Indholdsfortegnelse for 02/03/23 i Autosport

Three days in Bahrain and we now know a little more about what Formula 1 could look like in 2023. Some of what we learned from testing was fairly predictable – Red Bull looked impressive and Ferrari appears in the ballpark – but some of it was more surprising, such as the pace and confidence from Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin. In this week’s preview special, our F1 team delves into the details from testing (page 20) before running through some of the big themes to look out for as the paddock prepares to get the real 2023 action under way in Bahrain this weekend. We hear from Lewis Hamilton (p34), key figures at Alpine (p38) and the three (full-time) rookies of the year (p42). There’s also our traditional team-by-team…

5 SCOTT SPEED The American’s inclusion in this list for a trouble-free drive to 13th in 2006 owes much to the problems that have afflicted many a promising F1 rookie in Bahrain down the years, making his selection one by a process of elimination. Racing with a downgraded Cosworth V10 in the back of his Toro Rosso against a field of V8-powered machines, Speed made Q2 in 16th and beat both Toyotas in an uneventful race. 4 ZHOU GUANYU The only F1 rookie of 2022 went some way to silencing critics that he owed his place on the grid to his nationality by scoring a point on his debut. The Chinese driver had his best time deleted in Q2 so started 15th, then had to fight back after his Alfa Romeo engaged…

The British Jota team has unveiled the colour scheme in which its new Porsche 963 LMDh will race in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class this year. Together with the release of images of a show car liveried in what have been billed as the ‘racing gold’ colours of new sponsor Hertz, the reigning LMP2 champion team has announced a tie-up with legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady’s eponymous clothing brand. The car to be raced by Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens and Yifei Ye is set for a debut at round three of the WEC at Spa at the end of April.…

EXTREME E Extreme E has revamped its event format ahead of its third season of competition this year, with every round holding a double-header and single-car qualifying ditched. That means 10 races across its five dates in 2023, following its first double-header round in Sardinia last season. Single-car qualifying time trials are now replaced with two rounds of two five-car qualifying heats. The top five progress directly to the grand final, with the semi-final stage dropped, while the slowest five enter a redemption race. This replaces the ‘crazy race’, from which the winner would progress to the final to join the two fastest semi-finalists. If two teams are tied for points after the qualifying heats, then the squad with the fastest time in the Continental Traction Challenge – a designated…

OBITUARY The career of Swede Tommy ‘Slim’ Borgudd, who died last week from Alzheimer’s disease, just lacked long-term backing to be more successful. Yet 125 wins from 379 races underlines 41 years of incredible graft. The teenaged Borgudd watched Stirling Moss race at Karlskoga in 1959 and was hooked. Already a budding musician, he joined the merchant navy at 14, refocusing on cars in his early twenties. That he reached Formula 1 – in what was a bit more than a cameo role, for a world championship point for sixth place in the 1981 British GP was a mighty effort with ATS – was remarkable. After 10 GP starts, F1 was was over in 1982, for the money ran out after three races with Tyrrell, a dogged seventh in Brazil…

There are so many reasons to be enthusiastic about the 2023 IndyCar season, and we have outlined the potential storylines of excitement and intrigue in our preview this week. But there is another reason why IndyCar and its followers need this year to be thoroughly absorbing; it may help distract from the series fumbling and bumbling over the introduction of its next engine formula. Let’s recap. On the eve of last year’s season-opener at St Petersburg, IndyCar revealed that the 2.4-litre-with-hybrid formula was being pushed back to 2024. Of course we understood that hybrid unit builder Mahle was struggling with global supply chain issues – heck, this had been foretold in many automotive-related industries in 2018-19, and was greatly exacerbated by COVID-related production issues. It seemed a little late in…

After it spent the 2023 launch season being evasive with the design of its RB19, Red Bull finally unveiled its new machinery at the pre-season test. It’s clear to see that it’s an evolution of its forebear, which is unsurprising given the team’s superiority in 2022. While the core DNA has been retained, the car has been embellished with many new details, and those that remain have been thoroughly optimised. The RB19’s nose is similar in concept to its predecessor’s, but is wider and squarer around the tip section (roundel 1, above). It also features a NACA-style inlet duct for driver cooling, rather than the oval design employed last season. To match those changes, the front wing’s overall design has been reworked to suit and the arched upper elements have…

Ferrari revealed a front-wing-design solution at the launch of the SF-23 that many had considered consigned to the long list of items that F1 had banned before they had ever seen the light of day (1). This is a design solution that Mercedes had looked to introduce last season but was quickly quashed by the FIA (inset) when the governing body raised questions over the primary purpose of the slot-gap separator brackets. Given their shape and position, they appeared to offer more of an aerodynamic purpose than the horseshoe-style brackets everyone traditionally uses. The FIA asked that they be removed and, even though Mercedes felt it could argue compliance, it opted to race its new specification of wing without them, because it was also plausible that a rival could protest…

Each day the mood in the Mercedes camp shifts. After running first on Thursday, there is positivity that porpoising has been eradicated. The following lunchtime, concern has arisen from both drivers that set-up tweaks have upset car balance before a hydraulics issue sends George Russell for an early bath after just 26 laps. But overnight repairs and a raft of settings changes put the black W14 back closer to its sweet spot from the opening laps on Saturday morning. The view behind the barriers helpfully corroborates the fluctuating sentiment. Where Ferrari and McLaren are the worst offenders through the Turn 12 sweeping right-hander, with the cars being caught out by a mid-corner bump and then rebounding in a shower of sparks, the Mercedes looks largely unflappable late on in the…

