Indholdsfortegnelse for 06/01/22 i Autosport

Two star drivers in one squad can cause fireworks. It’s great for the fans but not necessarily for the teams involved. Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren is perhaps the most infamous example, though the Lewis Hamilton-Nico Rosberg era was also painful for Mercedes at times, despite all the success the combination scored. Things don’t have to get nasty, as Niki Lauda and Prost proved at McLaren, but the more successful squads in recent years have tended to employ a pretty clear pecking order. Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello at Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber at Red Bull, Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes. Putting George Russell with Hamilton is a risk for Toto Wolff, but it’s one taken knowing that he has to look to the future.…

BTCC British Touring Car Championship rising star Jake Hill has secured a seat with the West Surrey Racing BMW squad, where he is expected to join four-time champion Colin Turkington and Stephen Jelley. Hill makes the move thanks to the MB Motorsport concern of Mark Blundell, under whose banner he finished fifth in the 2021 BTCC points with a Motorbase-run Ford Focus before joining Blundell’s management stable. Although Hill’s BMW 330e M Sport (redubbed from ‘33oi’ thanks to the switch to hybrid power) will be run as a full WSR entry, it will be entered as MB Motorsport Powered by ROKiT, outside the squad’s Team BMW nomenclature in the same way as 2019 series runner-up Andrew Jordan’s Pirtek Racing identity. It will be Hill’s first taste of a rear-wheel-drive NGTC…

WEC World Endurance Championship LMP2 runners-up Stoffel Vandoorne, Tom Blomqvist and Sean Gelael look set to switch from the British Jota squad to the 2021 title-winning WRT operation for the coming season. They appear increasingly certain to be part of what the Belgian team has confirmed will be an expanded squad of two ORECA-Gibson 07s in 2022. It is known that Jota is no longer working with the Gelael family, which bankrolled its #28 entry through its Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in its Indonesian homeland. WRT boss Vincent Vosse, meanwhile, has admitted that he has had discussions with the Gelaels, but insisted that his driver line-ups for the 2022 WEC are yet to be set in stone. “I can confirm that we have made two entries, but the drivers are…

Compared to the year before, the 2021 Formula 1 season was much more ‘normal’. Not ‘completely back to normal’, as we’ve all said and hoped for so many times during these infernal pandemic times, but closer than many might have thought this time 12 months ago. In what is currently a difficult time for the FIA given the furore surrounding the governing body’s rather shambolic handling of many contentious sporting decisions last season, full credit must be handed to the organisation, plus the rest of F1’s stakeholders, for the achievement of pulling off 2021 and that campaign of campaigns. “We can be very proud of what we have achieved,” says FIA operations director Bruno Famin. “The only [events] we have been obliged to cancel or to postpone was due to…

We need to talk about Charles Leclerc Alex Kalinauckas’s 16 December column reflecting on race direction and stewarding was an excellent summation and provided for me his best piece of the year. However, we have to talk about Charles Leclerc. Just listened to the F1 review podcast and the comment that his season was “criminally underrated”. Clearly not by Autosport! Global survey, ninth; team bosses, sixth; and your rating, fourth. You say that he was nailed on for Monaco but the mechanics discovered damage. He bent it. You say he had a good first half but no luck in the second half where he got beaten in the championship by his new team-mate who was unlucky in the first half of the year. This is in a team where Leclerc…

Autosport’s Top 50 drivers of the year rankings always cause controversy and debate – both within our office and the wider motorsport world. It’s our attempt to assess and highlight the best performers each season, but that doesn’t stop some fans (and even drivers) getting very cross about the final list. The 2021 Top 50, which was topped by Formula 1 world championship runner-up Lewis Hamilton, was the 20th edition. Since the inaugural list in 2002, 292 drivers have appeared in the Top 50, some consistently, some just the once, while others have fallen in and out as their careers ebb and flow. Autosport launched the Top 50 in the 19-26 December 2002 issue of the magazine, when it covered only six pages as opposed to the 26 in 2021,…

