Australian Auto Action

Robbie Francevic, the 1986 Australian Touring Car champion and the only driver to deliver the title for Volvo, has died aged 84. The Auckland-born driver was the first non-Australian resident to win the Australian Touring Car Championship, claiming the 1986 crown in the Volvo 240T after leading the standings throughout the season.

A chaotic British Grand Prix played perfectly into Racing Bulls’ hands, with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad emerging as the biggest winners from the midfield battle. After going from strength to strength in the early stages of the season, Racing Bulls produced its most stunning result yet at the British Grand Prix with a standout 6th and 7th result — the team’s joint-best of 2026.

Oscar Piastri couldn’t deliver McLaren its dream home race result after his race was “ruined” on the opening lap, leaving the home team facing growing scrutiny over its lack of urgency and pace at Silverstone. Starting what Piastri ultimately described as a “tough day” from eighth on the grid, it was always going to take a Herculean effort for the McLaren driver to outpace his rivals and move up the order at the British Grand Prix.

Toby Dvorak overcame a deflating right rear tyre to complete a near clean sweep of the KZ2 class at round three of the Penrite Australian Kart Championship at Townsville’s Sun City Raceway. The DJM Race Engineering driver won all but one race across the weekend before taking a dominant victory in the final, despite the tyre losing pressure in the closing stages.

Pato O’Ward ended a 15-race winless drought with victory in the Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, leading home pole-sitter Christian Lundgaard to give Arrow McLaren its first 1-2 finish in the IndyCar Series. O’Ward and Lundgaard started the 90-lap race together on the front row and held station until Lap 42, when O’Ward capitalised on the pole-sitter’s wide exit off Turn 2 to seize a lead he never surrendered in the caution-free race.

A late Safety Car dulled the sting of a gripping British Grand Prix, but Charles Leclerc still came away with Ferrari’s 250th Formula 1 victory at Silverstone after a race packed with chaos, fights, and shifting fortunes.

The Phillip Island Classic will return to the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit on 12-14 March 2027, with the historic racing event confirmed as the anchor of the newly created Phillip Island Festival of Motoring. Hosted by the Victorian Historic Racing Register (VHRR), the Classic is the largest historic motor racing event in the Southern Hemisphere, drawing more than 350 historic competition vehicles across a wide range of racing categories.

Silverstone delivered mixed fortunes for Liam Lawson, who converted a hard-fought Sprint into another championship point before an early Qualifying peak limited him to a P10 start for tonight’s British Grand Prix contest. It was an action-packed Saturday that brought with it plenty of reward for Lawson, who outperformed his own expectations when he managed to score a point during a highly competitive Sprint outing, even after his actions landed him in hot water with the stewards.

Oscar Piastri qualified eighth for the 2026 British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Saturday, as gusty wind and tricky conditions handed Ferrari and Mercedes a clear advantage over the rest of the field. The McLaren driver set a best lap of 1m29.032s in Q3, placing him on the fourth row of the grid for Sunday’s race behind teammate Lando Norris, who qualified sixth with a time of 1m28.877s.

Mercedes’ perfect Qualifying record remained intact at Silverstone as Kimi Antonelli claimed his fifth pole position of the season ahead of the Ferrari duo. The contest to set the starting order for the main event wiped the slate clean at Silverstone, but for one driver, the pressure of a championship-leading teammate and the expectations of a record-breaking home crowd proved too great when the session got underway, with George Russell jumping across the gravel and nudging the wall at Luffield.