Innholdsfortegnelse for 11/17/2022 i Autosport

We’ve gone for one of our green covers this week to congratulate George Russell on his first world championship Formula 1 grand prix victory. It was obvious before he even got to F1 that Russell had the qualities to reach the top, winning in every category on his way up, and his success in Brazil last weekend was brilliantly taken, with Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton close behind. The event (including the sprint the day before) was an entertaining one, underlining the fact that F1 is better when Mercedes can mix it with Red Bull and Ferrari at the front. More of the same in 2023, please! Not quite so wonderful was another clash between Max Verstappen and Hamilton. Most in the Autosport office wouldn’t have given the Red Bull driver…

WEC European Le Mans Series LMP3 champion Malthe Jakobsen ended up as the fastest newcomer in the Hypercar class at the wheel of a Peugeot 9X8 in the official World Endurance Championship rookie test. The performance in Bahrain last Sunday could be a significant moment in the career of the 19-year-old Dane (above) as the French make weighs up the options of hiring a reserve driver. Jakobsen, a regular in the P3 ranks for the past three years, got down to 1m50.222s over his 55 laps. That was only six tenths off Nico Muller’s best for the marque over the course of the day and well over a second up on Maximilian Guenther and Yann Ehrlacher, the other Peugeot rookies on Sunday. They got down to 1m51.665s and 1m51.777s respectively.…

WEC/ELMS Prema is unlikely to defend the European Le Mans Series title it won this year with Louis Deletraz and Ferdinand Habsburg. The Italian team is instead looking at expanding its World Endurance Championship campaign to two LMP2s as it gears up for its move to the Hypercar class with Lamborghini under the banner of parent team Iron Lynx in 2024. Running an ORECA-Gibson 07 in both the WEC and ELMS on single-seater specialist Prema’s first sportscar campaign made sense “to gain as much experience as possible and to speed up the learning process”, said Iron Lynx boss Andrea Piccini. “Now the most important thing is to look to the future and you can’t race an LMDh in the ELMS, so for sure the focus is going to be on…

WEC Former European Le Mans Series champion Yifei Ye will graduate to the Hypercar ranks in the World Endurance Championship with Porsche next year. The 22-year-old Chinese will drive the 963 LMDh prototype entered by the British Jota customer team. Ye, whose ELMS title came in 2021 with WRT, has been placed at Jota by Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific. It took him into its development programme as a so-called ‘selected driver’ one year ago with a clear ambition to get him into a 963 for 2023. He is the first driver to be announced by the three-time Le Mans 24 Hours class-winning team for its graduation to the Hypercar ranks. It follows another year in the ELMS for Ye and a second Le Mans appearance, this time with the Swiss…

PENSKE TO BE HONOURED American motorsport legend Roger Penske will be honoured at the Autosport Awards on 4 December with a Gold Medal, given to those who leave a lasting legacy in the sport. Tributes to the 85-year-old, who this year became the first team owner to win the IndyCar and NASCAR titles in the same season, will be led by Sir Jackie Stewart, Gil de Ferran and Josef Newgarden. STARS RETURN TO THE EAST The international stars are beginning to return for the Macau GT Cup after the COVID era. Multiple Macau winner Edoardo Mortara will race an Audi among the GT3 field this weekend, while GT World Challenge Europe king Raffaele Marciello and Maro Engel are among the Mercedes line-up. CORE CLOSES ITS DOORS CORE Autosport, which ran…

Imola 2021, Silverstone 2021, Monza 2021, Jeddah 2021 and now Interlagos 2022. At the venue where they also clashed controversially but didn’t actually make contact last year, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided yet again. In a race packed with storylines thanks to George Russell’s maiden Formula 1 win and team-mate wars across the grid, this was surely the headline act. This Verstappen/Hamilton crash is also a notable one on that list – along with Imola, which must be included even if not as spectacular as the rest because they did touch and one car, Hamilton’s, ended up damaged. Last weekend’s was interesting because, even though the stewards said the Dutchman was “predominantly at fault”, really it was both of them. Hamilton turned in for Turn 2 with his wheels…

