Indholdsfortegnelse for 15/07/21 i Autosport

Each of the three British Formula 1 stars travel to Silverstone this weekend in the middle of fascinating storylines. Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton needs to bounce back in the face of the strongest challenge to his title for several years. Lando Norris has arguably been the star of 2021 so far and is the ‘midfielder’ giving the top guns most trouble. And George Russell’s quest for a point for Williams continues as we edge closer to an announcement on what will surely be his graduation to Mercedes in 2022. We hear from all three in our British GP preview, and look at both their seasons so far and their chances on home turf (see page 16). We’ve also got the new qualifying sprint race to look forward to on…

WRC M-Sport unveiled its Ford Puma hybrid that will contest the 2022 World Rally Championship at Goodwood last week. The British team is the first to officially launch its Rally1 prototype, built to the WRC’s new hybrid rules that will see a 100kW electric motor combine with the traditional internal combustion engine. M-Sport had been testing its Rally1 prototype using a Ford Fiesta platform but a decision from Ford in the US has resulted in a switch to an all-new Puma body for 2022. The car was revealed at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where current M-Sport driver Adrien Fourmaux and test driver Matthew Wilson conducted demonstration runs up the famous hillclimb. Ford’s global CEO Jim Farley attended the launch, alongside Ford Performance global director Mark Rushbrook. Ford Performance has…

Thanks for raising hillclimbing’s profile It is good to see your great magazine covering the British Hillclimb Championship again. Last week’s coverage of the Barbon Manor and Harewood rounds by Paul Lawrence was excellent, as was his column on hillclimbing and Gould driver Graham Wynn. Your efforts for this important element of motorsport are much appreciated by fans, competitors and all connected with hillclimbing. John Passmore By email Welcome tribute to Pedro Rodriguez As a Mexican I was very happy to read the tribute to Pedro Rodriguez in last week’s issue of your magazine. However, I am under the impression that Pedro Rodriguez won 12 major sportscar races and was surprised that you didn’t include Pedro’s big victory in Bridgehampton back in 1962 on the list. Still an enjoyable read!…

After nine races in the 2021 Formula 1 season, the top British driver in Autosport’s driver rating averages for this campaign so far is not Lewis Hamilton – even with his three victories and title aspirations. It’s McLaren star Lando Norris. The 21-year-old ended 2020 on a high. Last year he scored his first F1 career podium and best championship finishing position (ninth), but his run to fifth and best-of-the-rest in Abu Dhabi was essentially faultless. And he started 2021 in much the same way – even managing to go one place better with fourth in the Bahrain season-opener as Sergio Perez struggled early on for Red Bull. The difference this time around has been McLaren’s battle with Ferrari over third place in the constructors’ championship, which the orange squad…

The final lap of the 2020 British Grand Prix was one of the most dramatic in the event’s history. Lewis Hamilton had dominated from pole in what was a lifeless race overall, but on the final tour he became the third driver to suffer a left-front tyre blowout. Hamilton urged his hobbled car home, but Max Verstappen was charging. The gap, counted down calmly by Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington, was 5.9 seconds at the flag when it had been 34.2s the lap before. But something big was missing. Not just the air in Hamilton’s left-front. It was the roar. The noise, the excitement that should have accompanied the world champion to his seventh Silverstone Formula 1 win in such wild circumstances. But the race necessarily took place behind closed…

Mercedes opened this season in such strong fashion to score wins at the first three vastly different tracks in Saudi Arabia, Italy and Spain. This was a car that could adapt to a variety of conditions and asphalt types and enjoyed a wide operating window. At that point, if the Silver Arrows didn’t go on to win the teams’ title, it seemed as though it would be a crown lost rather than one won by its rivals. But now the outfit must “face the mirror” and has become the Formula E “hunters” rather than the “hunted” after the long-time leader scored a fourth and fifth point-less race last weekend in New York City from the last six events. Mercedes now resides in fifth in the standings, and the worry going…

PURE ETCR MOTORLAND ARAGON (ESP) 10-11 JULY ROUND 2/5 Mattias Ekstrom claimed victory at Motorland Aragon to continue Zengo Motorsport’s 100% record in the all-new Pure ETCR electric touring car series. The Swede’s Cupra e-Racer was unbeatable in each of his three ‘Battle’ races, winning in rounds one and two, plus Sunday’s SuperFinal B. The only blot on his copybook was an effort that he claimed was “too cautious” during the 500kW, single-lap Time Trial that set the grid for the finale. Ekstrom was third-fastest and so lined up in the corresponding spot on the offset grid, knowing that only a victory would enable him to usurp Pool A winner Augusto Farfus – who had triumphed in SuperFinal A earlier in the day – as the overall winner. A strong…

