Indholdsfortegnelse for 01/02/18 i Autosport

IT’S OBVIOUS THAT MAX VERSTAPPEN WILL, GIVEN half a chance, battle for many Formula 1 world championships. Even Lewis Hamilton has said he’ll need to “raise his game” to stay ahead of the Dutch star. But it’s far too early to write off Daniel Ricciardo. Red Bull’s ‘other’ driver is still only 28 and, as he tells Lawrence Barretto in this week’s cover piece, the Australian believes he knows how to beat Verstappen. Ricciardo has been one of F1’s best performers over the past four seasons and did outscore his team-mate in 2017. He’ll be hard-pushed to do so again this season, but the (so-far-friendly) rivalry at Red Bull will be one of the most fascinating stories of 2018, particularly if the car is good enough to allow them to…

DROPPED RED BULL JUNIOR Richard Verschoor continued to impress in the Toyota Racing Series by winning last weekend’s New Zealand Motor Cup headline final race at Hampton Downs. The 17-year-old Dutchman, who will continue in the Formula Renault Eurocup this season, dominated the weekend on pace – he grabbed both pole positions and took two wins. Verschoor led all the way in the first race on Saturday. Marcus Armstrong got the jump on front row starter Juan Manuel Correa, but worrying water temperatures forced the Kiwi to play it safe in second. Correa fended off Robert Shwartzman to secure a top-four lockout for M2 Competition. In the NZ Motor Cup climax, Verschoor (left of pic) again led from lights to flag, although series leader Armstrong (right) kept the pressure on,…

CITROEN DOESN’T NEED SEBASTIEN Ogier, an increased budget or more testing. What it needs is the people in the team to back themselves to be more efficient and more productive. And it needs serenity. That was the view of PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares at last week’s Monte Carlo Rally. Tavares waved away talk of budget cuts and missed opportunities to sign Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen for the World Rally Championship, and said he would stick to the sort of policies that helped him turn Citroen around as a company. “If you give a team the biggest pot of money and the biggest drivers, everything is high, high, high, but what’s the merit?” said Tavares, a former amateur touring car racer. “The merit is in the fact you create a…

RED BULL BOSS CHRISTIAN HORNER says one of the reasons he believes Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo form the best line-up in Formula 1 is that they both have a high level of respect for each other. Both appear to recognise the other’s ability and, so far, have been willing to admit when they have made a mistake or the other has done a better job. Ricciardo says Verstappen is the strongest team-mate he has had in his career, better than four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, and Verstappen reciprocates. “Yes, I think [he is the strongest team-mate I’ve had in my career],” says Verstappen. “He has a lot of experience in F1 and he has already settled down a bit. “He also has a lot of experience in racing in general,…

LAMBORGHINI CLAIMED A MAIDEN 24-hour race victory with the Huracan GT3 at the front of a closely fought GT Daytona battle. The Grasser Huracan shared by factory driver Mirko Bortolotti, Franck Perera, Rolf Ineichen and Rik Breukers came out on top in a four-way scrap to the flag. The Lambo wasn’t the quickest car, Bortolotti explained, but it was consistent, and he reckoned that was the key for a car that had started from the back after failing its stall test at post-qualifying scrutineering. “I don’t think we were necessarily the fastest, but I did come back from P21 to P6 in the opening stint, so we certainly had some speed,” he said. “We won because we made no mistakes and had a great strategy. We pushed hard but we…

I GET ASKED TO DO A LOT OF EXCITING THINGS with Renault each year, but when somebody called and asked if I would like to drive two stages of the Monte Carlo Rally… this was definitely the best thing the Formula 1 team could ask the son of a World Rally champion. That’s how I ended up at the start of the Col de Turini and Col de Braus stages in a new Megane RS last Sunday. And I loved it. It was a dream come true to drive over the Turini with three or four kilometres of ice – as you can imagine, my dad has told me so many stories and there are so many anecdotes about these stages, so to be there was so special. I’ve been…

