Innehållsförteckning för 23/04/20 från Autosport

There have been many great Formula 1 races, but attention tends to be focused on the 1018 events that have counted for the world championship since it began in 1950. That excludes hundreds of races that took place in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This week we have decided to celebrate the non-championship F1 races (see page 18), two of the most famous of which – the Brands Hatch Race of Champions and Silverstone BRDC International Trophy (p22) – used to take place at this time of year. Some of these contests were only discernible from world championship grands prix by the lack of points after the chequered flag. And in the early days of F1, that was less of a concern than you might think. Not only were some…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 officials remain hopeful of getting the 2020 season under way behind closed doors in Europe this summer, but doubts still linger over where and when it will be possible. The COVID-19 pandemic has already forced the opening nine races of the season to be called off, while grands prix in France (28 June) and Belgium (30 August) are expected to face a similar fate. This has left the Austrian Grand Prix, scheduled for 5 July at the Red Bull Ring, as the provisional season opener. The Austrian government confirmed last week it “did not want to stand in the way” of running the race behind closed doors in Spielberg, but that anyone entering the country to work at the race would have to adhere to strict…

WEC/SPA 24 HOURS The World Endurance Championship has adopted a wait-and-see approach to its rescheduled Spa round on 15 August. The series has insisted that it is still going ahead with preparations for the event, despite an extension on the ban on mass gatherings in Belgium until 31 August. The Spa 24 Hours (above) blue-riband of the GT World Challenge Europe was postponed from 26-27 July to a so-far unspecified date within hours of the latest directive from the Belgian government last week, but a WEC spokesperson said the following day that no decision on its fixture would be made in the short term. “We are still planning to hold our race in August,” she said. “We will know more in a couple of months and release more details then.”…

While non-championship races have long since left the schedules for Formula 1 teams, the category did recently consider the possibility of adding extra point-less events to the calendar as a way of experimenting with weekend formats. Back in spring 2017, when Liberty Media’s tenure as F1’s owner had barely begun, newly installed F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn discussed the idea of adding non-championship races. But there was a catch – as there always is – with costs. “It needs to be commercially viable, of course, and that’s the challenge,” Brawn told Reuters during that year’s pre-season testing at Barcelona. “Again, it couldn’t just be ‘pick ideas out of a hat’. It needs to be properly thought through, but may be an opportunity.” The idea hasn’t really come back into the…

For modern fans of Formula 1, it could be hard to imagine that there used to be a rich calendar of races outside of the world championship. For nearly four decades, F1 cars, teams and drivers have competed exclusively for points, but things were very different in the category’s first quarter of a century. When F1 (originally known as Formula A) began in the late 1940s, the world championship had yet to arrive, so each race was fought over for its own sake – and prize money. Indeed, even when world title considerations arrived in 1950, there were still many more F1 races outside of it than in it. Aside from the anomalous Indianapolis 500s, which counted for points in the 1950-60 seasons, the championship comprised just six races. There…

1973 10 BRDC International Trophy Silverstone Snow is not normally associated with F1, but it was a key element in the outcome of the 25th International Trophy at Silverstone. Autosport was moved to comment on the competitiveness of the best of the 16 stock-block F5000 machines that shared the grid with 13 F1 cars, but it was the three-litre thoroughbreds that led the way. Poleman Emerson Fittipaldi’s Lotus suffered clutch failure off the line, leaving team-mate Ronnie Peterson in front. But Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell outbraked the Swede into Stowe on lap two and started to pull away – until he atypically spun at Becketts. That put Peterson back in front, as Stewart mounted a charge from sixth position. He scythed through to second and, on his softer tyre compound, caught…

