Indholdsfortegnelse for 16/01/20 i Autosport

Motorsport statisticians have been keeping an eye on it for a while, and now we can say that Lewis Hamilton is on the verge of matching Michael Schumacher’s Formula 1 world titles and wins benchmarks. Both drivers have incredible CVs and now currently hold most of the major records. Providing the 2020 Mercedes is as good as recent Silver Arrows, Hamilton could make more of them his own. There’s much more to assessing drivers than mere stats, of course, so this week we’ve taken the opportunity to compare Hamilton and Schumacher. Doing so is always fraught with difficulties because each era is different and the drivers face varied opposition and challenges, but such debates are (hopefully!) interesting and thought-provoking. A light-hearted aside is that, if you took Hamilton and Schumacher…

FORMULA E Alex Lynn has returned to the Jaguar Formula E team with which he contested seven races in 2018-19 as reserve and test driver. Lynn, who raced with the Virgin Racing squad in 2017-18, took a best finish of seventh in Bern during his time with Jaguar last season after joining midway through the campaign as a replacement for Nelson Piquet Jr. Jaguar will need a replacement driver for the Sanya round in March as James Calado has a clashing World Endurance Championship round with Ferrari at Sebring. But it is understood that Lynn’s commitments with Aston Martin mean he will race at Sebring, meaning Jaguar needs to look elsewhere for a driver to partner Mitch Evans at the Chinese event. “I am excited to be rejoining the Jaguar…

DUBAI 24 HOURS Barwell Motorsport boss Mark Lemmer says his team has suggested safety tweaks to Dubai 24 Hours organiser Creventic following the “deeply regrettable” pitlane incident in last weekend’s race. The British GT squad’s Lamborghini led the race prior to a four-minute stop-go penalty after a Barwell mechanic pushed the car-controller of the neighbouring MRS GT-Racing Porsche. The MRS man suffered a dislocated shoulder after falling against the Porsche and hitting his head on its rear wing as it left its pit. Speaking to Autosport, Lemmer expressed his best wishes to the injured team member and said he that the part-time Barwell contractor was “mortified” at the incident, which occurred during a Code 60 period when the pitlane was at its busiest. “It’s a deeply regrettable incident – we’re…

OBITUARY Denmark’s first Formula 1 World Championship driver, Tom Belso died last weekend following a battle with stomach cancer. He was 77. ‘The Smiling Dane,’ as he was known to the racing fraternity, was a top mechanic who won his debut race in a Volvo and the Scandinavian Touring Car title – in a Ford Escort – in 1969. His prize was some backing towards a Formula Ford season, so Belso upped sticks to England to race a Hawke. He switched to the new Formula Atlantic category with a Brabham BT28/35 in 1971, finishing third in the championship with three wins. The jump to F2 with a Team Viking Brabham BT38 in 1972 netted fourth place at Albi. Formula 5000 proved to be Belso’s metier and he piloted one of…

I’ve loved motorsport for years. In the 1970s it was a far-off world that I was aware of, but didn’t think was actually real. It got as real as having an ‘Embassy Racing with Graham Hill’ sticker on my little holiday suitcase. Into the 1980s it became more real, when I went to my first British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. My enduring memory of that was failing to fully understand why Murray Walker wasn’t the commentator at the circuit. It was at this GP that I started to ponder what the fans of motorsport love about it – me included. For example, during the race itself, there were people not actually watching the race, but wandering around the stalls and stands. Mums, taking their little race fans around the…

2008 BRITISH GP Only Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen could get near Hamilton in the wet at Silverstone and, when more rain favoured McLaren’s tyre selection after the first pitstops, it became a one-horse race. Hamilton took the flag over a minute ahead of second man Nick Heidfeld to record his first wet-weather masterpiece in Formula 1. 2014 BAHRAIN GP How to win when you’re not the fastest. Nico Rosberg had the edge on his Mercedes team-mate, but Hamilton took the lead at the start. On differing strategies, the two were brought back together by a late safety car, with Rosberg on the faster rubber. Despite several serious Rosberg attempts, Hamilton played his hand perfectly to win. 2019 MONACO GP A Mercedes blunder left Hamilton a 67-lap stint on wilting medium Pirelli…