Extreme E isn’t short of commercial partners and TV rights deals with major broadcasters. It’s no coincidence that in every press release announcing such a tie up, brands are keen to highlight how this new relationship shows their environmental conscience. But what are they tapping into? For a series that says it exists to serve a wider purpose, how successful has the climate crisis-targeting modus operandi been? Pleasingly, the paddock is small. While camera angles avoid capturing car parks and catering tents, the set-up is less than an average UK national meeting. Of course, there are champagne-sipping hospitality goers, but if they open their cheque books in return then that’s no bad thing. What’s good is that the size of the prawn sandwich brigade didn’t dramatically shoot up tenfold for…

ENDUROKA A second new 24-hour race will be held in the UK this year when the popular EnduroKa series visits Anglesey. The event will be the first time in 10 years that MotorsportVision Racing has run a meeting at the North Wales venue, and is due to be held on 2-3 June (bank holiday Thursday and Friday to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee). The EnduroKa series was created in 2019 as a cost-effective means of going racing. Up until now, the longest race has been a 12-hour contest at Snetterton, but the long-term plan centred on a 24-hour race. “It has always been our ambition to introduce a 24-hour race, but our priority first and foremost has always been to ensure that we’re offering competitors an excellent, cost-effective package with…

GB3 Hillspeed has signed Nick Gilkes as its first driver for the 2022 GB3 Championship campaign. The 16-year-old younger brother of W Series driver Megan Gilkes won the Canadian F1600 title in 2021 and also competed in the end-of-season Formula Ford Festival and Walter Hayes Trophy fixtures with Kevin Mills Racing – his best result of 20th coming in the latter event. Gilkes tested one of Hillspeed’s older spec GB3 cars at Silverstone during a two-day outing in early November, having never raced slicks and wings before. “I can’t wait to get started in February with a test programme,” he said. “In the meantime, I will be building my fitness levels, running a couple of races in the US, and doing a lot of sim work to ensure I can…

RACING STAR UNDER WAY Qualifying is under way for the first round of the Racing Star Esports initiative that offers two teenagers fully-funded drives in British Formula 4 in 2023. The brainchild of FIA Single-Seater Commission president Bob Fernley, 14-15-year-olds can now enter the Silverstone opener and the 20 fastest boys and girls by 2 February will get to compete in the first race. The top 16 male and female drivers after the five rounds will take part in the finals in May. GINETTA TEAM EXPANDS Race Car Consultants plans to run an expanded five-car operation in the Ginetta GT5 Challenge this year. Podium finishers Nat Hodgkiss, a former British Formula 4 racer, and 2020 Fiesta Junior runner-up Will Orton will continue with the team. Mazda MX-5 competitor Kian Donaldson…

It’s been a long and eventful road to a first British GT win for Richard Neary since his entry into the championship with a BMW Z4 back in 2016. In the intervening years, he’s had his car engulfed in flames, causing burns to his co-driver Adam Christodoulou (Spa 2018), been hooked into the wall at flat chat (Oulton Park 2017) and suffered heartbreak when a gearbox let go while well-placed to challenge at Silverstone last year. But, when his Team Abba Mercedes-AMG GT3 came across the line first at Donington Park in July, the result was made even sweeter by the fact that his 19-year-old son Sam was at the wheel for the giant-killing performance of the year. The Neary family had already emerged as regular winners in Bute Motorsport’s…

Rickard Rydell is best known for his tin-top exploits during a 20-year run as a professional driver that peaked with the 1998 British Touring Car Championship title. But had the first of his manufacturer affiliations panned out differently, he might never have gone on to represent Volvo, Ford, SEAT and Chevrolet in saloons. The Swede had been courted by Toyota partner team TOM’S after impressing at the 1989 Macau Grand Prix and would be paid to race in Japanese Formula 3 the following year. But future F1 team boss Eddie Jordan – who signed Rydell to a management contract as part of his 1989 British F3 deal – had arranged for him to contest a dual programme in British Formula 3000 and sportscars that restricted him to just four Japanese…

