Innehållsförteckning för August 2025 från AUTOSPORT

Lando Norris, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and Ollie Bearman will head to their home grand prix at Silverstone in different states of mind. Russell is arguably vying with Max Verstappen as the driver of the Formula 1 season so far following his brilliant victory in Montreal, Norris has to bounce back from a sequence of errors that have handed the championship initiative to McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, and Hamilton is still on the roller coaster ride of his first Ferrari season. Rookie Bearman will probably arrive under the least pressure but will be looking forward to his first British Grand Prix. We hear from all four in our Silverstone preview, which begins on page 26, and also speak to two of the British rising stars set to compete at the…

George Russell’s first victory of the season, in which he converted his maiden pole position of the year into a dominant race, should have led to an evening for Mercedes to savour – especially given he was joined on the Montreal podium by 18-year-old team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli. But the fourth grand prix win of Russell’s career was overshadowed before, during and after his successful afternoon, and the King’s Lynn racer was probably halfway across the Atlantic when he could finally toast his first success since the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix. Thursday’s media day had been dominated by the fallout from Spain, with questions put to Max Verstappen and the Red Bull hierarchy surrounding the Dutchman’s behaviour in Barcelona that left the reigning world champion teetering on the cusp…

MAX VERSTAPPEN JAKE BOXALL-LEGGE While you might suggest that Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson aren’t A-class drivers, they’re no slouches either. But the extent to which they’ve struggled behind the wheel of this year’s Red Bull suggests that the RB21 is not particularly user-friendly. Indeed, the car only seems to be quick in a very narrow performance window; on one side of it, the car’s rear end is looser than the hour after a trip to Taco Bell and, on the other, the front end simply refuses to turn in. But it’s testament to Verstappen’s skill that he’s been able to win two races in it and bring the car into a championship battle. Sure, the great drivers should be capable of dragging a car with dubious qualities into contention,…

Prior to the start of last season, Porsche factory stalwart Richard Lietz thought his racing days were over. With the advent of the new LMGT3 class joining the World Endurance Championship, and the Austrian having just turned 40, he believed the next generation of sportscar stars would be the ones in demand. “I was basically ready to stop driving,” Lietz recalled. “And then Manthey mechanics actually called me and asked if I wanted to drive for them. I was like, ‘What do you mean? In WEC you will take a young one.’ And then another mechanic called me and another mechanic and an engineer, and then the bosses called. At one point I was like, ‘OK, maybe they are serious.’” They certainly were. So serious, in fact, that Lietz ended…

Toyota has taken the wraps off a hydrogen-fuelled prototype development car as the next step on the road to its projected Le Mans 24 Hours entry with the alternative fuel. The GR H2 is designed to advance its understanding and knowledge of running an internal combustion engine fuelled by liquid hydrogen. It has been built around a GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar chassis, while the hybrid powertrain of so-far-undisclosed configuration has been developed at Toyota’s Higashi-Fuji Technical Center in Japan. No timeline has been set for the GR H2’s first test.…

Love it or hate it, IMSA’s Balance of Performance procedure achieved precisely what it was designed to do in advance of the most recent race on the bumpy streets of downtown Detroit. In race trim, all but two of the 11 GTP entries produced laps comfortably within a second of the fastest time turned by championship leader Nick Tandy’s Porsche Penske Motorsport 963. The only outliers – and not by much – were the Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie, which is still in its infancy in terms of development (and finished a respectable eighth) and the privateer JDC Miller MotorSports Porsche, which experienced a difficult weekend. The rulemakers performed their usual diligence following the previous race at Laguna Seca (and the Long Beach street course race prior to…

