Innehållsförteckning för 23/03/23 från Autosport

At the 2004 Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari drivers Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello were delayed early on, the German by a spin on the first lap that left him 15th, and the Brazilian with a poor tyre choice in the mixed conditions that necessitated a pitstop. The duo then proceeded to unleash the true performance of their dominant F2004s, setting fastest laps more than a second quicker than the rest, and had restored normal 1-2 service by the end of lap 43 of 53. Red Bull’s raw race pace advantage is not yet as big as that enjoyed by Ferrari in 2004, when the red team won 15 of the 18 races, but there was a similar feeling of inevitability when Max Verstappen lined up 15th on the grid in…

FORMULA 1 Mercedes has recruited ex-Formula 1 and Formula E racer Jerome D’Ambrosio to partially replace former strategy chief James Vowles, who has recently become the Williams team boss. The Belgian will direct the Three-Pointed Star’s driver development programme alongside long-time team youth management guru Gwen Lagrue. D’Ambrosio wore a plain white shirt when he joined the team for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. As of last weekend in Saudi Arabia, he was fully decked in Mercedes gear. He is well known to team boss Toto Wolff, who considered managing the then-Renault junior driver in 2004. More recently, D’Ambrosio operated as deputy team principal of the Venturi Formula E team under Susie Wolff before taking full control from 2021 to 2022. He left when the squad was rebranded to Maserati…

WRC Rally legend Sebastien Ogier has added the next round of the World Rally Championship in Croatia to his partial 2023 campaign with Toyota. The eight-time world champion leads the WRC standings after scoring a dominant, record-breaking seventh victory in Mexico (right) last weekend. That success followed a record ninth Monte Carlo win at the season opener in January. Those wins have lifted the part-timer to the top of the table despite missing round two in Sweden, three points ahead of Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville. Ogier’s 2023 plans beyond Mexico had yet to be officially confirmed although it is anticipated that the 39-year-old will participate in as many as seven rallies this year. But speaking in a stage-end interview after crossing the finish line in Mexico, he let slip that he…

FORMULA 1 The late Welsh Formula 1 folk hero Tom Pryce is to be commemorated by an annual trophy awarded to an outstanding pupil from Denbigh primary school he attended in the 1950s. Pryce, who starred with the Shadow team before his fatal accident in the 1977 South African Grand Prix, was the subject of a recent book, Tom Pryce: memories of a Welsh F1 star by those who knew him, written by Darren Banks and Kevin Guthrie. The two authors are donating proceeds from sales of the book to Ysgol Frongoch primary school via a £1000 annual sum. The Thomas Maldwyn Pryce Inspirational Pupil of the Year Award trophy will be handed out to the child who has shown hard work, passion and determination in attempting to achieve their goal,…

“You might as well start writing your report now, mate,” mutters a media sage on his return from trackside wandering, as Max Verstappen flashes up on the paddock screens after eclipsing the rest of the field in FP1 by nearly half a second. Benched for Thursday’s media sessions due to battling a stomach bug, Verstappen rocked up to the Jeddah Corniche Circuit fashionably late and fired off a trio of hammerblows to the rest of the field by headlining the full set of practice sessions. Few in the paddock had any optimism that the race would be anything other than a foregone conclusion and yet, somehow, fate had its own funny way of intervening. Come the end of Sunday’s race, Sergio Perez was the man standing on the middle step…

Williams could not repeat its Bahrain points haul despite the Jeddah track suiting its low-drag package, mainly because of Alex Albon’s retirement with a mechanical brake problem just past half-distance. Albon had been launched into the DRS train initially headed by Yuki Tsunoda after the safety car period as he too stopped as soon as it was initially activated. But just as Albon, who had been running 16th in the early stages, chased Nico Hulkenberg, his brake issue struck. He completed a further tour after reporting the problem as a “brake failure” while making settings adjustments on lap 26, before stopping in the pits. “The pace was good and Alex had a good chance of finishing in the top 10,” reckoned Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson. In the…

