Innehållsförteckning för 10/12/20 från Autosport

It’s been clear for some time that George Russell would thrive at the front of Formula 1, but for the Briton to outrace Valtteri Bottas on his Mercedes debut, with such little time to prepare, was remarkable. Aside from his time in Formula Renault and Formula 3 (during which he still showed flashes of pace and scored race wins), Russell was a champion in every series he contested on his way up, from BRDC F4 to F2 via GP3. When he won the 2014 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award – against Alex Albon, among others – he showed remarkable maturity, as well as speed, for someone who was then only 16. Last weekend he again demonstrated both a cool head and controlled aggression, while also finding time to thank both Mercedes…

FORMULA 1 Newly crowned FIA Formula 2 champion Mick Schumacher will step up to Formula 1 in 2021 with Haas, where he has secured a multi-year deal to partner F2 rival Nikita Mazepin. The Ferrari protege, son of seven-time F1 title winner Michael Schumacher, was confirmed as a Haas driver in the build-up to last weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix in Bahrain, where he clinched the F2 title in the support series’ final race of 2020. “The prospect of being on the Formula 1 grid next year makes me incredibly happy and I’m simply speechless,” said Schumacher, who must therefore have been writing this down. “I will give it my all, as I always do, and I look forward to going on this journey together with Haas.” Schumacher will appear for…

FORMULA E The number of German manufacturers committed to Formula E has halved. Hot on the heels of Audi announcing 0n 30 November that it would quit the championship at the end of the 2020-21 season, BMW revealed on 2 December that it will follow suit. Whereas Audi sweetened the bitter pill by promising an LMDh programme in a bid to chase a 14th Le Mans 24 Hours victory, plus a 2022 Dakar Rally entry, the official BMW communication, which didn’t feature a quote from a high-up, simply read: “When it comes to the development of e-drivetrains, BMW Group has essentially exhausted the opportunities for this form of technology transfer in the competitive environment of Formula E.” Autosport understands that the Andretti Autosport race team, which runs the BMW FE…

IMSA SPORTSCAR One Brit will replace another in the Corvette Racing line-up in next year’s IMSA SportsCar Championship. Le Mans 24 Hours winner Nick Tandy has left Porsche to fill the vacant seat at the factory Chevrolet squad left by Oliver Gavin. Tandy will partner Tommy Milner at the wheel of one of the mid-engined GT Le Mans-class Chevrolet Corvette C8.Rs in the full IMSA series in 2021. They will be joined for the enduros at Daytona, Sebring and Road Atlanta by another British driver, Alexander Sims. The move follows Porsche’s withdrawal from the IMSA ranks next season. Tandy had been part of its North American campaign for all but one season of his eight at the German manufacturer. Tandy described Corvette Racing, which won this year’s GTLM crown with…

Memories of a fiery crash half a century ago I was very interested to hear Romain Grosjean describe his accident. Almost unbelievable that he was able to survive with relatively minor injuries. I found it somewhat surprising that he was able to describe his feelings – not wanting to die, thinking of his children, Niki Lauda, and thinking “I’ll wait until they come” – “I cannot die today. For my kids I cannot die today.” Well, 49 years ago when I crashed on the Targa Florio it was not like that! The fuel tank burst, and I was soaked in fuel, on fire from head to foot. I held my breath, closed my eyes and hit the belt release (Jo Siffert and I had practiced 12 driver changes the previous…

Alex Albon was on the back foot for the Sakhir Grand Prix when he failed to make it out of Q2. The Red Bull driver pinned his inability to make it through to the top-10 shootout on a lack of time spent on the soft tyres in practice, and toiled somewhat in the race, complaining of a lack of straightline speed. Albon made early progress on the medium tyre to pass Sebastian Vettel and Lando Norris, dispatching the McLaren around the outside of Turn 6, but was unable to keep the rapidly recovering Sergio Perez behind him. Albon took his tyres up to the end of lap 47, switched to a two-stopper under the safety car, and took on a set of fresh soft Pirellis for the last 25 laps.…

