Indholdsfortegnelse for 12/15/2022 i Autosport

There was a lot of change in Formula 1 this year. The new ground-effects regulations came in – and largely improved the racing; Ferrari became a race-winning force again and Mercedes dropped the ball. There was also much coming and going of drivers, plenty of controversy off track and some great performances on it. One thing that didn’t alter, though, was the world champion. Max Verstappen followed up his controversial first crown in 2021 with a brilliant display that took him to a record-breaking 15 grand prix victories in a single season and a dominant second title (page 17). We explain how all this unfolded and more in our 116-page F1 review special. As well as speaking to the key figures and covering the big moments, Alex Kalinauckas and Matt…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 has confirmed the six locations that will host sprint races in 2023, and that they will run to an unchanged format. Baku (Azerbaijan), the Red Bull Ring (Austria), Spa (Belgium), Losail (Qatar), Austin (USA) and Interlagos (Brazil) will all stage sprints as the concept expands from three races in 2022. Baku, Spa, Losail and Austin will each host a sprint for the first time since the introduction of the format in 2021. The Red Bull Ring hosted its maiden sprint this year, while Interlagos has been one of the most successful sprint tracks through its events in 2021 and 2022. Imola has been dropped from the sprint roster after hosting its first one back in April, while Qatar gets the nod upon its return to the…

FORMULA E Formula E’s 2023 calendar will consist of 16 races and has been completed with the addition of a round in Portland, Oregon to ensure the United States remains on the schedule. The US has hosted an FE round in every season barring the COVID-hit 2019-20 championship, with New York’s Brooklyn Street Circuit holding all of the American races since 2016-17. Miami and Long Beach also held races in Formula E’s first two seasons. Renovations at the Red Hook Cruise Terminal meant that New York was unable to host a round in 2023, and Formula E considered options to double up with an IndyCar round to ensure that the US stayed on the calendar. It is understood that St Petersburg in Florida was considered as a possible venue. Instead,…

SUPER FORMULA Red Bull junior Liam Lawson has had his move to Super Formula confirmed and hopes to use it as a springboard to a Formula 1 seat for 2024. The Kiwi was named by Honda this week at Team Mugen alongside reigning two-time champion Tomoki Nojiri. After getting his first SF miles under his belt in last week’s rookie test at Suzuka, the 20-year-old is hoping that next year’s new aerodynamic package will help level the playing field and allow him to impress, as Pierre Gasly did in 2017. “I’m only here for one reason, and I’m in a great position with the right team,” he said. “So the goal is to be fighting for the championship.” Lawson’s Mugen drive effectively comes at the expense of Ukyo Sasahara, who…

SPORTSCARS Dan Harper has become a fully fledged BMW driver after three seasons on the manufacturer’s junior programme. The 22-year-old was announced last week as part of an expanded 20-man BMW roster along with fellow members of the scheme Neil Verhagen and Max Hesse. Their promotion to full factory status comes after a successful pair of seasons racing GT3 machinery, including victories on Nurburgring Nordschleife and a fifth place in the Spa 24 Hours. A programme for Harper and his team-mates of 2020-22 hasn’t been announced, but expect more of the same with a campaign centred on the Nurburgring 24 Hours and another on GT World Challenge Europe. “This is what BMW were aiming for and the three of us were hoping for when our programme started,” said Harper (below),…

It must feel as if Christmas has come early for M-Sport, because months of negotiations have finally yielded the present they all wanted: the signing of 2019 World Rally champion Ott Tanak. His rejoining the Ford squad that launched his WRC career will have prompted a collective sigh of relief, not only from an M-Sport team looking to bounce back from a disappointing 2022, but also from the Estonian’s legions of supporters, the WRC and rally fans across the globe. It was a homecoming deal that at times looked unlikely to ever come to fruition. “I think there were a good few months where it was like, ‘It’s good to hear you are interested, but there’s no chance we can make that work and I have no idea how we…

