Indholdsfortegnelse for 22/02/24 i Autosport

The 2024 cast of Formula 1 machinery hits the track in Bahrain this week and there are plenty of storylines to follow. Will Red Bull’s decision to go radical (page 38) pay off, and how will the Christian Horner investigation impact the team? What is happening within Mercedes following Lewis Hamilton announcing his shock departure to Ferrari for 2025? Is Ferrari doing the right thing by sticking to its design concept? And can McLaren’s planned developments give Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri the chance to win? Alex Kalinauckas and Jake Boxall-Legge took a look at the new contenders and the challenges facing the top four teams from last season (p32) before heading off to Bahrain this week. Elsewhere, Sam Hall speaks to rising star Victor Martins about the Alpine Academy…

FORMULA 1 The FIA has recruited Jan Monchaux as its new single-seater technical director. The ex-Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team tech boss will report to the governing body’s established single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis, and effectively steps into the role held until the end of last year by recent RB (formerly AlphaTauri) signing Tim Goss. French-born Monchaux, whose CV includes stints at the Toyota, Ferrari and Sauber squads, will play a key role in formulating the new 2026 F1 rules. His appointment follows the FIA’s loss of several senior figures over the winter, including Goss and sporting director Steve Nielsen. The turnover prompted some alarm from F1 figures. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: “It’s concerning to see so many good people leaving. Losing Steve Nielsen is a big blow… As a…

WRC World Rally Championship bosses have met with Motorsport UK officials to discuss the idea of reviving Rally GB in Scotland. Motorsport UK CEO Hugh Chambers and chairman David Richards met with the WRC Promoter at last weekend’s Rally Sweden, with Rally GB among the topics discussed. Great Britain was a mainstay of the WRC, hosting a round since the series’ inaugural season in 1973, but has dropped off the calendar since 2019. Should a bid led by Motorsport UK be successful, then 2026 would be the earliest conceivable target, according to the WRC. “We met with David and Hugh Chambers and had some discussions,” WRC event director Simon Larkin told Autosport. “I would say it’s at very, very initial stages from their side. We’ll just continue to work with…

LE MANS 24 HOURS The Automobile Club de l’Ouest promised that there would be a minimum of 15 LMP2 cars on the grid for the Le Mans 24 Hours when it confirmed that the category would be disappearing from the full World Endurance Championship schedule. It has remained true to its word – there are 16 LMP2s among the overall field of 62 confirmed this week, of which six will contest the pro-am sub-class. Among the 16 are five that owe their presence on the entry to successes in the European or Asian Le Mans Series. Algarve Pro Racing – reigning LMP2 champion in both those series – has had its two invites firmed up, while United Autosports, AF Corse and Cool Racing each have one. The British Vector Sport…

BTCC Alliance Racing has not let up with development of its Ford Focus ST as it bids to retain its British Touring Car Championship titles in 2024. The team carried Ash Sutton to his fourth crown last season, scored 16 race wins out of 30 and nine pole positions out of 10, and on Monday confirmed an unchanged driver line-up of Sutton, Dan Cammish, Dan Rowbottom and Sam Osborne for 2024 – the first season run out of its new premises in Northampton. Key to Alliance’s domination in 2023 was development to the Focus led by Sutton’s long-time engineer Antonio Carrozza. “The approach this winter is similar to the last,” said team manager Oly Collins. “We did a lot of work last year. That’s less of a fear this year,…

Is Valentino Rossi getting serious about this four-wheel-racing lark? On the face of it, the answer has to be yes. The motorcycle legend will not just be racing in the World Endurance Championship with the WRT BMW squad in the new LMGT3 class this year. He’s doubling up with the Belgian team in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, and has thrown in a smattering of other races, too. Right now he’s scheduled to do 16 in what will be only his third full season of car racing. It should be expected that a competitor who won seven world titles in MotoGP and a couple more in its feeder categories wants to perform at the highest level in his second career, to be able to match the quickest drivers…

