Innholdsfortegnelse for 19/09/24 i Autosport

If anyone had still been in any doubt that Oscar Piastri is the real deal, they must surely have revised their view following last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. As Jake Boxall-Legge shows in our report on page 16, the Australian defied a team instruction in Baku – demonstrating a steely focus sometimes absent with other frontrunners – and then held off a circuit master to take one of the finest Formula 1 victories we’ve seen in recent seasons. McLaren’s policy of running two ‘number one’ drivers will surely give the team more headaches in future, particularly in 2025 if it maintains its current level of competitiveness. But that’s a nice problem to have and will give fans plenty of entertainment. McLaren has now taken the lead in the constructors’ championship…

WEC Jules Gounon is set to make another appearance for the Alpine World Endurance Championship squad at the Bahrain finale. But whether that means the French manufacturer’s official reserve is in line for a full-time seat in one of the Signatech-run A424 LMDhs for next season is far from clear. Gounon, who is in his fourth season as a Mercedes AMG GT3 factory driver, replaced Paul-Loup Chatin in the #35 Alpine for last weekend’s Fuji round. It was billed as a move agreed at the beginning of the season to allow him to build his prototype experience. Under the plan he will also race in the Bahrain 8 Hours in November in place of Charles Milesi, who has been Alpine’s star performer as it has emerged as a genuine contender…

The day before Autosport sidles into the back of the Haas garage at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ollie Bearman has already made a point of getting to know all his mechanics. On Thursday, he’d gone around the whole squad and said hello – a new bundle of energy after the American team had got used to the laid-back unruffledness of two seasoned pros in the forms of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg during the past two seasons. On Friday – allowed a lie-in thanks to Formula 1’s later schedule starting after the early F2 free practice sessions he’d otherwise be contesting for Prema Racing – Bearman is ready to drive Magnussen’s VF-24. We watch as he gets his helmet strapped on, takes in last words from his personal support…

A purple-shrouded fence keeps the still-open public areas from coalescing with those working at the circuit within the confines of the Baku City Circuit. The fences split the pavements neatly in half, although it means navigating the kerbside foliage and bollards to reach Turns 5 and 6 – the chicane that precedes the constricted run into Baku’s Old Town. Once we’ve slalomed trees, marshals and lamp posts, we’re there just in time to anticipate the thunderous noise of 20 eager cars a few hundred metres back. And thus, they trickle through at a steady cadence one by one – there’s scant room for two through the left-right. “Without the correction, he’d have been trading paint with the barrier” There’s a clear line through Turn 6 here, and that’s to avoid…

Ferrari scored a first victory of the season in LMGT3 at Fuji with the #54 AF Corse entry driven by Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and Davide Rigon. The Manthey PureRxing Porsche 911 GT3-R shared by Alex Malykhin, Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler, meanwhile, took second to claim the class title with a round to go. Both owed much to creative tyre strategies and the penultimate-hour safety car. There were quicker cars in class on Sunday. The Ferrari 296 GT3 came through to take the win in Rigon’s hands over the final post-safety car portion of the race. The factory driver had the tyres under him after AF opted to leave bronze-rated Flohr out on the same set of Goodyears for two hours after he took over from Castellacci at the…

INDY NXT NASHVILLE (USA) 15 SEPTEMBER ROUND 12/12 Louis Foster had already been crowned Indy NXT champion two weeks earlier, but the extra weight of hardware didn’t slow him down in the season finale at Nashville Superspeedway. The 21-year-old Briton once again proved untouchable and led all 65 laps from pole in his Andretti Global Dallara en route to claiming victory by 0.3071s over Yuven Sundaramoorthy. It was the eighth NXT victory of the season for Foster and 10th of his career, which ties him for second all-time with Tommy Byrne, Alex Lloyd, Paul Tracy and current IndyCar star Kyle Kirkwood, behind only the late Greg Moore on 13. “I would have loved to have done them at Milwaukee, but we had to baby the car for one more weekend,”…

NASCAR CUP WATKINS GLEN (U SA) 15 SEPTEMBER ROUND 28/36 Chris Buescher prevailed in a stunning last-lap duel with Shane van Gisbergen at Watkins Glen, snatching the lead away into the Carousel and holding on through the final set of corners for his first win of the 2024 season. SVG was forced to settle for second, kicking himself over an unforced error. Entering the Bus Stop chicane in the lead on the final lap, he grazed the Armco and unsettled his Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, allowing Buescher to close in and pounce. They slammed doors, but avoided calamity as they battled to the chequered flag. Buescher just missed out on making the playoffs this year, but the RFK Racing Ford man was glad to steal some of the postseason glory. “We…

