Indholdsfortegnelse for 07/11/19 i Autosport

Lewis Hamilton’s sixth Formula 1 world crown, clinched in the United States last weekend, was hardly a surprise, but that shouldn’t take anything away from the fact that it is an incredible feat. Hamilton’s march towards Michael Schumacher’s records (seven titles and 91 wins, eight more than Hamilton’s current tally) seems inexorable. Clearly the excellence of the Mercedes team has been key to racking up those numbers, but – as Lewis points out on page 24 – he is not the first champion to have access to the best car. The Ferrari team of the early 2000s was crucial to Schumacher’s success too. In both cases, the drivers concerned played their part, both on and off the track. Not by chance are they multiple champions. As Edd Straw shows in…

FORMULA 1 Antonio Giovinazzi will remain in Formula 1 with Alfa Romeo for a second full season alongside Kimi Raikkonen in 2020. Giovinazzi had a difficult start to 2019, but the Italian’s form improved in the middle of the year. That progress, allied to his being highly rated by Ferrari after his development role for that team in the past, helped to secure his future. The best result of his rookie season so far has been his ninth place at Monza, although he was eighth on the road at Hockenheim before receiving a penalty for a technical infringement. “Antonio has done really well this year and I am extremely pleased to be able to confirm he will stay with Alfa Romeo Racing for 2020,” said team boss Fred Vasseur. “The…

INDYCAR Penske Entertainment is to assess an IndyCar/NASCAR double-header, endurance racing and the return of Formula 1 after buying Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was announced on Monday that the new Penske Corporation has purchased IMS, as well as the IndyCar Series and IMS Productions. And Roger Penske has now revealed that his business team, and the Hulman and Company organisation currently run by president Mark Miles that previously owned the entities Penske has bought, will work together over the next 60 days to increase the appeal of IndyCar and the track. Of an IndyCar/NASCAR double-header weekend taking place at Indianapolis, Penske said: “Well, I think it was interesting to see [Josef] Newgarden [Team Penske’s current IndyCar champion] run around what they call the roval down in Charlotte several weeks ago…

Fernando Alonso’s first season in Formula 1 was a pointless one. He was classified last of the regular drivers, failed to score a point and was behind Minardi team-mate Tarso Marques – a driver nobody tipped for great things in grand prix racing in the future – in the championship. The black-and-white facts are those of a rookie season of an F1 nonentity. George Russell’s first season in Formula 1 is, so far, a pointless one. He is classified last of the regular drivers, has failed to score a point and is behind Williams team-mate Robert Kubica – a driver nobody is tipping for great things in grand prix racing in the future – in the championship. The black-and-white facts are those of a rookie season of an F1 nonentity.…

“No more talking now, and that’s very important,” said Valtteri Bottas over the radio coming through Turn 12 on lap 47. He could see the Mercedes of team-mate Lewis Hamilton just a couple of seconds in front of him and knew exactly what was required. For the first time in his career, he had to win a grand prix by making a pass for the lead outside of the start phase. And he did exactly that. Bottas spent the weeks before the United States Grand Prix underlining his determination to keep the world championship fight alive. Realistically, he surely knew his hopes were little more than a mirage after throwing away a gilt-edged opportunity to gain ground on Hamilton by crashing at Hockenheim, then finishing eighth at the Hungaroring. But…

LEWIS HAMILTON SIX-TIME F1 WORLD CHAMPION After clinching his sixth Formula 1 title, Lewis Hamilton reflected on the achievement, what it means as racing driver and a British sportsman, and his constant quest for self-improvement. How would you rate this title compared to the five before? No way has it been the easiest. It’s been the hardest year for us as a team. We lost Niki [Lauda] this year, a crucial member of our team. The emotional rollercoaster that we’ve been on with losing him, and a race where I didn’t have Bono [race engineer Peter Bonnington] here, it’s not been easy for us. We started the season going off to Melbourne thinking that we were going to be behind. It’s been the toughest second half of the season that…

Sergio Perez finished 10th after Daniil Kvyat’s penalty for barging him off on the last lap, despite starting from the pitlane. Perez missed the weighbridge in FP2, with Racing Point then removing his tyres before putting them back on and rolling his car back. Had the team not done this, the penalty would not have been so severe. Perez climbed to 18th on the first lap and ran to lap 24 before taking hard-compound tyres, rejoining 14th and then holding off some of the two-stoppers in the closing stages. He also completed a robust pass on Pierre Gasly at Turn 13, making contact with the right-front wheel of the Toro Rosso, which suffered suspension damage. This was Perez’s sixth points finish in the past seven races.…

