Indholdsfortegnelse for 07/11/24 i Autosport

From the ridiculous to the sublime. We’ve seen the full gamut of Max Verstappen as a Formula 1 competitor over the past couple of weeks. Overly aggressive on-track, penalties that have handed away points, and ludicrous radio messages. And also one of the great wet-weather performances in world championship history. Moans about Charles Leclerc and the brief period during which Esteban Ocon drove away from the Red Bull aside, Verstappen was sublime as he climbed from 17th on the grid (15th when you remove the non-starters!). Up to 11th after one lap, Verstappen pulled off decisive and entirely fair moves to reach sixth after 11 laps. As Alex Kalinauckas shows in our report on page 16, there were a number of factors that helped Verstappen’s rise, but there can be…

FORMULA 1 Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc has been handed a €10,000 fine, half of which is suspended for 12 months, for swearing in the Mexican Grand Prix post-race press conference. After finishing third in Mexico City, Leclerc used the word ‘f***’ in the FIA press conference to describe going off the track at the final corner and allowing Lando Norris through to claim second. He then offered an apology because he realised he might get in trouble given FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s recent crackdown on swearing, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen handed a community service penalty for his own use of the word in Singapore. “Oh sorry, I don’t want to join Max!” the Monegasque quickly added. After investigating the matter over the Brazilian GP, the FIA stewards decided…

Lewis Hamilton pulled off the ultimate in a box-ticking exercise during the build-up to the Brazilian Grand Prix last Sunday by lapping the Interlagos circuit in a 1990 McLaren MP4/5B as raced by his childhood hero Ayrton Senna. “I was just revisiting my childhood as I was watching [Senna] race here as a kid,” he enthused. “Hearing that sound and… watching him drive here, winning that race [in 1991], I just couldn’t believe that I just had that chance to do that, and it was really the greatest honour of my career.” He is pictured posing on the grid (inset) with Senna’s sister Viviane.…

INDYCAR Enzo Fittipaldi, whose grandad Emerson won the 1974 Formula 1 crown with McLaren, is to get an IndyCar test with the team. The Brazilian will run with Arrow McLaren at The Thermal Club on 19 November. The 23-year-old has won two races over three seasons in Formula 2, and his older brother Pietro is a regular in the category where their grandfather became the 1989 champion, but if he wants a race seat Fittipaldi will need to look elsewhere. “For removal of doubt, our 2025 line-up is firm with Pato [O’Ward], Nolan [Siegel] and Christian [Lundgaard],” read a communique from the team. “Each lap in our cars is important as we continue preparations for the 2025 IndyCar Series season, and we’re proud to extend this one to Enzo, whose…

BTCC The British Touring Car Championship’s experiment with hybrid power is at an end after three years, with series organiser TOCA abandoning the concept last week while keeping up the series’ ‘green’ credentials by mandating 100% sustainable fuel from 2025. The power boost from use of the hybrid did away with the long-established success handicap system of ballast upon its introduction in 2022, thanks to a sliding scale of restrictions in use for the leading runners in the championship. The additional power was effectively doubled to approximately 60bhp in 2024 by using a combination of hybrid and turbo boost. From 2025, the turbo boost alone will be used to maintain the same level of extra performance from ‘push to pass’. While the removal of hybrid means a diet of 55kg…

The faces of Christian Horner and Lando Norris said it all in the deafening aftermath of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The race for the 2024 Formula 1 title is now essentially done, the relentless questioning of the contenders set to rescind, all with Max Verstappen’s superb win in Brazil. It soothed a championship battle that had got horribly ugly. Verstappen was letting off steam of his own on the podium, rejoicing in what is, remarkably, his first win since holding off Norris back in June’s Spanish GP. Once again, he’d delivered magic at a wet Interlagos – one of F1’s best spectacles. Verstappen’s first lap was indeed worthy of Horner’s “up there with Donington 1993” Ayrton Senna comparison. His confidence to immediately power around two cars at Turn 3…