10 Esteban Ocon RE-ENTRY His 2022 can probably be summed up as ‘enigmatic’. There was no victory this time, but Ocon still produced some stunning performances. Yet too many were forgettable – and then there was his part the intra-Alpine war in Brazil. A theme to watch in 2023… But before getting there, assessing Ocon’s 2022 goes like this: he beat Alonso by 11 points and led their qualifying head-to-head 10-9 (with Alpine’s reliability issues removed), but also had fewer retirements and lacked his team-mate’s Q3 stunners in Canada and (to a lesser extent) Australia and Singapore. In Ocon’s qualifying efforts, particularly in the mid-season run, he struggled taming his A522’s loose rear and on many occasions across the whole season he lacked Alonso’s relentless race pace. Plus, there were…

Fallible pitstops, fragile power units and falling behind Red Bull in the development race put Ferrari under immense scrutiny. But Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz do not escape the year without blame. Think of Max Verstappen gaffes in 2022, and errors that still prefaced wins in Spain and Hungary come to mind. As for the Mercedes pair, both notably shunted in Q3 in Austria, but those were blamed on the bucking W13 rather than slam-dunk driver errors. The scarlet duo, though, were firmly at fault in a string of high-profile spills. Sainz’s struggles to master the twitchy F1-75 for the first third of the campaign led to him careering across the grass in Australia and beaching it in the gravel. The back end again breaking free during a greasy Imola…

Fernando Alonso shouted loudest, so it was he who was heard. The two-time champion is no stranger to a soundbite and knows exactly how to stir the pot. In 2022, that came in the form of calling out Alpine for its unreliability. His best embellishment arrived following an electrical gremlin that prevented him from contesting July’s sprint race in Austria. At the start of his TV media pen duties, he reckoned already that the fragility had cost him 50 points. When he was speaking to the written press a few minutes later, that had climbed as high as 70. A similar figure was offered after he retired in Singapore with a Renault power unit failure. If the A522 had proved that little bit more robust, then there wouldn’t have been…

Four days after Sebastian Vettel announced his Formula 1 retirement, Aston Martin named Fernando Alonso as his replacement. Alonso, who was allowed to test the AMR22 at the post-season Abu Dhabi test, had grown frustrated with Alpine’s relatively poor pace, its reliability issues, and its reluctance to offer the long-term deal he desired. But his decision to jump ship had a much bigger impact at Alpine, which thought it had three drivers competing for two 2023 seats and ended up needing Pierre Gasly to be released by AlphaTauri to partner Esteban Ocon. This was because junior category star Oscar Piastri had somehow slipped through its net. After Alpine announced its intention for the Australian to replace Alonso, without his words in a press release, he made it clear on Twitter…

Max Verstappen Belgian GP (1st) The champion delivered seven or eight drives that were right out of the top drawer. Even then, Spa stands clear – the man himself rates it as his best work. While Ferrari had wound down its engine, and the Red Bull RB18 had been on a crash diet over the summer, Max Verstappen was independently astonishing. The hybrid-era host of tactical grid penalties duly arrived at this circuit, where overtaking to offset the pain is more plentiful. Despite smashing pole by 0.6s, Verstappen was relegated to 14th on the grid and all set for a day of damage limitation. But after gaining three places by the exit of La Source, Verstappen began picking off his remaining colleagues with ease. The pressure of the pursuing Charles…

The Volkswagen Scirocco R-Cup that supported DTM from 2010 to 2014 is unlikely to be remembered among the greatest one-make saloon car categories. But it was the crucial stepping stone on two-time Nurburgring 24 Hours winner Kelvin van der Linde’s journey from South Africa to becoming an Audi factory GT driver and securing his younger brother Sheldon’s passage to Europe – which this year culminated in the DTM title. When Autosport sits down with the DTM’s first family in the Schubert Motorsport truck at the Nurburgring to discuss their careers to date, there are still three more race weekends before Sheldon’s coronation. But, arguably, their greatest battle has already been won. Despite their racing lineage, with father Shaun winning the domestic touring car title for BMW in 1994 and uncle…

BRITISH GT Will Tregurtha and Mark Sansom have become the first driver pairing confirmed for the 2023 British GT Championship, after joining Barwell Motorsport to drive a new Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. Pro-Am pairing Tregurtha, the 2017 British GT4 champion, and Sansom competed in this year’s championship at the wheel of an Assetto Motorsport-run Bentley Continental GT3, but struggled with the development of the car and failed to reach the overall podium. Barwell has become one of the most successful teams in British GT, and ran the 2020 and 2021 drivers’ title winners. “I think to be on the grid with one of, if not the, most successful British GT team in a brand-new Lamborghini is probably going to be the best seat in the house,” said Tregurtha. “That’s massively…

