Indholdsfortegnelse for 04/10/18 i Autosport

Any use of team orders in Formula 1 tends to incur the wrath of fans, and Mercedes’ decision to get Valtteri Bottas to hand Russian Grand Prix victory to his title-contending team-mate Lewis Hamilton was no exception. I have to admit to hoping that Lewis would make his own call to give the win back, but the truth is that maximising his points haul made sense. Although it now looks like Hamilton is destined to take his fifth world crown, it’s not so long since Ferrari appeared to have the fastest car and that Mercedes was on the ropes. Things can change quickly in sport and, although Hamilton and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff both looked genuinely uncomfortable with the decision, sometimes the right thing does feel bad at the time.…

FORMULA 1 Daniil Kvyat’s return for a surprise third stint at the Toro Rosso team has been confirmed, as three seats on the 2019 Formula 1 grid were nailed down during the Russian Grand Prix last weekend. Kvyat’s recall by Red Bull, which dropped him before the end of the 2017 season, was confirmed last Saturday at Sochi, one day after Haas announced that it will again field Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean next season. The reunion of Red Bull and Kvyat was unexpected, given the Russian had finally been dropped completely after last year’s United States Grand Prix. Kvyat first drove for Toro Rosso in 2014 and replaced Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull a year later. But he was demoted to the junior team early in ’16 to make…

THEMES TO WATCH VETTEL’S LAST CHANCE Sebastian Vettel is 50 points behind Lewis Hamilton and at best a rank outsider for the drivers’ championship – but he is still in the hunt. He needs a win, but with Ferrari struggling for pace it’s going to need a perfect weekend for driver and team. MORE TEAM ORDERS ON DISPLAY AT MERCEDES? Given that Hamilton usually flies at Suzuka, it’s unlikely that Valtteri Bottas will be ahead of him – but it’s possible. If that happens, will Mercedes opt to use the Finn as Hamilton’s wingman and try to close out the title victory as quickly as possible? HONDA’S HOPES FOR GASLY AND HARTLEY Honda’s home grand prix – at a track it owns – is always a big deal, and in…

THE KEY TO VALTTERI BOTTAS’S RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX POLE position, his first since topping qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix three months earlier, was the middle sector. On the first runs in the Q3 top-10 shootout, Bottas was 0.225 seconds quicker than team-mate Lewis Hamilton through this section, enough to offset Hamilton’s advantage over the rest of the lap by just 0.004s. And when it came to the crunch on the final Q3 runs, Hamilton had to correct a rear-end snap out of the Turn 7 right-hander after picking up some dirt on his tyres with an earlier wide moment and was spat off the track onto the runoff. He aborted the lap, while Bottas improved to take pole by 0.145s. Throughout the weekend, that sector was where Hamilton was…

Renault pairing Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr came away from the Russian Grand Prix empty-handed despite not running in Q2 in an attempt to gain a tyre advantage. Since the two Red Bulls and Pierre Gasly’s Toro Rosso were carrying back-of-the-grid engine-change penalties, Renault did not send out either of its drivers in the second segment of qualifying. This allowed them to start 11th and 12th, with Sainz ahead thanks to his Q1 advantage. Sainz’s race was immediately ruined by damage sustained at Turn 2 in a clash with Sergey Sirotkin. Although Sainz blamed Sirotkin, the Williams driver had Marcus Ericsson’s Sauber on his inside when the Renault turned in from the outside line, and there was not enough space for all three. Sainz finished a hobbled 17th after…

FORMULA 2  SOCHI (RUS)  SEPTEMBER 29-30  ROUND 11/12 George Russell has one hand firmly on the Formula 2 title after another great weekend at Sochi. Now his only challenger is Alexander Albon, who took victory in Saturday’s feature race as Lando Norris dropped out of title contention. If anything can characterise Russell’s season, it’s consistency and his ability to improve his ART Grand Prix car through a weekend. In the feature race he lacked the edge of DAMS pairing Albon and Nicholas Latifi, who he said had “the strongest pace of any driver and any team all season”. But after staying late on Saturday with the team to investigate, Russell was rocket-like in the sprint race, and he managed a number of tricky scenarios including mid-race rain to dominate proceedings.…

