Indholdsfortegnelse for 13/07/23 i Autosport

Aston Martin (five times), Mercedes (twice), Ferrari (twice) and now McLaren. If you remove the incredible Red Bull RB19 from the 10 Formula 1 races held so far in 2023, there would be quite a few different winners and a fascinating title contest. And Lando Norris would now be a grand prix victor after an impressive drive in front of his home fans at Silverstone. As Alex Kalinauckas reports on page 16, the British Grand Prix was one of the better races of the season so far, helped by the unexpected turn of speed from McLaren and its latest updates (p27). But Max Verstappen and Red Bull remain firmly out front, with the team set to break McLaren’s record of 11 consecutive victories if it can continue its momentum at…

FORMULA 1 Mercedes and McLaren were due to spend today (Thursday) testing with wheel arches on an artificially wetted Wellington Straight at Silverstone. This run on the National Circuit has been conceived to allow the FIA to gather data on whether Formula 1 should adopt mudguards to allow track sessions to go ahead in situations that would otherwise be rained off due to poor visibility. The test follows the death of Formula Regional European by Alpine driver Dilano van’t Hoff at a sodden Spa this month, but was originally inspired by the farcical handling of the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, for which only one lap was officially completed before a result declared. Mercedes has produced the component, which has been designed by the FIA. Only its W14 will have them…

OBITUARY Jan Odor, who died recently, was a Hungarian refugee who fled from under the Iron Curtain in 1956 and whose team became Nissan’s first factory British Touring Car Championship effort during the early 1990s. Odor arrived penniless in the UK and was taken on in 1957 as an employee by Downton Engineering, which would become famed for its preparation of racing Minis. Odor became an exhaust specialist, and went it alone in 1962 when he set up his own company Janspeed. Janspeed’s reputation was enhanced by the form in 1963 of John Fenning at the wheel of its Mini Cooper and Odor became much in demand as a tuning wizard for the model. Later on he would become inextricably associated with Datsun – the forerunner of Nissan – running…

BTCC Brakes will be the hot topic when the British Touring Car Championship has its first races on the Donington Park Grand Prix circuit since 2002 next month. That’s the verdict of reigning champion Tom Ingram, who topped last week’s Goodyear Tyre Test using the GP loop at the wheel of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N. After team-mate Tom Chilton led the way in the morning, times tumbled later in the day, and Ingram ended up 0.064 seconds clear of the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Aron Taylor-Smith. “It’s pretty good,” said Ingram of the circuit the BTCC will race on over the 26-27 August weekend. “Donington tends to be quite good for racing anyway, with fairly close action, and by adding in two big braking zones it’s…

Shane van Gisbergen’s miracle NASCAR win earlier this month completed the creation of a second dimension for Australian Supercars. The series has long been seen as a destination. If you’re good enough, you get paid handsomely. You race at marquee events. You can go down in history by winning the Bathurst 1000. It’s a good life. For years, young Aussie drivers have effectively faced a fork in the road, pretty much straight out of Formula Ford. Do you want to be a Formula 1 driver or a Supercars driver? If it’s the former, you get on the first plane to Europe and hit the open-wheel ladder. It’s expensive but, if you’ve got the cash, then you’ve got options. Maybe you’ll go all the way like Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo or…

The Silverstone crowd roared when Lando Norris crossed the line, as the Bristol-born racer hurled his much-improved McLaren to the top of the timesheets. Just 13 seconds later, Max Verstappen’s final flyer was enough to reclaim his place at the front and put the home fans on mute. The inevitable had happened, but it was still impressive that McLaren had beaten the other frontrunning teams as Norris and Oscar Piastri claimed second and third in a wild qualifying session. Verstappen was the only driver to kick off Q3 with a fresh set of soft rubber after saving some in Q1, and he set the benchmark with a 1m27.084s that none of the other nine drivers could get near with their opening runs on used tyres. Equipped with new boots, however,…

Another miserable qualifying session put Red Bull’s Sergio Perez on the back foot for the British Grand Prix, his Q1 elimination forcing another recovery drive. Perez was unable to make particularly light work of the cars ahead in the opening phases of the race, and clashed with Nico Hulkenberg in his efforts to reclaim positions, breaking the Haas’s front wing. Perez needed 16 laps to move from 15th on the grid into the points, before his progress plateaued when trying to reel in Pierre Gasly’s Alpine. As others pitted, Perez was up to eighth before making his own stop, and the choice to keep him out when the safety car emerged helped to restore that position as cars ahead made their own trips to the pitlane. His duel with Carlos…

Toyota gained something approaching revenge on Ferrari for its Le Mans 24 Hours defeat in the Italian manufacturer’s backyard at Monza. Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez took what on paper looked like a narrow victory, but in reality they had a clear advantage in last Sunday’s World Endurance Championship round. And that explained its big rival’s disquiet after the race. Toyota won the Monza 6 Hours not because its GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar was the fastest car over a single lap of the 3.6-mile Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. There was little to choose between the Japanese car and Ferrari’s 499P LMH: Kobayashi pipped Antonio Fuoco, in the 499P that finished the race in second position, to pole by just 0.017 seconds, and in fastest race laps…

