Indholdsfortegnelse for 12/22/2022 i Autosport

Welcome to Autosport’s traditional annual Top 50 drivers special. It’s now 20 years since we started to assess and rank all the star performers across the motorsport season just gone and it’s fair to say that it doesn’t get any easier, particularly as it has grown from a six-page piece into the 27-page monster you see today (page 17). The aim is to highlight those who have done the best job across the year, with consistency of performance, level of opposition, machinery at their disposal and outstanding moments all part of the criteria. Versatility and shining in adversity are also considered. We’ve tried to spread the joy to acknowledge fine efforts across a range of categories and disciplines, from Formula 1 to Extreme E via GTs, touring cars and rallying.…

FORMULA 1 Saudi Arabia is set to host the Formula 1 season-opener for the first time in 2024 after a change in plan for Australia to regain the slot. It emerged in the announcement that Australia’s F1 contract had been extended by a further two years that the Melbourne circuit would not be hosting the season opener in 2024 as planned following a request by the Saudi organisers to stage their race before Ramadan. Ramadan in 2024 begins on Sunday 10 March in Saudi Arabia and lasts until 8 April, meaning the season would likely kick off at the very start of March. Under its previous agreement, Australia had been due to host the opening race in 2024, but it will now need to wait until 2025 to return to…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE Valentino Rossi will remain in the GT World Challenge Europe with the new-look WRT team now running the BMW M4 GT3 after its departure from Audi. The bike legend will also contest the Bathurst 12 Hour with the team in February. Rossi, who made a full-time switch to four wheels in 2021 aboard a WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, will be partnered in the GTWCE Sprint Cup by BMW returnee Maxime Martin, with veteran Augusto Farfus joining them for the Endurance Cup rounds of the series. The sister car will be driven by new BMW signings Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts, who will be bidding for a fourth consecutive title in the sprints, and in the enduros by DTM champion Sheldon van der Linde.…

Does the World Endurance Championship need another race in the Middle East? That’s the question that needs to be asked after Qatar’s Losail International Circuit was named earlier this month as the opening round of the series in 2024. Yet it’s not an easy one to answer. If you think of the likely make-up of the calendar come 2024, then it’s definitely a no. It doesn’t seem right that the WEC should have two races in a region where there’s limited interest in our sport, and traditional motor racing territories will be missing. And I count South America, Australia and even South Africa among them. Don’t forget that Kyalami was on the 2020-21 schedule that was blown out of the water by COVID. And don’t get me started on the…

“The first victory for Prema at Paul Ricard in the ELMS was important, because it set out our goals for the season, but win number one for me was Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. “Tower arrived there second in all the championships: the drivers’, the teams’ and the Trueman Bronze Cup. We knew the job we had to do and were super-quick in the night. I had a fantastic fight with Juan Pablo Montoya [in the DragonSpeed entry]. I passed him at the restart and pulled away over the final 20 minutes. We’d fallen behind in the pits for some reason and we had to beat him to take all the championships. “I just went out there fighting. It was one of those moments where you are in your…

There’s a lot to be said for taking a title down to the wire and winning it in flamboyant fashion, but that’s simply not Stoffel Vandoorne’s style. Nor has it ever been. There’s a key theme from the titles he won in junior categories that’s present in his latest crowning achievement, and that can be underlined with one word: control. His rekindled approach all stems from his disappointment at losing out on a shot at the title in 2020-21, when his Mercedes team-mate Nyck de Vries claimed it at the final race. Vandoorne pledged that he would leave nothing on the table in the following season. Sure, there were a couple of times over the year when the title lead briefly left Vandoorne’s grasp, but he trusted that it would…

IMSA SPORTSCAR These are exciting times for the IMSA SportsCar Championship. There is a huge wave of optimism for the new-generation GTP cars that will take centre stage in 2023, and in the meantime the DPi era certainly ended on a high note in early October after another thrilling season. Appropriately, the outcome was decided by a straight-up battle between Acura teams Meyer Shank Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing and the respective teams’ standout drivers, Tom Blomqvist and Filipe Albuquerque. Their battle for supremacy waged throughout the season. MSR ended WTR’s streak of three 24-hour wins in the opening event at Daytona, but played second fiddle through the majority of the 10-race season, including an agonising run of second-place finishes. Spectacular late-race passes at Laguna Seca and Watkins Glen by…

