Innehållsförteckning för 18/05/23 från Autosport

McLaren has flattered to deceive since the end of 2021. That season’s MCL35M ended the team’s winless streak and the new ground-effect regulations offered the chance of a Formula 1 reset, with many squads eyeing the change as an opportunity to get to the front. But McLaren’s form has headed in the wrong direction and it’s Aston Martin, which finished two spots (and 104 points) behind the orange team in 2022, that has made the leap towards the leaders. McLaren is still waiting for its new facilities to come online but, as Alex Kalinauckas shows in our investigation this week, that’s not the only element the legendary squad has to sort if it is to ever add to its 12 drivers’ titles and eight constructors’ crowns (page 18). The Woking…

LE MANS 24 HOURS The ban on tyre warmers in the World Endurance Championship has been lifted for next month’s Le Mans 24 Hours. But the volte-face by series rulemakers the FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest only applies to the centrepiece round. The move announced late last week followed a spate of incidents at last month’s Spa round of the WEC. They included Toyota driver Brendon Hartley’s off at the top of Eau Rouge during qualifying, and Antonio Fuoco’s accident on the old pits straight aboard one of the Ferrari Le Mans Hypercars (above). Both had left the pits on cold tyres just seconds before. Criticism of the ban on pre-heating the Michelin and Goodyear rubber used across the WEC’s three classes for this season inevitably followed these…

WEC Cadillac is eyeing an expansion of its factory World Endurance Championship campaign with the V-Series.R LMDh for next season. It is not a done deal as yet, but the General Motors marque has revealed that it is working on a plan to increase the Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing team’s full-season involvement from one to two full-season entries. GM director of motorsport competition engineering Mark Stielow described two entries as the “correct engineering way to do it”. In terms of winning the Le Mans 24 Hours, he said that a “the proper way to do that is with a two-car WEC programme”. “Getting my leadership to agree to that is the next step, I’m hoping that we get the nod,” he continued. GM sportscar programme manager Laura Wontrop Klauser expanded on…

FORMULA 2 Formula 2 championship leader Theo Pourchaire emerged quickest from three days of official testing at Barcelona last week as the teams gear up for the European bulk of their season, but not before Jack Doohan served notice that his early-season troubles could be consigned to the history books. While most of the runners used the second afternoon for qualifying simulations on the soft-compound Pirellis, Pourchaire (above) and ART Grand Prix saved a set of rubber for the final morning. The Frenchman had been third fastest at the end of play on Thursday, but on Friday he sliced 0.375 seconds off Doohan’s best from the previous afternoon. Like Pourchaire, the Australian and Virtuosi Racing had also gone out on a limb on when they used the softs, and Doohan’s…

LE MANS 24 HOURS Valentino Rossi insists that he is on course to make his Le Mans 24 Hours debut in 2024. The bike racing legend is billing his participation in the Road to Le Mans support event this year as a precursor to racing in the new LMGT3 class 12 months later. The seven-time MotoGP world champion will contest the two 55-minute races on the full Circuit de la Sarthe this year for the WRT team with which he is again contesting the GT World Challenge Europe. He described the outing aboard an M4 GT3 as “a great chance because it uses the same circuit”. “I will try to prepare for the circuit on the simulator; I am very curious,” said Rossi, who scored his first podium in the…

Nyck de Vries’s start to life with AlphaTauri has certainly been less than felicitous. After setting a high benchmark in 2022 during his Monza cameo for Williams in place of Alex Albon, when he scored ninth, the opening quintet of races in 2023 have been scoreless for the Dutchman. The usual rookie growing pains combined with uncompetitive machinery escalated somewhat in the gruelling Baku-Miami double-header. A Q1 crash and a further shunt during the race in Baku compounded de Vries’s early misery in 2023. Miami proved to be another missed opportunity, despite qualifying strongly; de Vries broke into Q2 to start ahead of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, but a first-corner lock-up on race day caused contact with Lando Norris and scuppered his chances of a breakthrough point. The Frieslander urgently needs…

“We’re very impressed with him. He’s very focused. He’s not really made any big mistakes. Typical exploring the limits, so the odd lock of a wheel here and there, but he’s not been to all these races. So, early indications are we’ve got a future world champion on our hands. We just have to work to give him a faster car now.” Quite the assessment from McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown. Quite the boost for a Formula 1 driver. And the racer in question is McLaren’s fourth rookie signing in 10 years – the one it went to court to secure: Oscar Piastri. Almost one year on from celebrating his 21st birthday as an Alpine reserve driver at the Australian Grand Prix, Piastri was securing his first ever F1 world…

There are drivers and even race engineers who will throw out words like “straightforward” and “simple” to describe the road course in Indianapolis. And yes, there are no wild bumps or gradient to contend with around its 2.439-mile, 14-turn layout. The ideal racing line for each corner is easy to decipher. Even some of the kerbs have lost their viciousness, which has subtly decreased the acuteness of angle at which they’re attacked. This is presumably to appease NASCAR, which holds a crash-fest here each summer. And drivers risk pushing the limit here because in most corners, their greatest potential harm is time loss or, at worst, getting buried in a gravel trap. Unlike impacts with tyre walls at street courses or SAFER barriers on ovals, you’re unlikely to end up…

