Innehållsförteckning för 17/01/19 från Autosport

That the current Ferrari team can build a car good enough to win Formula 1 world championships is no longer in doubt. The SF70H could have won in 2017. The SF71H should have won in ’18. But other factors, such as operational errors and driver mistakes, mean that it’s now a decade since Ferrari’s last (constructors’) crown. Mattia Binotto (above) replacing Maurizio Arrivabene as team boss could be the final piece in the jigsaw. His technical success has illustrated his ability to get the best out of good people, which has arguably been Ferrari’s biggest weakness in recent years. As Edd Straw points out in our cover piece on page 16, Ferrari isn’t far away from toppling Mercedes. There are just some key areas it needs to look after in…

SUPER GT Do we like this? Yes! As well as Honda’s announcement of its 2019 programme (see left), the Tokyo Auto Salon last week also played host to the launch of a concept version of Toyota’s new Supra challenger for Super GT, which will race next year when the series officially ties in with the DTM’s new Class 1 rules. The switch back to the Toyota badge will come after 14 years of representation by the car giant’s luxury brand Lexus, which started in 2006. GT RACING There should be a contemporary Brabham out racing later this year for the first time since the 1992 demise of the Formula 1 team that carried the famous name. Brabham Automotive is aiming to start competing with its BT62 trackday car as it…

BTCC Three-time British Touring Car champion Matt Neal has said that knowledge gained with the new-shape FK8 Honda Civic Type R last season can help turn the Team Dynamics-built machine into a constant threat for the 2019 crown. Neal and team-mate Dan Cammish, who won two races in his rookie BTCC season last year, are back in the series for 2019 and have targeted improvements at circuits that were a struggle in ’18 in a bid for more consistency from the Civic. “There was a lot to learn and a lot to process,” said Neal. “We had some great results, but it didn’t always go well: there was fantastic speed in the car at certain events, but not at all of them. We’ve now got a year’s data with the…

TOYOTA RACING SERIES HIGHLANDS (NZ) JANUARY 12-13 ROUND ⅕ Liam Lawson stole the thunder from higher-profile rivals with a brilliant double win on his Toyota Racing Series debut at Highlands Motorsport Park. The 16-year-old Kiwi, who has runner-up slots in Australian and German Formula 4 on his CV, beat polesitter Raoul Hyman away from the lights in the opening race, and dominated in his M2 Competition car. Ferrari protege Marcus Armstrong had been fastest in qualifying but hadn’t seen yellow flags on his pole lap, and a three-place grid penalty relegated him to fourth. Armstrong latched on to second-placed Hyman, while DTM Mercedes refugee Lucas Auer closed in rapidly on the duo. Armstrong and Auer made it by to join Lawson on the podium. Lawson’s best drive came in the…

The first Autosport International without Henry Hope-Frost was always going to be extremely emotional for everyone he had worked with, inspired and entertained during his years as the Autosport Stage’s lead presenter, and it was only right that the show paid a suitably ‘fever’ tribute. Hope-Frost’s father Tim and son Oscar joined host Alan Hyde on stage as ASI 2019 honoured Henry, who died last year aged only 47, with memories and clips of classic moments from his career and the launch of a new journalism award in his name. Lucy Morson became the first recipient of the HHF Fever Award, which will be presented annually to the most promising member of the Autosport Academy training scheme. The winner receives a year’s paid internship on the Autosport newsdesk and will…

The Motorsport Industry Association conference that precedes Autosport International has been bringing together thought leaders from within the racing world, and from interested (and interesting) parties outside it, for more than a decade. It presaged the arrival of ‘alternative’ fuels that led to the turbodiesel domination of Le Mans and other races, and heralded the need for the move to low-carbon motorsport. Formula E’s remarkable growth has demonstrated the wisdom of that. So, the choice of topic for this year’s conference should have pricked the ears of governing bodies and rights holders – the vital link between motorsport and entertainment. “WHY HAS IT TAKEN THIS LONG TO APPLY A DATA - DRIVEN APPROACH?” For many, the notion that sport needs to be perceived as entertaining is an affront. But the…

VNUK The future of motorsport competition could be decided next week when a vote within the European Union will help to decide the implementation of the Vnuk insurance ruling. The legal case known as Vnuk led the European court to determine that the Motor Insurance Directive was being implemented incorrectly, and that all vehicles – even on private land – must have third-party insurance. For grassroots motorsport participants this could add a potentially catastrophic level of cost. Conservative MEP Dan Dalton sits on the European Parliament’s internal market committee, which is currently discussing his suggested amendment to the revised Motor Insurance Directive. Dalton’s putative amendment would in effect exclude motorsport events from the requirement for vehicles on private land to have third-party insurance. If a vote within the committee on…