BMW Z4 GT3 Nicky Catsburg’s choice of the BMW Z4 GT3 as his favourite car should come as little surprise, as it’s the machine that launched the BMW factory driver’s professional career. The Dutch racer had dominated the Megane Trophy in 2010, and gained GT1 experience in Nissan and Chevrolet Corvette machinery in the 2011 world championship, but had to stump up for a parallel programme in a DB Motorsport Z4 in the FIA GT3 European championship. “It was with a gentleman so the budgets were lower than we were expecting, but I paid for driving,” he says. In 2012 Catsburg “had to settle for something way less because we didn’t have the money anymore”, but a lifeline from top BMW customer concern Marc VDS proved the making of his…

FORMULA 1 Newly elected FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem says he is confident that Lewis Hamilton will not walk away from Formula 1 after his controversial title defeat in last month’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Hamilton missed out on a record-breaking eighth world championship after being passed by Max Verstappen on the final lap following a late restart by race control. Mercedes initially protested the restart procedure and considered a further appeal, but ultimately put an end to pursuing any action after the FIA announced that it would launch a full investigation into what happened in Abu Dhabi. Mercedes F1 chief Toto Wolff said that both he and Hamilton were “disillusioned” in the wake of events in Abu Dhabi, and that he “would very much hope that Lewis continues racing”.…

SPA The extent of the changes being made to the Spa circuit has been revealed in new images released of ongoing work at the Belgian Grand Prix venue. The major revamp is part of an upgrade aimed at improving safety, and homologating the circuit for motorbikes. The construction work, which began on 15 November, is set to cost the venue around €80million, but should help secure its long-term future for top categories including Formula 1. Spa wants to host a 24-hour motorbike race as part of the FIM Endurance World Championship in June, as well as its major car events including the Belgian GP, the Spa 24 Hours and its World Endurance Championship round. For the two-wheeled event, the track needed to be upgraded to earn an FIM licence, and…

FORMULA 3 Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year finalist and newly appointed Ferrari protege Ollie Bearman has joined top team Prema Racing to contest this season’s FIA Formula 3 Championship. Bearman makes the step up after becoming the first driver in history to win both of Europe’s two premier Formula 4 titles – the Italian and the German – in a campaign in which he won 17 races. He joined Prema for the end-of-season F3 test at Valencia, where he ran alongside Red Bull junior Jak Crawford, Mercedes F1 protege Paul Aron and fellow Ferrari Driver Academy recruit Arthur Leclerc. Prema drivers have won all three editions of the FIA F3 Championship since it was born out of GP3 in 2019. “We worked really well together in…

OBITUARY ‘Mr Lyncar’ Martin Slater, who died last month aged 84, was far more than a Formula 1 cameo role player. A fine designer/fabricator/engineer and lateral thinker, his cars won British Formula Atlantic championships with New Zealander John Nicholson in 1973 and 1974. Slater raced the Slater Special – Cheetah Mk1 – in FJunior (1963) and F3 (1964), then worked with Lola, fledgling March, McLaren and Ron Tauranac before building the first Lyncar, named for wife Lynda. Hewland engineer Mike Endean raced the Ford twin-cam powered 001 in 1972, Nicholson its BDA-engined twin. ‘Johnny Nick’s’ Mallory Park win was the marque’s first. Nicholson (the boss of Nicholson McLaren Engines) and sponsor Bruno Drury of Pinch Plant bankrolled the F1 Lyncar. Debuted at the 1974 Race of Champions, 006 placed sixth…

Following his test of a Formula 1 McLaren in the autumn of 2018, Jimmie Johnson wasn’t reticent regarding his post-NASCAR career. No plans were in place but he said he wanted to try out IndyCars – on road courses specifically – and he wanted to return to sports-prototypes, where he had impressed in occasional forays in the Grand-Am series. In 2020, those sparks of desire were fanned into flames and it came to pass that the seven-time NASCAR Cup champion ran all road and street course races in the 2021 IndyCar season driving a Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara-Honda. After more than two decades in stock cars, and with the number of IndyCar test days so heavily restricted in this era, it was hardly a surprise to see Johnson having to…

Sorry, Ferrari, but the mantle of having the best driver line-up in Formula 1 may well be about to slip. That’s after just one season of the Charles Leclerc/Carlos Sainz Jr pairing. And that’s because one of the championship’s ‘superteams’ just got a few more powers. There’s still the rest of the off-season to go before it becomes known how the reigning constructors’ champion has coped with the second major rules reset to come its way since mastery of the V6 hybrid switch catapulted Mercedes into heading F1’s pecking order. But, on paper at least, the second change to its driver line-up since 2014 – and the first one it has decided to do all by itself considering the circumstances of Nico Rosberg’s post-title retirement five years ago – provides…