The British Jota team, reigning LMP2 class champion, started the new season with a victory, albeit with the extra ORECA-Gibson 07 it’s fielding in the first two races prior to the arrival of its new Porsche 963 LMDh. Will Stevens, Yifei Ye and David Beckmann took the win by a couple of seconds over the only United Autosports entry to finish the race. Filipe Albuquerque, Phil Hanson and Freddie Lubin were just 2.9 seconds behind at the chequered flag in a race that United could and probably should have finished 1-2. The only consolation for the British team was that it took the lead in the P2 championship because the Hertz-sponsored Jota entry was ineligible for points. This was a day of high drama for United. It was dominating the…

More used to IndyCar podiums than those in IMSA, Scott McLaughlin added another string to his bow as he charged to victory in LMP2 for Tower Motorsport – and took third overall. This win looked unlikely when teenage team-mate Kyffin Simpson binned the #8 ORECA on the exit of Turn 2 in the middle stages of the race. But McLaughlin, in only his second sportscar start, hit the front with 30 minutes remaining in the rebuilt, and rather second hand-looking, car. After the late yellow for the GTP lead battle implosion, McLaughlin had to fend off Mikkel Jensen’s TDS Racing ORECA shared with Steven Thomas and Scott Huffaker. Less than a second covered them at the finish. “It’s a bounceback for the whole team,” said McLaughlin. “Kyffin and John [Farano]…

MAZDA MX-5 The past three Mazda MX-5 Championship winners all made their debuts in the MX-5 Supercup at Silverstone last weekend among a grid of nearly 50 cars. Reigning champion Fraser Fenwick (above) was joined by Oliver Allwood and Joe Wiggin – title winners in 2021 and 2020 respectively – as all three made the step up from the MX-5 Mk1 to Mk3 models. “I’m enjoying it so far, it’s a new challenge,” said Fenwick, whose best result came in race three, where he missed out on a podium finish by 0.1 seconds. “A lot of people said to me, ‘Are you going to defend your title [in the Mk1s]?’ I get why people do that. But, when there’s a jump available, I may as well make the most of…

CLASSIC THUNDER Abbie Eaton will return to racing her father Paul’s V8 Holden Commodore in the Classic Touring Car Racing Club’s Classic Thunder championship in 2023. Eaton, the former test driver for Amazon TV show The Grand Tour, suffered nasty back injuries in a W Series crash at the end of 2021. She returned to compete in the formula’s truncated season last year, taking a best result of seventh at Silverstone, and was 13th in the standings. “It’ll be the first time I’ve raced since W Series,” said the 31-year-old. “It’s one-off races for now and we might make appearances in a few other championships too. “I’ll also be doing something else in an historic Mustang – watch this space.”…

INGRAM SETS UP NEW TEAM Former British Formula 3, GT and Le Mans Series racer John Ingram has formed his own team to contest the C1 Endurance Series. Joining Ingram in the Jolt Racing line-up is Richie Benjafield-Metcalfe, who is the great-grandson of Dudley ‘Doc’ Benjafield, one member of the Bentley Boys who won the 1927 Le Mans 24 Hours and one of the founders of the British Racing Drivers’ Club. The final member of the team is novice Rupert Williams, who made his car racing debut at Silverstone last Sunday. CHANGES TO SUPERKARTS The British Superkart Racing Club’s Super Series will not run special plates in 2023, including 0, 1 or GP, following a decision by Motorsport UK. It will be the first time in over 35 years that…

CASTLE COMBE Castle Combe’s GT championship has expanded to nine rounds this year, with four double-headers and a singleton, while a revised scoring system to aid car sharing is also among changes aimed at reducing costs and increasing entries. The category has struggled with poor numbers in recent years, leading the organising Castle Combe Racing Club to consider ways of boosting grids. “Modern GT racing is about teams not individuals so, at the double-headers, two registered competitors can share a car, contesting one race each,” said club chairman Ken Davies at Saturday’s media intro. “Both will be awarded their total points, so as not to disadvantage them against a soloist rival. At the single [non-pitstop] race event, both drivers will be awarded points, irrespective of who competes.” Two of last…