NASCAR CUP ATLANTA (USA) 11 JULY ROUND 21/36 Kyle Busch has the more impressive career statistics but older brother Kurt got the better of him last Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Kyle, who had won for the 102nd time in the Xfinity Series on Saturday, looked in prime position for a weekend sweep in Sunday’s 400-mile Cup race at Atlanta. It soon became apparent Kurt Busch was going to be a player for the win as well. Together, the brothers ended up leading 235 of the 260 laps. Kyle emerged as the leader on lap 213 following a final round of green-flag pitstops. But Kurt did not go away and methodically began chasing Kyle back down. With the help of Kurt’s Chip Ganassi Racing team-mate Ross Chastain slowing Kyle up,…

EUROFORMULA OPEN HUNGARORING (HUN) 10-11 JULY ROUND 4/8 A final-race victory for Cameron Das at the Hungaroring helped balance the books in the Euroformula Open title battle. The American driver overcame a spill while leading the opening bout last weekend to maintain a 19-point status quo over nearest championship rival Louis Foster. Red Bull-backed polesitter Jak Crawford squeezed his Team Motopark stablemate Das up against the pitwall for the descent into Turn 1 of the curtain-raiser. But it wasn’t enough to hold on to first place as Das nipped through with barely an inch to spare and soon streaked into a strong lead. But the ex-FIA Formula 3 racer suffered a huge front-right lock-up and ran wide, resuming with a critical flat spot that he would come to rue. On…

One of the things that makes the Festival of Speed so special is the reuniting of legendary drivers with the cars that yielded their most famous achievements, creating that instant nostalgia hit for spectators while rekindling those most glorious of moments for the drivers in question. This year was no different, as the event celebrated motor racing’s best all-rounders, including Mario Andretti, the 1978 Formula 1 world champion, four-time Indycar title-winner, Indianapolis 500 victor and multiple race winner in the world sportscar championship. One of the sights of the weekend was seeing the likeable American back behind the wheel of the JPS-liveried Lotus 79 that secured his only world crown in 1978 and brought ground-effects to F1. Andretti also refamiliarised himself with the stunning V12-powered Ferrari 512S, which he drove…

The Festival of Speed continues to conjure up cars that grab attention and this year fans were treated to the awesome force of one of the most talked-about touring cars in V8 Supercars history. As part of the Penske celebration, an example of Scott McLaughlin’s 2019 championship-winning Ford Mustang was shipped from Penske’s US base to tackle Goodwood’s famous hill. Developed by then-DJR Team Penske and Ford Performance in the US, the Mustang, especially in the hands of now-Penske IndyCar driver McLaughlin, was a force to be reckoned with. The Kiwi rewrote the record books, winning 18 races in 2019 – more than any driver has achieved during a season – on his way to a second consecutive Supercars title. The run included a Bathurst 1000 win that’s still seen…

BRITISH GP Historic cars will feature on the support programme for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend following a late change to the original schedule. The Porsche Supercup, which was due to race on Sunday morning ahead of the grand prix, has been cancelled due to COVID-19 travel restrictions as many of the teams are based in Germany. Instead, Masters Historic Racing will hold a pair of races for its Gentlemen Drivers series for pre-1966 GTs on the Grand Prix circuit. The 36-car entry list for the races, which will run to two half-hour formats, was filled within minutes of being announced to the Masters’ competitor base. The Gentlemen Drivers series is one of Masters’ most popular categories and typically pits Jaguar E-types, AC Cobras and Lotus Elans…

TOCA British Touring Car Championship support series have welcomed the recent release of the provisional 2022 schedule and are particularly happy with Donington Park being chosen for the opening round. The proposed 2022 calendar was released at the end of last month and it begins with Donington on 23-24 April, several weeks later than the regular pre-pandemic opening rounds to allow for more time to test the new BTCC hybrid powertrains. The schedule also again includes two visits to Thruxton as well as all of the BTCC’s other traditional haunts. The Porsche Carrera Cup GB is due to introduce the Type 992 911 GT3 Cup car next year and the later start will allow teams more time to get up to speed with the new machine. Porsche GB motorsport manager…

BRC New British Rally Championship leader Matt Edwards said his nail-biting victory at the second round of the season on the Nicky Grist Stages in mid-Wales was “the perfect reward” for his team’s endeavours. On spent tyres, the defending champion and co-driver Darren Garrod endured a “wild ride” through the last test – which included at least one off-road jaunt – to finish with five seconds in hand over Tom Cave. “We were in and out of ditches,” said Edwards, who became the first person since Tapio Laukkanen at the Scottish Rally back in 2000 to win a round of the series in a Volkswagen. “Everything was calm in the car until about five corners before the end – but it is so good to be back in these forests…