“It’s a world championship and we’ve just won it!” So said WRC refugee Mads Ostberg as his factory-backed Citroen (above) crossed the line at Monza as the supporting class titles were decided. “It’s been a crazy year. I mean we are winning the championship as the underdog, the other teams have done more rallies than us, we have the fewest rallies and we have developed the car through the year,” he said, after fending off Pontus Tidemand’s Skoda for the crown. “It’s for sure something special to be world champion, even though it’s WRC2.” In WRC3, the star men of the weekend were another WRC veteran, Andreas Mikkelsen, and his Skoda team-mate Oliver Solberg, who not only dominated their class, but also finished in sixth and seventh places overall. Mikkelsen…

1 In a season of inconsistency, Mir’s considered approach to racing ensured his Suzuki made it to the podium more times than anyone across the campaign to secure him a maiden MotoGP title just five years into his world championship career. 2 Had his fragile Yamaha engine survived the Andalusian GP, Morbidelli could well have been champion. But he shone as the marque’s leading light, and that was after the 2020 bike he was meant to ride was taken away from him pre-season. 3 By bouncing back from a shoulder injury at round one, Rins’s ultimately futile title charge continued to prove his credentials as one of the grid’s best. With a bit more luck and better qualifying performances, 2021 could be a big year. 4 Though he ended his…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN VALLELUNGA (ITA) 5-6 DECEMBER ROUND 8/8 Just two points split table-topper Gianluca Petecof and nearest rival Arthur Leclerc as the Formula Regional European field paid a visit to Vallelunga for the final round of the season. Although it was all but a dead cert that Prema Powerteam would guide another of its hotshots to junior single-seater success, this was a title battle that might have gone down to the wire on any other weekend. A sodden circuit north of Rome played into the hands of race-one front-row starter Dennis Hauger, as the Van Amersfoort Racing pilot swiftly deposed polesitter Oliver Rasmussen – another Prema young gun – to score his maiden victory at Formula 3 level. As Petecof rose a place to fourth, Leclerc needed to recover…

FIESTA ZETECS Former British Touring Car champion Andrew Jordan will contest the six-hour Fiesta Endurance race at Mondello Park next month. The 2013 BTCC champion is set to compete in the event on 24 January, after being persuaded to do so by fellow historic racer Michael Cullen. He will be joined by Cullen and Dave Maguire driving for Murray Motorsport, and follows in the footsteps of fellow BTCC champion Colin Turkington, who has also competed in the endurance event. “Working with Michael [Cullen] over the past year, he’s been telling me about how fierce the competition is in the Fiesta races at Mondello,” said Jordan. “I last raced there in rallycross in 2007 and loved the atmosphere, so I’m very excited to come and take part in the six-hour race,…

PLUM PUDDING The traditional Plum Pudding meeting held at Mallory Park on Boxing Day has been cancelled this year due to coronavirus restrictions. The event has been administered by the British Racing & Sports Car Club since 2016 and usually features two grids – one for saloons and one for sportscars – with each having two races, along with bike contests. But circuit bosses have decided not to run the meeting this year after the track was placed in a tier-three area due to COVID-19. BRSCC chairman Peter Daly discussed plans for the event with Mallory’s management, but they concluded the event could not go ahead without any spectators. “Mallory Park, fortunately, is in the area with the lowest cases in Leicestershire but, unfortunately, the government guidelines put us into…

ROOKIES JOIN GT ACADEMY The first batch of rookies to sign up to race in Ginetta’s new entry-level GT Academy series have been announced. Five drivers with no previous racing experience have joined. Two, Darren Leung and Edward Acres, have previously taken part in trackdays, while Jack Harwood worked alongside GT4 Supercup race winner Jamie Falvey this season. Completing the quintet are Ravi Ramyead and Danny Dwyer. AWARDS FOR HSCC MEMBERS The Historic Sports Car Club has announced its award winners from 2020, including those honoured for off-track work. The late Paul Simms – father of HSCC regular Benn – was remembered with the Terence Smith Quiet Achiever award for the help he gave rival competitors, while the Lola Trophy for Clubman of the Year went to Daniel Clayfield for…