Derek Warwick was one of Peugeot’s main rivals in 1991, driving the goalpost-moving Jaguar XJR-14. Indeed, had it not been for a team blunder that denied him the points for victory at Silverstone, he would have won the Sportscar World Championship that year. Warwick did achieve that accolade with Jean Todt’s Peugeot team in 1992 alongside Yannick Dalmas but, like his engineer Tim Wright, he recalls that a lot of work had to be done to make it happen. He had already decided to switch to the French manufacturer even before Jaguar’s withdrawal from the category. “The move was going to happen anyway,” recalls Warwick. “Jean was already talking to me. We stalled because of money, like all racing drivers! I showed him my Jaguar contract and we ended up…

FORMULA E RACE AT HOME CHALLENGE MONACO (MCO) 18 APRIL NON-CHAMPIONSHIP Maximilian Guenther was untouchable in the pre-season round of Formula E’s Race at Home Challenge race. The BMW driver blitzed qualifying and retained a comfortable 1s cushion over Stoffel Vandoorne for the duration of the 15-lap contest that ran in support of UNICEF. Guenther held a comfortable 0.4s margin over Mercedes pilot Vandoorne in the shootout for pole, and together they ran away unchallenged around a virtual Monaco FE circuit. Such was their command, and despite all competitors using equal machinery and fixed set-ups, the duo wound up 10s clear of Porsche’s Andre Lotterer, who claimed the final podium spot. The race seemed to pivot around reigning series champion Jean-Eric Vergne. Having lined up fourth on the grid, he…

HISTORICS The all-time most successful AC Cobra drag car is to be race prepared by the Jordan Racing Team and is expected to compete in the 2021 Goodwood Revival. One of three cars to be modified to ‘Dragonsnake’ specification, chassis CSX 2093 was built in 1963 and set National Hot Rod Association records in the US across four classes, and won seven events plus the 1967 World Championship. Such was its success over the works drag racing Cobras that it led to Carroll Shelby withdrawing his factory support of the project. JRT, formed by British Touring Car Championship race-winning father-and-son pairing Mike and Andrew Jordan, has been commissioned to prepare the car to pre-1963 GT standards, most notably for competition in the Kinrara Trophy at the Goodwood Revival. “It’s quite…

BIKESPORTS Former RGB and Radical Clubman’s Cup race winner Martin Brooks is set to return to competition this season after six years away. Brooks last raced in 2014, but will now contest a campaign in the Bikesports series once the season can get under way after coronavirus restrictions are lifted. He will race a Radical PR6 run by RJ Motorsport – the squad operated by Brooks’s old RGB rival Josh Smith. “I missed the competitive edge of it all and I’ve done trackdays with some friends, but I miss the mental exercise of thinking about cars and racing,” said Brooks. “I’ve been window-shopping for a long time and got in touch with a few people about cars and what to race in. It came back to RGB or Bikesports –…

It sounds like a large number. When governing body Motorsport UK announced earlier this month that it had prepared a £1million continuity fund to help struggling clubs through the difficult financial situation posed by the coronavirus pandemic, it was clearly very welcome news. It showed decisive action from the sport’s leaders in this country – there was certainly no sitting on hands as the funding application process was put together very quickly, and the first meeting to hear emergency cases is due to take place this week. And it was reassuring, too, for clubs and competitors to see that the governing body is prepared to step in during these unpredictable times. But the announcement was accompanied by another large number. There are 720 motor clubs in this country. Therefore, if…

Future Formula 1 team boss Giancarlo Minardi signed a deal with Ferrari for his Scuderia Everest outfit to run a car in non-championship F1 races in 1976 to promote young Italian talent. Here, Giancarlo Martini (uncle of Minardi F1 go-to driver Pierluigi) is en route to a lapped 10th place in the International Trophy at Silverstone; a better result than his previous effort in the Race of Champions, when he crashed his 312T – the same chassis used by Clay Regazzoni to win the non-championship 1975 Swiss Grand Prix at Dijon – in the warm-up. For classic 1970s Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/F1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

