Indholdsfortegnelse for 4/28/2022 i Autosport

Red Bull’s Formula 1 fightback was always likely to come sooner rather than later, but it was unfortunate for Ferrari and its fans that the blue team’s first 1-2 for six years should arrive on Italian soil last weekend. As Matt Kew shows in our race report on page 14, Red Bull had a small but significant edge at Imola, while a few Ferrari slips – most notably Charles Leclerc’s first big error of the year – made it an emphatic success. Max Verstappen’s maximum haul of 34 points puts him where the performance has always been this year – up near the top of the table battling Leclerc. Ferrari now has to respond, which will be the true test of the team’s championship mettle. One thing Ferrari shouldn’t be…

FORMULA 1 Sebastian Vettel says his Formula 1 future with Aston Martin hinges on how he and the team respond to “the mountain ahead of us” in trying to improve the car. “It will depend on obviously how this year goes and then take it from there,” said Vettel. “The focus is on the now and on the mountain ahead of us that we try to climb, and we won’t climb it in a day, we won’t climb it in a month. “But we will choose the path that we climb, which will determine the next three to four years, so that’s why I feel it’s really important to focus on that and it takes all the attention.” Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack added that it would be “foolish”…

FORMULA E Canada continues its wait to host its second Formula E round with the cancellation of this summer’s Vancouver race. The electric series was scheduled to visit the British Columbian city on 2 July, five years after its previous Canadian event in Montreal (right) in 2017. The Quebec city then canned its race, which was labelled by the city’s mayor Valerie Plante as a “financial fiasco”. The Vancouver race was planned as the focal point of the Canadian E-Fest festival, a weekend dedicated to promoting sustainability across motorsport and the automotive and business sectors. The festival and race would have been held around the False Creek area of Vancouver, which previously held CART and Champ Car rounds from 1990 to 2004. Canadian news outlets have reported that the race…

WTCR The World Touring Car Cup has continued its quest for unusual venues by fixing a date for the little-known Anneau du Rhin circuit in France on 6-7 August. Following last year’s visit to the picturesque Pau-Arnos track in the south-west of France, WTCR will now venture to the Alsace homeland of uncle-nephew world tin-top champions Yvan Muller and Yann Ehrlacher. The 2.25-mile Anneau du Rhin layout (right) is inspired by Paul Ricard, but thankfully is surrounded by trees rather than horrid blue lines. Caroline Bugatti, granddaughter of Bugatti founder Ettore, is a board member at the circuit. That round comes two weeks after a stop-off in Italy at Vallelunga. That circuit, north of Rome, was a regular fixture for the European Touring Car Championship – a forerunner of the…

Charles Leclerc was too determined in his chase of Sergio Perez as he tried to turn a definite third place into a possible second at Imola. In pursuit of the Red Bull driver, he nibbled too much inside kerb at the Variante Alta chicane. That spat his Ferrari off. The car escaped from underneath him to spin into the tyre wall. Fortunately, the impact was side-on, and he sustained front-wing damage rather than terminally buckled suspension. It was a minor error of judgement, but an error nonetheless – something that comes with the territory of a driver racing with the bit between their teeth and ultimately pushing too hard. It was an easy mistake to make and yet still an inexcusable one. Being accident prone every now and again appears…

“Yellows ahead, Max. Yellows, yellows, yellows!” Race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase left Max Verstappen in little doubt about the status of the final sector. The reigning champion obliged, lifted off and gently pulled for a downshift in respect of Valtteri Bottas parking up with a broken exhaust. That deliberate hesitation meant he kept his lap to snare pole for the first sprint contest of 2022. In truth, the Red Bull racer was far from perfect in Q3. He’d corrected a slide at Tamburello and locked up at Rivazza to concede a tenth to Charles Leclerc on his first hot lap on intermediates. But when it counted, Verstappen was respectful of the slippery surface and remarkably patient on the throttle to avoid any oversteering theatrics. He ultimately topped the times by 0.779…

Kevin Magnussen came away with points for Haas in both Imola races last weekend, but went backwards in each event. He qualified fourth, albeit after causing one of five red flags in qualifying when he spun off at Acque Minerali. He and team-mate Mick Schumacher were the only drivers to run medium tyres in the sprint race, where Magnussen was overcome by four soft-shod rivals, having been in the thick of the action with the McLarens into Tamburello at the start. He also picked up a black- and-white-flag warning for weaving in front of Sergio Perez exiting the sequence. In the grand prix, Magnussen made better initial progress, but couldn’t hang onto the fifth place he inherited after Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo tangled. George Russell hunted him down in…

No matter what was thrown at Thierry Neuville, the Hyundai driver “never gave up” on a podium despite a host of penalties, misfortune and a wild final-stage crash. The Belgian incurred two minutes of penalties across an eventful three days. He was also handed a €1900 fine for speeding on a road section, alongside engine, alternator and hybrid issues. Somehow he held on to a deserved third-place finish. “Despite the issues, we never gave up,” said Neuville, who sits second in the points. “We fought hard and at the end the team has been rewarded with a 2-3 result, and strong points for the manufacturers’ championship. We have improved our pace, the car is much nicer to drive.” Such was his determination that he even remained confident of a podium…