GINETTA JUNIORS Ex-Formula 1 driver Martin Donnelly and former single-seater team owner Jonathan Lewis have teamed up again to set up a Ginetta Junior squad named Apollo Motorsport. The duo have worked together in a 1990s Formula Vauxhall Lotus/Junior programme before Lewis ran the works Van Diemen Formula Ford team. Now Lewis, who has also achieved success in Mini racing, and Donnelly (above right) plan to run four cars in Ginetta Junior this season. “We want to use the experience and knowledge we have together and have decided to set up the team, although the juniors probably don’t even know me and Jonathan from back in the day!” said Donnelly. “We looked at what was available, what was affordable and what was doable. And Ginetta Junior is the same thing…

BOOK REVIEW WAITING RRP £30.00 “I believe that’s the humanity I was trying to preserve back then; all the laughs, the luck and the laments, with images that tell their story,” writes photographer Richard Kelley in the introduction to his book Waiting. “It was an immense privilege to have had that chance.” From 1972 through to ’84, in what he dubs as ‘The Golden Age’ of Formula 1, Kelley attended the United States Grand Prix each year. While there, he set about capturing the more emotional side of F1 – showing the drivers’ “stories”, as he puts it, through his cinematic use of black and white photography. This book is the culmination of that work and contains more than 300 photos. Kelley demonstrates he was not aiming to capture photos…

The four-wheel-drive Porsche 911 SC RS (also know as a 953) of Jacky Ickx and co-driver Claude Brasseur is framed by the north-west African flora on the route of the 1984 Paris-Dakar Rally, which had been extended through Ivory Coast, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Mauritania. Ickx’s car, which finished sixth, was one of three entered by Porsche for its first attack on the gruelling enduro. His team-mates Rene Metge and Dominique Lemoyne won the event, and the Roland Kussmaul/Erich Lerner 911, which had acted chiefly as a support car, was 26th.…

FORMULA 1 McLaren has completed the management overhaul that it hopes will steer it back to prominence in Formula 1 with the capture of ex-Porsche LMP1 chief Andreas Seidl. The British team is the second most successful in F1 history, but has not won since Jenson Button took victory in the 2012 season finale or got a driver onto the podium since Kevin Magnussen and Button scored a two-three in the ’14 opener. McLaren expected to challenge for podiums following its switch to Renault engines last season, after three years of pain with Honda, but the performance of its MCL33 was disappointing. Since racing chief Eric Boullier left at the start of last summer, McLaren has made a number of major changes, culminating last week in Seidl joining as managing…

FORMULA E Come to a one-day race event, see 22 top-level drivers do battle in what was a brilliant spectacle, get to witness exactly how some of the most contentious issues of the contest are adjudicated. That’s not a ‘punishment’. That’s pretty much how the howling Twitter mob greeted the news that Red Bull Formula 1 bad boy Max Verstappen would spend last Saturday at the ABB FIA Formula E Championship race in Marrakech. To a certain extent they were not wrong. But the FIA, which made Verstappen travel to Morocco to serve one day of the public service he was slapped with for shoving Esteban Ocon after the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix, was keen to highlight that this was about education rather than saying FE was the place to…

WRC When Marcus Gronholm starts Rally Sweden in a Toyota Yaris WRC next month at the age of 51, he has one more chance to make World Rally Championship history. If the Finn – who will drive a privately entered Yaris run by Toyota Gazoo Racing – wins, he will move ahead of Stig Blomqvist to become the most successful driver in Rally Sweden’s WRC history. Two-time world champion Gronholm has won his favourite event five times. While a record-breaking sixth is a mighty long shot, it’s not long before he mentions the preferable position on the road that will be afforded him by missing the Monte Carlo Rally. And, let’s not forget, he’s driving the fastest rally car in the world. “This is about me enjoying my birthday present…

Grand prix racing’s looming existential issue What a dilemma F1 faces… It would appear it’s stuck with the unloved hybrid turbo engines for the foreseeable future despite their anaemic sound, complexity, cost and weight. It is understandable in light of the cost to develop alternative power units – and, at least, they are known and reliable. Hybrid F1 engines were developed to be ‘green’, fuel efficient and to lead the way for road engines. Ironically this is a complete dead end as the hybrid engine for road use is just a temporary sideshow between petrol/diesel engines and electric (whether battery, fuel cell or something else). Hybrids will die out as road-engine options even quicker than they appeared due to their complexity and cost, being ‘neither fish nor fowl’. When most…