SUPER GT The 2022 Super GT season will be remembered as the year when Nissan blew away its rivals with the introduction of the brand-new Z GT500. After two years of struggling with the overdragged Class 1 iteration of the GT-R, Nissan’s new weapon was much more potent in a straight line, but crucially without sacrificing the downforce levels that made its predecessor so strong on certain types of track. In the end, it was Team Impul and the Bridgestone-shod Z of Bertrand Baguette and Kazuki Hiramine that got the job done, but such was the potency of the new package that it could have just as easily been the NDDP Racing car of Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi on Michelin rubber that ended a Nissan barren streak going back…

NASCAR CUP Joey Logano turned out to be one of the few constants in a very unpredictable and especially competitive 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. Logano bookended the year with victories, the Team Penske Ford star kicking off the series debut of the Next Gen car in style and capping it with a dominating win at Phoenix that earned him his second championship. The Next Gen car, which originally was to debut in 2021 but was delayed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, got its first racing action in the pre-season non-points Busch Clash. Logano held off veteran Kyle Busch for the win in the event, which was held on a made-from-scratch quarter-mile asphalt oval built inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was the first time the race had…

eTOURING CAR WORLD CUP The second season of touring car visionary Marcello Lotti’s electric variant was blessed with FIA World Cup status and a muchimproved quality of driver. The FIA ETCR-eTouring Car World Cup – to give it its full rename after its inaugural season as Pure ETCR – has much to commend it once you get past the quirks. For example, the car-sharing format meant that the top two in the final standings never once faced each other on track. In his first season of ETCR, Adrien Tambay claimed the title from 2021 Pure ETCR champion Mattias Ekstrom, whose EKS squad had taken over the running of the works Cupra effort for 2022. The duo dominated their respective ‘pools’ in the first half of the six-round season, with Ekstrom…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN Prema-run Ferrari junior Dino Beganovic stormed to the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine title. The second season since Formula Regional’s merger with the Formula Renault Eurocup was again immensely popular, with the entry list exceeding 35 cars on average. But the success was concentrated among few. Beganovic won a race at each of the first three rounds, and after seven races the Swede held a colossal lead of 65 points. Then a disqualification at the Paul Ricard June round for a hub-flange torque-tightening infringement – which is still rumbling on through the courts – plus a rich vein of form from ART Grand Prix’s Gabriele Mini brought the gap down to nine points after round six of 10. Beganovic’s Mercedes F1-backed team-mate Paul Aron found success…

CMMCS/MSVR A club racer has been given a lifetime motorsport ban after threatening a clerk of the course with a chair and making death threats following an earlier paddock dispute. The matter related to a Classic and Modern Motorsport Club Southern Super Saloons and Tin Tops race at Brands Hatch last month. BMW 318Ti driver Paul Kaynes was left “unnerved”, according to the report of a National Court hearing into the case, by the variable speed of Bernard Baxter’s Audi A3 during the contest and, after the race, Baxter approached Kaynes to explain that there was a problem with his car’s engine cutting out. But Kaynes raised his voice at Baxter and began swearing at him, leaving Baxter’s 10-year-old daughter “visibly upset”. This incident was then investigated by clerk of…

RADICAL Radical has unveiled its all-new SR3 XXR, the latest iteration of its popular SR3 prototype, featuring an improved engine and better handling. The new 1.5-litre motor from in-house Radical Performance Engines produces 232bhp and has been designed so that it can run on biofuel. A number of other tweaks have also been made based on driver feedback, including a new pit limiter fitted as standard and a central tail ‘shark fin’ that improves entry and mid-corner stability. With the improved performance, a new technical partnership with AP Racing has led to an upgraded braking system. “The SR3’s handling is renowned as a masterpiece, so for XXR we took the approach of evolutionary improvements across multiple areas,” said James Pinkerton, Radical’s head of research and development. “We looked at customer…

F1000 This year’s F1000 champion Rob Welham and fellow race winner Tom Gadd will both stick with the 750 Motor Club-run series in 2023, but title rival Matt Booth plans to instead switch to historic racing. Welham secured his first F1000 crown in a nailbiting season finale at Snetterton, where seven drivers went into the event with a chance of the title. The 21-year-old said: “I don’t see a reason to do anything else for now – if something comes up with another formula then it comes up. But F1000 is right for the budget we’ve got and it’ll be the first time after winning a championship I’ve been able to use the number 1 on my car. Another appeal is how competitive it is with so many drivers in…

