Indholdsfortegnelse for 13/08/20 i Autosport

The sheer pace of the Mercedes W11 – and the truncated nature of the 2020 Formula 1 campaign – had raised the prospect of a clean sweep of the season’s races by the black cars. McLaren famously only lost one race in 1988, Ferrari won 15 out of 17 grands prix in 2002, and Mercedes also lost twice in the 21-race 2016 championship. In terms of absolute speed – normally best seen in qualifying, depending on the weather – so far this season Mercedes has an average advantage of 1.019%. That is the biggest margin since the Williams FW15C was 1.706% clear of the opposition in 1993. But, fortunately for neutrals, racing throws up many more variables. As Alex Kalinauckas shows in our report on page 16, last weekend’s shock…

FORMULA 1 Mercedes and Formula 1 are in a stand-off over the new Concorde Agreement that is set to revise the teams’ commercial terms next year. F1 commercial rights holder Liberty Media has been in talks with teams for a long time over the revised terms from 2021, aiming for a more equitable distribution of income between teams and a revised governance structure. But while many teams have said they are ready to put pen to paper on the new deal, Mercedes chief Toto Wolff made clear he was unhappy with the current proposals. “We are, I would say, the biggest victim in terms of prize-fund loss,” said Wolff. “I feel that Mercedes has contributed to the sport over the last years. Apart from being competitive on track, we have…

F1 SPANISH GRAND PRIX PREVIEW UK START TIMES Friday 14 August FP1 1000 FP2 1400 Saturday 15 August FP3 1100 QUALIFYING 1400 Sunday 16 August RACE 1410 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE HIGHLIGHTS CHANNEL 4 1830 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers 1 Hamilton……………………….107 2 Verstappen……………………. 77 3 Bottas………………………………… 73 4 Leclerc………………………………. 45 5 Norris…………………………………. 38 Constructors 1 Mercedes…………….180 2 Red Bull………………..113 3 Ferrari……………………… 55 4 McLaren…………………. 53 5 Racing Point………. 41 RACE STATS Previous winners 2019 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2018 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2017 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2016 Max Verstappen Red Bull 2015 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2014 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 2013 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 2012 Pastor Maldonado Williams 2011 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 2010 Mark Webber Red Bull Barcelona masters Top 10 points scorers…

Motorsport UK thanks to volunteers 2020 will live long in the memory of everyone involved in motorsport. It is a year that has seen extraordinary upheaval, and adjustment to a new normal. Amid all the uncertainty, it has been heart-warming to see how well the community has pulled together to get our sport back on track; a reminder, if it were needed, of the passion and commitment that keep the wheels of motorsport turning. Our ecosystem has always relied upon collaboration, but never more so than during the preparation for not one, but two, Formula 1 grands prix on UK asphalt, and the numerous events taking place over the past two weekends. The British GP, British Touring Cars and British GT are all incredible feats of organisation, but less apparent…

Pierre Gasly’s promising Silverstone weekend was undone when his AlphaTauri team reacted to Alex Albon’s early stop. Gasly starred in qualifying and started seventh, but the early stop on lap seven meant that his fresh hard tyres ended up succumbing to blisters and he became stuck in a battle against traffic. While Albon was able to clear Gasly and make progress before his second tyre stop, Gasly only lasted 16 laps before needing new rubber for the second half of the race. From there, his race was one of tyre management, which put paid to any chances of points. Daniil Kvyat, running the opposite strategy by starting on hards, transcended his 16th-place grid spot and ran in the points for the bulk of the race, claiming 10th.…

JAGUAR I-PACE eTROPHY TEMPELHOF AIRPORT (DEU) 5-9 AUGUST Not to be outdone by Formula E, the Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy support grid will have staged seven Berlin races by season’s end as it seeks to squeeze in a 10-round calendar. The mad dash will precede a quick demise: after only two seasons of an initial three-year deal to follow around the FE paddock, the series will be killed off amid the economic fallout of COVID-19 and Jaguar’s persistently wobbly finances. It’s been a season of two drivers: Simon Evans (brother of Jaguar FE driver Mitch) and inaugural/reigning series champion Sergio Jimenez. Had it not been for fellow Brazilian Caca Bueno’s triumph in race one at Tempelhof, only Jimenez and Evans were on course to have scored victory all season. Bueno, the…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP SILVERSTONE (GBR) 9 AUGUST ROUND 5/8 For the second race on the spin, Silverstone bore a largely processional Porsche Supercup bout. Despite the wide-open expanses, overtaking opportunities were few and far between. That helped Ayhancan Guven score his second series win at what is rapidly becoming a happy hunting ground for the Turkish talent – his first victory was also sealed at the venue last season. Unlike the preceding British Grand Prix support round, last weekend’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix thrash didn’t give rise to a runaway victory. Instead Guven, signed as a Porsche junior between the two triumphs, was kept honest for the duration by pursing Team GP Elite pilot Larry ten Voorde, who had charged clear to the spoils by 11.7s seven days prior. Ten Voorde…

