Innehållsförteckning för 19/12/24 från Autosport

What a season of motorsport we’ve had. The Formula 1 campaign turned out to be much closer and more interesting than expected, we got a new World Rally champion, titles shared in the burgeoning World Endurance Championship, and plenty of good racing – not to mention controversy – in series as far ranging as NASCAR, Formula E and the British Touring Car Championship. We’ve looked at all these series and more to put together our traditional Top 50 drivers of the year (page 15). As ever, we’ve tried to balance the drivers’ performances with the level of the series and competition they faced, as well as the machinery at their disposal. We’ve also tried to spread the festive joy across the disciplines. This double issue has plenty more to offer,…

FORMULA 1 Rwanda has formally announced its bid to hold a Formula 1 race at a new track close to the planned Bugesera airport near the capital Kigali. The prospective circuit is promising a fast and flowing layout that will run through forests and around a lake, making full use of the hilly terrain where it is to be constructed. The track is being designed by former F1 driver Alexander Wurz, whose company has been working on the project with the government for more than a year. The Rwanda push is the culmination of months of efforts by F1 and the FIA to bring grand prix racing back to the African continent. As revealed by Autosport in August, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has been in talks with representatives of Rwanda…

Sebastian Wheldon, son of the late IndyCar hero Dan, caused a sensation at Yas Marina last weekend when he won on his F4 debut. The 15-year-old, who has been testing in Europe with Prema Racing since competing in this year’s USF Juniors series, rocked up with Prema-run Mumbai Falcons Racing for the final round of the three-event Formula Trophy UAE mini-series. Wheldon claimed pole, lost out to team-mate Chi Zhenrui at his first standing start, then passed the Chinese to win. The Andretti junior was fourth in race two, won by Alpine F1 protege Kabir Anurag. Kai Daryanani claimed the title from the absent Rashid Al Dhaheri.…

Winning the Indy NXT championship and getting an IndyCar seat for 2025 meant this has been a great year for me. To win the title in such a dominant fashion was the icing on the cake. It showed how much effort the team at Andretti and I put in over the last two years. Our rivals at HMD had been quite dominant in recent Indy NXT history, so I’m happy to have turned it around. The performance has given me the opening to go and drive in IndyCar next year with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. I had discussions with Bobby Rahal throughout the year, but it came together once the season was finished. I’m over the moon to be with the team, as they’re a great organisation. I’ve spent quite…

“Not one of my best years”. Dries Vanthoor has got it wrong when he describes a season that propelled him to his highest position yet in the Autosport Top 50. The only thing missing was a championship win, which explains his downbeat assessment. He’s got used to winning them over the years and narrowly missed out on the GT World Challenge Europe overall title and a fourth Sprint Cup crown. Vanthoor raced 26 times in 2024. Swapping back and forth from prototypes to GTs wasn’t easy to start with but, once he made it a habit, it was only of value to him. “If you want to be able to call yourself a top driver, you have to be able to drive anything” “You are always learning as a driver,…

WINS 5 more than next-best Lando Norris 9 FASTEST LAPS 3 3 behind Norris’s leading total of 6 RACES LED 16 5 more than next-best Norris PENALTY POINTS 8 without any dropping off his licence until 30 June 2025 8 POLES equal highest with Norris 15 FRONT ROW STARTS 5 more than next-best Norris GRID POSITIONS LOST excludes back of the grid penalties 16 20 STEWARDS’ DECISIONS DOCUMENTS the most in 2024, ahead of Kevin Magnussen’s 19 TOTAL PODIUMS 14 1 more than Norris and Charles Leclerc, who ended up equal on 13 RACE FINISHES WITH POINTS 23 1 behind joint leaders Norris and Oscar Piastri LAPS COMPLETED 1389 55 behind leader Piastri LAPS IN EACH POSITION…

SUPER FORMULA LIGHTS SHUN KOIDE EUROFORMULA OPEN BRAD BENAVIDES FORMULA REGIONAL MIDDLE EAST TUUKKA TAPONEN FORMULA REGIONAL OCEANIA ROMAN BILINSKI EUROCUP-3 JAVIER SAGRERA ITALIAN & UAE FORMULA 4 FREDDIE SLATER EURO 4 AKSHAY BOHRA FRENCH FORMULA 4 TAITO KATO SPANISH FORMULA 4 MATTIA COLNAGHI JAPANESE FORMULA 4 YUTO NOMURA USF PRO 2000 LOCHIE HUGHES USF2000 MAX GARCIA USF JUNIORS MAX TAYLOR GT WORLD CHALLENGE ASIA LEO YE/BOB YUAN GT WORLD CHALLENGE AUSTRALIA CHAZ MOSTERT/LIAM TALBOT INTERCONTINENTAL GT CHALLENGE CHARLES WEERTS INTERNATIONAL GT OPEN CHRISTOPHER HAASE/SIMON REICHER ITALIAN GT ENDURANCE GIANCARLO FISICHELLA/ARTHUR LECLERC/TOMMASO MOSCA ITALIAN GT SPRINT JENS KLINGMANN ADAC GT MASTERS ELIAS SEPPANEN/TOM KALENDER LE MANS CUP DAVID DROUX/ADRIEN CHILA GT4 EUROPEAN SERIES JOSH RATTICAN/TOM LEBBON TCR EUROPE FRANCO GIROLAMI NASCAR XFINITY JUSTIN ALLGAIER WORLD RALLYCROSS JOHAN KRISTOFFERSSON For full…