FORMULA 3 SILVERSTONE (GBR) 8-9 JULY ROUND 6/9 For some time it looked as though Leonardo Fornaroli might be scoring his breakthrough Formula 3 win in last Sunday’s feature race at Silverstone, but eventually it was his Trident team-mate Oliver Goethe who came through to accomplish the same milestone. The reigning Euroformula Open champion lined up second behind his Italian stablemate, but lost out to Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti at Luffield on the opening lap, before reclaiming his position at Stowe. Soon there was a safety car, with Luke Browning stranded on the Hamilton Straight after being nudged wide as he battled with Hugh Barter. More contact, between Caio Collet and Jonny Edgar, sent both into the pits with damage. While Marti began losing time to the leading pair, Fornaroli…

IMSA SPORTSCAR MOSPORT (CAN) 9 JULY ROUND 6/11 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian secured its second victory of the IMSA SportsCar Championship season last Sunday at the spectacular Mosport venue just an hour or so east of Toronto, Canada. In contrast to the long shadow that was cast following its triumph in the season opening Daytona 24 Hours, which was allowed to stand despite a hefty financial and points penalty for manipulating tyre pressure data, this one was claimed by Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun with a heady mix of pace and strategy for their GTP Acura ARX-06. Blomqvist set the tone on Saturday by taking pole position by less than 0.1 seconds over Wayne Taylor Racing’s similar Acura in the hands of Ricky Taylor. Pipo Derani kept the Acuras…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN MUGELLO (ITA) 8-9 JULY ROUND 5/10 Martinius Stenshorne and Andrea Kimi Antonelli are almost neck and neck in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine standings after they took a win and a podium apiece in Tuscany. Stenshorne denied R-ace GP team-mate Tim Tramnitz at the last gasp for pole position on Saturday, and Prema driver Antonelli topped the other (slower) group to join the Norwegian on the front row. Stenshorne was little troubled in a processional race, building up a handy advantage over Mercedes F1 protege Antonelli during the first eight laps before a mid-race safety car meant he had to do it all over again. Similarly, Tramnitz kept Van Amersfoort Racing’s Kas Haverkort at bay in the race for third. Most of the interest lay…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS TOWNSVILLE (AUS) 8-9 JULY ROUND 6/12 Will Brown leads the Supercars standings for the first time after a dramatic weekend on the streets of Townsville. The series returned to a street circuit and long-distance refuelling races for the first time since the dawn of the Gen3 era at the season opener in March. Adding to the intrigue was a new rear aero package for the Ford Mustang to address the ongoing discontent regarding parity. It didn’t provide an immediate end to the Chevrolet Camaro winning streak, though, with Brown the class of the field on Saturday. The Erebus driver shone in the Top 10 Shootout to take pole, and kept it up in the first 250-kilometre race of the weekend. He was effectively never headed across the journey…

NASCAR has supported the Festival for many years now, indeed the eye-catching liveries and thunderous soundtracks of the muscular stock cars – tubeframe chassis carrying high-revving V8 engines, clad in sheet metal caricatures of current production models – and the approachability of their PR-savvy drivers instantly made this element of the event an indelible spectator favourite. Fresh from his eye-opening run at Le Mans in an ultra-endurance-spec Chevrolet Camaro, 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button shares one of two Hendrick Motorsports ZL1s with Porsche legend (and LM co-driver) Mike Rockenfeller. Button is an FoS fixture: as a young rising star he donned period costume to drive veteran Renaults on several occasions and enjoyed it so much he has returned whenever possible, to the delight of his home fans. The earliest…

BRITISH GT Two-time World Endurance GT title winner and Le Mans 24 Hours class victor Nicki Thiim will return to British GT with Beechdean later this month. The 34-year-old Dane, who claimed a GTE Am class victory at the 2014 Le Mans 24 Hours as well as the 2016 and 2019-20 WEC titles, will partner team owner Andrew Howard for the next round of the British championship at Algarve, near Portimao. Thiim replaces regular Pro driver Ross Gunn, due to the Briton’s commitments in the IMSA SportsCar Championship on the same weekend, and will return to British GT for the first time since 2019. Alongside Mark Farmer, he finished third overall in 2018 with TF Sport before falling to eighth in the following year’s table. Thiim said: “It’s been clear…

MINI FESTIVAL The collection of special Minis competing in this year’s Fastest Mini in the World race at the Brands Hatch Mini Festival next month will use a sustainable fuel to help reduce emissions. Race organisers have struck an agreement with Coryton to supply its SUSTAIN Classic Racing 50 fuel for the race – a fuel that produces around 50% less carbon than conventional fossil fuels. The product has been extensively tested and race coordinator Nigel Death believes it is important motorsport considers its environmental impact. “We as a race like to innovate and make sure it’s moving in the right direction and keeping up with technology,” he said. “They’re lovely old cars but, if you think hard enough, you can make them that little bit more friendly to the…