DUBAI 24 HOURS DUBAI (ARE) 10-11 JANUARY Dubai and rain aren’t known for being bedfellows, but when the heavens opened after seven hours of the Dubai 24 Hours last Friday and caused the race to be halted indefinitely the identity of the winners was somewhat less surprising. The Black Falcon Mercedes squad took its fifth victory in nine years at the 24H Series opener with Jeroen Bleekemolen, Manuel Metzger, Khaled Al Qubaisi, Hubert Haupt and Porsche specialist Ben Barker – making his debut aboard a Mercedes – as Al Qubaisi, Bleekemolen and Haupt became the first drivers to win the event three times. The victorious crew had been demoted from second to fifth on the grid as Haupt hadn’t completed the mandatory two laps in official practice prior to night…

Charles Leclerc arrived at the Birmingham NEC for the Autosport International Show fresh from signing a new deal that will keep him at Ferrari until the end of 2024. After a breakthrough Formula 1 season, it’s evident that the two-time race winner has the prowess to win a world championship, so long as his team can provide a car and race strategy that’s capable of the task. If Ferrari can deliver on those fronts then that future grand prix machine could very well be expected to form part of the celebrations for Autosport’s 80th anniversary at the show in a decade’s time. Leclerc and fellow F1 contemporary Lando Norris drew astonishing crowds over to the Autosport stage as they reflected on the past 12 months while also previewing the season…

Finnish gamer Joona Pankkonen was crowned champion of the DiRT Rally 2.0 World Series at Autosport International, after beating 72,000 entries for a share of the $10,000 prize pool. Six finalists competed over four stages before three went through to an all-or-nothing final-stage decider. Reigning DiRT 4 champion Pankkonen made a number of minor errors, including a brush with the railings – which left him in tears – but had done enough to hold on to victory by 0.8 seconds. Killian Dall’olmo won four of the six qualification races before leading the grand final from pole to earn the rallycross title.…

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says he made “pretty stupid” mistakes during the team’s failed 2019 Indianapolis 500 assault, but will “do things differently” during its 2020 IndyCar campaign. Last year’s entry was McLaren’s second Indy 500 attempt with double Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso, and it decided to run its own programme rather than repeating the partnership it had with Andretti Autosport in 2017. Alonso failed to qualify for the race when he was bumped from the 33-car field by Kyle Kaiser. Speaking at Autosport International, Brown called that programme a “fiasco” and said he could not hide from the mistakes made in preparation for it, which included a missing steering wheel at McLaren’s first test in Texas, and set-up confusion over metric and imperial measurements. Asked how…

“I think we’ve been apologetic about our sport for too long. It’s very easy to think that we’ve got to apologise for running around in circles, burning rubber and fossil fuels when there are lots of other positive aspects to it.” Motorsport UK chairman David Richards is a person who understands better than most the very real threats facing the motorsport industry in 2020, and was pulling no punches as the Motorsport Leaders Business Forum convened at Autosport International last Friday. Joined on stage by the Rt Honorable Lord Hain for a session debating whether governments should care about motorsport, Richards presented an intriguing take on its struggle to remain relevant amid ever-increasing environmental pressures. Dismissing the notion that entertainment alone will be enough, Richards called on the motorsport industry…

BRITISH GT Reigning British GT4 Pro-Am champions Martin Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher will graduate to the premier GT3 class this year in a Bentley Continental GT3 run by race-winning squad JRM. It will be the third season together for the duo, who followed their 2018 GT4 Pro-Am near-miss with the 2019 title in their Beechdean AMR Aston Martin Vantage, in which they scored three class wins and took points in every race. Actor Fletcher, who won Strictly Come Dancing last year, admits he was “keen to exploit” his existing relationship with Aston Martin, but was impressed by his first test with the Bentley in wet conditions at Silverstone. Fletcher told Autosport that he was confident his partnership with Plowman – whose most recent GT3 experience came in a Garage 59…

PORSCHE SPRINT CHALLENGE The Motus One team behind Brabham Motorsport is planning to enter two cars in the new Porsche Sprint Challenge GB this year, with managing director Will Powell its first confirmed driver. Martin Short is Motus One’s team principal and will run the cars from the Rollcentre Racing workshop in St Ives, Cambridge, but is unlikely to drive himself. Powell (above left, with Short) says Motus One would also enter a car in Britcar, with drivers yet to be announced. “The GT4 Porsche being a new series, nobody has got any more advantage than anybody else,” he said. “There are very few things you can change on the car so it’s a nice place for us to go.” Short added: “It takes me back to where I started…

