Round 1: Australia
Final Race (25 laps)

Grid Positions

1. Rainbow Dash (Scuderia Ferrari)
2. DangerDean (Scuderia Ferrari)
3. Princess Celestia (Alfa-Romeo)
4. Viral Velocity (Mercedes-AMG Petronas)
5. Cheese Sandwich (Aston-Martin Red Bull Racing Team)
6. Akula (Mercedes-AMG Petronas)
7. Applejack (McLaren)
8. Gallus (BWT Racing Point)
9. Rarity (Renault)
10. Chrysalis (HAAS)
11. Yona (Williams)
12. Sandbar (Williams)

"Welcome back everypony, to the 2019 Formula 1 Equestria Duel series! I'm Flim and he's Flam, and I hope you're ready for some fun, 'cause we are just about to get into the final of today's round!"

"Yes, dear brother! We are looking forward to a very exciting race to start off the season! We've got quite a few promising contenders, that have managed to make it through the sets of Duels, which were none the less exciting!"

"Some of the racers that you should focus on are positioned on various positions on the grid. Let's meet them!"

"Be sure to keep an eye on Rainbow Dash, starting in pole position for the Scuderia Ferrari factory team. She's one of the fastest pegasi in Equestria, and it shows! The lap times she put in during her Duel with her teammate and rival, Lightning Dust, are nothing short of incredible! She was less than a second from beating the All Time Lap Record, set by Lewis Hamilton only a few days ago! That's just amazing! One of her other teammates in Ferrari is on P2, so we have a Ferrari 1-2 podium start,"

"Don't count out Viral Velocity, the daughter of Lightning Dust, driving for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team. Her Duel against Spitfire, the final member of the Ferrari team was nothing short of incredible! We both almost lost our voices over that race!"

"Hahaha! So true! Viral is P4 on the grid, so she is well within striking distance of the Ferraris on pole. And let's not forget her teammate in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team, Akula. He absolutely dominated in his Duel, completely crushing Ocellus! He may be sitting on P6, but he is still within firing range of the two Ferraris in front."

"Well, looks like we have our ones to watch! We are about to get started, so stay tuned!"

This was it, the moment to make her Ferrari boss proud.

Having set the fastest time in the Duels, she would be racing from pole position. Just where she liked to be. On P2 was her teammate in Ferrari, DangerDean, aka 'The British Speedfreak'. She believed that this Ferrari 1-2 starting position would give them an advantage. She was even more confident at the sight of her nearest rivals, Viral Velocity and Akula of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team, who were on P4 and P6 on the grid respectively. However, she was so confident in her ability and the team's preparation and setup of her Ferrari, that she thought that the Mercedes drivers wouldn't be a problem.

'Ok, Rainbow Dash. Radio check,' Concetto reported in, asking for a radio check before the warm up lap.

"I think you mean the one and only Rainbow Dash!" Dash replied, "You do sound like you are inside... umm, a tin can, but everything you say, I can make out,"

'Roger that, we hear you loud and clear. We've got 15 seconds to the green light. Remember, all the cars in the final race have the same performance, so you won't have any advantages or disadvantages against the other cars. Yona's Williams and Big Macintosh's McLaren are the only exceptions to this rule for obvious reasons,'

Her team had given her the steering wheel and she inserted it in. When the wheel was straight alongside the wheels, the Ferrari was put on the back on the ground and the crew members cleared the start. And quite soon, all the other crews had cleared the start. They were ready to go.

They did set off for their formation lap and everything seemed perfect for all the cars. Forming back on the grid, they started to rev their engines a bit.

It was almost go time.

"Ladies and gentleponies! Are you ready for the first round of the F1 Duels? It is time to get going!"

One red light appeared on the starting lights, and all the drivers engaged both the clutch and full throttle on their cars. The loud roar of V6 Turbo engines about to rocket off the line filled the air as more red light appeared.

Two lights...
Three light...
Four lights...
Five lights...

The five lights stayed on for a split-second before switching off and the race began.

"And it's lights out, and away we go!"