EXTREME E GLENMUCKLOCH (GBR) 13-14 MAY ROUND 2/5 Veloce Racing took its second Extreme E win of the season at Scotland’s double-header, with Lewis Hamilton’s X44 team the other victor after a penalty denied Andretti. A challenging course at Glenmuckloch and very contrasting weather led to two eventful days of action, with all 10 teams hitting issues at some point. Heavy fog led to the cancellation of Saturday’s opening qualifying heats, with X44 and Rosberg X Racing triumphing in clear conditions in the solitary pair of heats later on. The second of those contests was restarted after a huge roll for Abt Cupra driver Klara Andersson, who was unharmed, and Veloce also retired with damage. After edging McLaren for the last berth in the final, the Andretti car led into…

NASCAR CUP DARLINGTON (USA) 14 MAY ROUND 13/36 William Byron claimed his third NASCAR Cup win of the season at Darlington Raceway, but this one was more of a gift. Kyle Larson emerged late in the race with the lead following the final round of green-flag pitstops, before a caution for a spin by Ryan Newman left Larson and Ross Chastain to battle side by side on the restart with 13 laps to go. Larson nudged Chastain up into the wall as a multi-car wreck behind them placed the race back under caution. On the ensuing restart with six laps remaining, the Chevrolets of Chastain (Trackhouse Racing) and Larson (Hendrick Motorsports) again lined up alongside each other. This time, it was Chastain who nudged Larson up the track, which wrecked…

SUPER TOURERS Paul Radisich has become the latest star of the British Touring Car Championship’s Super Touring era to confirm he will pilot one of the popular cars at the new Brands Hatch event dedicated to the machinery. New Zealander Radisich competed in the BTCC between 1993 and 1998, driving for the factory Ford and Peugeot squads. He won six races and twice finished third in the standings. Now he is due to be reunited with the Ford Mondeo he raced in 1994, and took to Touring Car World Cup glory at Donington Park, at the 1-2 July Brands Hatch event. The car is one of several Super Tourers owned by Kiwi businessman Scott O’Donnell, who lived in London in the 1990s, and Radisich has driven it a handful of…

TCR TCR Europe race winner Jack Young impressed on his debut in TCR China last weekend, finishing as runner-up in his maiden outing at Shanghai. Despite his lack of experience of the circuit, the Northern Irish driver – who won the Renault UK Clio Cup in 2019 – qualified third in a factory-supported Dongfeng Honda Racing Team Civic. After initially slipping back, Young was able to recover lost ground and eventually finished second. In the partially reversed-grid race, he moved into the lead briefly and was on course for second again before car problems meant he had to retire. “Race two was amazing – I was able to fight my way through and take the lead of the race by half distance from eighth,” said Young, who sits fifth in…

GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED Ferrari and Mercedes are among the Formula 1 teams scheduled to appear at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. The 13-16 July event will celebrate 30 years of the automotive extravaganza – as well as 75 years since the Goodwood circuit first opened – and will once again host several current F1 squads. McLaren and Williams are also due to attend, although no details have yet been given about the cars or drivers that will head to Sussex – however, the event does fall the weekend after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Last year, George Russell, Esteban Gutierrez and Zhou Guanyu were among those entertaining the Festival of Speed crowds. “In this special year for Goodwood, we are thrilled that some of the most prominent…

MGCC The MG Car Club’s Midget & Sprite Challenge achieved one of its largest grids for several years – and its best at Oulton Park since 2007 – last weekend, helped in part by its new-for-2023 historic class. The additional division, which caters for FIA-spec machinery, complements the existing three classes that allow various levels of modification. Cars in the historic class retain a standard silhouette, windscreen and hard-top roof or hood. Engines have a maximum capacity of 1293cc, breathing through Weber carburettors, mated to the A Series gearbox. Suspension modification is very limited and cars run on crossply tyres. “The idea behind it is that we perceive the interest is in the older cars at the moment, and the pretty-looking cars, as they were back in the period,” explained…

HISTORICS Packed grids and some close racing characterised the 2023 running of Peter Auto’s Spa Classic meeting last weekend, with the thrilling lead battle in the Heritage Touring Cup opener among the highlights. After an hour-long night race, just under eight seconds covered the top three at the flag, with a barely believable 0.615s winning margin for Maxime Guenat from Armand Mille, while Yves Scemama completed the podium – all in Ford Capri RS3100s. Mille triumphed in race two, in sunshine on Sunday, but his margin was a much more comfortable two minutes. Among the other Capri entries were McLaren Formula 1 boss Zak Brown and his fellow United Autosports chief Richard Dean, but they did not finish either time. Two races for Group C cars were contested by a…

SNETTERTON BARC 13-14 MAY Both classic and more modern Minis provided some entertaining racing at Snetterton last weekend, with Kane Astin and Jeff Smith sharing the spoils in two hotly contested Mini Miglia contests. Astin, Aaron Smith and Rupert Deeth got a first-lap break in race one, after Jeff Smith and Ben Colburn collided into Riches. As the lead trio squabbled, it was not long before Jeff Smith started to close in again. Things came to a head on lap five of nine, when Aaron Smith attempted to dive inside Astin into Agostini, only for the pair to touch and spin. Deeth therefore emerged with the lead, from Jeff Smith, Colburn and the two recoverees, who quickly made it a five-car train again. Into Riches for the final time, Jeff…

