Indholdsfortegnelse for 25/01/24 i Autosport

Modern cars and halos make it quite tricky to see today’s drivers at work, but dig a little deeper and it’s still possible to discern differences in style, even among the top drivers in Formula 1. This week Alex Kalinauckas has teamed up with Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok to analyse the approaches of the drivers in the top five teams from the 2023 constructors’ championship (page 16). Not only is it enlightening in terms of explaining some of the trends we see among the current aces, but it also shows how the challenges change slightly across eras and even at different points of a weekend. Before launch season begins in the world of F1, two major events kick off this week. The Monte Carlo Rally opens the World Rally…

FORMULA 1 Singapore says that its Grand Prix will not be impacted by a corruption probe surrounding ex-government minister and event promoter Ong Beng Seng. Transport minister Subramaniam Iswaran has recently resigned while facing 27 charges in relation to interactions with Beng Seng, who owns the rights to the GP and is chairman of the promoter. Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) believes Iswaran may have received kickbacks from property tycoon Beng Seng, including flights on a private plane and tickets to the GP, for which Iswaran was an advisor. Iswaran has rejected this and issued a statement making it clear that he is determined to clear his name. Beng Seng has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but the case has attracted huge regional interest given Singapore is a…

FORMULA 2/3 French single-seater powerhouse ART Grand Prix has finally come clean that it has retained Victor Martins for a full-on assault on this year’s Formula 2 title. Not that this will come as a surprise to anyone. After all, he has been a long-time protege of team boss Sebastien Philippe, won the 2020 Formula Renault Eurocup and 2022 Formula 3 titles with ART, starred as an F2 rookie with the squad last year, and took part in the post-season test. The 22-year-old Alpine F1 protege, who clearly outpaced 2023 champion team-mate Theo Pourchaire – and indeed the whole of the rest of the field – on qualifying averages last year, now steps up to become the experienced half of the ART line-up. It’s an intriguing combo here, with last…

WRC Ireland has chosen three different host locations to rotate a prospective round of the World Rally Championship from 2025. Motorsport Ireland president Aidan Harper said that no presentation from the prospective venues in Limerick, Kerry and Waterford was “head and shoulders” above the other. The rally still requires funding for its bid. An application to the Irish government is under way to secure €15million spread across three years, which Motorsport Ireland hopes will return €300m to the economy. Ireland featured on the WRC schedule in 2007 and 2009 (left), and there has been no round in the British Isles since Rally GB in 2019. “Our decision is that with such a strong rally heritage throughout Ireland and having experienced an overwhelming display of a ‘can do’ attitude from everyone,…

Charlie Robertson left it late to take GT4 victory in last weekend’s Abu Dhabi 6 Hours. To the last corner of the final lap, in fact… Robertson, sharing a Century Motorsport BMW M4 with Ravi Ramyead, denied the Simpson Motorsport BMW at the last gasp. Third was the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota GR Supra of historic aces Michael O’Brien, Samuel Harrison and Ben Tusting with Kavi Jundu. Overall victory went to the Car Collection Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3-R of Dennis Marschall, Loek Hartog and Dustin Blattner. VAXIVIERE IN P2 AT DAYTONA Alpine WEC driver Matthieu Vaxiviere has been added to the line-up of AF Corse’s LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07 for this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours IMSA season-opener. The Frenchman, who will continue with the squad in the European Le Mans Series, shares…

Audi has faced a heavy backlash for the way its motorsport division has been run over the past few years. The decision to phase out all its existing programmes and go all-in on Formula 1 has aggrieved even the most loyal fans of the German marque. Since Audi has enjoyed immense success in sportscar racing, they argue that pulling out of the DTM and factory GT3 competition, and U-turning on LMDh, weakens the very foundations upon which Audi Sport has been built. Formula 1 may be in rude health and enjoying unprecedented popularity, but Audi doesn’t have a rich history in petrol-powered single-seater racing – except the MotorSport Vision F2 and Formula Palmer Audi spec categories. And since the 1930s in its Auto Union guise, it has never competed in…

