Indholdsfortegnelse for 26/01/23 i Autosport

The major Formula 1 rules revolution finally arrived in 2022. The first season of ground-effects went reasonably well and the regulations remain fairly stable for this season. There are, however, some minor tweaks – as well as three new drivers on the grid and an F1 returnee – so this week Autosport is your guide to F1 2023. Our technical editor Jake Boxall-Legge runs through the changes on page 20 and looks at how much Red Bull’s cost-cap penalty will really impact last season’s pacesetting squad. He also picks out other things to watch out for, including the full-time arrivals of Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Nyck de Vries. Joining the rookies will be Nico Hulkenberg, the 35-year-old German still in search of his first F1 podium. Adam Cooper catches…

FORMULA 1 The FIA has appointed highly respected former team manager Steve Nielsen as its sporting director inside a new Formula 1 structure. Nielsen, who has most recently worked for Formula One Management, has enjoyed a lengthy career in grand prix racing, which included spells at Lotus, Tyrrell, Benetton and AlphaTauri. In his new role at the FIA, he will be responsible for all sporting matters, including the development of race control and the remote operations centre, as well as updates to the sporting regulations. Speaking about his new role, Nielsen said: “I have spent my professional life working for many teams and organisations in F1, and cannot wait to engage with another new chapter with the FIA. I’d like to thank the president and Stefano Domenicali [F1 chief] for…

WEC Antonio Felix da Costa and Will Stevens will remain with Jota to race its customer Porsche 963 LMDh in the World Endurance Championship this season. The Porsche Formula E driver and ex-Formula 1 racer are moving across to the British squad’s new entry in the Hypercar class after winning the WEC LMP2 title alongside Roberto Gonzalez with the team in 2022. The duo have finally been named by the team after protracted speculation that they would be retained for Jota’s graduation to the Hypercar division. The announcement finally came last week that they will join Yifei Ye, the Porsche Asia Pacific Motorsport-contracted driver announced for the car in November. Da Costa is remaining with Jota for a fourth WEC assault. Stevens, meanwhile, is going into a second consecutive campaign,…

FREGIONAL/USF PRO 2000 Reigning GB3 champion and Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award winner Luke Browning is to make his Formula Regional Middle East debut this weekend at the new Kuwait Motor Town circuit. Browning (right) has joined up again with his GB3 team Hitech Grand Prix in place of Red Bull Junior Jak Crawford. The American was initially slated to contest the first three of five rounds, but picked up a best result of eighth from a poor opening event in Dubai. Browning will take over for the two Kuwait outings and would appear favourite to race the car in the remaining rounds in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Gabriele Mini is also contesting the first three rounds only with Hitech; the Italian will be replaced for the final two events…

BTCC Two-time Le Mans 24 Hours starter Andrew Watson has made a career change and will race in the British Touring Car Championship this season at the wheel of a Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra. The 28-year-old therefore joins Jake Hill, his stablemate under Mark Blundell’s management company, in the series, a decade after he raced on the BTCC undercard in Ginetta’s Junior and GT4 Supercup support championships. “I would have liked a trophy at Le Mans and that door is not closed,” explained the Northern Irishman, whose 24 Hours starts came in Porsche and Aston Martin machines. “This is probably more of a timing thing. For my partners and commercial aspects, a lot of these guys are based in the UK, and this gives a better platform than the…

Despite Max Verstappen’s runaway Formula 1 championship success in 2022, the new ground-effects rules were generally well received. Cars could follow each other more closely and we had some great battles during the campaign. But how good were the races compared to what came before? Autosport teamed up with author Roger Smith in 2021 to start rating each grand prix. Assessing races is always tricky – how do you compare, for example, a masterclass, a wheel-to-wheel lead battle and a race full of unexpected drama? All have their merits, and different fans will have varying preferences as to what they want to see. You could also have a fantastic fight further down the pack but, if it’s not for the podium spots, it just doesn’t have quite the same attraction.…