TRUCKS The International Truck Prix is due to be held at Donington Park next year alongside a regular round of the British Truck Racing Championship. The Donington Convoy in the Park meeting on 12-13 August will feature nine truck races in total, with an additional four contests making up the International event, which is set to include a mix of British and European drivers. The FIA European Truck Racing category used to visit Donington, but has not appeared in the UK since 2012. British series organisers have been working on plans to get European drivers back. “This has been something we have wanted to do for a while and, thanks to the support and hard work of so many behind the scenes, we can now make it a reality –…

NEW BOARD MEMBERS There have been two new appointments to Motorsport UK’s board of directors. Sport England chief strategy officer and former senior Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport civil servant Nick Pontefract and Katrina-May Kwan – who holds several diversity and inclusion roles – have both joined the board. Meanwhile, former women in motorsport committee chair Helen Bashford-Malkie has stepped down. MORE HSCC MODSPORTS The Historic Sports Car Club’s fledgling Historic Modsports and Special Saloons series will expand to a six-date calendar next year. Three trial events were held for the category this season, attracting a handful of entries, and the increased schedule comes after dozens of enquiries from drivers with eligible cars. Two 20-minute races will be held at each meeting for the pre-1980 machines. BRITISH RX…

It’s not often that a top racing driver uses the word ‘discombobulating’. In fact, few have the vocabulary to venture much further than ‘confusing’. So, it’s just as well that it’s a racesuit-clad dictionary of the calibre of all-time British Touring Car wins record holder Jason Plato who’s been asked to do something a bit, well, discombobulating. Plato, you see, was asked along to the Dunsfold test track back in the summer to try the Team Brit McLaren 570S GT4 that has been competing in the British GT Championship. Team Brit is the operation that gives chances to drivers with disabilities. Plato’s task was to get to grips with the machine while using hand controls. “I’ve followed their exploits with a bit of interest because one of their sponsors is…

DOCUMENTARY SERIES LUCKY! With all the commotion about a certain Netflix release that hit the screens in recent years, docuseries are quite the thing at the moment. So it’s timely that the latest offering from BAFTA-winning Senna writer and producer Manish Pandey should drop at Christmas on Discovery+ and other platforms internationally. Having dominated Formula 1 for more than 40 years, Bernie Ecclestone was moved aside in 2017 as Liberty Media stamped its ownership on grand prix racing. But now Ecclestone, 92, is having his say. As the sole protagonist of this new eight-part series, written and directed by Pandey, Ecclestone tells his story from 1950 up to the fateful day in 2017, when Liberty’s newly installed F1 CEO Chase Carey gave him his marching orders after more than 35…

FORMULA 1 Ferrari has named Frederic Vasseur as its new Formula 1 boss in place of Mattia Binotto, confirming one of the worst-kept secrets in the paddock. But a bigger shock arrived on Tuesday when McLaren announced the departure of Andreas Seidl as its team principal. He is replacing Vasseur as CEO of Sauber after a chaotic few days of team principal merry-go-round. Executive director of racing Andrea Stella has replaced Seidl as McLaren team principal. Reports first emerged ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale that Binotto was set to leave Ferrari and be replaced by Vasseur. The team claimed at the time that these were “totally without foundation”, only for Binotto’s resignation to be confirmed at the end of last month. Confirmation that Vasseur would be…

LE MANS 24 HOURS A minimum of 15 grid spots will be reserved for LMP2 cars at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2024. That was the commitment laid down last week by race organiser and World Endurance Championship promoter the Automobile Club de l’Ouest as the series moves towards a two-class structure. The ACO has stopped short of saying that LMP2 will be dropped from the WEC after next season, but it stated that interest in the Hypercar class and new-for-2024 LMGT3 category will “result in some rational adjustments to the grid”. It explained it may have to “restrict admission to the WEC to Hypercar and LMGT3 challengers from 2024” to accommodate the number of entries it is expecting. “Irrespective of this decision, LMP2 remains crucial to endurance and…