Keep rolling, rolling, rolling Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston were among six Rally1 crews caught out by the Telti-Calangianus-Berchidda stage on Rally Italy Sardinia. Their Toyota GR Yaris clipped a hidden rock that pitched the car into a slow roll. Spectators helped put the car back on its wheels and the duo went on to finish fifth. Jourdan Serderidis was also surprised by the same corner, producing an almost carbon copy roll. Reigning world champion Thierry Neuville ripped the left-rear corner off his Hyundai i20 N in a high-speed, narrow section of the pass while leading the rally. Photographer McKlein Where Sardinia, Italy When Friday 6 June 2025 Details Canon EOS R3 EF16-35mm lens, 1/1600th @F5…

Thierry Neuville will forever be defined as a World Rally champion and a member of rallying’s elite but, when it comes to motorsport, he is much more than just a driver. In tandem with his own career, 2024 title winner Neuville is also a successful team owner and a force in developing rallying at a grassroots level. In 2016, the Belgian founded the LifeLive Motorsport team, located in the small city of Saint Vith on the Belgian/German border. Over the past decade it has expanded to become a rally and circuit racing squad in its own right. Initially, Neuville’s decision to start a motorsport team was born to help his younger brother Yannick compete in rallying, but it’s since exploded into a far-reaching operation with a focus on helping aspiring…

Yann Ehrlacher became the leader of the TCR World Tour standings following the first two rounds thanks to a pair of victories at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo near Valencia, with the Lynk & Co 03 proving to be the car to beat. The two-time World Touring Car Cup champion made a better start than polesitting team-mate Santiago Urrutia. They made light contact after the launch, but the Frenchman was ahead into Turn 1 and controlled the pace to lead a 1-2-3 for the team. The reversed-grid second race provided most, if not all the action of the weekend. The Cupra of John Filippi started on pole, but was soon passed by Nestor Girolami, the Argentinian going from fifth to first in two laps and going on to take the first…

British Touring Car Championship title winners Colin Turkington and Tom Ingram will both experience a new era of tin-top competition on their Super Touring Power debuts at Brands Hatch this weekend. Four-time BTCC conqueror Turkington will sample a Super Tourer for the first time when he drives Jason Hughes’s ex-Jason Plato Vauxhall Vectra (above) on Saturday, before switching to a more familiar MG ZS on Sunday. “I’ve driven touring cars from before that era, but I’ve never driven a Super Touring car, so I’m obviously really looking forward to that,” said Turkington, who has appeared in various club and historic categories this season after missing out on a BTCC drive. “My eyes lit up watching touring cars from when I was young and then racing in Fiestas, so that was…

The world of historic racing has undergone some sizeable changes in recent years. Several organisers have changed hands, new categories have been created and, as time continues to march on, there has been an increasing shift to find homes for ever more modern machinery. Yet some familiar problems remain. Take the age-old issue of eligibility or concerns about rising costs. But Shaun Lynn has not been afraid of tackling those major topics head on since he took the helm of Motor Racing Legends around a year ago. A prolific historics racer – he has competed in everything from a Lotus Cortina to a Bentley Speed 8 – Lynn has not shied away from the big problems and has been determined to make a difference right from day one. “One of…

SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND ENSURE YOU DON’T MISS OUT ON: ■ EVERY ISSUE DELIVERED ■ SAVINGS OF UP TO 58% ■ AWARD-WINNING JOURNALISTS ■ DETAILED INSIGHT ■ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS ■ STUNNING IMAGERY ACCESS EVEN MORE ONLINE Our print + digital bundle includes Autosport Plus, giving you access to exclusive long-reads, in-depth analysis, technical insight and expert opinion on autosport.com. The print + digital bundle also gives you access to the digital magazine on your devices, so you can enjoy Autosport anytime, anywhere. GET THIS EXCLUSIVE OFFER HERE: autosportmedia.com/offer/ASPAUG25 Terms and conditions Offer valid for UK Direct Debit subscriptions only. For the print and digital bundle package, your subscription will continue at £6.99 every month. Direct debit rates are valid for one year after which they are subject to change. Should you…

