Indholdsfortegnelse for 20/05/21 i Autosport

He’s one of the greatest drivers ever to have sat in a racing car, but is Fernando Alonso still capable of landing that third Formula 1 world title he has coveted for so long (14 years and counting)? His tricky start to the 2021 campaign with Alpine has raised some question marks but, as the Spaniard tells Alex Kalinauckas in our cover interview on page 16, it’s far too early to know where Alonso really stands. Even drivers that have just changed teams have found it hard enough to adapt, and Alonso has had two years out of F1. It seems only fair and sensible to give Alonso more time, and to suggest that Alpine’s progress and the state of F1 following the rule changes for 2022 will have a…

INDIANAPOLIS 500 Bump Day is back on the menu for this weekend at the Indianapolis 500, with 35 entries attracted for the blue-riband IndyCar Series round. Qualifying for the 30 May race takes place this weekend, with positions 10 t0 30 on the traditional 33-car grid locked in on Saturday. The slowest cars on Saturday will then take place in a shootout for the back row on Sunday afternoon, followed by the ‘Fast 9’ runoffs to determine the first three rows of the field. The 35th entry came from a new start-up IndyCar team, Top Gun Racing, which will field a car for IndyCar returnee RC Enerson. The team, co-owned by Gary Trout and Bill Throckmorton, had planned to enter the 500 in 2020, but deferred its entry by a…

WORLD TOURING CAR CUP Rob Huff, the 2012 World Touring Car champion, will return to the FIA World Touring Car Cup this season with the Zengo Motorsport Cupra squad. Huff participated in the first two seasons of the series’ TCR era in 2018 and 2019 at the wheel of a Sebastien Loeb Motorsport-run Volkswagen Golf, but dropped out for 2020 following VW’s withdrawal. He switched instead to TCR Scandinavia, and won the title in a Lestrup Racing VW. In addition to defending that title, Huff has joined Zengo’s four-car Cupra Leon WTCR line-up alongside Spanish veteran Jordi Gene, Cupra hotshoe Mikel Azcona and Hungarian youngster Bence Boldizs. It means the 41-year-old joins forces again with Cupra parent marque SEAT: his title in the one-make Cupra series in 2003 launched him…

It’s been a flawed concept from the start, but there’s now enough evidence to say for sure: Formula 1’s point for the fastest lap is a bad idea. Fastest lap statistics have always been fraught; not quite pointless, but requiring lots of caveats. For example, the fact that arch-rivals Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna scored 41 and 19 fastest laps respectively tells us something about their different approaches to a race weekend, but is merely one part of a much bigger picture. Similarly, Kimi Raikkonen sits third in the all-time fastest laps list. Partly that’s thanks to his genuine speed at McLaren, but more than half of his tally of 46 were scored at Ferrari, often late on in races when they were largely irrelevant to the grand prix. So…

When Stephane Ratel presented his ideas for a new tier of GT racing to a group of manufacturers in November 2004, he got a mixed response. Ferrari and Porsche were opposed, while the representative from Mercedes sought him out afterwards to suggest in no uncertain terms that the German manufacturer would never build a car for the proposed class, FIA backing or no. The category was GT3 and, 15 successful years on from its launch in 2006, Mercedes is now one of its top participants, with total sales knocking on the door of 300 cars. Mercedes isn’t the only manufacturer to have sold GT3 cars in big numbers since it belatedly joined the party when the SLS AMG GT3 was released to customers for the 2011 season. Audi delivered its…

IMSA SPORTSCAR MID-OHIO (USA) 16 MAY ROUND 3/13 Wayne Taylor Racing strengthened its lead to 55 points in the IMSA SportsCar standings as Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor guided their Acura ARX-05 to a narrow victory over the Action Express Cadillac DPi-V.R of all-Brazilian pairing Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr last Sunday at Mid-Ohio. Acura/American Honda, which has a dozen different manufacturing and R&D facilities in Ohio, has now won all four races since IMSA’s return to the parkland venue in 2018. British duo Harry Tincknell and Oliver Jarvis had to settle for third place in their Mazda RT24-P, although they’d landed pole and dominated much of the 122-lap race. After struggling for pace during practice on Friday, the Multimatic-Mazda team made wholesale set-up changes – “We threw the kitchen…