Lewis Hamilton was at a bit of a loss. When asked to pinpoint quite where the Mercedes turn of speed that enabled team-mate George Russell to lead a 1-2 last weekend had come from, he didn’t really know. What he had instead was a “strange feeling”, a hunch that Red Bull and Ferrari had in fact taken a backwards step for the Brazilian Grand Prix. But was he right? Did the Silver Arrows step up a gear or its rivals regress? Inevitably, the truth sat somewhere in between. The Mercedes W13 debuted its final upgrade package of the season in the United States last month. With the car sporting tweaked wings and a revised floor, Hamilton was able to threaten for victory, but only after a disastrous 11-second pitstop for…

McLaren requires a massive points swing in the Abu Dhabi season finale if it is to beat Alpine to fourth in the 2022 constructors’ championship following its double retirement in Brazil. Lando Norris led the line after taking seventh in the sprint, elevated to sixth on the grid by Carlos Sainz’s latest Ferrari engine-change grid penalty, and made a great start to leap past Charles Leclerc. But that’s as good as it got for the Briton, who was penalised for knocking the Ferrari off just after the first safety car restart. The five-second penalty he served at his first pitstop dropped him back into the pack behind the Valtteri Bottas/Aston Martins/Esteban Ocon battle (see right). Six laps after his second stop to go back to the soft tyres, after running…

Valtteri Bottas pipped Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel at Interlagos, leaving the battle for sixth in the constructors’ championship finely poised at five points between Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin. It was Vettel who led the trio from the off following his ninth place in the sprint race. This had featured Stroll defending so outrageously against his team-mate as they ran down the second straight early on that he was given a 10-second penalty. After getting past Kevin Magnussen at the start of the GP, Vettel gained from crashes impacting Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, with the early stops for repairs for the last two also elevating Bottas and Stroll as they battled in the pack with Esteban Ocon. Bottas’s stop on lap 24 helped him undercut Vettel,…

Twelve months ago, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado claimed the GTE title in controversial circumstances in Bahrain. This time around there was no late contact with a championship rival or any contentious calls from race control. But it was no less dramatic and certainly far more nerve-racking for the Ferrari duo as they attempted to retain their crown as well as the manufacturers’ gong for their employer. Pier Guidi and Calado, who arrived in the Middle East with an 11-point margin over the Porsche crew of Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen, looked home and dry deep into the sixth hour of last Saturday’s Bahrain 8 Hours WEC curtain-closer. Calado led the way in GTE Pro and had done since a Full Course Yellow virtual safety car fell his way…

The Belgian WRT team took up where it left off in Bahrain last year. The squad that dominated the two races that closed out the 2021 season did likewise last weekend with its lead ORECA-Gibson 07 shared by Rene Rast, Robin Frijns and Sean Gelael. Rast flew on his return to the team after missing the previous round at Fuji as a result of a clash with the DTM. He climbed aboard the car after a double-stint from Gelael and took it past the #22 United Autosports entry with Phil Hanson at the wheel to claim the top spot in class after 72 laps early in the third hour. The WRT car would only drop out of the lead during the pitstop cycles – and for just eight laps in…

GB3 Dominant 2022 British Formula 4 title-winner Alex Dunne will move up to the GB3 Championship next season, remaining with Hitech GP. The 17-year-old claimed a record-breaking 11 wins and a further six podiums during his first campaign in British F4, as well as finishing runner-up in the Italian equivalent. Hitech also secured the teams’ and drivers’ titles in the GB3 series with Luke Browning this season. “We had a look at different things and a lot of drivers go to FRECA [Formula Regional] or FIA Formula 3, but I think the FRECA car is quite heavy and doesn’t really have a lot of downforce,” said Dunne, who also won races in the F4 UAE series this year. “If you go to FIA F3 in two years’ time, it’s not…

BRITISH F4 UP TO NINE Isaac Barashi has become the ninth driver already confirmed as racing in British Formula 4 next year. The Israeli will continue with Argenti Motorsport, with which he made his single-seater debut in the final two events of the 2022 season, taking a best result of eighth at Silverstone. F1 ENGINEER TO MONOPOSTO Red Bull Formula 1 engineer Ben Vincent took to the track for the first time at Donington Park at the end of last month, when he tested an ex-Vergani Racing Formula Opel Lotus, raced by Marcelo Battistuzzi at the Leicestershire circuit in 1997, when he helped the Brazilian team finish second in the EFDA Nations Cup. “I did a bit of karting but never raced a car, but I was interested in this…