MX-5 SUPERCUP Races 1, 2 & 3 Aidan Hills MX-5 CLUBMAN Race 1 Brad Jones Race 2 Oak Richardson MX-5 CHAMPIONSHIP Race 1 Thomas Langford Race 2 Adam Sparrow Race 3 Steve Foden C1 ENDURANCE Mac Tools Racing (Sylvain Rubio/Jade Edwards/Josh Cook) MINI CHALLENGE MIGLIA/SE7EN Race 1 Jeff Smith (Miglia) Race 2 Andrew Jordan (Miglia) MODIFIED FORDS Race 1 Simon Light (Capri V8) Race 2 James Allen (Focus Mk2) CLUBSPORT TROPHY Liam Crilly (BMW Z4 Coupe, below) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

Those who watched Robert Kubica’s horrifying 186mph crash unfold during the eventful 2007 Canadian Grand Prix would have been forgiven for being surprised that he was extracted from the wreckage of his BMW Sauber suffering nothing more than light concussion and a sprained ankle. And that just five days later at Indianapolis, ahead of the US GP, he stated he was “100% OK… I feel like nothing happened”. The FIA, however, decided that Kubica’s best medical interests would be served by sitting this one out, opening the door for a 19-year-old Sebastian Vettel to make his Formula 1 race debut. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

FORMULA 1 AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost has certainly put plenty of his colleagues’ noses out of joint and tanked team morale by saying he no longer trusts the engineers responsible for designing the current and underwhelming AT04. The Austrian delivered his bizarre outburst ahead of last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which would soon become the team’s second point-less outing out of two to leave it at the bottom of the championship with McLaren. His brusque assessment comes amid heightened scrutiny of the squad after Tost was moved to quash rumours of Red Bull considering a sale of its junior operation. Tost began his beration with: “We have to do a lot of things to make the car faster. Especially on the aerodynamic side, there are different programmes going on.…

NASCAR NASCAR has penalised Denny Hamlin for intentionally walling Ross Chastain in the Phoenix Cup Series race earlier this month, as well as coming down hard on teams’ unapproved modifications of single-source supplier parts. Hamlin openly admitted on his podcast to the incident with Chastain during the final restart at Phoenix. The two drivers have a feud dating back to last June, and have clashed in multiple races since then. “It wasn’t a mistake,” said Hamlin. “I let the wheel go and I said he’s coming with me.” NASCAR has docked Hamlin 25 points and fined him $50,000. Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice-president of competition, said the sanctioning body likely would have viewed the contact between Hamlin (above) and Chastain “as a racing incident”, but that Hamlin’s public admission forced…

NURBURGRING 24 HOURS Glickenhaus will be absent from the Nurburgring 24 Hours this May for the first time in nine years. The American boutique manufacturer, which has raced at the Nordschleife enduro as Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus 10 times since 2011, has opted to scratch its assault on the race to focus on its World Endurance Championship campaign. Marque boss Jim Glickenhaus explained that it would be “logistically too difficult” to race both its 007 Le Mans Hypercar in the WEC and its 004C SP-X class contender in a programme of events on the Nurburbring Nordschleife around the 24 Hours on 20-21 May. The same team, made up of personnel from Podium Advanced Technologies and Joest Racing, runs the two programmes. The task was not helped by the mandatory qualifying races…

P32 WEC REPORT 5 ADELAIDE It seems appropriate that a world championship should visit Australia, and the Adelaide street track would be a fitting host. The former Australian GP venue has sportscar history, too. Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello’s Audi won the six-hour American Le Mans Series race on New Year’s Eve that closed the 2000 season by 21 laps. Supercars and WEC on the same weekend – now that would be a treat! 4 NORISRING Running grids exceeding 30 cars at the Norisring would be a logistical nightmare. But reviving the sprint race that featured on the 1986 and 1987 world championship calendar, even if only for prototypes, would make an amazing spectacle. A sprint event differentiated from the enduros would give it an air of prestige, and on the bumpy…

After he chalked off top spot in each of the free practice sessions, qualifying was primed to be another Max Verstappen benefit given the gaping chasm he held in the performance stakes against everyone else. After a single hot lap in Q1 carried him to a near half-second advantage over team-mate Sergio Perez, the domination looked set to continue. If the other teams had spent the Saturday intermission praying for the gods of unreliability to intervene, they got their wish in Q2. Verstappen made a slight mistake in his opening lap of the second session and aborted the run, instead opting for a brace of build laps to precede another tilt at breaking into the top 10. Then, just as he’d spooled up for another push and ticked off the…

