World champion Nico Rosberg's retirement announcement on Friday came as a complete surprise even to the man who knows most of Formula One's best-kept secrets, commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
Lewis Hamilton, once the young sensation of Formula One, is starting to feel his age as a new generation of drivers sweeps into the sport and old hands like Jenson Button and Felipe Massa head for the exit.
Sebastian Vettel was Ferrari's first choice to stay and partner Charles Leclerc in Formula One next year until the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, team principal Mattia Binotto said on Friday. The four-times World champion, who won his titles with Red Bull, will now be replaced by Spaniard Carlos Sainz who joins from McLaren at the end of the season in a decision announced in May.
Lewis Hamilton won the French Grand Prix on Sunday as Formula One champions Mercedes put on another show of dominance with their 10th victory in a row and 50th one-two finish.
Jenson Button says he has no plans to race again in Formula One after Sunday's season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, even though McLaren are keeping the door open for a possible return in 2018. "I go into this weekend thinking it is going to be my last race. I think that is the best way to be," the 2009 world champion told reporters on Thursday. "At this moment in time I do not want to be racing in Formula One past this race. I think of this as my last race and hopefully everybody else does as well."
McLaren Formula One driver Jenson Button entered the New Year as a married man after tying the knot with long-term girlfriend Jessica Michibata in Hawaii.
Spain's Fernando Alonso will not race in next week's season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix on doctors' advice after a heavy crash in testing, his McLaren team said on Tuesday.
The race has been won from pole eight times out of 11 editions.
I am with my dream team, says Mercedes driver
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen took pole position for the showcase Monaco Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday with world championship leading German team mate Sebastian Vettel alongside him on the front row.
McLaren play down Alonso memory loss.
Fernando Alonso on Thursday refused to categorically rule out leaving current team Ferrari as soon as next season for either former outfit McLaren or reigning champions Red Bull.
The pole was the second of the Dutch 22-year-old's Formula One career and the first in Brazil for engine partners Honda since the late triple champion Ayrton Senna in 1991 with McLaren.
Lewis Hamilton became Britain's first four-time Formula One world champion at the Mexican Grand Prix on Sunday.
Formula One could cope with up to 10 positive tests for COVID-19 when the sport starts the season in July, according to the chairman of the governing FIA's medical commission. Professor Gerard Saillant told Sky Sports television the sport would still need a 'red line', however, beyond which racing could not continue.
Ferrari are not extending Sebastian Vettel's contract beyond this year
Tillakaratne Dilshan outshone Hashim Amla's 14th One-Day International century to steer Sri Lanka to a series-levelling 87-run win over South Africa in the second match at Pallekele Stadium on Wednesday.
Lewis Hamilton's Formula One switch from McLaren to Mercedes next year is an essential step that could be the making of him as a man, former McLaren driver David Coulthard said on Saturday.
Austin is a favourite track for the 34-year-old Mercedes driver and he will also be fancied to round up his Texan win tally to six on Sunday.
One word seemed to encapsulate Fernando Alonso's Malaysian Grand Prix weekend.
Evidence of widespread state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes at the Sochi Olympics was confirmed on Monday in a report by an independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton has tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss the upcoming Sakhir Grand Prix.
Fernando Alonso has credited McLaren with restoring the motivation he lost after five years at Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton won the Monaco Grand Prix for Mercedes on Sunday, nursing his car's worn tyres to the finish in a nail-biting victory worthy of the team's late great Niki Lauda.
Lewis Hamilton is on course for his most successful campaign yet and can become only the third driver after Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel to win 13 times in a season.
Canadian Formula One driver Lance Stroll said on Wednesday he tested positive for COVID-19 after the October 11 Eifel Grand Prix but is now clear and ready to race in Portugal this coming weekend.
'We are now able to confirm a cover up that dates back until at least 2011 and continued after the Sochi Olympic Games. It was a cover up that evolved from uncontrolled chaos to an institutionalised and disciplined medal-winning conspiracy'
The times at the Istanbul Park circuit, hosting a Formula One race for the first time since 2011, were largely meaningless.
Jenson Button won a 'Legends Trophy' esports race on Saturday with fellow retired Formula One world champion Jacques Villeneuve going from last to sixth on his virtual debut.
Several anti-doping agencies, including those of the United States and Canada, want a complete ban on Russia competing at the Rio Olympics if next week's key report into allegations of state-backed doping at the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics is damning, they said on Saturday.
Max Verstappen won the season-ending Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix from pole position for Red Bull on Sunday.
F1 chief executive Chase Carey was speaking after the sport published an eight-race initial calendar with the season starting in Austria on July 5.
The sky's the limit for George Russell after the British youngster's stellar performance
Perez, who vaulted to fourth in the overall standings after Sunday's race, is the first Mexican driver to win a race since Pedro Rodriguez took victory in the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix.
The pole was a record-extending 88th of Hamilton's career and fifth of the season.
Lewis Hamilton won the Chinese Grand Prix to seize the overall lead from his Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas in Formula One's 1,000th world championship race on Sunday.
David Coulthard doesn't feel sorry for the multi million pound worth Spaniard.
Fernando Alonso hopes to be racing for McLaren at this weekend's Chinese Formula One Grand Prix but the Spaniard says he is taking nothing for granted ahead of a fitness test at the Shanghai circuit. The double world champion fractured his ribs in a crash at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 20 and the governing FIA's medical team then ruled him out of the subsequent race in Bahrain. He will undergo more tests at the Chinese circuit on Thursday before the third round of the 21-race season. "It was disappointing to be told I couldn't race in Bahrain, but I fully respected the decision of the FIA medical team," he said on Tuesday in a team preview for the race. "While I hope I'll be back in the cockpit on Friday (for practice), until I get the all-clear from the doctors to race, whenever that may be, we cannot assume anything.
World champion Hamilton stormed to pole with a record lap of one minute 21.164 seconds at Albert Park, with a gap of more than six-tenths of a second to the second placed Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.
Although the change will have no immediate effect on current bans on the Russian federations for athletics, weightlifting and paralympics, it opens the door for their return, following the reinstatement of the Russian Olympic Committee after the country was banned from this year's Winter Games in South Korea.
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