RACE OF REMEMBRANCE Former British GT champion Graham Davidson swapped his GT3 machinery for a more humble Mini Cooper, as he made his Race of Remembrance debut at Anglesey last weekend. Sharing the Mini with fellow Scottish racers Adam Morrison, Ian Bonthrone and Fiona Kindness, he finished ninth overall and second in class in the 12-hour contest that is split into three parts with a poignant Remembrance service in the middle. But it was the sister Track Scotland car of Alexander Dawson, Craig Dillon, Lowell Forsyth and Adam Kindness that took the class win, completing an additional lap. “We’ve got two cars and we are all from Aberdeen,” explained Davidson. “I did the C1 24 hours at Spa a few years ago, but this was my first time in this…

At a moment of great economic uncertainty, it is very easy for organisers to keep things simple. Given the continual stream of depressing news about the state of the nation’s finances – right from an individual level up to the government – you would perhaps expect national motorsport clubs to release fairly standard 2023 calendars with no big surprises and maybe put plans to launch new series on hold. Yet the tough times also present an opportunity and, by trying something different, the gamble could bring handsome rewards by standing out from the crowd. And it is therefore fascinating to assess some of the interesting developments for next year announced by organising clubs in recent weeks. Some have chosen to stick to the well-trodden route and concentrate on the most…

With championship pressures lifted and drivers still eager to compete before the off-season, the Classic Touring Car Racing Club brought the curtain down on its campaign at Brands Hatch with a handicap Allcomers event. The race, open to cars and drivers that have appeared in the numerous CTCRC championships throughout the season, provided an element of variation and an unlikely race winner. Entries included Ferrari Challenge champion Lucky Khera at the wheel of his BMW E46 M3, triple Mini Se7en title winner Tim Sims in his Austin Mini Cooper S, Mike Manning’s Ford Sierra RS500 and the Ford Escort 1600 of Anton Martin. Pole was taken by Bryan Bransom’s E46 M3, ahead of Khera, and Jasver Sapra’s similar car fourth behind the Mini Cooper JCW of Marlo Cordell, while Martin…

The Brands Hatch British Touring Car finals meeting is often a time for reflection. Among the excitement and tension of the title deciders, many are also looking back over the season and plenty of drivers will be preparing to bid farewell to teams or series. But this year’s curtain-closer truly was the end of an era as it marked Ginetta’s final appearance on the BTCC bill. While Ginetta Junior will continue in its new home alongside British GT next year, it signalled the end of the road for the GT4 Supercup as the series is now being scrapped. It concluded with Aston Millar blasting his V8-powered G56 to the final victory, becoming the 58th different winner from 365 races over a 14-year period that featured three models of Yorkshire sportscar.…

Three leading contenders emerge when two-time CART champion Gil de Ferran is asked for his favourite team-mate, before the 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner selects a driver he spent just one season racing alongside back in 1990. The Brazilian and David Coulthard have been firm friends ever since they drove together at Paul Stewart Racing in Formula Vauxhall Lotus, and even went on holiday together last year. Aged 22 (de Ferran) and 19 (Coulthard) respectively, the pair got along famously and often shared accommodation at races. “I had a tremendous amount of respect for him, we liked each other as people and to this day we have a very close and friendly relationship,” de Ferran says. De Ferran ended the campaign on top, finishing runner-up in Vauxhall Lotus and third in…

FORMULA 1 Red Bull endured its latest team-orders row at last weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix after Max Verstappen defied a call to let Sergio Perez overtake him, claiming it was because of “something in the past”. World champion Verstappen overtook Perez for sixth place after the late safety car period at Interlagos, and was told to focus on catching Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc – the Ferrari driver is Perez’s rival for second in the championship. Perez had been told not to fight Verstappen, but was reassured over the radio that he would be given the place back if the Dutchman could not gain any more positions. Verstappen was told multiple times on the final lap to give the place back to Perez, only to ignore the call and…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 looks set to revisit potential changes to its sprint-race weekend format for 2023, but outgoing F1 technical chief Ross Brawn has urged caution in any possible tweaks. F1 staged its third and final sprint of the 2022 season at Interlagos last Saturday, and it was largely reckoned to be the best one yet since the format debuted last year. F1 will expand to six sprints in 2023, but could make changes to the format amid concerns about it influencing the grid for Sunday’s race. A number of drivers have said that they think there is too much caution in the sprints, given the possibility of dropping to the back of the grid for the grand prix. “Overall, you don’t really see a lot of overtaking unless…