The traditional Thursday night Duel races to set the Daytona 500 field produced two all-action thrillers. After Joey Logano and Michael McDowell locked in their front-row starts in Wednesday’s qualifying, Logano scoring Roger Penske’s first 500 pole, the pair of 60-lappers would result in two drivers being eliminated from the 500 starting grid. Both races were won by Toyotas, but Duel 1 victor Tyler Reddick almost wrecked when he came to pitlane following a misunderstanding with Martin Truex, who clearly misread the Toyota pitstop playbook. Reddick later placed himself perfectly when Chase Elliott made his bid to win too soon on the final lap, which allowed Reddick to slingshot past Kyle Larson entering Turn 3 for victory. The subplot here was Jimmie Johnson – the seven-time champion driving a Toyota…

INTERCONTINENTAL GT CHALLENGE MOUNT PANORAMA (AUS) 18 FEBRUARY ROUND 1/4 A lap around the clock at Mount Panorama can feature all manner of things and, in the 2024 edition of the Bathurst 12 Hour, all manner of things is just what the spectators witnessed. In changeable conditions – the first half of the race was run in the dry, and most of the last half on a wet track – Porsche took its second win in the event when Manthey EMA Racing’s 911 GT3-R sped to a narrow victory. It was an effort started by Laurens Vanthoor, finally a winner down under after seven attempts (and whose brother Dries won the 2018 event), anchored by a very impressive Bathurst rookie in Ayhancan Guven, and closed out in style by Matt…

FORMULA REGIONAL OCEANIA HIGHLANDS M’SPORT PARK (NZL) 17-18 FEBRUARY ROUND 5/5 Strong late-season form in the Toyota Formula Regional Oceania series from Liam Sceats led to a home victory for the Kiwi in the series’ blue-riband race, the New Zealand Grand Prix on the fabulous Highlands Motorsport Park circuit. But the progress of Sceats’s M2 Competition team-mate Roman Bilinski across all five rounds meant there was little doubt that the Anglo-Pole would be crowned TFRO champion, and third place in each of the first two races wrapped it up in his favour before the cars even went to the grid for the GP. Reigning FR Americas and Australian Carrera Cup champion Callum Hedge, runner-up last year in TFRO, completed a last-minute deal to join the field at Highlands with MTEC…

SUSPENSION The front suspension has received attention, retaining a pushrod layout but with each member redefined and repositioned to improve the front-end grip on offer. The front leg of the upper wishbone (1) is positioned closely to the pushrod at their chassis mounting points, appearing to place airflow downwards and remove the need for the blister present in this area on the W14. The rear leg of that wishbone is positioned low down, another recent trend owing to its positive effect on the car’s anti-dive properties, which benefits the floor performance. The rear suspension now switches to a pushrod layout. FRONT END Visually, the W15 is a very different contender to its predecessor. At the front, the pointy nose has been replaced with a flatter, wider solution that – if…

REAR WING Differences are subtle in the rear wing, after McLaren made good progress here in 2023 to emulate the success of Red Bull’s DRS effect, but there are some of note: the corner at which the endplate meets the mainplane is sharper, perhaps to offer a more concentrated endplate effect and improve the rear-wing efficiency. Furthermore, like others, it has shown its car with the semi-separated wing tips that should enhance the strength of its performance further. ENGINE COVER The sidepod inlets remain small, but large enough to apparently shrink the air intake behind the driver’s head. Doing so allows for tighter packaging of the engine cover, reducing the effect of its wake on the rear wing. The cannon-like outlets at the rear of the bodywork look slightly larger,…

OBITUARY Tony Sugden, a legend of Britain’s club racing scene, died peacefully in hospital last Saturday at the age of 91. In a stellar four-wheeled career spanning 1965-2003, the Doncaster auto electrician won towards 220 races outright – mainly Special Saloons/GT events – plus dozens of class victories and several championships in cars fettled superbly by himself, family and friends. Using Yorkshire nous, nobody stretched meagre finances further. Suggy’s extraordinary determination and spirit made him the most formidable adversary, yet kindest to rivals needing help. “We’re just humble people, privileged to race against some of the best, with budgets which really didn’t exist,” he said. With his devoted wife Rose – they married when Sugden was 21, but had no children – omnipresent as organiser/timer/record keeper/caterer, results were earned together.…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Porsche Carrera Cup GB frontrunner Josh Malin has become the second recruit for Dino Zamparelli’s new Race Drive squad in the series this year. Malin won the 2020 Ginetta GT5 Challenge title before progressing to the Carrera Cup and taking seventh in the 2021 standings. He then replaced Gus Burton at Century Motorsport after the first two rounds last year and managed to climb to third in the points. “Josh was on our radar because he was doing a good job last year with limited testing,” said three-time Carrera Cup runner-up Zamparelli. “He was out of the car for nine months at Thruxton [when he returned in 2023] and finished on the podium, and that was impressive. We wanted someone fast in the car because they…

