Indholdsfortegnelse for 02/07/20 i Autosport

NASCAR After the sporting calendar was decimated in mid-March as the COVID-19 pandemic ripped across the planet, it was the NASCAR Cup that stuck its head up with the announcement that it would be the first motorsport series to return. The risks and rewards on offer for NASCAR were simple: although the number of people on-site was drastically slashed, a pit garage and paddock is ripe breeding ground for a virus to spread exponentially if proper precautions were not strictly followed. On the other hand, with other major American sports such as the NBA and NFL suspended, and not a lot going on elsewhere, NASCAR had the opportunity to showcase a blueprint on how to safely restart its season. The first block of four races announced for the comeback were…

BTCC A bombshell hit the British Touring Car Championship on Tuesday when official BMW team West Surrey Racing and 2019 series runner-up Andrew Jordan announced that they are parting ways. In a carefully worded statement, WSR said: “Team BMW and WSR regret to announce that Andrew Jordan has made the difficult decision to withdraw from the 2020 BTCC.” Although Jordan was brought into the official BMW fold for 2020 following the withdrawal of his long-time backer Pirtek at the end of 2019, he did still have to bring some backing for the seat. Jordan then told Autosport: “The deal we had in place before COVID was great. We were all very happy with that. And then I just couldn’t make the deal work post-COVID. I took the tough decision to…

LENGTH 2.683 miles NUMBER OF LAPS 71 2019 POLE POSITION Charles Leclerc 1m03.003s POLE LAP RECORD Charles Leclerc 1m03.003s (2019) RACE LAP RECORD Kimi Raikkonen 1m06.957s (2018) UK START TIMES Friday 3 July FP1 1000 FP2 1400 Saturday 4 July FP3 1100 QUALIFYING 1400 Sunday 5 July RACE 1410 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA HIGHLIGHTS CHANNEL 4 1830 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP – FINAL 2019 POSITIONS Drivers 1 Hamilton……………………….413 2 Bottas………………………………326 3 Verstappen………………….278 4 Leclerc…………………………….264 5 Vettel………………………………..240 Constructors 1 Mercedes…………….739 2 Ferrari……………………504 3 Red Bull………………..417 4 McLaren……………….145 5 Renault…………………… 91 RACE STATS Previous winners 2019 Max Verstappen Red Bull 2018 Max Verstappen Red Bull 2017 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 2016 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2015 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2014 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2003 Michael Schumacher…

In another age, before the expected 2020 calendar was swept away by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdowns, six days of pre-season testing at Barcelona provided a theoretical guide to this year’s Formula 1 pecking order. Anybody hoping for clear signs that Mercedes had suddenly produced a dud with the W11 was left disappointed, as the team that has claimed all 12 titles since 2014 topped the times at both three-day tests. But there was delicious drama behind – indeed, in the back of the W11, as Mercedes twice had to swap engines as reliability problems dogged the reigning champion squad, and impacted customer team Williams. But it was the team that has finished directly behind Mercedes in the past three constructors’ championships that sounded particularly downbeat about its…

Williams’s revelation that it is seeking new investment and is open to fully selling the team to secure its future can euphemistically be described as a ‘strategic review’ of its operations. Part of the announcement regarding that move was that Williams had revealed it had “served notice to terminate its relationship” with ROKiT – the mobile phone and wifi services provider that had served as its title sponsor since the start of the 2019 Formula 1 season – and its sister brand ROKiT Drinks, which was also a major Williams sponsor. It was that decision – which ROKiT was apparently only informed of on the day of Williams’s announcement on its financial future – that has led to the FW43s being given a fresh livery ahead of the pandemic-delayed 2020…

STARTS 990 | FIRST GP MONACO 1950 | WINS 238 | POLES 228 | FASTEST LAPS 254 | 2019 2ND Remember the Ferrari controversy from the original pre-season? It was all about the legality of the fuel system used in 2019. The saga was exacerbated by the lack of straightline speed exhibited by the SF1000 in Barcelona testing, some suggesting this was because the team was now having to run a different fuel system. Ferrari blamed it on a draggy car, but that sounds ridiculous given all the data and windtunnel information it has. The car was 11mph slower on the main straight compared to the Alfa Romeo, which uses the same engine. While Sebastian Vettel was able to wring out a sub-1m17s time, albeit on the soft C5 tyres,…

