Innehållsförteckning för 18/03/21 från Autosport

How many fans discovered and enjoyed motorsport thanks to Murray Walker? The answer must be in the millions. Not only did his career stretch back to before the Formula 1 world championship began, but his infectious enthusiasm and perfect commentary voice made him an intrinsic part of motorsport’s coverage and growth. That helps to explain why so many tributes, from not only those working in the sport (page 8) but also the scores of enthusiasts (p19), have poured in since news of Murray’s passing broke last weekend (p4). He was one of those few figures in the public eye that no one seems to have anything negative to say about. Even Walker’s famous mistakes – my personal favourite is, perhaps, “The lead car is unique, except for the one behind…

Murray Walker’s was a life extremely well lived. He brought joy to tens of millions from Southend to Sydney and popularised the sport of motor racing for many generations. But what made Murray Walker the person and the broadcasting legend that he was? Fittingly for a man who was unique, it was an exceptional combination of factors. First, his heritage in the sport and passion for it. Like me, he was drawn in by a father who raced, in his case on motorbikes, and worked in the sport. Murray was devoted to his father, who also introduced him to commentary. He is known as the voice of F1, but Murray had a boundless enthusiasm for many racing categories and was equally at home providing the soundtrack to all of them.…

FORMULA 2 Alpine Formula 1 junior Christian Lundgaard topped last week’s official three-day Formula 2 pre-season test in Bahrain by an eye-opening 0.331 seconds, but as usual it was a case of pinpointing when teams sent their drivers on quick runs. Drivers were restricted to just two sets of the soft option tyre for the test, and six sets of the new hard prime rubber, which likely title contender Robert Shwartzman labelled as “much more complicated” than the previous hard Pirelli. “We have less grip, and degradation is more difficult to control,” said the Prema Racing-run Ferrari protege. “Anyway, we got really close to our limit and to putting everything together, and we know where to work.” The majority of teams chose the second and third mornings for their performance…

OBITUARY Keith Greene, who has died aged 83, contested a handful of grands prix as a driver, but it was as a team manager that he made his biggest impact over a 45-year career in the sport. Touring car and sportscar racing became Greene’s niche. He oversaw British Touring Car Championship titles with Alan Mann Racing in the 1960s, Gordon Spice Racing in the 1970s and 1980s, and Vic Lee Motorsport in the 1990s. And in sportscar racing he worked with manufacturers such as Nissan (twice) and Toyota, and privateers of the likes of Jean Rondeau, Alain de Cadenet and Richard Lloyd. Greene joined Gordon Spice’s operation in 1977, the second of the five straight seasons in which his team boss claimed the top class in the BTCC, then known…

Murray’s voice a breakfast accompaniment I was very privileged to have known Murray Walker quite well. When I was PR manager for Goodyear F1 Racing, Murray was at every race too, and Goodyear and the BBC shared the same caterers. This meant that we all queued up together for our breakfasts at most races, often at some unearthly hour and in the cold. Whether you were at the same table or not, Murray’s unique voice could invariably be heard across the room (or tent). I remember one morning in Australia, Murray told me about one of his first visits to the grand prix there. He believed that nobody outside the UK had ever heard of him, let alone in Oz. Someone had told him about an excellent bookshop in Sydney,…

DEVELOPMENT Haas was the last team to formally unveil its car, when it took the covers off the VF-21 in the pitlane ahead of Friday’s running at the Bahrain test. The new car features a considerable amount of carryover. Team principal Gunther Steiner revealed that the team had not spent any of its tokens on its 2021 machine, noting that the season is a transitional year for the American-owned squad. It struggled financially throughout 2020, so the decision to limit its progression for 2021 means that the team will give up a fair chunk of performance with little opportunity to claw it back. Haas may have a few new additions to the car at the Bahrain Grand Prix, but this is expected to be the extent of its development. FRONT…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Two-time Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion Dan Cammish will make a return to the series this year with leading squad Redline Racing after losing his British Touring Car Championship drive with Team Dynamics. It was announced earlier this month that Cammish, who has raced for Dynamics since leaving Porsche competition at the end of 2017 and has fought for the BTCC title for the past two years, would no longer be driving for the Honda squad. With Cammish unable to find an alternative BTCC drive, he said it was a natural choice to return to the Carrera Cup, which he dominated between 2015 and 2017 with Redline, winning two titles and narrowly missing out in 2017. “Sometimes things happen for a reason,” said Cammish. “It’s disappointing…

