Indholdsfortegnelse for 5/12/2022 i Autosport

Tony Brooks was one of the finest racing drivers of the 1950s. The news of his passing, at the age of 90, came through shortly after our last issue went to press and marks the end of an era, so our tribute to an understated legend begins on page 4 this week. Only Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari and Stirling Moss won more world championship grands prix during the 1950s, and Brooks could consider himself unfortunate not to have taken the title. He led the line at Ferrari in 1959 and, but for a combination of calendar changes, unreliability and farcical scenes at Sebring, he could have been world champion. As it was, he only lost to Jack Brabham by four points. Ferrari’s latest trip to the US underlined what…

FORMULA 1 McLaren CEO Zak Brown has ruled out a sale of the team to Audi amid interest from the German manufacturer in a potential takeover. Audi parent company the Volkswagen Group is in an advanced state of preparations with its efforts to get Audi and sister marque Porsche to enter F1 from 2026. Audi held talks with McLaren, and one option that was being evaluated was for a full takeover of the squad that would have resulted in it becoming the official Audi F1 team, potentially leading to the McLaren name disappearing from F1. But speaking ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, Brown (above right) made it clear that the McLaren name is here to stay and there will be no sale to Audi. “Our shareholders are very committed…

FORMULA E Long-time Audi squad Abt will make its return to the Formula E grid for next season’s start of the Gen3 era after departing at the end of the last year. Abt won the inaugural E-Prix, the 2014 Beijing race, with Lucas di Grassi, and evolved into the works Audi team during its initial stay in FE. It went on to win the 2016-17 drivers’ championship with di Grassi, following that up with the teams’ title in 2017-18. Its return to the series all but guarantees 12 teams on the grid, with an announcement about the departing Mercedes squad expected soon. “Formula E has always had a big place in our hearts and we have never made a secret of the fact that we want to be back,” said…

INDY 500 US-based Briton Stefan Wilson will compete in the Indianapolis 500 this month for a fourth time – and his entry brings the field at last to the traditional ‘magic’ 33-car mark. Wilson has joined forces with DragonSpeed and Cusick Motorsports, the team of entrepreneur Don Cusick who backs Wilson in the four Michelin Endurance Cup rounds of the IMSA SportsCar Championship, where he is racing a Porsche. The Chevrolet-powered equipment is being supplied by AJ Foyt Racing. DragonSpeed competed at the Indy 500 in 2019 and 2020, and got Wilson’s fellow Yorkshireman Ben Hanley into the show on race day on both occasions. DragonSpeed boss Elton Julian said: “This means so much to us. Putting this programme together with Don Cusick, Stefan Wilson and the Cusick Motorsports partner…

Underwhelmed by Miami Well, another new track that looks almost like the other new concrete-lined tracks. Might be good/challenging to drive at and everybody there said the atmosphere was great. But from the TV viewers’ standpoint, it was pretty boring (again), as per Saudi and to a lesser extent Australia. I know the reason behind it all is ‘to bring the event’ to the public in the middle of a city. But surely as has been shown by COTA in Texas, a better track can be used, as most of the public will travel to events if need be. Also, they do have some good tracks in the US that aren’t connected to a burger shop. Now we have this track and the soon-to-come Vegas one to complement (replace) proper…

WRT may have claimed second and third positions first time out this year at Sebring, but it wasn’t quite the force around the Florida airfield that it had been at the back end of 2021. But at Spa last Saturday the Belgian team was back to its imperious best on home turf. It wasn’t so much that the team notched up a 1-2 at the end of the six hours that was so impressive. Rather it was the performance of the winning ORECA-Gibson 07 shared by Sean Gelael, Robin Frijns and Rene Rast. They led the class for 67 of the 103 laps on the way to a 34-second victory ahead of the sister car driven by Rui Andrade, Norman Nato and Ferdinand Habsburg. More to the point, Frijns led…

eTOURING CAR WORLD CUP PAU (FRA) 7-8 MAY ROUND 1/7 The start-up Pure ETCR series has transitioned into the FIA eTouring Car World Cup this year, with a continuation of its innovative and experimental format and its form man, 2021 champion Mattias Ekstrom. It retains its two parallel racing routes for the six cars shared by two drivers apiece, but the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin Pool A and Pool B have received a lexicon update to ‘Fast’ and ‘Furious’. Ekstrom took the ‘Furious’ route to be crowned ‘King of the weekend’ in Pau, while Adrien Tambay and Tom Blomqvist were 1-2 in the ‘Fast’ pool to secure an overall top three lockout of the event for Ekstrom’s own EKS Cupra team. It wasn’t all smiles for EKS, which has replaced Zengo Motorsport as…

EUROFORMULA OPEN PAU (FRA) 7-8 MAY ROUND 2/9 The Pau Grand Prix weekend belonged to Oliver Goethe, in almost its entirety. The Motopark driver was unbeaten in free practice, qualifying and Saturday’s race on the street circuit’s return after two years out, but when it came to the start of Sunday’s race – the GP itself – he was slower off the line than those behind, and within four seconds had passed up the opportunity to win. Formula 4 graduate Vlad Lomko, driving for the CryptoTower team run with Motopark’s engineering expertise, had been pipped to pole by Goethe and took the lead at the start. From there on he was never challenged, and the French-licensed Russian claimed a historic maiden Euroformula Open win ahead of team-mate and Saturday race…