LMDh Sportscar racing’s worst-kept secret of the year was finally confirmed on Monday: Nick Tandy will return to Porsche after an absence of two years to race its new LMDh prototype. The Brit was announced together with Frederic Makowiecki as the final two drivers at the factory Penske squad for the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship next year. Porsche Penske Motorsport has now revealed a full 10-man roster for its twin, two-car assaults with the 963 LMDh in 2023. It will have six full-timers in the WEC and four in IMSA, though who will race where has not been announced, nor, it is believed, fully decided. Tandy is renewing a rich history with Porsche that over an eight-year period as a factory driver in 2013-20 included successes…

TOURING CARS Rob Huff will aim to extend his record of 10 wins at the Macau Grand Prix this weekend following his withdrawal from the World Touring Car Cup. The 2012 World Touring Car champion will once again race for MG XPower, competing in the two Touring Car Cup rounds that count for the China Touring Car Championship rather than in the Guia race. “I’m honoured and privileged to have the record of 10 wins,” said Huff ahead of his 16th Macau appearance. “This place, we just seem to have a connection. I’ve always loved street circuits.” Huff stood down from his WTCR drive with Zengo Motorsport ahead of the penultimate round in Bahrain last weekend, despite sitting third in the standings, citing “financial difficulties”. The team raced on with…

UK START TIMES Friday 18 November FP1 1000 FP2 1300 Saturday 19 November  FP3 1030 QUALIFYING 1400 Sunday 20 November RACE 1300 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE HIGHLIGHTS CHANNEL 4 1730 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers Constructors RACE STATS Previous winners Points tallies Hamilton 244 Vettel 153 Verstappen 106 Bottas 103 Alonso 63 Ricciardo 62 Perez 44 Sainz 32 Leclerc 22 Albon 20…

This year has been incredible and I have loved every second of it. It’s been the biggest pleasure to be with West Surrey Racing, and to have the continued support from MB Motorsport alongside the deal with RoKiT. It has been my dream drive to be in this car, with this team, and these people around me. I felt totally at home with the BMW 330e M Sport immediately, but the lack of testing due to the hybrid problems that everyone had pre-season, especially me for some reason, meant I didn’t fully understand the car from a set-up point of view, although I could drive it really well. There were a few things missing and I think I then overdrove to compensate for that in the first half of the…

Praise be that sense prevailed, and the sprint weekend rules were amended for this year. Otherwise, under the 2021 wording that snubbed Friday qualifying, one of the great Formula 1 upsets would not garner the recognition it deserves. Now, though, the annals of motorsport history will indisputably show that Kevin Magnussen scored his and the Haas team’s maiden top-flight pole at Interlagos. A shower was forecast to wreak havoc in Q3. Accordingly, the Dane – recalled to replace ousted Russian Nikita Mazepin on the eve of the season – was released early to head the queue at the pit exit. As conditions deteriorated, that clear road proved decisive. Magnussen flew immediately to a 1m11.674s. Carlos Sainz was next over the line but 0.7 seconds down on his fellow Ferrari-powered racer.…

Alpine was another squad dogged by team-orders spats and apparently warring drivers in Brazil, with Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon coming to blows in the sprint race and the Frenchman reacting forcefully to a call in the GP to let his team-mate pass late on. The heated action at the blue squad kicked off at the sprint start, where the pair came close to touching through the opening turns and then did just that after Ocon squeezed Alonso’s outside line through the exit of Turn 4. The Spaniard slipped on the kerbs and speared briefly sideways into his teammate’s floor before collecting his car. Then, as they raced onto the pit straight for the first time, Alonso clipped Ocon’s right rear as he tried to pass for sixth and had…