WHAT GOES TO VEGAS… For the first time since 1982, Formula 1 will race in Las Vegas. Thankfully, the race is not confined to the Caesars Palace parking lot this time, and instead the cars will have the freedom of the neon-illuminated Strip to race down. That’s something that the championship has been after for decades and, thanks to F1’s boom in popularity, it now has the draw of a magnetar in the United States. It’ll be the third US race on the calendar – ironically, the first time since 1982 that F1 has had three US races in one season. Of course, the Las Vegas Grand Prix will be held at night, since the majesty of the lights along the Strip was a key selling point to having the…

Timo Bernhard and Jorg Bergmeister usually didn’t get to talk much during races. The two Porsche factory drivers were regular team-mates in the early 2000s, but during the 2003 Daytona 24 Hours they had the chance to have a chat and set themselves what before the race would have looked like an outlandish target. That was to win the famous event outright aboard a GT class car, and not even an entry from the top category for production-based machinery. “I’d stepped out of the car just before midnight and it was one of the rare times that I ran into Jorg during a race,” recalls two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Bernhard, whose Porsche 911 GT3-RS run by The Racers Group had moved into the lead as early as the…

BMW is back, shooting for outright honours in the big sportscar races after an absence of nearly a quarter of a century. The German manufacturer’s attempt to follow up on its Le Mans and Sebring successes of 1999 with the V12 LMR begins at this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours with a new LMDh prototype called the M Hybrid V8. It won’t be back at the Le Mans 24 Hours until 2024. And the reason for that can at least partially be explained by an ultra-tight timeline for a project described internally as a “zero error programme”. The decision for a marque steeped in motorsport tradition to return to the very pinnacle of sportscar racing wasn’t made until June 2021. That gave its new LMDh just an 18-month gestation period before…

Ott Tanak has conceded that M-Sport faces “quite a big job” to close the gap to World Rally Championship rivals Toyota and Hyundai, but is confident that it can be achieved. The Estonian steadily made progress in unlocking speed from the Ford Puma package in his first competitive outing in the car at Monte Carlo, but ultimately was unable to sustain a consistent challenge at the sharp end. A glimpse into the potential of the Tanak/M-Sport package arrived on the Power Stage, where the 35-year-old was 0.6 seconds shy of the win. “Generally it was still a good weekend,” said Tanak (below). “We were able to learn plenty and we got some good mileage as well. For sure, there are things we need to improve, we need to be more…

MOTORSPORT UK An inquest has ruled that the death of a Citroen C1 racer during an endurance race at Snetterton in 2021, when her safety harness came unbuckled, was an accident. Angela Lucas, 42, died from head injuries after the C1 she was driving left the track and crashed into barriers at the opening Riches corner after contact from behind from another competitor. The inquest heard that she had been unsecured when she crashed, with Motorsport UK finding that her safety harness had probably become accidentally unbuckled as she tried to correct her steering. Jamie Champkin of the governing body’s serious incident response executive, which investigated, said the harness locking buckle had been incorrectly positioned on her stomach rather than her pelvis. “It’s our belief and supposition that Angela’s right…

CIRCUIT RALLYING John Griffiths and Emma Morrison consolidated their MGJ Engineering Circuit Rally Championship advantage, leading last weekend’s Brands Hatch Winter Stages from start to finish. The Ford Fiesta R5 duo had just a one-second lead over Paul Murro/Callum Cross’s similar car after an icy opening stage. Murro opted for supersoft tyres on stage three, though, which cost him dearly as the deficit became 6s. However, Griffiths also had troubles. “We had an overheating problem, it was OK on the stages but not on the drive to service,” he explained. Griffiths managed to cure his problem for the second half of the rally, but admitted he was “so close to pulling out”. In the end, his winning margin over Murro was 29s. John Stone/Callum Young’s VW Polo GTI R5 came…

CLUB ENDURO Club Enduro Class B champion Luke Handley is stepping up to the top division this year, where he will face Area Motorsport team-mates Rob Baker and Carl Swift in a formidable five-pronged Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk7 onslaught. Handley’s car has been reconfigured to the regulations of the highest power-to-weight ratio class of the 750 Motor Club championship and has been reliveried. Class winner at Croft and Spa last term, and on the podium in all seven races, Hampshireman Handley, 38, joins reigning champions Baker/Swift, and Chris Freeman in A-spec cars. Jonathan Packer and Chris Plaskett will continue to run theirs in the equally competitive Class B. “The changes [which bring the power to 388bhp] include different turbo, intercooler, mapping, low-pressure fuel pump and oil control, but otherwise the…