NASCAR CUP MICHIGAN (USA) 8-9 AUGUST ROUND 21-22/36 This year’s NASCAR Cup contest is becoming something of the Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin show. The level that the two are consistently performing at is of the highest standard, and this was on full display during the double-header at Michigan last weekend. Race one was comfortably going Harvick’s way until John Hunter Nemechek caused three quick-fire cautions after tyre failures, giving the pack half a chance of challenging the #4 Stewart-Haas Ford Mustang. Brad Keselowski took up the challenge of somehow shifting an immoveable object in overtime. He failed. A nudge from Chase Elliott was just enough to give Harvick the momentum he needed to break Keselowski’s draft. But still, a 1-2 for the Blue Oval on its home track was…

HISTORIC FORMULA ONE Johnny Herbert will return to racing Formula 1 machinery next weekend, driving a 40-year-old Ensign N180B at Brands Hatch. The three-time grand prix winner and 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours victor was due to race the car last season but will finally compete in it for the first time in the Masters Historic Formula 1 races at the Kent venue on 22-23 August. The 56-year-old will race the 1981 Ensign, which is now owned by former Force India team manager Bob Fernley, who ran the Ensign to win the British Formula 1 Championship in 1982 with Jim Crawford. The car is now run by students at the National Centre for Motorsport Engineering at the University of Bolton. “It’s nice to be back in an F1 car,” said…

BRITISH GT GT World Challenge Europe champion Andrea Caldarelli will make his British GT debut this weekend at Donington Park, replacing fellow Lamborghini factory driver Dennis Lind in Michael Igoe’s WPI Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3. Caldarelli claimed the Endurance Cup and Sprint Cup double last year with the FFF team he co-founded for the 2014 season. The British-based Italian is set to contest the rest of the season with WPI, apart from the 29-30 August round at Brands Hatch where another works Lambo ace, Franck Perera, is set to fill in. “We’re looking forward to getting going with Andrea and seeing where we end up,” WPI team manager Alyn Roberts told Autosport. “Obviously his experience with the Am drivers should be a massive benefit to us this weekend and the…

GT CUP British Touring Car Championship race winner Warren Hughes will return to competitive action in the GT Cup at Silverstone this weekend, partnering Jan Klingelnberg in a McLaren 570S GT4 entered by British GT outfit Balfe Motorsport. It will be the first of two scheduled outings for Hughes and German amateur Klingelnberg, who was coached by Hughes in the one-make Pure McLaren GT Series category last year, with Donington Park on 12-13 September also planned. Hughes, an LMP2 class winner at the 2005 Le Mans 24 Hours, hasn’t raced since making a one-off GT Cup appearance with Stewart Proctor at Donington in 2015 and has spent recent years focused on coaching young professionals on McLaren’s Driver Development Programme. But he has “never officially retired” from driving and said he…

Socially distanced one-by-one podiums. Broad smiles from race winners concealed by a sea of face masks. No vast hospitality centres in the paddock. And, most noticeably, no large crowds lining the spectator banks. There was plenty that was different about the first two British Touring Car Championship weekends of the season following the coronavirus pandemic, but it was nevertheless fantastic to have the cars back on track. Another of the key differences about the first Donington Park and Brands Hatch weekends was that they were back to back – only on five occasions had this happened for the TOCA package since the turn of the century. This obviously meant a lot of planning was needed from the support series organisers and teams to ensure that everything was ready, from cars…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB If Harry King’s Porsche Carrera Cup GB debut at Donington Park was impressive, the Team Parker racer took his performance to another level at Brands Hatch, claiming two wins in an imperious display. He has now beaten his Junior predecessor Dan Harper’s start to his dominant 2019 and has matched the three wins and a second that Dan Cammish achieved at the beginning of his unstoppable campaigns. King laid down another marker in qualifying, lapping 0.358 seconds faster than the rest. And he went even quicker in two sectors on the next lap before pitting. He did not quite have things all his own way, however, losing out to team-mate Josh Webster at race one’s start. But, rather than settle for second, he pressurised Webster after…