Andrea Stella isn’t the biggest fan of speaking to the media. But now, as McLaren team principal, he has no choice other than to deliver the quotes. And it appears that he’s out of practice. Unlike his paddock colleagues, he’s refreshingly been giving plenty away. Stella reveals that the MCL60 requires meaningful upgrades before it’s competitive and he’s “not entirely happy”. If the Woking squad is going to take on Alpine again to reclaim the ‘best of the rest’ accolade, patience may be required. To overcome a slow start, McLaren can have no other major weak spots or spend too long getting a race-rusty rookie up to speed. Happily, Formula 2 and F3 champion Oscar Piastri is enormously highly rated. The Australian is fully expected to continue the McLaren tradition…

STARTS 1052 | FIRST GP MONACO 1950 | WINS 242 | POLES 242 | FASTEST LAPS 259 | 2022 2ND So much promise turned into disaster last year, and Ferrari is hoping to right its many 2022 wrongs with its SF-23 challenger and various team changes for the new campaign. Testing form indicated that Ferrari should again be Red Bull’s biggest threat. It has a better overall driver line-up in Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, and they’re now managed by new team principal Fred Vasseur, who takes over from the ousted Mattia Binotto. He’s quickly made alterations to the team’s strategy operation, which went so awry so often in 2022. The Frenchman will need time to enact real change, not that this lessens the pressure to succeed at Italy’s in-effect national…

STARTS 924 | FIRST GP MONACO 1966 | WINS 183 | POLES 156 | FASTEST LAPS 161 | 2022 5TH The 2022 season was a mixed bag for McLaren. After discovering crippling brake-duct issues in pre-season, the Woking squad started the campaign on the back foot. It eventually recovered, and Lando Norris continued to shine to haul McLaren back into contention for fourth, the place it occupied in 2021. On the other side of the garage Daniel Ricciardo’s struggles persisted. His lack of points and Alpine’s superior pace eventually made McLaren regress from fourth to fifth behind ‘Team Enstone’. During the summer it also made McLaren buy the Australian out of his hefty 2023 contract and snatch away F2 champ Oscar Piastri from Alpine in one of 2022’s biggest silly season…

STARTS 144 | FIRST GP AUSTRALIA 2016 | WINS 0 | POLES 1 | FASTEST LAPS 2 | 2022 8TH Testing could hardly have gone smoother for Haas. It couldn’t quite eliminate a niggling throttle issue, but that’s very far from the disaster endured 12 months ago. Back then, the team was scrambling to have a car built in time, had its freight to Bahrain delayed, and then finally turned up without a title sponsor after sacking Russian racer Nikita Mazepin. While this season’s driver duo of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg may seem a cautiously safe pair of pilots, it’s easy to appreciate why Haas might desire a quieter life for one year at least. Setting global politics aside, turning to Hulkenberg can offer a consistency that an occasionally rapid…

1 BAHRAIN GP Sakhir 5 March UK start time: 1500 2 SAUDI ARABIAN GP Jeddah 19 March UK start time: 1700 3 AUSTRALIAN GP Melbourne 2 April UK start time: 0600 4 AZERBAIJAN GP Baku 30 April UK start time: 1200 5 MIAMI GP Miami 7 May UK start time: 2030 6 EMILIA ROMAGNA GP Imola 21 May UK start time: 1400 7 MONACO GP Monte Carlo 28 May UK start time: 1400 8 SPANISH GP Barcelona 4 June UK start time: 1400 9 CANADIAN GP Montreal 18 June UK start time: 1900 10 AUSTRIAN GP Red Bull Ring 2 July UK start time: 1400 11 BRITISH GP Silverstone 9 July UK start time: 1500 12 HUNGARIAN GP Hungaroring 23 July UK start time: 1400 13 BELGIAN GP Spa 30…

Dino Beganovic The reigning FRECA champion will be looking to quickly assert himself in his rookie F3 season. Driving for Prema and with the Ferrari Driver Academy behind him, the Swede has the resources to succeed, but he’ll have to adapt quickly to be in with a chance of beating more experienced rivals. He scored four wins on his way to the FRECA crown, and has started 2023 with two wins from two outings in FRegional Middle East. Franco Colapinto Colapinto will be looking to use his strong rookie season of 2022 as a springboard to a title challenge. The Argentinian took two wins with Van Amersfoort Racing to finish ninth overall. His move across the Netherlands to MP Motorsport could prove fruitful, given that team finished two places higher…

PENSKE TEAM-MATE BATTLE Two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden has finished three straight years as runner-up in the title race and, in this writer’s opinion, in two of those years he was marginally the best. How does a driver as ruthlessly determined as the 32-year-old Tennessean deal with that? Well, he comes back harder. And, according to the man himself, he has no intention of compromising the way he tackles a race weekend. “I don’t know that we need to change anything as far as our approach or process,” says Newgarden, who is entering his seventh year with Team Penske. “I think everything that we’re doing is what we need to be doing. “IndyCar just has that intangible side to it where you can’t predict everything. It’s preparation, hard work, maximising…