There’s a Cook afoot in the British Touring Car Championship kitchen, rustling up a tasty title challenge for 2022. Amid the series’ big-name winter moves, as things stand we can likely (albeit unconfirmed) expect Josh Cook in a BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R for a fourth successive season. Yet somehow, the tall West Country redhead doesn’t register with tin-top followers in the same way as some of the other top names. That will surely change. Perhaps it already is changing. He’s a modest bloke, one who doesn’t blow his own trumpet, yet his charge to third in the 2021 points – where he tied Ash Sutton for most wins with five – indicates that Cook is a force. From his first BTCC race win in April 2018, he’s scored…

In this disruptive series, should Chip Ganassi Racing have been the disruptive team? The names of driver pairing Sara Price and Kyle Leduc didn’t carry much weight on an entry sheet that featured Sebastien Loeb and Johan Kristoffersson. But the American outfit lays a claim to being the lost champion. Of the 19 waypoints marking the Senegal course, Leduc was fastest through 13 of them. He and Price were second only to qualifying topper X44 on the Dakar beach in Q1, third in Q1 in Greenland, second again behind X44 in Q2 in Sardinia. And they were nailed on for victory on the Italian island with a 45s lead in the final until a toe link failed. And that was the tone of CGR’s campaign: blinding pace, woeful reliability and…

PRAGA Sim racing YouTube star Jimmy Broadbent will continue to race a real-life Praga this year, having made his competition debut last season. Broadbent was part of Praga’s guest driver programme and spent much of the Britcar Endurance campaign sharing an R1 with 2020 champion Jem Hepworth. He then took his first two wins alongside former Ginetta GT5 Challenge frontrunner Gordie Mutch in the Donington Park finale. Broadbent will again race a factory-run R1 in 2022 as the Czech sportscar manufacturer operates a standalone Praga Cup series for the first time with his team-mate for the season yet to be confirmed. “I’m really excited to be continuing with Praga,” he said. “I finished this season with two wins at Donington just as I was hitting my stride, so I can’t…

BRITISH F4 Double British Karting champion Daniel Guinchard has become the latest driver announced for British Formula 4 this year. He secured both the Junior X30 and Junior Rotax titles last season with Argenti Motorsport and will continue with the team as he steps up to single-seaters. Guinchard has already completed a number of test days in the old Mygale-Ford British F4 car ahead of the revamped category’s switch to the second-generation Tatuus-Abarth machine for 2022. “I’m really excited to start my next racing career move in cars,” he said. “I know there is a lot for me to learn but I know I have the best people guiding me through this experience. “When I first joined the Argenti Motorsport kart team in December 2020, I had heard good things…

New Year’s resolutions. Yep, it’s that time of year again when many are setting goals for the next 12 months – some of which inevitably fall by the wayside as the realities of life make them difficult to stick to. Two years ago, Autosport (9 January, 2020) set five resolutions for the world of club racing, and it is interesting to see whether they were achieved. The pandemic helped with two of them as, since COVID-19 hit, there has been far greater collaboration between clubs and that’s set to continue this year. And it helped solve the issue of organisers booking too much track time. The shortened 2020 campaign meant available dates were at such a premium that there was no wastage. The three-month hiatus between March and June 2020…

It was one of the worst-kept secrets in national paddocks last season, with little attempt to hide the news that many welcomed. The popular Clio 182 Championship was going to introduce a new model of car, the Renault Clio 197/200, and the series was being rebranded as the Clio Sport Championship. Despite it only being officially announced in November at MotorsportDays LIVE, those already in the 750 Motor Club-run championship were informed of the proposed change months earlier in order to gauge interest and gather feedback. “It’s not exactly been a secret around the Clio paddock – we made all the drivers aware at the beginning of 2021 what the plan was,” says James Winstanley, 750MC commercial manager. That plan is to breathe fresh air into the championship, which has…