“DEFINITELY THIS ONE IS THE BEST ONE.” Max Verstappen was unequivocal in ranking his 2024 Sao Paulo Grand Prix victory, which puts him on a total of eight for the year and now on the brink of a fourth straight Formula 1 world title. All of that was, however, secondary to one statistic from last Sunday at a soaking Interlagos – how the Dutchman climbed from starting 17th and feeling like he was “almost trying to destroy the garage” in reaction to his Q2 exit, to reflecting it was ultimately “unbelievable to win here from so far back”. Except it wasn’t, really, because for all of their mid-2024 run being flummoxed against McLaren, Ferrari and occasionally Mercedes, this was still Verstappen and his crack Red Bull squad. There was an…

Yuki Tsunoda was happy with the RB team’s call to switch to the extreme wet tyres as conditions worsened in Brazil, and believed that he could have led the Grand Prix without the red flag. Tsunoda preserved his lofty grid position of third and kept the growing train of Esteban Ocon, Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen at bay. Eventually, Ocon nipped past for third, prompting RB to switch Tsunoda to the extreme wet tyre; as the rain fell more heavily, the Japanese was catching George Russell and Lando Norris before Franco Colapinto’s crash produced the red flag. This nixed Tsunoda’s hopes of catching the yet-to-stop Alpines and Verstappen out front. “If the red flag didn’t came out, probably I would have overtook a lot of cars and maybe got P1…

Ollie Bearman was a late call-up to the Haas team after Kevin Magnussen was ruled out of the Interlagos weekend through illness, but the Briton endured his toughest F1 race yet and admitted “I made a lot of mistakes” en route to 12th. After starring in sprint qualifying, Bearman had his SQ3 lap deleted for track limits and started 10th, but dropped back to 14th after getting as high as ninth. In the grand prix, the Essex-born racer’s early efforts were hindered by a small clash with Franco Colapinto, which yielded a 10-second penalty he dubbed as harsh. He then suffered a slide at Ferradura on lap 36 and touched the wall, but crucially did not need to pit again and rose to 12th on the final restart. Haas’s misery…

Ferrari had taken a first World Endurance Championship class win with its 296 GT3 last time out at Fuji and followed it up with victory number two in Bahrain. The #54 AF Corse entry took the honours in September, but this time it was the #55 car shared by Alessio Rovera, Simon Mann and Francois Heriau. The sister car, however, played a part in the Italian manufacturer’s victory last Saturday. The Ferrari wasn’t the fastest LMGT3 car in the closing stages of the Bahrain 8 Hours. That honour was taken by the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, the two TF Sport-run cars rounding out the class podium positions and both finishing within five seconds of the winner. On another day, the British squad might have ended a difficult maiden season with…

MOTOGP SEPANG (MYS) 3 NOVEMBER ROUND 19/20 It took until the penultimate race, but the 2024 title battle finally got what it had been missing in Malaysia. Sepang was the scene of the long-awaited spicy tussle between Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia. And what a worthy scrap it was. For the first four laps, Martin tried every trick to get past polesitter Bagnaia. The Spaniard repeatedly led him too – only he couldn’t make his moves on the Italian stick. It would be easy to write that their battle was all about the broader world title duel. But in championship terms, Martin should have stayed safely in second. He came into the grand prix 29 points clear of Bagnaia after his factory Ducati rival had fallen in the sprint, a…

WALTER HAYES TROPHY Five-time Walter Hayes Trophy podium finisher Josh Fisher was one of two drivers excluded from last weekend’s Silverstone event and he was given a 30-day ban. Fisher was sanctioned after two instances where he was alleged to have verbally abused rivals. The first followed a fierce tussle between his brother Felix and Chris Middlehurst during heat two, after which he was angry at Middlehurst. Before that was investigated, he was also in hot water after a Brooklands clash with Mikel Bezuidenhout in his own heat (below) that left Fisher in ninth. More swearing was alleged to have taken place afterwards and this offence was deemed more serious because Bezuidenhout is under 18. Fisher did not wish to comment on the incidents when asked by Autosport. Meanwhile, Melly…

HSCC Steve Barnard is planning more outings next year in his recently restored Ford Escort Mk1 after finishing second in last weekend’s first Allcomers race at the Silverstone Walter Hayes Trophy event. Sporting an iconic yellow Duckhams livery, the ex-Geoff Wood machine returned to action for the first time in 40 years at a Curborough sprint in September in the hands of Barnard, after a planned Croft outing was thwarted by suspension trouble. Barnard led most of Saturday’s Allcomers contest before finishing second behind Charlie Besley’s Tiga. “The car hasn’t been out in 40 years – we found it in a lock-up and [restored] it,” said Barnard. “Everything is 1970s on the car. It’s a nice car, unusual, and it’s getting a lot of recognition. We will do the Historic…

