Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2025 i AUTOSPORT

The end of an era or a mere blip? A gradual decline or another season in which it manages to snare a title? Following the turmoil of 2024 and McLaren’s ascendance, Red Bull’s position is an intriguing one. Love it or loathe it, Red Bull has been the benchmark during the current ground effect regulations and one of the great Formula 1 teams of the 21st century. But staff losses, controversy and a tricky car have contributed to the team’s dominance coming to a halt sooner than most would have expected. On the other hand, it still has Max Verstappen firing on all cylinders and, given the way McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have shared the points in the opening rounds, it’s not impossible to imagine the Dutchman…

“Clueless” was among the harsher adjectives Lando Norris uttered regarding his inability to get to grips with McLaren’s MCL39, a car that remains the most competitive on the grid despite the team’s attempts to play down this truism. Teammate Oscar Piastri won an eventful Bahrain Grand Prix from pole position, showing veteran poise on his 50th GP start, while Norris qualified scrappily and made life hard for himself on his way to third. At Suzuka for the previous round, where track characteristics and weather conditions aligned to produce a processional one-stop race, polesitter Max Verstappen was virtually inked in as victor by dint of being able to simply ‘park the bus’ if necessary once he got ahead at the start. In Bahrain, where desert heat combines with an abrasive track…

In a certain corner of Milton Keynes, there was serenity. After a prosperous flurry of titles and triumphs at the start of the 2010s, Red Bull had finally delivered upon the aspirations under which it had entered Formula 1. A more turbulent period succeeded that, defined by disagreements with powertrain supplier Renault, the switch to Honda, and then the rebound into F1’s stratosphere. It began the championship’s new era in 2022 in the fashion in which it had concluded the old one – upgrading one title into two before forging a course of supremacy over 2023. A year ago, forecasts that suggested 2024 would effectively serve as a repeat of 2023 looked to be correct. Melbourne aside, Red Bull had burst into the month of May on course to continue…

SURRENDER HAS NEVER BEEN IN LEWIS’S LEXICON STUART CODLING I found the notion of Lewis Hamilton retiring in the summer laughable even before I heard that this sage prediction came from Formula 1’s increasingly tedious paddock rent-a-quote, Ralf Schumacher. Lewis is a curiously polarising figure in the world of F1 fandom but even his most ardent detractors – well, those not fishing for headlines anyway – must admit that throwing in the towel isn’t part of his nature. There are those who cite Nigel Mansell’s abortive 1995 comeback with McLaren, which famously didn’t end well, as precedent for a driver pulling the eject switch before season’s end. But the comparison doesn’t stack up. Longstanding team insiders recall Mansell arriving at Woking as an uninterested and unmotivated shadow of his former…

Formula E’s first visit to Homestead Miami Speedway did little to quell the cynicism that still lingers among diehard petrolheads of a series that is perhaps too contrived to be taken seriously – even as it moves through its 11th season. For all the excellence of the teams, drivers and technology, the race turned into a real-life version of Mario Kart and ended with only one of the first four finishers being classified in the top five. Pascal Wehrlein was declared the victor for Porsche after getting lucky with his attack mode strategy, although on the road he had been pipped on the run to the chequered flag by the Nissan of Norman Nato, who crossed the line barely 0.1 seconds ahead. It was a return to the front for…

Just eight seconds. That was Ferrari’s margin of victory at the Imola round of the World Endurance Championship in April. Or to put it another way, about half the 16s advantage the 499P Le Mans Hypercar shared by James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi enjoyed over the best non-Ferrari at the end of the opening hour. Ferrari kind of dominated the Imola 6 Hours. The 499P was the quickest thing around the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari during qualifying – by an amazing 0.965s – and the race. The #51 car led 171 of the 212 laps, and #50 set the fastest lap. The two safety cars that punctuated this race had a lot to do with why it wasn’t as comfortable for Ferrari on home ground as…

McLaren is heading back to the pinnacle of sportscar racing in an attempt to reprise its Le Mans 24 Hours victory with the F1 GTR of 30 years ago. The British motorsport powerhouse confirmed during April that it would join the World Endurance Championship in 2027. The short and sweet announcement, which stretched to barely 40 words, confirmed an intent to race in the top class at Le Mans for the first time since 1998, something that has been clear for some time. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said at Le Mans last year that a return was “more when than if”. The statement is expected to be followed by fuller details of its programme at Le Mans in June, when it celebrates the anniversary of its against-the-odds victory with…