SUPER GT Toyota dominated the Super GT season, with Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita making it back-to-back titles for the #36 TOM’S car. The pair were the class of the field all year, winning three races out of eight and proving ruthlessly consistent even when the car was loaded with success ballast, and clinching the crown in qualifying for the Suzuka finale. But if the 2023 title was largely down to the brilliance of TOM’S, it was clear that the 2024-spec GR Supra, with its revised aerodynamics emphasising downforce, was the pick of the three GT500 machines this time around. That was underlined by two wins for Ukyo Sasahara and Giuliano Alesi in the #37 side of the TOM’S garage and a first victory since 2020 for SARD, while Cerumo…

DTM Mirko Bortolotti made history in the DTM with Lamborghini this year by becoming the first driver to win the title in a non-German car since Nicola Larini triumphed with Alfa Romeo in 1993. The Italian had already marked himself out as a future champion in his first campaign in the series with Grasser Racing in 2022, when he finished in a strong fourth place. A more potent title challenge followed last year upon his switch to SSR Performance, and in 2024 he finally put everything together to win the biggest prize in German motorsport. There were some setbacks for Bortolotti early in the season; a botched pitstop while leading at Oschersleben and a strategic error in the rain-hit race at Lausitzring left him with a sizeable points deficit to…

F1 ACADEMY Abbi Pulling was so good in F1 Academy this season that she won the title twice. A move out of the European single-seater heartland meant just two rounds were held on the home continent of all the teams, and Pulling – back with the Rodin Motorsport team after finishing fifth in 2023 – appeared to have wrapped things up in the first race of the penultimate round in Qatar. But the second race at Losail was cancelled, and a third leg hastily added to the Yas Marina finale – with qualifying points to boot. That dethroned Pulling before her mastery of qualifying early on the Friday evening put it to bed – again. It was a dominant season for Alpine junior Pulling, who won nine of the 14…

A SINGLE-SEATERS 1 Who was the only driver to complete every racing lap of the 2024 F1 season? 2 Which was the only grand prix of 2024 where Sergio Perez outqualified Max Verstappen? 3 Who was the last UK driver to race for Ferrari in F1 before Ollie Bearman stepped in for Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia? 4 A total of 24 drivers contested grands prix this year, but which three failed to score a point? 5 During Red Bull’s mid-season struggles, how many races did Max Verstappen go without a grand prix win? 6 In an unpredictable 2024 Formula E season, who was the only driver to win consecutive races? 7 Zane Maloney finished fourth in the Formula 2 championship despite missing the final round, but why was he…

2011 F2 AND 2024 DTM CHAMPION Formula 2 did a lot for my career. In my first stint in 2009, I had just competed in single-seaters in Italy, so it was my first real opportunity to get into international motorsport. That first season was a bit difficult on some topics, especially reliability of the cars, but also finding a way of running the whole thing in a professional way, trying to give all the drivers the same conditions. And that was the goal, which is something I really appreciated, something that I’m missing in many series nowadays. As a concept, it was great. The problem is, in some cases, it was difficult to put in place. And that is where they made the biggest step in 2011 when I came…

MSV MotorSport Vision has lost a High Court case against former British Superbike rider Shane Byrne that could cost the circuit operator millions of pounds. Byrne, a six-time BSB champion, suffered a career-ending crash during an official test day at Snetterton in 2018 after crashing at Palmer and colliding with a tyre barrier that left the then-41-year-old with a fracture to the top of his sternum, several fractures of his cervical and thoracic vertebrae and numerous fractured ribs, as well as serious internal soft tissue injuries. Judge Peter Blair KC heard how on 17 May 2018, Byrne lost control of his Paul Bird Motorsport Ducati having accelerated up “to about 120mph” before “his helmeted head struck the barrier first and forced his head towards his chest as his body followed”.…

HISTORICS Greater customer focus, reduced race entry and membership fees, long-term commercial partnerships and more inclusive management strategies are aimed at driving the Historic Sports Car Club forward, following its best financial performance since 2015. Stuart Kestenbaum – a racer since 1983 and architect of the Classic Formula Ford category’s renaissance – has taken over as HSCC chair following Kevin Kivlochan’s illness-enforced retirement. His manifesto for change is crucial as the club rebuilds towards its 60th anniversary in 2026. Former chair Chris Sharples, who has worked to increase Historic FF1600 grids, has rejoined the board. Derek Bell Trophy prime mover Frank Lyons, Jim Nairn (overseeing 70s and Historic Road Sports) and Nick Thompson (Guards) will also work with treasurer Robert Barter and CEO Andy Dee-Crowne to deliver wholesale changes. “In…

