Indholdsfortegnelse for 26/11/20 i Autosport

Daniel Ricciardo has been one of Formula 1’s top drivers for several years now. Since getting the better of four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull in 2014, the likeable Australian has been worthy of a title tilt, if only he had the right machinery. Red Bull never quite provided that as the Mercedes steamroller got going in the early years of the turbo-hybrid era. Ricciardo then matched up very well to rising star Max Verstappen, something that people now appreciate more given how much his successors have struggled. Ricciardo’s move to Renault was bold and risky, one that he felt he had to take given Verstappen’s growing status at Red Bull. Renault hasn’t been able to provide Ricciardo with a winning car but, as he shows in his…

WEC The Belgian WRT squad is aiming to add Le Mans 24 Hours honours to its bulging CV of victories in the big sportscar enduros. The multiple outright winner of the Spa and Nurburgring 24-hour classics with Audi GT3 machinery is working on a move into the LMP2 ranks of the World Endurance Championship in 2021. Team boss Vincent Vosse believes he is closing on a deal to run a car in P2 next season. Le Mans is the focus of WRT’s aspirations, which is why it is favouring the WEC over the European Le Mans Series. “We’re close to an LMP2 programme,” said Vosse. “The main thing is that we have to do Le Mans, because it is so commercially important, and our only way to guarantee that is…

WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP Six-time World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier will stay with Toyota in the World Rally Championship in 2021, deferring his plans to retire from the top echelon of rallying for at least another year. Autosport revealed back in July that Ogier had expressed his intention to contest the 2021 WRC season with Toyota, and that the Japanese marque was not willing to look for drivers outside its current line-up. It has now been confirmed that Ogier, who joined from Citroen for 2020, will stay for a second season. He is again expected to team up with Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanpera. “This 2020 year was not as long as expected, I would say,” said Ogier. “We had a short season with a few rallies. I really enjoy working…

Nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb will be back in action in the upcoming Andros Trophy ice-racing series in France. Loeb, who contested two rounds of the now all-electric series last winter, will line up for the opening Andorran round on 18-19 December with his own Sebastien Loeb Racing team, before heading off to the Dakar Rally and then returning before the end of the season. Reigning champion Aurelien Panis is going for another title, while Nicolas Prost will compete for the Renault-backed DA Racing team. → P40 LOEB ON HIS DAKAR CHALLENGE…

Mercedes’ march to its seventh title double has looked as serene as ever in 2020. Ahead of the final three races of the season, it has scored 12 wins and 13 poles, and only lost its 100% record in qualifying in tricky conditions in Turkey. But, had the campaign started as expected in Australia, Formula 1’s dominant squad might well have run into a “painful” problem. Unlike its predecessor, with which it shares much of its design DNA, the W11 had been the class of the field in winter testing. It topped the times in both tests at Barcelona in February, where Mercedes stunned onlookers with the innovation it had packed onto the car – dual-axis steering, in particular – ahead of a season that was supposed to be the…

It speaks volumes for the frequency and authenticity of Daniel Ricciardo’s famous smile that Formula 1 has still seen plenty of it since 27 May 2018. That was the day he won the Monaco Grand Prix for Red Bull – his seventh F1 triumph. It was a race of redemption for the Australian, after he had painfully missed out on victory in the same race two years earlier. Leaving Monaco, he was within touching distance of the championship lead – third behind Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, with more than double the points total of team-mate Max Verstappen. Come the end of the season, Ricciardo languished in sixth, bottom of ‘Class A’ by 77 points. Verstappen had won twice after Monaco, but Ricciardo had done no better than six fourths,…

The main casualty of Daniel Ricciardo’s decision to join Renault for the 2019 Formula 1 season ended up being the driver who is now his team-mate. Esteban Ocon was facing the exit at Force India, once its assets had been acquired and re-entered as a separate entity by Lawrence Stroll’s consortium, and Ricciardo’s impending arrival at Renault scuppered a deal that Ocon and his Mercedes backers thought they had secured with the French manufacturer. He had to spend a year on the sidelines before Renault opted to jettison Nico Hulkenberg and bring in Ocon, signed for two years and on a guarded secondment from Mercedes, to which he retains links. There have been flashes of the promise he had shown during his first two and a half years in F1,…