A race into darkness with a 59-strong entry and not a single safety car period surprised many at Paul Ricard, but Team WRT winning the opening GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup race did not. The team’s new line-up – Charles Weerts, Kelvin van der Linde and Ugo de Wilde – in its lead car took over at the front in the second hour of the six. Once ahead, there was no stopping the BMW M4 GT3 Evo. Porsche was the best of the rest, Sven Muller/Patric Niederhauser/Alessio Picariello (Rutronik Racing) overhauling the CLRT entry of Laurin Heinrich/Klaus Bachler/Ayhancan Guven, although neither car had the BMW’s outright pace. Reigning outright champions Maro Engel and Lucas Auer were joined by Matteo Cairoli, but fourth was as good as their Mercedes could…

Photo finish at Donington Dan Cammish (centre, Alliance Racing Ford) outgunned Aiden Moffat (right, West Surrey Racing BMW) by all of 0.005 seconds at the climax to the first race of the British Touring Car Championship opener at Donington Park, with Chris Smiley (left, Restart Racing Hyundai) just 0.070s further adrift. The battle, one of many to entertain the East Midlands’ sun-drenched tin-top connoisseurs, was only for eighth place. But Cammish was fighting back from a pitstop under the safety car to replace a punctured tyre, Moffat had qualified badly after technical problems in free practice, and Restart was giving a debut to its new Hyundais. Nevertheless, Smiley narrowly leads the Independent points over Mikey Doble. Photographer Roberts/JEP Where Donington Park, UK When Sunday 27 April 2025 Details Canon EOS…

History was made at Snetterton recently when the ADA Janspeed TR Register Triumph TR8 turbo that John Sheldon, Ian Harrower and John Brindley failed to qualify for the 1980 Le Mans 24 Hours finished a race for the first time, rewarding owner Kevin Jones’s perseverance. The TR8 rarely entered races in period, and the unique car non-started first time out in the 1980 Silverstone 6 Hours, a fate repeated in 1981. The only time it came under orders was in the 1981 Brands Hatch 1000Km when, following a pitstop, it spun on lap 13 and the Rover V8 engine refused to refire. Jones, head of Ferrari specialist GTO Engineering, acquired it unexpectedly when the ex-works Triumph TR7 V8 rally car he previously owned – and hoped to buy back –…

Mckenzie Douglass is aiming to repeat his Ginetta GT crown of 2024 after making a surprise return to the series with Fox Motorsport for its second round at Silverstone. The 17-year-old won the title after making the step up from Ginetta Junior last year, and was planning to move into British GT for 2025 with Fox. But, with those plans falling through, he has now decided to spend a second season in GInetta GT. Despite missing round one and having to get used to the championship’s new GTP8 car, Douglass feels he can still claim another title. “I entered the championship as a stepping stone to British GT,” he said. “We had plans to do British GT this year but they didn’t quite go through. But coming back to GTPs…

PORSCHE 962/88 – THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 962 011 porterpress.co.uk RRP £69 Porsche’s 956 and its successor, the 962, were the defining cars of the Group C era and now the most successful iteration of the 962 genre, chassis 011, gets the full Porter Press ‘Great Cars’ treatment in a sumptuous 320-page hardback. Author Serge Vanbockryck is a sportscar legend in his own right as journalist and PR man, and in this definitive tome he deftly balances storytelling with detail. LAUREATO ABSOLUTE ASTON MARTIN F1 EDITION girard-perregaux.com RRP £12,200 Haute horlogerie and high-level motor racing go hand-in-hand: drivers love flashy watches, timepiece manufacturers adore the connection with high performance and precision time measurement. This is not the first F1-themed watch from Girard-Perregaux but it is a trifle more affordable than the…

Sparking up a stormer The McLaren of Stefan Johansson is engulfed by sparks erupting in the wake of Andrea de Cesaris’s Brabham during the 1987 Austrian Grand Prix. At least this dramatic-looking encounter was harmless, unlike in Friday practice when Johansson, cresting the blind brow before the Osterreichring’s Rindt Kurve, couldn’t avoid colliding with a deer running across the track, sending his car into the barriers at close to 150mph. The shaken and bruised Swede said: “I got a massive fright and was so lucky it hit the suspension. If it had been head-on – just a few centimetres to the right – I reckon that would have been it for me…” From 14th on the grid he drove what Autosport described as “a stormer of a race” to finish…

