Indholdsfortegnelse for 29/03/18 i Autosport

Nobody expected that! The pace of the Mercedes in pre-season testing and, more crucially, Lewis Hamilton’s shatteringly fast pole lap in Australia indicated that the reigning Formula 1 world champion was going to win comfortably in Melbourne last Sunday. But a Mercedes blunder and Ferrari opportunism meant it was Sebastian Vettel who ended up on the top step of the podium. As Edd Straw shows in our report on page 20, the result owes something to the restrictive nature of the current regulations, but starting the 2018 campaign with a Mercedes defeat is not a bad thing for F1. The Silver Arrows’ troubles in ’17 helped create a more interesting championship fight than we’d seen for several years, at least until Ferrari imploded after the summer break. Mercedes – and…

DragonSpeed boss Elton Julian has made no secret of his determination to win the 2018-19 World Endurance Championship LMP2 title. Which explains why grand prix winner Pastor Maldonado will be joining the team and why there’s another big name in the pipeline for later in the year. The signing of the ex-Williams and Lotus driver (above) for the superseason follows a long chase by Julian in his quest to put together a top line-up around Roberto Gonzalez in the team’s LMP2 ORECA 07. He’s been talking to the Venezuelan, who hasn’t raced since his second season with Lotus in 2015, for more than a year. “We have a mutual friend, and every six months I’ve been dropping Pastor a line saying, ‘Ready to come back to play?’,” explained Julian. “The…

Rory Butcher is to contest his first full British Touring Car Championship season with the AmD Tuning MG team. Butcher, the brother-in-law of three-time BTCC champion Gordon Shedden, stepped into a Motorbase Performance Ford for four rounds at the end of the 2017 campaign. “My move into the BTCC last season was all a bit last-minute and I was thrown in at the deep end for my debut at Knockhill, so I was determined to try and get a place on the grid this year to build on what I learned from the final round rounds of 2017,” said the 31-year-old Scot. Butcher said that a deal to return had looked unlikely before last-minute discussions with AmD, which has taken over the running of the ex-factory-backed MG6 machines. He will…

FOR A FEW BLISSFUL MINUTES, FORMULA 1 DARED TO dream. After the first runs in the Q3 top 10 shootout, Lewis Hamilton was on his customary provisional pole position, but just 0.034 seconds behind was Sebastian Vettel. To make it even more tantalising, Max Verstappen was just 0.027s further back. Could the 2018 season really have opened up with the three-team dogfight we all dreamed of? Sadly, it was an illusion. Hamilton went out and banged in a stunning Albert Park qualifying record lap of 1m21.164s – nine-tenths faster than his first Q3 run. That gave him his 73rd pole position by a margin of 0.664s from Kimi Raikkonen. All the talk was of the qualifying engine settings, dubbed “party mode” by Hamilton himself earlier in the month, but this…

Fail to prepare, and you are preparing to fail. For two days and 22 laps the Haas Formula 1 team was one of the stars of the season-opener (well, unless you’re one of the teams angered by its performance, see Pit and Paddock). Then, in quick succession, it imploded. Botched pitstops for Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean robbed the team of probably fourth and fifth-placed finishes, given the relative ease with which they were keeping the Red Bulls at bay in the opening stint. Team boss Gunther Steiner put the pair of “heartbreaking” unsafe pitstops, which left both cars out of the race and cost Haas a €10,000 fine, down to a lack of practice. “This weekend was very tense for us – we had some issues in FP1, FP2,…

CITY CENTRE EVENTS ARE “VERY IMPORTANT FOR FORMULA E’S DNA”, according to series boss Alejandro Agag, and fans tuning in to watch the action from the all-electric championship will see 12 days of racing across the 2017/18 season. But the task of planning and implementing the races is a complex and ever-evolving process. It ranges from picking suitable cities and countries to race in, to building tracks and recreating the Formula E experience at each one. But before any barriers can be installed or team tents erected, an exhaustive planning and consultation phase kicks into gear. “In the beginning, we were approaching cities and trying to get in contact with the mayor, and that was the first year – or even year minus one,” says Formula E’s events operations director,…