No VC (Victory over COVID-19) Day has been announced yet, but scientists around the world have developed and tested vaccines against coronavirus at racing speed. Thus, in its own microcosm, the motorsport fraternity is quietly confident about 2021, indeed planning for it with cautious optimism. Maybe salient lessons were learned earlier this year when Motorsport UK cancelled all events from late March to the end of June, leaving organising clubs to battle for survival with aid from government furlough schemes. The bigger players appear to have weathered the pandemic through prudent management. They are eager to get back to normal – whatever that may now be. I have seen provisional calendars for the Historic Sports Car Club, Classic Sports Car Club, 750 Motor Club and fast-rising Equipe Classic Racing over…

1 The British GT title continues to elude Keen, but by every metric he was the year’s benchmark GT3 driver, taking seven fastest laps from nine races. Several stirring drives captured the imagination, chief among them streaking off into the distance after passing Mitchell around the outside of Riches at Snetterton. 2 Highly rated by Barwell from his time in Europe, Mitchell was 2020’s breakout star. Just 0.066s off Keen in qualifying at Oulton Park, he beat him at Donington 1 and Snetterton. Error-free, got the best from Collard and looked every bit equal to the factory pros. Likely will be one next year. 3 Had a big job on his hands unlearning the skills needed for tin-top racing, but improved to deliver Lamborghini’s first series title. Superb in battle…

The record books will show that Kaylen Frederick was the star of the season on his way to victory in the 2020 BRDC British Formula 3 Championship. The American, returning with Carlin for his sophomore season in the category, claimed more wins (nine), poles (eight) and fastest laps (12) than any other driver. Perhaps the most startling statistic of all is that he led 120 laps, while the next best was his main title rival Kush Maini, with just 36. Yet as Frederick lined up on pole for the 24th and final race of the season at Silverstone, he still needed to finish the race to be sure of the title. He duly did that with an emphatic drive and victory, but the fact that the title went down to…

FORMULA 1 Mercedes has been left with a driver line-up headache after George Russell’s Sakhir Grand Prix display last weekend led to fresh calls for him to partner seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton in the future. Russell, who as a long-time Mercedes protege has spent the 2019 and 2020 seasons with Williams, only stepped into the Mercedes W11 for the first time for Friday’s free practice sessions after Hamilton was forced to skip the race due to testing positive for COVID-19. But he managed to qualify second and was on course to win the race before Mercedes’ pitstop blunder and a late puncture that dropped him to ninth. Russell raced with boots one size too small just to squeeze into the shorter Hamilton’s cockpit, and struggled all weekend with his…

FORMULA E/WEC Bentley is calling time on the Continental GT3 programme, but has vowed to be back in motorsport sooner rather than later, with a return to the Le Mans 24 Hours and a Formula E entry among the options. The British manufacturer, part of the Volkswagen Group, put its factory assault on the Intercontinental GT Challenge with M-Sport on ice in the summer. It has now announced that there will be no return in 2021 for the organisation that developed both generations of the Continental for racing. Rather there will be a scaling back of the GT3 programme, which it said will come to a “natural end” at the end of next season. Bentley motorsport boss Paul Williams explained that GT3 racing no longer fits with the company’s aspirations…

The Formula 1 stewards at the Sakhir Grand Prix had something new to consider: a driver running two of his team-mate’s tyres. This is against Article 24.2a in F1’s sporting rules, which is aimed at stopping abuse when it comes to tyre allocations. “If a team runs out of tyres, hypothetically, they could be using a 14th/15th set of tyres [13 sets are set out in the rules], which obviously then gives them a resultant sporting advantage,” explained F1 race director Michael Masi. The penalty for this infraction is disqualification from the race in question (or grid penalty if committed beforehand), but the Sakhir stewards decided against this. They explained that there were “mitigating circumstances, additional to the radio issue”, which was a George Russell message coming in on top…

At the inaugural Sakhir Grand Prix, Formula 1 got a glimpse of what things could look like without Lewis Hamilton. The world champion had been forced out of the race by a positive COVID-19 test and, while that misfortune ended his streak of 265 consecutive grand prix races, it gave the rest of the field a golden chance to shine. And they took it. The weekend had been set up as a duel between the new Mercedes line-up, with George Russell going up against Valtteri Bottas. But the pulsating battle between the duo didn’t end with one picking up critical momentum for Mercedes’ 2022 driver-line-up decision. Instead, Sergio Perez and Racing Point came away with victory in what will surely go down as a famous grand prix thriller, which was…

Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniel Ricciardo paid the price for pitting under a brief virtual safety car as their midfield rivals filled out the podium. Sainz’s McLaren and Ricciardo’s Renault ran third and fourth after the first-lap collision, and were joined in the fight to complete the podium by the AlphaTauri of Daniil Kvyat, who was able to undercut Ricciardo at the first round of pitstops. But a decision to pit on lap 55 under a brief VSC called to clear Nicholas Latifi’s Williams dropped Sainz and Ricciardo behind Sergio Perez, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll, who would go on to finish as the top three. “I’ve done everything I could today, I’ve not left anything out there,” Sainz said after finishing fourth. “Other cars have been luckier today with…

Aprilia made the biggest stride in 2020 with its challenger. But the promise shown in pre-season testing with its RS-GP ultimately didn’t translate into the consistent top-eight finishes and occasional podium charges it had hoped for. Aleix Espargaro valiantly fought through mechanical issues and with a bike still lacking relative to its competitors to finish up 17th in the standings, managing a best of eighth in the final round in Portugal, where he felt he could have made a bid for the podium had he qualified better. Aprilia’s year wasn’t helped by the need to place its main test rider Bradley Smith on the bike to race due to Andrea Iannone’s 18-month doping ban. Smith was solid if unspectacular. That Aprilia placed MotoGP rookie Lorenzo Savadori on the bike for…

FORMULA 2 SAKHIR (BHR) 5-6 DECEMBER ROUND 12/12 Mick Schumacher may have wrapped up the FIA Formula 2 Championship last weekend on the quirky outer loop of the Bahrain International Circuit, but it was Yuki Tsunoda who starred. Indeed, looking at the respective performances over the finale, it became apparent that the Haas F1 team could have a lot of work to do with its 2021 signings Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, yet AlphaTauri has a solid-gold little starlet in the form of Tsunoda. Schumacher appeared to utterly lose the plot in Friday qualifying, but went some way towards redeeming himself in Saturday’s feature race, in which the rapid Mazepin drove dubiously and with an apparent lack of respect for his rivals. And Tsunoda, who faced a million-to-one title shot, put…

CORONAVIRUS Leading circuit operators say they are still waiting for more details about the government loans that are available to them as part of a sport funding package before deciding whether or not to take advantage of the support. The UK government announced last month that it would be making £300million of loan funding available to sports affected by the absence of spectators during 2020. Motorsport is one of the sports that is set to benefit – while others, such as cricket and elite football, missed out. A total of £6m of loans is due to be on offer to circuit owners and operators. But it’s not yet clear what terms will be attached to the loans or how much each of MotorSport Vision, the British Automobile Racing Club, Silverstone…

FORD FIESTAS British Touring Car race winner Josh Cook believes the Mk7 Ford Fiesta ST Turbo is a good stepping stone for drivers aspiring to climb the tin-top ladder, after sampling the car for the first time at Croft earlier this year. Cook was racing in the Invitational class of the Fiesta Championship and took three on-the-road wins, which did not count towards the official results. He was full of praise for the car, which is set to be formally introduced next year. The car (below) features a 1.6-litre EcoBoost engine, which produces over 100bhp more than the current Zetec S Mk7 used in the championship. “The suspension is good, so it handles really well,” said Cook. “It’s got a good power-to-weight ratio and the tyres are great too –…

BRITISH RALLYCROSS Following a torrid season for Liam Doran in the World Rallycross Championship, the Briton returned to British Rallycross to compete in the final event of 2020 and walked away with a brace of victories from the double-header at Lydden Hill last weekend. Doran was reunited with an EKS-built Audi S1 for the weekend, run by World RX teams’ champion JC Raceteknik, alongside stablemate Enzo Ide. Despite the rallycross experience disparity between the pair, and Doran’s local knowledge of his home circuit, Ide challenged Doran all weekend. But Doran’s consistency proved decisive as Ide finished second in both rounds, including in the floodlit final on Saturday evening. Another World RX regular, Oliver Bennett, led the final in round two in his BMW Mini until he dropped down the order…

