Innehållsförteckning för 08/02/18 från Autosport

THERE ARE NO MORE EXCUSES. AFTER THREE DISMAL seasons with disappointing Honda power, McLaren has to be better this year following its switch to Renault. It won’t be easy. You could make a strong case for fellow Renault customer Red Bull still being the top team when it comes to producing the best chassis, while Renault’s own squad is on the up too. But, as Ben Anderson’s cover piece shows, McLaren boss Zak Brown still believes his team can get back to the front and challenge for its first world championship since Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 drivers’ title. McLaren’s chassis seemed to be pretty good last year, held back by a lack of power and poor reliability. This season we will find out just how good the car is. In Fernando…

You’re switching from Honda to Hyundai for WTCR this season. What motivated your move? You have ups and downs; Qatar [the WTCC season finale where he missed out on the title] was a bit painful, but the decision to change was not related to anything that happened there. It was just a feeling for new motivation, and a new environment. It’s honestly not about wanting to leave Honda, it was just seeing something new, something that excited me a lot. How is your pre-season schedule shaping up? The main focus is to get to know the car. I had the chance to sit in the car, but I haven’t driven it. Gabriele [Tarquini] has done a brilliant job with Hyundai Motorsport and BRC in developing the car. For me, it’s…

INDYCAR TO TRIAL AERO-SCREEN The IndyCar Series is to trial its new aero-screen (above) at this week’s test on the Phoenix oval. Scott Dixon was due to perform duties for the screen, developed as issues were raised over visibility with the halo on ovals. “We have been striving to create a safety piece that aesthetically looks good and works in all conditions,” said IndyCar competitions boss Jay Frye. “Any piece we put on an IndyCar must work for multiple types of venues and different lighting conditions. It has to be versatile.” VAN DER ZANDE IN DRAGONSPEED LMP1 Sportscar ace Renger van der Zande has joined the DragonSpeed LMP1 team for the World Endurance Championship. The Dutchman joins Ben Hanley and Henrik Hedman in the team’s Dallara-built BR1. He will have…

JORGE LORENZO LAID DOWN A marker to his rivals in the Sepang MotoGP test last week, topping the times on the revised GP18 Ducati. The three-time champion, who endured a tough first season with Ducati last year, was quickest across the three days by a little under two tenths of a second from Honda duo Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow. Reigning champion Marc Marquez was seventh on his Honda, one place ahead of Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi. Lorenzo said the GP18 was “much closer” to his smooth, high-corner-speed riding style than its predecessor, and after going quickest on the final day added Ducati has a “big margin” to improve further. Rossi was seemingly flummoxed by his Yamaha’s relative lack of speed at the end of the test after an encouraging first…

McLaren says it is “very convinced” Renault is the right engine partner for 2018, but anything is better than what McLaren endured with Honda. Bolting in Renault engines is a quick fix and has prevented the team’s potential collapse, amid fears Fernando Alonso would walk away and morale would sink so low as to threaten McLaren’s careful reconstruction over the past few seasons. But this new venture is not without potential pitfalls. McLaren can no longer count on its engine partner to make specific allowances for its chassis. McLaren will bolt in whatever Renault provides and needs to work around the consequences. The major one concerns the different positioning of the Renault turbo and compressor arrangement compared to Honda, which sites the whole assembly at the back of the engine…

@ScottAutosport He can’t race these cars. He can drive them very fast, but he can’t race them. That is essentially how Jean-Eric Vergne was viewed as a Formula E driver until the very last race of last season, when he finally took his first win – 30 races after a debut pole position had amounted to nothing. The Montreal victory, which was built upon superb race management and execution, the perfect drive that Vergne hadn’t previously produced, changed the perception – but it wasn’t completely transformed. The problem is, in the early races of the 2017-18 season he was only on the periphery of the lead battle. That meant there was no validation of his Montreal success. Until last weekend, it looked like a one-off. On paper, at least. Then,…

@TalkingaboutF1 Much was new at the 2018 Race Of Champions. A new track layout; a new venue, the King Fahad International Stadium in Riyadh; and, indeed, a new region, as Saudi Arabia became the annual event’s first Middle Eastern host. There were new drivers too – more than half of those competing were making their first appearance in this most peculiar of get-togethers. E-racers were among them for the first time, as were several locals. But in the end it was experience that counted. In the Champion of Champions individuals’ contest the old hands beat the new guys time after time. Only one rookie survived to the semi-final – World Rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson. And the final was an old-hand face-off: ex-Formula 1 racer David Coulthard, in his 11th RoC…