LEGENDS Legends frontrunner Steve Whitelegg will return to the championship this season after taking a break from the category in 2019 and has “unfinished business” as he aims for his first title. The multiple race winner, who finished third and second in the standings in 2017 and 2018 respectively, sold his family-run team WTBS Motorsport to fellow racer Nick Bridgeman prior to last season. Whitelegg will now return under the Bridgeman Motorsport banner with added technical support from Cresta Racing. “I sold everything to Nick [Bridgeman] at the end of the 2018 season and that was the end, but I did three races in Scottish Legends early in 2019 and I was bang on the pace even though I hadn’t driven at Knockhill since I was a novice,” he said.…

FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL The British Racing and Sports Car Club is targeting the largest gathering of Formula Ford 1600 machinery of the season at this year’s Formula Ford Festival as the event will also play host to two championship finales. Alongside the regular knockout Festival contest, the final rounds of the Historic Sports Car Club’s Historic and Classic Formula Ford championships are also set to take place at Brands Hatch over the 24-25 October weekend. This is part of the continued push from the BRSCC to raise the profile of the event ahead of its 50th running in 2021. It was fully livestreamed online for the first time last year and that will again be the case this season. “We’re really excited about it,” said BRSCC chairman Peter Daly. “We…

HISTORICS Four Lola T400s, including two from the UK, are set to be reunited on track this weekend as the New Zealand Tasman Cup Revival Series provides a focal point for the Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park’s Taupo Historic GP event. The gathering will represent a third of the surviving dozen cars from the marque’s 14-strong 1975 Formula 5000 production roster. Prolific category victor Michael Lyons and Mark Dwyer, previously a race winner at the country’s top FIA-graded venue, make their seasonal debuts in the ex-Vel’s Parnelli Racing/Al Unser HU7 and ex-John Morton HU12 respectively. Aucklanders Shayne Windleburn (ex-Richard Scott/Bob Evans HU8) and Glenn Richards (ex-Eppie Wietzes HU9) form the home side. Eric Broadley’s Lola’s previous T330 and T332 designs, cream of the period F5000 crop, are out in force too.…

The Brabham name was synonymous with success for any motorsport fan who grew up in the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s. Founder Jack Brabham remains the only person to win a Formula 1 World Championship in a car bearing his own name – in 1966 – and the three-time champion’s team hit another peak in the following decades after it had been taken over by Bernie Ecclestone. Nelson Piquet won two world titles, the second with BMW turbo engines, but the team changed hands again and departed F1 midway through 1992. That seemed to be the end of the Brabham story, but in 2014 Brabham’s son David – a Le Mans winner and ex-F1 driver himself – revived the name. The Brabham BT62 – featuring a 5.4-litre V8 engine capable of…

Reigning Indycar champion Rick Mears was interviewed by Autosport on this week in 1982. The likeable American had taken his second title in three years for Penske during the previous campaign, scoring six wins in 11 races. Mears opened up about his calculated approach, which helped to explain how he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. “When it comes time to do it, I’ll do it,” he said of pushing to the limit. “But nine times out of 10 you won’t have to because the race has backed up to me. That’s because we used our heads and saved the car.” It’s easy to see why legendary team boss Roger Penske ended up keeping Mears as a driver for over a decade – and…

WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP Birmingham, Frankfurt and Tokyo added colour to the picture of the 2020 World Rally Championship in the past few days as all three factory teams launched their attacks on the forthcoming season on the eve of next week’s Monte Carlo Rally opening round. Autosport International was, once again, at the heart of the unveiling action as the M-Sport Ford team whipped the covers off its Fiesta WRC, with the Cumbrian-built car’s decals a nod to the 1990s. Drivers Esapekka Lappi, Teemu Suninen and Gus Greensmith were all present. Phil Dixon, the man in charge of the new colour scheme, launched on Thursday’s opening day of ASI, said: “My initial inspiration came from Francois Delecour’s 1995 Ford Escort RS Cosworth. White cars have always been popular and, with…