Toyota had just one more target from its successful 2022 World Rally Championship campaign: a win at home as the series returned to Japan for the finale. The land of the rising sun, back on the calendar after a 12-year wait, was expecting a Toyota homecoming party, but arch South Korean rival Hyundai ripped up the script. The pressure valve had been slightly released, with Toyota having already completed a clean sweep of titles thanks to Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen blitzing their way to the drivers’ and co-drivers’ crowns in New Zealand last month, followed by the capture of the manufacturers’ championship in Spain. But with its homeland hosting the WRC season finale in Toyota City, the pressure ratcheted up again, and the marque was expected to deliver in…

WORLD TOURING CAR CUP SAKHIR (BHR) 11-12 NOVEMBER ROUND 8/9 He’s not champion yet, but it looks a foregone conclusion with one last World Touring Car Cup round to go. Mikel Azcona stirred up a desert storm on the series’ first visit to Bahrain, stretching a 35-point lead over Nestor Girolami to 60 thanks to a dominant win from pole position under floodlights on Friday evening, before banking a safe fourth in the partially reversed-grid race two in the heat of Saturday morning. Girolami needs to claim a maximum of 65 points from the Jeddah finale at the end of this month to stand any unlikely chance of robbing Azcona of a first WTCR crown. A clean sweep of all three qualifying sessions on Friday was followed that evening by…

FORMULA 4 Before Alex Dunne begins his GB3 campaign, he has another Formula 4 outing planned as he heads the entry for the non-championship UAE F4 trophy races in support of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. “I’ve never been to a grand prix before so that will be a pretty cool thing,” said Dunne, who will drive with Hitech. “The opportunity to race on the F1 support bill is pretty cool – there’s not a lot of times where an F4 series has raced with them on the same weekend.” The rest of Hitech’s line-up will comprise its 2023 British F4 signings:, Ginetta Junior race winners Will Macintyre and Kanato Le, and Australian Formula Ford frontrunner Jimmy Piszcyk. Carlin will also have a presence on the grid with New…

RADICAL Radical has announced plans to produce a limited-edition closed-cockpit, track-only car next year. Full details for ‘Project 25’ have yet to be released, but the machine will use a spaceframe chassis and will be powered by the manufacturer’s V6 bi-turbo motor, with an expected power output of 850bhp. The concept, which will be limited to just 25 cars, was unveiled last weekend at Radical’s end-of-season World Finals event in Las Vegas. Radical Motorsport CEO Joe Anwyll said: “Twenty-five years. It’s a huge accolade for Radical Motorsport as a racecar manufacturer and single-make series organiser. “‘Project 25’ has been designed and will be built to commemorate this milestone and showcase the knowledge and skills our UK-based engineering and manufacturing firm has to offer.” More details are expected in spring next…

GINETTA GT5 CHALLENGE Mikey Doble has officially been crowned the Ginetta GT5 Challenge champion following a successful appeal to the National Court. The Xentek Motorsport driver initially lost out on the title at Donington Park after being handed a post-race penalty for a yellow-flag infringement in the final race of the season. The decision dropped him from second to fifth and provisionally handed Elite Motorsport rival Will Jenkins the title as a result. Doble appealed the decision, though, and at a hearing last Wednesday his penalty was rescinded by the independent panel and he was reinstated to his on-the-road position. The additional points were enough for him to secure the title. “I am ecstatic beyond belief to be reinstated to the Ginetta GT5 Challenge championship win,” said Doble. “It has…

BRANDS HATCH BARC 12-13 NOVEMBER World and European karting champion Freddie Slater produced a brilliant performance to claim the Ginetta Junior Winter Series title at Brands Hatch, recording three dominant victories and coming close to a clean sweep had a troublesome clutch not forced him to make a false start in the opening contest. Slater, a mid-season debutant in the main Junior Championship in 2022, shone in all four races held at the Kent circuit over the weekend as he battled R Racing teammates and fellow returning drivers Luke Watts and Luca Hopkinson for the title. The trio also faced strong competition from two other notable returnees Alisha Palmowski, the 2022 Ginetta Scholarship winner, and Elite Motorsport’s Mckenzie Douglass. Race one began dramatically when Slater, struggling with his clutch, lurched…

