Indholdsfortegnelse for 21/12/23 i Autosport

We’re not going to pretend it was difficult to decide on our number one slot in this year’s Top 50 drivers. But behind that there was the usual mix of debate, frustration and moving people around until the final deadline meant the conversations had to stop. As ever, this year’s Top 50, which starts on page 17, aims to cover a wide variety of championships, from single-seater, sportscar and tin-top racing, as well as the pinnacle of world rallying. We’re sure you’ll disagree with something on the list, but be sure to take a look at p15 to see how we got to the final ranking. There’s plenty more in this Christmas double issue, including a review of many major series (p68) and MotoGP (p62), the best pictures of the…

FORMULA 1 The FIA has published the Formula 1 entry list for 2024 and, because for the first time in championship history there are no winter driver line-up changes to worry about, attention has turned to the complicated rebranding of the Sauber and AlphaTauri teams. Between 2019 and 2023, Sauber was known as Alfa Romeo in deference to a title sponsorship deal. But since the Swiss squad has been bought by Alfa’s fellow road car manufacturer Audi, terms could not be renewed. But Audi doesn’t want to stick its branding on the engine cover until its formal arrival in 2026. That has left the team to find a placeholder identity. Step forward existing partners Kick.com (an online streaming platform) and Stake (gambling company). On the entry form, the operation is…

FORMULA 3 No fewer than eight of the 30 seats in the FIA Formula 3 Championship have been deposited under the Christmas tree in the past few days. But perhaps it’s the one of Martinius Stenshorne that is the most keenly anticipated. The 17-year-old Norwegian was the closest rival to Formula 2 -bound Andrea Kimi Antonelli in this year’s Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine – both of them starring as rookies. He then completed all three of the post-season two-day F3 tests with Hitech GP. Stenshorne (below), who is managed by Nicolas Todt, now joins Luke Browning at the UK team for his F3 race debut. Van Amersfoort Racing has named all three of its drivers, with Euroformula Open champion Noel Leon stepping up alongside Sophia Florsch and Tommy…

Two-time world champion Emerson Fittipaldi was reunited with Lotus 72, chassis 5 at his Concours d’Elegance event in Key Biscayne, Florida on Sunday. Fittipaldi took his first grand prix win at Watkins Glen in 1970 in this very car and was crowned champion in it at the 1972 Italian GP, after the car he was scheduled to race was wrecked in a transporter crash en route to Monza. Now restored by Classic Team Lotus, plans for Fittipaldi to drive the car on public roads were dashed when an electrical failure consigned it to static display. CONWAY, MIYATA IN LEXUS Toyota WEC driver Mike Conway and the team’s reserve Ritomo Miyata have been drafted into the Vasser Sullivan Lexus line-up for the Daytona 24 Hours next month. Conway will drive VSR’s…

There were a lot of positives from my first Indy NXT season and I learnt a lot for next year. We had plenty of strong pace, especially in the qualifying sessions – we ended up with the most poles across the season. My Andretti Autosport team did an amazing job, and I’m very happy to be there again for 2024. The first round in St Petersburg was a bit of a shock, getting pole position, but things didn’t quite go our way in the race. It was annoying having to wait so long for the win – round seven at Mid-Ohio – but I wasn’t desperate, because I knew it was coming. I knew we had the pace to win. I had some new tracks to learn – street circuits…

SUPER FORMULA Super Formula enjoyed its best title battle in years as Ritomo Miyata triumphed over Liam Lawson and Tomoki Nojiri to clinch his first championship. In a welcome antidote to the Nojiri walkovers of 2021 and 2022, an entertaining three-way battle for honours went all the way to the final race at Suzuka, where TOM’S Toyota driver Miyata edged out Red Bull junior and rookie sensation Lawson by eight points. The title battle could have easily gone either way, with Lawson winning more races but suffering more mishaps over the course of the nine-round campaign, while Miyata was never out of the top five and only off the podium once after the opening Fuji double-header. Lawson made history that weekend by becoming the first debutant to win a top-class…

