Innholdsfortegnelse for 01/08/24 i Autosport

It’s always disappointing when drivers lose victories through no fault of their own. George Russell’s inspired call to switch to a one-stopper at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix appeared to have earned him a surprise victory against team-mate Lewis Hamilton, only for his Mercedes to be 1.5kg underweight. Exclusion was inevitable. Some have suggested that there should be a margin, or the penalty should only apply to the team, but Formula 1 squads would abuse either approach. In professional sport, competitors are looking for the tiniest of advantages, so the fewer grey areas the better. There was no suggestion of wrongdoing in Belgium, merely a mistake with clear consequences, and Mercedes rightly did not argue. It won’t go down as one of Hamilton’s best wins, but perhaps it can be…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1’s points system will remain unchanged in 2025 after teams unanimously voted against proposed tweaks in the latest FIA F1 Commission meeting last week. In April, several midfield teams started a push to revisit the series’ long-standing points system handing out points to the top 10 finishers, because a split between the top and bottom five teams made it hard for them to score points. Some teams argued that extending the points-paying positions to the top 12, or even further down the field, would give the lower-end teams more to fight for. A vote on the proposal was deferred to the next F1 Commission meeting, which took place in London ahead of last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. With F1 2024’s initial split between the top and bottom…

WEC Two-driver line-ups in the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship could be outlawed for 2025. A rule change is under discussion in response to calls from some teams and manufacturers following the Ganassi Cadillac squad’s decision to run just a pair of drivers in the six-hour races this season. Pierre Fillon, president of WEC co-organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, has revealed that mandating three drivers is on the table for 2025. “We are thinking about that, but you will have to wait for an answer,” he said without going into detail. WRT boss Vincent Vosse confirmed that his was one of the teams to raise the issue. “I would like it to be clear in the rules how many drivers you have to run, whether that is…

McLaren’s Hungarian own goal An observation from the Hungarian Grand Prix. A lot of people seem to be ignoring that Oscar Piastri, having out-driven Lando Norris on the first part of the race, lost all his buffer falling off at Turn 11 and almost throwing the lead away. Had he not done this, his six-second advantage over Lando Norris would have made McLaren’s pitstops much easier! Apart from the slower start (where he found himself sandwiched), Lando drove a faultless race. I reject this entitlement to a win simply because one driver makes a better start than the other; it shouldn’t be decided at the first corner, and things evolve during the race. It’s a pity that McLaren strategists didn’t feel confident enough to pit Oscar before Lando (for the…

It’s been a long time since this writer came to Spa. The road signs reel off the towns and villages that lend their names to the undulating ribbon of Tarmac ensconced within the Ardennes: Stavelot, Malmedy, Rivage, et al; but we’re here for the jewel in the crown. A cliche? Maybe, but you can’t make a pilgrimage to Spa without watching the cars tackle the Eau Rouge/Raidillon complex at full pelt. We’re armed with local knowledge too, as Belgium’s own Filip Cleeren comes along for the ride. He estimates he’s been here “at least a dozen” times, and finds us a path through the spectators in the fanzone and towards one of the grandstands perched upon the uphill ascent. It offers a great view of the cars attacking the Eau…

George Russell’s disqualification boosted Daniel Ricciardo to his third scoring finish of 2024, after the RB driver had crossed the line in 11th. The Australian surprised many by starting on soft tyres, instead of mediums, for what was expected to be a tricky tyre-management race, but was helped by relatively low degradation: “I was able to stay with the guys on medium in the first stint. So, for the two-stop, it probably didn’t change too much in the end.” At the start, he’d fallen behind Valtteri Bottas’s rapid launch and, after pitting to take medium tyres, he chased Williams driver Alex Albon to reach 10th place as other strategies played out around them. In the final stint on hards, Ricciardo put in a series of passes to rise through the…

There’s no question that Speedworks Motorsport had a tough first half of the season with its squad of Toyota Corolla GR Sports. OK, Rob Huff produced a virtuoso performance to win at Snetterton, and Josh Cook used a tyre gamble to triumph at Oulton Park, but pace had been lacking and there had been mechanical issues too. Cook’s latest win, over Huff, at Croft was also thanks to tyre choice, but the difference this time is that it appears that the Toyota had genuine pace, and that only circumstance had pushed the Cheshire squad into its strategy. “I genuinely believe we had the pace to fight for pole,” said Cook. “I had a 21.0 in me [that’s what pole was], and I think the car did. But we had a…