SINGLE-SEATER POWERHOUSE Carlin has chosen to take a sabbatical from the British Formula 4 Championship. The team has made the decision due to its new commitments in the IndyCar Series, as well as its return to Formula 2 (formerly GP2) for 2018 after a one-year absence. The team will continue with existing programmes in the Formula 3 European Championship, Euroformula Open, BRDC British F3 and Indy Lights. It has left the door open to returning to F4 next year. Carlin was one of the first teams to commit to FIA F4 when the Fordbacked series was introduced for 2015, initially as MSA Formula. The team ran Lando Norris to the ’15 title, then Max Fewtrell in ’16 and Jamie Caroline last year. It has won 37 of the 90 British…

EXCLUDED COMPACT CUP CHAMPION James Gornall has said he hopes the decision to strip him of last year’s title following post-season scrutineering will act as a warning to other club racers. The 2008 British GT champion had his results annuled because his crankshaft was non-compliant, and an appeal at the National Court earlier this month failed. In a statement, Gornall said: “We hope our experience will be a lesson to all club racers to check and double-check your equipment. After so much hard work, to lose a championship in this way is galling. “Had we not genuinely believed we were not at fault in using a crankshaft which has been previously approved, we would not have used that component nor have gone to the trouble of appealing the decision.” Steven…

THE FIA MASTERS HISTORIC FORMULA 1 supporting act at the British Grand Prix this year will be “the blue-ribbon event” of the season, according to driver Martin Stretton. Two races featuring around 30 cars from the FIA-badged European series and the corresponding series run by Masters in North America will be held on the weekend of July 7-8. Most of the field, which consists of cars dating from between 1966 and ’85, will run with Cosworth DFV power, more than 50 years on from the introduction of the Northampton-built engine, while one or two V12-engined cars could also be entered, subject to availability. Masters Historic Racing, which also runs the FIA Masters Historic Formula 1 Championship, will be responsible for staging the support races. Stretton, who has raced historic cars…

DOUBLE 750 FORMULA CHAMPION DAVE Robson is planning to return to the series this year at the wheel of a new SDAR chassis. Robson began racing in the class with his previous chassis, which featured an 850cc Reliant engine, in 1983. Having taken a sabbatical since moving house, and selling his progressively updated 2009 and ’12 title-winning SDAR/83, the Derbyshire railway engineer is well advanced with his SDAR/17. “I’ve taken a ‘techy’ approach to designing and building it,” said Robson. “It’s been an interesting journey and has required me to learn new skills, including using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) programme to draw out most components. I used a cheap 3D scanner to capture the shape of the driver, engine, gearbox, differential and steering rack to fit them into the…

PURLEY HONOURED WITH MEMORIAL British F1 racer David Purley has been honoured with a memorial near to the entrance of the new Rolls-Royce logistics facility at Bognor Regis. The stone memorial was unveiled last Friday – on what would have been Purley’s 73rd birthday. After racing in F1, Purley died in an aircraft accident near Bognor in July 1985. POPULAR HSF KART RACE CANCELLED The Henry Surtees Foundation will not organise its popular karting event at Brooklands this year. The charity, which has raised £1.3million to date, has put the event on hold following the passing of John Surtees last March. Surtees’ daughter, Leonora, said in a letter to HSF supporters: “This has been a very difficult decision for us to make, but given the events of last year we…

CO-DRIVING IS NOT A GLAMOROUS job. Mucking in alongside the driver for long hours in hot, sweaty conditions, with a huge burden of responsibility and none of the same plaudits for doing a good job, the co-driver is the unheralded cog that no rally driver worth their salt can do without. Tommi Makinen describes the relationship as “like a marriage, or more than a marriage when you’re sitting in the same car for hundreds of days” and it’s clear to see why. Trust and accuracy are all-important. Call a note wrong or get their timings muddled and the car won’t win – no matter how fast it is. As Rob Wilson points out (page 4), even in an age when car performance can determine up to 85% of ultimate performance, human…