A NUMBER OF RULE CHANGES INCLUDING reversed grids, development restrictions and a new category will be implemented in the FIA Masters Historic Formula 1 series this year. The top eight for the second race of the weekend will now be reversed and packers – used on the suspension to allow a car to get closer to the ground – will be banned on ground-effect cars. Drivers over 60 years old will also compete for a separate championship. “As the series has become more successful and more popular, we have now got a lot of young drivers coming to us,” said series organiser Ron Maydon. “I think we had four BRDC Rising Stars last year, so this [new] championship means even if you are not winning outright, you could still get…

BACK IN 1993, THE BBC BROADCAST a seven-part series entitled The Team: A Season With McLaren. It offered an insightful behind-the-scenes look at the Formula 1 squad during a dramatic campaign made all the more remarkable by the relative information-desert of the era compared with the access-all-areas reach of a social media world. A quarter of a century on, Grand Prix Driver is very much its successor, both spiritually and with its subject matter; albeit the off-form McLaren of the past few years rather than the powerhouse it was in the 1990s. But this does set the bar high for this four-episode Amazon Prime Video offering, which is available from today (Thursday). Focusing on 2017’s pre-season, this documentary confronts the struggles of McLaren and Honda head-on. In the first few…

FORMULA 1’S WEEKEND SCHEDULE HAS been given its biggest shake-up for years ahead of the 2018 campaign. The entire weekend timetable at European races, plus the Brazilian Grand Prix, will be shifted back in a bid to attract a larger television audience. F1 says that research has indicated a wider TV audience is reachable later in the afternoons, especially during the summer months. As a result, each practice and qualifying session and race at European grands prix, plus the race in Brazil, will start just over an hour later. Continental European races will begin at 3.10pm local time, allowing broadcasters to better incorporate the pre-race build-up if their programming starts on the hour. “Some broadcasters usually go on air precisely on the hour, hence missing the tension and emotion that…

ROB HUFF, GABRIELE TARQUINI and Norbert Michelisz are the latest big names to join the fray for the new World Touring Car Cup, as organisers report a fully subscribed 2018 grid. Huff, who raced a Munnich Motorsport Citroen in the last year of the old WTCC, has agreed a deal to race for Sebastien Loeb Racing in the WTCR, and will drive a Volkswagen Golf GTI that comes with a technical alliance with Volkswagen Motorsport. The Briton drove the same machinery in the TCR International Series last year, contesting six of the 10 rounds in support of WRT team-mate Jean-Karl Vernay’s successful title bid. He won one race in that time. Huff became WTCC champion in 2012 and has 29 victories to his name, but only six of those have…

GERARD WELTER, WHO HAS DIED aged 75, was the architect of a line of quirky specials that raced at the Le Mans 24 Hours over five decades. His WM and WR prototypes, built mostly in his garage by a team of part-timers, were designed more with headlines than results in mind. The WM GTP and Group C prototypes raced at Le Mans from 1976-89 with the aim of hitting the highest possible speed down a Mulsanne Straight then uninterrupted by chicanes. He returned in the ’90s under the Welter Racing banner with a series of lightweight open-top prototypes with the target of pole position. Welter would achieve both. The Peugeot-powered WMs were regularly the fastest things in a straight line at Le Mans, and one of his cars claimed a…

@autosport ALTHOUGH THEY WEREN’T SAYING ANYTHING FIRM at Daytona, it was clear from remarks by Fernando Alonso and Zak Brown that come June McLaren’s team leader would be on the grid at Le Mans. What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was that he would drive a Toyota in all non-clashing WEC races: at Fuji – a circuit owned by Toyota – they’re seeking a date change, for the US Grand Prix is scheduled the same weekend. In the manner of Pedro Rodriguez half a century ago, for Alonso a weekend without a race is a weekend lost. “I think,” said Brown, “Fernando would live in a race car if he could.” “I watch a grand prix up to about lap five, and then it gets a bit boring” If sundry problems…