Mattia Binotto’s promotion to Ferrari team principal as replacement for Maurizio Arrivabene could be interpreted as a kneejerk reaction to yet another failure by the team to win the Formula 1 World Championship. In an era when stability has paid such dividends for Mercedes, some may question why Ferrari has once again appeared to fiddle rather than focus on the small improvements it needs to turn its promise into championship trophies. But to understand why the move has been made, it’s important to realise that, away from the race victories and championship challenges Ferrari has mounted in recent years, it has found itself severely lacking in several areas – particularly in the way the racing team was being run. In the end, those factors highlighted that change and a new…

DUBAI 24 (24H SERIES) DUBAI (UAE) JANUARY 11 ROUND 1/7 The Car Collection Motorsport Audi R8 LMS driven by Dirk Parhofer, Christopher Haase, Frederic Vervisch and Rik Breukers earned a dominant victory in the Dubai 24 Hours last weekend. Its closest challenger for much of the running was the Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 shared by Luca Stolz, Khaled Al Qubaisi, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Ben Keating and Manuel Mezger. The five-driver car kept in close attendance until a broken front-right suspension arm dropped it out of contention. That meant only during the pitstop phases did the lead Audi squad relinquish its first place on the road. After 607 laps in charge the #88 car brought home the manufacturer’s second Dubai 24 Hours win. Audi previously triumphed in 2016. The sister R8 LMS…

Ferrari made the “wrong decision” picking Mattia Binotto to replace Maurizio Arrivabene as its Formula 1 team principal, says Autosport technical consultant Gary Anderson. Binotto took charge of Ferrari’s engine programme after its dismal performance at the start of F1’s V6-turbo-hybrid era in 2014. He was then promoted to a role as overall technical chief in mid-2016 as part of an overhaul instigated by then-president and CEO Sergio Marchionne. Ferrari has since produced two cars capable of fighting for wins on a regular basis, although errors from the team and Sebastian Vettel last season meant its title bid unravelled. Speaking in a special ‘live edition’ of the Autosport Podcast on stage at Autosport International, former Jordan technical chief Anderson said: “Binotto is someone who has been very good at being…

The lights might be lowered in the Live Action Arena, but this is the area of Autosport International where the senses are truly heightened. With no car was that more apparent than 2018 British Rallycross champion Mark Higgin’s Peugeot 208: the pops and bangs bounced off the hall walls while the smell of burning rubber and fuel hung in the air. After a 20-second countdown to crank up the anticipation, this year’s edition began with a video of hosts David Croft and Miss Emma Walsh attempting to steal a McLaren Formula 1 car to unload into the arena and act as the show’s centrepiece. But when they found their trailer to be empty, YouTuber Shmee150 entered the stage in his new McLaren Senna hypercar and revealed he had made alternative…

If a picture paints a thousand words, then the 23million images that comprise the Motorsport Images archive are the most comprehensive library of the history of the sport ever assembled. This was showcased with a popular stand at Autosport International, displaying some of the most famous motorsport images. The big question is how the selection was whittled down to just a handful of beautifully reproduced images, given that the whole of the Birmingham NEC could have been filled by this display… On approaching the Motorsport Images stand, the picture that catches your eye is Steven Tee’s famous shot of the Benetton pitlane fire at the 1994 German Grand Prix. This sits in the corner of the stand focusing on LAT Images, and its violence is a contrast to the beautiful…

FORMULA ATLANTIC The Formula Atlantic class could field its first standalone race on Welsh soil when the Historic Sports Car Club visits Anglesey on July 13-14. Prime mover in the revival is Iain Rowley, owner of the ex-Howdy Holmes March 79B and co-founder with Alan Morgan of the Historic Formula Ford 2000 category, which has flourished under the HSCC’s wing since 2007. “The potential of Atlantics, with fixed-spec engines developing up to 215bhp, has been demonstrated in the Historic F2 series, which is now booming,” said Rowley. “But too many still lie dormant. Dedicated races will give these fantastic cars a chance to shine once again. Several are currently under preparation and 12 to 15 at Anglesey would be a great start.” Originated as an affordable version of F2, which…

SALOON CAR CUP The Super Touring Trophy has been revamped and renamed the Dunlop Saloon Car Cup, and will now feature a wider range of racing saloons from 1970 through to 2006. The Historic Sports Car Club series will feature three distinct groups of saloon and touring cars – Group 1, Group A and Super Touring/S2000, each with a dedicated podium – and will take in eight races at four historic racing festivals. The earlier up-to-1982 Group 1 cars will be able to run on slicks or treaded tyres, with all cars on Dunlop rubber. The HSCC’s Andy Dee-Crowne said: “I am delighted to unveil the Dunlop Saloon Car Cup. It will be home to a fabulous array of period racing saloon and touring cars and we are keen to…