INTERCONTINENTAL GT CHALLENGE Bentley has reshuffled its line-up for a downscaled factory campaign with the M-Sport team in 2020. Out have gone marque stalwarts Steven Kane and Andy Soucek, while Oliver Jarvis has returned to the fold after a two-year absence. Mazda IMSA driver Jarvis has been joined by Alex Buncombe and Seb Morris, who have gained full-season Bentley contracts after running partial programmes with M-Sport in 2019. Together they will contest the five-race Intercontinental GT Challenge, which will be the only factory engagement in the coming season. Maxime Soulet, Jules Gounon and Jordan Pepper have been retained and will be teamed in one of the reliveried Bentley Contintental GT3s for the IGTC. But Kane and Soucek, who have raced with the brand since 2013 and 2015 respectively, have lost…

FORMULA 3 Ferrari protege Enzo Fittipaldi (right), grandson of double Formula 1 champion Emerson, and Red Bull-backed Jack Doohan, son of motorcycle king Mick, have joined HWA alongside Jake Hughes in this year’s FIA Formula 3 Championship. HWA initiated its first junior-single-seater race team in FIA F3 last year, with Hughes taking seventh in the standings. Fittipaldi steps up as runner-up in last year’s Formula Regional European Championship, while Doohan was second in Asian F3, holds the same spot in the 2020 edition of that series, and also raced in Euroformula Open. HWA boss Ulrich Fritz said: “I am delighted that we have managed to secure the services of Jack and Enzo. However, we did not opt for them because of their famous names, but because of their immense talent,…

DAKAR RALLY Although the technical regulations have remained virtually unchanged, the 2020 edition of the Dakar Rally looked poised to usher in a new era. There was the new location in Saudi Arabia, with a five-year deal that gave the organisers respite from complex negotiations with the South American countries that had become home for the event over the past decade. There was a new rally director, as former Dakar podium finisher David Castera took over from the long-serving Etienne Lavigne and made a host of changes that included trials for a new practice of handing out roadbooks to the competitors in the morning, as opposed to the day before. And last but not least, there was a genuine superstar arriving in Fernando Alonso, the two-time Formula 1 world champion…

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1996 SPANISH GP Schumacher’s first win for Ferrari was one of the great wet-weather masterclasses. After a poor start from third on the grid, the German inexorably scythed through the field to lead on lap 12 of 65. He then simply disappeared into the distance, winning at Barcelona by 45 seconds despite a broken exhaust. 1998 HUNGARIAN GP The classic Ross Brawn/Ferrari/Schumacher strategy defeat of McLaren. A three-stop run required Schumacher to build a lead of 25s in 19 laps to jump the two-stopping McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard. A series of qualifying-style laps achieved that and more, providing a superb demonstration of how to win during F1’s refuelling era. 2000 JAPANESE GP The race Schumacher picked out as his greatest. After a flat-out head-to-head with arch rival…

ASIAN FORMULA 3 DUBAI (ARE) 9-10 JANUARY ROUND 2/5 Dutch youngster Joey Alders may be in a battle to raise the finance to keep going in the Asian Formula 3 Championship, but he’s coming out top during the battles on the track. He took a further win with BlackArts Racing in the wet to retain his points lead. Alders’s success in Dubai came in the second of the three races, which took place on a slippery circuit on Friday morning. From the second row, he immediately got ahead of slow-starting Hitech GP driver Nikita Mazepin, then moved into the lead when Mazepin’s polesitting team-mate Jake Hughes ran wide at Turn 1. Asian F3 debutant Sebastian Fernandez (Pinnacle Motorsport) passed Hughes for second in the early stages, but could not catch…

Jonny Adam, David Addison, Carl Boardley, Catherine Bond Muir, Lee Bowers, David Brabham, Zak Brown, Mike Bushell, Mickey Butler, Dan Cammish, Hugh Chambers, Karun Chandhok, Tom Chilton, Josh Cook, David Coulthard, Ben Crawley, Michael Crees, David Croft, Robbie Dalgleish, Martin Donnelly, Charlie Eastwood, Abbie Eaton, Matt Edwards, Steve Evans, Kelvin Fletcher, Tom Gamble, Tony Gilham, Jack Goff, James Gornall, Terry Grant, Andy Green, Gus Greensmith, Kevin Hansen, Johnny Herbert, Anders Hildebrand, Jake Hill, Johnathan Hoggard, Shaun Hollamby, Chris Ingram, Tom Ingram, Mario Isola, Ollie Jackson, Kiern Jewiss, Andrew Jordan, Harry King, Andy Lane, Esapekka Lappi, Charles Leclerc, Charlie Martin, Yves Matton, Richard Millener, Aiden Moffat, Sarah Moore, Seb Morris, Matt Neal, Gerard Neveu, Lando Norris, Michael O’Brien, Tom Oliphant, Sam Osborne, Manish Pandey, Monty Panesar, Rick Parfitt Jr, Giorgio Piola,…