STEPHEN LICKORISH To the left you can read about one of Marcus Pye’s highlights of the year being British Touring Car aces Jake Hill and Tom Ingram tussling in historic machinery at Goodwood. And my favourite club racing moment of 2024 features another BTCC star putting on a show in an old car. The Historic Racing Drivers Club Jack Sears Trophy contest brought the Donington Historic Festival to a cracking close and featured some brilliant battles among its packed grid of tin-tops. Josh Cook was in the thick of the action and spent the entire race dicing with fellow Lotus Cortina pilot David Dickenson (left). The pair going either side of two lapped cars having their own fight on the pitstraight was spectacular, but they ultimately could not deny Le…

750 MOTOR CLUB 116 SPRINT TROPHY Matthew Highcock 750 FORMULA CHAMPIONSHIP David Bartholomew (PRS 1b) ALFA ROMEO CHAMPIONSHIP Toby Broome (147 GTA) ARMED FORCES RACE CHALLENGE Jonathan Candler (Peugeot 306) BIKESPORTS CHAMPIONSHIP Leon Morrell (Radical SR3) BMW CAR CLUB RACING CHAMPIONSHIP William Lake (E46 325ti) CLASSIC STOCK HATCH CHAMPIONSHIP Stewart Place (Peugeot 205 GTI) CLIO SPORT CHAMPIONSHIP Peter O’Connor (182) CLUB ENDURO CHAMPIONSHIP Ash Moor/Samuel Dennis (Honda Civic Type R) F1000 CHAMPIONSHIP Craig Pollard FORMULA VEE CHAMPIONSHIP Matt Harbot (AHS Dominator) HOT HATCH CHAMPIONSHIP Joshua Hilton (BMW E36 Compact) LOCOST CHAMPIONSHIP Daniel Garrett MA7DA CHAMPIONSHIP Ben Powney MX-5 CUP Ben Short SPORTS 1000 CHAMPIONSHIP Ryan Yarrow (Spire GT3S) SPORT SPECIALS CHAMPIONSHIP Stuart Thompson (MK Indy RR) TOYOTA MR2 CHAMPIONSHIP Shaun Traynor (Roadster) TYPE R TROPHY Matt Wilkins BRITISH AUTOMOBILE RACING…

Chris Amon grapples with his Ferrari 512S in atrocious conditions on the approach to Paddock Hill Bend at Brands Hatch in the BOAC 1000 on 12 April 1970. Sharing with Arturo Merzario, Amon endured a difficult race in which Ferrari struggled to take the fight to Porsche. The Kiwi ran as high as second before an inspired Pedro Rodriguez steamed past in his Gulf-Wyer 917, then Amon was delayed by a collision with a Chevron. He was running third in the closing stages, but a late fuel stop dropped him to fifth. The Ferrari rose back to fourth, only for a fuel feed problem to leave Amon and Merzario fifth at the chequered flag. Meanwhile, Rodriguez completed one of the great virtuoso drives to finish five laps ahead of the…

The 2024 Formula 1 season was a glorious surprise, bursting at the seams with intrigue from pre-season right until its final laps in Abu Dhabi. The best drivers again delivered stunning highs – some scaling new peaks from crests others already couldn’t get near. The teams continued to innovate even in this era of prescribed car design regulations. Controversy reigned from start to finish. The shock multi-team victory battle While wandering down the Miami Grand Prix pitlane in the shadow of the Hard Rock stadium, it was worth pausing at McLaren’s area of the pitwall. There was an air of excitement overhanging the team. Its pitstop crew was preparing to drill with Lando Norris’s MCL38. The car looked very different now – 10 chassis areas had been upgraded; more sophisticated…

Autosport scores each of the Formula 1 drivers out of 10 for every grand prix, based on the weekend as a whole, not just the race. We also ask Autosport Plus readers on autosport.com for their equivalent scores. The lists on this page show the average scores for each driver across the 2024 season. Where two drivers get the same average, the order is decided by best individual scores. For example, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris both scored 183 out of a possible 240 (an average of 7.875) in our list but the Ferrari star takes first on the basis of two 10/10s (for the Monaco and Italian GPs), whereas the McLaren driver’s Abu Dhabi 10 was his only maximum. The final order of Autosport’s averages does not completely match…

The cameos from Ollie Bearman, Franco Colapinto and Liam Lawson were an undeniable highlight of the Formula 1 season. They also were a timely reminder that, after a winter of no driver changes for 2024, there is plenty of young talent waiting in the wings. Arguably the most impressive, despite being limited to just three races, were the performances of Bearman. Just four years ago, he was racing karts and it has been an astronomical rise up the motorsport ladder, leading to his sensational debut in Jeddah for Ferrari. The East London-born Ferrari protege received an eleventh-hour phone call to deputise for Carlos Sainz, who was suffering appendicitis at March’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Bearman, who had taken pole position for the Formula 2 race before Sainz was sidelined, was…