STARTS 383 | FIRST GP BRITAIN 1977 | WINS 35 | POLES 51 | FASTEST LAPS 31 | 2019 5TH It looks as though Renault has actually caught up with its customer team – McLaren – and certainly Daniel Ricciardo was looking a lot happier towards the end of Barcelona testing back in February, when he was able to post a time only 0.08 seconds slower than Valtteri Bottas. This was backed up by new team-mate Esteban Ocon, who was another tenth and a half further back. Of course, Ricciardo’s departure at the end of this season for that customer team has thrown something of a spanner into the works. A lot of Renault’s work has gone into the bargeboard area, with some strange looking teeth-shaped elements in an effort…

STARTS 131 | FIRST GP BRITAIN 1950 | WINS 10 | POLES 12 | FASTEST LAPS 14 | 2019 8TH This team has produced an efficient package, backed up by the C39’s prodigious DRS-assisted straightline speed of 208mph on the second day of the first Barcelona test that also helped Kimi Raikkonen top the timesheets using the relatively soft C4 tyres. Raikkonen managed a couple of spins during his testing stints, but on the whole looked happy with his steed. He did, however, cause a red flag at the end of the day when he stopped just before Turn 9. Alfa Romeo used its reserve driver, Robert Kubica, at the tests in Spain. He ended up fastest driver on the first day of the second test using the softest C5…

1976 COPYCAT VICTORY Penske introduced its second new car of the season at the Swedish Grand Prix in 1976. The problem was, the PC4 didn’t look much better than its predecessor in John Watson’s hands. That was before team boss Roger Penske looked at what its rivals were doing and sent designer Geoff Ferris back to the drawing board. “Roger is the biggest pragmatist I’ve ever encountered in motorsport,” says Watson. “He looked at the McLaren M23 with Geoff and said, ‘It’s got a conventional nose and a big spacer between the engine and the gearbox. Do it!’ So we ended up with a new front and a seven-inch longer wheelbase. It transformed the car.” Penske was competitive for the remainder of what turned out to be its final season…

BRDC BRITISH F3 Leading UK single-seater team Hitech GP will contest the 2020 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship when the season gets under way next month. The Silverstone-based squad, which already competes in FIA and Asian Formula 3 and will also contest Formula 2 this season, will field two cars in the UK category. The squad, which was second in the FIA F3 teams’ championship last year and operates the centrally run W Series, will confirm its drivers in the coming weeks. Team principal Oliver Oakes said: “We’d looked at British F3 on and off for a couple of years but it just never came together. One year we did Asian F3 and then last year we took the tender for W Series. “I think with the current COVID-19 situation,…

SMRC SEASON SHORTENED The Scottish Motor Racing Club recently announced plans to hold just three race weekends over September and October as it found competitors were reluctant to make a swift return to action. In order to save on circuit costs and accommodation for marshals and officials, the club will operate three one-day events, with private testing at each round available in the morning. Knockhill’s McRae Rally Challenge, due to mark 25 years since Colin McRae’s World Rally Championship title, has also been postponed to 2021. CHAMP DUNN BACK TO F1000 Former F1000 champion Andrew Dunn will make a return to the series this season. He claimed the 2010 title and was runner-up in 2014, but hasn’t raced in the category since a one-off outing in 2018. Dunn is one…

Positive news has been in very short supply in the past few months. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted upon just about every aspect of our lives and motorsport has been no exception, with hundreds of events cancelled or postponed. But finally, after all the doom and gloom, some positive signs are now here. It’s not just Formula 1 that’s due to make a long-awaited return this weekend, but also club racing. And we’ve got Autosport magazine back as well! One of the most significant positives has to be the amount of interest these first few meetings have generated. You can read about the encouraging signs for this weekend’s Castle Combe Racing Club, British Automobile Racing Club and MotorSport Vision Racing events on the preceding pages, but other meetings have also…