RENAULT UK CLIO CUP JUNIOR Renault UK Clio Cup Junior organisers remain fully committed to the series despite it only attracting five drivers for the season opener at Silverstone last weekend. The category has had a difficult birth since it was launched last season. It was originally due to begin in June 2017, but was postponed because series bosses felt it was not ready. A four-weekend series then began in September and attracted a peak entry of nine drivers. Championship manager Will Fewkes has said “a very challenging set of regulatory circumstances” has affected the promotion of the series ahead of this season. “We’re proud of what Clio Cup Junior offers for 14-16-year-olds in terms of development, safety and value for money,” said Fewkes. “However there have been numerous changes…

SILVERSTONE (BARC) CLASSIC FORMULA FORD 1600 MARCH 24-25 Early afternoon on Sunday, March 25 2018, Brooklands corner on the Silverstone National circuit. The familiar backfire of period Formula Ford 1600 engines rattles by. In among the throng is a yellow-and-white-liveried Royale RP26 being hustled through the complex with a lairy zealotry that makes these cars so gripping in a way the narrow tyres could only dream of being. The ragged driving, full of energy and fervour, doesn’t belong to a young gun out to prove a point. It belongs to FF1600 legend Rick Morris – the man who went toe to toe with a young Ayrton Senna in 1981 and clinched an FF1600 title a year later. As Morris enters his 47th season behind the wheel of a race car,…

BRANDS HATCH BRSCC MARCH 24/25 Three proved to be the magic number at Brands Hatch as Danny Harrison, Will Blackwell-Chambers and Michael Watton all claimed hat-tricks in the opening rounds of their respective championships. Harrison proved unstoppable in the trio of Ford Fiesta Championship encounters, despite the best efforts of Harry Gooding. After the first race had been delayed by two stoppages, Harrison took the spoils by pulling off a superb opportunist move at Paddock Hill Bend when pacesetter Gooding was held up by a backmarker. In the battle for third, Tom Hutchins appeared to have lost out to Charles Plumley on the final lap, but a post-race time penalty for exceeding track limits reversed the result in his favour. Harrison’s success was more comfortable in race two, taking a…

This is the year that GT4 comes of age in Britain. And that age is rather young. This season marks a swing in momentum for the category, with a real feeling of ‘out with the old and in with the new’. For 2018 there’s a bigger grid than ever – 23 cars – as well as a host of new manufacturer offerings, bringing the number of marques up to eight. And to go along with that, there’s a very youthful look to the line-ups. SRO’s silver-silver concept has been a slowburner in GT3, but in GT4 it seems to be bang on. Silver drivers are career-focused, usually with experience of professional junior categories such as Formula 3 or F4 single-seaters. As that career path has become more costly, many younger…

Christian Lundgaard is a young man with a growing reputation. The Dane only started racing cars last May, but he’s now in his second year as a member of the Renault Sport Academy and won both championships he entered last year. Lundgaard’s father Henrik is a former European Rally champion whose first attempt at introducing his son to karting didn’t go according to plan. “I didn’t really like it the first time because it was scary and very noisy,” Lundgaard Jr recalls. “But the first time we got out on a serious track to have a proper test, everything was just awesome. Since then I haven’t really questioned myself.” “I DIDN’T REALLY LIKE KARTING THE FIRST TIME BECAUSE IT WAS SCARY AND VERY NOISY” After a successful karting career, Lundgaard…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY We all believe that we could be the next Lewis Hamilton when we’re sitting in a kart, racing our friends or work colleagues on an evening of entertaining Arrive-and-Drive action at our local circuit. The reality, however, is somewhat different. It takes time, dedication, and most of all the right approach to rise to the top. Drivers are starting their careers from the age of eight years old, or even younger in some cases. Juggling the pressures of schoolwork and social lives with their fitness regimes, testing and racing: it really is a test of one’s will to succeed. In this new supplement we shine the spotlight on the many reasons karting is of such paramount importance to a driver’s early career, with insight from racers…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY The international karting paddock has witnessed its fair share of talented British drivers in recent years. George Russell, Lando Norris and Enaam Ahmed all impressed in British championships before going on to win major international honours. But all have had the support of major karting teams to help in their development and rise to the top. The step up from British to international racing shouldn’t be underestimated, though. A sufficient budget is one necessity, but it wouldn’t be worthwhile if the young driver is going to be simply running around at the back of the field. With a season’s experience of IAME Cadet racing in Britain under his belt, during which he won races against fierce competition, Cian Shields is stepping up to the X30 Junior…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY Commonly defined by professional racing drivers as the purest form of motorsport, karting is the preferred modern-day stepping stone to a future career in the sport. Yet it’s also accessible for a simple evening of fun with friends. Karting doesn’t just have to be for those who are serious about making motorsport their living. Look at the graphic on the next page: compared to the single-seater ladder, it’s relatively straightforward. Despite the introduction of new engines at international level in recent years, front fairings to promote fairer racing, and the continued rise of the IAME X30 powerplant, the path towards the top of national and international karting is rather simple. The graphic shows a clearly identifiable path up the middle, from dipping a toe in the…