INDY NXT One of the deepest fields in recent memory of Indy NXT (formerly Indy Lights) featured a thrilling run to the finish that ended with Christian Rasmussen crowned champion. The Copenhagen native earned his first win of the season in the second round at Barber Motorsports Park. After a lull that featured no victories over the next five races, he went on a mid-season surge and found his form as his HMD Motorsports entry visited Victory Lane four more times, including the finale at Laguna Seca. Rasmussen ended with five wins and three further podiums. While Andretti Autosport’s Hunter McElrea was the closest competition – the Australian took two wins on his way to finishing runner-up to the Dane – many turned their attention to the driver who ended…

TCR WORLD TOUR The TCR World Tour was launched as the successor to the WTCR, and took the concept of ‘touring’ car racing quite literally by placing a group of seasoned drivers within rounds of five local touring car championships all run to the globally used TCR technical regulations. The result was an enviable calendar of nine events, and it was 2019 WTCR champion Norbert Michelisz who triumphed for Hyundai. The season started with TCR Europe, and the wins were primarily shared between Michelisz, Cyan Racing Lynk & Co star Yann Ehrlacher, and the Comtoyou Audi of Rob Huff. The three of them emerged as the title contenders come the season’s end. The trip to South America started strongly for Lynk & Co, with local hero Santiago Urrutia and Ma…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP The Porsche Supercup season was one to remember, with a thrilling title battle between Bastian Buus and Larry ten Voorde decided in a dramatic Monza finale. Buus made waves in his debut season in 2022 with Lechner Racing, finishing fourth and winning two races. Despite scoring only one victory this term, the 20-year-old Dane’s consistency paid off as he finished six of the eight races in the top four. Consistency was also key for Team GP Elite’s two-time champion ten Voorde. The Dutchman remarkably failed to win at all, yet finished only five points shy of Buus. Briton Harry King ended the season with the most race wins in the championship after taking the chequered flag at Monaco, the Hungaroring and Monza, but his title bid faltered at…

HOW TO ENTER Send your answers via email to autosport@autosport.com and include ‘Christmas Quiz’ as the subject line. Entries close Sunday 31 December 2023. T&Cs apply. A SINGLE-SEATERS 1 The 2023 Formula 1 season was the first since which year to not have the British national anthem played for a driver or constructor winning a world championship grand prix? 2 Amid the Alpine F1 team’s management merry-go-round, the son of which British Touring Car champion was made interim sporting director? 3 Which F1 team lost 41 places on the grid, over four times that of the second-worst hit squad, due to penalties throughout the season? 4 How many lap times did the FIA eventually delete after placing over 1200 laps under investigation for track limit infringements at the Austrian GP?…

“Arigorous process.” So says Dave Robson, the Williams Formula 1 team’s head of vehicle performance, of the process for deciding the Autosport Williams Engineer of the Future Award. This prestigious contest was much revamped for 2023, following its return last year after a pandemic-enforced hiatus. The winner of that Award, Michael Preston, turned judge this year to help whittle down a field of over 200 initial candidates, which for the first time was open to anyone currently studying an engineering degree at any university or college in the UK. The Williams team itself went over the application field to get that down to 60 contenders, before sending 20 to an assessment day involving Williams’s Esports team, where Preston is now the chief engineer, as well as working in the Formula…

CLIO CUP GB Successful Renault UK Clio Cup squad Westbourne Motorsport plans to run three cars in the new MotorSport Vision Trackdays series for the latest fifth-generation Clio next year, and Junior Saloon Car champion Daire Flock is the first of its drivers to be confirmed. Westbourne was a regular in the old manufacturer-backed Clio Cup prior to the series’ axing at the end of the 2019 season, with the team’s James Dorlin narrowly missing out on the 2018 crown. It has continued to run Clios in the Britcar Trophy in subsequent seasons. “It’s very exciting – it’s been a while!” said team boss Richard Colburn. “The Clio Cup has been a fantastic level of one-make racing, with tightly written regulations and it’s always close.” Flock was the driver to…