FORMULA E Formula E was quick to respond to what was, at the time, the coronavirus threat. In February it became the first major motorsport series to officially postpone a race, when its return to Sanya in China was halted. But as the threat grew into a global pandemic, the Rome E-Prix and an inaugural event in Indonesian capital Jakarta became casualties in quick succession. Days later, and against a backdrop of an eleventh-hour cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix, FE announced a two-month suspension to the 2019-20 season. That break, which put paid to the chances of a maiden Seoul E-Prix and the Paris race, should have continued until the end of April. But last week, with minimal lifts on travel bans and many territories still in lockdown, FE…

FORMULA 1 McLaren has agreed a monitoring process with the FIA for its switch to Mercedes Formula 1 engines next year to ensure it does not make performance changes. The team’s plan to move from Renault to Mercedes power in 2021 has been complicated in the wake of a decision by Formula 1 to roll over this year’s cars to next season because of the coronavirus crisis. Teams will have to homologate much of their current cars, but McLaren has been given special dispensation to make some chassis changes because it is the only team that plans to switch engines. Speaking during a teleconference last week, McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl said the circumstances of fitting a different engine into the current car meant there would be compromises. But with…

MOTORSPORT UK The head of British motorsport’s governing body has said that the sport must seek to regain its relevance when it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic crisis. Speaking exclusively in the latest in Autosport’s series of #thinkingforward podcasts, Motorsport UK chairman David Richards said: “Motorsport historically over the last 100 years has led the way in so many different areas. It’s led the way in developing new technologies for car manufacturers, it’s acted as a wonderful marketing platform for car manufacturers, it’s had a lot of relevance and interest from young people from a whole raft of different aspects, and we’ve drifted away from that. “In perhaps the last 20 years, at the senior level of the sport, the focus has become around entertainment and less so about driving…

The Boxing Day meeting at Brands Hatch was a beacon of motorsport excitement between the 1950s and 1970s, and this writer even remembers watching it on one of our three television channels as a kid. So the prospect of the British motorsport season being extended in the wake of the coronavirus crisis got this now middle-aged mind into a tantalising whirl of anticipation. ‘What if the British Touring Car Championship finale was held just after Christmas at Brands?’ I wondered. Autosport’s subsequent conversation with Motorsport UK chairman David Richards last week in the latest in our series of #thinkingforward interviews did little to quell such thoughts. On the subject of running the mainstream sporting calendar (as opposed to the odd winter event) up to Christmas, Richards responded: “As the governing…

The 1980 season was marred by the war between FISA/FIA and the Formula One Constructors’ Association for control of Formula 1. Things came to a head around the Spanish Grand Prix on 1 June. The trigger was the fines imposed by FISA on certain drivers for missing pre-race briefings at Zolder and/or Monaco, which FOCA opposed. FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre said the race at Jarama would not be FISA sanctioned unless all fines were paid, so the Royal Automobile Club of Spain, with the support of FOCA, decided to run the Spanish GP outside of the auspices of FISA. Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Renault – the FISA-aligned teams – withdrew, but everyone else started. It turned into a race of attrition. From fourth, Carlos Reutemann’s Williams jumped into the lead…

He misread the room, it is fair to say. Britain’s racing establishment had gathered at the RAC Club on Pall Mall to celebrate its first world champions: Mike Hawthorn and Vanwall, and Cooper’s rear-engined breakthrough; French party poopers, therefore, beware. Yet Augustin Perouse, President of the Commission Sportive Internationale, the sporting arm of the FIA, blundered on. Brushing aside the invited viewpoints of Hawthorn and Stirling Moss, plus those of team bosses Tony Vandervell and Charlie Cooper, his announcement of a Formula 1 of reduced power (1500-1300cc normally aspirated) and increased weight (500kg minimum) for 1961 went down like a loose spanner in the footwell. There were reasonable arguments for change – the 2.5-litre formula had been in situ since 1954 and the category was clearly on the cusp of…