1 Horner investigated amid Red Bull war Pre-season is dominated by Red Bull internal affairs centred on allegedly inappropriate messages sent by Christian Horner to a female employee. Despite Horner being cleared, Jos Verstappen said the squad risked being “torn apart” if the team principal remained in position. Horner survived, while Helmut Marko kept his place having faced disciplinary action over leaks. 2 Hamilton’s Ferrari switch starts driver market frenzy Lewis Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes for Ferrari sent the driver market into overdrive, triggering Carlos Sainz’s Williams move and Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s naming as Hamilton’s successor. The transfer was never far from the headlines, as details emerged from the initial conversations to Toto Wolff’s “shelf life” comments about his soon-to-be former driver. 3 Mercedes calls police over sabotage email Mercedes called in…

FORMULA 1 Pirelli’s new Formula 1 tyre compounds for 2025 received a final sign-off at Abu Dhabi’s post-season test last week. While Charles Leclerc was quickest in his Ferrari, the Yas Marina track featured several drivers getting down to work with their new teams. Pirelli head of motorsport Mario Isola expressed satisfaction that progress had been made in areas where the Italian supplier had been criticised. “They were running in higher temperatures [than the race weekend], so the fact that the overheating was similar is good news because that means in comparable conditions it is probably less,” said Isola. “Abrasion is lower. That is another element we wanted to improve, because this year we had some graining, and we want to reduce the graining. We also tested all the five…

WEC Maxime Martin has joined the Mercedes GT3 driver pool on his departure from BMW, and the first full programme announced for the Belgian is an attack on the World Endurance Championship with the Iron Lynx squad. Mercedes will become the third manufacturer for which the 38-year-old has driven, after two stints at BMW that sandwiched five years with Aston Martin. He stated that he is hoping to “achieve great things” with his new employer: “The journey ahead will be full of challenges, but I am ready and eager to face them.” The announcement that Martin, an overall winner at the Spa 24 Hours and a class victor at Le Mans, will be joining Iron Lynx in the WEC on its swap from Lamborghini did not reveal his teammates. The…

8 KEVIN ESTRE 26th in 2019 22nd in 2021 15 JOEY LOGANO 26th in 2016 27th in 2018 11th in 2022 19 COLTON HERTA 34th in 2019 22nd in 2020 14th in 2021 21 PIERRE GASLY 4th in 2020 10th in 2021 25 WILL POWER 30th in 2020 42nd in 2021 8th in 2022 26 FELIPE NASR 32nd in 2011 37th in 2021 28 SEBASTIEN BUEMI 16th in 2020 32nd in 2021 30th in 2022 30 DRIES VANTHOOR 46th in 2018 48th in 2021 40th in 2022 33 MIRKO BORTOLOTTI 48th in 2011 37th in 2017 38 KELVIN VAN DER LINDE 49th in 2021 42 OLIVER ROWLAND 27th in 2014 11th in 2015 43 PATO O’WARD 34th in 2020 19th in 2021 46 YUKI TSUNODA 27th in 2020 47 TOM…

One of the key reasons why Charles Leclerc got the nod over Lando Norris for second place in this ranking was his strength in wheel-to-wheel combat this season: the only driver to offer Max Verstappen a battle during the Dutchman’s rise at Interlagos; his brilliant, swooping pass on George Russell at Turn 1 in China; his holding off of Oscar Piastri’s faster McLaren at Zandvoort and in Qatar. Ahead of the Abu Dhabi season finale, we asked Leclerc what all that meant to him, as well as to assess his 2024 season. Here’s his reply in full: CL I always enjoy wheel-to-wheel. It’s always a very exciting moment of the weekend where you’ve got to adapt to different drivers. Of course, you get to know drivers and you adapt your…

IMSA The IMSA SportsCar Championship continued its strong growth trend in 2024. The intensity of the competition didn’t waver, either. Of the 11 manufacturers involved in the series’ four classes (LMP3 was dropped to accommodate the burgeoning remaining categories), only Ford and McLaren failed to notch a victory, and the majority of driver and manufacturer titles remained undecided until the final round, with Porsche pair Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron emerging as champions of the headline GTP class. The second year of GTP – aka LMDh – once again provided plenty of excitement as all four full-season entrants (Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche) earned race wins. Newcomer Lamborghini also displayed distinct promise. The Italian marque contested only the long-distance races with its attractive SC63, but legitimate highlights included leading at…

