Innholdsfortegnelse for 27/06/24 i Autosport

Now things are getting interesting. Yes, Max Verstappen won again last weekend, but McLaren’s pace at a circuit many expected to be prime Red Bull territory suggests we have some fine battles to come. Lando Norris’s early fight with Verstappen in Spain – hard but just about fair – also suggests he’s ready to consistently challenge the Dutchman. A championship contest might be a little far-fetched – Verstappen is 69 points ahead and has won seven of the 10 grands prix so far in 2024 – but we’re now at a stage where we should have some interesting races at the front of the Formula 1 field. Aside from our Spanish GP coverage, which starts on page 12, this week we look back at one of the great periods in…

FORMULA 1 Both the Haas Formula 1 team and its former sponsor Uralkali have claimed victory after the Swiss arbitration court issued a ruling on the parties’ long-running dispute. The two sides had been at loggerheads since March 2022, when Haas dropped Nikita Mazepin and his sponsor Uralkali in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Uralkali, the Russian fertiliser company headed up by Mazepin’s father, claimed Haas breached its contract and was seeking a refund on the $13million fee it had already paid the squad for the 2022 season. Haas rejected Uralkali’s claims and the matter went to court. Uralkali claimed in a statement: “The tribunal found that Haas was in violation of the contract and obliged the team to pay compensation to Uralkali”. Then Haas released a statement…

SPA 24 HOURS Porsche heads to this weekend’s centenary running of the Spa 24 Hours with the numbers in its favour. The German manufacturer’s assault on a race it last won in 2020 has been boosted by three additional entries over the trio that are contesting the full GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup this year. Come Ledogar’s CLRT squad, Rutronik Racing and Pure Rxacing are the teams fielding the 992-shape Porsche 911 GT3-R in all five rounds. They are joined for Spa, which also counts as round three of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, by DTM stalwart SSR Performance and two teams from Asia. The extra cars are packed with factory drivers in a bid for what would be Porsche’s ninth win in the Belgian classic. SSR has linked up…

With the news that the FIA has updated its Appendix L of the International Sporting Code to add flexibility to its superlicence requirements for drivers under 18, the superlicence points system has been called into question once again. I agree that there needs to be a framework in place to control who can drive what and when. However, the current system is imperfect and the latest update is in a way an admission of that. That current system was introduced for 2016, to prevent a repeat of the ‘Max Verstappen scenario’ – in other words a 17-year-old with just one season of car racing under their belt going straight into Formula 1. However, that ‘solution’ did not encompass the full picture. Max had been driving some form of vehicle since…

For all this place’s foibles, the first sector of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya remains a classic. The wheelbanging duel between Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna, so many lonely testing days, that near-crash between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton – the main straight and opening corners here have hosted it all. Autosport has one particular spot to reach in baking hot conditions as FP1 commences. But we start off outside the track’s famed Turn 3. From here we can see down what is a deceptively steep hill to the opening rightleft of Turns 1 and 2. Two things stand out. The first is how, far in front of us, it’s still possible to detect how much Charles Leclerc is struggling with his Ferrari. Time and again during the early stages he’s…

Alex Albon’s slip off the road at Turn 4 rather compounded Williams’s misery at Barcelona as the team struggled for pace throughout the weekend. The Anglo-Thai washed out going through the 180-degree right-hander, and his car snapped into the gravel, which he was able to eventually gather up. Both Williams drivers had qualified on the back row, but Albon was granted a pitlane start after taking on a new battery and electronics outside of his season’s allocation. He finished 18th, the only driver to start on medium tyres, while Logan Sargeant finished last after a long afternoon fighting tyre degradation. “We wanted more this weekend,” said Albon. “The car has made a huge step forward compared to last year and we made the right choices throughout the race. But this…

While the battle for the BTCC Independents’ title between Aron Taylor-Smith and Mikey Doble took the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall team-mates to giddy heights at the head of the overall field at Oulton Park, it was also a good weekend for their main rival. Chris Smiley and Restart Racing have been up against it since firming up their plans to run two of the ex-Team Hard Cupra Leons for the Northern Irishman and rookie team-mate Scott Sumpton, but the Cheshire track showed that one-time BTCC race winner Smiley at least is on an upward trend. He took the team’s best result to date with eighth in race two, and even held fastest lap for a third of the race before Josh Cook eclipsed it. And that wasn’t a tyre fluke,…