HISTORICS Historics racer Kyle Tilley gave his Chevron B27S a shakedown outing at Donington Park last week. The 1973 one-off prototype is basically a DFV-powered B23 and is eligible for various historic categories. The car was the idea of Italian importer Eris Tondelli, originally running a Tecno flat-eight engine, before this was replaced with the DFV. After various modifications it became the B27S, and was a regular on the European hillclimbing scene with Mauro Nesti. It then went to South Africa in the 1980s and was raced with Mazda rotary power by former British Formula 3 entrant Fred Goddard, among others. It returned to the UK after being put back to original spec by Vin Malkie. Goddard’s son Earl sold the car to a French owner, before it was acquired…

CELEBRITY RACES STEPHEN LICKORISH MotorSport Vision does some great work in showcasing club racing to a much wider audience through its themed events. Special meetings such as the Brands Hatch Mini Festival and Oulton Park’s US AutoShow pull in the crowds with plenty of off-track activities, and can help find new national motorsport fans, too. But how about taking that a stage further and organising some celebrity races? Such contests proved big hits in the 1970s and 1980s, with a host of star names from inside and outside motorsport doing battle on track in the likes of Ford Escort Mexicos and Talbot Sunbeams. And I’m sure these races would prove popular again. I realise that there are several stumbling blocks to the idea, not least that the world has moved…

10 Callum Grant HSCC Historic FF1600 In a decade at the wheel of his Merlyn Mk20 in Historic Formula Ford 1600, Callum Grant has gone from being the teenaged challenger to an established ace in his own right. His third title came in 2023 after a mighty season in the family-run Merlyn, the Bolton charger winning nine of the 12 contests. The racing was sublime, often wheel-to-wheel with a gaggle of rivals, and Benn Simms was a constant threat. Throughout those many battles, the standard of driving from Grant, and his foes, was exemplary. 9 James Clarke MSVR Clubmans Sports Prototypes Driving the Phantom PR22 that Alex Champkin steered to CSP1 honours last season, James Clarke was on supreme form throughout 2023 in the Clubmans Sports Prototype championship, and only an…

The picture tells the story of Ferrari’s year. The F92As of Ivan Capelli and Jean Alesi take a tandem ride in Montreal after hitting trouble in qualifying at the 1992 Canadian Grand Prix. Still, Alesi at least had reason to smile the following day. Capelli crashed out early on, but Alesi – from eighth on the grid – rose to finish third for the second of his two podium finishes in a largely dreadful year for Ferrari. Gerhard Berger won for McLaren from Benetton’s Michael Schumacher, after Nigel Mansell spun out while challenging Ayrton Senna, who lost the win to an electrical fault. For classic downloads and DVDs head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

WEC Jenson Button will make a full-time return to racing next season for the first time since his title year in Super GT in 2018. The 2009 Formula 1 world champion’s deal to race a Porsche 963 LMDh for the Jota team in the World Endurance Championship has finally been announced. The 43-year-old Briton has taken the final berth in British squad Hertz Team Jota’s expanded two-car Hypercar line-up alongside Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen. Confirmation of the deal has come after comments about his desire to compete in the prototype arena in international sportscar racing, and prolonged speculation quickly confirmed by the team that he was in the frame for a seat. As long ago as May, Button raised the prospect of competing full-time in either the WEC or…

FORMULA 1 The Alpine Formula 1 team has lost another figurehead, with ex-Suzuki MotoGP boss Davide Brivio bringing his three-year stint to an end, billed as a mutual parting of company. The Italian has been linked with a return to two-wheeled action by taking the reins at Honda. Brivio was lured by Alpine primarily to work in F1, joining as the team’s racing director. But he was moved to the more detached role of director of racing expansion projects, which included looking after an Alpine young driver programme that lost prized asset Oscar Piastri to McLaren. Interim sporting director Julian Rouse – the son of four-time British Touring Car champion Andy replaces long-serving Enstone employee Alan Permane – will inherit that position. Bruno Famin, temporary team principal following the ousting…

