Indholdsfortegnelse for 04/11/21 i Autosport

Autosport always tries to bring insights from paddocks and circuits around the motorsport world, but sometimes we have the great privilege to get access to places and people that are usually much more hidden away. And two of the stories this week fall into that category. Our Formula 1 Reporter Luke Smith went behind the scenes at Mercedes, getting to experience some of the United States Grand Prix weekend in the Race Support Room at the multiple title-winning squad’s Brackley base (page 20). Such support away from the circuit has become essential for successful F1 teams, and Smith was able to gain some fascinating insights and speak to a few of those who rarely get their time in the spotlight. They could be the people who decide the title fight…

WEC Alpine looks all but certain to be back on the World Endurance Championship grid next season with its grandfathered ORECA LMP1 design. Philippe Sinault, whose Signatech squad runs the Renault brand’s sportscar programme, revealed that the team is close to confirming a return to the Hypercar class as it gears up for the arrival of an all-new LMDh in 2024. “We are considering strongly to continue in the WEC next year with the current car,” said Sinault. “We are all pushing in that direction.” His comments follow the FIA World Motor Sport Council’s decision last month to extend the racing life for one more year of P1 machinery such as the Alpine-Gibson A480 that formerly raced as the Rebellion R-13. That extension and an intent for Alpine to continue…

WEC AF Corse is returning to the prototype ranks next season ahead of its entry into the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship with Ferrari in 2023. But the Italian team is insisting that an LMP2 campaign straddling the WEC and the European Le Mans Series in 2022 is unconnected with the Ferrari LMH programme. AF, which has worked with Ferrari since the mid-2000s, will field an ORECA-Gibson 07 in the two series for long-time customer Francois Perrodo, who raced with the team in the 2015 and 2016 editions of the WEC before returning for the 2019-20 season. The Frenchman, who is well placed to seal a third GTE Am WEC title with the team this year, is moving back to a category in which he competed with TDS…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE The British Jota team is aiming to expand its GT World Challenge Europe attack for next season. The plan for the Le Mans 24 Hours class-winning team is to run a pair of McLaren 720S GT3s across Endurance and Sprint legs of the series in 2022. The World Endurance Championship LMP2 stalwart returned to the GTWCE this year after a sabbatical in 2020 following the withdrawal of Swiss entrant R-Motorsport, whose Aston Martins it ran in 2018 and 2019. It took over the McLaren Ollie Wilkinson had raced in Britain and Europe with the Optimum Motorsport team in 2020 and is now shooting for two Pro class entries in 2022. “We will be back, and the aim is to have two cars,” said team boss Sam…

FORMULA 3 While Louis Foster was setting the pace in the US (see left), his fellow Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year finalists were gearing up for what could be their FIA Formula 3 Championship programmes for 2022. The three-day post-season FIA F3 test at Valencia was ongoing as Autosport closed for press, and the field included AMABA contenders Ollie Bearman, Jonny Edgar and Zak O’Sullivan as well as 2019 Award winner Johnathan Hoggard. While no teams have made any driver announcements for 2022, the post-season FIA F3 test traditionally offers a pretty accurate barometer of who will end up where for the following season, especially when they take part on all three days with the same squad. Italian Formula 4 champion Bearman, who also leads the…

The good times are back at McLaren following its first Formula 1 win for almost nine years at Monza. But there are plenty of reasons for it to be cheerful away from F1 too. Since taking the helm at the end of 2016, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has expanded its racing portfolio to encompass IndyCar, Extreme E and a possible Formula E entry down the line. And it’s in IndyCar where McLaren has enjoyed particular success this year. Two years on from the disaster of Fernando Alonso’s failure to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, the Arrow McLaren SP squad, which McLaren Racing is set to have a 75% stake in, mounted a challenge for the title this year, led by young gun Pato O’Ward. Mexican O’Ward won the Indy…

One of the largest and perhaps more surprising contingents within the RSR is university students, who volunteer to work on race weekends as part of their placements with Mercedes’ F1 team. It gives them the opportunity to gain live experience as part of the race team, carrying out jobs such as transcribing publicly available radio from other teams or analysing video from the world feed, screenshotting interesting pieces of information or things they have noticed. For Mercedes, it ensures all bases are covered, harnessing the additional resource to hear and watch everything. “Listening to literally 20 car feeds’ worth of people talking, you just need ears to monitor all of the TV feeds, you need eyes on the ground,” says Dom Riefstahl. “It’s just having that manpower. They can listen…

