Innehållsförteckning för 08/04/21 från Autosport

We’ve known for a long time that Max Verstappen has the speed to challenge for Formula 1 world titles. Now that he seems to have the car, the one question remaining is: can he rein himself in enough when required to avoid throwing points away in a championship fight? Verstappen has never won a title in car racing but, as he tells Alex Kalinauckas in our frank interview on page 18, he has done so in karting. Not going for every gap can be key. It’s clearly something the Dutchman has thought about, and he believes it will be easier to fight for a crown in a competitive car than sniping for wins in a slower one. One driver who has long since given up on the F1 dream –…

FORMULA 3 The FIA Formula 2 drivers had already got their racing season under way in Bahrain, but it wasn’t until last weekend that their (mainly) younger brethren in FIA F3 took to the track for the first two-day pre-season official test of 2021 at the Red Bull Ring. Brazilian Caio Collet (below), the Nicolas Todt-managed Alpine F1 junior who finished runner-up in last season’s Formula Renault Eurocup, led the way with Dutch team MP Motorsport, and was the first of three rookies in the overall top four. Perhaps even more impressively, the other two F3 newcomers at the sharp end were 15-year-old American Jak Crawford and 17-year-old Brit Jonny Edgar, the Red Bull Juniors who spent last season fighting each other for the German F4 crown, and who have…

BATHURST Shane van Gisbergen has become the second driver in history to win the Bathurst Triple Crown by taking victory in last weekend’s Bathurst 6 Hour in a BMW M4. The Kiwi teamed up with Shane Smollen and Rob Rubis to win the production car classic (right), despite copping a five-second penalty for a restart breach midway through the race. That proved to be little trouble for van Gisbergen, who helped his car to a whopping 12s margin by the chequered flag. The victory comes after his Bathurst 12 Hour win in 2016 and his Bathurst 1000 triumph last year. The other Triple Crown winner is Paul Morris, who won the Bathurst 12 Hour when it was still a production car race in 2007, followed by the Bathurst 1000 in…

ITALIAN GT Stuart Middleton, the 2017 British GT4 co-champion, is to step up to GT3 competition this season in Italy with Lamborghini team Imperiale Racing. Middleton has become an ace in the marque’s Super Trofeo contests over the past two seasons. He came close to winning the European title in 2019, and was fourth in the North American series last year. The Northumbrian will now share a Huracan GT3 Evo with 2016 Asian GT champion Andrea Amici and Alberto di Folco in the Italian GT Endurance Championship, which kicks off at Sicilian speedbowl Enna-Pergusa on 22-23 May. “Pretty much every year so far in my racing we’ve done something new or different,” said Middleton, who has relocated to Italy. “I’ve had to learn a new car or working with a…

“We just have to make sure we have a faster car,” Max Verstappen tells us in this issue (see page 18). In essence, the Red Bull driver is correct – having the fastest car on the grid will make any team the favourite to win races and titles. But things are rarely as simple as that in Formula 1. The championship is only two weeks on from a thrilling season opener in Bahrain, but it was Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton who triumphed, not Red Bull and Verstappen, who at least confirmed they have produced the fastest car of 2021 so far. This advantage will be much harder to unpick than in a conventional campaign, with the development rules more restricted. But that equally does not mean that Mercedes can’t tweak…

Not feeling the spark for Extreme E Following much anticipation, I tuned in to the inaugural Extreme E event. I am afraid to say coverage highlighted everything that has been wrong with live event broadcasting for the past 20 years, over-hyped and over-long. Endless repetition, pointless speculation and then, when it came to the sharp end, 20 seconds of actual racing. People used to criticise 1990s Formula 1 for being all about the start, but at least there was a vague chance of something changing during the race. If the organisers want to effect real change in awareness, they have to attract an audience. On last weekend’s showing, I can’t see that happening. The format needs to change, and quickly, so the broadcast coverage can be condensed. I cannot conceive…

When Raffaele Marciello says “I don’t feel below guys that are in Formula 1”, he means it. Ranked 48th in Autosport’s top 50 drivers of 2020, below 12 from F1, the works Mercedes-AMG GT star is an in-demand 26-year-old who is content with his lot. After all, he’s racing great cars all over the world and is regarded as one of the best in his field. Take this year’s activities. Marciello is set to compete in the GT World Challenge Europe, ADAC GT Masters and the Nurburgring Langstrecken Serie. He’s already finished second in class in the Daytona 24 Hours, and scored two class poles in the four-race Asian Le Mans Series. Over the past three years, he has contested an average of 20.3 race meetings per season, including 21…