“The answer to Ligier’s prayers?” asked Autosport magazine this week in 1995. Legendary motorsport team boss Tom Walkinshaw had joined as the team’s engineering director for the campaign and had high hopes. The Ligier JS41s of Martin Brundle and Olivier Panis had just had their most competitive showing so far in the Canadian Grand Prix, and Walkinshaw was confident of reorganising the team and lifting them towards the front, as he had helped do at Benetton. “Ligier is not very different to how Benetton was when we first went in there,” said Walkinshaw, who was also – among other things – masterminding the Volvo programme in the British Touring Car Championship at the time. “It’s fairly disjointed, with not a lot of processes and controls.” Walkinshaw talked of the new…

FORMULA 1 When Formula 1 bursts back into action at the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend following the four-month hiatus imposed during the coronavirus pandemic, the event will be a very different experience for everyone involved. A range of new protocols has been brought in to minimise the chance of a COVID-19 outbreak. The ‘new normal’ has become a much-used phrase this year, and this is what F1 can expect… RACES BEHIND CLOSED DOORS As long as there remains a risk of COVID-19 being transmitted among the general public, no spectators will be allowed in for at least the first phase of the championship. F1 is instead planning fully closed-door events without spectators, guests or sponsors, and dramatic cuts in the number of staff present. Teams will be operating with…

FORMULA E When the Formula E season resumes with a six-race schedule – held over nine days from 5-13 August at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin – there will be two high-profile absentees from the grid. Although Ma Qinghua sits last in the standings, the NIO 333 team remains steadfast in its commitment to always field a Chinese driver. But coronavirus-enforced travel restrictions and a second outbreak in the capital of Beijing mean he and his Shanghai-based race team colleagues will miss the three double-header events. This has paved the way for recently sacked Audi driver Daniel Abt to maintain his record of starting every one of the 63 races in FE history, as he will deputise for Ma at the track where he claimed his most recent E-Prix victory. The…

ALEX ZANARDI Motorsport and Paralympic hero Alex Zanardi underwent a second round of neurological surgery on Monday, 10 days after being admitted to hospital with severe head injuries sustained in a handbike road accident in Italy. Two-time Indycar champion Zanardi hit a truck while taking part in a handbike event in Siena on 19 June, leaving him with severe head and facial injuries. He underwent surgery upon admission to hospital and has remained in a medically induced coma since. In a bulletin issued on Monday by Siena University Hospital, it was confirmed that Zanardi had undergone a second surgery after a CT scan presented “an evolution in the patient’s state which made it necessary to have a second neurosurgical intervention”. The surgery lasted two and a half hours, before Zanardi…

“If someone who has run the sport for decades has such a lack of understanding of the deep-rooted issues we as black people deal with every day, how can we expect all the people who work under him to understand? It starts at the top.” Lewis Hamilton wrote this as part of a message on his Instagram page last Friday in response to the appalling comments made by ex-Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, which the championship itself moved to condemn. On Monday, his Mercedes squad revealed that it will run a black livery for the entire 2020 season as “a statement that we stand against racism and discrimination in all forms”. It also revealed that just 3% of its workforce comes from minority ethnic backgrounds, and that only 12% are…

Away from the pandemic and the state of flux it created in Formula 1’s 2020 season, the biggest news since the aborted Australian Grand Prix weekend was undoubtedly Sebastian Vettel’s announcement of his departure from Ferrari (see page 24). It was significant for several reasons, one of which was the impact it had on other squads. Ferrari more than likely knew more than it was letting on regarding Vettel’s future during winter testing, as new hire Carlos Sainz Jr has since revealed he’d had contact with Maranello over the 2019-20 off-season. Given his positive relationship with soon-to-be former squad McLaren, Sainz let Zak Brown and co know about the talks, and his current team was able to reposition itself and snare Daniel Ricciardo from Renault. Ferrari sealing its 2021 driver…