LEGENDS Team Hard British Touring Car driver Dexter Patterson got his first taste of Legends racing last weekend, appearing as a guest in the Scottish championship at Knockhill. Patterson, who currently leads the Jack Sears Trophy after five rounds, used the weekend to gain additional track time ahead of the BTCC’s visit to the Scottish circuit next month. “It’s only my second race weekend at Knockhill as I did a lot of my karting down south and in Europe,” Patterson, 19, told Autosport. “I had a couple of test sessions [on Friday] and the cars are so different to what I am used to in the BTCC, but it’s all a bit of fun and some extra track time before we go there in August. “You can’t be too aggressive…

CADWELL PARK 750MC 8-9 JULY The weather at Cadwell Park last weekend was unpredictable and the Type R Trophy opener was similarly difficult to call, with Matt Wilkins eventually allowed to keep his win after contact with Miles Nathaniel-James at The Mountain. Jeff Humphries and Joe Jessup were second and third having duelled for the lead before losing places on a chaotic final tour, as the race was red-flagged with a few minutes to go. Joseph Dalgarno nipped past polesitter Joseph McMullan at the start of race two and maintained a strong lead, while Daniel Chapman was quick to usurp McMullan, followed a couple of laps later by Jessup. Chapman was catching Dalgarno in the final laps but had to settle for second ahead of Jessup, as Wilkins climbed to…

BRITISH TRUCK RACING Races 1 & 2 Ryan Smith (Daimler Freightliner) Race 3 Stuart Oliver (Volvo VNL) Race 4 John Bowler (MAN TGX) PICKUP TRUCKS Races 1 & 2 Reece Jones MG OWNERS’ CLUB Race 1 Scott Bugner (ZR 160) Race 2 Steve McDermid (ZR 170, below) KUMHO BMWs Race 1 Jason West (E46 M3) Race 2 Michael Vitulli (E46 M3) MINI CHALLENGE CLUBSPORT Race 1 Ross Alexander (Cooper S) Race 2 Freddy Hewitt (Cooper S) HYUNDAI COUPE CUP Races 1 & 2 Wayne Rockett CATERHAM GRADUATES – SIGMA 135 Race 1 Richard Groom Race 2 Ben Wheatley CATERHAM GRADUATES – SIGMA 150/SIGMAX Race 1 Amanda Anderson (150) Race 2 Harry Senior (150) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

DONINGTON PARK VSCC 9 JULY Last year’s annual visit by the Vintage Sports-Car Club to the historic Donington Park circuit was marked by heavy downpours and this year was no different. However, despite major disruption to the programme towards the end of the day, in the main, the sun shone down on spectators and competitors for a fine afternoon of competition. Racing started with the Donington Mug & John Goddard Trophies contest for VSCC Specials. The Llewellyn family’s distinctive blue Bentley 3/8 single-seater was on pole thanks to Oliver Llewellyn’s efforts, with Ben Maeers at the wheel of a demoniclooking GN Special alongside. The Bentley proved to be tricky to get away at lights-out, with the duo side by side into Redgate but, by Coppice, the Bentley was stretching its…

MONDELLO PARK MPSC 8-9 JULY Karl Leonard starred on his return to Mondello Park last weekend. In a rented Caterham, he joined the visiting 7 Race Series as the category crossed the Irish Sea. After qualifying third, he dropped back in the first two races before, in the finale, he initially ran fifth before making two places into Southside. Following a brief safety-car intervention, Leonard began to hassle the leaders before displacing Anthony Barnes around the outside at Lola for second, and then grabbed the lead with a late lunge into Southside. He ran wide on the exit, though, and Mark Stansfield and Barnes both passed him. But Leonard wasn’t done and outbraked Barnes into Turn 1 for second before snatching the lead from Stansfield at 7A on the final…

SKY DOCUMENTARY WILLIAMS AND MANSELL RED 5 Nigel Mansell was part of arguably the most exciting era of Formula 1, the drama and rivalries with Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet defining his time in the competition. Mansell’s F1 story is well known, his nearly-man status being shattered – finally – in 1992 when he drove the all-conquering Williams FW14B to world championship success. This story is told in a fascinating way with archive footage and behind-thescenes video meshed together to provide extra insight to those hearing this tale for the hundredth time. The documentary begins with a clip detailing the epic battle between the British driver and Ayrton Senna at Monaco in 1992, in an early bid to build Mansell as a hero to root for while also casting him…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 is to have another crack at a 24-event calendar next year, and has announced its schedule for the season. The Chinese Grand Prix is once again set to return after a string of COVID-enforced cancellations, and Imola is back on the list following the devastating regional floods that put paid to the 2023 edition of the race. But, for the first time since 2019, there won’t be a fresh addition to the running order in the form of either a brand-new circuit or a return for an old classic such as Zandvoort in 2021. Bahrain will once again host pre-season testing, which is pencilled in for 21-23 February before the Sakhir curtain raiser takes place on 2 March. This will be followed by the Saudi Arabian…

FORMULA 1 The team principals of the seven UK-based Formula 1 teams and championship CEO Stefano Domenicali visited Downing Street last week to highlight the £10billion annual contribution the series makes to the national economy while stressing the logistical challenges that Brexit has triggered. They met with the Secretary of State for DCMS (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) Lucy Frazer, as well as advisers to the Prime Minister. Williams boss James Vowles explained the red tape: “We’re doing a couple of hundred carnets at the moment to move items in and out. One of the restrictions that imposes is, for example, that should we go to Imola, which is what we did, and items gets damaged, you still have to return everything back to the UK. “Furthermore, in…