ALEX PALOU 1 The most complete driver of 2021, he managed to deliver even on tracks with which he was unfamiliar, and remained unflustered even when circumstances went against him. It would have been a travesty if the title had gone elsewhere. COLTON HERTA 2 Has all the necessary speed and work ethic to be Palou’s biggest threat over the next 15 years. There were days where he appeared untouchable and, Nashville apart, he’s another who knows how to stay calm at crucial moments. JOSEF NEWGARDEN 3 Was super-fast at times and can also make the best of a bad situation. Without the Road America gearbox failure that handed victory to Palou, he’d have his third title. Shaky qualifying performances in the season’s final third killed his hopes. PATO O’WARD…

The two Toyotas were barely a second apart at the end of the opening stint of Saturday’s Bahrain 6 Hours, and had twice swapped positions in the laps leading up to their first stops. It looked like it was going to be another close one between the Japanese manufacturer’s Le Mans Hypercars, but by the end of the following stint the die had been cast in the favour of championship-leading trio Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi. Conway had dropped back behind Sebastien Buemi on his in-lap and then lost four seconds in the pits to Brendon Hartley, who’d taken over the sister car. Ten laps after the stops, at which both Toyotas took left-side tyres only, the Brit was ahead, and 20 laps later, when the two…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS SYDNEY (AUS) 30-31 OCTOBER ROUND 8/12 Anton De Pasquale enjoyed a coming-of-age weekend as the 2021 Australian Supercars season resumed at Sydney Motorsport Park. The Dick Johnson Racing Ford ace blasted out of the blocks after the three-month lay-off, dominating the first of four consecutive events at the circuit. He topped all but one track session across the three days, including three poles and two wins. De Pasquale made light work of the first heat on Saturday night with a controlled lights-to-flag win, just his second since joining DJR this season. Shane van Gisbergen’s Triple Eight Holden finished second, while Brodie Kostecki rounded out the podium after a scrap with Nick Percat. The first of two Sunday races was a disaster for De Pasquale, who dropped to seventh…

FIESTA JUNIOR A new Fiesta Junior car will be introduced next season, featuring control parts supplied by British Touring Car star Josh Cook’s Cooksport operation. Just two years ago, the British Racing & Sports Car Club-operated series was in the doldrums when it featured a tiny four-car grid for its season finale. But now, after a significant amount of work from the club, numbers have grown significantly, with many events featuring up to four times the entries of that 2019 event. Organisers feel that to take the championship to the next level a new car needs to be introduced and, from next season, a 1.6-litre Sigma-engined Mk7 Fiesta will be eligible to race alongside the existing Mk6 machines. “Along with Laura Payne, the coordinator, the club have put a huge…

ITALIAN F4 Ginetta Junior star Robert de Haan made an impressive Formula 4 debut last weekend in the final round of the Italian championship at Monza as he gears up for a single-seater switch in 2022. The Dutch racer, who was fourth in the Ginetta points, joined compatriot team Van Amersfoort Racing at Monza. His best qualifying position was 12th from the 35-car field, and he had a best race result of 13th. The relationship was rekindled from 2020, when de Haan tested with VAR. “We knew he was fast from when he did some testing with us,” said VAR F4 team boss Rob Niessink. “The boy did a terrific job at Monza. The family said, ‘Let’s go for top positions’ and I said, ‘Hang on, this is more or…

JUDGE RULES IN BMW 635 Former Caterham racer Tristan Judge enjoyed a good run in last Sunday’s Motor Racing Legends Historic Touring Car Challenge contest at Silverstone, finishing a class-winning seventh on his historic racing debut in the glorious BMW 635 CSi raced in 1983 by Italian Giuseppe Briozzo and Swiss Georges Bosshard. JACKSON’S HAYES RF90 BID Historic Formula Ford champion Cam Jackson will tackle this weekend’s Walter Hayes Trophy in a Van Diemen RF90. He will contest both the main draw and the Janet Cesar Trophy for pre-1993 cars. The RF90 belongs to Dave Morgan and was first raced by Neil Cunningham in 1991. It was also the last car Cunningham raced before his death from motor neurone disease in 2016. “It’s about the only era of Formula Ford…

BRITISH RALLYCROSS A European Rallycross event-winning Volvo C30 will join the British Rallycross Championship 5 Nations Trophy from the next event at Lydden Hill this weekend. Former Swift Sport category racer Dominic Flitney, who has made sporadic appearances with a self-built Subaru Impreza in the Supercar division, has acquired an ex-Frode Holte C30. The car made its debut at the Swedish round of Euro RX in 2010, finishing on the podium. Holte continued to race the Volvo through 2011, claiming multiple podiums and winning the French round at Essay. Following a failed attempt to run it full-time in American-based Global Rallycross in 2012, the C30 was campaigned in Europe by Holte and Daniel Holten, and was later sold to the Circle X team. “I had such a great time driving…