10 THE RISE OF RINDT 1964, MALLORY PARK AND CRYSTAL PALACE Sometimes two events gel into a double-header. The moveable Christian festival of Whitsun in 1964 started on Sunday 17 May with the Grovewood Trophy at short Mallory Park, 30 laps giving 40.5 miles. Lotus entered Jim Clark and Peter Arundell, with Tony Maggs making it three from F1. New to Britain was Austrian Jochen Rindt, in his third F2 race in his Brabham. He asked works Brabham driver Denny Hulme to show him around, which Hulme sportingly accepted for a newcomer on foreign territory. Rindt then claimed pole! A clutch problem ruined Rindt’s start, but he climbed from the back to snatch third from Alan Rees at the flag, just 8.2 seconds behind winner Clark. What would have happened…

Richard Washington should be cherished by Extreme E. He’s the only person who comes close to allaying scepticism about why this championship has chosen to dock in Saudi Arabia and what lasting impact it might have; doubts enhanced by reports that the country has spent “at least $1.5billion” on high-profile sporting events to bolster its reputation. The professor of climate science at the University of Oxford accepted the offer to join the Extreme E scientific committee within “30 seconds” of reading the email. He was convinced by the tandem Legacy projects that aim to benefit the environments where rounds are held. When Extreme E co-founder and ex-Member of European Parliament Alejandro Agag is asked to justify why we’re in Saudi, the evasive reply is ‘we don’t mix sports with politics’.…

CLUB RACING Organisers have reported strong levels of interest resulting in bumper grids as the delayed English motorsport season got under way last weekend. Pent-up demand from competitors led to some large entries, with the 750 Motor Club attracting 46 cars for its Club Enduro contest, 40 for the MX-5 Cup and 37 for the combined CALM All Porsche Trophy and Bernie’s V8s field at its Donington Park opener on Monday, despite lingering coronavirus restrictions. The 7 Race Series attracted 56 drivers for the MotorSport Vision Racing meeting at Oulton Park, meaning it was split over two grids, while Hot Hatch led the way for the Castle Combe Racing Club on 28. Even the Masters Historic Racing event at Donington Park, which traditionally benefits from an influx of European entries…

JSCC Junior Saloon Car Championship organisers are working on plans to introduce hybrid power to the series. The Citroen Saxo-based contest is working with a British Touring Car Championship team on the proposals, along with two other electric vehicle companies. No firm date has yet been set for when the hybrid system will be introduced. “We’re not doing it next year, but we are going to do it,” said championship coordinator Dave Beecroft. “This is the way the world is going and youngsters, as soon as they pass their test, will be driving hybrid and electric vehicles. It won’t involve a change in car – we’re not going to an electric Hyundai.” It is understood that the system will be similar to the one planned for the BTCC where, from…

MOTORSPORT VISION RACING Richard Ainscough just missed out on a double win in the 7 Series Caterham 420R class as the popular MotorSport Vision Racing category was split across two grids for its season opener at Oulton Park last weekend. Ainscough shook off Phil Jenkins early in the first encounter, and his race-long lead left him clear of a terrific battle for second to secure the win in a contest shortened by a red flag. Justin Heap swapped places with Jenkins, before Jake Swann Dixon split them. Jenkins beat Swann Dixon to second at the flag, while Heap dropped to fifth behind Anthony Barnes. It was an eight-car train for much of race two, before Ainscough and Jenkins broke clear after six of the 16 laps. Both had a share…

DONINGTON PARK MSVR MASTERS HISTORIC 2-3 APRIL The season-opening Masters Historic Sports Car Championship encounter was ultimately a Bolton benefit as Bolton resident Tom Bradshaw won by threequarters of a minute in the family’s Bolton-built Chevron B19. In the early stages, he’d run nip and tuck with the Lola T70 Mk3B of Alex Brundle in an absorbing contest, with the Chevron nibbling at the rear of the mighty Lola. Sadly, it was not destined to last and, just as a safety car period started, Brundle peeled the Lola off into the pits with a terminal gearbox problem. From the green, ex-Formula Palmer Audi and Porsche racer Bradshaw took full advantage of the empty track ahead of him to blitz clear of the rest of the pack and complete the perfect…