Following pandemic-devastated 2020 and 2021, in which amateur competitors were trying to regroup, the past 12 months brought unexpected challenges for everybody, not least those rooted in war-torn Ukraine. On a personal level, the passing of my father – who took me to a Silverstone MG Car Club clubbie in 1958, and British Grands Prix in 1967 and 1973, then saw me land a Clubmans podium there in the 1980s – in August had a greater impact than I could have imagined. Drawing positives, I hope the experience enabled me to empathise more closely with friends facing illness and bereavement. I’ve written 32 tributes to fallen racing folk in Autosport this year, most thankfully of a decent age. But it wasn’t entirely an annus horribilis. There were golden memories too.…

10 ROB WELHAM v THE F1000 FIELD Seven drivers went into the finale of one of the UK’s most competitive single-seater categories with a chance of the title Consistency was key to Rob Welham’s title-winning campaign after another wide-open F1000 season (seven drivers had a mathematical chance at Snetterton’s finale). The 18 races were won by six different drivers, with Welham (leading below) taking two victories compared to three for runner-up Matt Booth, five for Tom Gadd and six for outgoing champ Lee Morgan. Gadd’s electrifying pace in Silverstone’s opener was a concern, but he and Morgan suffered mechanical frustrations that cost them dear. 9 BENN SIMMS v GRAHAM FENNYMORE The star drivers from Historic FF2000 last year enjoyed another close fight, with Simms prevailing this time around Historic Formula…

FORMULA E New Maserati recruit Maximilian Guenther headed Formula E’s Valencia testing last week as the Gen3 cars were put through their paces in the first public collective sessions before January’s Mexico season opener. The Bavarian logged the top time on the final day of running in a week when he headed five of the seven timed sessions to underline the early strength of the Stellantis-conceived powertrain used by the Maserati MSG and DS Penske teams. They cumulatively logged 990 laps to demonstrate a solid turn of reliability. Guenther was fastest in all timed sessions on the opening two days and, in a trio of qualifying duel simulations held on Wednesday against DS Penske’s reigning champion Stoffel Vandoorne, he beat the Belgian 2-1. This preceded a 25-lap race simulation, with…

FORMULA 1 Ford has emerged as a surprise candidate for a Formula 1 return in 2026 after being linked to Red Bull’s engine plans. The American manufacturer’s involvement would most likely come from badging Red Bull’s new engine as a Ford, with the team gaining from the kudos of a tie-up with a global player in the car industry. Red Bull’s current partnership with Honda runs until the end of 2025, but the team has been clear that it is open to interest from other manufacturers who may want a tie-up, either as a badging exercise or to offer some technical assistance. Ford was last officially involved in F1 with Jaguar from 2000 to 2004, with very little success. After pulling the plug on the operation, it sold the squad…

OBITUARY Former Autosport editor Andy Hallbery, who has died at the age of 56, was a man who was passionate about motorsport and particularly the people within it. His love of racing came from being brought up watching speedway at Wembley and being taken to grands prix around Europe. He was drawn to the Brabham team and started a fanzine – Cobra – while attending the London College of Printing. This was his calling card in 1986 when he came for an interview for the first step on the Autosport ladder, as editorial assistant. Helping to produce the magazine meant long nights at the typesetters, but Hallbery got to try racing in the Ford Fiesta Challenge, then the Mondello Park 2CV 24 hours. He cut his reporting teeth in the…

Echoes of the past, sound of the future Setting the scene: 1985, European Grand Prix, Brands Hatch, free practice. Spectating from Paddock Hill, with many cars separated on track, I can hear individual cars on the Brabham Straight before seeing them. It took a few laps, but one started to really stand out because the engine note hardly changed. I can only describe it as‘full chant’ for longer than any other, before the briefest lift. I couldn’t work out if there was a gearshift included, as it dived down Paddock Hill back at full chant. Being able to appreciate the individual sound, I realised the black flash of a Lotus was driven by Ayrton Senna. It was the closest I had ever heard a racing engine in full song to…

In 2022, Formula 1 did not gain a new world champion as it did in 2021. But, thanks to Max Verstappen and Red Bull, and plenty of assistance from their vanquished rivals, the championship did collectively witness something new. That was the 15 race wins Verstappen accrued (17 if you count sprints too) across the campaign, breaking the record established by Michael Schumacher in 2004 and shared with Sebastian Vettel since 2013. Not that Verstappen was particularly bothered by the feat, or, at least, so he said publicly. As he closed in on matching the previous record, the Dutchman regularly highlighted how many more races F1 has these days. Although 22 is not really many more than the 19 Vettel completed in 2013, and Lewis Hamilton never got so close…