The three full-time rookies this year had a particularly tough job. In response to the pandemic, IndyCar restricted track time on race weekends and deleted in-season testing. Super Formula graduate Alex Palou, driving for the Honda-powered Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh, scored a fine third at Road America in only his third outing, qualified third for the next day’s race, turned the fastest lap in Indy 500 qualifying, and twice more qualified in the top six. Team owner Coyne said the Spaniard needed to work a little on his racecraft, but was very sad to see him depart to Chip Ganassi Racing for 2021. Oliver Askew, the 2019 Indy Lights champ, scored a podium in his Chevrolet-engined Arrow McLaren SP car at Iowa but, after a heavy shunt at…

Nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb remains as committed as ever after 19 years at the top level of the sport. Since returning part-time with Citroen to the WRC in 2018 and continuing with Hyundai in 2019 and 2020, he’s managed to add a victory and a further two podiums to his incredible statistics. And now he’s decided to get involved in Prodrive’s first Dakar Rally project: the Bahrain Raid Xtreme. Together with his long-time co-driver Daniel Elena, Loeb will drive one of the two BRX T1 4x4s that the British team will line up on the 43rd edition of the Dakar, which runs in Saudi Arabia from 3-15 January 2021. After completing their first desert test in Dubai, Loeb spoke to Autosport. What led you to join a new…

The 2020 edition of the Autosport Awards will be online, with increased digital coverage, and celebrate the best of the motorsport season. The annual extravaganza has been one of the highlights of the year for nearly four decades and attracts key motorsport figures, including Formula 1 champions and World Rally stars. Due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Awards night cannot take place at its traditional venue, Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane, but the key awards will still be voted for and announced across multiple digital platforms, including autosport.com. Nominees for International Racing Driver of the Year, British Competition Driver of the Year, UK National Driver of the Year, Moment of the Year, Rider of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Racing Car of the Year, International…

MACAU GT CUP MACAU (CHN) 21-22 NOVEMBER Ye Hongli won a red-flagged Macau GT Cup as favourite Darryl O’Young was given too much work to do by a post-qualifying-race grid penalty. Toro Racing Mercedes driver Ye, who crashed heavily in the Macau GP F3 race in 2016, had been best of the rest for much of the weekend, while O’Young was in a class of his own as he looked to take his second Macau GT Cup triumph. O’Young’s Craft-Bamboo Mercedes was the best part of a second quicker than Ye in qualifying, and won the qualifying race by three seconds, despite there being just one green-flag lap before it was cut short due to fading light. But O’Young was stripped of that win thanks to a post-race investigation into…

BRITISH F3 Elite Motorsport has conducted a successful first test with its BRDC British F3 machines by running three of its past Ginetta Junior champions. The leading Ginetta squad bought two F3 cars from Lanan Racing at the conclusion of the 2020 season and will race in single-seaters for the first time next year. The last two Ginetta Junior champions, 2019 winner James Hedley and newly crowned Tom Lebbon, were among the first drivers to sample the cars. The 2017 champion and 2018 Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award winner Tom Gamble was also back behind the wheel of F3 machinery for the Snetterton test last week, and will be helping the team to get to grips with the cars. “It was a very good test, no problems with the cars…

CITYCAR CUP The British Racing & Sports Car Club’s new CityCar Cup category has secured championship status for 2021 and bumper grids are expected. The series features Toyota Aygos, Peugeot 107s and Citroen C1s specially converted to race. Unlike the more standard cars in the C1 Challenge, these machines feature adjustable suspension and a remapped ECU. The CityCar Cup initially began as a class within the Clubsport Trophy series this year, but attracted 15 cars for its first standalone race at Croft last month. Organisers are expecting its popularity to rapidly rise next season. “We genuinely thought we would end up providing a couple of places for it at the back of the Clubsport Trophy,” said BRSCC chief operating officer Paul McErlean. “But, as time moved on, quite quickly it…