WEC The new Isotta Fraschini Le Mans Hypercar is looking increasingly unlikely to race this year. The revived Italian marque hasn’t ruled out taking part in the Bahrain World Endurance Championship finale on an invitational basis, but it has stressed that development and homologation of the Tipo 6 LMH Competizione will take priority. Isotta motorsport boss Claudio Berro described racing in Bahrain in November as “not mandatory”, which really means it is not essential for the programme as it gears up for a full-season entry with a single car run by the British Vector Sport team in 2024. Sources indicate that a race outing this year, which had been planned for Monza last weekend, is now highly unlikely. Whatever happens, the first Tipo 6 will travel to the Middle East…

BTCC British Touring Car Championship powerhouse Motorbase Performance has become the envy of the series in 2023, with Ash Sutton racing into the points lead, and Dan Cammish and Dan Rowbottom contributing to its tally of five out of five pole positions. Now its pacesetting Ford Focus ST could be yours for 2024… The Kent squad eyed a switch to a rear-wheel-drive contender for 2023 before electing instead to plough its resources into maximising the fourth-generation ST, which made its debut in 2020. This it has done to great effect, and now it wants to supply either two or four machines to a customer team. “The winter development plan was the most intense the team has ever undertaken,” said Motorbase team manager Oly Collins. “No stone was unturned in every…

TCR UK Up-and-coming Northern Irish tin-top ace Jack Young scored his maiden win of his new adventure in the TCR China series last weekend, and he shared the victories with none other than Martin Cao, best known in the UK as the final winner of the British Formula 3 Championship in 2014. Cao qualified on the front row at the Zhuzhou circuit, his Hyundai sandwiched between the Dongfeng Honda Racing Civics of poleman Martin Xie and Young. While Cao drove around the outside of Xie at Turn 1, Young stalled due to a problem with his launch control system. Cao then went on to take a dominant victory from Xie, while Irish TCR UK export Max Hart took his Hyundai to fourth behind the similar car of Zhang Zhen Dong.…

Time to ditch reward-the-winner points? There have been many complaints about Red Bull running away with the championships during this long season. If you go back, say, 50 years, the points system was 9-6-4-3-2-1. This kept everything close-knit until the end of the year, even with 12 races or so. It was Bernie Ecclestone who wanted to reward the winners, and changed the points system to the current one in order to do that. This is fine if you have a competitive field of cars. It is not so fine if you have a car that is clearly superior to the rest and others are struggling to keep up. Having a car that is superior to the rest has happened before. Certainly, in my lifetime I have seen the domination…

The big splodges of rain begin to fall 23 minutes into final practice on Saturday morning. Not long after that, the trusty notebook is even more of a crinkled mess, and the pen ink is making a run for it. Ah, the authentic Silverstone trackside experience. This is actually the second time today Autosport has escaped the paddock, having already been to watch the historic Formula 1 car demonstration that ran in dry conditions. After that chorus of Ford, Cosworth and Climax V8s and V10s, the ear drums get a bit of respite when the current machines emerge. A wander to the barrier that runs parallel to the pit entry gives a clear view of the chicane filling in the Vale-Club sandwich. From here, you can see Oscar Piastri take…

Pirelli declared itself satisfied with the performance of its stronger tyre constructions, which made their full debut at the British Grand Prix. The change to the full rubber range had been required because the tyre manufacturer had detected the new ground-effect cars reaching loads and speeds expected at the end of 2023 as the team’s developed their packages in this year’s early races. Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola said last Sunday that the new construction “was working as expected”. “It’s an improvement because, despite the increase in loads, which we measured around 15% – 15% more load on the tyres compared to last year – we used the same pressures [there was a 0.5psi increase for the fronts year on year],” said Isola (above). Thanks to the new construction, we…

A 10th-place finish clearly wasn’t what Cadillac was looking for last week. After all, Alex Lynn, Earl Bamber and Richard Westbrook had taken a first Hypercar podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours aboard their Ganassi-run V-Series.R LMDh and were lying third in the points heading into Monza. Yet there wasn’t the air of despondency in the camp post-race that you might have expected. The trio owed their lowly finishing position to what Lynn described as “a bit of a messy race”. There were a couple of long pitstops – one because a wheelnut didn’t go on properly, another when the radiator ducts were given a good clear-out – but the real hit for the solo Caddy in the field came during the second safety car. It had gone onto…

There was a nice symmetry when, on the Friday of last month’s Le Mans 24 Hours, Alpine unveiled the prototype with which it will attempt to rekindle past glories in endurance racing. The French enduro happened to fall on the same dates this year as in 1978, when the Renault marque finally triumphed in a race in which it had had a long if interrupted presence since 1963. Much was made of that victory when the covers came off the new World Endurance Championship contender, which for the moment is known as the A424_ß. You could easily have misread that as A442B (above), the machine Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud took to victory 35 years earlier, give or take the odd three days. Alpine’s heritage in sportscar racing and at…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP SILVERSTONE (GBR) 9 JULY ROUND 3/7 Alexander Fach clinched his maiden Porsche Supercup victory with a neatly controlled drive at Silverstone as the principal championship contenders eliminated each other from contention on the opening lap. The weather provided no excuses: in contrast to the mixed conditions that afflicted Formula 1 practice and qualifying, the Porsche Supercup enjoyed warm sunshine and a dry track. Fach, a DNF last time out for his father’s Fach Auto Tech team at the Red Bull Ring, qualified fifth and nimbly avoided the scene at Village as top-four starters Dorian Boccolacci, Larry ten Voorde, Harry King and Bastian Buus tangled and then gyrated onto the run-off. Damage incurred in this incident ended King’s race on the first lap and, while ten Voorde pitted and…