WEC A new fixture at the Losail circuit in Qatar will kick off the 2024 World Endurance Championship in place of the Sebring 1000 Miles. But the WEC fixture on the bill of the 12-hour IMSA SportsCar Championship round could continue as the North American round of the series beyond next year. The WEC has signed a six-year contract to race at the Losail International Circuit. That deal calls for what will be a six-hour race to be the season-opener in the same way as the venue’s agreement with MotoGP has made it the traditional curtain-raiser to the two-wheel season since 2007. The track also hosted a Formula 1 Qatar GP in 2021 (above) and will do so again next year. WEC’s initial five-year contract with Sebring will come to…

“I am ready to deliver something special from my side and I expect the same from them.” Never change, Fernando Alonso. Though that’s not likely from a 41-year-old Formula 1 mainstay still searching, relentlessly, for a third world title. ‘Relentless’. It’s surely the word most associated with Alonso – a character famous for his demanding nature, which extends to those around him, including those who will now work with him at Aston Martin. It’s quite the F1 tale. And the next chapter in Alonso’s storied career is set to roll out, following his shock decision to abandon Alpine, the squad with which he took his two world titles nearly 20 years ago. Before he left to drive an unbranded AMR22 in the post-season test, he faced the media in Abu Dhabi,…

“Desperately disappointing.” There aren’t many Formula 1 squads that would feel this way after securing a season-opener podium. But, as team director of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin tells Autosport, that was precisely Mercedes’ reaction to Lewis Hamilton’s third place in Bahrain, behind the two Ferrari drivers. To call it a shock would be something of an understatement. F1’s dominant squad, the constructors’ champion for eight straight years, had been humbled, needing both Red Bulls to drop out with fuel-pump failures in order to make the rostrum. “The damn thing doesn’t work.” This was Hamilton’s response when he drove the now-infamous W13 in Mercedes’ pre-season shakedown at Silverstone four weeks earlier, the seven-time world champion left with “a feeling when I first drove the car” that it was not a regular…

Despite the desire for a ground-effects shake-up to produce more underdog success, the class of 2022 stacked neatly into three piles. Of the 75 podium places on offer, drivers from Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes notched 74 of them. It was left to Alpine and McLaren to scrap for ‘best-of-the-rest’ bragging rights. And more than 100 points adrift of the Class B protagonists came the other five: Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Haas, AlphaTauri and Williams. Fifth for Valtteri Bottas at Imola secured Alfa Romeo sixth in the standings on countback as it tied with Aston on 55 points. That was well above internal expectations, especially since the C42 was slowest in testing, low on mileage and constantly breaking down. At least it was light on its toes. It was one…

Zhou Guanyu may have been well-prepared by modern-day standards for his rookie Formula 1 season thanks to his private testing with Alpine and three years in F2. Yet nothing could have prepared him for the challenges and surprises that came his way. He faced racist abuse in the wake of his announcement at Alfa Romeo; he found a car that could do no more than three laps without breaking due to porpoising; and he had the most dramatic crash of the season at Silverstone when his car flipped over and ended up behind a tyre wall. But Zhou came through all of it having proved his critics wrong, raised his stock and established his place in F1. When Zhou sat down with Autosport ahead of the summer break, he summed…

“The higher you rise, the sharper the knives. The quickest way to become unpopular in this paddock is to win consistently.” Christian Horner is no stranger to Formula 1’s political jousting. During his 17-year stint as Red Bull’s team principal, he has outlasted and often outfoxed his competitors. But even he conceded that 2022 had proven to be one of the toughest seasons yet off-track through the various political battles. “We’ve firmly had a target on our back this year,” says Horner. “We’re a race team. We’re not a political organisation. We just focus on going racing.” The ‘we’re just a race team’ card is one that Horner has played before, most notably in the wake of the Abu Dhabi controversy 12 months ago, when Mercedes arrived at Yas Marina…

For a while, the 2022 Formula 2 season looked like being a hard-fought battle for the title between pre-season favourite Theo Pourchaire and surprise contender Felipe Drugovich. Pourchaire (below), long since touted as the next French F1 hopeful, was gunning to take the title at his second attempt with ART Grand Prix after becoming the series’ youngest ever race winner in 2021. But up against him was Drugovich (above), now in his third year in F2 and back with MP Motorsport, a team that had never won a title at this level. Each had a promising start to the season. Pourchaire won the feature race at the Bahrain opener; his Brazilian rival did the same the following weekend in Jeddah. Pourchaire fought back next time out at Imola, winning the…

