Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i AUTOSPORT

The last time McLaren scored four consecutive 1-2s in grand prix racing was with Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and the legendary MP4/4 in 1988. That Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have done so in 2025, following years of Red Bull domination, is remarkable and underlines the fact that the MCL39 is likely to go down as one of the great Formula 1 cars from the Woking team. And McLaren has now joined Ferrari in the 200 wins club. The Senna-Prost era ended in acrimony but, while there have been several on-track scraps between Piastri and Norris, things this season seem more cordial. Indeed, McLaren chief operating officer Piers Thynne prefers to liken their relationship to that between friends Niki Lauda and Prost, which yielded four titles in two years. McLaren’s…

Amid his disappointment, Oscar Piastri accepted McLaren’s Hungarian Grand Prix decision to split strategies in good grace, noting that he had more to lose than team-mate and eventual winner Lando Norris. The divergence was largely driven by circumstance, and Norris found himself in the box seat for victory after electing to switch to a risky one-stopper. Both drivers had been operating in different contexts amid the opening stint of the 70-lap affair at the Hungaroring. Piastri was locked in a battle with the Ferrari of surprise pole-winner Charles Leclerc; the final stage of qualifying had been accompanied by a change in wind Norris slipped from third to fifth at the start. While attempting to battle his team-mate after a decent getaway, he was pincered to the inside line at Turn…

The FIA is to mandate that Formula 1 power unit suppliers with expiring contracts must still make current engines available to their former customer teams for any testing of previous cars (TPC) for 2026. Half of the grid will switch engine partners for F1’s new technical era: Sauber (to become Audi) will move from Ferrari to its in-house engine, Aston Martin from Mercedes to Honda, Alpine from its own engine to Mercedes, while Red Bull, plus Racing Bulls, will run a brand-new power unit that is developed and built at its Milton Keynes facility. The governing body has enforced a two-year supply obligation, but has not set any cost limits. Since TPC testing is not part of the budget cap, suppliers will be free to set the prices themselves. According…

CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE WILL BE DECIDED BY WHO MAKES THE FEWEST MISTAKES “It’s probably down to who does the least mistakes, I would say, more than anything. Not necessarily who’s outright the quickest or who can simply race better or who makes the best overtakes. I think it’s just – yeah, I have some of my strengths, he [Oscar Piastri] has some of his.” That was Lando Norris’s extended musing over the drivers’ championship situation ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, the last race weekend before the summer break, and just over the halfway point of the season. To some extent it’s a statement of the bleedin’ obvious; who else is there to challenge the two McLaren drivers, who sit first and second in the standings nine points apart? Not third-placed…

Elderly bearded and pony-tailed men (and other fans!) had a new favourite at the Laguna Seca IndyCar round. Felix Rosenqvist’s Meyer Shank Racing car sported a psychedelic tie-dye livery paying homage to arch hippy faves The Grateful Dead. The car’s title sponsor is SiriusXM, whose Grateful Dead channel is one of its ‘longest-running artist-branded’ stations. Appropriately enough, the town of Monterey outside which Laguna sits was a centrepoint of the counterculture revolution of 1967 thanks to its music festival. Whether this was a touchstone for a polite, amiable chap from Sweden is unclear, but it didn’t bring Rosenqvist much luck at Laguna. He was hit by Kyffin Simpson on the first lap at Turn 6, and after repairs continued to finish four laps down, classified 24th. Photographer Jake Galstad/Lumen/Getty Images…

While Jaguar team boss James Barclay is heading off to McLaren to work on its upcoming World Endurance Championship programme, two-time Formula E series runner-up Nick Cassidy looks to be poised for a move from Jag to Stellantis, with that team tipped for a rebrand from Maserati to sister marque Citroen for 2025-26. With no clashes next year between FE and the World Endurance Championship, Cassidy is also rumoured to be in line for a berth in Peugeot’s Le Mans Hypercar squad. “There are many factors, and the decision took a long time,” Cassidy told Autosport. “I spoke through the decision with Jaguar, almost presenting them the options of my career and what I was looking to achieve. It’s hard to discuss too much about the reasons why, but more…

