Indholdsfortegnelse for 12/04/18 i Autosport

That was better. After an unsatisfactory Australian Grand Prix, the Bahrain event last weekend was far more entertaining. There was some decent overtaking and a battle for the lead that kept things tense right to the chequered flag. There were several factors that contributed to a more interesting contest. Having some cars (such as Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes) out of position often helps promote overtaking, the circuit layout was more helpful than that in Melbourne, and – crucially – Pirelli’s new-for-2018 tyre compounds meant there were more strategy options. Teams weren’t quite sure how to play it and that unknown helped create a little bit of randomness. The unloved DRS zones were also just about right in Bahrain to make moves possible without becoming too easy. Of course, none of this…

FORMULA 1 A Bahrain Grand Prix meeting of the Formula 1 Technical Working Group failed to come to any firm conclusions over ways to increase the amount of overtaking in 2019. The meeting was called by the FIA’s Nikolas Tombazis in part as a response to an Australian Grand Prix that featured very little overtaking. A team of engineers under F1 chief technical officer Pat Symonds has been working on concepts for the 2021 package, but ways are also being sought to improve the racing for next season. The two main points of discussion were the potential introduction of a bigger and higher rear-wing flap intended to increase the DRS effect, and changes to the front wing to make it easier for drivers to follow the car ahead. Research has…

WORLD ENDURANCE British single-seater ace Dean Stoneman was ready to quit motorsport before getting the chance to race for the Manor Ginetta World Endurance Championship LMP1 team. The 27-year-old, a race winner in GP3 and Indy Lights, hadn’t competed since dropping out of Strakka Racing’s Blancpain GT Series squad mid-season in 2017. He was considering calling time on his racing career, but that changed when the offer came to race one of Manor’s Ginetta-Mecachrome G60-LT-P1s. “Until three weeks ago my helmet was hung up; I had decided to take a step back,” said Stoneman, who raced in GP3 with the Manor team. “After such a disappointing season last year, I really was considering calling it a day. This kind of car is what I like, having always been a single-seater…

Is 10 minutes a waste of time? After 50 years of reading Autosport and following F1, can someone please tell me what the 10 minutes’ additional time of TV coverage is all about, as it appears to be a complete waste of time?! And please don’t get me going on the one-hour-later starting time. Come back Bernie, all is forgiven. Raymond Graves Sheffield Save money by ditching the celebs If money is to be saved in F1, start with the hospitality. Cut back on the bored so-called celebrities and hangers-on. Darren Hollebone By email Don’t be a party mode pooper So the latest piece of silliness in the tech wars around F1 is the idea from Red Bull that ‘party modes’ should be abolished. After all, who wants to see…

BAHRAIN’S TURN 11 IS A LONG, uphill left-hander at the end of the back straight. In qualifying trim, it requires only a shift down to fourth gear and demands a tricky balance between carrying entry speed, completing the turning and getting the power on at the exit. Watching during the first free practice session, the difference between the two Ferrari drivers is marked. Kimi Raikkonen turns in decisively, as is his wont, and has to live with understeer throughout much of the corner. You can sense his impatience at waiting for the front end to respond before he can feed the power in. On one occasion, this manifests itself as Raikkonen turning in earlier but clouting the inside kerb and spitting himself wide. He deals with the understeer fine, but…

Brendon Hartley showed promising pace during the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, but his prospects of achieving a maiden points finish were stymied by a pair of penalties. Hartley earned his first punishment, a 10-second penalty, for punting Sergio Perez’s Force India into a spin at the Turn 4 right-hander on the opening lap while attempting to take 10th place. Stewards deemed this to be Hartley’s fault, and he had to observe the sanction at his first pitstop, which dropped him to 18th and last. He recovered to finish 13th on the road, just 27 thousandths behind Perez, but the pair was relegated to 16th and 17th when both drivers were hit with 30s penalties for failing to respect the formation-lap procedure. Perez overtook Hartley on the formation lap, after Hartley…

From the outside it’s a bland, beige, unbranded container at the side of the runway at Bastia airport. Inside? It’s the nerve centre of Sebastien Ogier’s tilt at a sixth straight World Rally Championship title. The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team’s unostentatious operational HQ is surrounded by swankiness: the brains behind Citroen’s operation look down on it from first-floor hospitality; Hyundai’s triple-level facility offers an even more commanding vantage point; and Toyota’s bungalow compensates for its lack of height with a palatial gloss. Yet they all trail a crew guided by 12 people packed inside that dull container. The plush race truck that once offered engineers and senior team personnel their own desks, darkened windows and climate control has gone. Sold. Team principal Malcolm Wilson and his deputy Rich Millener…