The Century Motorsport team was in disconsolate mood on Saturday night at Donington. Six different makes of car occupied the top six places on the grid, but its BMW M4 GTs were not among them. Championship leaders Will Burns and Gus Burton were only ninth on the grid, with Chris Salkeld and Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke two spots further back. But come Sunday, the mood in the camp was totally transformed as the pair repeated their Brands Hatch 1-2 after a demolition derby that only five of the 13 starters survived. It took Burns just over 20 minutes and 10 safety car-interrupted laps to surge into a lead he’d never lose. Taking advantage of the GT3 fracas at the start, he moved up to fifth at the first corner then passed Mark…

Motorsport finally returned to Wales with the British Racing and Sports Car Club meeting at Anglesey, the first this year. With rallying hit hard due to COVID-19 restrictions as well as the postponement of circuit meetings at both Anglesey and Pembrey, Wales has probably been hit more than most by the various levels of lockdown. Whereas Motorsport UK has worked hand-in-hand with central government for the restart of the sport in England, the devolved parliament in Wales has added further complications. “We first had an idea that this meeting could go ahead and maybe with spectators about three weeks ago, when the initial bubbles of 30 people rose in England and it was decided to synchronise here with the same volume of people to attend,” said Anglesey circuit manager Andrew…

Kim Mather is probably best known for his exploits in Formula 2 and Formula Atlantic machinery in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but there’s a lot more to the man from Haydock. Mather has competed in a plethora of cars over the decades, with one recent competition outing coming on the Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship on the Neil Howard Memorial Stages at Oulton Park in May. It’s a throwback to where his interest in motorsport began as his father, Stanley, was a rally driver who contested the 1959 Monte Carlo Rally in a Morris Minor, with a toilet in the back! “It’s in the blood – we have always been a car and motorsport family, but my first event was a road rally at 17, in a Morris…

JW Automotive Engineering’s driver quartet of Jo Siffert, a recumbent Pedro Rodriguez, Brian Redman and Leo Kinnunen pose with one of the squad’s Porsche 917K machines at the 1970 Monza 1000Km. Rodriguez held off the works Ferraris of Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella (512S Spyder), John Surtees/Peter Schetty (512S) and Chris Amon/Arturo Merzario (512S) to take victory, while polesetter Siffert and Redman struggled home in 12th place, plagued by mechanical isues. See next week’s issue of Autosport for our report on this weekend’s 6 Hours of Monza, round three of the WEC season. For classic motorsport DVDs head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

WEC/IMSA A Toyota Le Mans Hypercar pounding around the banking at the Daytona 24 Hours some time in the middle of the decade could become a reality. LMH machinery will be allowed to race in the IMSA SportsCar Championship from the get-go of the new LMDh category in 2023. The final strand in the process of convergence that began with the announcement of the LMP2-based LMDh class straddling the IMSA series in North America and the World Endurance Championship in January 2020 was put in place last week. A series of rule changes – and ways of monitoring performance – have been put in place to ensure equality between the two types of cars. The move was described by Pierre Fillon, president of WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l’Ouest,…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 chiefs are ready to act and improve the representation of black people within the series and wider industry after the long-awaited Hamilton Commission report was published this week. The report, inspired and led by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton along with the Royal Academy of Engineering, is the culmination of 10 months of research into why black people are under-represented in UK motorsport. The commission focused on defining why just 1% of employees in F1 are from black backgrounds. While the findings involved some wider societal issues, other factors directly related to motorsport teams’ actions have also emerged. These include hiring practices that favour students from just a select group of high-ranking universities, plus geographical factors that mean that opportunities for work experience at rural-based teams…

WRC Craig Breen will join Hyundai’s World Rally line-up for Belgium’s Ypres Rally next month. The Irishman will drive the third factory i20 Coupe at the 13-15 August event in place of Spaniard Dani Sordo, who has contested the last three events held on gravel roads. As previously reported, Breen has been drafted back in for this week’s Rally Estonia, which will be his first WRC event since April’s Rally Croatia, where he finished eighth. The asphalt roads of Ypres hold plenty of positive memories for Breen, who won the event when it was last held in 2019, when it was not a WRC round. “It is a rally I have good memories of so I’m looking forward to making more,” said the 31-year-old. • Nine events have been revealed…

Johnny Herbert raced in Japan in 1990 and 1991, and over those two seasons he got to know Jeff Krosnoff – a fellow practical joker – very well. “The main thing about Jeff was he was loud like an American,” Herbert recalls. “And that loudness was something that really, really sort of drew you into Jeff, because he was such a likeable man. You just knew you were gonna have fun with him. And fun, I think, was a very big part of what Jeff was all about. He was much closer to Mauro, obviously – they were sort of together twenty-four-seven. But it was lovely, my relationship that I had with him. “His smartness was something that did come out. He was one of those who could have fun,…