TRUCK SPORT UK’S NEW DEAL The British Automobile Racing Club has agreed a new commercial deal with Truck Sport UK to promote the British Truck Racing Championship. The two parties worked together on the series this year and the latest agreement will last for a minimum of three years. Truck Sport UK will particularly focus on the promotion and marketing of the championship. LEGENDS UNVEILS CALENDAR The Legends Cars championship has announced an expanded nine-event provisional calendar for 2021. The series had planned eight weekends of racing this year before the coronavirus pandemic reduced this to just three. Cadwell Park and Knockhill are both due to return for next year’s schedule, the latter as part of a British Automobile Racing Club-organised meeting at the Scottish venue. The season is set…

It’s good to have some positive news for a change. The encouraging initial results of the effectiveness of some of the vaccines in development around the world finally suggest a way out from the misery the coronavirus pandemic has inflicted. And there have been some positive developments in the national racing world recently too. Confidence that there’ll be a more ‘normal’ 2021 appears to be growing, and all of the clubs to have so far released their – admittedly very provisional – schedules for next year are back to what could be described as a traditional racing calendar. Some clubs and individual series have taken the decision to begin their seasons a little later than normal, just to try to avoid getting caught up in any lingering restrictions from what…

McRae secures World Rally crown on British soil 30 November 1995 A typically garish 1990s cover celebrated Colin McRae’s World Rally title success this week in 1995. The Scot had entered the RAC Rally season finale tied with Subaru teammate Carlos Sainz. Despite losing two minutes to a puncture, McRae was unstoppable. He and co-driver Derek Ringer put in “one of the most awesome recovery drives in the history of the WRC”, according to Autosport, to beat Sainz by 36 seconds. “I had time to fight back and it wasn’t really a problem,” said Britain’s first World Rally champion. “I was motivated enough and I knew I could do it. The car was good, the stages were good – very quick. Not a problem. “I was 100% – always maximum…

FORMULA 1 Red Bull aims to make a decision on its future Formula 1 engine supply by the end of this month as it seeks a freeze on powerplant development beyond 2021. Red Bull and sister team AlphaTauri are currently without an engine supplier from 2022 after existing partner Honda announced at the start of October that it would be quitting F1 at the end of next year. Instead of seeking an alternative supplier, Red Bull is eager to take on Honda’s power units to use beyond 2021, on the condition that it can agree to a freeze on engine development with the other manufacturers. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said there had been “quite productive discussions” with both F1 and the FIA about engine plans in recent weeks,…

IMSA SPORTSCAR Chip Ganassi Racing will return to the top flight of North American sportscar racing in 2021 after a five-season hiatus. The team that took five Grand-Am drivers’ titles between 2004 and 2012 will field a Cadillac in the Daytona Prototype international ranks of the IMSA SportsCar Championship next year. Ganassi is moving back to the top class of IMSA with one of the General Motors brand’s Dallara-based DPi-V.Rs after four seasons running the Ford GT in 2016-19 and then a year on the sidelines of sportscar racing in 2020. It is looking to rekindle the success at the sharp end of the grid that took it to six overall Daytona 24 Hours victories and 46 outright wins across Grand-Am and IMSA in a 12-year stint fielding Lexus, BMW…

BTCC British Touring Car Champi0nship team Ciceley Motorsport will run a pair of BMW 330i M Sports next year in place of its Mercedes A-Class warhorses. The Lancashire squad will take delivery of two BMWs from the marque’s official team West Surrey Racing as it gears up for the BTCC’s new hybrid era in 2022. The Mercedes was introduced in 2014 and has been a race winner in Adam Morgan’s hands even this year, and Ciceley has the cars – on which BTCC homologation does not run out until the end of 2023 – up for sale. Team boss Russell Morgan, the father of Adam, said: “This has been an incredibly hard decision, made even more difficult by the fantastic job our lead engineer Steve Farrell and Adam have done…

