Innehållsförteckning för 18/11/21 från Autosport

Just when you think the Formula 1 title fight has finally settled into a pattern and Max Verstappen is putting some daylight between himself and Lewis Hamilton in the points, we get a race like that! The first shock of the Interlagos weekend was the pace of Mercedes. Off the back of one of Red Bull’s most dominant 2021 performances in Mexico, and at a venue Verstappen where has been victorious before, Hamilton topped qualifying by a whopping 0.4 seconds. Then both championship protagonists fell foul of officialdom (see page 4), Hamilton much more so. His charge past 15 cars in the sprint contest was superb, but he still had to start the Sao Paulo Grand Prix 10th thanks to the change of his Mercedes powerplant. That engine, which was…

BMW has offered a taste of how its forthcoming LMDh prototype will look, at the same time as confirming that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will continue a relationship with the marque stretching back to 2009 into the new era for the IMSA SportsCar Championship. These so-called “preliminary sketches” are the result of a collaboration between BMW Motorsport, the marque’s Designworks studio and Dallara, on whose next-generation LMP2 design a car to be known as the BMW M LMDh is being developed. RLLR will run two of the cars in IMSA from 2023, with team founder Bobby Rahal describing the chance to go for overall wins as “a dream come true”. Prior to the arrival of the LMDh, Rahal will run a pair of BMW’s new M4 GT3s in the GT…

Whatever happens at this weekend’s Rally Monza finale, the 2021 World Rally Championship is set for a fairytale ending. For the second year in succession the title fight has gone down to the wire to be fought over by the master, seven-time WRC champion Sebastien Ogier, and his Toyota team-mate apprentice, Elfyn Evans. This case of deja vu played out on Italy’s asphalt roads around Monza has the potential to create two equally special outcomes. Monza will offer Ogier the last chance to win a world championship as the full-time WRC activities of one of the sport’s all-time greats draw towards a close. While it’s only a partial goodbye – the Frenchman is to contest a limited campaign in a third Toyota entry shared with Esapekka Lappi next year –…

Before the fascinating parc ferme saga kicked off immediately afterwards, the Friday evening qualifying session in Sao Paulo was packed with intrigue, as Mercedes hit back against Red Bull following its Mexican race drubbing. Lewis Hamilton had spent much of first practice complaining that his W12’s front suspension was too stiff but, after adjustments, he was happier and topped the session as he and Valtteri Bottas completed a series of late runs on the soft tyres. Red Bull, meanwhile, gave Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez just one go at getting their eyes in for the Q1-Q2-Q3 session. That raised expectations of a close battle for pole, especially with the need to take medium tyres in Q2 – an adjustment that has occasionally caught out Verstappen – removed by the sprint…

Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr beat Pierre Gasly to finish best of the rest in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, with the Italian giant gaining 18 points on McLaren in the fight for third place in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship. Sainz had already secured Ferrari one of those points for finishing third in the sprint race after his soft tyre choice paid off handsomely, while Leclerc struggled to get his mediums into the optimum operating temperature and dropped behind Lando Norris. Sainz’s strong start was key to his sprint race rise from fifth on the grid, which he said was down to recent “homework over the last few races to really try and nail them”. But he got away poorly in the Grand Prix, losing ground…

It’s back. After a year in hibernation thanks to you-know-what, the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award burst back into life for 2021. Four young British racers and a new guest judge helped to make this year’s contest, which kicked off last month, one of the best yet. The details of the process get tweaked each year, but the overall structure is well established. The selected four, who have to be under 24 at the start of the calendar year and be an FIA Formula 3 rookie or compete in a lower level, conduct fitness and simulator tests before the two-day running on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. There they spend half a day driving GT3 and LMP3 machinery and the rest of the time with…

EQUIPE CLASSIC RACING Equipe Classic Racing will organise a special MGB 60 race next year to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the popular model’s launch and has also revealed a draft calendar for its first season of running its own race meetings. A special 40-minute one or two-driver pitstop race is planned on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit on 11 June next year to commemorate the MGB’s birthday. Following the Northamptonshire venue getting permission to run greater capacity grids on the GP layout this year, it is hoped that 60 cars will contest the event to celebrate the MGB’s 60 years. Organisers are planning to get as many ex-works cars to attend as possible, as well as some of the drivers, and have received a huge amount of interest since…