GINETTA JUNIOR There’s no disputing which of the regular British Touring Car Championship support series has the closest title fight after the opening rounds. One point is all that separates Ginetta Junior racers Bailey Voisin and Tom Lebbon after six races. The pick of the Brands Hatch encounters, just like at Donington Park the week before, was the finale, and it featured a thrilling battle between Voisin and Lebbon. Voisin led initially, while Ginetta scholar Lebbon briefly dropped behind Zak Taylor before an early safety car – a recurring weekend feature – neutralised the race. Lebbon was right with Voisin on the restart and the Elite Motorsport driver soon pounced, diving down the inside of Voisin at Hawthorns. But Voisin stayed with the leader, and on the penultimate lap he…

SNETTERTON BRSCC 8 AUGUST Team Viking and UVio/Hofmann’s Lotus shared the victory spoils in the Fun Cup at Snetterton. The first one-hour race had a terrific early scrap, before Riley Phillips took charge for Axiametrics. Phillips handed over to Chris Dovell, who retained the lead, while Mark Holme moved into second for Team Viking. When Dovell pitted, Holme stayed out for another four laps before handing over to Nick Nunn, who emerged in front of Axiametrics’ Kristian Rose. It was a desperate fight to the finish, with Nunn just holding on, while the Team 7 WASPP car of Jay Shepherd and Ed Worthington snatched third a lap from home. Rory Brown’s Team 7 WASPP car emerged ahead from the initial skirmish in the four-hour race but, after the first stops,…

Despair and joy for Ferrari at Hockenheim 12 August 1982 It was a bittersweet time for Ferrari this week in 1982. Patrick Tambay took his first Formula 1 victory in the German Grand Prix, but team-mate Didier Pironi’s career was ended after a terrible accident in practice. Pironi had been leading the world championship when he arrived at Hockenheim but, blinded by spray, he hit the back of Alain Prost’s Renault, the Ferrari then somersaulting. Pironi suffered badly broken legs, a broken left arm and head injuries. In the race Tambay ran fourth in the early stages before passing the Renaults of Prost and Rene Arnoux. Nelson Piquet’s lightly fuelled Brabham-BMW led and built a big gap, only to clash with Eliseo Salazar’s ATS. Piquet famously jumped out and attacked…

FORMULA 1 The Racing Point Formula 1 team has been hit with a points penalty and a fine after it was deemed to have copied the design of Mercedes’ 2019 brake ducts for its 2020 RP20. But the case is subject to appeals from five teams on both sides of the argument, and the saga looks set to drag out for a long time to come. Racing Point came under fire after basing the design of its 2020 car on the 2019 title-winning Mercedes W10, prompting Renault to lodge a protest after the Styrian, Hungarian and British Grands Prix. The protest focused on the design of the RP20’s rear-brake ducts, which were found by the FIA stewards to have been principally designed by Mercedes and that Racing Point’s design approach…

LE MANS 24 HOURS The Le Mans 24 Hours will take place without a crowd this year. Race organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest has been forced to reverse its plan to allow a limited number of spectators in the face of an increase in COVID-19 infections in France. The decision to hold the double-points round of the World Endurance Championship round on 19-20 September behind closed doors was made in conjunction with the local government – the Prefecture de la Sarthe – and health authorities. ACO president Pierre Fillon explained that there are “still too many question marks regarding health and safety” for even a small crowd to be permitted. “Over the past few weeks, we have looked at many ways in which we could hold our event in…

LE MANS 24 HOURS Former BMW works driver Tom Blomqvist will finally make his Le Mans 24 Hours debut this year. The Briton will drive for the Taiwanese HubAuto Corsa team at the wheel of a GTE Am class Ferrari in the French enduro next month. Blomqvist missed out on a Le Mans debut when he was on BMW’s books, despite contesting three races over the course of the 2018-19 World Endurance Championship season. Now he has been signed up by race debutant HubAuto to drive its Ferrari 488 GTE Evo alongside team owner Morris Chen and Marcos Gomes, who won the GT class of last winter’s Asian Le Mans Series with the team. “Le Mans has been a race I’ve wanted to do for a few years, but for…