BRITISH GT Flick Haigh and Jonny Adam say the objectives of their British GT return were achieved as they finished fifth at Silverstone last weekend on their first outing in a 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes. The 2018 title-winning pair qualified ninth, with Adam the second-fastest in the Pro session, and enjoyed a trouble-free race to finish sixth on the road before the Abba Mercedes was disqualified from fifth. In her first race since 2019, Haigh dropped to 10th on the opening lap but set consistent times in a 31-lap opening stint that four-time British GT champion Adam explained was designed to increase Haigh’s confidence ahead of her next appearance of a planned three-race campaign at Snetterton in June. “We did what we came here for,” said the Aston Martin factory…

BAPTIE’S NEW RIDE Double Scottish Classic Sports and Saloons champion Alastair Baptie claimed a pair of top five finishes in his new MGB GT V8 at Knockhill last weekend. Baptie missed the opening round of the Scottish Motor Racing Club season through illness but made it out for the second weekend of the year. He claimed fourth after starting from the pits in race one, and came home second in race two. CMMC RECRUITMENT Classic and Modern Motorsport Club founder Richard Culverhouse has recruited former Vintage Sports-Car Club competition secretary Richard Winchester to assist him in running the organisation. “We would like to expand the club and become our own masters,” said Culverhouse. “We’re trying to bring out cars in garages that aren’t being used.” The club is running its…

British GT was stuck between a rock and a hard place at Silverstone last weekend. With the National Court hearing into RAM Racing’s appeal of Oulton Park race two (see p63) not set to be held until later this month at the earliest, and the classification of that race still to be finalised, it did the only thing it could and opted not to have in-race success penalties at Silverstone. They will be retrospectively added once the Oulton result is determined and only then will championship points for Silverstone be distributed. “It’s not a true penalty,” reasoned Enduro Motorsport’s Marcus Clutton, who cited the benefit to be had from not losing track position and dropping into traffic as a result. “But,” he added, “I also believe it’s the best they…

Newbridge Motorsport Aston Martin crew Darren Turner and Matt Topham repeated their 2021 Silverstone victory in GT4 with a long-running strategy that took advantage of the Pro-Am pair’s shorter pitstops. Their second consecutive win was founded on keeping clean, as fancied Silver rivals hit strife, and spending 14 seconds less in the pits for each of their three mandatory driver changes. They romped to victory by over half a minute from Richard Williams and Sennan Fielding’s pole-winning Steller Audi. Turner admitted to being disappointed with qualifying only sixth as the Audi checked in 1.4s quicker on aggregate times than nearest challengers Marco Signoretti/Matt Cowley (Academy Ford Mustang). But, in the chaotic early laps, survival was the name of the game. Will Burns (Century BMW) punted Signoretti wide at Stowe on…

The GB4 Championship provided its most exciting weekend to date at Silverstone, with drama in the title battle and two teams on the podium for the first time. Hampered by poor starts at the opening two rounds, Fortec Motorsports’s Nikolas Taylor (leading above) made amends with a brace of wins. Points leader Alex Walker took pole for race one ahead of his Elite team-mate Jack Sherwood, but the latter made a poor getaway, allowing Taylor to claim second into Copse. On the second lap, Walker tried to defend from Taylor on the Hamilton Straight but the latter squeezed into a small gap to the inside before completing the move into Abbey and then held his rival off until the end. Hillspeed’s Max Marzorati kept Fortec’s Elias Edestam at bay to…

KNOCKHILL SMRC 8 MAY As true as the saying ‘calm seas never make a good sailor’ may be, reigning Scottish Fiesta ST Cup champion Steven Gray has been riding the crest of a wave since July last year. Of the past 10 points-scoring races at Knockhill, he’s won every single one of them. Another double victory last weekend took Gray’s 2022 tally to four from four, despite fierce competition from his long-term rival Dave Colville. Gray may have a 100% record in the championship so far this year, but he’s had it far from easy. Proof of that came in qualifying, with the top four cars split by a mere 0.077 seconds. Gray led off the line from pole position in the opening race, with Colville recovering from a poor…

OULTON PARK MSVR FERRARI 6-7 MAY Ferrari Challenge UK opened its 2022 account at Oulton Park last weekend with another masterclass in supercardom as Lucky Khera grabbed a double win. On the 30th anniversary of the Ferrari Challenge’s inception, track time was split between racing and the Passione Ferrari, an opportunity for customers to take their own car around the circuit, guided by the stunning Roma pace car. In the paddock, despite the display of rare Ferraris, it’s the impressive hospitality unit, crewed by Italian chefs and baristas, that stands proud as a statement piece. There are no half measures here; simply the very best that Italy has to offer. Most Ferrari Challenge championships are run regionally but, here in the UK – along with Italy – we have our…

BOOK REVIEW F1 HEROES: CHAMPIONS AND LEGENDS IN THE PHOTOS OF MOTORSPORT IMAGES RRP £30 The adage that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ rings true particularly in sport, where the raw emotion from a competitor can be captured through the eye of a lens. Whether that be euphoria and joy or the depths of despair, there’s always a story to tell and a camera to capture the moment. This is particularly true with motorsport, which is perhaps ironic given that a driver’s face when in the car is covered by a helmet, and even their eyes are blocked from view by a tinted visor once that has been dropped. Their bodies have become further submerged, and protected, within the confines of the cars over the decades to the…