Max takes time to blossom It really wasn’t obvious during Friday practice for the Japanese Grand Prix that Max Verstappen would go on to capture a crucial pole position the next day and follow that up with victory in Sunday’s race. After clocking the fifth and eighth fastest times in the first day’s sessions, he admitted that the Red Bull squad still had work to do: “We tried various things with the car, but a lot of them didn’t work as we had hoped.” No matter that he remained frustrated with how the RB21 felt, he still stormed to a surprise pole position – his fourth in succession at Suzuka – and, as you can read in our race debrief on page 12, this set the stage for his Sunday…

Victory for Oscar Piastri at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix means that the McLaren man won half of the first six races in the 2025 Formula 1 championship, proving he could be the man to beat this year. After besting the field a week before in Bahrain, Piastri became the first driver not starting on pole position to win a race this season. But qualifying in second place in Jeddah would ultimately play its part in a third victory of the year for the Australian, who became the first from Down Under to lead the F1 standings since Mark Webber in 2010. Now Piastri’s manager, Webber has helped his compatriot establish himself on level pegging with Lando Norris at McLaren, and not fall into the role of support driver that…

Formula 1 will not return to V10 engines or any naturally aspirated powertrains in the near future, with the F1 Commission reaffirming its commitment to the new V6 power unit regulations that will come into force next season. Those regulations were discussed and approved by the FIA back in 2022, while engine manufacturers had been working on them for many years beforehand. However, the FIA has granted itself scope for “minor refinements”. This could be used to eliminate the risk of cars running out of battery deployment before the end of long straights, which has caused concerns for drivers, teams and fans alike. The governing body is introducing a ‘turn down ramp rate’ system that will prevent cars from using the full electric power immediately when exiting a corner, making…

The biggest problem with the McLaren M26? Simple. It wasn’t the McLaren M23. Yet with the hindsight of nearly 50 years, looking back specifically to the first of its two seasons in the Formula 1 frontline, a softer light can be cast upon a car that didn’t inspire a great deal of love within McLaren and its star driver James Hunt during 1977. In reality, its record in Hunt’s hands during his world championship title defence was more than respectable: three grand prix victories, three of Hunt’s impressive tally of six pole positions that season, and a whole bunch of laps led. In the year he turned 30, Hunt had a better shot at matching his friend Barry Sheene by repeating his world crown than the final standings give credit…

Captain Kirkwood beams up Kyle Kirkwood passes the cinema on Pine Avenue during qualifying day for the IndyCar Series round at Long Beach. It was a successful outing for the Jupiter, Florida native – he finished the day with pole position at the wheel of his Honda-powered Andretti Global Dallara. But he trumped that on Sunday, when he effectively led the Grand Prix of Long Beach – the 50th anniversary of the inaugural running of the event for Formula 5000 cars – from start to finish and triumphed over the series’ early-season dominator, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou. It was the third victory of 26-year-old Kirkwood’s IndyCarcareer–and two of them have been on the famed California streets of Long Beach. Photographer Joe Skibinski/PEC Where Long Beach, California, USA When 12…

Dandelion Racing extended its Super Formula winning streak by sweeping the second double-header of the season at Motegi, with Tadasuke Makino and Kakunoshin Ohta scoring a victory apiece, just as they did at the Suzuka opener. Makino made it back-to-back wins in the first race on Saturday, leading a Dandelion 1-2 ahead of Ohta, while the roles were reversed on Sunday when Ohta was the main beneficiary of a first-lap safety car that prompted most drivers to pit. It is the first time any team has made it four wins on the trot since Nakajima Racing all the way back in 2009. The only driver to truly threaten Dandelion all weekend was Kenta Yamashita, who scored a dominant pole with Kondo Racing on Sunday, but lost any chance of a…

Sir Jackie Stewart has been known his whole career for his peripatetic travel schedule, but even for the future three-time Formula 1 champion his travels during 1966 take the cake. There was a staggering array of places and events, from down under where he won the Tasman championship to Europe for grand prix racing, mixed in with several trips to the United States for sportscar events – and a new race for Stewart, the Indianapolis 500. Just a week after winning the Monaco GP for BRM, he was ready for the 50th running of Indy’s self-proclaimed ‘Greatest Spectacle in Racing’. For all of his traveling back and forth to America, Stewart had not been among those F1 drivers participating in what became known as the rear-engined revolution at Indy, which…

