Indholdsfortegnelse for 22/06/23 i Autosport

The result of the Canadian Grand Prix last weekend was entirely predictable, but that should not detract from Red Bull’s achievement of reaching 100 world championship race victories. Red Bull is only the fifth Formula 1 team to reach a century of successes in the 73 years of the championship, so this week we celebrate that milestone. As well as Jake Boxall-Legge’s report on events in Montreal (page 22), Alex Kalinauckas speaks to team boss Christian Horner about how far the squad has come since joining F1 in 2005 (p12), we compare the first and most-recent race-winning Red Bull machines (p16), and dig out some (hopefully!) interesting stats on p18. Red Bull reached the mark quicker than Ferrari or McLaren and doesn’t look like slowing down any time soon. Something…

FORMULA 1 The unused trophies from the cancelled Emilia Romagna Grand Prix have been auctioned for £247,171 to be donated to a fund to help victims of the devastating local floods. Pirelli also gave its pole position tyre award, while Formula 1 sparkling wine supplier Ferrari Trento entered a bottle of fizz. All items were autographed by the 20 drivers and the prize pots signed by the 10 team principals. The proceeds went to the Emilia-Romagna region’s Agency for Territorial Safety and Civil Protection. Along with the autographs, the trophies have an extra historical element since they also carry the engraved names of the winners of Imola F1 races from 1980 to 2022. The list includes Nelson Piquet, Didier Pironi, Patrick Tambay, Alain Prost, Elio de Angelis, Ayrton Senna, Nigel…

The Le Mans 24 Hours-winning Ferrari 499P took to the streets of Maranello on Tuesday afternoon as the Italian manufacturer celebrated its victorious return to the French enduro with a factory-run prototype after a 50-year hiatus. Drivers Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi were on hand with their Le Mans Hypercar, which took part in the parade in Ferrari’s home town along with the fifth-placed car shared by Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina.…

Red Bull is the latest member of Formula 1’s 100 wins club. Ferrari, McLaren, Williams and Mercedes are the others. Famed marques, motorsport legends all. A certain fondness for these teams remains even as they struggle on in the current era. Sebastian Vettel once said“everybody’s a Ferrari fan”, and new Williams team principal James Vowles is openly trying to use residual affection for his squad’s past to get rules changed and aid its long recovery path. Red Bull. It’s all of that and more. It is, as team boss Christian Horner puts it, “a subsidiary of an energy drink”. Therefore, any discussion of Red Bull’s place in F1 history can’t ignore that. Red Bull’s F1 project started out as Dietrich Mateschitz’s passion – he was a big fan of Jochen…

Kevin Magnussen and Nyck de Vries were involved in a bizarre mid-race incident that cost the Haas driver over 30 seconds and the AlphaTauri racer nearly double that amount of time. De Vries attacked Magnussen, who had earlier headed a long DRS train, on lap 35 as they squabbled over 12th. De Vries sent a lunge down the inside of Turn 1, then aggressively chopped off the Dane’s ambitious outside-line defence. Next up at Turn 3, de Vries defended the inside but locked up, and both briefly got trapped down the escape road, with Magnussen left with nowhere to go. Both reversed and got going again, eventually finishing 17th and 18th, with Magnussen ahead. “He was racing pretty hard – that’s for sure,” reflected Magnussen. “But who am I to…

Track limits were a talking point yet again last weekend, in the wake of the new Motorsport UK regulations for 2023, with the fast corners of Old Hall and Cascades in the track’s first sector the flashpoints. This time Dan Rowbottom and Andrew Watson lost positions in the top-10 qualifying shootout when they had lap times deleted. Track limits cause celebre Ricky Collard could have done, but then went quicker… “When I put the soft tyres on I did a fast lap,” grinned the Speedworks Toyota racer. “Then it got taken away for track limits. Then I put two new front tyres on and went purple in the first sector and thought, ‘Have that for your track limits!’” Collard qualified third, but Speedworks felt the weekend was the inverse of…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN HUNGARORING (HUN) 17-18 JUNE ROUND 3/10 Between plenty of safety car interruptions, the star of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine in Hungary was R-ace GP pilot Martinius Stenshorne. The 17-year-old Norwegian, a Nicolas Todt protege who raced for Charles Leclerc’s and Nico Rosberg’s karting teams, left it as late as possible to set his lap for pole on Saturday. He did the same to top his qualifying group on Sunday, but missed pole because the other group’s pacesetter, Josh Dufek, was faster. Stenshorne rose from fourth to first in the championship with victory in Saturday’s race, helped by Prema’s Mercedes Formula 1 junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli being hampered by a gear selection issue. Antonelli had passed Stenshorne on lap one, handled an early safety car…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS HIDDEN VALLEY (AUS) 17-18 JUNE ROUND 5/12 There were some surprise winners at the Darwin Triple Crown on a weekend when the parity debate hit new heights in Supercars. The event kicked off with what looked to be a potential first on-the-road win for the Gen3 Ford Mustang as Tickford Racing driver Cam Waters stormed to pole and then led the opening laps of Saturday’s first sprint race, but he only made it through three laps until his car burst into flames on the exit of Turn 1. The paddock was rocked by fears it was a repeat of the engine fires that plagued the Albert Park round, but it proved to be a fuel leak from a loose connector. The Waters fire opened the door for Mark…