@BenAndersonAuto “I think we’re fortunate that we have a very committed ownership base” It’s now been almost 20 years since McLaren last won a Formula 1 constructors’ championship. It’s been 10 years since it last won an F1 title of any description. Five full seasons have passed since this mighty British team last won a grand prix. That’s almost 100 races ago. Three seasons have gone by since one of its drivers legitimately stood on the podium. That is not the track record of a top team. In fact, for the past five years McLaren has been categorically mired in F1’s midfield, consistently misfiring in attempts to recapture past glories. One season of underachievement can be considered a blip; two a bump in the road; but how much momentum does…

Sebastian Vettel, Robert Kubica, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz Jr and Kevin Magnussen all graduated to Formula 1 without taking in the conventional final step on the ladder. To most the alternative route was known as World Series by Renault, although the French manufacturer, which heavily backed the series for a decade and offered free tickets to most of its events, preferred you to call it Formula Renault 3.5. As the centrepiece of the ‘World Series’ events, FR3.5 drivers enjoyed ample track time, although unlike GP2 it was arguably out of sight of the F1 teams by not running on grand prix weekends. But that became a virtue when F1-affiliated juniors flooded the grid for 2012, just as an updated, faster car was introduced. “F1 TEAMS CAUGHT ON TO FR3.5 AS…

LUCAS DI GRASSI WILL NOT CARE TO BE reminded that it’s meant to be easier to make a fast car reliable than a reliable car fast. If this racing cliche was ever to be disproved, the reigning champion’s terrible campaign should do it. Four races in and the Audi Sport Abt driver is the only full-time participant who has failed to score a point. His latest setback was a mirror of two previous problems: a loss of power and an on-track stoppage. And this after a “miracle” drive from 13th on the grid, following a 10-place penalty, back to the top five. “The fact we’re very unreliable at the moment is just really, really unbelievable,” he said. “To have so many issues consecutively, like that, it’s really frustrating because we…

IS THIS THE FUTURE? IF SO the Race Of Champions is embracing it. This year, for the first time, e-racers took on the professionals, on track. Enzo Bonito joined McLaren sim racer Rudy van Buren in the Nations Cup e-racers’ pairing. Van Buren then represented e-racers in the individual contest. They both have similar stories, since each one turned to gaming after failing to secure funding to progress through karts. On-track they never disgraced themselves; van Buren won three heats. In the Nations Cup he beat Lando Norris and then Joel Eriksson when the Swede crashed. In the individual competition he defeated double Le Mans winner and this year’s Nations Cup victor Timo Bernhard. The pair was embraced by the pros, drawing compliments from even the most prestigious. “I got some…

ASIAN LE MANS SERIES SEPANG (MAL) FEBRUARY 4 ROUND 4/4 THE JOTA SPORT-RUN JACKIE CHAN DC Racing claimed LMP2 honours in the Le Mans 24 Hours-qualifying Asian Le Mans Series after victory in the finale. Stephane Richelmi, Harrison Newey and Thomas Laurent took the win and the title, but they had to work hard for it. A battle with the sister Jackie Chan DC ORECA petered out when the Jazeman Jaafar-led all-Malaysian crew lost eight laps at the final pitstop with an alternator problem. Up to second came the BBT Ligier of Pipo Derani, Anthony Liu and Davide Rizzo. But this car only held onto the position by a few seconds as Marko Asmer, in the Eurasia Ligier qualified on pole by Nabil Jeffri and also driven by Jake Parsons,…

DARREN TURNER WILL BECOME THE fourth works Aston Martin World Endurance Championship driver competing for British GT3 glory in 2018. Le Mans GTE Pro winner Turner will co-drive a sole Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 with team boss, 2013 and 2015 British GT champion Andrew Howard. The team had been a fixture in British GT since 2006, but left the championship last season to concentrate on its European Le Mans Series effort. Turner has only contested one British GT event in his career – Silverstone in 2010 – sharing a DBRS9 with Howard. “I’m really excited to be doing British GT this year as it’s a completely new programme for me,” said Turner. “Andrew wanted to go back and have a shot at a third title as he loves the championship,…