STAT 514 points in maiden K&N Pro Series West season Last year, Kevin Harvick made a cameo at California’s Kern County for the season-opening K&N Pro Series West race – effectively the final stock car tier before joining the third-level NASCAR Trucks series on the way up to the flagship Cup championship. Late in the race, Harvick found a better exit onto the oval’s back straight and shot to the inside of the #19 Toyota Camry. Quick thinking from the Camry’s driver, Hailie Deegan, allowed her to cut across the bow of Harvick, with the 2014 Cup champion nudging back. Harvick eventually finished fourth in a race won by Derek Kraus, but the attention was firmly on the seventh-placed Toyota, as driven by 17-year-old Deegan in what was just her…

WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN? WHO IS THIS? This crowd-pleasing trailblazer plumbed the lowest lows and scaled the highest heights before coming up short against a familiar foe. He was a little gem in the early days, but it was only when given the chance to join a proven winner that he came to prominence. National success led to international outings and he starred around some ancient ruins. Despite lack of factory support he conquered the world, but the sands were shifting and he had only half the drive needed. A move into the lion’s den brought instant and sustained success until it was brought to a sudden and devastating stop. After a long absence he took on the most gruelling challenge and prevailed, and danced his way to the sun…

SUPER GT/SUPER FORMULA Jenson Button will bid for a second consecutive Super GT title in Japan this season with Honda, after the manufacturer as usual became the first of the country’s ‘big three’ motorsport marques to announce its full racing programme for the season ahead. Button will remain in the Team Kunimitsu NSX alongside Honda’s top gun of domestic racing, Naoki Yamamoto, who gained most of the credit for the duo’s success in 2018, the Briton’s rookie season in Japan. They spearhead a Honda line-up that is largely unchanged from last year in the Super GT category. But that’s certainly not the case in the single-seater Super Formula series, where the Tokyo Auto Salon announcement revealed that not a single Honda driver remains with the team with which they raced…

Ferrari has not won a Formula 1 title in the past 10 seasons. But for the fact that the team has a history of lean spells between its glory years – notably the 15 fallow campaigns between its 1983 and ’99 constructors’ successes – you’d reckon it unthinkable for a team of this size and fame to go so long without clinching the ultimate prize. But Ferrari is a uniquely challenging beast. The recent decision to axe Maurizio Arrivabene from his role of team principal after four campaigns, with former chief technical officer Mattia Binotto replacing him, is the price for a relative lack of success. It was the right decision, for it wasn’t simply the lack of results that did for Arrivabene, but the impact he had on the…

In two alternative universes, Jean-Eric Vergne and Antonio Felix da Costa left Marrakech possessing a pair of victories from the opening two rounds of the 2018-19 ABB FIA Formula E Championship. In our actual universe, they are locked together on 28 points in joint second place in the standings, and each left Marrakech rueing a costly mistake that helped define a brilliant, action-packed and unpredictable race in the shadow of the Atlas mountains won by the Mahindra of Jerome d’Ambrosio. Reigning champion Vergne, sporting a striking buzzcut for the new calendar year, had arrived in Marrakech still smarting from the regen software error that cost him an almost-certain win in the season opener in Riyadh. The pace advantage enjoyed by the DS Techeetah driver and team-mate Andre Lotterer in that…

DAKAR RALLY (INTERIM REPORT) LIMA–SAN JUAN DE MARCONA (PE) JANUARY 7-13 Nasser Al-Attiyah took control of the 2019 Dakar Rally after six stages, putting Toyota on the cusp of a milestone first victory in the gruelling enduro. The Qatari rally-raid ace, who has already won the Dakar in 2011 with a Volkswagen and in ’15 with a Mini, headed into this year’s Peru-exclusive 10-stage route as the favourite after Peugeot shuttered its all-conquering works programme. By topping two of the first six stages, and minimising time losses against the respective pacesetters on the other days, Al-Attiyah and his co-driver Mathieu Baumel established a sizeable advantage over the chasing pack. The opening two days of the event were closely contested. A promisingly tight battle appeared to be developing between the Toyota…

McLaren’s all-new Formula 1 driver line-up of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr, along with team boss Zak Brown, were among the headline guests to launch proceedings at Autosport International 2019 last week. At the recommendation of six-time World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier, the show also played host to the official launch of the WRC season in front of a capacity crowd on the Saturday. But it’s the rich tapestry of other attractions that really makes Autosport International a fantastically compelling way to kick off the racing season. The cavernous halls of the Birmingham NEC also housed celebrations of the Mini’s 60th anniversary and half a century of Formula 5000 on UK shores. New chapters in motorsport history added further intriguing themes as the W Series made its public debut…