MOTOGP SACHSENRING (DEU) 18 JUNE ROUND 7/20 Since Casey Stoner’s 2008 victory at the Sachsenring, it seemed inconceivable for a long time that Ducati would ever be considered the dominant bike at the German Grand Prix. And yet, in 2023, it scored its first ever top-five lockout after Jorge Martin beat Francesco Bagnaia by 0.064 seconds in the main race last Sunday, and Johann Zarco, Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini slotted in behind. The 2023 German GP weekend was a testament to the advances Ducati has made in MotoGP and highlighted exactly how much of a juggernaut it has become. A week on from his second sprint/GP double of the season in Italy, reigning world champion Bagnaia had to give way to Pramac Ducati counterpart Martin. The Spaniard has been…

HISTORICS Lyncar 005, in which British-based New Zealander John Nicholson won the 1973 BP and 1974 John Player Formula Atlantic titles, returned to racing at last weekend’s Thruxton Historic event after 10 years lying dormant. The 005, engine builder Nicholson’s frontline car from the middle of 1973 when it superseded 003, won the British Grand Prix support race at Silverstone that year. He also won contests at Mallory Park, Oulton and Snetterton. Owner Peter Venn has a long history with the Lyncar marque – founded by former March men Martin Slater and Graham Coaker – but had not raced one since 1984, when he campaigned 001 in Monoposto. “We’ve worked flat-out for the past two weeks just trying to get it here,” said Venn (below), whose acclimatisation was hobbled by…

NATIONAL FF1600 Former National Formula Ford champion Jonny McMullan returned to the championship at Donington Park last weekend following an eight-year layoff. The 31-year-old from Belfast appeared in a B-M Racing Medina Sport BH23 and managed a best result of fifth in the third of three races. It was his first time in a car since competing in the 2021 Walter Hayes Trophy. “Testing went well on Friday until I launched over a kerb in the final session, which maybe left the engine and gearbox not running perfectly in line,” he said. “I think, going forwards, we’re not a million miles away. “Other commitments mean I can only do four of five meetings but the big target is the Festival. I was runner-up in 2014 after starting the final from…

Without doubt one of the biggest appeals of endurance racing is the multi-class format that it provides, allowing cars and drivers of different performance and abilities to take to the track at the same time. It means that simply being the fastest is not enough to guarantee a crew victory, as traffic management and strategy all become more significant factors in reaching the top step of the podium than in other racing disciplines. British GT is no different, and the dynamic of the faster GT3 cars trying to find a way past the comparatively slower GT4s has provided lots of action this year. Most recently at Snetterton, John Ferguson’s audacious move on Ian Loggie into Murrays as they approached GT4 traffic was the epitome of endurance racing, and ultimately set…

RADICAL CUP UK The Radical Cup UK made its second British Touring Car appearance of the year and produced three intriguing races at Oulton Park last weekend, with reigning SR1 champion Daryl DeLeon proving to be the star. DeLeon made a good initial start to the opener, but when last year’s SR3 title winner James Lay stuck to the inside at Old Hall, Valour Racing driver DeLeon was left to take to the grass, falling to fourth. “He sent a lunge and I don’t blame him – I left the door open,” DeLeon admitted. He was then“trying to be as aggressive as possible” to regain the lost ground. And, sure enough, he dived down the inside of Peter Tyler at Hislops on the first tour and demoted Abdelmajeed Khateeb four…

BRITISH F4 “That was redemption for race one,” said James Higgins after making history by winning the 250th British Formula 4 race at Oulton Park. The Fortec driver had secured a double pole but then made a terrible start to the opener as Kanato Le powered into a lead he did not lose. Race three looked like it could be a repeat result as Hitech racer Le again jumped Higgins, who maintained second this time. However, the Japanese suddenly slowed on lap five of 11 with a left-rear puncture and Higgins powered ahead to win from Daniel Guinchard, the race ending early when Pat Heuzenroeder crashed exiting Druids. There was also a red flag in the opener, this time caused by Gabriel Stilp and Isaac Barashi colliding at Old Hall,…