FORMULA 3 BARCELONA (ESP) 21-23 JUNE ROUND 5/10 Arvid Lindblad dominated the Formula 3 feature race at the Spanish Grand Prix, moving himself firmly into the championship picture on a weekend where Gabriele Mini failed to score. Prema-run Red Bull Junior Lindblad started Sunday’s race behind Christian Mansell (ART) on the front row and was initially content to sit behind the Australian. But he did not wait long to make an ultimately race-winning move, using DRS into Turn 1 on lap five. While Lindblad slowly eased out his lead, Mansell was forced to focus on the threat from Luke Browning behind. Despite trailing within DRS range for the majority of the distance, the Hitech GP driver was never able to launch an attack and instead dropped back into the clutches…

F1 ACADEMY BARCELONA (ESP) 22-23 JUNE ROUND 3/7 Abbi Pulling tightened her grip on the F1 Academy standings with victory in the opening race at Barcelona and a second-place finish last Sunday, in a race won with a commanding seven-second margin by Haas-backed Chloe Chambers. Alpine Academy driver Pulling arrived in Spain on the back of three consecutive race wins, and this streak was extended to four when, after surviving a startline attack from Nerea Marti, she led the Tommy Hilfiger car to the flag trouble-free. This was aided by a lengthy safety car period that ran from lap one to seven after Ferrari’s Maya Weug clattered into RB-backed Amna Al Qubaisi at Turn 5 and put both out of the race. For this, Weug was relegated to the back…

Almost 25 years since its demise, the love for tin-top racing’s halcyon Super Touring era remains as strong as ever. Last year, Brands Hatch managed to successfully recapture the spirit of the 1990s with its Super Touring Power homage to a period when touring car racing was truly box office. Following the inaugural event’s overwhelming success, which reunited British Touring Car Championship superstars Alain Menu and Paul Radisich with their famous cars, it’s back by popular demand for a second edition this weekend. Brands Hatch owner MotorSport Vision and the Classic Touring Car Racing Club have again combined to deliver a nostalgia hit. Once again, the Indy and Grand Prix Circuit layouts will play host to a packed schedule of touring car races featuring cars from the early 1960s, via…

HISTORICS The British Automobile Racing Club is drawing on its history with the creation of a BARC Heritage brand, launched at last weekend’s Thruxton Historic showpiece. The aim, which includes a reintroduction of the club’s traditional shield logo, is to deliver events for classic and historic racing car owners alongside the BARC’s ongoing commitment to the British Touring Car Championship, 20-plus club race events per year and the three Goodwood blockbusters. The UK’s oldest racing club was rooted in the Cycle Car Club of 1912, before it became the Junior Car Club in 1919, then amalgamated with the Brooklands Automobile Racing Club in 1949. Brooklands did not reopen post-war, so the club’s HQ moved to Goodwood, subsequently changing the acronym to ‘British’. Following Goodwood’s closure in 1966, the BARC moved…

BRITISH GT British GT’s qualifying session for GT4 cars was cancelled last Saturday and the grid’s starting order based on practice times after a sizeable Eau Rouge crash for Century Motorsport BMW racer Ravi Ramyead. Ramyead had the accident halfway into the first 10-minute segment of Spa’s GT4 qualifying and, although his injuries were light, the BMW M4, shared with Charlie Robertson, was withdrawn from the race. Century boss Nathan Freke said: “Firstly, Ravi is OK. It was a big impact. He had to go to hospital for some checks, he had a stiff neck and sore shoulder but was fine. “He took a little bit too much kerb on the right-hand side at the bottom of Eau Rouge and unsettled the car. The car stood up to [the impact]…

SPA BRITISH GT 23 JUNE There is no shortage of potent-looking crews in British GT in 2024. But, as the entry list was confirmed for this campaign, one looked at least as threatening as any other. Former DTM champion Maxi Gotz was paired with amateur Kevin Tse, who actually won on his British GT debut in 2021. And they’d race with the reigning champion squad 2 Seas in a Mercedes GT3. Yet, somehow, heading into the Spa meeting last weekend, their best finish so far this year was seventh. And it wasn’t due to a lack of pace. On the contrary, they had looked quick everywhere, and even took pole for the blue-riband Silverstone 500. But in the races – all of which were rain affected and jumbled – things…

HUNGARORING GB3 22-23 JUNE The lead of the GB3 Championship was passed around between three drivers during the course of the series’ first venture to the Hungaroring, while a trio of different winners underlined the competitiveness of this year’s grid as the season reached its halfway mark. As has been the case so often on GB3’s international trips over the past two years, Hitech looked to hold the upper hand, and it was Chinese driver Gerrard Xie who set the pace by landing two pole positions in qualifying. He converted the first of those into his second series victory but had to fend off a strong challenge from team-mate and pre-event championship leader Tymek Kucharczyk, who challenged into the first corner and remained close behind for the rest of the…