Something needed to have gone badly wrong for any driver to have the soft Pirelli tyres fitted to their car during the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix. These were not tyres to try and race on, despite the coronavirus cost-saving rules meaning all drivers had eight sets of them going into the weekend. Until his third stint in last Sunday’s race, it’s hard to consider Nico Hulkenberg’s efforts as anything other than a shining success – even if his slow getaway from his third-place starting spot had made things easier for eventual race winner Max Verstappen. But as he headed into the closing stages of his F1 race return in a solid fifth, the hard tyres on Sergio Perez’s RP20 picked up what Racing Point team boss Otmar Szafnauer called a…

There can be no doubt that the Mercedes W11 is the class of the 2020 Formula 1 field. But, for several key reasons, the moment it showed the slightest weakness, Max Verstappen and Red Bull were able to punch straight through the defences of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas to win the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix. It had been business as usual in qualifying (see page 21), where Bottas took pole 0.928 seconds clear of Nico Hulkenberg in a sensational third place for Racing Point. But the grid-setting session is a crucial place to start when it comes to the reasons for Mercedes’ defeat. It wasn’t the top-10 shootout segment that ultimately mattered, even if Verstappen did make things a smidge tougher by losing third to the returning Hulkenberg. It…

FORWARD-THINKERS REFLECT On the eve of race one, a minute’s silence was held to commemorate those killed by the coronavirus, victims of discrimination and the recent death of Helder Moreira, killed constructing the track. Those present in Berlin stood socially distanced on the circuit apron and held their phone torch in the air. On the grid the next day, Jean-Eric Vergne and the Mercedes crew took the knee. BIG BOSSES CONTRACT COVID Formula E co-founder and chairman Alejandro Agag missed a race of the series for the first time after contracting COVID-19. Mahindra Racing team boss Dilbagh Gill also tested positive and both had to sit out all four races as they served an extended isolation period in their hotel rooms. On-site staff were retested every five to seven days.…

FIA FORMULA 2 SILVERSTONE (GBR) 8-9 AUGUST ROUND 5 Ferrari junior Callum Ilott bounced back in style from a fast but far too furious first weekend at Silverstone, as he romped to a commanding win in the second Formula 2 feature race at the circuit. Stalling from the front row in the feature race and clumsily spinning out of second place in the subsequent sprint race during the opening Silverstone weekend had left Ilott rueing a missed opportunity to overhaul championship leader Robert Shwartzman, who failed to register a single point. Ilott made amends in last weekend’s second feature race, this time converting his pace advantage into a first win since his triumph in the opening race of the season at the Red Bull Ring. In that race, a technical…

EUROFORMULA OPEN HUNGARORING (HUN) 8-9 AUGUST ROUND 1/8 FIA Formula 3 Championship refugee Yifei Ye had a perfect weekend in Hungary on the competition debut of the Dallara 320, the Italian constructor’s new car built to the old F3 philosophy. Running for the Motopark-affiliated CryptoTower team, Ye took pole, victory and fastest lap in both races with his Spiess-powered machine. The highly rated Chinese racer’s closest opposition came from German brothers Andreas and Sebastian Estner, representing F3 loyalist Van Amersfoort Racing on the squad’s Euroformula debut. The Estners’ HWA-engined Dallaras were second and third on the grid, and Andreas held off his younger sibling’s first-race challenge throughout. Reigning British F4 champion Zane Maloney was fourth in his Carlin car, while British F3 ace Ayrton Simmons claimed seventh with Double R…

SUPER GT FUJI (JPN) 9 AUGUST ROUND 2/8 Honda scored its first Super GT win with its new front-engined NSX-GT in the second round of the 2020 season at Fuji. Bertrand Baguette and Koudai Tsukakoshi finished 16 seconds clear of the pack in their Real Racing Honda after a mistake by Team Aguri’s Tomoki Nojiri at mid-distance. Real Racing grabbed the advantage on lap 15 of 66 when Baguette passed ex-FIA Formula 2 racer Nirei Fukuzumi in the polesitting Aguri Honda, only for the positions to swap back during the pitstops. But on his out-lap after taking over from Fukuzumi, Nojiri came under pressure from Tsukakoshi and spun unaided exiting Turn 12, dropping well down the order and giving Real Racing a clear run to victory. After locking out the…