Gilles Villeneuve’s Ferrari 126CK is captured in legendary motorsport photographer Rainer Schlegelmilch’s characteristic ‘zoom’ style during the 1981 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach. True to his own form, at the start of the race Villeneuve spectacularly hurled his machine from fifth on the grid into a blink-of-an-eye lead, before running wide at the hairpin and gathering it up to resume in fourth place. A broken driveshaft ended his afternoon after 17 laps. ● To mark 40 years since Villeneuve’s fatal crash during qualifying for the Belgian GP, see Autosport.com for our pick of his greatest drives. For classic 1980s Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/f1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

As one of Formula E’s founding partners, it should come as no surprise that Julius Baer remains enthusiastic about the success of its engagement with the all-electric single-seater series. The Swiss-based banking institution has for more than 130 years provided wealth management services and investment advice to clients, and its partnership with Formula E has proven mutually beneficial on the series’ journey to becoming a fully fledged world championship for the 2020-21 campaign. Formula E’s origin story is well known. But once series founder Alejandro Agag and then-FIA president Jean Todt had drawn up the blueprints on a restaurant napkin in March 2011, there was a problem of how this vision would be funded. It sought a forward-thinking partner who was prepared to buy into its pioneering mantra and give…

Since its inception, Formula E has been keen to underline its credentials as a disruptive force in motorsport. Completely unbeholden to history and tradition, the championship’s management has often favoured previously unexplored formats and methods of going racing to make Formula E stand out. In other words, to the uninitiated, Formula E has a lot of key differences over ‘traditional’ racing categories that require some degree of explanation. The key parts of a race weekend remain the same: drivers try to qualify for the best grid slot, and then fight for victory in the race, but the tools to get them there are a little different. Let’s run through how a race weekend works. PRACTICE SESSIONS On a single-race weekend, there are traditionally two half-hour free practice sessions preceding qualifying…

Motorsport has undergone considerable change within the past decade. Cars powered purely by petrol-guzzling internal combustion engines are becoming more of a rarity as hybrids and electric power become more commonplace. The world is becoming more aware of the damage that civilised society is doing to the environment, and racing championships are more eager to become part of the solution, rather than the problem. When Formula E kicked off its first championship season in 2014, it coincided with a growing mainstream appreciation of electric mobility. In the meantime, Formula 1 was coming to the end of its first season with hybrid powertrains, but Formula E offered automakers the scope to be involved in the world’s first all-electric racing championship. Now, as teams are not only involved in the development of…

WEC The Indianapolis Motor Speedway could host a round of the World Endurance Championship in the future. Roger Penske wants to establish a major long-distance sportscar race at the venue he bought along with the IndyCar Series at the end of 2019 and is ready to welcome the WEC with open arms. Penske described creating a new fixture on the Indianapolis road course as “at the top of my list”. He floated the idea last year in the context of the IMSA SportsCar Championship and has now revealed that initial discussions have started with the WEC and series boss Frederic Lequien. “We are having discussions about it right now: nothing to announce, but it would be terrific,” explained Penske. “I’ve talked to Frederic and said we might have an interest.…

NURBURGRING 24 HOURS Irish budding Nurburgring Nordschleife hero Dan Harper was part of the winning BMW Junior Team line-up in last weekend’s Nurburgring 24 Hours qualifying races. Harper co-drove fellow youngsters Max Hesse and Neil Verhagen to victory in Saturday’s three-hour race in their RMG-run M4 GT3, beating the Rowe Racing BMW of ‘seniors’ Philipp Eng, Nick Yelloly, polewinner Augusto Farfus and Connor De Phillippi. It was the BMW juniors (right) who crossed the finish line first again on Sunday. They upheld Munich honour following dramas for the Rowe and Walkenhorst (for which Jesse Krohn had qualified on pole) cars, but a late 40-second time penalty for a Code 60 offence denied them the victory. Honours therefore went to the GetSpeed Mercedes of Adam Christodoulou, Maximilian Gotz and Fabian Schiller.…

When we talk about ERAs at Pau, it’s not a voiturette race from the 1930s. It’s the planned first electric junior single-seater series, which demoed its Formula 4-based car at last weekend’s Pau Grand Prix. Ellis Spiezia, one of few drivers signed to the series, successfully completed several laps on Friday evening, but a programming error led to the car’s regenerative functioning turning off on his Sunday run after two corners. Stephane Richelmi briefly demoed the hydrogen-powered Mission H24 prototype sportscar, while supercars ran laps with synthetic fuel. The Pau GP seeks to bar conventional fuels from competing at some point in the future.…

So, what did you make of Formula 1’s first Miami Grand Prix? Was it an unrivalled triumph of mass-market, glitzy, celebrity entertainment manifesting itself through sport? Or was it a soulless, overhyped, very expensive and actually not that interesting race in the car parks around a stadium built to host another sport entirely? The truth, inevitably, is in between the totally polarising positions F1 fans currently seem determined to adopt and then vitriolically defend on just about any subject. The race definitely did need something to make it interesting once Max Verstappen had passed Charles Leclerc for the lead fairly early in the opening stint. The safety car that followed Pierre Gasly’s unfortunate clash with Lando Norris led to the gripping final chase at the front and the heap of…