It had been more than five years since Vauxhall won a race in the British Touring Car Championship, but Senna Proctor’s triumph in race two was memorable for so many more reasons. It was the 19-year old’s first in the BTCC and it was taken when he – along with a few other brave men – took the decision to start on slicks on a damp but possibly drying track. For 22 of the 27 laps, it looked like the wrong decision but then, remarkably, all the wet-tyred frontrunners ran out of grip. Proctor was in a train including Aiden Moffat’s Mercedes A-Class, Jake Hill (Team Hard Volkswagen CC) and Ollie Jackson (AmD Tuning Audi S3) that simply steamed its way to the front. There was a slightly sour taste…

WTCR MARRAKECH (MA) APRIL 7-8 ROUND 1/10 For everything new and revolutionary about the WTCR World Cup, it was an old hand who snatched the headlines on the first weekend in Morocco. Gabriele Tarquini’s key role in the development of Hyundai’s first circuitracing challenger, the i30 N TCR, meant he was always likely to feel at home on his return to the world scene, but surely even he could not have predicted the two wins he ended the weekend with. And it was an old trick of the Italian’s that set up the first of his victories. Tarquini hadn’t been fastest in either practice session, was third in Saturday qualifying and probably didn’t have the ultimate race pace of polesitter Thed Bjork. But what he has long stored in his…

BLANCPA IN SPRINT CUP ZOLDER (B) APRIL 7-8 ROUND 1/5 Attempto Audi’s Kelvin van der Linde and Steijn Schothorst (above) began the Blancpain Sprint Cup season with a victory in last Sunday’s Zolder encounter. For swathes of the season opener, it looked like the reigning overall champions Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart would start their title defence with a double. Having won Saturday’s race, the polesitting #63 Grasser Lamborghini built a lead of around seven seconds on Sunday. But pitlane calamities wiped out their advantage and ultimately allowed the Attempto duo through, firstly when Bortolotti came in to hand over to his team-mate and the car stalled. A drive-through penalty for improper pitlane procedure exacerbated the consequences of the mistake, handing the lead to the #2 WRT Audi of Will…

The post-season World Rallycross Championship video, produced for the FIA prizegiving, promotes all that is good about the sport. Despite having seen it many, many times, 2017 title winner Johan Kristoffersson couldn’t help being glued to a rerun at the recent PSRX team launch. “I do still enjoy watching that,” says the Volkswagen Polo star. “That’s rallycross itself: when they make a video like that and there’s some good music… There’s a lot of action in rallycross, so of course when the new season is just around the corner, you feel even more motivated to start to compete again when you watch it.” Despite being a class apart last season, the 29-year-old Swede still needs to be motivated if he is to stand a chance of defending his crown. The…

BRITISH GT Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw have been confirmed as the current British GT points leaders after the championship stewards ruled to award full points for the abandoned second race at Oulton Park. The Easter Monday encounter was curtailed after four laps behind the safety car because of heavy rain. The meeting stewards referred the case to British GT’s championship stewards to decide whether to award full points for the truncated race. British GT’s rules say that a result can be declared as early as two laps into a contest, but the point of contention arose because the first part of the race ended under a red flag rather than a chequered one, and a second part did not take place. The stewards’ decision has handed Keen and Minshaw…

KNOCKHILL SMRC APRIL 8 Kyle Reid started the new Scottish Motor Racing Club season at Knockhill in dominant fashion with a hat-trick of Scottish Mini Cooper Cup wins. But it was full-season driver John Duncan who left the Fife circuit happiest after a trio of podiums. With reigning champion Mark Geraghty pursuing other ventures south of the border, Reid stamped his authority on the weekend, taking pole position by 0.3s from Duncan. A clean getaway amid the chaos behind was key to claiming victory from Duncan and Robbie Dalgleish in an opening race that was twice interrupted by the safety car. Simon Holderness and Craig Blake both found themselves in the gravel at McIntyre’s early in the race, while Hannah Chapman and rookie Jake Hutchison also suffered race-ending contact. Reid…