GINETTA G40 CUP The Ginetta G40 Cup will switch to become an endurance contest next year and will join the Britcar Trophy grid. The category was created as the next step on the ladder for drivers progressing out of the Ginetta Racing Drivers Club series but, with the GRDC being replaced for this year by the Ginetta GT Academy, interest in the G40 Cup reduced. It ran alongside the GT5 Challenge in 2021 but will now be run under licence by SVG Motorsport team boss Andy Johnson with support from Ginetta as a division within the Britcar Trophy mini-enduros. “It’s a really good move for that car and category,” said Ginetta motorsport manager Ash Gallagher. “The G40 Cup has been the home for GRDC graduates but, without that category, we…

LEGENDS 2022 CALENDAR The Legends Cars National Championship has announced a 45-race calendar for next season across eight weekends, which will include a return to Oulton Park (2 April) and Anglesey (18-19 June). There will also be three visits to Brands Hatch, and sole outings to Pembrey, Donington Park and Snetterton during the season. JHR JOINS UAE F4 SERIES JHR Developments will make its debut in the Formula 4 United Arab Emirates Championship next month. The team will compete in a non-championship round ahead of a five-event schedule that begins in January next year and will take place over a six-week period, ending in February. Fellow British F4 squad Carlin has also committed to the series, which will debut the new Tatuus T-421 chassis that will be used in the…

RALLYING British Rally Championship title chaser Matt Edwards has admitted he knew it was always going to be difficult to claim the crown for a third consecutive season after his decision to switch cars for 2021. Edwards’s previous two BRC successes came in the R5 version of the Ford Fiesta, but at the start of this year he decided to campaign Volkswagen’s Polo GTI R5 instead. Although he has won the Nicky Grist Stages and Trackrod Rally, this season has been one of frustration for Edwards as he works on finding the sweet spot of the Melvyn Evans Motorsport car. If Edwards is to retain his crown, he must score maximum points on this weekend’s Ulster Rally finale. Anything less and he hands the title to fellow Welshman Osian Pryce.…

“Just missed the marshal” read the YouTube comment. I’d just switched on the British Automobile Racing Club’s livestream of its Brands Hatch meeting last weekend, and the remark was both eye-catching and alarming. Sure enough, after backtracking through the video by a few minutes, there it was. The Renault Clio of Mark Williams had spun in the second Classic and Modern Motorsport Club Southern Super Saloons/Tin Tops race on Sunday and was stuck on the outside of the circuit at Druids facing oncoming traffic. It was an innocuous spin in damp conditions with no major consequences, but the driver was unable to move the car from its unsafe location. Yet instead of a safety car being deployed, two marshals were sent to the stricken machine, which was covered only by…

ANGLESEY BRSCC RACE OF REMEMBRANCE 12-14 NOVEMBER Often it pays to go beyond the headlines. In this latest Race of Remembrance, back at Anglesey after a COVID-induced year away, Rob Boston and Peter Mansfield won their second Race of Remembrance on the bounce in their Lotus Elise. The Rob Boston Racing machine led home the special event’s best-ever 53-strong entry in unseasonably dry and mild conditions. Boston and Mansfield this time did it after topping both qualifying sessions, taking pole with a best time close to three seconds clear. Boston then led from the off and, within a couple of hours of the 12-hour race, had a lap on the field. But this one, just like Boston and Mansfield’s 2019 victory, wasn’t easy. Last time, a late brake scare threw…

That GT4 was decided a round early was entirely fitting of the dominance displayed by Century Motorsport BMW’s Will Burns and Gus Burton. The champion and runner-up in the 2020 Ginetta GT4 Supercup lived up to their billing as pre-season favourites by leading every race and winning three times. Without British GT’s success penalties (and being punished for a too-short stop in the second Snetterton contest), that tally could have been more. Burns was initially committed to Assetto Motorsport’s new Ginetta G56 but, when a team-mate for him couldn’t be found, Century boss Nathan Freke got his man. In its fourth year of running the BMW M4 GT4s, the 2018 title-winning squad had no excuses with two quick drivers and a decent testing programme that Freke says contributed to the…

Flames lick from the exhausts of Jean Alesi’s V12-powered Ferrari 643 at the 1991 Spanish Grand Prix at the new Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Alesi could have been driving a Williams FW14 that season, which by September 1991 was clearly the fastest car in Formula 1. But instead the French-Sicilian was led by his heart… and toiled to make the best of a car that lagged behind Williams and McLaren. In Spain, Alesi scored his final points of the season in fourth as team-mate Alain Prost – in his penultimate start for Ferrari before getting sacked – finished runner-up to Nigel Mansell. For classic 1990s Formula 1 DVDs head to dukevideo.com/f1 For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