WALDER REMEMBERED A minute’s silence was held at Loton Park last Sunday to remember journalist and commentator Eddie Walder, who died over the winter. Several hundred competitors, teams and marshals gathered for a socially distanced tribute to a popular member of the British hillclimbing fraternity during the opening round of the 2021 championship. HALL GOES HILLCLIMBING Charles Hall, a Formula Vauxhall Lotus frontrunner in the late 1990s, is trying his hand at hillclimbing. Hall took his single-seater career to the US, but later suffered a serious road accident. More recently, he has raced with the 750 Motor Club and won the Bikesports title last year. From there, Empire single-seater builder Bill Chaplain offered Hall some events in the hillclimb machine usually run by Maltese Zach Zammit. LEWIS ON SPORTING TRIAL…

CITYCAR CUP The Student Motorsport Challenge contest within the CityCar Cup has been postponed until next season, but organisers are encouraged by the amount of interest the series has received from educators. The division pits teams from colleges or universities against each other, with the students able to either build or run ready-made Citroen C1, Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo cars. The challenge had been due to launch this year, but the “crippling” effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on education has led to a delay. “Students have barely been in – we were quite optimistic but, with the best will in the world, they couldn’t do it for this year,” said Student Motorsport founder John Paul Latham. Attention has now turned to 2022, and Latham has built an Aygo himself…

OBITUARY Ray Allen, who died last week aged 77, was intrinsically linked with Brands Hatch and the close-knit community centred on Motor Circuit Developments boss John Webb, its resident Motor Racing Stables school and entrepreneurial racer/team chief Jackie Epstein. Allen caught the racing bug with MRS. He first competed in 1966 with one of its old 1000cc F3 Brabham BT15s, but sprang to fame on 2 July 1967 as the winner of the first ever standalone Formula Ford race, on the Brands club circuit. Allen dominated MCD’s inaugural Formula 100 sportscar championship in 1970 in a Royale RP4. While the series lasted just two seasons – Tom Pryce blitzed 1971’s sequel – both champions became part of the Brands family. When FAtlantic debuted this side of the pond in 1971,…

CROFT BRSCC 15-16 MAY Having waited three years to take his first Mazda MX-5 Championship victory, Jack Brewer left Croft with three under his belt as he dominated the opening round of the season. Competing at the North Yorkshire circuit for the first time, the Tucker Motorsport driver was immediately on the pace as he qualified on pole and fended off a late charge from Michael Knibbs to take a comprehensive win in race one. The pair fought for much of the following encounter, until Knibbs lost second to Oliver Allwood after a great battle through Sunny. The time Allwood lost securing the position allowed Brewer to win by more than two seconds. Securing his hat-trick was anything but comfortable. With a heavy rain shower before the start, Brewer’s pre-race…

LOTON PARK BRITISH HILLCLIMB 15-16 MAY Wallace Menzies was the toast of the British Hillclimb Championship at Loton Park on Sunday when he won both championship run-offs to take a perfect score as the 2021 season got under way. The reigning champion sat out 2020 completely when COVID-19 cancelled the championship, but showed he had lost none of his spark during the enforced lay-off, and pulled out two stunning runs up the Shropshire hill to make the perfect start to his title defence. In the first run-off, ever-changing conditions as the track continued to dry played into Menzies’s hands, with his Gould the last car to run. A blistering climb in 44.11s edged Alex Summers’s DJ Firestorm by a third of a second, with six-time champion Scott Moran making it…