HISTORICS The history of the Jaguar and Daimler brands was celebrated at the Taupo Historic Grand Prix in New Zealand last weekend, an event that was postponed from 2022. The racing was based on handicap, mainly due to the variety and age of the machines competing, therefore giving everyone a fair chance of success. But it was a C-type that won both of the races in the hands of Robert Moston, although he triumphed in race two by less than a second. One of the Jaguars of particular significance in New Zealand was a 1962 Mk2 3.8. These cars were successful racers in the 1960s, winning events such as the 1962 Australian Touring Car Championship and the 1963 Brands Hatch 6 Hours with New Zealander Denny Hulme. This particular model…

Martin Donnelly regards the Brands Hatch Grand Prix loop as the circuit that has “been the kindest to me”, both in single-seaters on his way up the ladder and aboard Lotus sportscars following the Jerez 1990 crash that curtailed his promising Formula 1 career. He won at the Kent track on his Formula 3000 debut in 1988 and repeated the feat in 1989, his third victory at the venue in as many years after triumphing over Damon Hill in a 1987 British F3 race. The Northern Irishman says that the circuit has plenty of character that continues to captivate him whenever he ventures onto its ribbon of asphalt. “You can’t do it every week and month [due to noise restrictions], so to get onto it is pretty special,” Donnelly says…

DAYTONA 24 HOURS Tom Blomqvist and Meyer Shank Racing took first blood at the start of the new GTP era in the IMSA SportsCar Championship at Daytona last Sunday. The Briton claimed a last-gasp pole position aboard the Shank Acura ARX-06 LMDh as the team began the defence of its 2022 IMSA title over the test and qualifying weekend ahead of this weekend’s season-opener. Blomqvist snatched pole after a late red flag in the single 20-minute GTP qualifying session at the end of the Roar before the Rolex, which left time for only one flying lap as the clock ticked down after the resumption. He had been two seconds off the pace on his initial run before pitting for a new set of tyres. The tactic of going for new…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 race director Niels Wittich will continue in the role through 2023, and will help lead a programme bringing on the next generation of officials. In the wake of the controversy at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale, the FIA implemented a dual race director system last year, with Wittich and Eduardo Freitas sharing the role through the season. That was until Wittich was assigned a role as the sole director from October’s Japanese GP onwards, and it is understood that he will continue on that basis for 2023. But with the FIA keen to ensure that there is a strong succession plan in place for the long term, the governing body does not want to hand over full responsibility of the race director role…

FREGIONAL OCEANIA Charlie Wurz extended his lead in the Toyota Formula Regional Oceania series in New Zealand with two race victories at Teretonga last weekend. The Austrian trailed local ace Callum Hedge in first qualifying at the world’s most southerly racing circuit. But Wurz made a strong start, stuck it out around the outside at the first corner and slipped down the inside of his M2 Competition team-mate at Turn 2. Hedge kept the pressure on, but Wurz (below) stayed firm. American Jacob Abel held off Briton Josh Mason for third. Wurz claimed pole for the feature race, and converted that into a lights-to-flag win. Once again he had Hedge filling his mirrors for the entire distance. As on Saturday, Mason was again pipped to the final podium spot, although…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE Ferrari Formula 1 test and reserve driver Robert Shwartzman will take his first steps in sportscar racing with the Italian manufacturer this year. The Russian-Israeli (above) will race a new 296 GT3 in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with AF Corse in conjunction with a third season in his F1 role. The 23-year-old, part of the Ferrari Driver Academy since the end of 2017, will share one of three factory cars entered by AF in the five-round series incorporating the Spa 24 Hours with Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera. The move follows a season in which the 2021 Formula 2 Championship runner-up didn’t have a race programme to supplement his F1 duties, which included two Friday free practice appearances. “We wanted to give Robert…