WTCR MOTORLAND ARAGON (ESP) Race 1 Gabriele Tarquini BRC Hyundai (Hyundai Elantra N TCR) Race 2 Frederic Vervisch Comtoyou (Audi RS3 LMS TCR) PURE ETCR MOTORLAND ARAGON (ESP) Mattias Ekstrom Zengo Motorsport (Cupra e-Racer) ADAC GT MASTERS ZANDVOORT (NLD) Race 1 Ricardo Feller/Christopher Mies Land-Motorsport (Audi R8 LMS Evo) Race 2 Charles Weerts/Dries Vanthoor Team WRT (Audi R8 LMS, below) BRAZILIAN STOCK CARS CASCAVEL (BRA) Race 1 Thiago Camilo Ipiranga Racing (Toyota Corolla) Race 2 Atila Abreu Shell V-Power (Chevrolet Cruze) POWERED BY For full results visit motorsportstats.com…

EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIES MONZA (ITA) 11 JULY ROUND 4/6 Panis Racing took victory at Monza in a frantic and see-sawing fourth round of the European Le Mans Series. Will Stevens, Julien Canal and James Allen profited from strong race pace and strategy to score their first win of the season. The first part of the race looked like an all-out battle between championship contenders G-Drive Racing, Team WRT and United Autosports, with United’s Phil Hanson taking the lead from G-Drive’s Roman Rusinov just before the first pitstops. Several race interruptions brought other teams into the fray, including Panis Racing. The team had been unable to fight for the lead early on but moved up the field as the race progressed and showed great pace when it mattered as Stevens…

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and that was indeed the case at the Goodwood Festival of Speed as capacity crowds desperate for a motorsport fix flocked to the event’s much anticipated return. The four-day celebration of motorsport was cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic but, as restrictions begin to ease, the event was included as part of the UK government’s Event Research Programme, meaning that the passionate petrol-heads were back, bringing with them a rare sense of normality. The sight of fans returning to line the famous hillclimb in awe of the priceless collection of cars, bikes, drivers and riders on show was not lost on event founder Lord March, who also praised his team for ensuring that the Festival of Speed was prepared for…

While Mario Andretti and Jacky Ickx featured among the greatest all-rounder celebrations as drivers, two organisations famous for conquering various disciplines were also rightfully front and centre of proceedings. American racing powerhouse Penske has been a dominant force for some 50 years, clocking up an astonishing 592 wins across an array of categories including Indycar, NASCAR, Formula 1, V8 Supercars and sportscars. Its renowned founder and boss Roger Penske made a rare trip to Goodwood, accompanied by a stunning fleet of his organisation’s most famous cars from past and present, to be honoured for his achievements. The man simply know as the ‘The Captain’, aged 84, even climbed aboard the eye-catching 2008 Penske Racing Porsche RS Spyder to drive up the hill. Alongside the famous Marlboro-liveried Indycars from the early…

For the first time since Nick Heidfeld’s record-breaking run in 1999, McLaren took the honours in the famous Goodwood shootout. GT ace Rob Bell wrestled a McLaren 720S GT3X up the ribbon of asphalt in 45.01 seconds, despite the threat of rain in the closing stages. Bell’s nearest rival was American extreme motorsport competitor Travis Pastrana, who had topped qualifying in a heavily modified Subaru WRX STI. Pastrana was up on Bell’s time in the first sector but was unable to match the McLaren driver after a wild slide towards the end of the run, in what was a thrilling climax to the shootout. In the end, Pastrana was left to settle for second, 1.19s shy of Bell. The outright official hillclimb record still belongs to ex-Formula 1 driver Heidfeld…

BRITISH GT The British GT championship will introduce “harsher deterrents” to improve driving standards after “unnecessary” collisions at Donington Park last weekend. Ten cars were eliminated in the first 30 minutes of the two-hour race after three multi-car crashes depleted the field. Brands Hatch winner Michael Igoe was tagged at the first corner by Nick Jones and then hit by Leo Machitski, bringing out the first of four safety cars. Two GT4 crashes in quick succession then caused the retirement of seven cars, including two of the three Team Rocket RJN McLarens. Alain Valente was an innocent party in the lap-five melee triggered by Chris Salkeld’s Century BMW that also put out Ashley Marshall (Balfe McLaren), Mark Sansom (Assetto Ginetta) and Matt Topham (Newbridge Aston Martin), while fellow RJN driver…

