Indholdsfortegnelse for 28/01/21 i Autosport

It’s now nearly nine years since Pastor Maldonado scored Williams’s 114th world championship Formula 1 race victory. And the team hasn’t been a regular frontrunner for over a decade and a half. But the huge successes Williams scored in the 1980s and 1990s – which means it still has more constructors’ titles than any team apart from Ferrari – and the way Frank Williams went about his business means there is still a lot of affection for the Grove-based squad. The Williams family has finally handed over the reins and, as we show on page 14, new owner Dorilton Capital is putting investment and planning in place for a long-term recovery. Just how far Williams can climb will depend on many factors, not least of which is the impact of…

LE MANS 24 HOURS Red Bull Advanced Technologies will partner with French constructor ORECA to produce the chassis for the new hydrogen class set for introduction at Le Mans in 2024. The sister company of the Red Bull F1 team, and which is also co-developing the Aston Martin Valkyrie road car, joined forces with ORECA to make a successful bid to provide the one-make chassis for the new category of prototypes powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The first task for the British and French companies is to “undertake and provide a detailed feasibility study for the vehicle concept”, according to a statement from Le Mans organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. An announcement is expected soon regarding the powertrains. It is unclear whether manufacturers will be able to develop their…

FORMULA 3 The side-effects of the coronavirus scourge haven’t been negative for everything: the F3 Asian Championship, which kicks off this weekend at Dubai Autodrome, enjoys a bumper 23-car field, ranging from a pair of Formula 2 race winners to four youngsters from the UK junior scene. While we mentioned last week that Guanyu Zhou and Jehan Daruvala will take part with Abu Dhabi Racing by Prema and Mumbai Falcons respectively, they will be joined by fellow F2 competitor Roy Nissany, who has been listed on the entry with Hitech Grand Prix. Meanwhile, three drivers from last year’s British F4 field – long-time title contender Casper Stevenson, Roberto Faria and Rafael Villagomez – will be on the grid too, along with British F3 racer Reece Ushijima. For its fourth season…

FORMULA 2 To be fair, it’s not the most shocking news when highly talented members of Formula 1 junior programmes are confirmed in F2 seats they’ve been long-rumoured for. So Ferrari protege Marcus Armstrong’s (above) move across France from ART Grand Prix to DAMS, and Sauber prospect Theo Pourchaire replacing the Kiwi at ART after starring to take runner-up in his rookie FIA Formula 3 season – both announced in the past few days – are what we expected. What we weren’t anticipating was the name of ex-Marussia Formula 1 driver and DTM Mercedes racer Roberto Merhi (below) appearing in the F2 silly season. The 29-year-old is said to be making another return to the series – following his 2018 campaign – with MP Motorsport. Merhi was coy on the…

A huge crowd, a thrilling motor race that culminated in a back-to-front victory, and not one person wearing a mask. And yes, I’m talking about something that happened in 2021, not 1921. As a country, New Zealand and its leadership have provided an example of calm dignity and let’s-get-this-sorted-out proactiveness to the rest of the world in the wake of any recent crises, far at odds with the floundering bumblers hampering the progress of much of the planet. Such methodology also seems to have benefited its motorsport scene, brilliantly illustrated by last weekend’s incredibly successful New Zealand Grand Prix opening round of the Toyota Racing Series at Hampton Downs. Those of you who follow single-seaters will know that, for the past decade, TRS is a super-competitive contest, flooded by talent…

As Williams embarks upon a new era, it’s to assess the peaks and troughs of one of motorsport’s most successful teams. For this analysis, we have used supertimes, based on the fastest single lap by each car at each race weekend, expressed as a percentage of the fastest lap overall (100.000%) and averaged over a season. We have calculated how far away Williams has been from the fastest team each season or, when the team was quickest, how far ahead it was. We’ve started in 1978, when Frank Williams and co-founder Patrick Head produced their first car together. The FW06 was neat and conventional. In the hands of Alan Jones it showed flashes of pace, though on average it was eighth fastest across the season, 1.9% behind ground-effects pioneer Lotus.…