Stephane Ratel has never quite understood why motorsport hasn’t had an Olympics-style national competition. He’s believed for some time that it’s been a hole that required filling. Together with the FIA, he did just that at Vallelunga last weekend with the inaugural running of the Motorsport Games. And arguably they pulled it off in some style. The event had all the trappings of one of the official Olympic tournaments. Yet for all the glitz of the opening ceremony in central Rome only 30 or so miles to the south of the venue, for all the golds, silvers and bronzes handed out and the rolling medals table to which they counted, the real success of what should be regarded as the first multi-discipline national competition in motorsport history was the number…

SUPER GT MOTEGI (JPN) 3 NOVEMBER ROUND 8/8 Nick Cassidy and Ryo Hirakawa may have won the final round of the 2019 Super GT championship for TOM’S at Motegi, but it was a controversial second-place finish for Team Le Mans pair Kazuya Oshima and Kenta Yamashita that settled the title in their favour over their Lexus LC500 stablemates by two points. The TOM’S Lexus of Kazuki Nakajima and Yuhi Sekiguchi lined up on pole and led the first part of the 53-lap race in Nakajima’s hands. A lack of grip in the early phase for Oshima meant he dropped from second to fifth. Hirakawa led after the pitstops following Cassidy’s opening stint, while Yamashita was able to recover and began to edge closer to second-placed Sekiguchi, who was struggling 10…

GINETTA JUNIOR Ginetta Junior race winner James Taylor heads the entry list for this weekend’s Winter Series at Brands Hatch. Taylor, a former Ginetta Scholar, took four wins en route to fifth in this season’s standings and is the highest-placed driver on the Winter Series entry list. He switched to Elite Motorsport – the team that powered James Hedley to this year’s crown and last year’s Winter Series title – for the final four events of the main Junior season and took five podiums. “I’m looking forward to bringing him back for the Winter Series and I’m only bringing him back for one reason,” said Elite team boss Eddie Ives. “I’m expecting James to be right at the front and our other drivers can learn a lot from him.” Ben…

BRSCC The British Racing and Sports Car Club plans to run its Clubsport Trophy with an expanded calendar of five or six rounds in 2020 after raising capacity grids for both its events this year. The series’ format of 45-minute mini-enduros for one or two-driver crews, with a variety of sports and saloon cars split by power-to-weight ratios, has attracted entries from drivers already competing in another category at the meetings as well as additional cars not eligible for other BRSCC championships. “We were oversubscribed at both of the meetings this year, so we were delighted with it,” said new BRSCC race operations and general manager Paul McErlean. “The cost-share product has got something extra than a single-driver competitor experience can provide, so we were very keen to bring it…

HISTORICS Horatio Fitz-Simon made his single seater debut at Silverstone in a Merlyn Mk20 Historic Formula Ford last weekend ahead of a planned British Formula 4 campaign next season. Fitz-Simon, 19, was born in Towcester but moved to California with his family aged two. He raced karts successfully in the US and resolved to compete in the UK as soon as he finished his education. He was due to take part in the F4 Scholarship this week (Tuesday), and raced at the Walter Hayes Trophy with Speedsport to get some seat time, showing impressive pace on his way to a Pre-’82 podium. “This is my first ever car race,” he said on Saturday. “I did a last-minute deal with Speedsport, and the car is a joy to drive,” he added…

While the main Walter Hayes Trophy final didn’t feature much of a lead battle, the same can’t be said for the historic divisions. With the number of WHT heats reduced from six to four, the available track time was instead given to the two historic classes, with each getting their own pre-final. That proved a masterstroke as the Janet Cesar Trophy pre-final (for cars built between 1982 and ’92) was arguably the pick of the weekend’s races. The Van Diemen RF91s of Tom Brown and Callum Grant went at it hammer and tongs, Brown eventually winning by just 0.066 seconds. But it was far from certain that the duo would continue their battle in the final. Grant’s car was left badly damaged after a collision at Copse with Michael MacPherson…

BRANDS HATCH BARC 2-3 NOVEMBER British truck racing star Ryan Smith secured his fourth Division 1 championship title in successive years on a weekend when drivers and spectators faced conditions varying from gales and driving rain to bright sunshine. Sunday’s weather respite brought out big crowds for the track action and MotorSport Vision’s highly rated fireworks display. David Jenkins kept alive his slender hopes of overhauling Smith in the points by finishing third in Saturday’s first encounter, but Smith was a dominant winner as Jamie Anderson beat Smith to second. Anderson won the second race from Stuart Oliver, while Smith secured his crown after hounding third-placed Jenkins. With the title under his belt, Smith slipped from the lead to fifth while struggling with a broken differential in race three. Anderson…