NASCAR EURO SERIES PRO Races 1 & 2 Gianmarco Ercoli (Chevrolet Camaro) NASCAR EURO SERIES 2 Races 1 & 2 Vladimiros Tziortzis (Euro NASCAR FJ) LEGENDS CHAMPIONSHIP Races 1 & 3 Marcus Pett Race 2 Andy Bird Race 4 Luke Simmons Race 5 Jack Parker Race 6 Connor Mills PICKUP TRUCK CHAMPIONSHIP Races 1 & 3 Dale Gent (below) Race 2 Paul Tompkins SPEEDFEST SILHOUETTES Race 1 Lewis Smith (Mercedes SLK) Race 2 Daniel Smith (Mercedes SLK) CORVETTE ANNIVERSARY RACE Race 1 Simeon Chodosh (Chevrolet Corvette C1) Race 2 Oliver Bryant (Chevrolet Camaro) Race 3 Jake Swann (Chevrolet Camaro) BERNIE’S V8s & HISTORIC OUTLAWS Race 1 Jack Tetley (Chevrolet Monte Carlo) Race 2 Rikki Cann (Aston Martin V8 Vantage) Race 3 Robert Hollyman (Porsche 911) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

JOCHEN RINDT TROPHY Race 1 Anthony Hancock (Lola-Toyota T670) Race 2 Rory Smith (Ralt-BDA RT4/85) MIGHTY MINIS Race 1 David Kirkpatrick Race 2 Neven Kirkpatrick HSCC HISTORIC FF2000 Races 1 & 2 Graham Fennymore (Reynard SF81) FERRARI CLUB CLASSIC SERIES Race 1 James Cartwright (328 GTB) Race 2 Nicky Paul-Barron (F355 Challenge, below) Race 3 Nigel Jenkins (F355 Challenge) CMMC CLASSIC CHALLENGE Race 1 Jack Smith (MGA) Race 2 Grant Williams (Jaguar Mk1) FISCAR Jonathan Abecassis (Austin-Healey 100/4) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

FORMULA 1 Red Bull technical maestro Adrian Newey reckons the clock has started counting down to his retirement from front-line Formula 1 duty, but says he will continue at the team just so long as he feels wanted and still enjoys the day job. In the public domain, at least, there’s no clear end point to 64-year-old Newey’s stint at Milton Keynes. As revealed by Autosport in May, the Red Bull chief technical officer has agreed a contract extension to stay put at the team he has served since 2006. But the duration of this latest deal has not been disclosed. Newey, the pre-eminent designer across F1’s 73-year history, hopped onto the podium last weekend in celebration of Max Verstappen dominating the Canadian Grand Prix, the reigning and two-time champion’s…

FORMULA 1 Jacques Villeneuve has called out the online abuse aimed his way after raising a concern with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc who, initially without permission, sported a tribute helmet to the 1997 Formula 1 world champion’s late father Gilles for last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix. Leclerc cleared the air regarding his special lid after meeting Villeneuve’s sister Melanie, who controls her father’s image rights. The Villeneuves had been taken aback since no one from Leclerc’s camp approached the family ahead of time. Leclerc was then given the green light to use the design from Saturday onwards. But before this amicable resolution was made public, the family copped a barrage of abuse on social media after being perceived to deny Leclerc the right to honour Gilles, who died in qualifying…

W SERIES The all-female W Series has gone into administration, less than a year after its third season was ended early due to financial difficulties. The series held its inaugural season in 2019 as part of the DTM’s support bill. After the 2020 season was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic, it returned as a Formula 1 support act in 2021. But the 2022 season ended early due to funding issues. Kevin Ley and Henry Shinners of Evelyn Partners LLP were appointed Joint Administrators of W Series on Wednesday of last week. They said that only one member of staff remained at the business and that they had also now been made redundant, and added that they will “explore all available options to allow the W Series to restart in…

“The feeling of that first victory was incredible,” recalls Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. “I thought, ‘If we don’t ever achieve anything else, we’ve won a race on merit – not got lucky, we’ve had to go out and do it the hard way.’” From the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, where Sebastian Vettel led home Mark Webber in the Shanghai rain, to Max Verstappen leading every lap in winning the 2023 Canadian GP, Red Bull has reached 100 Formula 1 race victories. It has done so in record time since its first win, 14 years, albeit Mercedes needed fewer race starts – 207 to Red Bull’s 355 – to get to its own century. Those two teams – F1’s pre-eminent, really, for the past 15 years – have very…