Briton Freddie Slater has moved back into the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine points lead, but an exclusion at Imola means the challenge of Matteo De Palo is still alive. Slater and his Prema Racing car pulverised the field to win the first race at Paul Ricard by almost eight seconds from Trident racer De Palo. He doubled up the following day to narrowly head home Prema teammate Rashid Al Dhaheri, with De Palo demoted from fifth to sixth for overtaking beyond track limits. At Imola it was not such plain sailing for Slater. He lay third in a safety car-infested and red-flagged opener before passing Pedro Clerot for second, while Enzo Deligny took victory for R-ace GP. De Palo was fifth. Slater was second to R-ace man Akshay…

Poetic Justice? Recent weeks have featured a couple of interesting developments regarding the top class of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. One of them had been widely anticipated; the other was hardly surprising. After beginning the season with three consecutive GTP pole positions – and for a variety of reasons failing to convert them into a race win – BMW confirmed that its arrangement for Team RLL to field a pair of BMW M Hybrid V8 cars will conclude at the end of the current campaign. It will truly be the end of an era. In a supreme irony mere days after the split was confirmed, the Bobby Rahal-led team basked in the glory of a 1-2 sweep at Road America, where Dries Vanthoor and Philipp Eng led home the sister…

WHEN THE MANTHEY PORSCHE crossed the line to take the LMGT3 victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours in June, Richard Lietz was able to celebrate a sixth class success in the world’s most celebrated endurance classic. The long-serving Porsche factory driver has conquered the event with 11 different drivers, in four different types of 911, in three different classes, over a 19-year period. For a man who started out with aspirations of following his father into rallying, and called time on single-seaters after finding he was “not prepared for the amount of testing and everything you need to be successful”, the Austrian’s honours list is staggering. After two GT2 title successes in the Le Mans Series (2009 and 2010), Lietz scooped the 2015 World Endurance Cup for GT drivers…

Kalle Rovanpera claimed a maiden victory on his home event of Rally Finland with a dominant performance to head a Toyota top-five lockout. The two-time World Rally champion recorded 10 stage wins to defeat team-mate Takamoto Katsuta by 39.2 seconds in the fastest rally in WRC history as he took the victory with an average speed of 80.7mph. Sebastien Ogier completed the podium ahead of Elfyn Evans and Sami Pajari to seal a first top-five lockout for any manufacturer since Lancia at Rally Portugal in 1990. The result ended an eight-year wait for a Finnish driver to win the famous high-speed gravel rally and arrived after Rovanpera had crashed out of promising leads in the previous two editions. “It’s an amazing feeling,” he beamed after claiming a perfect 35 points.…

Somewhere out there in those Yorkshire fields is probably a barn where James Herriot once delivered a breach-birth calf. For now, though, it’s Tom Ingram leading Croft’s British Touring Car Championship race one from Dan Cammish, Mikey Doble and Dan Rowbottom. Behind them, you can see Senna Proctor homing in on Tom Chilton and Charles Rainford for contact that skittered the latter two wide at the following chicane. All continued without too much delay, although Doble was to undo his splendid qualifying work with a solo off at the chicane shortly afterwards. Photographer JEP Where Croft, North Yorkshire, UK When Sunday 3 August 2025 Details Hasselblad L2D-20c 24.0mm lens, 1/1600th @F5.6…

The British Touring Car Championship field dropped to 23 for the Croft round in early August owing to the absence of the One Motorsport Honda squad, with the future of lead driver Josh Cook very much open to conjecture. A period of ill health for team owner Steve Dudman meant he was unable to oversee his various businesses including the race team. The squad announced that it would be standing down for Croft and the mid-August Knockhill round, “but the hope is that both Honda Civic Type R machines will compete again later in the season”. There was pessimism in BTCC circles that this would be the case, and that gained traction when Stephen Jelley, hitherto Cook’s teammate, was unveiled as the replacement driver for Max Hall with the Un-Limited…