“You can’t have so many people so close on lap time and something not happen. There’s going to be drama.” Two-time Walter Hayes Trophy winner Michael Moyers’s prediction prior to the Formula Ford Festival final certainly proved accurate last weekend at Brands Hatch. Three major contenders wiped out in a substantial collision, Jamie Sharp putting in a faultless drive to win from sixth on the grid, and 10 cars covered by less than 2.5 seconds at the chequered flag all featured in the 50th edition of the Festival, which was one of the most tightly contested and thrilling in years. There was a general buzz in the outer paddock for the whole weekend, despite at times near-biblical weather, with just shy of 100 entrants intent on making the most of…

One notable omission from the Festival final line-up was last year’s victor Rory Smith, who failed to make it through the Last Chance race after his earlier off in the semi-final. “I couldn’t see anything [due to the spray] and I was on a much narrower line than I had been all weekend,” said Smith of his mistake at Paddock Hill Bend. “The back end went, I corrected it and went into the gravel.” Smith only made it onto the back of the Last Chance grid via the reserve list, starting 29th out of the 30 runners with only the top six progressing via the eight-lap dash. The odds were always stacked against him, and any chance of making it through disappeared when the race turned into a procession as…

SILVERSTONE MRL/MSVR 30-31 OCTOBER Lister-Jaguars rarely featured in period endurance races, but James Cottingham and Max Girardo reversed that trend on Sunday, outrunning three rampant Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe evocations in the three-hour Royal Automobile Club Pall Mall Cup event, climax of a tremendous livestreamed Motor Racing Legends weekend on Silverstone’s Historic Grand Prix circuit. The trophy is awarded to teams, however, and Hot Shots – Roy Alderslade/Andrew Jordan (Daytona Coupe), Chris Fox/Nick Pink (Lotus Elan) and Karsten Le Blanc/Christiaen van Lanschot (Austin-Healey 3000 DD300) – outpointed nine rivals. With damp patches off-line, legacy of a deluge – and mini-tornado – that delayed qualifying, Cottingham forged Girardo’s Costin-bodied car ahead at the start. He spun exiting Luffield, though, under pressure from British Touring Car star Rory Butcher in William Paul’s…

KNOCKHILL SMRC 31 OCTOBER Knockhill was run in the reverse direction for the Scottish Motor Racing Club’s season finale, but there was no reversal in fortunes for Michael Weddell, who sealed the Scottish Mini Cooper Cup crown in the opening race. The track was damp and slippery after morning rain and the Scottish Minis opened with the two championships running together, but split on the grid. The Cooper S R53 cars started ahead and Andrew Lamont won both races. But the less powerful Cooper Cup cars had three different winners. Neil Hose passed long-time race-one leader Weddell on the penultimate lap, but Weddell stayed in second and won his first championship title. Hose also led race two until lap four of 12, before Craig Blake grabbed the advantage and held…

ROYAL AUTOMOBILE CLUB ART OF MOTORING EXHIBITION Stefan Johansson is no stranger to the limelight. After all, he drove for Ferrari and McLaren in the 1980s during his Formula 1 career, and took overall glory at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1997. But it was a different environment where the Swede was the centre of attention this week, with several pieces of his artwork on display for the Royal Automobile Club’s Art of Motoring exhibition. The annual event was first staged in 2015, with last year’s exhibition held virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions. But in 2021, 16 leading artists have been showcasing their work as part of London Motor Week. Johansson’s passion for painting took on a new meaning following the death of his close friend, fellow F1 driver…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 wants more points to be up for grabs in sprint races next year as the championship edges closer to plans to host six Saturday races in 2022. Although only two of the three sprint qualifying trials of 2021 have taken place, with the last at this month’s Brazilian Grand Prix, F1 chiefs have already seen enough to be convinced that the format is a big hit with the majority of enthusiasts. While a final decision about the 2022 plans will be made in conjunction with teams and the FIA over the winter, F1 owner Liberty Media is working on its vision for what it thinks should change. F1 managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn has reiterated that six events is the target for 2022, with every…

SPORTSCARS Stand-out sportscar rookie Yifei Ye has landed a factory deal with Porsche for next year. The Chinese LMP2 driver’s contract is with the German manufacturer’s Asia Pacific arm, but the firm aim of the link-up is to put the 21-year-old in contention for an LMDh seat for 2023. Ye, winner of the 2021 European and Asian Le Mans Series, has been announced as a Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific-selected driver. It’s a kind of factory deal once removed, but one that crucially involves funding. The organisation’s first selected driver was Alessio Picariello. He was placed with the Dempsey-Proton Porsche team in the ELMS last year and made his debuts at the Le Mans and Nurburgring 24-hour races with the marque this year. Where Ye will race next year hasn’t been…