In the races, it’s about tyre management. That means, since nowadays the Pirelli problem is thermal, ‘How do you still drive around as quickly as possible without overheating and overwearing the tyres (or not)?’ Onboard with the drivers in the races, they’ve all got four numbers on their dashboard for the four tyres, and they’re keeping an eye on these indicators that go green, orange and red as the tyre temps rise and fall. To go as fast as possible without overloading the tyre, the first thing to determine is where is most critical on each track in terms of tyre wear and tyre temperature. This is what each team tries to determine in the opening practice sessions and then gets their drivers to work on best tyre management practices,…

M-Sport has reshuffled its pack for 2024, opting for a young driver line-up that it hopes can cause some upsets aboard its Ford Pumas. The British squad scored two victories last year through star signing Ott Tanak, but ultimately a mixture of misfortune and reliability issues ended a partnership that promised so much, with the Estonian rejoining Hyundai for 2024. Replacing such a big name as Tanak is difficult. Talks were held with several drivers, including three-time World Rally winner Andreas Mikkelsen, before the Norwegian opted to join Hyundai to pilot the third car alongside Esapekka Lappi and Dani Sordo. In the end, M-Sport promoted Adrien Fourmaux and Gregoire Munster from its WRC2 programme. A second crack at piloting a Puma full-time in the WRC’s top tier is a just…

Two of the biggest manufacturers in the world are finally turning up at the biggest motor racing party in the world. Ford and Chevrolet, two marques with rich racing pedigrees, are belatedly pitching up in GT3 with factory programmes in the 19th season of the category. Each is arriving with an iconic V8 muscle car: Ford with the Mustang; Chevrolet with the Corvette. To say they go head to head for the first time on home ground in the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s season-opening Daytona 24 Hours isn’t quite right. That would be to ignore the nine other manufacturers represented in the GT Daytona classes this weekend. The two American marques have decided at exactly the same time to go up against Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, BMW et al in a division…

IndyCar ace Josef Newgarden made his Daytona 24 Hours debut in the LMP2 class last year, a few months before his greatest victory to date in the Indianapolis 500 for Team Penske. The 33-year-old from Nashville’s enthusiasm was lit by his maiden prototype experience, and he later accepted the offer to join Penske’s Porsche IMSA GTP line-up in the season-closing Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta as an ‘endurance extra’. “That was tough,” he admits. “It’s a phenomenal track, one of my new favourites in North America, I loved how old-school it is. It’s very punishing, there’s no rest, you can’t take it easy. It was intense, the traffic was non-stop because of the size of the track and the field size.” After his in-at-the-deep-end experience, Newgarden has had far…

FORMULA REGIONAL OCEANIA TAUPO (NZL) 20-21 JANUARY ROUND 1/5 Roman Bilinski was the star turn of the Toyota Formula Regional Oceania series’ opening round at Taupo, taking two wins and a second place, plus the coveted Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy. The Hulme trophy – the silverware awarded to the Kiwi legend for his 1974 Argentinian Grand Prix victory – was on offer for the final race. Bilinski lay third early on as M2 Competition team-mate Liam Sceats led the way, with Christian Mansell second – the Giles Motorsport driver had topped qualifying, but started fifth due to a grid penalty following a rather adventurous reversed-grid race. Mansell made a great move on the fifth lap to pass Sceats, on the outside into the Turns 12-13-14 S-bends. Five laps later Bilinski…

BRITISH GT The Lotus name will return to the British GT Championship this season for the first time in more than seven years, with new team Mahiki Racing set to field two new Emira GT4s. The British marque was last represented in the series by an invitational entry in 2017, while Lotus’s most recent GT4 appearance came a year earlier with the Evora, the same model that scored the last of Lotus’s British GT wins in 2015. Mahiki, which will also run the Emiras in the GT4 European Series, has been founded in partnership with Aim Technologies. The company is owned by Steve Lake, who is set to drive one of the cars in British GT and in Europe, and has competed in the Lotus Cup Europe and Radical Challenge.…