FORMULA 1 Mercedes Formula 1 chief Toto Wolff declared that “diplomacy has ended” after Lewis Hamilton was thrown out of qualifying for last weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix for a technical breach and tensions flared between the team and rival Red Bull. On a fraught weekend for F1’s title-fighting teams, both Hamilton and championship rival Max Verstappen faced the stewards, while Mercedes found itself “taking punches all weekend”, said Wolff. Hamilton topped Friday’s qualifying by 0.4 seconds, but the FIA’s post-session technical checks found an issue with his DRS. Technical delegate Jo Bauer referred Hamilton’s car to the stewards after the gap between the two rear-wing planes when DRS was open was found to be greater than the regulation 85mm. A lengthy hearing followed on Friday night at Interlagos, before…

WEC Chevrolet will contest a full season in the World Endurance Championship for the first time next year. The General Motors marque’s Corvette Racing squad will mount a split programme in 2022 straddling the WEC and the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America. The Pratt & Miller-run team will field one of its C8.Rs in the WEC’s GTE Pro class, while the other will race in IMSA in modified form against GT3 machinery in the new GT Daytona Pro division. Chevrolet has stated its intent to enter a second car alongside its full WEC entry for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June. The team will head into the new season with an unchanged driver line-up: Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner will be the full-time drivers in WEC, with Antonio…

INDYCAR SERIES Indy Lights champion Kyle Kirkwood, the superstar of American junior open-wheel racing, will step up to the IndyCar Series with the famed AJ Foyt Racing #14 car in 2022. The 23-year-old from Florida has won a staggering 56 races across Indy Lights, Indy Pro 2000, USF2000, F3 Americas and US F4, along with all five titles. But his erstwhile team owner Michael Andretti couldn’t find a berth for him in his IndyCar team. Kirkwood’s contract meant he wasn’t allowed to start negotiating with other teams until this month, so in the meantime he squeezed in three tests in an Andretti Autosport IndyCar at Sebring, Barber Motorsports Park and Indianapolis road course. He brings with him approximately $1.25million in scholarship funding for winning the Lights crown, which guaranteed him…

Seb Priaulx, the son of three-time World Touring Car champion Andy Priaulx, claimed the inaugural Carrera Cup North America title with victory in the first of three races at last weekend’s Road Atlanta finale. That put the crown beyond reach of Kay van Berlo, his team-mate at Kelly-Moss Racing, a partner team to Multimatic Motorsports of which Priaulx is a protege. Priaulx was second in race two, then won again in the final race to take his season victory tally to six.…

UK START TIMES Friday 19 November FP1 1030 FP2 1400 Saturday 20 November FP3 1100 QUALIFYING 1400 Sunday 21 November RACE 1400 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE HIGHLIGHTS CHANNEL 4 1830 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS…

Verstappen needs taking to task I’m at a loss to understand why the FIA hasn’t taken any action against the continued over-aggressive tactics of Max Verstappen. This weekend saw an incredible comeback win from Lewis Hamilton, which was nearly denied by Verstappen’s blatant actions. Once Hamilton was past Verstappen on the straight approaching Turn 4 on lap 48, Verstappen attempted to retake the position by clearly forcing Hamilton off and illegally retook the position. This was followed by Verstappen’s blatant weaving to maintain position. The FIA’s refusal to stamp down on Verstappen’s bad driving is not only setting a dangerous precedent that doing anything to maintain position is acceptable, but combined with the questionable disqualification of Hamilton’s car from qualifying after damage was found (which goes against how damaged parts…

Once Lewis Hamilton had been disqualified from qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, it was clear that Formula 1’s third sprint race would be all about two main stories. How much could Valtteri Bottas disrupt inherited-first-place starter Max Verstappen? And how far could Hamilton recover? In the former, proceedings were set in motion by the tyre choices. Verstappen, as expected, lined up on the mediums. But Bottas, after Mercedes had found “the soft behaved a bit better than we expected” in the Friday FP1 long runs, was given the red-walled rubber instead. With better bite off the line, and optimistically long life overall, Mercedes “gambled a little bit”, again according to Bottas, because “we thought the best chance to get the lead was the race start”. And it was.…

Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver penalised in three crashes at Interlagos’s first corner across the two races in Sao Paulo, with the AlphaTauri driver handed a 10-second addition for hitting Lance Stroll early in the Grand Prix. The stewards found Tsunoda was “wholly at fault” for the third-lap clash and said he “braked too late in this optimistic manoeuvre”. Tsunoda said his move “was risky”, but argued “he was not looking in his mirror at all”. Stroll later retired due to damage sustained in the crash. At the same spot on lap two of the sprint, Kimi Raikkonen had spun after turning in on Alfa Romeo team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi. Eight laps after the Tsunoda/Stroll clash in the GP, Mick Schumacher hit Raikkonen, breaking the Haas’s front wing. In other…

PETIT LE MANS IMSA SPORTSCAR ROUND 12/12 ROAD ATLANTA (USA) 13 NOVEMBER A multitude of winners basked in glory after a dramatic conclusion to the action-packed 24th annual Petit Le Mans last Saturday evening at Road Atlanta. Mazda Motorsports claimed the biggest prize as Harry Tincknell completed a late pass on Felipe Nasr to claim the overall victory alongside fellow Englishman Oliver Jarvis and their endurance co-driver Jonathan Bomarito. Meanwhile, Nasr capped his final drive in the Action Express Cadillac by securing the IMSA title for himself and fellow Brazilian Pipo Derani by the narrowest of margins over Wayne Taylor Racing Acura pairing Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque. A measure of recompense for the WTR squad, which had led the standings since winning the opening round of the season –…

Acramped workshop provided the catalyst for the creation of one of the UK’s leading historic sportscar operations. When Bob Berridge and his guys at Chamberlain-Synergy Motorsport started having to shuffle cars around – like “one of those Chinese magic puzzles”, he says – to get to the one they needed to work on, it was clearly time for a change. New premises, new partners, a new name and a new outlook quickly followed. The operation has been called BBM Sport, after the initials of the three partners involved, since the start of 2019. Berridge invited long-time employee and latterly technical chief Steve Briggs and former Peugeot LMP1 driver and old friend Nicolas Minassian to join the management. BBM is now based in workshops in Daventry that were formerly the home…

HISTORICS Buoyed by Historic Formula Ford and Formula Junior victories at Silverstone last month, Horatio Fitz-Simon was an emphatic double winner on his Laguna Seca debut in a Lotus Elan 26R last weekend. Driving the car with race history dating back to Oulton Park and Crystal Palace in 1964, and newly acquired by supporter ART Car Club, Fitz-Simon secured an “11th hour” Velocity Invitational entry, with mentor Howden Ganley’s help. Fitz-Simon said: “Laguna Seca is incredible – I’ve never experienced anything like the Corkscrew before. From the moment you drop down until you reach the bottom, you feel like you’ve been winded. “I qualified on class pole [GT cars under 2.5 litres], but started both races from the back for fun. From 24th, I won both races and my lap…

GB3 Tom Lebbon will continue in the GB3 Championship next year with Elite Motorsport after impressing in his maiden single-seater campaign. The 16-year-old entered 2021 as the reigning Ginetta Junior champion, a title he claimed with Elite in his rookie season of car racing. The team entered GB3 for the first time this year, with Lebbon making the step up with the squad. Lebbon, who turned 16 just weeks before the opening round, finished ninth in the standings with one podium, and Elite team boss Eddie Ives is confident that he will be challenging for the top places in the standings next term with GB3’s new car. “It was always a two-year plan for Tom in GB3,” said Ives. “He’s done a really good job in year one and our…

Rodin’s FZED single-seater has unofficially broken the Donington Park National circuit lap record on a recent test day at the Leicestershire venue. World Endurance Championship racer Oliver Webb set a time of 56.83s, beating the benchmark of 57.221s set by Marijn van Kalmthout – father of IndyCar racer Rinus VeeKay – in a Benetton B197 Formula 1 car in 2011. The FZED (pictured on a previous Donington outing) is designed to be a trackday car but is also eligible for the BOSS GP series, in which van Kalmthout was racing when he set the previous record. “This lap time at Donington Park confirms how competitive the FZED would be within the BOSS GP series,” said Rodin founder David Dicker.…