FIESTA JUNIOR The British Racing & Sports Car Club is already planning the second edition of its Fiesta Junior Scholarship after Daniella Sutton was named the inaugural winner last week. Karting graduate Sutton impressed a panel of expert judges at Blyton Park and wins a funded season in the Fiesta category this year, a prize worth in excess of £65,000. Over 50 drivers took part in the assessments, which featured a range of driving, fitness and media tests, including a presentation. Each applicant had four on-track sessions, with tin-top stars Matt Neal, Josh Cook, Aiden Moffat, Paul O’Neill and Jack Mitchell on hand to provide advice, each driver having a different coach for each run. The best six drivers from the first two assessment days then progressed to the final.…

POMEROY TROPHY Theodore Hunt proved his 1932/38 Frazer Nash TT Replica to be the Vintage Sports-Car Club’s touring car of the year by winning the coveted Pomeroy Trophy at Silverstone on Saturday. His feat mirrored father Martin’s in an FN Super Sports in 2015 and broke recent Japanese four-wheel-drive supremacy. Simon Blakeney-Edwards was overhauled on track by wife Jo in their 1929 FN Super Sports tussle, but earned the Densham Trophy. Luke Roberts, perched on his 1906 Bianchi, wriggled it to Edwardian honours, while Alex Ames took Gordon Spice Trophy gold in Martin Halusa’s BMW CSL racer. Inaugurated in 1952 and run to a fiendishly complex formula devised by Laurence Pomeroy – using vehicle age, engine capacity, brake pedal to rear axle dimensions and luggage capacity – any car can…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 has made clear that it wants Red Bull to complete an investigation into allegations against team boss Christian Horner as soon as possible so that the uncertainty surrounding his position and any fallout does not hang over the opening stages of the 2024 season. Horner is the subject of a probe launched by the wider Red Bull GmbH firm after unspecified accusations were made by a female employee. He has denied any wrongdoing and recently faced lengthy questioning from an independent barrister appointed by the energy drinks company. Despite the intense speculation over his future, Horner remained front and centre for the team’s launch of its RB20 challenger last Thursday in Milton Keynes (see p38). But F1 has since issued a statement asking for a timely…

FORMULA 2 New Sauber F1 junior Zane Maloney emerged quickest from last week’s three-day official pre-season Formula 2 test at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit, after topping the only two dry days of running with Rodin Motorsport. The 20-year-old from Barbados (below), who raced with the same team in his rookie F2 season last year, set the benchmark time on the second afternoon when the vast majority of the field fitted soft-compound Pirelli tyres for qualifying simulation runs. Maloney’s effort put him 0.125 seconds clear of DAMS-run Aston Martin protege and fellow ex-Red Bull junior Jak Crawford, with Enzo Fittipaldi third in his Van Amersfoort Racing car. Times were slower on the following afternoon on Wednesday, when Maloney was fastest by 0.193s, again from Crawford. The test was the first with the…

High praise from the commentary box One of the first events at which I commentated at Oulton Park was the first ever BARC Sports/Saloons Championship. Little did I realise that it would be going some 40 years later (National Focus, 8 February). It has been one of the favourite events at Oulton thanks to BARC personnel who have made it a friendly series both for the competitors and spectators, introducing the ‘joker’ points system and various competitions for spectators. I know I speak on behalf of my fellow commentators in thanking John Leck, Duncan Aukland and others for the presentation of the folder containing biographies of the drivers. The annual Dave Simpson trophy is eagerly fought over and his wife Margaret, who presented it, is regularly Chief Marshal at many…

Six years, six months and 19 days is a long time in motorsport. For Esapekka Lappi, it would have felt like an eternity since he last stood on the top step of a World Rally Championship podium. Doubts that he would ever win again had begun to creep into his mind, but in Sweden last Sunday they were extinguished. In the time since a fresh-faced Finn burst onto the WRC scene to claim a maiden victory on Rally Finland in 2017, Lappi has contested 60 rallies driving for Toyota, Citroen, M-Sport and Hyundai. There have been several opportunities to add to his win tally, but it took an attritional Rally Sweden for the stars to align for one of the service park’s true characters. “It feels bloody good, I don’t…