EXTREME E As part of his budget statement delivered in the House of Commons last week, Chancellor Rishi Sunak pledged a £1million investment to support Scotland’s bid to host an Extreme E event in 2022. Only thing is, when the championship revealed its provisional calendar for next season, the proposed race location in the Outer Hebrides was absent from the bewildering list of 12 countries for the tabled five-round campaign. But as Extreme E co-founder Alejandro Agag told Autosport, announcing a vastly oversubscribed schedule helps him “to negotiate. We’re not a charity, we’re a business.” In other words, he wants to tease out the highest bidders. The Outer Hebrides had also been in contention to replace the cancelled Brazil and Argentina events to round out the 2021 calendar, with the…

Story of Siffert’s accident stirs more memories Regarding Neil Salisbury’s letter last week on the subject of Jo Siffert’s fatal accident at Brands Hatch in October 1971, I have to say that I agree with his assessment. The late Tim Parnell told me in 1991 that Seppi and Ronnie Peterson collided on the first lap after Seppi made a poor getaway, and our late and much-missed buddy Alan Henry said, “I was there and it was one hell of a bump exiting Graham Hill Bend. They had all four wheels off the road.” Tim always believed that the collision, Ronnie’s right front to Seppi’s left rear, damaged the BRM’s left rear radius arm, which later broke going into Hawthorns. He also said that he later received a letter from “a…

When you hear Lewis Hamilton or Valtteri Bottas talk after a successful qualifying, they will often mention “changes made overnight” by the team that led to a lap time gain. While the drivers and engineers will do their own debriefs after Friday’s running, the simulator will provide some of the most crucial data and feedback to remedy any practice struggles before returning to the track on Saturday. Ex-Formula 1 driver Anthony Davidson is a stalwart in the Mercedes simulator, while reserve drivers Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries also contribute to its running. “They will start running the simulator pretty much during FP2,” says Dom Riefstahl. “As soon as that quali-type run has been done, and as soon as that data has been copied over, they start reproducing that lap.…

Barber Mspts Park 1 Alex Palou 2 Will Power 3 Scott Dixon O’Ward carries strong off-season testing momentum through to qualifying to deliver pole ahead of Rossi. But O’Ward uses his tyres too swiftly, and Rossi starts on half-tanks to keep up, so both fall backward after their first stops. That leaves Palou to score his first IndyCar win in his first race for Ganassi, holding off old masters Power and Dixon. St Petersburg 1 Colton Herta 2 Josef Newgarden 3 Simon Pagenaud Herta, as if making up for his errors at the same track the previous year, dominates the event, pursued doggedly by Newgarden. Harvey starts his Meyer Shank Racing car from the front row but drops to fourth, allowing Pagenaud to score his first podium of the year.…

Rarely has a surname defined a sport as McRae does with rallying. The famous family dynasty has lit up stages across the globe, putting the World Rally Championship on the map in Great Britain, and now there is a third-generation McRae looking to follow in the footsteps of Jimmy, Colin and Alister. Nine-thousand miles away from the family’s natural Scottish habitat, a new breed of McRae is starting out on a long rallying journey in Australia, one he wishes will result in bringing arguably the sport’s most famous name back to the WRC. Max McRae is the son of former WRC driver Alister, nephew to the late 1995 world champion Colin, and grandson of five-time British Rally champion Jimmy. To say he comes from good rallying stock is an understatement,…

SUPER FORMULA SUZUKA (JPN) 31 OCTOBER ROUND 7/7 Nirei Fukuzumi scored his second career Super Formula victory at the Suzuka season finale, the Dandelion Honda driver grabbing the win by passing Mugen rival Tomoki Nojiri – who had sealed the title last time out at Motegi – shortly after the pitstops. The pair had been promoted to first and second, Nojiri leading Fukuzumi, when polesitter and early leader Nobuharu Matsushita (B-Max) received a drivethrough penalty for moving slightly before the start. Fukuzumi was first to pit on lap 11 of 30, with Nojiri following suit one lap later, but a slow out-lap for the latter allowed Fukuzumi to sweep past at the Esses. Ryo Hirakawa (Impul) left his stop until two laps later and was able to overcut Nojiri to…

NASCAR CUP MARTINSVILLE (USA) 31 OCTOBER ROUND 35/36 Alex Bowman turned out to be the surprise winner in the NASCAR Cup playoff race at Martinsville Speedway, much to the dismay of Denny Hamlin. After battling side-by-side with Hamlin for several tours for the lead, Bowman got loose and spun Hamlin up the track as he grabbed the lead on lap 494 of 501. He then held off a wild charge by Kyle Busch and several other playoff contenders over a two-lap restart to earn his fourth win of the season. However, while Bowman was doing a celebratory burnout, Hamlin drove his Toyota Camry into the picture and the two cars ending up facing off nose-to-nose. “I just got loose underneath [him],” said Hendrick’s Bowman. “I’m not trying to crash the…