The Finn hesitated momentarily. Had he heard correctly? Best sit and wait. His co-driver repeated the instruction. And that’s how a rally car ended up being driven straight through the middle of a traffic roundabout. No sooner had the Opel bumped up the first kerb than the co-driver turned in amazement and asked what on earth was going on. The driver was equally baffled. “You told me,” he says. “You said: ‘Go straight across the roundabout’. I went straight across.” The names don’t matter, and the driver didn’t suffer too much from this early communication hiccup. He went on to become a world champion. In a rally car, the driver drives and the co-driver does just about everything else. Motorsport is packed with unsung heroes and co-drivers are right up…

FERNANDO ALONSO TALKED ABOUT HIS outing in last weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours as preparation for “if and when” he went to Le Mans. Given that his assault on the French enduro with Toyota was confirmed within 48 hours of the chequered flag falling at the end of the Florida enduro, his first race in a sportscar also clearly convinced him that he was ready to press on with his quest to win the unofficial triple crown of motorsport. The McLaren Formula 1 driver’s performance in the opening round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship showed the world what he will be capable of when he goes to the Le Mans 24 Hours in June and, perhaps more pertinently, how highly motivated he is for the challenge that lies ahead. Alonso took…

Formula 1 teams are set to engage in a new design battleground over low T-wings in 2018, as part of a push to regain downforce lost at the rear of cars. A loophole in last year’s technical regulations opened the door for teams to run high T-wings on the sharkfin engine covers in a bid to improve performance. But their addition caused an outcry among fans and teams because of their appearance, and an outright ban was introduced for the 2018 season. With F1 teams aware of the benefits that the small wings delivered in terms of managing airflow and increasing downforce, it is almost certain that this concept will not have been ignored when teams come to finalising their 2018 challengers. As teams claw to recover the loss of…

@gazzasportscars The best-ever entry for the Daytona 24 Hours, said some. A race that 15 of the 20 cars in the top class could win, reckoned others. Such statements held validity, but last weekend’s 2018 IMSA SportsCar Championship opener turned into an old-school enduro, quite untypical of the kind of race the Florida classic has thrown up year after year for the past decade. There was no sprint to the chequered flag from a late-race safety car. Rather, the winning Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R shared by Filipe Albuquerque, Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi limped across the line with an ailing engine that the team feared might go pop at any moment. But the race did provide a close finish. Albuquerque crossed the line with just over a minute in…

@davidevansrally High above the village of Authon, the fireworks lighting up a cloudless night sky were reflected beautifully in the pure ice topping a series of Sisteron switchbacks. The sense of anticipation for the opening stage of the 2018 World Rally Championship was quite extraordinary. And almost too much for the spectator dressed as a pink rabbit. Sebastien Ogier’s Ford Fiesta WRC was first in, and fever levels went through the roof as the noise of nigh on 400bhp constantly being leashed and unleashed bounced around the valley. When it finally came into view, it was incongruous to say the least. Here was a half-million-pound World Rally Car, quivering with pent-up aggression, tiptoeing its way down the road at what looked to be little more than walking speed. The man…

CENTURY MOTORSPORT WILL BECOME the first team to field BMW’s new M4 GT4 racer in the British GT Championship this year, and is planning to enter two cars. Nathan Freke’s squad has secured a pair of the new three-litre turbocharged straight-six machines, and is expecting to take delivery of them next month ahead of the British GT season opener at Oulton Park. The team has signed last year’s Ginetta GT4 Supercup runner-up Ben Green and sportscar convert Ben Tuck to race the first car. Freke says a second “high profile” driver pairing is close to being firmed up for the sister car. Century has been a regular in British GT since 2009 and has run Ginetta machinery each year before opting for this new relationship with BMW. The German company…