FIA FORMULA 3 IMOLA (ITA) 23-24 APRIL ROUND 2/9 After a pointless weekend at the Bahrain season opener, Roman Stanek needed a far better FIA Formula 3 round at Imola. And he certainly got one, finishing fourth in Saturday’s chaotic sprint before taking his maiden series victory in the feature race. The Czech series veteran, competing in his third season in F3 (despite being only 18 years old!), took a 33-point haul from the weekend, putting him behind only Victor Martins and Arthur Leclerc in the title fight. Stanek qualified second behind his rookie Trident team-mate Zane Maloney and briefly ran out front at the start of a dramatic feature race before Caio Collet, running wet-weather tyres on the damp track, moved in front and Maloney got into second position.…

SUPER FORMULA SUZUKA (JPN) 24 APRIL ROUND 2/7 Ex-Formula 2/GP2 veteran Nobuharu Matsushita took a long-awaited first Super Formula win after a late pass on championship leader Tomoki Nojiri in treacherous conditions at Suzuka. Poleman Nojiri had controlled the opening half of the race, building a comfortable lead of more than 10 seconds as the only driver without a wall of spray to obstruct his vision. But in a race characterised by tyre management on a wet-but-somewhat-drying track, the Team Mugen driver was reeled in by fellow Honda-powered racers Tadasuke Makino and Matsushita in the latter stages. Dandelion Racing’s Makino had got the gap to Nojiri down to less than four seconds when he was passed by the B-Max Racing machine of Matsushita at the final chicane with four laps…

24H SERIES SPA 12 HOURS (BEL) 23-24 APRIL ROUND 4/8 Audi stalwart Pierre Kaffer led Phoenix Racing to victory in the two-part Spa 12 Hours last weekend, after the team’s R8 LMS GT3 Evo II started Sunday’s action down in third position. Saturday’s opening stanza of five and a half hours had ended with the leading trio on the same lap. Daniel Keilwitz set the quickest time in qualifying to assist the WTM Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 onto pole, but it was the American-crewed CP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Shane Lewis, Charles Espenlaub and Charles Putman that was on top as the garage doors closed on Saturday evening. The Audi, which Kaffer co-drove with Elia Erhart, Patryk Krupinski and Michael Doppelmayr, moved in front on Sunday when it was kept…

BRITISH GT Valluga Racing boss Benji Hetherington says he expects to remain behind the wheel of his team’s Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS for next month’s Silverstone British GT round, but a funded driver could then replace him. Hetherington made his first series appearance since 2013 alongside 2014 GT4 champion Ross Wylie in the Oulton Park opener, and qualified second for race one with “my first set of new tyres in nine years”. The 30-year-old came away with third and fifth places in class, with series newcomer Valluga one of the few GT4 squads not to be penalised for a short pitstop in the first race. Hetherington told Autosport that he “couldn’t be more satisfied” with his own performance but that “the harsh realities of the finances required” meant he…

MINI CHALLENGE British GT racer Jack Mitchell was a late addition to the Mini Challenge grid for the opening round last weekend and yet left Donington Park third in the standings. Mitchell also contested one weekend of the Mini series last season before landing a drive with Team Hard in the British Touring Car Championship. The 2018 GT4 champion then made a return to the GT ranks this year with a Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Supra. He now aims to combine a full Mini season at JW Bird Motorsport with continuing to compete in British GT. “Pete Osborne from Motorbase was kind enough to give me this opportunity in Minis and be part of the Motorbase Young Driver Programme,” explained Mitchell. “I hadn’t done any testing and was straight in the…

HISTORICS Historic racing champions Cam Jackson and Kevin Kivlochan both switched to different steeds at Snetterton last weekend, when Jackson made his Historic Formula Ford 2000 debut in a Delta and Kivlochan raced a newly acquired Ford Mustang. Jackson, who topped last year’s Autosport National Driver Rankings as well as claiming the Historic FF1600 crown, raced Simon Ayliff’s T80 in Norfolk, having only driven the car for the first time in Friday testing. “It’s going to be a baptism of fire,” said Jackson after qualifying third, 1.5 seconds off pole. It was just the second outing for the car since a total rebuild, after Benn Tilley drove it at Donington Park last year. Jackson was able to guide the car to second place in the opener, before the Neil Fowler…

MSVR Colin Queen took both United Formula Ford victories at MotorSport Vision Racing’s Silverstone meeting last weekend, but only by the slenderest of margins. The Ray GR18 driver beat Lucas Romanek each time, but only pipped the Van Diemen JL13 by 0.044 seconds and 0.051s respectively, while Andre Lafond shadowed the pair in each race. Joshua Law was another double victor in the Sports 2000 Duratec Championship, his MCR S2 getting the better of Michael Gibbins’s similar machine in both races. Reigning champion Tom Stoten could only manage a best result of third in the opening contest. BMWs were the car of choice in the Turismo X category, where Jasver Sapra used his E46 to win the second race after taking third in the opener. Bryan Bransom’s similar car took…