BRANDS HATCH MSVR 13-14 MAY Jonathan Mitchell wowed a crowd lured to Brands Hatch by GT World Challenge Europe with an incredibly narrow win in the weekend’s first 7 Race Series 420R appearance on the main event undercard. He crossed the line in a three abreast finish with Anthony Barnes and Jason McCormack after a typical Caterham confrontation to win by 0.01 seconds. Starting 10th on a partially reversed grid, it took Mitchell only four laps to reach the front in race two. For a while it looked as if he’d broken the tow from the following bunch but, despite lacking a nosecone, McCormack hauled him in and won by nearly half a second, with Mitchell, Andy Perry and Barnes line astern. However, McCormack was later demoted to third for…

Changing a long-established practice is never easy. However positive the new proposal sounds, there will inevitably be some who believe that the traditional method is best. That’s why, for a change to be successful, it needs to be tested, considered and discussed with the key stakeholders, rather than being rushed into. And that careful process is exactly what Motorsport UK is undertaking when it comes to revolutionising its approach to scrutineering. Autosport outlined last year (23 June) how the governing body was trialling a new system where, instead of the pre-pandemic situation of every single car at a meeting being given a six-minute check before qualifying, 25% of entries (either chosen randomly from all competitors or all cars from certain categories are selected) are given a more extensive 15-minute examination.…

It’s rare that a successful sportscar racing double act spans multiple manufacturers. Once strong foundations are built up, loyalty (and an accompanying pay bonus) typically keeps one or both drivers in the environment in which they hit it big. Examples of both parties moving on to the same destination, then recapturing previous glories in entirely different surroundings without it being the result of a boardroom-level mandate, are scarce. But Dirk Muller and Joey Hand proved to be the exception when the former BMW racers, who together claimed the American Le Mans Series GT class title in 2011, were reunited at Ford and conquered the GTE Pro division at Le Mans in 2016. The pair remain contracted to the Multimatic organisation that operated the Ford GT programme from 2016-19, so have…

Michelin will end its tyre supply in Super GT’s top GT500 class at the end of 2023 season, signalling the culmination of its relationship with Nissan and the works NISMO team it has supplied since 2013. A brief statement issued last week said that the decision was taken as a result of Michelin “reconsidering its race support structure”. Its surprise withdrawal has wide-ranging ramifications for both Nissan and Super GT as a whole. Nissan has the headache of trying to reach an agreement with one of the three remaining GT500 suppliers, while the tyre war that has long been a core element of the premier category now faces an uncertain future. Michelin’s departure, which is not anticipated to impact the GT300 class in which it currently supplies the Team Studie…

The EuroFormula Open championship will switch from Hankook to Pirelli tyres for the remainder of the 2023 season. The Korean manufacturer had faced supply problems caused by a factory fire that decimated its stocks and hampered its production capacity. A short statement from the Spanish-based series last week said there was “a shared intention to expand the agreement” with Pirelli “into a partnership for the years beyond”. EFO had only run on Hankook rubber for one round, last month’s Portimao season opener, after switching from long-time supplier Michelin over the winter. Sister GT Sport-run series GT Open is unaffected as it continued its deal with Michelin. Series boss Jesus Pareja, who had to cancel EFO’s planned Pau round last weekend due to the promoter’s requirement to run engines on biofuel,…

FORMULA 1 Nyck de Vries should get a little longer to acclimatise to Formula 1, with sources working to rebuff claims that Daniel Ricciardo will be parachuted in to replace the struggling AlphaTauri driver from as early as the Spanish Grand Prix next month. Eight-time F1 race winner Ricciardo popped to the Red Bull junior team’s Faenza factory last month for a seat fitting. This fuelled rumours that motorsport advisor Helmut Marko was ready to swing his axe and replace under-fire full-time rookie de Vries, who has yet to score a point this season. Instead, Ricciardo’s trip was more routine and came as part of his arrangement with Red Bull for 2023, where he serves as reserve driver for select races. With the Australian also down to fulfil that role…

FORMULA 1 The Shanghai International Circuit can theoretically host the Chinese Grand Prix once again now that the FIA has restored its Grade 1 licence – the top status that permits venues to host Formula 1 races and testing. The track was home to the nation’s GP from 2004 (below) but its previous three-year certification expired at the end of 2019. With COVID breaking out so soon after, inspectors working on behalf of the governing body couldn’t travel to China to complete their checks and renew the licence. That was until August 2022, when an assessment by the Federation of Automobile and Motorcycle Sports of China (CAMF) called for remedial and maintenance work to be completed. That left circuit bosses to arrange fixes for blemishes in the track surface, the…

BTCC Put it to British Touring Car Championship supremo Alan Gow that his series has a schedule that the teams and drivers all like, that works really well for the fans, and that there’s no reason to change anything, and he retorts: “Well, you’ve just put the words into my mouth.” And the trigger for that is the series’ unveiling of its 2024 calendar, which has exactly the same tracks in precisely the same order as in 2023. What the BTCC has done is to get its itinerary confirmed earlier than it believes it ever has, owing to the necessity to lock in dates with broadcaster ITV amid a summer of sport that includes the Paris Olympics and the Euro 2024 football tournament. “I’m really proud of the fact that…

