Innholdsfortegnelse for 16/11/23 i Autosport

While many look ahead to this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, we thought we’d take advantage of a relative lull in motorsport to turn the spotlight on the peak of Formula 1’s ‘gizmo’ era. The cars – or, at least, the front ones – of the 1993 season bristled with innovative technology and this week’s special covers some of the main stories. Williams led the way with the FW15C (page 18), McLaren and Ayrton Senna provided the main opposition with a car better than many remember (p24), Benetton showed hints of its latent potential with Michael Schumacher (p30) and Ferrari… well, Ferrari struggled so much that it made changes that eventually led to one of the most dominant periods in the championship’s history. As well as hearing from some of…

FORMULA 1 General Motors has formally registered with the FIA to join Formula 1 as an engine manufacturer from 2028. Development and testing of “prototype technology” has already begun. An F1 presence could come as soon as 2025 for GM, which has partnered Andretti’s bid to form an 11th team via its Cadillac marque. While that prospective entry has gained FIA approval, FOM must give it the greenlight also. But there is great resistance from incumbent competitors who don’t want their commercial income to suffer. The argument is that any newcomers must add “value”. GM signing on as a power unit manufacturer goes some way to satisfying that. GM president Mark Reuss said: “We’re thrilled that our new Andretti Cadillac F1 entry will be powered by a GM power unit.…

WEC/IMSA Charlie Eastwood has become a Corvette Racing driver after five seasons on Aston Martin’s books. The 28-year-old has joined the General Motors brand’s GT squad for 2024 along with Daniel Juncadella, Nicolas Varrone and Earl Bamber. Eastwood (below) is moving over to GM along with the TF Sport squad, with which he will represent Chevrolet in the World Endurance Championship’s new LMGT3 class aboard a Corvette Z06 GT3.R. He and Juncadella will spearhead its assault as the professionals in the two Pro-Am line-ups. “There’s something special about Corvette Racing; when you understand the legacy it has and that you are under the umbrella of GM with all its programmes, you realise that it is a special place to be,” said Eastwood, who has raced for TF since 2018. “Like…

DTM Team 75 Bernhard has left the DTM after two seasons to focus on one-make Porsche championships. Team owner and two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Timo Bernhard explained that a mixture of personal commitments and budget constraints mean it will not be possible for his squad to continue fielding the Porsche 911 GT3-R in the German category next year. “Finding the right balance between managing the team and my duties as a Porsche brand ambassador has been a great challenge – both tasks require my full concentration,” said Bernhard (below, with 2023 DTM driver Laurin Heinrich). “In addition, the budget required to meet my high standards for the DTM project is currently not available. That is why we have decided to take this step, which is difficult for us.”…

MACAU F4 Red Bull Junior Arvid Lindblad took victory in the Formula 4 event that headlined the first weekend of the Macau Grand Prix’s celebrations for its 70th running. The Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award finalist bounced back from blotting his copybook in free practice, when he crashed at Lisboa on an out-lap following a red flag. He put that behind him to snatch pole position for this non-points F4 South East Asia invitational round from Prema team-mate and fellow Brit Freddie Slater, and R-ace GP’s Hadrien David. Lindblad led home Slater in a wet qualifying race, which started behind the safety car and featured barely any green-flag racing. The last caution, which took the race to the chequered flag, was caused when 2021 Formula Regional European runner-up David crashed…

Two great Formula 1 cars, both including the work of Adrian Newey. One has an average edge in qualifying of 0.207 seconds and has so far managed 19 victories from 20 grands prix (95%), while the other enjoyed a massive advantage of 0.996s and yet ‘only’ won 10 of its 16 races (63%). The differing records of the 2023 Red Bull RB19 and the 1993 Williams FW15C, in many ways the most sophisticated F1 car of all time, reveal a lot about how things have changed in 30 years. While witnessing Red Bull’s domination despite only starting 1-2 once, it’s hard to imagine how Williams didn’t put up similar numbers with its 12 front-row lockouts. Reliability is an obvious factor. F1 cars have become incredibly reliable over the past couple…

Before landing the Williams race seat for 1993, Damon Hill conducted a lot of the testing of active ride and other trick systems for the team with the FW14 and 14B. However, even for a man used to the odd quirky issue, an early run in FW15C at Barcelona was something of a rude awakening. “What you used to do was press the downshift button while you were on the straight,” he recalls. “And then the moment you hit the brakes, the engine would start changing down, as the revs dropped. “Only this time some Renault guy forgot to put the bar in to stop it changing down before the revs had dropped. Down the straight I pressed the button, and it started changing downwards immediately. And then the revs…

At the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious, Riccardo Patrese really should have stayed at Williams in 1993. In the knowledge that Alain Prost was on his way, he’d signed for Benetton. But then Nigel Mansell flounced off to Indycar (see page 42). Patrese couldn’t have predicted that and could have partnered Prost – but to his credit kept to his word and new contract. By the following April he was already facing rumours of the axe after a poor start to the season. It hardly helped Flavio Briatore’s hair-trigger patience that any comparison was being made to a young and hungry Michael Schumacher. In a season of few highlights, Patrese managed a third at Silverstone, sharing the podium with Prost and Schumacher, and a second in Hungary. But the…