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen edged AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda for the final point in what was a thrilling, tight battle between the pair for much of the Saudi Arabian race’s second half. But they both arrived at that position in different ways. Magnussen was the first driver to stop for strategy reasons on lap eight, which he used to undercut team-mate Nico Hulkenberg and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu after being part of their lengthy battle early on. That gain turned into 11th place once the safety car stops had shaken out, by which time Tsunoda was running a surprise eighth from an initial position of 14th. The safety car’s appearance was behind his dramatic rise, with Tsunoda in a perfect position to pit first when it was called. He was quickly…

Shock, sensational, spectacular. All those words correctly described Ferrari’s pole position with its 499P Le Mans Hypercar at the start of the new era for the World Endurance Championship at the Sebring 1000 Miles. Yet come the race last Friday it was Toyota that was on top. That the Japanese cars were just too good for those from its Italian rival, as well as Cadillac, Porsche and Peugeot, was not a surprise. Toyota, as the incumbent force in the WEC and the winner of four drivers’ and manufacturers’ title doubles in a row, had reinforced its status as pre-season favourite through the Prologue test the weekend ahead of the race week and then during free practice. In only one of the seven sessions of testing and practice was the GR010…

Ben Keating has a new team and car for this season, but it was business as usual for the reigning GTE Am World Endurance champion at Sebring. The American took victory on his first outing with Corvette Racing and 2023 team-mates Nico Varrone and Nicky Catsburg after another battle with the Iron Dames crew in which he did much of the heavy lifting during an opening triple stint. The Chevrolet Corvette C8.R triumphed by two laps, but during the opening hours Keating renewed the rivalry with fellow Bronze Sarah Bovy that began last year when the Iron Lynx team was fielding Ferraris. It continued with a thrilling tug-of-war over pole position between the ’Vette and the Porsche 911 RSR Bovy shared with Michelle Gatting and Rahel Frey, and then on…

Following a disastrous debut for Porsche’s new Type-992 911 GT3-R at Daytona, where its cars were embarrassingly slow, this was a rags-to-riches tale for Pfaff Motorsports. But another blow occurred before redemption at Sebring, when Klaus Bachler shunted its car in qualifying, forcing the team to stay up past midnight before the 12-hour event. Then Bachler came within millimetres of ending its race at the first corner when he just missed a stranded LMP3 car. Since Daytona, a Balance of Performance change allowed for a 5mm larger air restrictor, and this put Porsche firmly back in the hunt at Sebring. The strategy gods also smiled upon Pfaff’s 911 – crewed by Bachler, Patrick Pilet and Laurens Vanthoor – when a well-timed full-course yellow allowed it to jump into the lead…

FORMULA 2 JEDDAH (SAU) 18-19 MARCH ROUND 2/14 Frederik Vesti prospered on a weekend when many of the title contenders threw away big chances to take his second Formula 2 win, and his first in a feature race. Prema Racing’s Mercedes Formula 1 protege held firm as his main rivals, rookies Victor Martins and Ollie Bearman, spun out of contention moments apart during a dramatic race. Vesti lined up sixth, and the Dane immediately made it up to fourth. ART Grand Prix-run Alpine junior Martins had taken a superb pole by 0.744 seconds, with Prema’s Ferrari-backed youngster Bearman making it an all-rookie front row. It was the Briton who snatched the lead at the start, with Martins just clinging onto second from Jack Doohan. There was a virtual safety car…

MotoGP’s new campaign begins at this weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix with the biggest format shake-up the series has undergone in decades as the sprint revolution comes to town. In a kneejerk bid to overturn the slide in television and trackside interest suffered by the series over the past couple of years, every round of the 2023 calendar (and there is a record 21 of those) will feature a sprint race run on Saturdays to half the distance of the following day’s grand prix. Unlike Formula 1’s sprint races, which are essentially a final stage of qualifying, MotoGP’s Saturday race will be independent of the grand prix and the grid for both will be decided via the usual time attack. How the sprint races will actually increase enthusiasm for MotoGP is…