GT4 EUROPEAN SERIES Ginetta Junior title contender Bailey Voisin will graduate to the GT4 European Series this season, driving a McLaren for United Autosports. The leading LMP2 squad is entering the GT4 championship for the first time this year after merging with regular McLaren squad HHC Motorsport, and will field two cars. Voisin (below), who narrowly missed out on the Ginetta crown and ended up third in the standings after a tricky finale, will partner McLaren GT driver Charlie Fagg, while the other car will be raced by Dean Macdonald and Gus Bowers, who have both driven GT4 McLarens in British GT. Switzerland-based Voisin opted to race in the European category as it is easier for him to travel to the events, while being an “extremely competitive” series, and he…

TOURING CAR TROPHY Lewis Kent, winner of the TCR UK category within last year’s Touring Car Trophy, will return to bid for another title in 2021. Kent had targeted a graduation to TCR Europe, after contesting one-off rounds at Spa and Paul Ricard over the past two seasons, but the global pandemic and complications around Brexit have put those plans on hold. Kent will switch from his previous Hyundai i30 N TCR to the machine that Engstler Motorsport’s Nicky Catsburg took to a race win in the World Touring Car Cup at the Slovakia Ring last year. The 21-year-old will be joined in the family-run Essex and Kent Motorsport squad by younger brother Bradley in an ex-Luca Engstler sister car. Kent Jr was runner-up in the Volkswagen Racing Cup last…

BRITISH RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP The British Rally Championship has announced a revised six-event calendar for 2021, with the opening event now set to take place in July. Amid continued lockdown measures and uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the loss of three original counters – Circuit of Ireland, Rally Tendring and Clacton, and the Jim Clark Rally – forced organisers back to the drawing board. The one-day Nicky Grist Stages Rally (10 July) in Builth Wells will now lift the curtain on the new campaign. It is one of four gravel rallies that remain from the original schedule, the other three being the Grampian Forest Stages (14 August), Trackrod Rally Yorkshire (24-25 September) and the Cambrian Rally (30 October). Either side of the Cambrian is the closed-roads Mull Rally (8-9 October), which…

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW ALEX ZANARDI: “DISABILITY I S ALL RELATIVE” Alex Zanardi has a straightforward ethos, and it goes like this: ‘every single person has a disability – humans can’t fly, so the plane was invented – but it’s all relative and so it can be overcome’. Following the Italian’s crash at the Lausitzring in 2001, when his heart stopped seven times and he would require the amputation of both legs above the knee, he’s used that remarkable approach to race handbikes and hand-operated cars to not only recover, but to win. As he wryly quips,“having important goals is just a good excuse to do something I really like”. The two-time CART champion is as inspirational as they come, and a watch of the 52-minute Alex Zanardi: “Disability is all relative”…

The blue, white and gold branding of Rothmans had become a motorsport staple of the 1980s and 1990s, as it assumed title sponsorship of Williams’s Formula 1 team at its peak. It enjoyed four successful years in that role, culminating in back-to-back titles for Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve in 1996 and 1997. Then, parent company Rothmans International made the decision to cede its famous colours and instead use the Williams team to promote its Australian brand Winfield. The Williams cars were stripped of the blue in which they had run since 1985 and turned out in a red, white and gold scheme for the 1998 season. It was deliciously sacrilegious, particularly given its similarity to Ferrari, a team it had bitterly battled against the previous year. It’s perhaps unfortunate…

The sound of the Lotus Type 49 Formula 1 car that won 12 world championship grands prix and contributed to two world championship doubles will be used as the inspiration for the marque’s new Evija hypercar. The Cosworth DFV-powered 49, which helped to pioneer the engine as a stressed part of the monocoque, won on its F1 debut with Jim Clark in the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, and carried Graham Hill to the 1968 world championship title. It remained competitive into 1970, when Jochen Rindt continued its 100% Monaco Grand Prix record. British music producer Patrick Patrikios is working with Lotus to develop the full range of sounds – including the seatbelt safety alarm – made by the all-electric Evija, which is due to be released later this…