BRITISH GT McLaren has staged its latest evaluation test to determine places on its Driver Development Programme in 2022, with 14 drivers put under the microscope at Snetterton. Under the eyes of factory drivers Rob Bell, Ben Barnicoat, Joe Osborne and Euan Hankey, the hopefuls had two free practice sessions on Tuesday last week in a McLaren 570S GT4, then a qualifying and race run on Wednesday. They were also subjected to simulator and fitness assessments at iZone Driver Performance, alongside media interviews. McLaren will again place the four successful candidates with a DDP partner team, for which McLaren Automotive has started a tender process, in the British GT Championship’s GT4 division. In a new development, the best performer at the end of 2022 will be awarded a contract with…

FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL Jan Magnussen was reunited with his 1992 Formula Ford Festival-winning Van Diemen RF92 at last weekend’s 50th edition of the event. The ex-Formula 1 driver was a late entry to this year’s Festival after being persuaded to enter by his nephew, British GT champion Dennis Lind. At the wheel of a Low Dempsey Racing-run Ray GR14, Magnussen made it through to Sunday’s final at Brands Hatch and was classified 11th after starting 24th. The Dane found that his original car was also present and housed in the same awning in the paddock. “That was a pleasant surprise,” said Magnussen. “I knew it was around – Dario Franchitti [Magnussen’s 1994 British F3 team-mate] sent me a photo of it six or seven years ago I think, just to…

RALLYING The race to be crowned British Rally champion is going down to the final round, despite Osian Pryce extending his lead at the top of the standings by triumphing on the Cambrian Rally last weekend. With Irishman Noel O’Sullivan on the notes, Pryce never put a wheel wrong across the event’s seven special stages, the last of which switched from gravel to asphalt, to make it back-to-back BRC victories. “We did our work in the morning of the rally and managed to build on that,” said Volkswagen Polo driver Pryce. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy and it wasn’t, but we kept our noses clean and we stayed out of trouble to take the win. We came here knowing we had to win, we did what we had to…

OBITUARY Dessie Nutt, one of the most popular characters in historic rallying, died last week at the age of 70 after an illness. Nutt, a GP from Castlerock in Northern Ireland, was a very successful and experienced driver, best known for competing in his 1967 Category 1 Porsche 911, which served him well for 25 years and around 300 rallies. He started rallying in Minis in the early 1970s and had his last rally in the spring of 2019 on his beloved Isle of Man. In the 911 he won the overall British Historic Rally Championship in 2004 and 2009, partnered by Geraldine McBride. As well as being a great competitor, Dessie was a true gentleman, a fine raconteur and a good friend to many in the sport. He was…

BRANDS HATCH BRSCC FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL 30-31 OCTOBER The 50th edition of the Formula Ford Festival was always going to produce plenty of thrills and spills and, in the end, an unlikely winner emerged when Jamie Sharp took the coveted victory. The landmark 50th had attracted back former winners Roberto Moreno, Jan Magnussen and Dennis Lind, helping to create a buzz not felt at the event in years as nearly 100 cars battled for outright success. But it was two other former winners in the shape of Joey Foster (Don Hardman Racing Firman 2021) and Niall Murray (Team Dolan Van Diemen BD21) who lined up on the front row for the final. Both had taken comprehensive wins in their respective heats and semi-finals, and were each intent on being the…

FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL Heat 1 Jonathan Browne (Ray GR18) Heat 2 Joey Foster (Firman 2021, above) Heat 3 Max Esterson (Ray GR18) Heat 4 Niall Murray (Van Diemen BD21) Progression race 1 Michael Gray (Ray GR10) Progression race 2 Jack Kemp (Ray GR07) Semi-final 1 Niall Murray (Van Diemen BD21) Semi-final 2 Joey Foster (Firman 2021) Last Chance race Luke Cooper (Swift SC20) Historic final Matt Rivett (Van Diemen RF91, below) Final (20 laps) 1 Jamie Sharp (Medina Sport JL17); 2 Max Esterson (Ray GR18) +0.138s; 3 Andre Castro (Ray GR15); 4 Jordan Dempsey (Van Diemen RF00); 5 Chris Middlehurst (Van Diemen LA10); 6 Ivor McCullough (Van Diemen RF00). Fastest lap Middlehurst 50.787s (85.62mph). Pole Joey Foster (Firman 2021). Starters 30. MX-5 SUPERCUP Races 1 & 3 Jack Harding Race…