KIRKISTOWN 500MRCI 23 APRIL The bar was closed at Kirkistown last Saturday, but nevertheless there were doubles all round for the second meeting of the year at the Northern Ireland circuit, with all of the classes featuring back-to-back victors. While the winners may have been the same, the races were far from boring. The Fiestas topped the excitement stakes with a cast featuring the Stewart brothers – Mark and Paul – along with the Grahams, father Derek and son Michael, plus some spirited intervention from Neville Anderson. Mark Stewart got ahead in the first encounter, leaving Paul to fend off the attentions of Derek Graham, which he did by just 0.044 seconds at the flag. Michael Graham took fourth spot from Anderson, who set fastest lap. The usual suspects were…

BRITISH F4 It was a driver who only confirmed his place on the grid days before the season began that was the star of British Formula 4’s new era at Donington Park as Alex Dunne claimed two wins and a second. The Hitech recruit blasted into the lead at the start of the opener as Carlin’s polesitter Ugo Ugochukwu was unable to complete his 15th birthday in style as he fell to third off the line, also dropping behind team-mate Oliver Gray. That was how it stayed to the finish, with Ugochukwu never quite able to challenge Gray. Dunne then added another dominant win in the finale, this time pulling clear from Aiden Neate and Gray. Reversed-grid specialist Georgi Dimitrov maintained the lead at the start from pole in race…

GINETTA JUNIOR There seems to be something about Donington Park and Ginetta Junior. On the category’s last visit to Leicestershire six months ago, there were some brilliant lead battles between Aston Millar and Liam McNeilly, and the circuit played host to some more scintillating racing last weekend. Three sophomore drivers were in the thick of the action, Winter Series victor Josh Rowledge being joined by Harri Reynolds and Joe Warhurst in fighting at the front. Yet, discounting November’s standalone contest, none of them had achieved a podium in the main series prior to the weekend. Things were certainly different after the Donington dicing. It was one of the rookies, R Racing’s Sonny Smith, who was quickest in qualifying but he was instantly demoted at the start of race one by…

SNETTERTON HSCC 23-24 APRIL The Jim Russell Trophy meeting at Snetterton fittingly produced two stunning Historic Formula Ford 1600 races last weekend, with Tom McArthur’s Titan Mk4 triumphant in both. An early three-way battle enlivened the opening encounter. McArthur and the Merlyn Mk20s of Callum Grant and Samuel Harrison all led, before the top two pulled away in the latter stages. McArthur positioned himself perfectly to lead on the final lap but nearly tripped up with a slow exit from Murrays, holding off Grant’s lunge to the line by just 0.063 seconds. The sequel produced an even closer finish. McArthur and Harrison quickly dropped Grant, but Harrison’s lap-seven challenge looked to have ruined his chances after he ran wide at Nelson. Slowly, he closed in on McArthur and snatched the…

PRESCOTT BRITISH HILLCLIMB 23-24 APRIL The 2022 British Hillclimb Championship started in superb style at Prescott on Sunday with run-off victories for Scott Moran and Alex Summers. To open up the 75th anniversary season of Britain’s longest running national championship, a fantastic entry gathered at the Gloucestershire venue, with a number of contenders going after places in the coveted top 12 run-offs. After the opening class runs came a ferociously competitive first run-off, with 0.1 seconds covering the top five cars in an absolute thriller, which could be the closest top five for a run-off in the championship’s history. Moran proved to be the only man to break the 36s mark to take victory in round one with a 35.99s climb in Graham Wynn’s Gould GR59. But his rivals ran…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 is revisiting the push to expand to six sprint races next year through talks with teams in the wake of last Saturday’s event at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. F1 managing director Ross Brawn originally wanted to hold six events this season but, after a debate with the teams about the potential cost of damage within the constraints of the budget cap, it was agreed to stick with three sprints, as was the case when they debuted last year. Sprint races were on the agenda of this Tuesday’s meeting of the F1 Commission. “We’d like to have six races next year,” Brawn explained following the 21-lap sprint race at Imola last weekend. “I think [the teams] can see the success and I think we didn’t know…

INDIANAPOLIS 500 Last week’s pre-Indy 500 two-day test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval threatened to be more about incidents at pit exit than lap speeds. In the morning session on the first day, Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi had a harmless spin on the warm-up lane alongside the short chute between Turns 1 and 2, but managed to avoid touching the wall or grass. But in the afternoon, four-time 500 winner Helio Castroneves was further along that warm-up lane when his Meyer Shank Racing car snapped into a spin. He went across the grass that separates the lane from the racing surface at Turn 2, up the track and into the outside wall, heavily damaging the right side of his car. Castroneves took no further part in the test.…

OBITUARY Sid Taylor, renowned as one of the leading racing team entrants of the 1960s and 1970s, died on Good Friday at the age of 89 from the combined effects of COVID-19 and pneumonia. Born and brought up in Rathfarnham, south of Dublin, Taylor moved to the West Midlands and established a successful plant hire business. After being seriously injured in a motorcycle accident, which left him with a permanent limp, he switched to cars, winning the Leinster Trophy on the Dunboyne road circuit with a Lotus Elite in 1963. For 1965, Taylor acquired from Team Elite the two-litre Brabham-Climax BT8 with which the Brabham team’s junior driver Denny Hulme had begun to enjoy some notable results. Moving to Sidney Taylor Racing with the car was Team Elite’s ace mechanic…