The series director for the new Pure ETCR electric touring car championship is hopeful that it can contribute to a mindset change on electromobility. Speaking in the Future Power session at last week’s ASI Connect, Xavier Gavory promised a “super-spectacular” maiden season for the series, which was delayed from its planned 2020 start date because lockdown restrictions meant battery supplier Williams Advanced Engineering couldn’t service the cars. The five-round championship begins at Vallelunga in June, before visiting Zolder, Motorland Aragon, Copenhagen and Inje in South Korea. “It’s going to be fast and it’s going to be furious,” he said. “We are talking about the most powerful touring cars ever produced; they will produce 500kW which is the equivalent of nearly 700 horsepower. It’s going to be super-spectacular. “We need to…

World Rallycross tyre supplier Cooper Tire announced last month that it has “entered a definitive transaction agreement” under which it will be acquired by US rival Goodyear. A statement released by Cooper said that the transaction “has a total enterprise value of approximately $2.5billion”. Once complete, Goodyear shareholders will own approximately 84% of the combined company. Cooper already has a number of tyre brands steeped in motorsport heritage under its control, including the Avon make it bought out in 1997. Avon supplied the British Formula 3 Championship between 1982 and 2008, before Cooper took over until the championship’s 2014 demise. Avon also had a title sponsorship agreement with British GT between 2006 and 2015, and supplied every International Formula 3000 championship race between 1985 and 2004. Goodyear boss Richard J…

FORMULA 1 Should the post-lockdown protocols allow a crowd to attend this year’s British Grand Prix, it seems that you may have to be there on the Friday to get your traditional qualifying fix. That’s because Silverstone looks poised to host Formula 1’s inaugural ‘sprint qualifying’ race on the Saturday as teams prepare to give the proposal their final approval. Following the latest F1 Commission meeting at the end of January, F1 has been working on plans for sprint races to debut in 2021 after the plan received “broad support” from teams. A working group was formed to flesh out details after a number of questions emerged from the meeting, with the target of having a final proposal in place for teams to vote on before the start of the…

BTCC British Touring Car Championship teams have been hitting the track in the past week or so to begin their pre-2021 test programmes, and BMW squad West Surrey Racing has unveiled the livery its trio of 330i M Sports will carry. WSR’s four-time champion Colin Turkington took to Silverstone last week in an all-black hue (presumably exciting Kiwi team boss Dick Bennetts), before the revealing of the scheme that Turkington, Tom Oliphant and Stephen Jelley will race in. As can be seen, it’s a variation of the 2020 black-and-stripes, but to Autosport’s eyes the standout change is that Turkington is carrying an unaccustomed #2… The new Motorbase/MB Motorsport alliance was out at Snetterton, where Ollie Jackson, Sam Osborne and Andy Neate continued work on the Ford Focus. Also on track…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE French team ART Grand Prix is heading back to sportscar racing with Spa 24 Hours-winning entrant GPX Racing in this year’s GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. ART, which has carried six drivers to GP2/Formula 2 titles, will field a solo Porsche 911 GT3-R for the Dubai-based entrant in the five-round series, which incorporates the Spa enduro won by GPX in 2019. The works-supported car will be driven in 2021 by two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Earl Bamber and full-factory drivers Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet. It will be ART’s first sportscar involvement since it masterminded SMP Racing’s World Endurance Championship LMP1 campaign with the AER-engined BR Engineering BR1 in 2018-19, which included a third position at the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours. ART is…

MINI CHALLENGE Mini Challenge runner-up Dan Zelos is going to have another crack at winning the title this season, remaining with Excelr8 Motorsport for a third year Former Renault UK Clio Cup racer Zelos moved to the Mini Challenge for 2019 and was immediately a frontrunner, finishing third in the standings. He went one better last year, taking the most podiums of any driver en route to second place. Zelos is also Excelr8’s British Touring Car development driver and is set to test one of the squad’s Hyundais later this year. “After finishing third overall in 2019 and second in 2020, there can only be one goal for 2021,” he said. “I’m under no illusions. It’s going to be an extremely tough field again, but I’m feeling confident and I’m…