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN? WHO IS THIS? This influential Buckeye took a lupine route up the ladder, before making a step down to fly the flag. But he had to wait to get his true calling in the sport. Following a quick brace of titles, he bounced his way into an epic battle, although he had to go it alone in order to get back to the very top. After hanging up his helmet there was an unexpected call of the wild from a struggling big cat, but the adventure was short-lived and an offer to run the show took him back to his roots. Like all others he eventually crossed the great divide. He scooped the biggest prize first time out and went on to play a key role…

FORMULA 1 Ross Brawn and Chase Carey (above) shared Formula 1 owner Liberty’s vision for the future last Friday at the Bahrain Grand Prix. While it gave the 10 teams plenty of food for thought, it was a presentation rather than a debate, and the next step will be a series of individual meetings with teams, where more details will be ironed out. “It was a more a meeting to pass the information and to pass the views onto the teams,” Brawn told Autosport. “The teams need to digest it now, then the discussion proper will start. It was a straightforward meeting with no major controversies.” The first step towards 2021 was made last October, when outline power-unit regulations were issued in conjunction with the FIA, triggering negative reactions from…

WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP Night stages, more-diverse routes and the return of Kenya’s Safari Rally were all given the seal of approval for the World Rally Championship from FIA president Jean Todt at last weekend’s Tour de Corse. Visiting his home round of the championship – an event that remains close to his heart from when he was competing on Corsica as a co-driver, and one he described as “the perfect venue for a WRC round” – Todt talked to the media about the series’ future. Asked for his feelings on suggestions that more shorter stages was the best route to an improved social-media profile – as discussed by former FIA rally director Jarmo Mahonen – Todt said: “It’s not an easy question. For me, rallying is not a sprint; rallying…

WORLD ENDURANCE Toyota dominated the times in a confusing World Endurance Championship test at Paul Ricard last week. The two TS050 HYBRIDs were well clear of the privateer LMP1 ranks, but all was not as it seemed. The table-topping times by Toyota drivers Mike Conway and Anthony Davidson of 1m32.662s and 1m34.655s over the course of the two days compared with the fastest privateer lap of 1m37.034s by Vitaly Petrov in the best of SMP Racing’s AER-powered BR Engineering BR1s. That was a massive gap given the rulemakers’ promise of lap-time parity between hybrid and non-hybrid machinery. That gap, however, was as artificial as the rules that have been introduced for the 2018-19 superseason to bring the independents closer to the one remaining factory squad in P1. Toyota revealed on…

WATCH OUR ONLINE PREVIEW AT AUTOSPORT.COM UK START TIMES FRIDAY FP1 0300 FP2 0700 SATURDAY FP3 0400 QUALIFYING 0700 SUNDAY RACE 0710 LIVE ON SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE 0630 HIGHLIGHTS ON CHANNEL 4 RACE SUNDAY 1400 TYRE ALLOCATION TRACK STATS LENGTH 3.387 miles NUMBER OF LAPS 56 2017 POLE POSITION Lewis Hamilton 1m31.678s POLE LAP RECORD Lewis Hamilton 1m31.678s (2017) RACE LAP RECORD Michael Schumacher 1m32.238s (2004) THEMES TO WATCH CAN HAMILTON GET HIMSELF OFF THE MARK? Sebastian Vettel made it two out two in Bahrain – the first time since 2004 that Ferrari has won the first two races of an F1 season. Lewis Hamilton was mighty in China last year, and Mercedes desperately needs a victory after squandering two great opportunities. WILL RED BULL’S NIGHTMARE…

MERCEDES HAD THE BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX WON ON LAP 21. WELL, ALMOST. ACCORDING TO team boss Toto Wolff, there was only a one in 10 chance of Ferrari winning despite Sebastian Vettel being in the lead. And yet, 36 laps later, Vettel claimed his second consecutive grand prix victory, albeit by the slim margin of 0.699 seconds from the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas. “I think we had won the race already after coming out on the medium behind Sebastian with a gap we were able to close down, knowing Ferrari would either have to stop once again or would run out of tyre if we were to push them,” said Wolff when asked if his team could have done anything differently. “This was the moment I would say 90% probability…

Marcus Ericsson thinks that shedding 5kg of body weight before the start of the season has helped the boost in form that ended a points drought stretching back to the 2015 Italian Grand Prix. The Sauber driver combined a strong first lap and a one-stop strategy to climb from 17th to ninth in the Bahrain Grand Prix and bank his team’s first points of the season. The Swede is one of the tallest drivers on the grid but reckons his new lower weight, combined with Sauber also getting its 2018 car down to the weight limit, is paying dividends. “It’s been a tough winter for me but I’ve been working my ass off to make sure I take my opportunity this year,” he said. Ericsson has outqualified his new highly…