BOOK TAKING THE WORLD BY STORM RRP £9.99 It seems to become harder and harder to get completely lost in a motorsport book. With so many titles being autobiographical – recalling certain races, cars, conversations – all too often you find yourself inhabiting some corner of the internet down a rabbit hole of related Google searches. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing as you pick up occasionally interesting titbits and broaden your knowledge. But there’s certainly a space between that sort of interrupted reading and getting utterly emerged in some variety of fiction thriller – when you let your mobile go to answerphone and leave emails unread. Renowned sportscar writer Malcolm Cracknell has sought to bridge that gap with his new release Taking the World by Storm. And…

Bjorn Waldegard demonstrates impressive commitment as he tries to make up for a pair of punctures on the 1977 Rally of Portugal. The Swede slipped to third in his factory Ford Escort RS1800, but charged back through the final leg’s asphalt stages around Sintra to steal second from Ove Andersson’s Toyota Celica. Waldegard’s Boreham team-mates Ari Vatanen and Roger Clark both retired. Vatanen led but crashed, while the Briton retired with clutch failure. Fiat’s Markku Alen won by almost four minutes from Waldegard, the Finn’s second Porto success in three years. For classic rally DVDs head to dukevideo.com/rally…

A new single-seater championship marketing itself as an ‘entry-level’ electric-powered series will base its operations from the Zolder circuit in Belgium. The ERA Championship is set to start in summer 2020, with events planned in Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands. The series is part of Belgium-based motorsport group The Driving Force, which owns the Porsche GT team Prospeed Competition and organises the Carrera Cup Benelux. It will use a car based around Dome’s F110 chassis, used in Japanese F4 since its inception in 2015, dubbed the ERA Mitsu-Bachi F110e. Technical partner Sarolea Performance Technology, a Belgian motorcycle manufacturer founded in 1850 that was reformed in 2008, will be tasked with developing the batteries and powertrain used in the Sports Class for teams running the standard package. There will also…

Before I climb into what Manfred Stohl describes as the best car to ever leave his STARD team’s workshop, the former Production World Rally champion explains the sensation of launching his creation towards Turn 1 as akin to a tensioned elastic band being released. As I’m about to discover, he’s not wrong. Plenty has happened since Autosport last visited the Greinbach circuit in Austria over two years ago to sample STARD’s electric rallycross Supercar prototype. Back then, electrification of the discipline was on the verge of becoming a hot topic and World Rallycross Championship promoter IMG was soon holding discussions with manufacturers and the FIA about switching the sport’s top category to electric technology for 2021, deeming rallycross’s short races and high-power action to be the perfect fit for electric…

When amateur racer and real estate developer Jacques Nicolet placed an order with Guy Ligier for his first CN sports-prototype in 2006, he could have had no idea that he would end up representing the constructor at Le Mans just eight years later, or that so much French motorsport history would end up being bound under one name. Having sold his Formula 1 team in 1992 to Cyril de Rouvre, Ligier returned to motorsport by buying out Tico Martini’s eponymous Formula 3 constructor in 2004. Meanwhile, as a means of achieving his dream to race at Le Mans, Nicolet had bought Saulnier Racing, the team founded by Serge Saulnier as Promatecme in 1980. It had been instrumental in getting Jenson Button to Formula 1, before Saulnier sold his interest in the…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1’s bold new look, key format changes and potentially championship-changing financial regulations were unveiled last week as the 2021 rules overhaul was finally signed off. The major new rules package, which has been debated for months, was approved unanimously by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council on Thursday last week, and the new rules and F1’s vision were unveiled at the United States Grand Prix. FIA president Jean Todt, via video link, joined F1 CEO Chase Carey, F1 motorsport managing director Ross Brawn and FIA head of single-seater technical matters Nikolas Tombazis at a special press conference, where Carey called the WMSC’s unanimous approval “a watershed moment”. Todt described the regulations as “a major change in how the pinnacle of motorsports will be run”, adding: “For the…

INDYCAR IndyCar race winner James Hinchcliffe has been left looking for a ride after the reconstituted Arrow McLaren SP team decided to replace the Canadian and Chip Ganassi Racing-bound Marcus Ericsson with Red Bull Junior Patricio O’Ward and Oliver Askew, the Indy Lights champions of 2018 and 2019 respectively. As recently as the penultimate round of this season, team co-owner Sam Schmidt told Autosport that Hinchcliffe would remain with the team for the third and final year on his current contract. To an extent that is still true true, since the team will be honouring its obligation by paying him, only now he won’t be driving. Arrow McLaren SP tried to sign Colton Herta while doubts surrounded the future of Andretti Autosport’s satellite team Harding Steinbrenner Racing, but Michael Andretti…

DAYTONA 24 HOURS NASCAR frontrunner Kyle Busch is to contest the Daytona 24 Hours for the first time in January, driving an AIM Vasser-Sullivan Lexus GT3 car. Busch, the 2015 NASCAR Cup Series champion, is the most successful Toyota driver in NASCAR history, and will race the RC F GT3 car – built by Toyota luxury brand Lexus – in the blue-riband American enduro. “To have the chance to run in such an iconic race is certainly something I’ve thought about and wanted to do,” said Busch. “My partnership with Toyota and the history we’ve had together has been incredible. I would love to continue that history and maybe get my own Daytona Rolex to add to my trophy collection.” Despite having 55 NASCAR Cup victories to his credit, Busch…