SUPER FORMULA Sho Tsuboi replaced Formula 2-bound Ritomo Miyata at TOM’S for the 2024 Super Formula season and emulated his predecessor by landing the title with the powerhouse Toyota team. Tsuboi quickly proved a force to be reckoned with, banking podiums at Autopolis and Sugo before scoring victory in July’s Fuji round. Tadasuke Makino of Dandelion Racing was Tsuboi’s nearest rival for much of the year, the Honda man finally scoring his first Super Formula win at Autopolis and adding another at Motegi. But Tsuboi reasserted his authority with a superb sweep of the October Fuji double-header, and a pair of seconds in the Suzuka finale was enough to put the title beyond reach of his Honda-powered rivals. The early part of the year was dominated by Team Mugen, with…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE It was a dream season in GT World Challenge Europe for Maro Engel and Lucas Auer, their Winward Racingrun Mercedes-AMG GT3 coming out on top of the Sprint Cup and overall championships, while the Endurance title fell to Alessandro Pier Guidi and Alessio Rovera at the final round in Saudi Arabia. Auer and Engel scored Sprint successes at Brands Hatch, Hockenheim and Magny-Cours, with a sole Endurance win coming in Jeddah. While they had to battle regular Sprint title winners Charles Weerts/Dries Vanthoor (Team WRT BMW M4 GT3) for Sprint honours, their Mercedes seemed to have a more stable Balance of Performance all season whereas the BMW was up and down race by race. The battle was decided at Barcelona where, following a storm of dramas…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS Will Brown won the 2024 Supercars championship by demonstrating that he is everything the Triple Eight team hoped he was when they tapped him in the middle of last year to replace the departing Shane van Gisbergen. Brown did not win the most races – his team-mate Broc Feeney did – nor was he the qualifying king (that crown fell to Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters). But where Brown excelled was in taking his results when they came on the good days and manufacturing them on the not-so-good days. His Adelaide weekend sums up that theorem; a second on Saturday behind Feeney to clinch the title, then coming from last on Sunday to take the race victory, after both Feeney and Chaz Mostert made race-losing errors. That said, Brown’s…

Last Christmas, Autosport afforded this writer an opportunity to write about a much-loved hobby: Scalextric. Little did I know it would lead to a year spent racing 1/32 scale slot cars competitively… Following the publication of last year’s double issue, an email from reader Callum Norris landed suggesting that Autosport should take our hobby to the next level by joining him at the Larkfield Slotcar Club in Kent. Challenge accepted. It was a decision that opened the door to a world that few probably realise exists. We’ve all probably set up a Scalextric set and raced at home for fun, dodging coffee tables or armchairs in the living room, but racing on a giant six-lane track that fills a village hall is a completely different concept. This is the world…

RALLYCROSS The British Rallycross Championship and BTRDA Clubmans Rallycross categories will have a closer partnership for the 2025 season that will create a more streamlined structure. The BRX will be headlined by the Supercar category and will consist of seven rounds including a TBC event in August, while organisers will also operate the Motorsport UK Junior Rallycross Championship, Swift Sport Rallycross, Cross Car and RX150 Rallycross contests, and Retro Rallycross. Building on the success of the 2WD Superprix held at Lydden Hill this year, where BRX (2WD) and the BTRDA series ran on the same day, that concept will return in 2025 and be increased to include a double-header for all categories at Pembrey. The BTRDA will continue to run all of its existing divisions, as well as the BMW…

SPORT SPECIALS Regulations for the 750 Motor Club’s Sport Specials championship have been tweaked for next year in a bid to boost grid numbers by opening the category up to a greater range of cars. Class A has been adjusted to allow front-engined 1000cc bike-powered machines to take part and encourage some of the old RGB cars to enter the fray. Meanwhile, a new Class D has been created to house Caterham models such as the 270R, MX-5-engined kit cars and Ginetta G40s. “They all fit in with the original ethos of the championship but the class structure at the moment isn’t kind to them,” explained 750MC managing director Giles Groombridge. “That will hopefully grow the pool of cars and provide a good home for some of these cars that…

10 Stephen Primett CTCRC Pre-’83 Touring Cars (1st) Another year, another title for Ford Escort Mk1 pilot Stephen Primett, who secured his 12th Classic Touring Car crown – his ninth in the past 11 years. The Bedfordshire electrician saw off the challenge of Will Davison’s more modern BMW E30 as well as Jonathan Corker’s nippy Datsun 510. Always immaculate, the Pinto-powered RS2000 wasn’t faultless but, when trouble struck, Primett nursed it home for a 100% finishing record and 10 class wins (including seven overall), compared with Corker’s four. 9 Ben Short 750MC MX-5 Cup (1st) Returning for a full-time campaign after only contesting three rounds in 2023, Ben Short took his fifth MX-5 Cup title this year in typically dominant style, sealing the crown with three races to spare despite…

Martin Brundle wasn’t blessed with the finest Formula 1 machinery for his 159 world championship starts. The Benetton B192, which provided five of his nine grand prix podiums, was probably the best, but it doesn’t take the accolade of his favourite race car. Ross Brawn’s Jaguar XJR-14 moved the goalposts in world sportscar racing in 1991 and Brundle was Tom Walkinshaw’s part-timer early in the season, in between his Brabham F1 commitments. The 3.5-litre naturally aspirated XJR-14 took pole by 2.5 seconds at the Suzuka opener, only to be let down in the race by starter motor failure. But Jaguar bounced back at Monza. This time the gap to the rest was 4s and Brundle finished both first and second, sharing the winning car with Derek Warwick and the runnerup…

