Indholdsfortegnelse for 15/02/18 i Autosport

WHAT DOES FERRARI NEED TO DO TO DEFEAT Mercedes? Can Honda avoid another pre-season testing disaster? Will Robert Kubica prove Williams was wrong? With 11 days to go until Formula 1 testing begins, these are some of the key questions ahead of the new season. Ex-F1 driver and TV reporter Karun Chandhok helps us answer them – and many others – this week, while technical expert Gary Anderson provides behind-the-scenes insights into what really goes on in testing. One of the interesting subplots to 2018 will be the progress of reigning F2 champion Charles Leclerc at Sauber. If all goes to plan, he could be sitting in a Ferrari next year, but – as Leclerc (above) tells us in his interview on page 30 – for now he has to…

“NO GAME-STOPPERS” WAS THE PHRASE used by Scott Dixon and echoed by IndyCar director of engineering and safety Jeff Horton after the first test of IndyCar’s aeroscreen, which has now become ‘windscreen’ in IndyCar parlance. Following simulator tests by 2014 Indy Lights champion Gabby Chaves, the device was trialled on track for the first time at the newly renamed ISM Raceway in Phoenix last Thursday. The #9 Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara-Honda was the first car to have it fitted and Dixon lapped the 1.022- mile course in 4.30pm sunlight, then dusk and finally darkness, trying to replicate the various lighting conditions that will be encountered by drivers once – if – the screen becomes standard. Dixon said the PPG-built device – made of a proprietary Opticor advanced-transparency material as used…

REECE BARR IS SET TO MAKE A BIG impact on the European motorsport stage this year, having sealed a deal to join the TCR Europe Series with leading team Target Competition. The 17-year-old Irishman is the first driver confirmed for Target’s new era running Hyundai machinery in Europe this season, following many successful seasons with Honda Civics – a spell that landed the team back-to-back TCR Germany championships. Barr had originally agreed to join the Target team to contest the German-based ADAC TCR category, before switching his attentions to Europe at the wheel of the new Hyundai. “This year will be massive for me, but I feel so ready for it,” says Barr. “I was all set to do the ADAC TCR class, but when Target were approached by Hyundai…

Having spent much of the off-season unsure whether Ford could live with Toyota and the new Chevrolet in 2018, Brad Keselowski went from the back of the grid to win the NASCAR Cup Series’ Daytona Clash in his Fusion. The Team Penske man moved from 17th to fourth in the opening laps, and jumped his rivals for the win during the early pitstops. Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman, who has replaced the retired Dale Earnhardt Jr, later made it four Daytona 500 poles in a row for the Chevrolet team. The Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Denny Hamlin starts second, with the rest of the field set in Thursday’s ‘Duel’ races. P36 DAYTONA PREVIEW…

PASCAL WEHRLEIN WILL RETURN TO THE DTM with Mercedes for 2018, as he waits in a holding pattern for a potential single-seater comeback next year. Wehrlein won the 2015 DTM title before moving into Formula 1 with Manor the following season, and switching to Sauber last year. The Mercedes junior could not be found a race seat in F1, but a return to the sport’s pinnacle cannot be ruled out – and if that doesn’t happen, he must be considered a favourite for the Stuttgart manufacturer’s entry to Formula E in the 2019-20 season. By then, of course, there will be no Mercedes DTM team for him to bide his time in, since the Three-Pointed Star is pulling out of the series at the end of this year. With Robert…

@tomgerrington It wasn’t the way Danica Patrick wanted to end her full-time NASCAR Cup series career. Midway through the 2017 Homestead season finale, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver made a slight error at the final corner of the oval, clipping the wall, damaging the car and causing a fire. She pulled her Ford Fusion to the inside line and climbed out “angry” and “disappointed”. In the press conference afterwards, an emotional Patrick told the media she was retiring from racing – but not until she had one final stab at the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500, the scenes of some of her career highlights. Two chances to end on a better note. The 35-year-old’s final year in NASCAR was blighted by sponsorship issues that put her future in doubt early…