UK START TIMES Friday 19 May FP1 1230 FP2 1600 Saturday 20 May  FP3 1130 QUALIFYING 1500 Sunday 21 May  RACE 1400 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 SPORTS EXTRA TV Highlights CHANNEL 4 1830 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers Constructors IMOLA STATS Previous winners 2022 POLE POSITION Max Verstappen 1m27.999s POLE LAP RECORD Valtteri Bottas 1m13.609s (2020) RACE LAP RECORD Lewis Hamilton 1m15.484s (2020) Laps led Michael Schumacher 317 Ayrton Senna 237 Alain Prost 141 Max Verstappen 124 Nigel Mansell 113 David Coulthard 100 Nelson Piquet 99 Damon Hill 96 Ralf Schumacher 77 Mika Hakkinen 64…

Of all the places to celebrate such a milestone as a 1000th grand prix event, Le Mans is a pretty good one. The Circuit de la Sarthe oozes history and a passion for motorsport, so it’s a symbolic place to reflect on motorcycle GP racing and look to its future. Two-wheeled racing has come a long way since the first event that counted towards the world championship. That 350cc race at the Isle of Man TT in June 1949 bears no resemblance to what spectators witnessed in France last weekend. It’s good to appreciate the past, but the world championship we have now is much faster and much safer. It’s also vastly more popular and available now than it was in 1949. But it’s clear that most within the series’…

Without a win since becoming the youngest World Rally champion last October, and with only one podium in four events this season, Kalle Rovanpera’s quiet start to his World Rally Championship title defence had started to raise questions. But in Portugal last weekend, the Finn delivered an emphatic answer to prove once again that form is temporary and class is permanent. Rovanpera already knew that defending his crown was going to be more difficult than winning the first, but few would have predicted his start to 2023 after raising the bar to heights never seen before from a 22-year-old in the WRC. Twelve months ago, Rovanpera didn’t seem human during his relentless record-breaking run to the title. These mesmerising performances were so frequent that they had become the norm and…

INDY NXT INDIANAPOLIS (USA) 13 MAY ROUND 3/12 A fierce duel on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course was resolved in favour of Matteo Nannini over reigning Indy Pro 2000 champion Louis Foster. The victory for the nephew of Alessandro Nannini and Juncos Hollinger Racing broke the three-year wins stranglehold that Foster’s team Andretti Autosport and HMD Motorsports have held over the feeder series to IndyCar. Nannini took pole from Hunter McElrea and Foster. And while the Italian fumbled the first and second attempted starts, it was third time lucky. Immediately Foster came through as his primary challenger, while Andretti driver McElrea dropped to fifth behind HMD pair Christian Rasmussen and Kyffin Simpson. By lap 18 of the 35-lap race, Foster had halved his deficit to Nannini to 0.7 seconds,…

IMSA SPORTSCAR LAGUNA SECA (USA) 14 MAY ROUND 4/11 Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande rebounded from a series of recent disasters for the Chip Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing team to score an improbable IMSA SportsCar victory last Sunday at Laguna Seca Raceway. Their triumph served to illustrate not only the unpredictability of the new GTP era, but also how this exciting breed of car has brought an entirely different complexion to the championship. In recent years with the DPi cars, the streets of Long Beach have always favoured the instant torque of the V8 Cadillac, while the massive elevation change and flowing nature of permanent road courses such as Laguna Seca have played to the strengths of the more nimble turbocharged Acuras or Mazdas. But that was then and…

BRITISH GT British Touring Car Championship frontrunner Jake Hill will make his GT3 debut with Century Motorsport in British GT next week at Donington Park. Hill has become a championship challenger in the BTCC since joining West Surrey Racing for 2022, going on to finish third in the standings, while he sits fifth in this year’s order after two rounds. The 29-year-old will now swap his BMW 330e M Sport for an M4 GT3 machine on two occasions this year at both Donington rounds of British GT. “This is my debut in GT3 – it’s not my debut in British GT because I did it once upon a time in a GT4 Porsche with AmD and Shaun [Hollamby] in 2015,” said Hill. “So I’m not a complete stranger to British…

CIVIC CUP This year’s Civic Cup champion will receive a prize TCR test with Honda’s touring car partner, JAS Motorsport, in Italy. The trip will offer a day at JAS’s Milan factory, including a session in its simulator. A day’s track testing will follow, at the wheel of the new FL5-version of the Honda Civic Type R TCR, as driven in TCR UK by reigning champion Chris Smiley. The car recently took its first win with Niels Langeveld in TCR Italy. JAS Motorsport’s Mads Fischer said: “As builders of the Honda Civic Type R TCR, we have the unique opportunity to introduce the champion to the most advanced and highest-performance Civic touring car anywhere in the world to show them that they can move up the racing ladder with Honda.”…

TURBO MG3 TO MAKE DEBUT A turbocharged MG3 will race for the first time when it competes in the MG Trophy at Silverstone next month. Colin Robertson has been leading development of the MG3, which has so far lacked competitiveness because of its increased weight compared with the older MG ZR. Having successfully tested the turbo car, Robertson will give the new combination its debut at the MG and Triumph century event on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. COLLIER FLIES IN FROM SPAIN Professional tyre tester Ray Collier made a success of his fleeting visit from work in Spain to compete in the Cockshoot Cup at Oulton Park last Saturday. After completing a 16-hour drive on Friday evening, the 2018 champion qualified his MG ZR 190 second fastest in Saturday…