Mike Parkes is forced to get down and dirty, employing deft spadework from a prone position in an eventually successful bid to extricate his Ferrari 330 LMB (effectively an updated 250 GTO with a four-litre V12 engine) from the Mulsanne Corner sandbank during the 1962 Le Mans 24 Hours. Parkes, who shared his works car with Lorenzo Bandini, had come off worse after vying for the lead with Graham Hill’s Aston Martin DP212 on the opening lap. Parkes was eight laps down by the time he recovered to the pits, but overheating due to radiator damage curtailed the car’s pace and it was retired seven hours in. For classic Le Mans DVDs head to dukevideo.com/lemans For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

FORMULA 1 Qualifying for July’s British Grand Prix will be run on Friday evening as part of Formula 1’s format shake-up for the Silverstone race weekend. F1 will hold its first 100km sprint race on the Saturday of the 16-18 July event to set the grid for the Grand Prix on Sunday. The format change meant qualifying at Silverstone would always get bumped to Friday, but now officials have revealed that it will start at 6pm. A single one-hour practice session will be held beforehand at 2.30pm. Teams will then have two and a half hours to prepare for qualifying, the result of which will set the starting grid for the sprint race on Saturday. The evening qualifying could offer a boost to crowd numbers at Silverstone, allowing spectators to…

LE MANS 24 HOURS Ex-Formula 1 driver and IMSA star Felipe Nasr is heading back to the Le Mans 24 Hours after an absence of two years. The Brazilian has been brought in by the US Risi Competizione squad for its return to the prototype ranks in LMP2 this year. Nasr, the winner of the 2018 IMSA SportsCar Championship with Action Express Racing, will share Ferrari specialist Risi’s ORECA-Gibson 07 with Oliver Jarvis and Ryan Cullen in the blueriband round of the World Endurance Championship on 21-22 August. It will be the former Sauber F1 driver’s second Le Mans start after he drove a Villorba Corsa-run Dallara in 2018 alongside a campaign in the European Le Mans Series. The trio will also race for Houston-based Risi in the WEC round…

ITALIAN FORMULA 4 Reigning British Formula 4 champion Luke Browning scored a second place on his continental European debut in the category last weekend at Paul Ricard, matched by fellow Brit Ollie Bearman. Browning, who will contest the German F4 series with the US Racing team of Gerhard Ungar and Ralf Schumacher, joined a 37-strong field for the Italian F4 opener. His second place came in race two, behind team-mate and 2020 German F4 rookie title winner Tim Tramnitz. Bearman has switched from US to Van Amersfoort Racing this year for a dual German/Italian attack. He struggled to get off the line from pole in race two, and likewise from the front row in the third event, in which Tramnitz built up a huge lead while Browning worked his way…

UK START TIMES Thursday 20 May FP1 1030 FP2 1400 Saturday 22 May FP3 1100 QUALIFYING 1400 Sunday 23 May RACE 1400 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA HIGHLIGHTS CHANNEL 4 1830 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers 1 Hamilton 94 2 Verstappen 80 3 Bottas 47 4 Norris 41 5 Leclerc 40 Constructors 1 Mercedes 141 2 Red Bull 112 3 McLaren 65 4 Ferrari 60 5 Alpine 15 RACE STATS Previous winners 2019 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2018 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 2017 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 2016 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2015 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2014 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2013 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2012 Mark Webber Red Bull 2011 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 2010 Mark Webber Red Bull Best results Hamilton 1st x 3…

Romain Grosjean has a broad smile upon his face as he greets me warmly outside the Dale Coyne Racing with RWR hauler at St Petersburg. “Hello mate, I just did my washing before you arrived,” he grins, racesuit now dangling to dry before IndyCar qualifying. “I didn’t have to do that in F1!” It’s a stark contrast from the pampered world he used to inhabit, as well as his frustrated demeanour of the past few seasons with Haas, where he scrabbled around putting it all on the line for just a handful of points. “Formula 1 stays Formula 1,” he says. “I don’t regret spending 10 years there and I know I was very lucky to do what I did. But, coming here, the beauty of IndyCar is that it’s…