RACE OF CHAMPIONS Rally legend Sebastien Loeb is to aim for his second successive Race of Champions title this weekend in Sweden. Fresh from finishing runner-up on the Dakar Rally, nine-time World Rally champion Loeb (left) will line up alongside reigning FIA eTouring Car World Cup champ Adrien Tambay with Team France. Loeb was victorious in the first RoC on snow and ice last year. He defeated Sebastian Vettel in the final for his fourth RoC victory, equalling the all-time record he now shares with fellow Frenchman Didier Auriol. “I have so many good memories from the Race of Champions, going back 20 years,” said Loeb, who won the event in 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2022. “It’s always great to meet up with all the other drivers in such a…

Pioneering sporting spirit left behind I read Autosport from back to front. So in the 12 January issue I started with an amazing archive image of Formula 1 pioneers in the 1965 Syracuse Grand Prix. I tried to imagine the organisation of the street race then and complication of trying to repeat it now. How disillusioned am I when I get to Pit+Paddock and see F1 teams won’t even allow another team to participate? These pages unfortunately demonstrate that pioneer sportsmen risked their lives to create a sport, only for it to be turned by greed into business. Like superlicence points for drivers, the same should be created for teams, to allow them to enter F1. Like the FIA creating fines for drivers for sharing their unauthorised views, create a…

After three years as a reserve driver, Nico Hulkenberg returns to frontline Formula 1 duty with Haas this season following what was one of the most surprising twists of a rollercoaster silly season. Given his absence from a regular race seat, Hulkenberg’s time seemed to have passed, something that the German himself had acknowledged. But when Gene Haas and Gunther Steiner decided to drop Mick Schumacher and look for experience rather than youth for 2023, there was a very short list of possible candidates. Technical partner Ferrari lobbied hard for Antonio Giovinazzi, but any lingering hopes that the Italian had went up in smoke when he crashed heavily at the start of FP1 at October’s United States Grand Prix. Instead, the pieces fell into place for Hulkenberg. His case was…

CADILLAC V-LMDH Chassis partner Dallara Engine 5.5-litre normally aspirated V8 Chip Ganassi Racing (Cadillac Racing) 01 Sebastien Bourdais/Renger van der Zande/Scott Dixon* 02 Earl Bamber/Alex Lynn/Richard Westbrook **** Action Express Racing (Whelen Engineering) 31 Pipo Derani/Alexander Sims/Jack Aitken* PORSCHE 963 Chassis partner Multimatic Engine 4.6-litre twin-turbo V8 Porsche Penske Motorsport 6 Nick Tandy/Mathieu Jaminet/Dane Cameron* 7 Felipe Nasr/Matt Campbell/Michael Christensen* ACURA ARX-06 Chassis partner ORECA Engine 2.4-litre twin-turbo V6 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport 10 Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque/Louis Deletraz*/Brendon Hartley*** Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian 60 Tom Blomqvist/Colin Braun/Helio Castroneves*/Simon Pagenaud*** BMW M HYBRID V8 Chassis partner Dallara Engine 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 BMW M Team RLL 24 Philipp Eng/Augusto Farfus/Marco Wittmann**/Colton Herta*** 25 Nick Yelloly/Connor De Phillippi/Sheldon van der Linde** * Driver for IMSA endurance races ** Confirmed for…

Bobby Rahal won the Indianapolis 500 as a driver in 1986 and has twice reprised that victory as a team owner in 2004 and 2020. He now has the chance to follow up on his triumphs behind the wheel at the Daytona and Sebring enduros in 1981 and 1987 respectively from the timing stand. And he’s relishing the prospect. It is a target he’s harboured for a long time, but it would be wrong to say that he was pushing BMW to make the jump up from the GT divisions to the premier class. “It’s always been an ambition to run for overall victories, but it wasn’t an expectation; the BMW programme in North America has always been focused on the production categories,” says the 70-year-old. “It was a bit…