BRITISH GT R Racing will continue in British GT this year and is aiming for another tilt at the GT4 title with a revised line-up of Josh Miller and Seb Hopkins at the wheel of an Aston Martin Vantage GT4. The successful Ginetta Junior squad made its GT debut in the championship with an Aston last season. Miller and Jamie Day won at Snetterton to become the youngest driver pairing to claim a British GT victory, with a combined age of 33, and added a further success at Spa. That thrust the duo into title contention, before they finished third overall. “We were quite happy with how last season went,” said R Racing team boss Jamie Ross. “I think the goal going into last season was to get some race…

BRITISH GT McLaren factory driver Rob Bell will return full-time to British GT with Optimum Motorsport this season. The 43-year-old last completed a full campaign in British GT with Balfe Motorsport in 2019, when he and Shaun Balfe finished third in the standings aboard a McLaren 720S GT3. He will drive a new evolution of the 720S alongside Mark Radcliffe, who made his series debut last year in a Valluga Motorsport-run Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 after stepping up from the Carrera Cup. “British GT, from what I can see, this year is going to be phenomenal,” said Bell. “It’s sold out and the calibre of Pro and Am drivers is fantastic. It’s going to be a challenge and tough for anyone doing it. “To have that level of competition is…

Race Retro returned after a pandemic-enforced three-year hiatus last week with Louise Aitken-Walker back behind the wheel of an ex-Russell Brookes Vauxhall Astra on the Stoneleigh Park demonstration stage. The ladies world champion of 1990 headed a field of 120 cars made up of Group B, replicas and rally icons driven by the likes of Galway International winner Meirion Evans and two-time British champion David Llewellin. Among the exhibits in the halls was a replica of ‘Bloody Mary’ (inset), the hillclimb special originally built by Autosport co-founder and long-time technical editor John Bolster in 1931. The replica, now owned by Jim McLean, was built in the US and is a largely faithful recreation of the original, which lives in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu.…

OBITUARY John Turner, patron saint of the 500cc Formula 3 movement and stalwart competitor since the early 1960s, died unexpectedly at his home on Saturday, aged 85. With Paul Schroeder and Mike Murphy, Turner founded the 500 Owners’ Association in 1964, ensuring that the charismatic motorcycle-engined cars, on which the British production racing car industry was founded with Cooper at its epicentre, were not forgotten. The trio bought a 1951 Cooper-JAP MkV for hillclimbing, later adding another painted identically in black and orange. “They had the same helmets, so when one car broke, and they often did, it was a matter of switching numbers and hoping nobody noticed,” said John’s son, Andrew. Turner scored his first class win at Loton Park in April 1966 and two years later bought a…

SILVERSTONE VSCC POMEROY TROPHY 25 FEBRUARY “You have to think of it as conceptual art,” the newly grimed veteran quipped, having finally sparked life into a previously unwilling block. “It needs to be admired, not explained!” He may have been talking about his engine, or it could have been the handicapping calculations for the day’s Pomeroy Trophy event. For those new to ‘The Pom’, it’s a day of on-track tests devised by Laurence Pomeroy to remember the work of his late father, the celebrated engineer, also called Laurence. Pomeroy Sr had been instrumental in developing key concepts of car design and engineering, particularly in the incorporation of lightweight alloys into builds. Later, when considering comparisons of generations of grand prix cars, he devised a formula that accounted for age, weight,…

As the driver who has more Spa 24 Hours wins (five) than anybody, Eric van de Poele selecting one of the machines that carried him to glory on home soil would not have been a surprise. But BMW’s all-conquering M3 tin-top, with which van de Poele also won the 1987 DTM crown, and the Maserati MC12 GT1 he took to three wins between 2005 and 2008 are usurped by an unlikely candidate. Van de Poele only raced the Fondmetal GR02 three times in a 1992 Formula 1 season he’d spent largely toiling in the underdeveloped Brabham BT60B. But despite crippling financial shortages that meant Gabriele Rumi’s team failed to see out the year, the Sergio Rinland design left its mark. Van de Poele calls the GR02, the 12th fastest car…

FORMULA 1 Incumbent Formula 1 teams know that they’re onto a good thing courtesy of the championship’s popularity and commercial growth, and don’t want anything to jeopardise their income. That’s why they’re pushing to triple the $200million antidilution fund to deter an 11th team from entering. But the most serious contender to join the grid, Michael Andretti, might have an alternative way in, with Red Bull supposedly weighing up a sale of AlphaTauri. A team boss told Autosport that an inflated $600m joining fee – altered in response to Audi’s deal to buy into Sauber – is actually a best-case scenario. The 10 squads are lobbying for it to climb even higher. This is to protect their allocation of prize money. Under the current Concorde Agreement, signed in August 2020…

LE MANS 24 HOURS The honour of winning this year’s centenary edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours will be fought out by a field of 16 cars in the Hypercar category. That’s the most entries in the top category at the French enduro since 17 LMP1s did battle back in 2011 (above). Sixteen cars in Hypercar for the double-points round of the World Endurance Championship on 10-11 June represents a three-car increase on the 13 full-season entries for the first season in which LMDh prototypes will race against Le Mans Hypercar machinery. Publication of the Le Mans entry list on Monday confirmed the planned additional entries from Cadillac and Glickenhaus, while the factory Penske Porsche team will also field an extra car. Proton Competition has opted to delay its…