GEOFF LEES TROPHY The Toleman TG280 raced by Derek Warwick in the 1980 European Formula 2 Championship will return to racing at Silverstone in May, 39 years after its last known race. Mark Harrison has rebuilt the BP-liveried car ready for the new Geoff Lees Trophy for 1980s single-seaters, and plans to race it during the Historic Sports Car Club’s International Trophy meeting on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit on 22-23 May. Chassis TG280-02 took Warwick to second in the championship as team-mate Brian Henton won the 1980 F2 title. At the end of the season, the Toleman team graduated to Formula 1 and the TG280s were sold, with Warwick’s going to an Austrian privateer. After a season or two of Formula 2, it was sold to Hungary where it…

You could be forgiven for not knowing the name Jonny Edgar, but the 17-year-old Red Bull Junior is arguably one of Britain’s brightest prospects on the long road to Formula 1. Edgar may have flown under the radar of many because his fledgling car racing has to date been based outside the UK at the behest of his Austrian backers. The Cumbrian made himself known in Europe by winning last year’s ADAC Formula 4 Championship in Germany, recording six wins to pip fellow Red Bull Junior Jak Crawford by just two points. A fourth-generation racer (grandad Terry, dad Justin and uncle Jason all won British karting titles), Edgar started competing aged eight and announced himself as a future star by winning the CIA/FIA OKJ European karting title in 2017, prompting…

Many of you reading this probably won’t know the name of Dino Toso, who died in August 2008 four years after being diagnosed with lung cancer. But it’s a mark of the respect with which he was held that when I was given Damon Hill’s number by a colleague and optimistically fired over a text message, he called back almost immediately. Hill was going through a difficult patch in his career when he worked with Toso at Jordan in the 1998 and 1999 seasons, but the 1996 world champion was only too happy to share his recollections of an engineer he recognised as having the potential to hit the very top in Formula 1. It was that determination to have the greatest impact on the car that compelled Toso to…

Paddy Lowe, the former technical boss of the McLaren, Mercedes and Williams Formula 1 teams, says “all of the solutions” mooted for the future of propulsion have value and that no options should be ruled out. Lowe, who recently founded the Zero Petroleum company that plans to use sustainable methods to produce synthetic fuel, was speaking on a panel of experts in last week’s Autosport International Connect session on Future Power. He said that while E-fuels were “not intended to displace” electrification, it was needed as an alternative for planes and combine harvesters that would not be feasible to electrify. “We need all of the solutions,” he said. “There are places where electrification is straightforward and absolutely the best thing to do for the most efficient use of energy. There…

The chassis that will form the basis of the new Superstar Racing Experience series underwent a successful shakedown at North Carolina’s Caraway Speedway last week, with NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader at the wheel. SRX, a modern-day take on the IROC series that featured predominantly NASCAR and Indycar drivers racing against each other in identical equipment between 1974 and 2006, is the brainchild of three-time NASCAR Cup champion Tony Stewart and former NASCAR crew chief and team owner Ray Evernham. The series boasts a driving cast that includes final IROC champion Stewart, fellow NASCAR title winners Bill Elliott and Bobby Labonte, and open-wheel aces including Marco Andretti, Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves and Paul Tracy. Each will drive identical SRX machines designed by Evernham, powered by a 700bhp Ilmor V8 engine. SRX…

FIA SIGNS UP TOP FE MAN The FIA has appointed the former Performance director of PSA’s DS brand to become the new technical director of its Sport division, replacing retiring ex-Ferrari F1 engine man Gilles Simon. Xavier Mestelan Pinon (above right) spent 20 years at Citroen Racing before moving to PSA performance marque DS, where he oversaw back-to-back Formula E titles with Techeetah. FIA secretary general for sport Peter Bayer said Mestelan Pinon would be responsible for implementing “the future technical vision across a range of FIA championships”, with a particular focus on advanced powertrain development. FS ENTRY REVEALED Formula Student has released a 130-team entry list for its 2021 event after holding an online-only contest due to COVID-19 in 2020. Universities from 20 countries are set to participate in…