It really couldn’t have ended any other way. The top three finishers in Formula 1’s first Miami Grand Prix wore Pirelli-branded NFL helmets atop the gigantic podium, the Miami Dolphins’ aqua-coloured-structure dwarfed by the vastness of the Hard Rock Stadium behind it. Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc had gone wheel to wheel yet again. The Red Bull driver emerged victorious in a race that was re-enlivened only by a late-race safety car following a dramatic crash in the pack, while Ferrari’s challenge was lost for the second event in a row with struggles on softer Pirelli tyres. In qualifying, however, Ferrari had got the softs up to temperature nicely on the slippery track surface, and Leclerc had been able to keep them in the performance window best to aid his…

Pierre Gasly tried to leave Lando Norris room before their safety car-triggering crash on lap 40, but he struggled to steer due to damage inflicted from contact with Fernando Alonso. Gasly and Norris, who was running 14th, made contact while exiting Turn 8, which caused the McLaren to hit the wall on the left-hand side of the circuit. That came after Gasly had run wide at Turn 7, which permitted Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen to pass before Norris also tried to get ahead. The stewards noted the incident but took no action. The AlphaTauri racer retired soon after and explained that his car was already ailing from a tag from Alonso on the previous lap when the Alpine tried to dive up the inside at Turn 1. “We tried…

Sebastian Vettel labelled his collision with Mick Schumacher five laps from home as “stupid for both of us”. It appeared the stewards agreed, judging neither to be predominantly to blame. Schumacher was nearing his first F1 points finish. But, while fighting for ninth, the two Germans collided at Turn 1 as Schumacher tried to regain position after running wide through the final corners defending against Esteban Ocon. “I’m sorry we’re both out [of the points],” said Vettel. “I thought I had the corner and was in front. I didn’t expect him. Then when I saw him, it was too late. It’s bitter for both of us.” Schumacher would soften from his initial frustration over team radio, later saying it was difficult to see in the mirrors. He pitted to finish…

W SERIES MIAMI (USA) 7-8 MAY ROUND 1/8 There was huge pressure for Jamie Chadwick, but the reigning double champion shrugged it aside to kick off the W Series season with a double victory in Miami. She didn’t have it all her own way though. Nerea Marti was fastest in qualifying, but Chadwick took the lead at the start of the opening race, with Marti slow away. Meanwhile, 2021 series runner-up Alice Powell stalled from third on the grid, then hit the wall at the exit of Turn 7, which she blamed on dirt off the racing line, prompting a red flag. The race resumed with Chadwick defending from Emma Kimilainen, and the Finn had just taken the lead when the safety car emerged again following a tangle between Abbie…

SUPER GT FUJI (JPN) 4 MAY ROUND 2/8 ARTA Honda pairing Tomoki Nojiri and Nirei Fukuzumi won a bizarre Fuji 450Km overshadowed by a huge crash for Nissan driver Mitsunori Takaboshi. Takaboshi was battling the SARD Toyota of Yuhi Sekiguchi for the lead on lap 59 of 100 when he swerved to avoid a slow-moving GT300 car along the start/finish straight, losing control of his Nissan Z and slamming into the barriers at high speed. Luckily, he was able to exit the wreckage unaided and was cleared of any serious injury. The incident caused the second of two red flags and, after a 90-minute delay for makeshift barrier repairs, the race resumed but finished behind the safety car. The SARD Toyota of Sekiguchi and Yuichi Nakayama took the chequered flag…

BRITISH GT British GT’s Silverstone round was staged without success penalties last weekend, and no points have been awarded yet, as RAM Racing’s appeal into the Oulton Park race-two result was not heard in time. RAM pairing Ian Loggie and Jules Gounon won the Oulton contest on the road, but a mid-race red flag during the pitstop period meant their success penalty for finishing second in race one was added to their race time and demoted them to fifth. RAM’s protest into the result, lodged on the basis that the rulebook did not have a provision to determine what the correct procedure should be for such an eventuality, was rejected but swiftly followed by an appeal to the National Court. With the result still provisional, the series decided not to…

BRITISH GT British GT4 race winner Jordan Collard will complete the season with Speedworks Motorsport after a last-minute deal to replace Jack Mitchell at Silverstone last weekend. Collard, who finished third in 2021 with Team Rocket RJN’s McLaren and took a win at Snetterton, sat out the opening round of this season as 2018 GT4 champion Mitchell joined Ginetta Junior graduate Tom Edgar. But following in the footsteps of his elder brother Ricky, who races a Speedworks-run Toyota Corolla in the British Touring Car Championship, a deal was agreed for Collard to race the team’s GR Supra GT4 and he got his first mileage in testing on Friday. After starting ninth, 21-year-old Collard was running fourth when a puncture forced an extended spell in the garage with a brake line…

VSCC A serious incident towards the end of morning practice, in which Terry Crabb’s ERA left the course on acceleration out of Sawbench hairpin, tested officials and delayed the Vintage Sports-Car Club’s Wiscombe Park hillclimb in South Devon last Sunday. Crabb, who has owned and campaigned R12C since 2007, sustained a double break to one leg when he was ejected from the car, which was launched onto its side and hit a tree scuttle first. The old warhorse did not roll, but landed on its wheels around seven metres off the track in a forested area out of bounds to spectators. The rescue crew, stationed in the cutting at Sawbench, arrived within seconds and – with the doctor quickly in attendance – stabilised the driver. The air ambulance was called…