Classic Sports Car Club Jaguar Championship racer Mark Bennett is targeting a title challenge aboard his new self-built X-Type estate next year after the Class C car took outright victory in just its fourth competitive outing. The championship’s first front-wheel-drive machine joins a growing fleet of cars from the workshops of Derby-based Jaguar parts specialist Auto Reserve. After building and racing the squad’s supercharged S-Type R (a race winner in Auto Reserve boss Andrew Harper’s hands) and turbo-diesel X350, Bennett debuted the X-Type at Cadwell Park in May, qualifying fourth. Teething trouble prevented headline results at its first two events, and a Pre-’03 Touring Cars outing at Brands Hatch offered further track time. Bennett then secured a maiden pole position and victory in wet conditions at Snetterton in July. “I…

A dedicated class for Lotus 51s is set to feature in the Historic Formula Ford 1600 Championship next year after a special parade formed part of the recent Brands Hatch Superprix event. Eight of the machines – which, alongside converted Lotus 31 F3s, formed the grid for the first standalone FF1600 race at Brands in 1967 – ran for three laps in Kent. Such was current car owners’ support for former Historic Sports Car Club chairman Chris Sharples’ initiative that a class for the 51 is now set to be introduced next season, prior to FFord’s 60th anniversary in 2027. “What started as a light-hearted idea very quickly gathered momentum,” said Sharples. “Having eight 51s at Brands was fantastic – a ninth dropped out late in the preparations – but…

HISTORIC F3 HAS A GOLD CUP SCREAMER The pick of the Oulton Park Gold Cup races was the Sir Jackie Stewart Trophy 1000cc F3 opener. For 11 breathless laps Enrico Spaggiari (ex-John Miles Team Lotus 41X, right) repelled everything Peter de la Roche (ex-Ken Sedgley Alexis Mk17) threw at him to win by 0.199 seconds. “That was a proper race,” said de la Roche, who clinched the Historic F3 title before taking the spoils in the sequel. The Cortinas of Victor Cullen and Roy Alderslade also had a close HRDC Allstars scrap, but Cullen was denied victory by a jump-start penalty. AUSSIE CONTINUES TO RULE IN GB3 GB3 recently returned to home soil for the first time since April, and it was Australian Rodin racer Alex Ninovic who continued his…

Max prepares to pounce Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris were a class apart in the Belgian Grand Prix sprint race, although polesitter Piastri didn’t get to enjoy his time at the front for long – moments after this image was captured at La Source, Verstappen had slipstreamed into a lead that he would hang on to until the flag. Afterwards Verstappen reflected: “Basically you’re keeping faster cars behind, so you have to drive over the limit of what you think is possible. I’m just doing 15 qualifying laps to try and keep them behind.” Photographer Marcel van Dorst/EYE4images/NurPhoto/Getty Images Where Spa, Belgium When Saturday 26 July 2025 Details Sony ILCE-1M2 1/1000th @F9 Alonso leaps into view A driver being a creature of habit is very handy for a…

Max Verstappen shut down perhaps the biggest on-off saga of an otherwise tepid silly season when he confirmed that he will indeed be staying at Red Bull for 2026, while Mercedes is set to extend the deals of George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli for next season. Verstappen has a Red Bull contract until the end of 2028, but with various exit clauses that had triggers around the summer break. As previously reported, those clauses were believed to free him up if he didn’t feature in the top three of the drivers’ championship at that point. A move for 2026 always looked much less likely than for 2027, when he will have a clear picture of which teams have made the best start to the incoming new rules cycle. And,…

Turkish Grand Prix bosses say that they are ready to step in and host a race as early as next year if any event is forced to cancel. The Istanbul Park circuit was recently transferred to TOSFED – the Turkish Automobile Sports Federation, and its president Eren Uclertopragi is adamant that he would like to see F1 back in Turkey on a permanent basis rather than just a short-term deal. The country last hosted F1 during the COVID-19-impacted 2020 and 2021 seasons as a stopgap solution to fill out the calendar. In an interview with Autosport, Uclertopragi said: “Following our appointment by the government as the federation a few months ago, we have been in intensive discussions with F1 and FIA management. There is a strong commitment from the government…