EXTREME E JEDDAH (SAU) 17-18 FEBRUARY ROUND 1/5 Reigning champion Rosberg X Racing gained an early points lead after sharing the victory spoils with Sainz XE during Extreme E’s season-opening doubleheader in Saudi Arabia. RXR’s formidable duo of Johan Kristoffersson and Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky won both of their qualifying heats in the desert dunes to comfortably progress to Saturday’s grand final, where they were pushed hard by exciting new McLaren XE pairing Mattias Ekstrom and Cristina Gutierrez. Ekstrom performed a switchback move exiting the first corner to grab an early lead before Kristoffersson wrestled the advantage away from his old World Rallycross rival. Ahlin-Kottulinsky emerged from the Switch Zone in front after taking over from Kristoffersson but soon faced pressure from Gutierrez, who slammed into the back of the Swede’s machine…

With the Formula 1 car launch season now essentially crammed into just two weeks preceding the sole pre-season test, it can surely be said that in 2024 the best was saved until last. For a start, it was the teams that occupied the top five positions in last year’s constructors’ championship that were the last to take their turns in the limelight. After all the depressing discussion over the naked carbon fibre displayed by Haas, Sauber, Williams and especially Alpine, the new colour schemes offered by Aston Martin, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull restored some faith for F1 fans in the midst of the ever-present balance – when it comes to car looks – of performance versus marketing. Even Mercedes, which had perfected a black livery in 2020, managed…

ENGINE COVER The cooling outlet surrounding the exhaust tailpipe has been widened slightly to form the in-vogue cannon-like bodywork treatment around the engine cover. Gill-style cooling vents in the centre of these ‘cannons’ embellish the expulsion of excess heat from within the car. In its Fiorano testing, two engine cover variants were seen – a lower-slung option was trialled to further minimise the footprint of this area. SIDEPODS Restricted by the existing infrastructure in its downwash switch last year, Ferrari has been able to go all-in on that concept. It has started by moving the lowest side impact spar further down, incorporating it into the floor body to allow the team to open up the undercut below the inlet. Like many of the inlet geometries seen over previous launches, it…

With last year’s top five in the final standings all graduating to Formula 2 (see panel, p53), Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Mini – sixth and seventh respectively in 2023 – are the highest-placed to remain on the F3 grid. And, what do you know, both of them are lining up with traditional F3 conqueror Prema Racing. Swedish Ferrari junior Beganovic somehow didn’t pick up a race win with Prema in his rookie F3 season as the reigning Formula Regional European champion. Sicilian Alpine protege Mini was sublime on his way to victory in Monaco, and also won the sprint race clash at the Hungaroring, but was less consistent elsewhere with Hitech. He returns to the team with which he became the 2020 Italian F4 champion. It was Trident, however, that…

BRITISH GT The 2 Seas Motorsport squad will field a two-car Mercedes-AMG GT3 attack in this year’s British GT Championship, with 2021 DTM title winner Maximilian Gotz and three-time BGT runner-up Phil Keen joining Kevin Tse and 2022 champion Ian Loggie respectively. Loggie remains with the British-Bahrani operation after taking one win alongside Jules Gounon on his way to fifth in the standings last season. Due to Gounon’s international commitments, Keen (below) – who jointly holds the record for British GT overall race wins with 19 – returns full-time to the series after filling in for the Frenchman alongside Loggie at Portimao in 2023. “It will be good to have a proper crack at it with Ian and see how we get on,” said 40-year-old Keen. “Ian has progressed a…

BRITCAR TROPHY Ginetta Junior and GB4 graduate Harri Reynolds will compete in the Britcar Trophy this season alongside reigning champion Rhys Lloyd after winning the Dragon Sport scholarship. The 17-year-old was one of 32 competitors to take part at Blyton Park earlier this month in the scholarship, which included sim/media sessions, a fitness test and two runs in the team’s Renault Clio machines. Reynolds progressed to the final shootout stage, but the track curfew was reached before he was able to complete his final run. Organisers took the decision to assess the Welshman and the other two finalists, Matt Hyde and Jack James, at Brands Hatch last week. Reynolds was announced as the winner after a day of running. “It was a horrible feeling [not to do the final run…