BRANDS HATCH BARC 13-14 NOVEMBER Even with the large amount of success he has enjoyed in his lengthy career, few victories could have given former British Touring Car Championship star Patrick Watts more pride than he enjoyed with daughter Aimee in the C1 Challenge at Brands Hatch last weekend. Together with Orlando Lindsay, the pair stormed to an emotional first win in the category in their Ladybird-Daddy entry, as an impressive 43 cars took to the grid for the three-hour endurance race on Saturday. Lindsay built up a big lead over the rest of the field during his opening stint before a safety car period led to a flurry of pitstop activity. After Watts Jr had taken over driving duties from Lindsay, the team remained handily placed in the top…

Eight winners from nine races in the 2021 British GT Championship would suggest the season was a wide-open affair. Five crews held a mathematical chance of the title heading into the final round at Donington Park, as organiser SRO was totally vindicated in returning the series to its traditional Pro-Am format. But that Barwell Motorsport pair Leo Machitski and Dennis Lind prevailed after a tense two hours, during which Machitski claimed to have aged 10 years, should come as no surprise when considering their peerless consistency. Aside from being the blameless victims in a first corner tangle in the first Donington race – Machitski unable to avoid Michael Igoe’s WPI Motorsport Lamborghini, which had been turned around by Nick Jones – they were never outside the top five. Podiums came…

1 Narrowly gets the edge over Burns given his superior qualifying pace, lack of experience and stiffer competition in his stints, but nothing in it for race pace. Stunning pass on Gordon-Colebrooke at Brands aside, best moment came in defence against Scott McKenna’s Toyota on old rubber at Snetterton. Took everything in his stride. 2 Had the most eye-catching moments of the year and excelled on his return to the series, enhancing his credentials hugely. In only his second season driving something other than a Ginetta in the past decade, he showed superb racecraft and was particularly electric at starts. 3 It was a shame that his move-of-the-season contender on Jack Brown around the outside of Pouhon didn’t lead to victory due to track-limits breaches, but the veteran again proved…

“There’s so much going on the whole time. It was like a bar room fight for three hours.” As a veteran of 24 Formula 1 grands prix, Jan Magnussen is no stranger to the limelight. But the Dane admits that he tried to go under the radar for a one-off NASCAR Cup Series appearance at Sonoma in 2010, which he describes as a “fantastic experience”. Alongside his sportscar commitments with Corvette Racing, Magnussen had been working with Hendrick Motorsports to develop road course set-ups. “As a bonus” he was handed a race chance aboard a fifth Chevrolet fielded by sister squad Phoenix Racing. “The testing had gone really well and I had high hopes,” recalls Magnussen. “But the way you get prepared for a race weekend is quite different from…

WEC Ferrari pair James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi have been confirmed as the 2021 World Endurance Championship GTE title winners. The confirmation came with the decision of Porsche not to pursue the appeal of the stewards’ decision to reject its protest after the Bahrain finale. Porsche announced last Wednesday evening that it would not be continuing its case as the 96 hours it had to formalise its appeal came to an end. The move means that Ferrari is also confirmed as manufacturers’ champion. A statement in a series of Tweets from the German manufacturer read: “Porsche had announced it would appeal against the rejection of the protest. An in-depth analysis of the situation and the advice of legal counsel have led to a decision not to pursue legal action…

FORMULA E An optimistic bid from the Wessex Entrepreneurs group has been created to find Bournemouth a place on the Formula E calendar and showcase the seaside town as a “gateway to an international Dorset”. The three-year deal – which has a 2023 start date so would clash with the London ExCeL contract – would headline a week-long “festival” alongside a business conference and seeks to create anywhere between 250 and 3000 jobs, according to the official PowerPoint presentation. While this would potentially create only the second closed-road street circuit for car racing on the British mainland, after the F3000 Birmingham Superprix of 1986-90, the Wessex group’s ambitions are at odds with Formula E’s own desire to race in ‘tier-one’ cities such as Rome and New York. But that hasn’t…

BTCC What may amount to no more than a ‘suck-it-and-see’ test from ex-GP2 race winner, IndyCar racer and Manor Formula 1 FP1 participant Jordan King at Snetterton last week shed a chink of light upon what is building up into an entertaining British Touring Car Championship silly season. King tested a Motorbase Performance Ford Focus as the team gears up for its second season under the ownership of Pete Osborne, father of BTCC regular Sam. It is understood that a parting of the ways with Mark Blundell’s MB Motorsport, under which banner Motorbase operated two Focuses this year for Jake Hill and Ollie Jackson, is highly possible. While Jackson and Osborne look likely to stay on, and Tom Chilton’s name has been firmly linked to a return to the team…