5 TALBOT-LAGO GS T26 Not many cars have scored success in grand prix racing and at Le Mans, but the 1950 winner of the 24 Hours bore more than a vague resemblance to the Talbot-Lagos that chased the Alfa Romeos in Formula 1. GP racer Louis Rosier was in the mix from the start and had moved ahead even before Raymond Sommer’s Ferrari hit trouble. Aside from a brief break when son Jean-Louis took over, Rosier drove all the way. 4 RONDEAU M379B Local hero Jean Rondeau managed the unique achievement of winning Le Mans in a car bearing his own name in 1980. His team had built several cars in the late 1970s, but it was the Cosworth DFV-engined M379B that got the job done. Sharing with 1978 winner…

VIRTUAL GRAND PRIX SHANGHAI (CHN) 19 APRIL ROUND 3 Ferrari star Charles Leclerc took his second successive Virtual Grand Prix victory, beating Red Bull’s Alexander Albon in the latest round of Formula 1’s sim racing series. Leclerc dominated on his debut two weeks ago at Albert Park, but Albon provided the much-needed competition this time around at a virtual Shanghai. Leclerc took pole, and would have been joined by George Russell had the Williams driver not picked up a five-place grid penalty for illegal blocking. This promoted Albon onto the front row alongside his former GP3 title adversary Leclerc. Albon successfully undercut Leclerc, but Leclerc barged his way back past into Turn 1 on the 11th of 29 laps with a forceful move. Leclerc touched the grass and banged wheels…

BRITISH GT The British GT Championship could run its season-opening round at Spa in July behind closed doors, among a raft of measures to get its campaign under way. Following the coronavirus-induced postponement of its first four rounds, British GT was due to begin at Spa on 18-19 July, but this was thrown into doubt when Belgium’s prime minister announced last week that all mass events would be prohibited until the end of August. In response, the SRO Group that organises British GT postponed the Spa 24 Hours, which was scheduled to run one week after British GT. Championship manager Lauren Granville told Autosport the series was awaiting “further clarification from the Belgian authorities” before following suit. “A behind-closed-doors event might be possible in theory, but there are many other…

ESPORTS An opening-lap clash between race leaders Marcus Littlewood and Joe Fowler handed Lewis Bickers the win in the senior class of the Motorsport UK Karting Esports Championship last week. In association with Motorsport Games, Kart Sim, and Alpha Live, UK motorsport’s governing body organised an Easter Esports Series to act as a prelude to a full season of competition. Motorsport UK licence holders under the age of 12 made up the first class, with licence holders over the age of 12 in another category. The third and final class was open to all over the age of 12, regardless of their real-life karting credentials. Bickers dominated the final race of the senior licence holders after poleman Littlewood collided with Fowler in the Mike Wilson complex of the PF International…

“This couldn’t really have happened at a worse time,” says Ken Davies, chairman of the Castle Combe Racing Club. There is never a good time for a pandemic to strike the world but, with Motorsport UK suspending event permits just days before the circuit-racing season was due to begin, it has made the situation especially difficult for organising clubs. “What some people don’t realise is a racing club has a six-month window to generate all of its income and then a six-month period where it has to live on what it’s been able to generate,” explains Davies. “All revenue stops until racing starts again the next April.” So this year, instead of the difficult winter time for clubs lasting from November until April, it will continue until at least July…

The 11 seasons during which the world sportscar championship was run to Group C regulations is now revered as one of the golden eras of endurance racing. But spectacular cars from Porsche, Lancia, Jaguar, Sauber and many more make it easy to forget that things didn’t start quite so promisingly. The first Group C race, held at Monza this week in 1982, was almost won by a car from a different class. Given the struggling state of sportscar racing and the new rules, the sport’s governing body allowed cars built to Group 6 rules to compete. The idea was to allow older machines to bolster the grid, but Lancia took the opportunity to build its new LC1 to take advantage of the situation – and run without the fuel-limit concerns…

