There might still be one race left in the 2020 Formula 1 calendar but a host of other motorsports have already wrapped up for the year this past weekend. While the Auto Loons doesn’t usually cover other forms of motorsport for simple lack of resources, it’s worth skimming through the year’s results. Here’s a quick recap of who won what:
World Rally Championship 2020
French racer Sebastien Ogier added a 7th world title to his trophy, this time with the Toyota Gazoo Racing team. He had 2 wins and 5 podiums in the season that only had half the usual races. However, the Constructor’s title went to Hyundai for the second year in a row, by a narrow lead of 5 points over Toyota.
Formula 2 2020
The prequel to the pinnacle of open-wheeled racing is aptly known as F2. This sport’s 2020 season concluded in Bahrain where races were held before the F1 sessions. Mick Schumacher won the driver’s title while his team PREMA racing took the constructor’s title for 2020. The German youngster has already been signed for F1 next year with Haas. Mick claimed the title thanks to overall consistency as he claimed only 2 wins and 8 podiums over the 24 rounds of racing and was P18 in the last race of the season.
Other noteworthy drivers from the 2020 F2 season include Yuki Tsunoda who was the rookie of the year with 3 wins, four Pole starts and 7 podiums. His teammate in the Red Bull Carlin team, Jehan Daruvala, claimed his first F2 win at the last race and became the first driver of Indian origins to do so.
MotoGP 2020
This sport finished its season a few weeks ago but I think it’s fair to include it in the wrap-up. I actually watched a fair few Moto GPs this year thanks to being stuck at home and I’ll admit, they offered tons of excitement every time. Some of it can be attributed to the absence of Marc Marquez who picked up a serious injury after a crash in the first race of the calendar. He’s been the dominant force of the sport with 6 world title’s to his name and was on a title-winning streak since 2016. With him off the grid, we got to see a host of different riders get to the top spot of the podium in 2020. But it was the consistency of Suzuki rider Joan Mir that won the Spaniard the 2020 MotoGP World Championship title despite just 1 race win to his name. His teammate had an impressively consistent season as well which earned the Suzuki ECSTAR team its first MotoGP title ever.
Other notable performers in the 2020 MotoGP season were the Petronas Yamaha riders Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo who won three races each. Another outcome of the 2020 MotoGP season was that it was the last season for Valentino Rossi with the Yamaha factory team. The 41-year old, 7-time World Champion will swap places with Quartararo in 2021 to ride for the Petronas Yamaha customer team.
Formula E 2019-20
The sixth instalment of the all-electric single-seater racing series follows a slightly offset calendar, similar to football leagues. Even though the next season is scheduled to be held entirely in 2021 (due to the pandemic restrictions), it will still be called the 2020-21 season. Anyway, the winners of the season that concluded in 2020 were Antonio Felix da Costa who won the driver’s title while his team, Techeetah, won its third team championship title.
However, it’s not all good news for the EV sport as a few manufacturer teams will drop out after the seventh season. More on that in a separate story later.
That’s it for the first 2020 Motorsport Round-up on the Auto Loons blog.
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