Fernando Alonso returned to Formula 1 after a two-year sabbatical during which he completed something of a motorsport odyssey. The highlights were his pair of Le Mans triumphs as part of a Toyota crew, the World Endurance Championship superseason crown (all alongside Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima), and a 2019 Daytona 24 Hours triumph with Wayne Taylor Racing. And, of course, there were his failed bids to win the Indianapolis 500 and a foray into the Dakar Rally. When his return with what was then called Renault was announced in July 2020, Alonso made clear that he had been enticed back to F1 by the feeling that Renault/Alpine would give him the chance to return to the championship’s highest level, with the rules reset coming in 2022. That goal is…

MORGAN AERO 8/SUPERSPORTS GT3 British fans present at Silverstone in 2009 might remember a double victory for Morgan in the GT3 Europe races. Marque enthusiast Eric Sturdza set up the AutoGT operation together with former grand prix drivers Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Jacques Laffite to develop a car with Morgan’s backing, only to pull the plug at the end of 2009 over a homologation row concerning the car’s exhaust system. ASCARI KZ1-R Niche manufacturer Ascari, founded by racer Klaas Zwart and based in the Banbury premises now occupied by the Haas Formula 1 team, was on the grid from the get-go of GT3 with its BMW-engined KZ1-R. The carbon-chassis machine was weighed down under the BoP, but it did enjoy success. Most notably it won the British GT Championship title in…

NASCAR CUP DOVER (USA) 16 MAY ROUND 13/36 Alex Bowman led home his team-mates as the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet crew dominated the NASCAR Cup race at Dover last weekend. He grabbed control during the round of pitstops on lap 304 of 400 and never let go, holding off Kyle Larson by two seconds to score the fourth topflight win of his career. Fellow Hendrick racers Chase Elliott and William Byron finished third and fourth, marking the first time in the team’s history that its cars had locked out the top four. Bowman’s win at Dover carried added weight because it came at the track where the driver he replaced this season – seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson – had won 11 times in his career. “It’s pretty amazing,” reflected Bowman.…

EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIES RED BULL RING (AUT) 16 MAY ROUND 2/6 Team WRT claimed a hard-fought win at the Red Bull Ring during the second round of the European Le Mans Series campaign. In a race impacted by heavy showers, the clear points-leading outfit managed to keep its head above water to come out on top after four hours. The early running was led by the two United Autosports ORECA-Gibson 07 machines of Nico Jamin and Phil Hanson until a very rapid first pitstop brought Nyck de Vries and the G-Drive Racing squad to the fore. A Formula E frontrunner with Mercedes, de Vries proved extremely rapid and would speed away from Robert Kubica in the Team WRT car. The fifth-starting crew had made up ground courtesy of a…

As thick black clouds gathered above Le Mans just before the start of the 27-lap MotoGP race last weekend, the grid was sure that rain was on its way. But the big question remained over precisely when the drops would begin to fall. Not since Brno in 2017 had the series enjoyed a flag-to-flag contest where changing weather had required a mid-race bike swap. On that occasion, Marc Marquez timed his switch from wets to slick tyres supremely to take an utterly dominant 12-second victory. Wind on four years and, as the rain began to fall, the Honda rider – just three races into his comeback from injury – found himself in the podium places. As the leading pack, headed by Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, came into the pitlane to switch…

HISTORIC F2 Multiple Clubmans champion Clive Wood enjoyed his first test run in his newly acquired Formula 2 March-BMW 782 on Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit last week ahead of debuting it there this weekend. French F1 stars Jean-Pierre Jarier and Jacques Laffite raced chassis 16 for compatriot Pierre Maublanc’s Sperry Univac-backed MRS equipe in the 1978 European championship. Jarier also drove it for Jean-Louis Lafosse’s spin-off in the end-of-season South American Temporada series, finishing fourth in Buenos Aires. Le Mans driver Michel Pignard subsequently hillclimbed the car, also previously raced in Historic F2 by Sean Walker, Frank Sytner and Martin Stretton. “A 782 has always been my dream car and did not disappoint,” said Wood. “It’s very different to the Chevron B34 and B29 I’ve driven. The B34 feels planted,…