International sportscar racing aces Darren Turner, Oliver Webb, Adam Carroll and Jon Lancaster are among the drivers. Four Lamborghini Huracan GT3s are due to take part in the season opener, plus a further three Super Trofeo machines. Then there are seven GT4 McLarens, and GT3 cars from McLaren, Nissan and Mercedes. No, this is not a top-level European or even worldwide GT series being discussed, but instead the entry list for this weekend’s first round of the GT Cup at Donington Park. It’s quite a remarkable collection of cars and drivers that makes up the 38-strong field set to do battle in Leicestershire. And it gets better – for the Brands Hatch Grand Prix round in May, a capacity 46 entries have been received, and there are eight reserves! Considering…

An unlikely sequence of events led Townsend Bell to sample a Jaguar Formula 1 car at Valencia in November 2003. Bell had won the 2001 Indy Lights title, and made his CART Indycar debut before the end of that year. He seemed destined for a long career at the top level of US open-wheelers, but after a scrappy half-season in 2002 with Patrick Racing he found himself on the sidelines facing a career crossroads. At the age of 27, Bell moved to Oxford and signed a two-year deal with the Arden team in the International Formula 3000 championship. With no circuit knowledge, he was always going to be up against it – “I didn’t have a spectacular rookie season,” he admits – and, with money for a second year tight,…

FORMULA 1 Honda will evaluate whether it can be more aggressive with its Formula 1 engine in races following Red Bull’s defeat at the hands of Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Red Bull’s clear pace advantage over one lap allowed Max Verstappen to sweep to pole position in qualifying, only for Mercedes to strike back in the race and secure a narrow victory with Hamilton. Looking back on the race weekend, Red Bull engine supplier Honda said one aspect it will closely analyse is whether it could have been more aggressive with its power deployment. “We will review and consider this data,” said Honda F1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe. “We need to see how much the power unit has been exhausted in this race, and…

WEC/ELMS Engine power in the LMP2 class has been pegged back for a second time ahead of this year’s World Endurance Championship to ensure a performance differential to the cars competing at the front of the field in the new Hypercar category. Power from the one-make Gibson engine has been reduced by 20kW or 25bhp in addition to the 30kw or 40bhp originally planned. That means that the 4.2-litre normally aspirated V8 will push out approximately 535bhp (400kW) in 2021 compared with more than 600bhp (450kW) since the introduction of the current P2 formula in 2017. A move that also applies to the European and Asian Le Mans Series is part of a revised strategy on the part of the rule makers – WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l’Ouest…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP Porsche Carrera Cup GB sensation Harry King will race in the Formula 1-supporting Porsche Supercup this season in addition to attacking a second successive Carrera Cup GB crown. He will partner 2014 Carrera Cup champion Josh Webster at Team Parker Racing as the squad moves into the Supercup in partnership with Revs Motorsport. King stormed to the Carrera Cup crown as a rookie last season, the first of his two years as a Porsche GB Junior. He had long eyed progressing into the Supercup for 2021, and he will benefit from working with the same engineers across both series. In the Supercup he will have to get to grips with the new-for-2021 Type 992 car, which is introduced to the Carrera Cup GB next year. “I’m delighted to…

SUPER FORMULA Giuliano Alesi, son of Ferrari Formula 1 folk hero Jean, will race for TOM’S in Super Formula this season as a substitute for Kazuki Nakajima, but admits he “doesn’t know what to expect” from his debut. Alesi has moved to Japan for 2021 after two seasons in Formula 2, and has embarked on a dual campaign in the second-tier Super Formula Lights series with TOM’S and in Super GT’s GT300 class with Toyota Team Thailand. With Nakajima set to miss multiple races due to clashing FIA World Endurance Championship commitments for Toyota and travel restrictions, Alesi looks set for an early debut in Super Formula, potentially as early as this month’s second round at Suzuka. “The objective will be to score some points, get a podium if I…