BARC A new series for pre-1993 Formula Ford 1600 cars will run over three one-day events this year, administered by the British Automobile Racing Club. The Heroes of FF1600 Sprint Cup takes its name from Wayne Pearson’s popular Facebook group and is the idea of former Historic FF1600 and Formula Palmer Audi champion Richard Tarling. Together with Steve Deeks and series coordinator Ian Temple, Tarling sought to create an affordable series that, through sponsorship, offers additional returns for its competitors. “When I first started racing, there was a bit of prize money, you could win some things – you got something back for your entry,” explained Tarling. “It’s always going to cost money, but there’s got to be something back the other way as well.” Series-long and weekend prizes include…

BRIGHTON SPEED TRIALS The 118-year history of the Brighton National Speed Trials has come to an end after the organising Brighton & Hove Motor Club pulled the plug last week at a meeting with landowner Brighton & Hove City Council, conceding that the seafront event on Madeira Drive was no longer financially viable. Reduced revenue, ranged against steeply rising costs, were blamed for the event’s axing. The reduction in paying spectator attendance since the terraces above the course and arches were closed in 2013 hit council and club accounts, while the worsening road surface and necessity to install and remove costly safety barrier infrastructure for one day has resulted in entries dwindling. “For some it was the only event they participated in,” said a BHMC spokesperson. “For others, it was…

DAYTONA 24 HOURS Cadillac has claimed first blood in the battle for this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours. The US marque locked out the front row with its two V-Series.R LMDhs for the IMSA SportsCar Championship curtain-raiser as Action Express driver Pipo Derani smashed the unofficial track record at the Daytona International Speedway to grab the pole. The Brazilian got down to a 1m32.656s lap during the 15-minute GTP class qualifying session at the end of last weekend’s three-day Roar pre-event test. That gave him a margin of just 0.071s over Sebastien Bourdais in the Ganassi-run sister car. Best of the rest behind the Caddys was Porsche driver Felipe Nasr, who ended up 0.2s down on Derani’s pole mark in the fastest of the Penske team’s two 963 LMDhs. The nine…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE Seven-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi will race in the GT World Challenge Europe this year alongside his maiden campaign in the World Endurance Championship in the new LMGT3 class. But how many of the 10 GTWCE weekends the BMW factory driver will contest has yet to be announced. The Belgian WRT team with which Rossi will remain for his third full season of car racing has revealed that Rossi is part of plans for the GTWCE, in which it will run multiple BMW M4 GT3s across the Endurance and Sprint Cup legs of the series. But it is waiting to announce his full programme at the official launch of its GT activities with BMW next week. Team boss Vincent Vosse, whose operation will also field the…

The World Rally Championship is still reeling from the shock announcement that world champion Kalle Rovanpera has gone part-time for 2024. As the dust begins to settle, one thing is clear – the title race is set to be one of the most unpredictable in recent memory. There may only be a disappointing eight Rally1 cars on the entry list for this weekend’s Monte Carlo curtain-raiser, but the intrigue surrounding the title fight has rarely been higher thanks to Rovanpera’s mic drop at the end of 2023. The WRC’s 23-year-old superstar has seemingly forsaken the chance to go for a hat-trick of crowns to “recharge my batteries”. In the meantime, he will contest a half-season with Toyota, starting with round two in Sweden, before returning for a full-time championship attack…

WAYNE TAYLOR RACING DOUBLES UP Wayne Taylor Racing has won the Daytona 24 Hours four times in the past seven years, and on each occasion it did so with a single-car entry. The bad news for the opposition in the GTP class is that it’s now running two. Equally foreboding is the fact that it has linked up with Andretti Global for its expanded full-season assault with Acura’s ARX-06. WTRAndretti, short for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, has a new depth of engineering resource behind it, so important in the new era of LMDh hybrids. The driver line-up is mouthwatering, too. Among its number are a Formula 1 world champion and an Indianapolis 500 winner in Jenson Button and Marcus Ericsson respectively, and three-time Le Mans 24 Hours victor Brendon…