EQUIPE CLASSIC Triple Toyota MR2 champion Aaron Cooke is on a voyage of discovery this year, showcasing his ability in different race categories while trying to raise support for his ongoing career, and sampling an Elva at Brands Hatch last weekend was the latest example of this. He shared fellow MR2 racer Ali Topley’s 1963 Elva Courier in the two Equipe Classic races that supported the GT World Challenge. “I’ll have a go in Mazda MX-5 [racing in the MX-5 Supercup], there’s a Club Enduro race coming up next month in an Audi TT, and I want to race with the Legends at the American SpeedFest,” he said. “I believe I can definitely go a lot further but have no funds to make it happen.” Cooke met Topley when both…

MINI MIGLIA Race 1 Kane Astin Race 2 Jeff Smith MINI SE7EN Races 1 & 2 Mike Jordan CATERHAM GRADUATES – SIGMA 150 & SIGMAX Races 1 & 3 James Wingfield Race 2 Harry Senior CATERHAM GRADUATES – SIGMA 135 Race 1 Theo Theato Race 2 Ben Wheatley Race 3 Richard Groom MG OWNERS’ CLUB Race 1 Steve McDermid (ZR 170, below) Race 2 Scott Bugner (ZR 160) SNETTERTON SALOONS Bryan Bransom (BMW E36 M3) HYUNDAI COUPE CUP Races 1 & 2 Luca Staccini Anzanello KUMHO BMW Races 1 & 2 Jason West (E46 M3) MINI CHALLENGE TROPHY Race 1 Nicky Taylor Races 2 & 3 Maximus Hall For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

OULTON PARK MGCC 13 MAY The MG Car Club’s long-running Cockshoot Cup produced two entertaining tussles at its Oulton Park season-opener, won by Chris Greenbank and Ray Collier. Targeting overall wins, Class F champion Greenbank upgraded his MGF with a VHPD engine to run in the modified class. Pole position, alongside Collier’s MG ZR 190, was a good start, but both were jumped by Keith Egar’s K Series-powered MG Midget and Mark Wright’s ex-Warren Hughes MGF Cup car. Wright and Collier then demoted Egar, before Collier squeezed ahead into Island. As Wright experienced gear-selection problems, Greenbank took second at Druids mid-race then reeled in Collier, who’d glazed his brakes. Collier held firm until Greenbank got a run exiting Lodge on the final lap and squeezed past through Deer Leap. “I’ve…

Hillclimbing has always been a hotbed of design innovation, and a whole industry has grown around the construction of low-volume single-seater racing cars. Current British Hillclimb Championship contender Alex Summers has now joined the select band of drivers who have built their own car and it has taken seven years of effort, frustration and tears. Yet the P4t is not currently destined to be a BHC challenger. Seven years after the initial sketches, the car ran for the first time at Loton Park in late March. Those years were an emotional rollercoaster for 2015 British Hillclimb champion Summers and his family, but the result is sensational. Sleek, low, purposeful and superbly engineered, the P4t is a triumph of tenacity, determination and engineering ability. The P4t uses the 2.5-litre Cosworth engine…

5 PEUGEOT DISASTER, 2010 Titanium conrods proved the undoing of Peugeot’s attack in 2010. After qualifying 1-2-3-4, with the ORECA entry backing up the three factory 908s, Peugeot lost its long-time leading car of Stephane Sarrazin/Nicolas Minassian/Franck Montagny on Sunday morning. The charging remaining works car also suffered engine failure, leaving ORECA to chase Audi until it too succumbed with just over an hour to go. 4 FINAL LAP LOSS, 2021 GT3 racing standout WRT moved into LMP2 in 2021 and quickly proved to be a force. Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Yifei Ye, who would all go on to win the European Le Mans Series crown, seemed to have class honours sewn up as the 24 Hours drew to a close. But on the final lap the Gibson V8 shut down…

Over a decade has now passed since the 2012 launch of IndyCar’s DW12 chassis. A year that was dominated by Gangnam Style entering into the public’s consciousness as it became the first video to crack a billion YouTube views, while the infamous efforts of an octogenarian amateur painter at restoring a fresco of Jesus achieved worldwide attention. The DW12 by comparison has been a slowburner. But after 11 years and a fair few reboots, including a dalliance with manufacturer-specific aerokits before the cars adopted their current look for 2018 plus the 2020 addition of the aeroscreen, Dallara’s creation is still going strong. And just like Cecilia Gimenez’s widely mocked makeover of Ecce Homo, which proved such a tourist hit that it funded a local carehome and gave the works of…

Formula 1 supplier Pirelli will introduce a tougher tyre construction from July’s British Grand Prix in response to a rapid escalation in car performance. The move is not being made because of safety concerns, but in a bid to limit problems at circuits that are traditionally demanding on tyres such as Silverstone, Spa and Zandvoort. Sources suggest that downforce levels are on par with what was projected for the end of 2023, with cars only set to get faster as upgrades arrive. Compounds of the new tyres will be identical to those currently used. Approval from teams has now been given, with plans in place to test the new construction at next month’s Spanish GP. Pirelli’s head of car racing and F1 Mario Isola said its simulation work “has always…