As rapid as Ferrari may have been in confirming Carlos Sainz Jr as Sebastian Vettel’s replacement for 2021, such haste has been rare in the 25-year-old Spaniard’s F1 career. Sainz was initially overlooked for a Toro Rosso F1 seat in 2015, only for Vettel’s move to Ferrari – ironically – to open a seat. After being pursued by Renault through 2017, he was then frozen out midway through 2018 by its signing of Daniel Ricciardo. But McLaren’s change of line-up for 2019 helped keep Sainz on the grid, and he flourished. Such stability was something he had never felt under Red Bull’s umbrella, and his new-found ease brought out the best of him on-track. Sainz led McLaren to fourth in the constructors’ championship, and he finished the year sixth in…

STARTS 286 | FIRST GP AUSTRALIA 2005 | WINS 62 | POLES 62 | FASTEST LAPS 65 | 2019 3RD Red Bull is probably the darkest horse in the field – it didn’t show its true pace in testing. Benefiting from its strong Honda engine package, Red Bull racked up an impressive number of laps over the six days of testing in February and, although at the start the car looked rather skittish in both drivers’ hands, by the end Max Verstappen was able to set some impressive long-run times. The front suspension has been tweaked to include a one-piece front lower wishbone forward leg (as seen below), maybe due to a unique double front bulkhead design, leading to less space for normal attachments but also, because the rear leg…

STARTS 268 | FIRST GP BAHRAIN 2006 (AS TORO ROSSO) | WINS 1 | POLES 1 | FASTEST LAPS 1 | 2019 6TH The latest team with a new name (until Racing Point becomes Aston Martin), the old Toro Rosso squad is perhaps trying to distance itself from big brother Red Bull and looks to be doing a pretty good job. Armed with a repackaged Honda engine, this team could spring a few surprises this year so long as it keeps Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly under control. AlphaTauri obviously still has access to certain components from Red Bull and seems to have packaged them well, particularly around the rear suspension and a tightly sculptured engine cover that feeds air nicely to the rear wing. The front wing and nose…

STARTS 83 | FIRST GP AUSTRALIA 2016 | BEST FINISH 4TH | BEST QUALIFYING 5TH | FASTEST LAPS 2 | 2019 9TH One team trying to change an annus horribilis of 2019 into an annus mirabilis is Haas. From the first day of testing back in February with Kevin Magnussen at the wheel, the VF-20 looked a better package than its predecessor. But it did seem that Haas has a problem getting the C3 tyre to work over a long run at Barcelona compared to the harder C2. This seems to have been the squad’s Achilles’ heel last year and I’m not sure it is on top of the problem – it was one of the only teams not to break into the 1m16s during testing. A couple of unfortunate…

1 AUSTRIAN GP Red Bull Ring 5 July UK start time: 1410 2 STYRIAN GP Red Bull Ring 12 July UK start time: 1410 3 HUNGARIAN GP Hungaroring 19 July UK start time: 1410 4 BRITISH GP Silverstone 2 August UK start time: 1510 5 70TH ANNIVERSARY GP Silverstone 9 August UK start time: 1510 6 SPANISH GP Barcelona 16 August UK start time: 1410 7 BELGIAN GP Spa 30 August UK start time: 1410 8 ITALIAN GP Monza 6 September UK start time: 1410 Beyond the eight races confirmed, the intention is to finish the season in the Gulf in December with Bahrain before the traditional finale in Abu Dhabi, with 15-18 races having taken place. This is our best guess of what might follow from September onwards, and we’ve helpfully given the Mugello race…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS SYDNEY (AUS) 27-28 JUNE ROUND 3/11 Australian Supercars made an action-packed return to real-world competition last weekend with three fascinating sprint races at Sydney Motorsport Park. Despite the series traditionally not thriving on short races, a number of regulation changes injected unpredictability into the rapid-fire, 80-mile-apiece format. The most significant alteration, at least in terms of the on-track action, was a limit on tyres. Each driver had just 20 new soft-compound Dunlops at their disposal from the end of practice onwards, which had to be stretched across three qualifying sessions, plus a top 15 shootout, and the trio of races. It meant everyone had to bear tyre pain at some point, which effectively ruled out any chance of a single driver earning a clean sweep across the weekend.…