Nips and tucks to the rulebook I was pleasantly surprised that the British GT Championship (Club Autosport, 21 April) had a rule to cover the situation that unfolded during race two at Oulton Park, with the red flag flying during the pitstop sequence. I can sympathise with the crews who lost out when their pitstop penalties were applied post-race, however, and it does seem there is an easy solution. Given that the restart was ordered by the positions in which the cars found themselves immediately before the window opened, perhaps the penalties could be applied to the ‘result’ of race one, and any affected cars moved back accordingly for the restart? It’s not likely to have a massive impact on the running order (unless a safety car has been called…

Formula 1 should have been on a hiding to nothing by staging a sprint race at Imola. Ross Brawn wanted to run the alternative weekend set-up at the first European round “to remind everyone what it was about”. But at a venue where overtaking has proved notoriously difficult, it seemed unlikely that the supposedly snappy, high-octane format would produce anything other than a procession. But the Saturday race last weekend might be considered the best of the four sprints to date. That’s thanks to the late crescendo that brought Max Verstappen back into contention to pass Charles Leclerc and bag the increased eight points for victory, plus pole position for the proper Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Qualifying pacesetter Verstappen looked to have immediately spurned his chance to cut the standings…

Mercedes F1 chief Toto Wolff called his team’s Imola weekend a “complete writeoff” even before the main race had taken place, such were the Silver Arrows’ struggles with tyre warm-up and porpoising. Of the latter problem, George Russell said after the grand prix that “this is the first weekend I’ve truly been struggling with my back, and almost like chest pains from the severity of the bouncing”. Mercedes’ existing tyre warm-up struggles were exacerbated by the cool and wet conditions in Italy. The sprint was warmer, but was yet “another humbling experience”, according to Wolff. After Russell had qualified 11th and Hamilton 13th – Mercedes’ worst qualifying result since the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix – Russell made no progress in the sprint, while Hamilton was outmuscled by Yuki Tsunoda and…

Written on Kalle Rovanpera’s crash helmet are the words ‘full send’, and it was seemingly this approach that allowed the World Rally Championship’s new star to somehow conjure up an against-the-odds victory in a Rally Croatia thriller. Rally fans are being spoiled this season; Croatia’s unique asphalt roads served up a second final-stage showdown in three events, following January’s Sebastien Loeb versus Sebastien Ogier Monte Carlo blockbuster. Perhaps Croatia’s dramatic WRC debut 12 months ago, when Ogier defeated Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans by 0.6 seconds – the third-closest winning margin in WRC history – was an omen. But nobody could have predicted the climax that unfolded. Mother Nature played a starring role in this latest piece of top-notch sporting theatre as treacherous wet and foggy conditions plagued the three days.…

Hybrid power arrived in the British Touring Car Championship with a punch at Donington Park. Its first lap of usage in a race resulted in countless lead changes, an intra-team controversy, and provided the foundations for Tom Ingram to emerge from the Leicestershire venue at the end of the day with a seven-point advantage he felt flattered his performance. What we arguably should have seen was either of those ‘intra-team controversy’ enactors – Colin Turkington and Jake Hill – at the top of the pile. Hill, of course, is the newcomer within the squad of West Surrey Racing-run BMWs; Turkington very much the man who has made this team his own after spending the best part of 20 years there. On his qualifying debut in a rear-wheel-drive BTCC car, young…

The leading BMW driver in the BTCC standings after Donington isn’t Jake Hill. Neither is it Colin Turkington. It’s actually Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan, who lies in fifth spot heading into the second round at Brands Hatch. This was a great weekend for Ciceley pair Morgan and series debutant George Gamble. They qualified fifth and eighth in Gamble’s favour, although Morgan didn’t get a second run because of a high-pressure fuel-pump failure. Morgan, the proud father of new-born twins (to add to the baby born in summer 2020), then delivered 5-4-6 results, despite his hybrid system breaking with five laps to go of the opening race. He had no further use of it for the rest of the day. But the Ciceley driver on the podium was Gamble, the ex-Carrera…

NLS NURBURGRING (DEU) 23 APRIL ROUND 2/8 Brazilian BMW veteran Augusto Farfus combined with Briton Nick Yelloly and American Connor De Phillippi to head a marque 1-2-3 in the last Nordschleife battle before the all-important Nurburgring 24 Hours, after a last-minute thriller to end the four-hour race. While De Phillippi qualified the Rowe Racing M4 GT3 on pole, it was the Junior Team trio run by ex-DTM team RMG who looked as though they might take victory. Dan Harper, Max Hesse and Neil Verhagen lost half a minute, which would later prove crucial, when they served a mid-race stop/go penalty for a pitstop that was one second below the minimum allowed time. Farfus, who coaches the Juniors, took the lead with a couple of laps remaining, but got delayed in…