SILVERSTONE HSCC WALTER HAYES TROPHY 2-3 NOVEMBER A fortnight ago, Rory Smith had to launch an almighty fightback from a driveshaft failure on the way to the grid for his Formula Ford Festival heat race to finish an eventual sixth in the final. And, although his path to pole position for the final of the Walter Hayes Trophy last weekend was far more straightforward, he faced another gargantuan scrap to land his maiden overall win at the Silverstone event. Overtaking countless rivals was the B-M Racing driver’s task at Brands Hatch; this time it was all about defending from countless attacks. Smith’s Medina JL18 was never allowed an inch of breathing space throughout a pulsating final that, unusually for the Hayes, was held on a completely dry track. His first…

WALTER HAYES TROPHY Heat 1 Andrew Rackstraw (Spectrum 011c) Heat 2 Chris Middlehurst (Van Diemen LA10) Heat 3 Michael Eastwell (Spectrum 011c) Heat 4 Rory Smith (Medina JL18) Progression race Isaac Canto da Silva (Van Diemen LA10) Last Chance race David McArthur (Medina BH19, above) Semi-final 1 Rory Smith (Medina JL18) Semi-final 2 Andrew Rackstraw (Spectrum 011c) Final (15 laps) 1 Rory Smith (Medina JL18); 2 Andrew Rackstraw (Spectrum 011c) +0.293s; 3 KC Ensor-Smith (Spectrum 011c); 4 Luke Cooper (Swift SC20); 5 Alex Walker (Van Diemen RF01); 6 Jonathan Kotyk (Van Diemen RF01). Fastest lap Walker 1m01.559s (95.93mph). Pole Smith. Starters 36. CARL HAMER TROPHY Pre-final Joseph Ahrens (Royale RP26) Final Benn Simms (Merlyn Mk20, below) JANET CESAR TROPHY Pre-final Richard Tarling (Reynard 89FF) Final Darwin Smith (Van Diemen RF90)…

“I was slightly amazed that we got to the end of the weekend when we ran the first one. I sort of jokingly said it felt like Guernsey launching a space mission in terms of overambition.” Race of Remembrance co-founder James Cameron might have felt the task of hosting the inaugural event was a monumental challenge that even verged on impossible, but it’s one that has been tackled and overcome multiple times across the past decade as this weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the popular end-of-season event. It’s the brainchild of Cameron and Anglesey circuit manager Jon Earp, and the Welsh venue has hosted the November meeting since its inception in 2014, minus the 2020 edition due to COVID-19 restrictions, having been created as an outlet for military personnel…

FORMULA 1 Formula 2 championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto looks set to race for Sauber next year, with Autosport sources revealing that a deal for the McLaren junior to join the Swiss operation has now been agreed. The Brazilian had been a frontrunner to become Nico Hulkenberg’s team-mate for 2025, but Sauber wanted to take its time weighing up whether to go for the 20-year-old or stick with another experienced driver such as incumbent Valtteri Bottas. With Bortoleto and his representatives present in the Brazilian GP paddock this week, it now appears that a decision has been taken and an agreement has been reached for next season. It is understood that some final details still need to be sorted out before an official announcement can be made, but matters are likely…

WEC/IMSA Lamborghini is re-evaluating its LMDh programme and every option is on the table: axing it entirely, downscaling its campaign to either the World Endurance Championship or the IMSA SportsCar Championship, or remaining in both series. Parking the SC63 prototypes run by the Iron Lynx squad after a single season is the least likely option, according to Lamborghini chief technical officer and acting motorsport boss Rouven Mohr. The most probable scenario, hinted the German, is that the Italian manufacturer will focus on a single championship in 2025. The catalyst for the rethink is the new-for-2025 rule that will mandate two-car entries from manufacturer teams, Mohr explained. “The biggest issue for us is that the second car [in WEC] was not foreseen,” he said. “It generates in our company issues, to…