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AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS Complete and utter dominance. There is no other way to describe what we saw from Shane van Gisbergen in Supercars this year. The Kiwi went into the 2022 season as the overwhelming favourite, so the fact that he ended it as a three-time champion is far from a surprise. But even the most optimistic SVG fans couldn’t have imagined how comprehensively he would thrash the rest of the field. His campaign included 21 victories from the 34 races, breaking the season wins record set by Scott McLaughlin in 2019. And as van Gisbergen himself pointed out when he claimed the record at Bathurst, this time around there weren’t the underlying concerns over parity that dogged the 2019 season and McLaughlin’s early dominance. Van Gisbergen’s 2022 campaign was a…

WORLD RALLYCROSS As if the COVID-19 saga hadn’t been enough, the World Rallycross Championship’s electification and the global componentry-supply crisis meant more delays in 2022. But once it got going it was a familiar story – a fifth WRX crown for Swedish maestro Johan Kristoffersson. Hell in Norway was the venue for the belated dawn of the electric WRX era, and the eight-car field that assembled in mid-August formed the bedrock across the six race weekends. Driving a Volkswagen run by the family Kristoffersson Motorsport team, the eventual champion emerged on top. And, remarkably, he would go on to take the chequered flag first in nine of the 10 finals, although Kristoffersson lost one of his wins at Montalegre to a penalty. The beneficiary at the Portuguese track was Niclas…

W SERIES Another W Series season, another title for Jamie Chadwick. The Briton dominated the Formula 1-supporting all-female championship once more to take her third consecutive title, winning five of the season’s seven races. After missing out on pole at the Miami season opener, Chadwick took the lead off the line and, despite being passed by Emma Kimilainen, emerged victorious from a last-lap shootout after the safety car. She went on to do the double the following day, leading from lights to flag. Chadwick repeated the feat across the following two rounds at Barcelona and Silverstone, finally taking the home win she had been denied in 2019 and 2021. She was fastest in qualifying again at Paul Ricard and started third after a two-place grid penalty, but took the lead…

The Williams FW44 is blasting along the pitstraight at the Red Bull Ring. After sweeping through the rapid final double right-hand sequence that ends the lap, it picks up even more speed powering past the pits and grandstands and heading up the hill to the Turn 1 right. But here, it swings wildly left and traverses the braking zone over the kerbs lining the outside of the track in a way Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi would never do. Autosport is perplexed… “The Esports drivers can run kerbs a lot more aggressively than you would in the real world. And, aside from that, you also wouldn’t do that in a real car because you’d probably break it after 10 laps!” We’re hearing from Michael Preston, an up-and-coming engineering graduate who…

FORMULA FORD 1600 Formula Ford Festival winner Max Esterson has lost his National Court appeal against his penalty in the Walter Hayes Trophy final, meaning Joey Foster has been confirmed as the victor. Esterson had been in impressive form at the Silverstone event last month, winning his heat and semi-final before also crossing the line first in the final. But he was later given a 4.5-second penalty for a tangle with Tom Mills at Luffield that resulted in the Kevin Mills Racing driver taking to the gravel. Mills finished fifth but was promoted to fourth by Esterson’s sanction. Esterson and his Ammonite Motorsport team appealed the decision to the stewards, but were unsuccessful and took the matter to the National Court earlier this month. This also proved fruitless, meaning Foster…

7 RACE SERIES The popular 7 Race Series will be split into three classes for next year, with the 1600 division separated into contests for 270R and 310R models. When the MotorSport Vision Racing-run category first launched in 2017, it featured just one grid before growing interest meant this soon split into standalone races for the 420R and 1600 Caterham machines. If entry numbers continue to grow, it is expected that three distinct grids will be run in the future but, for 2023, the 270Rs and 310Rs will share and have separate starts. “Due to a large number of enquiries from 270R and 310R drivers, we feel our 1600 class will grow and warrant being split into two separate championships,” said series coordinator Sean Bicknell. “The 270Rs will start behind…