A SEASON REVIEW NEEDS TO invoke the action and excitement from motorsport events across a year just past. But it’s far from easy to capture the atmosphere and tell the stories of a season while maintaining a lasting appeal to fans months, years or even decades after the final chequered flag. Precisely how a year’s stories are presented can have a huge impact on the overall quality of a review, so we decided to compare a selection from 2017 (Formula 1, World Rallycross, Le Mans, British Touring Cars, World Rally and MotoGP) to see how they measured up. The BTCC’s offering presents every race in full – all 30 of them. The championship features battles up and down the field and plenty of off-track drama, but when put back-to-back it…

One of the great questions in motorsport is ‘what would happen if we swap all the drivers and teams around?’ People often used to ask what would result if we put Fernando Alonso back in his Minardi, and strangely we’ve seen something resembling that over the past year or two by giving him an underpowered Honda engine. Had he been a newcomer and the only driver in that team, there would have always been a question mark over how good he was. It goes without saying that the car has a huge effect on a driver. Stirling Moss once said that while Jack Brabham wouldn’t have been as quick as him in Stirling’s Lotus 18 around Monaco, Moss probably wouldn’t have been as quick as Jack at his peak in…

The last time I co-drove Kris Meeke, we were in Citroen’s equivalent to a transit van at Silverstone rallyschool and Dungannon’s finest was telling me what to do in the event of what felt like an almost inevitable accident. This time it’s a bit different: the Meeke company motor, a set of Paul Nagle’s pacenotes and a half-decent stretch of gravel road. Nagle seems to find it funny that I’m genuinely having a go at doing his job. He laughs less when I break down his working day into two key areas: sitting down and reading. Ultimately, one of us will be laughing the longest… I’ve always quite fancied the idea of co-driving. I once navigated David Higgins into a huge lead on the Kent Forestry Stages, only for him…

RSRNURBURG TO HOST DIJON TRACKDAYS Driver coaching and trackday specialist RSRNurburg has released its calendar of events for 2018. The wide range of experiences at classic European tracks includes, for the first time, the 2.36-mile Dijon-Prenois circuit in France. A deceptively simple circuit of eight corners, Dijon hosted Formula 1 on six occasions (including the 1982 Swiss Grand Prix). It is perhaps most famous for the spectacular battle for second between Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux in 1979 (above right). Dijon is now predominantly used for endurance and historic events. But trackday enthusiasts can sample its undulating sweeps on 10 dates between May and October, in their own car or using a trackday-prepared vehicle from the extensive RSRNurburg rental fleet, all while improving their technique alongside a qualified instructor. Dijon…

Carlos Reutemann’s slump from pole position to eighth place at Caesars Palace to hand Nelson Piquet the 1981 Formula 1 drivers’ title is the stuff of legend, a cautionary tale for drivers trying to win a title by playing the percentages. To this day, it’s never been satisfactorily explained what caused the enigmatic Argentinian’s capitulation in the Las Vegas heat, lapped by victorious Williams team-mate Alan Jones, which has only added to the mystique surrounding the DFV-powered FW07C. Today, chassis FW07C-14, which Reutemann used to finish fifth in the Austrian Grand Prix, is owned by Max Smith-Hilliard’s Forza Historic Motorsport concern and has achieved significant success in historic racing with Nick Padmore at the wheel. In 2016, Padmore won all 12 races he started on his way to the FIA…

It is often held that the mark of a truly great driver lies in their ability to win with different teams, but knowing when to stick and when to twist is an art in itself. Over 60 years on from his fifth Formula 1 world title, Juan Manuel Fangio’s record of winning with four different constructors is unlikely ever to be beaten, as huge advances in engineering have made it significantly harder for a driver to have an instant impact at a new team; only three times in the past 30 years – Ayrton Senna (1988), Alain Prost (’93) and Kimi Raikkonen (’07) – has a driver managed to win the world championship in their first season with a team. Although 68% of drivers who have won more than one…