VISIBLE TOUCH BY GENESIS Genesis has revealed the livery in which its new Hypercar class contender will race in the World Endurance Championship next year – on a full-size model. Hyundai’s prestige brand gave the world a further glimpse of how the GMR-001 LMDh is going to look at the New York International Auto Show with the unveiling of a life-size mock-up. The car was resplendent in the Genesis brand’s orange with hints of yellow, which contrast with the largely black 50% model shown on the programme’s launch. It has also confirmed that the car’s twin-turbo V8 engine has been bench testing since late February. A Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar or a Porsche 963 LMDh racing in 2032? As unlikely as that might sound, it could be a real…

Porsche will give Pascal Wehrlein a first taste of the World Endurance Championship at Spa this month ahead of his Le Mans 24 Hours debut. The reigning Formula E champion will share the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 LMDh with Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre. Nico Muller will come in to race the other car alongside Michael Christensen and Julien Andlauer in preparation for a reserve role at Le Mans. Wehrlein will drive the extra, third PPM 963 in the 24 Hours with Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr.…

The annual visit of the IMSA SportsCar Championship to the streets of Long Beach, California is always eagerly anticipated. Yes, it’s one of the shortest races on the calendar at just 100 minutes, but the variety of interesting storylines is always intriguing. This year was no different. There was no change at the front, either, as the Porsche Penske Motorsport juggernaut continued to roll. After decisive victories at the Daytona ‘roval’ and bumpy former airfield at Sebring, a trip to the opposite side of the country – and a totally different type of track – brought more of the same with Porsche 963 drivers Nick Tandy and three-time champion Felipe Nasr maintaining their GTP dominance. Once again they qualified ‘only third, this time with Tandy at the wheel. But excellent…

Amazing views for Munster Gregoire Munster tackles the unique asphalt test provided by the World Rally Championship’s first of three new rallies this year – Rally Islas Canarias – on the event shakedown in his Ford Puma. The contest at the end of April was labelled as the rally that is as ‘close to circuit racing as rallying gets’. The WRC’s return to Spanish ground after three years proved to be a one-driver show, with Hyundai and M-Sport Ford left trailing in the wake of Toyota and a rapid Kalle Rovanpera, who led a GR Yaris 1-2-3-4 (see page 100). The double world champion is now second in the points as the WRC heads to Portugal later this month. Photographer McKlein Where Gran Canaria, Canary Islands When Thursday 24 April…

Ash Sutton will be fighting for a fifth British Touring Car Championship title when the circus pitches up at Brands Hatch in October for the final round. Tom Ingram will be battling for a second. There’s every chance that Dan Cammish could be vying for his first. But work needs to be done for Jake Hill to have any chance of his second. They were the main takeaways from the opening round at Donington Park. Sunday’s action was dominated by the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST of Sutton (two wins and a third) and Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Ingram (three seconds). Both were edged out in Saturday’s qualifying session in the fight for pole position – with, significantly, everyone on equal measures of TOCA Turbo Boost…

Top British Touring Car Championship team Alliance Racing is still working ona deal with a new manufacturer to replace its existing Ford Focus ST machinery under the NAPA Racing banner for 2026. Team owner Pete Osborne said that uncertainties in the car market have delayed the decision, but that he is determined to press on with the project. “We’re still talking with a manufacturer and agreeing what we can and can’t do together,” he said. “Everything in the EV market at the moment is up in the air and there’s so many different things happening, that you can understand why all these manufacturers are struggling. “They’ve got really not a lot of direction and I think that affects us here, from a point of view of what model they’re going…

Barnaby’s Lounge & Bar, on the first floor of a West London hotel, isn’t especially high on the list of venues where you’d expect to sit down with Jeff Gordon. But it says much about the four-time NASCAR Cup champion’s role as vice-president of Hendrick Motorsports, the team he drove for throughout an illustrious career spanning more than two decades, that Gordon is attending the BlackBook Motorsport Forum located downstairs, and has earlier spoken on a panel discussing how to unlock motorsport’s revenue potential. Attracting new partners and keeping current ones engaged is his main brief. “Of course I’m a driver, or a past driver,” he smiles when asked about what he brings to a role he assumed in 2022, “so I’m always interested in the competition, the technology and…