Rough ride for Antonelli Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes clatters to a halt in the Barcelona gravel after his hopes of a decent points finish – he was running in seventh place – went up in a puff of power unit smoke on lap 54 of the Spanish Grand Prix, triggering a safety car intervention (race debrief, page 12). Following a run of tough results for the teenager, Mercedes technical director James Allison conceded: “He’s full of the optimism of youth, but I know our failures have taken a few chunks out of Kimi along the way. Two DNFs in three races is a tough pill to swallow.” Photographer Zak Mauger/LAT Images/Getty Images Where Barcelona, Spain When Sunday 1 June 2025 Details Canon EOS R1 RF400mm lens, 1/1000th @F8 Hulk shows…

Cassidy is the raindance kid They have history, but two nicer chaps in racing than Formula E stars Nick Cassidy and Antonio Felix da Costa would be hard to find. Here, the Portuguese (left) has alighted from his third-placed Porsche and greets the victorious Kiwi, who has just splashed his way through an utterly dominant performance at a soggy Shanghai to resoundingly provide a U-turn on Jaguar’s stuttering progress through the 2024-25 season. It will be remembered, of course, that it was a gaffe from da Costa at the London finale that robbed Cassidy of last year’s crown. But these things happen in racing. Photographer Joe Portlock/LAT Images/Getty Images Where Shanghai, China When Sunday 1 June 2025 Details Canon EOS R3 EF24-70mm lens, 1/1000th @F2.8…

In what is turning into a vintage season of Formula 2, 17-year-old Arvid Lindblad claimed his first feature race victory at the Spanish Grand Prix support round to fire himself firmly into contention for the title. The Anglo-Swedish Red Bull Junior held the advantage all the way at Barcelona, although the race finished under the safety car after late pitter Leonardo Fornaroli parked in the gravel at the exit of Turn 3 with a loose wheel. Sebastian Montoya, the son of Juan Pablo who has made huge improvements of late with Prema Racing, took the runner-up position. That may not have been the case had the race run caution-free. DAMS-run Aston Martin F1 protege Jak Crawford led the ‘alternate’ race of those who ran long on hard tyres before pitting…

Caddy’s calm before the storm Cadillac’s expanded entry features in this shot of the field for the 93rd running of the Le Mans 24 Hours. The #38 factory Jota V-Series.R of Earl Bamber, Sebastien Bourdais and Jenson Button sits behind its Toyota and Alpine rivals in the 21-strong Hypercar class, and ahead of the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Michael Christensen, Mathieu Jaminet and Julien Andlauer. Qualifying went well for Cadillac, with Bamber completing a 1-2 behind poleman Alex Lynn. But the race was less positive for the marque – see our report overleaf. Photographer Jakob Ebrey/JEP/Getty Images Where Le Mans, France When Tuesday 10 June 2025 Details Canon EOS R3 RF70-200mm lens, 1/640th @F2.8…

The results suggest that the Inter Europol ORECA-Gibson 07 of Nick Yelloly, Tom Dillmann and Jakub Smiechowski enjoyed a comfortable win of almost two minutes over the similar VDS Panis entry of Esteban Masson, Oliver Gray and Franck Perera in the LMP2 class of the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours. But that does not tell even a tenth of the story of a thrilling encounter. These two crews were simply the class of a competitive 17-strong LMP2 field. That the pair were not once outside of the top two spots during the race’s final 10 hours is clear evidence of that. And, what’s more, they spent much of those 10 hours separated by a handful of seconds. Yes, the lack of safety cars should be noted – it effectively ruled…

Le Mans Hypercars and LMDh machinery will continue racing in the World Endurance Championship until the end of 2032. The predicted second extension of the lifecycle of the twin rulesets in force in the WEC was confirmed at the traditional pre-Le Mans 24 Hours press conference. The latest announcement from the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and the FIA follows one last year prolonging the Hypercar category for two years until the end of 2029. The further extension means the LMH rules should end up stretching for 12 years and LMDh for 10. “It is important to give the manufacturers and the audience a signal of stability,” said ACO president Pierre Fillon. “We are guided by two principles: stability and cost control. Giving the manufacturers a chance to get a return…