Formula 1 owner Liberty will present its blueprint for the future to the teams, as well as current and potential engine manufacturers, at next week’s Bahrain Grand Prix – and it’s bound to signal the start of what promises to be an intense period of lobbying, politicking and positioning in the build-up to 2021. Detailed new engine rules and proposals for cost savings and budget cuts are expected to be at the heart of the Bahrain presentation. It’s not yet clear if Liberty will also address the commercial arrangements that it hopes to adopt when the current bilateral agreements between F1 and the teams run out at the end of 2020. But financial negotiations will be inextricably intertwined with the rules package, and in particular the engine format. That was…

Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves returned to the cockpit of an IndyCar last week as he gears up for his two races in May: on the Indy Grand Prix road course and in the 500 itself. Relying on “muscle memory”, the Brazilian veteran made the most of the morning’s ideal running conditions in a Barber Motorsports Park test to go third quickest in a Team Penske 1-2-3. And the return to form for a driver who is now focusing on his IMSA SportsCar programme with Penske was enough to embolden him into running in the afternoon’s wet conditions, the only driver to do so. “I’ve missed it, it was great fun,” Castroneves (below) told Autosport. “It was about using muscle memory. So, sure, I’m a sportscar driver now, but…

THE CATCH-22 OF MERCEDES’ COOLING Cooling a Formula 1 car is no easy task, and with the introduction of the hybrid power units it has become even more complicated. Every team pushes cooling to the limit. The reason for this is fairly simple: any airflow you use to cool cannot be used for producing downforce, because all its energy is used soaking up heat, so it becomes very hot and travels too slowly. Other than if there is a significant change in weather conditions, the regulations do not allow cooling changes after qualifying, so if your package is designed around qualifying on pole and leading the race, if – like Valtteri Bottas – you crash in qualifying and start 15th, following another car in its turbulence leads to overheating, losing…

Save Formula 1, not the engines ‘Save the engine.’ These three words from Lewis Hamilton on the podium after the Australian GP sum up one of the major things currently wrong with F1. Having to turn down the settings to protect the engine so it can last multiple races robs the fans of an exciting finish. This should be a massive wake-up call to the teams, the FIA and Liberty to make sure the next generation of engine is significantly cheaper, so if it blows up on the cool-down lap after the race it won’t matter for the next weekend. Each race weekend should be its own standalone event for engines. It can’t be right that fans who pay a great deal of money to attend grands prix get to…

Fernando Alonso’s opportunistic fifth place in the Australian Grand Prix meant McLaren was best-of-the-rest behind the big three, but his result owed much to good fortune. While he put in a characteristically strong drive, Alonso’s race was compromised from the start thanks to lining up 10th on the grid, a consequence of a mistake on his second Q2 lap that prevented him from advancing to the top 10 shootout. Nevertheless, he predicted “big points” for McLaren in the race. Like most of the rest of the field, Alonso was unable to make an overtaking manoeuvre, but owed almost as much as Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari to the Haas team’s problems. Not only did he pick up two places thanks to the retirements of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, but thanks…