David Coulthard soaks up victory at the 2002 Monaco Grand Prix, flanked by the Schumacher brothers. Starting second on the grid, his McLaren beat pole position winner Juan Pablo Montoya into Ste Devote and held off the Colombian until the Williams suffered a BMW engine failure. Coulthard emerged from his single pitstop with a one-second advantage over Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari, then managed his lead until the flag. It would be his only win of a season dominated by Ferrari, Schumacher scoring 11 victories and Rubens Barrichello four. Ralf Schumacher, third here, won in Malaysia. For classic Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/f1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

FORMULA 1 Mick Schumacher will jointly serve as Ferrari’s Formula 1 reserve driver this year, balancing the role with his Haas racing commitments. Schumacher will be on standby to deputise for either Charles Leclerc or Carlos Sainz Jr for 11 of this year’s 23 races, meaning he would be pulled out of the Haas cockpit if required. Ex-Alfa Romeo F1 driver Antonio Giovinazzi will be the nominated reserve for the remaining 12 races. Schumacher will enter his second F1 season in 2022 with Haas. The 2020 Formula 2 champion and son of seven-time F1 title winner Michael Schumacher, who won five of his crowns with Ferrari in the 2000s, graduated to F1 last year as a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy. “It will be his second season [in F1],…

DAYTONA 24 HOURS Jose Maria Lopez is teaming up with Toyota World Endurance Championship team-mate Kamui Kobayashi for his Daytona 24 Hours debut this month. The Argentinian will drive the second Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi contender (right, below) in the IMSA SportsCar opener on 29-30 January. Lopez joins Kobayashi, Mike Rockenfeller and Jimmie Johnson in the Caddy run in conjunction with the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR squad, which will contest the four long-distance IMSA races. Kobayashi, Rockenfeller and Johnson have also been confirmed for the subsequent Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta rounds. “It’s good to be a ‘rookie’ after 30 years of racing,” said Lopez (right), who retained his WEC title last November with Kobayashi and Mike Conway. “I’ve been trying to race in North America for a long…

We like this! The Bermat GT-Pista was unveiled in Turin before Christmas. Designed and engineered by Milan-based JAS Motorsport, Honda’s European customer racing house for touring cars and GT3, its carbonfibre chassis is powered by a two-litre, in-line four-cylinder engine capable of 320-400bhp, driven through a six-speed sequential gearbox – plus a moveable pedal box, handy for lanky and shorty drivers alike… The track-only car goes on sale early this year, with road versions to follow.…

WRC The FIA is searching for a new rally director following the shock departure of Yves Matton less than a month before the start of the World Rally Championship’s new Rally1 hybrid era. Matton joined the FIA as rally director in 2018 and has been a key figure in the genesis of the WRC’s Rally1 machinery, which makes its debut on this month’s Monte Carlo Rally. A former competitor, the Belgian previously enjoyed two stints as team manager and team principal of Citroen’s factory WRC operation, before he was appointed as the FIA’s head of rallying by outgoing president Jean Todt. An official statement from the FIA said: “The FIA acknowledges Yves Matton’s decision to move forward to new challenges after four years as the Rally Director. Under his leadership,…

DTM/SPORTSCARS Former DTM champion Martin Tomczyk has hung up his helmet and is taking up a behind-the-scenes role with the German championship. Tomczyk, 40, was promoted from Formula 3 to the DTM with Audi in 2001, and went on to claim the 2011 title for the marque with Phoenix Racing. He then joined BMW as reigning champion when it re-entered the DTM in 2012, and represented the Munich manufacturer for 10 years, latterly as part of its GT roster. The German has joined DTM promoter the ITR, taking on a management role for the GT4-based DTM Trophy as well as assisting with the main series’ “external communications”. “When it hurts the most, it’s the right time,” said Tomczyk. “The step is neither easy, nor has it been easy for me.…