When Lewis Hamilton comments about environmental issues, he is quickly shot down by critics. How can a guy who drives around in circles for a living promote such views – isn’t it a bit hypocritical? Formula 1 faces similar flak whenever such questions arise. Only last week opponents of the proposed Miami Grand Prix cited noise, fumes and so on when outlining their objections in a local authority planning meeting. The good news is that Liberty and the FIA are well aware of the sport’s image in the wider world and, together with the teams, they are working to address it. On Tuesday a major campaign will be launched that will tackle the subject head-on, with the ambitious aim of making F1 carbon-neutral by 2030. There’s no doubt that F1…

Valtteri Bottas won’t have been that confident of taking pole position as he crossed the line to finish his final qualifying lap. He was behind the eightball from the moment he struggled to get the nose into Turn 1 and lacked grip on his lap. But when race engineer Riccardo Musconi asked “guess who’s on pole?” moments after Bottas crossed the line, he knew he had pole position thanks to his pace on the first run in Q3. This was the first time since July’s German Grand Prix that a Mercedes had taken pole position. Lewis Hamilton, who described his qualifying session as “one of the worst I’ve had in a long time” after managing only fifth place, clearly had his suspicions about why Ferrari’s run of six consecutive pole…

While Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo climbed from ninth on the grid to finish sixth thanks to a superb late-braking pass on Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz Jr clinched the unofficial ‘Class B’ midfield title with eighth place. Autosport tracks the seven midfield teams and awards points for the top 10 with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull excluded. McLaren driver Sainz’s latest result draws him more than 52 points clear of second-best Sergio Perez. Sainz dropped from seventh to ninth at the start after contact with Alex Albon at Turn 1 but undercut his way past Pierre Gasly and finished eighth on a one-stop strategy, having stopped for hard tyres on lap 18. He wasn’t able to do anything about Ricciardo ahead, with teammate Norris repassing on a two-stop strategy. This also means…

Russia, one of three nations to enter all six events, topped the medals table at the end of the inaugural Motorsport Games. Two bronzes separated it from the other five winners of the golds after three days of competition at Vallelunga. Klim Gavrilov claimed the top prize in the Touring Car Cup for TCR machinery with a victory in race one and a second place in race two aboard his VRC-run Audi RS3 LMS. That combined with the third positions for Ilia Fedorov aboard a Nissan Silvia in the Drifting Cup and Olesia Vashchuk and Vladislav Bushuev in the Karting Slalom Cup to move them top. The overall result might have been turned on its head by the protest of Gavrilov’s runner-up spot in the second tin-top encounter by Belgium.…

NASCAR CUP TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY (USA) 3 NOVEMBER ROUND 34/36 So much time is lost serving an in-race penalty and recovering through the field that it usually means a strong result is out of the question. Unless, however, you were Kevin Harvick driving in the NASCAR Cup race in Texas last Sunday. Harvick was handed a penalty in the early blows of the final stage of the 334-lap race for loose equipment in the pitlane as his Stewart-Haas Racing team serviced his Ford Mustang. He then rallied as the sun went down, rising back into the top 10 by lap 220 and hitting the front after a lengthy 30-tour caution period. From there, some side-by-side racing with team-mate Aric Almirola, and trouble passing backmarker Ryan Newman aside, Harvick eased to…

BRITISH GT The Balfe Motorsport-run McLaren 720S GT3 will contest a second season in British GT next year with an unchanged line-up of factory driver Rob Bell and Shaun Balfe. After electrical problems forced Balfe to withdraw from the opening round at Oulton Park, the new-for-2019 McLaren scored more points than any other car and fell just five points short of the title after securing a maiden win at the Donington Park finale. “We continue to learn about the 720S GT3 and the team is working hard to maximise all areas of performance and become a stronger unit,” said Bell. “This season we showed significant strides forward at each round.” In addition to Graham Johnson/Michael O’Brien’s full-season entry, Balfe ran an extra McLaren 570S GT4 at select rounds this year…

RENAULT CLIO CUP UK Orders are now open for the new fifth-generation Renault Clio that will be used in the heavily revised Clio Cup UK series next season. Renault UK withdrew its backing of the popular British Touring Car Championship support series at the end of this year, but a Clio Cup will continue in the UK in 2020 with support from Renault Sport Racing. The cars for the revamped series – which will feature on the British GT package next year, as well as having two overseas events – have now gone on sale costing £32,700+VAT. The series has also revealed that entry fees will be much lower next season. These should cost around £8000+VAT for the year, down from £16,650 in 2019. Each of the seven rounds of…