WEC Phil Hanson has joined the British exodus to Ferrari. The 2019-20 World Endurance Championship LMP2 title winner will race the AF Corse team’s satellite entry in the WEC’s Hypercar class next year. Hanson, 25, has moved over from Porsche with which he raced customer 963 LMDhs for Jota in the WEC and JDC-Miller MotorSports in the five IMSA SportsCar Championship enduros. Remaining at Jota on its move to Cadillac wasn’t an option, although a US programme was looked at. But the lure of racing for Ferrari kept him in the WEC. “There is a bit of an emotional pull,” said Hanson, who got his first taste of the #83 Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar during Sunday’s rookie test in Bahrain. “I have always been a fan of Ferrari –…

WEC Bike legend Valentino Rossi looks set to pick the World Endurance Championship over the GT World Challenge Europe as the arena for his slimmed-down race programme next season. The Italian has revealed that he is leaning in that direction at the behest of BMW. “I have quite a lot of pressure from BMW to remain in the WEC, because for them it is more important,” said the seven-time MotoGP title winner. “I am a little bit uncertain and I haven’t decided yet: some things are better here, some things are better there. Now it is more WEC.” This year Rossi has raced in the new LMGT3 class of the WEC and the GTWCE’s Endurance Cup leg, as well as a couple of Sprint Cup rounds. Next year, with the…

SUPER FORMULA Naoki Yamamoto has announced that his 15-year tenure in Super Formula will come to an end this weekend at Suzuka. The 36-year-old is stepping away from his Nakajima Racing drive and calling time on a spell in Japan’s top single-seater series that yielded three titles, nine race wins and 13 pole positions. It follows the huge crash Yamamoto suffered in last year’s Sugo Super GT round that left him with neck and spinal injuries that required surgery in order to allow him to get back in the cockpit. He put that ordeal behind him when he scored his first podium in dry conditions since 2020 in the opening round of this year’s series at Suzuka, and sits seventh in the standings heading into his Super Formula swansong. Yamamoto…

The stage is set for a dramatic conclusion to what has been a sensational NASCAR Cup season this Sunday at Phoenix. The 2024 campaign has featured 18 different race winners, the closest finish in series history, and even fights. There’s also been no shortage of controversy, which continued over last weekend at Martinsville Speedway. In the closing laps of the race, manufacturer loyalty appeared to take centre stage as Christopher Bell’s fellow Toyota drivers and William Byron’s Chevrolet stablemates were kept apprised of the fluid points situation. While NASCAR didn’t take any immediate action regarding the questionable radio communications, they did act on the other aspect of this bizarre finish. When Bell caught the slowing #23 Toyota of Bubba Wallace, he slid sideways as he made the pass that was…

“I was struggling, I was miles off the pace,” Sao Paulo Grand Prix polesitter Lando Norris reflected after a wild, wet qualifying session. This lasted nearly two hours from 7.30am on Sunday, after being rained off on Saturday afternoon, thanks to a crashfest that ended with the McLaren driver’s eighth Formula 1 career pole. Williams and Aston Martin contributed four of the five shunts, with Franco Colapinto going around at Turn 3 midway through Q1. Here Norris was “pretty concerned” as he sat 2.5s off the pace – just lacking confidence in a car he said “was the same from start to finish” all session. But a last-gasp improvement to 1m30.944s on the extreme wet tyres squeaked him through in 15th, while Verstappen progressed fastest of all. In Q2, Oscar…

Williams endured an expensive Sunday littered with crashes as both Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto put their cars in the wall during qualifying – and Colapinto then added to the tally with his red-flag producing Turn 14 shunt during the grand prix. The Argentinian lost grip at the sodden Curva do Sol early on Sunday and his FW46 swapped ends, although the damage was not so great that the car could not be fixed promptly for the start of the race. Albon, meanwhile, progressed to the final stage of qualifying and was lying second in the order after the field had set their opening flyers, but caught the white line while trying to open up the first corner and caused heavy damage to his Williams, which could not be repaired…