Lap 231 of 250, with the cars running under caution for only the second time of the night, was the crucial one. Crucial for IndyCar, hoping to create a memorable race at Phoenix’s 1.022-mile oval, now known as ISM Raceway. Crucial for Robert Wickens, who, as in the opening event at St Petersburg, had starred in a manner that should force some established IndyCar drivers to question their own abilities. And crucial for Team Penske’s reigning champion Josef Newgarden. Newgarden, who had qualified only seventh (slowest of the Penske trio), had been running second behind team-mate Will Power when they made their second stops, but the Chevrolet-powered pair were vaulted by four Honda drivers who had made that second stop up to 10 laps earlier: the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports pair…

MOTOGP RIO HONDO (RA) APRIL 8 ROUND 2/19 Normally, Cal Crutchlow’s expertly judged run to a third career MotoGP victory would be the main headline from an action-packed second round of the season in Argentina, but reigning champion Marc Marquez ensured this wasn’t the case. The headlines were all his, and for all the wrong reasons. The main takeaway from a chaotic encounter at Rio Hondo was the reprise of grand prix motorcycle racing’s most bitter feud, the result of a clash between Marquez and Valentino Rossi that left the Italian on the ground and absolutely irate. The incident occurred at the long Turn 13 right-hander while the pair were battling for sixth place in the latter stages of the race as Marquez recovered from an earlier ride-through penalty. Marquez…

AUSTR ALIAN SUPERCARS SYMMONS PLAINS (AUS) APRIL 7-8 ROUND 3/16 Craig Lowndes broke a 623-day winless streak with victory in Tasmania, while Jamie Whincup emerged from the third round of the Supercars season with the points lead thanks to a shocker for Shane van Gisbergen. Veteran superstar Lowndes came into the Symmons Plains weekend having not won a race since Queensland Raceway in July 2016, while his pole-position drought stretched even further back, to the QR round in 2015. The 43-year-old looked sprightly enough on the Saturday in Tasmania, qualifying fourth and shadowing race winner and Triple Eight Holden stablemate Whincup home on his way to second place in the 120km opener. But it was on the Sunday that Lowndes really rediscovered his mojo. First, he took pole with a…

@AS_National SCOTT BROWN TROPHY Leading historic racer Gary Pearson will contest the Archie Scott Brown Trophy at Snetterton in September. Pearson will drive his Lister-Jaguar, BHL 118, with which he has achieved many successes since restoring it. It will be Pearson’s first appearance in the race for 1950s sportscars, which first ran in 2015 and honours disabled Lister ace Scott Brown, who was killed at Spa in 1958. “Archie was unreal – what a character,” said Pearson. “My old man was always friendly with [marque founder] Brian Lister, so it’s nice to have that connection. Even our dog is called Archie!” Listers have only won one of the three previous editions (Mark Lewis’s Lister-Chevrolet in 2016), but Pearson is likely to be a frontrunner in his 3.8-litre machine around Snetterton’s…

HSCC GUARDS TROPHY Touring car ace Anthony Reid is targeting further outings in a Porsche 911, after sharing with Le Mans winner Richard Attwood in the opening round of the Guards Trophy last weekend at Donington. The duo finished 12th overall in the race organised by the Historic Sports Car Club at its Jim Clark memorial event. Peter Auto is celebrating Porsche’s 70th anniversary this year and has launched a 2.0L Cup for pre-1966 examples of the 911. The car Reid raced is destined for that series, which has 90-minute races at Spa, Dijon and Paul Ricard. “I’m getting a brand-new Porsche racesuit made for me by the race organisers [Peter Auto], so hopefully it’s a good sign that I’ll be doing more with the club,” he told Autosport. Reid…

MGF CUP The 20th anniversary of the launch of the MGF Cup will be celebrated with a special one-off race for the mid-engined sportscar as part of the MG Live event on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit on June 2-3. The event, which is being supported by the MGF Register, is being masterminded by long-time MG Car Club Cockshoot Cup competitor David Coulthard, who hopes to establish a 30-car entry. “I bought a Cup car myself six years ago and I realised it was coming up to the anniversary, so I thought it was worthy of trying to round up enough cars,” he said. “There were actually two series that ran in parallel in 1998: the BRDC-run MGF Cup, which was part of the Power Tour, and the MGCC Abingdon…