OBITUARY Mike Garton, who died last month aged 84, was a poacher-turned-gamekeeper who stopped racing in 1972 and became a respected international scrutineer. The Peterborough motorcycle salesman switched from scrambling to car racing in 1961 with an Austin-Healey ‘Frogeye’ Sprite. He exchanged it with Donald Healey’s son Geoff for the ex-works 1961 Le Mans Sprite, 1411 WD, in which Garton enjoyed immediate success in 1963 and made the first of 14 endurance starts at the Nurburgring, ending with Roger Heavens’s Chevron B21 in 1972. In 1965, Garton and Paul Hughes finished a remarkable second to John Rhodes/Warwick Banks (MGB) in Brands Hatch’s Double 500, defeating Jackie Oliver/Chris Craft (Jaguar E-type) and Paddy Hopkirk/Roger Mac (Austin-Healey 3000). They also contested Snetterton’s European Touring Car Championship round in an 850cc Mini. Garton…

Imagine if Mercedes took a year out of Formula 1 on the eve of the season and Lewis Hamilton was unable to defend his crown. It seems unthinkable, but on Monday British GT experienced its own version of that scenario with the announcement that leading team TF Sport would be pulling both its Aston Martin GT3 entries for this season, leaving four-time champion Jonny Adam without a seat to defend his title. Having won each of his championships with a different ‘Am’ co-driver, the Aston Martin factory ace was targeting number five this year with returning 2014 series runner-up Ahmad Al Harthy. Even amid a stacked 19-car GT3 grid, with the benefit of lessons learned in the new-for-2019 Vantage GT3’s first season, Adam reckoned the pairing would have been a…

It’s the fine margins that ultimately decide who wins and who fails in the fight for the top step of the podium, the work done outside of race weekends and behind the scenes that makes the difference. In particular, those hours spent testing – either by a driver getting up to speed on a specific circuit or pushing a new component on the car to breaking point – can provide the vital gains in performance when it matters most. And national motorsport is no different, whether it be British GT or Formula Ford. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, testing was a growing – and lucrative – sector of UK motorsport, for the circuits that provide the track time and for the teams running tailored programmes for paying drivers. MotorSport Vision,…

At the height of the British Touring Car Championship’s Super Touring period in 1997, there were no fewer than eight manufacturers pumping money into full works teams. Drivers earned good money, and it was even a tempting proposition for the top single-seater talents of the day. That year’s British Formula 3 champion Jonny Kane (right) admits as much when looking back at his first experience of tin-top racing in the non-championship Tourist Trophy triple-header at Donington Park in a Prodrive-run Honda Accord. Kane’s Paul Stewart Racing Dallara had been powered by a Mugen engine that “was basically the same engine in the Prodrive Honda, just a lot more restricted rev-wise”, and it was another Honda link that meant he’d be team-mates with Superbike whizz Aaron Slight, making his car racing…

INDYCAR While Formula 1 has been champing at the bit to get going, IndyCar rolled out at Texas Motor Speedway four weeks ago for its season start. But it’s only this weekend at the Indianapolis road course – the first of three planned visits to the venue this year – that the meat of the season begins. You’d be forgiven for anticipating that Team Penske will dominate the season’s first non-oval race. After all, it’s unbeaten over the past five races on the Indy road course, with Will Power taking three wins and Simon Pagenaud two. But with this peculiarly-shaped 2020 season rendering the event as only the second round, and in the absence of any testing, perhaps the squad’s undoubted muscle cannot flex with the same effect and the…

NURBURGRING SERIES Briton David Pittard claimed his maiden win in the NLS – the new name for the VLN endurance series – last Saturday in one of the first European events to run since coronavirus restrictions were relaxed. Pittard and former ex-Formula 3 European Championship frontrunner Mikkel Jensen triumphed in the four-hour race around the Nurburgring Nordschleife, sharing a Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3. The duo began the contest fifth and Pittard initially lost out at the start but a swift recovery – including a stunning pass around the outside of Mercedes GT3 superstar Raffaele Marciello at the fast Schwedenkreuz corner – meant he was soon running second. Pittard and Jensen remained in contention for victory for the remainder of the race, and were aided by a late penalty for…

