Mercedes have guaranteed a record-breaking sixth consecutive world championship double with Valtteri Bottas winning the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday.

Bottas beat out Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes’ team-mate Lewis Hamilton to first place to win the Brackley-based team another constructors’ championship.

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The drivers’ title remains undecided, though it is guaranteed to go to Mercedes with Hamilton all but certain to claim the championship crown ahead of Bottas.

Hamilton leads the Finn by 64 points and will be crowned champion if he is 78 in front after the Mexican Grand Prix.

Kiwi teenager Peter Vodanovich miraculously escaped unscathed from a crash in a Bathurst race on Saturday after his car lost control at over 200km/h.

The 18-year-old was remarkably able to walk away from the crash despite his car being sent tumbling through the air multiple times.

Vodanovich, who lives in Auckland, was approaching a corner on the final lap of a Toyota 86 practice race on when he tried to make a move on the outside of a number of cars.

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However, he clipped another driver’s car on his way down The Chase, with his vehicle sliding on its roof before hitting the sand.

With the help of the safety and medical teams, Vodanovich miraculously emerged from the upside down car.

“I’m all good,” Vodanovich told Stuff.

“The safety crew and all of the medical crew did a great job at making sure I was OK. I’m just very thankful that they were there to help out.”

Vodanovich, who is regarded as one of New Zealand’s best young motor racing drivers, was obviously shaken by what had happened.

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“Everyone got bunched up at Forrest’s Elbow and then coming down to The Chase they were coming to the inside,” he added.

“I thought I had a move around the outside, which obviously wasn’t there.

“I’ve got to say sorry for that, it was my mistake, but I’ll just push on.”

The young driver’s father watched the crash in pit lane, while his mother was back in New Zealand, thankfully the word came through to them that Peter was OK, other than a bandaged finger.

“The car does a great job at making sure I’m safe and the safety gear these days is really good,” Vodanovich said.

Source: TalkSport.com Motorsport

Qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix will now take place on Sunday due to Super Typhoon Hagibis.

Formula One bosses and its governing body, the FIA, have taken the decision to cancel all running at the Suzuka circuit on Saturday with the ‘violent’ tropical storm due to hit the country.

The battle for pole position will now take place just four hours before Sunday’s race, which will go ahead as planned at 2:10pm.

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F1’s move to push back qualifying comes a day after England’s Rugby World Cup match against France on Saturday was cancelled in response to the approaching storm.

A statement issued by the FIA read: “As a result of the predicted impact of Typhoon Hagibis on the 2019 FIA Formula One Japanese Grand Prix, Mobilityland and the Japanese Automobile Federation (JAF) have decided to cancel all activities scheduled to take place on Saturday, 12 October.

“The FIA and Formula One support this decision in the interests of safety for the spectators, competitors and everyone at the Suzuka Circuit.”

If the track remains too dangerous to run on Sunday morning, Friday’s practice session will decide the grid.

That will mean Valtteri Bottas takes pole after he edged out Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Bottas, who trails Hamilton in the championship by 73 points with only 130 available, finished 0.100 seconds clear of Mercedes team-mate Hamilton with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen third.

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Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel put on fresh tyres in the closing stages of practice. And although the pair improved their times, they finished only fourth and fifth respectively.

Ferrari have been the team to beat since the summer break, but Mercedes dominated practice at a venue in which they are unbeaten at since 2014.

The Mercedes cars are armed with upgrades, and look well placed to extend their Japanese winning record into a sixth successive year.

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Andy Murray had a furious exchange with opponent Fabio Fognini as during his second round defeat at the Shanghai Masters.

Murray, 32, lost 7-6 (7-4) 2-6 7-6 (7-2) to the world number 12 despite having been in a position to twice serve for the match.

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The two-time Wimbledon champion was angered when Fognini shouted at him as he struck a volley at 5-5 during the third and final set.

Near the end of the match, the two players exchanged words and Murray said he was not to be spoken to like that.

