The year in motorsport 2019

Apart from Supercars, the major highlights of any year for Australian motorsport enthusiasts are usually achievements of Aussies on international stages – but 2019 was an exception.

It was the arrival on our shores of TCR – a new form of the 2.0-litre touring car racing – that was a breath of fresh air on the local scene.

Ten manufacturers were represented, there was a pleasing mix of youthful and experienced drivers, and the first TCR champion was a boisterous 21-year-old, Toowoomba’s Will Brown, in a Hyundai i30 N.

And excuse us for blowing our own trumpet, but carsales was there from the start as series sponsor.

Things look even better for TCR in 2020 with new bookends – an opening Asia-Pacific Cup at Melbourne’s Grand Prix in March and a new event at Bathurst late in the year.

Run by the Australian Racing Group, TCR is the headline act on the Shannons Nationals calendar which has become a banquet of racing that has grown quickly to include S5000 open-wheelers, the Touring Car Masters and TA2 muscle cars.

It’s an alternative to – or, for those who can’t get enough motorsport, an addition to – the long-established diet of Supercars.

And it will have free-to-air TV coverage in 2020 on the Seven network, now headed by former Supercars boss James Warburton.

Daniel Ricciardo’s switch from Red Bull Racing to Renault was never going to yield a lot in its first year. And it didn’t.

The French manufacturer slipped a spot from being Formula 1’s number four team, beaten by a rejuvenated McLaren team using the same Renault power unit.

Cynics might think carsales’ global ambassador Ricciardo’s star faded somewhat, but let’s get something in perspective.

In the fifth-best car in the field, Ricciardo ought to finish at best ninth in the world championship, and that’s precisely where he wound up.

Again, as he generally has, Ricciardo outperformed his teammate, this time Nico Hulkenberg, who lost his seat for next season.

Max Verstappen, who Ricciardo and the world could see was the blue-eyed boy at Red Bull, won three GPs with the greatly-improved Honda power unit behind him.

The Japanese manufacturer was a year late coming to the V6 hybrid era, but it was a joy to see it finally break through against Mercedes and Ferrari.

The Silver Arrows still won 15 of the year’s 21 GPs, and Lewis Hamilton a sixth world title after Valtteri Bottas’ blinding start in Australia.

Ferrari mucked up far too often but had three victories, two of them by Charles Leclerc at just 21, upstaging Sebastian Vettel – as Ricciardo did at Red Bull in 2014 – and seriously destabilising the four-time champion.

Ricciardo might have won twice as often as Leclerc – and certainly would have done it sooner – had he been with the Prancing Horse, but fourth place was the best he could with the Regie.

That was in Italy, where Leclerc delighted the Italians with success over the Mercs at Monza.

Renault needs to give ‘Our Dan’ better machinery, in particular a better chassis, in 2020. If it does, we can be confident he’ll do it more than justice.

If it doesn’t, come the end of next season, he’ll still be only 31, with almost a decade of F1 under his belt, and too good not to land a good drive elsewhere.

Toowoomba’s (Qld) own Will Power had two IndyCar wins in 2019 and finished fifth in the points, but one teammate, Josef Newgarden, won the series title for the second time in three years and another, Simon Pagenaud, delivered team owner Roger Penske his 18th Indianapolis 500 triumph.

Already 38, Power needs to do better in 2020 to retain favour with ‘The Captain’.

One highlight overseas was 18-year-old Melbourne-born Oscar Piastri winning the Formula Renault Eurocup.

That’s une better than Ricciardo 11 years earlier -- and Formula 3 now beckons him. He’s one to watch

Ott Tanak won the World Rally Championship for Toyota, ending Sebastien Ogier’s six-year reign, but the Estonian promptly defected to Hyundai for next year.

The Frenchman will take Tanak’s place at Toyota after just one year back at Citroen, which has now quit world rallying.

Rally Australia was cancelled at Coffs Harbour in November because of the threat from bushfires and had already been dropped from the 2020 calendar in favour of New Zealand, but there are hopes of a return in 2021 elsewhere in NSW or the ACT.

Read more of 2019s big motorsport stories