Strong convictions. Alongside his many gifts as a racing driver, Nigel Mansell was a man who made some dramatic gestures at key moments of his career, based on some firm belief that nothing could shake. One example was his “retirement” on the spot at Silverstone in 1990, because of Ferrari politics, stirred up as he saw it by his then team-mate Alain Prost. That decision was soon rescinded. However, he stuck with his shock decision to quit Formula 1 as the new 1992 world champion to take up an offer from movie star Paul Newman and Carl Haas to race in Indycar. It was an earthquake in F1; the pre-eminent motorsport series had lost its champion, and Indycar suddenly became a serious threat. Over 100 foreign media turned up at…

Thirty years have passed, but the 1993 World Rally Championship season is still remembered as a year of firsts. It witnessed the rise of the WRC’s most popular figure amid the crowning of a bona fide record-breaking legend. It was Toyota’s Juha Kankkunen who ultimately emerged with the spoils to become the first four-time world champion and record rally winner to boot, after seeing off the factory Ford challenge from Francois Delecour and Miki Biasion, driving the potent new Escort RS Cosworth. But it was another first that captured the imagination of British rally fans as Colin McRae burst onto the world stage. The two-time British Rally champion had already been signed up by the Prodrive Subaru team, but this was his big moment after earning a promotion to the…

WORLD RALLYCROSS HONG KONG (HKG) 11-12 NOVEMBER ROUNDS 5/5 Johan Kristoffersson secured a record-breaking sixth World Rallycross title as he and Kevin Hansen won in Hong Kong. Kristoffersson was the red-hot title favourite heading into the season closer and wasted no time in sealing his fourth crown in succession on day one. The Volkswagen Dealerteam Bauhaus driver finished second to rival Hansen in his semi-final, but this result was enough to end the competition prematurely. The Saturday final was taken by Hansen, who had dominated proceedings as the drivers once again used the RX2e ZEROID X1s, with Niclas Gronholm second. A reliability problem left Kristoffersson stranded on track during the final lap when running second. Hansen began Sunday where he had left off on Saturday, taking superpole from Kristoffersson on…

PORSCHE British GT racer James Wallis has been selected as the new Porsche Carrera Cup GB Junior for the 2024-25 seasons after impressing in a shootout at Silverstone earlier this month. The 18-year-old drove a Track Focused Mercedes-AMG GT3 for the majority of this year, taking a best result of sixth, and he defeated stiff competition from fellow British GT driver Josh Rowledge, European GT4 racer Tom Edgar and Porsche Sprint Challenge GB champion Joe Warhurst to be named as the new Junior at Porsche’s Night of Motorsport event on Saturday evening. Each of the finalists took part in an extensive range of driving, fitness and media assessments and had in turn progressed from a shortlist of 12 that were interviewed by members of the Carrera Cup organising team in…

BRITISH GT The Enduro Motorsport team has closed its doors, although founders Marcus Clutton and Morgan Tillbrook still intend to race together next year. The team began life in the Fun Cup Championship in 2019 before expanding into endurance racing, where it achieved wins in the British Endurance Championship, GT Cup and, more recently, British GT. Much of Clutton and Tillbrook’s focus was on the latter category as the duo claimed a total of three wins, two of which came in 2022 as they finished third overall in the drivers’ standings. The team expanded to running an entry in GT4 this season as well as GT3, but the decision has been taken to focus efforts on funding an arrive-and-drive package rather than running a standalone team. “Morgan didn’t want that…

CLUB TIME ATTACK Organisers of the Racing Hondas championship have launched a new initiative that gives drivers free entry to the category thanks to funding from sponsor Tegiwa. The Club Time Attack series was a new addition to the national motorsport ranks for this year and is open to a variety of Honda machinery split into classes based on power-to-weight ratio. Organisers have been looking at ways to boost numbers and believe this new scheme – that enables up to a full grid of 34 drivers to avoid paying entry fees – is a ground-breaking initiative. Competitors interested in taking part next year need to apply by the end of this month by completing a form available on the category’s website. Tegiwa will then assess all the applications and drivers…

ANGLESEY BRSCC RACE OF REMEMBRANCE 10-12 NOVEMBER From lights out to the chequered flag 24 hours later, the Caterham 270Rs of Williams Motorsport’s Rrutuj Patki, Calum Lockie, Toby Ballard and Henry Williams, and DBR Racing’s Rob Kennerley, Darren Burke and Ben Timmons were never out of the podium places as the Race of Remembrance celebrated its 10th edition. Jason McInulty’s ES Motorsport Lotus Elise had led off the start of the Anglesey contest, but Burke was in charge as they completed the opening lap, and quickly built a substantial lead. McInulty continued to duel for second with Ballard, while fourth-placed Brake Dancer Racing’s Allan Curtis was doing his best to hold on, too. Burke continued to pull clear at the front and, after the first hour, had gone almost a…

DAN HARPER 1 The revelation of the season in his maiden British GT campaign, and at times made the likes of Mercedes factory drivers Jules Gounon and Raffaele Marciello look ordinary. Brilliant race-winning overtakes at Silverstone and Brands Hatch were eclipsed by a comeback drive at the Donington Park decider that was worthy of a champion. JONNY ADAM 2 Brought best out of teammate James Cottingham as experience blended with pace put them on cusp of title, having finished outside the points just once. ELMS commitments meant he missed Donington Park finale, but absence likely would not have altered final standings given outright pace of Century BMW. SANDY MITCHELL 3 Went under the radar as one of the best Pros in the championship, as overall results were sometimes lacking. Cruised…