WEC The final United Autosports seat for this year’s World Endurance Championship alongside 2019-20 LMP2 title winners Filipe Albuquerque and Phil Hanson has been filled by 18-year-old Freddie Lubin. The Briton comes into the line-up in the #22 ORECA 07 as the Silver driver in place of Will Owen. Lubin is making the switch to sportscar racing after a season in Euroformula Open in which he took fourth in the standings. “One of my dreams has always been endurance racing, so I’m delighted to get the chance with a team like United,” said Lubin. “The next step in single-seaters would have been Formula 3, but that’s silly money and would have to be a two-year project. It’s not impossible that I could do some endurance stuff and then go back…

UK START TIMES Friday 3 March FP1 1130 FP2 1500 Saturday 4 March  FP3 1130 QUALIFYING 1500 Sunday 5 March  RACE 1500 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 SPORTS EXTRA TV Highlights CHANNEL 4 2100 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP – FINAL 2022 POSITIONS Drivers Constructors SAKHIR STATS Previous winners 2022 POLE POSITION Charles Leclerc 1m30.558s POLE LAP RECORD Lewis Hamilton 1m27.264s (2020) RACE LAP RECORD Pedro de la Rosa 1m31.447s (2005) Laps led Sebastian Vettel 237 Lewis Hamilton 214 Felipe Massa 102 Fernando Alonso 96 Charles Leclerc 96 Michael Schumacher 77 Nico Rosberg 62 George Russell 59 Jenson Button 38 Max Verstappen 30…

He seized the moment. Valtteri Bottas thrust his Alfa Romeo down the inside of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull at Bahrain’s downhill, Turn 8 hairpin, just after the pair had gone three-wide with Lando Norris in his McLaren at the first corner. Bottas’s bravery paid off. He was ahead, with the chequered flag almost in sight, and yet free to charge off after the leader: AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda. How Formula 1 would wish that the varied teams contesting this small spot of ‘racing’, which concluded the final day of 2023 pre-season testing, makes up the pecking order for the real campaign about to get under way at the same Sakhir circuit this Sunday. It would certainly hark back to the lofty aims of the returning ground-effects rules reset. But this was…

Tasked with regulating the all-new car concept put forward by F1, the FIA had to fight the teams on several fronts throughout 2022. And, in order to help retain the original design intent of certain aspects of the car, the regulations have been revised for this season. One area where this was considered important was with the design of the outboard section of the front wing and the endplate. Under the previous regulations, teams were constantly looking for ways to increase the amount of outwash that could be generated here, which altered the airflow’s passage around the front tyre and in turn helped with the floor’s performance. As part of an update package for the Miami Grand Prix last May, Mercedes introduced a design that carefully negotiated the competing regulations…

The off-camber, downhill Turn 10 left-hander serves as a lie-detector test for handling balance. Given the slanted asphalt, too stiff a set-up will result in locked inside wheels. The slow apex speed exposes any mid-corner understeer before a critical lack of traction makes itself known when the cars get back on the power at around 40mph. The new Aston Martin almost never displays any of these unwelcome traits during testing. This helps make the team the star performer in Bahrain as it chases the ‘most-improved’ accolade in 2023. With Fernando Alonso in the cockpit, this is a car that can dance. Even on the medium-compound Pirellis that are crying mercy in the scorching temperatures on the second day, it’s super-lithe. There’s no running wide. The biggest impression is left by…

The 2022 Formula 1 season might not have provided the title challenge he was hoping for after his long-awaited switch from Williams to Mercedes, but it still went well for George Russell. The driver long groomed as the Black Arrows squad’s long-term star once the Lewis Hamilton story finally concludes shone on his promotion to the F1 big time last year. It was of course boosted by the W13’s problems removing the pressure of a first title challenge, trying to be the first since Nico Rosberg to beat Hamilton to a title as team-mates. There were costly low moments too. But Russell did what had long been predicted of him. Eight podiums, a pole position and that famous maiden win in Brazil. So where can he be better in 2023?…

An Oscar-nominated performance Not since Charles Leclerc blew into the F1 paddock in 2018, fresh from a winning streak in the feeder formulas, has a rookie driver generated quite such a collective fever. Even team bosses have been losing their heads in giddy excitement over Oscar Piastri’s immense talent, to the extent that McLaren and Alpine went to the Contract Recognition Board last year in a well-publicised tussle to secure him. With typical understatement, the Melbourne native describes this rancorous period as “the drama”. Piastri had been part of Alpine’s driver-development programme but overachieved, winning the F2 championship in 2021, a season earlier than the Anglo-French operation had anticipated. There was no seat for him last season and, when Alpine’s bosses tried to arrive at a contractual fudge for this…

STARTS 271 | FIRST GP FRANCE 1954 | WINS 125 | POLES 136 | FASTEST LAPS 100 | 2022 3RD After being bullish about its chances with F1’s first new ground-effects cars, Mercedes heads into 2023 with a rather humbler approach. One of the key reasons for this tone change is because Mercedes has persisted with the ‘zeropod’ and large, exposed floor area first seen on the W13 and adopted by no other squad. The team has spent the winter engineering out the porpoising and ride-stiffness issues baked into the previous car, while also believing it would be worse off starting afresh with a Red Bull-inspired design. Mercedes continues to remind F1 fans that the true differentiators with the new generation of cars are the underfloor venturi tunnels and aero surfaces,…