The cars rocketed off the line, as all the drivers released the clutch at different times. Rainbow and Danger got really good starts off the line and maintained their positions going into Turn 1. The one to get the best start was Akula. Releasing the clutch at the perfect time, Akula had managed to pass Cheese Sandwich and Viral, slotting in behind Celestia and the two Ferraris.

A lot of changes occurred while going down the straight. Too many to list. But roughly, there was a huge exchange of places in the middle of the pack, while the two Williams cars remained in the back. Mainly, Cheese lost quite a bit of ground and was passed by Applejack, Chrysalis, Rarity and Gallus in that order.

Going around the first and second corner, Rainbow saw that the changeling driving for Mercedes had gotten past Celestia and was already behind Dean, and was pushing for second. Huh, impressive. But can he catch up to me, the fastest pegasus in Equestria? Dash thought to herself, as she raced down the straight towards Turn 3.

In Turns 6 & 7, things went wrong for the Ferrari team. Akula, Celestia and Viral had managed to sneak past Dean (who was on Medium tyres instead of Softs) and were gaining on her. Also, Rarity was able to get past Chrysalis in the same turn and started to chase down Applejack. And Yona had managed to go wide in her specially lightened FW42, leaving her to drop to last.

Going into Turns 9 & 10, Rainbow Dash looked behind to see Akula still behind her. She let out deep sigh and thought, This is going to be one hell of a long race,

Not much happened in the the next few laps, but on Lap 7, Gallus tried to get past Chrysalis in Turn 3, but ended up clipping her on the rear wheel, sending both cars into the gravel. However, there was barely any damage to both cars and the race continued. On the same lap, Viral had managed to get past Celestia in the second DRS zone, just before Turn 13.

Lap 8 saw the first of the big accidents of the season. The only driver on Hard tyres out of the whole pack, Cheese Sandwich had started to regret his tyre choice, as he started to lose positions to other cars with Soft tyres. However, the worst was yet to come, as when going into Turn 9, he suffered from oversteer and went off into the gravel. The back-end of his RB15 made contact with the crash barrier, breaking off the rear wing and both rear wheels.

'Cheese? You okay?' His race engineer asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine, but I've stuffed the car. I'm very sorry. I had no grip," Cheese replied.

'No, it's okay. The Hard is just a very tough tyre for a rookie to use,'

"Shoulda listened to Pinkie. ARRRRRGGGG!!!!!!!" And with that, Cheese climbed out of his broken car and waited for the safety car to pick him up.

Two laps after Cheese's incident, the race continued.

Nothing much happened for the next few laps, until Lap 13, where the first few drivers had started to pit. However, when going into change to Mediums, Yona pulled into the pit entry...

...only to find Gallus moving at a very slow pace and Celestia right behind him matching his speed. Yona hit her brakes, as not to crash into the back of Celestia's Alfa. Luckily, her brakes did their job and she managed to slow down rapidly, and Yona was able to stop before hitting Celestia.

"Phew!" Yona breathed a sigh of relief, "That too close for Yona!"

'Yona, what's that? What's that? Drive through the pit lane. Any issues?' Her race engineer asked her.

"No, there was too many cars in pit entry and... Yona wasn't expecting Princess to stop. Best yak nearly went up back of her," Yona replied, as the others two drivers sorted themselves out and Yona pulled into the Williams team pit.

Going into Turn 9 on Lap 15, with Gallus hot on her tail, Applejack accidentally got understeer and went off track, letting the Racing Point griffon get past her. Over her team radio, she apologized for the mistake and raced after Gallus.

Over the next five laps, the two Williams cars of Sandbar and Yona, who were both on fresh sets of Mediums, started to move up the pack quite quickly, while the others were still on 12-to-20-lap-old Softs. By Lap 20, they had reached 6th and 7th, with the rest of the pack chasing them down, after stopping for fresh Mediums.

On Lap 21, whilst making an attempt to pass Rarity, Chrysalis cut inside the fashionista's line and forced her off the track on Turn 14. Rarity couldn't believe that she would make such a move, but she then realized that she was somepony that hated them, and would do anything to beat them, even if it put their lives in danger.