GT WORLD CHALLENGE ENDURANCE CUP NURBURGRING (DEU) 28 JULY ROUND 3/5 Not since September 2021 had Lamborghini stood on the top step of the GT World Challenge Europe podium. The Italian marque ended that three-year hoodoo in fine fashion as Marco Mapelli, Franck Perera and Jordan Pepper gave Grasser Racing Team victory at the Nurburgring. Rather aptly, the Eifel circuit was the venue of that last victory and continues a strong run of form for Gottfried Grasser’s crew that began with pole position at the Spa 24 Hours last month. And while the three-hour race was hardly an action-packed end-to-end thriller, the race-long scrap between the winning Lambo and the Winward Mercedes of Maro Engel, Daniel Morad and Lucas Auer did provide a degree of intrigue until the former pulled…

WORLD RALLYCROSS NYIRAD (HUN) 27-28 JULY ROUND 2/5 Niclas Gronholm and reigning champion Johan Kristoffersson took a victory each during a fiery double-header around the ‘Red Cauldron’ at Nyirad. The weekend will be remembered for a chaotic final on Saturday. Kevin Hansen topped the qualifying heats in his electric Peugeot 208 R1Xe, and was joined on the front row in the final by Kristofferson, who had bounced back from reliability issues with his Volkswagen Polo to win his semi-final. It all kicked off between the pair at the start, with Kristofferson making the better launch to draw alongside into the first corner before contact sent them both spinning backwards into the tyre barriers and, unsurprisingly, both would later blame each other for the incident. Hansen was out on the spot,…

GB4 The GB4 Championship’s new 2025 challenger was put through its paces for the first time last week during testing at Silverstone. The Tatuus MSV GB4-025 had a successful shakedown earlier in the week at Bedford Autodrome before GB4 podium finisher Max Marzorati conducted a full day of testing at Silverstone on Friday. The car uses the existing GB3 chassis, which incorporates a halo as well as stronger side-impact protection than the F4-T014 currently used in GB4. It also features a normally aspirated two-litre, four-cylinder engine, with lap times expected to be a few seconds quicker than those achieved using the older GB4 model. “It’s a better car to drive, more predictable, easier to get heat into the tyres, and an all-round better package,” said Marzorati, who raced in GB4…

MAGNIFICENT SEVENS The Classic Sports Car Club has decided to reintroduce greater tyre freedom in its Magnificent Sevens category for next year in a bid to boost the series’ fortunes. Drivers have been restricted to using harder constructions, such as the Toyo R888R, for this season amid concerns over tyre supply. The closure of the Avon factory created fears of a shortage of the ZZR Extreme and ZZS products that had been popular in Magnificent Sevens in the past. But the CSCC has opted to return the series to its traditional ethos of welcoming as many drivers as possible by opening up the regulations for 2025. Separate ‘controlled’ and ‘unlimited’ groups will be created depending on the type of rubber a driver uses, and races will be shortened to two…

F5000 Visiting New Zealand Formula 5000 racers Steve Ross and Glenn Richards were in the wars at Oulton Park last weekend, but Ross turned his event around to snatch a brilliant second from the back of the grid in Sunday’s Derek Bell Trophy race. Buoyed by his Brands Hatch Superprix victory a fortnight earlier, Ross drove the Cheshire circuit for the first time in Friday’s open practice sessions and took the left wheels off his McRae GM1 when he crashed under braking for Hislop’s. Undaunted, Ross and his crew repaired the car and he was running third in the opener when it was stopped, but a rear suspension joint failure after the red flag meant he couldn’t take the restart. He then charged up the order in the sequel. “These…

SANTA POD Troubles abounded in the fourth round of the Motorsport UK British Drag Racing Championship last weekend as the previous event’s result was repeated, Andy Robinson beating Bobby Wallace in an attritional period for the Pro Modified class. Although the US’s parts industry is geared towards supplying tens of thousands of domestic racers, orders placed from smaller overseas markets can take months to arrive, sundered by the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. It means that UK-based racers have had plans disrupted and reduced entry lists, but one new car did make its Santa Pod debut last weekend. Not content with a previous model that had clocked 5.81s at 250.85mph, Dutch racer Michel Tooren has imported a 2020 Chevrolet Camaro-bodied machine from Bahraini-American Pro Mod star Khalid Al Balooshi. While…