MAZDA READY TO WIN Mazda notched up its biggest sportscar victory since its 1991 Le Mans triumph at the rescheduled Sebring 12 Hours last November. Harry Tincknell, who shared that win with Jonathan Bomarito and Ryan Hunter-Reay, reckons the RT24-P is now ready to go one better than its second place at Daytona last year. “This programme remains on an upwards trajectory: each year we’re getting better and better,” says Tincknell, who shares the solo Mazda Motorsports entry with fellow Brit Oliver Jarvis and Bomarito. Tincknell isn’t taking the reliability of the RT24-P for granted, even though many reckon 12 hours around the bumps of the Sebring International Raceway are at least as hard as 24 at Daytona. He knows that the small-capacity AER turbo in the back of the…

HISTORICS The grandson of master Hillman/Sunbeam Imp preparer George Bevan has restored the last Group 2 Imp, and the car is set to return to the track this year. With Irishman Bill McGovern driving the very special 1000cc creations, Bevan Imps won successive British Saloon Car Championships in 1970, 1971 and 1972. Half a century later, Jonathan Bevan is close to fulfilling his ambition of bringing the last Group 2 car back on track to honour his grandfather’s memory. “George is a bit of an unsung hero – I didn’t want his achievements to be forgotten,” he said. A flash of familiar blue in the background of a photo on social media enabled Bevan Jr to track the car down in Germany. “It was sitting above a taxi!” he said.…

ROBERT BRIDGER The recent death of Robert Bridger has dealt a third blow to the Thundersaloon fraternity, following the loss of Pete Stevens last April and Ricky Parker-Morris earlier this month. A Lydden specialist who had enjoyed previous success in Ford Escort and Toyota Starlet Hot Rods, Bridger had battled Parkinson’s disease in later life. CADWELL CARS STOLEN Police are appealing for information after a medical car and safety car, worth over £100,000 combined, were stolen from Cadwell Park earlier this week. The BMW X5 medical car and M240i safety car were stolen at 0015 on Tuesday morning from the Lincolnshire circuit. If anyone has seen the cars, which carried MotorSport Vision stickers, they are urged to contact police on 101. More details can be found on Lincolnshire Police’s website.…

BRSCC National Formula Ford 1600 will appear at a British GT event this year, following the recent spate of calendar changes. The traditional Easter weekend Oulton Park GT season opener has been pushed back amid continuing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. The Cheshire round is now set to take place on 11-12 September, when the British Racing and Sports Car Club’s National FF1600 category was already due to be racing at Oulton as part of a Scottish Motor Racing Club meeting. “That [securing the support slot] was through working with MSVR, we were able to call upon them to help,” explained BRSCC chairman Peter Daly. “It’s exactly the same venue – we couldn’t move the date because it would affect the whole of the calendar.” FF1600 team boss Andy Brickles…

HISTORIC FORMULA 2 Martin Wood, who raced in the classic Ayrton Senna/Martin Brundle 1983 British Formula 3 season, is returning to full-time racing after a 37-year layoff to compete in the Historic Sports Car Club’s Historic F2 Championship. Wood, who was British Automobile Racing Club Oceanair Clubmans champion in his first year of circuit racing, made the leap into F3 at the end of 1982 with the ex-Enrique Benamo Ralt-Toyota RT3/81. Sevenths at Donington Park and Snetterton were his best results. Promotasport National banger racing points champion in the 1970s, Wood did not compete for a decade before he cleaned-up in the FF1600-engined Clubmans class, scoring eight wins in the unique ex-Richard Mallock U2 Mk22. The unrelated Clive Wood, whose Pine City Racing team assisted Martin in Clubmans and F3…

BTCC Multiple British Touring Car Championship race winner Rory Butcher will line up with Toyota team Speedworks Motorsport this season in place of Excelr8 Hyundai-bound Tom Ingram. Butcher’s long-anticipated move was confirmed this week by Speedworks, which is adding a second Corolla for 2021. This will be driven by BTCC returnee Sam Smelt, who campaigned an AmD Audi in 2018, just his second season of car racing. Smelt scored no points that year, but has since performed well in Speedworks’ GT4 GR Supra in the British GT Championship. Butcher, meanwhile, moves on from the Motorbase Ford squad, where he was a title contender until the final round of 2020. “I’ve known Rory for a long time and he’s a real team player,” said Speedworks boss Christian Dick. “He’s massively enthusiastic…