MOTOGP ALGARVE (PRT) 24 APRIL ROUND 5/21 The 2022 MotoGP season took another twist at the Portuguese Grand Prix when a fourth different winner in five races was crowned. But this one felt altogether more expected – and, in some ways, needed. Fabio Quartararo’s form in last year’s Portuguese GP sent him well on the way to the 2021 world title. But the Algarve International Circuit was a venue he felt ahead of time was “fifty-fifty” for Yamaha in terms of how competitive it could be around the Iberian coast’s rollercoaster. All of the races so far have hinged on two things for Yamaha to excel: the amount of grip on offer at a track, and how the first lap goes. If the grip was lower and Quartararo got jumped…

DONINGTON PARK New light panels almost entirely replaced flag signals for the first time during the British Touring Car Championship’s season-opening event at Donington Park last weekend. It was announced over the winter that investment from governing body Motorsport UK, circuit operators and the British Motor Sport Training Trust would result in light panels being installed at all UK tracks of FIA International Grade 3 and above this year to help improve safety for drivers and marshals. The panels were used alongside in-car signalling at Donington, whereby messages could be sent to specific drivers from officials in race control. The only flags in use at Donington were those on the startline – new regulations were issued beforehand to allow the light panels to legally replace flag signals – with the…

HISTORIC F3 Long-time historic racer Mike Lamplough has joined the Historic Formula 3 grid with the ex-Steven Smith Chevron B15. The Chevron, which was originally a Jolly Club car raced in Italy in the late 1960s, had not run for a couple of years. Lamplough had his first outing in the car at the Historic Sports Car Club’s Snetterton meeting last weekend, after a few laps of testing. “This is my first single-seater race since 1994 when I ran a Van Diemen RF82 in Classic Formula Ford 2000,” said Lamplough, who more recently has been racing an MG Magnette and a Gilbern. “I thought it was time to do something a bit different and this is a voyage into the unknown.” Lamplough took a best result of fifth in the…

SUPERKARTS AT CADWELL The first rounds of the Motorsport UK British Superkart Championships take place at Cadwell Park this weekend. After taking a win in the British Superkart Racing Club contests at the Lincolnshire venue last weekend, Lee Harpham will be looking for further success. But he will face stiff opposition from 2021 Division 1 title winner Ross Allen and multiple champion Liam Morley. IN SUPPORT OF McRAE Ladies World Rally champions Louise Aitken-Walker and co-driver Tina Thorner will attend the McRae Rally Challenge at the Knockhill circuit in July. The duo, who took the title in 1990, will get behind the wheel of a number of machines from their careers. Swede Thorner also partnered Colin McRae in 2004 and 2005 for long-distance Safari-type events. TATHAM ESCAPES BLAZE Hillclimber Peter…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Picking a winner for the 350th Porsche Carrera Cup GB contest was always going to be tricky. There was no shortage of contenders on a grid packed with talented drivers. And, after a dramatic race, it was new Porsche Junior Adam Smalley who landed the first blow of the 20th anniversary season. While Smalley’s Redline Racing squad was on the grid for the very first Carrera Cup GB race – along with Team Parker Racing – it had looked for much of the contest as though a driver from a team making its series debut would triumph. Gus Burton, full of confidence after winning last year’s British GT4 crown, had laid down a marker by taking pole for Century Motorsport. And then the first lap was…

GINETTA GT5 CHALLENGE It was less than a week since the opening Ginetta GT5 Challenge event and round two at Donington Park continued many of the same themes. There were again three different winners, there was again an unfortunate failure on frontrunner Will Jenkins’ G40 and there were again shortened races with red flags. The opener’s first stoppage was not the fault of the drivers, instead troublesome start lights meant some competitors reacted and others did not. But, on the second attempt, a safety car period and second red flag for incidents reduced the contest to five racing laps. During those, Nat Hodgkiss passed polesitter Harley Haughton – who was later given a false start penalty – on the opening lap, before Hodgkiss was shuffled back to fourth. Instead, Will…

For much of the past three years, the Ginetta Junior victories have been shared by the leading Elite Motorsport and R Racing squads, with some triumphs for the Fox Motorsport and Richardson Racing outfits. But now there is a new name among the winners’ circle following Harri Reynolds’ Donington Park brace. Assetto Motorsport was founded by 2000 Renault UK Clio Cup champion Jim Edwards Jr and his son-in-law Simon Traves in 2017, originally successfully competing in the Ginetta G40 Cup. But, for 2020, the team expanded into Ginetta Junior with a single entry for Joe Wheeler. Four cars followed for 2021, including Reynolds, and the operation continues to run four drivers this year. Prior to last weekend, Assetto’s best series result was third, but Reynolds bettered that in style by…

THRUXTON CSCC 23-24 APRIL The Classic Sports Car Club’s Thruxton Thriller lived up to its title in parts, although too many competitors attracted penalties, mainly for pit infringements. Nonetheless, Saturday’s combative Tin Tops and Turbo Tin Tops contests rewarded Adam Brown (Ford Fiesta ST) and John Hammersley/Nigel Tongue (VW Scirocco Type R), who scored a memorable double in Fives Garage-prepared cars. Andrew Windmill (Honda Civic) negated his 30-second Snetterton Tin Tops success penalty and a stop/go, only to cop a further 30s, which left him third, behind the Field family’s Proton Persona. Brown took the win, having scrapped with Manoj Patel, who had a minute added to his time for not switching his Civic’s ignition off at the stop. Hammersley took a 10s hit for jumping the Turbo start, but…