Thierry Neuville isn’t scared by the pace Toyota displayed during its domination of the Monte Carlo Rally, but admits that Hyundai has work to do. Hyundai found itself trailing Toyota for outright speed on the Monte Carlo asphalt as the Japanese make racked up 16 stages wins to the South Korean marque’s two, delivered by Neuville on Saturday and helping cement third position. Both Hyundai and Toyota upgraded the aero on their respective i20 N and GR Yaris challengers for the new season while Toyota also tweaked its engine. Despite a clear gulf in speed between Toyota and the chasing pack, Neuville is not too concerned given Hyundai’s pace deficit stemmed from setting its cars up for wintry conditions that failed to arrive. Asked if he was scared by Toyota’s…

BRITISH GT Ginetta Junior champions Aston Millar and Josh Rowledge will make their British GT debuts this season, driving a DTO Motorsport-run McLaren Artura GT4. Millar and Rowledge claimed Junior success in 2021 and 2022 respectively, with Millar competing last term in the Ginetta GT4 Supercup with the DTO outfit. Together they finished third overall and achieved a win at the final round, and will now move into British GT for 2023. “I’ve always loved GT racing and my plan has always been do Supercup and then British GT4 and work my way up all the way to Le Mans,” said Millar (above right). “You see a lot of these pairings in British GT that are obviously a pairing together on track, and they don’t really get along off track,…

MINI CHALLENGE Fiesta Junior runner-up Thomas Jack Lee will graduate to the top JCW class of the Mini Challenge this year with the frontrunning Excelr8 Motorsport team. Lee narrowly missed out on the Fiesta title last season after taking nine wins in his first full year of car racing, after contesting two Ginetta Junior rounds in 2021. His leap up to a JCW Mini means Lee will be one of the youngest drivers on the grid. He will celebrate his 16th birthday less than a month before the season is due to begin at Donington Park. “The higher speeds, longer races and the fact the JCW is more on edge compared to what I have raced before means there will be a lot of new challenges, but I feel ready…

SNETTERTON IMPROVEMENTS A range of improvement works have been carried out over the winter at Snetterton. The Norfolk circuit’s race control and medical centre buildings have undergone refurbishments, while electric vehicle charging points have been added. Drainage has also been improved in the paddock and 160 sheets of Armco barrier have been replaced. JOHN WATT 1932-2023 We regret to record the death last week of John Watt, former North West chairman of the British Motorsports Marshals Club and a respected Motorsport UK steward, aged 90. Popular officials at Oulton Park, Donington and elsewhere, deerstalker-hatted John and his wife Audrey (who survives him) mentored generations of marshals. Their children followed them into the sport, daughter Alison marrying Autosport photographer Jeff Bloxham. ANOTHER WEBB CAMPAIGN Greystone GT has announced Oli Webb and…

Bert Taylor is laughing and, all things considered, it’s lovely that he’s able to do that. At the end of 2020, he exited the British Touring Car Championship when he quit the BTC Racing squad he had founded, but sold to fellow ex-short-oval man Steve Dudman. It’s fair to say that the two did not split on good terms. In early 2021, Taylor became ill with COVID-19 and then suffered a debilitating stroke. For 2022, he was knocked back in his attempts to rejoin the BTCC with his longtime protege and friend Chris Smiley driving. Then, within a couple of weeks, came a last-minute decision, a dash to Italy and a race win. A few months on from that, Taylor’s new entity – appropriately named Restart Racing – was celebrating…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 rookie Nyck de Vries is facing a lawsuit from a Dutch real-estate millionaire over a €250,000 loan used to support his junior career. De Vries, a champion in Formula 2 and Formula E, will race full-time with AlphaTauri in 2023 after impressing on his debut as a late stand-in for Alex Albon with Williams at Monza last year. But he is now being sued by Jeroen Schothorst, who claims that de Vries withheld information and breached agreements relating to a loan in 2018. De Vries reportedly took out a €250,000 loan from Schothorst’s investment company, Investrand, to help secure an F2 seat with Prema in 2018. This allegedly came with a charge of 3% interest per year as well as a cut of future income from…