A company fronted by ex-Formula 1 engineer Rob Smedley has launched an electric kart to boost the “democratisation” of grassroots motorsport. Smedley, who worked with Jordan, Ferrari and Williams during his time in F1, is in charge of Electroheads Motorsport, a division of the Electroheads company, which is described as a “media, motorsport and talent group”. The e-kart will make its debut in the UK in 2020 alongside the Bambino and Cadet karting categories. “People are investing a lot into their children’s future and it’s not always warranted,” Smedley said at Autosport International. “We have [heard] some crazy figures that actually get spent. We went and had a look at how we would like to get involved and democratise the grassroots of motorsport. What became apparent was that the main…

Eleven Le Mans 24 Hours victories, five World Rally manufacturers’ titles, 47 British Touring Car Championship race wins and a staggering 15 combined drivers’ and constructors’ Formula 1 championships. The total achievements of the cars – three from each of the past seven decades of motorsport – that made up the Autosport 70 anniversary display at last weekend’s Autosport International Show ensured it was a tall order for any one to truly stand out. Success and statistics alone have never made for a complete barometer of a car’s significance. When it comes to the McLaren MP4/4, for example, it’s impossible not to mention that it won 15 out of 16 grands prix during 1988. But there’s a strong case to be made that its utter domination was born from it…

Renowned stunt driver Terry Grant is prolific at turning rear tyres into clouds of smoke. But when he’s not yanking on the handbrake and dumping the clutch then he must be something of a sweet talker too. A victim of his own success, each year in the Live Action Arena at the Autosport International Show he has to up the ante. For 2020, Grant had clearly charmed the insurance department into signing off on a spectacular and high stakes finale to the one-hour show: jumping a trophy truck over the £2million Lykan HyperSport. The supercar – complete with its diamond-encrusted headlights – enjoyed a starring role jumping between skyscrapers in Furious 7, but that was risk-free thanks to CGI trickery. Last weekend in Birmingham, however, the Lykan was directly underneath…

VOLKSWAGEN RACING CUP Volkswagen Racing Cup frontrunners Josh Coggan and Mark Wakefield have paired up to form a new team in the series this year. JM Racing will run up to four VW Golf Mk7s using the bodykit developed by Coggan. The first two cars are ready to go, with another two in build. Championship regular Mark Steel was revealed as the team’s first signing for 2020 at last weekend’s Autosport International. Coggan, who impressed in a one-off outing in the Touring Car Trophy at the end of last year, and Wakefield are yet to commit to driving themselves. Last year’s championship runner-up Wakefield said: “Racing the car is the easy bit. All the off-track stuff that people don’t see is the hard bit, and I think you get to…

VLN Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion Dan Harper has been recruited to BMW’s revived Junior Team for the next two years. The teenager dominated last year’s championship in his second season as the Porsche GB Junior, and was due to take part in the manufacturer’s global Junior shootout to receive a drive in the Porsche Supercup. But Harper dropped out of this at short notice after being approached by BMW. He will make his international racing debut this season by competing in the Nurburgring-based VLN series, where he will be racing a variety of BMW machinery, including GT3 and GT4 cars, alongside his fellow Junior Team members: BRDC British F3 graduate Neil Verhagen and 2019 TCR Germany champion Max Hesse. “I feel honoured to be allowed to be part of…

MG CAR CLUB The MG Car Club will race on the Silverstone International circuit for the first time this year as part of its newly unveiled 2020 calendar. The meeting, on 28 March, kicks off an expanded six-round MGCC schedule. The club’s MGLive showpiece Silverstone GP event – cancelled last year due to resurfacing – returns while, in another first for the MGCC, its Snetterton 300 circuit meeting becomes a two-day event. MGCC also has a new race competitions secretary this year, as Mark Baulch has replaced John Hutchison, who had been in the role since 2014. Baulch has been the MGCC’s awards coordinator for the past four years. “We wanted an opportunity to try something a little bit different,” Baulch said about the International circuit visit, “and who wouldn’t…