DAKAR RALLY A hydrogen-powered contender will take on the Dakar Rally in 2024. Former World Rallycross team GCK Motorsport has launched a four-year off-road programme, starting with an all-electric vehicle and culminating in a hydrogen machine. French freeriding skier and rallycross driver Guerlain Chicherit’s squad has already started testing the new GCK e-BLAST 1. It won’t contest January’s Dakar event in Saudi Arabia, but will test on the same terrain before competing in selected off-road events later in the year. Based on the Dakar-winning Peugeot 3008 DKR chassis, the e-BLAST 1 is powered by a bespoke electric powertrain and 150kW battery. It generates 340bhp and 1000Nm of torque. While the e-BLAST 1 is competing, GCK Motorsport and sister companies GCK Technology and GCK Energy will work on its hydrogen project.…

EXTREME E W Series champion Jamie Chadwick will make her competitive off-road racing debut in 2021 after joining Veloce Racing for the inaugural Extreme E season. The global health crisis forced W Series to cancel its 2020 campaign, with Williams F1 development driver Chadwick instead racing in the Formula Regional European Championship for Prema Powerteam. She lies 10th in the points with a round to go, with a best result of third at Misano. Chadwick, the 2015 British GT4 champion, tested the ODYSSEY 21 XE car in France last week and will gain more seat time at Motorland Aragon next month. “I have been involved with Veloce for a very long time and they are like a family to me, so I am incredibly honoured to be their female driver…

I’m not normally one to a wear a hat – unless it’s a woolly one to keep out the cold – but this week I’m raising metaphorical headgear to the Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee for keeping its event, of which last weekend’s running was the 67th edition, alive through the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. The Macanese government immediately introduced very strict measures to control the spread of the virus, with the result that its population has been COVID-free for months and was very little affected even in the early period. But the knock-on effect of that was quarantine measures that meant any visitor had to spend 14 days in a hotel room before even being allowed out into the rest of the hotel, let alone the streets. Therefore the traditional…

Daniel Ricciardo is about to make his second exit from a Formula 1 team in three years, as he heads to McLaren two years after swapping Red Bull for Renault. Back in 2018, after causing a summer of intrigue and speculation thanks to his decision to switch to Renault and not sign a fresh Red Bull deal in the week after the Hungarian Grand Prix, the narrative was about a driver departing the team that had given him his big break, albeit with a reportedly large salary as part of the deal. This time, he’s swapping one midfield team for another, and made the call to depart Renault before the RS20 had even turned a wheel in anger, thanks to the pandemic delaying the 2020 campaign by four months. It…

It was the year when everything had to be kept in perspective, because during a pandemic nothing is as important as protecting lives. But livelihoods also need protecting, and in order to allow the IndyCar Series’ teams to survive by fulfilling their agreements with sponsors, the show had to go on. Easier said than done, even for a man with the foresight of Roger Penske, who officially took charge of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar in early January. Ever-changing restrictions in various states in response to the coronavirus played havoc with the series schedule, and so as well as the investment already made to upgrade facilities at the Speedway, suddenly Penske Entertainment Corp had to help subsidise events that were allowed only a limited number of spectators and vendors, or…

If you’re already confused by the myriad of categories – and different names for them – that make up the landscape of international GT racing, then be prepared for a new addition. The class is called GT2 and, no surprise, it’s the brainchild of Stephane Ratel, the architect of GT3 and GT4, as well as the short-lived GT1 division of the early 2010s. Ratel, the world’s premier promoter of GT racing by some chalk, saw an opening – or rather a need – for a new class. His realisation was founded on the gradual disappearance of the amateur driver from many of the series he promotes around the world. That’s why he came up with the idea of a new breed of machinery that fits between the existing GT3 and…

MACAU GUIA MACAU (CHN) 21-22 NOVEMBER Just three full uninterrupted laps of green-flag racing across the two races, and the denial of a history-making winner, made for a calamitous event unworthy of the famous Macau Guia touring car classic. British tin-top superstar Rob Huff joined 32 contenders from local and regional TCR competition, and both the qualification race and the Guia final itself descended into farce. When the red flag forlornly fluttered, Huff was ahead when it mattered in an MG 6 he had only driven for the first time in Friday’s free practice sessions, but what would have been his 10th Guia victory was taken away when he was given a time penalty for flicking Ma Qing Hua heavily into the barriers on the exit of the scarily fast Mandarin…