On London’s Oxford Street lies a small music venue, nestled inconspicuously between highstreet staple shops. It’s almost barely visible, apart from its little red sign. In the 1970s, it was there that punk music found its way out of the underground and into the mainstream, horrifying traditionalists and mobilising a youth movement united by the brash and loud counterculture it produced. This is the 100 Club, a venue that survives today in a post-punk world. Formula 1’s own 100 club was, until the Canadian Grand Prix, occupied by a quartet of its own traditional icons. Ferrari, Williams, McLaren and Mercedes were the sole members of the exalted halls of those who have reached the milestone of 100 grand prix victories. Red Bull, once F1’s counterculture team owing to its bold…

McLaren’s Lando Norris was defiant that he did not do“anything wrong” in a safety car incident that led to a penalty for“unsportsmanlike conduct”, and for which he copped a five-second time addition that dropped him out of the points. Norris put in a battling drive to gain places against team-mate Oscar Piastri, Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas, as he was one of the few two-stoppers to make progress against those on the contra-strategy. But his ninth-place finish became 13th in the final results after the stewards penalised him for dropping too far back behind Piastri when the safety car was called out following George Russell’s crash. This is a breach of Article 55.5 of F1’s sporting rules, but the stewards instead cited Article 12.2.1.l of the FIA International Sporting Code…

A part from the Indianapolis 500, where he was taken out of the lead battle in a bizarre pitlane collision from which he rebounded from last to fourth, Chip Ganassi Racing star Alex Palou hasn’t failed to win an IndyCar race since April. The Spaniard won the Indy GP on the road course, then around the mean streets of Detroit, and now, following a McLaren F1 test at the Hungaroring, he was victorious again at America’s finest natural terrain circuit, the four-mile leviathan that is Road America. And it was a very different challenge for everyone this year, because the Wisconsin venue had enjoyed its first repaving since 1995. They did a fabulous job over the winter, but an unintended consequence of its super-grippy racing surface was that the kerbs…

WORLD RALLYCROSS HELL (NOR) 18 JUNE ROUND 2/8 Johan Kristoffersson was in a class of his own in Norway as he led the way in all four heats and his semi-final, before topping the podium for the 37th time in his World Rallycross career. With his second maximum score out of two, the five-time world champion has extended his series lead to 13 points at the wheel of the Volkswagen run by his family team. Niclas Gronholm, driving a PWR, moved up to second in the table thanks to winning out in a tense battle for the runner-up spot against the Munnich Motorsport SEAT of two-time DTM champion Timo Scheider. At the other end of the scale, it was a day of frustration for Kristoffersson’s team-mate Ole Christian Veiby, who…

The class of British Formula 4 2023 celebrated the category’s 250th race in last weekend’s Oulton Park finale, with James Higgins having the honour of winning the milestone contest. Since what was British Formula Ford became an FIA F4 category in 2015, when it was originally called MSA Formula, 142 drivers have competed in the series and 99 of these have taken at least one podium. Sonny Smith became the 69th different winner with his victory in the second Cheshire contest.…

VSCC Tim Dutton held on to win the Williams Trophy race for pre-1935 grand prix cars as the Vintage Sports-Car Club held its second race meeting of the year at Cadwell Park. At the wheel of his Bugatti Type 51 (below), Dutton managed to win the eight-lap contest but was shadowed throughout by the Alfa Romeo 8C Monza of Chris Mann and polesitter Edward Williams in his Frazer Nash TT, all three covered by just two seconds. The closest winning margin from across the 10 races at Sunday’s meeting came in the Fast Handicap race for pre-war cars, which was won by James Potter at the wheel of his Riley Brooklands with Charles Goldspink (Frazer Nash) less than 1s in arrears. In the Slow Handicap encounter, James Miles won more…

SNETTERTON BRITISH GT 17-18 JUNE A superb defensive drive from John Ferguson handed himself and RAM Racing team-mate Raffaele Marciello their first win of the British GT season at Snetterton, while Jonny Adam and James Cottingham retained their GT3 championship lead. The weekend’s second one-hour race on the Snetterton 300 layout produced the spectacle of the year so far, as Ferguson led home a quartet of cars covered by less than a second after soaking up 25 minutes of constant and intense pressure. “Last year was tough, but this year was tougher,” said a delighted Ferguson, who also took victory at the Norfolk circuit 12 months ago. “I didn’t know until I came in that I’d won, I thought the Aston Martin was still up the road!” The Beechdean Aston…