CATERHAM SEVEN UK Oulton Park’s tight and twisty nature is not renowned for always producing the most exciting racing, but the Caterham Seven Championship UK competitors still provided plenty of entertainment last weekend. The limited overtaking chances the Cheshire circuit provides meant there were not the half-a-dozen lead changes per lap that Caterhams are renowned for at venues where slipstreaming has a greater effect, but there was plenty of side-by-side action nevertheless – and reigning champion Lewis Thompson and occasional Renault UK Clio Cup and Porsche Carrera Cup GB driver Paul Donkin were in the thick of the battle. Polesitter Donkin shot into the lead in the opener but Thompson was soon on his tail and edged ahead over Hill Top. But Donkin was prepared for a scrap and an…

RADICAL CUP UK A combined winning margin of almost 92 seconds demonstrated Chris Lulham’s superiority in the Radical Cup UK at Oulton Park as his relentless domination of the championship continued. There was no stopping Lulham all weekend and even starting fourth on the partially reversed-grid for the finale was no barrier as the Valour driver blasted into the lead out of Old Hall. Lulham’s victory bid was aided by the miniscule 13-car field, which had dwindled from 24 at the Donington Park opener two months ago. With several classes across the SR3 and SR1 grids, there was the somewhat pointless scenario of 10 of those 13 drivers being awarded trophies after the opener. Luke Hilton was again Lulham’s nearest rival in the first two races, not that he ever…

Reigning champion Scott Parkin took victory in his Darkside Motorsport Audi TT in Sunday’s Club Enduro encounter at Snetterton as baking hot weather made it a “gruelling” two-hour contest. The start was delayed after Class B points leader Jonathan Packer’s VW Golf ground to halt on the formation lap. Alan Henderson then led once the action got under way, while Parkin prevailed in a three-wide battle for second into Riches. Henderson was held up by two squabbling cars once he caught lapped traffic, and Parkin was also delayed and lost second to Joel Oswick’s BMW M3. Parkin tried to fight back but ended up on the grass at Oggies before eventually reclaiming the position exiting Wilson hairpin. Henderson built a 3.5-second lead before his Mazda MX-5 slowed and eventually retired,…

FORMULA 1 Alpine has formally given ex-Benetton and Renault Formula 1 team boss Flavio Briatore an advisory role, 14 years after he resigned for his part in the Singapore Grand Prix crash scandal. Following weeks of speculation that Alpine was sounding out Briatore about a role in the squad as it evaluates its F1 future, the French manufacturer confirmed at last weekend’s Spanish GP that the Italian “will predominantly focus on top-level areas of the team including scouting top talents and providing insights on the driver market, challenging the existing project by assessing the current structure and advising on some strategic matters within the sport”. While Briatore helped steer the Benetton and Renault teams to world title success with Michael Schumacher in 1994-95 and Fernando Alonso in 2005-06, his tenure…

Red Bull Ring Length 2.683 miles Number of laps 71 UK START TIMES Friday 28 June FP 1130 SPRINT QUALIFYING 1530 Saturday 29 June SPRINT 1100 QUALIFYING 1500 Sunday 30 June RACE 1400 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE TV Highlights CHANNEL 4 1830 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers Constructors RED BULL RING STATS Previous winners 2023 POLE POSITION Max Verstappen 1m04.391s POLE LAP RECORD Valtteri Bottas 1m02.939s (2020) RACE LAP RECORD Carlos Sainz 1m05.619s (2020) Red Bull Ring podiums…

“We need to leave now.” Little did Autosport know, when McLaren press attache Harry Bull’s hand came gently but firmly down upon our right shoulder, that we were on the cusp of witnessing all the good that Formula 1 can offer. Just 27 hours before Lando Norris so nearly won the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix against who else but Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, his McLaren squad was facing unexpected, serious jeopardy. The first signs were the lights going out inside the team’s giant Hub motorhome as midday approached on Saturday. Then came hurried shouts preceding the instructions for all to exit. The smoke followed, its smell hanging horribly in the air around the empty two-storey structure for the rest of the weekend in the way only an electrical fire can.…