This time one year ago, a virtuoso performance from Lewis Hamilton sealed his seventh Formula 1 world title. Last weekend, his most recent stunning victory in last weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix kept his 2021 title battle with Max Verstappen close. Back in 2020, F1 was leaving Turkey ahead of a triple-header in the Middle East to close out its pandemic-altered schedule. It was different, but familiar, with Bahrain and Abu Dhabi the hosts for the final dead rubbers. The Sakhir GP’s alternate layout from the regular Bahrain track added variety, but the different races ending the 2021 campaign are also throwing up plenty of unknowns with which the teams must grapple. F1 heads to Losail for the inaugural Qatar GP this weekend before making its first visit to Saudi…

Max Verstappen’s drive to win the 2021 Mexican Grand Prix was that of a champion. Lewis Hamilton’s subsequent drive to win the main race of Formula 1’s visit to Brazil was that of a seven-time world champion. Consider the stakes with so few races remaining. Consider the pressure all that post-qualifying exclusion controversy created. Consider just how scintillating plenty of those sprint race and Grand Prix passes were. Hamilton lived up to his legend. But he was almost forgotten about at start of the main Interlagos race, when Verstappen reversed his sprint race loss from pole against Valtteri Bottas. This time the Red Bull made the better getaway from the left-hand side of the grid, Verstappen quickly alongside Bottas as the Finn had an “average” launch with “a bit of…

Alpine secured its biggest points haul since September’s Russian Grand Prix to remain level with AlphaTauri in the fight for fifth in the 2021 Formula 1 constructors’ standings. Despite both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon starting the sprint in the top 10, the Alpine duo had a mixed Saturday race with contrasting fortunes at the start. The Frenchman moved up and eventually finished ninth, while his experienced team-mate came home 12th. Due to Lewis Hamilton’s Grand Prix grid penalty, Ocon was promoted to eighth, where he would finish the race, directly ahead of Alonso. The pair swapped positions on the final lap after the Spaniard had earlier been waved through given his strong second-stint pace, which came after losing time not stopping under the virtual safety car. Both Alpines were…

Lando Norris fought back from a first-lap puncture to finish 10th in Interlagos’s main race, as McLaren lost further ground to Ferrari in the constructors’ championship. Norris gained places in the sprint to finish sixth, overtaking Pierre Gasly at the start and later pouncing on Charles Leclerc at Turn 1. That became fifth on the Grand Prix grid due to Lewis Hamilton’s engine-change penalty. Daniel Ricciardo had a tough sprint in the other MCL35M, losing places to Esteban Ocon and Sebastian Vettel at the start, and in Hamilton’s charge up the order, to finish 11th stuck in the DRS train behind Gasly. McLaren’s fortunes did not improve in the main race. After Norris’s fast start he pulled in front of Carlos Sainz Jr’s Ferrari and the pair made glancing contact,…

MOTOGP VALENCIA (ESP) 14 NOVEMBER ROUND 18/18 Even if the 2021 MotoGP title battle between Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo had still been raging, the result at the front of the pack for last weekend’s Valencia Grand Prix would still have been just a sidenote. The weekend belonged to one rider only. After 27 laps of the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, Valentino Rossi’s 432nd grand prix (including 125cc and 250cc outings) had come to an end – and with it, his illustrious 26-season career in world championship motorcycle competition. Winner of nine world titles – seven in the top class – and 115 GPs, Rossi has etched statistics into the history books. They may be beaten one day but will never truly be matched when you consider the impact he has…

Bob Berridge reckons he “hasn’t done too bad for a working-class lad from Stockton-on-Tees”. In a career that didn’t begin until he was 28, he has won titles at the wheel of Formula Ford, Historic F1 and LMP machinery, as well as racing in Formula 3 and touring cars. He’s also been a prime mover in two series now consigned to the dustbin of history – ASCAR and Grand Prix Masters, the attempt to create a seniors tour for ex-F1 drivers. Berridge began racing in FF1600 in 1983 at the wheel of a Van Diemen FA73 costing £635, before swapping to a Lotus 69FF in which he claimed the British Racing & Sports Car Club’s Pre-’74 title in 1985. After a flirtation with Formula 3, driving the long-forgotten Vision VF3,…