The battle for the 2024 constructors’ championship was among the most exciting, keenly fought contests Formula 1 has seen in recent years. But in a sport where cash is king, the scrap did not end at the very top. Points make prizes for the whole grid, and the scrabble for sixth position really highlighted how important the team rankings are come the end of a hard-fought season. Performances on track fluctuated against a backdrop of various issues away from the circuit. We saw drivers dropped, sponsorship wrangles, leadership changes and double podiums as those teams fighting for the minor points positions kept each other honest. Alpine ultimately came out on top of a three-way tussle, beating Haas by just seven points, with RB a further 12 points behind. There were…

Williams team principal James Vowles looked a discombobulated figure as he left Las Vegas’s Harry Reid International Airport following the conclusion of the GP. So much so that, as he took his place in the queue to board the delayed flight, he forgot one of his items of hand luggage. It was of course understandable. The horrific timing of events in Vegas works for nobody and, coupled with jetlag, means you are only getting about four or five hours of sleep per day. Vowles, who was reunited with his bag before boarding, had a lot on his mind after seeing yet another huge crash for his team when Franco Colapinto registered a whopping 50G impact – just one of 16 high-profile crashes of a season in which they only scored…

Zane Maloney, Paul Aron and Isack Hadjar all seemed to have a few fingers or one full hand on the Formula 2 championship trophy at various points during the season. But their bids all faltered, and it was Gabriel Bortoleto who finally triumphed. The Brazilian had entered the year surrounded by a buzz of anticipation. He had been promoted to the F2 grid after winning the F3 title in his rookie season, had been given a place on the McLaren junior programme, and is of course part of Fernando Alonso’s management stable. Following a solid but not spectacular start in Bahrain, the Invicta Racing driver failed to score in the following four races although, with reliability issues and getting caught up in the incidents of others to blame, this did…

Charles Leclerc Italian GP (1st) The scene was set for Lando Norris to carve chunks from Max Verstappen’s points lead on what was Red Bull’s weakest weekend of 2024, but his ambitions were undone and Charles Leclerc’s transformed at the second chicane on lap one. Oscar Piastri’s surprise attack had polesitter Norris’s sister McLaren sideways and Leclerc’s Ferrari getting past to run second on the exit. McLaren undercut Norris back ahead of Leclerc at the first pitstops, by which point Piastri enjoyed a 3.4-second lead. This had swelled when Leclerc’s medium tyres degraded more aggressively as he chased the leader in the dirty air. Yet as Piastri and Norris pushed on under the spectre of potential team orders, Leclerc was aided by Monza’s new track surface rubbering up and temperatures…

WEC The main focus of new signing Kevin Magnussen’s LMDh programme with BMW will be on the World Endurance Championship in 2025. The ex-Formula 1 racer has taken the place of Marco Wittmann, who switches over to the IMSA programme as part of a downsized driver roster. Magnussen will share one of the two WRT-run M Hybrid V8s with Dries Vanthoor and Raffaele Marciello in the WEC, with Robin Frijns, Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde continuing in the second car. But the biggest news in last week’s announcement was that Vanthoor and van der Linde will pull double duty in the WEC with WRT and the IMSA SportsCar Championship with the Rahal team. Vanthoor will share one Rahal entry with Philipp Eng, while van der Linde will drive…

SUPER FORMULA While Haas Formula 1 new recruit Ollie Bearman’s Super Formula test at Suzuka last week was hit by a turbo failure, another race winner from Formula 2 made an unexpected appearance, with Zak O’Sullivan saying that a switch to Japan is a target for the 2025 season. Bearman, driving with Toyota team KCMG, was third fastest in the morning session on the final day devoted to rookies, behind Igor Fraga of Nakajima Racing and his fellow KCMG driver, Super Formula Lights ace Seita Nonaka. While the test was primarily for Bearman to learn Suzuka before April’s Japanese Grand Prix, he was disappointed that the gremlins intervened. “I’m a bit sad I couldn’t run on new tyres again because I was building up my confidence and it would have…

There’s a reason why Max Verstappen selected the 2021 United States Grand Prix as his best Formula 1 victory when Autosport sat down with him at last year’s Mexico Grand Prix. Back then, he’d just reached 50 wins, and had made an incredibly rapid accumulation from quarter to half-century in 32 events. Just over a year on, Verstappen has an F1 career victory total of 63 after a further nine in 2024. There are now many more candidates for personal favourite. He’d almost certainly now pick that brilliant wet drive in Brazil – given it effectively sealed his fourth crown. But his Imola, Canada, Spain and Qatar 2024 wins all had the battling, pressure-cooker factor that featured in his selection of Austin 2021. Few could have predicted such fights occurring…