Porsche ace Harry King took victory in the Abu Dhabi 6 Hours after a thrilling climax. The Brit’s hard work in the Pure Rxcing 911 GT3-R was undone by safety cars, and co-driver Joel Sturm had to overcome the similar Herberth Motorsport car of Markus Neuhofer in the final stint – and cancel out a 10-second penalty for passing a car off-track. This the German did to take victory for himself, King and Alex Malykhin, while Neuhofer claimed second with son Felix plus Renauer twins Robert and Alfred. A close third was the Haas RT Audi of Maxime Soulet, Mathieu Detry and Stephane Perrin, from the Pierre Kaffer-led Phoenix Audi.…

FORMULA 2 A raft of announcements in the past week means that the grid for the FIA Formula 2 Championship is already complete, several weeks before the season kicks off. Reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Victor Martins and 2022 F2 runner-up Theo Pourchaire will link up in a very tasty line-up at ART Grand Prix. Red Bull juniors Isack Hadjar and Jak Crawford will step up from F3 together with Hitech Grand Prix. Jehan Daruvala is off the Red Bull scheme as he enters his fourth season of F2, but joins Dennis Hauger in making the move from Prema Racing to reigning champion MP Motorsport, the Dutch squad that ran Felipe Drugovich to title glory in 2022. Meanwhile, Red Bull’s two newcomers Enzo Fittipaldi and Zane Maloney are teaming up…

POWER OUT OF DAYTONA Reigning IndyCar Series champion Will Power has opted out of this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours IMSA SportsCar Championship season-opener while his wife recovers from surgery. The Australian has been replaced in the GT Daytona class Gradient-run SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG GT3 by factory driver Luca Stolz. TUCK IN FOR ELMS ASTON Briton Ben Tuck is moving up to the European Le Mans Series in 2023 with the TF Sport Aston Martin squad. The 25-year-old, a regular in GT3 in the NLS at the Nurburgring Nordschleife and a race winner in the DTM Trophy for GT4 cars, will share a Vantage GT3 with factory driver Jonny Adam and John Hartshorne. FREY SWITCHES TO FERRARI The Swiss Emil Frey Racing squad is swapping from Lamborghini to Ferrari for a programme…

One of Formula 1’s major selling points is that it is big business, big stakes. Interest levels are heightened because of the competition being readied for between legendary marques such as Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin, plus huge brands such as Red Bull. But the small details matter to motorsport fans too. Autosport knows this well – we exist because our readers share our like-minded interest in all of motorsport’s facets. And so, it’s interesting to note how, as well as focusing on F1’s big picture stuff this month with his comments on Andretti’s possible entry and the speculated $20billion value of the championship to the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s more day-to-day concerns with the championship have been in the spotlight this January…

Last year represented a seismic change for Formula 1 and its approach to car design. The return of a ground-effects formula and all its trimmings was conceived to make the on-track product better for fans, at the expense of restricting overall freedom for the aerodynamicist to exploit. After a close-run 2021 season, however, 2022 was largely one-way traffic in the championship stakes as Red Bull understood the new rules best. The RB18 gave Max Verstappen the ammunition to sweep to the title largely unchallenged, prompting questions as to why the FIA and F1 had bothered to change things up. But now that the engineers have a year’s worth of experience with the new rules, convergence will surely start to close the field. That’s not to say that the rules are…

After an almost intolerable wait, the LMDh era is upon us. A full three years after the momentous day when a category billed as the saviour of top-flight sportscar racing was announced, the cars are finally going racing. Tens of thousands of kilometres have been completed by the four manufacturers that will go head to head in this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours, but many questions remained unanswered in the lead-up to the opening round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Not least whether the machinery racing in the GTP class is ready to go twice around the clock at the self-styled World Center of Racing. What we shouldn’t forget is that when LMDh was unveiled back on the eve of Daytona in 2020, the category was due to come on stream…

The Monte Carlo Rally has inspired many a driver over the years, but perhaps none more so than Sebastien Ogier, who can now call himself the undisputed Monte master after dominating the 2023 World Rally Championship opener. The 91st running of arguably rallying’s most prestigious event provided the backdrop for the start of Kalle Rovanpera’s title defence. This year has been billed as perhaps one of the closest title fights now that Toyota, Hyundai and M-Sport boast either world champions or rally winners in their ranks following a wild silly season triggered by Ott Tanak’s move from Hyundai to M-Sport. That may still be the case but, when it comes to tackling Monte Carlo’s hallowed ribbon of relentless mountain hairpins that overlook the principality famous for its casino, betting on…

