Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2015 i AUTOSPORT

Formula 1 arrived in Budapest teary-eyed, emotional, raw. The week before the race, many drivers and other members of the F1 fraternity had attended the funeral of Jules Bianchi in Nice. Several acted as pall-bearers. And if the solemn scenes on the Côte d’Azur were not on the scale of mass public lamentation witnessed after the death of Ayrton Senna, the sport’s last racing-related driver fatality in 1994, still there was a sharp pang of loss within the F1 community at Jules’ passing. Seeing pictures of Bianchi’s grief-stricken father, Philippe, finally having to acknowledge the loss of a beloved son after nine months of hoping he might miraculously emerge from his coma, was a reminder of the terrible price motorsport can exact on those unlucky enough to experience its darkest…

1.7.15 Former Caterham technical director Mark Smith joins Sauber in the same role 4.7.15 Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff says the firm is willing to discuss ways to allow Renault and Honda to boost their engine performance 10.7.15 The FIA releases a provisional 21-race 2016 calendar, with the season-opener in Australia scheduled for 3 April 24.7.15 Former GP2 champion Fabio Leimer takes part in an F1 weekend for the first time, driving in FP1 at the Hungarian GP with Manor Marussia 25.7.15 Fernando Alonso says he could be tempted to switch to “other categories” in the future because current rules mean F1 isn’t as exciting as it used to be 21.7.15 Reports emerge that there will be just two pre-season tests in 2016, with no in-season testing permitted…

Red Bull are pushing Renault hard to press on with building a new engine that will close the performance gap to the leading power units. Renault are around 50bhp behind Mercedes and Ferrari, having failed to make any real progress with their engine over the winter. A single-cylinder engine run on the dynamometer at Renault Sport’s base at Viry-Chatillon near Paris has shown an improvement of in the region of 2-4 per cent. If this translates to the full-size six-cylinder engine, it would bring Renault to within 20-35bhp of the Mercedes engine. This would enable Red Bull to run their cars without the aerodynamic compromises required on most tracks because they are down on power. That might be just enough for them to challenge Ferrari and Williams for best-of-the-rest status…

No 4 Monza 1 PRIMA VARIANTE Quite literally, this was the first ‘variant’ – a term Italians often use for a chicane. It was built into the track to lower speeds into the fast first turn. It’s also known as the Variante del Rettifilo, because it is at the end of the main straight. 2 CURVA BIASSONO This flat-out right-hander was originally named Curva Grande when the circuit was built in 1922, but in 1927 it was renamed after the nearby municipality of Biassono. Most people still tend to refer to it as the Curve Grande, though. 3 LESMO 1 Originally surrounded by forest, it was named Curva delle Querce – Curve of the Oak. In 1927 it was renamed Curvetta di Lesmo – a short turn (a curvetta) near…

The starts at Spa… I always look forward to the starts at Spa. They were spectacular on the old circuit, when they were downhill before Eau Rouge; and on the new track they’ve been coloured by the seduction of La Source. Many have been the start-line dramas; several the big, first-corner shunts. This year, if you please, there’s added spice: a new technical regulation, restricting the adjustability of the cars’ clutch bite points, will be enforced for the first time. Everyone in the pitlane seems to agree that this will make the start procedure even more ‘hit and miss’ – and I use the word ‘even’ here because, although Mercedes have had start-line problems in the past three races (Austria, Silverstone, Hungary) they were heading the start-line performance table –…

At every European grand prix, just behind the Ferrari garage sits a windowless red trailer. At its rear, steps lead up to a door that can be accessed by only a handful of authorised personnel. This is a top-secret laboratory, occupied by technicians clad in protective glasses and rubber gloves. Shell are based in here, and it’s where they analyse the fuel and oil taken from Sebastian Vettel’s and Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari SF15-Ts to ensure their legality, and also to pick up on any impending reliability issues with the turbocharged Ferrari 1.6-litre V6 powerplants. As Ferrari technology manager at Shell Global Solutions, Guy Lovett is authorised to access this on-site fuel lab. He’s invited F1 Racing to join him in its inner sanctum so he can explain the procedure for…

Bofh fhe fuel and fhe oil in the C63 AMG Coupé that Lewis Hamilton is piloting around the circuit at Mercedes-Benz World are virtually identical to the products found in his F1 W06 Hybrid. Gone are the days of exotic ‘rocket fuel’ as Formula 1 regulations state that high-street pump petrol must now be used to fuel today’s cars. The knock-on effect is that the efficiencies found in F1 can be fed directly back into creating more efficient fuel for your everyday commute. “The amount of fuel we use in F1 has dramatically reduced over the past few years. We’re down to 100kg of fuel, whereas 15 years ago an F1 car would use 300kg, and we’re continuing to work on further improving efficiency,” says Adrian Bell, senior support engineer…