NASCAR CUP ATLANTA (USA) 9 JULY ROUND 19/36 William Byron did a lot of work in little time to rebound from an early spin and win last Sunday night’s NASCAR Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Following contact with Corey LaJoie early in the second stage, Byron spun down the frontstretch, damaged his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and fell a lap down. Thanks to some more cautions and quick repairs, Byron returned to the lead lap and stayed on the track when most cars pitted between Stages 2 and 3, which allowed him to move to the front of the field. Two laps following the start of the final stage, Byron swept around AJ Allmendinger to take the lead and was still out front when heavy rain forced NASCAR to halt…

HISTORICS A comprehensive support package targeting a 30-car entry for the 1000cc Historic Formula 3 championship’s double-header finale at Silverstone on 14-15 October is the first foundation stone laid for the category’s landmark 60th anniversary season in 2024. Masterminded by passionate HF3 team owner Mike O’Brien, in association with title sponsor Milton Keynesheadquartered MKM Building Supplies, the deal offers a £225 entry subsidy per car, reducing the cost to just £330 for qualifying and two races. Each entrant and one guest will also receive complimentary tickets to a reception in the BRDC Clubhouse on the Saturday evening, at which invitees will be able to reflect on the F3 ‘screamer’ era of 1964-70 and hear plans for next season. Saturday’s first race being scheduled for early afternoon, a late morning slot…

HILLCLIMB Harry Pick is making the step up to the big league of the British Hillclimb Championship with a Cosworth XD-engined OMS 28. Pick gave the car a debut run at Harewood recently and plans to spend the rest of the year developing it with support from Steve Owen at OMS. Pick, 27, started karting at the age of eight and has spent many years competing in smaller-engined cars. The aim is to get the car into BHC run-offs next year. “This is a joint venture with OMS and it’s a two-year project,” said Pick. “You can consider it a works car I guess. It’s a brand-new carbon fibre tub and Steve has done a great job on it. The back of the tub is bespoke for this engine. We…

Wayne Rockett is no stranger to success in the Hyundai Coupe Cup and last weekend he added another two wins to his tally as son, Jonny, showed that speed runs in the family with a double podium. Not only that, but the father-and-son pairing secured their first-ever front-row lockout for the opening race, before bagging a maiden family 1-2 in the second contest. The feat was even more impressive because Rockett Jr was returning to racing after being away from the track for six months, in a car he acquired only the weekend before. “We sold his [original] car but then Darren Banks had this old Gen2 car and said do you want to have it for the weekend for nothing,” said Rockett Sr. “He’d never raced it before and…

BRANDS HATCH MSVR 8 JULY With 170 drivers competing across five grids at Brands Hatch last Saturday, MotorSport Vision Racing has clearly found a successful formula for promoting its club racing events. However, with each series comprising up to 11 classes, the dicing and duels that are so often the trademark of the famous Kent circuit were mostly lost to differences in horsepower. The guesting Roadsports promised the day’s closest race, the Parkin twins (Scott and Ryan) each starting a different Audi, then planning to swap at the changeover. However, post-qualifying checks led to Ryan’s underweight car being disqualified, leaving one brother on pole and the other at the back. At the start, the Ginetta of Alec Livesley and the Lotus Elise of Jonathan Weston-Taylor both made claims on the…

KNOCKHILL SMRC 8-9 JULY Ferrari may have somewhat fumbled its lines at Monza and Silverstone, but the Prancing Horse delivered fantastic action as the Ferrari Club Classic series made a visit to Knockhill last weekend. Tristan Simpson backed up victory on the conventional clockwise configuration of the Fife circuit at the wheel of his F355 Challenge with a further two wins on the reverse direction to take a clean sweep against firm competition. The 328 GTBs of Gary Culver and Jim Cartwright took the fight to Simpson, who was fifth on the grid following a mechanical problem at the end of qualifying. Culver and Cartwright duked it out for the majority of the 20-minute opener on Saturday but were caught late on by the charging Simpson. Helped by the squabbling…

The Brabham BT44B of Carlos Pace rockets ahead of polesitter Tom Pryce’s Shadow DN5 at the start of the 1975 British Grand Prix. Pace would enjoy two stints at the head of the field to Pryce’s one, but both ended their races in the Silverstone catchfencing due to outbreaks of rain that brought chaos. Pryce slid out of the lead during the first downpour on lap 21 of the intended 67, and Pace was among the multitude of hapless drivers scuppered by a cloudburst that also brought the race to an undignified end after 56 laps. Pace was still classified second, behind Emerson Fittipaldi’s McLaren M23. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