McLAREN MP4/2B-3 Year 1985 (built as MP4/2 in 1984) Driver Alain Prost Engine TAG TTE PO1 Porsche 1.5-litre V6 turbo Power 750-850bhp Weight 540kg Wins 1984 San Marino and German GPs, 1985 Austrian GP Drivers’ championship 1st (Prost) Constructors’ championship 1st FINALLY. AFTER COMING so close to winning the Formula 1 world title in 1983 and 1984, Alain Prost secured the crown everyone knew he deserved in 1985. Prost scored fewer poles and victories than he had during the 1984 campaign, in which he lost the championship by half a point to McLaren team-mate Niki Lauda. But, in a season that featured eight winners for five different teams, the 30-year-old Frenchman and McLaren proved the most consistent all-round package. Autosport is once again at Pembrey courtesy of McLaren, with the car…

NOTHING FOR NOW JAKE BOXALL-LEGGE Does Mercedes really need to do anything? Probably not. Rookie seasons should be treated as an opportunity to learn and grow, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli should simply be afforded the support necessary to pick himself up from any errors. While he has endured difficult form of late, it’s no secret that the lack of consistency with the W16’s rear suspension package has made it difficult to adapt to the car – hence the decision to revert to the old model. As much as people like to contend that rookies entering F1 should be the complete package, that’s never going to be the case. Even with days of Testing of Previous Cars programmes helping young drivers adapt to the rigours of modern F1, those tests are…

Up until recently, Leonardo Fornaroli couldn’t buy a race win for love nor money. He proved in Formula 3 last year that he could win a championship, but hadn’t taken a chequered flag first since his 2021 Italian F4 season. Now Fornaroli can’t seem to break a habit he started with victory in the Silverstone F2 sprint race. In recent weeks, he has added further successes in the sprint at Spa, before breaking his feature race duck at the Hungaroring with a terrific drive to negate a five-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane. Invicta Racing driver Fornaroli now sits at the top of a gripping title race with four rounds remaining, ahead of Jak Crawford (17 points adrift), Richard Verschoor (19), Luke Browning (29) and Alex Dunne (30). While…

The Eurocup-3 series is set to bring big fields of oldphilosophy Formula 3 cars back to Europe by adoping the Dallara D326 – the Italian giant’s new take on the concept – for 2026. The Spanish-run series was introduced in 2023 using a modified version of the Tatuus Formula Regional chassis and Autotecnicatuned Alfa Romeo turbo engine, and this year has attracted up to 30 cars. The Dallara is set to continue that trend. As with the rival Euroformula Open series, which uses the F324, and Japan’s Super Formula Lights, cars will be powered by the 1.6-litre, threecylinder TOM’S TGE33 engine derived from the Toyota Yaris GR road car. For the first time, the eightround calendar includes a stop-off at Silverstone on the 12-13 September, which is likely to be…

The WTR Cadillac V-Series.R shared by Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz leads a line of GTP machinery during the IMSA SportsCar round at Road America in Wisconsin. The squad’s hopes for a top-five or even a podium finish for the #40 Caddy and its #10 Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque stablemate failed to materialise. The cars qualified ninth and seventh respectively, and come the flag the silver #40 crossed the line in the same position, with #10 one place ahead after what the team dubbed a roller-coaster race. It wasn’t for lack of pace, as boss Wayne Taylor reflected: “In the last 30-40 minutes, both cars were running the same lap time as the leaders. It’s been a tough year, but we will regroup and continue to put the maximum effort into…

Mercedes has offered a glimpse of how its next-generation GT3 will look. It has released camouflaged teaser images of a car that is set to succede its ultra-successful SLS and AMG GT3 racers. The German manufacturer didn’t mention racing or the GT3 category on the limited revealing of a car that it is calling the Concept AMG GT Track Sport. But it hinted at its future in competition by describing it as an “uncompromising concept vehicle” that has been “designed for absolute driving dynamic peak performance to set new standards and record times”. It added that the car demonstrates Mercedes-AMG’s “great expertise as a sportscar manufacturer and provides a preview of a possible expansion of the GT series”. More significant than the PR speak was confirmation that the Concept AMG…

