Innehållsförteckning för 09/03/23 från Autosport

Thank goodness for Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin! As was expected following testing, Red Bull dominated the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix last weekend and Max Verstappen didn’t even need to break sweat, but the 41-year-old Spaniard’s charge to his 99th Formula 1 podium kept things interesting for much of the afternoon. Aside from some brilliant racing – fans have been waiting for about a decade for Alonso and Lewis Hamilton to again go wheel to wheel – the genuine pace of the AMR23 suggests that, finally, a team from the midfield has made the jump into the lead pack. The concern for the F1 paddock, of course, is that the RB19 already looks uncatchable. As Alex Kalinauckas shows in our report on page 18, circumstances did play to Red Bull’s…

We’re only a few weeks away from British Touring Car Championship kickoff, so it must be BTCC livery-revealing season. The West Surrey Racing-run Team BMW has a nifty take on the familiar theme as it continues with BMW UK support for the trio of Colin Turkington, Stephen Jelley and Adam Morgan. Jake Hill, who races the fourth BMW under the Laser Tools banner, has been named a ‘friend of the brand’, no doubt meaning he’ll be trying to get his hands on some lairy, oversteering 1970s Munich machinery… Super Touring history buff Turkington, meanwhile, remains pleasingingly old-school by sporting the #4, his points position last year. Carrying the #1, however, is your new reigning champion Tom Ingram, whose Excelr8 Motorsport squad also rolled out its 2023 warpaint for its leading…

F1 ACADEMY Susie Wolff has been appointed as managing director of the F1 Academy series for Formula 4 cars that aims to develop young female drivers. Ex-Williams F1 test driver and DTM racer Wolff more recently served as the team principal and latterly CEO for the Venturi Formula E squad, and was a founder of the Dare To Be Different initiative, a programme conceived to boost female participation in motorsport. In her new capacity, Wolff will report to F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali alongside FIA F2 and F3 boss Bruno Michel, whose company is organising F1 Academy. The announcement of her appointment reads that Wolff will “be responsible for spearheading the development of female motorsport talent with a focus on creating a successful pathway to higher categories in the F1 pyramid”.…

Those with high profiles are right to speak out In regards to S Valiente’s letter (Your say, 23 February), I fully support anyone in a position of influence to stand up and highlight inequalities within society. Personally, I think if they chose not to do so they would be failing in their public roles. Just because they are rich does not mean that they should be quiet. They’re in a position of privilege. They should speak louder because they have the ability to do so and get people to engage with issues. Glenn FirstbrookBy email Put a stop to the Formula 1 closed shop I don’t like the lock-out attempts of established Formula 1 teams. Where would some of them be if this was in force not so long ago?…

Pierre Gasly enacted a strong recovery drive from the back of the grid to claim ninth for Alpine, making an early pitstop count and leaning on the powerful undercut in Bahrain to make up ground. He chalked off AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries at the start, and then swept around the outside of Kevin Magnussen on the following tour at Turn 4. Locked in a DRS train behind Zhou Guanyu, Gasly cut his losses and pitted on lap nine, which placed him to the back of the field, but the undercut strategy pushed him into the midfield. His second stop on lap 25 ultimately got him ahead of Yuki Tsunoda and onto the back of Alex Albon, who he dispatched for what became ninth place. The Frenchman ran out of time…

INDY NXT ST PETERSBURG (USA) 5 MARCH ROUND 1/12 The Indy NXT opener proved to be a sad foretelling of Andretti Autosport’s fortunes in the IndyCar race a few hours later in St Petersburg, and ended with a win from seventh on the grid for HMD Motorsports’ Danial Frost. Briton Louis Foster, the reigning Indy Pro 2000 champion, took pole in his Andretti car and led the opening seven laps, surviving the first restart following a caution triggered by a collision between Reece Gold and Enaam Ahmed. A second yellow then came when Jagger Jones was knocked into the Turn 4 tyre wall, and Andretti’s three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick hit the wreck. At the second restart, Jacob Abel (Abel Motorsports) passed Christian Rasmussen and Foster down the inside…