FORMULA REGIONAL Less than two years after taking the British Formula 3 crown, Linus Lundqvist made the perfect start to his assault on the US single-seater ladder by dominating the opening Formula Regional Americas double-header at Mid-Ohio. The Swede had only two short test sessions with his Global Racing Group-run Ligier-Honda in preparation, as he was forced to quarantine in Mexico for two weeks before being allowed to enter the US. Nevertheless, he claimed both pole positions, led every lap of each race and set two fastest laps. The series, formerly known as F3 Americas, is offering an Indy Lights scholarship for the champion and has attracted some Lights drivers following the cancellation of their series for 2020. One of these, David Malukas, chased Lundqvist home to finish second in…

When the running gets under way at this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, it’s worth considering how important the name above the door at the Red Bull Ring has been to getting the 2020 Formula 1 season going. By mid-April, the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the cancellation or postponement of 10 races – each loss a blow to anyone missing the joyful break it offers from ‘normal’ life, which had of course been utterly disrupted for so many. But thanks to the comparatively low number of coronavirus cases in the country (it has had 702 deaths at the time of writing), Austria was able to exit its lockdown much earlier than some other European nations. Eventually, the Austrian GP was the next question mark on the calendar, but it has in…

When George Russell and Nicholas Latifi leave the pits at the Red Bull Ring for free practice this Friday, their cars will look noticeably different from when a Williams FW43 last graced the track in Formula 1 winter testing. Williams has adopted a new colour scheme after splitting with former title sponsor ROKiT at the end of May (see page 32). Now the team’s 2020 challenger is a sleek overall white with blue flashes, where once it was jarringly splashed with red. The FW43 does now look very clean, but definitely a little bare – with ‘Williams’ writ large on the rear wing in place of a sponsor’s logo a reminder of what the team has recently been through. Off-track developments over the past few months point to deeper change…

STARTS 210 | FIRST GP FRANCE 1954 | WINS 102 | POLES 111 | FASTEST LAPS 75 | 2019 1ST The Barcelona tests back in February seem a long time ago, but you don’t need the memory of an elephant to recall that Mercedes was still the team to beat. During the second test, neither Lewis Hamilton nor Valtteri Bottas was able to beat Bottas’s time of 1m15.732s from the last day of the first test, but that time was set when arguably conditions were at their best. The Silver Arrows were able to run consistently in the 1m19s on the medium C3 tyre, putting the team ahead on the long runs as well as outright pace. Even on two sets of the harder C2, Bottas put in a race…

STARTS 863 | FIRST GP MONACO 1966 | WINS 182 | POLES 155 | FASTEST LAPS 154 | 2019 4TH Both drivers reported back in February that the MCL35 is a lot more forgiving than the 2019 car, and lap times suggest they can be consistent on long runs. Carlos Sainz Jr seems more comfortable with the car than Lando Norris, but maybe it’s because he was on home turf (or asphalt) in Spain. The car looks like an evolution of the MCL34 and, although McLaren finished a good fourth in last year’s constructors’ championship, I don’t think the team has made big enough strides to better that this year. The front suspension takes its lead from the likes of Mercedes and Racing Point, with the top wishbone pick-up point…

STARTS 30 | FIRST GP BELGIUM 2018 | BEST FINISH 5TH | BEST QUALIFYING 3RD | FASTEST LAPS 0 | 2019 7TH Racing Point was another team to raise the pulses of journalists and team principals back in February due to the unveiling of what appears to be a very close relation of the Mercedes W10, only in pink. Granted, the team uses the same windtunnel as Mercedes and is maybe privy to some of the data, but there’s no doubt that the car is rapid. Sergio Perez says the RP20 is the best racing car he’s ever driven, and Lance Stroll impressed at times in the Barcelona tests, putting in some fast tours on the C4 tyre. There are subtle differences between the 2019 Mercedes and 2020 Racing Point…

STARTS 727 | FIRST GP SPAIN 1977 | WINS 114 | POLES 128 | FASTEST LAPS 133 | 2019 10TH The legendary team has endured a couple of uncompetitive seasons, not helped by disruptive personnel changes, but there are signs that the tide may be beginning to turn. Just to make a point, Williams put the first car onto the circuit on day one of testing at Barcelona with George Russell driving. The FW43 is maybe what the team should have produced last year because, compared to its competitors, it looks a little behind on design, in particular the shape of the nose and front-wing layout. Having said this, there was a slightly different front flap array, more like the Mercedes’, tried during the second test. The team’s track time…