STARTS 192 | FIRST GP BRITAIN 1950 | WINS 10 | POLES 12 | FASTEST LAPS 15 | 2022 6TH What a difference a year makes for Alfa Romeo. During last year’s first winter test at Barcelona, the Sauber-run team was plagued by various reliability issues that limited its running. Those gremlins persisted throughout the season as drivers Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu frequently suffered from a spate of problems that held the team back, compounded by engine issues from supplier Ferrari that also hit the works squad and fellow customer Haas. Despite losing time to a systems error and another suspected engine problem, the drivers amassed 402 laps over three days in Bahrain last week. It is not yet clear if the Ferrari power unit will again become cause for…

STARTS 329 | FIRST GP BAHRAIN 2006 (AS TORO ROSSO) | WINS 2 | POLES 1 | FASTEST LAPS 2 | 2022 9TH The future of AlphaTauri was the subject of uncertainty on the final day of testing. A story emerged that a Red Bull management structure rejig following the death of company co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz is preparing to get rid in the short to medium term. But other well-connected sources say that planning permission is being sought to expand the existing Faenza factory. Away from those distractions, this is a team that has no excuse not to do better than its abject run to ninth in the constructors’ table last season. The now-obsolete AT03 was a victim of AlphaTauri switching to use the larger-scale Red Bull wind tunnel, which brought…

Autosport.com will provide live text commentary from every practice and qualifying session plus all the races in the 2023 Formula 1 season, alongside comprehensive news and opinion from track and paddock. Regular features will include our examination of practice form on Friday nights and Autosport’s driver ratings – where you can have your say too. Listen to the Autosport Podcast to hear our global team of journalists analysing today’s breaking news, the biggest talking points from inside the paddock, and complete analysis of every grand prix. On Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. autosport.com/podcast Facebookfacebook.com/autosport Instagraminstagram.com/autosport Twittertwitter.com/autosport You can also join our journalists behind the scenes at every race on our @Autosport social media channels, where you can get involved in the conversation around the key moments as they happen on…

Theo Pourchaire This is a must-win season for the Frenchman. The Alfa Romeo F1 reserve is continuing with ART for his third year in F2, and faces the most pressure of any driver on the grid, while also expecting some very strong competition to improve on his runner-up spot from 2022. But a third F2 season has proven successful for drivers in the past, as 2022 champion Felipe Drugovich and 2019 title winner Nyck de Vries can attest. Jack Doohan The Australian also faces a lot of pressure heading into his second F2 season with Virtuosi. He finished sixth as a very strong rookie last year, although that felt unrepresentative of his impressive showings throughout the mid-season. The Alpine Academy member looked close to an F1 seat amid the Piastri…

In 1488, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias became the first European to navigate the Cape of Good Hope, the peninsula that protrudes from the land that would later become part of South Africa in the modern era. He named it “The Cape of Storms”, and it became a key landmark in early European sea trade to Asia as global exploration by boat later reached its zenith in the 1500s. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that on Formula E’s first visit to the bustling trade hub that spawned above it, it was another native of Portugal who successfully traversed the Cape; from 11th on the grid, Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa weathered the storm to clinch his first victory of the season in scintillating fashion. It’s been nearly 30 years since South…

INTERCONTINENTAL GT CHALLENGE KYALAMI 9 HOURS (ZAF) 25 FEBRUARY ROUND 2/5 While his brother Kelvin had a disastrous experience in the Cape Town Formula E round, across country it was Sheldon van der Linde who was able to celebrate a home win in the Kyalami 9 Hours. Van der Linde combined with Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts to give Belgian sportscar powerhouse WRT its first victory since switching to BMW for the 2023 season. GruppeM Mercedes trio Raffaele Marciello, Maro Engel and Mikael Grenier qualified on pole position, but such was the ease with which they did so that the AMG GT3 was hit with a 10kg minimum weight increase before the race under Balance of Performance regulations. Van der Linde took the lead from Engel at Jukskei Sweep with…

CLUB ENDURO Club Enduro contender Alec Livesey has developed a highly modified Ginetta G20 with which he aims to fight for Class A glory in the 750 Motor Club series this year. Livesey has taken several Club Enduro class wins in recent seasons at the wheel of a Honda Civic but has now decided to create his own G20 – inspired by a successful Ginetta he built in 2006 – to tackle the series. The new car features a two-litre Zetec engine that produces 229bhp in place of the more standard 1400cc motor, while the G20 also features a special front splitter, TCR-spec rear wing and “a fair bit going on underneath it” to generate more downforce. “Back in 2006, we won the last Roadsports championship with it [the original…

CLASSIC F3 Chris Hodgen plans to join his uncle Rob Moores on the Historic Sports Car Club’s Classic Formula 3 grid this season after acquiring a sister 1977 Chevron-Toyota B38. Hodgen, who has masterminded the Duckhams Yuasa Racing Porsche Carrera Cup GB team for the past two years, has acquired the ex-Derek Warwick chassis from Clive Wood. “I have helped Robbie with his car [the ex-Derek Daly/Steve Malins machine] for years, but he’s never offered me a go in it, so I thought it was about time that I had my own,” said Hodgen. Whether he shares his set-up with me or not remains to be seen, but I suspect I’ll start with a basic one. While I can’t do many races this year, we are both competitive and want…