ANGLESEY BRSCC RACE OF REMEMBRANCE 11-13 NOVEMBER For the third successive year, Rob Boston’s Lotus Elise was victorious at Anglesey in the Race of Remembrance, but this time he had ex-British GT racer Tom Roche sharing. Roche was in charge from the start of the three-part 12-hour race, as the Caterhams of Calum Lockie and Callum McDougall battled for second with Jason McInulty’s ES Motorsport Elise. All four had gone a lap clear of the rest at the one-hour mark, with Lockie having reclaimed second from McInulty, and McDougall a further 22 seconds back in the RAF/Turn 7 Motorsports car. Steve McCulley’s Rocket Racing Caterham and Ben Short’s Mazda MX-5 completed the early top six and, with the safety car out, Lockie and McCulley made their first stops. Roche pitted…

OVERALL CHAMPIONS MOST WINS FOR A DRIVER 45 Carl Breeze 24 Nathan Freke 22 Tom Sharp 19 Nigel Moore 17 Tom Ingram 17 Tom Hibbert MOST WINS IN A SEASON 15 Nathan Freke (2009) 14 Nigel Moore (2008) 13 James Kellett (2022) 11 Tom Sharp (2012) 11 Tom Ingram (2013) 11 Harry King (2019) MOST PODIUMS FOR A DRIVER 115 Carl Breeze 63 Will Burns 46 Frank Wrathall 44 Tom Sharp 43 Tom Hibbert 42 Nathan Freke MOST FASTEST LAPS FOR A DRIVER 33 Carl Breeze 22 Nathan Freke 21 Tom Ingram 18 Tom Sharp 18 James Kellett 14 Frank Wrathall MOST POLES FOR A DRIVER 20 Carl Breeze 16 Nathan Freke 12 Nigel Moore 9 Tom Ingram 7 Tom Sharp 6 Frank Wrathall 6 Charlie Robertson 6 Jamie Orton…

WEC Toyota will defend its 2022 World Endurance Championship titles with an updated version of the GR010 HYBRID after finally ending speculation that it could go into the third season of the Hypercar era with an all-new design. Sources revealed earlier in the year that there was a new Le Mans Hypercar on the drawing board at Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe in Cologne. What wasn’t clear was whether it would race in 2023. Now Toyota has confirmed that it has opted against taking advantage of the regulations that allow a manufacturer to homologate a second design within the life-cycle of the LMH rules. It has instead chosen to evolve the existing machine within the strict limits on car development laid down in the LMH rulebook. TGRE race director Rob Leupen…

AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL Race fans can now vote on their favourite motorsport memory as part of a fundraising campaign for Race Against Dementia. The Autosport International show has partnered with three-time Formula 1 world champion Sir Jackie Stewart to open a photographic art gallery, and prints of the 10 will be part of a display as a raffle to raise funds. The 27-time grand prix winner, whose wife Helen was diagnosed with the condition in 2014, has been part of a panel that has selected 10 of the most famous motorsport events for enthusiasts to choose from: 1955 Mille Miglia; 1957 German GP; 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours; 1968 German GP; 1969 Italian GP; 1987 British GP; 1992 British Touring Car finale at Silverstone; 1995 Rally GB; 2008 Brazilian GP; 2016…

FORMULA 2 Enzo Fittipaldi has become a Red Bull junior and will compete for Carlin in his second full Formula 2 season in 2023, with current Red Bull-blessed Carlin F2 racer Liam Lawson set for a move to Japan. The 21-year-old former member of the Ferrari Driver Academy is a grandson of two-time world champion Emerson Fittipaldi and younger brother of two-time grand prix starter Pietro. He has been talking to Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko for some time. Fittipaldi made his F2 debut in 2021 with Charouz, running three race weekends for the team before signing up for a full programme this year. He has logged three second places in the feature races at Imola, the Red Bull Ring and the Hungaroring, and also has three third places.…

Verstappen reverts to questionable tactics Great weekend for Mercedes spoiled by Max Verstappen reverting to his questionable driving tactics when Lewis Hamilton appears alongside him. All season with Mercedes not being competitive we have seen Max in close combat with Ferrari and other teams, and we saw him driving fairly and even back out of some tight manoeuvres. At Sao Paulo we saw both Ferraris get past Max cleanly, so one has to ask, why is it Max has to resort to such tactics when it’s Lewis? Also, it is obvious Max is not a team player, defying team orders to let Sergio Perez past and help secure a second place for Sergio in the championship. I fully understand F1 drivers have to be ultra-competitive but, with the championship won,…