SNETTERTON GB3 17-18 JUNE Arden VRD scored a double triumph in the GB3 Championship at Snetterton, while Hitech GP’s Alex Dunne became the third different points leader this season during a weekend when his rivals hit trouble. Following his emphatic performance at the previous round at Spa, Dunne had to settle for third in qualifying behind Callum Voisin and Matthew Rees, the latter taking his first pole of the season for race one. But it was Arden’s James Hedley who snatched the lead at the start after rocketing from fourth on the grid to sweep around the outside of Rees at Riches. Rees drew alongside Hedley on lap three into Riches but couldn’t get through while, just behind, Voisin resisted a challenge from Dunne into the Wilson hairpin. The front…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Consistency has been key to Adam Smalley’s Porsche Carrera Cup GB points lead and that was again evident at Oulton Park last weekend as he picked up two podiums while main rival Robert de Haan had an event to forget. Things started well for Richardson racer de Haan as he grabbed pole but a suspected clutch problem hampered his start and he fell to third. While Century Motorsport’s James Kellett led by nearly two seconds after two laps, de Haan was attacking Smalley. The Dutchman made an attempt from miles back into the chicane on the first tour before getting ahead at the hairpin two laps later – although both involved contact. Kellett continued to defy de Haan after a safety car period, but de Haan’s…

RADICAL CUP UK Race 1 (18 laps) 1 Daryl DeLeon; 2 Peter Tyler +10.203s; 3 James Lay; 4 Haydn Chance; 5 Chris Preen; 6 Ben Caisley. Fastest lap DeLeon 1m22.659s (96.94mph). Pole Lay. Starters 24. Race 2 (19 laps) 1 DeLeon; 2 Lay +0.275s; 3 Caisley; 4 Tyler; 5 Preen; 6 Chance. FL DeLeon 1m22.507s (97.12mph). P DeLeon. S 25. Race 3 (17 laps) 1 Abdelmajeed Khateeb (above); 2 Caisley +0.913s; 3 Tyler; 4 Ben Stone; 5 Chris Headlam; 6 Jacek Zielonka. FL DeLeon 1m22.983s (96.56mph). P DeLeon. S 24. PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Race 1 (20 laps) 1 James Kellett; 2 Adam Smalley +6.882s; 3 Micah Stanley; 4 Josh Malin; 5 Charles Rainford; 6 Ross Wylie. FL Kellett 1m21.415s (98.42mph). P Robert de Haan. S 23. Race 2 (13…

The large crowd that attended American SpeedFest at Brands Hatch last weekend was treated to something new on the schedule, as three Chevrolet Corvette standalone races were held to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the American icon. Drivers based in the UK and from abroad brought a plethora of cars to take part in an event that was the brainchild of Bernie Chodosh and his family, founders of the Bernie’s V8s & Historic Outlaws series that has been a regular fixture of the SpeedFest event in recent years. Together with a small field of late 1960s Camaros, Corvettes from across the decades took to the grid for the first race on Saturday afternoon spanning three classes. Among the line-up was three C1s from the 1950s, two 1960s C2 models and…

DONINGTON PARK BRSCC 17-18 JUNE Three National Formula Ford thrillers that each produced a different winner stole the show during the British Racing & Sports Car Club’s 16-race bill at Donington Park. Lucas Romanek (Van Diemen JL13) boosted his championship lead with victory in Saturday’s opener after fending off the Van Diemens of both Chris Middlehurst and Brandon McCaughan on the final lap through McLeans. A five-second track-limits penalty dumped McCaughan to seventh in the result, and Jamie Sharp (Medina) was instead classified third. Team Dolan’s Middlehurst was not to be denied in race two, though. He dispatched early leader Romanek into the Esses on lap two for the win and was swiftly followed by Sharp, who took second. Romanek’s weekend started to further unfold when Elliott Budzinski (Ray) and…

"It was like travelling to another world. We all loved the track, because it was so different and the atmosphere was amazing. It was just one big adventure.” The words belong to 1970s/80s touring car star Pierre Dieudonne, and the subject is the Brno street circuit behind the Iron Curtain in the former Czechoslavakia. The Belgian was twice a winner, in 1976 and 1979 driving a BMW 3.0 CSL for Luigi Racing, on the 6.79 miles of public road that wound through villages, along country roads and into the outskirts of the city that gave the track its name. The dangers were obvious, but Dieudonne has fond memories of his seven participations in the Brno round of the European Touring Car Championship (known simply as the ETC) between 1976 and…