HISTORICS Renault UK Clio Cup race winner Bradley Burns’s career is set to change direction following an impressive second place on his debut in mentor Chris Drake’s McLaren-Chevrolet M1B at the Algarve Classic Festival last weekend. Burns, 18, was runner-up in the 2016 Ford Fiesta Junior championship, and fifth in last year’s Renault UK Clio Cup series, with two wins. He graduated to the TCR Germany series with Team Pyro’s Honda Civic this season, but cut the programme short. Having not driven the car or the technical Portuguese circuit prior to two sessions last Thursday, he finished second in the pre-’75 Sports Cars race, behind Historic F1 racers Max Smith-Hilliard/Nick Padmore’s Chevron B19. “The McLaren is the best thing I’ve driven by miles,” Burns said. “It’s so fast, and the…

Fresh off the back of winning his sixth Formula 1 drivers’ title, how great would it be if Lewis Hamilton decided that he’d had enough of flying around the globe and instead took younger brother Nic’s lead and contested a round of the 2020 British Touring Car Championship? You’d have the greatest F1 driver of his generation competing against the very best that tin-top racing has to offer. Regardless of the result, you can be sure there wouldn’t be a spare seat in the house. Although not beyond the realms of possibility, it’s certainly difficult to imagine it happening anytime soon, if ever. Then again, it’s not without precedent. Nigel Mansell sliding his Ford Mondeo into the lead of a rain-sodden BTCC race at Donington Park in 1998 has become…

SHP Promotions chief Sonny Howard is looking back on a year of consolidation and improvement after the Super Silhouette and Pickup Trucks championships ended their respective seasons last weekend at Brands Hatch. Howard took on the former-Intermarque Silhouettes championship at the end of 2018. “Upgrading in-car safety has been a priority this year, along with presenting to the drivers their potential as a national championship,” he said. “We’re working to a three-year plan.” The championship’s credentials were demonstrated, he added, when the Silhouettes raced in near-darkness under close scrutiny from race officials on Saturday. “We were working in radio contact all the time, enabling the race to run to its full duration in safety,” he added. Like the Silhouettes, the Pickups trace their racing DNA to short-oval competition, which is…

INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORT World Endurance Round 3/8 Shanghai, China 10 November TV Live Eurosport 1, Sun 0355, BT Sport 3, 0600 Livestream Motorsport.tv, Sat 0550, Sun 0330 Australian Supercars Round 14/15 Sandown, Victoria, Australia 10 November TV Live BT Sport 3, Sun 0145 World Rallycross Round 10/10 Killarney, South Africa 9-10 November TV Live BT Sport 2, Freesports, Sun 1200 NASCAR Cup Round 35/36 Phoenix, Arizona, USA 10 November TV Live Freesports, Sun 1900 Brazilian Stock Cars Round 10/12 Velo Citta, Brazil 10 November Super TC2000 Round 10/12 Buenos Aires, Argentina 10 November European Rally Championship Round 8/8 Nyiregyhaza, Hungary 8-10 November UK MOTORSPORT Anglesey BARC 9-10 November Race of Remembrance Brands Hatch BARC 9-10 November Dunlop Endurance, Ginetta Juniors, Citroen C1s, Hyundai Coupes, Tin Tops, Mini Se7en/Miglia…

1) Who, what, where, when? 2) Who is this? This one-time starlet had to overcome adversity but never fulfilled his potential. Having crossed the border to catch the bug, he made the logical step up and caught the eye of a talent scout. Alongside other future stars, he initially shone the brightest to gain an early graduation. But a big one halted his progress, while, amazingly, lightning struck twice when he returned to the scene of the crime a year later. He showed his potential as he made a minnow swim among the big fish, before his links gave flight to his stalling career. Encouraging showings earned him a place next to the champion, but it was the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a tragic end to…

TRIPLE EIGHT RETURNEE The engineer responsible for developing the new Porsche 911 RSR GTE, Jeromy Moore, will rejoin Red Bull Racing Australia as its technical director, overseeing programmes in Supercars, Super 2 and GTs. Moore, who first joined the team in 2003 and served as Craig Lowndes’ engineer between 2008 and 2014, fills a role left vacant since Ludo Lacroix’s move to DJR Team Penske in 2016. While at Porsche, he engineered the Porsche 919 that won Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship title in 2016. GREENPOWER HOLDS FINAL Teams from China, Singapore, Poland and Spain joined entries from the UK at Silverstone last month for the Greenpower International Final. The well-established STEM event celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, featuring 133 teams of students aged 11-25 across three…