BRITISH F4 British Formula 4 race winner James Higgins has moved to Rodin Motorsport for his second full campaign in the series. The former Ginetta Junior driver tackled the final two events of the 2022 season with Fortec, before finishing sixth in last year’s standings with the team after taking two wins. Rodin has entered five of the nine champions since the category became an FIA F4 series in 2015 – four of them under the team’s former name of Carlin. “Last year I think we showed glimpses of what we can do, however, for one reason or another, things just didn’t fall our way when it came to mounting a proper championship challenge,” said Higgins. “To join one of the best teams on the grid means there are no…

F1000 Reigning F1000 champion Tom Gadd will defend his title this season, when new tyre rules are set to be introduced into the series. The 26-year-old has spent the past three years in the 750 Motor Club single-seater category and, after just missing out on the title in 2022, Gadd claimed the crown with Team Sellars Racing last term. “Going into this season, everyone starts from afresh again and I can imagine it’s going to be just as competitive, if not more,” said Gadd (below). “There were a couple of drivers who were knocking on the door last year who will be there from race one this year.” The championship is also set to switch to Hoosier tyres from previous supplier Avon, following the closure of the latter company’s factory…

DOCUMENTARY DRIVE TO SURVIVE Available on Netflix It’s now become a tradition: Netflix has launched a new season of Drive to Survive to coincide with winter testing for the new Formula 1 season. Providing behind-the-scenes access to one of the world’s most restricted sports championships has done wonders for F1’s booming popularity and expanded demographic, so the docuseries made by Box to Box Films has stuck to its guns for season six, half of which we have had early access to. Once again each of the 10 episodes is built around one of the main narratives from the season just gone. So with Red Bull winning all but one race in 2023, the makers have had to seek their thrills elsewhere and lean heavier on the off-track drama. Maybe that’s…

Gerhard Berger picks his way back to the pitlane in his front-wingless Benetton-Renault B197 having come a cropper on lap nine of the unexpectedly wet (for some teams, at least) and incident-packed 1997 Monaco Grand Prix. He wasn’t happy after qualifying 17th, two seconds off the polesitting Williams-Renault FW19 of Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and his progress following his Mirabeau off did little to make amends: Berger at least made the finish, one of just 10 of 22 starters to manage that, but was second to last, two laps adrift of the head-and-shoulders-above-the-rest Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari F310B. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

FORMULA 1 Spectacular comebacks for Formula 1 champions Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel have been all but ruled out. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said that he can be “bold” when replacing Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton for 2025, and many have taken this to mean a swift promotion for F2 rookie and Merc protege Andrea Kimi Antonelli. But should the Italian not excel with Prema Racing, Mercedes might consider a stopgap. Vettel or Rosberg have been seen as plausible placeholders. But it looks as though both Germans are out of the frame. Speaking to German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, Rosberg, inactive since the end of 2016, said: “I’m not planning a comeback. I would have to prepare intensively for a whole year, if only to train the synapses in my brain. A racing…

INDIANAPOLIS 500 Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato will return to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for this year’s running of the race, reuniting with the team with which he took his second 500 victory in 2020. After his last full-time IndyCar season in 2022, Sato contested an oval-only schedule with Chip Ganassi Racing last season, with a best result of seventh in the 500. The 47-year-old now enters his third stint at RLLR: he drove for the team in 2012, when he nearly won at Indy, and again from 2018-21. Four of his six IndyCar career victories have come with the team. “A heartfelt thank you to Bobby [Rahal], Mike [Lanigan] and David [Letterman] and the entire organisation for this incredible opportunity,” said Sato, who lines up alongside Graham Rahal,…

LE MANS 24 HOURS The Hypercar field for the Le Mans 24 Hours has been boosted by four extra entries from Cadillac, Porsche and Lamborghini. The class at the World Endurance Championship blue riband in June will be made up of 23 cars, and two-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou will be among the drivers. Cadillac will again – and as expected – bring over both its IMSA SportsCar Championship entries for the 24 Hours, it was confirmed when the full 62-car Le Mans grid was revealed on Monday. Action Express Racing, last year’s GTP class title-winning team, has had the automatic entry allocated by IMSA confirmed, while the Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing squad has had its entry for a second V-Series.R LMDh alongside its regular WEC car accepted. Porsche Penske Motorsport…