RALLYING The fastest time on all six stages netted Frank Bird and Jack Morton’s Ford Focus WRC a 35-second victory on the delayed opening round of the Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship at Donington Park last weekend. Mark Kelly and Neil Colman’s Ford Fiesta R5 matched Bentley Motorsport Academy driver Bird’s time on the opening run and was only a second slower on SS2. But, on the third stage, they were delayed after Richard Wells/Calvin Houldsworth’s Fiesta R5 went off at the Old Hairpin and rejoined directly in front of them. Kelly still retained a clear second over Ollie Mellors/Max Freeman’s Proton Iriz, which was third throughout – despite clattering a tyre wall at the Old Hairpin on the opening stage and skirting the gravel at the Esses on stage…

DONINGTON PARK MSVR 5 DECEMBER After finishing runner-up three years in a row, long-time Mini racer Rob Austin finally savoured that winning feeling by clinching a maiden title in the Mini Challenge Trophy at Donington Park. Austin arrived at the final round with a narrow six-point advantage in the Cooper S Class over defending champion Daniel Butcher-Lord. Having missed out on pole for the first time this season to his title rival, Austin made amends in race one, passing Keir McConomy and Butcher-Lord by the end of the opening lap. He was then able to build a commanding lead while the battle raged behind. A safety car period eradicated Austin’s advantage, but he held on to take a crucial victory ahead of Butcher-Lord. Austin opted for a conservative drive to…

Success was also shared around in GT4 as seven different winners claimed the spoils, but, unlike in battle went right down to the final minutes at Silverstone. Rookies Jamie Caroline and Dan Vaughan (TF Sport Aston Martin) finished every race and claimed the spoils from Patrik Matthiesen and Jordan Collard (HHC Motorsport McLaren) and their second-year team-mates Patrick Kibble and Connor O’Brien in a year of fine margins. Ex-Porsche Carrera Cup racer Vaughan took longer than 2017 British F4 champion Caroline to get to grips with the Vantage, a car that requires a very particular style to extract peak lap time, but the title-winning pair was the stronger Aston on pace by season’s end. This was evidenced in their drive for the title at Silverstone, where key passes on O’Brien…

1 On paper the class of the field, and but for his Brands Hatch nightmare would have secured the title much sooner. His double success at Silverstone with the title on the line and going wheel-to-wheel with Maini was Frederick at his best. 2 Was left rueing the UK’s infamous autumn weather as he watched a 54-point lead slip away. Used his experience and knowledge to put himself in contention in the first place, but lacked that extra tenth of a second compared to his title rival when it mattered. 3 Didn’t lack speed, bagging five poles across the season – second only to Frederick (eight). Was in his element in the wet and arguably should have scored a hat-trick of wins at Snetterton, but a poor start and unforced…

Jim Clark (Lotus-Climax 33) is in the eye of a snapper storm awaiting the start of the 1965 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort. Clark had qualified in second place, lining up on the front row alongside polesitter Graham Hill (BRM P261) and the Honda RA272 of Richie Ginther. All three drivers had a crack at leading the race, although the balance was somewhat skewed in Clark’s favour. Ginther erupted off the line to head the field for the first couple of laps before Hill took over for the next three, then Clark established control until the finish on lap 80. Jackie Stewart (BRM P261) was second and Dan Gurney (Brabham-Climax BT11) third, while Hill and Ginther crossed the line fourth and sixth respectively. For classic motorsport DVDs head to dukevideo.com…

TOURING CARS/SPORTCARS BMW has turned its back on more than 50 years of history with Schnitzer Motorsport. A team that won everything from the World Touring Car Championship to the Le Mans 24 Hours with the German manufacturer has been released from its factory roster for 2021. The departure of Schnitzer from the BMW fold was announced last week along with that of RBM, the squad that took Andy Priaulx to a hat-trick of WTCC titles in 2005-07. The move follows the end of BMW’s involvement in the DTM as the series moves from Class 1 touring cars to GT3 regulations for next season. Schnitzer had been increasingly marginalised at BMW since it left the DTM when the marque slimmed down its assault on the championship from four to two…