FUN CUP Porsche Carrera Cup GB frontrunner Kiern Jewiss made his Fun Cup debut at Anglesey last weekend. Jewiss shared the Team Caudwell car with John and Brian Caudwell – the brothers making their seasonal debut in the series – and the trio finished eighth and 10th across the two races, including a podium finish in the Masters class. Jewiss, who has already taken one win in the Carrera Cup in his debut season and sits second in the standings, two points behind Dan Cammish, got offered the chance by Kieren Clark, who manages all three drivers. “I hadn’t raced at Anglesey before, and didn’t know what a Fun Cup car looked before this weekend,” said the 2018 British Formula 4 champion and one of that year’s McLaren Autosport BRDC…

CADWELL PARK Jonathan Lewis and Nick Croydon-Fowler shared the Mini Se7en wins at MSVR’s Cadwell Park meeting last weekend. On both occasions, Jeff Smith finished runner-up, coming closest to victory in race two when he finished 0.191s behind Croydon-Fowler as Lewis had to settle for fourth. In the Mini Miglia contests, 2013 British Touring Car champion Andrew Jordan came out on top in both outings, with Kane Austin best of the rest each time. Tom Stoten extended his lead in the Sports 2000 Championship with victory in race one and being runner-up in the second, as Neil Burroughs took the top spot. Reigning champion Michael Gibbins lost further ground in the title race after suffering a retirement in race two.…

BING BACK IN CLUBMANS Clubmans racer of the 1980s Royston Bing enjoyed his first start in approximately a decade in the category’s Classic championship at Brands Hatch. The 74-year-old sold his second Mallock to recommission the other and tested the Mk20 at Llandow first, before finishing 12th at the weekend. Appetite whetted, he hopes to contest Mallory Park’s double-header in September. FROM GUERNSEY TO BRANDS Guernsey veteran Dave Lowe had his first outing in two years when he wheeled his Lotus 69 out for the Classic Formula Ford contests at Brands Hatch. The retired painter and decorator, who leaves his car on the mainland between races before travelling back home, took a best finish of 21st last weekend. The former category champion, 82, hopes to race at Oulton Park, Mallory…

GT3 (76 laps) 1 Richard Neary/Sam Neary (Mercedes-AMG); 2 Ian Loggie/Yelmer Buurman (Mercedes) +15.931s; 3 Andrew Howard/Jonny Adam (Aston Martin Vantage); 4 Morgan Tillbrook/Marcus Clutton (McLaren 720S); 5 Adam Balon/Sandy Mitchell (Lamborghini Huracan Evo); 6 Stewart Proctor/Lewis Proctor (McLaren). Fastest lap Mitchell 1m27.586 (102.23mph). Pole Loggie/Buurman. Starters 10. Points 1= Howard/Adam and Loggie/Buurman 67.5; 3= Balon/Mitchell and Neary/Neary 52.5; 5 Leo Machitski/Dennis Lind 49.5; 6 Michael Igoe/Phil Keen 43.5. GT4 (71 laps) 1 Will Burns/Gus Burton (BMW M4); 2 Chris Salkeld/Andrew Gordon-Colebrooke (BMW) –1 lap; 3 Nick Halstead/Jamie Stanley (McLaren 570S); 4 Dave Whitmore/Jake Giddings (Mercedes-AMG); 5 Jordan Collard/James Kell (McLaren); no other classified finishers. FL Burton 1m36.386s (92.90mph). P Matt Topham/Darren Burke (Aston Martin Vantage). S 13. Points 1 Burns/Burton 93; 2 Salkeld/Gordon-Colebrooke 66; 3 Richard Williams/Sennan Fielding 42;…

Will Aspin’s wait for a first Ginetta GT5 Challenge victory finally came at Donington Park, but perhaps not in the circumstances he would have liked. The Elite Motorsport driver, who graduated from Ginetta Junior in 2021, has been impressive this season having taken a podium in each of the previous six races and arrived at last weekend’s meeting second in the standings. Despite lining up third on the grid for race one, he was leading by the end of the opening lap, aided when poleman John Bennett ran wide on the exit of Redgate, before the same befell championship leader Josh Steed at the start of the second lap when he tried a move around the outside for the lead. A mid-race safety car period to retrieve debris at the…

ANGLESEY BRSCC 10-11 JULY It was two wins out of three for Jack Brewer in the Mazda MX-5 Championship at Anglesey last weekend. Brian Trott led race one from the start, but Brewer had surged ahead before the end of the opening lap. Once a four-car battle for third had fragmented, Trott came under pressure from Steve Foden. Their duel enabled Brewer to increase his victory margin, while Trott just held on to second, with Foden and Zak Oates in his wheeltracks. Trott made the best start again in race two but, after Brewer got by into the Hairpin, Trott ran wide at the Bus Stop and dropped to fifth. Oates and Oliver Allwood had a couple of exchanges at the head of a four-way battle for second, before Allwood…