FORMULA 4 A thrilling fightback rescued the Formula 4 UAE title for Freddie Slater in last weekend’s Dubai Autodrome finale. The 15-year-old Brit trailed local hero Keanu Al Azhari in the points going into the event, and the outlook looked gloomy when he qualified his Prema-run Mumbai Falcons car down in 13th for race one, with the other main contender, team-mate Kean Nakamura-Berta, taking two poles. While Alpine F1 protege Nakamura-Berta led throughout race one from Rashid Al Dhaheri, Slater battled his way up to fifth place, but had now slipped to third in the standings. Yas Heat Racing Academy prospect Al Azhari was still on top after claiming ninth position. Slater fought again in race two, charging from eighth on the reversed grid up to fifth. He then snatched…

FORMULA 3 Luke Browning began his second season of Formula 3 in fine style by topping last week’s three-day test in Bahrain. As his 2019 British F4 rival Zane Maloney did in the F2 sessions, Browning went quickest on two of the three days of running. With only the hard Pirelli tyre available for the test and the opening race weekend on the Sakhir circuit, drivers were able to try qualifying simulations on all three days. The wet weather that affected F2 running on the opening day dried out during the afternoon F3 session, and that’s when Van Amersfoort Racing rookie Noel Leon set his time that stood as second best of the week. Williams F1 protege and 2022 Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award winner Browning’s Tuesday time with Hitech…

He looked rather small; Christian Horner, surrounded by reporters in a horseshoe of chairs and standing stragglers, a few feet from where the Red Bull RB20 had just been revealed. Horner’s stature hadn’t changed, of course, but there was something missing. The bravado was punctured; the immaculate image diminished. Perhaps irrevocably so. To a certain extent this picture was inevitable. It was, after all, taking place within a live launch where Red Bull wasn’t claiming an old car or an F1 show model was the real thing. Horner was exactly where he was supposed to be. Soon he was fielding questions on whether the RB20 and what Sergio Perez described as its “brave” design evolution were trolling Mercedes, given where such developments had first been seen so unsuccessfully. The basic…

William Byron had never finished in the top 10 of the Daytona 500 before Monday’s belated race. But 40 years to the day since his team owner Rick Hendrick’s squad entered its first NASCAR race at Daytona, he headed to Victory Lane after a wild 200 laps that boasted 41 lead changes. Twenty-six hours later than originally planned due to rain, the 40-car entry was led to the green flag on Monday afternoon by polewinner Joey Logano, who had given his legendary team owner Roger Penske his first-ever Daytona 500 pole (see panel, p21). As with so many rain-delayed races, it didn’t take long for the first wreck to happen, as ambition outweighed patience. Coming to the end of lap five, Brad Keselowski wasn’t lined up straight when he pushed…

FORMULA REGIONAL MIDDLE EAST DUBAI (ARE) 17-18 FEBRUARY ROUND 5/5 There was never much doubt that 17-year-old Ferrari superstarlet Tuukka Taponen was going to be crowned champion at Dubai Autodrome. The maths were simple: a defeat of sole title rival Taylor Barnard in the first race would seal the deal. And when Barnard exceeded track limits on a qualifying lap otherwise good enough for the front row, and his next lap was sufficient only for 12th on the grid, Taponen’s consummate pole position slashed the odds even further. Sure enough, Taponen was untroubled through the 16 laps of racing on Saturday afternoon, and the Finn wrapped up the honours on this, his first step out of the Italian F4 scene. The R-ace GP squad clearly had the set-up nailed, because…

SIDEPODS Red Bull has bucked the trend it inspired, and has obfuscated the actual inlet configuration in its launch photography and car renders. It appears that the team has opted for vertical inlets, like the Mercedes W14’s original spec, while the leading edge of the sidepods has been extended forward to assist with the flow around the undercut. These launch-spec sidepods feature a minimal channel at the rear end, but the team’s deliberate veiling of the configuration here suggests that it may opt for a different direction at some point in the season. Bahrain testing will offer more clues. FRONT END Rather than follow the main trend of opting for a shorter nose, and hence a shorter crash structure at the front, Red Bull has elongated its nosecone and it…