Christian Horner reckoned that eighth place was the maximum that Sergio Perez could achieve at the Spanish Grand Prix, after starting 11th thanks to a three-place grid penalty collected last time out in Montreal. Perez qualified eighth knowing he had the penalty for driving on track in Canada with a heavily damaged car, which Red Bull said was a move to avoid a safety car. In the early stages, Perez struggled to make ground; although he got ahead of Fernando Alonso, he lost a place at the same time to a fast-starting Nico Hulkenberg. To give Perez opportunities to attack with fresh tyres, Red Bull implemented a three-stop strategy in a bid to pounce on those managing tyres during a high-degradation race. This put much of the onus on Perez…

INDYCAR LAGUNA SECA (USA) 23 JUNE ROUND 8/15 We’ve seen this movie before: Alex Palou’s previous IndyCar masterpiece is Laguna Seca 2022, when he won by more than 30 seconds from 11th on the grid. Last weekend was a bit like watching Jaws 2 in that (spoiler alert) he kills the shark, but with an even more elaborate storyline. This time Palou set pole position in his Honda-powered Chip Ganassi Racing car, but the first plot twist occurred when Andretti Global talent Kyle Kirkwood lunged deep into, appropriately enough, the Andretti Hairpin, where he drove around the outside of the reigning champion with a bold move to lead. “Played it too nice,” rued Palou. Behind Felix Rosenqvist’s Meyer Shank Racing car in third, Alexander Rossi of Arrow McLaren touched wheels…

IMSA SPORTSCAR WATKINS GLEN (USA) 23 JUNE ROUND 6/11 An enthralling Six Hours of Watkins Glen last Sunday ended with another emphatic victory for Porsche Penske Motorsports pairing Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron. No fewer than nine of the 11 GTP entries led at one stage or another, but in the final reckoning, after a red-flag stoppage of more than 40 minutes due to heavy rain, Nasr immediately muscled his way to the front. The Brazilian held off a challenge from Renger van der Zande’s Cadillac to become the first repeat winner this season. The early stages were marked by an impressive charge by Phil Hanson aboard JDC-Miller’s privateer Porsche 963. The 24-year-old Englishman started fourth after outqualifying the two factory Penske Porsches, and lost no time in slipping ahead…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN BY ALPINE HUNGARORING (HUN) 22-23 JUNE ROUND 4/10 Tuukka Taponen was the star of Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine’s Hungaroring round, taking poles and wins in the wet and the dry. It initially looked like Van Amersfoort Racing’s Brando Badoer would be the benchmark driver after topping pre-event testing and practice, but when rain came on Saturday it massively reduced the grip and visibility, and that’s where Taponen’s Finnish upbringing proved advantageous. The Ferrari junior did spin in qualifying for race one, but claimed pole in a direct fight against Badoer. His R-ace GP team-mate Zachary David topped the other qualifying group, meaning he started second. There was no battling between the pair during the race, with Taponen managing a small gap until David started to…

“Today, it’s nice to be remembered and it’s nice when I remember it, but, you know, it doesn’t change my life. It’s hard to say it was the top touring car championship in the world because it’s not fair on some of the others, but it was definitely extremely high level with all the manufacturers, the money that was spent, the drivers were top class most of them, and we had huge crowds.” Alain Menu is talking of his status as the only driver to twice win the British Touring Car Championship in its halcyon Super Touring era of 1991-2000. What’s more, he did it with two different manufacturers: Renault in 1997; Ford in 2000. It’s a typically frank assessment from the 60-year-old Swiss. He hasn’t changed a jot. He…

GOODWOOD Triple Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen will make his Goodwood Festival of Speed debut next month as part of a major Red Bull presence at the event. Verstappen is due to drive the RB16B, in which he claimed the first of his F1 titles in 2021, up the famous hill at Goodwood on the Sunday of the 11-14 July event – and this car is one of seven Red Bull F1 models scheduled to be in action. His appearance will mark the first time in the event’s history that the reigning F1 world champion will be in attendance. The Dutchman’s current team-mate Sergio Perez is down to drive an RB19 from 2023, while team boss Christian Horner is also due to get behind the wheel, in an RB8 from…

HISTORIC RALLYING Mark Higgins and Carl Williamson topped the British Historic Rally contenders on a tough Argyll Rally on Friday and Saturday over fast and technical stages on the Cowal Peninsula in south-west Scotland. Three-time British Rally champion Higgins was mighty in the Triumph TR7 V8 from David Appleby Engineering and took maximum BHRC points after outpacing the Porsche 911 of Seb Perez and Gary McElhinney. The result leaves Perez ahead on points after six of the 11 rounds, but Higgins is chasing into contention and could yet feature once dropped scores are factored in. “This was probably one of the toughest UK Tarmac events we have done,” said Higgins after 18 special stages on closed public roads. Their only scare came on stage three on Friday evening, when a…