BOOK REVIEW BENETTON: REBELS OF FORMULA 1 Damien Smith RRP: £60 Formula 1 is a sport that has historically been dominated by both automotive manufacturers and independent teams with a strong motorsport background. Obviously, an exception to this is Red Bull, with the energy drinks company shaking things up and currently enjoying a second dominant spell, with Max Verstappen. But looking further back, we come to Benetton. Like Red Bull, the clothing brand entered F1 initially as a sponsor before deciding to up the ante by purchasing a team. The comparisons to the current pacesetters don’t end there, with Benetton very much wanting to do things their own way even if certain decisions caused eyebrows to be raised both within and outside of the outfit. This maverick attitude also extended…

It’s been a mixed year for electric racing series. The year began with the FIA’s ETCR – eTouring Car World Cup being abandoned when its promoter Discovery Sports Events stepped down, citing difficulties in finalising a new sporting and regulatory framework that meets the needs of its manufacturer entrants. The FIA World RallyCross Championship concluded last weekend in Hong Kong with its one-make R2Xe support series cars pressed into service once more as the RX1e cars have been parked since a fire at Lydden Hill at July interrupted the campaign. And plans to begin the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship’s new electric era this year were repeatedly delayed by supply chain issues before being postponed. But encountering hurdles is no reason for electric pioneers to give up. Formula E celebrates its…

Following Maserati’s launch of a trackday special that shares an engine with its GT2 racing cousin earlier this year, Mercedes-AMG has followed suit with a limited-edition machine that unlike its racing version is equipped with push-to-pass. Called the Mercedes-AMG GT2 PRO, the non-homologated trackday car has the same basic output of 707bhp as its GT2 counterpart that was launched last year. But the upgraded machine’s four-litre V8 engine can reach 750bhp when the boost button is pressed. The GT2 PRO broke cover earlier this month and can be modified for racing in the SRO-run European Series for pro-am pairs, with parts carried over including a sequential six-speed racing gearbox, racing ABS, traction control, safety features and adjustable four-way shocks. Acknowledging that “demand for pure trackday cars has increased significantly”, head…

AVL’S H2 ENGINE FIGURES Austrian engineering company AVL’s motorsport department plans to begin track testing the prototype of its hydrogen-powered racing engine after achieving encouraging power figures on the testbed. The first engine built under its own name, AVL RACETECH’s two-litre turbo produced 410 horsepower, which it said correlated with figures projected in simulations. RENISHAW’S BREAKTHROUGH Manufacturing technologies company Renishaw has revealed that its new patented scanning algorithm can reduce additive manufacturing build times by up to 50%. It says TEMPUS™ technology will remove up to nine seconds of build time from every layer without reductions in part quality, as its lasers can fire while the powder recoater is moving. It anticipates that the time and cost savings achieved will make AM viable for mass production applications. ANSIBLE’S NEXT STEPS…

Becoming the first national championship to fully electrify is no small feat for the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship. The FIA’s ETCR championship that fell over after just two seasons had manufacturer support, whereas in this case there isn’t any input from manufacturers, so I’d say it is a bold leap to take. But as a fan of EVs, I was naturally curious about it, and when I was offered the opportunity to try out the STCC’s test mule at Mantorp Park I jumped at the chance. The prototype PWR002 is a converted TCR racer, but features all of the same equipment that next year’s fleet of 12 410kW rear-wheel-drive cars will have. These will incorporate the original model’s chassis and be fitted with electric motors and other spec components by…

Continuation cars are all the rage at the moment. Recreations of everything from pre-war Bentleys to outlandish BRM Formula 1 machines, and plenty more besides, can be found in the historic motorsport scene. But, rather than following this well-trodden path, Simon Lane wanted to do something different when he was appointed executive director of the newly formed Lotus Advanced Performance special projects division at the start of last year. Mindful of the much-loved marque’s looming 75th anniversary, he aspired to create something truly special – a car that combines Lotus’s illustrious history with modern-day technology. Fortunately for Lane, a chance discovery by Clive Chapman – son of company founders Colin and Hazel – in 2015 provided the key to making such an idea possible. Chapman Jr had been searching through…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 has already gambled over £355million to launch the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix. This weekend’s race along the Strip is the culmination of the popularity and riches brought by Netflix hit Drive to Survive as championship owner Liberty Media works to grow its blip on the American radar. For such an occasion, the typical business model has been parked. Instead of promoters spending vast sums for the privilege of hosting the series, F1 has funded this race itself and will do so until at least 2032. Some $195m was spent on a 39-acre site to construct a pit building and paddock. Given the unprecedented expense, little wonder that everyone on the payroll is at pains to stress just how brilliant this event will be. To complement…

INDYCAR Formula 2 race winner Enzo Fittipaldi had his maiden IndyCar test for Dale Coyne Racing at Sebring last week, joining brother Pietro as he familiarised himself with his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team. The Brazilian grandsons of two-time Formula 1 champion, double Indianapolis 500 winner and 1989 Indycar champion Emerson Fittipaldi shared the track on the 1.7-mile short course at Sebring International Raceway on Wednesday. Enzo, 22, teamed up with DCR as Pietro, 27, had his first outing in an IndyCar since the 2021 Indy 500 after signing a deal with RLLR last month. Enzo Fittipaldi currently sits seventh in the standings with one round to go of his second full season in F2, having broken his duck at Spa with Rodin Carlin. “It was a success and I…