Racing is something I’ve been doing intensely for the past 12 years since I started karting when I was 11. This year, I’ve moved from the DTM into LMP2, and will be racing in the European Le Mans Series with Algarve Pro Racing alongside Richard Bradley and Diego Menchaca, and in the FIA World Endurance Championship with WRT alongside Robin Frijns and Charles Milesi. Now that I’m racing all over the world, I’ve noticed the waste that we produce and leave behind. Over the winter I was trying to find a way in which I could become more aware, more sustainable. I wanted to have not only the benefit of being very passionate about our sport, but also try to change the wasteful nature that the sport has. So I…

The Zoom ID suddenly changes. There’s to be no doubt whose time and attention is coming Autosport’s way. A few minutes past the agreed start point – this is a Formula 1 driver’s time and attention, after all – the camera comes back on. It’s still Red Bull’s press attache in view, but then our perspective turns. Here’s Max Verstappen. He’s sitting in the spartanly decorated room that will be his driver’s quarters over the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend – over his shoulder, halfway through our chat, his father Jos will appear through the door and peer intently at the screen into which his son is communicating. Media engagements are part of the motorsport game, but this one feels palpably different. Throughout, there’s a sense of mixed excitement, potential, even…

Relatively little was expected of Raffaele Marciello when he joined Prema for the 2012 F3 Euro Series. Team-mate Daniel Juncadella was entering his third season and had won the previous year’s Macau Grand Prix, so was banking on showing the way to this young graduate of the Italian F3 Championship. But already in testing, Marciello was on his case, prompting a frank exchange with Juncadella’s engineer John McGill when the young upstart was able to carry an extra 5km/h through the final fourth-gear left-hander at Misano. “I was having a lot of oversteer and he was having understeer, so I said to my engineer, ‘I cannot do this corner like him’,” Juncadella recalls. “He was telling me that Raffaele was turning aggressively like [Fernando] Alonso was doing in his Renault…

The value of beating a Formula 1 driver rested, of course, on who was beaten, the circumstances and the numbers encountered – 13 was the most in any race. Wins for non-F1 drivers were rare. John Surtees’s fourth at Aintree in 1960 amid those 13 gained him instant promotion to the top tier. Bruce McLaren’s win for Cooper in the F2 class of the 1958 German GP, after Phil Hill spun off in his Ferrari, also leaps out. Jack Brabham (Cooper) and Graham Hill (Lotus) failed to finish, but neither had headed McLaren, and a 1959 works Cooper F1 drive was sealed. But not all wanted an F1 career. In late 1958, Jim Russell beat Brabham, the lone F1 driver present, in a straight fight at Montlhery, followed in early…

SUPER FORMULA FUJI (JPN) 4 APRIL ROUND 1/7 Mugen Honda ace Tomoki Nojiri staked an early claim to the Super Formula title with a textbook drive to victory in last weekend’s Fuji Speedway season opener. The 31-year-old converted pole position into his fourth career win – his third in nine starts – ahead of junior Honda colleagues Toshiki Oyu and Nirei Fukuzumi, who delivered the manufacturer a podium lockout to kick off the new season. From second on the grid, Oyu seized the initiative at the start and built an early two-second lead, but Nojiri soon reeled in the Nakajima Racing sophomore, and on lap 10 of 41 he took back the advantage with a round-the-outside pass at the downhill Turn 10 right-hander. Nojiri’s main challenge thereafter was maintaining his…

MINI CHALLENGE Junior Rallycross ace Tom Ovenden believes learning the circuits will be his toughest task as he swaps disciplines to compete in the Cooper class of the Mini Challenge this year. Ovenden, the son of multiple rallycross title winner Tristan, began competing in autograss before winning the junior title in both BTRDA Clubmans and British Rallycross last year. The 16-year-old now joins the Excelr8 Motorsport squad as he makes his first foray into circuit racing. “I think the most difficult thing as I make the switch from British Rallycross to circuit racing is going to be learning all the new circuits, but joining an experienced and well-established team like Excelr8 will hopefully give me the best chance of success, and will help me get up to speed quickly,” said…