No one expected Alan Jones to win the 1977 Austrian Grand Prix. Not local hero and pole winner Niki Lauda, sitting pretty at the top of the world championship points, nor anyone else at the sharp end of the grid at the Osterreichring. And probably not Jones and his Shadow team, and certainly not the race organisers. That explains why it wasn’t the still semi-official national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, that played as the Shadow driver stood atop what went for the podium in Austria, nor the more formal God Save the Queen. Rather, remembers Jones, “some bloke with a trumpet, who was obviously pissed, played Happy Birthday”. In lieu of laying their hands on a copy of Australia’s national song, or even knowing what it was, the officials’ choice…

BRITISH GT Leading British GT Championship team TF Sport has been forced to withdraw both of its GT3 Aston Martin Vantages from the series for 2020 due to fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. TF won the GT3 and GT4 titles last year with Jonny Adam/Graham Davidson and Tom Canning/Ash Hand respectively. Canning was due to step up to GT3 alongside Davidson for 2020, while four-time series champion Adam was set to partner Omani driver Ahmad Al Harthy. But due to a combination of factors resulting from the pandemic, neither Al Harthy nor Davidson was able to proceed with their planned programmes and both entries have been withdrawn. TF’s GT4 Aston Martins, entered for Connor O’Brien/Patrick Kibble and Jamie Caroline/Dan Vaughan, are unaffected. Multiple business owner Davidson cited “some fairly sizeable…

MOTORSPORT UK Motorsport UK chairman David Richards believes that, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, now is the right to time to look at the way in which motorsport operates in the UK, including reducing the number of events and making it more accessible. The governing body suspended all event permits on the eve of the season beginning in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak. That suspension ends this weekend and a limited number of meetings are now allowed to take place in July, but national championships cannot resume until August. Richards feels the time is right to reassess UK national motorsport to ensure that it can thrive. “I think we’ve got to take a fresh look,” he told Autosport. “We’ve got to use this opportunity to look at…

July is normally the mid-point of the UK circuit racing season. But 2020 is not a normal year. The coronavirus outbreak has meant that instead of 84 national race events having already taken place in the UK and Ireland this season, there have been none. But that’s all due to change this weekend when the club campaign finally gets under way. Three events are set to take place to get proceedings off to a tentative start: the Castle Combe Racing Club is running a one-day meeting at the Wiltshire circuit, while the British Automobile Racing Club and MotorSport Vision Racing are holding two-day fixtures at Cadwell Park and Snetterton respectively. All eyes will be on these events to see how new procedures and protocols put in place to limit the…

FILM REVIEW AND WE GO GREEN Battery cells and comparatively slow and quiet race cars have struggled to win over vast swathes of motorsport fans, so what chance do they have at capturing the attention of a far broader audience? Academy Award-winning director Fisher Stevens and Malcolm Venville are part of that wider, largely motorsport-apathetic base. That outside perspective allowed them to make a critical decision when it came to producing And We Go Green, the feature-length Formula E documentary. It’s not a 98-minute study about technology or cars driving around complicated, inner-city circles. Those elements are present, but only ever peripheral. Instead, the film is motivated by the 2017-18 title fight between main protagonists Jean-Eric Vergne, Lucas di Grassi and Sam Bird. It uses their bravado and arrogance, their…

A prostrate spectator’s bravery is rewarded with the spectacle of an almost nonchalant-looking Stirling Moss holding his Aston Martin DBR1 in an inch-perfect drift during the 1958 Le Mans 24 Hours. Moss, who was paired with Jack Brabham, aced the start, then set a mighty pace, extending his lead to more than 90 seconds before a broken conrod just over two hours in ended his charge. None of the works DBR1s made the finish, an accident accounting for Roy Salvadori/Stuart Lewis-Evans and a broken gearbox stymieing Tony Brooks/Maurice Trintignant. For classic Le Mans DVDs head to dukevideo.com/Le-Mans For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…