BTCC The disintegration of long-time British Touring Car Championship fan favourite Team Hard means there’s a lot of water going under the series’ silly-season bridge, but first to arrive on the riverbank is a new squad: Restart Racing. Restart is the project of former BTC Racing chief Bert Taylor and son Ben, and which ran ex-BTCC driver Chris Smiley to the 2022 TCR UK title. Taylor Jr is spearheading the new BTCC effort, which has acquired two of Hard’s three TBL entrants’ licences and a pair of its six Cupra Leon Competicions. Northern Irishman Smiley is the first driver on board. The effort has been kickstarted at least in part by racing enthusiast Pete Jones, who has sponsored Excelr8 Motorsport in recent seasons and is a friend of the Taylors…

WRC The FIA has revealed the new World Rally Championship points system for 2024. The WRC’s bid to spice up the final day of events was ratified at the World Motor Sport Council in Baku earlier this month, to prevent drivers from cruising through Sunday’s stages preserving tyres for the end-of-rally Power Stage. Now a new points structure has been unveiled, with 18-15-13-10-8-6-4-3-2-1 awarded to the top 10 at the end of Saturday, but only if a crew reaches the final classification of the rally at the end of Sunday. If they fall on Sunday, the Saturday points will be awarded to the next best-placed crew. Championship points will also be awarded for performance on Sunday, with seven for the Sunday ‘winner’ down to one for seventh. The Power Stage…

Every year, Autosport selects and ranks the top 50 drivers of the season. It’s an enormous task that always creates debate and controversy, both inside and outside the Autosport office. So, how do we do it? The first thing to remember is that it’s not who we think are the 50 best drivers on the planet. It’s the 50 we think have performed best in this particular season, our effort to highlight the standout drivers each year. We’ve done other articles on the greatest ever… It’s also worth noting that there’s probably not a single member of the Autosport staff who agrees with the position of every driver on the list. With so many correspondents covering dozens of series, there have to be some tough decisions and compromises made. The…

1 FRANCESCO BAGNAIA May have made more errors than a world champion should, but when he was on form he was the best Bagnaia we’ve ever seen. Needs to improve Saturday form if he hopes to take the crown for a third time. 2 JORGE MARTIN A slow start to the season gave way to the real Martin emerging, with his Saturday form of particular note. But critical errors at crucial stages of the season ultimately lost him the title and can’t happen again next year. 3 BRAD BINDER May have come away without a grand prix win, but came close on occasion. Best championship result in MotoGP and 130-point gap to next KTM rider shows how good he is on machinery still not yet good enough against Ducati. 4…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN Mercedes’ 17-year-old protege Andrea Kimi Antonelli claimed his fourth car racing title in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine. After dominating Formula 4 in 2022, he began this year by winning the FRegional Middle East championship, so the Prema Racing-run Italian was the title favourite among the 30-plus FRECA field. It took eight races for Antonelli to win, and a further four to become points leader, but he was so consistent that he was crowned with a round to spare. His first victory came at a wet Spa, and was overshadowed by a crash that claimed the life of Dilano van’t Hoff. He then took further victories at Mugello, Paul Ricard, Monza and Zandvoort, where he was crowned champion. A second win at Monza was denied…

DTM In some ways, the DTM felt like a very different championship this year from what we had become accustomed to since its switch to GT3 regulations in 2021. A calendar that focused almost exclusively on German-speaking nations took away some of the series’ international appeal, while a takeover by the ADAC further strengthened the belief that it is now very much a national series. Yet the DTM managed to retain some of its ingredients into its ‘new-new era’, with the on-track product very similar to the preceding years. Yes, the decision to stop standing restarts meant there was no repeat of the Hockenheim pile-up, or any other controversial crash for that matter, but the ADAC-led DTM still offered impressive wheel-to-wheel racing between the top GT drivers in the world.…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE Raffaele Marciello brought his six-year tenure as a Mercedes factory driver to a close in 2023 as he and the ASP team clinched a pair of GT World Challenge Europe titles apiece. Marciello amassed six victories en route to second successive Endurance Cup and overall crowns. The only blemish was a rare error at Zandvoort that ultimately cost him and co-driver Timur Boguslavskiy a shot at the Sprint Cup title, which went the way of season-long rivals Ricardo Feller and Mattia Drudi (Attempto Racing Audi). Things did not begin well in the opening Endurance Cup round at Monza. Boguslavskiy’s time at the wheel was erratic and their Mercedes was embroiled in needless squabbling, resulting in a puncture and non-finish when Boguslavskiy inexplicably missed the pit entrance.…