Among several cars breaking cover at Brands Hatch recently was a brand-new Skoda Octavia, believed to be the first of its kind to race in the UK. Multiple Mazda MX-5 champion Paul Roddison has more recently been competing in the Track Action Racing Club’s Deutsche Marques series, taking seven overall wins in a Volkswagen Scirocco last year. Having enjoyed beating drivers 40 years his junior in similar machinery, Roddison – who turns 60 in May – reckoned it would be even more fun if “some old guy with grey hair in a Skoda” did so. “We looked and said, ‘It’s basically a Golf R, isn’t it?’” he explained. A 2019 Octavia was duly acquired, complete with the VW group’s two-litre turbocharged TFSI engine, which Roddison set about converting into a…

Nick Adams, 1989 FIA Group C2 world champion with Spaniard Fermin Velez, broke a multi-year sojourn on Easter Monday to compete at Castle Combe, where his racing career began in a Clubmans Mallock Mk14 50 years ago in 1975. Bath-based Adams, who earned the global sportscar crown in a Spice-Cosworth SE89C prepared by the late Hugh Chamberlain’s team, returned to his local circuit to partner his son, Combe Hot Hatch convert Tim, in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car sourced in Scandinavia. Following two test days in the car – which long-time racer and Adams Sr’s fellow BRDC member Philip Walker plans to enjoy on trackdays – Nick finished fourth in the damp opening leg of the circuit’s GT championship, losing a podium place to Keith Butcher (Lamborghini Huracan) late…

STIPPLER STARS AS FERRARI BEATS FORD Frank Stippler was the star of the 82nd Goodwood Members’ Meeting. The German shared a Ferrari Dino 206S with veteran David Franklin in the Gurney Cup for 1963-67 sports-prototypes. Despite handling issues, Stippler qualified third, but he was at the back when he climbed aboard following a tough stint for Franklin and a red flag. Stippler hurled the agile V6 machine around Goodwood, overtaking cars almost everywhere, and overcame the Ford GT40s of Rob Huff and Andre Lotterer to win, the Ferrari’s nose crumpled after Lotterer had missed a gear ahead. 2 SEAS MAKING BRITISH GT WAVES The 2 Seas Mercedes pair of Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss have burst into a shock early British GT lead after two rounds of the 2025 season.…

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Pole position proved to be the deciding factor in victory at the Japanese Grand Prix. A blink-and-you’d-miss-it 0.012-second gap at Suzuka between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris could barely be split at the line by the thickness of a sheet of paper but, given the resurfacing work done at the famed Japanese circuit, Verstappen could call check with track position. The resurfacing dulled much of the variance required to produce a genuinely exciting contest on track; perhaps Pirelli hadn’t expected degradation to be so low, since it had taken the hardest range of tyres to Japan. With no drop-off in tyre performance, there were no developing offsets in pace, and this led to scant moments of cars within a second of each other. For Verstappen, this was the perfect scenario.…

“Every age has its peculiar folly – some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation.” Those words were first committed to paper almost 200 years ago by the Scottish author Charles Mackay in his seminal tome Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds and they resonate with truth to this day. Mackay chronicled subjects as diverse as the South Sea Bubble, Dutch tulip mania, the Crusades, Witch mania, alchemy – and, perhaps most intriguing of all, ‘the influence of politics and religion on the hair and beard’. Were Mackay writing today, he would no doubt have raised an eyebrow, followed by his quill, at recent political developments in Formula 1.…

Nelson Piquet once famously compared driving a Formula 1 car at Monaco with attempting to ride a bicycle in your living room. That was 40 years ago. Doing it today is like being on a hefty e-bike – with a trailer big enough to carry the truck load of FIA resignation letters. Brace yourself for the annual carping competition about Monaco being unsuitable for F1 cars. And don’t be surprised if the one-eyed commentary is led by Jeremy Clarkson, the entertaining broadcaster and writer who, to be fair, highlights the farming community’s hardships while, I would imagine, turning a reasonable profit for himself. The Monaco Grand Prix will provide enough low-hanging flippancy to allow expansion of his incisive observation that race tracks should be designed to suit F1 cars. Which…

With its swathe of graduates moving to Formula 1 for 2025, Formula 2 has the attention of those looking for the next big thing. But as the teams packed up at the end of two consecutive weekends on the Arab peninsula, it was a veteran pulling off a miracle alternative strategy at the wheel of a predominantly orange Dallara who had tongues wagging. Richard Verschoor very much channelled his inner Scott Dixon in Jeddah to snatch the feature race win and depart with the series lead. The Dutchman, who is in his fifth season of F2, and MP Motorsport had opted to start the race on medium Pirelli tyres, and Verschoor held ninth place in the early going amid all those on supersofts. Once they pitted, he continued to keep…