There’s a level of familiarity that 2003 Le Mans 24 Hours winner Guy Smith experiences whenever he visits the former Mosport track, since 2012 known as Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. And that’s not just down to the many times he’s driven the FIA Grade 2 circuit’s 2.459 miles of challenging asphalt winding through the Ontario countryside. Scarborough and Whitby are within an hour’s drive, while Hull is just under four hours to the north in Quebec. The Yorkshireman jokes that the host of eight Canadian Grands Prix between 1967 and 1977 is “almost like a home from home”. Smith first sampled the track in his rookie season of sportscar racing in 2000 as team-mates with Stefan Johansson in the American Le Mans Series. “I remember he told me, ‘You’re going…

Fictional F1 team Apex GP lined up on the grid at the British Grand Prix last Sunday, while Brad Pitt and co-star Damson Idris joined the 20 Formula 1 drivers for the national anthem ceremony as filming for the forthcoming Lewis Hamilton-guided Apple TV blockbuster continued. They were joined by James Bond baddie actor Javier Bardem, who has been cast as a Lawrence Stroll-type bearded team owner. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz seized his chance to make a cameo by greeting the two ‘drivers’ while cameras were rolling. Only he used the actors’ real names rather than their characters’, so the footage may well end up on the cutting room floor!…

SUPER FORMULA LIGHTS Super Formula Lights, formerly All-Japan Formula 3, is poised to do away with one of the core tenets of the old F3 philosophy by introducing a one-make engine. The Super Formula feeder series has revealed plans to switch to a 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbo unit developed by TOM’S out of the engine from the Toyota GR Yaris road car. While this represents a significant departure from the current generation of normally aspirated two-litre engines produced by TOM’S, Spiess and Tomei, which are a holdover from the F3 era, it’s set to bring the championship in line with its parent category. Testing with the new engine bolted onto an existing Dallara 320 chassis began last month at the Autodromo di Modena (below) with Honda junior Iori Kimura at the…

Sadly for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, his cameo shaking hands with actors Brad Pitt and Damson Idris on the British Grand Prix grid might already be heading for the cutting room floor of Apple’s upcoming Formula 1 film after he “said their normal names” while doing so. But that moment was reserved for eagle-eyed Silverstone pitstraight spectators, or those standing on the grid behind the drivers lined up for the national anthem. F1’s international TV feed, only looking hard right at the moment the Red Arrows overflew the grid – something Max Verstappen preferred to watch out for rather than any more of actor Damian Lewis singing God Save the King – revealed Pitt and Idris standing alongside the world champion and Sergio Perez. The pair then made their way to…

Fernando Alonso’s road to seventh at the British Grand Prix was arguably the best Aston Martin could have hoped for, as the Silverstone circuit’s fast corners did not suit the AMR23, which has displayed potency in lower-speed conditions. The Spaniard moved up two places from his starting berth of ninth, although he was passed by Lewis Hamilton on lap seven of 52 when the Briton atoned for his poor start. He was then embroiled in a battle with Pierre Gasly until the Frenchman pitted, which helped Alonso’s cause because he could benefit from stopping under the safety car to shake off that battle. After emerging in sixth at the restart, he could not ward off the greater pace of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull but did enough to keep Alex Albon…

Williams driver Alex Albon beat home both Ferraris at Silverstone, after Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had started ahead of him in fourth and fifth. The Italian operation was immediately on the back foot when George Russell got alongside Sainz and ahead at Abbey on lap one, before he used his unexpectedly durable soft tyres to pressure Leclerc across the first stint, the pair nearly clashing at Stowe on lap five. Leclerc was the first of the frontrunners to pit, on lap 18, by which time he had lost contact with the top three. He emerged in traffic on the hard tyres and, although he fought past Lance Stroll and was still ahead of Russell when the Mercedes pitted 10 laps later, he lapped slower than Max Verstappen up front.…

Two cars that hadn’t even scored an LMP2 podium this season finished first and second after a topsy-turvy six hours at Monza, in a result that rolled back the years. Jota Sport and Signatech have been among the two most decorated squads in the secondary prototype category, earning three WEC titles and six Le Mans wins between them. And while fortunate safety car timings helped, all of that expertise was on show in the Italian sunshine. Pietro Fittipaldi, Oliver Rasmussen and David Heinemeier Hansson have shown plenty of pace this season, but lacked a result to show for it. Yet such was their prowess that team boss Sam Hignett reckoned “we would have won it even without the help from the last safety car”. Heinemeier Hansson led the first eight…

FORMULA 2 SILVERSTONE (GBR) 8-9 JULY ROUND 8/13 Alpine Formula 1 protege Victor Martins put in a sensational drive at Silverstone to claim his maiden Formula 2 win in the feature race, eradicating a five-second penalty despite three safety cars. The reigning Formula 3 champion qualified his ART Grand Prix car on pole, but lost the lead to fast-starting Red Bull Junior Ayumu Iwasa, who surged his DAMS car in front from third on the grid. In retaliation, Martins swept around the outside of Village to claim the inside line for the Loop and retake the lead, but ran all four wheels off the track in doing so. The Frenchman had built a lead of five seconds over Iwasa when the safety car emerged for the first time after six…