OSS CHAMPIONSHIP OSS Championship organisers have decided not to continue with the series this year after it struggled for entries in 2019. The category, which was open to a wide range of prototype machinery, started in 2009 and regularly attracted grids in the thirties as recently as 2017, but this dropped to an average of just 10 cars per round last season. Organisers say the entry dropoff and what they claim is a lack of support from the organising British Racing and Sports Car Club has led to the decision to cancel the championship. In a statement, they said: “It’s with great regret that after 11 years of a great championship we have decided to bring OSS to an end. Lack of interest from competitors and our organising club being…

HILLCLIMB Organisers of the Chateau Impney Hill Climb have announced that the 2020 event, planned for the weekend of 18-19 July, has been cancelled. The recreation of the 1960s hillclimb in the grounds of the Droitwich hotel established itself as a key event in the calendar, with more than 200 pre-1966 cars competing. Good crowds packed the venue from the first event in 2015, and the 2019 running won the Royal Automobile Club ‘event of the year’ award. The organisers’ statement said: “The 2019 Hill Climb will be the last of this series of motoring events at Chateau Impney. Consequently, the 2020 event will unfortunately not be taking place. We set out to create memorable experiences which consistently exceeded expectations, to create an event that felt exclusive but was incredibly…

Last week’s unexpected announcement that the sixth Chateau Impney Hillclimb, scheduled for 18-19 July, had been cancelled sent a ripple of shock throughout attendees at Autosport International in Birmingham’s NEC. I heard the news, from numerous people, with a pang of sadness but joy at having been involved as commentator for its first four editions, the Historic Sports Car Club’s Anglesey debut having taken me to North Wales last year. Of course, as is the way of the world, the tidings subsequently spread like wildfire, by word of mouth and media channels. Competitors, marshals and fans – some doubtlessly planning to go for the first time, having heard or read good things about an event that evoked memories of a delightfully genteel bygone age, carved a unique niche in the…

BTCC Tom Chilton says that the strong impression made by the BTC Racing Honda squad in last season’s British Touring Car Championship persuaded him to join the three-strong crew for the 2020 competition. Chilton, a 14-time race winner in the BTCC and the 2010 Independents Trophy winner, announced that he will switch over from the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus team (above) to join BTC, which will again run the latest-spec FK8 Civic Type R this term. The team, which is owned by Bert Taylor and businessman Steve Dudman, upgraded to the new equipment last season and took Josh Cook to fourth in the points table. “You couldn’t help but be impressed with the results that BTC achieved last year,” said Chilton, who made his BTCC debut in 2002. “For a…

F2/SUPER FORMULA/SUPER GT FIA Formula 3 race winner Yuki Tsunoda’s rapid promotion to Formula 2, plus the confirmation of Super Formula deals for F3 star Juri Vips and F2 competitor Tatiana Calderon – unexpected in the Colombian’s case – were the talking points of last week’s annual announcement by Honda of its motorsport programme for the season. Tsunoda, who is also a Red Bull Junior, will step up with Carlin for his graduation to F2, which has been anticipated through most of the off-season. But Calderon’s naming as the ThreeBond Drago Corse driver in SF – and the absence of outgoing Carlin F2 victor Nobuharu Matsushita in the announcement at all – points to Matsushita remaining in Europe for another season, but outside the Honda programme. F2 insiders say he…

Charles Leclerc is already regarded as a world championship threat, despite only two seasons in Formula 1. He says “there is still a big margin of improvement” to come with his own driving, but he has shown enough to be regarded as one of the new ‘Big Three’, along with Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Six-time champion Hamilton’s title credentials need no introduction and Verstappen put in the sort of campaign last year that would have been good enough to fight for the crown had Red Bull been more consistently competitive. But what of Leclerc? There were some errors in 2019, such as crashing in qualifying in Azerbaijan, and there were days when team-mate Sebastian Vettel had him beaten too, but reliability and strategy issues cost him more. And he…