After narrowly missing out on a fourth consecutive Mazda MX-5 Supercup title last year, Luke Herbert could be expected to be even more determined to make it a quartet of crowns in 2021. And, while he is eager to win more titles, he won’t be behind the wheel as he’s hung up his helmet and started a team to share his vast experience. Compiling a three-car squad for the 2021 MX-5 Supercup, Herbert is aiming to replicate his racing glory as a team owner by sharing the knowledge that has allowed him stand out as one of the most successful one-make racers in recent years. “I’ve worked hard to get where I’ve got to, I won the Ma5da Championship in 2012, Michelin Clios in 2015 and then won the Supercup…

TV COVERAGE MOTOGP ON ITV4 Even by MotoGP’s standards, last weekend’s French Grand Prix was incredibly wild thanks to a mid-race downpour that forced riders to swap bikes in a rare flag-to-flag affair. As ever with motorcycle racing’s premier class, it didn’t disappoint, and neither did the supporting Moto2 and Moto3 races, which had their usual close battles and plenty of thrills and spills. Given the sensational racing, that fully justified the fact that the Le Mans Bugatti circuit event was the first MotoGP round to be shown live in the UK on free-toair television since the end of 2013. In much the same way that Sky Sports has a hold over Formula 1, so too has BT Sport on MotoGP. It has had exclusive rights to televise the championship…

It’s a curious historical anomaly that, of the international superstars who’ve tried their luck in Indycars, German drivers have made a negligible impression. Timo Glock is the only driver to emerge from the nation’s motorsport ladder to score a podium (at Montreal in 2005), with such talents as Michael Krumm, Andre Lotterer and Lucas Luhr limited to fleeting cameos. Yet the complexion of the discussion might have been different had Jorg Muller taken the leap to Indycars and not the American Le Mans Series. Fresh from winning the 1996 International Formula 3000 title, Muller was pitched against Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish and Patrick Carpentier at Sebring in a shootout for Bettenhausen Motorsports. Carpentier got the drive, while Muller, unhappy with the feel of the brakes but not permitted set-up changes,…

FORMULA 1 The FIA is to introduce new rear-wing flexibility tests ahead of next month’s French Grand Prix amid concerns that some teams are exploiting the Formula 1 rules. Questions over the design of the Red Bull rear wing in particular were floated during the recent Spanish GP after Lewis Hamilton suggested its design was “bendy”. The inference was that Red Bull could be exploiting a more flexible wing that rotates down on the straights to boost top speed, but then reverts up into a normal position for the corners to provide maximum downforce. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was adamant that the team’s wing design had passed all the current pullback tests used to test the rigidity of the designs, and that the FIA was “completely happy with…

FORMULA 1 The McLarens of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo will contest this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix in a Gulf Oil livery in the wake of the team’s renewed tie-up last year with its fuel sponsor. While F1 rules demand that cars appear at each race in ‘substantially the same livery’, McLaren boss Zak Brown said there had been no problem getting the green light from the FIA and FOM. “They all loved it,” he said. “At this point, we only intend to run it at Monaco. If you’re going to have a special livery, you keep it special.” But is it an homage to the Gulf livery Alessandro Pesenti-Rossi ran on his privateer Tyrrell in 1976? WEC/IMSA The new Porsche and Audi LMDh prototypes are being jointly developed in…

CARRERA CUP BENELUX Reigning Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion Harry King warmed up for his rookie Supercup campaign with a double win in the Carrera Cup Benelux at the Red Bull Ring last weekend. King, driving for Parker Revs Motorsport, was fifth fastest in qualifying, but started fourth for race one, and was in the lead by Turn 2 on the opening lap. He led all the way to beat Glenn van Parijs by more than four seconds. King started fourth again for race two, but uncharacteristically took his time in this one, in which he had to wait an entire lap and a bit before taking the lead. This time he beat van Parijs by over 6s. “I didn’t expect to be on the pace so quickly as there…