HISTORICS Formula 1 race winner Jean Alesi is due to make his latest historic outing at Paul Ricard next month at the wheel of a Lotus Elan in V de V’s six-hour contest at the Grand Prix de France Historique meeting. Since retiring from F1 and his subsequent sportscar career, Alesi has made a number of appearances in historic machinery, including competing at the Goodwood Revival and in the Monaco GP Historique. His latest is due to be on 7-8 April at Paul Ricard, the circuit that Alesi has recently been appointed president of. He will share the Elan with sportscar racer Philippe Gache – who Alesi competed alongside in junior single-seaters – along with rally competitor Jean-Pierre Richelmi and Richelmi’s son Stephane, a GP2 race winner and 2016 LMP2…

MAZDA MX-5 Sylvain Guintoli, the 2014 World Superbike champion, is hoping to make more car racing appearances after competing in the Mazda MX-5 Clubman opener at Silverstone last weekend. The Frenchman, whose only previous four-wheel experience came in the Radical Challenge in 2016 and at last year’s Birkett Relay, qualified 14th before finishing 12th in race one. “I love it, good fun,” he said. “Nothing scary with the straightline speed, but the cornering is great. So just learning, trying to get better at it. I made a few mistakes – you lose the corner speed somewhere and you get punished on the straights.” When rain arrived for race two, Guintoli made up seven positions on the opening lap and went on to finish eighth. “I don’t think I can do…

BRITISH F4 ENTRIES HIT 19 Swedish karter Gustav Jonsson has become the 19th driver confirmed for British Formula 4 this year. The single-seater rookie is the third racer announced as part of an expanded Chris Dittmann Racing line-up. Team boss Dittmann said: “It’s going to be a competitive field this year, so it’s a big ask for Gustav coming straight from karts, but driver development is our bag and he’s already shown he’s got potential.” MONOPOSTO DOUBLES UP A second grid has been added for the Monoposto opener at the Snetterton Historic Sports Car Club meeting next month after an “unprecedented level of demand”. Among the entries for the 22-23 April contests, which will be held on both the 300 and 200 layouts of the Norfolk track, is an ex-British…

BRITCAR TROPHY Reigning Type R Trophy champion Jake Hewlett has completed Dragon Sport’s Britcar Trophy line-up after signing to partner Travis Coyne in the championship aboard one of its Renault Clios. Hewlett won last year’s 750 Motor Club Type-R title after a season-long duel with Christopher Nylan, coming out on top by just one point. The 30-year-old telecoms engineer said: “It’s a different discipline – instead of sprints, the races are between 50 minutes and two hours and you’ve got to learn how to keep up the speed while nursing the car.” Team boss Rhys Lloyd and Dragon Sport scholarship winner Jack Meakin will share a second Clio in the same class, with both cars being run in partnership with Amigo Motorsport. Lloyd will also race an Opel TCR machine…

“The buzz for any of the events is the same – it’s a privilege. You’re not there to prove you can outdrive everybody. It’s important to understand those things, it’s competitive theatre.” Wise words from Rob Wilson, who most reckon has driven more laps of the Goodwood Motor Racing Circuit than anyone else since winning its race school apprenticeship in the mid-1970s. Offering tutelage in a modern-day Ford Mustang, the Kiwi was one of a dozen or so racing names allowing themselves to be driven around the world-famous West Sussex track in an assortment of machinery during a pre-season media launch as Goodwood prepares to celebrate several major anniversaries in 2023. These include 30 years since the first Festival of Speed, 25 since the Revival was launched and 75 since…

SKY DOCUMENTARY VILLENEUVE PIRONI: RACING’S UNTOLD TRAGEDY The history of Formula 1 is full of intense rivalries and bitter feuds that have come to define the championship, but perhaps the most tragic rivalry is that of Ferrari team-mates Gilles Villeneuve and Didier Pironi. Their friendship, the fallout from the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix and the horrendous sequence of events that followed are the subject of a new documentary from the Noah Media Group and director Torquil Jones. It’s a story that’s been well-documented before – how Villeneuve felt that Pironi robbed him of victory at Imola, vowing never to speak to him again before the popular French-Canadian was killed just two weeks later at Zolder. An appalling crash for Pironi at Hockenheim – eerily similar to Villeneuve’s accident –…