While Projekt E is set to break new ground next year as the first top-flight electric rallycross category, World RX’s top division is planning to include electric cars from 2021, as was originally intended in the FIA’s rejected plans. This time, it will be with a car concept very similar to STARD’s Projekt E machine. Having won the FIA’s latest tender process, Austrian firm Kreisel will develop and supply electric kits for World RX from 2021, it was revealed following October’s FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Cologne. Like in Projekt E, the Kreisel kit will be retro-fitted to existing World RX Supercars, or built into new racers. The World RX machines will include two 250kW motors (one on each axle), two inverters and a “state of the art…

Had it not been for a chance meeting over the purchase of a trailer in a mid-2000s DTM support paddock, the all-conquering ng TCR partnership of Italian-based Swiss team Target Competition and star tin-top top race engineer Albert Deuring might never have materialised. Having led Abt Sportsline to five DTM titles between 2002 and 2009 as technical director, Deuring’s experience dwarfs that of recently crowned TCR Europe champion Target – run by the Gummerer twins Andreas and Markus – but the devotion to perfection is something both parties share. And their strike rate since entering the TCR fray for the inaugural International Series in 2015 has been highly impressive. With six titles in five years across three championships, ips, the latest coming in this year’s TCR Europe series with Josh…

Here’s a brain-teaser for you. What connects Prodrive technical director David Lapworth, chief engineer at Williams Advanced Engineering Doug Campling and IndyCar’s Dr Terry Trammell? On the face of it, you’d think not a whole lot beyond their shared membership of the cadre of career-long motorsport professionals. Prodrive has shown no indication that it plans to follow McLaren into IndyCar and, while its proven EV credentials with Formula E would make WAE a credible partner to any engine manufacturer preparing for the arrival of hybrid power to IndyCar in 2022, it’s still very early days. In fact, the connection is much less obvious. Each is a member of the FIA’s Research Working Group (RWG), a little-known but highly influential body of engineers drawn from across the spectrum of motorsport –…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 teams have been issued with a technical directive emphasising that ways to subvert the championship’s fuel-flow rules would be illegal – a clarification believed to be sought by suspicion over Ferrari’s engine performance and one that Mercedes and Red Bull felt influenced their rival’s advantage in the United States Grand Prix. Last weekend the FIA responded to an enquiry from Red Bull about fuel-flow-sensor systems, which suggested that it was possible to pulse fuel into the engine at a higher-than-legal rate during the gaps between sensor measurements. The fuel flow in F1 cars is monitored by a single FIA sensor and the rules ban any device, system or procedure that is designed to increase the flow rate or to store and recycle fuel after the measurement…

FORMULA 3 One year on from the enormous crash in which she suffered broken vertebrae, Sophia Florsch will return to the Macau Grand Prix Formula 3 classic this month with HWA. Florsch was launched airborne and into a photographer’s bunker in the 2018 event. She endured a seven-hour operation on her spine, but returned to action this season in the Formula Regional European Championship, where she finished seventh. “I’m delighted to be driving in Macau again,” said Florsch (right, above). “It was my first race there last year, and until my accident it was the most amazing event I had ever contested. The track is incredible! It’s so much fun to drive. After the accident I knew I definitely wanted to return to racing and to return to Macau.” Florsch’s…

OBITUARY A two-time British Rally champion and three-time RAC Rally podium finisher, Russell Brookes has died. He was 74. Brookes hit the big time when he graduated from Ford’s one-make Mexico Challenge and won a prize drive aboard a Ford Escort RS1600 on the 1973 Jim Clark Rally. He shared his concerns with Ford about a lack of experience of the faster car. The answer? A shakedown that ran all the way from Boreham to the Borders, followed by “a quick thrash through the lanes”. When he got to the gravel, Brookes was a sensation, finishing just 20 seconds behind Roger Clark despite rolling the Escort. Brookes wasted no time in telling the man who’d won the previous year’s RAC Rally that he would have beaten him if it hadn’t…

Still looking forward to the weekly read I would just like to say a simple ‘thank you’ for extending the life of the much-loved print version of your splendid magazine. I am pleased you’ve listened to your many readers and have had a change of heart. For 35 years I’ve looked forward to my weekly read, and I am pleased that this format is continuing (at least for now), in this guise. Bravo. MA SmithBy email Formula 1 must not spread itself too thin With Formula 1 potentially going to 25 races a season, this seems to take a little away from the magic of the sport. Historically, we used to have 16 races a season, each one an event to look forward to. While a move to 20 races…

1 LAST DAY OF TESTING BREAKTHROUGH Mercedes always knew it was going to look uncompetitive in the first pre-season test at Barcelona because it ran a package that was signed off very early in the process to allow development of the ‘real’ car to be pushed as late as possible. But when it turned up to the second and final test in Spain, the expected extra performance didn’t materialise. For the first three days, Mercedes continued to struggle. Then on the final day, set-up breakthroughs unlocked improved performance. While Lewis Hamilton’s fastest time was just 0.003 seconds off Sebastian Vettel’s quickest, Mercedes still knew it was on the back foot and didn’t expect to have the fastest car in Australia. Nevertheless, it had unlocked huge performance potential with its 2019…