McLaren is among the greatest sources of optimism in Formula 1 on the eve of the new season. The team transformed an initially underbaked MCL60 from backmarker into genuine Red Bull-worrier last term. That uptick convinced Lando Norris to pledge his allegiance with a new multi-year contract – just in the nick of time, what with Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes seat coming onto the market mere days later. It’s also given rivals belief that they might only be a couple of well-executed upgrades away from surging up the order. As for the wider audience, there’s hope that, if McLaren’s 2024 creation hits the spot, Max Verstappen won’t have it all his own way to tee up a far more compelling campaign. That said, it might not be a flying start for…

This season’s Formula 2 grid is one of the most exciting for years, with proven race winners and potential championship contenders almost everywhere you look – even with the top four drivers from 2023 electing not to return. Among the roster, there are two rookies who are likely to face more scrutiny than their peers – Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Ritomo Miyata. Italian Antonelli, the reigning Formula Regional European champion, has skipped Formula 3 as Mercedes looks to fast-track his career, and is already being touted as a possible contender to claim Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 seat for 2025. Japanese Miyata, a long-time protege of Toyota, enters with Rodin Motorsport as the reigning Super Formula title holder. It’s not hard to see why so many have been caught up in…

BRITISH GT McLaren factory driver Tom Gamble will race full-time in British GT this year when he teams up with Mark Radcliffe in an Optimum Motorsport-run McLaren 720S GT3. Gamble, the 2018 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winner, has made sporadic outings in British GT over the past few years, driving a Century Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 in two rounds in 2019, and a Paddock Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 in the final event of 2023 at Donington Park. The 22-year-old is better known on the international stage, with a 2020 European Le Mans Series LMP3 crown under his belt, and competed in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup with Optimum last season, his first year on McLaren’s roster of works drivers. “I’m really excited to be paired with Mark for…

SILVERSTONE FESTIVAL The largest-ever gathering of cars raced by Ayrton Senna is the target for the 2024 edition of the Silverstone Festival as the event commemorates 40 years since the Brazilian burst onto the Formula 1 scene and 30 years since his death. The special Senna tribute has received the blessing of the three-time F1 champion’s family and will be held at a venue where he achieved much success as he rose up the single-seater ranks. Although he was pipped by Rick Morris during his first Formula Ford 1600 race at Silverstone in 1981, Senna – then racing as Ayrton Senna da Silva – went on to triumph there in FF2000 the following year, and achieved six British F3 victories in Northamptonshire in 1983. Such was his dominance at the…

CSCC The Classic Sports Car Club has enjoyed impressive interest for its season-opening race meeting at Donington Park with a month still to go before the event. The entry for the 23-24 March fixture currently stands at a whopping 363 after the first two and a half weeks in which drivers could sign up. “It’s all gone a bit mad over the past week,” said club director David Smitheram. “Half of the grids are already full and we are into reserves for some of them – that is very encouraging. “Most popular are the two Swinging Sixties races for which we have 87 entries in total, up from 67 at Donington last year. Classic K and Tin Tops have full 40-car grids.” A very promising sign is the Ramair BMW…

Title success in any championship is always a special achievement for a team, but to come out on top of three national series during the same season is an exceptional feat. For Team Sellars Racing, the 2023 campaign could arguably not have gone any better. It claimed a hat-trick of crowns in the 750 Motor Club’s Locost, Ma7da and F1000 championships, with Craig Land and Jonathan Lisseter completing back-to-back titles in the first two, while Tom Gadd came out on top of a fiercely competitive F1000 field. It was the culmination of nearly a decade of work, with TSR going from strength to strength to the point where it was responsible for running almost 20 cars full-time during the season. “Although it’s a really good achievement, I think once you’ve…

Gianmaria Bruni has been a Porsche man since 2017, but it’s the first chapter of his sportscar career, at Ferrari, that he looks back on to pick a favourite team-mate. In his four years of sharing a car with Toni Vilander, the pair had great success, and enjoyed numerous collaborations outside their season-long campaigns in FIA GT (2008-09) and the World Endurance Championship (2014-15). That the pairing was a good match is evidenced by their 2008 FIA GT2 title and 2014 World Endurance Cup for GT Drivers, in addition to 2012 and 2014 Le Mans victories together – which could have been added to in 2011 and 2015 without electronic and gearbox gremlins respectively interfering while leading late on. It also helped that during that time, Bruni says, he and…