Dario Franchitti isn’t short of remarkable cars to choose from when it comes to selecting a favourite. The four-time IndyCar champion has driven dozens of notable racers, from the Mercedes-Benz W196 that Juan Manuel Fangio took to the 1954 Formula 1 world championship to the banned Lotus 88. You might have expected the Scot to choose something once raced by his hero Jim Clark, but he instead opts for something more “left field” as his ultimate favourite. During three-time Indy 500 winner Franchitti’s tenure with Mercedes, after securing a DTM drive for 1995, he was handed the keys to the 300 SLR in which Stirling Moss and navigator Denis Jenkinson famously won the 1955 Mille Miglia, the pair tearing through 992 miles of Italian countryside in just over 10 hours…

FORMULA 1 The Formula 1 penalty-points system has been tweaked to avoid drivers being handed a race ban for a string of minor offences. This change has been prompted by Pierre Gasly’s near-miss last season after an otherwise innocuous track-limits offence in the Mexican Grand Prix meant he had racked up 10 of the prescribed 12 points over a 12-month period to be considered borderline “dangerous”. If a driver was to be suspended for an event, their slate would be wiped clean. Otherwise, only on the one-year anniversary of each misdemeanour would the respective penalty points be scrubbed from their record. This element has not changed. But after Gasly met with the FIA, the system has been reviewed over the winter. Subsequent talks with rulemakers, teams and drivers have resulted…

FORMULA 1 Ferrari Formula 1 boss Fred Vasseur insists that no more of his senior staffers are poised to hand in their notice following the team’s disappointing start to the 2023 season. The shock resignation of head of vehicle concept David Sanchez earlier this month triggered a wave of speculation that Ferrari could face fresh departures. There has been suggestion that race director Laurent Mekies is considering his position, and talk that Ferrari could be forced to take back Haas technical chief Simone Resta. While Vasseur did not claim that there was no unhappiness inside camp, he made it clear that his colleagues were committed to the cause. “To have people who are unhappy, it’s two different things,” he said. “It’s quite normal to be unhappy when you don’t get…

WEC The revived Isotta Fraschini marque should be out testing with its Le Mans Hypercar early next month. That means, according to its bosses, that the Tipo 6 LMH Competizione remains on course to contest the Monza World Endurance Championship round in July, with the proviso that it receives a race-by-race entry. Development of the Tipo 6 has continued apace since its launch at the end of February. The hybrid contender, powered by a bespoke three-litre twin-turbo V6 developed by HWA and a hybrid system supplied by Williams Advanced Engineering, has been put through an extensive programme on the AVL Racetech all-wheel-drive dyno in Italy, with time also spent in the Sauber wind tunnel in Switzerland verifying the car’s aerodynamics. Isotta motorsport boss Claudio Berro stated that the car should…

F1 ACADEMY The all-female F1 Academy series, to be fought out in Formula 4 cars, is all but full after a raft of confirmations in the past few days. Fourteen of the 15 seats have now been filled, with just one plum drive remaining at category dominator Prema Racing. Two more British drivers have joined the grid. Chloe Grant takes her first international step after competing in 2022 in the GB4 Series for older-spec F4 cars, in which she placed ninth overall. The Scot (below) joins the line-up at ART Grand Prix. Meanwhile, 15-year-old British-Canadian Chloe Chong steps up from karting to make her car-racing debut with Prema. She was one of four finalists in last year’s FIA Girls on Track contest. The pair join fellow Brits, W Series ace…

FORMULA REGIONAL GB3 star Tom Lebbon has become one of a host of driver confirmations in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine in the run-up to the series’ official pre-season tests kicking off. The 17-year-old Briton, who finished third in the 2022 GB3 rankings and won the 2020 Ginetta Junior title, will compete with Arden. Lebbon will line up at the Banbury squad alongside Paraguayan Joshua Durksen, who remains at the team after taking four top-six finishes last year, and Hungarian Levente Revesz, who moves over from Van Amersfoort Racing. Lebbon (above) was an encouraging seventh quickest in the afternoon of the opening day of the Barcelona test last Friday, but his chances of maintaining that momentum were scuppered on Saturday. “He did six days’ testing with us last…