There was a nice piece of historical symmetry to Giuliano Alesi’s unexpected victory at a rain-soaked Autopolis last weekend in just his second Super Formula start. Exactly a decade earlier, Kazuki Nakajima – the driver Alesi is standing in for – had done the same thing: he took a first win at only the second time of asking, with TOM’S at Autopolis in the wet. The difference is, of course, that Nakajima was already a veteran rebuilding his career in Japan after seeing his Formula 1 dreams crumble as a result of Toyota’s withdrawal from the championship. Alesi, on the other hand, was the youngest driver in the field at Autopolis, and one with a relatively modest CV, the highlights of which are four sprint race wins across three seasons…

When Renault returned to Formula 1 as a fully fledged factory team in 2016, it boldly announced its aspirations of becoming a winning force again within five years. There’s nothing wrong with showing ambition, but its hopelessly misguided comments made a rod for the team’s back and revealed an ignorance of the work involved in lifting the Enstone operation up the grid after years of underinvestment by previous owner Genii Capital. Now in its latest identity as Alpine, the team remains firmly ensconced in the midfield fight and, despite qualifying heroics from Esteban Ocon in Portugal and Spain, appears unlikely to finish higher than fifth once again. In the final year of the current regulations, it would be prudent to start looking at its design for 2022 in the not-too-distant…

SUPER FORMULA AUTOPOLIS (JPN) 16 MAY ROUND 3/7 Giuliano Alesi sensationally scored a first Super Formula victory on only his second start in the Japanese series in a weather-shortened Autopolis race. The son of ex-Formula 1 racer Jean, standing in for Kazuki Nakajima at TOM’S, commanded the contest and was declared the winner after just 13 laps of 42 had been completed. Alesi set up his improbable triumph on Saturday by scoring pole in a wet session that was interrupted by no fewer than four red flags. He edged out TOM’S Toyota team-mate Ritomo Miyata by a little under 0.1 seconds. There was doubt whether the race would go ahead at all as Autopolis was enveloped in thick fog on Sunday morning, but this lifted in time for the bout…

EUROFORMULA OPEN PAUL RICARD (FRA) 15-16 MAY ROUND 2/8 Red Bull Junior Jak Crawford mopped up his first two Euroformula Open wins in France, but was denied a treble when he was hit by Louis Foster as they battled for the lead in the finale. Crawford wasn’t even old enough to take part in the opening round supporting the Portuguese Grand Prix until the Sunday, when he celebrated his 16th birthday. So this was the American’s first proper outing in his Motopark Dallara-Spiess. He qualified on pole and led throughout the opener from team-mate and first-round dominator Cameron Das. Foster, driving for Motopark satellite team CryptoTower, was third. Foster burst through from fourth on the grid to lead the reversed-grid race from Casper Stevenson (Van Amersfoort Racing). That was until…

EQUIPE CLASSIC RACING Equipe Classic Racing will organise and promote its own race meetings in 2022 as it becomes increasingly difficult for other clubs to accommodate the Equipe portfolio of series within their events. Equipe has featured at a variety of club meetings in recent seasons, most notably with the MG Car Club, but it has also appeared at Aston Martin Owners Club, Vintage Sports-Car Club, Bentley Drivers Club and Masters Historic Racing fixtures. But, having become a registered Motorsport UK club in its own right in 2019 and introduced Pre ’63, 50s and Libre grids alongside its popular GTS series, Equipe has decided to take the step to becoming a race promoter. “It’s come about because we’ve grown, and it’s difficult to take a volume of time off others…

Prize winner Mathieu Gauthier-Thornton impressed on his car racing debut in the Clubmans Sports Prototype championship at Silverstone last weekend, taking three class podiums. Gauthier-Thornton has secured a funded season in the Phantom P94 after emerging victorious in a competition run by former Clubmans champion Alex Champkin that featured sim racing and karting. After a COVID-19 delay, ex-Nissan GT Academy competitor Gauthier-Thornton made his real-life bow in Northamptonshire and was immediately on the pace, only losing the CSP2 lead late on in the opener when rain arrived and he was on slicks. He then followed that by again finishing runner-up in the other two races. “It’s so much fun – the most fun I’ve ever had!” said Gauthier-Thornton, who added that he found the racecraft to be “quite similar” between…