WHILE CHEVROLET AND TOYOTA WILL race 2018 versions of their road cars, Ford continues with the ageing Ford Fusion. But while on face value that seems a large disadvantage, there is a potential reward for its drivers, even if they’re struggling to be patient. It’s still likely to be 2019 before Ford introduces a new car, with rumours persisting that it could abandon the Fusion for the new Mustang. But being the last to update could be an advantage, as Stewart- Haas Racing’s Kurt Busch acknowledges. “You hope that they do their homework and you watch Chevrolet; then when you’re going to a [new] design, you see the other team show their hand and so you can capitalise on it,” he says. “We can still be competitive, we have to…

PORSCHE FEATURE AT GOODWOOD Porsche will this year become the first manufacturer to occupy the central feature at Goodwood’s Festival of Speed three times. The 70th anniversary of its first sportscar, the 356 (above), will be celebrated as part of the display at the July 12-15 event. The company’s other two central feature slots were for its 50th anniversary in 1998 and for the 50th birthday of the 911 in 2013. FIESTA DRIVER HAWLEY TO CLIO JR Fiesta Junior racer Jamie-Lea Hawley will contest Renault UK Clio Cup Junior this year with Finsport, after she took 10th in the Fiesta standings in 2017. It will be the first entry into the Clio category for Finsport, which has raced in a number of club championships and planned to contest the series…

Dunlop produced many racing tyres in the 1950s and ’60s, and is an important part of the historic racing scene. The company’s legacy is one of the main reasons it remains in what is a niche part of the industry, albeit an exciting one. “We can do high-performance modern tyres and still make original 1950s and ’60s designs,” says Dunlop’s James Bailey (right). “As a promoter you have a choice: Appendix K or modified. We can do both – there’s a market for both – but Appendix K is important because we’re the only company with 130 years of history. We have an obligation to maintain that heritage. “The historic range, such as the CR65 and R5, are tyres introduced in the 1950s and are essentially the same as used…

Le Mans winners Richard Attwood, Derek Bell, Jackie Oliver, Tom Kristensen, Jochen Mass and Emanuele Pirro – with 22 victories at La Sarthe between them – always rise to the big occasion. Attwood, now 77, has notched six wins at Goodwood where he was a rising star in the 1960s, thus lies second in the Revival standings. Joaquin Folch-Rusinol and fellow FIA Historic F1 champion Christian Glaesel trade slicks and wings for original Ford GT40s and other exotica. The Spaniard exercises his ex-Bruce McLaren Jaguar E-type, Maserati 250F and Lotus 16 with vigour while the German sometimes pilots his Alfa Romeo P3 or Jaguar D-type. Snarling AC Cobras always entertain. American Michael Gans and Andy Wolfe (FIA Masters F1 champ in 2016 in a Tyrrell 011) scored a breakthrough RAC…

THE CLAMOUR FROM MULTIPLE DRIVERS resulted in the date of the Fuji round of the 2018-19 World Endurance Championship being changed to avoid a clash with the Petit Le Mans IMSA SportsCar enduro. Now a push from a single manufacturer has resulted in the event being switched back to its original October 14 slot for the benefit of just one driver, who goes by the name of Fernando Alonso. The volte-face by the WEC at the behest of Toyota – which owns the Fuji Speedway – to avoid a conflict with the US Grand Prix and allow Alonso to contest all five 2018 dates of the superseason has inevitably sparked controversy. More so because it means that the Japanese WEC race falls on the same day as the Super GT…

The Manor team, which has recruited one of Britain’s top single-seater talents in the form of Formula 2 star Oliver Rowland, was able to expand its LMP1 assault on the 2018-19 World Endurance Championship superseason after forging closer links with Ginetta. The move happened after the plans of a second, undisclosed privateer squad that had been in the frame to run the British constructor’s G60-LT-P1 (below) fell by the wayside. The revised deal means that Ginetta test driver Charlie Robertson will race one of the Mecachrome-engined contenders for Manor, which is entered for the superseason under the CEFC TRSM Racing banner. He was confirmed along with Rowland last Friday, the day of the unveiling of the entry lists for the WEC and the Le Mans 24 Hours. Manor sporting director…

A SENSATIONAL FINISH TO THE New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild resulted in the Toyota Racing Series title changing hands simultaneously between three drivers. Richard Verschoor (right) had taken the lead from Marcus Armstrong with a daring move on the Kiwi at the start of the 31st lap of 35, but second place was still good enough for Armstrong to claim the crown. That was until Taylor Cockerton parked by the track with an engine problem, and that led to a safety car and a one-lap sprint to the chequered flag. At the restart, Armstrong’s car dropped into safe mode, and he limped to the chequered flag in seventh position. That would have been enough for ex-Red Bull Junior Verschoor – who won the race – to clinch the title.…