ENTRIES ON THE RISE There has been strong interest from competitors in the Clubmans Sports Prototype series for this year, with over 40 registrations received. The largest number is 17 for the top CSP1 class, with organisers saying the continued popularity of this division shows that it was the right decision four years ago to limit maximum power to 200bhp. HELPING THE YOUNG Event organiser the HERO-ERA has launched a new concept dubbed ‘Rally for the Ages’, which will allow crews whose combined age falls below 70 to be eligible for a full refund on their entry fee provided they start the one-day event, which will be held on 3 June at Bicester Heritage. HERO-ERA competition director Guy Woodcock said: “The Rally for the Ages adds another dimension to our…

SILVERSTONE CSCC 26 FEBRUARY Former single-seater pro Craig Dolby adores Nigel Mustill’s remarkable Volvo S60 silhouette racer. Exploiting winter improvements, Dolby unleashed its crisp-sounding seven-litre Chevrolet V8 to stunning effect in winning the Slicks Series race, which closed the Classic Sports Car Club’s 20th season opener on a bitterly cold sunny February afternoon at Silverstone. Mustill led boldly before Kevin Clarke screamed past in Matty Evans’s newly acquired ex-Webb brothers Lamborghini Huracan. Mustill duly relayed Dolby, whose best lap of 2m01.606s (108.36mph) roared the monster back to the front. Confusion over starting the team’s clocks – there were two tyre-warming laps before the green flag – meant Clarke missed the pit window, but Evans kept the runner-up spot despite a 30-second penalty. Arran Moulton-Smith hustled father Mark Smith’s BMW M3…

NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY FORMULA 1: DRIVE TO SURVIVE A word of caution for those wishing to view the latest Formula 1 offering from Netflix’s Drive to Survive documentary series, which was released last week: season five starts with a quick recap of the 2021 season finale, which, for some, might prove a bruising experience given the controversial events from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. But that shouldn’t detract from another must-watch series, with the opening segment of the 2022 season providing a nice palate cleanser as buddies Mattia Binotto and Gunther Steiner enjoy a getaway in the Italian Dolomites in a Fiat 500. It sets the tone for the entire season, deftly balancing the tension and rivalries that make F1 so compelling with light-hearted moments showing a more human side. The…

PIKES PEAK Celebrated French motorsport all-rounder Romain Dumas has won the Pikes Peak hillclimb four times, and holds the course record up the Colorado mountain from his 2018 exploits in the electric Volkswagen I.D. R sport-prototype contender. He will bid for fifth crown this summer. In a van. Dumas has been lined up for the 25 June event in SuperVan 4, Ford’s latest all-electric iteration of an ongoing series of outrageously modified machines dating back to the 1970s. The new weapon is the result of a collaboration between Ford Performance and electric motorsport specialist STARD, the Austrian firm best known for its work in rallycross. The van is said to have a power output of 2000bhp, and reach 100km/h in less than two seconds – handy for your painting-and-decorting business.…

DTM One-time Formula 1 grand prix starter Jack Aitken will race in the DTM this year in a new Ferrari 296 GT3. Aitken has spent the past two seasons racing Lamborghinis for Emil Frey Racing in ADAC GT Masters and GT World Challenge Europe. The Swiss team has jumped ship to Ferrari for 2023 and joins the DTM for the first time. Aitken, who is combining his programme with selected outings with the Action Express Cadillac team in the IMSA SportsCar Championship and at the Le Mans 24 Hours, will be paired with 20-year-old Dutchman Thierry Vermeulen. “I have a pretty strong relationship with Emil Frey, I like the team and the people, we had quite a bit of success together so I was inclined to continue with them,” said…

“Just because I’m not on the podium or I don’t have an outstanding drive in terms of overtaking, you don’t ever rate it very highly…” McLaren driver Lando Norris there, taking Autosport to task for not rating him highly enough for his performances in the 2022 Formula 1 season. Specifically, he was referencing the ‘Driver Ratings’ rankings piece we produce after each grand prix weekend. Despite ending last year with an average score of 7.3/10 – the fifth highest of the grid – Norris still wasn’t happy. Well, we’ve given the topic a fair bit of thought and decided to make a change to how we rank the F1 field. But we’re willing to bet that Norris and his peers will still take issue – and whether it’s being called…

Mercedes was not on its own in noting the possibility of housing winglets on the inboard rear corner of the endplate – they can also be found on both the Haas VF-23 and Red Bull RB19. There are obvious differences in the make-up of their solutions when compared with Mercedes’, but their intent will be similar: encouraging more outwash than would ordinarily be available without the winglet in place. Red Bull has the most simplistic winglet of the trio, a single element mounted with a minimal angle of attack applied to it (1). The winglet should enhance flow in the outboard portion of the wing, with the elements both wound tightly and angled outwards as they meet and follow the contours of the endplate. Haas has also mounted a winglet…

Fuel tanks can be brimmed and tyres rock-hard and several stints old to provide a smokescreen, but a fundamentally good chassis will still shine through. As such, even if McLaren was deliberately running its MCL60 in the worst state in testing to hide its hand, this still looks to be a difficult car to drive. And that’s the opposite of what star driver Lando Norris requested for 2023. He didn’t necessarily want ultimate performance, just an end to the recent run of bad-handling creations in papaya and black. As he barrels into Turn 1, it’s clear that the Briton isn’t comfortable on the brakes. It takes an age to get the car stopped. Adding to his plight, every so often there’s a hefty lock-up. When it’s finally slow enough to…