IMSA Briton Alex Quinn has lost his drive with the United Autosports LMP2 squad in next year’s IMSA SportsCar Championship. The vagaries of FIA driver categorisation have put a hold on a sportscar career that began in the North American series this year. The 22-year-old was signed to continue alongside Ben Keating, with whom he raced at the PR1/Mathiasen LMP2 team (below, right). Quinn, as a Silver-rated driver, would have raced in the five rounds that make up the IMSA Endurance Cup alongside full-season drivers Keating and Ben Hanley. A late upgrade to Gold ranking means he’s no longer eligible for the spot. United has now signed Chilean Nico Pino, a race winner in this year’s European Le Mans Series, to fill the seat in its #2 ORECA-Gibson 07. Daytona…

WRC As much as 80% of the current Rally1 car will remain unchanged when the World Rally Championship introduces new technical regulations for 2027, according to the FIA. The governing body has been developing the next set of WRC regulations over the past two years since the launch of the Rally1 hybrid. Rally1 regulations have spawned all-new cars, built around a tougher spaceframe chassis, and produce 500bhp in short bursts from a 1.6-litre turbocharged engine, married to a control 100kW hybrid kit. The cars are powered by 100% sustainable fuel, but are regarded as expensive. FIA road sport director Andrew Wheatley said: “We have an outline agreement as to what the future will look like, but as is always the case the devil is in the detail – 80% of…

UK START TIMES Friday 17 November FP1 0430 FP2 0800 Saturday 18 November FP3 0430 QUALIFYING 0800 Sunday 19 November RACE 0600 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE TV Highlights CHANNEL 4 1230 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers Constructors LAS VEGAS STATS Previous winners Laps led (old track) Alan Jones 75 Alain Prost 38 Michele Alboreto 24 Rene Arnoux 13…

Age should be no bar to talent Brilliant to see Jake Dennis given an FP1 opportunity by Red Bull at the ripe old age of 28! Why should age exclude ability as so often seems the case these days? I know from personal experience. A few years ago my own son was told he was too old to make the grade at 22 and yet he only started at 20 and won prolifically in everything he sat in right from the beginning. Now it seems if you haven’t made it to F2 before you are out of your teens you are past it! People forget that Ayrton Senna was 21 when he came to the UK to drive a Formula Ford. Damon Hill didn’t get in one until he was…

McLaren had lost its supply of Honda V12 engines in the summer. A replacement wasn’t found until November, and then only a supply of customer-spec Ford Cosworth V8s. It didn’t start on the development of the active-ride system essential to keep pace with Williams until the autumn. And to cap it all, the team’s talisman driver, Ayrton Senna, was telling the world that it was far from certain that he would return the following year. The odds looked stacked against McLaren at the end of 1992. McLaren’s 1993 Ford-powered contender, the MP4/8, wouldn’t run until a month before the start of the season at Kyalami in South Africa. Two weeks into its belated and truncated testing schedule, Senna climbed aboard for the first time on 3 March at Silverstone. The…

Fortunes wax and wane in Formula 1, and it has been forever thus. In the early 1990s, the teams that the late Enzo Ferrari had so uncharitably labelled as “garagistes” were ruling the roost, while the squad bearing his own name had suffered a short and sharp decline at the turn of the decade. After contending for titles in 1990 with a John Barnard-designed car and Alain Prost behind the wheel, both of those constituent elements had departed the team over 1991. Barnard left for Benetton, while Prost was released following his increasingly antagonistic relationship with Ferrari’s management, unhappy with the 643 chassis introduced during the season. Ferrari’s 1992 offering, the double-floor F92A penned by Jean-Claude Migeot, was a disaster. The Frenchman had been signed after his work developing the…

It might be the most important event in Europe that Autosport has failed to cover in its 70-plus years as the bible of motorsport. But no one could have predicted that after a mixed bag of GT cars took to the track at Paul Ricard in August 1993. Not only did the quickly assembled field lack quantity, but it was hardly overflowing with quality. Yet it was the start of something big: its legacy stretches all the way to the present day. The event ended up acting as a pilot race for what the motorsport world generally refers to as the BPR series. GT racing was reborn with the BPR Organisation’s run of non-championship races in 1994 that morphed into the Global Endurance GT Series in 1995. International sportscar racing…

For single-seater and GT racing aficionados, a painful four-year wait ends this week with the return of the FIA Formula 3 and GT World Cups to their rightful place at the Macau Grand Prix. While the event continued to run with local F4 and GT races even during the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be fair to describe it as a mere shadow of its former self. Now, with border closures and quarantine protocols but a distant memory, the entry lists are stacked with international talent ready to put everything on the line in search of success in the ‘Las Vegas of the East’. In F3, there’s an impressive crop of young talent, most of whom have never experienced the streets of Macau owing to the pandemic,…