FORMULA E Formula E and the FIA have announced revised regulations amid the coronavirus crisis to slash costs for teams following a unanimous World Motor Sport Council e-vote. Manufacturers will now only be able to modify powertrain components once over the next two seasons as part of an extended homologation period, which is expected to halve development costs. Teams can opt to introduce a new powertrain for the 2020-21 season for a two-year runout or continue with their current systems for next season before homologating a new set-up for a single season the year after. The series has also delayed the introduction of its refreshed Gen2 Evo car until 2021-22, but a decision on the all-new Gen3 car will wait until the summer. The design brief is for the new…

WRC Elfyn Evans and Esapekka Lappi are the latest drivers to support calls for Northern Ireland to be given the chance to stage the UK round of the World Rally Championship. Toyota star Evans, who won the Ulster Rally on his way to claiming the 2016 British Rally Championship, reckons Northern Ireland is a good fit for the WRC. “The roads are definitely unique and we don’t have anything similar to Irish Tarmac stages in the championship at the moment,” he explained. “The rallies that I have done over in Ireland were always well attended and they always had a great atmosphere. From past experiences, Northern Ireland would be a welcome addition to the WRC.” M-Sport Ford ace Lappi, winner of the 2014 Circuit of Ireland, added: “I’d like to…

IMSA SPORTSCAR Spectator-free races held behind closed doors haven’t been ruled out by the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America as it looks to restart a 2020 campaign that came to a halt after the Daytona 24 Hours in January. IMSA boss John Doonan has stated that he is looking at all options in an attempt to resume the season. He said that “anything is on the table” as the series strives to get racing again. “I want to get back to racing as normal,” he said, “but if we could go back without fans, we would have to take a look at that.” Doonan stressed the importance of spectators to the championship’s race promoters, however. “We do count on the folks that have, for so many years, sat on…

OBITUARY He was the engineering brains behind the three Le Mans 24 Hours victories notched up by the JW Automotive squad in 1968, 1969 and 1975. But John Horsman, who has died aged 85, will probably be best remembered for the part he played in taming the Porsche 917, turning an unstable machine that few wanted to drive into the defining sportscar of its era. Horsman was present at the Osterreichring for a Porsche test in October 1969 on a fact-finding mission, at a time when JWA, run by John Wyer, was in negotiation to become one of the German manufacturer’s factory teams for the following year. Porsche development boss Ferdinand Piech reasoned that “the best engineers for developing a weapon are not the best soldiers”. Which explains why it…

Step back to step forward To complicate Formula 1’s dilemma of where to go with the engine regulations, let alone the budget cap and car rules, we now have an enforced hiatus due to COVID-19. Of course GPs will survive and we’ll have a world champion, but in what form? In 1951 a hard decision had to be made as racing to the F1 regulations had become non-viable due to cost and the number of cars available. So for the next two years (1952-53) the championship was run to Formula 2 regulations while a new F1 was worked out – could this pattern repeat itself? This pandemic has altered the world and no one has any idea how it’s going to pan out. There is a case for declaring 2020…

Stirling Moss got it right – as usual. “Those non-championship races were just as important as the world championship grands prix,” he said. “The BRDC International Trophy was in actual fact more important than the British GP because more prize money was at stake. That’s why it usually got a fantastic entry. The world championship can spoil things because drivers spend more time trying to win it than actually trying to win the individual races. That, to me, is wrong. For me, the most important race is always today’s. Today I could win, lose, or get killed. What could be more important than that?” Racing for the hell of it, for the moment – and for money. That was the foundation upon which the sport of motor racing was formed.…

During the 1990 German Grand Prix, I bumped into Keke Rosberg, whom I had known for several years – we had worked together during our Fittipaldi and McLaren days in Formula 1. Keke had been hired by Peugeot to drive the new 905 Group C sportscar but, as he confided to me, it was a bit of a disaster and was in need of some serious engineering input. Would I be interested in going to help out with the project? At the time I was Gerhard Berger’s race engineer at McLaren and was coming to the end of a seven-year period with the team. Was this the itch I needed – to immerse myself in a different project? Unfortunately, about a year or so earlier, I had been to see…