Lewis Hamilton said that he was “looking forward to Christmas” in the wake of a miserable weekend in Brazil that featured 11th place in the sprint, failure to escape Q1, and multiple excursions en route to 10th in the grand prix. Despite the early travails, he had worked his way back into the top 10 before a wet-tyre-shod Liam Lawson dispatched him after the Kiwi pitted. Hamilton then jumped Lawson and Fernando Alonso at the second restart, but was repassed by the RB driver and let Perez follow him through. Eventually, Perez fell to Hamilton when the Mexican’s pass on Lawson was stoutly defended. Hamilton did get to drive Ayrton Senna’s MP4/5B around the circuit on Sunday to delight the home fans, so it wasn’t a completely wasted weekend.…

With 90 minutes to go in Bahrain, Toyota’s hopes of hanging onto its World Endurance Championship manufacturers’ crown looked all but gone. One of its GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercars was sitting hors de combat in the pits, and the other was down in 10th place. Yet when the chequered flag fell at 22:00 last Saturday it had somehow taken the win it needed to yank the silverware out of Porsche’s grasp. That it did owed something to good fortune and two safety cars that shook up the order in the Bahrain 8 Hours, but also some long-game tactics and a win-or-bust performance at the end from Sebastien Buemi in the winning Toyota shared with Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa. The Japanese marque’s chance of taking the drivers’ crown was…

SUPER GT MOTEGI (JPN) 3 NOVEMBER ROUND 7/8 TOM’S Toyota pair Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita put one hand on the Super GT title with a dominant second win of the season at Motegi. The occupants of the #36 GR Supra took advantage of two early full-course-yellow periods to go from third on the grid into an early lead, and proceeded to pull away from the rest of the field by 20 seconds over the course of the 300km race. It leaves Tsuboi and Yamashita needing just five points in next month’s postponed Suzuka finale to guarantee the title. They have opened up an 18-point advantage over Team Kunimitsu Honda duo Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino, who finished sixth. Honda had locked out the front row in a wet qualifying…

GINETTA JUNIOR Red Bull Junior Team drivers Rocco Coronel and Scott Lindblom made their car racing debuts in the Ginetta Junior Winter Series last weekend at Silverstone with multiple title-winning squad R Racing, in preparation for full campaigns in the main championship next year. The 14-year-olds both sported Red Bull liveries, and have recently been signed up by the energy drinks firm following decorated karting careers and becoming Ginetta Junior scholarship finalists. “The boys are getting on very well for the days they have done,” said R Racing’s Nathan Read. “They’ve both got to be looking at a big winter programme and, by the first round at Donington, these boys should be on the pace. “It’s super-exciting to be working with Red Bull, and for us as a team it’s…

WALTER HAYES TROPHY Ex-Formula 1 driver Jan Magnussen is planning further Formula Ford outings after enjoying his return to the category in the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone last weekend. The sportscar star made an FF1600 comeback in the Formula Ford Festival three years ago in more modern machinery – his first outing in the category since winning the 1992 Festival – but swapped to a Van Diemen RF78 run by Mike Gardner’s GT Race & Trailers squad for the Hayes. Magnussen was among the Carl Hamer Trophy pacesetters, the class catering for cars built before 1982, and finished just fractions of a second behind Joseph Ahrens’ Royale in the pre-final. But an overtaking attempt on Ahrens at Becketts in the final went wrong, Magnussen instead clipping his rival and…

SILVERSTONE FESTIVAL The 75th anniversary of the start of the Formula 1 world championship will be marked by special races and displays at next year’s Silverstone Festival. With the Northamptonshire circuit hosting the first point-scoring F1 grand prix in 1950, it is fitting that 75 years of the championship should be celebrated at the venue’s historic extravaganza, which takes place from 22-24 August. There will be plenty of historic F1 racing action at the event, with contests for the Historic Grand Prix Cars Association and Masters Racing Legends categories that between them cater for F1 machinery up to 1985. And organisers have further announcements to come about other F1 celebrations to be held at the event. Tickets for the Silverstone Festival have gone on sale, and anyone who buys one…

RALLYCROSS Irishman Ian Barrett became the latest new winner in the British Rallycross Championship 5 Nations Trophy in the penultimate round of the campaign at Lydden Hill last weekend under the cover of darkness. At the Kent circuit’s annual fireworks weekend, where the Saturday Supercar final is followed by an impressive pyrotechnics display, Barrett put a maiden rallycross campaign of poor fortune behind him with a dominant drive to victory. He also led the final in the series’ concluding round on Sunday, after starting on pole, but it was former World Rallycross Championship driver Oliver Bennett who ultimately claimed a third BRX career win. Bennett had lined up on pole for Saturday’s final with his BMW Mini, but a poor launch dropped him to third by the first corner, and…