FORMULA 1 Sebastian Vettel will return to the cockpit of a Formula 1 car in September when he drives his 2011 championshipwinning Red Bull RB7, powered by synthetic fuel, on the Nurburgring Nordschliefe. The retired four-time world champion, who has so far spent this year away from the spotlight, will join 2014 team-mate Daniel Ricciardo at the‘Red Bull Formula Nurburgring’ event that brings together F1, NASCAR and drift machinery. Vettel will be reunited with his now-eFueljoiced RB7 that claimed 12 grand prix wins plus 18 poles from 19 races. Ricciardo will pilot a Red Bull RB8 from 2012. “The myth of the Nordschleife resonated, even if we ‘only’ drove the GP track at the time,” said Vettel. “In any case, it will be great fun to drive my RB7 on…

INDYCAR Reigning IndyCar Series champion Will Power branded ex-Formula 1 racer Romain Grosjean a“piece of crap” who“needs a punch in the face” after the first of two on-track clashes he suffered in practice at last weekend’s Road America round. Grosjean edged Power onto the grass at over 150mph on the high-speed Kettle Bottoms section of the four-mile road course during the 45-minute session on Saturday morning. Soon after that clash, Power’s Team Penske car was wrecked in a bizarre collision with six-time champion Scott Dixon. The Kiwi had spun his Chip Ganassi Racing car on the exit of Canada Corner and pulled back on to the racing line after letting Grosjean go past. He didn’t realise Power was behind Grosjean, and the brutal collision sent both cars into a concrete…

DAKAR RALLY Ford Performance is to run a full factory Dakar Rally programme in 2024 and is targeting victory in 2025, with a T1+ version of the Ranger run in collaboration with South African operation Neil Woolridge Motorsport and UK giant M-Sport. The programme will effectively be launched in stages, with an existing NWMbuilt Ranger, powered by a 3.5-litre EcoBoost engine and based on the previous generation model, further developed for the 2024 Dakar. An all-new Ranger will then be developed by Ford Performance, NWM and M-Sport for the 2025 event. What will power the new Ranger T1+ is yet to be revealed. “We know it’s a big endeavour that we’re taking on here, and not something where we can just show up and be successful,” said Ford Performance boss…

One car started a legacy, the other stamped its membership card into the highly exclusive ‘100 Club’. On the face of it, there should be very little similarity between Red Bull’s contemporary RB19 and the RB5 with which it secured its first Formula 1 win. The 14 years between them, and the fact that they were built to two very different rulesets, suggests that the paintjob is their only source of common ground. Apples versus oranges, as it were – but that’s not entirely true. Both cars represent milestones in the Adrian Newey design lineage. Much as the century-hitting RB19 – or more overtly, its RB18 predecessor – has become a trendsetter amid the current generation, the RB5 was something of a tastemaker in tackling the aero regulations devised for…

It had rained all day in Montreal. Saturday showers lashed the circuit from dawn until dusk to set up a thrilling test of skill and character in qualifying, particularly as the circuit dried and then dampened throughout the session. That Max Verstappen chalked up his 25th Formula 1 pole was a predictable conclusion to the unpredictability. A downpour ahead of the final part of qualifying disposed of the drying line that had formed ahead of Q2, and continuing rain meant that the opening few minutes would yield the best conditions to set a lap. Verstappen parked up at the front of the queue to exit the pitlane and indulge in clearer visibility at the expense of tyre heat, and lodged a solid banker lap to place him on top of…

George Russell was left offering“apologies” to his Mercedes team following his Canadian Grand Prix crash, from which he was initially able to recover before being forced into a late retirement as an indirect consequence of his mistake. Russell had started fourth behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton following Nico Hulkenberg’s post-qualifying penalty. He then chased Fernando Alonso in the early stages, the Aston Martin in turn closely pursuing Hamilton after his slower start. Russell had been dropped back to 1.6s behind, but then closed to 0.6s either side of the brief virtual safety car activation. On lap 12, Russell“went a bit wide into Turn 8” and “wasn’t expecting the sausage kerb to have such a violent response”. He smashed the right side of his car into the outside barriers, having gone briefly…

Plans were being hatched, plotting was in the works. Jake Hill was frustrated. Twelve races into the 2023 British Touring Car Championship, he was yet to take the chequered flag as a race winner. The little bloke from Kent has, over the past few years, formed an unbreakable bond with his engineering sidekick Craig Porley. They’ve been together at the West Surrey Racing BMW team since the beginning of 2022, just as they were with the Motorbase Ford camp before that and, going further back, the AmD Honda squad. Think. Think. ‘What can we do for Oulton Park?’ WSR, you see, has revolved around its nucleus of four-time champion and all-time BTCC great Colin Turkington with his trusted engineer, veteran techie John Waterman. Where this duo goes, it’s natural for…