You don’t have to look far to find the inspiration for the helmet design used by newly crowned Formula Regional Oceania (nee Toyota Racing Series) champion Charlie Wurz. The 17-year-old is the second son of three-time Formula 1 podium finisher and two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Alex Wurz, who famously painted his own zig-zag helmet designs that were instantly identifiable wherever he went. Of course, a distinctive helmet livery isn’t the only benefit Wurz Jr and his younger brother – kart racer Oscar – can derive from their father. The Austrian’s years of extensive racing and testing experience mean he has unparalleled knowledge of tyre behaviour and vehicle dynamics, while his time leading the FIA’s Young Driver Excellence Academy and running his own Test & Training driver school makes…

MINI CHALLENGE The Motorbase-run NAPA Racing UK squad has revealed a major expansion for this year, including entering cars in the Mini Challenge and fielding quadruple Renault UK Clio Cup champion Paul Rivett in the British Truck Racing Championship. Alongside NAPA increasing its British Touring Car involvement to cover all four of the Motorbase Ford Focuses, it will also now field two JCW Minis as well as a brace of Coopers in the Mini Challenge Trophy. The Minis will also be overseen by Wayne Eason – the boss of successful Clio Cup squad WDE Motorsport – and he will be supported by several WDE mechanics. Jamie Osborne – who took a best result of ninth in his rookie Mini campaign last year and is the son of Motorbase owner Pete…

RALLYING Scroll down the entry list of this weekend’s opening round of the British Rally Championship and you will observe a distinctly different look to the UK’s top-flight series in 2023. The Cumbrian forests of the Malcolm Wilson Rally will host the championship for the first time in decades and, although the one-day blast has the infamous Grizedale Forest and tricky Greystoke tests on the bill, it is the BRC frontrunners who are grabbing the headlines. With the season starting at the home of the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team, it made sense for the squad to bring out the big guns, and it has duly delivered. WRC2 ace Adrien Fourmaux was looking for additional seat time ahead of Rally Mexico, and the ‘Wilson’ was the ideal opportunity. Arguably the…

INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORT Australian Supercars Round 1/12 Newcastle, Australia 11-12 March TV Live BT Sport 1, Sat 0345, BT Sport 5, Sun 0345 NASCAR Cup Series Round 4/36 Phoenix, USA 12 March NASCAR Xfinity Series Round 4/33 Phoenix, USA 11 March Extreme E Round 1/5 Neom, Saudi Arabia 11-12 March TV Live ITV4, Sun 1200, Delayed, ITV4, Sat 1600 UK MOTORSPORT Malcolm Wilson Rally British Rally Championship Round 1/7 Cockermouth, England 11 March…

Patrick Tambay is strapped into the cockpit of his McLaren-Ford M26 in the Watkins Glen pitlane during the 1978 United States Grand Prix, Formula 1’s second visit to North America that year following the round held in Long Beach, California, six months earlier. For the final two races of the season (Montreal was to follow), Tambay’s and team-mate James Hunt’s cars sported this fetching beer-brand livery in place of the iconic red-and-white colour scheme. The Frenchman qualified 18th in New York State, nearly four seconds off the pole time, but grabbed a point by finishing sixth, one place ahead of Hunt, who had started sixth. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

In his third DTM season, back in 2005 when the series was a powerhouse touring car championship rather than a GT3 category, Gary Paffett chalked up five wins en route to his first title. Of those wins, Zandvoort was the most dominant; Paffett crushed the rest of the field from fourth on the grid and beat Mattias Ekstrom by a comfortable 12-second margin to reclaim top spot in the drivers’ championship. With three more wins at the twisting and technical Dutch venue, it’s no surprise that Paffett picks it as his happiest hunting ground. “Zandvoort was always the one, for whatever reason,” Paffett reflects. “I don’t know why, but I just turned up and I was quick there every time. Some of my more dominant performances in DTM were at…