An affordable sports-prototype, multi-make series with frontrunners who can lap at current British Touring Car Championship speeds sounds like a good idea. And that’s what the 750 Motor Club’s RGB championship – enamed RGB Sports 1000 for 2018 – now provides. Begun as a series in 2001, the category for motorcycle powered machines has developed a long way. Originally populated by Caterham-style front-engined cars, often run by one-man bands, now the series has specially built mid-engined racers run by small constructors. Privateers still compete, but the increasing professionalism of works teams from Spire and Mittell has made RGB a difficult club championship to win. The racing at the front is tough and the variety of the field high, with a lack of downforce meaning that overtaking is also possible, so…

Porsche and Ford dominated GTE Pro in the WEC test at Paul Ricard. The Porsche 911 RSRs and Ford GTs monopolised the top spots in the times for much of the two days, the four cars ending up a second clear of the rest. Porsche driver Gianmaria Bruni posted the fastest time of the test with a 1m51.332s, while Kevin Estre set a 1m51.837s in the second factory 911 RSR. Harry Tincknell led the way for the Ganassi Ford team on a 1m52.010s. Best of the rest was Alessandro Pier Guidi for the AF Corse Ferrari team on a 1m53.250s, mixed in among the GTE Am Porsches. What was going on isn’t exactly clear. One wag from Ford suggested that “it looks like only two manufacturers are trying”, while Ferrari…

OBITUARY He looked like a geography teacher and spoke with professorial assurance; he allowed his BRDC membership to lapse (although he later rejoined); and he had no interest in modern Formula 1 – not because it was better in his day but because there were better things to be done today. John Miles, who has died aged 74, was not your average racing driver. His parents were actors – father Bernard was created a life peer – and his sisters followed this artistic lead. John preferred the smell of axle grease and the roar of engines. Happy to get his hands dirty, home-tweaked Austin 7s were his ‘karting’. In Diva GT and then Lotus Elan – with payment-in-kind support from Willment Racing – he caught the bug and the eye…

Kimi Raikkonen is the perennial Bahrain nearly man. Heading into qualifying for this year’s race, he had eight podiums here without a win and not one pole position. After the first runs in the Q3 top 10 shootout, he was on top and within touching distance of only his second pole position since 2008. Sadly, as has too often been the pattern for Raikkonen on Saturday afternoons in recent years, he couldn’t nail it when it mattered. Sebastian Vettel, who had run wide at the final corner on his first run, instead annexed his 51st career pole position by a margin of 0.143s. Raikkonen, meanwhile, failed to improve and was actually two tenths slower than he had been on his first run. “It was like an on-and-off switch and then…

Pierre Gasly and Scuderia Toro Rosso claimed Honda’s best result since the Japanese manufacturer’s return to Formula 1 in 2015 with a strong run to fourth place. Boosted by the introduction of modified MGU-H and turbochargers – a reaction to the engine failure that put Gasly out of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix – and aerodynamic upgrades including a new floor, Toro Rosso was fast throughout the weekend and had the edge in the battle for best of the rest behind the big three. Twenty-two-year-old Gasly, in only his seventh F1 start, pipped Kevin Magnussen to sixth fastest in qualifying and started fifth thanks to Lewis Hamilton’s gearbox penalty. He held position at the start and moved up to fourth when Daniel Ricciardo retired on the second lap. Gasly came…

Lewis Hamilton said that Max Verstappen’s move at Turn 1 on the second lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix, which resulted in a collision, fell outside the established boundaries of professional racing etiquette. Verstappen dived up the inside into the right-hander but failed to factor in Fernando Alonso’s presence. He moved wide having already carried in significant speed, and pushed Hamilton to the track’s edge. Verstappen’s left-rear wheel hit the front-right of Hamilton’s Mercedes, causing a puncture and ultimately raceending damage to the Red Bull. “It was an unnecessary collision,” said Hamilton. “There needs to be a certain respect between drivers. I need to watch it again, but it didn’t feel like a respectful move. It was a silly move for him because he didn’t finish the race and obviously…

Tom Ingram headed an Independents’ day rout at Brands Hatch in the opening event of the British Touring Car Championship season. The Speedworks Toyota Avensis driver was smiling on the top step of the rostrum after the weekend’s finale, following a meeting that had left a lot of his rivals scratching their heads. His triumph had followed an under pressure win for Eurotech Racing’s Jack Goff, from his third straight pole position in the series, in the opening encounter, and a stunning race two in which the slick-tyred Senna Proctor held his nerve in the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra to land his (and the car’s) maiden BTCC triumph. Ingram left the circuit at the top of the points table after a topsy-turvy day. His position had seemed unlikely just…