BRDC BRITISH F3 Briton Oliver Bearman will compete part-time in the BRDC British F3 Championship this season with Fortec Motorsport, alongside his campaigns in German and Italian F4. The 16-year-old – a race winner in both F4 series last year after a successful spell in karting, including European and World titles at Junior X30 level – will take part in selected rounds of British F3, beginning with the opening event this weekend at Brands Hatch. “The relationship with the whole team is fantastic, and the car itself is so much fun to drive,” said Bearman. “I’m looking forward to kicking things off with this weekend at Brands Hatch GP.” Fortec team manager Oliver Dutton said: “Driver development is one area of the sport our family-run team excels at, so we’re…

SOMERFIELD’S 10TH SEASON Ginetta GT4 Supercup regular Reece Somerfield is set to be on the grid for a 10th season this year. The former Caterham ace has secured two wins and 11 podiums during that time. He finished seventh in last year’s standings, despite only completing a part-season, and will again run as a privateer entry in 2021. MORE LIVESTREAMED EVENTS Two more clubs have revealed plans to livestream events this season. The Classic Sports Car Club will offer full coverage of its Donington Park meeting next weekend and its August Snetterton event. Meanwhile, the British Racing & Sports Car Club is due to offer livestreams from 14 fixtures this year, culminating with the 50th Formula Ford Festival. BARKER’S MINI JCW BID Oliver Barker (below) plans to contest a full…

Time was when the BRDC’s International Trophy event at Silverstone was a non-championship Formula 1 race. Rooted in 1949, when Alberto Ascari won for Ferrari, it was second only in importance to the British Grand Prix – whether staged there, at Aintree or Brands Hatch – on the domestic calendar. Thus it attracted large crowds to Northamptonshire, and long-term title sponsorship from the Daily Express that promoted and covered the meeting, over which household name drivers often competed in supporting races too. I first attended in the mid-1960s, where watching great champions Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Denny Hulme and Jackie Stewart helped sow my love of the sport. This weekend’s International Trophy retrospective, under the auspices of the Historic Sports Car Club, founded in 1966, has been a…

SILVERSTONE MSVR 15-16 MAY A large grid, changeable conditions and the overtaking opportunities of the Silverstone National circuit combined to create some action-packed Clubmans Sports Prototype racing as MotorSport Vision Racing made its first 2021 trip to Northamptonshire. A massive 32-car entry was assembled – believed to be the largest in almost 20 years – and it was Pete Richings who initially led the way in the opener. But his advantage did not last long as he spun when the leaders ran three abreast into Brooklands on lap two, his slick tyres not giving quite enough grip on the drying surface. That enabled Paul Masters to grab the lead, before Jonty Hair’s Beagle, which was making a first appearance since 2017, swooped to the front at Copse. But he too…

INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORT Monaco Grand Prix Formula 1 World Championship Round 5/23 Monte Carlo, Monaco 23 May TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sun 1355 TV Highlights Sky Sports F1, Sun 2130, Channel 4, Sun 1830 FIA Formula 2 Round 2/8 Monte Carlo, Monaco 21-22 May TV Live Sky Sports F1, Fri 1035, Sat 0710, 1405 Formula Regional European by Alpine Round 3/10 Monte Carlo, Monaco 22-23 May Porsche Supercup Round 1/8 Monte Carlo, Monaco 23 May TV Live Eurosport 1, Sun 0915, Sky Sports F1, Sun 0930 Rally Portugal World Rally Championship Round 4/12 Matosinhos, Portugal 20-23 May TV Live BT Sport 1, Fri 1430, Sat 1900, Sun 0830, BT Sport 2, Fri 1900, BT Sport 3, Sat 0800, Sat 1430, BT Sport ESPN, Sun 1200 TV Highlights BT Sport 3,…