PRE-’66 TOURING CARS The sight of a packed field of 32 Pre-’66 tin-tops from the Classic Touring Car Racing Club doing battle at Croft last weekend, and spending much of the time sideways, was glorious. And, while Sam Tordoff soared above the rest in his Ford Falcon to snare all three wins, there was plenty going on behind as the club made an appearance on the British Touring Car bill in its 50th anniversary year. Tordoff, the 2016 BTCC runner-up, has been a regular fixture in historic racing in recent years and proved almost unstoppable. He led throughout the first and third races, but did briefly fall behind David Dickenson’s Lotus Cortina in the middle bout, only to blast back past on the pit straight on lap two. “Compared to…

PORSCHE SPRINT CHALLENGE GB Race 1 (14 laps) 1 Max Coates; 2 Seb Hopkins +8.601s; 3 Ethan Hammerton; 4 Jacob Tofts; 5 Robert Cronin; 6 Matt Kyle-Henney. FL Reece Somerfield 1m25.644s (88.27mph). P Will Jenkins. S 23. Race 2 (13 laps) 1 Hopkins (above); 2 Jenkins +3.109s; 3 Coates; 4 Hammerton; 5 Tom Bradshaw; 6 Cronin. FL Hopkins 1m20.857s (93.50mph). P Hopkins. S 23. Race 3 (15 laps) 1 Coates; 2 Hopkins +3.139s; 3 Oliver Cottam; 4 Edward Stanton; 5 Hammerton; 6 Tofts. FL Hopkins 1m21.499s (92.76mph). P Hopkins. S 21. Points 1 Hopkins 70; 2 Coates 70; 3 Bradshaw 50; 4 Jenkins 44; 5 Hammerton 43; 6 Cronin 26. PRE-’66 TOURING CARS Race 1 (all 13 laps) 1 Sam Tordoff (Ford Falcon); 2 David Dickenson (Lotus Cortina) +8.688s; 3…

SILVERSTONE MSVR 27-28 JULY Richard Neary and Ian Loggie’s domination of the GT Cup continued last weekend at Silverstone, with the Abba Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 crew winning all four contests. Neary, the 2021 champion, started with a comfortable triumph in the opening sprint race as several drivers behind faltered. The returning Andrey Borodin (McLaren 720S) collided with Fraser Fenwick (Lamborghini Super Trofeo), Steve Burgess retired from second when his Radical RXC suffered a rear-left puncture, while Beechdean Motorsport’s Andrew Howard recovered from an early spin to demote Topcats Racing’s Tom Rawlings to third. Saturday’s endurance race was clouded in confusion. Loggie took over the Abba Mercedes for the opening stint and built a 17-second lead before handing over to Neary but a timing glitch initially resulted in them effectively losing…

Driving with the gung-ho of a 1950s’ rising star, Tom Waterfield ruled the half-litre roost in Tim Ross’s Cooper-Norton Mk9 as the 500 Owners’ Association honoured period hero Stuart Lewis-Evans – a winner here in 1956 – and historic star Roy Hunt in style. Five drivers shattered Steve Jones’s 2013 record, Waterfield leaving it at 2m12.437s (73.17mph). Roy’s widow Pat and Stuart’s son Steve graciously presented the trophies. The paddock buzzed as 12 chassis marques – series-builds plus Albert Zains’ Cooper-derived Flash Special, Godfrey Messervy’s Jason and the Mathews Special – and Manx Norton, JAP and Triumph engines coloured a superlative 32-strong entry. Favourites from Oulton Park’s opening event on 8 August, 1953, when Don Truman (Cooper Mk6), Les Leston (Leston Special) and Don Parker (Kieft CK52) won the heats…

