Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin feel there is no reason why they should be “enemies outside the track” as they fight for the 2024 MotoGP title.

For a second season in a row, Bagnaia and Martin have been in a class of their own in MotoGP, with their championship battle set to culminate in next week’s Barcelona finale.

Their rivalry has taken place against the backdrop of Pramac rider Martin being snubbed for a promotion to the factory Ducati team next year, with six-time champion Marc Marquez instead being chosen for the coveted seat alongside Bagnaia.

While the changes instigated by Ducati made Martin lose faith in the Borgo Panigale marque and forge a new career path with Aprilia from 2025, he hasn’t allowed that decision to have any impact on his relationship with Bagnaia.

The Italian, too, has returned the favour, with both repeatedly emphasising the respect they have for each other as rivals.

Speaking again about the matter after engaging in an epic early battle for victory in the Malaysian GP, Bagnaia reiterated his intention to maintain a cordial relationship with his championship rival.

“For me it is very easy [to maintain harmony with Martin] because I’m not the type of guy that wants to be rude outside of the track and then need to be rude inside of the track or to be aggressive – pushing out and being the one that doesn’t respect rivals,” he said.

“I have never been like this and I will never be like this. If in case Jorge will start to do it, I will change, but Jorge is more or less the same as me. 

“Surely, respect is the main thing and will always be like this from my point of view. So I don’t understand why we need to be enemies outside of the track, not speak to each other and be rude. I prefer [it] like this.”

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing, Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team

Photo by: Dorna

Both Martin and Bagnaia raced for Aspar Mahindra in Moto3 back in 2015 and have been a part of the grand prix paddock ever since.

That helped establish a solid foundation to their relationship, with the intensity of a title fight not enough to put a dent in the respect they have for each other on and off the track.

“We [have] known each other since 2015. We were really close friends in the past,” Martin said. “Now we no longer have that relationship but we are good to each other. 

“As he said, it’s no sense to [be enemies]. We can fight, you saw on Sunday, it’s an amazing battle for history. 

“Maybe not the last laps, but it was amazing [overall] and then we can speak about it. I think we both enjoyed it. 

“And as he said, if it’s like this in the future, for me it will be perfect, and I hope it will be like this always.”

For the first time since the pair started sharing the Formula 1 grid, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly joined each other on the podium of a grand prix, capitalising on a bold strategy in a wet Interlagos classic to finish second and third behind the untouchable Max Verstappen.

It was a huge boost to Alpine, the team gaining three places in the constructors’ championship and finally getting a tangible reward for the hard work of its crew after a bruising season with the underperforming 2024 car.

The scintillating Sao Paulo classic was not just season-defining for Alpine: on a human level, it will also forever define Ocon’s and Gasly’s at times fraught relationship.

Growing up close to each other in eastern Normandy, Ocon and Gasly crossed paths as kids and became best friends, spending lots of time together racing go-karts.

As they moved up the ladder their relationship soured, seemingly beyond repair, and therefore Gasly joining Ocon as a team-mate at Alpine for 2023 raised some eyebrows in the paddock. Ocon admitted “we are never going to be best friends” at the time, while Gasly acknowledged his relationship would be vastly different to the one he enjoyed with Yuki Tsunoda before.

Esteban Ocon, Alpine F1 Team, 2nd position, Pierre Gasly, Alpine F1 Team, 3rd position, celebrate in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Naturally there have been some flashpoints on track, just like Ocon had with some previous team-mates – Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez – and both drivers fought their corner hard over team strategy as you would expect any F1 racers to do.

In 2023 there was a collision in Melbourne, in their fourth race together, and this year the pair also came to blows when Ocon lunged down the inside of Gasly in Monaco, damaging both cars and angering both Gasly and Alpine’s management. Soon after Ocon announced his departure from the team, signing with Haas for 2025, which defused some of the tension but also seemed to acknowledge that Ocon’s arrival at the Enstone team hadn’t really worked out for either party.