Ferrari has outlined an intent to go into its 2026 World Endurance Championship campaign with an unchanged roster of drivers in the two factory 499P Le Mans Hypercars. Should it turn out that way, next year will be the fourth consecutive season with the same six drivers. Antonello Coletta, the Italian manufacturer’s sportscar racing boss, has again stressed the importance of stability in the AF Corse-run works team’s line-up. “There is no intention to change anybody, so I hope that we can keep the same team for the next seasons,” Coletta stated during Le Mans 24 Hours week. “For us stability of drivers is something that is truly fundamental – it’s one of the pillars on which we carry out our sporting activity. That doesn’t mean that we will never…

Sebastien Ogier claimed a third victory of the 2025 World Rally Championship season after surviving a final-stage mistake to become the most successful driver in Rally Italy Sardinia history. Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais avoided the pitfalls of Sardinia’s 16 rough gravel stages to take an impressive 7.9-second win over Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, while Toyota extended its 100% winning start to the campaign and Ogier moved clear of Sebastien Loeb with his fifth victory on the event. Kalle Rovanpera completed the podium in his Toyota ahead of team-mate and championship leader Elfyn Evans, whose points lead decreased from 30 to 19, with ‘part-timer’ Ogier now second. Toyota anticipated a particularly difficult challenge to claim victory in Sardinia, with Evans, Rovanpera and Ogier heading the road order in a rally where…

Patience is a Vertu for Ingram Ash Sutton (left) and Tom Ingram prove they can drive through the Thruxton chicane side by side (see p116 for what happened a few laps later) during the British Touring Car Championship opener at Thruxton. Ingram’s Hyundai has just swept around the outside of the Ford, and there will be contact at the left apex a split second after this shot. But eventual winner Ingram will have to give up his lead because the safety car boards have emerged mid-manoeuvre. Luckily, after torrential rain marred Saturday qualifying, a sunny Sunday has brought the crowds flocking in. Many of them head for the new viewing area you can see at the top of the picture, and which runs all the way up Woodham Hill to…

Four-time British Touring Car Championship title winner Ash Sutton has batted off any suggestion that he will abandon the series any time soon to compete in GT racing. The 31-year-old was given a surprise call-up by GT World Challenge Europe squad Paradine Competition to make his GT3 debut in the recent Endurance Cup round at Monza in a BMW M4 GT3 Evo. The request came from Paradine owner-driver Darren Leung with BMW factory driver Dan Harper, who filled the seat for the opening round at Paul Ricard, on clashing IMSA SportsCar duty at Detroit. Sutton, who is ranked as a gold on the FIA driver categorisation list, took part in the Spa 24 Hours Prologue test – his first time behind the wheel of any GT3 car – as well…

Will Hoy, Tim Harvey, Joachim Winkelhock, Gabriele Tarquini, John Cleland, Frank Biela, Alain Menu, Rickard Rydell, Laurent Aiello… Anthony Reid. If you thought we were listing the title winners from the British Touring Car Championship’s halcyon Super Touring era, that last name will have thrown you. But actually, it’s a rollcall of the top points scorers from each season. Reid, you see, fell foul of the dropped scores ruling that gifted a second title to Menu in 2000. Not only that, but in his case he could only count his best 19 results from the 24 races, rather than the regulation 20… “What happened was, at Croft I finished third in one of the races, and they discovered that my ECU had a problem – I think it had got…

Motor Racing Legends will launch a new Generations Trophy series that will be a one-make MGB category for parent/child teams. A pilot race for the new contest is due to be held at Silverstone in October before a full calendar of fixtures takes place next year. The category is designed to be an accessible and friendly entry point into historic motorsport for the next generation of competitors, and there will be a class system that takes into account the cumulative age of the driver pairings. Races will be an hour long and the series will be open to FIA-specification pre-1966 MGBs, with more details being announced soon. “We’re coming up with the regs at the moment but the idea behind that is we’re really trying to make it affordable,” explained…