BENTLEY V8 PARTS ON SHOW A valve from the V8 engine of Bentley’s 2003 Le Mans 24 Hours winning #7 Speed 8 will be displayed within all 48 of the limited edition Continental GT and GTC cars from its newly announced Le Mans Collection. The Crewe manufacturer bisected 24 of the 32 valves from the four-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, which will be displayed in place of the standard central dial. The cars will also carry visual styling cues to the Speed 8, including a #7 painted on the grille. NEW HQ FOR CATERHAM Caterham Cars says a move to new 54,000 square foot premises near to its current HQ in Dartford will enable an increase of its annual production capacity by 50%. This will equate to around 750 new Sevens…

IndyCar looked stale at the start of 2010, barely staggering through the economic recession and dwarfed by NASCAR. The excitement surrounding the 2008 unification of the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series, to form the new IndyCar Series, had dissipated. The schedule comprised nine road/street courses, eight ovals, and spectator numbers at most venues were falling. The cars reflected this stasis. The Indy Racing League’s spec Dallara IR-05 was never accused of elegance even when it emerged in 2003, but it had been developed for a largely oval series, whereas the Panoz DP01 used by Champ Car in 2007 had never seen an oval. Thus when the series merged, the attractive turbocharged Panoz-Cosworth was rendered obsolete after just a year of competition, and the obsolete-looking Dallara complete…

A cursory look at the standings three rounds into the inaugural FIA GT Championship would give little indication of what was to come over the remainder of the 1997 season. An 18-point advantage for Schnitzer McLaren-BMW drivers JJ Lehto and Steve Soper over Mercedes CLK-GTR pairing Bernd Schneider and Alex Wurz didn’t tell the true story either. The new Mercedes run by the works AMG operation was clearly the quicker car and, once its teething troubles were ironed out for round four at the Nurburgring, it would be beaten only twice more that year. By the time it was replaced by the CLK-LM for the third round of the 1998 campaign, it had earned eight wins including five 1-2 finishes (from 13 attempts), eight pole positions (including four top-three lockouts) and…

FORMULA 1 Alpine is poised to gain fresh investment that will help support an aerodynamic engineering recruitment drive and construct a new simulator to hopefully resurrect its Formula 1 fortunes. This plan, revealed by under-pressure team principal Otmar Szafnauer, comes hot on the heels of company CEO Laurent Rossi arranging a TV interview with French media so he could very publicly label his squad as “disappointing” and at times “amateurish”. Ex-Racing Point boss Szafnauer is seeking to show management that he is leaving no stone unturned in a bid to ensure Alpine achieves the pre-season aim of fourth in the constructors’ standings while closing the gap to Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. A new state-of-the-art simulator has very recently been signed off, and should be in play by 2025, while…

LE MANS 24 HOURS The Delage name will return to the Le Mans 24 Hours next month after an absence of more than 70 years. The IDEC Sport LMP2 team’s ORECA-Gibson 07 will bear allegiance to a revived marque that raced in the French enduro seven times between 1923 and 1950 in the centrepiece World Endurance Championship round. European Le Mans Series regular IDEC has entered into a partnership with the group that announced the revival of Delage, winner of the 1914 Indianapolis 500, four years ago. For the moment that means that the team’s ORECA to be driven by Paul-Loup Chatin, Paul Lafargue and Laurents Horr will carry the fledgling manufacturer’s name and compete in French racing blue. Where the link-up could lead in the longer term isn’t clear.…

TCR EUROPE British tin-top up-and-comer Isaac Smith scored a podium finish in TCR Europe at last weekend’s Pau Grand Prix as Dutch veteran Tom Coronel moved clear at the top of the points table. Smith qualified fourth, one spot ahead of Volcano Motorsport Audi team-mate Lewis Brown, on the French street circuit. He then moved up to third when driveshaft failure sidelined poleman Viktor Andersson’s Lynk & Co. Late in the race, Smith survived contact from local hero Eric Cayrolle to finish third behind lanky Serbian race winner Dusan Borkovic (Hyundai) and Kobe Pauwels (Audi). Brown dropped to eighth after running wide at the Virage de la Gare. Coronel’s disastrous qualifying session at least netted him reversed-grid pole, and he used that to lead the second race all the way…

Red Bull’s world champion retiring from the front of the British Grand Prix and Sergio Perez exiting with a puncture. That would be quite the surprise at Silverstone in seven weeks’ time. But that’s what happened in 2013, albeit when Perez was in his sole season at McLaren, Max Verstappen was still karting and the Red Bull champi0n was Sebastian Vettel. And it’s worth recalling here, because a significant moment in the 2023 season has just arrived for the biggest player in that sunny event of nearly a decade ago: Pirelli. Before Perez’s spectacular exit, three other drivers had already suffered dramatic punctures. Race director Charlie Whiting came close to red-flagging proceedings. This was Pirelli’s nightmare, one it had been fearing so much that it had already asked the FIA…

Some people have been seeing McLaren in a very different light recently. In the 2019 film Hobbs & Shaw, the McLaren Technology Centre factory becomes a villainous organisation’s base. In the HBO science fiction television comedy series Avenue 5, the same building is restyled as mission control for an interplanetary cruise ship operator. Most recently, Disney+ Star Wars TV spinoff Andor reimagined the MTC as a bustling space port. But, to Formula 1 fans, the results of the real-life work completed inside the gigantic Norman Foster-designed complex appear very familiar. If anything in 2023, they’re looking rather worse than previous years, when it appeared that the orange team was finally gaining the momentum required to take it back to race and title-winning peaks it has not scaled since 2008 and…