BTCC The British Touring Car Championship has reverted to its 2015-18 levels of success ballast for 2021, with an increase from 60kg to 75kg for the championship-leading driver going into each weekend. After Colin Turkington won the 2018 title with just one race victory in the swansong season for the West Surrey Racing BMW 125i M Sport, maximum success ballast was lowered from 75kg to 60kg for 2019. But in 2020, seven of the eight qualifying sessions in which cars carried success ballast were topped by machines on at least 30kg, indicating that teams have got their heads around keeping their cars competitive on heavier weight. As a result, the pre-2019 sliding scale has returned, decreasing from 75kg to 39kg for fifth in increments of 9kg, then down to 9kg…

It was obvious from the first time he raced in the motorcycle grand prix world championship that Joan Mir was a special talent. He made his grand prix debut in the Moto3 class in 2015 at the Australian Grand Prix as replacement for the injured Hiroki Ono. He’d never seen Phillip Island before, but Mir ran inside the top six in his first race before crashing. A year later, halfway through his first full Moto3 campaign with Leopard Racing, Mir claimed his maiden victory in Austria. And in 2017 he dominated the season with 10 victories to win the lightweight-class title comfortably. He served just one year in Moto2 with Marc VDS in 2018, during which time he scored four podiums, before Mir was on the MotoGP grid in 2019…

The qualifying battle between the Mercedes drivers has been one of the best aspects of the 2020 Formula 1 season, but it took on a whole new dimension at the Sakhir Grand Prix. The question was, could George Russell, who had topped the first two practice sessions after stepping into Lewis Hamilton’s W11, beat Valtteri Bottas to pole? The Finn had pushed Hamilton, statistically F1’s best-ever qualifier, so close in 2020 – the average gap between them in dry sessions just 0.133 seconds in Hamilton’s favour. But Russell is ‘Mr Saturday’… The answer was no – Bottas claimed his fifth pole of the season, but only just. The two Mercedes drivers had been the only ones to get through Q2 on the medium tyres, and they were given an unusual…

Charles Leclerc will drop three places on the grid for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after stewards sanctioned a “reckless” move on the opening lap at Sakhir. Ferrari driver Leclerc locked up and made contact with eventual race winner Sergio Perez at Turn 4, spinning the Racing Point driver. Leclerc’s car was left with damage, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen ran through the gravel trying to avoid the two spinning cars, crashing into the wall. The stewards confirmed soon after the incident that they would be investigating the clash following the race, and ultimately handed Leclerc a three-place grid penalty for the collision. Their report stated Leclerc “braked too late into Turn 4, locking the front right wheel and colliding with [Perez], which was taking the normal racing line into…

The 2020 World Rally Championship ended in heartbreak for Britain’s Elfyn Evans as his 14-point advantage in the drivers’ title race was whisked out from beneath him by a patch of Italian snow. Thus Sebastien Ogier claimed his seventh WRC title as Rally Monza joined the calendar for the first time. Tensions were high when the trucks unloaded in the historic royal park and there were suggestions that some teams were rather less willing to be there than others. Event organisers had insisted that the itinerary would be fully compliant with the COVID legislation in place at the time, but it was sobering to know that Italy had suffered its most grievous toll of the pandemic so far on the opening day of the rally, with 993 lives lost. Eight…

One way to describe MotoGP in 2020 would be to compare it to a Rammstein concert. It was full of fireworks, shocks and ridiculous action, and left you in a constant state of bewilderment in its breathless 14-round run from 19 July at Jerez to 22 November at the Algarve Circuit. That it happened at all is testament to the dedication Dorna Sports’ CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta has to his series. Just a week before the originally scheduled opener in Qatar, the season was put on hold as the horror of the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world. A schedule centred on Europe was eventually finalised, and numerous cost measures for 2020 and 2021 were put in place to ensure the series’ survival. MotoGP’s independent teams, as well as all squads…

SUPER FORMULA SUZUKA (JPN) 5-6 DECEMBER ROUND 5/6 A pair of dramatic races at Suzuka changed the complexion of the Super Formula title race, as Honda drivers Naoki Yamamoto and Toshiki Oyu shared the victories. Ryo Hirakawa arrived at Suzuka with an 11-point championship lead over Nick Cassidy, but a troubled weekend that involved a huge Turn 1 crash in the first race means Hirakawa heads to the Fuji season finale level on points with Yamamoto. By contrast, Dandelion Racing star Yamamoto scored a dominant victory from pole in the opener and would have likely finished on the podium in the second race but for a suspected gearbox problem. Hirakawa’s troubles began when a failed “¥200 [£1.45] part” in the gearbox actuator forced him to miss qualifying and start the…