“I would say arguably that was Checo’s best grand prix.” Let’s definitely argue with Christian Horner’s point about Sergio Perez’s victory in last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. After all, neither of Perez’s outstanding victories in the 2020 Sakhir GP for Racing Point or his 2022 Singapore GP Red Bull triumph contained a start gaffe that allowed a slower car to seize a lead it really had no right to. But Perez ended the Jeddah race just gone, by holding off a charging Max Verstappen to take his fifth F1 win, in unruffled style. Four of those victories have come at street tracks, leading many to anoint Perez as a master of the genre. It’s not inaccurate. He’s been doing well on them for years, as four of his Force India…

Alfa Romeo came away from Jeddah without points, despite Zhou Guanyu starting 11th and running 10th early on. The Chinese gained on lap one as Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg fell behind. He was then overcome by Max Verstappen and became embroiled in a battle with the Haas pair. Kevin Magnussen undercut ahead before the safety car, where neither Haas stopped and Zhou did, putting him back in the DRS train comprising the Williamses, McLarens and Nyck de Vries. He eventually worked his way up and away from that, but couldn’t match Hulkenberg’s pace a chunk ahead in the closing laps, and finished 13th. Valtteri Bottas was anonymous in the other Alfa, his race apparently ruined by damage sustained hitting debris on the first lap, although his team could not…

Peugeot opted against testing at Sebring over the winter in favour of a development programme in Europe focused on reliability, which included a trio of Le Mans 24 Hours simulations. It played down its lack of pace through the Prologue and free practice, stressing that it faced a steep learning curve to get the 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar sorted for the quirky Florida venue, only to have both its cars hit problems within an hour and a bit of the race. The disaster began when Loic Duval stopped in the pits after the opening lap. The #94 Peugeot he shared with Nico Muller and Gustavo Menezes quickly returned to the track for one slow lap before pitting again for a protracted 21-minute stop. The sister car driven by Paul di…

The history books will show that Jack Aitken’s Cadillac crossed the finish line of the 71st running of the Sebring 12 Hours three seconds ahead of fellow Brit Nick Yelloly’s BMW, but the wild denouement to this classic was more NASCAR Cup than IMSA GTP. Run less than 24 hours after the 2023 World Endurance Championship season opener at the historic 3.74-mile track, this was IMSA’s crazy gang to the WEC’s culture club. Twelve safety car periods were caused, in the main by lame driving among the 53-car field – mostly reserved to the LMP2/3 and GTD ranks throwing themselves at the scenery or each other. But the final one was all on the premier class. With less than 20 minutes remaining, Mathieu Jaminet’s Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 led the…

It’s a tradition that the winner of Rally Mexico is awarded a special pair of locally made cowboy boots. After recording a record seventh win on the gruelling gravel rally, World Rally Championship legend Sebastien Ogier could probably set up a shoe shop. “I still keep the boots,” smiled the Frenchman of his latest victory. “I’m pretty reluctant to throw away things. I always think maybe one day I will make a small museum. It’s a nice feeling to wear them again.” Mexico is a special place for the eight-time world champion. It’s where the journey to becoming a global rallying superstar began, thanks to a maiden Junior WRC win in 2008, the season his life changed after winning the coveted title. Since that breakthrough, six wins on Mexican soil…

NASCAR CUP ATLANTA (USA) 19 MARCH ROUND 5/36 Last Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway came down to a battle between Team Penske’s past and present. Brad Keselowski, who won the 2012 Cup championship with team owner Roger Penske, was in control as the laps wound down and in position to earn his first win as an owner/driver for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. But Joey Logano, Keselowski’s former team-mate at Penske, was able to power back into contention on the final lap. As he took the white flag, Keselowski led the outside line while Logano led the inside. Logano went to the outside of Keselowski heading towards Turn 3 and, thanks to a big push from Christopher Bell, was able to clear Keselowski for the lead. Logano then held off…

To clear up a grey area in the regulations, MotoGP rulemakers have mandated strict enforcement of minimum tyre pressures on the front and rear Michelin compounds for 2023. Revelations that many riders had been operating outside of the front limit last year prompted the rule change, although most argued that they did so on safety grounds. For 2023, riders and teams must adhere to a minimum front-tyre pressure of 1.9bar (27.6psi), and 1.7bar (24.7psi) on the rear. This has led to fears of an increase in crashes in 2023, because many riders believe that the risks of falling will greatly increase once the front tyre reaches 2.2bar (31.9psi) – something that will affect those riding in packs. Any riders found to have operated outside of the minimum limits could face…