@autosport MAX VERSTAPPEN SUGGESTED LAST WEEK THAT IF Red Bull had the Mercedes engine, its rivals “would never see us again”, and maybe he’s right. In the opinion of most, Adrian Newey remains unsurpassed, so yes, Max and Daniel Ricciardo might well be in the pound seats for 2018 – if they had Mercedes power. They don’t, though. When the team’s relationship with Renault was at its lowest, a couple of years ago, attempts were indeed made to do a deal with Mercedes – and Ferrari – but, unlike Renault, these two companies are famously reluctant to sell engines to any team that might threaten them. “Mercedes and Ferrari have indulged in a financial arms race” When Zak Brown was casting about for an engine to replace Honda at McLaren,…

CAN RED BULL MAKE A BETTER START? Towards the end of 2017, Red Bull made it a three-way fight at the front. Max Verstappen took two wins on merit and the team left us with a feeling of ‘what might have been’. The first half of its season was compromised by an aerodynamic correlation issue, which meant that it really took until the summer break for the team to hit its stride and unlock the potential of the RB13. Those issues seemed to have been caused by the change in regulations, with the bigger tyres and cars giving some false information in the wind-tunnel, but Red Bull should be over that now. Personally, I don’t doubt that the Milton Keynes side of the team can hit the ground running in…

FORMER GP2 RACER AND CURRENT AMG factory driver Yelmer Buurman will compete in British GT this year alongside Lee Mowle in a Mercedes- AMG GT3 run by new team ERC Sport. Mowle’s Mercedes will be back for a full season this term, having only run a part campaign around the Michelin Le Mans Cup last season. Buurman will be making his British GT debut, but was a fixture on the UK single-seater scene as a teenager, winning races in Formula Renault UK in 2005 and in British Formula 3 in ’06. Apart from GP2, he went on to race in Formula Renault 3.5 and Superleague Formula. The Dutchman was part of the crew that won the Dubai 24 Hours earlier this year, and his main programme last season was in…

NIC HAMILTON WILL CONTEST a full season of the Renault UK Clio Cup this year after taking part in five events last term. Hamilton, the younger brother of four-time Formula 1 champion Lewis, will again drive for WDE Motorsport in what will be his first full season of racing since he competed in the Clio Cup in 2012. Hamilton has secured an increased budget for this season, allowing him to take part in pre-season testing. He has cerebral palsy and must drive a specially adapted car. Team boss Wayne Eason believes Hamilton can make a major step forward this year. “He’s got the right budget in place now – he hasn’t got to scrimp and save,” said Eason. “Now he’s going to hit the ground running and is aiming for…

The 1990 British Touring Car Championship-winning Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 has come up for sale with Silverstone Auctions. Robb Gravett won the Group A and overall honours that year, setting a record of nine wins over the 12 rounds. After 20 years in storage, it will be sold at Race Retro on February 23 and carries an estimate between £175,000 and £220,000. The car has been returned to its period livery and is eligible to race in the Historic Sports Car Club’s Super Touring Trophy.…

BARRY DAVISON’S 1967 LOTUS Elan S3, which was extensively damaged in a fiery incident in the Historic Sports Car Club’s Road Sports Championship finale at Silverstone last October, is now “fighting fit” again following an extensive rebuild by Ricketts Racing in Hertfordshire. Davison’s Elan was hit by Andy Shepherd’s Lotus 7 at Becketts on the opening lap. “He was extremely lucky not to damage the chassis,” said Ricketts Racing’s Mike Loughlin, who has repaired it with Paul Brimmer. “The tail was torn off by the impact, which took the fuel tank with it, but the entire rear suspension was bent and the brake discs broken. “The size of the explosion was quite sobering, with 20 litres of fuel, but we’ve taken steps to ensure that it won’t happen again. The…