The landmark ground-effects reset was conceived to bring about a more spectacular Formula 1. A rules overhaul would jumble the competitive order and, on top of that, ease the ability of closely matched cars to overtake. Regardless of the immediate success of the sweeping changes, for 2023 Alpine intends to fly in the face of those good intentions. It wants to operate in a no man’s land. Searing Singapore heat and high altitude in Mexico wreaked havoc with the Renault engine last season. Its water pump gave up the ghost too often as well. Without the repeat failures, there wouldn’t have been such a hotly contested scrap with McLaren for fourth in the 2022 constructors’ championship. That’s what Alpine believes. In response, for this year’s A523 challenger (not named after…

STARTS 347 | FIRST GP AUSTRALIA 2005 | WINS 92 | POLES 81 | FASTEST LAPS 84 | 2022 1ST The pre-season favourite, after dominating last year. In 2022, Red Bull made a very strong start to Formula 1’s new ground-effects era, and the advantages it accrued should carry over amid the new campaign’s rule tweaks. Those tweaks were aimed at eliminating porpoising, something the Red Bull package barely struggled with last year. Changes to its nose, front wing and airbox inlets, plus heavily revised floor edge details and tighter sidepod bodywork, are refinements to a package that creates a very stable aerodynamic platform the rest couldn’t match last season, and indeed led to many teams adopting Red Bull ideas for 2023. In testing in Bahrain, the RB19 appeared to be…

STARTS 444 | FIRST GP BRITAIN 1977 (AS RENAULT) | WINS 36 | POLES 51 | FASTEST LAPS 33 | 2022 4TH There was plenty of hype surrounding Alpine at its glitzy London nightclub car launch. The big wigs were buoyant about their latest creation. That’s entirely in keeping with an extensive technical redesign that includes a new cooling package and heavily reworked rear suspension. But the Anglo-French squad was far more muted during testing in Bahrain. Forget any late low-fuel glory runs on the final day to climb the timing screens. New signing Pierre Gasly ran to 17th, while the incumbent Esteban Ocon was slowest of all. Since Alpine was significantly stymied by unreliability last term, and in view of its major revisions that need troubleshooting, it was also surprising…

STARTS 49 | FIRST GP NETHERLANDS 1959 | WINS 0 | POLES 0 | FASTEST LAPS 0 | 2022 7TH Here lies the biggest climber in 2023. Well, that’s according to envious midfield rivals who have watched Aston Martin excel during testing. The Silverstone squad tied with Alfa Romeo on 55 points last year although it ultimately fell to seventh in the final standings for the lack of a top-five race result. But the AMR23 finally appears to be a machine that can validate team owner Lawrence Stroll’s aggressive and expensive hiring policy in this bid to lift the team towards the very top of the so-called ‘Class B’ behind Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. The 2022 challenger that failed to score a point until the European leg of the calendar…

STARTS 788 | FIRST GP SPAIN 1977 | WINS 114 | POLES 128 | FASTEST LAPS 133 | 2022 10TH If 2022 was a season of change for Williams, then 2023 will not be any different. Team principal Jost Capito and his trusted technical director FX Demaison have both come and gone as owner Dorilton Capital continues the team’s complete rebuild. Williams is now finally operating at the budget cap, but years of underinvestment won’t be erased overnight and it still lags behind the rest of the grid in several crucial areas, resulting in a last-place finish in 2022. Dorilton headhunted Mercedes’ highly regarded strategy director James Vowles as its new team principal but, with key Williams positions such as a new technical director and head of aerodynamics yet to be…

A cast list of drivers largely staying the same, and largely in the same places, might lead you to expect the 2023 IndyCar season to be a rerun of 2022. This belief could be compounded by the fact that the campaign ahead will be the 12th for the 2.2-litre twin-turbo V6s from Chevrolet and Honda, the sixth for the universal aerokit, and the fourth for the aeroscreen. Even the schedule is largely the same, aside from Detroit’s race switching from Belle Isle to a new 1.7-mile course in downtown Motown. But it’s the very tightness of the formula that from year to year can nudge the narrative in a different direction, according to mini breakthroughs with engine, aerodynamics, shocks and dampers. For example, who would have expected in the twilight…

PODIUM BATTLERS CLASH Polesitter Sacha Fenestraz and Nick Cassidy disagreed over who was to blame in their last-lap contact that decided their battle for third in the Kiwi’s favour. “He was nowhere near side by side,” reckoned Fenestraz, who was put into the Turn 7 wall with broken suspension, while Cassidy reckoned his rival “left the door really open” before moving over under braking to create contact. BIRD SPEAKS OUT… Sam Bird hit out at the lack of yellow or red flags immediately after Edoardo Mortara’s qualifying crash, and said his accident was down to getting “spooked” by a radio call. “I braked too hard in an area where you shouldn’t and it fired the brake bias to the rear,” he said, citing a 21-second gap from Mortara’s crash and…