FORMULA 2 BAHRAIN (BRN) APRIL 7-8 ROUND 1/12 He’d taken five championships in three years, and also earned the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 2016, so it really should be no surprise that Lando Norris opened Formula 2’s new era with a dominant victory in Bahrain. Not only that, but McLaren Formula 1 junior Norris returned Carlin to the top step of the F2 podium after its one-year hiatus from this level, in a fashion that must have the rest of the field quaking in its boots. Norris engaged hyperdrive to extend his lead in the feature race to nine seconds in as many laps, a lead that proved unassailable. The new Dallara F2 car – featuring a turbo, bigger front and rear wings and, yes, the halo –…

CITROEN C1 CHALLENGE British Touring Car Championship series director Alan Gow will return to competition later this season when he takes part in the Citroen C1 24-hour race at Rockingham on May 12-13. The Australian will team up with three time World Touring Car champion Andy Priaulx, Priaulx’s son Seb – who won a race on his maiden weekend in British Formula 4 at Brands Hatch (see p75) – and friend Richard Solomons to tackle the event. Gow said he was looking forward to the challenge: “I love 24-hour races. I used to regularly compete in the 2CV 24 Hours and I won it in 1999 at Mondello Park. I have history! I have also finished second and third in the 2CVs. “With Andy, Seb and Richard in the car,…

RENAULT UK CLIO CUP The results sheets may suggest comfortable wins for Paul Rivett and Max Coates in the opening races of the Clio Cup season, but that doesn’t tell the full story of two frenetic contests. The first was red-flagged after just three laps following a typical Brands Hatch Clio roll. The victim this time was Brett Lidsey, whose car flipped over after hitting the barriers backwards out of Druids following contact with Zak Fulk. But already in that time Rivett had managed to storm into second after staying round the outside all the way from Paddock Hill Bend and up through Druids to pass Jack McCarthy and Sam Osborne. Three-time champion Rivett was again looking racy on the restart and on lap two dived down the inside of…

DONINGTON PARK HSCC APRIL 7-8 Starting with a commemoration of double Formula 1 world champion Jim Clark on the 50th anniversary of his death, the Historic Sports Car Club’s 2018 season opener will also be remembered for sensationally close racing. Both Historic Formula Ford finals were epics, won by Ben Mitchell and Richard Tarling respectively. Polesitter Mitchell fell to fifth on lap one when his Merlyn jumped out of gear hopping the kerb at McLeans. Unfazed, he fought back to pass the Lola of Cameron Jackson, Callum Grant’s Merlyn Mk11/17, Tarling in his Jamun and early leader Nelson Rowe’s Crossle to seize first from fourth in a breathtaking dive into Redgate. Sunday’s round was incredible – “probably the best Formula Ford race I’ve ever seen,” enthused HSCC chief Grahame White…

RGB’s field has fluctuated between the teens and early 20s in recent times, and Reid is keen to join the fray after his day at Donington, with an outing in the Spire a possibility. “THE CARS ARE HIGH-REVVING, HIGH-PERFORMANCE AND LIGHT” “The range of cars means there can be quite a big gap between them, but I think it’s a great concept,” reckons Reid. “It allows family-built cars like the Sabre to run with the semi-professionals. With a bit of development, it has the potential of the Spire and the Mittell, which is quite an achievement for a home-built car. “RGB is cheaper than many series and allows amateur drivers to compete in a sports-racing championship. It’s also multi-make, so it’s more of a challenge for the people building the cars.…

The standout appeal of David Hobbs’s autobiography Hobbo is the variety. Not just in the sumptuous mix of machines, such as the Penske-run Ferrari 512 and the JWA Gulf Ford GT40, but in the drivers he shared with too – Jacky Ickx, Mike Hailwood and Mark Donohue to name but a few. It’s very much a slow-burning read, but that largely mirrors the stop-start nature of Hobbs’s early career. There are enough nuggets to tide you through it in the form of his father Howard’s experimentation and development of an early variation of the automatic gearbox – both Stirling Moss and Jim Clark would race it – and Hobbs’s amusing inability to not anger his bosses as a Jaguar apprentice. Early races in the national scene have the highlight of…