father Mick who won so much back in his day but through a very different discipline and that will be the highest levels in Formula 1.

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