BRDC BRITISH F3 A number of British Formula 4 race winners, including 2020 title protagonists Luke Browning and Zak O’Sullivan, have tested BRDC British Formula 3 machinery in recent weeks as they evaluate their options for next season. Champion Browning has tested with the Fortec Motorsport squad that powered him to the F4 crown and says he was amazed by the number of offers he has received since taking the title. “There’s been a lot of opportunities since winning the championship; I’ve never experienced that before,” said Browning. “At the moment, with the budget we’ve got and the opportunities available, British F3 seems the right progression. I know Fortec have got a phenomenal car in that – look at [Johnathan] Hoggard’s year [when he finished runner-up with Fortec in 2019].”…

EQUIPE CLASSIC RACING Equipe Classic Racing has revealed its provisional 2021 calendar, which features a rare visit to Castle Combe along with events at Estoril and Jerez at the end of the year. The organisation, which runs the popular Equipe GTS series as well as grids for Pre-’63 and ’50s machines, is due to appear at all six of the MG Car Club’s events next season, as well as being the headline act at a new two-day meeting at Combe in early July. Following a third visit to Silverstone, the 10-weekend season will conclude with European trips to Estoril – as part of a Peter Auto event on 10 October – and Jerez on 23-24 October. “We haven’t been to Castle Combe for about 10 years,” said Equipe partner John…

It’s been an unusual year for British GT. Action was delayed until August by the pandemic, and the grid had dropped from 35 paid-up entries to 21 when it got under way. As series promoter Stephane Ratel put it, “when you lose 40% of your grid, you can’t call it a success”. But, as Ratel rightly added, “it’s been a sporting success”. There were seven different winners from four manufacturers over the nine races, and four crews remained in title contention until the Silverstone finale, which drew an encouraging 37-car field. There, the Barwell-versus-RAM fight was decided in favour of Sandy Mitchell and British Touring Car Championship convert Rob Collard, becoming the first and, likely, last Silver Cup duo to make the grade before such pairings are outlawed next year.…

1 Not perfect – see Donington 2hr – but narrowly edges his team-mate given that he outqualified Caroline 3-2 in their sessions together, and lost the title through an accumulation of unfortunate issues not of his making. Unfairly penalised for a red-light violation at Silverstone, adding to woes of Oulton and Brands. Has just turned 18. 2 Major faux pas in taking off Kibble at Brands, but showed flair whenever conditions were poor – he gapped everyone in the Donington 2hr – and superb at starts, charging from fifth to first at Snetterton on lap one. Showed at Oulton he had sussed GT racing by leading pro driver Hankey. 3 Performance at Snetterton as convincing as anybody all season. Pole by over a second for race one, led the entirety…

BOOK REVIEW THE FRED OPERT STORY RRP £16.99 2016 was a pretty grizzly year for high-profile deaths. In the entertainment industry, cancer claimed the lives of Alan Rickman and David Bowie in January; the calendar ended with Carrie Fisher, her mother Debbie Reynolds, and George Michael all departing too. Motorsport sadly wasn’t spared the casualties either, with the first 10 days of August marking a particular low. On 3 August, 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours victor and all-round ace Chris Amon died. Four days later, inaugural British Saloon Car champion Jack Sears passed away. Two days after that, Fred Opert was gone. Famed American race team owner Opert had been in poor health – a combination of kidney problems, diabetes and having had open-heart surgery six years earlier. As Peter…

Villeneuve gets the support of Autosport readers 11 December 1997 Autosport readers voted Jacques Villeneuve the International Racing Driver of the Year this week in 1997. The Williams ace had become world champion at the end of October, but some mediocre performances by the Canadian and star drives from Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher created a title showdown at the Jerez finale. There, Schumacher had turned in on Villeneuve but, interestingly, Autosport said that the voting had been close even before that. “It may surprise some that readers should vote Villeneuve as the International Racing Driver of the Year, given some of the performances that Schumacher produced in the Ferrari F310B,” we wrote. “But the voting told a very interesting story. Even before the European Grand Prix, the two were neck and…