FORMULA 1 If at first you don’t succeed, try once more. If that doesn’t work, go back to the drawing board. That’s how the Mercedes Formula 1 team appears to be operating presently, with boss Toto Wolff declaring at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix opening round that it is now time to bin its car concept to stop its grounds-effects rot. Compared to the team’s 2022 qualifying pace in Bahrain, Mercedes has gained 0.708 seconds per lap. That, and the elimination of porpoising, means the squad is understood to have largely satisfied its internal performance targets. But that improvement returned only sixth on the grid last weekend for George Russell and seventh for Lewis Hamilton. As such, the ‘Black Arrows’ find themselves chasing the shadows of the Red Bull RB19s…

FORMULA 1 Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton has helped clear up a grey area of the FIA rules by adding a splash of colour in the form of a rainbow-themed crash helmet for last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix. The governing body added to its tedious recent run of controversy by updating the International Sporting Code for 2023 to clamp down on the personal, political and religious statements drivers may make during a race weekend. Under this new clause, it was believed that rainbow helmets would not be permitted since they risked skewing the FIA’s supposedly unequivocal neutrality on societal issues. But Hamilton donned a rainbow helmet anyway and rightly hasn’t faced any repercussions for not seeking prior permission to do so. This is because no stakeholders, such as the race promoter,…

WEC Glickenhaus will begin the new World Endurance Championship season with a familiar looking line-up in its full-season Pipo-engined 007 Le Mans Hypercar at this month’s Sebring 1000 Miles. Olivier Pla and Ryan Briscoe will join Romain Dumas, but the team has indicated that there could be changes for rounds two and three at Spa and the Algarve circuit in April as it looks to fill the vacant berths in its additional entry for June’s Le Mans 24 Hours. The confirmation of Pla and Briscoe for Sebring on 17 March, along with the listing of Franck Mailleux alongside its Le Mans-only car, means that Glickenhaus has so far named the four drivers from its 2021 and 2022 squads at the French enduro who are available for this season. Pipo Derani…

BTCC British Touring Car Championship underdog Power Maxed Racing has not only filled its two seats for the 2023 season, but now it has added a third. The Midlands operation will give a BTCC debut to reigning Ginetta GT5 and BMW Compact champion Mikey Doble, who will join fellow series rookie Andrew Watson and the seasoned Aron Taylor-Smith in an expanded line-up of Vauxhall Astras. PMR boss Adam Weaver says the team is building up an additional machine for 2023 to go with last year’s weapons, which debuted in 2017 and 2021 respectively. PMR’s expansion to three cars has been made possible after it secured a spare TBL entrants’ licence from Team Hard. While the Cupra squad now has three TBLs and four drivers, it is using the TBL owned…

EXTREME E Heikki Kovalainen has become the latest Formula 1 name to sign up for Extreme E ahead of the off-road series’ third season of competition, which kicks off in Saudi Arabia this weekend. The Finn, who became the 100th winner of a world championship grand prix when he triumphed for McLaren at the Hungaroring in 2008, will link up with ex-F1 rival Jenson Button’s JBXE squad alongside Norwegian Hedda Hosas. Following his F1 career, Kovalainen won the Super GT title in Japan in 2016 and made a switch to rallying, claiming the Japanese national title last season. It was this pedigree that meant for Button it was a “no brainer for the team to approach” the driver he replaced at McLaren for 2010. “I’m always looking for new challenges…

“Red Bull… they should win every single race this season,” Mercedes’ George Russell reflected last Sunday at the Bahrain Grand Prix. But winning every race in a single campaign is still a huge challenge. Should Red Bull do that, it would achieve a unique and stunning piece of F1 history and the odds are stacked against it given such a feat has never been managed. Plus, there are reasons to expect things to be different at the changing track variants through the early part of the season. Bahrain remains an outlier venue, with its abrasive track surfaces and high temperatures – even in the night sessions. And with Ferrari and Mercedes shedding peak downforce parts to match Red Bull’s typical straightline speed prowess, their tyre-degradation struggles were exacerbated over a…