Plenty of successful stars of motorsport have made appearances in the Walter Hayes Trophy over the years, and this time around it was the turn of ex-Formula 1 driver and four-time Le Mans class winner Jan Magnussen. The 1992 Formula Ford Festival victor had made an FF1600 comeback in the Festival three years ago in modern machinery, but was out in a far older Duckhams-liveried Van Diemen RF78 at Silverstone. And he proved to be one of the stars of the Carl Hamer Trophy element. Although a gearbox problem forced Magnussen out of his heat in the main WHT contest, he was in the thick of a thrilling Carl Hamer pre-final. He missed out on qualifying on pole by just 0.003 seconds to Andy Gosling’s RF79, but Magnussen got into…

Isaac Phelps of Elite Motorsport won last weekend’s Ginetta Junior Winter Series, which raced on the support bill at the Walter Hayes Trophy for the first time. After finishing fifth in the main Ginetta Junior championship this year, Phelps delivered on his favourite tag in the three-race mini-series. But only just. Phelps led for most of the opening contest to take victory despite facing late pressure from Colin Cronin (Fox Motorsport) and R Racing duo Alfie Slater and Max Cuthbert. He then took an even more comfortable triumph in the sequel, helped by Cuthbert and Cronin both sliding off the circuit during a dice into Becketts. A four-car battle for second raged in the closing stages, with Slater recovering from sixth to edge Cuthbert in a photo finish. That left…

One of the cars competing in this weekend’s Race of Remembrance will be a Subaru BRZ that had been repaired by members of Mission Motorsport, some of whom will now race it. The car was declared a category N write-off, meaning that, while it had suffered damage, none of it was structural, and it has been rebuilt over three months by ex-servicemen using parts sourced from eBay, one of the Mission Motorsport charity’s partners. Dominic Pearson was one of those involved in the rebuild, having joined Mission Motorsport after a cycling accident left him paralysed from the waist down after 16 years’ service in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. “I spent two years in rehab, and it was there that I come to know about Mission Motorsport,” he says.…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 engine manufacturers Honda and Alpine have agreed to pay fines for procedural breaches of the FIA’s engine cost cap rules. Honda will pay $600,000, with Alpine docked $400,000 after both manufacturers settled for a so-called Accepted Breach Agreement (ABA) with the FIA. In its report, the FIA said that Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) failed to file accurate reporting documentation, because its cost calculations included incorrectly excluded or adjusted costs. Alpine was handed a smaller fine because it delayed sending its documents and “omitted relevant information”. Because the FIA felt both companies acted in good faith, it offered an ABA without taking matters further, which both HRC and Alpine accepted last month. Both companies will also be required to pay any administrative costs incurred by the Cost…

WEC/DAYTONA 24 HOURS The new Aston Martin Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar will be homologated in time to begin racing on schedule at the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA SportsCar Championship opener in January. But the British manufacturer is still not committing to kicking off the car’s racing career with a twice-round-the-clock enduro. The Valkyrie, which will race in IMSA and the World Endurance Championship next year with the Heart of Racing factory squad, is on schedule to complete its homologation before the end of this year. The process is already under way as Aston gets into the North American leg of its test programme. That began at Road Atlanta straight after the Petit Le Mans IMSA finale last month, and will continue with the Valkyrie’s first appearance at an official IMSA…

WEC Porsche has announced that it is planning to introduce an evo joker performance upgrade on its 963 LMDh for next year – at the same time as revealing that it has already used one! Both centre on the front suspension, although the changes in the pipeline are more substantial than those introduced ahead of its title-winning campaigns in the World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2024. They will include changes to the suspension mounting points on the 963, whereas the revisions for 2024 were more subtle. Porsche has previously talked about changes to sensors – including the ones that measure front brake pressures – without confirming that they were taken as part of one of the five jokers allowed on an LMDh over its initial five-year lifecycle.…