WORLD RALLYCROSS  AUSTIN (USA)  SEPTEMBER 30  ROUND 10/12 A PSRX Volkswagen Polo dominated the opening day of World Rallycross’s first visit to Austin. But for once this season it wasn’t the car of Johan Kristoffersson that set the initial pace. Little over a year after Petter Solberg had been diagnosed with lung disease, the Norwegian was seemingly back to his enduring best. In Q1 Kristoffersson found himself stuck in traffic and so slumped to 13th as Solberg dominated. He not only secured top spot in the Intermediate Classification, but won the first semi-final ahead of Kristoffersson, meaning he would line up on pole for the final. Although Kristoffersson had failed to seal his consecutive World RX crown in qualifying, his wait was barely delayed. By finishing second to Solberg in…

CLIO CUP Provisional Renault UK Clio Cup champion James Dorlin says he isn’t thinking about the National Court hearing that could lead to Paul Rivett taking the crown instead. Rivett was excluded from third place in the second race at Silverstone last month after contact with title rival Max Coates, a decision Rivett and his WDE Motorsport team have appealed to the National Court. No date has been set for the case. Dorlin won the title in dramatic style last weekend at Brands Hatch after taking an impressive win in the finale to beat Coates by five points, with Rivett a further two back. “It’s out of my control,” said Dorlin. “Today we’ve won and I’m celebrating – I’ve done everything I can.” Rivett, however, is confident of getting the…

TOCA SUPPORTS BRANDS HATCH SEPTEMBER 29-30 PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB To lose a title fight on countback by taking one win fewer is cruel. To then miss out on the crown the following year by just two points is heartbreaking. And Dino Zamparelli was left heartbroken at Brands Hatch last Sunday. The Redline Racing driver was defeated again in Kent to become Porsche Carrera Cup GB runner-up for the third year in a row as Tio Ellinas took the spoils. It had all been going so well for Zamparelli. He jumped polesitter Dan Harper at the start of race one to take the lead – if the race had finished at that point he would have been crowned champion. But it wasn’t to be. Dan Vaughan’s Porsche was damaged after…

ROCKINGHAM  MSVR  SEPTEMBER 29-30 Jerome de Sadeleer took advantage of dramas and success penalties for title contenders Steve Burgess and Dominik Jackson to win the opening two races of the Radical Challenge Championship triple-header at Rockingham’s final MSVR-supported meeting. Burgess and Jackson set the pace before the mandatory pitstops in race one, and their enforced handicaps enabled reigning SR1 Cup champion de Sadeleer to grab a lead he would never lose. Burgess salvaged third behind Brian Caudwell despite struggling with “a lack of pace”. A five-second penalty for exceeding track limits left Jackson fifth. De Sadeleer’s win in race two came after an incident-strewn contest. Two safety-car periods had already disrupted the early part of the race before leader Burgess was spun into retirement by Jackson on the 10th lap.…

Tony Brooks (Vanwall VW5) leads Maurice Trintignant (Cooper-Climax T45) as they accelerate past the onlookers gathered inside and on the roof of Porto’s landmark Bela Cruz restaurant during the 1958 Portuguese Grand Prix. Brooks, who had qualified fifth, failed to finish after he spun off on lap 37 of the 50-lap race. Trintignant improved on his ninth-placed qualifying slot by one position, two laps behind the victorious Vanwall VW10 of Stirling Moss. FOR MORE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHS, VISIT MOTORSPORTIMAGES.COM…

Sebastien Ogier’s record on Rally GB is far superior to those of his championship rivals: four wins plays a no-score draw for both Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak. But despite the success, it’s his debut on Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship that stands proud. When Ogier arrived in Wales in 2008, he arrived as a Junior World Rally champion. He may have been top of the stack in a Citroen C2, but he’d never driven a World Rally Car before and nobody had ever seen him in Wales. But still, on the opening stage of the event – and in the worst snow and ice in recent memory – Ogier went fastest. He held the lead, ahead of his fellow Citroen C4 WRC driver Sebastien Loeb, for Friday…