HISTORICS The early Mini Cooper S initially raced by Anita Taylor, and which subsequently won its class in the 1965 Snetterton 500 in the hands of David Wansborough and Gerry Marshall, is set to return to competition this season. Prepared for Taylor to contest the 1964 British Saloon Car Championship, initially in 1071cc specification, the Mini is back in South Yorkshire where the Taylor family’s Aurora Gears Company was based, and being fettled for owner Peter Flanagan to use in speed events. One of two supplied to brother and sister Trevor and Anita Taylor by Douglas Wilson-Spratt, ‘110 NNM’ had an engine from Wiltshire tuning ace Daniel Richmond’s Downton Engineering. It was painted in Aurora Gear (Racing) turquoise with a crimson stripe, which will now be used again, 57 years…

TOURING CAR TROPHY Henry Neal will bid for a second successive Touring Car Trophy title in his Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R FK2 this season. The son of three-time British Touring Car champion Matt Neal won four out of seven races last year, but will face more competition this season in the wake of another flurry of recent driver announcements. Dynamics may yet run a second Civic, but there will definitely be at least one other NGTCspec machine on the grid, with former Ginetta GT4 Supercup and VW Cup driver Darron Lewis piloting a Mercedes A-Class run by Team Hard (below, left). Lewis made a one-off TCT appearance in the team’s Volkswagen CC in 2019, scoring a best finish of fourth. “I couldn’t have asked for a better run…

DONINGTON PARK 750MC 5 APRIL Perennial Mazda MX-5 Cup pacesetter Ben Short was given a thorough workout by series debutant Mike Epps as the 750 Motor Club season kicked off where it concluded last December. The pair dominated the first encounter. They exchanged the lead – and some paint – on a couple of occasions, before Short eventually eased to a one-second win after former British Touring Car racer Epps missed a gear on the final lap. Epps thought he’d turned the tables in race two only to be excluded post-race for having an underweight car. From eighth on the partially reversed grid, he had made the best of the first-lap skirmishes to run second, then quickly chased down leader Mike Comber, who had recovered to sixth in race one…

GT3 The newest addition to the class structure does not take much explaining – it’s for fully homologated GT3 machines. Among this entry are a number of British GT pairings looking to get in some early-season running, including Phil Keen and Michael Igoe (Lamborghini Huracan), Stewart and Lewis Proctor (McLaren 720S) and Richard and Sam Neary (Mercedes-AMG). Other entries are set to feature W Series racer Abbie Eaton and 2017 GT4 champion Will Tregurtha. GTO This is another class that is easily defined by its name as it’s for open-specification GT cars, including older GT2 or GTE machines. It is home to Richard Chamberlain’s famed Porsche 935, while other entries for Donington Park this weekend include a Brabham BT62 and a Radical RXC. GTC The GTC group is when things…

Competing for space among the characteristic French floral street furniture, the Aston Martin DB3Ss shared by Reg Parnell and Peter Collins (#25), and George Abecassis and Roy Salvadori (#26), are primed and fettled ahead of the 1953 Le Mans 24 Hours (the #27 car driven by Eric Thompson and Dennis Poore is also just visible in the background). None of the works trio made the finish: the Parnell/Collins car crashed out two hours in, Abecassis and Salvadori were eliminated when oil leaked into the clutch after 10 hours, and Thompson and Poore lasted a further eight hours before their engine died. For classic Le Mans DVDs head to dukevideo.com/lemans For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

EXTREME E It was agreed last summer, but long-time World Rally Championship powerhouse Prodrive has only in the past week disclosed its deal with Lewis Hamilton to run the Mercedes Formula 1 star’s X44 team in the inaugural season of Extreme E. Prodrive founder and chairman David Richards, who attended the maiden Desert X-Prix in Saudi Arabia last weekend, has known the Hamilton family for the better part of 25 years, from when his son used to compete alongside the seven-time world champion in karting. At that time, Prodrive was winning three successive WRC manufacturers’ titles for Subaru. “I’ve always kept in touch with him, and the families keep in touch,” Richards told Autosport. “Lewis actually said, ‘I’ve always wanted to work with you guys at some point in time’.”…