BRITISH FORMULA 4 The co-founder of the Feed Racing school has explained why Marijn Kremers has not taken up his prize drive in British Formula 4 this season. Former BAR Formula 1 test driver Patrick Lemarie set up the Feed academy alongside fellow ex-BAR driver and 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve. The school held a shootout at the end of last year and, as the winner, Kremers was due to receive a funded drive in British F4 with leading squad Carlin. But he did not compete in the opening rounds, sparking fury from Carlin boss Trevor Carlin as the school recently reopened. Lemarie told Autosport the decision for Kremers not to race was taken in consultation with his management company earlier this year, at a time when all overseas arrivals…

MINI MIGLIA Andrew Jordan is plotting more Mini Miglia outings later this season after winning on his debut in the series at Brands Hatch last weekend. The 2013 British Touring Car champion was unable to compete with West Surrey Racing in the series this year after losing a sponsor as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he was back racing on the BTCC support bill at Brands as the Mini 7 Racing Club made a guest appearance. Jordan soon got to grips with the Miglia machine and battled through from sixth on the grid to take third in the opener. He then led race two briefly before getting caught up in an incident at Druids as Sam Summerhayes, Rupert Deeth and Jordan all bunched together, before finishing second with…

MINI MIGLIAS AND SE7ENS There has been plenty of despondency in recent months amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the sight of 46 Minis battling frenetically around the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit in glorious sunshine couldn’t help but bring a smile. There was no shortage of quality among the Miglia entry with champions Aaron Smith, Rupert Deeth and Kane Astin, along with regular frontrunners Nick Padmore and Lee Deegan. But the joker in the pack was British Touring Car refugee Andrew Jordan on his Miglia debut. The opener looked to be going the way of Deeth, despite Smith being ever-present in his mirrors, as Padmore, Jordan and Deegan squabbled behind. That was until the last lap when Deeth carried too much speed into Surtees and Smith was through. “It was…

GINETTA GT4 SUPERCUP Will Burns, Gus Burton and Tom Hibbert completed a podium lockout in all three Ginetta GT4 Supercup races at Donington Park. And they very nearly did the same at Brands Hatch too, again highlighting their current superiority. It was Hibbert, the only one of the three not to take a victory at Donington, who won the opening two races in Kent. The first race was decided on the opening lap when Burns attempted to pass polesitter Hibbert around the outside at Druids but was instead squeezed wide, allowing Burton to pounce. Burns was unable to retaliate, and the trio finished in the same order in an uneventful race two. The only podium interloper was 2018 Ginetta Junior champion Adam Smalley, who started on pole for the reversed-grid…

Ginetta Junior has long been established as a good proving ground for drivers as they make their first steps from karting into car racing. And recent series graduates are among the star performers in the early stages of the other British Touring Car support categories. While last year’s Junior runner-up Zak O’Sullivan’s initial lead in British Formula 4 and Harry King’s impressive opening two events in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB were on the cards, the surprise ex-Junior driver to star has been Gus Burton in the Ginetta GT4 Supercup. Burton did not enjoy much success in his year and a half in the Junior class, often showing quick pace and running in the front group, but rarely able to convert that into strong results. In fact, Burton took just…

BOOK REVIEW PORSCHE KREMER RACING – THE COMPLETE TEAM HISTORY RRP £85.50 It’s 50 years since Porsche conquered the Le Mans 24 Hours for the first time with its fearsome 917 driven by Richard Attwood and Hans Herrmann. But it’s often forgotten that the race was also the first impression on the world’s most famous enduro by a Cologne-based Porsche privateer. Started as a side project from the Auto Kremer workshop, founded in 1962 by brothers Erwin and Manfred Kremer, Kremer Racing would famously go on to win the 24 Hours outright in 1979 with its own K3 iteration of Porsche’s 935. It later added victory in the 1995 Daytona 24 Hours with a heavily modified Porsche 962, remodelled as the open-top K8 Spyder. And it’s that affinity for ingenuity…

INDIANAPOLIS 500 The Indianapolis 500 will take place next week behind closed doors for the first time in its 104-race history due to the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway were initially hoping the race could run at 50% crowd capacity, which was further reduced to 25% last month. It was announced last week that the 23 August event, rescheduled from its traditional late-May date on 24 May, would not be open to the public. The IMS statement said the decision to run the event without fans had been made “following careful consideration and extensive consultation with state and city leadership. As dedicated as we were to running the race this year with 25% attendance at our large outdoor facility, even with meaningful and…