Plastic bags proved to be an unexpected enemy for two teams in the lower midfield. Sergey Sirotkin’s Formula 1 debut for Williams came to a premature end on lap five when he retired with overheating brakes, believed to be a consequence of a duct ingesting a bag. Sirotkin started 19th and ran there early on before losing retardation and heading up the Turn 13 escape road. “You would not believe what happened: it was a plastic sandwich bag, which went into the rear-right brake duct,” said Sirotkin. It made [the brakes] overheat massively. It caused massive temperature spikes and destroyed all of the brakes.” Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe, speaking after the race, stressed that the team had not established 100% confirmation that this was the cause. But it…

The city-centre and one-day nature of Formula E race events present unusual challenges for the drivers. While most of the field is familiar with the three-day set-up of typical single-seater series, Formula E’s comparative lack of track time makes things complicated. “It’s a very unusual weekend, especially because of the limitation of time,” says reigning champion Lucas di Grassi. “[Before the race] you go to the sim, you analyse some data, analyse some onboard – you watch the race from the year before.” “Here you have 20 flat-out laps before qualifying”Lucas di Grassi After arriving in the host city on the Wednesday before the race to acclimatise and get familiar with the venue, the drivers often spend Thursdays taking part in PR commitments before attention switches to the track walk,…

BRDC BRITISH F3 Billy Monger will make his racing return in the opening round of the BRDC British F3 Championship at Oulton Park this weekend. The 18-year-old will appear on the grid with Carlin having spent several weeks testing with the team. It will be the first time he has raced competitively since a horrific British Formula 4 accident at Donington Park last year led to both his legs being amputated. Monger received worldwide support, including from F1 stars Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, after his accident. A crowdfunding drive to assist his rehabilitation reached almost £850,000. He currently operates the car using a paddle on the steering wheel with his right hand to accelerate, while using his left to upshift and downshift. He uses his right prosthetic leg to…

EXHIBITION FERRARI: UNDER THE SKIN There’s a beautiful 1973 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 ‘Daytona’ awaiting visitors in the main hall of London’s Design Museum. The Group 4 racer in its striking yellow livery makes it clear that there’s something out of the ordinary going on in the museum. That something is an exhibition dedicated to Ferrari – and a celebration of the 70th birthday the manufacturer reached last year. The Daytona is the perfect appetite whetter, drawing attention and leaving you impatient to start the journey through decades of passion and glamour, and endless pursuit of engineering excellence. The first thing you hear after hitting the ‘welcome’ button on a multimedia guide is the roar of a V12 engine, a nice little touch that will surely put a grin on the…

Michele Alboreto (Ferrari 156/85) caresses the barriers at the 1985 Monaco Grand Prix. The Italian, who qualified in third place, played a starring role in the principality: he was leading the race when he slid off on oil left by the spectacular lap-17 crash between Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW BT54) and Riccardo Patrese (Alfa Romeo 185T), losing the position to Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG MP4/2B). Alboreto battled back past Prost, then fell to fourth after picking up a slow puncture. In a charging fightback he recovered to second place, taking chunks out of Prost’s lead, but the flag fell before he could re-engage the Frenchman.…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY What do Lewis Hamilton, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Giedo van der Garde, Jerome d’Ambrosio and Max Verstappen all have in common? The answer is that each has won a world karting title before graduating into car racing and ultimately competing in Formula 1. Long gone is the old route of stumbling into the job by way of alternative competition, such as John Surtees’s bike racing and Jim Clark’s early efforts in road rallying and hillclimbing. The traditional path followed by the modern-day racing driver is to begin by honing their skills at a young age around the tight, twisty layouts of karting circuits. It’s where they first learn what is required to compete, all the while having fun in the bustling paddocks with the reverberating sound of two-stroke…