Patrick Watts is surely one of the finest British Touring Car Championship drivers not to score an outright race win. The multiple single-make champion came close with Peugeot during the competitive Super Touring era, but the cards never fell his way. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that it’s a class dominator that Watts picks as his favourite car. It’s a machine that he feels he could have won the BTCC crown with. Watts joined the factory-supported Roger Dowson Engineering MG Metro team for the 1983 BTCC, or British Saloon Car Championship as it was then known. He started off with the normally aspirated Class C car before getting his hands on the Class B Metro Turbo. He quickly adapted to the dreaded turbo lag of the period. “You had to…

FORMULA 1 Formula 1’s 2025 driver market finally made substantial progress over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend as Carlos Sainz and Esteban Ocon announced their next moves, while Sergio Perez was handed a reprieve by Red Bull. After losing his Ferrari seat to Lewis Hamilton for 2025, Sainz had been the key figure in F1’s silly season for months as the highest-profile free agent on the market. Since the 29-year-old faced a key decision on his F1 future, he was keen to take his time and explore every avenue available to him. An early offer from Sauber/Audi was followed by talks with Williams and an eleventh-hour bid by Alpine, while Sainz (below) also did not want to miss out on any unlikely opportunities opening up at Red Bull or Mercedes.…

FORMULA E Ex-Formula 1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne and Briton Jake Hughes will race for the Maserati MSG Formula E team for the 2024-25 season. Maserati MSG announced last week that it would be splitting with this year’s partnership of Maximilian Guenther and Jehan Daruvala, before confirming on Monday that Hughes and Vandoorne would join the team for an undisclosed length of time. Hughes joins after two seasons with McLaren, during which time he has shown impressive one-lap pace, taking four pole positions and his maiden Formula E podium this year in Shanghai. Prior to racing in the electric championship, Hughes was a reserve driver for the Maserati team under its previous guise of Venturi. “I’m over the moon to be joining Maserati MSG Racing,” said the 30-year-old. “The success that…

GT3 Mercedes is ending a long-standing relationship with HWA and its forebears that has straddled the DTM, GT1, Formula E, Formula 3 and more. It has announced that its next-generation GT3 racer will be developed in-house. Hans Werner Aufrecht’s organisation was responsible for the development and service of the German manufacturer’s first two GT3s, the SLS and the AMG GT3. Now, Mercedes has announced that the next car to continue the AMG tradition will be the work of a new in-house group known as Affalterbach Racing GmbH set up for the purpose. There is a twist, however. Affalterbach refers to the location of the new organisation, which is also the hometown of HWA. It reveals something of the history of AMG, the sporting brand that Mercedes invokes for its racing…

Did Alex Albon’s early braking at Les Combes late in Q2 at the Belgian Grand Prix save Sergio Perez’s Red Bull and Formula 1 career? Perhaps it was the time shipped by the Williams driver at Pouhon too that cost that 0.003-second difference, enabling Perez to progress and eliminating Albon in 11th position. From his narrow escape, Perez went on to impress many by qualifying third with only used intermediate tyres left to deploy in Q3. That was only impressive in isolation, however. Had Perez done what Max Verstappen showed was possible with Red Bull’s RB20 masterpiece-turned-problem-child in getting through qualifying to that point on ageing inters, then he wouldn’t have been beaten to ‘pole’ by a slower Ferrari. Red Bull had two cars that had the potential to win…

“Yep.” George Russell’s mind, it seemed, was made up. A few laps after planting the seed of a one-stop strategy into his engineers’ heads, the idea was put to him after a few more laps circulating on the hard tyres. He barely needed to calculate it. The degradation was lower than expected, his Mercedes’ lap times were still competitive, and he felt completely comfortable on his current set of white-walled Pirellis. And, at that juncture, it was well worth the gamble. Russell had passed Sergio Perez for fourth place, but did not look to be on for anything more than that if he’d stuck to a conventional two-stopper; Max Verstappen was likely to undercut him, and he would also have been vulnerable to Lando Norris’s advances. Problem was, he’d have…

Carlos Sainz left the Belgian Grand Prix with his mind made up on his 2025 future, but his current drive with Ferrari led to a frustrating swing from podium potential at Spa to seventh at the flag. Unlike most of the field, Sainz started on the hard-compound tyres. After he’d nipped past Lando Norris thanks to the McLaren driver’s mistake at the exit of La Source, then resisted his former team-mate for the rest of the opening phase, Sainz cycled to the lead as those ahead on medium tyres pitted. He spent seven tours in the lead, during which it became clear that Norris would undercut ahead when, on lap 16 of 44, Sainz slipped briefly into the Stavelot gravel. He then pitted for medium tyres, on which he spent…