VIDEO GAME MOTOGP 22 RRP £59.99 (available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch) When it comes to reviewing the yearly official game of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, the usual format would be to run through the gameplay changes and discuss alterations to the career mode. But for MotoGP 22 – released last week by publisher Milestone – the focus is on a brand-new narrative-led feature that recaps the 2009 real-world season. As with every official MotoGP game, you are still able to choose between all riders, teams and tracks from the current Moto3, Moto2 and top-class campaigns. But the NINE Season 2009 is an additional documentary mode covering Valentino Rossi’s ninth MotoGP title – perhaps unsurprising given the nine-time champion’s retirement from the…

World championship leader Jochen Rindt waits his turn, lunch in hand (and what appears to be chip in mouth), in the queue at Brands Hatch’s self-service eatery of choice at the 1970 British Grand Prix. Rindt (Lotus 72) started the race, run on Saturday 18 July, from pole position, but immediately lost out to Jacky Ickx (Ferrari 312B) and Jack Brabham (Brabham BT33). On lap seven, at the same time that Ickx’s transmission packed up, Rindt got past Brabham to take the lead and what followed was a protracted pursuit of Austrian by Australian, which ended on lap 69 of 80 when Brabham took over at the front and the result seemed settled… until the final corner of the last lap, when the BT33’s fuel tank ran dry, allowing Rindt…

FORMULA 1 Carlos Sainz will remain with Ferrari until the end of the 2024 Formula 1 season after agreeing a new two-year contract with the team. Sainz joined Ferrari in 2021 as Charles Leclerc’s team-mate, and has fitted in well at Maranello. He scored four podiums last year and a second-place finish in Bahrain at the start of this season. Ferrari opened talks with Sainz over the winter and swiftly sewed up a deal, having not considered any other options to partner Leclerc, and announced the deal ahead of last weekend’s race at Imola. Team principal Mattia Binotto said Sainz was the “obvious” driver to continue with, and confirmed it was a two-year deal running to the end of 2024. Sainz said talks had been “easy going” and that a…

BTCC Teams using the British Touring Car Championship’s new TOCA customer engine were given a boost increase in time for qualifying for last weekend’s opening round at Donington Park. Cumbrian motorsport powerhouse M-Sport has replaced Swindon Powertrain for 2022-26 as supplier of the TOCA engine, which was used by 13 cars at Donington, and calls had been made during pre-season testing for concessions. This was granted in the form of an additional 40 millibars of boost after further evaluation by TOCA technical boffins, in the wake of allowing two cars the extra boost in free practice. “We were using them to generate new data,” explained series chief Alan Gow. “That validated what we thought and we issued a bulletin to increase the boost for qualifying.” Even with the boost increase,…

ETCR A host of big names has joined the all-electric ETCR series for 2022, which has gained FIA World Cup status and kicks off next month on the streets of Pau. Daytona 24 Hours winner Tom Blomqvist, former Aston Martin GT factory star Maxime Martin, 2019 World Touring Car Cup champion Norbert Michelisz and ex-DTM racer Adrien Tambay will all enter the fray. Anglo-Swede Blomqvist, who already has experience of electric motorsport from Formula E, has joined the Cupra EKS team run by Swedish tin-top hero Mattias Ekstrom. Blomqvist will line up alongside reigning Pure ETCR (the name for the series in 2021) champion Ekstrom, marque veteran Jordi Gene and Tambay, the son of 1980s Ferrari Formula 1 racer Patrick Tambay. “I believe this is going to be a massive…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE The GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup kicks off at Brands Hatch for the second time in the history of the fixture this weekend. The entry stands at 26 cars, two down on last year, although the Pro Cup class is on a par with 2021 at 12 cars. The rest of the field is made up of eight Silver Cup entries and five in Pro Am, with the class of one car yet to be confirmed. Audi factory drivers Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts begin their bid for a third consecutive Sprint Cup title with the WRT Audi team. They share one of three R8 LMS GT3 Evo IIs entered in Pro by the Belgian team. Factory drivers Frederic Vervisch and Christopher Mies respectively share with…

Tiny things can swing a Formula 1 race weekend. Consider the Mercedes team at Imola. It would only have taken a few things going slightly differently and its whole weekend may well have been altogether rosier – although still far from gaining a glittering result. The Silver Arrows were struggling badly for tyre warm-up in the cool, wet conditions across the event. The new car rules have made it much harder for the teams to deploy their previous trick of using high brake temperatures to heat the rubber from within to the desired level. As one engineer at another team describes it, understanding modern F1 tyres is something of a ‘pseudo-science’ – it changes from track to track – and it seems that not even the best squads are immune…

Red Bull had been quicker than Ferrari every time it mattered heading into the grand prix at Imola last weekend. But it was only in front by a whisker. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz therefore had the capacity to make their rivals break into a sweat in the fight for victory during the full-length Sunday race. Instead, facing the pressure of a home event, the Maranello pair made critical errors and enabled Max Verstappen to escape with the spoils in dominant fashion. In truth, after only a few hundred metres the reigning champion never looked under threat. Neither Verstappen nor Leclerc nailed their final laps in qualifying on Friday but, by better adhering to the slippery conditions with a gentle right foot, the Dutchman was able to seize pole for…