MOTOGP ALGARVE CIRCUIT (PRT) 22 NOVEMBER ROUND 14/14 MotoGP hadn’t visited Portugal since the 2012 season, and before last year no Portuguese rider had ever raced in the premier class. At the conclusion of its maddest (but most welcome) campaign, Miguel Oliveira delighted his house-bound home fans with pole and a dominant win at the Algarve International Circuit. Of all the grid, Tech3 rider Oliveria had the most experience of the rollercoaster Algarve track. But it was raw talent and an affinity with his KTM that won him the day rather than any insider knowledge. Besides, Algarve on a MotoGP bike is unlike anything the riders had faced before. The Styrian Grand Prix winner, making his final appearance for Tech3 before his factory KTM team graduation next year, grabbed the…

KARTING The British Superkart Championships will return for 2021 after not running this year. Motorsport UK has concluded the tender process and decided to keep the series in-house for the next three years but using the operational support of Terry Bateman and his team at Superkarting-UK. Effectively, that means Superkarting-UK will run the events at British Racing & Sports Car Club meetings. Race director Bateman is “delighted by the involvement, support and input provided by MSUK” and that he has been able to secure the support of the BRSCC. Motorsport UK CEO Hugh Chambers added: “We are committed to the long-term future of superkarting in the UK.” Dates were announced last week, with Cadwell Park on Saturday 10 April as the opener, followed by Mallory Park on Saturday 22 May…

BRSCC The British Racing and Sports Car Club is splitting its Mazda MX-5 Championship for Mk1 models, which regularly attracts entries of more than 50 cars, into two categories for next season. The MX-5 Trophy will feature the traditional three 20-minute races spread over two days, while the MX-5 Clubman category will have two 15-minute races on a single day of the same meetings, allowing drivers to commit less time to compete. BRSCC chief operating officer Paul McErlean explained that the move arose after different formats were used amid the rescheduling that resulted from the coronavirus pandemic. “We took a long, hard look at it and talked to some of the teams,” he said. “We can now provide a programme that is lower in terms of costs, commitment and competition.”…

Formula Vee is not usually an easy championship to win. The 750 Motor Club’s long-running VW Beetle-engined single-seater series features constructors and engine builders that have decades of experience in the category. But, it is possible for self-built creations to still challenge the likes of the AHS, GAC and Storm (built by SG Race Engineering) machines that populate the series. Graham Gant proved that last season as, after years of toil with his own Worm’s Eye View car, he finally landed the crown. And now James Harridge has achieved the same feat after a dominant 2020 campaign with the Maverick Vee he and his father built – a car with the very humblest of beginnings. Harridge’s father Dave used to compete in Formula Ford 2000 in the 1970s and 1980s,…

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW COLIN Mc RAE: 25 YEARS A CHAMPION Twenty-six minutes to mark 25 years since Colin McRae was crowned the youngest-ever World Rally champion – aged 27 – at Chester Racecourse on 22 November 1995. That’s an undeniably tight window of television time in which to celebrate the seminal achievement of the WRC’s most famous driver, a triumph that garnered considerable page space in the national newspapers. Making the task even harder for WRC TV, maker of the Colin McRae – 25 Years a Champion documentary, is that the BT Sport and WRC+ broadcast doesn’t just focus on the RAC Rally season finale or even the 1995 season as a whole. Instead, it tracks back – albeit briefly, as required – a full decade earlier to McRae’s competitive rallying…

1 PLAYLIFE 1998-2000: Benetton As if the Renault V10’s metamorphosis to Mecachrome and Supertec wasn’t cruel enough, this conjured up images of Benetton’s Flavio Briatore shmoozing on a yacht in Monaco. Truly awful. 2 EUROPEAN 2001: Minardi Paul Stoddart bought Minardi for 2001 and renamed its Ford Zetec-R (see #8) after his European Aviation company. Ironic considering Stoddart isn’t even European, but there you go. 3 ACER 2001: Prost At first hearing it sounded like a tribute to 1978 Scotland World Cup hero Asa Hartford, but the French team’s Ferrari V10s were actually so named in honour of a Taiwanese computer company. 4 TAG HEUER 2016-18: Red Bull Red Bull brought back the ‘TAG’ name (see #5) for a redubbing of its marriage of (in)convenience with the Renault V6, and…

