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American racing legend Michael Andretti’s quest to enter Formula 1 as the Andretti Cadillac F1 team by 2025 or 2026 has been a tumultuous one. Despite securing a powerful partnership with General Motors, Andretti’s endeavours have faced resistance from existing Formula 1 teams. The latest development reveals that Formula 1 management went so far as to ask General Motors to consider partnering with someone other than Andretti.

Andretti Global, in a partnership with Cadillac, presented its ambitions to join Formula 1 earlier this year. While the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile), the governing body of Formula 1, approved Andretti Global’s application, the final decision rests with Formula One Group, owned by Liberty Media. This decision has stirred controversy and raised questions about the sport’s willingness to welcome new entrants.

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American racing icon Michael Andretti has taken a significant step forward in his ambitious endeavour to establish a Formula One team. The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) confirmed on Monday that Andretti has successfully met all the required criteria to expand the premier motorsports series to 11 teams.

This FIA approval, while pivotal, does not guarantee a two-car team for Andretti. His team, Andretti Global, in partnership with Cadillac, must now demonstrate their commercial value to F1 rights holder Liberty Media and existing teams. The existing teams, though not having a vote on expanding the grid, have voiced strong opposition to expanding the 20-car grid.

This initiative marks a significant chapter in Andretti’s three-year pursuit to resurrect the revered Andretti name in Formula One. Michael’s father, Mario Andretti, famously won the F1 championship in 1978, and Michael himself participated in 13 races during the 1993 season.

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Several hours after the Austrian Grand Prix, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) handed down 12 penalties to eight drivers following an investigation into new track limit breaches after Aston Martin filed a protest.

Track limits are the white lines that define the border around the outside of a circuit. If a driver crosses the line with all four wheels, they are considered to have violated track limits. Drivers are required to use the track at all times and are not permitted to leave it without a valid reason.

Due to this, 47 laps of the Austrian GP qualifying were discarded due to track limits. Sergio Perez was responsible for three of them after failing to set a competitive lap time in Q2 and missing Q3 for the fourth straight Grand Prix.

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Following a 4-week break, the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship returns for the fourth round in at the Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan. This is the seventh time that Azerbaijan is having a F1 round since the first one in 2016, which was actually the European Grand Prix. The 2020 round had to be  cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This weekend’s racing will also see the first of six Sprint races for 2023, as well as mark the debut of a new standalone Sprint format, including a Sprint Shootout qualifying session. The objective of this new format is to separate the Sprint and the GP more distinctively, increasing the level of intensity across the weekend and encourage the drivers to push harder.

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With no rain likely, the Australian GP was expected to have just one stop for most teams, with tyres switched from starting mediums to hards. The first cars were expected to start coming in around lap 15 of the 58-laps of the Albert Park Street Circuit,

Max Verstappen rocketed off from his pole position, but Mercedes-AMG’S George Russell was close as Turn 1 came up and got through the turn first. Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton also moved forward together and somehow, after getting ahead of the Aston Martin driver, Hamilton also slipped past Verstappen.

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After two opening rounds in the Middle East, the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship is in Melbourne this weekend for the Rolex Australian Grand Prix. This event used to be the opening round for a long time but that ended in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although some teams had expressed reservations about participating as the pandemic began to look very serious, the organizers wanted to go ahead. It seemed like it was on until government authorities ordered the race to be cancelled – just 2 hours before the first practice was to be run.

In 2021, the Australian GP was again chosen as the opening round but due to the restrictions on travellers, it was moved to November, but cancelled in July. 2022 was the first year that the F1 round returned to Australia and a new contract extends the venue till 2035. The event will also be one of the first 3 rounds of each season, and will be the opening round for at least 5 seasons.

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The second round of the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship saw reigning champion Max Verstappen starting from 15th after driveshaft failure forced him out of qualifying, and Charles Leclerc in 12th after taking a 10-place grid drop for using more than his 2 allotted ECUs for the season,

Verstappen’s team mate in Red Bull Racing, Sergio Perez, had a poor start from pole position and was passed by a forceful Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin. However, the Stewards would give Alonso a 5-second penalty for incorrect starting location.

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The 2023 Formula 1 World Championship continues in the Middle East after the opening round in Bahrain with Round 2 at the seaside resort and port city on the Red Sea where the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is being held this weekend. Situated 30 kms from Jeddah, the is the third time that the  city is hosting a round on its Corniche street circuit.

Like the Bahrain GP, the Saudi Arabian GP will also be run at night on the 6.174-km circuit, the second longest in the 2023 calendar (after Spa-Francorchamps). Designed by Carsten Tilke, the son of the famous F1 circuit designer, Hermann Tilke, this is the fastest street circuit in the F1 calendar at the moment. Speeds on simulators have averaged over 250 km/h around the track which has 27 turns, the most of any circuit this year.

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It’s difficult to say which was the first hypercar the term itself refers to a car with extremely high performance, beyond the normal performance limits of supercars. It could be based on a minimum power output, say 800 bhp, or it could be dependent on the era as technological levels have constantly advanced.

The Bugatti Veyron launched in 2005 with 987 bhp (1001 ps) could be a candidate for the first hypercar. In any case, there are now a number of models which produce in excess of 1000 ps and therefore qualify as hypercars.

The appearance of hypercars has inevitably led to the creation of a category in motorsport which has seen the first racing cars competing this year. The Hypercar category, a joint project of the FIA and the ACO, envisaged as the new top class of the FIA World Endurance Championship, has attracted a number of carmakers with 13 full-season Hypercar entries from 7 manufacturers.

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As the lights went out to signal the start of the first round of the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen pulled away from the field cleanly. Ferrari’s  Charles Leclerc sneaked by Verstappen’s team mate Sergio Perez in pursuit of the world champion. .

Red Bull would be aiming to win at Bahrain for the first time since 2013 while Lewis Hamilton would hope that he could add one more win to the five previous ones that have made him the most successful driver at this circuit.

Although Fernando Alonso started from P5 and his team mate in the Aston Martin team was in P8, they somehow came in contact as the pack went through Turn 4. It appeared that Stroll was eager to get past Mercedes-AMG’s George Russell who had started from P6 but instead caused Alonso to drop to 7th. The Stewards considered the Aston Martin incident and decided that no action was necessary.

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