How long could Kevin Magnussen resist Max Verstappen? That was the question ahead of the third and final sprint race of the 2022 campaign. Understandably, after winning nine of the 10 previous grands prix, the second-starting Red Bull was the white-hot favourite. Passing an out-of-position Haas would surely be a matter of course, and few were anticipating that Mercedes was about to end its barren run. Magnussen was afforded some breathing space as he launched on soft tyres, while only Verstappen and Nicholas Latifi opted for mediums. With the Red Bull needing that bit longer to put heat into its rubber, the unlikely polesitter pulled out a small gap – albeit Magnussen later conceded he “forgot to really enjoy” his time in first. Russell used his red-walled Pirellis to good…

The FIA is set to review a Formula 1 timing system after an anomaly resulted in Yuki Tsunoda ending up last and the only lapped runner in the Brazilian race. An automated system introduced after the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, designed to register cars eligible to unlap themselves during a safety car, only identified Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi after Tsunoda pitted on the first safety-car lap following Lando Norris’s late stoppage and briefly unlapped himself. This was because the AlphaTauri driver could push in the pitlane entrance and so passed the control line ahead of leader George Russell. The timing system registered Tsunoda’s unlapping and, even though he emerged in the queue behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, it did not grant permission for him to pass when Albon and…

Toyota sealed yet another pair of World Endurance Championship titles in Bahrain on a day when Alpine never looked likely to wrestle any end-of-season silverware from the Japanese manufacturer. Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa claimed the drivers’ title with what might be described as a safe second behind the sister Toyota GR010 HYBRID shared by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez. At Fuji back in September, victory for Buemi and co in the #8 car had to all intents and purposes ended the chances of the #7 crew making it three titles in a row. Too much oversteer for the chasing Toyota allowed #8 to take a clear victory. This time it was a surfeit of understeer for #8 – a problem that got worse as…

WORLD RALLYCROSS NURBURGRING (DEU) 13 NOVEMBER ROUND 6/6 Johan Kristoffersson signed off his fifth World Rallycross Championship title-winning season in style with his eighth victory from 10 in 2022 in the single-header finale at the Nurburgring. The Swede’s pursuit of perfection at the wheel of his Kristoffersson Motorsport Volkswagen Polo RX1e wasn’t quite a success. He was fastest by 0.8 seconds in SuperPole. He won the first heat. He won the third heat. He won his progression race. He won his semi-final. He drove away in the final. But dammit… he was given a five-second penalty for corner-cutting in the second heat, which of course he won on the road. That gave fellow Swede Kevin Hansen the honour of topping the charts in the second heats, and it was the…

UK MOTORSPORT The historic Avon Tyres brand is set to disappear from motorsport, with a consultation under way about closing the company’s Wiltshire factory. Avon’s parent company Cooper Tire was bought by Goodyear in 2021 and there has since been a review into all of the brands’ futures. Goodyear now intends to close the Melksham Avon facility, which employs 350 people, by the end of next year. But, until the consultation has concluded, a company spokesman has stressed that “nothing changes” and the factory will continue to operate as normal. In the short term, there will be no changes for the championships and series that have contracts for tyre supply with Avon, which can trace its origins back to 1885. “Cooper and Avon will meet any supplier obligations they’ve got…

METRO CUP The long-running Metro Cup championship has left the MG Car Club and will instead join the British Racing & Sports Car Club’s portfolio for 2023. The Metro Cup was one of six championships administered by the MGCC, but series organisers have decided that the move to the BRSCC will “open up a more varied choice of venues and challenges to our drivers”. A six-event calendar has been unveiled for next year, although this does solely feature venues the MGCC visited during 2022. “Drivers in the Metro Cup have enjoyed racing with the MG Car Club for many years, and have experienced some great racing with them,” said David Javes on behalf of the Metro Cup. “However, we now consider it is the right time to move to the…