FORMULA 2 SPA (BEL) 27-28 JULY ROUND 10/14 Isack Hadjar moved 36 points clear of the chasing pack with a controlled victory in the Formula 2 feature race at Spa on a weekend severely affected by heavy rain. The Red Bull-backed Campos driver entered the event with an 18-point advantage over Hitech’s Paul Aron, but had the chance to extend this lead in the sprint race, an outing in which Aron would serve a 10-place grid penalty for misdemeanours last time out in Hungary. After Aron topped qualifying, the nature of the partially reversed grid sprint race meant he started the opening event in 20th, with title rivals Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta) in eighth and ninth respectively. However, the sprint race would have no effect on the top of…

PORSCHE SUPERCUP SPA (BEL) 28 JULY ROUND 6/8 Marvin Klein signalled his intention to take the Porsche Supercup title fight down to the wire with a controlled win at Spa, as Larry ten Voorde again dropped points to his closest challengers. The top three contenders are now split by just 12 points with two races to go, after Harry King beat ten Voorde to third in a gloves-off final-lap scrap. Klein boosted his hopes of a first Supercup win since Zandvoort 2022 by snaring pole position, just 0.096 seconds ahead of Schumacher CLRT team-mate ten Voorde. Crucially, Klein aced the start as GP Elite driver Huub van Eijndhoven got a run on ten Voorde exiting La Source. After the two Dutchmen went side-by-side into Eau Rouge, double champion ten Voorde…

Formula 1 is always looking for the next star and appears to have found its latest favourite sons in Prema pairing Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman, with the latter already confirmed as a Haas driver for 2025. But while drivers connected to the academies of current teams often steal the headlines, those without connections sometimes fly under the radar. This has certainly been the case with Hitech’s Paul Aron, a Mercedes junior between July 2019 and November 2023, who has been a consistent figure at the front of the F2 field this season as a rookie. Despite not having a win prior to the summer shutdown – something that fellow rookie Antonelli has achieved twice – a steady stream of podiums has kept the Estonian at the sharp end…

BDC The Bentley Drivers Club has unveiled a new version of the Continental prior to its debut at the club’s annual Silverstone race meeting next weekend amid plans to develop a modern one-make race series. The Prototype ‘Car Zero’ is the latest milestone in a project started over two years ago to create an affordable race series based around the evergreen Continental GT. A previously abandoned idea was revisited by BDC competitions captain Ben Eastick, who felt that success depended upon ensuring that cars would maintain their resale value and could be raced without needing a team of mechanics. The package has been developed in partnership with M-Sport, which was responsible for the factory Continental GT3 racers, and with the support of Bentley. Eligible cars will be upgraded to a…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Former British Formula 4 champion Matthew Rees admits it has taken him longer to adapt to sportscar machinery than he expected after clinching his first Porsche Carrera Cup GB win at Croft last weekend. Rees, who took the British F4 title in his maiden season racing cars in 2021 and was then a GB3 frontrunner, did impressively qualify fastest at the Donington Park Porsche opener, but had only achieved one podium finish across the first three events. The Team Parker racer then enjoyed success in the partially reversed-grid contest in Yorkshire, leading throughout race two. “It’s taken a lot longer to get where we wanted to be,” acknowledged Rees, who added that the unique characteristics of the Carrera Cup machinery were a particular challenge. “You come…

MINI FESTIVAL Organisers of this weekend’s annual Fastest Mini in the World contests at the Brands Hatch Mini Festival have been encouraged by the number of top-class entries received as the race celebrates its 30th birthday this year. The competition features a diverse range of Minis with Class A catering for heavily modified specials, in contrast to other divisions that contain cars of road-going spec. Eleven cars are set to be entered in Class A, including some new machines for this year, while a larger grid is also expected across the field. “We’ve got 11 Class A cars and they’re the ones where drivers have built their own spaceframe cars – either as individuals or with race car builders, like Enville Motorsport,” said coordinator Nigel Death. “They can do sub-52s…