“The grids are bigger and the paddock seems to be more professional and organised,” Cian Shields notices soon after he enters a European paddock for the first time. “The facilities such as clubhouses and grandstands are far bigger and better than the majority of tracks in the UK. There are strict cut-off times on the timetable which if you miss, you lose track time or the whole race itself. But it’s a relaxed atmosphere, albeit a very busy one.” Living so close to Larkhall in Scotland has had its benefits for Shields. He soon became acclimatised to wet-weather driving, and is now seeking to gain experience in drier conditions on the testing tracks around Europe. “I’ve been able to get used to racing in torrid weather from an early age,”…

Since its launch in 2014, the Synergy kart has quickly established itself as the leading Cadet chassis in British racing. In its debut season, it carried Teddy Wilson to the MSA British IAME Cadet Championship title. More success followed, as Jonny Edgar won the ’15 Little Green Man series. The honours continued to flow. In 2016, it took drivers to the title in every major series, including the Little Green Man and Super 1 Cadet titles with Harry Thompson, and the MSA Kartmasters Grand Prix crown with Zak O’Sullivan. Homologation rules allowed the chassis to be redesigned in 2017, twinning it with components that, for the first time, were produced specifically to match the chassis. “It became a completely different kart in ’17,” explains Synergy director Dan Hazlewood. “The first…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY It’s a brisk late-November morning, the temperature gauge reads three degrees above freezing, while the sun shines brightly over the picturesque Northamptonshire countryside following a night of intermittent rainfall. These are some way off the optimum conditions for any type of on-track racing, yet they are perfect as a learning tool for the youngsters competing in the final round of the 2017 Whilton Mill Kart Club Championship. The Daventry track glistens as it is prepared to host its season finale, with 172 drivers registered to take part in six separate classes from Honda Cadet to Senior Max. From a small dad-and-lad outfit with their van in tow, to large, professional teams housed in areas big enough to host a multitude of karts, all are hoping to…

A mainly self-taught engineer, Bernard Boyer, who has died at the age of 83, designed the chassis of Sir Jackie Stewart’s favourite Formula 1 car. Born in Orleans, Boyer cut his mechanical and competitive teeth on motorbikes – he finished fifth 250cc on a Peugeot in 1956’s Bol d’Or at Montlhery – before switching to four wheels at that decade’s end. He scored his first victory – in the quirky front-wheel-drive Monomill single-seater – in 1959 and two years later became national Formula Junior champion in Ecurie Edger’s Lotus 18 and 20. Boyer also contested the Le Mans 24 Hours twice with Guy Verrier as co-driver – in CD Dyna (1962) and Alpine (’63) – but retired both times. But he was much more effective with a spanner or pencil…

Through Formula 1’s hybrid era Lewis Hamilton has averaged 10 victories a season, and his imperious pole position in Melbourne suggested Sunday would tick off yet another. Not so, though: although Hamilton led from the start, a virtual safety car period, together with a miscalculation by Mercedes, left Sebastian Vettel in the lead, and – despite a recent visit from the Ministry of Silly Haircuts – the Ferrari driver won his second Australian Grand Prix on the trot. “We were lucky today,” Seb said, and he was right. One doesn’t know what Lewis said to his team behind closed doors, but his outward post-race demeanour – calm and easy – did him credit: presumably he took comfort from the thought that yet again Mercedes starts a season with the car…

JUAN MANUEL FANGIO’S FAMOUS ADAGE ABOUT WINNING BY THE SMALLEST POSSIBLE margin has never been truer than in modern grand prix racing. And that’s even though he never had to deal with the complex hybrid technology and component limits that force races to be stage-managed by driver and team for fear of consuming too much engine life – with consequences for results downstream – or fuel. And he never encountered a safety car, let alone one of the virtual kind that cost Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes certain victory in the Australian Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s win owed more to good fortune than to pace, as the man himself admitted, for without the deployment of the virtual safety car on lap 26 of 58 to allow the recovery of…