Aurelien Panis was one of four sons of French Formula 1 race winners in the top 10 in the first race of last weekend’s finale of the GT4-based French GT series at Paul Ricard. The difference is he shared the race-winning CMR-run Toyota GR Supra with his dad – 1996 Monaco GP victor Olivier Panis! Behind the Panis pair were Nicolas Prost (fourth, Alpine-Renault A110), Anthony Beltoise (ninth, Audi R8 LMS) and Adrien Tambay (10th, Audi). Ricardo van der Ende, the 1999 Formula Ford Festival winner, clinched the Silver title with Benjamin Lessennes in a BMW M4.…

OBITUARY Brian Joscelyne, who died on 9 November, was an urbane gentleman racer able to indulge his passion through sportscar racing’s most exciting period. For 10 years he and Dorset Racing partner Tony Birchenhough (1934-2014) enjoyed many adventures as privateers in an increasingly professional world, conquering Europe’s greatest circuits. A chartered surveyor, Joscelyne and elder brother Ben were gifted an Aston Martin 15/98 by their father, Lewis Hamilton Joscelyne, an ardent motorsport fan, in 1954. Thus began an association with the marque on which he became an authority. Brian subsequently acquired a DB3, then a DB3S to race, then campaigned Bob Owen’s ex-Camoradi Maserati T61‘birdcage’. Joscelyne joined forces with Birchenhough and his Chevron B8 in 1971, when they won their class in the Spa 1000Km. A Lola T212 followed, then…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP Porsche Carrera Cup GB sensation Harry King is targeting a campaign in the manufacturer’s Supercup next year after dominating the BTCC support series in his first season as Porsche GB’s Junior driver. The 2019 Ginetta GT4 Supercup champion won 12 of the 16 Carrera Cup races this year with Team Parker Racing. Traditionally, the GB Junior spends two seasons in the Carrera Cup before moving on to race internationally, but King feels ready to make that jump now. “I think what I’ve done this year shows I am prepared to make that step into an international series but raising the budget is a difficult task,” said King. “Regardless, as a Porsche Junior I have a two-year deal, and I’m only in my first, so whatever happens next year…

F1 BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX PREVIEW UK START TIMES Friday 27 November FP1 1100 FP2 1500 Saturday 28 November FP3 1100 QUALIFYING 1400 Sunday 29 November RACE 1410 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA HIGHLIGHTS CHANNEL 4 2100 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS RACE STATS BAHRAIN MASTERS Top 10 points scorers for grands prix at Bahrain International Circuit. All races converted to current points system. L Hamilton 183 K Raikkonen 163 S Vettel 160 F Alonso 117 F Massa 98 N Rosberg 96 V Bottas 70 J Trulli 60 J Button 59 M Schumacher 53…

When Daniel Ricciardo signed for McLaren to replace the Ferrari-bound Carlos Sainz Jr, it did not end the knock-on effects of Maranello’s decision to move on from Sebastian Vettel. It left Renault with a hole, which it filled with a Formula 1 great: Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard has opted to end his time in the alternative pastures of the World Endurance Championship, IndyCar and the Dakar Rally, rejoining the team where he won his two Formula 1 world titles. The coronavirus pandemic cost-saving measures mean the new cars F1 is hoping will close up its competitive order have been delayed until 2022. It is to this opportunity that Alonso is staking his hopes of further F1 glory, and he acknowledges that 2021 will primarily be about getting ready to seize…

If you’ve got the chance to put a driver behind the wheel of a couple of brand-new GT racers at Spa-Francorchamps, then who better than Eric van de Poele? Not only does the former Modena Lamborghini, Brabham and Fondmetal Formula 1 racer have a record five wins in the Spa 24 Hours, but he’s also raced just about every kind of sportscar – prototype and GT – in a long career that included two victories in the Sebring 12 Hours. Van de Poele sampled the Audi R8 LMS GT2 and the Porsche 911 GT2 RS Clubsport at a trackday run by SRO’s Curbstone organisation. The difference between the new breed of GT2 and a GT3 car – examples of which he has raced include a Ferrari, BMW and Maserati –…