This year’s event was different like no other. Firstly, the event hosted the opening round of the FIA ETCR – eTouring Car World Cup. The 100% electric car race was powered by hydrogen supplied by the city of Pau and generated by Hyundai’s HTWO Hydrogen fuel cell generator. Secondly, for the World Touring Cup, French Formula 4 and other categories competing there was a major shift. The racing teams were asked to ‘green’ the races. The time for sustainable low-carbon fuels had arrived with a coordinated effort between the festival organisers, racing teams, fuel companies and new sponsors, which all shared the same passion to create a stage for the public to see sustainable low-carbon fuels in action. And this year’s festival attracted more than 100,000 spectators. A FESTIVAL OF…

CSCC The Classic Sports Car Club will run a special ‘24-hour race’ at Anglesey next summer that will adopt a similar format to the Le Mans Classic. Instead of being one continuous race across 24 hours, it will be split into sessions for six groups of cars. Each will race four times for 40 minutes across the 1-2 July event, as well as having a familiarisation session during the darkness on Saturday night. This gives three and a half of hours of track time in total for each group, including qualifying. The race will be open to all cars eligible for CSCC series, with one or two drivers/cars allowed per team, and the gaps at the end of each session will be carried forward to give the final results. It…

GB4 Fiesta Junior champion Sid Smith will move into the GB4 Championship next season with Fox Motorsport. The 16-year-old secured six victories among 15 podiums en route to the junior title, and also competed in three rounds of Ginetta Junior this season with Fox. He becomes the team’s second driver for the 2023 GB4 season, with Liam McNeilly already confirmed with the squad. “I’m so excited to step up to GB4 next year,” said Smith, son of Le Mans 24 Hours class winner Rob. “It’s a totally new challenge for me and one I can’t wait for. Racing a single-seater will be totally different to either the Ginetta or the Fiesta.” Also confirmed for GB4 next season is Dylan Hotchin, a former Fiesta Junior and senior driver who will compete…

DENNING WINS IRISH AWARD Mini Challenge runner-up Alex Denning has been named as Motorsport Ireland’s Young Racing Driver of the Year winner and has secured €50,000 towards his budget for next season. Among the other award winners during last week’s ceremony were Junior British Rally champion Eamonn Kelly as the Young Rally Driver of the Year – he will also receive €50,000. Dominant British Formula 4 champion Alex Dunne picked up the International Driver of the Year trophy. GRAVETT JR’S BTCC TEST Mini Challenger racer Bradley Gravett is the latest recruit to Excelr8 Motorsport’s British Touring Car driver development programme and will sample the team’s Hyundai BTCC challenger next year. Gravett, the son of 1990 BTCC champion Robb, joined the squad for the final two rounds of this year’s Mini…

F1000 Formula Vee champion Craig Pollard has confirmed a move to the 750 Motor Club’s F1000 Championship in 2023 after acquiring the ex-Ben Powney car from Team Sellars Racing. Pollard had been expected to defend his Vee title in the all-conquering WEV he acquired for the 2022 season from designer and former champion Graham Gant, while also exploring occasional overseas monoposto outings. But the 29-year-old from Bury St Edmunds has now had a change of plan: “I went to the 750 finals at Snetterton and the F1000s were there – things moved pretty quickly once we got talking to Ben and TSR. “It’s a really well sorted car and it gives us options in the future to try a few monoposto-type events overseas, but for 2023 the focus will be…

HISTORICS British Touring Car Championship racer Adam Morgan and his father Russell are to compete regularly in historic tin-tops next season as the start of an expansion into the field by the family Ciceley Motorsport team. The squad announced last month that it was leaving the BTCC and will focus on historic racing, while Morgan will remain in the series via a switch to official BMW team West Surrey Racing. Ciceley took its bow in the Historic Sports Car Club’s Historic Touring Car finale at Silverstone in October with a Ford Mustang acquired from classic specialist Oselli. Morgan Jr finished second in the Saturday race, before his father, an ex-rally ace who also raced Caterhams and in the Renault Spider Cup, drove it on the Sunday. Ciceley is also preparing…