WHEN RICK PARFITT JR STARTED his racing career proper, he had a clear goal. But aft er making his international racing debut in the Continental Tire SportsCar opener last month at Daytona, he’s got a new target. The initial aim was to race at the Le Mans 24 Hours. But now last year’s British GT Championship winner, inspired by his outing in the four-hour ‘Conti’ race for winning the Sunoco 240 Challenge, is hankering aft er a Daytona return. Only next time he wants to race in the 24 Hours. “Le Mans was always my target,” says 43-year-old Parfitt, who began racing regularly in the Ginetta GT5 Challenge back in 2011. “Now I want to go back to Daytona, but in the main race. I feel I’ve got some unfinished…

Historic racing is one of the most vibrant branches of motorsport and has been for many years now. Autosport has wanted to produce a supplement on the subject for a while and long-time historics supporter Dunlop has helped make it happen. The sights and sounds of the cars, which range from pre-Second World War leviathans to Group C monsters and screaming Super Tourers, have helped make historic racing so appealing. Meetings such as the Silverstone and Le Mans classics, and Goodwood Revival, are among the biggest events on the motorsport calendar and attract a gamut of professional drivers, historic specialists and amateurs. Organisations such as the Historic Sports Car Club and Historic Racing Drivers’ Club also cater for the grassroots level and provide some of the best club-level motorsport –…

One of the finest examples of historic racing came at the 2015 Goodwood Revival, in the first of the weekend’s St Mary’s Trophy races for 1960-66 production saloons. There was a great range of machinery, from Minis to seven-litre Ford Galaxies, and British Touring Car rivals Gordon Shedden and Andrew Jordan were in Ford Lotus Cortinas. Shedden took pole, with GT ace Frank Stippler splitting them in an Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA. Come the race, the trio put on a masterful display of on-the-edge, nose-to-tail combat. Jordan grabbed the initial lead, while Stippler had to recover from a moment and being overtaken by Andy Priaulx’s BMW 1800 TiSA. Shedden passed Jordan on the Lavant Straight on lap two of the 17-lapper, by which time Stippler had joined them in…

Former British Touring Car Championship runner-up Sam Tordoff will return to the series this year at the wheel of a Motorbase Performance Ford Focus. The six-time BTCC winner, who missed out on the overall crown to Gordon Shedden by two points in 2016 while driving a BMW for WSR, switched to the British GT Championship last season to drive a Lamborghini Huracan, and took fourth in the final points. Now the 28-year-old has returned to his old stomping ground, where he will drive a Gard-X backed car alongside Motorbase’s two Shredded Wheat-liveried Focuses. “I needed a break from the BTCC to recharge myself after 2016,” said Tordoff. “I enjoyed GT racing but found it hard to fit in with my schedule as a financial analyst at the JCT600 car-dealership group.…

Pre-season testing for the latest batch of Formula 1 cars is just around the corner. Since this is the second year of the current technical regulations, we can expect the car concepts to converge. The aerodynamic and tyre changes for 2017 were fairly dramatic and they brought roughly what was predicted in terms of lap-time improvement. This year, optimising that package will be the order of the day. During the season, there is always development and most teams will try for around one tenth of a second of improvement each race. That should add up to a 2s gain over the season. That, combined with the introduction of new chassis for 2018, with all the developments it wasn’t possible to add last year, means that at pre-season testing the cars…

@tomgerrington Back-to-back manufacturer titles, accusations of an unlimited budget, and what was described as ‘Formula 1 domination’ – Toyota took a decisive stranglehold on the NASCAR Cup series in 2017 as it ruffled feathers on and off the track. Having committed to a new Camry for road-car production in the US for 2018, Toyota surprised its NASCAR rivals by bringing a racing version to the series in ’17 after a year in which Chevrolet and Ford had slowly crept up to its benchmark pace. It looked like that pattern could continue, with a low-key start to ‘17 for Toyota, which won just twice in the first 11 races. But by the end of the 2017 season it was in a league of its own. The final-four showdown at Homestead was…

LINUS LUNDQVIST WILL GRADUATE TO the BRDC British Formula 3 Championship with Double R Racing this season. After cutting his teeth in Swedish Formula Renault 1.6 in 2015 and ’16, Lundqvist competed in British Formula 4 in 2017, also with Double R. Although his season was blighted with bad luck, he took five wins on his way to fifth in the standings. He also made a single appearance in British F3 at Spa, securing a best result of seventh. “I learned a lot from that one-off at Spa last year, and it remains one of the highlights of my season,” said the 18-year old. “The car is so much fun to drive, and by the end of that weekend I was down to just a few tenths off the fastest…