HISTORICS Two Holden Commodores raced together in the Motor Racing Legends Historic Touring Car Challenge at Oulton Park last weekend as the car of Graham Pattle and Mark Burton was joined by the recently restored machine of Martin Melling. The Melling car was raced by Jason Minshaw, and the last time the two cars were on a grid together was at Bathurst in Australia more than 30 years ago in 1990 with Bob Forbes Racing. Pattle and Burton have done three seasons with their car, but Melling’s has just been restored by the MRM team headed by Graham Price. “It arrived from Australia in 2019 as a rolling shell,” said Price. “They were both built in late 1988 and early ’89 from factory shells, and we think they are the…

PORSCHE CARRERA CUP GB Will Martin may not have won either Porsche Carrera Cup GB race at an event for the first time this season, but he has boosted his championship chances after a clash with key rival George Gamble derailed the ex-BTCC racer’s Croft weekend. Team Parker driver Hugo Ellis had made a bold move down the inside of Martin’s Eden Race Drive machine at the hairpin in the opener, and slight contact between them opened the door for Gamble. He ran side by side with Martin to Clervaux, but the points leader clipped the inside kerb hard, sending him into Gamble, who in turn hit the barriers. After the resulting caution period to retrieve Gamble’s Century car, Martin attacked at Tower, but Ellis held on and subsequently pulled…

SILVERSTONE GB3 27-28 JULY The lead of the GB3 Championship changed hands for the fourth time in as many rounds last weekend at Silverstone, while JHR Developments’ John Bennett moved firmly into contention for the crown with his third win of the season. Bennett’s latest triumph had looked unlikely after struggling in testing, and he qualified only fourth for race one as Elite Motorsport’s McKenzy Cresswell finally hit form to take a double pole. Rodin Motorsport’s Louis Sharp made the better start in the opener off the front row to move ahead into Copse before Cresswell fought back through Maggotts and Becketts. Having gained one place off the line, Bennett capitalised on the battle in front to squeeze between the middle of his rivals and snatch the lead at Stowe.…

OULTON PARK HSCC GOLD CUP 26-28 JULY On a Gold Cup weekend peppered with scintillating performances, Horatio Fitz-Simon’s Historic Formula Junior victory first time out in Paul ‘Hawkeye’ Hawkins’ 1963 Brabham BT6 from the back of Sunday’s grid will live long in onlookers’ memories. Five years after making his UK car racing debut at the Oulton Park staple, he passed Sam Wilson audaciously on the exit of Lodge, the final corner. “The car is fantastic, but I have mixed feelings because Paul Hawkins was killed here [in a fiery Lola T70 Mk3B crash during the 1969 TT race],” said Fitz-Simon. Ironically, the Australian’s big win in the Ian Walker Racing Brabham was in the GP de Rouen six years earlier, a photo finish with Richard Attwood’s Lola Mk5A witnessed by…

WISCOMBE PARK BRITISH HILLCLIMB 27-28 JULY Matthew Ryder had one of his best-ever weekends in the British Hillclimb Championship as he dominated at Wiscombe Park, winning both run-offs and obliterating the hill record. At the wheel of the Gould GR59 he shares with Sean Gould, Ryder was unstoppable at the Devon hill and took a massive 1.2 seconds off the record across the course of two championship run-offs. Points leader Alex Summers headed the chase but was quick to acknowledge that he could not match the performance of Ryder, who bounced back strongly after missing the Guernsey run-offs when Gould damaged the car in the first timed runs at Val des Terres. In the first Wiscombe contest on Saturday, Ryder went to the startline knowing that he needed to better…

Toyota will run special liveries on the cars of Kalle Rovanpera and Sebastien Ogier for this week’s World Rally Championship round in Finland. The Japanese marque will field an expanded five-car Rally1 line-up at the team’s home event, with both part-time drivers Rovanpera and Ogier competing alongside full-timers Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta, while rising star Sami Pajari will make his Rally1 debut at his home event. Rovanpera and Ogier will run with special liveries inspired by the limited edition Rovanpera and Ogier road-going GR Yaris models launched earlier this year.…