“It was quite straightforward.” Max Verstappen succinctly summed up his 36th Formula 1 victory, a crushing display from his Red Bull squad in the Bahrain opener to the 2023 season. For the world champion, there was little to worry about over 57 laps of the Sakhir circuit, but the nature of his and his team’s display left their rivals reeling. Because it was all very 2022 – Red Bull in control, Ferrari’s reliability failing, Mercedes badly off the pace – albeit with one new green podium shoot. The start was Verstappen’s only real moment of peril. Ferrari claimed that it had stopped Charles Leclerc from attempting a second soft-tyre flier at the end of qualifying to give the Monegasque, who has clearly retained his searing speed to bother Red Bull…

Despite Williams’s downbeat expectations heading into the 2023 season, Alex Albon got the team off the mark in the opening race with 10th place, fending off Yuki Tsunoda in the closing stages. Following a front-wing breakage in qualifying, Albon’s hopes of making it into Q3 were dashed, but he quickly fired his way onto the cusp of the top 10 after dispatching Zhou Guanyu and Nico Hulkenberg. When Lando Norris ailed and Esteban Ocon pitted for the first time, Albon’s strategy was enough to break into the points, and he held his own thanks to Williams’s top speed largely nullifying his rivals’ DRS assistance. Pierre Gasly got enough of a tow into Turn 1 to move past on lap 42, but the chasing Tsunoda had no answer to the Anglo-Thai.…

After making up four places on the first lap, Valtteri Bottas converted 12th on the grid into a four-point haul from Bahrain amid a race he described as “a bit quiet at times” once he had made his early moves. The Finn grabbed the inside line into the first corner to ease past Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon, and showed Lando Norris the door on the exit of Turn 3 in a lightning start to proceedings. At the following corner, Bottas found more fortune following Lance Stroll’s contact with Fernando Alonso, and pounced on the recovering Canadian to shuffle up to eighth. Stroll captured Bottas’s position with DRS on the fifth lap, but the Alfa Romeo driver’s 11th-lap stop handed him the undercut over Alonso and George Russell. With faster…

FIA FORMULA 2 SAKHIR (BHR) 4-5 MARCH ROUND 1/14 Theo Pourchaire opened the Formula 2 season with a bang last Sunday by dominating the opening feature race, ART Grand Prix’s 2022 runner-up cruising to a lights-to-flag win by almost 20 seconds. The Frenchman made a long stint on the soft tyre compound work in his favour to crush any of Ralph Boschung’s hopes of completing a double win. Alfa Romeo F1 reserve Pourchaire had taken a crushing pole position by 0.751s from ART team-mate Victor Martins. He preserved the lead off the line at the start, meaning he was clear of the chaos behind him. A first-lap melee shook up the order at Turn 4, when Frederik Vesti knocked Richard Verschoor into a spin, and a slow-starting Martins and Roman…

NASCAR CUP LAS VEGAS (USA) 5 MARCH ROUND 3/36 The fastest car dominated and won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but William Byron needed a rally in overtime to do it. Byron, who won the first two stages and led 176 of 271 laps, lost the lead during a round of pitstops late in the race, which opened the door to the win for his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team-mate Kyle Larson. But a spin and wreck by Aric Almirola with three laps remaining sent the race to overtime. Martin Truex Jr was the only driver not to pit, while Byron and Larson lined up second and third respectively after taking just two new tyres. After a brief side-by-side duel, Byron powered past Truex entering Turn 3 with one lap remaining…

When Alex Wurz’s youngest son Oscar steps up from karting this year, he will be immersed in “doing all sorts of different things” including Formula 4 and touring car tests, plus rallycross. This sensory assault previously experienced by elder brother Charlie, his father explains, is intended to “give him experience in different scenarios, different weather conditions, different cars, front-wheel, rear-wheel drive, just so you learn about vehicle dynamics, tyres and also learn how to quickly adjust to new cars and circuit conditions”. As the son of European Rallycross champion Franz, it’s no surprise to hear Wurz extol the discipline’s virtues, and he reckons it will have benefits for “anyone who pursues a single-seater career or any professional career”. “In split seconds you have to take decisions because you can’t wait…