DAKAR RALLY SAUDI ARABIA 5-19 JANUARY Carlos Sainz Sr added a fourth Dakar Rally victory to his illustrious CV with a mature performance from start to finish in his electric-powered Audi. The 61-year-old Spanish hero didn’t score a single stage win during the two-week marathon in Saudi Arabia, but such was his consistency that he took the overall honours by 1h20m from the Overdrive Toyota of Guillaume de Mevius, with Prodrive star Sebastien Loeb finishing a further nine minutes back after late drama. Sainz had already established himself as the firm favourite going into the final few days of the event, although Loeb kept the pressure up by winning stage 10 and slashing the Audi’s advantage to 13 minutes. This set up a two-way showdown in the 420km test around…

GB3 Reigning British Formula 4 champion Louis Sharp and last year’s runner-up Will Macintyre will both graduate to GB3 this season with Rodin Motorsport and Hitech GP respectively. New Zealander Sharp pipped British driver Macintyre to the F4 title last season by just 13 points after their championship battle went down to the final race of the year at Brands Hatch. Sharp will remain with the newly rebranded Rodin squad after its split with founder Trevor Carlin, who oversaw the team’s 2023 GB3 title with Callum Voisin. “Rodin took me to the F4 title and also has a great record in GB3, winning that drivers’ title as well as mine in 2023,” said Sharp. “In terms of career progression and further success, I really could not hope to be with…

OBITUARY Scot Malcolm Wishart, who died last week from cancer, was one of those wonderful gentlemen racers who competed for the love of the sport and its people, unencumbered by the pressures of a victory speech he had not considered writing. A banker by profession, Wishart was honoured to be elected Deacon Convener of the Trades of Glasgow in 2006, then Lord Provost. As a weekend warrior, he enjoyed circuit racing and speed hillclimbing over 50-plus years. He started racing a Fairthorpe at Ingliston in the late 1960s, then joined the super-competitive Clubmans class on the Scottish hills with a Gryphon C73 in 1982, progressing to a Mallock Mk20/21B, then a Mk27/29 in which he set the High Auldgirth course record in July 1997. Following a break, Wishart returned with…

CIRCUIT RALLYING Michael Igoe and Will Atkins were never headed in their Citroen C3 Rally2 on the way to victory on last weekend’s Brands Hatch Winter Stages round of the Circuit Rally Championship. From a three-second lead on an icy and frosty opening stage, Igoe was 20s clear of rallycross ace Patrick O’Donovan and Jack Morton in their Hyundai i20 R5 by half-distance. O’Donovan’s aspirations ended on stage five, when he hit a chicane and picked up a five-minute penalty, promoting reigning champions John Griffiths/Emma Morrison into second with their Ford Fiesta R5. Despite O’Donovan setting the quickest time on the three remaining stages, he had to settle for 12th place. Both Griffiths and Ollie O’Donovan/Ashleigh Morris (Hyundai) were held up on stage one, when Darrell Taylor’s Fiesta Rally2 stalled…

STELLANTIS RALLY CUP A new manufacturer-backed rally series that will be held across rounds of the Irish Tarmac Rally and British Rally championships has been announced for this season. The Stellantis Motorsport Rally Cup IRE & UK will feature Rally4 models of the Opel Corsa and Peugeot 208, both of which have featured in the JBRC in recent years, and is open to drivers of all ages. They will battle it out for a prize fund worth €75,000, while the highest-ranked driver aged under 26 at the start of this year will receive funding towards a campaign in the Junior class of the European Rally Championship in 2025. The new eight-round series will be held across a mix of surfaces, and its calendar includes four BRC events (Severn Valley Stages,…

Legends Elite Cup The Legends proved a popular addition to the British Touring Car bill at three events last year, with packed grids and plenty of dramatic racing. And the idea of running a mini-championship across the trio of appearances worked well. Tweaks are being made for this year, when the Legends are back thrice more, as the points from these events will also count for the overall championship. This is intended to ensure drivers contest the full season and not just the headline-grabbing BTCC outings. Ginetta GT Championship Ginetta has a pretty good track record when it comes to introducing new championships, but the Ginetta GT category was not exactly a huge hit. Featuring classes for a middle-of-the-range spec G56 and the old GT5 G40s, just 16 cars were…