The sun is shining this Thursday lunchtime before the British GP at Silverstone, so we head upstairs to the roof terrace of the shared Red Bull/Toro Rosso motorhome. Up here there’s a great view of the heliport on the inside of the track and, in the distance, a sea of cars and trucks. Ready for your questions is Carlos Sainz Jr, 20, one of two Toro Rosso rookies (along with Max Verstappen), who have taken to F1 with aplomb in 2015. Prior to the British GP, Sainz had scored four points finishes, and at this year’s Malaysian GP, he and Verstappen even outshone the senior Red Bull team. Our question cards don’t say ‘Carlos Sainz Jr’ – the son of the double world rally champion has dropped the ‘Jr’ suffix…

1996 Switches to CART World Series with PacWest; scores three wins across five seasons 1995 After a year at Tyrrell, returns to McLaren as a test driver and is later promoted to the race team 1993 Takes a first F1 podium in South Africa on his debut with Ligier team 1992 Wins Le Mans 24 Hours with Peugeot while working as McLaren F1 tester 1991 Makes his F1 debut with Brabham, which dovetails with his role as test driver for Williams 1987 After winning the European FF2000 titles, moves up to International Formula 3000, scoring a best championship finish of sixth in 1988 1984 Starts racing in Formula Ford, taking second place in the British championship in his debut season…

Max Peef Italian snapper captured the magic and majesty of Monza Even without racing cars, the Autodromo Nazionale Monza has a special aura. Max Peef captured the incredible beauty of F1’s most revered circuit (p90). Pino Allievi Enzo Ferrari’s trusted writer on the Scuderia’s new hero Pino Allievi is an expert on Ferrari, making him the ideal man to assess how Sebastian Vettel is faring in his first season at Maranello (page 40). Adrian Myers Packs his bags for another F1 Racing covershoot Photographers need plenty of equipment for a photoshoot – but Adrian’s super shots of Sebastian Vettel (p40) prove that the heavy lifting is rewarded. Peter Windsor Analysing Hamilton’s driving style while drifting sideways Peter strapped himself into a Mercedes-Benz for an up-close look at Lewis Hamilton’s incredible…

Name Tie Age 400 years, give or take a decade Appearance Not as controversial as its absence Sorry sir, you can’t come in here without a tie. What outrage is this? Don’t you know who I am? Hold on. I’ll put out an announcement over the PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, if anyone in the proximity of the help desk can assist, there is a gentleman here who doesn’t know who he is.” I’ll not suffer any more of this ghastly velvet-rope malarkey. Anyhow, I’m a Marxist on that front – Groucho rather than Karl – and I wouldn’t join any sort of club that would have me as a member. That’s a good thing, because as Lewis Hamilton discovered, you may be a world champion, but you won’t get inside…

SONY A6000 This compact hybrid camera (from £509) offers DSLR quality, with rapid autofocus. Its built-in WiFi has let our friends at photo agency LAT use it to upload shots to their site during races – with good results so far. www.sony.co.uk LEGO SPEED CHAMPIONS This new range (from £12.99) of high-performance road cars and F1 machinery includes a McLaren-Mercedes pitstop set with a brick-based MP4-29 (£29.99), and a huge Ferrari F14T with transporter set (£79.99). www.lego.com STIRLING MOSS: MY RACING LIFE Sir Stirling’s career has been well-documented, but it’s always illuminating to hear from the man himself. This book (£50) features first-person accounts and 300 stunning photos. www.evropublishing.com PADDOCK TO PODIUM It’s rare to hear the stories of the people who run F1 cars. This book (£24.99) is the…

What is the purpose of briefings and debriefs? Long before arriving at a circuit, engineers will already have discussed what they hope to achieve from each session and how they hope to achieve it. From this plan, individual programmes will be drawn up, which outline to the second what time the cars should leave the garage, what the tyres and fuel loads will be and what the relevant engine settings to use are for each lap. At the end of each session, a debrief takes place, in which the engineers go through what they have learned in a structured way. As well as inspection of data and lap times, there is also a structured questioning of the driver to ensure his views are adequately represented. Are briefings and debriefs always…

Pierf Ferrari met him a lfng time before he joined the team. They had a private chat, which was enough to leave Piero intrigued. “There’s something about him,” he said. “It’s not often you meet a driver who is so considerate and reasoned in his thought processes. I liked him. You never know, one day he just might end up driving for us…” And now, Sebastian Vettel is a key protagonist in the latest chapter of Ferrari, which has the aim of recreating the dominant glory days of the Michael Schumacher era. One German takes the baton from another. Of course, if we widen the net, there was a high-profile German-speaking Ferrari champion before Schumacher: Austrian Niki Lauda, who sparked the team’s first golden era in the 1970s. The second…