“PONTUS TIDEMAND WAS A CUT ABOVE LAST YEAR. HE’LL NEED THAT AGAIN IF HE IS TO KEEP HIS TITLE HOPES ALIVE” WRC2 is usually the hotbed of young talent, of which rally fans can draw great excitement for the future. In recent years, Esapekka Lappi is the crowning achievement of the series, the works Skoda driver stepping up to a rightful home in the World Rally Championship proper with Toyota. It wasn’t long before he took his first win, at home in Finland in 2017. But this year’s series has been dominated by 36-year-old Jan Kopecky, who is unbeaten in 2018. It’s put him on the precipice of a first WRC2 title and the question of what to do next. But that topic is for another time. Kopecky is absent…

The unexpected result of last year’s Rally GB forced Michelin’s hand. A car shod with rival, softer DMACK tyres had finished at the top of the pile. Michelin had to respond, and it did just that by constructing an all-new tyre to avoid any form of Elfyn Evans-style triumph from being repeated. After all, his win 12 months ago ended Michelin’s perfect World Rally Championship victory streak, which had started with Mikko Hirvonen’s victory on the Monte Carlo rally in 2010. Transmitting 380bhp through all four wheels to take a World Rally Car to 60mph from rest – no matter how unruly the surface may be – in less than four seconds is all part of the brief for building the WRC tyre. So too is supporting the 1400kg weight…

WRC As Sebastien Ogier stood among the cattle sheds at the Royal Welsh Showground before dawn on the final day of the 2011 Rally GB, he was finished with Citroen. He wouldn’t be back. The French manufacturer had given him his start, his break in rallying, but now it had also made its choice. In Ogier’s eyes, Versailles had selected the past and not the future. After a fractious, bad-tempered 2011, when Ogier made it clear he wouldn’t toe the line and sit second behind Sebastien Loeb, Citroen and PSA Group management stepped in and gave its then-eight-time world champion its full backing. Builth Wells was his final farewell, but seven years later he’s back as a five-time World Rally champion. In the time since Ogier joined Volkswagen, and then…

FORMULA 1 A Russian company that failed in its bid to buy the Force India Formula 1 team is suing the administrators responsible for choosing Lawrence Stroll and his consortium as the British squad’s saviour. Uralkali, a global fertiliser power, is linked to Dmitry Mazepin, the father of GP3 race winner and current Force India junior Nikita (both pictured below). It joined the running to save the Force India team from administration but was unsuccessful. When Stroll and his colleagues were announced as the new owners of the team, Uralkali threatened legal action after raising concerns about the way it was handled. Stroll’s consortium ended up not taking control of the company as a going concern because of problems caused by a High Court freezing order issued in favour of…

JAGUAR I-PACE ETROPHY The first five confirmed drivers for the Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy sampled their cars during a dedicated ‘acclimatisation test’ at Silverstone last week. The two-day session formed the series’ first official test ahead of its introduction to the Formula E support bill at nine events over the 2018-19 championship. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, which had already announced Katherine Legge (above) and Bryan Sellers, Jaguar Brazil Racing and the Asia Pacific eTrophy team were the squads taking part in the test. JBR and AP also revealed their driver line-ups. The former will field five-time Brazilian Stock Car champion Caca Bueno and former GP2 and current sportscar racer Sergio Jimenez, with two-time New Zealand Touring Car champion Simon Evans – older brother of Jaguar FE driver Mitch Evans – competing…

Mercedes was out of order What an appalling use of team orders by Toto Wolff in the Russian Grand Prix. It demonstrated once again that the Formula 1 teams don’t give a damn about the fans. Mercedes should refund the admission fees to everyone who attended the Sochi Autodrom and were robbed of a proper motor race. Douglas Thomson By email Three-car F1 teams: a vote for… I agree with the idea of top teams running three-car line-ups (Pit+Paddock, September 27). However, I’d go further still and also reintroduce privateer ‘customer’ teams (indeed, one could say that with Haas using myriad Ferrari technology this arrangement is arguably already in place in all but name!). Imagine the excitement of a modern-day Rob Walker running a customer car from one of the…

Racing Point Force India duo Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez finished ninth and 10th after both failed to pass the Haas of Kevin Magnussen. The duo started sixth and eighth respectively, although Ocon lost out to Charles Leclerc’s Sauber at the start. They fell behind the charging Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo and ended up behind Magnussen, who pulled off an aggressive chop to keep Ocon behind him just before the pitstops. After the stops, Perez complained of being held up by Ocon, who was stuck behind Magnussen, and the team eventually ordered them to swap places so Perez could attack. They later swapped back. “We tried to swap to see if someone could get the car in front, but we probably have to review this [decision]…