NEW PT4 CLASS ADDED TO LMP3 CUP The LMP3 Cup has added a second class for this season, which is open to the new Ligier JSP4 (above) and Radical RXC. The new PT4 class will sit below the main LMP3 division and gives a place for the JSP4 – originally launched at Le Mans last year – to race. KNOCKHILL TO RUN IN REVERSE FOR TCR The Knockhill round of TCR UK will be held in the reverse direction of the track. The May 12-13 event will be the second time in the past year that the Scottish circuit has held a meeting with the track used in the opposite direction to usual; before then, the reverse layout hadn’t been used since the 1990s. EX-BTCC RACER JOINS NEW BMW SERIES…

ASTON MARTIN OWNERS CLUB Racing has opened up its GT Challenge series for 2018, inviting FIA GT4 cars from other marques of similar performance, plus sports and GT machines from 1995-2007, to share with the Aston Martin GT4 and N24s that form its headline class. The GT Challenge comprises five 50-minute pitstop races, with double-driver options. The calendar visits Oulton Park, Brands Hatch Indy, Donington Park, Snetterton and Silverstone National. “We believe this simple new format offers a perfect platform for Aston Martin GT4 competitors who enjoy thrilling class battles, while keeping the competitive door open to all GT car owners who wish to race on slicks without the pressure, time restraints or budget required for British GT or other semi-professional series,” said Duncan Wiltshire, whose Motor Racing Legends organisation…

THE WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP WILL use closed public roads in the UK for the first time in history at October’s Rally GB. The Welsh government has followed Westminster’s lead in allowing the MSA – British motorsport’s governing body – to grant permits for the suspension of the Road Traffic Act for competition. While the October 4-7 event won’t turn its back on the traditional forest-based format in favour of the lanes, changes are expected to the route. Rally GB managing director Ben Taylor was in Wales last week inspecting the route and admitted he’s excited about the potential for change. “It gives us the chance for a complete refresh of the route,” said Taylor. “Obviously it doesn’t change the stages we have on offer, but it definitely does change the…

ELECTRIC CARS ARE TO BECOME THE headline category in the World Rallycross Championship from 2020. Autosport broke the news last August that the FIA and WRX promotor IMG were working with a group of manufacturers on a plan to introduce electric cars into events from 2020, but a source has now revealed that the electric cars will replace the existing internal combustion-engined Supercars in the headline category that year. “Electric cars will absolutely, categorically be the world championship,” said the source. “Fifteen cars are required to begin in 2020. Nine different manufacturers have been engaged in the discussions and negotiations so far, but the ability to buy the required components and build a car has to be open to privateer teams if they want to go that way.” Autosport understands…

BTCC FOLK HERO JASON PLATO SAYS THAT BACKroom work by Team BMR will help him grab wins in his Subaru Levorg this year after re-signing for a fourth season with the title-winning team. Double champion Plato has been with the factory-backed programme since the Japanese firm joined the BTCC in 2015. He has scored just one win in each of the past two seasons, finishing 12th in the points last term, but the 50-year-old – who will partner reigning champion Ash Sutton – believes he can bounce back. “Last year was one of the worst of my life,” said Plato (above). “I’m a competitor, and I was unable to compete. We have looked long and hard at the data and we have found areas where we can improve. We have…

@KRT917 ABOUT BLOODY TIME. THE PRESENCE OF GRID GIRLS in motorsport has been an anachronism for what is supposed to be a cutting-edge sport for far too long. It’s been a few years since Autosport decided not to run pictures of grid girls in the magazine and, in truth, it’s a decision we should have made earlier. Even the World Endurance Championship’s laudable similar move in 2015 could be described as a decade or two too late. Fortunately, society’s attitudes towards (and treatment of) women have improved in recent years (albeit more slowly and less extensively than they should have done). And yet the pinnacle of motorsport, in which some of the most intelligent men and women in the world push technology forwards, has remained mired in old-style thinking in…

Retaining a star driver is vital to any team that wants to be taken seriously and stand any real chance of success. Stoffel Vandoorne is a potential star of the future, but still with much to learn after a trying first full F1 season. Fernando Alonso is McLaren’s man of the moment – a driver rated one of the absolute best on the grid (by Lewis Hamilton among others), and someone McLaren has done everything in its power to keep happy during its disastrous dalliance with Honda. Alonso was properly sold on the McLaren-Honda project, signing a three-year deal with no early-exit clauses. McLaren signed the double world champion to a new deal upon securing Renault engines for 2018, but Autosport understands Alonso’s contract is only guaranteed for this season,…