Braced for a heavy landing, Adrien Fourmaux’s Hyundai takes dramatic flight over one of the many jumps that have helped put Rally Estonia on the map. This year’s instalment of fast gravel stages proved to be a record and history maker on many levels. It was the fastest in the event’s history, producing a record-breaking 117km/h (73mph) average speed across the 20 tests. But it will be forever remembered as the rally where Oliver Solberg and co-driver Elliott Edmondson defeated the WRC’s elite in extraordinary fashion to claim a maiden win at this level on their debut for Toyota’s Rally1 squad. Rally debrief, page 104. Photographer Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool Where SS18 Hellenurme, Estonia When Sunday 20 July 2025…

British Racing Motors’ Formula 1 history was brilliantly presented by pre-eminent specialist Hall & Hall, the Owen family and passionate owners of the cars from Bourne at the recent Oulton Park Gold Cup. Fans savoured the aural delights of four-cylinder, V8, V12 and V16 BRM engines in demos to celebrate 75 years since the team’s first F1 foray. From Robs Lamplough’s P25, through Graham Hill’s 1962 title-winning P578#1, Yardley P153 and Marlboro P160 to John Fenning’s P201, it was so much more than a dry cavalcade. Even the silent gas turbine Rover-BRM sportscar ran. Photographer Jeff Bloxham Where Oulton Park, Cheshire, UK When Friday 25 July 2025 Details Nikon D6 VR 24-120mm lens, 1/500th @F9…

TOCA has terminated its contract with organisers of the proposed TOCA Junior championship and has now invited expressions of interest from other parties looking to run a junior series. TOCA Junior was due to be part of the British Touring Car support package this season, but in February the decision was made to postpone its launch until 2026 amid concerns about a lack of teams and drivers signing up to compete. The category was due to feature a bespoke rear-wheel-drive ‘Chevron B1417’ tin-top that had been developed specifically with junior racers in mind, but came with a hefty £78,500+VAT price tag. Instead, plans were created to adopt a centrally run format for next year, avoiding drivers paying the extra costs associated with being under the wing of a team –…

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1974 FERRARI 308 GT4 LM Fancy something a bit different? This one-off was developed and built for Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team. Emissions laws following the fuel crisis meant that the 308 GT4 was the only Ferrari Chinetti could sell to his American customers and so needed to raise its profile – he decided to go racing. The resulting three-litre V8 machine was 200kg lighter and 50bhp more powerful than the production version. Chassis 08020 made its debut at Le Mans in 1974, driven by Giancarlo Gagliardi and Jean-Louis Lafosse, but retired with clutch trouble. The car was entered for the race in 1975 but triggered a row between the organisers and Chinetti that resulted in NART withdrawing all four of its entries! JAGUAR E-TYPE ‘XAN 555’ Chassis number…

Thirty-four people have won the world championship for drivers since the inaugural contest in 1950. More than 10 months ago, Mark Constanduros and the team at the Silverstone Festival set out to bring together a special group of cars to celebrate all of those title winners – and the fruits of their labours will be seen by thousands of enthusiasts towards the end of August. The initial aim was to get a car driven by each of the champions during their successful seasons. That target has largely been met but the realities of trying to bring together so many cars from around the world, in a year when many big events have been wanting to celebrate ‘F1 75’, has meant a few compromises have been needed. Nevertheless, at the time…

Oliver Rowland returned to his homeland for the 2024-25 Formula E finale at London ExCel as a newly crowned world champion, but it was Nick Cassidy who continued his late-season form to take a clean sweep of wins on the unique indoor-outdoor circuit. It represented a fitting farewell to Jaguar for both Cassidy and team principal James Barclay, whose post-season departures from the team had both been confirmed in the build-up to the event. With Barclay at the helm since the marque’s debut in 2016, it truly was the end of an era for Jaguar. Following on from his win in Berlin, Cassidy’s two victories made it three on the bounce. Following the sixth race of the season – the first of the Monaco double-header – the Kiwi was a…