MOTOGP SEPANG (MYS) 12 NOVEMBER ROUND 18/20 Ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix, the word ‘joker’ was being bandied about. In the ridiculous world of tyre pressure regulations, Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin came into the round having been hit with a warning in Japan for running his front tyre too low under the minimum pressure recommended by Michelin. His title rival and the current championship leader, Francesco Bagnaia, had yet to be copped for this. Thus, he held an advantage in his hands that could have proved crucial in his quest for a second world title. That advantage looked even more important come the grand prix, as he had the entire measure over Martin. Bagnaia grabbed his first pole since Barcelona in September, doing so with a stunning lap record…

LEGENDS The Legends Cars Championship will join MotorSport Vision Racing’s roster for 2024, ending its 20-plus year association with the British Automobile Racing Club. Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the category, which has continued to grow in recent years after appearing on the British Touring Car support bill this term. That will continue again in 2024, with visits to Donington Park, Brands Hatch and Knockhill, but now under the banner of MSVR. The club runs the popular American SpeedFest event at Brands Hatch, which has become a staple on the Legends calendar. Phil Cooper, Legends owner, said: “Next year is an incredibly important one for our much-loved Legends Cars Championship, our 30th anniversary season in the UK, so what better time to embark on this incredibly exciting…

HISTORICS Driving American-built Talons as raced by Chris Amon, for whom the Manfeild circuit is named, Grant Martin and David Banks each won a leg of the opening round of the New Zealand Formula 5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series last weekend. Poleman Martin aced Saturday’s sprint race by 0.60 seconds from Kevin Ingram (Lola T332), with Banks (ex-Jon Woodner MR1) third. Banks Sr and Martin finished 1-2 in Sunday’s reversed-grid handicap, disjointed when leader Toby Annabell (McLaren M10B) spun and Codie Banks (T332) tagged Ingram in the melee. Brake issues sent Martin’s Talon MR1A into the barriers in the finale, won by Ingram from Banks Sr and Jr. Frank Karl (ex-Mike Walker M10B) dominated the early class.…

HISTORICS Lando Norris, Alexander Rossi and Tony Kanaan were among the star drivers on track as 60 years of the McLaren marque was celebrated last weekend at the Velocity Invitational historic motorsport festival at Sonoma Raceway. Run for the past two years at the Laguna Seca circuit, the luxury lifestyle event returned to the former Sears Point, where the inaugural edition was staged in 2019. The event included daily demos of cars spanning a century, from Ragtime Racers to IMSA and Le Mans prototypes. Among the fleet of iconic cars tracing McLaren’s colourful heritage were Formula 1 world championship winners from 1984 (Niki Lauda’s MP4/2A-1), 1991 (Ayrton Senna’s MP4/6-10) and 2008 (Lewis Hamilton’s MP4/23A-05). Classic M7C, M23 and M26 chassis represented the Cosworth DFV-engined era. Can-Am cars slugged it out…

RACE OF REMEMBRANCE (377 laps) 1 Williams Motorsport (Toby Ballard/Calum Lockie/Rrutuj Patki/Henry Williams – Caterham 270R); 2 DBR Racing (Rob Kennerley/Darren Burke/Ben Timmons – Caterham 270R) +49.962s; 3 Brake Dancer Racing (Daryl Cresswell/Tim Steel/Allan Curtis/Wes Payne/Paul Hearnden/Harry Eyre – Caterhams); 4 Paul Sheard Motorsport (Oliver Cottam/Adam Zieba/Ben Taylor – Mazda MX-5 Mk3); 5 TSW (Sebastian Fisher/Oliver Graham/Michael Green – Mazda MX-5 Mk1); 6 JRW Motorsport (Connor Blackburn/Sean Reynolds/Zachary Lucas – Ford Fiesta ST180). Class winners Brake Dancer Racing; TSW; Tequila Racing (Chris Knight/Anis Suterwalla/Alex Martin/Chris Fellows – Mazda MX-5 Mk1); JTM Engineering (Samuel Carrington-Yates/Peter Ormerod/Alan Corfield/Harry Ormerod – BMW 116i); RABSport Racing (Gary Mitchell/James Hitchen/Michael Jenkins – Citroen C1); Autobliss (Stuart Bliss/Andrew Dyer/Dominic Fletcher – Toyota Aygo). Fastest lap Williams Motorsport 1m38.122s (77.04mph). Pole Williams Motorsport. Starters 45. CLUBSPORT TROPHY…

At the fourth time of asking, the combination of Academy Motorsport and Matt Cowley finally prevailed to take the British GT4 drivers’ title in 2023, alongside championship newcomer Erik Evans. But while Cowley and Academy Motorsport have been title contenders before, finishing second in 2021, their outright success this term was unexpected given a lack of performance and results at points during the season. It took until the penultimate round at Brands Hatch before Cowley and Evans even stood on the top step, and an unlikely victory in the season finale at Donington Park – Cowley having remarkably climbed from 10th to first – sealed the title after overturning a 16.5-point deficit. “Even though the car wasn’t necessarily competitive to be at the front in the middle of the year,…

INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORT Las Vegas Grand Prix F1 World Championship Round 21/22 Las Vegas, USA 18 November TV Live Sky Sports F1, Sun 0555 TV Highlights Sky Sports F1, Sun 1245, Channel 4, 1230 Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix Round 1/1 Guia Circuit, Macau 18-19 November Livestream Motorsport.tv, Sun 0725 FIA GT World Cup Round 1/1 Guia Circuit, Macau 18-19 November Livestream Motorsport.tv Sun 0400 Rally Japan World Rally Championship Round 13/13 Chubu region, Japan 16-19 November TV Live TNT Sports 1, Thurs 1000, 2200, TNT Sports 2, Fri 0430, TNT Sports 1, 1030, TNT Sports 3, 2300, Sat 0000, 0200, TNT Sports 1, 0345, 0500, 0600, 1030, TNT Sports 4, 2200, 2300, TNT Sports 1, Sun 0200, 0500 BT Sport 1, Sat 0000, BT Sport 4, Sat 0000, BT Sport…