NASCAR CUP FONTANA (USA) 26 FEBRUARY ROUND 2/36 It’s a new team for him, but it was a familiar and NASCAR record-setting result for Kyle Busch. Busch, who moved from his long-time home at Joe Gibbs Racing to Richard Childress Racing in the off-season, grabbed control of the race on lap 143 of 200 and built his lead through a final round of green-flag pitstops. He beat Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott by 2.998 seconds. The victory was significant in several respects. Busch will be the final winner on the 2.0-mile track layout – the facility is scheduled to be transformed into a short track and will not be on the 2024 Cup schedule. The 61st victory of Busch’s career also gives him at least one win in 19 consecutive Cup…

LEGENDS Last year’s Legends runner-up Will Gibson and five-time champion John Mickel are among an initial batch of 20 entries for the series this year. Two Legends titles will be up for grabs this season, with the regular contest joined by the three-event Legends Elite Cup, for when the category appears alongside British Touring Cars. Gibson, who narrowly missed out on last year’s crown, and Mickel will enter both competitions. Other notable entries include Marcus Pett – fourth behind Mickel in last year’s standings – and Rookie Cup victor Ben Higgins. “With Will, John and Marcus – three of our top four from last season – all confirmed, we know the quality of action will be as spectacular as ever,” said series owner Phil Cooper.…

ARDEN GOES PING IN GB3 US Formula 4 frontrunner Noah Ping is the latest driver announced for the GB3 grid, which he will join with Arden. Ping finished third in the US F4 standings last year and began his racing career at the wheel of a Radical in 2020. “We’ve already completed a good amount of testing with Noah at Jerez and Barcelona, and the speed he demonstrated in the USA was on show,” said Arden team manager Jack Woodhouse. XENTEK’S FIRST DRIVERS Successful Ginetta GT5 Challenge squad Xentek Motorsport has announced its first two drivers for this season’s contest, which is a class within the new Ginetta GT championship. Ginetta Junior graduate Ella Lloyd, who took a top-five finish in a one-off GT5 outing at the end of last…

ASPHALT RALLY Last year’s East Riding Stages Rally winners David Henderson and Chris Lees repeated their success on this year’s popular Yorkshire closed-roads event, taking victory by 3.6 seconds. The Citroen C3 R5 of James Ford and Neil Shanks led the latest Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship round after the first five stages. But they lost time and the lead after they spun and stalled on stage six of eight. Henderson/Lees moved to the top in their Ford Fiesta Rally2 and, despite a ditch excursion with a stage to go, they took the win. David Wright/Paula Swinscoe claimed second despite a spin on stage two in their Fiesta R5, while BTRDA Rally champions Elliott Payne/Tom Woodburn overcame their Fiesta Rally2’s brake problem for the final podium spot. Ford managed to…

Back in the mid-1970s when, already as a life-long enthusiast I became an ardent pit and grid marshal, the British car racing season consistently opened with Formula 3 on the first weekend of March. Venues varied with Brands Hatch, Oulton Park and Thruxton hosting events until they standardised at Silverstone in 1977. I was as intrigued as anybody, therefore, when the Classic Sports Car Club announced that it had availed itself of the opportunity to hire Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit on the last Sunday in February. Tandemmed with the Vintage Sports-Car Club’s Pomeroy Trophy staple – not a race meeting as such, but a gloriously quaint series of tests including a high-speed trial in which the most diverse range of cars all chase the hallowed prize – the first rendezvous…

Often the only time they hit the headlines are when scraps of rubber are sent flying in all directions after a failure. In other words, tyres are not always the most interesting of subjects aside from when something goes wrong. Yet tyres have increasingly become a hot topic in national motorsport in recent months, for very different reasons. The announcement in October that Avon Tyres owner Goodyear was beginning a consultation process about closing the Melksham manufacturing site – potentially resulting in a loss of jobs and the famous name disappearing – caused shockwaves in certain corners of the sport. Then it emerged that other tyre makers such as Yokohama were undergoing a restructure and reassessing their rubber ranges, which in turn created further uncertainty. And this all followed a…

INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORT Bahrain Grand Prix Formula 1 World Championship Round 1/23 Sakhir, Bahrain 5 March TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sun 1455 TV Highlights Sky Sports F1, Sun 1830, Channel 4, Sun 2100 FIA Formula 2 Round 1/14 Sakhir, Bahrain 4-5 March TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sat 1310, Sun 1015 FIA Formula 3 Round 1/10 Sakhir, Bahrain 4-5 March TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sat 0930, Sun 0845 IndyCar Series Round 1/16 St Petersburg, USA 5 March TV Sky Sports F1, Sun 2200 Indy NXT Round 1/12 St Petersburg, USA 5 March NASCAR Cup Series Round 3/36 Las Vegas, USA 5 March TV Live Viaplay, Sun 2000 NASCAR Xfinity Series Round 3/33 Las Vegas, USA 4 March…

Jim Clark (right) casts a glance in the mirrors of his Lotus-Climax 33 during the 1965 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. Not that he was under any imminent threat – the polesitter qualified more than three seconds ahead of his closest challenger, rookie Jackie Stewart in a BRM P261, then led throughout, setting fastest lap en route to his sixth (and fifth consecutive) victory of the campaign, securing his second world championship crown with three rounds to go. Stewart dropped out with damaged suspension; Graham Hill (BRM) and Dan Gurney (Brabham-Climax BT11) finished a distant second and third. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…