British GT’s GT4 race at Spa, just like GT3’s, had a long-awaited breakout winner. Ian Gough and Tom Wrigley were outside contenders for last year’s GT4 title and, with a switch to a BMW M4 with reigning teams’ champion Century for 2024, much was expected. But results so far this year had been disappointing. However, at Spa, matters suddenly came good, taking them all the way to victory. Gough stayed in range to vault into first at the pitstops, thanks to the Pro-Am runners’ shorter minimum halt time, and Wrigley stayed out of reach for the remainder. Yet don’t think that they fell into this win through circumstance. The BMW had pace; indeed only the Mahki Lotus that finished last set a faster race lap. Only the Charles Dawson/Seb Morris…

PORSCHE SPRINT CHALLENGE GB Two wins for Tom Bradshaw at his local Oulton Park circuit have catapulted him into the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB title fight – especially after two collisions dented early leader Seb Hopkins’ charge. Hopkins led throughout a dull opener to win from Bradshaw and Will Jenkins, but the Team Parker racer’s event unravelled from there. He did finish second in race two, behind Bradshaw, however contact with stablemate Jenkins at the start resulted in Hopkins getting a three-place grid penalty and three-point deduction. Worse was to come in the finale. Hopkins was all over Max Coates in a tussle for second when Hopkins went for a wildly ambitious move at Hislops with no real hope of making the corner and succeeded only in tangling with Coates’s…

CATERHAM SEVEN CHAMPIONSHIP UK Race 1 (14 laps) 1 Paul Donkin (above); 2 Ben Simonds +1.037s; 3 William Smith; 4 Lewis Thompson; 5 Harry Senior; 6 Tim Dickens. Fastest lap Matt Armstrong 1m27.431s (91.65mph). Pole Donkin. Starters 20. Race 2 (13 laps) 1 Thompson; 2 Donkin +0.263s; 3 Smith; 4 Senior; 5 Dickens; 6 Nick Highton. FL Smith 1m27.699s (91.37mph). P Donkin. S 20. Race 3 (12 laps) 1 Thompson; 2 Senior +0.294s; 3 Smith; 4 Donkin; 5 Dickens; 6 Chris Fraser. FL Dickens 1m27.553s (91.52mph). P Thompson. S 19. PORSCHE SPRINT CHALLENGE GB Race 1 (15 laps) 1 Seb Hopkins (below); 2 Tom Bradshaw +5.453s; 3 William Jenkins; 4 Matt Kyle-Henney; 5 Jacob Tofts; 6 Max Coates. FL Hopkins 1m23.454s (96.02mph). P Hopkins. S 22. Race 2 (11 laps)…

SNETTERTON 750MC 22-23 JUNE The Toyota MR2 Championship produced two dramatic contests during the 750 Motor Club’s visit to Snetterton last weekend, with Paul Cook taking his first victory in the series since his last full campaign in 2021. Swapping the BMW M3 that he usually races elsewhere for a Mk2 MR2, Cook beat Shaun Traynor and Adam Lockwood’s more modern Mk3 Roadsters to win the opening contest. He initially dropped to fifth after missing a gear at the start, while a frenetic four-way battle raged in front of him. Daniel Bryant lunged up the inside of Traynor and Andrew Ruthven for the lead but lost control under braking and made contact with the latter. Cook soon passed Lockwood for second and then swept around the outside of Traynor at…

James Allen speaks to the man with arguably the hardest job in Formula 1, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur. Topics include how he secured Lewis Hamilton’s services for the 2025 season, what (or who) Ferrari needs to win a world championship, and how Vasseur uses humour to get his way. Former Ferrari F1 engineer Rob Smedley, of “Fernando is faster than you” fame, helps us read between the lines, along with Motorport.com Italy’s F1 editor Roberto Chinchero. youtube.com/AUTOSPORTdotcom…

Alex Tagliani spent three years alongside fellow French-Canadian Patrick Carpentier at the Forsythe Racing team from the start of his CART Indycar career in 2000. Although Tagliani was frequently left to lament misfortune that prevented him from taking an overdue maiden win until 2004 at Road America, after he’d left the team for Rocketsports, the 2011 Indianapolis 500 polesitter has fond memories of racing with Carpentier. The pair spent a lot of time together not only across 57 race weekends, but also away from the track. Both were based in Las Vegas and even lived on the same street, and relished fitness training at Red Rock, where arduous climbs from 3000ft above sea level to 5000ft were par for the course. Tagliani is two years Carpentier’s junior, and arrived in…