The nature of modern Formula 1 is such that cars are designed by committee, which means it’s near-impossible to single out the efforts of one person for any resultant success. But if it’s too simplistic to lay credit at the feet of one individual, equally it would be fatuous to suggest that individuals can’t make a difference, for they can lift the team around them to greater heights and push the collective effort forward in a positive direction. Such hidden heroes are common in racing, but few can live up to the story of Renault’s former head of aerodynamics Dino Toso. In the four years that followed his diagnosis with lung cancer in 2004, Toso contributed to 17 grand prix victories (14 for Fernando Alonso, two for Giancarlo Fisichella, one…

Toyota, Subaru and Mitsubishi passed around the baton for Japan to win a mighty seven World Rally Championship manufacturers’ crowns in a row between 1993 and 1999. Yet the Land of the Rising Sun would wait another five years before making its debut on the WRC calendar. Little wonder, when that time came, that so many of Subaru’s top brass turned out to watch their reigning champion Petter Solberg take to the rough stuff on the island of Hokkaido. The Norwegian needed to bounce back aboard his Impreza S10, having suffered a massive crash on the preceding Rally Germany to cause a third straight retirement. His response for the inaugural running of Rally Japan in 2004 was emphatic. He and co-driver Phil Mills carved out a 10-second cushion on the…

There are some people who rise through a company so fast that, long before middle age, they end up at a level several times removed from what originally attracted them to the industry. Suddenly they’re merely pen pushers, their enthusiasm dwindles and they end up occupying a job position rather than truly fulfilling a role. That’s not going to happen to Laura Wontrop Klauser who, at 34, has become General Motors’ sportscar racing programme manager. True, she’s not actually building the 5.5-litre V8s under the engine cover of the Cadillac DPi-V.R prototypes in the IMSA pits at Daytona or Sebring, but she’s making the decisions pertaining to these cars, the Corvette Racing squad’s C8.Rs, and the Chevrolet Camaro GT4.Rs that race in IMSA’s Michelin Pilot Challenge. Klauser is just fine…

MOTOGP MotoGP’s second and final pre-season test in Qatar came to a close last Friday with only five riders completing laps on the last day due to high winds and sandy track conditions. This meant Jack Miller’s fastest-ever Losail lap set on the opening day of the test went unchallenged. The Ducati rider (above) has been tagged by many as the 2021 title favourite, a fact “I enjoy a lot”. Miller, along with factory Yamaha duo Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo – who finished the test 2-3 on combined times – displayed some of the best long-run pace of the field. Both Yamaha riders grew happier with the 2021 M1 chassis, while Petronas SRT’s Franco Morbidelli was pleased with the “substantial” updates on his older ‘A-spec’ bike. Alex Marquez fractured…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE The real and virtual worlds will come together in the GT World Challenge Europe this season, with points in the real-world teams’ championship up for grabs in a new Esports competition to run on the GTWCE Endurance Cup bill. Teams competing in the Pro and Silver Cup classes of the Endurance Cup will be required to enter each of the one-hour GTWCE Esports Cup events held the day before the five rounds. Points will be awarded on a 3-2-1 basis for the top finishers in each of the two classes in the teams’ classification in both the Endurance Cup and the overall GTWCE. Those teams with multiple entries across one of the classes will be required to nominate one driver to participate in the virtual race.…

If you had earned millions of euros, could go anywhere, do anything you wanted and surround yourself with anyone you wanted, what would you do? If you’re Jorge Lorenzo, apparently you’d spend your time glued to social media, reminding all your haters just how brilliant you are and getting into spats with other MotoGP riders. The latest ugly episode took place during Qatar pre-season testing, sparked by a picture of Cal Crutchlow picking bits of gravel out of his crash helmet after sliding off his Yamaha at Turn 2. Since the Losail International Circuit came onto the MotoGP calendar in 2004, you’d be hard-pressed to find any rider who hasn’t been caught out by the Turn 2 left-hander. You’ve just blasted along a one-kilometre straight, which you enter by turning…