“Someone made a noise, I didn’t know who made the noise, I looked in the direction of where the noise came from.

“He then told me, ‘Stop looking at me, what are you looking at me for?’

“I was like, ‘I was just about to hit a shot and someone made a noise’. He then told me to stop looking at him.”

Murray was playing in his ninth singles match at tour-level since undergoing a hip resurfacing operation in January and will return to the world’s top 250 next week.

“He told me to stop complaining, to have a sense of humour. I wanted to know where the sound came from and it came from him, which you’re not allowed to do.

“It’s against the rules, it’s hindrance, you shouldn’t do it. But he said I should have a sense of humour about that but in that moment neither of us were in a joking, laughing kind of mood.

“He [umpire Fergus Murphy] wasn’t saying anything to him. I was obviously frustrated with that. He wanted to engage with me, I probably shouldn’t have done but I’m not having him talk to me like that on the court.”

Source: TalkSport.com Tennis

Andy Murray is expected make a dramatic Grand Slam singles comeback at the 2020 Australian Open, according to tournament director Craig Tiley.

The former world number one underwent career-saving hip surgery earlier this year and continued his good progress by reaching the China Open quarter-finals last week.

At the 2019 Australian Open, Murray, 32, tearfully announced he may have to retire due to the pain he felt every time he played.

But after he had a procedure to resurface his hip joint in January, the two-time Wimbledon champion could be involved in the first Grand Slam of the new year.

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“For sure Andy will be here,” Tiley told Australian radio station Triple M on Tuesday. “I was on the phone to his agent this morning. He is going to be in Australia early.

“He is ready to return. Remember he said goodbye a year ago. It’s great in that period he had surgery and has rebounded really well.”

It would represent a dramatic turnaround for the Scot, who admitted it was likely he would never grace the biggest stage ever again.

At that tearful press conference last January, he said: “You guys see me running around a tennis court and walking between points and it doesn’t look good and it doesn’t look comfortable.

“There are also little things day to day which are a struggle and it would be nice to do without pain, putting shoes on, putting socks on, things like that.”

And tennis commentator Gigi Salmon believes Murray’s potential return to the highest level is nothing short of remarkable.

“At that point, a lot of us thought that was the end of Andy Murray,” she told talkSPORT.

“We’re still not sure where he can get to, the fact that he is here at this stage, playing this type of tennis is remarkable.

“He didn’t know if he would recover from this hip surgery, he didn’t know his movement would be.

“It’s incredible what Andy Murray is doing and the fact that he’s still playing here at this level.”

Source: TalkSport.com Tennis

Andy Murray produced his best performance since his return to tennis with a hard-fought straight-sets victory over Matteo Berrettini at the China Open.

The former world number one overcame the eighth seed 7-6 (2) 7-6 (7) in just over two hours in Beijing, setting up a second-round tie with fellow Brit Cameron Norrie.

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World number 13 Berrettini, who is nine years Murray‘s junior, reached the US Open semi-finals this year.

Murray fought back after falling a break down in each set to record his second and biggest ATP Tour singles victory since he underwent hip surgery in January.

The 32-year-old broke Berrettini, who was serving for the first set, and went on to dominate the tie-break and again – in the second set – with Berrettini 2-0 up, the Scot hit back to level the scores before celebrating victory after a second tie-break.

On Thursday, Murray was knocked out of the Zhuhai Championships at the last-16 stage after a three-set tussle with Australia’s Alex De Minaur as he continued his comeback after seeing off Tennys Sandgren in the opening round.

Last month, Murray committed to playing for four weeks in a row as this week’s tournament in Beijing is sandwiched in between his outings in Zhuhai and his wild card appointment at the Rolex Shanghai Masters before he returns to Europe to compete in the European Open in Antwerp.

Next up for Murray is Wednesday’s last-16 clash with compatriot Norrie, whose first-round opponent Cristian Garin took a nasty tumble during a first-set tie-break on Monday and – after losing it – retired injured.

Source: TalkSport.com Tennis