But while the pair has always maintained they work well together off-track, it feels like their wholesome podium in Brazil has further thawed their once frosty relations. They didn’t just revel in their hard-earned success on the back of an abysmal year with Alpine, but the perilous wet race in Interlagos appeared to unlock a warm feeling of nostalgia to better days. A time when they were also racing at the front in fraught conditions, as 10-year-old prodigies of Normandy’s go-karting scene.

As the pair gave a joint interview in front of broadcaster Viaplay’s cameras, Ocon turned to his fellow Norman: “Do you remember when we were driving in Anneville in the rain?”, to which Gasly revealed their race had brought back the same memories.

“Yeah, even in the snow! We were driving in the snow and the rain. It’s the same as it was back in the day when we were the only ones showing up at the track in the rain, freezing cold. But it was all worth it.”

“It paid off today,” Ocon nodded after his car control in the Brazilian rain yielded him second. “When we did that formation and the in-lap, that was the first thing that came to my mind. What a beautiful story, that.”

Even back when Gasly joined Ocon at Alpine last year, the significance of their unlikely pairing was not lost on them. Two kids from the same part of France – Gasly from the Rouen area and Ocon from the nearby town of Evreux – both making it through the complicated journey to Formula 1 to end up as team-mates.

Now they have another fond memory to look back on after their careers, when perhaps their rivalry will be a relic of the past.

“This is the moment of a lifetime,” said Gasly. “As kids from where we came from, to end up as team-mates was already against all odds, but to end up on the same podium…

“Nobody knows our story, it’s something personal to us. But regardless of everything that happened, a day like today makes it very special.

“It’s a beautiful story.”

Formula 1 race winner Robert Kubica is looking increasingly certain to remain with the AF Corse customer Hypercar team in the World Endurance Championship next year.

Kubica told Motorsport.com that he “didn’t come here for just one year” when questioned after last weekend’s 2024 WEC finale in Bahrain about whether he would race the yellow-liveried Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar again.

But he stressed that “there is a lot of work to do” for next year at a team that claimed victory at Austin in September but failed to consistently match the factory arm of the AF team over the season.

“It is not an easy decision, so we will see,” he said.

Kubica, who partnered Ferrari factory drivers Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman in AF’s satellite entry in 2024, had discussions with team boss Amato Ferrari over the course of the WEC finale in Bahrain last weekend.

Ferrari explained that he was hopeful that Kubica will remain with the team next year.

“Everything is positive and we all want Robert back, but no deal is done,” he said.

Antonello Coletta, Ferrari’s head of sportscar racing, also expressed hopes that Kubica will stay, saying “Our dream is to maintain Robert with us”.

#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Phil Hanson, Yifei Ye

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Kubica remained with AF at the Bahrain International Circuit on the day after the WEC race for Phil Hanson’s first test in the Ferrari he will race in the WEC next year.

The Briton, who is swapping over from the British Jota customer Porsche team when it becomes Cadillac’s factory WEC squad, is the first driver to be announced for the #83 AF entry for next year.

Shwartzman is leaving Ferrari at the end of this year, Coletta confirmed.

He explained that the 25-year-old will depart both the line-up at AF and Ferrari’s roster of factory drivers after he “decided to make another choice”.

Shwartzman, who has been a Ferrari Formula 1 reserve since 2023 after graduating from the Italian manufacturer’s academy programme, will be announced as the team-mate of the already confirmed Callum Ilott at Prema’s new IndyCar team imminently.

Ye, who became a factory Ferrari driver for this season, is expected to remain in the line-up of the #83 car.

McLaren says that guiding Lando Norris to the drivers’ championship was never ultimately its main target – as it has always been more focused on the constructors’ crown.

Norris had a golden opportunity to close down Max Verstappen’s points advantage in the Brazilian Grand Prix, starting on pole position with his rival down in 17th on the grid.

Yet, a combination of a lack of pace in the wet, driving errors, brake lock-up problems and a badly timed red flag meant the Briton finished sixth – with Verstappen producing a sensational performance to win.