Sometimes, life needs something new, something different. In 2020, one of the very few upsides to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic was had a dose of variety thrown in. Of course, this came at a cost – the championship’s business model thrives on tracks and certain countries paying to host races – but it did provide a variance flavour. The necessary changes to F1’s schedule were painful as ‘normality’ evaporated, but the variation it provided reinforced its value – which applies across all of sport – as escapism. How excellent it was to wonder what Mugello’s brutal nature would provide when F1 rocked up at the MotoGP paradise. The same value came in considering the short-and-simple track used for the Sakhir Grand Prix. It’s ultimately trivial stuff, but sometimes,…

Formula 1 fans will be very familiar with Williams’s plight. Once the championship’s powerhouse squad, it faded from the front a few years into the new millennium, its early turbo-hybrid-era revival stalled, and then it crashed to the ignominy of the back of the pack. The tale of the descent rings loudly to F1 observers because it has only just finished. In 2020, the team repeated its last-place finish in the constructors’ championship of 2019. And for the first time in the squad’s history running its own cars (from 1978, a year after its first F1 outings with a March chassis), it scored no points – down from the one it had picked up, by luck, at the 2019 German Grand Prix. We’ve been here before with Williams. The team…

5 FW11 (1986-87) The Frank Dernie-designed FW11 won first time out at the 1986 Brazilian GP in the hands of Nelson Piquet, and the fuel-efficient, Honda-powered car won eight of the remaining 15 races. That was enough to take the constructors’ crown, but the intra-team battle between Piquet and Nigel Mansell meant McLaren’s Alain Prost took the drivers’ title. Piquet put that right in 1987, with the FW11B taking nine wins and both titles. 4 FW07 (1979-82) The FW07 was the first Williams to win a grand prix (at Silverstone in 1979) and the first to secure a championship. Patrick Head applied the lessons of ground-effects introduced by Lotus and built a stiffer, better version of the Lotus 79 that had dominated in 1978. Once sorted, the FW07 was the quickest car…

The 2021 World Rally Championship is under way, and the Monte Carlo Rally celebrated its 110th-anniversary year despite the ever-present threat of COVID-19. In the end, it proved to be a historic four days in the Alpes Maritimes, crowned by a record-breaking eighth victory for Sebastien Ogier. Back in 1911, the founding fathers of the event saw an opportunity to use the glamour of motorsport to bring well-heeled visitors to the principality and its casino, which PG Wodehouse had declared was solely designed to bring young men to ruin. The rally remains imbued with all the style of the Riviera; an event on which James Bond creator Ian Fleming was once a co-driver, and that features stages on which the Mini Cooper, Porsche 911 and Lancia Stratos are among the…

HISTORICS The Equipe 50s and Fifties Sports Car Racing grids are set to be combined at two double-header events this year ahead of a possible more extensive partnership next season. Equipe Classic Racing introduced its new 50s grid for 2020 to expand its portfolio to include older cars than those featured in its Equipe GTS and Pre-’63 categories. It was due to join forces with FISCAR for MG Live last year, but that meeting was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “For 2021, we’ve got two meetings where we’re going to run combined Equipe 50s and FISCAR races, at Silverstone Grand Prix and Snetterton, called Equipe FISCAR,” said Equipe Classic Racing partner John Pearson. “The idea is it’s a pilot and if it all goes well, then in 2022 we’ll…

BRDC BRITISH F3 Leading BRDC British Formula 3 Championship team Double R Racing will not be on the series’ grid this season for the first time in its history, but is eyeing a return in the future. Double R has been ever-present in British F3 – under the series’ old pre-2015 philosophy and in the current MotorSport Vision-run era that began in 2016 – since its formation for the 2005 season and has won titles with Mike Conway (2006), Matheus Leist (2016) and Linus Lundqvist (2018). The move also means that, for the first time in the team’s history, Double R will not be represented this year in any national UK single-seater championship. Team boss Anthony ‘Boyo’ Hieatt explained that the decision has been taken because of a new motorsport…

A mid all the doom and gloom in the world in the past year, positivity has been in short supply. But let’s have an upbeat statistic in relation to the 2020 club racing season. Of the 108 English series with comparable data, 55 featured average entries that were either the same or higher than during the ‘normality’ of 2019. Yes, there are plenty of caveats to that. The shortened nature of the season because of the coronavirus pandemic meant one bumper grid could skew the averages a little. And the delayed start to the campaign led to an unprecedented clamour to get on track. But, putting all of those considerations to one side, it was still a significant achievement given the economic and health challenges faced during a tough 2020.…