BTCC Recently crowned British Touring Car champion Jake Hill will bid for a second successive title in 2025 with the West Surrey Racing BMW squad. But the intrigue is that WSR’s new deal with Hill’s Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport commercial and management team is merely the first peg in what could look a very different set-up overall next year. “We’re trying very hard to get back up to four cars or possibly five,” said team boss Dick Bennetts, who oversaw a full-time line-up of three of the 3 Series machines in 2024. “There’s enough interest to be honest. There are probably eight drivers on the list but it’s the age-old problem of getting the numbers and team harmony added up.” The retention of four-time champion Colin Turkington is…

The cost of being an F1 fan It’s high time the soaring cost of watching Formula 1 is called out and your investigation (Autosport 17 October) makes many good points. However, it somehow fails to grasp the way costs have actually risen. Suggesting Monaco offers the best value for money immediately sounds an alarm. General admission at Monaco is cheap for a reason. It gives you access to a steep, rocky slope with a distant bird’s-eye view heavily obstructed by buildings. There is no question of wandering round the circuit with this ticket as you suggest. To have any kind of view requires a grandstand seat, which costs well over £1000 for the weekend. Back to something more normal for most of your readers, which is the cost of attending…

Lando Norris won the sprint race at Interlagos but was “not proud of it” since it required gracious assistance from polesitter, team-mate and long-time leader Oscar Piastri. Norris had looked to be the sprint qualifying pacesetter on Friday afternoon, when he topped SQ1 and SQ2. But a series of small snaps – “so many mistakes”, Norris called them – opened a gap that Piastri stormed through to head the grid by 0.029 seconds. Behind, Charles Leclerc started third and looked the favourite after promising FP1 long-run times for both Ferraris. Max Verstappen would start fourth. When the lights went out, Piastri immediately moved to cover Norris’s seemingly slightly better launch, while Verstappen dived up the inside of Leclerc at Turn 1 and badly locked his left-front. But, with Leclerc having…

The British Jota squad signed off as a Porsche privateer in Bahrain before it moves over to become Cadillac’s World Endurance Championship representative next year. It sealed a 1-2 in the FIA Endurance Trophy for Hypercar independents, but it might have ended up with another victory. The #12 Porsche 963 LMDh shared by Will Stevens, Callum Ilott and Norman Nato was running second to the #51 Ferrari at the point the race turned on its head with the first of the two safety cars, and got out of the pits ahead of the Italian car during the caution. Ilott quickly lost out to Antonio Giovinazzi when the race went green, but was within a couple of seconds when the team opted to bring him in to hand over to Stevens.…

NASCAR CUP MARTINSVILLE (USA) 3 NOVEMBER ROUND 35/36 While Ryan Blaney took the chequered flag at Martinsville, securing himself a shot at a second successive NASCAR Cup title this weekend, all eyes were elsewhere on track. Two Chevrolets ran side-by-side behind William Byron and kept all challengers at bay while Bryon in his Hendrick Chevy desperately tried to stay above the Championship 4 cut-line. Meanwhile, Christopher Bell, who was one point out, rapidly closed in on fellow Toyota driver Bubba Wallace, who reported a tyre issue. Entering the final corner, Bell flew past Wallace but slid up the track due to the awkward entry. He hit the wall and then throttled up and rode the wall to the finish line. It was a slower, sloppier version of Ross Chastain’s now-banned…

FIESTA JUNIOR Karting graduate Lewis Islin has been selected as the latest winner of the British Racing & Sports Car Club’s Fiesta Junior scholarship. The BRSCC ran the scholarship for the second time at Blyton Park last week, with around 50 drivers taking part. The best six from each of the first two days, when their driving performance, media skills and fitness were tested, progressed to the final. It took an extra shootout between the last pair to determine the eventual winner, with Islin getting the nod. He now receives a fully funded season in Fiesta Junior next year, including entry, registration and club membership fees, ARDS training and testing costs. Islin will also benefit from mentorship from British Touring Car frontrunner Josh Cook – who was one of the…

HSCC Myles Castaldini’s hopes of giving his striking Speads RS08 a victory on its racing debut, having acquired the manufacturing rights for the cars, were ended by a spectacular engine failure in last Sunday’s Historic Sports Car Club Allcomers race at Silverstone. After issues in qualifying left him starting well down the field, Castaldini scythed through the order to battle Steve Deeks’ Alfa Romeo for victory until the late drama, which left him making a sharp exit from his machine after flames poured out of the airbox. “I caught up to Deeks and it got stuck in gear so that’s why I was hanging back,” he explained. “I thought I was managing it, keeping the revs down and the engine went bang. I was warm!” Castaldini has no current plans…

