Motorsport Roundup: Verstappen And Bagnaia Dominate F1 And MotoGP, WEC Season Finale, And Jaguar Lands New Formula E Title Sponsor

The first week of November was a busy one for motorsports with races on two and four wheels. It included Formula One racing at Mexico, the penultimate round of the 2021 MotoGP season taking place, and the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship season coming to a close. There was also an important future announcement for Jaguar's Formula E team. Here’s all that transpired in the last seven days:

Formula One

The 2021 Mexico Grand Prix saw Max Verstappen further cement his lead in the drivers’ standings with a commanding win for Red Bull Racing Honda. Title rival Lewis Hamilton just about held on to second place ahead of the sister Red Bull Racing Honda of Sergio Perez. In the title race, Verstappen now leads Hamilton by 19 points in the drivers’ standings, with Red Bull Racing Honda just one point behind Mercedes in the constructors standings with four rounds to go.

MotoGP

After a heartbreaking late race crash at Misano, Ducati’s Pecco Bagnaia bounced back in fine style at the penultimate round of the 2021 MotoGP season. The Italian took a dominant win at the MotoGP Algarve Grand Prix in Portimao. Suzuki’s Joan Mir finished in second place with the sister Ducati of Jack Miller finishing a closely fought third position. This leaves only the season finale at Valencia remaining and the top three positions in the riders standings sealed. In the constructors standings Ducati managed to take top honors over Yamaha. 

WEC

This week also saw the curtain fall on the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship at the 8hrs of Bahrain. Like was the case last week, Toyota Gazoo Racing were the victors, but this time it was the No.8 car (Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Kazuki Nakajima) taking the win ahead of the sister No.7 trio of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Jose Maria Lopez. The No.36 Alpine trio of Matthieu Vaxiviere, Nicolas Lapierre, and Andre Negrao ended the season with a third place finish. This result also means the No.7 Toyota have clinched the drivers’ title for the first time in the hypercar era.

Formula E

With the focus all on the 2022 season, Jaguar Racing have revealed that they’ll be rebranding as Jaguar TCS Racing thanks to agreeing a new title sponsorship with TCS (Tata Consultancy). This association is effective immediately, and will have the two companies work on developing new technologies for a greener footprint and offer data insights from race weekends.

Next week will have the 2021 MotoGP season come to a close at Valencia, with Formula One heading to Interlagos for the Brazilian Grand Prix