Formula 1 celebrated the 20th anniversary of Pixar's Cars at the Italian Grand Prix, with a physical Lightning McQueen car turning a lap of Monza and the Mercedes-AMG safety car running a special Cars-inspired livery for the weekend. It is part of an expanded F1 and Disney “Fuel the Magic” partnership, now extended through the end of 2028, and it delighted fans, not least Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson, a well-known Lightning McQueen superfan.

A rare rotary-powered Mazda 767B, a class winner at Le Mans and a relative of the famous 787B, was caught in a paddock fire at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca. It escaped with only minor damage because it had been wrapped in paint protection film, which took the brunt of the heat. Owner Tony McIntosh says the car got lucky, and with only one to two months of repairs needed, it is expected back on track within weeks.

Belgian sportscar star Laurens Vanthoor has joined McLaren's new Hypercar programme for its 2027 FIA WEC debut, ending a decade with Porsche. He says the switch from a German manufacturer to a British race team has been “very refreshing,” and is chasing the outright Le Mans win that tempted him away. Vanthoor and Mikkel Jensen form McLaren's 2027 line-up, though Vanthoor will race the Porsche 963 in IMSA into 2027 before moving to McLaren full time in 2028.

Rivals including Red Bull and McLaren are copying Ferrari's Formula 1 aero designs, from an exhaust winglet the FIA is banning for 2027 to a rotating rear wing, proof that the SF-26 is widely seen as the best chassis on the grid. Yet Ferrari sits second because of a power unit weakness the rules make hard to fix, with the ADUO engine catch-up mechanism proving too costly to be a game-changer. Team boss Fred Vasseur says Ferrari will keep pushing upgrades to the end of the season.

Apple's new chief executive John Ternus took over from Tim Cook on 1 September 2026. He is an amateur racer who, according to the Wall Street Journal, laps Laguna Seca in under 1 minute 40 seconds and owns one of the 77 Porsche 935s built in 2019. That car has 700 PS, is not road legal, and was unveiled at the very circuit he drives it on.

Australians registered 108,760 new vehicles in August 2026 and 24.9% of them were electric, the first month in which EVs outsold petrol, diesel, hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars. The growth came almost entirely from Chinese brands and Tesla, with Geely up 1,023% and Zeekr up 2,309% while Volkswagen fell 38%. Chinese-built cars enter Australia duty-free, which Europe cannot say.