Carlos Sainz clung on to score the final point in Melbourne, but he was sick of the sight of his Renault by the end of the race – almost literally. The Spaniard ceded a place to Fernando Alonso shortly before pitting when he made a mistake at Turn 9 and ran across the grass, then was shuffled back to 10th thanks to drawing an unfavourable lot in the virtual safety car gamble. He was relieved just to make it to the end after reporting feelings of nausea over the radio. “We had a problem with the water pump [drinks bottle] and during the first 10 or 15 laps it was squirting water on my face, so I was drinking too much water,” Sainz explained. “When the safety car came out…

AUSTR ALIAN SUPERCARS ALBERT PARK (AUS) MARCH 23-25 ROUND 2/16 Although Jamie Whincup won the inaugural Larry Perkins Trophy, it was an emotional first victory for Scott Pye that highlighted a history-making Supercars weekend. The series competed for championship points on the Australian Grand Prix support bill for the first time in history, with four different winners across the four races. There were a number of significant firsts, led by Pye taking a stunning maiden win in the Saturday evening 25-lap twilight race. It was not only his first victory, but the first for the restructured Walkinshaw Andretti United squad. Bathurst 1000 winner David Reynolds scored his first solo Supercars honours since joining Erebus Motorsport with a dominant performance in Sunday’s sprint race. Earlier in the weekend, it was Scott…

@AS_National HISTORICS Jenson Button will make his historic racing debut this year, dovetailing his Japanese commitments with Le Mans Classic and Goodwood Revival outings. The 2009 Formula 1 champion will drive JD Classics-run cars in both meetings. At the Le Mans Classic (July 6-8), Button will compete in an ex-Tom Walkinshaw Racing Jaguar XJR-9. He will race chassis #688, the last of the Le Mans-winning models to be built. It was second in the 1988 Spa 1000Km world sportscar round, where Martin Brundle joined Johnny Dumfries and Jan Lammers on his way to the drivers’ title. It has not yet been revealed which JD Classics car Button will race at the Goodwood Revival in September. JD Classics founder Derek Hood said: “It’s an absolute pleasure for us to have Jenson…

GINETTA GT4 SUPERCUP M3 Cup runner-up Carl Shield will join champion Adam Shepherd in switching to the Ginetta GT4 Supercup this year. Shield finished 24 points behind Shepherd in the 750 Motor Club category last year in just his second season of car racing, having previously competed on bikes, and will run as a privateer in the Supercup. “It’s all looking very good,” said Shield. “It’s a high-profile series and Adam Shepherd, who I’ve been battling with, is moving up with Team Hard. I had a look at the cars at the Autosport show and it seemed more affordable than I thought it ever could be. “Ginetta put me in a car at Donington Park for a test and I gelled with it straight away. I had never driven on…

FIA MASTERS HISTORIC Warren Briggs enjoyed his first singleseater drive since 1983 at Brands Hatch last Thursday when he gave his ex-Patrick Tambay/John Watson Formula 1 McLaren M29C its first proper run-out on the Indy Circuit in preparation for the FIA Masters Historic opener at Imola next month. It has come full circle for the New Zealander, who joined McLaren as a fabricator on arriving in Britain in 1978. “I was there at the beginning of the M29 process, while it was being built, but left before it raced,” he said. Former McLaren colleagues Dave Ryan and George Langhorn assisted in restoring the M29C, rebuilt in WDK Motorsport’s Hampshire workshop. Ryan worked on Watson’s car when he finished fourth in the US GP West and Canadian GP in 1980. Briggs…

It may have been the first day of school for the Mighty Mini Championship, but the boisterous activity throughout the field was more akin to the last day of term. Both 20-minute contests featured plenty of charging drives, not least the courageous performance of race-one winner Scott Kendall. Starting on the fourth row, Kendall essayed a charging opening lap, which culminated in a dive inside Greg Jenkins for second into Brooklands. The reigning Super Mighty Mini class champion hounded David Kirkpatrick for the lead and snatched it a lap later at Luffield. Jenkins kept himself in the mix, trading the lead throughout, although Kendall ultimately prevailed. Kendall was again in contention for race two before Jo Polley made her presence felt, having overcome a nudge on the pit straight and…