LIGIER EUROPEAN SERIES Ligier European Series champion Theo Micouris is eyeing a graduation to the LMP3 class of the Michelin Le Mans Cup next season after securing his second title in two years. Micouris only made his car racing debut last season and snared the overall Radical Cup UK title having starred in the SR1 class. He then teamed up with fellow Radical racer Haydn Chance to tackle the one-make Ligier series for the frontrunning Team Virage squad in a JSP4 and also netted that crown last month. “For winning the championship you get prize money [€150,000], which goes towards the Michelin Le Mans Cup in LMP3, so that’s the aim for next year,” said Micouris. “Winning the championship this year was a major step in my career. It opens…

RALLYING The British Rally Championship has revealed a tweaked calendar for 2025, with the East Riding Stages becoming its new opener. After organisers of this year’s curtain-raiser, the North West Stages, decided not to run the event next season, the Yorkshire-based closed-roads East Riding Rally will instead begin the campaign on 23 February. The rest of the schedule comprises familiar BRC events, with the Severn Valley Stages, Jim Clark Rally and Grampian Forest Rally the next trio. Rali Ceredigion – which also featured the European Rally Championship this year – will now represent one round instead of two, and the season will conclude with the Cambrian Rally. The BRC enjoyed a boost in fortunes for this year, with a focus on reducing costs and terrestrial TV coverage helping to increase…

There were plenty of unusual features about this year’s Walter Hayes Trophy. The lack of rain throughout the weekend was strange, as was the lack of safety cars during the entertaining heat races – from which, in another major break from tradition, all of the major frontrunners successfully progressed. The closest to having to face an early start on Sunday morning with the Progression and Last Chance bouts was four-time event winner Joey Foster. A carburettor problem in qualifying left the Firman driver down in 21st on the grid. From there, he rose to eighth when a clash with Darwin Smith hampered any further gains. “I got my head down and I was picking them off,” said Foster. “I caught up with Darwin and got a good run on him…

BRANDS HATCH BARC 2-3 NOVEMBER A sell-out crowd for the last Brands Hatch meeting of the year witnessed truck racer Ryan Smith achieve a remarkable and unique ninth consecutive British Truck Racing title, plus the nailbiting conclusion to other championships and a firework display bringing the season to a suitably spectacular end. Smith’s championship success wasn’t quite a foregone conclusion when the convoy rolled into Kent for the season finale, but he put it beyond doubt with a lights-to-flag victory drive in the first of five races, and went on to complete a clean sweep of the other four as well. Former champ David Jenkins was a distant second in the opener, while Michael Oliver pipped father Stuart to third place. Oliver Sr is still the man to beat with…

The Lotus of Romain Grosjean reaches for the sky after a squeeze on Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren launches him into this infamous first-corner pile-up at the 2012 Belgian GP. Look how close, in these pre-halo days, Fernando Alonso came to a severe head injury and probably worse. The immediate aftermath left Grosjean, Hamilton, Alonso and Sergio Perez’s Sauber out of the race. The Williams of Pastor Maldonado (number 18), which had jumped the start from sixth on the grid, was spun round, while Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber was also caught up. Maldonado received two five-place grid penalties for the Italian GP – the first for the jumped start, the second for later contact with Timo Glock’s Marussia. As for F1 enfant terrible Grosjean, he was fined a hefty €50,000 and banned for…

Ask Jan Lammers to name his favourite racing car, and he doesn’t plump for any of the Formula 1 machines he raced or tested – and the latter category includes the Lotus 79. Nor does he go for the Toyota TS010 3.5-litre Group C contender that he describes as the “fastest thing I ever drove”. Top of his list is the BMW M1 Procar in which he was a race winner in the F1-support series that many regard as the greatest ever one-make championship. “It’s everything about that car, the series and the time,” says Lammers, a veteran of 23 F1 starts and 24 at the Le Mans 24 Hours. “It was the engine and the gearing, the way it handled – it was such a joy to drive and…