Kalle Rovanpera was relieved to end his World Rally Championship victory drought after admitting to “having a hard time personally” since last year. Rovanpera had endured a quiet start to his title defence, and headed into Portugal having scored only one podium from the previous four rounds. But the Toyota ace has remained in the thick of the title fight, finishing fourth in Sweden, Mexico and Croatia, where road position and misfortune hampered his charge. When interviewed at the end of the final stage in Portugal, Rovanpera was quick to praise co-driver Jonne Halttunen, his team and a close friend for helping him through a difficult few months. “It has been too long coming, but finally we are back,” he said. “I have to say a big thank you to…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE SPRINT CUP BRANDS HATCH (GBR) 14 MAY ROUND 1/5 Mercedes and Audi took the victories at Brands Hatch last Sunday, but the headlines went to Valentino Rossi courtesy of the bike legend’s first podium in the GT World Challenge Europe. The WRT BMW driver did everything that was required of him to hang on to the runner-up spot in the second of the two races on the opening weekend of the Sprint Cup when he emerged from the pitstops in that position. Rossi’s WRT BMW M4 GT3 ran third in the hands of Maxime Martin prior to the pitstop cycle in the middle of the one-hour race. A typically quick turnaround from the Belgian team won two positions, though it did lose one. That gave Rossi…

MOTOGP LE MANS (FRA) 14 MAY ROUND 5/20 After five rounds of the 2023 MotoGP season, it’s already become apparent who the sprint races suit best. And it’s not Pramac Ducati rider Jorge Martin, who brilliantly took his first MotoGP win of any kind since 2021 in Saturday’s sprint contest at the French Grand Prix. No, it’s his fellow Ducati racer Francesco Bagnaia. The factory team rider was third in Saturday’s sprint contest, adding to his two wins in the short races in 2023 and one other podium. It’s what has ultimately kept him at the top of the standings, albeit by one point after a dominant performance in the main event by Marco Bezzecchi. At grand prix racing’s 1000th world championship event, chaos enveloped Sunday’s 27-lap GP and Bagnaia…

UK MOTORSPORT An education-based race series is being planned for next year as part of a bid by SCU Motorsport to offer students a new course to prepare them for working as engineers and mechanics within motorsport. SCU was founded by Alan O’Neill – who previously taught a motorsport college course – and it intends to develop a new qualification that will use augmented and virtual reality to help students learn key skills before they put them into practice in the race series. A grant from the Ufi VocTech Trust, which funds new vocational learning projects, has been secured to help create the 3D learning environment. This will begin with a set-up masterclass delivered to UTC Oxford. It is planned that the race series will feature a bespoke single-seater developed…

RADICAL CUP UK Former World Superbike champion Sylvain Guintoli has signed with North Motorsport to contest the Radical Cup UK’s British Touring Car-supporting rounds at Snetterton this weekend and the championship’s Silverstone fixture in July. The 40-year-old Leicestershire-domiciled Frenchman will compete in the premier SR3 class in a latest generation XXR machine. It follows a series of recent car outings in the UK, which have enabled him to gain his international licence. He has ambitions to race in the Le Mans 24 Hours, having won the French classic’s motorcycle equivalent in 2021 en route to that year’s World Endurance crown with Suzuki. Guintoli, who raced a Radical in 2016, said: “Nobody has ever won both the motorcycle and also the car 24 Hours at Le Mans – you never know…

ANGLESEY 750MC 13-14 MAY Anglesey Circuit is one of the most picturesque in the British Isles, especially on a late spring day when the sun is shining. And, last Saturday, the first day of the 750 Motor Club’s weekend of events at the venue, was one such occasion where competitors were blessed with blue skies from dawn to dusk – although Sunday was another matter entirely, with blustery showers and cold winds. The 750MC had put together a programme of races that provided a wide variety of cars across a number of championships, with the Tegiwa-backed series providing the greatest variety across a single grid. Entries for both the 45-minute Roadsports and two-hour Club Enduro contests ranged from relatively humble hot hatches to small-volume racers with a good spread between…

Junior Saloon Car champion Maximus Hall not only took his first Mini podium at Snetterton, but followed it with a maiden double victory. Jack Byrne led from the start of the opening race, from Nicky Taylor, Hall and Rhys Hurd. “Then Jack slid wide at Oggies, I got down the inside and had the lead,” said Taylor. Hurd had managed to get ahead of Hall, too, with Tom Ovenden and Alex Solley soon following, as it became an eight-car train at the front. Taylor and Byrne had started to build a gap to the huge battle for third, but Taylor was soon on his own as Byrne fell back. “I lost the rear into Coram and dropped three places,” he explained. Hall was into second with Ovenden third into Agostini…

BRANDS HATCH 7 RACE SERIES – 420R Races 1 & 2 Jonathan Mitchell 7 RACE SERIES – 1600 Race 1 Max Haynes Race 2 David Baldwin SPORTS 2000 Races 1 & 2 Michael Gibbins (MCR S2n) EQUIPE CLASSIC Race 1 Chris Beighton (Sunbeam Tiger) Race 2 Nick Whale/Michael Lyons (Ford Escort Mk2, below) BMW CAR CLUB Race 1 Niall Bradley (E46 M3) Race 2 Graham Crowhurst (E46 M3) For full results visit: msvr.co.uk/car/events/2023/may/bh-14 OULTON PARK COCKSHOOT CUP Race 1 Chris Greenbank (MGF) Race 2 Ray Collier (MG ZR 190) MIDGET & SPRITE CHALLENGE Races 1 & 2 Stephen Watkins (Midget) CSCC MAGNIFICENT SEVENS Race 1 Colin Watson (Caterham C400) Race 2 Tim Davis (Caterham C400) MG CUP Race 1 Ian Boulton (MG ZR 170, below) Race 2 Stuart Tranter (Rover…