WORLD RX ESPORTS INVITATIONAL BARCELONA (ESP) 19 APRIL ROUND 1 Pre-event discussions for the first World Rallycross Esports Invitational event were dominated by the professional drivers downplaying their chances against the sim racers. The likes of reigning World RX title winner Timmy Hansen and returning two-time champion Johan Kristoffersson believed their limited time in the virtual world would guarantee defeat when they faced off against the fastest drivers on Codemasters’ DiRT Rally 2.0. As the event at the virtual Barcelona RX circuit began, it became clear those initial fears were wide of the mark. While the three gamers who qualified via pre-event competition were fastest, they often struggled with the pressure of the event and the brutal racecraft. Swedish rally driver Mattias Adielsson was victorious in the final ahead of…

PAGENAUD EARNS BRACE Simon Pagenaud netted his second successive victory in the IndyCar iRacing Challenge series after his Team Penske team-mates Will Power and Scott McLaughlin collided with a lapped Oliver Askew. Five-time champion Scott Dixon was second at the virtual Twin Ring Motegi, while Power recovered to third ahead of Marcus Ericsson, polesitter Robert Wickens and Jack Harvey. Reigning NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Busch was 13th on his debut. GP DRIVERS RAISE £58K A field of racing drivers including six Formula 1 stars (Alexander Albon, Antonio Giovinazzi, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lando Norris and Nicholas Latifi) have raised over £58,000 for COVID-19 relief efforts after setting up a six-race Esports series on Codemasters’ F1 2019. Leclerc beat Albon’s younger brother Luca to the unofficial title. LEIGH BACK TO VIRTUAL…

OBITUARY Countless British BMW racers will have been grateful to marque expert Russ Cockburn, who died last weekend of coronavirus, having been unwell for a while. Cockburn ran Century House Garage near Richmond, North Yorkshire until he ‘retired,’ then worked for son John (ex-Alan Docking Racing and Beechdean Motorsport) at JC Racing in Thirsk. Originally into rallying, he turned to building and running racing cars, mainly BMWs, for drivers such as Guy Povey, Chris Hodgetts, Ian Flux and Nigel Greensall, and loved the Spa and Nurburgring 24 Hours. Cockburn looked after local hillclimber Peter Herbert’s successful Westfield-BDH, then generously lent him a Group N Schnitzer-built M3 for European championship rounds. Ever ready to help fellow competitors, nothing fazed Cockburn (above), with his trademark single-armed spectacles. He became the go-to specialist…

ESPORTS John Munro took a big step towards securing the Scottish Motor Racing Club Esports PC title after taking a double win under the lights of a virtual Brands Hatch Indy last weekend. The penultimate round of the Spring Championship was again a capacity affair and featured Ginetta G55 GT4 machines. These proved more than a handful for some, including PC frontrunner Lorenzo Turri, who failed to make it through the mid-week qualifying heats. Munro and title contender Craig Lax were again the ones to beat on pace, but a mistake from Lax while chasing Munro at the start of the first race extinguished any victory hopes. Lax started from pole in race two and briefly led Munro but again dropped down the order, eventually finishing fourth after receiving a…

NEW PODCAST IS IT JUST ME? Formula 1 fans will have a new platform to discuss and debate their hot takes in a new podcast, Is It Just Me? Joining Motorsport Network’s wide portfolio of podcast programming, Is It Just Me? is a new weekly show co-hosted by Jessica McFadyen and Autosport’s F1 reporter Luke Smith. Each week, McFadyen and Smith will take a deep dive into some of F1 and motorsport’s burning issues, with the conversation firmly driven by fans via social media. Viewers and listeners will be invited to submit their own unpopular opinions and takes on any topic of their choosing through messages on social media, or by sending in video or audio clips to play on the show. The pilot episode – which premiered on Wednesday…