STEPHEN LICKORISH GROUP NATIONAL EDITOR The weather may have been memorable for all the wrong reasons – it was bucketing it down – but this wet May day at Brands Hatch was enjoyable in other ways. The incredible machines that feature in the Fastest Mini in the World race really are something very special. And it was fantastic to get up close and personal to them and hear their creators’ brilliant stories. Getting Le Mans winner Nick Tandy’s thoughts on the monsters from behind the wheel was then truly fascinating. Thankfully, the weather was very different for the actual event in August, when the flame-spitting Rollcentre-built V8 of Harvey Death was the class of the field in scorching conditions. STEFAN MACKLEY DEPUTY NATIONAL EDITOR It’s a cliche, but seconds seemed…

George Russell became the 113th driver to win a points-paying World Championship race in Brazil. Autosport has picked some of those who should have also been part of that illustrious club. CHRIS AMON That the Kiwi never won a round is a statistical anomaly up there with Stirling Moss never being crowned world champion. He led 183 laps across seven different races, yet bad luck was never far away. Amon’s visor woes at Monza in 1971 are oft-discussed, but even more galling was leading the first 72 laps of 90 at Mont-Tremblant in 1968 before his Ferrari’s gearbox expired. JAMES NEWBOLD JEAN BEHRA As quick as the best of them on his day, Behra amassed nine podiums from 52 starts, leading 107 laps. There were numerous non-championship F1 wins, but…

Whiter than white? Pull the other one. Formula 1 stars are clearly bowled over as they pad up for the pre-1974 British GP charity cricket match. Back row, from left: Ken Tyrrell, John Watson, Guy Edwards, Mike Hailwood, James Hunt, Graham Hill, Patrick Depailler, Peter Gethin, David Purley and Clay Regazzoni. Front row, from left: Jody Scheckter, Derek Bell, Niki Lauda, Jackie Stewart, Ronnie Peterson, Jochen Mass and Denny Hulme. Note the branding on the pads of Tyrrell and Stewart… As F1 traditions go, this is one we reckon is ripe for revival. Can you imagine? No, probably not. For classic motorsport downloads and DVDs head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

FORMULA 1 Mick Schumacher has joined Mercedes as its Formula 1 reserve driver for the 2023 season after ending his four-year association with Ferrari. Schumacher followed in his father’s footsteps by linking up with Ferrari in 2019 ahead of his rookie season in FIA F2, with his championship victory the following year helping secure an F1 seat at Haas for 2021. Autosport first reported in August that Schumacher was set to lose his Ferrari ties at the end of the year, and be dropped by Haas in favour of Nico Hulkenberg following a difficult second season. Ferrari confirmed Schumacher’s exit from its driver academy last week, swiftly followed by Mercedes announcing the German’s reserve role. He therefore joins the team with which his father Michael made his F1 comeback in…

WRC World Rally Championship legend Sebastien Loeb will not bid to repeat his 2022 Monte Carlo Rally win next month after M-Sport filled its line-up for the event. The Cumbrian squad had been pushing to secure a deal with the nine-time world champion for the season opener, but a combination of factors has scuppered the plan. Loeb’s Dakar Rally commitments with Prodrive’s Bahrain Raid Xtreme squad finish a day before the Monte Carlo Rally recce begins, a much tighter turnaround than this year. M-Sport team boss Richard Millener revealed to Autosport that securing the funding was also a hurdle. It is unclear whether Loeb will contest any WRC events this year with M-Sport after claiming his 80th career win on the 2022 Monte. M-Sport will field three Ford Puma Rally1s…

RACE OF CHAMPIONS Event veterans David Coulthard and Tom Kristensen have joined IndyCar race winner Felix Rosenqvist, World Rally star Thierry Neuville and FIA Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich as the latest batch of names confirmed for next month’s Race of Champions in Sweden. As in 2022, the 28-29 January event will take place at the Pite Havsbad resort in the north of Sweden on a track on the frozen Baltic Sea. Rosenqvist, Neuville and Drugovich will all make their ROC debuts, and the latest influx of names joins Sebastian Vettel, Mika Hakkinen, Valtteri Bottas, Johan Kristoffersson, Solberg father-and-son Petter and Oliver, and Jamie Chadwick. More names are to be announced in the run-up to ROC’s second Swedish visit. “I’m thrilled to finally make my debut in the Race of…