BRITISH GT Leading Ginetta Junior squad R Racing will expand into the British GT Championship’s GT4 class with Aston Martin next season. The team was only formed in 2019 but has achieved considerable success during its existence. It ran a driver to the top three of the Ginetta Junior standings in each of its first two campaigns, before powering Aston Millar to this year’s crown and winning last weekend’s Winter Series with Josh Rowledge. The squad’s bosses evaluated a number of different routes for the team’s next step, including a move into single-seaters, but decided on GTs as an Aston Martin partner team with the Vantage GT4. Only one GT4 Aston regularly raced in the series this year, despite it being a proven winner after the TF Sport squad claimed…

ZEO PROTOTYPE The Zeo Prototype Series and Sports Prototype Cup categories will team up next year for a special event on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. The Zeo series launched this season and featured a variety of different cars, including the UK debut of the NP01-EVO as well as numerous specifications of Radical. The Sports Prototype Cup is the home for the Revolution A-One and also features a class for Radical SR3s, but is primarily focusing on European events during 2022, with the 19 June Silverstone race the category’s only planned UK round. It is also due to appear at Zandvoort, Spa, Barcelona and Paul Ricard. Zeo Prototype Series coordinator Grace Williams said: “This collaboration allows us to target a grid of over 40 cars, which would be the biggest…

COMBE CALENDAR TWEAK There has been a slight change to the end of the Castle Combe Racing Club’s 2022 calendar following confirmation of the date of the Spa Six Hours. To avoid a clash with the Belgian event, the Autumn Classic is now due to be held on 24 September, while the CCRC finals meeting has been moved to 1 October. DWANE PLOTS HIS DEFENCE Jack Dwane plans to defend his 750 Motor Club Clio title next year. “I enjoy the club scene – you can go and do this with your mates and that’s what I want,” he said. “I also really like these cars and this championship. I think it’ll be even more competitive next year and I’m looking forward to that.” The series will be rebranded as…

By scoring two dominant wins on Saturday, Josh Rowledge put himself in the best position to secure the Ginetta Junior Winter Series the following day. But Sunday proved to be more of a battle, and holding his nerve and staying out of trouble proved to be crucial. Between the final round of the regular Ginetta Junior season (where he had finished seventh in the final standings) and the Winter Series, Rowledge had switched allegiance from Elite Motorsport to R Racing. After Saturday’s qualifying, the new partnership appeared to be working well, as he secured pole for both races. Harri Reynolds joined Rowledge on the front row for race one, while Liam McNeilly – runner-up in the 2021 standings – claimed that spot for race two. Reynolds “gave his all” to…

1 In a vital season for his career, showed Lamborghini why it should waste no time in re-signing him. Took fastest lap at every track where he took part in a race, but didn’t hamper Machitski in doing so. Laid to rest memories of a difficult 2020 in convincing fashion. 2 Passed Lind three times this year – at Silverstone for a de facto win, and at Snetterton and Oulton in poor weather. Imbued with the confidence of Lambo works status, it rubbed off on Balon and, without being punted off at Brands, would have been a bigger factor in the title fight. 3 Not testing pre-season cost Loggie and Buurman, as they had to learn the new Pirelli construction at race weekends. Despite that, Loggie was the most consistent…

Any young driver with a realistic eye on victory is always going to feel some degree of pressure as they attempt to forge a career up the junior single-seater ladder, but for Zak O’Sullivan the 2021 GB3 Championship had perhaps added significance. The Briton entered the series – still dubbed BRDC British F3 until an enforced mid-season name change courtesy of a decision by the FIA – having just missed out on the British F4 title at the final race in dramatic circumstances the previous year. It was a bitter pill to swallow and followed another runner-up spot in the 2019 Ginetta Junior standings. To those on the outside, it might have appeared that here was a driver with mounting pressure on his shoulders in his quest for a maiden…

DOCUMENTARY QUEEN OF SPEED Michele Mouton remains the only woman to have won a World Rally Championship event outright, and 2022 will represent 40 years since she finished as runner-up in the 1982 campaign. The career of this trailblazer is the subject of a new documentary Queen of Speed, which airs on Sky Documentaries and Sky’s streaming service NOW on Saturday (20 November). Produced by Drum Studios in association with Sky, and directed by the award-winning Barbie MacLaurin, the film recounts the story of how Mouton fought to break into the male-dominated world of motorsport in the 1970s and 1980s to winning four World Rally Championship events in the Group B era, while becoming arguably the most successful woman driver in motorsport history. The documentary digs deeper into her unique…