DONINGTON PARK FOCUS CUP Races 1, 2 & 3 Jamie Osborne CLUBMANS SPORTS PROTOTYPE Races 1 & 2 Mark Charteris (Mallock Mk21) ELISE TROPHY Races 1 & 2 Jason McInulty (above) TRACK ATTACK Race 1 Chris Bassett (Peugeot 306 GTI) Race 2 Andrew Neal (Peugeot 106 GTI) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com KNOCKHILL SCOTTISH MINIS Races 1 & 2 Andrew Lamont (Cooper S R53) Race 3 Chad Little (Cooper) SCOTTISH FIESTA ST CUP Races 1 & 2 Oly Mortimer SCOTTISH CLASSIC SPORTS AND SALOONS Races 1 & 2 Shonny Paterson (Triumph TR8) SCOTTISH C1 CUP Races 1 & 2 Sam Corson For full results visit: speedhive.mylaps.com…

The 2013 Sonoma IndyCar race is best remembered for Scott Dixon contacting a wheel carried by a member of Will Power’s pitcrew, who was tossed skywards. But for sportscar all-rounder Lucas Luhr, it’s also significant as the occasion of his only US open-wheel start. The then-34-year-old was offered a Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing entry by Honda Performance Development as a reward for his efforts in the American Le Mans Series with HPD’s LMP1 car, in which he was set to add a second consecutive title together with Klaus Graf. But Luhr hadn’t raced at Sonoma since 2004 in a Porsche GT car, or campaigned a single-seater since his Formula 3 days in 1998, so had a lot of unlearning to do, not least since the spec Dallara DW12 had “no…

WEC Anthony Davidson is calling time on his racing career with few regrets. Perhaps most significantly, a driver who will make his last professional race start in this weekend’s World Endurance Championship finale in Bahrain with the Jota LMP2 team has come to terms with failing to win the Le Mans 24 Hours. Davidson, who announced his retirement last Sunday, revealed he now has positive memories of the 2016 race in which the Toyota TS050 HYBRID he shared with Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima lost victory with six minutes remaining as the result of an engine issue. “It was heartbreaking at the time, one of the lowest moments of my career,” he said. “I don’t have the trophy at home, but in my mind I won that race in terms…

Jacques Villeneuve’s Euro NASCAR adventure finally featured a race win at Vallelunga last Saturday, and the 1997 F1 world champion then took a second victory on Sunday. Villeneuve, 50, overcame a five-second penalty for a jumped start to win the opener in his Academy Motorsport/Alex Caffi Motorsport Chevrolet. In the second, he made a mid-race pass on Loris Hezemans to move in front. Second place for Hezemans assured the Dutchman of the title, and he has now set his sights on part-time programmes next season with his Team Hezeberg squad in the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series. A crash put Vittorio Ghirelli out of contention for the title, leaving Hezemans to beat Gianmarco Ercoli.…

ITALIAN GT Brit Stuart Middleton had to settle for second place in the Italian GT Endurance series after a thrilling final round at Monza last weekend. Middleton and Imperiale Racing Lamborghini Huracan team-mates Alberto di Folco and Andrea Amici arrived at Monza in a three-way title battle against Audi Sport Italia trio Mattia Drudi, Lorenzo Ferrari and Riccardo Agostini and Scuderia Baldini Ferrari pair Daniel Zampieri and Stefano Gai. Amici led the opening stint from Zampieri and Agostini, before Middleton took over the Lambo for the middle portion of the three-hour race. He extended the lead to over 40 seconds before handing the car over to di Folco. The Lambo was still comfortably clear of Zampieri and Drudi when light rain began to fall with just over half an hour…

INDY PRO 2000 Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year finalist Louis Foster set the overall fastest time of post-season Indy Pro 2000 testing as he took his first step onto the Road to Indy ladder in the US. Foster, who finished runner-up in this year’s Euroformula Open rankings, topped three of the six sessions across two days on the Indianapolis road course with Exclusive Autosport. IP2000 is the middle of the three rungs on the Road to Indy’s IndyCar-supporting ladder, and Foster was joined at the test by fellow Brits Enaam Ahmed and Matt Round-Garrido. “This was my first time on this track with this team and we were just finding our feet really,” said Foster (below). “I have enjoyed the last two days. It has been…