"Yeah, of course. Why am I not surprised?" Rarity said in anger, as she watched the changeling queen pull away from her.

Going into the final laps of the race, Rainbow Dash was still somehow in the lead with only 3 laps to go. However, Akula was right on her tail and looking for an opportunity to get past. Dash was doing anything she could to not let the demon changeling get past.

Oh, you are not getting past me! Not now, not today! Dash thought, exiting Turn 12. But while on the back straight, Akula activated his DRS, and pulled into the Ferrari's slipstream. And going into Turn 13, Akula managed to get around Dash...

...and take the lead from her with only three laps to go.

Dash kicked herself for not blocking Akula, and raced after him, desperate to get her position back.

But try as she might, she just couldn't get past the changeling. Eventually, the white flag was out and the last lap had begun. And over the course of those two laps, Chrysalis had managed to get past Dean, after his plan of attaching Softs on Lap 23 was misunderstood, and the second Ferrari was given a set of Hards.

Dash was given clearance for usage of the fastest Race Mode available and did all she could to get past the Mercedes driver, but to no avail.

In the end, Dash just couldn't pass the changeling and ended the first race of the season in second place.

'Okay, end results are in,' Barsotti reported, after Dash had crossed the line, 'Akula: P1. Yourself, P2. Velocity, P3. Celestia, P4. Chrysalis, P5. Danger, P6. Good job! Really good result to start the season!'

"Yeah, I suppose. I'm sorry about the last few laps. Nopony should go from first to second in the final few laps, especially when in front of a Mercedes... But still, I'm in the top five. And I beat one of the Mercedes cars, so your boss should be pretty happy,"

'And this is only the first race, so there's still plenty of races to go in the season, so that's plenty of time to redeem yourself,'

"You do have a point! Alright, I'll be sure to do better!" And with that, Dash completed one more victory lap, before pulling into the podium box, stopping in front of the sign that had the '2' on it, with both Mercedes cars on her left.

And as she pulled to a stop next to Akula's Mercedes, she thought how much fun this season would bring.

Author's Note

Driver's Championship

1. Akula (AKU) - 25 points
2. Rainbow Dash (RBD) - 18 points + 1 (for Fastest Lap)
3. Viral Velocity (VRL) - 15 points
4. Celestia (CEL) - 12 points
5. Chrysalis (CHR) - 10 points
6. DangerDean (DNG) - 8 points
7. Yona (YON) - 6 points
8. Sandbar (SAN) - 4 points
9. Rarity (RAR) - 2 points
10. Applejack (APP) - 1 point
11. Gallus (GAL) - 0 points
12. Cheese Sandwich (CHS) - 0 points
13. Lightning Dust (LTD) - 0 points
14. Pinkie Pie (PIN) - 0 Points
15. Ocellus (OCE) - 0 points
16. Twilight Sparkle (TWI) - 0 points
17. Luna (LUN) - 0 points
18. Fluttershy (FLT) - 0 points
19. Suri Polomare (SUR) - 0 points
20. Spitfire (SPI) - 0 points
21. Big Macintosh (BMI) - 0 points
22. Gladmane (GLA) - 0 points
23. Silverstream (SIL) - 0 points
24. Oscura Galaxia (OSC) - 0 points

Manufacturer's Championship

1. Mercedes-AMG Petronas - 40 points
2. Scuderia Ferrari - 27 points
3. Alfa-Romeo Racing - 12 points
4. HAAS F1 - 10 points
5. Williams F1 - 10 points
6. Renault F1 - 2 points
7. McLaren F1 - 1 point
8. Racing Point - 0 points
9. Aston-Martin Red Bull Racing - 0 points
10. Red Bull Toro Rosso - 0 points

The record set by Lewis Hamilton that is mentioned in this chapter is a real record. On the 16th of March 2019, Lewis Hamilton set the All Time Lap Record for F1 cars, with a time of 1:20.486. Although, the Race Lap Record is held by Michael Schumacher, with a time of 1:24.125 set on 7th March, 2004.

And as I'm sure you've figured out, I'm not going to run through the races play-by-play. Instead, it is going to be like a highlights reel/team radio montage.