PICKUPS The inaugural Pickup Truck Racing champion Jeff Simpson returned to the formula for the first time in 23 years when he raced at Pembrey last weekend. The championship is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and Simpson claimed the title in that first season. After a previous lay-off, he returned to competition to become the 2012 Silhouette champion, which he almost repeated the following year, but crashed at the final round and had not raced since. “The truck was just sat in the garage after my son Matt [former British Touring Car driver, who was a race winner in Pickups last year] raced it, so I decided to bring it out,” he explained. Simpson finished all three races at Pembrey, taking a brace of 14th-place finishes before improving to…

BISHOPSCOURT BARC 7-8 MAY Car race meetings at Bishopscourt don’t come along very often, once a year as a rule, but last weekend’s large gathering was the first since COVID-19 struck. The organising team, overseen by Dale Wells, had a pretty large task on their hands with a total of 23 car races to fit into just two days. But the sun shone and red flags were comparatively rare, once everybody had got used to what was, for many, a first visit. Legends got it all off to a flying start, with two Saturday races, the first won by Geoff Richardson by a gnat’s whisker from Peter Barrable, with the order then reversed with Barrable ahead by a ‘massive’ 0.4 seconds. Barrable was victorious in three further Sunday races, despite…

GT3 (86 laps) 1 Adam Balon/Sandy Mitchell (Lamborghini Huracan EVO, above); 2 Alexander West/Marvin Kirchhofer (McLaren 720S) +0.529s; 3 Nick Moss/Joe Osborne (McLaren); 4 Alex Malykhin/James Dorlin (Lamborghini); 5 Flick Haigh/Jonny Adam (Mercedes-AMG GT3); 6 Mark Sansom/Will Tregurtha (Bentley Continental). Fastest lap Kirchhofer 1m58.304s (111.38mph). Pole Balon/Mitchell. Starters 20. GT4 (78 laps) 1 Matt Topham/Darren Turner (Aston Martin Vantage, below); 2 Richard Williams/Sennan Fielding (Audi R8 LMS) +34.427s; 3 Ross Wylie/Matthew Graham (Porsche 718 Cayman RS CS); 4 Marco Signoretti/Matt Cowley (Ford Mustang); 5 Will Burns/Jack Brown (BMW M4); 6 Tom Rawlings/Chris Salkeld (BMW). FL Fielding 2m09.861s (101.47mph). P Williams/Fielding. S 14. For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

CADWELL PARK MGCC 8 MAY Neither the day’s biggest entry nor a circuit on which overtaking is notoriously challenging could prevent Mark Wright claiming his first Cockshoot Cup victory from the back of the grid at a sunny Cadwell Park. Alternator failure on his ex-Vince Martin MGF Cup car forced Wright to qualify out of session and start each race at the rear of the 29-car grid – the northern-based championship’s largest for several years. Wright’s rapid progress to 12th on the opening tour counted for nothing when Peter Bramble’s MGB smote the barrier at The Mountain, but the East Midlander went even better in the rerun. Fourth by the end of lap three of 10, he then picked off the Midgets of Keith Egar and David Morrison before homing…

HAREWOOD BRITISH HILLCLIMB 7-8 MAY Two more wins at Harewood for Wallace Menzies put the current champion ahead in the British Hillclimb Championship on a day when the outright hill record took a battering. As ever, Menzies’s wins were incredibly hard fought as Scott Moran, Alex Summers and rising star Matthew Ryder all pushed the Scotsman to give his very best. Menzies’s 2019 hill record of 47.81s was always going to come under attack as the current generation of cars competed at a dry and warm Harewood for the first time in nearly three years. By the end of the afternoon, Menzies had the record back at 46.86s. In the opening run-off it was Ryder, drawing widespread praise from his rivals, who threw the gauntlet down by going under the…

Vauxhall was spoiled for talent in the 2002 British Touring Car Championship. Following 2001 champion Jason Plato’s departure, James Thompson had switched from Egg Sport to join Yvan Muller in the works Triple Eight Astra Coupes, with Super Touring independent king Matt Neal and Production class graduate Paul O’Neill forming an all-new line-up at T8-run Egg. O’Neill couldn’t have hoped for better drivers to learn from as he settled into the top class – between them, Thompson, Muller and Neal won each of the next five BTCC titles. But the Lancastrian doesn’t hesitate in choosing 2002 and 2004 champion Thompson as the favourite team-mate of his racing career. “He was stunning to me,” says BTCC pundit O’Neill, who also worked closely with the Yorkshireman in 2003 when he joined Thompson…

Tempelhof is run anti-clockwise in race one, and clockwise in race two, presenting two very different challenges for drivers to deal with. Berlin is a very specific race track; we have a very abrasive asphalt there, and this causes us to have quite a few issues with the tyres during the race. Because you have a lot of stop-and-go corners, it’s easy to have quite a lot of rear tyre degradation. TURNS 7-8 Coming into Turns 7 and 8, we’re onto the fast part of the track, and you can make quite a lot of difference in there as a driver. The next day, these are Turns 3 and 4; Turn 3 normally is flat, or almost flat on 250kW power. Turn 4 is a very tricky corner; the car…