F1 ACADEMY MONZA (ITA) 8-9 JULY ROUND 5/7 Lena Buhler made up for her narrow defeat in a photo finish at Monza to win the second of three entertaining F1 Academy races on the WEC undercard. In a shortened seven-lap opener, red-flagged after Chloe Grant vaulted over Bianca Bustamante and rolled, Swiss Buhler pressured polesitter Marta Garcia for the duration. She pulled alongside the Prema driver exiting Parabolica on the run to the flag and was denied by just 0.009s. Behind, three Rodin Carlin drivers crossed the line together, Jess Edgar pipping team-mate Abbi Pulling for third. ART pilot Buhler started fifth on the reversed grid for race two, but quickly made progress. Up to third by lap three, she was pressuring Nerea Marti for second when the distracted Campos…

DTM NORISRING (DEU) 8-9 JUNE ROUND 3/8 Reigning DTM champion Sheldon van der Linde bounced back from a mixed start to the 2023 season to win the first leg of the Norisring double-header, before Porsche’s Thomas Preining spoiled a double party for the Schubert BMW squad by taking the spoils on Sunday. Van der Linde’s average qualifying position this year was a disappointing 13 coming into the blue-riband round of the DTM, but the South African was back at his very best on the 1.4-mile street circuit to clinch pole position on Saturday. When the race got under way, van der Linde comfortably held the lead, while Team Bernhard Porsche racer Ayhancan Guven and Rene Rast in the second Schubert BMW moved into second and third positions at the expense…

EXTREME E CAPO TEULADA (ITA) 8-9 JULY ROUND 3/5 Swedish pair Johan Kristoffersson and Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky became the first crew to claim an Extreme E weekend double when they hogged the top of the podium for Rosberg X Racing in the Island X-Prix in Sardinia. But it was hardly straightforward. Kristoffersson found himself forced into a bush at the start of Saturday’s Grand Final, dropping to the tail of the five-machine field. He recovered one place when Sebastien Loeb suffered a puncture, then got up to third when he passed Mattias Ekstrom entering the Switch Zone. With Ahlin-Kottulinsky now on board, the RXR car moved up to second when Catie Munnings, in the Andretti entry started by Timmy Hansen, ran wide and rolled. While Amanda Sorensen went on to finish…

From metaphorical acorns sown by the Earl of March (now the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) in the summer of 1993, the Festival of Speed has grown exponentially. From a genteel gathering of enthusiasts smaller than today’s Goodwood Breakfast Clubs to a microcosm of the history of motoring and the sport it spawned, it’s now so all-encompassing that even if you have four-day tickets you will probably miss something! Thirty years on, FoS has evolved with the industry from a garden party for petrolheads to a veritable Mecca for everybody who gets their kicks from performance driving, however it is delivered. Did anybody in the event’s infancy foresee hillclimb victors being powered by electricity, or Max Chilton blitzing Nick Heidfeld’s 41.60s record, set in an F1 McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13 in 1999,…

The Forest Rally Stage, mapped out in the woods to the infield side of the hillclimb course by 1983 world champion Hannu Mikkola, showcases the fast and fearless genre, run as a manufacturers’ contest from 1973. The Flying Finn’s sons Juha and Vesa will appreciate their father’s legacy in a 1980 Audi Quattro as a monster entry spans five sets: 50 years of WRC, the Birth of Stage Rallying, Legends of Group B, the Dawn of Modern Rallying, and Contemporary Rally Cars. As a layman’s guide, the competing machinery could not be more comprehensive, spanning Hemmo Vriend’s 1963 Ford Falcon Sprint and ‘Jumping Jeff’ Williamson’s 1966 Mini Cooper S to Jari-Matti Latvala’s state-of-the-art Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai i20 Rally1 hybrid and Ott Tanak’s Ford Puma WRC in…

SUPER TOURERS A second Super Touring Power event will be held at Brands Hatch next year following the success of the inaugural edition earlier this month. The celebration of the halcyon Super Touring period of tin-top racing proved popular with fans and also attracted a host of stars to the 2023 event, with Kiwi aces Paul Radisich, Greg Murphy and Steven Richards being tempted to Kent while current British Touring Car frontrunner Jake Hill won all four Super Tourers races in a Nissan Primera. Autosport also supported the event and hosted a stage where tin-top greats were interviewed. Off the back of the successful first running, a 2024 date has already been confirmed for the 29-30 June. Racing will again take place on both the Grand Prix and Indy layouts…

OBITUARY Peter Morgan, who died last Friday from cancer, was a champion driver whose engineering contribution to the sport – from Mallock to Reynard – succeeds him. Fastidious preparation underpinned his career. From karting, Morgan switched to Formula Ford. Four successive wins in a Lola T540 beat Jim Walsh, Bernard Devaney and John Village to the 1978 BRDC title. Fourth in the RAC series, fifth in the Festival, he then defeated Ian Taylor and James Weaver in the British Automobile Racing Club’s Thruxton finale. Graduation to FF2000 in 1979 with a Lola T580 brought victories at Brands Hatch, Mallory Park and Oulton Park, and second behind David Leslie (works Reynard) in the BARC series, with most poles. Lack of funds precluded F3 for 1980, thus Morgan spent a month preparing…