This was a very significant year for Team Brit as the squad stepped up to British GT. The undoubted highlight was Bobby Trundley and Aaron Morgan’s overall GT4 podium at Spa, but it was not the team’s only notable achievement of 2022. Chris Overend and James Whitley also made history by winning the Britcar Trophy title – in their first season of racing. Overend, who uses a wheelchair as a result of development dysplasia of the hips, was looking at hand controls for a simulator when he came across Team Brit. “I think I played the video with the [hand-controlled] Aston Martin about 50 times!” he recalls. It was a similar story for Paralympic skier Whitley – who was born without fully formed hands – and also contacted the team…

Ludovico Scarfiotti (driving) and Lorenzo Bandini celebrate their dominant victory in the 1963 Le Mans 24 Hours, their works Ferrari 250 P having crossed the line with a 16-lap advantage. The #21’s sister car shared by John Surtees and Willy Mairesse had led for 15 hours, but a fire caused by spilt fuel mid-morning on Sunday handed the position to the Italian duo, who headed home a Ferrari 1-2-3-4-5-6 – a mix of privateer and factory GTs and prototypes. From 49 starters, just 14 cars made the finish in a race notable for several nasty accidents, the most serious of which took the life of Brazilian racer Christian Heins. For classic downloads and DVDs head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

WRC Ott Tanak, the 2019 World Rally champion, will spearhead M-Sport’s attack next season after securing a deal to reunite with the Ford squad. Tanak was facing an uncertain future after electing to leave Hyundai at the end of this season, with a year remaining on his contract. The 35-year-old told media that a sabbatical from the WRC was among his options for next year, while linked with returns to both Toyota and M-Sport. After discussions that lasted for several months, M-Sport and Tanak have finally reached agreement for the 17-time WRC event winner to rejoin the team where his WRC career began in 2011, and where he scored his first victory in 2017. He then joined Toyota, where he won the title, prior to linking up with Hyundai in…

The future of top-level sportscar racing arrived at Daytona last week when the new LMDh challengers, which will race in the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s GTP class, took to the track together in a test. Porsche (main picture), Acura, BMW and Cadillac all put miles on their machinery ahead of the circuit’s blue-riband 24 Hours next month. Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that Porsche’s customer 963s will not be available to teams until multiple races into the World Endurance and IMSA seasons. Jota and Proton are set to get their chassis in time for WEC round three at Spa at the end of April, and JDC-Miller and Proton (which is running cars in both series) for the Laguna Seca IMSA round in May. P14 DAWN OF A NEW ERA…

STOCK CARS Ex-Formula 1 star Rubens Barrichello won his second Brazilian Stock Car title last Sunday at Interlagos, eight years after his first. The first race was won by Felipe Baptista ahead of Daniel Serra and Barrichello, with the top 10 reversed on the grid for race two. Barrichello made a slower start than Serra, and they were side by side with Gabriel Casagrande in the first part of the Senna Esses. Barrichello’s Full Time Sports Toyota Corolla then spun after a slight touch with Serra, while Casagrande got squeezed on the outside. Casagrande returned to the track dangerously and hit three-time champion Serra, who was forced to retire, ending his title chances. Barrichello now had to score points and wait for a bad result for Casagrande, who was eventually…

DTM Tentative plans for the DTM’s post-ITR era were laid out last week when new owner the ADAC revealed its 2023 calendar and how the series will sit within its pyramid. The DTM will keep its existing single-driver, sprint-race format in 2023, but there are significant changes on the technical side as Pirelli takes over from Michelin as the tyre supplier and AVL is dropped as the series’ Balance of Performance partner in favour of GT3 originator SRO. Six of the eight rounds will take place in Germany, and another at the Red Bull Ring in German-speaking Austria. Portimao and Spa (above) fall off the calendar. Zandvoort, back for the first time since 2018, is the only truly international race in a move welcomed by teams as a cost-saving measure.…

The future of sportscar racing in Europe has witnessed a tantalising drip-drip of Le Mans Hypercars from Toyota, Glickenhaus, Peugeot, Ferrari and Vanwall, but across the pond in America the LMDh era arrived with a big bang at Daytona last week as Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche all hit the track together for the first time. The Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) division will form the top class of the IMSA SportsCar series, which kicks off with the series’ marquee event, the Daytona 24 Hours at the end of January. Cadillac and Porsche will also run these cars in the FIA World Endurance Championship, as they chase the biggest sportscar race of all – the Le Mans 24 Hours in its centenary year. So what does the future look like? Well…

