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Drama in Brazil as local series close in style

Lewis Hamilton’s incredible run of good fortune continued into the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday, when he picked up an unexpected win to clinch the 2018 F1 Constructor’s title for Mercedes on top of his own fifth driver’s championship. Thatafter Max Verstappen’s leading Red Bull was taken out by Force India driver Esteban Ocon trying to unlap himself. Verstappen hunted Ocon down after recovering to second and a scuffle broke out earning the Dutchman two days of FIA community service! 

By far the better Ferrari on the day Kimi Raikkonen fought off the attentions of Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull for third, with Valtierri Bottas’ Mercedes and a lacklustre Sebastian Vettel in the other Ferrari next up. On to the Abu Dhabi final.

Former Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button meanwhile wrapped up the Japanese Super GT championship in his Honda over the weekend, while former F1 champion comrade Fernando Alonso announced that he will be chasing the third leg of racing’s triple crown with McLearn at the Indy 500 next year. Only Graham Hill has ever won all three of the F1 world championship, the Le Mans 24 hour and the Indy 500.

SA driver Japie van Niekerk won his fourth Tara Rally with Gerhard Snyman reading the notes in their NAD Fiesta on the 50th running of the popular Namibia event. Toyota crews Wiro Dippenaar and Riaan van der Westhuizen and Oswaldo Mendes and Kes Naidoo were next up, while Jaco van Dyk and Michel Rust were fastest of the cross country entries in a Nissan Navara. 

Meanwhile closer to home, sizzling Zwartkops played host to the final Regional Festival races of the year as Charl Arangies powered his Aston Martin to a dominant G&H Extreme Supercar double victory to tie up that title and Terry Wilford (Falcon) and new champion Mackie Adlem (Jaguar) shared the SAMCAR V8 wins. There was high drama in the Motor Mart VW Challenge as title contenders, race 2 winner Stiaan Kriel was twice penalised for flag infringements to hand the title to race 1 winner Rory Atkinson.

Nicolas Grobler (Yamaha) won both Bridgestone Thunderbike races ahead of champion Lance Isaacs; Gert van den Berg and Symm Grobler won two tight Formula Vee races, but neither could stop Jaco Schriks from taking the title and Jonathan du Toit beat Brett Garland’s similar Honda in an entertaining pair of autObarn Superhatch races as Louis Scholtz took the title. George Bezuidenhout took the 111 title in his Primera with a first race win over race 2 winner Wayne Crous (Polo Vivo), while champion Christopher Kretzen took both Bridgestone Challenge bike wins on his Kawasaki.

The Cape karting season also came to a head at a tricky newly resurfaced Killarney as Umpie Sward took double victories to wrap up the WP DD2 title and also won Senior Max over champion Jason Coetzee. Troy Dolinschek and Charl Visser shared Junior wins but could not stop the absent Joseph Oelz from taking that title. Kyle Visser won both the Mini Max and Mini Rok titles with a Max win and fifth in the Rok races won by Lucas Roysten. Second behind Reese Koorzen was enough for Reza Levy to take the Micro Max title and champion Ian Joubert took all three Bambino wins.