Toro Rosso drivers Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley both retired from the Russian Grand Prix with front-brake problems that led to both suffering high-speed spins early in the race. Team principal Franz Tost said the incidents were related to a piston as the brakes reached hot temperatures. “It was a frustrating Sunday for Toro Rosso as both cars had to retire,” said Tost. “For whatever reason we ended up with very hot front brakes and one piston in the calipers got stuck. This caused overheating of the brake fluid and a long pedal so we called the drivers to come to the garage. Obviously, being in parc-ferme conditions, we didn’t change anything from yesterday, so we need to investigate further what the reason is.” Gasly took to Twitter after the…

BLANCPAIN GT ENDURANCE  BARCELONA (E)  SEPTEMBER 30  ROUND 5/5 The battle for the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup turned into a straight fight between the Black Falcon Mercedes trio of Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Yelmer Buurman and Auto Sport Promotion Mercedes star Raffaele Marciello at Barcelona last Sunday. In more ways than one. First off, Engel, Stolz and Buurman pulled level in the championship with Marciello after claiming the point for pole position. And then in the final hour a quickfire series of safety cars turned the event into a Merc-versus-Merc sprint to the flag with race victory and title honours at stake. Buurman proved more than equal to the challenge of Tristan Vautier, who lined up with Marciello and Daniel Juncadella at ASP, through three restarts in the…

GP3 SERIES  SOCHI (RUS)  SEPTEMBER 29-30  ROUND 8/9 If the GP3 Series was decided on number of wins, the outcome of this year’s title would probably be very different. But Anthoine Hubert’s balance of speed and consistency is paying dividends as he extended his points lead despite failing to win for a fourth round in a row. If victories were the decider, Nikita Mazepin and David Beckmann are tied on three and top of the charts. But a costly mistake in race two left Mazepin falling further behind ART Grand Prix team-mate Hubert in the points, while Beckmann will be wondering what could have been, having completed a third round in a row with a victory in his fourth weekend with Trident after a mid-season switch from Jenzer. Someone finally…

CLIO CUP Renault UK Clio Cup racer Nick Reeve plans a quick return to action after being airlifted to hospital following a high-speed crash at Brands Hatch last Saturday. Reeve’s car was sent into the barriers at Dingle Dell after Brett Lidsey ran wide and then came back across the track. He clipped Reeve’s car, which was launched up and into a roll before landing on its wheels. Reeve was able to walk away but was airlifted to King’s College Hospital in London for precautionary CT scans. He was discharged and returned to Brands later that day. “The luckiest thing is the fact that I didn’t go over [the barriers],” said Reeve. “I’d done my belts up so tight before the start of the race, which I’m quite thankful for.”…

TOCA SUPPORTS BRANDS HATCH SEPTEMBER 29-30 GINETTA GT4 SUPERCUP Charlie Ladell didn’t need two more wins to wrap up the Ginetta GT4 Supercup title at Brands Hatch, but that didn’t stop him rounding out the year in fine style. Pole position got the ultra-consistent 22-year old on the right track, and for both the Saturday encounters he led unchallenged from the front. Ladell only needed fifth in race two to secure the championship but, while Harry King put in a spirited display to challenge for the lead, he couldn’t get closer than 0.5 seconds shy of Ladell. Nearest title rival Carl Boardley made a lunge around the outside of Graham Hill Bend on third-placed Angus Fender, but contact caused a puncture and put him out of both the podium and…

KIRKISTOWN 500MRCI SEPTEMBER 29 All but one of the local championships were undecided ahead of Kirkistown’s traditional Martin Donnelly Trophy season closer. Adding to the excitement, Formula Ford 1600 and Formula Vee always excel at the circuit, and both lived up to their reputation with all races won by paper-thin margins. The FF1600 final rounds were run ahead of the Martin Donnelly Trophy itself, and the first was won by season-long leader Matt Round-Garrido in his Team Dolan-run Medina Sport JL17, who crossed the line just ahead of David and Ivor McCullough to clinch the title and secure the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout ticket. Will Herron was fourth, while Alan Davidson should have been in the mix but for a spin at Colonial that dropped him to 18th, although…