ARDEX-BMW S80 A GROUND-BREAKER THAT NEVER RACED The strange-looking Ardex S80 Group 6 car powered by a BMW straight six can claim to be the first ground-effect sports-prototype, though not the first to race. In fact, it never did race, failing to make the grid on its one appearance, at Le Mans in 1981, but designer Max Sardou did pave the way for the exploitation of underbody aerodynamics in sportscar racing. Frenchman Sardou had completed his doctoral thesis in 1973 on the potential of ground effect in motor racing, a couple of years before the first experiments at Team Lotus that led on to the ground-breaking 78 and 79 Formula 1 cars. He shopped his ideas around but couldn’t find any takers. So he set about building his own machine…

7 RACING The popular 7 Race Series has rebranded as 7 Racing for next season and plans to hold a four-event Euro Cup contest as organisers consider launching a full European championship in the future. Bosses of the MotorSport Vision Racing category have decided to drop ‘series’ from its title after it received championship status several years ago, and are also launching a new logo and website. “It used to be a series and that name stuck,” said championship manager Sean Bicknell. “I got my feet under the table [last year] and thought we need to have a bit of a look here. We deliberated a bit and went for 7 Racing because that’s what we do.” European events have long been one of the core features of the Caterham…

CSCC The Mike Hawthorn Jaguar Challenge has become the latest category to join the Classic Sports Car Club’s growing ranks for next season. The series, which primarily features Jaguar Mk1 and Mk2 saloons but is open to any Appendix K Jaguar model, has run with several different organisers in previous years, including the Aston Martin Owners Club and the Classic and Modern Motorsport Club. It has most recently shared a grid with Ecurie Classic Racing and joins the modern cars of the Jaguar Championship in moving to the CSCC, but the older machinery will form part of the Classic K grid. CSCC director David Smitheram added that the decision to switch Classic K from hour-long races to shorter 40-minute mini-enduros was key as many of the Jaguars do not have…

HISTORICS Brno in the Czech Republic will host the Formula Junior Historic Racing Association’s hallmark international Lurani Trophy championship for the first time in 10 years, as part of a five-event, 10-race 2024 calendar. Hockenheim’s Jim Clark Revival event stages the season-opener on 3-5 May, before competitors head for Sicily and the Settimana Motoristica Ennese at Autodromo Pergusa a fortnight later. Zandvoort’s Historic GP on 21-23 June is the centrepiece of the championship, which shares the bill with the full suite of Masters race series, the Historic GP Cars Association and Historic F2/Atlantic. The Brno GP Revival on 12-14 July will remind some racers of 2014 when Piero Tonetti (Brabham BT6) won the double-header on the spectacular modern circuit near the fearsome old Masaryk road course. France’s Dijon-Prenois switchback moves…

Although, unusually, I did not roam abroad, 29 events, many strongly supported multi-day affairs – bookended by the Classic Sports Car Club’s Silverstone Grand Prix circuit experiment in late February and the Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford staple there in early November – kept me busy at the laptop reporting and on commentary duties. Sadly, I could not make the pilgrimage to Francorchamps for the 30th Spa Six Hours historic showcase (which would have been my 25th) due to a family commitment, but it remains my favourite event and I’ll be back. Looking ahead, my wish list for 2024 includes a return to South Africa’s Passion for Speed historic events, a national hillclimb round and Santa Pod’s Dragstalgia, which old friends raved about in the summer. Racing in the rain…

10 Gareth Claydon v Guy Davis While Guy Davis prioritised Formula 2 duties with Rodin Carlin as a mechanic, he still managed wins and standout performances in the BMW Compact Cup when he appeared. In contrast, after a disastrous start, Gareth Claydon (leading above) drove himself into the title hunt by gathering pace and an accumulation of points. Both drivers’ speed and zeal delivered a bounty of searing contests, capped by a sensational finale where Davis was relentless in his pursuit of the champion, pushing both to the brink. 9 James Keepin v James Blake v Lee Waterman Seven points split MG ZR racers James Keepin (leading above), James Blake and Lee Waterman in a hotly contested Class C of the Castle Combe Saloon Championship. Six wins, two seconds and…