Alex Albon said his Emilia Romagna Grand Prix performance was “just as good as Melbourne”, despite ending up 11th and without points. The Williams driver had beaten team-mate Nicholas Latifi to 18th in the sprint, both gaining two places from Pierre Gasly and Zhou Guanyu clashing on lap one, after Albon had started last thanks to his Q1 brake fire and explosion. In the GP, being one of the first to stop for medium-compound slicks meant Albon gained with warmer tyres as the midfield pack rejoined, and this delayed Gasly and Lewis Hamilton, allowing him to nip ahead. He held them off to the finish, despite not having the benefit of DRS behind Esteban Ocon (shuffled back from 11th on the road to 14th with his penalty for an unsafe…

Tyre issues were a hot topic in Croatia, resulting in M-Sport calling for Pirelli to improve its wet-compound tyre following a spate of failures. Five of the 11 cars in the Rally1 field suffered punctures on the wet compound across the event, including rally winner Kalle Rovanpera. Pirelli’s full wets have been rarely used in the championship, with many of the teams and drivers lacking experience on the rubber. A combination of that and tricky wet conditions, and Croatia’s unique asphalt featuring numerous cuts, created a perfect storm. M-Sport was the worst-affected team. It suffered seven failures, leading team principal Richard Millener (below) to call for tougher wet tyres: “I want a stronger tyre. We rarely use the wet tyre and before this rally we knew it was going to…

The introduction of the new Cosworth-supplied hybrid system provided a host of new variables for the teams and drivers to get their heads around – and the end of the much maligned old success-ballast system. There had been whispers going around during the winter of some squads digging in their heels and hoping for a year’s grace, but those would be the teams scarcely troubled by ballast anyway. So how did it go? Pretty well, although there’s one team that was not among the first to install the hybrid, and occasionally struggled to get it to work – just remember to charge the battery, chaps. To be fair to Cosworth, it’s onto a bit of a loser here. As one BTCC sage pointed out, not only is there the hybrid,…

FIA FORMULA 2 IMOLA (ITA) 23-24 APRIL ROUND 3/13 Theo Pourchaire made it two out of three feature-race victories this season in a dramatic Formula 2 round at Imola. The French Sauber junior lined up seventh for Sunday’s race after a disappointing qualifying, but kept his nose clean through three safety cars to secure his fourth series win with ART Grand Prix. Combined with seventh in the sprint race, it means that Pourchaire has vaulted from fifth position back into the championship lead, two points clear of MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich, who was out of luck when a late safety car ruined his strategy. Hitech-run poleman Juri Vips and front-row starter Ayumu Iwasa (DAMS) both got sluggish getaways, with Ralph Boschung firing his Campos Racing car through the middle of…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN MONZA (ITA) 23-24 APRIL ROUND 1/10 Formula 1 juniors and Prema Powerteam stablemates Dino Beganovic and Paul Aron took a win apiece as each began their second season in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine in changeable Monza weather. Swedish Ferrari protege Beganovic set the fastest time overall in qualifying for race one, while R-ace GP-run Balearic Islander Lorenzo Fluxa topped the other group to join him on the front row. Gabriele Mini was just pipped to the top of the group by Fluxa, but the Sicilian ART Grand Prix ace wasted no time in moving straight into second place at the start of the race, which was held in wet conditions. An early safety car – Eduardo Barrichello had been nerfed into a spin at…

NASCAR CUP TALLADEGA (USA) 24 APRIL ROUND 10/36 Superspeedway racing in the NASCAR Cup Series often comes down to making the right move at the right time. But Ross Chastain’s victory in Sunday’s race at Talladega came by making no move at all. Entering the final of 188 laps, Chastain had got his TrackHouse Racing Chevrolet up to third, behind leader Erik Jones and Kyle Larson. Chastain gave Larson’s Hendrick Chevy a nudge, which moved up the track in an attempt to pass the Petty GMS Chevy of Jones. Jones, however, left the bottom lane and went high to block Larson, which left Chastain on the bottom and with the momentum to reach the chequered flag 0.105 seconds ahead of Austin Dillon. “I’m always the one going to the top…

BRITISH GT Flick Haigh will make her first British GT appearance since claiming the 2018 title with Jonny Adam when the pair reunite at Silverstone next month. Haigh, the first female outright champion in British GT history after triumphing with Optimum Motorsport, will partner four-time series champion Adam aboard the second 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG GT3 at the Silverstone, Snetterton and Brands Hatch rounds. It marks the end of a competition hiatus dating back to the end of 2019, when Haigh drove a Spirit of Race Ferrari with Chris Froggatt under the Team GB banner at the FIA’s Motorsport Games. Haigh, who tested last week at Silverstone, told Autosport that Adam had been the instigator for her return. The Aston Martin factory driver has been freed up to drive for another…