Bahrain GP 1 Leclerc 2 Sainz 3 Hamilton A new season and a new era begin with a blockbuster. Ferrari confirms it’s a true title contender again, and for three laps Leclerc is content to strategically lose track position to Verstappen only to surge back past with DRS for victory. The Dutchman begins his title defence with a non-score as both Red Bulls retire with fuel-pump issues in the closing stages. Saudi Arabian GP 1 Verstappen 2 Leclerc 3 Sainz A nearby missile strike dominates the headlines prior to another DRS duel. Polesitter Perez is hampered by an ill-timed safety car interlude that tees up his team-mate. By now, Verstappen has spent nearly two full races staring at the back of Leclerc’s Ferrari, so checks his pace to gain DRS…

Ferrari finds itself in need of a new team principal. That’s how badly the wheels fell off its oh-so-promising title challenge. Perplexing strategy and the legacy of ruinous unreliability were the main culprits in a highly anticipated chess match giving way to a Red Bull monopoly. The goalposts moved for the Prancing Horse when its svelte F1-75 initially came up trumps. It was lighter than its rivals out of the blocks. That agility paid off handsomely at lower speeds and enabled strong corner-exit driveability to fire it rapidly onto the straights to keep the Red Bull RB18 and its higher top speed at bay. Although the boardroom-level expectation had been for Ferrari to be a regular race winner in 2022, a victory for Charles Leclerc in Bahrain and his utter…

The Mercedes W13 ended up with 16 other podiums in addition to George Russell’s Brazil triumph(s). By the summer, it didn’t need the Red Bulls or Ferraris to retire to get there, the package was a factor on merit if those drivers didn’t extract the maximum or their teams made strategy errors – a key factor in Lewis Hamilton’s run of five straight podiums from Canada to Hungary. There, Russell started from Mercedes’ sole 2022 pole. On paper, Mercedes completed a ‘McLaren 2009’ turnaround, but the reality is that such comparisons were never really on. For a start, McLaren started off in the lower levels of the grid with its MP4-24 and it wasn’t until Hamilton won in Hungary that it even scored a podium. Mercedes managed that from the…

As Formula 1 silly season started to simmer through the summer, Nyck de Vries was not a name at the forefront for a seat. Even with titles in Formula 2 and Formula E, the Dutchman appeared to have missed the Formula 1 boat, especially at the grand old age of 27. But while having coffee in the Mercedes motorhome on the Saturday of the Italian GP, de Vries’s career took a dramatic turn. Overnight, Alex Albon had come down sick and was left in need of surgery on his appendix, prompting Williams to give the call to de Vries and draft him in as a supersub. The slippery Williams FW44 was perfectly suited to Monza’s high-speed layout, yet de Vries had just FP3 to get up to speed ahead of…

* ACCURATE AS OF 5 DECEMBER 2022 1 Formula 1’s porpoising problem gets political Porpoising was the biggest headache with the new F1 cars and how to solve it became the early tech talking point. Solutions were examined by the FIA, including allowing teams to use a second metal stay that Mercedes became quickest to roll out, to the fury of its rivals. Rideheight increases and an FIA porpoising metric, plus teams solving the issue, ensured the sore point settled down. 2 Vettel retires, Alonso comes in at Aston Martin Sebastian Vettel dropped the F1 driver market bombshell of the season when he announced his retirement on the eve of the Hungarian GP. Aston Martin acted fast, blindsiding Alpine to snap up Fernando Alonso as the German’s replacement from 2023. That triggered…

Victor Martins (top right) was always the favourite for the FIA Formula 3 title. He was the highest-placed returning driver from 2021 – when he was fifth – and a move to ART Grand Prix appeared to boost his chances. It was evident from the opening round that the Frenchman was capable of it, winning the Bahrain feature race from third on the grid. He took another podium in the following Imola event’s sprint, had less luck in the feature, then was back on top at Barcelona with another victory. He failed to score another win from there, but podiums at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring kept the scores high. Even so, younger Frenchman Isack Hadjar was applying serious pressure to Martins, and a poor showing at Spa left…