As 2021’s nip-and-tuck Formula 1 title battle counts down, and DNF anxieties ramp up, it’s worth a glance beyond power unit reliability to anticipate the deciding factor. The Turkish Grand Prix demonstrated perfectly how a team’s number two driver can deny points to a rival contender. But F1 history informs us that occasionally circumstances conspire for the ‘wingman’ to be the final arbiter in the crowning of a champion, relinquishing track position at the season finale and thereby donating the requisite points that guarantee the crown for their contender team-mate. Here’s a reminder of F1’s four kingmakers over the decades, with a certain Italian team conspicuously prominent. F1’s most celebrated kingmaker is Peter Collins, uniquely instrumental in crowning Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956 with his fourth of five titles. Famously…

“RADIO CHECK” Two simple words and a crackle on the intercoms mark the start of an important day for Mercedes. It is the Saturday of the United States Grand Prix, and final practice is about to begin at the Circuit of The Americas. Lewis Hamilton trails Max Verstappen by six points at the top of the championship, making qualifying later in the day an important session as Mercedes looks to turn the tide in the title race. As the radio channels fire up and the final preparations are made in the Mercedes garage, 4800 miles away in Brackley a team of strategists and engineers are also getting ready for practice. They may not be physically beside their colleagues in Austin, but they are ready to play a critical role that…

Sebastien Buemi had just completed a three-lap stint on Sunday morning at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The fuel-pressure issue by now afflicting both Toyotas was getting ever worse, and it looked as though extended pitstops for the two cars would be required, stops that would put them out of contention. Then his engineer came over the radio and asked him to try something strange. It was the first of two off-the-wall ideas thought up in the heat of battle that enabled the Japanese manufacturer to take a fourth straight victory in the French enduro. Toyota may have looked to have had a straightforward run to victory at Le Mans back in August, its pair of new GR010 HYBRIDs finishing four and two laps up on third-placed Alpine. But the…

Pre-season there was little doubt that Scott McLaughlin was going to be rookie of the year because he was the only one set to compete in all rounds, and he was driving for Team Penske. In the end it was far closer than he wanted, only 33 points separating the Kiwi from Romain Grosjean. Part of this was down to Penske not being fastest in any of the races in the first half of the season, but it was also because McLaughlin was making the huge transition from touring cars to IndyCar with virtually no prior knowledge of open-wheel machinery. But he did enough to demonstrate that his form in the 2020 Spring Training at Circuit of The Americas had been no fluke, not only scoring a podium in his…

If ever Max McRae needed any inspiration to achieve his World Rally Championship dream, then a drive in his late uncle Colin’s 1997 Subaru Impreza WRC should do the trick. In 2019, McRae was lucky to drive the Subaru that won the 1997 Safari Rally in the hands of Colin and co-driver Nicky Grist for a special film that pitched Max, father Alister and grandad Jimmy against the clock on a stage in the Welsh forests. While Alister came out on top, Max, then aged 15 and driving a WRC car for the first time, put in a time two seconds faster than Jimmy. “You are kinda lost for words,” says Max. “If I did it again now I would really understand how much it means. I was a bit…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN MONZA (ITA) 30-31 OCTOBER ROUND 10/10 The use of sausage kerbs to enforce track limits for single-seaters and team-mates wiping out in a battle for victory were the key talking points as the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine season drew to a dramatic close at Monza. Prema Powerteam’s polesitting Dino Beganovic was chasing his first win of the year in race two, having held the lead at two safety restarts and while under pressure from stablemate David Vidales, when the flashpoint arrived. Vidales had a sniff around the outside on entry to the Roggia Chicane, then was squeezed out as both elected to cut the second apex. Vidales kept his foot in as he rejoined the circuit but clattered over the sleeping policeman and was vaulted…

GB4 Ten teams have declared an interest in joining the new-for-2022 GB4 Championship, including two National Formula Ford squads. Oldfield Motorsport and Kevin Mills Racing have successfully run FF1600 cars for many years, including respective outright wins at the Formula Ford Festival and Walter Hayes Trophy. Both squads are set to join the new championship, which was given approval last month by the country’s governing body, Motorsport UK, to run 15-year-olds. The MotorSport Vision-organised series will use the Gen1 Tatuus F4-T014 chassis hitherto raced in many series including the Italian and German. The new category is designed to be an entry point to single-seaters, with budgets expected to be between £90,000 and £120,000, and the champion receiving £50,000, which they can use to race in GB3 in 2023. “We’ve been…

FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL GT stalwart Chris Goodwin competed at last weekend’s Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch in the same Van Diemen RF89 he raced more than three decades ago. Goodwin – a test driver with Aston Martin and previously McLaren, and who was Pro-Am class champion in the 2020 GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup – secured the 1989 Champion of Brands title with the chassis, and was in fine form again at the circuit. He just missed out on a spot in the final, finishing seventh in the Last Chance race, but had already grabbed silverware when he claimed third place in the Historic final. “I bought it [the car] a few years ago and Pete Alexander is someone I have known since the 1980s and got it…