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN? WHO IS THIS? This fragrant free spirit was a man of his time who was cut down in his prime. After an academic start, he was late to the track but junior success came quickly. He eschewed his family fortunes to follow his dream and crossed the pond to outshine some leading lights. He was attracted by some precious metal into the big time but dated equipment held him back. With no options to stay he was forced to return home, leading to an impressive debut in the Big Race and a place alongside Hollywood royalty. A big offer followed from the men from Down Under and a chance to show what he could really do across the board. With the world by his side he…

Testing for Rally GB has already begun – only 11 months and 10 days since the World Rally Championship departed these woods. There couldn’t be a better time for the WRC to arrive in Britain, what with a three-way championship fight reaching fever pitch: Thierry Neuville, Ott Tanak and Sebastien Ogier will go head to head down some of the world’s best rally roads this week. By Sunday afternoon’s trip to Llandudno promenade, another chapter in this thriller of a season will have been written. But what’s coming? And who can make the most of it? In an attempt to answer those questions, we took a drive with the person who knows more about these roads than anybody: route coordinator Andrew Kellitt. What we found last week were probably some…

THURSDAY OCTOBER 4 SHAKEDOWN Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship starts right here. These two miles represent the last chance for the teams to iron out any final niggles with the car or work more on the set-up for the competition ahead. As it has in recent years, shakedown for Rally GB runs through Clocaenog, with the last right-hander and the run to the finish identical to the first stage proper on Friday morning. A shakedown doesn’t get much more representative than that. Like last year, the cars will be returning to the service park in Deeside rather than to Ruthin for the remote service. SS1 TIR PRINCE Absolutely not representative of the three days to come, this superspecial is nevertheless a fantastic opportunity for easy access to the…

The 1993 RAC Rally was my first ever World Rally Championship win at home. It’s an event I’ll never forget and a result I’ll cherish forever. I was, of course, competing with Juha Kankkunen at Toyota. I’d started to work with him in the middle of the season, drafted in after his regular co-driver, Juha Piironen, suffered a brain haemorrhage in Argentina. After a brief recce we headed north to Tucuman for the start and first stage, which, remarkably, we were fastest on. Here I was leading a WRC event for the first time. From that point on we never lost the lead and won that first event together, and then won again in Australia some weeks later. On the rally before the RAC, Juha had sewn up his fourth…

There was nothing unusual about Formula 1 drivers tackling the RAC Rally in the 1960s. Graham Hill and Jim Clark both started the ’66 event; Hill retired a Mini Cooper S in Grizedale early on, but two-time world champion Clark starred. Running as high as sixth overall in a Lotus Cortina, he was quickest on three stages before rolling out of the rally on its 45th stage, Glengap. “I tripped over the Border…” smiled the Duns farmer. For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

INDYCAR SERIES Finally, Chip Ganassi Racing has the man it has wanted since 2016 to partner five-time IndyCar Series title winner Scott Dixon. When Ganassi refreshed itself for 2018 by cutting down from a four-car team to two – in part to get the best out of Dixon – Felix Rosenqvist was high on the shortlist for the second car. But Rosenqvist was busy in Formula E with Mahindra Racing, and fellow contender Brendon Hartley opted against the move in favour of a surprise Formula 1 chance with Toro Rosso. Rosenqvist earned his chance with Ganassi off the back of a promising series of tests for the team in 2016 and ’17, running in Dixon’s car. He deeply impressed team director Mike Hull, plus Dixon and his race engineer Chris…

FORMULA E The track layout for the inaugural Ad Diriyah E-Prix in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh is to give Formula E drivers an “unusual” test thanks to its fast-and-flowing configuration. The circuit, still subject to official FIA homologation, is 1.76 miles long and features 21 turns. It has a number of long, flowing corners, with relatively few 90-degree corners of the type usually found on FE street courses. “The layout looks really good with a lot of corners, which is quite unusual for FE tracks that are always only with 90-degree corners and squeezed in somehow,” said Andre Lotterer. “Here, it seems like a big track but all these flowing corners in the second sector and the other side of the [start/finish] straight looks really challenging. A quality…

WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IT? THIS WAS THE QUESTION MERCEDES MOTORSPORT CHIEF TOTO Wolff asked his many interrogators after his decision to impose team orders handed Lewis Hamilton Russian Grand Prix victory over rightful winner Valtteri Bottas. This is the key question – the only question that matters in understanding what happened in Sochi last weekend, and one that has a different answer depending on whether you approach it in a cool, calculating, rational manner or an emotional one. Wolff’s two explicit decisions – firstly for Bottas to be ordered to let Hamilton into the de facto race lead, secondly not to reverse their positions in the closing laps once the threat to the Mercedes’ supremacy had been defused – were exactly what you’d expect from a ruthless, world championship-winning…

Red Bull sacrificed its chances of challenging Mercedes and Ferrari in the Russian Grand Prix in order to boost its prospects at Formula 1’s upcoming high-altitude races in Mexico and Brazil. The team used Renault’s upgraded ‘Spec C’ engine in Italy and Singapore but switched to a fresh ‘Spec B’ in Russia, which Max Verstappen claimed was because the ‘Spec C’ would not be able to complete the races at altitude. That meant both drivers dropped to 18th and 19th on the grid at Sochi, where Verstappen charged through to fifth in just eight laps. He then led more laps than any other driver as he extended a long first stint and eventually finished fifth, while Daniel Ricciardo made slower progress to sixth after picking up bodywork damage early on.…

Pierre Gasly says a piece of debris got past the halo and hit his visor on the opening lap of the Russian Grand Prix. Debris from Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull was flicked up in front of him at the start, hitting his helmet and landing in the cockpit of his car. “I think Daniel lost a piece of carbon, which went straight into my visor, so this was really, really scary,” said Gasly. “I thought it was going through and straight into my eye, and finally it touched the visor and then came into the cockpit. “In Turn 4 I had to take the carbon piece and throw it from the cockpit. At the time I had like five tenths of a second to see it flying and just hitting…

1958 BTCC 2018 60 YEARS Never has a 22nd-place finish caused so much emotion. But, after the finish of the second race at Brands Hatch last weekend, it was a snapshot of the rollercoaster ride Colin Turkington has endured on his way to sealing a third British Touring Car Championship crown. The WSR BMW 125i M Sport driver had come to Kent with it all to lose. He had a 34-point buffer, which he extended to 36 before race two after claiming 12th spot in the opener with a full complement of 75kg of success ballast. That came as a bonus in that Turkington finished ahead of his main title rival, Tom Ingram, who had also struggled with the 66kg of extra lead installed within the passenger footwell of his…

WORLD TOURING CAR CUP NINGBO (PRC) SEPTEMBER 29-30 ROUND 7/10 As open and competitive as the World Touring Car Cup season has been – just nine points separate the top three drivers after seven of the 10 rounds – a theme at the majority of this year’s rounds has been that of one-driver domination. That didn’t change during the first of two back-to-back weekends in China. In fact, Thed Bjork’s command of proceedings at Ningbo was undoubtedly the most impressive of all so far. An advantage of close to a second in first practice was an ominous start and, while that gap fell in FP2 and qualifying, Bjork and his YMR Hyundai faced no competition in Saturday’s first race: a clean getaway allowed him to streak clear of the Munnich…

GINETTA GT5/G40 Ginetta plans to run winter races for its Ginetta GT5 Challenge and G40 Cup series at the Rockingham ‘send-off’ meeting next month. After it was announced that motorsport activity at the Northamptonshire venue would cease at the end of the year, plans were soon made for a farewell event. Ginetta is one of the manufacturers to get involved in the November 24-25 meeting and has decided to put on extra races for its GT5 and G40 Cup categories. “I had a few people ask if we were going to do a winter series,” explained Ginetta motorsport manager Ash Gallagher. “People will be keen to do the last race at Rockingham and we plan to run combined races for the GT5 Challenge and G40 Cup. I’ve already got 20…