It was the news we’d all been dreading. My heart sank when it was announced on Monday that the Le Mans 24 Hours in September will take place behind closed doors, without a crowd, minus spectators, in front of empty grandstands. Describe it how you like, the harsh reality is that the event will be robbed of the atmosphere that, well, makes it Le Mans. The French endurance classic has an all-encompassing ambiance like no other race, certainly not one I’ve attended. A crowd that can top 300,000 spread around a track measuring eight and half miles is the reason for that. A visit to Le Mans is an assault on the senses. It’s not just about what you see, but what you hear, smell and feel. It is a…

Nowhere is the pace advantage of the Mercedes W11 more starkly visibly than in qualifying. Of the four dry qualifying sessions held so far in the 2020 F1 season, Max Verstappen’s 0.538-second gap to pole at the season opener is the closest, with the gap around the one-second mark for the rest. When all the various power modes are turned up to the maximum, the drivers are dialled in and there is nothing but the clock that matters, it’s a private dual for the front of the grid. And before last weekend’s second race at Silverstone, it was one that Lewis Hamilton was firmly winning. Then, in the final qualifying run for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, Valtteri Bottas turned things around. Mercedes had “decided as a team”, per Hamilton,…

Charles Leclerc’s fourth-place finish seemed even more unlikely when the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix reached Woodcote Corner on the opening tour. The Ferrari driver had been ambushed by Lando Norris and Alex Albon on his outside and inside respectively at Brooklands, and his eighth-place starting spot had become 10th. Despite pre-race fears that his SF1000 would struggle thanks to the softer tyres for the second Silverstone event, Leclerc then put in one of the best drives of the race. He stayed out of trouble in the early stages and kept the medium tyres going until lap 19, when he switched to the hards and stayed on them to the finish, gaining places as others pitted. He made a one-stop strategy work when others could not as they overheated their rubber.…

DS Techeetah was Jean-Eric Vergne’s team. A double Formula E champion with the squad, it was he who D scored the lion’s share of points to deliver the teams’ crown last season. It was he who had courted Andre Lotterer to join the operation for two campaigns. And when Lotterer moved to Porsche, it was again Vergne who had to find a replacement. The driver he met over coffee at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2019 to fill the vacancy was Antonio Felix da Costa. Two good pals, they would work together to replicate the harmonious atmosphere forged by the Lotterer-Vergne partnership. Having raced under the squad’s former Aguri guise, da Costa was known to team principal Mark Preston, even if during those two seasons he struggled to show…

The BMW 330i M Sport is not only one of the quickest cars in the British Touring Car Championship; it’s also probably the strongest. Colin Turkington and the West Surrey Racing team arrived at a sun-baked Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit at the top of the points and with the accompanying maximum success ballast, yet still he dragged his machine to a second place and then a win. When he followed that up with a softly-softly reversed-grid cruise from 12th to fifth in the finale, while team-mate Tom Oliphant broke his BTCC duck with a maiden win, Turkington put himself in a very strong position for a fifth championship title in 2020. “Today was important for us literally to make hay while the sun shines,” he reflected on a balmy…

FIA FORMULA 3 SILVERSTONE (GBR) 8-9 AUGUST ROUND 5 Logan Sargeant earned what he admitted was a long-overdue maiden win in dominant style in the first race of the FIA Formula 3 Championship’s second successive event at Silverstone. The American had taken his first F3 pole position at the circuit the previous weekend, but quickly faded to third place and was thoroughly outshone by a terrific lead battle between his Prema Racing team-mate Oscar Piastri and Red Bull junior Liam Lawson. This time around, championship leader Piastri managed just three laps in practice before stopping on track, and two further mechanically induced stoppages in qualifying left him starting the first race from a lowly 11th place. This handed Sargeant a golden opportunity to overhaul the Renault F1 protege at the…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE SPRINT CUP MISANO (ITALY) 8-9 AUGUST ROUND 1/4 Audi continued its impressive start to the GT World Challenge Europe season, this time adding two Sprint Cup wins out of three at Misano to last month’s Imola Endurance triumph, courtesy of Team WRT’s Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts. Owing to calendar changes stemming from COVID-19, three one-hour races were held during the same weekend for the first time in the history of the series, with Audi’s crack squad dominating proceedings. Not that it had seemed that way after qualifying on Saturday. The Tech 1 duo of Aurelien Panis and Thomas Neubauer proved the Lexus RC F GT3 had undergone significant improvements during the break by securing pole for the first and third races of the weekend. Alas,…