That result has left him 62 points adrift of Verstappen with only three rounds remaining.

While the Brazil outcome is a disappointment for Norris in personal terms, McLaren says it changes nothing in its approach, because the team was only ever really thinking about the constructors’ battle anyway.

Asked by Motorsport.com about how the Brazil result would impact the approach to the final races, and whether it would actually take some pressure off Norris, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “In terms of the constructors’ championship, I don’t think it changes anything.

“It was always our priority. Even when there was a call to be made to support one driver or the other, it was always secondary to maximising the constructors’ championship.”

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

Stella did not feel that the potential of being in a title battle had much of an impact on Norris’s performance at Interlagos, as he felt both team and driver knew it was a bonus to be in the fight in the first place.

“When it comes to the drivers’ championship, I don’t think for Lando there was any particular pressure,” he said.

“We were enjoying this quest, even though sometimes from the outside it may come across like there is an error here or there maybe.

“It is like when we locked the tyres with the car like we had [in Brazil] I am not looking at the driver, I am looking at why the car keeps locking the front tyres in conditions like this. I don’t think pressure was a significant factor at all.

“Mathematically we are still in the [drivers’] championship, but I think for Lando and for Oscar, we will go to the next races trying to win the races.

“The last two venues should be quite good. Vegas will be potentially more of a Ferrari track, and then we will see. It is all to play for, and the constructors’ championship remains and has always been our priority.”

Norris himself has always played down thoughts of the title, thinking it was ultimately a long shot to come from so far back.

Asked how hard the Brazil result was to digest now that the title dream was all but over, he said: “Quite easy. I did all I could today. That’s all. Max won the race. Good on him. Well done, but it doesn’t change anything for me.”

While Norris lost ground in the drivers’ championship in Brazil, McLaren managed to extend its constructors’ advantage over Ferrari by seven points to 36 points – which makes it increasingly likely that the battle will go all the way to the final round in Abu Dhabi.

Three-time Super Formula champion Naoki Yamamoto has announced his decision to retire from the series following this weekend’s season finale at Suzuka.

The Nakajima Racing driver, 36, made the announcement via a post on his Instagram page on Tuesday.

It effectively calls time on a 15-season spell in Japan’s top single-seater series for the factory Honda ace  which yielded titles in 2013, ’18 and ’20, nine race wins and 13 pole positions.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I’m extremely grateful for the chance to have competed in Japan’s top category for the last 15 years and all the support I’ve had,” Yamamoto wrote.

“I made the announcement at this time so that all the fans watching would know this weekend is the last time you will be able to see me driving a formula car. I believe this is also one of the ways I am able to pay everyone back.

“Whatever the outcome of these final races, I want to step down from Super Formula having shown my real level of performance and having given it my all with this team.”

Yamamoto made his debut in what was then known as Formula Nippon in 2010 with Nakajima before switching to Team Mugen the following season, going on to claim his first two titles with the team.

Naoki Yamamoto, Mugen

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

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He elected to switch to Dandelion Racing for 2019 immediately following his second title, which together with his success in Super GT earned him a Formula 1 practice call-up for the Japanese Grand Prix with Toro Rosso.

After winning the 2020 title for Dandelion, Yamamoto returned to Nakajima for the 2021 season, but has struggled to recapture his previous form since then.

His last win came in the wet at Motegi in 2022, although he has enjoyed a slight upturn in form this year, sitting seventh in the standings heading into this weekend’s Suzuka double-header.

Yamamoto’s decision to step down from Super Formula follows the neck and spinal injuries he suffered in a major crash in last year’s SUGO Super GT round, and which required surgery to allow him to prolong his career.

A statement from Honda says that Yamamoto will continue to race in Super GT next season. He currently shares a Team Kunimitsu Honda Civic Type R-GT with Tadasuke Makino, with the pair sitting second in the standings with one race to go this season.

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