MOTORSPORT VISION Brands Hatch has undergone its most extensive resurfacing work for over a decade in recent weeks with swathes of the Kent circuit benefiting from fresh asphalt. A large section of track from before the Paddock Hill Bend braking point to the end of the exit kerb on Hailwood Hill has been resurfaced, along with an area around Graham Hill Bend. The Grand Prix loop has also received attention, with new asphalt laid from the exit of Westfield to the entry of Sheene Curve. This follows other improvement works at the venue over the winter, including replacing barriers and tyre walls. “We want to ensure Brands Hatch continues to offer all participants a first-class on-circuit experience, and this major resurfacing work underlines that commitment,” said Brands Hatch circuit manager…

RAM’S GT PROTEST FAILS RAM Racing’s protest into the result of British GT’s second race at Oulton Park (Autosport, 21 April) last Monday was rejected by the stewards of the meeting, but the team has lodged its intention to appeal to the National Court. RAM drivers Ian Loggie and Jules Gounon finished first on the road in the red-flagged contest before their pitstop success seconds were added to their race time. Martin Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher took victory, but the result remains provisional. CARBON OFFSET AGAIN Historic rallying organisation HERO-ERA has offset its carbon emissions for the second year running, via a programme that features both direct and indirect contributions to emissions offsetting. Among the initiatives supported are conservation projects in five countries including the UK, United States, Egypt, China…

CLUBMANS SPORTS PROTOTYPE The Clubmans Sports Prototype category enjoyed its largest entry in over 30 years at Silverstone last weekend when 33 cars took part. The series has enjoyed growing popularity since the Clubmans Register decided to take over the promotion of the championship, with MotorSport Vision Racing appointed the organising club, for the 2020 season. “We saw an immediate uplift in entries and it’s carried on since then,” said Clubmans Register vice-chairman Peter Richings. “We’ve got new cars – Mallock and Phantom have built new cars – we’ve had new drivers join us and people have come back to Clubmans. Tom Bellamy won the championship in 2000 and he’s come back this year. “We’re delighted – we’ve worked really hard to communicate with competitors and prospective competitors and create…

A new season of the British Touring Car Championship got under way last weekend at Donington Park, with a bumper grid and an eclectic mix of machinery featuring hybrid technology for the first time. But it was not the only touring car championship that kicked into life this month with a healthy grid and several different manufacturers’ models represented. Just a week earlier, 25 cars lined up for the opening round of the TCR UK Championship at Oulton Park for what, to many, also felt like the start of a new era. “This day has been a long time coming,” said Stewart Lines, whose Maximum Motorsport company has been running TCR UK since 2019, just one year after the concept was launched in the UK. The championship has come a long…

MINI CHALLENGE Reigning Mini Challenge rookie champion Sam Weller got his 2022 season off to a superb start by claiming two race wins to head home from Donington to Suffolk as the early series leader. But it was a case of what might have been for Lewis Brown. Brown, who has moved to Graves Motorsport this year, topped qualifying from British GT racer Jack Mitchell, but a poor start from Mitchell in race one allowed Weller’s Hybrid Tune car into second. Brown appeared set fair for victory when, with six laps to go, a vibration since the start manifested itself in a front-left puncture. Weller shot through to win from Jack Davidson, up from eighth, while 2020 Irish Fiesta ST champion Alex Denning won a superb scrap with Mitchell for…

CADWELL PARK BARC 23-24 APRIL Jon Woolfitt’s Spire GT-R was the class of the CNC Heads Sports/Saloon field at Cadwell Park, but an error in the opener meant he just missed out on a hat-trick. He led race one until the Mountain on the opening lap, when a spin on cold tyres left him fighting back to challenge Paul Dobson’s Locost Mazda. Dobson took the win by just 0.36 seconds, with Stephen Riley’s Caterham a comfortable third. Woolfitt got his revenge with victories in the other two races. He led the second throughout, from Dobson and Riley, but found himself chasing Dobson again in race three. The decisive move came at Mansfield on lap four of 12, when Dobson defended the inside so Woolfitt took him around the outside. Riley…

RALLY TENDRING & CLACTON BRC 23-24 APRIL Osian Pryce’s British Rally Championship title hopes were turned, quite literally, upside down just over five months ago, as his Volkswagen Polo R5 lay the wrong way up in a field on the penultimate stage of the Ulster Rally. Last weekend was the best possible start to his redemption. The Welshman snatched a sensational victory from four-time BRC champion Keith Cronin and took the spoils at the opening round of the season, Rally Tendring & Clacton. Pryce grappled with Cronin during the final two loops and wrestled the lead from the grip of the ultra-experienced Irishman to secure the perfect start to his campaign. “That win is really special,” said Pryce. “I didn’t think it was possible to be honest, but big thanks…

You’d be forgiven for thinking that British Touring Car Championship star Josh Cook would name Thruxton – scene of seven of his 13 race wins in the series – as his favourite circuit. But while the West Countryman indeed has a soft spot for the Hampshire speedbowl, his local BTCC venue, it’s a track he has never raced on that he rates as the best. “Here in the UK, Thruxton is my favourite probably, but Portimao is a phenomenal track, with a lot of undulations, a lot of blind corners, a lot of crests,” asserts Cook. “It’s really good fun. I’ve done a lot of work there [testing and coaching] in McLaren GT cars. The corners are quite open, and they funnel in – it really rewards bravery. It has…