GINETTA JUNIOR Ginetta Junior runner-up Liam McNeilly will continue in the series for a third season in 2022, becoming just the fourth driver to have finished in the top two and remained in the category the following year. The Fox Motorsport racer explained that the decision to stay in the series was due to his 16th birthday falling at the end of April, meaning he would miss the start of the season for a senior championship as well as important preparation time. “With my age, I would only be able to do F4 next season [as an alternative] and the route I want to take is GTs – and we don’t feel F4 is the most productive thing to do,” he said. Instead, McNeilly is targeting success at next weekend’s…

HRDC ALLSTARS The Oxford Universities Motorsport Foundation student-run 1960 Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite evocation took an impressive fifth in class on its debut in last weekend’s Historic Racing Drivers Club Allstars race at Silverstone. The car (below) has been five years in the making and is built round a shell donated by John Yea, outgoing director of British Motor Heritage, with body panels provided by Steve Hall of Hall’s Garage and mechanical components gifted from across the industry. But the Sebring Sprite’s participation was jeopardised by a major problem three days beforehand. “Nick Swift [of Swiftune] is an absolute hero,” said Ding Boston, who founded OUMF in 2005. “He had students living with him while they built the engine but, while we were running it up on axle stands in preparation…

Roberto Moreno’s highly anticipated return to the Festival, aboard the same specification of Van Diemen RF80 with which he won the event in 1980, was sadly one of misfortune. The one-time Formula 1 podium finisher was on course to qualify for the semi-finals from his heat aboard the Van Diemen, which was in the same livery he used at the Festival 41 years ago, when he was hit from behind by Lewis Fox at Druids, with Fox later being disqualified. “Somebody bumped me in the back and left his nosecone in my gearbox,” said Moreno, who rejoined but wasn’t classified since the race was red-flagged for the incident. “He punted me so hard that I spun. That was a mistake he made, he came and apologised. It just happens.” Moreno’s…

Eight races for three Mazda MX-5 championships, all of them still to be decided, provided a fitting support programme for the cut-and-thrust excitement of the Formula Ford Festival. Reigning Supercup champion Samuel Smith took a 14-point lead to Brands Hatch but, with a maximum of 300 points at stake over three races, there was plenty of scope for things to change. Smith was always in contention for race one victory, but Jack Harding overtook before the first safety car intervention. James Cossins also passed Smith before a second caution period, which resulted in the safety car leading the field to an early chequered flag. Race two, in dreadful Sunday morning conditions, was reduced to three racing laps after a shunt within seconds of the start and a lengthy caution. Smith…

DONINGTON PARK MSVR 30 OCTOBER Ginetta Junior graduate Jamie Osborne made it three wins out of three on his debut in the Focus Cup at Donington Park. From pole, Osborne instantly got to grips with the turbodiesel machinery and made his decisive escape on the opening lap of a wet first race, with Simon Walton heading the initial pursuit from Lewis Ryan. After ousting Ryan on lap three, Simon Rudd reeled in Walton, and took second into the chicane three laps later. But Osborne was a long way up the road, taking the win by over 12 seconds from Rudd, who secured the title. Walton kept Ryan at bay for third. Ian Mitchell led the opening lap of race two before running wide, and Ryan and Osborne therefore headed a…

The arrival of the knockout Formula Ford 1600 contests is a sure sign that the national racing season is approaching its conclusion. The drama of these traditional end-of-year staples is one of the many hints that the current campaign is drawing to a close, a final bout of excitement before much of UK motorsport goes into hibernation. They coincide with depressing features of this early November period, such as the clocks having just gone back and darkness descending ever earlier – and never-ending Christmas TV adverts! But, despite the battle to top Autosport’s National Driver Rankings entering its final throes and there being just eight race events scheduled in the remainder of 2021, it’s sure to provide some late-season entertainment. It’s far from certain who will end the year in…

Phil Hill (#4 Ferrari 156) and team-mate Wolfgang von Trips fight for the lead of the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix. The Italian manufacturer dominated proceedings at Spa, qualifying 1-2-3-5 (Hill, von Trips, Olivier Gendebien and Richie Ginther, with the Cooper-Climax T53 of John Surtees crashing the party in fourth). Graham Hill (BRM-Climax P48/57) rocketed into the lead at the start of the race, but before the end of the first lap the four Ferraris were back ahead. Home hero Gendebien, who was driving a yellow 156 on loan from the factory squad, led briefly, but the lesser output of his car’s older-spec V6 meant his moment of glory was short-lived, and it was Hill and von Trips who diced up front for the bulk of the 30-lap race distance, the…