BRITISH GT Four-time British GT champion Jonny Adam will race part-time in the series this year alongside James Cottingham in a 2 Seas Motorsport-run Mercedes-AMG GT3. Factory Aston Martin driver Adam will partner Cottingham at five of the seven events this year, but will have to miss the Silverstone three-hour race in May and the Donington Park finale in October due to clashes with the European Le Mans Series. The 38-year-old, who took British GT3 honours in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019, raced with Anglo-Bahraini squad 2 Seas at Silverstone and Snetterton last year. “It’s nice to come back to British GT and nice to do it with James,” said Adam. “I’ve spoken with him on and off for the last year about looking at doing something, and last year…

LEGENDS Reigning Legends champion Miles Rudman will switch to the unusual ‘Se-Van’ model for this season’s three-event Legends Elite Cup contest. Rudman, who claimed a third title last season, was not expecting to continue in Legends this year but, after discussions with the First 4 Vans squad, he will now appear in a newly built sister Se-Van to Nathan Anthony’s existing machine. Rudman will tackle the three Legends rounds that support the British Touring Car Championship, held at Brands Hatch, Croft and Knockhill. “I wasn’t planning to come back this year, I’d sold everything and then I saw the Elite Cup BTCC events announced!” said Rudman. “I’d mentioned to Nathan about driving one of his vans a while ago, then we had a couple of messages between us and here…

SPORTS 2000 DRIVERS TO OZ Sports 2000 Historic Pinto champions Jon Harmer and Clive Steeper are due to race at the Phillip Island Classic in a Tiga SC85 (above) this weekend. Joining them on the circuit will be another dozen or so Australian Sports 2000 campaigners. It is hoped that Tiga co-founder Tim Schenken will be in attendance. SALLY MASON-STYRRON Synonymous with competing in the finest Ferraris for four decades, and omnipresent at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Sally Mason-Styrron died last month. Having first saddled Richard Colton’s Prancing Horses in speed events, Sally was better known for hillclimbing 166 MM barchetta, 246SP Dino, and the ex-Jacky Ickx/Derek Bell Formula 2/Tasman 166/246 Dino with verve. GB3 ENTRIES FLOOD IN The number of drivers confirmed for GB3 this year has risen…

CIRCUIT RALLYING Fastest time on every stage at Anglesey ensured a dominant win for Rob Hughes and Sion Cunniff on the latest Circuit Rally Championship event last weekend. Despite a spin at the first corner, Ford Fiesta R5 driver Hughes pulled out a 13-second lead on the first test. Hughes continued to ease himself clear and finally took the victory spoils by 47s, with Michael Igoe/Will Atkins retaining a solid second in their Fiesta after settling to the showery conditions. The Fiesta R5 of championship leaders John Griffiths/Emma Morrison climbed to third after they had a first stage spin and stall – a result that gave them a maximum points score and means they could seal the title at Donington Park this weekend.…

The new Isotta Fraschini Le Mans Hypercar is ready to go. The reborn Italian manufacturer last week unveiled a completed Tipo 6 LMH Competizione on the schedule it outlined back in October. Testing is due to begin shortly in conjunction with the British Vector Sport team ahead of a possible entry into the World Endurance Championship, possibly as early as Monza in July, on a race-by-race basis. “Today, we are exactly where we predicted four months ago,” said Isotta motorsport boss Claudio Berro. “The Tipo 6 LMH Competizione is now in its complete and real configuration.”…

FORMULA E Former Audi motorsport chief Dieter Gass is to join Formula E as its senior technical and sporting advisor, and will assist the promoter in defining the series’ long-term plans. In his new role, the German will assist with the development of the Gen4 regulations, planned for the 2026-27 season once the new-for-2023 Gen3 package has completed its four-year cycle. “I will be working on behalf of the promoter to interact with the FIA and provide advice on the future direction of Formula E,” said Gass, who will dovetail the role with his new position as team principal of customer Porsche LMDh team Jota in the World Endurance Championship. “A big part of my commitment will be in very close contact with all the involved parties and see what…

MACAU GRAND PRIX The Macau Grand Prix could turn into a festival of junior single-seater motorsport in 2023 if current plans reach fruition. There is still some way to go, but the target is for international grids to be assembled for three levels of FIA-sanctioned categories: Formula 3, Formula Regional and Formula 4. The race in China’s former Portuguese enclave was held for F3 machinery from 1983-2018, before the new-generation FIA F3 paid one visit in 2019. Then COVID-19 struck, and Chinese F4 teams fought for the coveted title from 2020-22. The FIA is now working hard on an F3 return for the November fixture. Simultaneously, the event’s planned expansion to two weekends for its 70th running (as it did for its 60th in 2013) means that the China-based Top…