WEC/ELMS Sportscar stalwart Katherine Legge has moved up into the World Endurance Championship line-up of the Iron Lynx Ferrari squad. And as part of a reshuffle of the team’s all-female ‘Iron Dames’ programme, Porsche Carrera Cup GB regular Esmee Hawkey (right) has been given her international break in the European Le Mans Series. Legge will race alongside Rahel Frey and Manuela Gostner in the ‘Iron Dames’ GTE Am class Ferrari 488 GTE Evo in the WEC. She has swapped places with Michelle Gatting, who moves into the ELMS line-up alongside Frey and bronze driver Hawkey. Gostner had been due to race in the ELMS as the mandatory bronze, but will now race in the Le Mans Cup support series alongside Renault Clio Cup France graduate Doriane Pin. “Katherine has some…

FORMULA E Mercedes has gone against expectation by delaying its commitment to Formula E. It has missed the 31 March deadline to register for the Gen3 regulations, citing a need for “clarification” concerning the structure of the championship. Only two races into its second season as a works entry, Mercedes is still expected to pledge its future to the championship until at least the 2025-26 season. Plans are in place for the race team to consolidate in Brackley for next year and move away from its current set-up that spans five locations. Team principal Ian James said: “While recent discussions relating to key topics such as the implementations of a cost cap for Formula E have been largely positive, there are still important details regarding the structure of the series…

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It was clear from early in 2020 that Red Bull’s RB16 was tough for its drivers to handle. It took many months into the year – team boss Christian Horner didn’t concede something was “misbehaving aerodynamically” until round three – before the squad admitted there was more to it than drivers finding its limit. On the first morning of 2021 pre-season testing, Max Verstappen half-spun the RB16B exiting the opening corners of the Bahrain track, and his initial runs did not look altogether comfortable. But that quickly changed, with Mercedes strategy director James Vowles commenting after testing that Red Bull’s car looked “planted”. “There’s nothing missing now,” says Verstappen, who came into the new season 1kg lighter than in previous years. The rest of testing ran smoothly for Red Bull,…

Formula 1 talent at the wheel of Formula 2? With single-seater racing so delineated now, this would seem unlikely to many modern fans. The very aim of F2 is to discover talent for accession to F1, but in 1948, when F2 began, a more accessible entry into single-seater racing was its purpose. Constructors were expected to make their wares available to all and naturally the best drivers were used by works teams, creating an open door for anyone to compete with the great racing stars of the day. The F1 world championship calendar was much shorter in the 1950s and 1960s, so top drivers appeared in many different categories, including F2. Today, drivers arrive in F1 untested race-wise in the company of those they are about to encounter. Would they…

Extreme E’s maiden voyage into the breathtakingly beautiful AlUla desert in Saudi Arabia last weekend emphatically met Oscar Wilde’s criteria for what’s good and bad in life. The championship was talked about as Nico Rosberg’s hand-picked driver line-up of Johan Kristoffersson and Molly Taylor scored an emphatic and historic victory amid the dunes. Social media was a motorsport hubbub during and after the action’s beaming via satellites to be broadcast via UK television network colossuses ITV, BT Sport, Sky Sports and the BBC. Series co-founder Alejandro Agag cares deeply about the spectacle. Those overlapping rights deals were offered for a minimal fee to get as many eyes as possible on his latest all-electric venture. He stopped by the media centre to watch the dramatic Shoot Out race and sat next…

MOTOGP LOSAIL (QAT) 4 APRIL ROUND 2/19 After being confined to the Doha desert for the best part of a month, much of the MotoGP paddock is sick of the sight of the Losail International Circuit. The small contingent of the pitlane who’d probably be quite happy to stick around a little longer will be Yamaha, which completed a Qatar double in the Doha Grand Prix. Maverick Vinales’s Qatar GP win of the previous weekend proved that the Vinales of old is very much alive and well, and in doing so he put pressure on new team-mate Fabio Quartararo, who was fifth after riding “like a rookie” during the season opener. But in the Doha GP, the hotshot youngster who’d been deemed worthy of ousting nine-time grand prix world champion…

GINETTA GT4 SUPERCUP A trio of Mazda MX-5 Supercup racers are set to contest their first full seasons in the Ginetta GT4 Supercup with AK Motorsport this year. Former MX-5 champion James Blake-Baldwin made one-off Ginetta appearances with the squad in both 2019 and 2020, taking a best result of fifth. He will be joined by fellow MX-5 regulars Jack Sycamore and Garry Townsend in moving to the British Touring Car support series, while regular Am class frontrunner Carl Garnett will also continue with AK. “We’ve made good progress in the championship over the past three years, and we want to push on in 2021,” said team manager Anthony Kane. “Moving up to a four-car line-up is great for us, and we’ve got a brilliant group of talented, successful racers…