GEARBOX British motorsport tech specialist Ricardo supplied what Dye describes as “a very reliable, good product. Some components were good for 10,000 kilometres – you could do a full season on a crownwheel and pinion and set of ratios, no problem. There were a couple of teething issues at the start. It was more or less the same as on the old car, but it had DRS stuff bolted onto it. The DRS was really good for drivers learning how to use it.” Unlike other categories, the DRS set-up comprised a small gurney blocking the slot in the wing to stall it, with an IndyCar push-to-pass-style time limit on usage per race. ENGINE The Gibson-built V8 powerplant pushed out what Dye estimates to be “about 525 to 530bhp” – in…

BATHURST 12 HOUR MOUNT PANORAMA (AUS) FEBRUARY 4 INTERCONTINENTAL GT CHALLENGE, ROUND 1/4 THE ENDURANCE RACING CLICHE OF needing to be there at the end was in full swing at the Bathurst 12 Hour, as the WRT Audi crew flew under the radar to take a sensational win. It took the #37 R8 LMS a long time to emerge as a contender at Mount Panorama but, as the race ticked into the crucial final stint, it was Robin Frijns who found himself heading a depleted field. And, thanks to more than a little bit of good luck, Audi’s Dutch DTM new recruit turned that lead into victory for himself, fellow Blancpain GT Sprint Cup champion Stuart Leonard, and Dries Vanthoor. For much of the race, the smart money was on…

MRF CHALLENGE IRUNGATTUKOTTAI (IND) FEBRUARY 3-4 ROUND 4/4 BRAZILIAN FELIPE DRUGOVICH claimed the title last Saturday, then stamped his mark on the series with victory in both of Sunday’s races at the Madras Grand Prix. A fantastic opening lap carried Dutch teenager Rinus van Kalmthout from third into the lead of race one, and from then on the US-based racer pulled away. Drugovich put the pressure on second-placed Formula Renault Eurocup competitor Presley Martono, but the Indonesian held firm, while GP3 racer Julien Falchero claimed fourth. Sixth place in the reversed grid follow-up was enough for Drugovich – a star in German Formula 4 last year and who is graduating to Euroformula Open this season – to become champion. Singaporean Danial Frost led for much of the way, but ran…

BARRIE ‘WHIZZO’ WILLIAMS HAS ANNOUNCED his retirement from motor racing after an illustrious career spanning 60 years. Williams, who will be 80 in November, may be hanging up his helmet but he will remain involved in the sport through his roles with a number of clubs and organisations. “I’ve had a bloody good time racing,” he said. “It’s all I’ve ever really done and I’ve got huge memories. But I’ve got to be sensible. I still want to put something back into the sport that has given me so much.” His career in cars started at Prescott in the summer of 1957, after karting for several years. His first circuit race was at Rufforth on Easter Sunday ’60 in a Morris Minor. Williams competed in races, rallies, sprints and hillclimbs,…

Category rookie Michael Collins tightened his grip on the New Zealand Formula 5000 Tasman Revival Series crown with a perfect treble in Alistair Hey’s Leda LT27-originated McRae GM1 004 at last weekend’s Skope Classic festival at Ruapuna’s Mike Pero Motorsport Park. Jim Richards (above left) won the Archibald’s Historic Touring Car Series openers on both days in Peter Sturgeon’s glorious BMW 635, but North Canterbury motorcycle repair business owner Stu Rogers drove his self-built Nissan Skyline GTR superbly to trump the Aussie veteran in the afternoon races.…

LONG-TIME FORMULA FORD 2000 racer Jon Finch is to have his first crack at Classic Formula 3 racing this season, at the wheel of the full-history Ralt-Toyota RT1-27 that Gaudenzio Mantova and Roberto Manzoni raced in Italy in 1976. Finch has acquired the car in which Mantova finished third on its debut in the national championship at Magione and fourth at Casale and Monza before he switched back to a March 753. Andrew Hibberd had restored the car to original livery, with a fresh Swindon-built engine, to race himself, but is flat-out preparing other cars. URS’s Ken Thorogood will run it for Finch. “I plan to do the five UK Classic rounds and some European races including Zandvoort,” said Finch. The versatile Finch’s long racing career started in 1972, with…