Spa: a short three-letter word yet the longest lap in modern-day Formula 1 and, with Monza, the longest-standing grand prix, too. Decades before F1 was born or thought of, Belgian Grands Prix were being run at Spa, the first in 1925, won in an Alfa Romeo on the original 9.31-mile road course by the great Antonio Ascari (father of the equally great Ferrari double world champion Alberto Ascari). The first world championship-status F1 grand prix at Spa took place in June 1950, over an only slightly shortened circuit of 8.825 miles, and was won by the even greater Juan Manuel Fangio, also in an Alfa Romeo. Spa has lost little of its character and drama over the past 74 years, despite its having been halved in length during that time.…

Max Verstappen extended his lead in the drivers’ standings by two points after finishing just 0.6 seconds ahead of distant title rival Lando Norris. For the third year in a row, Verstappen started down the Spa order after topping qualifying. His domination of the wet Saturday session was the fourth consecutive time he topped qualifying at Spa. But this time, from 11th due to an engine-change grid penalty, he could not recover higher than fifth at the flag, which later became fourth. Verstappen stayed out of trouble at La Source, then jumped Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon on lap one, before he blasted past Fernando Alonso one tour later. This meant he was already running behind Norris thanks to the McLaren driver’s La Source lap one gravel-strike, where he “just…

Haas endured a very challenging weekend at Spa, where its VF-24 again didn’t gel well with the intermediate tyres required in qualifying, before Nico Hulkenberg had a rare 2024 tyre degradation nightmare in the race. Both the German and his team-mate Kevin Magnussen were knocked out in Q1, where Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu revealed that the Dane was dealing with a rear suspension problem. They held their starting positions of 16th and 17th early on, with Hulkenberg ahead. But when Hulkenberg came in to complete the race’s first pitstop on lap seven, their trajectories diverged considerably. Hulkenberg entered a painful realm reminiscent of Haas’s 2023 misery, with bad in-race tyre wear, where he had “no pace, no harmony, no rhythm”. Hulkenberg did undercut several rivals with his early first…

There were a fair few Newcastle United shirts among the throngs baking on the sun-soaked grass banks of Croft as the British Touring Car Championship hit the north last weekend. And a series that is regarded as the Premier League of UK motor racing became so in another unfortunate aspect: its refereeing decisions. Out of contention on Saturday went championship leader Jake Hill due to British motorsport’s attempt to enforce regulations that are proving hard to police properly; out on Sunday went Hill again and his West Surrey Racing stablemate Colin Turkington (twice) in incidents that provided controversy, appeals, and the ref waving ‘play on’ – to the benefit of new series leader Tom Ingram and the other main title contender, Ash Sutton. It all left a disagreeable taste at…

FORMULA 3 SPA (BEL) 27-28 JULY ROUND 9/10 Leonardo Fornaroli stole the Formula 3 championship lead with just one event remaining, while Dino Beganovic and Callum Voisin shared the wins at Spa. The weekend’s drama began in the closing stages of qualifying. With no driver wanting to go first on the final runs, the final metres into the lap-ending chicane resembled a car park more than a race track, with some drivers failing to begin their final efforts. This left Prema’s title-chasing Brit Arvid Lindblad to start both races from 27th, while his team-mate and pre-event points leader Gabriele Mini was 11th – a position that at least gave him a strong reversed-grid slot. Completing the Prema trio, Beganovic was 12th and started the damp sprint race from pole, a…

FIA The FIA has created a new “entry-level” touring car category that will result in a convergence of tin-top racing and rallying. The new TC Lite classes will share existing Rally4 and Rally5 technical regulations and will form the base of the FIA’s touring car pyramid under TCR. As a result, through minimal modifications, Rally4 and Rally5 cars will be able to compete in both tin-top racing and rallying. The initiative is particularly targeted at developing motorsport in areas outside of its traditional heartlands, such as in Eastern Europe, South America and Asia. According to the FIA, the objective is to have cars suitable for different motorsport competitions without the need for costly and time-consuming conversions between the rallying and circuit racing specifications. The minimum weight set will be adjusted…