TCR WORLD TOUR HUNGARORING (HUN) 17-18 JUNE ROUND 4/9 Pole position and victory in Hungary elevated Yann Ehrlacher to the top of the TCR World Tour standings at his main title rival Norbert Michelisz’s home event at the Hungaroring. While the Cyan Racing Lynk & Co star was on form, the BRC Squadra Corse Hyundai ace endured a tough weekend, dropping from a comfortable lead to a shaky second place in the points. Ehrlacher claimed pole position by just over 0.1 seconds ahead of Nestor Girolami’s ALM Motorsport Honda, with the Civic driver seemingly the only real threat on race day to Ehrlacher’s 03 TCR, the Frenchman aiming to capitalise while running with no success ballast for this round. At the start of the first race, Ehrlacher moved aggressively across…

SUPER FORMULA SUGO (JPN) 18 JUNE ROUND 4/7 Ritomo Miyata vaulted into the championship lead with an imperious victory at Sugo as the season entered its second half. Fresh from being announced as Toyota’s latest World Endurance Championship protege, Miyata put on a clinic at the wheel of his TOM’S machine to win by a massive 22-second margin ahead of reigning champion Tomoki Nojiri. Key to Miyata’s success, besides terrifying pace that nobody else could match for the vast majority of the race, was pit strategy around the notoriously narrow Sugo track. He started second behind Toshiki Oyu, and managed to get the jump on the TGM Grand Prix driver at the start of lap 13 of 51. Instead of making use of his clean air out front, he elected…

HERO-ERA A special Ford Mustang that Prodrive has spent the past year converting to tackle gruelling safari rallies has been unveiled. The Historic Endurance Rallying Organisation-Endurance Rally Association commissioned Prodrive’s Legends team with the task of transforming the rusting 1967 Mustang Fastback so it can compete on marathon events such as the 37-day, 8700-mile Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. Numerous modifications have been made to the Mustang to ready it for the demands of long-distance rallying. It has been fitted with a 5.4-litre Dart Ford 302 V8 engine that is designed to run at high revs for long periods, while the five-speed Tremec TKX gearbox has also been chosen with durability in mind. Dakar-style underbody protection has been added, and a fuel tank with sufficient capacity for 400 miles has…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Theo Edgerton has become the second Porsche Carrera Cup GB frontrunner to end their campaign, while fellow departee Gus Burton has joined Richardson Racing for this weekend’s Benelux round. Edgerton (above) finished fifth in last year’s standings with JTR, after winning the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB title in 2021. He switched to Redline Racing for 2023 but scored only six points from the opening two events and elected not to race at Thruxton after picking up a qualifying penalty. He was not in action at Oulton Park last weekend either. “Things didn’t go our way so we decided to call it a day,” said Edgerton. “We had a really strong pre-season and just had some unfortunate results. Sometimes things aren’t going your way and you need…

GB4 Formula 1 Esports champion Lucas Blakeley made an unexpected GB4 debut at Snetterton last weekend. Blakeley, who made a couple of Formula Ford 1600 outings for Kevin Mills Racing in April, took part in pre-event GB4 testing with the team, and his performance earned him a last-minute call-up to race. The opportunity came about after Jeremy Fairbairn and KMR parted ways following a difficult start to the season, with the American switching to Graham Brunton Racing. Despite no prior slicks-and-wings experience, Blakeley qualified fourth on his debut. “We could already see on Thursday he was getting up to speed,” said team owner Kevin Mills. “On Friday we thought we’ve got to see if we can make this happen for the rest of the weekend. And to qualify fourth was…

BRITISH HILLCLIMB Alex Summers and Wallace Menzies shared the honours in the British Hillclimb Championship as competitors took on the daunting Doune hill in Scotland. Summers got to within a whisker of his own year-old hill record on Sunday with a feisty climb of 34.29s in the DJ Firestorm. Scott Moran ran him close, just 0.08 seconds adrift, while Menzies had a moment in the Esses and stopped the clock third on 34.99s. Summers could have done a Scottish double had the weather not intervened in the closing stages of Saturday’s top 12 run-off. As the day’s fastest qualifier, Summers ran last of the 12. By the time he took to the hill, the light rain that had arrived was heavier and his run was wrecked. Menzies had run four…