Here it is: the second-generation Formula E racer that will battle it out silently around the city centres of the world from the end of this year. The electric racer, which will bring an end to the mid-race car swaps, features a ring of lighting around the FIA-mandated halo cockpit-protection device, a huge rear diffuser and LMP1-inspired covering of the front wheels. The front and rear wings are angled more aggressively. The car was revealed digitally on Tuesday ahead of a physical launched planned for the Geneva Motor Show in March. Spark Racing Technologies won the tender to produce the car, which will be powered by a new McLaren Applied Technologies battery. P14 OPINION MORE ON FORMULA E’S NEW CAR…

A DAY TESTING A RALLY CAR AND PETTER SOLBERG is back to his old ways: the 2003 World Rally champion is to compete in the Historic class of Rally Sweden in a Ford Escort RS1800, while pushing for a WRC2 drive in a Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 later this season. Solberg tested VW’s all-new rally machine for a day in northern Sweden last week (above), and the Norwegian emerged ready to rally again. “Honestly, the car was fantastic,” said Solberg after almost 200 flat-out miles in perfect winter conditions. “It was really nice to drive, really predictable and easy – this is so important for the R5 car. Now I have done the test in that car, I really want to drive one in competition. I don’t know when it…

WILLIAMS TO MAKE FIRST F1 LAUNCH Williams looks as though it is in pole position to take victory in the Formula 1 launch season, after announcing that its FW41 will be the first 2018 challenger to break cover, in London on February 15. Renault and Sauber have also set dates in the past week, with the Regie taking off the wraps online on February 20, and Sauber also going for an internet job on the same day. SAUBER, FORCE INDIA DROP EU PLEA Sauber and Force India have dropped the complaint they made to the European Union Competitions Commission regarding F1’s governance and payment structure. The two teams lodged an official complaint with the Commission in September 2015, citing the division of revenues and drawing up of rules as “unfair…

@lawrobarretto A season in which you finish fifth in the Formula 1 World Championship, behind four drivers in the two class-leading cars and ahead of your highly rated team-mate, is nothing to be sniffed at. But Daniel Ricciardo was left feeling disappointed, and a look beyond that statistic tells you why. Consistency was the foundation of his 2016 season, when he finished third. That campaign was, in his words, his “best-ever” in F1, and he ended the year at number one in Autosport’s Top 50 Drivers list. But consistency deserted him last year in the face of the oncoming force that is Max Verstappen. Power in the team appeared to shift towards the Dutchman, particularly when Verstappen signed a new deal to stay at Red Bull. There were high points…

THE CYNICS RECKONED THAT THE SIGHT OF two Ganassi Fords running around at the head of the GT Le Mans class provided confirmation that the American manufacturer was playing with its rivals last weekend. The Ford GT did have a significant advantage in the 24 Hours, but Ganassi never invoked any kind of team orders to prevent its crews racing. The reason that the class-winning #67 Ganassi entry shared by Richard Westbrook, Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon appeared to be somehow glued to the tail of the other car was that it had the narrowest of advantages. Enough for it to catch up whenever it lost time — as it frequently did in the pits, particularly in the early stages of the race — but not enough for it to…

Rosemeyer’s selection to set a swathe of prestigious speed records on Hitler’s autobahn was the final feather in his trademark green Tyrolean ‘Auto Union’ hat; previously this role had been Stuck’s. Rosemeyer had set five international and one world record in June, but was disappointed not to have become the first to achieve 400km/h (250mph) on the public road. Though he had been forced onto the grass central reservation twice by pressure changes caused by passing beneath bridges, he was keen to make another attempt. In the space of three chilly days in October 1937 he recorded 16 more records – three of them world marks – across two capacity classes. Among them were a flying kilometre and a flying mile at beyond 250mph. Most remarkable, however, was his flying…