GINETTA GT4 SUPERCUP Former Ginetta GT4 Supercup champion Charlie Ladell made a surprise last-minute return to the series at Brands Hatch last weekend. Ladell won the 2018 title with Rob Boston Racing prior to racing in the VLN last year, but was back in the GT4 Supercup with his former team for the second round of the season, and could contest more events this year. “It was his birthday on Wednesday so I called him to wish him happy birthday and wasn’t trying to get him to drive!” said Boston, who explained the conversation quickly turned to Ladell wanting to get back on track and a late deal was put together. “It’s the same car from two years ago when he won the title – it hasn’t done much since…

HEDLEY’S ELECTRICAL WOES British Formula 4 title contender James Hedley suffered a big setback at last weekend’s Brands Hatch round. The reigning Ginetta Junior champion was on the pace in Friday’s test, but electrical problems prevented his car from getting out of the JHR Developments awning for qualifying and the first race. Hedley raced to eighth and ninth in the remaining two contests, but has fallen to seventh in the points. NEW SERIES GETS NEW OPENER The British Automobile Racing Club’s new Open Sports/Saloon Car series – where drivers submit a minimum lap time in advance to determine their class – has a new first round. Rather than beginning at Donington Park, the first event will instead take place at Mallory Park on 31 August, while very strong interest has…

BRITISH FORMULA 4 Zak O’Sullivan may have been leading the British Formula 4 standings when the field assembled at Brands Hatch, but his win from the opening round at Donington Park had been in the reversed-grid race. The rest was down to consistency, leaving the 15-year-old Carlin charge with a point to prove on the Grand Prix Circuit. This he did, O’Sullivan mesmerising team boss Trevor Carlin with the smoothness of his onboard footage as he stroked to two pole positions in qualifying, converting both of them into race wins. As well as O’Sullivan’s driving, another key to his success was the frustrating qualifying form of Luke Browning. There’s little doubt the Fortec Motorsport terrier is the best racer in British F4, but qualifying left him with work to do…

OULTON PARK MSVR 8 AUGUST Another bumper (to bumper) grid of 35 cars arrived at Oulton Park for the second race in the MotorSport Vision Trackdays EnduroKa Series. After last month’s 12 Heures de Norfolk, five hours round the Oulton Park International Circuit were on the agenda. The lead changed hands between 14 drivers in 11 different Kas on track and then once in the scrutineering bay after the race when it was found that the IP Racing Ka, which had taken the chequered flag first, was 6kg underweight so, unsurprisingly, it was excluded. The winners thus became the Parkins – Scott, Ryan and Stefan – joined by Pete Keen in the Darkside Developments Ka, which had not led a single lap, but a strong final stint by Keen brought…

INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORT Spanish Grand Prix Formula 1 World Championship Round 6 Barcelona, Spain 16 August TV Live Sky Sports F1, 1405 TV Highlights Channel 4, Sun 1830, Sky Sports F1, Sun 2000 FIA Formula 2 Round 6 Barcelona, Spain 15-16 August TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sat 1535, Sun 1000 FIA Formula 3 Round 6 Barcelona, Spain 15-16 August TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sat 0920, Sun 0835 Porsche Supercup Round 6 Barcelona, Spain 16 August TV Live Eurosport 1, Sun 1115, Sky Sports F1, Sun 1120 Indianapolis 500 Qualifying Round 5 Indianapolis, USA 15-16 August TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sat 2000, Sun 1800 Formula E Round 7/7 Berlin, Germany 13 August TV Live Eurosport 2, Thurs 1745 Livestream on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website Jaguar I-PACE…

The Maserati 4CLT/48 of Prince Birabongse Bhanudej Bhanubandh, aka ‘B Bira’, is pushed along the track by officials during the 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, while Geoffrey Crossley (Alta GP) gives a wide berth, and His Serene Highness keeps a lookout for further traffic closing at speed. Bira had been running strongly behind the Alfa Romeo demonstration run at the front of the field when fuel-starvation problems struck. He stopped on Hangar Straight, and was pushed to Club and then Abbey, but a trackside fix was not possible and he retired. For classic 1950s Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/F1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…