With the halfway point of the 2021-22 Formula E season fast approaching, it won’t be long until the championship’s eighth season concludes in Seoul, after which the current Gen2 car will be granted its place in a museum following four years of service. In its place, the Gen3 racer unveiled at the Monaco Yacht Club will take to the grid for the 2022-23 season. It’s smaller, lighter, faster, more powerful and more sustainable; the bodywork was inspired by a fighter jet, and the car could theoretically hit 200mph on the right stretch of road. In Formula E’s short history, a lot of progress has been made. It feels deceptively long ago that the first generation of Formula E cars took to the grid around the Beijing Olympic stadium to kick…

FORMULA 1 Ferrari believes that Red Bull will not be able to maintain the current levels of spending on an aggressive upgrade push that has contributed to Max Verstappen’s back-to-back victories in the Emilia Romagna and Miami Grands Prix. The Dutchman’s wins at Imola and in Miami have indicated that recent car developments have given Red Bull the edge in the close fight at the front of the pack. While Ferrari’s early-season advantage has been wiped away by its decision not to introduce any major updates so far, and Charles Leclerc’s points lead is being eroded, the Italian squad still believes that the long game is important. With all teams limited by Formula 1’s $140million budget cap this year, Ferrari thinks that Red Bull’s early expenditure on developments mean it…

FORMULA 1 Lewis Hamilton has shown no signs of backing down in the ongoing stand-off with the FIA over wearing jewellery while competing in Formula 1. The FIA informed drivers at March’s Australian Grand Prix that it would be strictly enforcing the article of the International Sporting Code that bans the wearing of piercing jewellery or neck chains, and made checks part of the pre-race scrutineering declaration by each team for last weekend’s Miami GP. Hamilton turned up to the press conference on Friday wearing eight rings, three watches (all on different timezones), bracelets and neck chains. “It’s almost like a step backwards, if you think about the steps we’re taking as a sport and the more important issues and causes we need to be focusing on,” he said. “I…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS The Australian Supercars team founded by the late Tom Walkinshaw has made a sensational defection to Ford for 2023. Walkinshaw Andretti United, the category’s most famous Holden team, will field a pair of Mustangs as part of a factory deal with Ford Performance. Walkinshaw’s operation ran as the works Holden Racing Team from the 1990s until the backing was transferred to Triple Eight for the 2017 season. Since then, the team has continued to field Holden hardware but without any noteworthy backing from parent company General Motors. “Today marks a new era for Walkinshaw Andretti United, one we are extremely excited about,” said team co-owner Ryan Walkinshaw, son of Tom. “For over three decades, we have gone head to head in competition with Ford, but joining forces with…

DTM CLASSIC The famed Schnitzer name and former racer Kris Nissen will return to the DTM package in harness this season. Bavarian Stefen Trautwein and his son Yannik have acquired the machinery, spare parts, archive and naming rights of talismanic long-time BMW factory team Schnitzer Motorsport, which closed its doors in 2020 not long after the passing of long-time boss Charly Lamm. Under the name Schnitzer Classic, the team will run a Super Touring BMW 320i E36 in DTM Classic as well as a Class 1 M3 E30 for Nissen, whose car is a replica of the test machine he drove in the winter of 1990-91. “There is hardly any other name so closely connected with the golden days of DTM than Schnitzer,” said Trautwein Sr. “Therefore, running the historic…

For the next 800 words or so, it is immaterial to me that the Miami Grand Prix was a blockbuster event set in a glamorous location that attracted a host of famous faces and was designed to be photogenic. The 3.36-mile configuration could just as well have been plonked in an anonymous Lincolnshire field, Formula 1 having struggled to sell a single ticket, and I would still be about to defend the circuit’s credentials. The cars looked superb lapping by themselves during practice and then in qualifying. They were yawing through the high-speed sweeps and jolting over the kerbs in the difficult stop and extremely tight direction change of the Turn 14-15 chicane. As a brand-new venue where drivers had to quickly correlate their reference points from the simulator with…

After all the complaints, all the fears that the first qualifying action for the Miami Grand Prix would be blighted by red-flag stoppages and big crashes following heavily disrupted practice, the session ran interrupted throughout. There wasn’t even a single yellow flag. Ferrari roared to its first front-row lockout of 2022 and Max Verstappen “f***** it”. The world champion had led after the first runs in Q3, his 1m28.991s giving him a 0.080s advantage that covered both the following Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in third. Verstappen started the final fliers towards the rear of the pack, while Leclerc led his team-mate for the last-gasp effort. It didn’t start off brilliantly. “Turns 1, 2, 3 weren’t great”, said Leclerc of the fast, sweeping sequence that starts a lap of the…

George Russell maintained his unrivalled streak of top-five finishes so far this campaign by leading team-mate Lewis Hamilton to complete a Mercedes 5-6 aboard the updated W13. The duo thought the arrival of more efficient front-wing endplates plus upgraded rear and beam wings (see page 33) would not wholly fix the troublesome car, but should aid the team’s medium-term troubleshooting. When both machines were porpoising far less in FP1 and Russell topped FP2, it took the young Brit by surprise. But late set-up tweaks meant the oscillations returned violently for qualifying, tethering Russell to 12th as Hamilton progressed to sixth, with a 0.376s advantage in Q2. Russell turned in a 40-lap opening stint on hard tyres and used the virtual safety car to pit for mediums. That permitted him to…