Plans for hydrogen-powered prototypes to race at the Le Mans 24 Hours and in the World Endurance Championship are set to be delayed by a further year. Pierre Fillon, president of Le Mans organiser and WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, has stated that he believes the new target of 2026 outlined at June’s edition of the French enduro now looks increasingly impractical. “It is not realistic [for 2026],” he said. “We have to spend some time on the safety, and it is longer than we expected. I think 2027 is more realistic.” Hydrogen fuel cell prototypes were originally slated to be allowed at Le Mans from 2024 with a one-make chassis co-developed by Red Bull Advanced Technologies and ORECA, though this was subsequently pushed back to 2025. The…

British engine builder Gibson Technology will remain the sole supplier in LMP2 sportscar racing when the next generation of chassis comes on stream in 2026. The FIA announced last month that the Repton firm had won its tender to provide the engines for a five-year period from the start of the new rules cycle. The powerplant will be a 4.2-litre normally aspirated V8, the same configuration as the spec GK428 unit it has supplied for the current LMP2 formula that began in 2017. Gibson’s engine will power chassis from the existing four suppliers in LMP2 – ORECA, Dallara, Ligier and Multimatic – whose licences were extended in January 2020. LMP2 will disappear from the World Endurance Championship next year, but will continue in the IMSA Sportscar Championship as well as…

While its British counterpart has enjoyed fairly stable regulations since moving away from Super 2000 towards Next Generation Touring Cars (NGTC) in 2011, the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship’s move to full electric cars is only its latest big shift in the same timeframe. It started out as the Swedish Touring Car Championship in 1996, capitalising on the Super Touring boom by giving former BTCC racers a second home. Jan ‘Flash’ Nilsson was its first champion, while Mattias Ekstrom was launched into the DTM shortly after his 1999 title triumph. The STCC belatedly switched to S2000 for 2003, before merging with the Danish series and rebranding as the Scandinavian championship for 2011. In a sign of its growing stature, that season featured international drivers including Colin Turkington, James Thompson, Gabriele Tarquini…

SUSPENSION The suspension is double wishbones all round developed by Ycom, while the road car has a similar layout at the front and a multi-link arrangement at the rear. Suspension design is free in GT2 because it is a BoP formula. The front and rear track have been slightly increased over the MC20. Maserati has not revealed by how much, but the overall width of the GT2 is up by 64mm on the road car. CHASSIS The mid-engined MC20 launched in 2020 is based around a carbon-composite monocoque, which makes the Maserati GT2 unique among the OEM cars developed for a category announced in July 2018 and that finally got going with the launch of the the GT2 European Series in 2021. Among its competitors, only the KTM X-Bow GT2…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1 stewards have slammed the FIA for an “inability” to properly enforce track limits and are urging for a fix to be implemented in time for the 2024 season to end the current “completely unsatisfactory” situation. The governing body damningly calling itself out follows Haas protesting the result of the recent United States Grand Prix. The team found multiple examples of rival cars straying with all four wheels over the painted white lines denoting the edge of the track, but these incidents escaped the attention of race control. The FIA threw out this protest since the case was built around onboard footage that was available during the race so did not satisfy the criteria for “significant” new evidence. However, at least one CCTV camera at Austin was…

WEC Nicklas Nielsen will remain with Ferrari’s World Endurance Championship Hypercar squad next year as part of what is set to be an unchanged line-up. The Dane, who partnered Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina in the #50 499P Le Mans Hypercar, has extended a stay at the Italian manufacturer that began in 2020. Ferrari sportscar racing boss Antonello Coletta said that Ferrari is “proud to renew his contract”. Of the rest of the line-up in the AF Corse-run factory squad, which helped Ferrari secure second in the points table, he explained that he is expecting to return to the WEC with the same six drivers who raced the 499P in its maiden season this year. “At the moment my idea and the idea of the management is to confirm our…

WEC The Balance of Performance in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class should not be “a pillow of laziness”. The term was invoked by FIA Endurance Commission president Richard Mille when the governing body and co-organiser of the WEC, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, outlined their vision for the BoP. The two organisations explained that they want a simpler BoP and one that puts more onus on the manufacturers to perform. “If a competitor is expecting the BoP, because they made a bad choice or they don’t perform, will bring everyone back, it is not possible,” said Mille. “The BoP cannot solve all the problems; that is just a dream.” ACO president Pierre Fillon added that the intent is that the BoP “should not be an excuse when you don’t…

A mid all the talk and speculation swirling around Formula 1’s return to Las Vegas this weekend, there’s still a not-so-humble sporting event at the centre of all the much-vaunted glitz and glamour. Though that famous pizzazz might just be dimmed if the suggested traffic gridlock and mass walkouts by 35,000 protesting waiting staff turn out to be accurate… So, then, who is the favourite to become the first F1 winner in Sin City since Michele Alboreto in 1982’s Caesars Palace car park grand prix? Well, rather obviously given his current record-setting streak of 17 wins from a possible 20 so far, triple world champion Max Verstappen arrives with his Red Bull team as the driver to beat. That combination is clearly no outside bet – Verstappen unlikely to lose…