For the first time in at least three years, Super Formula will have a serious Formula 1 aspirant on the starting grid when the new season gets under way at Fuji next month. After two solid but inconclusive seasons in Formula 2, Liam Lawson is hoping to use a season dovetailing his Red Bull reserve duties with a programme in Japan to convince the energy drink firm to give him a chance to race for AlphaTauri in 2024. The Kiwi conceded last year that, at the time Red Bull made the decision to look outside its own pool of juniors and hand its vacant race seat to Nyck de Vries, he hadn’t made a compelling enough case with his results in F2 to replace Pierre Gasly. That’s something he hopes…

“It was the sandbag!” Max Verstappen joked with Charles Leclerc as the regular 2022 qualifying toppers faced the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix post-qualifying press conference, the Dutchman referring to the pieces of Ferrari wheel-cover fairing that had fallen off Leclerc’s car at the start of his first Q1 lap and caused a brief red flag. After Red Bull had dominated testing here, Ferrari struck a notably downbeat tone about its chances with its car reconfigured to be quicker in a straight line. Then, when Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso got among and indeed led the Red Bulls during the three practice sessions, Ferrari wasn’t expected to be a pole threat. But as Verstappen shot to 2023’s first pole, leading Leclerc by 0.103 seconds after the opening Q3 runs, it was the…

Esteban Ocon endured a wretched opening to the 2023 season, in which he picked up three penalties over the course of the race before he was mercifully brought in to retire the Alpine early. The first of his transgressions occurred right at the start; the Frenchman had parked too far to the right-hand side of his grid marker, his right-front tyre visibly over the painted boundary. Therefore, he was awarded a five-second penalty to serve in his opening pitstop, which set the ball rolling in the comedy of errors he had to endure. Ocon had to serve that penalty in his first pitstop, with the rules stating that the mechanics must not touch the car for five seconds, but the Alpine squad proved too trigger-happy in their bid to replace…

The great aspects of the 20th edition of the Grand Prix of St Petersburg, the inaugural round of the 2023 IndyCar season, include the fact that we had a less-than-obvious winner, there were as many questions raised as answered, the field looks tighter than ever in the front half, there were some brilliant comebacks from lowly grid positions, and there were a couple of stirring underdog tales. The downsides? Well, a couple of great performances were hampered through no fault of the drivers themselves, 26 of 100 laps were run under yellow, a shunt on the opening lap took five drivers out of contention and caused a red flag, and there was a lot of expensive damage incurred. For fans of Romain Grosjean, it was a heartbreaking event, yet also…

FIA FORMULA 3 SAKHIR (BHR) 4-5 MARCH ROUND 1/10 Following the exodus of last year’s top contenders to Formula 2, it was rookies who dominated the opening FIA Formula 3 round in Bahrain, and it was Gabriel Bortoleto who inherited his maiden win when fellow Formula Regional graduate Gabriele Mini was hit by a penalty. Hitech-run Alpine protege Mini claimed pole, but Trident driver Bortoleto got up his inside to lead at Turn 1, and Gregoire Saucy (ART Grand Prix) grabbed second after running side by side with Mini from Turns 4 to 6. The Sicilian repassed the Swiss after more entertaining two-abreast battling on lap four, but Bortoleto now had a handy advantage of over three seconds. Then it was wiped out by a safety car. By the time…

Anthony Davidson is back at the wheel of a prototype, just a year and a bit on from his retirement from the cockpit. And he now understands the challenges faced by the drivers out on track in the World Endurance Championship aboard the successors to the LMP1 machinery in which he carved out a stellar sportscar career. “They’re having to wrestle the steering wheel much more than I ever did,” he reckons. “So they’re definitely earning their money out there.” The 2014 World Endurance Championship title winner with Toyota comes to that conclusion after a handful of laps around the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe aboard Peugeot’s 9X8. Only he’s a good 100 miles to the north-east of Le Mans, on the outskirts of Paris at Peugeot Sport’s Satory base…