Citroen team principal Pierre Budar has said his team has to win the 2019 World Rally Championship after acquiring the services of six-time world champion Sebastien Ogier. The team has not won a WRC title since the full-time exit of Sebastien Loeb at the end of the 2012 season, during which period it has triumphed on only seven rallies. Ogier won the 2017 and ’18 world titles with M-Sport but has moved back to his former team. Uncertainty over Ford’s investment into M-Sport prompted his departure. “We have to win, of course we are here for that,” Budar said during the launch of this year’s WRC at the Autosport International Show. We start the season with this goal, and with this driver line-up we have very good reason to think…

Shaun Arnold demonstrated his credentials as one of the fiercest competitors in the Le Mans Esports Series with a third qualifier victory. He won a thrilling two-hour race on the Sunday of Autosport International and scooped the biggest share of the available $10,000 prize fund in the process. As fans flocked around the stage, polesitter Arnold stamped his authority on the race ahead of Forza specialist Tobin Leigh and Williams Esports driver Isaac Price. Arnold was making his debut for the new gaming team JOTA Esports, run in association with the Jackie Chan DC Racing LMP2 team that competes in the World Endurance Championship. “It was a good, fun race – I really enjoyed it,” Arnold told Autosport. “Playing in front of hundreds of people is a little different to…

Autosport would like to thank all the drivers, team bosses, designers and industry specialists, who generously gave us their time, for their valued contributions to this year’s show. We would like to give special appreciation to show openers Zak Brown, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz Jr, Karun Chandhok, Johnny Herbert and Billy Monger, plus Ferrari, Haas, McLaren, Mercedes, Racing Point, Red Bull Racing, Renault Sport, Williams Racing and Aston Martin. The World Rally Championship provided an exciting launch on Saturday and our gratitude also goes to the Citroen, Hyundai, M-Sport and Toyota World Rally teams. Thanks also to Image Innovations, Network Productions, Zee FX and Waltham Services for their work on the Live Action Arena. Finally, our thanks to the tireless Autosport International production team for its amazing work in putting…

RENAULT UK CLIO CUP Renault UK Clio Cup title contender Max Coates will remain in the series this year after entering a new partnership with British Touring Car squad Team Hard. Coates headed the standings for much of the 2018 season driving for Team Pyro, but ultimately fell to third behind Paul Rivett and James Dorlin. He had targeted a move into the BTCC for 2019 but, after being unable to find a seat, instead aims to become the final Clio champion, as the series will be scrapped at the end of this season. “We said all along what we wanted to do was touring cars,” said Coates. “I would’ve loved to have done that, but I also really enjoy racing in the Clio Cup. We’ve got to be aiming…

BIKESPORTS Mittell Cars is moving up to the 750 Motor Club’s Bikesports series this year after creating a new machine for the category. The MC-41R broke cover for the first time at Autosport International last week, and has been developed by Scott Mittell along with his father Ian. The established team has had great success in the 750MC’s RGB Sports 1000 series, winning the championship in 2015 and finishing runner-up in ’17. The new venture has been prompted by the scope offered by the Bikesports regulations. “It [Bikesports] is a brilliant category – there’s a lot more freedom in it compared with RGB,” says Mittell Jr, who will drive the new car this season. “The tight restrictions and things like that in RGB do make for great racing, but from…

BRITISH GT British Formula 4 graduate Seb Priaulx has said that the prospect of becoming a professional driver was too good to turn down after signing a deal to race a Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT4 in British GT this season. The 17-year-old showed flashes of promise in his first season of single-seaters in British F4 last year with TRS Arden, finishing seventh in the standings with two wins. But now he has decided to follow his father Andy, a multiple World Touring Car champion, into sportscar racing, and confirmed the move after impressing team boss Larry Holt in a test at Snetterton. “I see a very bright future in Multimatic, Ford and in GT racing – it’s a great step for me to be a professional driver,” said Priaulx,…

BRSCC The British Racing and Sports Car Club will run a special Caterham endurance race at Silverstone at the start of this season. The four-hour Caterham Motorsport Team Enduro will take place on the National circuit on March 16 and is open to Roadsport, 270R and 310R models. To establish a level playing field, drivers will be graded based on their finishing position in past seasons and each team’s driver grading total will have to match a pre-determined score. “We wanted to give them an opportunity to get rid of the winter rust,” said BRSCC chairman Peter Daly. “It’s something we’ve been looking to do for a few years. It’s an opportunity for drivers moving up a series to race their new cars.” There will also be saloon car and…