COMBE AUTUMN CLASSIC The Porsche 917K that won both the 1971 Daytona 24 Hours and Monza 1000Km will be on display at this weekend’s Castle Combe Autumn Classic. It is thought to be the first time that a 917K has ever been to the circuit. Insured for £20million, chassis #013/034 has made regular appearances at the Goodwood Festival of Speed with owner Mark Finburgh. He bought the car from the Porsche factory in 1973, having found it covered in a layer of snow. Its dual chassis number denotes a ’71 rebuild following a crash during filming for the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans. It was this incident which caused driver David Piper to lose part of his leg owing to complications from surgery. “You’ve got to play with these cars…

BRITISH FORMULA 4 Ten months ago Kiern Jewiss was in a reflective mood in the Brands Hatch paddock. He’d just lost out on clinching the Ginetta Junior Winter Series because of one small spin on oil at Surtees bend. Fast forward to September 2018 and the only thing he was in danger of slipping on was the champagne flowing from a British Formula 4 Championship victory and a record 18 podiums. His race-two win at Brands Hatch was a fine way to celebrate the occasion, particularly given that he wasn’t on the podium to celebrate the championship win in race one, his sixth-place finish being enough to bag the prize. “It means the world to be champion,” said the delighted 16-year old. “Lando Norris has won the championship [in 2015]…

GINETTA JUNIOR In true Ginetta Junior championship fashion, the title fight between Adam Smalley, Louis Foster and Luke Browning all came down to the final weekend of the season. Smalley ultimately took the crown in Sunday’s final race. James Hedley set a blistering lap in qualifying to take pole for the first race, but too much wheelspin off the line at the start allowed Smalley to snatch the lead with Browning close behind. Proceedings were interrupted by a safety car for an incident between Will Martin and Theo Edgerton at Graham Hill Bend, which neutralised the race until there were just three minutes left on the clock. Smalley initially held on to the lead again at the restart until Browning made a decisive move at Surtees to secure the win…

STAT 13 The number of podiums Hubert has scored so far in GP3 Anthoine Hubert has gone from racing a go-kart in a car park to becoming a French driver affiliated to a French manufacturer, and is now sparkling in GP3 Series this year. A late deal with Renault signed at the first round of the season at Barcelona – a proud moment for the patriotic driver – allied to a return to GP3’s most successful team, ART, has allowed the 21-year-old to kick up a gear in 2018. Only five times has he finished off the podium, all of them allied to mechanical or on-track issues, and the momentum is gathering as the season reaches its climax. He now lies 32 points ahead at the top of the standings…

After 14 years of Sebastien – Loeb and Ogier – domination of the World Rally Championship, there’s every chance there’ll be a different name on this year’s silverware. Twenty-three points separate Thierry Neuville, Ott Tanak and, of course, defending champ Ogier ahead of this week’s Rally GB. We rounded up the three of them to talk about the week ahead, the year to date, and what’s coming at the season’s end. DAVID EVANS What’s Rally GB going to be like in early October rather than it’s more-usual November date? Will it be sunny, or could we see rain, mud, snow, fog? SEBASTIEN OGIER From what you mention, the only thing I think we won’t get is snow. The rest – the fog, the rain and the mud – it can…

Forty-nine weeks ago, Elfyn Evans landed the big one in Llandudno. He won Rally GB and, in doing so, he vaulted himself right into world rallying’s pages of history. For the first time in 17 years, the backyard was British again. Evans lives, works and trains not far from the route for Britain’s biggest rallying event, so Rally GB is never too far from his daily grind. But this is a special time of the year. The leaves have started to turn, there’s a chill in the air, the nights are lengthening. It signals that the point around which his year turns is fast approaching. “It was always the same,” Evans says. “Going out to spectate and getting excited about watching my dad [Gywndaf] or Colin McRae. It was always…

Ari Vatanen, Stig Blomqvist, Hannu Mikkola… and, more recently, Elfyn Evans. Those are all drivers who have a debt of gratitude to what is generally accepted as one of the most storied and strongest domestic rally series: the British Rally Championship. For the first time since 2008, when Guy Wilks steered his Mitsubishi to title glory, Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship is the BRC title decider once more. Running as part of the international event, the series is led by the same spec of R5 cars that will fight for WRC2 honours. Since returning in 2016 after a one-year hiatus, the BRC has had mixed fortunes. While it offers arguably the toughest test of ability of any national rally series, costs to run an R5 car top £300,000…