PICKUP TRUCKS The Pickup Truck Racing Championship is looking into options to run its cancelled Thruxton race, while event organisers have explained the decision to allow other series to race following a serious barrier-destroying accident. Neil Yates was making his debut in the British Truck Racing Championship when the throttle on his DAF CF85 jammed through Allard during the second race on Sunday. Contact with the barriers sent Yates’ truck into a roll that destroyed catch fencing and a marshals’ post. While Yates was uninjured and no spectators were harmed in the accident, extensive barrier damage meant a delay of more than an hour and a half. With not enough time to repair all of the damaged fencing before the end of the day, the decision was taken to allow…

BARC Junior Saloon Car points leader Daire Flock lost his seventh win of the season at Oulton Park last weekend due to a “technical non-compliance” with his car, with runner-up Harry Smith also suffering the same fate. Cameron Pratt-Thompson was therefore declared the winner from third place, after all three had run nose-to-tail throughout. Flock kept his win in race two from Smith and Jonathan Moore, as the result was declared after just one lap due to incidents. Kris Tovey was another championship leader to add to his victory tally, after he led the 2CVs from Island Bend on lap one as Andrew Bull got sideways. Nick Roads was second until running wide exiting Cascades on lap three of seven, which left Nick Crispin fending off David O’Keeffe. Tovey had…

THRUXTON BARC 8-9 JULY Reigning champion Ryan Smith extended his British Truck Racing points lead as a frightening accident for newcomer Neil Yates caused the cancellation of two races at Thruxton last weekend. Poleman Smith took lights-to-flag victories in both of Saturday’s races, despite arriving to the Hampshire circuit at 0430 that morning after “we uncovered a whole different level of problems” with his Daimler Freightliner machine. His namesake Bradley Smith finished second in a damp but drying opener after withstanding late pressure from the similar MAN TGX truck of David Jenkins, the top three order from qualifying remaining unchanged. Jenkins had to settle for third again in the sequel, this time behind 10-time champion Stuart Oliver, who moved ahead into Allard at the start from the second row. He…

DONINGTON PARK EQUIPE 8 JULY Sometime Radical racer Brian Caudwell transitioned to an AC Cobra superbly on Saturday, mastering difficult conditions at Donington Park to win the Equipe Libre race from fellow rookie snake charmer Rick Wilmott. That Caudwell’s car was built by Classic Racing Cars’ Gary Spencer – an apprentice engineer working under him at Pirelli 40 years ago – made the performance special on a day of safety car interludes and fine marshalling. In a Ford V8-powered thunderfest, Caudwell led by six seconds from Matt Moore (Cobra) and Jamie Boot (TVR Griffith) after a lap. Having been among those to pit under the first of two cautions in the 40-minute race, Caudwell growled back past early stopper Boot and aced Wilmott and Moore/Mark Daniell in a Cobra 1-2-3.…

DONINGTON PARK DONINGTON MUG & JOHN GODDARD TROPHIES RACE FOR VSCC SPECIALS Oliver Llewellyn (Bentley 3/8) ALLCOMERS HANDICAP RACE FOR PRE-WAR CARS Anthony Seber (Wolseley Hornet Special) CMMC CLASSIC CHALLENGE Steve Smith/Jack Smith (MGA, above) LIGHT CAR RACE Harry Colledge/Alex Peacop (Austin Chummy) BILL PHILLIPS TROPHY RACE FOR STANDARD AND MODIFIED PRE-WAR SPORTSCARS Christopher Mann (Alfa Romeo 8C Monza) REDGATE MUG TROPHY RACE FOR FISCAR & PRE-1955 SPORTSCARS Martin Hunt (HWM) JOHN HOLLAND TROPHY RACE FOR VINTAGE CARS Tom Walker (Amilcar Hispano Special) AMSCHEL ROTHSCHILD, SHUTTLEWORTH & NUFFIELD TROPHIES RACE FOR PRE-WAR AND PRE-1966 RACING CARS Justin Maeers (Cooper Monaco T49) For full results visit: theresultslive.co.uk BRANDS HATCH ROADSPORTS Dylan Brychta (Audi RS3) BERNIE’S V8s & HISTORIC OUTLAWS/CALM ALL PORSCHE TROPHY Rob Hollyman (Porsche 911) CMMC INTERMARQUE SILHOUETTES/SUPER SALOONS & TIN…

With 13 Danish drivers entered in this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, the Nordic country hasn’t struggled for sportscar racing talent since Tom Kristensen’s 2014 retirement. And in Thistedborn 19-year-old Malthe Jakobsen, a podium finisher in LMP2 Pro-Am on his event debut, it has another prospect who may soon join compatriots Nicklas Nielsen (Ferrari), Michael Christensen (Porsche) and Mikkel Jensen (Peugeot) in the top class. Since trading karts for Formula 4 aged 14, Jakobsen has built up a wealth of car racing experience and is already into his sixth season. He made his sportscar debut in 2020 with RLR MSport in the European Le Mans Series’ LMP3 division and ended 2022 as the champion, with a perfect record of pole positions, for Cool Racing. He also scooped Sebring 12 Hours…