Esteban Ocon missed qualifying in Miami owing to a cracked Alpine chassis following his 51g shunt into a concrete wall during FP3. Little wonder he described a recovery to eighth as “a victory for us”. The Frenchman’s major spill at Turn 14 left him feeling only “50% physically”, like Carlos Sainz who entered the race with an aching neck following his crash at the same spot in FP2. Despite the pain in his knees and lower back, plus bruised heels, Ocon executed a long first stint on the hard tyre before pitting for softs under the safety car. After overcoming his early struggles to switch on the hard Pirellis, and also keeping his nose clean when Mick Schumacher eliminated Sebastian Vettel, Ocon eventually returned ninth on the road. That became…

Ferrari wouldn’t have got a look-in at Spa had it remained dry. But the great leveller that arrived in bucketloads from the sky and streaming rivers from the hillsides allowed it to claim a victory that was both a shock and highly dramatic. James Calado had to hang on at the end around a track with a clear dry line in the face of a stern challenge from Porsche and Michael Christensen. Alessandro Pier Guidi had qualified the winning AF Corse-run factory Ferrari 488 GTE Evo eight tenths from Porsche driver Gianmaria Bruni’s pole. That was admittedly much closer than the two-second deficit first time out this season at Sebring in March. Ferrari reckoned it still had no chance in the dry after the off-season Balance of Performance reset that…

WORLD TOURING CAR CUP PAU (FRA) 8 MAY ROUND 1/10 Munnich Motorsport’s Honda Civics may be the oldest TCR cars on the grid, but the German team remains the biggest threat to Cyan Racing Lynk & Co in the World Touring Car Cup, judging by the opening round of 2022. Argentinian duo Nestor Girolami and Esteban Guerrieri claimed a convincing 1-2 from the front row of race one to beat a trio of the blue Lynk & Cos as the series made its first appearance at the famous Pau street track. The team-mates and friends blitzed the qualifying shootout on Saturday, Guerrieri proving faster in Q2 only for Girolami to pip him to pole position in Q3. Locking out the front row was more than half the job, with third…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN IMOLA (ITA) 7-8 MAY ROUND 2/10 Gabriele Mini won both races on the road at Imola, but only one of them counted. The Sicilian was hit with a 10-second penalty in Saturday’s encounter for inching forward from pole, due to a clutch glitch, before lights-out. Not too bad a sanction, you might think. Except this farcical race featured two red flags and two further safety car periods. ART Grand Prix starlet Mini was therefore dumped to 28th place on corrected times. Mini’s team-mate Mari Boya could have won and ran second early on, but somehow Prema-run Ferrari protege Dino Beganovic found time during a fleeting moment of green-flag racing to demote the Spaniard into Tamburello. The Swede therefore won from Boya and two more Prema drivers, Paul…

GOODWOOD Fifty years of BMW’s motorsport division will be celebrated at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. The German manufacturer has been announced as the central feature at this year’s event – which is due to take place on 23-26 June at the famous hillclimb course – where a sculpture paying tribute to the past five decades will be on display along with some of the marque’s famous cars. BMW M was first created in 1972 with just 35 employees, but went on to achieve incredible success over the following years in motorsport. The Duke of Richmond said: “We are delighted to be celebrating 50 years of BMW’s hugely successful motorsport division at this year’s Festival of Speed, and it is especially fitting as we prepare to honour ‘The Innovators…

GB4 Lucas Romanek is aiming to enter more rounds of the GB4 Championship this season after ending his first weekend in the series with victory at Silverstone. Driving for Oldfield Motorsport on the team’s series bow, Romanek capped off an impressive debut by passing fellow Formula Ford 1600 graduate Logan Hannah to win the full reversed-grid race. “Ecstatic,” said Romanek. “I’m glad we did a little set-up change [before the race] – it all paid off. It’s a massive difference between Formula Ford and GB4, so it’s been hard getting used to that.” Despite his success, Romanek said his main priority this year will remain on the National FF1600 Championship, where he also won last time out at Knockhill. “Our main focus is National FF1600, but it will be nice…

SMRC Only one of the planned Super Touring Trophy races took place at the second Scottish Motor Racing Club meeting of the season at Knockhill last weekend due to a series of mechanical issues. Returning for the first time since 2019, a total of nine cars entered the David Leslie Trophy race, some of which compete in the new Classic Touring Car Racing Club Super Tourers series south of the border. However, three cars were lost from the entry following the opening CTCRC round of the year at Silverstone, while another one suffered mechanical dramas during the test day prior to the Knockhill meeting. Five cars, John Cleland (in his original Vauxhall Vectra from the 1997 British Touring Car campaign, below), Allister McMillan (Nissan Primera), Conrad Murray (in an ex-Tom…

SILVERSTONE BRITISH GT 7-8 MAY Half a second was all that split the winning Barwell Lamborghini from the pursuing Garage 59 McLaren after three hours of flat-out racing at Silverstone that ran uninterrupted for the duration. As Sandy Mitchell and Adam Balon banished the memories of a tricky British GT season opener at Oulton Park, the pair needed an inch-perfect drive to beat a guesting Marvin Kirchhofer and Alexander West in a race determined by fine margins. “If we’d lost one or two seconds throughout the whole race then [the win] probably wouldn’t have happened,” said Mitchell, who breathed a sigh of relief when Kirchhofer resumed the race after his third and final stop on lap 68 narrowly behind. Mitchell admitted that he likely wouldn’t have passed Kirchhofer, on four-lap…