It’s unusual for a champion to look so pensive. But Rick Parfitt Jr cuts a more reserved figure ahead of this year, strange for somebody whose day job is quite literally to be the star of the show. Last year musician Parfitt was the star of the show on track too. He dominated British GT3’s gentleman-driver set to land the title with Seb Morris. But that was last year. And things have changed significantly over the winter. “I reckon it’s pretty obvious that we’re going to be up against it,” says Parfitt, who will share his title-winning Team Parker Racing Bentley Continental GT3 with Welshman Ryan Ratcliffe this year after co-champion Morris opted to move on to Europe. “Just look at the entry. It’s probably the best entry British GT3…

“We’re aiming to go out there, do well in the championship and make a name for myself.” There’s no question that Lewis Kent is setting his sights on being at the front of the grid in the new-for-2018 TCR UK series, which begins this weekend at Silverstone. The 18-year-old will compete in the championship aboard a Hyundai i30N in his ongoing quest to become a British Touring Car driver. The TCR brand has already taken off in Europe and Asia, and Kent hopes that both he and the series can establish themselves in the UK. “This year is a taster year for what we can do and what the series can do,” says the Ford Fiesta race winner. “I absolutely love the car, I think it’s brilliant. The amount of…

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN? WHO AM I? This prickly thistle started out on the conventional route to the top before taking an Italian holiday destination to success. After setting up on his own, he was winning at home and abroad, taking a Big Cat to European glory and rattling the locals down under. He captained a Viking boat to great success, while keeping the felines purring by adding the king of the jungle to the fold. When he finished behind the wheel he enjoyed his greatest success as he returned a legendary marque to its place at the top of the world. He donned some Italian knitwear for a stint in the big time, before he went all of a quiver and out on his own. A Sheriff set up…

Karting remains a key tool even for superstar drivers. During the winter off-season, McLaren’s Fernando Alonso uses karting as an important physical and mental-fitness aid. The two-time world champion spends hours circulating his own CIK-FIA-approved karting circuit close to his hometown of Oviedo in northern Spain. Lapping the 1.2-mile track, designed to mimic some of F1’s finest corners, ensures he stays race sharp. “It’s racing in its purest form, which is why many professional drivers and even F1 champions love to go back to karting,” Alonso says. “It keeps you mentally on form and it’s very physical, so it’s the perfect winter preparation. “The thing that’s important to remember about karting is that racecraft starts at a very young age. This is when you get the feeling for the kart.…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY Arriving and competing at a circuit for the first time is like riding a bike when the stabilisers are removed: at first you’re unsure of how to pedal and place the wheel, but the more you practise, the easier and more familiar it becomes. As well as onboard camera footage, modern motorsport provides access to split-second, intricate data that drivers use to seek out any possible advantage. It’s one of the key aspects that Cian Shields and driver coach Dean Macdonald have worked closely together on as Shields makes his European debut this season. “Having access to video games and simulator work can be good preparation, but it’s not until you turn up at the track for the first time that you can really get to…

BROUGHT TO YOU BY 01 TURN 1 This begins the lap with a right-to-left corner that’s fairly easy and flat-out in all classes in which I’ve raced. The key is for your hand movements to be nice and smooth, and to keep off the kerbs so that you don’t upset the kart and scrub speed off as you go underneath the bridge. 02 TURN 2 There’s a slight right kink here after the bridge before a long left-hander. It requires only a small dab of brake as the gradient of the banking is quite high. You can smoothly throw the kart in and let the banking catch you at the apex. Again, you want to be as close to the inside kerb as you can without running over it. As you hit…

“Oooooff, that’ll cost you,” came the pessimistic response from a mate at work when I said my daughter Naomie had taken an interest in karting. We’ve all heard it; the easy dismissal that motorsport is too expensive, too exclusive and too much hassle. This was a couple of years ago, we were just starting out, and I wish I’d been able to put him right at the time. The truth is that, as an industry, karting is offering more options than ever to make the sport accessible to newcomers, girls, and novice mum-and-dad mechanics. It’s a fact we should shout about and build on. In our case, in less than two years motorsport has become Naomie’s favourite hobby and it’s been fantastic to show her the industry I work in…