FORMULA 1 Mick Schumacher will test an Alpine Formula 1 car next week as the team continues to weigh up its options for its 2025 driver line-up. Schumacher will have an opportunity to show his potential as a candidate on 3 July, when he will drive an A522 from the 2022 season at Paul Ricard. The German, who lost his Haas seat at the end of 2022, remains a Mercedes F1 reserve alongside his Alpine Le Mans Hypercar drive in the World Endurance Championship. The French squad announced earlier this month that it would part company with Esteban Ocon at the end of the current season, while team-mate Pierre Gasly’s contract also expires after 2024. Also in the mix are Carlos Sainz (see main story, left) and current reserve driver…

WEC/IMSA Four-time Sebring 12 Hours winner Pipo Derani will part ways with Cadillac and Action Express Racing after six seasons at the end of this year. What has been billed as a mutual decision comes against the backdrop of a reshuffle in the General Motors marque’s roster of teams in both the IMSA SportsCar Championship and World Endurance Championship, and could also signal a change in career direction. The IMSA stalwart, who took the overall title in 2021 and 2023, has made no secret of his ambitions to race full time in the WEC’s Hypercar class. Leaving Cadillac could be a way to facilitate that. The Brazilian’s management team is known to have been shopping around for him in the paddock. The departure of a driver who has consistently been…

Ford’s F-150 Lightning SuperTruck electric demonstrator set the fastest time at the Pikes Peak hillclimb last weekend, despite briefly coming to a halt and having to perform a reboot. Romain Dumas, the record-holder on the 12.42-mile course, took his fifth outright victory in the event with a time of 8m53.553s despite losing an estimated 26 seconds to the problem. Co-developed by Austrian company STARD, the whispering SuperTruck produces over 1600bhp. Hyundai World Rally Championship driver Dani Sordo won the Exhibition class aboard an IONIQ 5 N TA, also electric-powered, with a time of 9m30.852s. HAAS U-TURNS ON EXIT Gene Haas is to remain in NASCAR after all despite the recent announcement of Stewart-Haas Racing folding at the end of 2024. In a sudden turn of events, Haas confirmed last Thursday…

“I know his birthday present already – it’s either like a big mirror or some glasses and it will be fine!” Max Verstappen was all jokes and smiles after winning the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix. Perhaps the sight of his once great rival, Lewis Hamilton, flat on his back on the Barcelona press conference sofa as he waited for Verstappen and (especially) Lando Norris to finish speaking to TV crews downstairs had tickled the Red Bull driver. Maybe he enjoyed Bob Marley’s Could You Be Loved, which Hamilton was playing from his phone. More likely, Verstappen was finally able to be gracious about Norris’s stiff defence off the line three hours earlier at Barcelona, since the race was won. He certainly wasn’t overly happy behind the wheel just after a…

“I knew for the final lap; I’ve got to go balls out and do it,” said Lando Norris, illustratively explaining how he pipped Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to Spanish Grand Prix pole. Practice had teased a potential four-team scrap for the top spot on the Barcelona grid, with McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari drivers topping those sessions and Verstappen feeling his Red Bull “was not really connected”. But in the end, it came down to the two half-Belgians. Verstappen had suddenly looked much happier traversing Q1 behind Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. At this stage, 0.08 seconds was the world champion’s margin on Norris. In Q2, this became an ominous 0.219s, with the double runs of both Mercedes drivers getting them between the pole protagonists thanks to the considerable track…

Charles Leclerc accused Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz of wanting to do “something spectacular” for his Formula 1 career as the two came to blows at the Spanish Grand Prix, when Sainz put a move on him into Turn 1 around the outside on lap three. Leclerc sat at the inside kerb at the opening right-hander, and his front wing clipped Sainz’s right-rear wheel; the Spaniard ended up taking to the escape road across the opening two corners, which put him ahead at the entry of Turn 3. The Monegasque reckoned that the contact made his own race more difficult, owing to a small laceration to his wing. The first corner also yielded a point of consternation for Sainz later on, when Lewis Hamilton made his overtake for position at Turn…

At 4.02pm last Saturday, British Touring Car Championship title contender Jake Hill snatched a little bit of glory away from underdog up-and-comer Mikey Doble, and this laid the foundations for him to do a total smash-and-grab on the very same poor little fella as he took the points lead at 5.50pm on Sunday. For the first 90% of the opening 10-minute phase of qualifying at Oulton Park, Hill had been struggling. His West Surrey Racing-run, Laser Tools-liveried BMW 330e M Sport had looked OK in the early morning free practice session. Perhaps this lulled his corner of the garage into a false sense of security, because he just carried on his prep work in FP2 using carryover medium-compound Goodyear tyres rather than dialling himself and his car in on the…