Brazilian Ferrari Driver Academy recruit Rafael Camara wrapped up the Formula 3 title with his fourth victory of the season – all of them in feature races – at a wet Hungaroring. It means that the rookie, who came into the category as the reigning Formula Regional European champion, went into the month-long wait before the Monza finale able to reflect on a job well done. Camara’s Trident machine pulled out a monster lead on Mari Boya on the opening lap, only for the new Aston Martin F1 junior to begin eating into the advantage. The Campos Racing man was challenging for the lead on lap four when the first of two consecutive safety car periods neutralised the action. Once the race got going again, Camara held Boya at bay…

Any expansion of the World Endurance Championship will come with an additional race in Europe. The admission from the series organisation appears to give hope to Silverstone’s aspirations to bring the WEC back to Britain for the first time since 2019. Should the WEC push on with its attempt to grow beyond its traditional eight rounds in 2027, an extra event would “definitely” be in Europe, said WEC CEO Frederic Lequien. Silverstone, which hosted a round every year from the rebirth of the series in 2012 until 2019, would appear to be the favourite, but Lequien played any such status down. “It is true we are discussing with Silverstone, but we cannot say they are the favourites,” said Lequien, who stressed the complexities of introducing another round in Europe to…

GT World Challenge Europe is enjoying ‘McLaren season’ it seems, after two wins for the Garage 59-run 720S GT3 of Marvin Kirchhofer and Benji Goethe. The pair won race two at both Misano and Magny-Cours in the two recent Sprint Cup events, the maiden wins in the series for the car and the first McLaren success since 2016, when Rob Bell and Alvaro Parente won in a 650S at the Nurburgring. The wins put the duo a point and a half behind WRT BMW pair Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde, who have been consistent in racking up results – three thirds and a fifth over the most recent events. Jordan Pepper and Luca Engstler won at Magny-Cours in their GRT Lamborghini to add to their Spa 24 Hours…

Phil Hanson calls it “the best mistake I ever made”. He’s talking about the decision to begin his car racing career in the world of endurance rather than stepping onto the single-seater ladder. Nine years later, he’s celebrating an overall Le Mans 24 Hours victory at the wheel of a Ferrari. He’s about right when he calls it “a crazy story”. ‘Crazy’ because Hanson was a race winner and a champion at international level in LMP3 in the Asian Le Mans Series within a year of his first race. And a driver who, at 25, became the second youngest Brit to win the French enduro, sharing AF Corse’s satellite Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar with Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye, kept on winning in LMP2. European Le Mans Series and…

Oliver Solberg stunned the World Rally Championship field to score a commanding maiden win on his Rally1 return in Estonia and deliver Toyota’s 100th WRC victory. After receiving a late call to join Toyota’s Rally1 ranks, WRC2 series leaders Solberg and co-driver Elliott Edmondson delivered a masterclass, claiming nine stage wins from the 20 fast gravel tests, two and a half years after the pair’s last Rally1 outing with Hyundai. The 23-year-old took the win by 25.2 seconds from Hyundai’s home hero Ott Tanak, with Tanak’s team-mate and reigning world champion Thierry Neuville scoring a much needed third place to belatedly kickstart his title defence. “After everything, after so many years and trying and trying and dreaming, me and Elliott have done it,” sobbed a tearful Solberg. Solberg had only…

The British Touring Car Championship’s successor to the long-standing NGTC regulations, due for introduction in 2027, has been met with cautious optimism by the teams. BTCC boss Alan Gow has kept to his word of evolving the NGTC regulations so that none of the current weaponry will become obsolete, but with a couple of key twists: car models that are not available for sale new in the UK will be allowed as long as their manufacturer has a presence in the domestic market; and engine choice has been freed up so that, whatever car you are running, you can choose from any of the homologated powerplants. Christian Dick, whose Speedworks Motorsport team runs the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK squad, said: “I think the consistency for all of the teams means…