OULTON PARK VSCC 10 JULY Connect the words ‘vintage’ and ‘car’ and you may well conjure an image of an old, oily, mostly unreliable machine. Yet apply ‘vintage’ to almost anything else and ‘old’ becomes ‘chic’, ‘oily’ becomes ‘crafted’ and reliability is a challenge to be savoured. The Vintage Sports-Car Club has recognised this and so while the cars remain true to period, the paddock is evolving. Those of an older generation are still there in abundance, but their children, who grew up spending weekends being hauled to trials and hillclimbs have stayed too – and are now bringing their family and friends. Saturday’s Vintage Motorsport Festival drew a near COVID-19 restricted capacity crowd to Oulton Park for a busy programme of well-supported grids. There was little doubt that the…

VIDEO GAME F1 2021 RRP £59.99 Formula 1 fans will get the chance to hit the track themselves – virtually, at least – with this year’s cars as F1 2021 is released tomorrow (16 July). F1 2021 is the latest edition of the official video game to be released by Codemasters, but is the first since the British publisher was acquired by gaming giant EA Sports over the winter. While EA’s buyout came too late to make much of an impact on this year’s game, F1 2021 remains the deepest and most accessible F1 title to come out of Codemasters to date, building on the foundations made in recent years. One of the biggest changes for F1 2021 is the introduction of a new story mode, called ‘Braking Point’. The…

FORMULA 1 Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko believes signing George Russell is “worth considering” if he is not snapped up by Mercedes for 2022, but expects the Briton to partner Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes is currently mulling over who will partner Hamilton in 2022, with current team-mate Valtteri Bottas and star junior Russell – who has continued to impress for Williams this season – both out of contract at the end of the year. Mercedes is set to make a decision between Bottas and Russell during the summer. Hamilton signed a new two-year contract earlier this month, locking him in with the team until the end of 2023. If Mercedes opted not to promote Russell and he became a free agent, Red Bull would take an interest in swooping in to…

PURE ETCR Formula E will trek to South Africa, Canada and South Korea in 2022 as part of a facelifted schedule. The races fall in one calendar year again and a double-header in Saudi Arabia opens the batting in late January before the Mexico City circuit returns after its use as a COVID-19 testing site. An inaugural Cape Town event arrives on 26 February, with the support of Jaguar helping to get the deal over the line, before China returns but with an unconfirmed venue. Monaco, which becomes an annual fixture, is sandwiched by Rome and Berlin, while the 4 June slot is vacant. That’s the official party line, but Autosport understands a deal has been signed with Jakarta, Indonesia at last. Although this race is unlikely to come to…

LE MANS 24 HOURS Wayne Boyd has landed the plum United Autosports LMP2 seat alongside Paul di Resta and Alex Lynn for the Le Mans 24 Hours. The North Irishman, winner of the LMP3 European and Asian Le Mans Series titles with United in 2020 and 2021 respectively, was the team’s preferred option for the vacant seat in its #23 ORECA-Gibson 07 for the centrepiece World Endurance Championship round on August 21-22. But United boss Richard Dean stressed that he needed to find the finance to make the move possible. That has now happened and Boyd will make his Le Mans 24 Hours debut. “We’re getting close with the budget and, with the deadline for nominating drivers coming up, we decided to push the button on it,” explained Dean. “To…

The COVID-19 pandemic has stolen so much – and things so much more important than normal sporting fixtures. Because of our current global nightmare and the resulting social restrictions, the 2020 British Grand Prix and the following 70th Anniversary race were held behind closed doors. So many crave a return to the way we lived before the pandemic. And, in one small way in the grand scheme of things, a piece of normality is coming back this weekend: the 2021 British GP will be a full-capacity event, with fans back in attendance. This weekend’s event should be fizzing with humanity once again, nearly a year on from a pair of races that felt like bizarre mid-season tests. They were accompanied by thoughts and hopes for the next campaign and things…

F1 BRITISH GRAND PRIX PREVIEW UK START TIMES Friday 16 July FP1 1430 QUALIFYING 1800 Saturday 17 July FP2 1200 QUALIFYING SPRINT 1630 Sunday 18 July  RACE 1500 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 CHANNEL 4 HIGHLIGHTS BBC RADIO 5 LIVE 2030 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers 1 Verstappen 182 2 Hamilton 150 3 Perez 104 4 Norris 101 5 Bottas 92 Constructors 1 Red Bull 286 2 Mercedes 242 3 McLaren 141 4 Ferrari 122 5 AlphaTauri 48 CIRCUIT STATS Previous winners 2020 Max Verstappen Red Bull 2020 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2019 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2018 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 2017 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2016 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2015 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2014 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2013 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2012 Mark Webber Red Bull Best results Hamilton 1st x…