Awaiting practice for the 1979 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach, Jan Lammers sits in the cockpit of his Shadow-Ford DN9, resplendent in the fiery feline livery inspired by sponsor Samson, the Dutch rolling-tobacco company. Lammers qualified in 14th place, while team-mate (and fellow F1 rookie) Elio de Angelis was back in 22nd, his car sporting a rather less flamboyant plain blue colour scheme. At the start Lammers’s car was struck from behind by Patrick Tambay’s McLaren-Ford M28 and he had to pit for a new rear wing; he retired later in the race with broken suspension. De Angelis was seventh of nine classified finishers, two laps down. For classic Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/f1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

DAYTONA 24 HOURS Action Express Racing claimed first blood at this year’s Daytona 24 Hours. Felipe Nasr and Pipo Derani triumphed in the 100-minute qualifying race on Sunday aboard their Cadillac DPi-V.R to claim pole position for this weekend’s opening round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. The Brazilians triumphed in the new initiative at the end of the official test weekend from the back of the Daytona Prototype international field. Nasr had topped qualifying on Saturday, only for his DPi-V.R to be found to be underweight. Nasr made quick progress from sixth on a wet track after a short rain shower ahead of the race. He was fourth by the end of lap two, briefly dropped a position before the first of two safety cars, and then quickly moved to…

NEW ZEALAND GRAND PRIX Fourteen years since he emerged from single-seaters into tin-tops, Australian Supercars star Shane van Gisbergen (right) returned to the discipline last weekend to take a remarakble win in the New Zealand Grand Prix for the Toyota Racing Series. Van Gisbergen, one of a handful of Kiwi racing stars added to the grid to fight out the prestige round alongside the country’s up-and-comers, lost out in a wet-dry qualifying session, in which he was 1oth fastest of the 16 runners. Things deteriorated further when he accidentally set off the car’s fire extinguisher in the pitlane, so he missed the window to join the grid while the extinguisher was replaced and his car, racesuit and boots were cleaned. Daniel Gaunt, who beat van Gisbergen to the 2006-07 TRS…

WEC The opening round of the World Endurance Championship set for Sebring in March has been switched to the Algarve Circuit. The 2021 series will now begin on 4 April with an eight-hour race at the venue near Portimao. The decision to shift the first round, at which the new breed of Le Mans Hypercars will come on stream, away from Sebring on 19 March followed mounting speculation over the viability of the WEC circus travelling to the US while the COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate. “Due to the rapid evolution of coronavirus, as well as various changing directives from governments in different countries including travel restrictions, the WEC did not want to take any unnecessary risks,” read a statement from the WEC. “With freight due to be sent to…

It’s remarkable that the maiden season of Extreme E will feature three Formula 1 champions – Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and now Jenson Button. Only when Hamilton renews his Mercedes contract will F1 itself surpass the title-winning headcount, thanks to the return of Fernando Alonso alongside Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. As statements go, it’s an astonishing feat for XE and comes all before an electric motor has whirred in anger. Of course, Hamilton and his former Silver Arrows sparring partner Rosberg won’t actually race in XE. They’re both team owners and will manage the daily operation of their respective X44 and Rosberg Xtreme Racing squads at arm’s length. That means it’s the news that Button will actually drive for his own JBXE operation that arguably represents the biggest coup…

As Jost Capito gets his feet under the table, new Williams owner Dorilton Capital will hope that 2021 marks the end of the team’s spell in the doldrums. Yet there is still some way to go before Williams is capable of challenging for titles for the first time since 2003. That season was one of the most open in years, with eight different winners from five different teams, and Williams took the 2003 constructors’ title race down to the wire with Ferrari. Yet it failed to capitalise when Michael Schumacher lost his front wing against Takuma Sato’s BAR at Suzuka, as hydraulic failure ruled out race leader Juan Pablo Montoya while Ralf Schumacher had a messy race to 12th. Montoya had been eliminated from drivers’ championship contention once race prior,…