BOOK FERRARI: FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE Rainer Schlegelmilch and Ercole Colombo Edited by James Allen RRP £60 There’s something about Ferrari. Whether the Formula 1 squad is riding high or enduring one of its periodic slumps, or yo-yoing confoundingly somewhere in between, the fascination, and the emotional investment of devoted fans, remains the same. And Ferrari’s consistent presence within the championship reinforces a sense that it’s woven into the fabric of F1. So, any fresh perspective on this endlessly intriguing motorsport icon is to be welcomed. In Ferrari: From Inside and Outside that perspective is chiefly visual, captured through the viewfinders of two of Formula 1’s longest-serving – with careers starting in the 1960s and lasting well into the 21st century – and most celebrated photographers, Rainer Schlegelmilch and Ercole…

The tarp-shrouded Lotus 72s of Emerson Fittipaldi and Dave Walker are prepped in the sun-baked Osterreichring paddock at the 1972 Austrian Grand Prix. Polesitter Fittipaldi, who opted to race his spare car (#31), was demoted to third place at the start by Jackie Stewart (Tyrrell 005) and Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari 312B2), but by half-distance was settled in a lead he would not relinquish. There was no easy run to the flag, though, as over the closing laps he was hounded by the McLaren M19C of Denny Hulme. Walker (#21), who qualified 19th, was out of the race on lap seven of 54 with engine failure. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…

Sportscar constructor Ligier Automotive will reveal a new hydrogen demonstration vehicle at next month’s Le Mans 24 Hours after embarking on a joint venture with Bosch Engineering. The French manufacturer of LMP2 and LMP3 chassis announced last week that it will take the covers off a machine based on its Ligier JS2 R racer after joining forces with Bosch, which provides the motor generator unit, inverter and vehicle control unit for the LMDh hybrid system. A Ligier statement said the cooperation’s aim is “to build a high-performance vehicle with a hydrogen engine that delivers drive dynamics equivalent to those of conventional gasoline-powered sports cars”. Bosch has been charged with overseeing the overall vehicle concept of the JS2 RH2, which takes its name from the Ligier JS2 that finished second at…

Alpine has revealed the first images of its new Pikes Peak challenger, built in collaboration with the Signatech squad that fields its LMP2 programme in the World Endurance Championship. The one-off A110 Pikes Peak edition, which includes significant aerodynamic modifications to the rear wing, diffuser and splitter, will be the first works-entered Alpine to take on the 12.42-mile Colorado hillclimb on 25 June. Raphael Astier, who won the 2022 FIA R-GT Cup with the A110 Rally edition, will be its driver. Signatech technical director Lionel Chevalier and project manager Francois Letort worked closely with Alpine’s design office on the 950kg car, which completed its first test runs last month at Lurcy-Levis with a Le Mans-inspired shark fin mounted to the rear window. Chief designer Raphael Linari said the project “was…

Rallying is heading towards a crossroads as the FIA ascertains the long-term method of propulsion that will ensure a prosperous and sustainable future for the discipline. Top level rallying has already taken its first steps in electrification through the introduction of the Rally1 hybrid regulations to the World Rally Championship last year. The FIA is currently devising its next set of WRC regulations, with hybrid power expected to continue from 2025 before a more seismic change in 2028. Multiple options are under consideration – as FIA rally director Andrew Wheatley says, “we’re not ruling anything out”. A new demonstration class is in development that will allow manufacturers and teams to pursue alternative propulsion methods. One of these could be fully electric, which is becoming increasingly prevalent in the rally world…

Despite Mercedes’ total domination of the FIA GT Championship in 1998 – it won every race before the GT1 class collapsed at season’s end – it wouldn’t be correct to say that it was to blame for what transpired. Instead, the sliding-doors moment can be found in 1996 when Porsche’s 911 GT1 demolished the opposition in its selected outings in the BPR-run Global Endurance GT Series and blazed the trail for what was to follow. In the eyes of Stephane Ratel, the ‘R’ of BPR, the decision to admit a car that contravened the spirit of the rules was critical. “The spirit of the rule was to say that GT racing is about road cars going racing and not about race cars being homologated on the road to take advantage of…

For then-Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug, Bridgestone’s contribution to Mercedes’ 1997 FIA GT Championship success “was not the key factor”. “We would have been competitive with Michelin as well, I’m sure,” Haug asserts. But the fact that Mercedes was the sole team using Bridgestones, while Porsche and McLaren-BMW used Michelins, almost certainly bestowed an advantage. It was a factor in Mercedes’ qualifying edge, with Schneider attributing its special qualifying tyres to “at least 1.5-2s” depending on the track surface grip. On balance, however, Schneider believes “over the full season they were pretty equal”. That’s despite extensive work to find improvements, including a 3000km three-day test after the A1-Ring round, and Schneider doing the bulk of tyre testing, which he concedes “was a big difference to my colleagues”. Michelin’s strong suit,…