Drivers always have a soft spot for machines that deliver their maiden world title, and that’s exactly why rally legend Juha Kankkunen lists the Peugeot 205 T16 as his favourite car. Kankkunen’s pick, which carried him to the first of four crowns in 1986, is one of the World Rally Championship’s most revered vehicles, embodying the pinnacle of the infamous, dangerous and downright bonkers Group B era of 1983 to 1986. The 205 T16 made a strong impression when it arrived midway through 1984, winning three of the year’s final four rallies. It began life producing 350bhp, but by the time Kankkunen arrived in 1986, having impressed Peugeot with breakthrough wins in Kenya and the Ivory Coast for Toyota in 1985, the fire-breathing E2 version had been launched. Huge wings…

FORMULA 1 Ex-FIA president Jean Todt has inflicted more reputational damage upon the governing body by calling out the “character” of the current administration amid a spat over finances. While the FIA could have done with time out of the headlines after the swiftly dropped investigation into Toto and Susie Wolff regarding a potential conflict of interest, Todt sat down for a lengthy interview with L’Equipe. In it, he rebuffed accusations from outspoken successor Mohammed Ben Sulayem, who claimed that he’d inherited a heavily depleted budget upon taking over in 2021. Speaking in 2022, Ben Sulayem said: “There was a financial issue we didn’t know about. We had a deficit, even before the pandemic, but I’m pleased to have cleared that.” He added that the early part of his premiership…

WEC/IMSA British sportscar stalwarts David Pittard and Ben Barker have landed their first factory contracts. Nurburgring 24 Hours winner Pittard has signed up for Aston Martin for 2024, while WEC regular Barker will race for Ford. Pittard, who won at the Nurburging with the Frikadelli Ferrari team in May, was announced on Monday as part of an expanded roster of Aston Martin Racing drivers along with fellow newcomers Mattia Drudi and Henrique Chaves. The 31-year-old comes into the line-up after two seasons in which he has driven the British manufacturer’s machinery, which included taking the runner-up spot in GTE Am in the 2022 World Endurance Championship with NorthWest AMR. “Joining Aston is the realisation of a dream,” said Pittard. “If you look at who wins the big endurance races, it…

BTCC British Touring Car Championship star Jake Hill is back for a third season at the wheel of a BMW 330e M Sport in 2024 after his management, Mark Blundell’s MB Motorsport company, extended its deal with West Surrey Racing. As in 2022 and 2023 – in both seasons Hill finished as the top WSR driver in the rankings in third overall – the car will be run in a separate guise to the squad’s official BMW UK effort. Like last year, Hill will compete under the banner of Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport. The diminituve Kentishman will once more be engineered by Craig Porley, who has formed a double-act with Hill going back to their AmD days via Motorbase. “I wouldn’t do it without my partner in crime,”…

Here’s a peek behind the curtain: there might not be complete and unanimous agreement between the wonderful people at Autosport Towers when it comes to our end-of-season host of rankings. That’s the fun of it, and when you leaf through our Top 50 pages there will invariably be placings that you disagree with. The case in point is that, when Alex Kalinauckas and this writer came up with the top 10 Formula 1 drivers list for last week’s issue, there was a murmur of curiosity from one or two about the decision to rank Nico Hulkenberg’s season in the upper half of the field. This directly affects the Top 50 in this week’s issue (see page 17), since the top 10 will largely earn their place on the long list…

LENA BUHLER 2nd in F1 Academy JAMIE CHADWICK 12th in Indy NXT SOPHIA FLORSCH 11th in Macau GP 23rd in FIA F3 RAHEL FREY 2nd in WEC GTE Am MARTA GARCIA 1st in F1 Academy MICHELLE GATTING 2nd in WEC GTE Am KATHERINE LEGGE 11th in IMSA GTD DORIANE PIN 9th in WEC LMP2 2nd in F4 SE Asia LILOU WADOUX 8th in WEC GTE Am MAYA WEUG 17th in Formula Regional European…

EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIES Despite being a mainstay of the European Le Mans Series’ LMP2 class since its debut in 2015, Algarve Pro Racing had never developed into a proper, title-challenging force. That changed in 2023, when the Anglo-Portuguese squad emerged as the main title protagonist in a stacked LMP2 field and carried it through to win its first championship thanks to the efforts of Alex Lynn, James Allen and Kyffin Simpson. With 2022 champion Prema Racing not returning, APR appeared to come out of the gates swinging when it led the first half of the opening round at Barcelona. Sadly, a first win fell to pieces when Australian Allen was clumsily tagged into a spin by IDEC Sport’s Laurents Horr and became stuck in the gravel. This opened the…

SUPER GT Toyota wrested back the Super GT title from rivals Honda and Nissan thanks to Sho Tsuboi and Ritomo Miyata putting together one of the most impressive campaigns in recent memory at the wheel of their TOM’S GR Supra. Consistent points-scoring with heavy ballast was key to the success of Tsuboi and Miyata, but it was the penultimate round at Autopolis where in hindsight the title was really won. As teams grappled with a first-ever 450km race around a track notoriously tough on tyres, Tsuboi and Miyata carved their way through from 12th on the grid to take an unlikely win despite having the second-heaviest car in the field. That meant the pair only needed to finish second in the Motegi finale to be sure of the title, but…

NASCAR CUP The 2023 NASCAR Cup season had plenty of firsts, including a first-time champion in Ryan Blaney that may signal the changing of the guard. Two of the four drivers who competed for the series title in the season finale at Phoenix last month – Blaney and William Byron – were making their first appearance in the Championship 4. Christopher Bell had his initial title opportunity in 2022, and Kyle Larson was the only driver who had won a championship (2021). With Larson the oldest at 31, this year’s quartet was the youngest (average age of 28 years, 11 months, 25 days) since the advent of NASCAR’s playoff system in 2004. While Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver Byron had the most consistent season and the highest number of wins (six),…

WORLD RALLYCROSS Johan Kristoffersson bagged a record-extending sixth World Rallycross title by dominating a disrupted year of competition. The Swede had already established a firm grip on the championship with wins aboard his Kristoffersson Motorsport Volkswagen RX1e in the first three rounds in Portugal, Norway and Sweden before the field headed to Lydden Hill. It was this event that changed the course of the season, with a fire that erupted in the Special One team’s awning causing the campaign to be paused with no guarantee of a restart. The blaze is believed to have been caused by a battery fault in one of the team’s Lancia Delta tribute cars in the charging area, although a swiftly launched FIA investigation is yet to reach any conclusions. As a result of the…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS Brodie Kostecki and Erebus Motorsport had the kind of season most people can only dream of in 2023, both team and driver moving from the supporting cast to centre stage in Supercars racing. Kostecki started the year with no career wins and two podium finishes to show for his first two Supercars seasons. In the 28 races that made up the 2023 campaign, he took 18 podium finishes, including six wins, and scored 10 pole positions. Nine months after few had identified him as Shane van Gisbergen’s biggest title threat, even the mercurial New Zealander had to admit that Kostecki had been the best driver of the year. Kostecki and his Erebus Chevrolet team-mate Will Brown adapted to Supercars’ new Gen3 cars better than most and, by any…

When Amaury Cordeel crossed the finish line to take 16th place in the Formula 2 finale at Yas Marina last month, the Belgian became the last driver to take a race chequered flag in a car that had given six years of service. Following the subsequent week’s three-day post-season test, the Dallara F2 2018 was banished to obsolescence after 70 weekends of competition featuring 147 races. While the teams waited to take delivery of the new-for-2024 cars, we thought it might be fun to rate the leading drivers from the 2018-23 era, and call their teams for comments about them… 12 Jack Doohan 6th in 2022, 3rd in 2023 Only three drivers scored more than the Australian’s tally of four feature race wins in 2018-23; only two exceeded his total of…