BRITISH GT Reigning British GT champion squad Century Motorsport will compete with the new BMW M4 GT3 Evo next year, following a difficult 2024 where it is not in title contention. The tweaked car represents an upgrade from the M4 GT3 that carried Dan Harper and Darren Leung to the 2023 drivers’ crown for Century, a BMW customer since 2018. Century will use the GT3 Evo in British GT, as well as GT World Challenge Europe. “It is great to be continuing our relationship with BMW,” said Century boss Nathan Freke. “We have had a lot of success with the M4 GT3 and we are sure the Evo kit is going to give us that competitive edge.” Century will also continue its GT4 operation, but it is not yet known…

FERRARI CLUB CLASSIC Colin Sowter made a promising debut for the first F355 Challenge Spider to be seen in the increasingly high-profile Ferrari Club Classic series, finishing fourth in Sunday’s Chris Amon Trophy race at the Oulton Park 70th Anniversary Gold Cup event. Sowter, whose Superformance marque spares concern sponsors the competition, intended to debut the car – built in-house from a damaged shell – last season, but a heavy testing shunt at Brands Hatch forced a rethink around a more substantial safety cage. “I’m chuffed to bits with the car, but can’t believe how different it feels to the regular F355,” said Sowter. Barely run before Friday, when he qualified seventh in five laps, he retired from Saturday’s race after “I knocked the ignition switch off!” He added: “It’s…

PORSCHE SPRINT CHALLENGE GB The Porsche Sprint Challenge GB title battle completely reset itself as the season reached its midpoint after last weekend’s entertaining Croft event, with Max Coates and Seb Hopkins now tied on scores at the standings summit. Will Jenkins’s Team Parker machine led the wet opener from pole, but Coates was on the attack and grabbed the lead through the Esses with a brave move on lap two. Yet it was not long before Jenkins was back in front. “I thought I marginally did track limits through the Esses, so gave him the place back,” said Coates. “With 18 minutes to go, I had enough time to have another go.” And, sure enough, he did. After a couple of failed attempts, the Graves Motorsport driver made it…

MINI CHALLENGE Tom Ovenden made up for the disappointment of retiring from the lead of the Croft Mini Challenge opener with driveshaft trouble by taking his maiden win in the second contest. His Excelr8 team-mate Max Hall was the beneficiary of Ovenden’s woes, despite making a slow start and falling from third to fifth. Nelson King was on a charge in the early stages, moving up to second after a big dive up the inside of Dominic Wheatley at the hairpin and then braving it around the outside of Hawthorn to secure the spot. But King then locked up at Sunny In and ran wide, opening the door to Hall to profit on Ovenden’s strife. He did have to resist a late attack from Jamie Osborne at the hairpin, but…

The Porsche Carrera Cup GB can be a pretty daunting place for a fledgling team. It’s a championship renowned for being decided by fine margins, with its single-make nature ensuring that anyone caught underperforming is quickly found out. And the presence of established star squads such as Team Parker Racing (a stalwart of the series for over 20 years), JTR and Century Motorsport – all of which are proven winners – means there is sure to be plenty of stiff opposition. Yet Eden Race Drive has defied its short history to take on the successful giants – and has made quite an impression so far this season. Its lead driver, Will Martin, is heading the standings after the first four events of 2024, while it is also sitting pretty at…

BOOK FAST FORDS: 50 YEARS UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH FORD’S FINEST Jeremy Walton RRP: £60 hardback A look at the title – Fast Fords: 50 years up close and personal with Ford’s finest – provides the perfect overview of 401 pages of reading. It really is a Ford lover’s paradise. Whether you are an owner of a road car bearing the Blue Oval or purely interested in the company’s various motorsport escapades over time, the collage of vehicles on the cover will be enough to pique intrigue. Any concerns over the expertise behind the book are instantly quashed by the introduction, which gives a detailed background of the author, who is at pains to point out that, while he is a former Ford employee, this is no glorified PR…

Six years after making his Formula 1 world championship debut at the 1973 Monaco Grand Prix, James Hunt’s swansong would be at the same venue, halfway through what had turned out to be a disappointing and fruitless season. After qualifying his Wolf in 10th place, Hunt’s race lasted just four laps before a driveshaft broke – Murray Walker, in his inimitable style, initially misidentifying the 1976 world champ twice after he’d parked at the side of the track. Hunt had intended that the 1979 season would be his last: “I wanted to have a really good final year. It wasn’t a matter of thinking about the championship. I wanted a good, competitive car with which to win some races. It’s become clear that our car will never get there. And…