HISTORICS Experienced historics racer Simon Jackson has added a Lotus Elan to his fleet alongside his Lenham sports-racer and Historic Formula 3 Chevron B43. Jackson, who often races alongside his sons Cameron and Dominik, has recently spent 11 weeks in Australia and New Zealand but ran the Elan for the first time in the Masters test day at Donington Park recently. “That was the first time I’d seen it,” said Jackson of the car previously owned and raced by Mel Taylor. “We will do some Masters events and we’re looking at the Autosport 3 Hours at Snetterton.” Jackson is likely to share the car with either or both of his sons during the season and has an ambition for all three to contest the Spa Six Hours together in September.…

MOTORSPORT UK Controversial plans to overhaul track-limits regulations in the UK are due to go before the judicial committee after tweaks were proposed following a consultation. The consultation on the plans, which annoyed many and include redefining what constitutes a track-limit violation as well as harsher penalties for those who exceed the boundaries, ended last month. Motorsport UK CEO Hugh Chambers admitted that the governing body “probably didn’t do as good a job as we could have done to communicate” the reasons behind the changes, which include a better definition of the track limit and improving general driving standards. “The track licence that’s being implemented by Motorsport UK works on the principal of a car leaving the circuit,” he said. “If it unfortunately hits the barrier, the barrier is positioned…

SUPER TOURERS An ex-Paul Radisich Peugeot 406 is set to return to racing in the UK this weekend as Colin Sowter fields his new acquisition in the Super Tourers season opener on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. Two-time Touring Car World Cup winner Radisich drove the Motor Sport Developments-built car throughout the 1998 season, placing 14th in the standings with a best finish of fourth in a rain-hit race at Silverstone. After some time in Australia, the Peugeot was driven by Malcolm Harrison in the Historic Sports Car Club’s Super Touring Challenge in 2015 before it was shipped to New Zealand and raced regularly by Stephen Grellet. Sowter, whose Superformance parts business sponsors the Ferrari Formula Classic series, has raced in various GT machinery in recent years, but this will…

OBITUARY The Irish motorsport community was saddened to learn of the recent passing of former driver and race team owner Sean Woods. From Dundalk in County Louth, Woods was originally a rally competitor, but transferred to circuit racing with aplomb, when he competed in the highly competitive manufacturer-backed Fiat Uno Cup in the early 1990s. Despite budget restrictions, Woods’s distinctive yellow Kaliber-liveried car was never far from the sharp end. Following on from this, he ran Michelle Graham to much success in the same championship before launching Sean Woods Racing, his team fielding cars in RT2000, SEAT Supercup and many other classes. Woods was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease a number of years ago, and family and friends organised a fundraiser race weekend at Mondello Park in aid of the…

HISTORICS The ex-works AC Cobra Le Mans Coupe that raced at Le Mans in 1963 is due to return to the French track this year with new owner Richard Wilson. Sixty years on from racing at Le Mans in the hands of Ed Hugus and Peter Jopp, 645 CGT will now make another appearance for the Le Mans Classic event in July when Wilson will share the car with its preparer Gary Pearson. Wilson bought the car from previous owner Carlos Monteverde just before lockdown and has recently started testing it. “I’m taking it back to Le Mans this year,” said Wilson. “It’s a nice time to take it there as it is 100 years of Le Mans and 60 years since this car first raced there. We’ll do four…

SILVERSTONE BRSCC 18-19 MARCH Aidan Hills took a clean sweep of victories at the British Racing & Sports Car Club’s season-opener on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit last weekend, repeating his feat from the first round last year by winning all three Mazda MX-5 Supercup races. Reigning champion Will Blackwell-Chambers topped qualifying to take pole for the first two encounters, but a difficult opening lap in race one left him in the lower reaches of the top 10. Hills climbed from the third row to take the lead from Richard Amos, who pulled off shortly afterwards with an issue on the third tour. Hills fended off James Cossins and Tom Griffiths for the remainder of the race, the trio separated by less than a second, while Blackwell-Chambers came home fourth.…