Top team Triple Eight has put a full stop on Australia’s Supercars silly season. Will Brown and Broc Feeney are not going to race for any team other than the reigning champion operation until the next decade, at the earliest. By signing 2024 Supercars title winner Brown and current points leader Feeney to long-term contracts, Triple Eight has slammed the door on anyone head-hunting its prized drivers. Triple Eight has a history of having lengthy tenures for its drivers. Jamie Whincup arrived in 2006 and is still there, though now he is a co-owner and part-time enduro co-driver. In 2006 Craig Lowndes was already a year into his service with the team, which will end at the Bathurst 1000 this October with a move to General Motors, while Triple Eight…

Jacques Villeneuve will make his historic racing debut at this year’s Goodwood Revival, with the 1997 Formula 1 world champion joining a cast of star names, including his former BAR team-mate Jenson Button, in the RAC TT Celebration contest. The Canadian attended the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July and was also a spectator at last year’s Revival. He has now been persuaded to renew his licence to tackle the race for 1960s sportscars in a 1963 AC Cobra nicknamed the ‘Hairy Canary’. “I am very excited to be participating in the TT,” said Villeneuve, whose last racing came in the World Endurance Championship in 2023. “It was very frustrating seeing all my pals having fun racing it out last year while I was sitting watching. Driving the Cobra on…

The Clio Cup GB category will no longer exist as a standalone series after struggling for entries since its launch last year. The championship was created to bring the latest fifth-generation model of the popular hatchback to the UK for the first time, four years after previous plans were shelved during the pandemic. However, the MotorSport Vision Racing-run category endured a troubled start, with a delay in the arrival of new cars from the factory meaning the season did not begin until June and attracted an average of six drivers. Organisers were optimistic that the close racing and a less turbulent off-season would boost numbers for this year, having risen to eight at 2024’s finale, but instead they dropped again. After just six were on the grid for the Silverstone…

S ince it roared into life at Brands Hatch in March 1965, Clubmans racing has championed a mixture of fast, affordable competition with novel engineering and a strong camaraderie. Sixty years on, the Clubmans Register celebrated the latest historic milestone during the recent Clubmans Sports Prototype Championship meeting at Donington Park, following a hillclimb-focused commemoration at Prescott in May. Few categories in British motorsport can boast such longevity and, while it no longer accommodates some of the up-and-coming names that it once did, Clubmans still inspires deep affection from its close-knit paddock of racers – as evidenced by the number of former drivers and machinery that were out in force for the anniversary events. “There was a Derek Bell Trophy race at Thruxton when I waved at Neil Fowler in a…

POCHER PAGANI UTOPIA COUPE LIMITED EDITION uk.pocher.com RRP £899.99 Powered by a Mercedes-AMG twinturbo V12, the real-world Pagani Utopia Coupe was limited to 99 examples, which were “assigned to privileged enthusiasts”. Only slightly less rarefied is this 1:8 scale model kit in Bianco Perla livery. The kit features opening doors, active steering, working suspension, and a realistic-looking interior down to the hand-stitched detailing. It’s available for pre-order now. SPARCO X MASERATI FAN COLLECTION sparco-official.com RRP €65.88-€2249.68 Not actually a collection of fans – that would have been useful during the recent heatwave – but a new ‘capsule’ forming the latest fruit of the partnership between racewear manufacturer Sparco and the Italian road and racing marque. Launched at the recent GT World Challenge round at Misano, the collection represents a more affordable…

Michael Schumacher remains perfectly calm in the cockpit of his Ferrari as a flash fire breaks out during refuelling at the 2003 Austrian Grand Prix. “I was watching what was going on and saw the fire wasn’t nice,” he noted, “but I felt the guys reacted very well. You know you have protection – you have the overalls and you can survive for a little while.” Autosport too was moved to praise the “ultra-cool” manner in which the pitcrew dealt with the conflagration in the A1-Ring pitlane and then dispatched their charge, his engine hesitating momentarily after ingesting extinguisher foam, with a delay of only around 10 seconds. Photographer Schlegelmilch Photography/Getty Images Where A1-Ring, Spielberg, Austria When Sunday 18 May 2003…