“I would say quite confidently, the toughest race of my life. Maybe it sounds easy and whatever, and people say I’m overexaggerating, but I was in a very bad way at that point.” Anyone who saw Lando Norris or even heard him speak over the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix weekend – a rare thing in the circumstances – understands exactly how tough he had it. Overall, the 2022 season was not what Norris and his McLaren squad had been expecting. McLaren worked on its challenger and gained pace and consistency, but it was never a contender. Only the wet Singapore race and Norris’s Abu Dhabi happy hunting ground allowed the Briton to show his qualities late on, following his Charles Leclerc-gifted Imola podium. So, in a season when success…

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20 Ross Chastain 20th in 2021 NASCAR Cup;7th in 2020 NASCAR Xfinity 34 Felipe Drugovich 8th in 2021 FIA Formula 2Championship;9th in 2020 FIA Formula 2Championship 37 Sheldon van der Linde (below) 11th in 2021 DTM;2nd in 2021 Nurburgring 24 Hours;6th in 2020 DTM;3rd in 2020 Nurburgring 24 Hours 38 Christopher Bell 12th in 2021 NASCAR Cup;20th in 2020 NASCAR Cup 43 Louis Deletraz 1st in 2021 European Le Mans Series;8th in 2020 FIA Formula 2Championship;4th in 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours 47 Tom Ingram 4th in 2021 British Touring CarChampionship;4th in 2020 British Touring CarChampionship 48 Lucas Auer 5th in 2021 DTM;12th in 2020 DTM 50 Mikel Azcona 1st in 2021 TCR Europe;3rd in 2021 Pure ETCR;7th in 2021 World Touring Car Cup;7th in 2020 World Touring Car Cup…

Prema’s prototype premiere EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIES With the power of hindsight, Prema’s charge to a debut season title in the European Le Mans Series bears a significant resemblance to the campaign upon which Team WRT embarked one year earlier. A hugely experienced and successful operation from a different discipline comes into the series and exceeds expectations with a dominant run to the championship in its first year. The trio of Ferdinand Habsburg, Louis Deletraz and Lorenzo Colombo (the Italian replaced for the final two rounds by Juan Manuel Correa returning from injury) appeared to be on a different level for much of the season. They won four out of six races, and beat nearest rival Panis Racing’s trio of Job van Uitert, Nico Jamin and Julien Canal – who…

SUPER FORMULA Honda driver Tomoki Nojiri mounted Super Formula’s first successful title defence in 14 years as he won the title with a race to spare for the second year in a row. The foundation of Nojiri’s success was his unbelievable qualifying record – the Team Mugen man won six of a possible 10 poles – and his unmatched consistency – he was off the podium only twice all season and never finished a race lower than fourth. A Toyota resurgence meant Nojiri had two serious rivals in the first part of the season in the forms of Sacha Fenestraz, who was at the vanguard of a Kondo Racing revival, and perennial contender Ryo Hirakawa, who scored two wins in the first four races for Team Impul. But the turning…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP ‘All good things come to those who wait’ is a mantra that Dylan Pereira would most definitely abide by. It’s hard to imagine that the Luxembourger is still only 25, because 2022 was his seventh full season in the Formula 1-supporting Porsche Supercup, and his sixth with Lechner Racing. And it was a year when he finally became the champion. Pereira started the campaign with a win at Imola, and added further successes at the Red Bull Ring and Spa. But it was what he was doing when he wasn’t winning that was key. In the first seven of eight races he never finished outside the top four, and in the finale at Monza fifth was good enough for that long-awaited title. Closest to Pereira was Larry ten…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE So often over the years, final standings have not painted the whole picture. The data didn’t lie at the end of the 2022 GT World Challenge Europe campaign, though. Two teams dominated, with one man emerging beyond doubt as the best GT3 driver of 2022. Raffaele Marciello picked up the overall series title for the second time, and secured the Endurance Cup crown in dramatic fashion at Barcelona alongside ASP Mercedes team-mates Dani Juncadella and Jules Gounon. Competition throughout the year came from perennial frontrunner Team WRT who, with the trusted Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor, claimed another Sprint Cup title in the Belgian squad’s final season with Audi before switching to BMW for next year. While the Sprint Cup offered a nailbiting season-long scrap between…

WORLD TOURING CAR CUP Mikel Azcona repaid BRC Hyundai for its faith following his big winter transfer from alma mater Cupra. The 26-year-old Spaniard slipped into the seat vacated by newly retired legend Gabriele Tarquini, so the pressure was on – especially when the Italian became his team manager. But Azcona barely broke a sweat as he became Hyundai’s third champion in five years in the World Touring Car Cup. Sadly, he’ll also be the last. The series just couldn’t catch a break, and after a season of turmoil the French promoter decided enough is enough. Plans are forming for a world ranking system for TCR races around the globe, with a World Cup finale to cap the season. But for now, a series that grew out of the old…