The biggest names from across the motorsport landscape will descend on the Grosvenor House Hotel in London for the Autosport Awards on Sunday 8 December. To decide who will take the crown on the night in each of the nine categories, Autosport subscribers can submit their vote by heading to the website link below or by completing a postal entry. So have your say in who will receive each category’s coveted accolade after a memorable season of motorsport action. HOW TO VOTE TO VOTE ONLINE Please visit: awardsvoting.autosport.com TO VOTE BY POST Mail your nominations to: AUTOSPORT AWARDS AUTOSPORT MEDIA UK LTD 1 ETON STREET RICHMOND TW9 1AG CLOSING DATE Saturday 30 November INTERNATIONAL RACING DRIVER PRESENTED BY PIRELLI Open to professional racing drivers competing at an international level LEWIS…

MOTOGP SEPANG (MYS) 3 NOVEMBER ROUND 18/19 “I felt I won the race, in my body I felt it.” Maverick Vinales was adamant that he would have preferred to end the Australian Grand Prix last month with a crash, rather than finish second to Marc Marquez. That’s how it transpired, too, as he hit the deck in his fight for the lead. But his comment suggests a Phillip Island near-miss ate away at him more than he cared to admit, and almost certainly spurred on his charge to a dominant victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix last Sunday. The headlines all weekend might have been grabbed by Yamaha stablemate Fabio Quartararo for his lap-record-breaking exploits in practice and Marquez-beating exploits in qualifying. But, nestled between Petronas SRT duo Quartararo and…

MINI CHALLENGE Last year’s Mini Challenge champion Ant Whorton-Eales will return to the series next season when it joins the British Touring Car Championship’s support bill. The 25-year-old won the 2018 Mini JCW title in impressive style, finishing only two races off the podium. He has contested a part-season in Euro NASCAR this year, but is now looking to add a second Mini crown. Whorton-Eales will again drive for the Jamsport squad that powered him to the 2018 title, and the 2016 Renault UK Clio Cup championship. “Continuing to work with Jamsport as a driver mentor and being part of the engineering team this year was great, but I’m a racer and the opportunity to get back behind the wheel full-time in 2020 is something I wasn’t going to turn…

BRITISH GT British GT4 champions Tom Canning and Ash Hand are hoping to continue their driver partnership next season following a successful first test of TF Sport’s GT3 championship-winning Aston Martin Vantage. Canning, 17, and Hand, 25, who won the 2019 title with TF in a Vantage GT4, are among the 23 members of the revived AMR Driver Academy, which carries a prize of a factory contract for the winner. Both drivers plan to continue with the marque next year, regardless of the outcome, but are unlikely to return to British GT4. They are exploring options in GT3 in the British championship and Europe, with a move into the GT4 European Series another alternative. Both drivers completed 25 laps each in the GT3 at Silverstone, impressing TF boss Tom Ferrier.…

SILVERSTONE WALTER HAYES TROPHY 2-3 NOVEMBER It was all set up at Silverstone for a fairytale win for Michael Moyers. After a clash with fellow multiple Walter Hayes Trophy winner Joey Foster in the second heat had left the pair starting the Sunday morning Progression race at the very back, Moyers brilliantly overtook 64 cars through that contest, the Last Chance encounter and the first semi-final to start the final an impressive 10th. “I was confident – other people had done it before and that gave me hope,” said Kevin Mills Racing Spectrum driver Moyers. History did indeed show it was possible to bounce back to take a brilliant result. Roger Orgee gained 97 places in 2015 to finish fifth in the final, and just last year Matt Cowley progressed…

Jordan Dempsey and Scott Huffaker took tenuous but well-deserved victories in Sunday morning’s semi-finals, with the combined winning margin from both races less than two tenths of a second. Crucially, almost all of the main contenders for outright victory progressed. The main casualty was Team USA Scholarship runner Josh Green, who understeered on the wet line at Copse on lap eight of the first race and collected Ollie White, with whom he was disputing third position. While Green’s Cliff Dempsey Racing Ray was ruled out, White did at least scrape his Souley Motorsport Medina onto row 16 for the final. “It was a racing incident but it is frustrating,” said White. “Now I will see how many places I can make up in the final!” A storming drive later gave…