BRITCAR A new class has been created within the British Endurance Championship to cater for GT4 Supercup-spec Ginetta G55s and G56s. Ginetta revealed a major overhaul of its series earlier this year, including axing the GT4 Supercup. At the time, its head of motorsport Mike Simpson hinted a tie-up with an existing category would be possible to find a new home for these cars and an agreement has been made. It is the second example of BEC organiser Britcar and Ginetta collaborating on a sub-class after a G40 Cup division was formed within the Britcar Trophy for this year, following the demise of a standalone grid for that category. “Ginetta have a nearly 20-year relationship with Britcar and we are elated to find a new home for our G55 and…

GINETTA JUNIOR WINTER SERIES Race 1 Luke Watts Races 2, 3 & 4 Freddie Slater JUNIOR SALOON CAR CHAMPIONSHIP Races 1, 2 & 3 Maximus Hall HYUNDAI COUPE CUP Race 1 Wayne Rockett (above) Race 2 Mark Ridout CMMC SUPER SALOONS & TIN TOPS Races 1 & 2 Michael Eustace (BMW E46 M3) INTERMARQUE SILHOUETTES Races 1 & 2 Lewis Smith (Mercedes SLK, below left) CTCRC ALLCOMERS Anton Martin (Ford Escort) 110 YEARS OF BARC CELEBRATION RACE Bryan Bransom/Kevin Clarke (BMW E46 M3) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

RACE OF REMEMBRANCE (365 laps) 1 Rob Boston Racing (Rob Boston/Tom Roche – Lotus Elise); 2 Rocket Racing (Steve McCulley/Andrew Perry – Caterham 270R) +8.574s; 3 ES Motorsport (Michael Edwards/Bailey Edwards – Lotus Elise); 4 RAF Motorsports/Turn 7 (Callum McDougall/Neil Huggins/Lloyd Huggins/Andrew Jebson – Caterham Sigmax); 5 Unlimited Performance Consulting (Benja Hedley/Neil Perry/David Rooke – Caterham 270R); 6 360MRC/Project Lifting Service Ltd (Duncan Rogers/Martin Smith/William Smith – Mini Cooper S). Class winners ES Motorsport; Track Scotland 1 (Alexander Dawson/Craig Dillon/Lowell Forsyth/Adam Kindness – BMW Mini Cooper); Clapham North MOT (George Grant/Nick Rutter – Mazda MX-5 Mk3); Royal Navy Royal Marines Motorsport (Michael Wells/Keith Attwood/Adam Dewis/Sebastian Unwin – BMW 116i); Autobliss (Andrew Dyer/Stuart Bliss/Richard Bliss – Toyota Aygo); FDL Packaging/CSC Racing (Patrick Scharfegger/Nicholas Cunniffe/James Cunniffe/David Scotting – Citroen C1). Fastest lap…

SCALEXTRIC SUPER SALOONS RRP £149.99 “It’s certainly one of my favourite cars.” That’s quite an endorsement from touring car legend Steve Soper, who isn’t short of choices when it comes to racing machines from his long and successful career. But the Ford Sierra RS 500, which he drove in the late 1980s in the British Touring Car Championship and across the globe, holds a special place for him and with fans. “At the time the car was fantastic, it was just in a different league than anything else out there,” recalls Soper, whose 1988 Eggenberger Motorsport Texaco-liveried model is part of a new set from Scalextric – Super Saloons. The set features not one, but two versions of the much-loved car, with Robb Gravett’s 1990 championship-winning example also included. Three…

Mike Hawthorn (BRM P25) steams into the lead from his third-place slot on the four-wide Silverstone grid, ahead of Juan Manuel Fangio (#1 Ferrari D50), Peter Collins (#2 Ferrari), Roy Salvadori (#28 Maserati 250F) and Tony Brooks (#24 BRM) at the start of the 1956 British Grand Prix. Hawthorn led for 15 laps before Stirling Moss (#7 Maserati), who’d had a tardy getaway from pole, took over. At two-thirds distance Moss was forced to pit and Fangio assumed a lead that he held to the flag, finishing a lap ahead of Collins (sharing the #4 Ferrari started by Alfonso de Portago); third-place Jean Behra (#8 Maserati) was an additional lap in arrears. For classic motorsport DVDs and downloads head to dukevideo.com For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com…