WTCR MOTORLAND ARAGON (ESP) 11 JULY ROUND 3/8 Frederic Vervisch and Gabriele Tarquini scored their first wins in the World Touring Car Cup for two years, as Comtoyou Audi bounced back from a disastrous start to its campaign with the new RS3 LMS to set the pace at a ‘scorchio’ Motorland Aragon. Vervisch, who was forced to sit out the 2020 WTCR season, grabbed pole position for race two in the final run of the Q3 shootout, then led all the way on Sunday from Thed Bjork, the quickest of the Lynk & Co drivers in Spain. Gilles Magnus made it a Belgian and Audi 1-3 as he chased Bjork all race, but struggled to run close and stick a pass on the Cyan Performance-run car in temperatures that soared…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS TOWNSVILLE (AUS) 10-11 JULY ROUND 6/12 Jamie Whincup led a significant majority of the laps around the Townsville street circuit last weekend, but it was Shane van Gisbergen who came away with both wins. The pair of gruelling 250-kilometre heats around the Reid Park track were nearly identical, van Gisbergen running down his Triple Eight Holden team-mate both days. On Saturday Whincup got the better of polesitter van Gisbergen off the line, the pair then staging a see-sawing battle across the first two stints. Whincup led by three seconds across the first stint, and started the second with nine seconds up his sleeve after van Gisbergen opted to run longer. But the overcut proved to be the better strategy, van Gisbergen quickly eating into Whincup’s four-second gap early…

Bucket-list opportunities were evident across the event, but the chance for current McLaren Formula 1 stars Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo to sample one of Ayrton Senna’s grand prix-winning cars will surely be etched into their memories forever. The McLaren duo were both lucky enough to climb aboard the McLaren MP4/5B that one of F1’s all-time greats took to six wins on his way to the 1990 world championship. The enormity of the moment got to Norris, admitting he was so scared not to damage an incredibly valuable piece of F1 machinery while navigating the 1.16-mile hillclimb. “It feels and sounds incredible,” said Norris of the Honda V10-engined car. “I would love to take this out on a race track one day if Zak Brown [McLaren boss] lets me. It’s…

Since the last Festival of Speed the motorsport world has said goodbye to one of the rallying’s greats and the designer of Goodwood’s very own rally stage Hannu Mikkola, who died of cancer in February aged 78. To honour the 1983 World Rally champion, a selection of cars that Mikkola piloted during his career, which included 18 WRC wins spanning a 20-year period in rallying’s top tier, gathered to take on the forest stage he helped create in 2006. It was perhaps fitting that examples of the Ford Escort RS1800 Mk2 he mastered and five iterations of the brutal Group B Audi Quattro, a car he helped develop during the 1980s, were on show to pay tribute to one of rallying’s greatest. Those special cars joined a fleet of rally…

SILVERSTONE CLASSIC Father and son Martin and Alex Brundle will team up to share a Jaguar E-type in the special 60th anniversary race for the model at the Silverstone Classic at the end of the month. The 45-minute race, including one pitstop, will feature a grid of more than 50 E-types and will mark the first time that the ex-Formula 1 driver and his son have teamed up to race a historic car. The duo have driven together before, sharing a prototype at Le Mans in 2012 and more recently an Aston Martin at the Nurburgring in 2019, but the early 1960s E-type is a fresh challenge. Brundle Jr has raced an E-type before with Gary Pearson and will also drive a Lola T70 Mk3B and a Lister Knobbly during…

BRITISH GT Team ABBA Racing has reversed its plan not to attend the British GT championship’s away round at Spa next weekend following its maiden category victory at Donington Park. Father-and-son pairing Richard and Sam Neary jumped up to second in the standings after their breakthrough win last weekend. Speaking to Autosport, Sam Neary said the win had “solidified our place in the championship” and injected belief that they can challenge for the title. “We weren’t going to go to Spa, but obviously circumstances have changed now so we are going,” he said. “We’ve always had glimmers of this pace and everyone has always said we just needed some luck, and finally to say we’ve won a race now, it’s like that final piece of the jigsaw. “It’s definitely boosted…

BRITISH F3 FOR BILINSKI Roman Bilinski made his British F3 debut with Arden at Donington Park last weekend, taking a best result of fourth in the opening race. Bilinski, who races in British F4 with Carlin, said: “The cornering speed is so much more and it’s pretty impressive what these cars can do.” Fredrick Lubin’s absence due to health reasons meant Alex Connor, who was set to miss the meeting due to financial constraints, took his place and scored two podiums. MORLEY’S KART HAT-TRICK Liam Morley took a hat-trick of wins on his first appearance in the Division 1 Superkart class this year at Cadwell Park, as well as setting a new lap record. Paul Platt made big strides to win title number six in the F250 National class as…