ENGINE COVER Forward of the heinous green decal on the engine cover, Ferrari has retained the horns that it reintroduced to the F1 lexicon last season. They’re less defined as Ferrari has increased the size of the intake, opting for a rounder shape by adding two extra openings either side of the triangular roll structure, but that allows the team to reduce the side of its sidepods. These horns should help tidy up the airflow before it reaches the rear wing. Within, the team has introduced a new gearbox and revised power unit, which could be the most important change of all… FRONT END Ferrari has stayed true to the thumb-tip nose designs used over the past few years, and has made a small change for 2021. Rather than squaring…

Since his abrupt Formula 1 exit in 2002, Enrique Bernoldi’s career has traversed plenty of categories without making a lasting impact. Now based in California, the 42-year-old hasn’t raced since 2016 (in one-make Lamborghinis), which he admits stems from finding it “difficult to be 100% committed” to any category other than F1. “I always wanted to be an F1 driver, not a race car driver,” he explains. “F1 is what I dreamed of, not racing in IndyCar or at Le Mans. Racing gave me everything I have, but I was only really interested when I had the chance to be part of F1.” When Arrows collapsed, he stepped down to the World Series by Nissan feeder series – Bernoldi won four races across the 2003 and 2004 seasons – and…

NASCAR CUP PHOENIX (USA) 14 MARCH ROUND 5/36 For a change, everything went right for Martin Truex Jr and his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team at a track on which he has typically struggled. Truex overcame an early-race run-in with the wall last Sunday at Phoenix Raceway and rallied back into contention for the win in the final stage. Joey Logano was first off pitroad on the race’s final round of pitstops but, on a restart with 25 of 312 laps remaining, Truex powered to the outside of Logano’s Team Penske Ford and grabbed the lead through Turns 1 and 2. The race remained caution-free from there, and Truex held off Logano by 1.698 seconds at the finish for his first win of 2021 and first at Phoenix, which also…

BRDC BRITISH F3 Former British Formula 4 runner-up Sebastian Alvarez is set to make his debut in the BRDC British F3 Championship this season with Hitech GP. The Mexican was due to race in the category for the first time last year with Double R Racing, but the COVID-19 pandemic meant he never made a racing appearance. Alvarez, who took five wins in F4 in 2019, will switch to Hitech after Double R opted not to race in the series this year. Hitech joined the British F3 grid last season and powered Kush Maini to runner-up in the points. “I’m excited to make the step up into British Formula 3 with Hitech,” said Alvarez. “I cannot wait to get going after a year out. I’m looking forward to getting to…

FF1600 Leading Scottish Formula Ford 1600 figures believe this year’s David Leslie Trophy meeting can boost their championship’s future, following the announcement that the British Racing & Sports Car Club’s National FF1600 Championship will join the event. After having to postpone its planned opening round at Snetterton in April, the National season will now begin at Donington Park on 8-9 May, before heading north of the border to Knockhill in June. It will join the Scottish FF1600 grid’s delayed first round for the two-day meeting, meaning that a bumper grid is expected to contest the coveted David Leslie Trophy. It will be the first time the National championship has raced at Knockhill since 2018, and the first on the conventional clockwise layout since 2017. “I think the David Leslie Trophy…

PLOWMAN/FLETCHER MOVE UP JRM’s Bentley Continental GT3 will return to the British GT Championship this season with Martin Plowman and Kelvin Fletcher. The 2019 GT4 Pro-Am champions were due to graduate to GT3 last year, but deferred their entry due to the COVID-19 pandemic as sponsors would not be able to attend race meetings. A team statement said that a second car “isn’t out of the question at this stage”. TWIGGER PASSES AWAY Former MG Cup racer Chris Twigger passed away last week, after suffering from motor neurone disease. He had built up his own Rover Tomcat at Redhill Garage and joined the MG Cup in 2018, but was forced to hang up his helmet after a couple of outings in 2019. Daughter Kayleigh took the reins and raced the…

The cult of celebrity, however spurious, is everywhere in our society, on our TVs and social media feeds and even on traditional billboards. You’d think that motorsport would have renewed its complicated relationship with the glitterati by now, but no. The heights of household-name petrol-powered daredevilry were the 1970s. The chief exponent of the celebrity race was former Brands Hatch director John Webb, who organised contests that pitted a host of notables against a few game pros and, from time to time, Webb’s roster of aspiring female drivers. The first races were conducted using the track’s fleet of school Escort Mexicos, later replaced by Escort Mk2s – which featured in a race at the 1976 British Grand Prix, where 16 non-Formula 1 drivers were voted for by Autosport readers –…

