RNW Staff

In intense heat and on one of the world’s most challenging street circuits, Australian Tony Bates won the opening round of the 2019 Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup with a flawless run from pole to flag. Behind him, fellow countryman Yasser Shahin put in an electrifying performance, The Bend Motorsport Park driver surviving a late-race technical issue to claim second from a starting position of seventh.

Melbourne’s Lee Partridge will make the debut of a lifetime at the Australian Grand Prix, the 18-year veteran of motorsport, who actually works full-time with Audi Sport customer racing Australia, will take the wheel of the Aussie Driver Search R8 LMS GT3 for the opening round of the 2019 CAMS Australian GT Championship on the streets of Melbourne.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport completes a total of 1,190 laps during pre-season testing

Final day of winter testing – Results

The searing heat of the Australian sun did nothing to cool the intensity of competition as the 2019 Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup season got underway with qualifying for Saturday’s opening round one. With ambient temperatures at the 3.219km Adelaide Street Circuit hitting 40 degrees centigrade and track temperatures even higher, it was experienced Australian GT campaigner Tony Bates who sealed pole position with a lap of 1:21.574.

Craft-Bamboo Racing, an Official Performance Team of Mercedes-AMG, confirms the J-Fly Racing pairing of Jeffrey Lee and Alessio Picariello as part of the Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia. The pair will share driving duties of the striking red, white and black #88 Mercedes-AMG GT3, running in the hotly contested GT3 pro-am class.

Another one-two victory in Shanghai in November ensured TOYOTA led both the drivers’ and teams’ World Championships going into the four-month winter break and the team returns to action at Sebring determined to extend that advantage with a fifth win of the season.

Toyota presents the world debut of the new GR Supra GT4 Concept at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show on 5 March. It is a design and engineering study that explores how the newly launched fifth generation of the legendary Supra sports car might be developed as a competitive machine for international GT4 racing, accessible and affordable for privateer racers and small teams in line with Toyota’s worldwide support for grass-roots motorsport.

British teenager Phil Hanson is quickly making his mark in endurance sportscar racing having arrived in the category in an unconventional way. His first foray into motorsport came at the exceptionally “old” age of 15, karting for two years, before opting to go GT racing and then straight in to sports-prototype racing, in LMP3 late 2016 then LMP2 the following year. His rise has been remarkable: the youngest Asian Le Mans Series LMP3 champion (2016-17), youngest overall finisher in the history of the world-famous Le Mans 24 Hours (2017), youngest European Le Mans Series outright race winner (2018) and now the youngest ever overall Asian Le Mans Series champion (2018-19).

A new season of sports car racing for SRO America begins this season at Circuit of the Americas and newcomer Ben Bettenhausen will make his full season debut in the TCA class with 2018 Team and Manufacturer champions, TechSport Racing in the No. 95 Subaru BRZ tS.

After a successful team debut in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GTD class earlier this year at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Precision Performance Motorsports has begun the preparations for their multi-car Super Trofeo North America campaign for 2019. Conor Daly and Brandon Gdovic have been announced as the team’s first entry, running the No. 46 Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO in the Pro/Pro class.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport top 1,000 laps in pre-season testing

Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Motorsport and PETRONAS Lubricants International (PLI), a wholly owned subsidiary of PETRONAS, today introduced Stephanie Travers as the successful candidate following their global search for a new Trackside Fluid Engineer. As one of two PETRONAS Trackside Fluid Engineers, the 24-year-old engineer will provide the team with a comprehensive suite of fluid support services at all 21 races on the 2019 calendar.

[Week2 ] Day 3 of winter testing – Results

Ahead of the 2019 season, McLaren Customer Racing continues to broaden its offering for customer teams racing globally, while further strengthening its professional driver programmes with the formation of the McLaren Young Professional category. The addition of three new Factory Drivers have also been confirmed for the 2019 season with Álvaro Parente, who recently campaigned the 720S GT3 on its competitive debut, announced alongside American Michael Cooper and Canadian Kuno Wittmer. The 2019 race programme for the McLaren Automotive Driver Development Programme drivers has also been confirmed..

The eighth season of the Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup will blast off the starting blocks this weekend at the Superloop Adelaide 500 in South Australia where the new 2019 evolution of the Audi R8 LMS GT3 will make its eagerly-anticipated Cup and Australia debut. The weekend’s double header marks the start of a 10-race, five-circuit season over which the all-privateer line-up will vie for the Audi Sport R8 LMS Cup titles.

The Saudi Arabia eTROPHY race witnessed the first motorsport battle with men and women competing together on track in the inaugural race. Round two saw Katherine Legge become the first female driver to win a race during an ABB FIA Formula E weekend in Mexico.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport completes 176 laps at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya

WEEK 2: Full Results of F1 Testing Day 2