FORMULA 2 BARCELONA (ESP) 21-23 JUNE ROUND 6/14 Victor Martins and Jak Crawford secured their first Formula 2 wins of 2024 at Barcelona, while Juan Manuel Correa’s emotional rollercoaster ended in a first podium since his championship return at the end of 2022. ART Grand Prix driver Martins has endured a torrid season after finishing his debut campaign in 2023 as the highest placed rookie. The Frenchman arrived in Spain with just 11 points to his name, and is already all but out of contention for the title. But his fortunes changed in the sprint race when he stole a march on polesitter Kush Maini (Invicta Racing) on the run to the first corner and never looked back. While Alpine junior Martins’s luck had improved, it was the opposite for…

SUPER FORMULA SUGO (JPN) 23 JUNE ROUND 3/7 Tomoki Nojiri was declared the winner of a shortened Super Formula race at Sugo that was called off after several crashes amid terrible conditions. The result was called after just 12 of a scheduled 51 laps, but only two of those featured any green-flag running as two attempts at getting the race going resulted in a pair of near-identical accidents at the final corner. Naoki Yamamoto had been first to go off there during the warm-up, and the resulting damage to the barriers led to a one-hour delay to proceedings. Yamamoto himself was unable to take the start owing to the damage to his car. After five laps behind the safety car, Kazuya Oshima was next to fall foul of the standing…

INDY NXT LAGUNA SECA (USA) 22-23 JUNE ROUND 6/12 Louis Foster was untouchable in the Indy NXT double-header at Laguna Seca. The 20-year-old Briton went lights-to-flag from pole in both 35-lap races for Andretti Global to sweep the weekend. He was forced to fend off HMD Motorsports rookie Caio Collet in both encounters, but coasted to an 8.2-second win in race one, followed by a margin of 4.4s in race two. The performances have left Foster with a series-leading four wins for the year so far and have also vaulted him into the championship lead. He now sits 35 points ahead of rival Jacob Abel in the overall standings. “Andretti has given me an amazing car, I’m just out there doing my thing,” Foster said. “It’s been a great weekend.…

2021 Nothing ventured, nothing gained The Iron Lynx Ferrari team looked home and dry in 2021 as the race entered the final hour. Its AF Corse-run 488 GT3 Evo driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, Nicklas Nielsen and Come Ledogar had been on top for much of the race and had a clear margin over the second-placed WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3 shared by Dries Vanthoor, Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts. But with rain in the air, WRT boss Vincent Vosse made what appeared to be an outrageous gamble. With 50 minutes left on the clock, Vanthoor came in for the car’s final pitstop and was sent out on wet-weather tyres – on a bone dry track. It wasn’t raining anywhere around the 4.35-mile length of the Circuit de…

10 VOLVO S40 TITLES 1 HIGHLIGHT Volvo finally cracking the BTCC with Rickard Rydell’s crown in 1998 Volvo made a big impact in the BTCC with the 850 SE/GLT estate, won races with the 850 saloon, and finally took a crown with the S40. The Swedish marque didn’t manage to win the teams’ or manufacturers’ contest, but Rickard Rydell did enough in 1998 to take a well-deserved drivers’ title. The Tom Walkinshaw Racing-run S40 arrived in 1997. It showed some promise in the wake of Renault’s domination, Rydell scoring three seconds and two thirds before a breakthrough victory at Brands Hatch. Consistency was the key in 1998, although the season began with a stunning qualifying performance by Rydell at Thruxton, where he took pole by more than a second. The Swede…

CLUB RACING Versatile motorcycle racing legend Peter Boast is planning a switch to four-wheeled motorsport in UK club racing this season. Former British Superbike and Isle of Man TT competitor Boast was a multiple flat-track champion and professional speedway rider. He has recently started preparing for a switch to car racing, probably in single-seaters. “I’ve turned 60 and have been racing motorcycles all my life, but I’ve always had an interest in four wheels,” said Boast, who is the current rider coach for Marvel HCL Motorsport Honda competitor Franco Bourne in the British Superbike Championship. “It’s about getting up to speed and I’ve got to start at the bottom. “My aim is to get into historic racing. I’d love to go as high there as I can get.” Boast, who…