It’s been over a decade since Christophe Bouchut last raced at his favourite circuit. And while the 1993 Le Mans 24 Hours winner reckons the 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is “not the biggest, not the most beautiful circuit”, he adds that the track’s combination of corners, elevation and challenging braking zones “brings me a lot of pleasure to drive there”. “This is a mix from a normal circuit with a street circuit,” he continues. “If you do a mistake then you go in the wall. But I’m more talking about some elevation, some angle of corners, than for this reason [of risk versus reward] why I like this circuit.” Bouchut favours tracks where drivers can attack corner entries, rather than finding that they gain time largely from carrying speed…

FORMULA 1 Mercedes Formula 1 technical director James Allison has signed a long-term contract extension with the eight-time constructors’ champion. The Briton, who joined the Brackley operation from Ferrari in 2017, had taken on an overarching role as chief technical officer. This, in part, enabled him to spend less time travelling. But amid the protracted ground-effect struggles for the W13 and W14 cars, he retook day-to-day control of the technical department in April last year. This came as part of a mutual job swap with Mike Elliott, who has since left Mercedes. Allison’s new deal cements his position in the leadership structure ahead of the major 2026 F1 regulation changes. “F1 has brought me a lot of good fortune, but none greater than answering Toto [Wolff, team boss]’s call to…

WEC Paul di Resta has swapped cars as part of a reshuffle of Peugeot’s World Endurance Championship line-up for 2024. The Scot is moving over to the share the #94 car with Loic Duval and Stoffel Vandoorne. Ex-Force India and Williams Formula 1 driver di Resta has effectively exchanged places in the Hypercar class squad with Nico Muller. Last season the Swiss was teamed with Duval and Gustavo Menezes in #94, and this time will line up alongside Jean-Eric Vergne and Mikkel Jensen in #93. Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie described the driver crews as “an important part of the jigsaw.” He explained that the swap around was part of a drive “to improve everywhere we can”. “We are lucky to have six highly talented drivers, so we decided…

WEC/IMSA Porsche could introduce a major revision of the V8 engine that powers its 963 LMDh as early as the Le Mans 24 Hours in June. The German manufacturer has revealed that it is working on an upgrade and is now in negotiation with the organisers of both the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship about when it can bring it on stream. The planned updates are centred on a new crankshaft for the 4.6-litre twin-turbo unit. It appears to be an attempt to overcome the vibration issue that has affected the reliability of the car since its introduction in WEC and IMSA last season. But Porsche has admitted that it doesn’t know whether it will be able to introduce the new engine this year or next. “The…

FORMULA 4 Hotly tipped British talent Freddie Slater extended his Formula 4 UAE Championship lead with another race win in last weekend’s second round at Yas Marina. And it now looks as though Dubai starlet Keanu Al Azhari will be his main rival. Slater got pipped for pole for the opening race by Mercedes F1 protege Alex Powell, his team-mate in the Prema-run Mumbai Falcons squad. But, following an early safety car, he soon got past the Jamaican-American before pulling clear. Meanwhile, their team-mate Kean Nakamura-Berta and Yas Heat Racing Academy ace Al Azhari both came to grief on the first lap, pitted for repairs, caught the field under the safety car – and then raced into the reversed-grid top 12. Al Azhari used that in race two to take…

To justify and secure an existence amid the climate crisis, the professional motorsport world is bearing down on two goals. First, carbon neutrality to show everyone that at least these series don’t come at a cost. Second, reasserting racing as a live technical testbed for innovations that can soon enough trickle down into the wider road car industry to bring about a greater good. Formula 1 – working to be net carbon zero by 2030 – has done well to repeatedly achieve the latter over the decades. See driver aids, semi-automatic gearboxes, carbon fibre construction and so on. Although these innovations didn’t necessarily all debut in the top flight, it’s where they cemented their pioneering reputation. It appears that active aerodynamics will be next on that list. While DRS has…

Pressure is not confined to tyres at Hyundai Motorsport ahead of the 2024 World Rally Championship. The South Korean marque boasts an experienced new line-up of drivers, who are all proven as rally winners, so expectation levels are high as it aims to break Toyota’s stranglehold on the series. Given the investment to lure 2019 world champion Ott Tanak back to the fold after a year at M-Sport, while adding three-time rally winner Andreas Mikkelsen to its pool of drivers for its third car, there is no hiding from the fact that it’s time to deliver. And that’s something that is welcomed by its leader Cyril Abiteboul. “The pressure will be higher for sure, but that is also what is making it exciting,” smiles the Frenchman. “An extra amount of…