BRITISH GT British GT stalwart Shaun Balfe will join Sandy Mitchell at Barwell Motorsport for the 2023 campaign at the wheel of a new Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. Balfe, who made his championship debut in 1999, has come close to winning the title on two occasions and most recently competed in a family-run Audi R8 LMS in 2022. He and Adam Carroll took victory in the opening round at Oulton Park and were in championship contention until work commitments curtailed Balfe’s remaining campaign. He will now join 2020 GT3 champion Mitchell and Barwell, which is statistically the championship’s most successful team. “Having competed against Barwell for several years, I’d always seen them as the ones to watch, the team that consistently delivers results,” said Balfe. “I’m clearly very excited and…

CIRCUIT RALLYING Former British GT racer Michael Igoe made his rallying debut last weekend in the Brands Hatch Winter Stages at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta Rally2. Igoe previously competed in the British GT championship over the past four seasons with his WPI Motorsport outfit, firstly in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car and then a Lamborghini Huracan GT3. He took one victory alongside Andrea Caldarelli at Donington Park in 2020, before adding another two wins with Phil Keen the following season as they finished fourth in the overall standings. Work commitments meant he only competed part-time in 2022, before moving his focus towards rallying this year. “I just wanted a change from racing and liked the look of this,” said Igoe (below). “I had never been in a…

BRITISH F4 This year’s British Formula 4 champion will benefit from physical coaching support from the Alpine F1 team during 2024. The title winner will undergo an extensive initial assessment at the start of the year, from which a tailored training and improvement plan will be developed. They will then have “regular” access to the facilities and staff at the Alpine Racing Human Performance Centre – a privilege normally reserved for Alpine’s drivers and academy members. “The facilities and knowledge we have here at Alpine is invaluable to an upcoming driver and their next step in their career, and we are eager to be on board with this journey to promote young talent in grassroot series like British F4,” said Alpine Academy director Julian Rouse. Hugh Chambers, CEO of British…

HISTORICS More details have been announced about the revived Autosport 3 Hours, which will be held at Snetterton in April for pre-1966 GT cars. The Historic Sports Car Club revealed in November that it would be holding a three-hour race at the Norfolk circuit after a break of eight years. Autosport will be supporting the event, which will be run in the spirit of the original 1950s and 1960s races. The 23 April race is set to feature four different classes for GTs, based on engine capacity. Drivers who do not regularly compete with the HSCC are invited to take part in the race, which takes place on Snetterton’s 200 layout – the configuration that is closest to the track layout originally used. The entry fee will be £1295 per…

BOOK REVIEW FROM MECHANIC TO FORMULA 1 Geoff Lees circa £22 He started five world championship Formula 1 grands prix, each of them with a different team. If that sounds like perfect motorsport pub-quiz fodder, it can’t possibly do justice to the stories behind each one. And there should have been far more starts – plus arguably at least a handful of wins – for Geoff Lees, who at times in the 1970s and early 1980s was regarded as Britain’s best prospect, ahead of Nigel Mansell or Derek Warwick. The thing with Lees was you couldn’t imagine him playing up to a man-of-the-people role or being all matey bonhomie. Perhaps he wasn’t pushy enough. And really, this couldn’t be better illustrated than the production of his autobiography: distinctly no-frills, just…

Juan Manuel Fangio takes some liquid refreshment while his Alfa Romeo 158 is refuelled during the 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the Argentinian’s head and upper body shrouded by a protective tarp-cum-hood to keep hazardous spillages at bay. He qualified third of the four Alfas that filled the front row of the grid (behind Giuseppe Farina and Luigi Fagioli and ahead of Reg Parnell), and the domination by the Italian squad that concluded in a 1-2-3 headed by Farina could have gone one better had the #1 car not clipped one of the straw bales that lined the circuit, likely triggering the engine ailment that forced Fangio’s retirement eight laps shy of the finish. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…