SILVERSTONE BRSCC 7-8 MAY Fortec Motorsports’s Joel Granfors moved to the top of the GB3 Championship standings at Silverstone, as three different drivers scored maiden series triumphs. Granfors continued his strong pace from last month’s Oulton Park season-opener by taking a double pole on the Grand Prix circuit. He converted the first of those into the lead, pulling out an early two-second cushion over Hitech GP’s Luke Browning, who had passed Elite Motorsport’s Tom Lebbon on the opening lap. Browning picked up the pace late on to close the deficit, but came home 0.721s behind. Lebbon finished third, ahead of Douglas Motorsport’s Max Esterson, who gained two places at the start to score his best result so far. Lebbon’s team-mates James Hedley and John Bennett completed the top six. Elite’s…

For reigning Midget & Sprite Challenge champion Pippa Cow, adding last year’s overall crown to her two previous class titles was the culmination of a lifetime spent in and around the series. Cow claimed Class E honours (for race-modified cars) by topping the section in her Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite on all but two occasions. It was enough to pip Class D (road-modified) champion Mark Witherspoon to the overall title. Like a number of her competitors, Cow followed her father, Gil Duffy, into the series after growing up immersed in the paddock. Richard Bridge and Barney Collinson – frontrunners in Classes A (fully modified) and D respectively – did similarly, as well as Hugh Simpson and last year’s Class A champion Edd Weston. Taming a single horsepower had initially been enough…

PEMBREY BARC 7-8 MAY There was no stopping Nelson King as he opened the Mini Challenge Trophy season with a winning treble at Pembrey. King led from the start of the opener, but he was under intense pressure from Matt Hammond for its entirety. Nicky Taylor joined them in an early break, but he lost ground and Lee Pearce got past him at Hatchets after 12 of the 18 laps. That left Taylor to hold off Alex Solley and Tom Ovenden to the finish. With Hammond running wide at Hatchets on the first lap of race two, King was in the clear from Taylor, while it became a four-car battle for third. Louie Capozzoli and Ovenden fell over each other on lap 10, leaving Solley and Pearce to battle, with…

Lotus. It is one of the most iconic names in the world of motorsport. And yet, despite its illustrious history, it has been over a decade since the brand released a new car dedicated to racing. But that long wait is finally over as, last week, the next chapter of Lotus’s story began with the launch of the Emira GT4. “Lotus should be racing, that’s what Lotus is about,” states managing director Matt Windle, who rejoined Lotus in 2017 having previously worked in its Engineering division. “For me, when I came here, it’s one of the things I really wanted to achieve. I’m a big fan of motorsport and I think it’s where Lotus should be. “This now brings us into this decade, so we’ve raced every decade, and I…

When Rene Rast and Kelvin van der Linde teamed up to win the 2014 ADAC GT Masters title, Ricardo Feller was still racing karts. Fast-forward to 2022, and the 21-year-old is part of Abt’s DTM roster alongside Rast and van der Linde, after winning Germany’s ‘other’ GT3 title last year. Like van der Linde before him, Feller was bestowed with Audi factory driver status for his GT Masters success with Land Motorsport team-mate Christopher Mies. It was a standout 2021 that also included a race-winning GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup campaign with Lamborghini squad Emil Frey Racing. So don’t presume that the Swiss, who made a winning start to his GT Masters title defence with Jusuf Owega and Land at Oschersleben last month, will automatically occupy the role of…

With five different winners from the first six races, Formula E’s final season of the Gen2 era has certainly lived up to expectations so far. Four drivers from as many different teams have come to the fore as the early championship challengers, but all is still to play for ahead of this weekend’s Berlin double-header, which marks the halfway point in the 2021-22 campaign. Such is the unpredictable nature of Formula E that predicting a favourite at the Tempelhof Airport track, a fixture on the calendar with the exception of 2016’s one-off visit to Karl-Marx-Allee, is an exercise in folly. But if last year’s dramatic title decider is anything to go by, then those making the trip will be in for a treat. Inside this guide to the FIA’s world…

Within the realms of conventional motorsport, the fastest car will usually win races, so long as it has the requisite reliability to finish. There are still various parameters, such as mechanical set-up, worth considering to flex that advantage further, but having the overall pace in the car is most of the battle won. In Formula E, that’s not necessarily the case, since the gaps between teams in raw performance is so small. That makes it much more difficult to find a clear advantage over your competition, and even harder to do so on a consistent basis. Therefore, winning a championship in Formula E requires a considerable amount of work to set in motion – and, to a certain degree, a good helping of luck. “I think every season required a…

BATTERY Because the capacity to regenerate power is greater in the Gen3 car, the battery can come down in size since the extra cells would be unnecessary. This, in addition to the smaller car and absent rear brake assembly, yields an overall reduction of 60kg from the Gen2 car. The batteries are, like in the Gen1 days, produced by Williams Advanced Engineering, and have had their materials selected from more sustainable sources to reduce the global impact of the battery production. REAR MOTOR The drive motor will run at up to 350kW – that’s around 470bhp – to ensure the fastest Formula E cars yet. In tandem with the front motor, that adds up to 600kW of regen, which will ensure that around 40% of the energy used in the…