SUPER FORMULA MOTORSPORT.TV Considering it’s in effect an IndyCar Series of the east – one chassis, two engines, push-to-pass – Super Formula has struggled to gain much recognition in Europe, largely because it hadn’t enjoyed much of a presence on television. That changed last year once Motorsport TV started airing coverage, and in recent weeks the channel has been showing full race replays. The standard of driving and the quality of the cars is on par with anything in single-seaters outside Formula 1, and some of the tracks are fantastically old-school. If you’ve no idea how good the likes of Hiroaki Ishiura or Yuhi Sekiguchi are, there’s now no excuse for remaining in the dark. WORLD RALLYCROSS FREE-TO-AIR TBA It’s short and sharp, but brilliantly exciting. World Rallycross has gone…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH Even motorsport’s world governing body acknowledges that historic racing is one of the strongest branches of the sport. In 2016, FIA Historic Commission president Paolo Cantarella admitted that “historic racing can play a huge role in attracting people to the sport”. Events including the Silverstone Classic and Goodwood Revival are hugely popular with enthusiasts and competitors alike, and organisers such as the Historic Sports Car Club fill grids around the country throughout the year. And this during a period when some other categories – junior single-seaters, for example – are finding things tough. Circuits and promoters have seen the advantages of putting on meetings, and few major tracks don’t host historics. “We’ve been extremely fortunate over the past 15 years,” says leading historic racer and preparer Simon…

One prominent historic racer recently said: “If you ask 200 people in the paddock what historic racing should be, you’ll get 200 answers.” The question of how original a historic car should be is a controversial one. Cars used regularly have to be maintained, and crashed cars need to be rebuilt. Which parts and materials should be used can be a complex debate. Too puritanical about it and some cars will never run reliably, while others will be left in the garage due to a scarcity of parts. Too liberal and it can turn into an arms race that results in cars that look like historic cars but are essentially modern machines. As Historic Sports Car Club CEO Grahame White says: “There are people with vast amounts of money who…

Pneumatic tyre pioneer Dunlop and historic racing are synonymous. For more than 30 years, specialist motorsport distributor HP Tyres – set up by Jaguar racer John Pearson (Sr) – has flown the yellow-and-black flag superbly, supplying and servicing a spectrum of categories on-event and from its HQ, now in Daventry. The variety of Dunlop-shod cars, spanning towards a century of sport, showcases an enormous pool of driving talent. The following alumni are the pick of the crop, masters who wow enthusiasts at trackside or via TV streaming from monster events such as the Silverstone Classic or Goodwood’s Revival and Members’ Meetings. Excluding, in the main, professional drivers, these skilled competitors can (and do) beat anybody in their field on Dunlops. Winning season after season is no coincidence. Eking every last…

1955 ASTON MARTIN DB3S CURRENT OWNER STEVE BOULTBEE BROOKS Graceful lines, sublime handling and a handsome price tag born of scarcity make the Aston Martin DB3S a very special racing sportscar from the mid-1950s. Just 20 customer cars were built alongside 11 works racers as Aston Martin competed in the fledging World Sports Car Championship. Victories in the TT at Dundrod and at Goodwood followed, but a Le Mans win evaded the DB3S. Second place in the ill-fated 1955 race for Peter Collins and Paul Frere, a narrow defeat in ’56, and another runner-up spot in ’58 for the Whitehead brothers were the best results for a well-balanced car that was normally outgunned. Chassis DB3S/104, now owned by Steve Boultbee Brooks, is one of very few still being raced. This…

Preparing classic cars for clients to race has become big business as the popularity of historic motorsport has swelled. Rather than a season being truncated by the fragility of older cars, the likes of Hall and Hall, Classic Team Lotus and Martin Stretton Racing specialise in delivering to their customers turnkey levels of reliability and performance. While some companies run a full-time operation with a team of mechanics and travel to races with articulated transporters, there are still some who prefer to go their own way. Rod Jolley is one driver who still works out of his own garage, believing he is better dialled-in to find problems with his grand prix cars and develop his own solutions. And with more than 360 trophies decorating his house, it’s clear that it’s…