GINETTA GT4 SUPERCUP DRIVERS George Gamble and Seb Perez will switch to the Porsche Carrera Cup GB this season with the Team Parker Racing squad. Gamble, who finished third in the Ginetta standings last year and was GT5 Challenge champion in 2014, was a finalist for the Carrera Cup’s Junior programme but lost out to Dan Harper. Despite this, Gamble still wanted to race in the series and will line up alongside Perez in Amigos beer-sponsored cars. “I’m really excited for it,” said Gamble. “One of the things we found with Porsche is that it’s much easier to sell [to sponsors]. Since the scholarship we’ve had good interest. “We’ve both driven the old and new cars and it’s a cool car to drive. It will take me a few rounds…

BRITISH F4 SCRAPS CHALLENGE CUP British Formula 4 has decided to drop its Challenge Cup concept after just one season, and reinstate the Rookie Cup. The Challenge Cup was for drivers contesting no more than seven of the 10 events and aimed at those without the budget for a full season, but only six different drivers entered it in 2017. FORTEC BRITISH F3 SQUAD TESTS DRIVERS Fortec tested Pavan Ravishankar and Tristan Charpentier in BRDC British Formula 3 cars at Donington Park last week. Neither driver is committed for this season, but Ravishankar did three races with Double R in F3 last year and contested the MRF Challenge. Charpentier has raced in the UK in Ginetta Junior and last season’s British F3 with Chris Dittmann. He was fifth in the…

The Porsche Cayman S that Nathalie McGloin races in the Porsche Club Championship has been fitted with a hand-control system. This mechanism was installed by Coventrybased Jim Doran Hand Controls, using standard road controls that are available for anyone to buy. “We’ve modified them to suit the characteristics of the steering column and my driving style, but it’s predominantly a very standard bit of kit,” says McGloin. “I leave it in automatic mode – the car changes gear for me and I have a lever on the right-hand side of the steering wheel. It’s push forward to brake and push down to accelerate, and then I just have one hand on the wheel and that’s it. The hand control is attached to the pedals.” While many people getting back behind the…

Prema Powerteam boss Rene Rosin describes him as “the best Chinese racer in junior single-seater competition”, which admittedly isn’t setting the bar tremendously high. More to the point, Guan Yu Zhou is a genuine talent, backed by the Ferrari Driver Academy, who has a realistic chance of inflaming a passion for motorsport within the enormous population of his homeland. It’s certain that he will be a leading contender with Prema in this season’s Formula 3 European Championship, his third year in the series. Born in Shanghai in May 1999, Zhou – known paddock-wide as ‘Joe’ – was taken to an indoor kart track by his dad as a kid “just to have fun, and the first time I drove I absolutely loved it. We were driving every weekend.” The move…

“I remember thinking after, ‘If I could find that mode always, nobody could do anything and I could win easily’” Doing all the world championship rounds, it takes so much energy if you really want to win. In Formula 1 they are fighting about how the tyres are performing, how long they’re lasting and it’s exactly the same with the rally car, but you are there alone. It’s mentally very tough and I was absolutely exhausted after every season. You would have to do at least five years in some other job to reach the same amount of energy needed to cope for one season in the World Rally Championship. One of the secrets for me was that I tried to forget everything between the rallies. I wanted to zero…

There’s an element of romanticism to the story of a single-car independent team holding its own against the British Touring Car Championship’s manufacturer-backed giants, but Speedworks Motorsport has no plans to rest on its giant-killing laurels just yet. Independents Trophy champion Tom Ingram won four times on his way to third in the standings last year and returns for a fifth season at the team with the overall title as his stated aim. Ordinarily, that might appear fanciful for an outfit of Speedworks’ size, but team boss Christian Dick has an ace up his sleeve. Since Speedworks installed a Pro-Sim Evolution Simulator, built by GP2 race winner Adrian Quaife- Hobbs, at its Cheshire HQ last March, Ingram is one of a number of regular visitors to make great strides in…