GB4 The GB4 Championship will introduce a new car for next season that will feature the halo cockpit head protection structure for the first time. The Tatuus MSV GB4-025 will incorporate the chassis previously raced in GB3 since 2022, but which has been replaced by the UK’s top-level single-seater championship for 2025. The decision by category organiser MotorSport Vision means GB4’s new car will be a step forward from both a safety and performance perspective, although next year’s challenger will be downrated from the GB3 specification. These tweaks include a single-plane front and rear wing set-up with a shortened diffuser, while the championship will move away from the turbocharged engine currently used in GB4 and British Formula 4, and will instead adopt a two-litre, four-cylinder, normally aspirated Mountune. It means…

“Wow, look at the aero on that,” was just one excited response from a current GB3 driver to the new generation of car that was unveiled earlier this month ahead of its debut in the championship next season. With more efficient aerodynamics, a boosted Mountune engine – producing 280bhp instead of the current 250bhp – and featuring the drag reduction system (DRS) for the first time, there’s no denying that the performance of the Tatuus MSV GB3-025 is going to be another step up for the UK’s premier single-seater category. The MotorSport Vision-run championship made its maiden visit to the Hungaroring last weekend, where it also went toe-to-toe, so to speak, with its direct rival in the single-seater hierarchy in the shape of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine,…

SILVERSTONE CSCC 22 JUNE BMW may have been roundly beaten at Le Mans a week ago but Bavaria’s best defeated Ferrari and Porsche on Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit last Saturday during the Classic Sports Car Club’s meeting. The BMW Championship shared the track with GTs from the Slicks Series but it was M3 E46s that came home first in each 20-minute thrash as Jason West and Niall Bradley split the wins. Polesitter West commanded the opener from lights out, as Bradley and Bryan Bransom first dealt with James Card before trading second, Bradley eventually securing the position by squeezing through a fast-closing gap at Brooklands. Starting the sequel alongside West, Bradley snatched the lead on lap two of eight before West was then rounded by Bransom at Stowe and couldn’t…

MINI CHALLENGE Nathan Edwards had yet to take a podium after graduating into the JCW class of the Mini Challenge for this year, but he banished that statistic in style at Oulton Park last weekend as he won twice, leading throughout both races from pole. Yet the Excelr8 Motorsport driver was not expecting such a successful event having not previously driven this car around the Cheshire circuit. “And FP1 didn’t go too well,” Edwards added. “We had a bit of head-scratching after that. But, when I poled it in qualifying, I knew we were on for a good weekend – I’m over the moon.” His task was made a little easier in the opener as Tom Ovenden jumped front-row starter Max Hall, while Nelson King later demoted Hall at Hislops…

THRUXTON BARC THRUXTON HISTORIC 22-23 JUNE Fifty years after Ontario’s Bruce Jensen raced his March 74B to sixth in the Canadian Formula Atlantic championship, Newbury’s Tom Smith added his name to the British Automobile Racing Club’s Jochen Rindt Trophy winners’ plaque with two scintillating drives in it at the Thruxton Historic event. A fortuitous second to Martin Wood (March 73B) on Saturday, Smith unleashed a sizzling 1m13.110s (116.01mph) fastest lap on Sunday to beat 2023 victor Rory Smith (Ralt RT4) and veteran Wood on aggregate. Nurtured by circuit operations manager Pat Blakeney and his 1990s Formula Renault team-mate Rob Manger – whose Classic Racing Car Club disciples reimagined the prestigious JRT in 2021 – the colourful gathering scaled new heights. Slick organisation, superb marshalling, a wider spectrum of fine racing…

TOYOTA MR2 Race 1 Paul Cook (Mk2) Race 2 Adam Lockwood (Roadster) LOCOST Races 1 & 2 Martin West Race 3 Daniel Garrett FORMULA VEE Race 1 Matt Harbot (AHS Dominator) Race 2 Craig Bell (AHS Dominator) ROADSPORTS Chris Bialan (Cupra TCR) CLASSIC STOCK HATCH Races 1 & 2 Stewart Place (Peugeot 205 GTI) 750 FORMULA Races 1 & 2 David Bartholomew (PRS) CLUB ENDURO Scott Parkin (Audi TT) HOT HATCH Races 1 & 2 Shay Kavanagh (Honda Civic) SPORT SPECIALS Races 1 & 2 Paul Collingwood (Eclipse SM1) MX-5 CUP Races 1, 2 & 3 Ben Short HISTORIC 750 FORMULA Race 1 John Village (Village V2, below right) Race 2 Christopher Jones (DNC LHD) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…