The Williams FW15C of 1993 was one of the most dominant Formula 1 cars of all time, at least in terms of pure one-lap pace. Between them, Alain Prost and Damon Hill secured pole position for 15 of the 16 races, losing out only at the finale in Australia. And yet somehow ‘only’ 10 were converted into race wins. The man who made life so difficult on Sundays and who also took that stray pole in Adelaide was Ayrton Senna. The Brazilian conjured up five race victories for McLaren on days when either something went awry for Williams or his sheer brilliance allowed him to outperform a rival car that should have been quicker. In addition Michael Schumacher, building up the momentum with Benetton that would see him win the…

Nearly – but not quite. That sums up Benetton in the early 1990s. The close-knit team based in a patchwork of industrial units in Witney was established as Ford’s factory-powered squad and through Flavio Briatore’s marketing hustle from 1989 boasted a decent budget, with limited but consistent support from the Italian ‘woolly jumper company’ that owned it. Yet it always seemed to be a pretender tapping on the glass ceiling of success, with only the odd crack to show for its efforts. Despite the potential sum of its considerable parts, would Benetton ever crash through and beat the established McLaren/Williams hegemony? The game-changer was supposed to be John Barnard. But the revered designer behind McLaren’s mid-1980s glory and the near-miss Ferrari revival of 1989/90 had blown through Benetton in a…

1993 F1 RACES WINS POLES FASTEST LAPS LAPS LED CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS SUPERTIMES Supertimes are based on the fastest single lap by each car at each race weekend, expressed as a percentage of the fastest single lap overall (100.000%) and averaged over the season. For comparison, after 20 grands prix of the 2023 season, Red Bull is on 100.117, with Ferrari second on 100.388. The slowest team, Alfa Romeo, is currently 1.639% behind Red Bull, less than the gap (1.706%) between Williams and McLaren at the front in 1993……

The Super Touring era of the 1990s is revered in many quarters as the peak of the British Touring Car Championship’s history, thanks in large part to its international field. But before 1993, it was almost as parochial as it had been in its old Group A days – and that suited series boss Alan Gow just fine. “We were a British championship and we didn’t have any international ambitions,” reflects Gow today. “International recognition gives you a nice warm feeling, but the greater importance for us was recognition in Britain.” Everyone remembers the dramatic 1992 title decider at Silverstone, and there were six manufacturer works teams represented. But there was only one foreign driver in the 23-strong field (Kris Nissen, standing in for the injured Alain Menu at BMW),…

TCR WORLD TOUR BATHURST (AUS) 11-12 NOVEMBER ROUND 8/9 The international drivers excelled on the Mount Panorama circuit in the second weekend of a double-header as the TCR World Tour came together with TCR Australia for its two final rounds of 2023 at Sydney Motorsport Park and Bathurst. Cyan Racing’s Santiago Urrutia and Yann Ehrlacher both claimed wins along with Hyundai’s Norbert Michelisz. Supercars regular Tony D’Alberto set the pace in qualifying in his Honda, but the Australian was outdone at the start by Urrutia, whose Lynk & Co bolted into the lead at Hell Corner and never looked back, cruising to his third victory of the season. Urrutia was followed home by Nestor Girolami, who’d made a strong start from fourth, darting around the outside into second ahead of…

MOTORSPORT UK Father-and-son Mazda MX-5 drivers Jason and Callum Greatrex have both been banned from racing following a National Court disciplinary hearing that examined a series of incidents at an ill-tempered meeting at Donington Park in September. Greatrex Sr was a regular frontrunner in this year’s British Racing & Sports Car Club MX-5 Championship for Mk1 models of the sportscar and was joined in Leicestershire by his son. But the pair both tangled with points leader Steve Foden in the opening Donington race when Foden returned to the track after going off following a mechanical issue. According to his report of the hearing, chair of the panel Tony Scott Andrews said that the clerk examining these clashes had already received written and verbal information that the Greatrexes were “out to…

MINI 7 RACING CLUB The Mini 7 Racing Club is again due to feature at the Thruxton round of the British Touring Car Championship next year, while it will also form part of the popular Castle Combe Autumn Classic event. The classic Minis have been a hit on two previous BTCC-supporting visits to Hampshire, providing some entertaining racing, and are set to be part of the 8-9 June event again next season. Alongside the Combe Autumn Classic, the club’s calendar also includes trips to Cadwell Park, Anglesey and the Brands Hatch Mini Festival, which returns to being a two-day meeting. Organisers have attempted to avoid clashes with major historic events, such as the Goodwood fixtures. “We’re delighted to be back with touring cars again,” said the club’s commercial manager Colin…

TRACK ACTION A new Scirocco Storm Challenge will form part of the rebranded Track Action series next year and has been created to give drivers from Junior Saloons a club-level car to progress to. JSCC organiser Dave Beecroft and his team took over the management of Track Attack at the end of last year and have now decided to rebrand it for 2024. The Sciroccos will initially form part of this category and one of the cars was on display at the JSCC finale at Brands Hatch earlier this month. “Every year I lose 10 kids out of my paddock [graduating to other championships] and this is a series for youngsters to go into that’s at club level,” Beecroft explained. “The ones with a smaller budget can go into the…