FF1600 Pat Blakeney celebrated 35 years to the day since his race debut, driving a Formula Ford 2000 Royale RP27 in a Monoposto race at Castle Combe, by returning to the circuit’s FF1600 Championship last Monday. Since selling the FF2000 Delta that he shared with son Scott at Silverstone’s Historic Sports Car Club Finals last October, Blakeney – who manages the motorsport content at Thruxton – has bought the Medina Sport Van Diemen JL13 in which Wayne Boyd won the 2015 Formula Ford Festival. “Peter Alexander had bought the car, originally to run a customer in, but we collected it last week,” said Blakeney who, after taking a best result of 11th on Monday, intends to do as many Combe rounds as possible. Asked why he had bought a car…

SUPERKART WINNERS The first Superkart silverware of the season was claimed at Darley Moor last weekend when it hosted the English Championship for the F250 National and F125 Open classes. Lee Plain won the first leg for the F250 National class, but in the second leg Kirk Cattermole snatched victory on the final corner to win by 0.09s. With the drivers tied on points, the verdict went in favour of Cattermole by dint of his better qualifying time. In the F125 Open class, Mark Bramhall had two easy wins to secure the E plate. SMITH’S STEP UP IN FIESTAS After contesting a few Fiesta races last year, 2017 European Le Mans Series GT champion Rob Smith is stepping up to the new Mk7 Fiesta ST180 Turbo class for 2021. “It’s…

Here we go again. For the second successive season, the UK racing season has kicked off late, delayed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, with scientists toiling to devise vaccines and the first national lockdown biting, Motorsport UK cancelled all event permits for the months of April, May and June. This time around, with more than 30 million people (towards half the population) having received at least one jab, we’re in a better place, but by no means complacent. To be able to start motorsport in April, albeit behind closed doors, is therefore a privilege appreciated by many who were raring to go. I worked at last July’s Historic Sports Car Club Legends of Brands Hatch Super Prix event – one of the first meetings to be run to…

CASTLE COMBE CCRC 5 APRIL Double-headers for each of Castle Combe’s four resident categories thrilled viewers via livestreaming for Howard’s Day, which opened the Wiltshire circuit’s 2021 season. None thrilled more so than Formula Ford, where Ollie White landed the only Easter Monday double after a mere 0.543 seconds blanketed the top five runners, each in different chassis, during qualifying. Felix Fisher (Ray GR05) claimed pole for race one, with White (Medina Sport JL17K), reigning champion Luke Cooper (Swift SC18), championship debutant Ben Mitchell (Van Diemen RF99) and young Alex Walker (Spectrum 011) snapping at his heels. All five were locked in combat from the moment the red lights went out, but it all came to a head when White squeezed bold outside challenger Mitchell onto the grass atop Avon…

TV COVERAGE EXTREME E Entertainment, equality, environment – the three Es that encapsulate what Extreme E stands for were highlighted as the innovative new off-road all-electric championship took its bow last weekend following months of build-up and fanfare. The Desert X-Prix, the first of five rounds of Formula E co-founder Alejandro Agag’s latest enterprise, took place in the AlUla region of Saudi Arabia with a contingent of motorsport’s elite, including teams from Formula 1 world champions Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg, as well as high-profile drivers such as nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb, World Rallycross star Timmy Hansen and inaugural W Series champion Jamie Chadwick. It seemed fitting, then, that the coverage of last Sunday’s main event wasn’t tucked away on some obscure TV channel, but instead…

It’s easy to wax lyrical about Nurburgring’s Nordschleife, the majesty of the Isle of Man TT or the old Spa road circuit – and rightly so. But I believe the appeal of the world’s shorter race tracks should not be overlooked. In fact, they should be celebrated far more than they are. I’ll begin with a track close to my heart. Nobody was happier than I when the local track of my youth, Oulton Park, reopened its full layout for cars. While the International Circuit’s driving challenge is superior, I have to admit, on the evidence of the hundreds of races I’ve watched there, that the finest racing that sticks in the memory has more often been served up by the shorter, sub-two-mile Fosters layout. shorter, sub-two-mile Fosters layout. A…