Back to an era when the Formula 1 paddock was rather less like Fort Knox and majored in ramshackle charm – note how the Italian-registered transporter doubles as chilled hang-out space. Here at Silverstone for the 1973 British Grand Prix, a milling throng surveys the pre-race preparations of the BRM and Tecno teams (Jochen Mass’s #31 Surtees TS14A is also just visible, far right). BRM’s trio of P160Es were driven by Clay Regazzoni (#19), Jean-Pierre Beltoise (#20) and Niki Lauda (#21), while Tecno fielded a sole PA123 for Chris Amon. For classic 1970s Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/F1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

The FIA has outlined recommendations to improve safety measures in Formula 1 after concluding its investigation into Romain Grosjean’s 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix crash. The Frenchman’s Haas was torn in half upon impact with the barrier, which was penetrated by the survival cell. Grosjean was conscious throughout, and escaped from the flaming wreckage with only burns to his hands. The FIA’s report reveals that the fire started after “the fuel tank inspection hatch on the left-hand side of the chassis was dislodged and the engine fuel supply connection was torn from the fuel tank ‘safety bladder’”. This allowed fuel to escape and ignite. Much of the work the FIA said it will complete after reviewing the accident is centred upon the safety fuel bladder specification. It plans to conduct a…

Formula 1 will pay full tuition fees for talented young engineers from underrepresented backgrounds to complete their degree as part of a diversity push. Students will also be given a living allowance so they can focus fully on their studies. F1 announced last June that it would form a new foundation to fund apprenticeships and scholarships to improve diversity, following calls led by world champion Lewis Hamilton to enact change. Speaking in ASI Connect’s Future of Formula 1 session last week, F1 director of strategy and business Yath Gangakumaran said the scheme would “show we’re not just all talk, we’re going to execute on our actions as well”. “We’re working with all of the teams to ensure these scholars are then given work experience opportunities at the teams,” he said,…

The FIA has launched a new low-cost Impact Data Recorder that aims to improve understanding of accidents and improve safety standards across all levels of the motorsport pyramid. It is estimated that high-end accident data recorders are currently fitted to less than 1% of racing cars. As such, in studies of serious incidents to determine how survivability can be improved, data from amateur racing – where most fatal accidents occur – is largely absent. The FIA’s Safety Department and British company AiM Technologies have developed a low-cost alternative, which it is hoped will be widely adopted by competitors at grassroots levels. Measuring 6cm, the battery-powered device weighs 12g, is designed to be fitted without technical support, and is capable of recording over 80 incidents during its two-year lifespan. Using a…

Ever since team radio messages became part of the Formula 1 broadcast, the often-colourful interaction between driver and race engineer has been a popular staple of grand prix coverage. But just like most team communication, the finer nuances of the race engineer role stay out of the public spotlight. The unique blend of engineering, infused with a human touch, makes the role one of the most challenging and rewarding in motorsport – as Alpine race engineer Karel Loos knows well. Belgian-born Loos, who joined the Enstone team in 2011 in its Lotus guise, worked his way up from performance to race engineer and worked closely with Kevin Magnussen, Jolyon Palmer, Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniel Ricciardo. This year, F1 returnee Fernando Alonso will be added to that list. Loos sums…

With its trusty Mercedes machinery traded in for the British Touring Car Championship’s first customer BMW 330i M Sports, Ciceley Motorsport will expect to be in the mix for regular wins in 2021. And while the battle-hardened Adam Morgan and Tom Chilton can be relied upon to get the job done on track, no less important will be the voice on the radio of a man who has worked with distinction across all levels of motorsport in a 40-year career spanning Formula Ford, Formula 1 and almost everything in between. Australian-born Steve Farrell followed in the footsteps of older brother Chris in seeking to forge a racing career in England, but his 1983 Formula Ford campaign was hampered by a legacy of injuries he’d sustained in a crash the previous…