HILLCLIMB Tim Thomson, a leading British Hillclimb Championship protagonist through the 1980s and 1990s, is set to return to the category next season. The 60-year-old competed in a Hart-powered Pilbeam MP43, MP50 and MP53H turbocar from 1983-90. Winner of back-to-back national rounds at Wiscombe and Prescott in 1985 (in the 2.8-litre MP50), Thompson scored 20 podiums, peaking with third in the 1989 standings in the MP53H. He returned in 1995, with the ex-Roger Moran Pilbeam-Vauxhall MP62, but stopped “after a season and a bit. By then the old man [Jim] had died and, because for us it had always been family fun, it wasn’t the same. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore.” After retiring, he trained as a Motorsport UK clerk of the course and has officiated for the past 12…

“It was a big choice from him because he could have had a lot more experienced factory drivers, but in the end he went with me, gave me the opportunity and I think his trust in me just grew and grew.” Dan Harper’s name might have been one unfamiliar to some readers prior to this season, the 2019 Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion having plied his trade successfully in Europe over recent years, which led him to becoming a BMW factory driver. But put alongside Am driver Darren Leung aboard Century Motorsport’s BMW M4, Harper took British GT3 by storm and the pair took the title in their first season in the championship. The achievement was made even more impressive by Leung having only made one GT3 appearance before 2023,…

CHARLES CLARK 1 Three fastest times from opening three qualifying sessions underlined his pure speed. Led at Oulton Park 2 and hunted leader Tom Wrigley down in Donington Park 1, only to be denied wins both times by compensation penalties. Slight blot came after passing Evans for second on final lap at Oulton 1 before spinning. MATT COWLEY 2 Sacrificed track time to boost performance of team-mate Evans as he used his wealth of British GT experience to maximise results when outright pace was lacking. Came to the fore at Brands Hatch after losing spots in pitstop, and climb up the order at Donington Park finale showcased his true potential en route to title. JACK BROWN 3 Dominated first half of the season with Clark and Optimum McLaren, recovering from third…

It’s 19 years since Jamie Green last raced at Pau on his way to winning the Formula 3 Euro Series title. He only competed twice on the sinuous French streets, but a circuit he regards as “like a minefield really” left a lasting impression. Its unique challenge is a large part of the Briton’s rationale for choosing Pau as his favourite track, but there’s strong personal justification too. On the weekend of his Euro Series debut in 2003, also his first outing with a Mercedes engine after signing a junior contract with the marque, Green came away with a strong third. The following year he won, in highly unusual circumstances. “There was such a fine line between success and failure,” reflects the 41-year-old. “It was very bumpy, there were a…

The electric ACE Championship first revealed in February has been relaunched as Formula G, with plans for races in four regions from late 2024. Headed by former Mahindra Formula E team boss Dilbagh Gill and ex-Formula 1 driver Nick Heidfeld, Formula G plans to race on the support bill of existing combustion and electric series. Its inaugural season will comprise four distinct regional championships, all featuring 10 team franchises. Each of the four championships will be further divided into two paths, one catering for professional drivers and the other for junior racers. This is made possible by the car, dubbed the FG-ETwin, having the capability to be run in two power modes. Professional racers will be able to exploit the car’s full potential in what will be known as the…

An inaugural race for Dallara-built SF23 Super Formula cars converted to be run without human input will be staged in Abu Dhabi next spring. The new Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League presented its vision for the event, which will be contested by 10 university teams at the Yas Marina Circuit on 28 April 2024, at last month’s GITEX tech show in Dubai. The venture promoted by ASPIRE, the operations arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, will join the Indy Autonomous Challenge for Indy NXT cars also built by Dallara that began in 2021 on the growing AI racing scene. The so-called A2RL is intended to become an annual event. ATRC secretary general Faisal Al Bannai said the competition would be “a premier testbed for trialling proof-of-concept autonomous solutions”…

I’d never been to Sweden before, so the Mantorp Park track was also new to me. At some point in your career, you don’t get to enjoy that many new experiences, so it was really interesting to sample a different car at a completely new circuit. The track first opened in 1969 and is located 15 miles to the west of Linkoping, around three hours from Stockholm’s Arlanda airport. It’s had brief spells as an international motorsport venue, but over 40 years have passed since the last of the European Formula 2 championship’s five visits in 1982. The 1.930-mile full circuit has two alternative configurations that bisect a drag strip that forms the long back straight. I was kindly allowed on Mantorp’s full circuit rather than the short track, which…

It was almost a decade ago that Formula 1’s turbo-hybrid era began. The move away from the 2.4-litre atmospheric V8s to the current 1.6-litre V6 turbo engines augmented by electric motors was, in its infancy, not entirely auspicious; complaints over a lack of noise were united with evident gulfs between each powertrain’s performance level. While many still yearn for a return to the ear-splitting V10 era, most have come to tolerate the modern-day soundscape of guttural roars rather than banshee-like screams, while performance levels have converged over the past nine and a bit years. For 2026, the turbo-hybrid powerplants will enter their next generation. F1’s current formula will therefore have been in service for 12 full years, making them longer-lived than many of the more celebrated engine formula spans: including…