For several months now, the Red Bull spin machine has been plying the line that McLaren’s dominance is a result of playing fast and loose with the technical regulations. Eliminate the aero-elastic front and rear wings, and the rear brake cowls lined with phase-change materials, and the suggestion was that the precious status quo (ie Red Bull supremacy) would be restored. In parallel with this, Max Verstappen has stuck to his own line: that his car is a bit of a dog, as evinced by the poor sap in the other garage – a rotating cast of characters – struggling to avoid elimination in the first round of qualifying. At the Spanish Grand Prix the FIA implemented a more stringent testing regime to clamp down on front-wing flexing – one…

Madrid’s new Formula 1 circuit will take the Spanish Grand Prix title from Barcelona in 2026, when it hosts its first event in September. The all-new 5.4km venue based around the IFEMA exhibition centre features a banked loop with a 24% gradient, albeit with a series of 90-degree and fiddly turns that have received mixed reviews. Barcelona remains on the calendar for at least one more year, meaning Spain will host two GPs for the first time since 2012, when Valencia ended its four-year spell hosting a street race. To maintain the 24-race calendar, Imola is the unlucky venue to be left on the cutting room floor; the Emilia Romagna GP had long been in doubt given Imola’s compact size and the growing interest from more moneyed race promoters in…

Look (as a certain Sky F1 presenter and politicians say when attempting to sound convincing), forecasting British weather can be tricky. But look, I can confidently say that, even if it tips down at Silverstone on the weekend of 5-6 July, conditions will be a huge improvement over the British Grand Prix of 25 years ago. If you’ve paid handsomely to get soaked this year, just remember it could be worse. Like, mud-up-to-your-back-axle worse. Even allowing for Britain’s round of the 2000 Formula 1 World Championship being staged in April, nature combined forces with F1’s Chuckle Brothers, Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley, to turn Silverstone into the Home of British Mud Wrestling. Spectators weren’t allowed through the gate to watch qualifying on Saturday because the car parks had been transformed…

Approaching halfway in the IndyCar season, Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood were the only drivers to have won races, and Honda was undefeated across eight starts. Palou’s incredible form cooled when the calendar turned to June but, after Detroit and the St Louis oval, he was still holding a commanding 73-point lead over Pato O’Ward in the championship standings. Run on a ridiculously slow and tight street circuit that breeds trouble, the Detroit Grand Prix is the schedule’s wild card event. Bad luck finally caught up with Palou after winning five of the first six races, with David Malukas punting him into his first DNF of 2025. Palou went into damage limitation mode at World Wide Technology Raceway, where he qualified his Chip Ganassi Racing car ninth and finished eighth…

McLaren will partner with United Autosports when it joins the Hypercar ranks in the World Endurance Championship in 2027. Confirmation of the deal with the British team was one of a number of details of the McLaren LMDh programme announced on the eve of the Le Mans 24 Hours. A pair of new LMDhs will be run under the McLaren United banner, while the car will be developed on the Dallara chassis spine. The prototype, powered by a twin-turbo V6, is scheduled to hit the track at the end of the first quarter of next year ahead of proper testing beginning at the start of the second quarter. United is expanding into the Hypercar ranks after establishing itself as one of the top teams in LMP2: it has two Le…

With a whopping eight safety car or full course yellow periods, the second GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup round at Monza was full of jeopardy. As last year, with the fast track affecting fuel consumption, a third mandatory pitstop was introduced and that allowed teams to play a little more with the strategy, the third obligatory stop necessitating fuel and an optional maximum of two tyres. On track, the Mercedes-AMG was the car to have, the GetSpeed entry of Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller and Jules Gounon taking pole position. It led early on but, when Stolz blasted out of the pitlane for his double stint, he did so with the left-front wheel loose. He limped around until it became too dangerous and parked it trackside. That allowed the Winward…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH How much time do you give back when you’ve taken a short cut? Or, to be more specific, how much time can you give back when the bloke behind you has taken the same short cut? Tom Ingram was in that invidious position on the way to a belated first British Touring Car Championship race victory of the year at Thruxton. Some will say that, instead of it being an Ingram success, it was a moral second win of 2025 for Dan Cammish, the first driver home to actually drive all 19 laps of the Hampshire circuit… It was just the latest in a chain of BTCC races at Thruxton that have been tainted by the victor taking a chicane short cut – see also Colin Turkington…