The festive period has for generations introduced people to the joys of slot car racing through the gifting of sets as presents or simply whipping up an existing track for some competitive holiday season miniature motorsport fun. Since its inception in the late 1950s, Hornby’s Scalextric has been a market leader, entertaining households the world over with its unmistakeable racing experience. Over the decades it has continued to evolve into the digital age, yet still retains its original appeal of propelling a scaled-down replica car, or bike in some instances, around an electric-powered grooved race track. This concept has developed legions of fans and no doubt delivered hundreds of thousands of hard-fought races and perhaps the odd living room stewards’ enquiry for dubious driving. In some cases, it’s the closest…

GOODWOOD The Stirling Moss Trophy will return to the Goodwood Revival race line-up in 2024 after a year’s absence. The addition of the pre-1963 GT contest is one of the main changes among the 6-8 September event’s timetable. Previously known as the Kinrara Trophy, the race caters for the likes of Jaguar E-types, Cobras and Ferrari 250 SWBs. Also joining next year’s race card is the Earl of March Trophy for 500cc Formula 3 machinery, while the popular two-part St Mary’s Trophy tin-top encounters will continue its rotation through the various eras and will be for 1960s cars this time around. After running as a Porsche 911 celebration bout this season, the Fordwater Trophy will also revert to its traditional range of production-based 1950s cars for 2024, and the Madgwick…

CTCRC The Classic Touring Car Racing Club will run separate championships for its Classic and Historic Thunder categories next year, while also widening its eligibility to include front-engined, steel-bodied cars. The incorporation of pre-2011 cars in recent years has led to increasing numbers of models such as the BMW M3 E46, while Historic classes continued catering for pre-1990 cars. The separation aims to provide greater exposure for older cars and attract more Group 2 and Group 5-style machinery. “It’s great to have the more modern cars competing, but some people with older vehicles – where spares are more scarce – can be put off by them,” explained CTCRC competitions secretary Colin Gibbons. “We have some beautiful Group 2 and Group 5 cars racing with us, and we know there’s lots…

HISTORICS Historic Formula Ford 2000 champion Graham Fennymore will spread his family team’s wings into Historic FF1600 next season, while also gunning for a third title in the Historic Sports Car Club-badged Ford Pinto category. The Oxfordshire Formula First graduate – champion in numerous categories, including F2000, Caterhams and Classic F3, since the 1990s – has acquired a Merlyn Mk20 last raced in France. “Ken Thorogood and Dan Eagling found it and did the chassis,” he said. “We acquired it in August or September, and did nothing with it while the season was on. Now it’s over, and the engine is out of the Reynard [SF81], there is room in the garage to rebuild the Merlyn over the winter. “I’ve not raced in FF1600 since 1994, when I won the…

STEPHEN LICKORISH While the overall title battles among the regular British Touring Car support series lacked much spice this year, there was some welcome variety at these events as a wealth of club categories got their share of the limelight. And they did not disappoint. Classic Minis were magnificent at Thruxton, Caterhams were close at Silverstone, Radicals added some prototype fun at Snetterton and Oulton Park, while three appearances of the Legends (left) fitted perfectly into the BTCC events. The even better news is, if you missed out on the chance of watching these guests this year, they are all due to be back in 2024 – and will be joined by Pre-’66 Classic Touring Cars at Croft – as they are set to provide some more unforgettable racing. STEFAN…

FILM REVIEW FERRARI Michael Mann Released in cinemas 26 December and available to Sky Cinema viewers in 2024 Michael Mann’s Ferrari thrills, bores and confuses in equal measure, leaving a lingering question that is impossible to shake: was it any good? Attempting to answer this question, and whether it justifies the 131-minute runtime, we start with a positive – there are no poor performances in Ferrari. In the lead role as Enzo Ferrari, Adam Driver truly shines with a thoughtful performance highlighting the flawed genius of Il Commendatore. Similarly, Penelope Cruz plays the part of the grieving, embittered wife Laura perfectly, with Gabriel Leone putting in a stellar turn as the focal hotshot talent Alfonso de Portago. Yes, some of the Italian accents do slip at times and it’s difficult…