BRITISH GT Marcus Clutton and Morgan Tillbrook will continue for a third year together in British GT in 2023. The Pro-Am duo finished third in the GT3 standings last year in an Enduro Motorsport-run McLaren 720S, with wins at Donington Park and Brands Hatch. Clutton believes that the pairing and the team, which was founded in 2020, have enough experience to now launch a full assault on the title. “The championship is the main target, nothing else,” said Clutton. “We’re not there to make up the numbers anymore. We’ve done our homework, we’ve made our mistakes, we’ve proved our pace. With the Evo McLaren that’s come out, I think we’ve got a good chance.” Enduro will also expand into GT4 for the first time, with Caterham frontrunner Harry George and…

PORSCHE Former Ginetta Junior racer Robert de Haan secured the inaugural Porsche Sprint Challenge Southern Europe title at Barcelona at the end of last month, despite his winning streak being broken. The Dutchman had triumphed in the opening four contests of the winter series after reuniting with the Richardson Racing squad that powered him to Ginetta Junior rookie honours in 2021. He continued his impressive run of Porsche poles at the Spanish finale, making it six from six, but was spun out at the first corner of the opening race and then settled for second in race two, after losing the lead at the start. “We knew he would be quick but the pace he showed was quite remarkable,” said team boss Gwyn Richardson. “I don’t think there were many…

BRITISH F4 British Formula 4 race winner Daniel Guinchard has switched to Chris Dittmann Racing for his second season in the category. Guinchard arrived in F4 last year with Argenti Motorsport, the squad that had powered him to two British Kart Championship titles in 2021, but the former Mercedes junior was unable to repeat that form and he finished ninth in the standings with six podiums. “My first season in British F4 was a bit underwhelming for a lot of different reasons,” he admitted. Of his switch to CDR, Guinchard has described the atmosphere in the team as “really happy and upbeat and I feel at home already”. “I think my previous experience in the F4 car will be an advantage to an extent, but then you’ll also have the…

OBITUARY Hard-charging Scot Eddie McLurg, a stalwart of Special Saloon, Donington GT and Formule Libre racing, has died just short of his 80th birthday, having battled asbestosis lung cancer for over 18 months. A seven-year joinery apprenticeship underpinned Kirkcudbrightshire-born McLurg’s successful career as a building contractor in South London from 1973. After debuting a shared Mini in 1974, McLurg graduated to a Hillman Imp, a familiar combo at Brands Hatch and Lydden until the end of the decade. Rolled at Lydden in 1979, it was replaced by a John Maguire spaceframe version. In 1983, McLurg bought Roger Matthews’s 1500cc Maguire Lotus Esprit-BDA principally for the Donington GT championship, which he won outright in 1985. After adding a class title, he ran it sparingly until 1989. By then, he had switched…

BRITISH GT Stuart Middleton, the 2017 British GT4 champion, will return to the series this season to share a Ginetta G56 (below) with Freddie Tomlinson at Raceway Motorsport. Middleton and Will Tregurtha became the youngest crew to win the GT4 title when they drove a Ginetta G55 to the crown. Since then, Middleton has raced in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo in Europe and North America, as well as becoming a race winner in Italian GT. “It’s a pleasure to be back on home soil and to compete in British GT again,” he said. “I’m looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the Ginetta and working with the team. I won the championship back in 2017, so there’s only one aim: win the title again.” Tomlinson, son of Ginetta company…

BOOK REVIEW THE RIVALS: F1’S GREATEST DUELS Tony Dodgins RRP £35 The rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen over the course of the 2021 Formula 1 season was box-office material. Regardless of which camp you sided with, or your opinions on the numerous collisions and controversies, there’s no denying that it brought the championship to the attention of the wider public. Rivalries can often transcend the sport and bring it to the masses, whether that be Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in tennis or Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier in boxing. The human element is often what attracts us to sport in the first place, as greats in their chosen field go head to head. F1 is certainly no different. The subject is the basis of a new book…