Will we see you at Williams next year? Maybe. I don’t see the reason why I should not stay here. I really like to work with this team and I feel respected. I feel relaxed and we’ve had some good results as well. We have an option for next year and I don’t see why we shouldn’t carry on. What do you make of Kimi Räikkönen’s situation at Ferrari? What’s it like to deal with the pressure there? It’s not nice to be in that position. It’s not easy and everyone says ‘Iceman’, but he’s not really like that and he can also suffer with the pressure and it shows in some results. He just needs to relax and to try to do his best because he’s definitely a big…

RACE NOTES: A LENGTHY AND OLD-SCHOOL CLASSIC TRACK The high-speed circuit, with a string of testing corners, makes for an exhilarating grand prix, with weather playing havoc with strategy Just four circuits from the inaugural F1 world championship season in 1950 remain on the calendar, and while Spa-Francorchamps has been extensively reworked over the past 65 years, it retains more of an ‘old-school’ feel than any other. It’s a challenging track that rewards the brave and committed. Spa is packed with classic corners, and the fact that it’s the longest circuit on the calendar only adds to the challenge. Mixed weather can make strategy difficult, and the long lap can lead to time loss if a driver is caught out on worn rubber or the wrong tyre for the conditions.…

I first went there as a child in the 1920s when my father, Graham Walker, was a works rider for the Norton, Sunbeam and Rudge-Whitworth motorcycle race teams. In those days, it was the fabled 8.75-mile circuit, first used in 1925 and since reduced to 4.35 miles, with, as I once embarrassingly remarked: “Lots of gradient – not just up, but down as well!” In either form it was, and is, a major challenge and, for my money, it is still by far the best GP circuit of them all. I recall Freddie Dixon, the wild pre-war car and motorcycle ace, shooting out the Spa street lights with the FN pistol he’d been awarded for his Belgian GP victory and then preventing a police-car chase by stuffing a potato up…

The unwelcome but not unexpected news arrived via an email sent in the small hours of Saturday 18 July: Jules Bianchi had passed away at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Nice, nine months after his accident at the Japanese Grand Prix on 5 October 2014. Jules was born into a family already familiar with the tragedies as well as the triumphs associated with motor racing. His great-grandfather Roberto was a Scuderia Ferrari mechanic in the 1930s, later moving to Belgium – along with his family – in the service of the jazz-trumpeter-turned-racing-driver Octave John Claes. Roberto’s sons Lucien and Mauro would become successful racing drivers in their own right; Lucien won both the 1962 Sebring 12 Hours and the 1968 Le Mans 24 Hours. There were just two hours to…

The first visible tensions have begun to emerge in the relationship between McLaren and Honda as the two continue to struggle at the back of the grid, halfway through the first season of their renewed partnership. McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has admitted that the car’s lack of competitiveness is damaging. He said he was reminding Honda “every day that we need to be successful as soon as possible”. He added: “The damage is easy to understand. You establish the brand with your success and by repeating it. McLaren have a number of wins and championships and have established their excellence. Commercially it hurts because a lot of companies are interested in joining us, but some question the lack of results – and I don’t think we can wait for…

Anyone who knows me knows I am partial to a bit of golf, even if the feeling is not mutual. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: golf is boring and what has it got to do with the maximum-adrenaline, fast-moving, high-flying world of F1? A friend never fails to let me know his views on golf: “like watching grass grow”; “a game for taxi drivers”; “an old man’s sport”. Well, first off, it is watching grass grow. Second, sorry if you are a taxi driver, but I bet you play golf. And finally, I’m not old. I’m 54, which I consider to be ‘The New 16’. As was 53. I will admit, though, that you could not get two sporting disciplines so far apart. But there is a connection. Hear…

At the Albergo Sant’Eustorgio in Arcore, just outside the north-eastern edge of the Parco di Monza, photographs of great racing drivers – Mario, Ronnie, Jody, Gilles – line the restaurant walls. Once upon a time, the Scuderia Ferrari block-booked rooms at the Sant’Eustorgio for the Italian Grand Prix or the 1,000km sportscar race. The Old Man, Enzo himself, was sighted here, too, on his brief visits during the practice days, welcomed with open arms by the hotel’s owner, whose son now proudly guards the pictorial display even though the caravan has moved elsewhere. Wait, though. There’s a familiar figure alighting from a taxi in the hotel’s tree-shaded garden, walking up to the reception desk. Fifty years after he won the 1964 world championship in a Ferrari, John Surtees – il…

RACE NOTES: AN ATMOSPHERIC END TO THE EUROPEAN STAGE Fans and teams are treated to another classic venue, before Formula 1 embarks upon its next round of fly-away races The European portion of the Formula 1 season ends at the most atmospheric circuit of them all: the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. And all eyes will be on new Ferrari team leader Sebastian Vettel. Vettel has already enjoyed three victories here, including his memorable maiden career win for Toro Rosso in 2008 – although success in his first Italian GP for Ferrari would likely top the emotion even of that. That said, Monza’s long straights and tight corners put a real emphasis on engine power, which is much more likely to favour the works Mercedes pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.…