NO CHANGE Max Verstappen 1st in F1 World Championship 1 “A Schrodinger’s season for Max Verstappen. Concurrently his best and not his best.” That’s how we’ve described the world champion’s campaign in our Formula 1 driver rankings (see p17 in the supplement with this issue). And that’s because there are two ways of looking at Verstappen’s performance over the past months. One is that his success in winning the title again with immense performance peaks against the background of a squad seemingly imploding around him combined into Verstappen’s greatest ever season. The other pairs the moments in this campaign that were of a lower ebb than in his other championship wins with more cynical (some would say disappointing) tactics in battle, to dip it below his other highs overall. Well,…

TCR WORLD TOUR Hyundai star Norbert Michelisz made it consecutive titles in the FIA TCR World Tour, which held rounds primarily in the Americas and Asia this year. The 40-year-old Hungarian managed to maintain the lead of the championship all the way through the season after winning the opening race at Vallelunga, the only European round. Chinese manufacturer Lynk & Co never had a clear title contender for the full campaign. Initially it was Yann Ehrlacher, nephew of four-time world tin-top champion Yvan Muller, who led the charge for the marque. But from the third round of the season at Mid-Ohio it was 2017 world champion Thed Bjork who turned around a dry spell and became the more consistent challenger – while Ehrlacher had the speed, the Swedish veteran excelled…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN Amid the afterglow of Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s 2023 title success on his march to Formula 1, the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine continued to be the shop window for worldwide talent on the intermediate step between Formula 4 and FIA Formula 3. This year, it was Rafael Camara who put what he’d learned last season – when he was fifth in the points – to good use to claim the crown. The Brazilian stayed with Prema Racing for his second year in FRECA, yet wasn’t regarded as the favourite before the season started. Tuukka Taponen, like Camara a Ferrari F1 protege, had moved to R-ace GP for his rookie season out of F4 and earned bragging rights by winning the Middle East series – as Antonelli…

EUROPEAN LE MANS SERIES In a field as notoriously competitive as the stacked LMP2 grid in the European Le Mans Series, a distant ninth-place finish in the season opener usually isn’t the start of a championship-winning run. But strong consistency through the remainder of a highly unpredictable campaign netted AO by TF its first overall title in the series with Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Jonny Edgar. While the Cool Racing ORECA of Malthe Jakobsen, Ritomo Miyata and Lorenzo Fluxa stormed to victory at Barcelona, an early pitstop for a nose change condemned the AO by TF ORECA to its lowly result. After that, however, Kubica, Deletraz and Edgar finished every race in the top five. Next time out at Paul Ricard, a dramatic victory for Inter Europol Competition trio…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP It’s funny how things work out. Back in 2013, a 16-year-old Larry ten Voorde was racing in the short-lived Formula Renault 1.6 category against a group of youngsters that included future IndyCar star Pato O’Ward. But the funds ran out, he had a layoff from car racing, then worked to get himself onto the Porsche ladder… Now ten Voorde stands as the talismanic force of Porsche’s pyramid of one-make championships. After two seasons in which he finished a close runner-up, the Dutchman joined Come Ledogar’s CLRT team for the 2024 Supercup season and convincingly claimed his third title in the Formula 1-supporting series, thanks to five wins from the eight races. As if that wasn’t enough, he also became champion of Carrera Cup Germany for the fourth time,…

NASCAR CUP When trying to encapsulate the 2024 NASCAR Cup season, one word keeps springing to mind: controversy. It started with record rainfall forcing NASCAR to make the unprecedented decision to run the LA Clash a day early, which set the tone for the strange and dramatic year ahead. At the Daytona 500, confusion about the race-ending caution forced NASCAR to post a proper explanation. As the season carried on, chaos and controversy became the norm. There was NASCAR’s closest finish (0.001s) at Kansas Speedway, and surprise winners left and right filling out the playoff grid, with 18 different drivers visiting Victory Lane. One particular showdown that left the entire series shocked came at Richmond. Austin Dillon was having one of the best runs of his career when a late…

“It tests every aspect of a driver. It doesn’t feel old, it just feels like a light, nimble race car.” Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award winner Joseph Loake is a fan of the MotorSport Vision-run Formula 2 car, or Williams JPH1B, and he’s not alone. Despite the fact that the car is nearly as old as the 19-year-old and the series it was built for finished 12 years ago, only now is the Williams being retired. It’s been the backbone of the Award, now run in conjunction with Silverstone, since 2010 and has helped the judges led by Derek Warwick pick winners that include F1 stars George Russell and Lando Norris, Formula E aces Jake Dennis, Oliver Rowland and Dan Ticktum, and current up-and-comers Zak O’Sullivan, Luke Browning and Loake…