US muscle is flexed at Brands While the NASCAR Euro Series tops the bill for the American SpeedFest event at Brands Hatch, there is plenty of other US-themed racing on offer. Back for a second edition, after a successful debut last year, were a pair of special Ford vs Chevy races from the organisers of Bernie’s V8s. Here the likes of Camaros and Corvettes are pitted against the Mustang masses to create a brilliant assault on all the senses. It was the Chevys that emerged triumphant with wins for Tim Davis (Corvette C3) and Jake Swann (Camaro, leading). Photographer Gary Hawkins Where Brands Hatch, Kent, UK When Saturday 7 June 2025 Details Canon R3, Canon 70-200 2.8 L lens, 1/400th @F7.1…

Matthew Ellis delivered an eye-catching drive at June’s American SpeedFest event when he came close to converting his last-minute deal into NASCAR Euro Series victory. And he did it while doubling up from the undercard, driving a car that could hardly be more different. Ellis can more regularly be found at the wheel of the 45-year-old Talbot Sunbeam Lotus that he shares with father Martyn. Its twin-cam engine has been extended to 2.5 litres, runs throttle bodies, a standalone ECU and dry sump. Colin Chapman’s maxim of ‘adding lightness’ has been followed throughout, and Sunbeam specialist Phil Seaman has helped transform it into a weapon. Ellis Jr finished second against much more powerful machinery in the Bernie’s V8s series at Brands Hatch. The Sunbeam has almost nothing in common with…

A VIRTUOSI F4 PERFORMANCE OK, the Thruxton British Formula 4 races were not exactly highlights. The opener, in particular, was far too stop/start. But the results were notable as Virtuosi Racing scored its first series wins for over two years. The squad’s regular driver Martin Molnar burst into the lead at the start of race one, and all the cautions meant he did not have to work all that hard to stay there. Then guesting Italian F4 ace Salim Hanna won the finale in a Virtuosi 1-2 with Molnar, a result that gave the Hungarian the points lead. SPECIAL AUSTIN-HEALEY RACE There are always large grids when Equipe Classic Racing descends on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. And among the massive entries for its June visit was a 42-car field…

1968-69 BRABHAM BT26/26A The Ron Tauranac-designed BT26 had tough acts to follow: its double championship-winning BT19 and BT24 predecessors. The chassis was good, Jochen Rindt often qualifying near the front in 1968 and taking pole for the French Grand Prix. But poor reliability – usually related to the new Repco 860 four-cam V8 – severely hampered Brabham’s season and limited the team to eighth in the standings. BT26-3 was used by Rindt in four races late in 1968 before being fitted with a Cosworth DFV, creating the BT26A. Jacky Ickx used chassis 3 for much of 1969, winning the Canadian GP from pole on his way to second in the drivers’ championship. The final spaceframe Brabham to win a GP went on to race in the United States and is…

Engine trouble can’t stop Ickx Spectators at Spa’s La Source hairpin would have been aware as early as lap four of the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix that the V12 engine in Jacky Ickx’s Ferrari 312 wasn’t enjoying the benefit of its full complement of cylinders. The 23-year-old had qualified third and was holding the same position when the audibly obvious loss of two cylinders precipitated a drop down the order to sixth place. But Ickx was, according to Autosport, driving “valiantly” and, when later in the race his car “found another pot from somewhere and was now on 11 cylinders”, he was “very much in the running”. Thanks to his doggedness and the race’s withering attrition rate he crossed the line in third place to take his first F1 world…