Fangio and Moss Mercedes Mercedes had struggled to find consistent support for Juan Manuel Fangio in 1954 and signed rising British star Stirling Moss for the following season. Moss dutifully fulfilled the protege role and the duo scored three 1-2s. The W196s steamrollered the opposition, losing only once as Fangio comfortably took his third drivers’ title. Brooks and Moss Vanwall Moss was in the lead role when he joined Vanwall in 1957, but Tony Brooks was also one of the world’s top drivers. Moss took over the car started by the injured Brooks to win the British GP to get the ball rolling. They each won three races for the team in 1958, helping Vanwall to beat Ferrari to the first F1 constructors’ crown. Hill and Clark Lotus Jim Clark…

It’s the same question we posed after the debut season of Formula E – Alejandro Agag’s other famous motorsport creation. The short answer, then as now, is largely positive. Unlike its effective sister series, Extreme E hasn’t inspired and overcome an almost immediate financial breaking point (yet) and there’s been no investor coup. They share the merit of a brilliant driver rollcall, and both created sound racing in spectacular locations. However, no one is singing the praises of the machinery this time around and manufacturers aren’t expected to queue up to take part. The world has moved on in the seven years since Formula E was launched. Electric racing has become far less countercultural. While Extreme E and its chunky Odyssey 21 tap successfully into the automotive zeitgeist and the…

AlUla, Saudi Arabia 1 Rosberg X Racing 2 Andretti United 3 X44 The desert dust creates a visibility problem to already force format changes for XE’s grand debut. It’s X44 that comes out on top in the new single-car qualifying runs. But RXR storms through to the inaugural win thanks to Kristoffersson’s blind passes into the first corner. Agag has his proof of concept once again. Dakar, Senegal 1 Rosberg X Racing 2 Veloce Racing 3 JBXE Kleinschmidt massively impresses as she’s drafted in to replace a very ill Claudia Hurtgen at Abt Cupra. Third in the combined qualifying times puts her and Ekstrom behind RXR and X44 only. An early tag for the pair in the finale eliminates Hamilton’s car to leave RXR with a second victory in an…

The first images of the new-for-2022 GB3 Championship car have been released. The Tatuus MSV-022 was unveiled at Bedford Autodrome just before Christmas and will be used in the MotorSport Vision-run category this year. It features a halo head protection device, as well as further safety improvements compared with its predecessor. On the performance side, the car is set to produce 25% more downforce than last year’s machine, while the Mountune-prepared two-litre, four-cylinder normally aspirated engine now produces 250bhp. Teams are expected to get hold of the new chassis this week.…

MALLORY PARK 750MC PLUM PUDDING 26 DECEMBER Jon-Paul Ivey and Ash Hicklin shared the Sports Car victories at the traditional finale to the racing year at a stygian Mallory Park. The two Radical protagonists were comfortably the class of the field for the 750 Motor Club-organised contests. Ivey elected to start at the back for the opener, concerned not to ruin his – or anyone else’s – Boxing Day by stalling on the grid at the beginning of his first race in two years. His PR6 was turning a wheel for the first time since it intermittently stopped without warning last time out. “We’ve changed everything, and it doesn’t seem to be doing it now,” he said. He soon shook off the rust, climbing to second within half a lap…

BOOK REVIEW QPRS: F1 GRAND PRIX RACING BY THE NUMBERS Clyde Berryman RRP £69 For much of the Formula 1 2021 season finale at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it appeared as though Lewis Hamilton would move clear of the joint record he shared with Michael Schumacher and claim his eighth title. As we know, he didn’t, but if he had, he’d be regarded as the greatest F1 driver of all-time, right? Statistically he already has the most wins, poles, points and laps led to his name, and to some he is the greatest, achieving his successes in the fastest cars ever to hit the track. But to others, his achievements are down to the car he drives in a period where driver skill counts for less than in decades…

Jonathan Palmer is best known for his exploits in Formula 1 (both racing and commentating) as well as for being the boss of circuit operator MotorSport Vision. But, long before he was in charge of Brands Hatch, Palmer was also a rallycross winner at the Kent track. Driving John Welch’s Xtrac Ford Escort in the British Rallycross Grand Prix at Brands in 1987, Palmer was in the thick of the action as he swapped disciplines and achieved a victory in the B final. In the picture above, he can be seen defending from Trevor Hopkins’s Ford RS200. The main A final was won by Mikael Nordstrom. For classic 1980s rallycross DVDs head to dukevideo.com/rallycross…