MINI CHALLENGE Two-time Civic Cup champion Max Edmundson will progress into the top JCW class of the Mini Challenge next year, joining series newcomer Pro Alloys Racing for its maiden Mini attack. Edmundson has impressed over the past two seasons to net the Honda title against a competitive field that this year included TCR stars Josh Files and Lewis Kent. He had also been weighing up a move to TCR UK for 2025, but opted for the Minis because of the large trackside crowds and live terrestrial television coverage that being on the British Touring Car package brings. Edmundson, whose initial shakedown of his JCW machine came on a trackday at Oulton Park, will be driving alongside team regular Owen Hillman at Pro Alloys, which has enjoyed success in Civics,…

10 Carl Boardley vs Adam Shepherd Reigning TCR UK champion Carl Boardley (left) faced a renewed challenge this year from Adam Shepherd, who switched to a Cupra Leon, putting the pair in matching machinery. While Boardley was hampered by early-season set-up issues, Shepherd streaked into the points lead with four wins in the first three weekends. There was no love lost in an increasingly feisty contest as they collided at Snetterton, Oulton Park and Silverstone, before Shepherd’s challenge unravelled with a series of reliability woes. 9 Chris Ingram vs a high-quality BRC field The British Rally Championship had one of its best seasons for many years, Chris Ingram adding the title to his impressive record. But it was never easy for Ingram, with quality opposition across the season. Ingram (above)…

What a season that was. But, unlike in 2021, the twist came way back at the beginning of this latest Formula 1 campaign, with Red Bull’s dramatic fall. From dominator to losing the lucrative constructors’ crown. Max Verstappen was a worthy champion once again, the Dutchman producing his best F1 performances and pairing those highs with days smartly focused on bagging points. That all made the uphill task for McLaren/Lando Norris harder, but it cannot be denied that the biggest stumbling block to their task was how the MCL38 began the year as far inferior to the RB20. Still, it’s tantalising to wonder how the outcome might have been different had Verstappen been offered battle from the off in Bahrain. He did, after all, crack when the pressure was high…

10 Fernando Alonso DOWN 7 Some might question Alonso’s appearance among the top 10 drivers this season. But, the more you consider his drives, the more his inclusion makes sense. The evergreen Spaniard’s year was significantly frontloaded, to the extent that 33 of his 70 points were scored in the opening six rounds. The problem Alonso faced was a car that, with each passing upgrade, became more difficult to handle. The Aston Martin AMR24 was not the hoped-for step up from the podium-contending 2023 car, though there were at least strong qualifying showings early on. For example, Alonso qualified fourth in Jeddah and third in China but regressed to fifth and seventh in the races. Then, after a series of updates at Imola in May made the car harder to…

From the moment when Lewis Hamilton sat down on the sofa in the front room of Toto Wolff’s house in Oxford in late January, to tell his boss he was leaving for Ferrari at the end of the season, he knew it was going to be an emotionally difficult year. As Hamilton would remark when the curtain finally came down on it all in Abu Dhabi, it was akin to telling your spouse you wanted a divorce, but then having to live together in the same house for a whole year. At times in 2024 you could sense the awkwardness of it all. The loneliness of being the person about to walk out the door mixed with paranoia about not having the kind of full support that had been there…

Most of 2024 was – in more ways than one – a pointless exercise for Sauber. As the de facto backmarkers of the year, you could almost always count on both Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu dropping out in Q1 and then settling in for a race that promised little and often delivered even less. On track at least, the team is treading water ahead of Audi’s arrival in Formula 1 in 2026. While preparations to put the right staff in place led to the hiring of Mattia Binotto as chief operating officer and chief technical officer, the former Ferrari team boss has already conceded that it will take years for the Audi project to result in F1 success. Speaking in September, Binotto admitted that the Audi project “cannot afford”…

After claiming 11th in the standings in his rookie F3 season, Leonardo Fornaroli entered the 2024 campaign as a driver expected to feature solidly in the points, with perhaps a reversed-grid sprint race win. In fact, his only notable victory in car racing had been a defeat of Ollie Bearman at Misano during the 2021 Italian F4 season. The Bahrain season opener played out very much along these lines. Fornaroli, staying on for another year with Trident, took a sprint race podium and seventh in the feature. But from that moment on, the script changed. While Gabriele Mini, Luke Browning, Arvid Lindblad and nine others climbed to the top step of the podium, Fornaroli plugged away at things in the background, consistently adding to his points haul. As his rivals…

Internal conflict that threatened to rip Red Bull apart. Jos Verstappen’s poisonous row with Christian Horner. Toto Wolff’s seemingly endless pursuit of Max Verstappen. The political tussle around Andretti’s Formula 1 application. Plus all the bewildering departures at the FIA and its president’s unpopular decisions. The 2024 season delivered on the track but there was no shortage of news off it either. Rarely has there been such widespread political turbulence, involving so many different parties, over the course of an F1 season. The investigation into Christian Horner News broke on 5 February that Horner was facing an internal investigation following allegations from a female colleague of inappropriate behaviour. The complaint was being handled by Red Bull’s HQ in Austria. In a short statement, it confirmed that the investigation was being…