A GAMBLE TO GET GOING HOMESTEAD 2001 The Oliver Gavin Corvette Racing story started with a gamble. A 10-grand gamble. In April 2000, the Brit cleared his building society account of his and wife Helen’s savings, strapped the money to his belly and boarded a plane bound for Miami. The money paid for his first race at the wheel of a sportscar at the Homestead Grand-Am event. It was a way of getting his foot in the door of a new discipline at a time when his career in Europe was faltering. It ended up paying off handsomely when Gavin landed a factory Chevrolet contract little more than a year and a half later on the back of his early efforts on the other side of the Pond. “It was…

Chip Ganassi Racing describes its absence from the sportscar ranks in 2020 as a sabbatical. That’s because it was always the intention for a team that has six victories in the Daytona 24 Hours to its name to return after the end of the Ford GT programme in 2019. Ganassi managing director Mike Hull admits that the team never stopped working on a return after it realised that the Ford deal that encompassed full IMSA SportsCar Championship campaigns and Le Mans 24 Hours assaults in 2016-19 was coming to an end. The deal with Cadillac to run a single DPi-V.R Daytona Prototype international (below in the series is the culmination of those efforts. “CGR relishes being able to have different programmes running at the same time and what it does…

A notable absentee from the main story of the rally on these pages is M-Sport, which endured possibly the worst event in its illustrious World Rally Championship history. In the weeks leading up to the rally, the team had to hurdle innumerable obstacles, including the burden of red tape imposed by Brexit, ever-steepening lockdown measures being taken in the UK, and the question of whether French COVID policy might entirely preclude the team’s attendance. Nevertheless, Richard Millener and his team arrived in Gap with WRC Fords for Teemu Suninen and Gus Greensmith, plus the WRC2 entry of Adrien Fourmaux. Suninen was flying on the opening split times of the first stage but then lost traction on a right-hander, being sent into an earth bank and exiting the stage upside-down, smashing…

FORMULA 5000 Michael Collins extended his winning run from November’s New Zealand Tasman Cup Revival Series opener at Circuit Chris Amon Manfeild by winning both scratch races as the action moved to Taupo’s Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park last weekend. Christchurch-based Collins, 25, qualified Alistair and Vicky Hey’s ex-Graham McRae 1972 Tasman Cup and US L&M title-winning Leda GM1 quickest for the Taupo Historic GP feature, pursued by a strong posse of Lola drivers split by sister Anna in the Heys’ Leda LT27. Closest rival Codie Banks (Lola T332) hit gearbox issues in Saturday’s opener, so former NZ Formula Ford champion Kevin Ingram and Brett Willis took up the chase in similar cars. The same trio formed Sunday’s podium. The second race, run as a rolling-start handicap, appropriately rewarded series newcomer…

ELITE’S GINETTA CONTENDERS Leading Ginetta squad Elite Motorsport has announced its four-strong line-up for the Ginetta GT5 Challenge this season. Ginetta Junior graduate Will Aspin and GT5 podium finisher John Bennett will spearhead Elite’s assault. They will again be joined by Karim Sekkat, while 2019 Ginetta Racing Drivers Club competitor Harry Mangion will step up. Also on the GT5 Challenge grid, driving for Race Car Consultants, will be former British Formula 4 racer Nat Hodgkiss and Magnus Kriklywi. ASSETTO EXPANDS ROSTER Assetto Motorsport will expand its involvement in Ginetta Junior this year, running three cars. The squad fielded a single entry for Joe Wheeler in 2020, but this season he will be joined by scholarship finalists Maxwell Dodds and Harri Reynolds. Team manager, 2000 Renault UK Clio Cup champion Jim…

Delivered in his broad Tees Valley accent, Rob Smedley’s message to Felipe Massa in the 2010 German Grand Prix would come to be a defining point in recent Formula 1 history. When Smedley informed Massa that “Fernando is faster than you”, prompting the Brazilian to slow and allow his team-mate into the lead, it led to outrage throughout the paddock. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called it “the clearest team order I’ve ever seen” and said it was “wrong for the sport”. BBC pundit Eddie Jordan went as far as saying Ferrari “should be ashamed” for breaking the rules against team orders, which would ultimately be removed following the incident. But as controversial as it may have been, it was the right thing to do. The on-track scenario had…