When Michael Schumacher scored his 91st Formula 1 victory at the Chinese Grand Prix on 1 October 2006, many of his records looked unassailable. Fernando Alonso would prevent the Ferrari legend from taking an eighth world title that season, but his seven still left him two clear of the next-best (1950s star Juan Manuel Fangio), his win tally was only one away from the combined total of the next two on the all-time list – Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna – and he also led the pole positions and fastest laps charts. Wherever you rank Schumacher in the list of great drivers – and there are plenty who would put him number one – his career statistics are incredible. But they no longer look safe. Lewis Hamilton overtook Schumacher’s pole…

The driver of the red-and-white, Lark cigarettes-liveried March-BMW lay injured in his cockpit, in severe pain. Seventy laps of the short circuit at Donington Park was hard work for anyone, let alone a 35-year-old for whom this had been the first race in Europe for five years. That driver, 10 to 15 years the senior of most of his opposition, had just finished fourth in the latest round of the European Formula 2 Championship. That driver was arguably the greatest racer Japan has ever produced. Seven years before that F2 race at Donington in June 1983, Kazuyoshi Hoshino had already starred in the torrential rain of the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji. But, if you want to be cynical, you could put it down to the wet-weather Bridgestone tyres…

ASIAN LE MANS SERIES THE BEND (AUS) 12 JANUARY ROUND 2/4 The Aurus-badged ORECA of G-Drive Racing by Algarve made it two wins out of two around the new 4.83-mile The Bend circuit near Adelaide. The race was one of fluctuating fortunes between the G-Drive trio of Roman Rusinov, Leonard Hoogenboom and James French, the two Eurasia Motorsport Ligiers and Carlin’s Dallara. Going into the last quarter of the four-hour race, Rusinov was in front from Nick Cassidy in the Eurasia Ligier he shared with Shane van Gisbergen and Daniel Gaunt. Cassidy made his final stop first, but Rusinov was able to benefit from a full-course yellow for his splash-and-dash, before the Ligier retired at the last gasp with gearbox problems. Up to second came the sister Eurasia Ligier of…

The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team unveiled a retro-inspired livery for its 2020 World Rally Championship-contending Ford Fiesta WRC at Autosport International. M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson said the livery, which now features a white-and-blue scheme instead of the predominantly blue-and-silver colours of last year, is inspired by the early-1990s Ford World Rally Cars. He cited the livery used during the 1993 season, when Francois Delecour narrowly missed out on the championship in a Ford Escort RS Cosworth. The 2020 design also features more-prominent sponsorship from Castrol. M-Sport has already announced its 2020 driver line-up, with ex-Toyota and Citroen driver Esapekka Lappi signed alongside Teemu Suninen and a part-programme for Gus Greensmith.…

Two hours of racing 1966 Ford GT Mk2s around the famous Le Mans circuit crescendoed into a thrilling final-lap showdown for the win between two teams that had visited the gravel trap on the opening lap. Unexpected comebacks have become a staple of the Le Mans Esports Series and its Autosport Show qualifier was no different. Twelve teams were invited to fight for an automatic place in the Super Final at the Le Mans 24 Hours, where teams will fight for their share of the $200,000 prize pool. The Williams squad sealed pole position, but there was little to separate the top four on pace. On the opening lap of the race, Williams plummeted down the order due to an off, while Jota Esports dropped to last when 2019 Autosport…

Autosport would like to thank all the drivers, team bosses, designers and industry specialists who generously gave us their time and for their valued contributions to this year’s Autosport International Show. We would like to give special appreciation to Zak Brown, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, plus Haas, McLaren, Mercedes, Racing Point, Red Bull Racing, Renault F1 and Williams Racing. Thanks also to Solutions2, Image Innovations, Network Productions, Zee FX and Waltham Services for their work on the excellent Live Action Arena. We would also like to extend our sincere gratitude to Bernard Cottrell, Peter Higham and everyone else who helped bring together the fantastic Autosport 70 display feature in honour of our anniversary. Finally, our thanks to the tireless Autosport International production team for its amazing work in putting the…