MACAU GRAND PRIX MACAU (CHN) 21-22 NOVEMBER Charles Leong became just the second local driver to win the Macau Grand Prix when he took a tight victory over countryman Andy Chang on the Guia circuit. The Macanese pair, with five starts between them in the Formula 3 version of the Grand Prix, were predictably the class of a field otherwise composed of competitors from the Chinese Formula 4 Championship. Li Si Cheng was the only other driver realistically in the mix. Leong quickly emerged as the best of the lead trio, topping Saturday morning’s qualifying session by a formidable 0.8 seconds. He then secured pole position proper by winning a crash-affected qualifying race, despite having his early lead erased by back-to-back safety car periods. The race eventually came down to…

MOTOR RACING LEGENDS Leading historic race promoter Motor Racing Legends will stage two one-make Ford GT40 races in the UK next year as part of a new initiative named in honour of 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours winner Chris Amon. The two 80-minute Amon Cup races will be held at Donington Park and Silverstone for pre-1966 examples of the widely revered GT40, which won Le Mans four times in succession between 1966-69. Previously, dedicated races have only been run at the Goodwood Revival and Members’ Meetings but, as owners have limited opportunities to use their cars in anger, MRL and DK Engineering have launched the new races, which are likely to admit continuation cars, and will be open to two drivers. The first race will be held at the Donington…

CORONAVIRUS Operators of leading UK circuits are set to receive a share of £6million of government loans to overcome the loss of spectator revenues. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport revealed a £300million package of survival funding last week for sports impacted by the absence of spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic. Motorsport is one of the sports to benefit from the financial support, while others like cricket and elite football have missed out. The £6m for motorsport venues is set to be split between MotorSport Vision (which operates Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Snetterton, Oulton Park and Cadwell Park), the British Automobile Racing Club (which operates Thruxton, Croft and Pembrey), Silverstone and Goodwood. Governing body Motorsport UK says it has worked with operators to assess the impact of…

There are not many categories where you can build a complete car from scratch yourself, and long-time Formula Vee engine builder Alan Woodward, who resolved Harridge’s engine woes, believes that is one of series’ strengths. “I think it’s brilliant,” says Woodward, whose GAC concern also began creating its own cars from scratch in the 2000s. “The series is nearly 60 years old and there’s still innovation and the rules have stayed fairly stable. “We had Mike Jenvey come along years ago and he did something similar. He developed his own suspension and wiped the floor with us. I redesigned my car after that – I modified five for the start of the 2007 season and three were in the top three in the championship that year.” Woodward has been involved…

5 MARCOS LM600 Loosely based on the Mantara road car, the Marcos LM600 was king of its British GT class throughout 1995 and 1996. On the world stage, success was a touch more muted. Its V8 engine, plucked from the Chevrolet Corvette, helped the car pick up the pieces whenever the Porsche 911 wasn’t winning in the 1996 BPR GT season. Three wins were clocked, but only five more podiums followed in the next two years. 4 CALLAWAY CORVETTE Reeves Callaway had built the engine for the Aston Martin AMR1 and hot-rodded Chevrolet Corvettes. What he then masterminded for the race track was dubbed the ‘SuperNatural’. The C4 ’Vette’s strength lay in its one-lap pace, with Almo Coppelli romping to class pole at Le Mans in 1995. The race returned second and…

Did someone say ‘track limits’? Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari 248 F1 kicks up the dust taking a no-prisoners line during the 2006 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, the last time a round of the Formula 1 World Championship was held at the Italian track until the Emilia Romagna GP earlier this month. The seven-time world champion started from pole position and led 55 of the race’s 62 laps. Fernando Alonso (Renault R26) finished 2.096 seconds behind Schumacher, ending the weekend with a 15-point championship lead over the German. For classic noughties Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/F1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…