Raceway Motorsport pairing Stuart Middleton and Freddie Tomlinson bounced back from the disappointment of losing their Silverstone disqualification appeal to emphatically win for the first time this season. The Ginetta G56 crew were never headed in the opening one-hour race at Snetterton. Middleton led comfortably from pole and pulled out a sizeable gap to the chasing pack, initially headed by the R Racing Aston Martin Vantage of Josh Miller. Middleton stopped towards the end of the pit window, with Tomlinson rejoining just ahead of the sister car of Tom Holland, who had replaced Michael Crees – the Pro-Am pairing served less time in the pits, which helped them to jump up from fifth. “It’s rare that you get the opportunity to pull a gap like that,” said Middleton of his…

SNETTERTON BRSCC 17-18 JUNE Tom Mills claimed his sixth GB4 victory of the season at Snetterton during a weekend where he was largely put in the shade by the impressive Cooper Webster. Having finished runner-up four times at the previous Donington Park round, Webster finally ended his wait for a maiden victory in the opening contest. Starting from the first of two poles, the Australian was shadowed by Mills in the early stages, before he pulled clear in the race’s second half to win by three seconds, while Fortec’s Colin Queen finished close behind Mills. Webster led again from Mills at the start of race two, only to lock-up and run wide at the Wilson hairpin and allow his pursuer to get by. Mills resisted pressure from Webster for the…

MINI CHALLENGE A NAPA Racing Ford Focus did not claim a victory at a British Touring Car event for the first time this season at Oulton Park last weekend, but there was still some success for a blue-and-yellow-liveried machine as Jamie Osborne triumphed in the second Mini Challenge race. Osborne, the son of Motorbase Performance owner Pete, has endured a frustrating start to his Mini campaign, showing flashes of speed but only taking a best result of fourth. That fortune changed in Cheshire, where he was drawn on pole for the partially reversed grid contest, after finishing sixth in race one, and did not put a wheel wrong throughout to claim his maiden series win. Reigning Cooper class champion Nelson King was second after a brilliant move around the outside…

BRANDS HATCH MSVR AMERICAN SPEEDFEST 17-18 JUNE After a controversial clash denied him at least one victory at Brands Hatch last season, Gianmarco Ercoli ensured there was no repeat this year, steering his Chevrolet Camaro to Victory Lane twice in the pair of NASCAR Euro Series races that headlined the 10th running of American SpeedFest. Ercoli proved uncatchable in the opener as he took a lights-to-flag triumph from pole, while Vittorio Ghirelli took advantage of a mistake by Liam Hezemans early in the race to snatch a second place he kept to the end. Ercoli produced a virtually identical performance to win race two as not even a late caution period – after Max Lanza rolled his Camaro at Paddock Hill Bend – could prevent him completing a dominant double.…

THRUXTON BARC THRUXTON HISTORIC 17-18 JUNE In screaming his ex-Charlie Batka/Jeff Krosnoff Formula Atlantic Ralt-BDA RT4 around the UK’s fastest circuit with a 1m13.336s (115.65mph) best lap, Rory Smith added his name to the Jochen Rindt Trophy at a cracking Thruxton Historic event. But the 2020 Formula Ford Festival winner had to concentrate on Sunday’s deciding stanza, having spun away the previous day’s lead. The 1985‘wing car’, designed by Ron Tauranac, pulled barely 140mph up Woodham Hill, yet its ability to carry that speed through the preceding sweepers trumped allcomers. Smith’s rotation in the chicane – “I made a complete wally of myself” – left him fourth, advantaging F3 duellists Anthony Hancock (Lola T670) and Benn Tilley (March 743) but, as Hancock took the chequer by 1.661 seconds, Smith snatched…

NATIONAL FORMULA FORD Race 1 Lucas Romanek (Van Diemen JL13) Race 2 Chris Middlehurst (Van Diemen LA10) Race 3 Elliott Budzinski (Ray GR18) MG METRO CUP Races 1 & 2 Rhys Claydon ZEO PROTOTYPE SERIES Race 1 Mike Jenvey (Jenvey Gunn) Race 2 Shane Kelly (Praga R1T) CLUBSPORT TROPHY Liam Crilly (BMW Z4 Coupe) BMW COMPACT CUP Races 1 & 2 Oliver Faller EVOLUTION TROPHY Races 1 & 2 Tommy Gilham (VW Golf Mk5, below) AUDI TT CUP RACING Races 1 & 2 Carl Swift SUPERSPORT ENDURANCE Keir McConomy/Bart Horsten (BMW 1 Series) C1 ENDURANCE SERIES Emax Motorsport (James Little/Stuart Ratcliff) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…