STAMP, STAMP, CLAP. STAMP, STAMP, CLAP. When the public address system at Rockingham Motor Speedway near Corby blared out We Will Rock You by Queen in the early 2000s, it spelled doubly good news. Firstly, spectators sitting in the chilly grandstands could start to get circulation back into their feet. Second, it signalled that an ASCAR race was about to begin. The largely unimaginative acronym stood for Anglo-American Stock Car Racing. As implied, this was about importing the NASCAR model. Big names, rivalries, plenty of noise, shunts and lots of turning left. Short-oval racers would graduate to a larger platform, while the audience would be so great and sponsorship money so lucrative that no driver this side of Formula 1 was unobtainable. The opening line of Brian May’s anthem goes:…

OBITUARY The death of Roy Hunt has robbed the 500 Owners Association of not only a stalwart racer but also a lynchpin of the organisation whose members he served diligently as club secretary and registrar. It’s a rare breed of driver who competes long into his eighties, but the ever-competitive Hunt – a renowned engineer who worked on heavy diesel equipment during his career – stoically continued past his 87th birthday! Hunt joined the 500OA in 1989, having repatriated from Germany the intriguing one-off Jason (named after the initials of the months July to November in 1952, when Briton Roney ‘Godfrey’ Messervy built it). A cameo Goodwood competitor in 1956, the Jason was used sparingly in races and speed events before industrialist Messervy became chairman of Lucas Industries in Birmingham…

MOSS IN THE FOX RANKS Harry Moss has been named as Fox Motorsport’s first driver for its Ginetta Junior attack next season. The 14-year-old son of International GT Open runner-up Nick Moss made his car racing debut in the Winter Series with Fox last month prior to contesting the full series in 2023. “I feel so much more aware of what’s needed to succeed now, and a lot more confident in my ability to do it,” he said. FAIRBROTHER’S MINI MOVE Karting graduate Gabe Fairbrother will move to car racing in the Mini Challenge Trophy next year with Excelr8 Motorsport. “I see the Cooper class as the ideal place to go in this next stage of my career and, even though it will be my first season, I’m going into…

This week’s lead national news story (p113) is one that doesn’t exactly reflect the Christmas spirit. Three drivers being investigated in National Courtdisciplinary hearings, with one banned for life after throwing a chair and making death threats towards a clerk of the course, is a depressing snapshot of some of the characters who can be found in national racing. Governing body Motorsport UK is placing renewed emphasis on its Race With Respect campaign, designed to stamp out abusive and unacceptable behaviour in the motorsport community. Yet there have been worryingly high levels of indiscipline away from the track this year, and some questionable driving standards on it. “Motorsport UK demands high standards of behaviour from all participants within the sport to create an accessible and welcoming environment for all,” the…

10 FELIX FISHER CCRC FF1600 Felix Fisher was the ‘nearly man’ of Castle Combe’s super-competitive Formula Ford championship. Tantalisingly close to the crown several times, with numerous race wins to his credit, the ultimate prize always eluded him. Fed up with being the dynasty’s underachiever – brother Josh and late father Brian are triple Combe FF1600 and Special GT champions respectively – Felix dug deeper in 2022. The electrician won six of the 11 rounds, beating two-time FF1600 Combe champion Luke Cooper to the crown. 9 LEWIS THOMPSON BRSCC CATERHAM SEVEN UK Reigning Caterham 310R champion Lewis Thompson graduated to the premier Seven UK championship in 2022, and could have been a title contender had he not missed the opening two rounds while his car was still being built. He…

Nine-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Tom Kristensen is spoiled for choice when it comes to picking a favourite car. He won the world’s most prestigious endurance race five times in an Audi R8, and once each in a TWR Porsche WSC-95, Bentley Speed 8 – which he calls “the most elegant” of the lot – plus the Audi R10 and Audi R18. Then there are his six Sebring 12 Hours wins to consider: two in the R8, and individual successes in the BMW V12 LMR, Audi R10, R15 and R18. It was also the R18 with which he added the accolade of world champion to his CV in the 2013 World Endurance Championship. But the Dane has a surprise in store when Autosport asks him to pick a favourite.…