Three-cylinder power arrived in European single-seater racing with late April’s Euroformula Open season opener at the Algarve circuit in Portugal. A field of 12 was a marked improvement on the final year using the old two-litre F3 engines, with the first outing outside Japan for the 1.6-litre TOM’S GTE33, based on the G16E-GTS from the Toyota GR Yaris road car. Polish ex-GB3 ace Tymek Kucharczyk stole bragging rights with pole position, but stalled at the start of the first race. Despite losing positions when he braked to avoid a first-lap incident, Edward Pearson gave successful sportscar team Nielsen Racing a debut victory in single-seaters, the Brit finishing ahead of Michael Shin and Yevan David. Sri Lankan David then made a bit of history for his nation by winning the…

Caddy kerbs its enthusiasm The best of the Jota Cadillacs lumps overthekerbsonentrytothe Curva Gresini (previously the Variante Alta chicane) on the way to a distant 10th place at the Imola 6 Hours. It was another bad day at the office for the British squad on its second outing as the General Motors marque’s factory squad in the World Endurance Championship. The Caddy V-Series.R had the pace but not the luck first time out in Qatar in February, but the speed was also missing in Italy in April. Will Stevens, Alex Lynn and Norman Nato could only collect a solitary point, with the sister car finishing down in 16th on a day when neither challenged the frontrunners. What the team described as a “messy race” included drive-through penalties for both cars.…

Although rare, overall victories for Pro-Am entries are not unheard of since the European Le Mans Series split teams carrying a bronze-rated driver into a separate LMP2 division. Racing Team Turkey most notably won overall at the Barcelona season opener in 2023. Two years later, AF Corse repeated the trick at the same circuit with amateur Francois Perrodo joining Alessio Rovera and Matthieu Vaxiviere to beat IDEC Sport in a late-race shootout. A decision to put Vaxiviere’s ORECA on fresh tyres paid dividends when the field was released for a two-lap dash to the flag after a safety car. The Frenchman charged from fourth to first, passing IDEC’s standout debutant Mathys Jaubert – who shared his ORECA with Daniel Juncadella and Jamie Chadwick – on the final lap. Porsche one-make…

Kalle Rovanpera kick-started his 2025 World Rally Championship campaign with one of the most dominant victories of his career at Rally Islas Canarias. Two-time world champions Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen delivered a masterclass display on Gran Canaria’s smooth asphalt mountain roads, winning 15 of the 18 stages. The performance culminated in a first victory of the season by 53.5 seconds from Toyota team-mate and eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier. “It’s quite amazing,” said Rovanpera, who arrived for round four sixth in the standings and left in second. “It’s not been the best start to the season but, certainly in this kind of conditions, we are back now.” Toyota dominated the event, which was making its WRC debut, with points leader Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta completing a 1-2-3-4 for…

IT HAS BEEN SIX LONGYEARS SINCE THE UK EXPERIENCED the evocative sights and sounds ofWorld Rally Championship cars rocketing through its rally stages. Rally GB was once one of the cornerstone events of the WRC, a landmark date in the British motorsport calendar, and for motorsport fans and the UK rallying community its absence is a crying shame. But after years in the wilderness, there appears to be a glimmer of hope that Rally GB can be revived. Rallying’s top flight could once again return to British shores thanks to a proposal to bring the WRC to Scotland. While Formula 1, MotoGP and Formula E all visit the UK, there are two gaping holes in the British motorsport calendar, following the disappearance at the end of 2019 of the WRC’s…

Matt Payne and the Ford Mustang teams were the big winners in Supercars’ second visit to Taupo International Motorsport Park in New Zealand. Grove Racing’s 22-year-old Kiwi took home the coveted Jason Richards Trophy after two wins and a fourth in the three races on the patchwork North Island track, but it was the speed of the Mustangs that was the talk of the paddock. Apart from Payne, Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw Andretti United), Will Davison and Brodie Kostecki (Dick Johnson Racing), and Cam Waters and Thomas Randle (Tickford) led the way for the Blue Oval. In fact, the only Chevrolet Camaro drivers to crack the top four placings across the three races were Anton De Pasquale (Team 18, fourth in Saturday’s opening race) and Cam Hill, Matt Stone Racing’s rising…