OBITUARY Martin Thomas, who died earlier this month, became a household name when a BARC Special Saloon race in which he starred at Crystal Palace in September 1971 was televised and then broadcast in the BBC’s 100 Great Sporting Moments series. Racing his Chevrolet Camaro, Thomas led for 12 laps of the South London parkland circuit before he spun after holding Mike Crabtree (Ford Escort RS1600) and Gerry Marshall (Vauxhall Viva GT) at bay. Garage proprietor Thomas raced the ex-Jackie Oliver Ford Mustang and several Camaros, including the ex-Brian Muir Wiggins Teape car, previously a Trans-Am racer. Sharing with Terry Sanger, Thomas finished fifth in the 1972 RAC Tourist Trophy race at Silverstone. Thomas was a preparer whose attention to detail was second to none. His Saffron Road Garage business…

DONINGTON PARK BRITISH GT 10-11 JULY It’s a stock phrase on the list of a racing commentator’s cliches that races are never won at the first corner. But last weekend at Donington Park proved to be the exception as Richard Neary’s Team ABBA Mercedes-AMG somehow emerged from Turn 1 in second, having started 10th and last in GT3 after an exploding brake disc in free practice two had caused major damage to the front-right corner that prevented the car from qualifying. A decisive move on Ian Loggie’s RAM Mercedes 10 laps into the two-hour contest set Neary’s son Sam up for their family team’s first-ever British GT win, and the first for a father-and-son pairing in series history. “I didn’t expect to be able to get to the front so…

DONINGTON PARK BRSCC 10-11 JULY A brace of victories at Donington Park launched Zak O’Sullivan into a commanding points lead of the BRDC British F3 Championship, despite the Carlin driver and title rival Reece Ushijima colliding. O’Sullivan asserted his dominance on the event from the outset by taking a double pole, but initially lost the lead of race one to Ushijima while heading into Redgate. The pair battled side-by-side down the Craner Curves with O’Sullivan braving it out to hold the inside line into the Old Hairpin and retake the lead, eventually edging out to a comfortable 4.9-second victory in the 12-lap contest. “I got a pretty bad start but then I got into the lead and was just trying to pull the gap,” said the Carlin driver. “I think…

BRANDS HATCH HSCC 9-11 JULY Audacious passes in Thundersports and the Aurora Trophy finale wowed spectators as the Historic Sports Car Club’s annual Legends of Brands Hatch Superprix spanned both circuit layouts over three days. Lola T290 stalwart Mark Richardson’s committed dive inside James Claridge’s Chevron B23 into Clearways didn’t stick in the former, but Martin Stretton’s jaw-dropper on fellow Formula 2 March driver Matt Wrigley at Paddock Hill Bend deservedly left honours even. Saturday’s sportscar mini-enduro was a thriller. After a short caution, Richardson ambushed Claridge and staved him off until the pitstops, which is where Claridge got the upper hand as Richardson rejoined four seconds adrift. He hounded his rival down and was 0.401 seconds shy when the chequered flag flew 20s early… Wrigley (March 782) and Stretton…

MX-5 CHAMPIONSHIP Races 1 & 2 Jack Brewer Race 3 Oliver Allwood FUN CUP Race 1 Despatch Bay Express (Andy Bicknell/Harry Mailer) Race 2 UVio/Hofmann’s Lotus (Scott Fitzgerald/Fabio Randaccio) NATIONAL FF1600 Races 1 & 2 Chris Middlehurst (Van Diemen LA10) Race 3 Jamie Sharp (Medina Sport JL17) MX-5 SUPERCUP Races 1, 2 & 3 Samuel Smith BRITISH SUPERKARTS Races 1, 2 & 3 Liam Morley (Anderson VM) MODIFIED FORDS Race 1 Piers Grange (Ford Escort Mk2) Race 2 Dave Cockell (Ford Escort Cosworth, below) MX-5 CLUBMANS Races 1 & 2 Harry Storer For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

"The only angle that’s ugly is the very front, it looks like a guppy fish but we’re not going to change it. It is what it is and she’s unique.” Those who attended the popular American SpeedFest event at Brands Hatch earlier this month – returning after a COVID-19-induced hiatus – may well have seen Greg Thornton’s “guppy fish” as it made its way forward from the back of the Bernie’s V8 field. An eclectic mix of machines made up the healthy grid, from Chevrolet Camaros to MGB GTs and everything in-between, but perhaps none have quite as interesting a history as Thornton’s McKee-Chevrolet Mahrya. The unique machine was created in 1961 for the United States Road Racing Championship – a precursor to Can-Am – and was piloted by ex-Indycar…