INTERCONTINENTAL GT CHALLENGE YAS MARINA (ARE) 11 DECEMBER ROUND 4/4 Antonio Fuoco, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi led home an AF Corse Ferrari 1-2 in the Gulf 12 Hours at Yas Marina, while GruppeM Racing’s Daniel Juncadella clinched the Intercontinental GT Challenge title despite his Mercedes being forced into early retirement. The race started in a slightly unusual fashion, with many of the leading contenders opting to make the first of their 10 mandatory pitstops in the opening minutes. After locking out the front row in qualifying, GruppeM brought both of its Mercedes-AMG GT3s in at the end of lap one, with Kelvin van der Linde (Team Tresor Audi) taking the lead before heading for the pits two laps later. Pier Guidi also made an early stop in his…

AUDI TT CUP The British Racing & Sports Car Club has reported a surge of interest in its new Audi TT Cup Racing series for 2023, meaning it will be given standalone grids. The new concept, created by rollcage manufacturer SW Motorsports, was launched in October. It is designed to be a low-cost series that BRSCC bosses believe will sit between entry-level contests such as the BMW Compact Cup or MX-5 Championship and higher categories like TCR UK. A comprehensive parts kit has been developed that allows Mk2 TTs to be built for just £12,000, and this is proving popular with competitors. “We’ve got nearly 30 cars in build,” said BRSCC chairman Peter Daly. “It’s a great concept, especially when you look at the engine and gearbox. The expensive parts…

GOODWOOD MEMBERS’ MEETING A new race celebrating the 60th anniversary of the launch of the Lotus Cortina is among a raft of changes to the Goodwood Members’ Meeting line-up for 2023. Next year’s 80th Members’ Meeting also coincides with the Sussex circuit celebrating 75 years since it first opened. Among the contests at the 15-16 April fixture will be the Jim Clark Trophy for Lotus Cortinas, with around 30 cars expected to take part in a race due to feature “some of the event’s VIP drivers”. A host of other races will return to the timetable from the 2021 roster that missed this year’s 79th meeting, including the SF Edge Trophy for Edwardian cars, the Moss Trophy for 1958-62 GTs, the Gurney Cup for 1960s sportscars and the Salvadori Cup…

OBITUARY Everybody who tested or competed at ‘the Home of British Motor Racing’ from the late 1960s knew pioneering safety crusader ‘Silverstone Syd’ Herbert, who died of cancer on 9 December, aged 89. In the 1950s, Herbert raced a 500cc Formula 3 Kieft as a contemporary of Stirling Moss, by his own admission at the opposite end of the grid. A spell in the 750 Motor Club’s 1172 Formula, then rallying a Mini Cooper S, concluded his sporting CV. Herbert joined the British Motor Racing Marshals’ Club (now BMMC) in the 1960s, and was among the members who formed Silverstone’s emergency services team. Fifteen years with the London Ambulance Service brought contacts to procure its first ambulance and the training and experience to attend incidents as first responder. Within three…

British Drag Racing Championship In 2022, Andy Robinson won the Motorsport UK British Drag Racing Championship for the eighth time in the 15 seasons completed since Pro Modified became the championship class. As a measure of Robinson’s ascendancy, twice-champion Kevin Slyfield is the only other competitor to have won it more than once. After two races, the Netherlands’ Michel Tooren and Britain’s Nick Davies led the way, with Robinson’s new Chevrolet Camaro still in development mode after making its debut late in the previous year. Tooren’s challenge subsequently faded and a health issue forced Davies to miss September’s two concluding events. Robinson’s Camaro hit its stride in July’s third race, snatching a narrow win over Bobby Wallace in a final-round match that would set the tone for the rest of…

The BMW M3 that gave Bruno Spengler a long-awaited first DTM title in 2012 is an obvious pick as his favourite car. Following several near-misses, the Canadian drove his Schnitzer-run M3 to victory in four of that year’s 10 rounds to secure BMW a DTM title at the first time of asking after 20 years away. It was also the perfect start to life at his new employer, after joining the Bavarian manufacturer from rival Mercedes. Spengler had spent seven years with the Three-Pointed Star in the DTM, six of those with the leading HWA squad, twice finishing runner-up and twice more placing third. Joining a brand-new programme was a clear gamble, despite sweeping regulation changes including a new common chassis and ECU, which theoretically levelled the playing field. He…