Second-year British Touring Car Championship team Restart Racing enjoyed a successful debut for its brand-new Hyundai i30 N Fastback machinery in the opening round at Donington Park, with Chris Smiley topping the points in a hotly contested Independents division. The Northern Irishman won the class in one race to the two of Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall talent Mikey Doble. But Smiley only conceded the class in the finale on the last lap, when he didn’t realise the finish was looming because his radio had packed up. He leads Doble by one point. Ironically, Smiley is being engineered by PMR team manager Martin Broadhurst, who has been loaned out by the Midlands squad for race weekends. PMR is running just a single Astra at present. RACE WINNERS 5 April - 27…

True giants of Goodwood Duncan Pittaway’s monstrous Fiat S76 ‘Beast of Turin’ powers out of the Goodwood chicane with all 28 of its litres in the SF Edge Trophy at the 82nd Members’ Meeting. The Talbot 25hp Sporting Model of John Polson and Hudson Super Six of James Collins give chase in the two-part contest for Edwardian racing cars and aero-engined specials that raced up to 1918. Mark Walker’s Darracq 200hp and Julian Majzub’s Sunbeam Indianapolis won a race apiece but neither finished the other stanza – Walker crashing out spectacularly but without injury on the final lap on Sunday – leaving overall victory to the Mercedes 120hp of Ben Collings. Photographer Gary Hawkins Where Goodwood, Sussex, UK When Sunday 13 April 2025 Details Canon EOS R3 EF70-200mm lens, 1/320th…

John Greasley, who has died aged 83 after a long illness, was the first British GT champion in 1993 and a pioneer of the series. His G-Force Porsche squad was one of its mainstays through the 1990s, winning a further two titles and bringing the 911 GT1 contender onto the grid. It was in this car that Greasley sealed a second title, in class this time, in 1997 together with John Morrison. He ended up with a total of 11 overall victories and a further four in class, which combined still places him highly on the series’ all-time winners’ list. G-Force, whose core business was tuning Porsche road cars, also took class honours with Ross Hyett in 1994 when the series was still known as the BRDC National Sports GT…

10 TOM INGRAM 2010 CHAMPION Deciding who takes the final spot on any list can often be the toughest, and that was certainly true here. Whether it was the supreme racecraft displayed by Aston Millar en route to 2021 glory, Senna Proctor overcoming his size disadvantage to come within a whisker of the 2015 title, or the early signs of Dan Harper’s special talent in 2016-17, there is a plethora of worthy candidates. But we have opted for Tom Ingram. The 2010 season provided a thrilling prequel to Ingram’s future British Touring Car battles with Jake Hill as the pair fought for the honours. Hill won double the races of his rival, but it was Hillspeed pilot Ingram’s greater consistency that told as he provided a first glimpse of his…

1989 Aston Martin AMR1 – Group C Price on application The last, lightest, and most powerful of just five, full works team Aston Martin AMR1 Group C racers produced for the 1989 World Sportscar Championship. Accompanied by an extraordinary spares package and vast history file, AMR1/5 is eligible for Peter Auto’s Group C series (including this year’s Le Mans Classic), the brand new Masters Group C series, HSR (inc. Sebring and Daytona Classics) and the Rolex Reunion at Laguna Seca. 1999 Lola B98/10 Judd – LMP900 Powered by Judd’s sonorous 4.0 litre V10, HU08 claimed five pole positions and four victories in period and twice participated at Le Mans. Recently restored and accompanied by a vast spares package. Eligible for Peter Auto’s Endurance Racing Legends (inc. Le Mans Classic), Masters…

1989 TYRRELL 018 Jean Alesi burst onto the Formula 1 scene in 1989 and this is the car he did it with. Tyrrell 018 chassis 2 had already scored a podium in the hands of Michele Alboreto in Mexico when Alesi made his world championship grand prix debut in France. He finished a sensational fourth at Paul Ricard and later scored points at Monza, while Johnny Herbert also drove the Harvey Postlethwaite/Jean-Claude Migeot-designed car. Satoru Nakajima became the third driver to score points with this chassis when he finished sixth in the 1990 United States GP, an event famously led by Alesi in a sister 018. Rebuilt by Front Row Racing, this car has a freshly built 3.5-litre Cosworth DFR engine, rebuilt gearbox, new fluid and electrical systems, new suspension…