FORMULA REGIONAL MIDDLE EAST YAS MARINA (ARE) 20-21 JANUARY ROUND 2/5 Ferrari protege Tuukka Taponen proved he will be a force in his rookie season of Formula Regional European this season by taking two superb poles and wins in the second round of the Middle East series. The Finn, who has joined R-ace GP for 2024 after a season with Prema in Italian F4, also showed excellent racecraft in a spellbinding period of the opening race. Taponen’s comfortable lead over team-mate Martinius Stenshorne had been reined in by a safety car, and the aggressive Norwegian battled in front at the restart, before Sainteloc Racing’s reigning Spanish F4 champion Theophile Nael zapped both of them. But Taponen quickly worked back to the front and went on to win from Stenshorne and…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB An influx of British Touring Car Championship racers is set to liven up the Porsche Carrera Cup GB this season, with Dan Lloyd already confirmed and fellow race winner Stephen Jelley also closing in on a place on the grid. For Lloyd, it represents a return to the series in which he initially made his name as the Porsche GB scholar in 2012. He has been recruited by Toro Verde, where he will be joined by Jack Butel, his team-mate at the Excelr8 Hyundai BTCC squad in 2022. Meanwhile, Jelley looks set to rejoin Team Parker Racing, his local Leicestershire team where he raced for many years in the Carrera Cup and BTCC. Lloyd, 31, was a Carrera Cup race winner with Parker in 2012 and…

ANGLESEY Anglesey Circuit has banned electric and hybrid vehicles from taking part in general trackdays at the venue amid concerns about dealing with any safety issues that arise. Bosses of the Welsh track say that such cars are welcome on circuit at manufacturer-supported test days or – where relevant – at race events, when there is better infrastructure in place to deal with any fires and other safety concerns. Anglesey has “never encouraged electric and hybrid vehicles on trackdays”, but general manager Annette Freeman said that a few have appeared recently, leading to the decision to implement a ban. “We’ve always been an environmentally friendly circuit and welcome manufacturer testing of electric vehicles – we’ve had Mahindra come here – and that’s not an issue because they are fully supported,”…

Launching a new series is always a challenge. And, as you can read about over the next few pages, the fairly modest numbers achieved by many of 2023’s fresh club racing categories demonstrate that it is especially hard when the economic climate is tricky. After all, there are many hurdles to overcome. Selecting a reliable car to race. Putting together an attractive calendar to tempt competitors. Identifying a gap in the market that is big enough to secure a decent grid and not so small it is of little interest. But there is also another growing problem that organisers are facing: the ever-increasing complexity of modern cars. Take the 120 Coupe Cup that began last year as an example. The 750 Motor Club sensibly took the decision to launch this…

Clio Cup GB Of the tiny number of completely new categories being launched this season, the most intriguing has to be Clio Cup GB. It has been five years now since a championship for the current version of the popular hatchback has been part of the UK’s racing scene and, in that time, there have been a couple of unsuccessful attempts to create a Clio Cup for the fifth-generation machines. This latest one comes from MotorSport Vision Trackdays, which intends to use it as a category its entry-level racers can aspire to. Interest has been modest so far, but the reputation of the Clio for producing quality racing and being a well-regarded proving ground could help to draw more drivers in. Touring Car Legends There is not exactly a shortage…

Even those keen to boost current Formula 1 grid sizes by allowing teams to run an additional car might boggle at the five works machines entered by BRM for the 1971 Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park: #28 George Eaton (loving the cheeky wave – ed), #31 Helmut Marko, #15 Peter Gethin, #16 Howden Ganley and #14 Jo Siffert. In contrast to the previous two rounds, won by Siffert (Austria) and Gethin (Italy), Canada was a washout – Ganley crashed in the warm-up, front-row starter Siffert could manage no higher than ninth, Marko was 12th, Gethin 14th and Eaton 15th. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…