USF2000 Walter Hayes Trophy winner Jordan Dempsey is seeking a 2020 move to the USF2000 championship, the first step on the Road to Indy ladder. Dempsey dominantly won Silverstone’s Formula Ford 1600 showpiece last November. The 20-year-old Irishman also competed in Asian Formula 3 last season, taking two podiums, and won the 2018 Chinese F4 title. “If you win the championship you get practically a fully funded drive the whole way up to IndyCar,” Dempsey said of USF2000, “and I’ve always wanted to drive an IndyCar; I’ve always wanted to do the Indy 500. But I don’t come from a lot of money, so to try and do that it takes a lot of good people to come on board and generosity. “I can see myself, if I can get…

MAZDA MX-5 Mazda MX-5 champion John Langridge is having a new car built by Blink Motorsport as he graduates to the MX-5 Supercup for the newer Mk3 model this season. Langridge, who took four wins on his way to winning the championship for Mk1 machinery last year, sampled a Mk3 at Silverstone’s Motorsport Live event in November and plans further testing in his new car ahead of the season. “It was quite a natural progression,” he said. “I feel that once you get to the top of a class, particularly at amateur level, you’ll still learn stuff but your curve’s flattening off, so I’m going to have another steep one this year – get stuck in, elbows out and there’s going to be a lot to learn. We need to…

PLIMMER BACK TO FFORD Fun Cup racer Neil Plimmer will return to Formula Ford 1600 this season, racing a Van Diemen RF90 he last drove 25 years ago. A meeting with FF1600 expert Dave Morgan brought the comeback to fruition. “I spoke to Dave after noticing my Fun Cup races at Oulton and Anglesey were on the same meetings as Northern FF1600, then he mentioned he still had the RF90 I raced with him and the deal was done,” Plimmer said. WARD LANDS B-M DEAL B-M Racing will run Junior Saloon graduate Tom Ward in a packed programme of Formula Ford 1600 races for his debut season in single-seaters. Ward will contest campaigns in both the National and Northern championships as well as taking in the end-of-season Festival and Walter…

HISTORICS The latest Group 1 Ford Capri built by Ric Wood will be raced by Irishman Jonathan White this season. White, more recently seen racing a Rover, will campaign the car in the Motor Racing Legends Historic Touring Car Challenge, which starts at the Donington Historic Festival in early May. “We’ve probably built 25 Capris now,” said Wood as the car was unveiled at the Autosport International Show. It has been built up from a road car and finished in a Pepsi livery (below). Wood is due to continue racing his Nissan Skyline in the same series and is currently building another Skyline for a customer. “It is the ultimate Group A touring car,” said Wood of the four-wheel-drive Skyline.…

“It’s not going to work if I just think I’m going to do it my way – it’s got to be what the customers want.” Claire Hedley’s assessment of what it takes to create a successful racing series may seem an obvious one, but the owner and managing director of the Britcar Endurance Championship is better placed than most to make such a comment. The championship has constantly adapted and has changed considerably since Hedley bought Britcar at the start of 2016 – from original founder James Tucker – when entries were dwindling and there was a real risk that it would soon cease to exist. It was a stark and sobering contrast to a decade ago, when Britcar was seen as one of the UK’s strongest championships and the…

DOCUMENTARY SERIES F2: CHASING THE DREAM Available via F1 TV As video streaming services continue their seemingly irrepressible rise in modern civilisation, documentaries are incredibly in vogue thanks to their accessibility. As Amazon’s Grand Prix Driver, a series about the then-ailing McLaren team, suggested that Formula 1-themed documentaries could make a splash on streaming platforms, Netflix popularised that format with Drive To Survive. Now, thanks to FOM’s greater desire to promote Formula 2, the second-tier category now receives its own docuseries F2: Chasing The Dream, broadcast exclusively on F1 TV. With F2 lacking the worldwide appeal of F1, FOM has explored numerous ways of expanding on its coverage of the support series, and has certainly taken a leaf from the Netflix playbook. Rather than episodic storylines focused primarily on one…

The Joest Racing Porsche 962C of Bob Wollek and Hans-Joachim Stuck (‘John Winter’, aka Louis Krages, actually co-drove a sister car with Frank Jelinski and Pierre-Henri Raphanel) carries the patina of an eventful race en route to third place in the 1989 Le Mans 24 Hours. The Porsche led during the night and Stuck reckoned victory would have been possible but for a minor yet persistent and time-sapping water leak and, later, oil seeping into the clutch – an issue that was alleviated by Coca-Cola being poured over the bell housing at each pitstop. For classic motosport DVDs head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…