ALGARVE CLASSIC FESTIVAL 2-3 NOVEMBER James Cottingham was the star of the Algarve Classic Festival. Sunday’s sensational GT & Sports Car Cup victory with Oliver Bryant in a snarling AC Cobra, presaged by Saturday’s fortuitous Pre-’63 GT win in a Jaguar E-type roadster finished by team technician Harvey Stanley, crowned a superb weekend for his family’s DK Engineering equipe. Richard Kent also merited the plaudits. He won Saturday’s Motor Racing Legends ’50s Sports Car enduro into darkness in father John’s original Lister-Jaguar Costin – with series returnee Chris Ward middle-stinting. And in his E-type, also with Ward and prepared by Pearsons Engineering, Kent finished 1.3 seconds behind Cottingham’s Cobra in the two-hour GTSCC showstopper. A gripping 15-minute salvo of firepower opened the GTSCC feature, for which a 33-strong Pre-’66 GT…

As his racing CV shows, Robert Shwartzman has finished third several times in his career. But this season was different, as he was crowned champion of FIA Formula 3. The 20-year old from St Petersburg is a product of the ‘dad-and-lad’ karting school and, while his junior resumé so far may not be quite as impressive as some drivers’, it’s certainly not to be scoffed at. More importantly, after receiving the backing of the Ferrari Driver Academy and Russian talent backer SMP Racing, he has learned and become a better prospect on and off the track. While he often returns to Russia, taking part in old-school “car meets”, he now lives in Maranello, Italy with the other FDA drivers, and this year has been something of a renaissance. Shwartzman only…

Unfortunately I never had the chance to meet Robin Herd, who died earlier this year following a long illness. But after speaking to many of his close friends and former colleagues for this issue’s cover feature (page 10), I certainly wish that I had. It’s hard to imagine important design meetings for a 2020 Formula 1 car being held at the technical director’s house, but then Herd didn’t always go by convention. Indeed, he could have hung around in motorsport far longer than he did, had he not tired of the circus and diverted his attentions towards starting a recycling firm and investing in Oxford United. The motorsport industry is almost unrecognisable from what it was in the mid-1960s when Herd arrived at McLaren as a young aerodynamicist, but some…

SEE FORMULA E UP CLOSE Formula E will feature at Autosport International next year, the first time the electric championship will be represented at the event. Further details on FE’s presence will be released ahead of the 30th edition of the show, which will be held on 9-12 January at the NEC in Birmingham. Visitors to the show will be able to buy tickets for the returning London E-Prix at the ExCel in July. WRC LAUNCH AT ASI For the third consecutive year, the World Rally Championship will hold its official launch event on the Saturday of ASI, with fans getting a chance to see the cars and stars of the 2020 WRC – including this year’s champion Ott Tanak in Hyundai colours for the first time. Top WRC engineers…

Countless motorsport figures owe their involvement in motorsport to Robin Herd and the companies he led. From the initial March intake of 1970, which included future Ferrari and Tyrrell technical director Harvey Postlethwaite, to his Larrousse UK design consultancy, where current Mercedes technical director James Allison learned the ropes, Herd’s impact on the industry runs deep. John Gentry had spells in Formula 1 with Toleman, Renault, Brabham and Leyton House, and went on to co-found the Triple Eight touring car racing juggernaut in late 1996. He admired Herd for his willingness to give opportunities to young talent. “I owe him everything,” says Gentry, who cut his teeth race engineering Jean-Pierre Jarier’s ATS in 1978 at Herd’s behest. “He was a remarkable man. Even when I left March, he didn’t forget…

The headlines looked bad for Ligier Automotive two months ago as the 2019-20 World Endurance Championship kicked off at Silverstone without any of its JSP217 LMP2 cars on the grid. Following a disappointing performance at the Le Mans 24 Hours as ORECA secured its third class victory since the new LMP2 regulations were introduced for 2017, Ligier’s official UK distributor United Autosports decided to run an ORECA for its graduation from the European Le Mans Series – which resulted in a swift termination of the agreement. And another leading Ligier customer in the ELMS, Panis-Barthez Competition, also invested in one of Hugues de Chaunac’s ORECAs. The Ligier-based Nissan DPi that won the Sebring 12 Hours last year is unlikely to return to IMSA in 2020 following CORE Autosport’s decision to…

Dr David Salters’s roaring laughter fills the Honda Performance Development transporter and rivals the sound of 23 IndyCars firing up for first practice at Long Beach. But don’t let the genial exterior fool you. The Wirral-born technical director is proud to lead the engineering group as HPD readies itself for IndyCar’s hybrid era beginning in 2022, having arrived in 2015 with extensive Formula 1 experience at Ferrari – where as head of engine development he was part of the team that delivered Kimi Raikkonen’s 2007 world title – and prior to that at McLaren/Ilmor. A career powertrain man, whose role also covers the HPD-powered Acura Team Penske DPi and Michael Shank Racing GTD efforts in IMSA, as well as the domestic F3 and F4 series, Salters grew up wanting to…