TOCA JUNIOR Porsche squad Toro Verde GT has become the second team to confirm plans to enter the new TOCA Junior Championship next year. Toro Verde, which was only founded in 2021, competes in both the Carrera Cup and Sprint Challenge GB and has raced in British GT as well as European sportscar series. It now plans to enter the junior racing scene and has joined Graves Motorsport in pledging to run up to four cars in the inaugural season of TOCA Junior, which will support the British Touring Car Championship next year. “TOCA certainly knows how to attract and promote a race series, and we’re sure the TOCA Junior Championship will benefit from such an association,” said team boss Jules Westwood. “We aim to nurture new talent and the…

HISTORICS Building on its Royal Automobile Club Historic Event of 2023 accolade, this weekend’s Castle Combe Autumn Classic features a wider range of series over an expanded two-day programme. The GT & Sports Car Cup takes centre stage for two hours on Saturday. Chris Chiles/Chris Chiles Jr are aiming for their AC Cobra hat-trick, but 2018 winner Gary Pearson and Silverstone victors Graeme and James Dodd (Jaguar E-types) and John Spiers/Chris Ward (Lister) have other ideas. There’s a strong Healey presence, with Christiaen van Lanschot’s triple Le Mans starter DD300, Doug Muirhead’s famous 100/6 ‘The Chairman’s Car’ – both shared by Jeremy Welch – and Richard Locke’s ex-Sebring 12 Hours 3000 racing. John Chatham and DD300 will also be reunited with fellow Bristolian poster co-star Roy Ashford and the Windmill…

FORMULA FORD Josh Smith endured mixed fortunes at Brands Hatch last Saturday as he made his Formula Ford comeback ahead of next month’s Festival showpiece event at the track. Smith, who claimed a memorable victory at the Festival back in 2018, finished second in the first race in his Oldfield Motorsport-run Van Diemen JL13 after working his way up from the third row. Hopes of a further strong result in race two vanished when a tangle with Jason Smyth’s Van Diemen at Paddock Hill Bend on the third tour dropped him out. Speaking after his race-one podium, ex-British GT star Smith admitted his reasoning for returning to FF1600 action was very much about preparation for the Festival. “This weekend has all been about getting back in the groove,” Smith said.…

BRITISH HILLCLIMB Alex Summers ensured that the British Hillclimb Championship title contest will go to the final round at Loton Park next week by taking a mighty double victory at Doune last weekend. Summers went to the Scottish hill for the penultimate event of the season knowing that he had to bring a halt to rival Matthew Ryder’s sequence of eight run-off wins in a row. In changeable conditions, Summers was superb at the technical hill. He had to push very hard in the wet for the opening run-off to eclipse Will Hall, who came closer than ever to his first win of the season with a 40.56s. Summers ran last as fastest qualifier, and took the DJ Firestorm over the line just 0.02 seconds faster than Hall. Summers’s result…

The contrast in experience between Simpson Motorsport’s GT Cup pairing at Donington Park last weekend could not have been greater. One, a newcomer diving head-on into a lofty racing introduction “about 40-odd years late”; the other four races shy of clocking up 300 British Touring Car Championship career starts. What did bring together the contrasting combination of Darren Ridge and James Kaye, however, was a mutual feeling of wanting to improve. GT racing in the UK has enjoyed a rise in recent years and one of the decisive factors has been the will and effort to accommodate amateur competitors. The GT Cup has made a long-standing example of gifting amateurs experience away from the intense – at times impossible – fight against professional drivers, instead learning alongside them, against those…

The Ryan Motorsport Insurance Autosport National Rankings so far this year have all been about three drivers. Ever since Autosport published its first winners’ table of the season at the start of May, one of either Stewart Black, Dan Brown or Piers Grange has been at the head of the leaderboard. The premise behind these rankings is simple. Each week, we compile a table of the drivers who have achieved the most wins in car races held in the UK and Ireland, with each triumph being treated equally regardless of the series in which it was achieved. Four and a half months since that initial table, it is impossible to call which of the trio – or even an outsider – will eventually prevail, with just one win currently separating…

Despite a 30-year career spanning Europe, Japan and Australia, it takes James Courtney an impressively short amount of time to nominate Garth Tander as his favourite team-mate. When Courtney and Dick Johnson Racing were fighting for the 2010 V8 Supercars title, behind the scenes it was anything but smooth sailing. Team owners Dick Johnson and Charlie Schwerkolt were at loggerheads and, before the championship showdown at Sydney Olympic Park, Courtney and his manager Alan Gow had a deal in place for him to join the Holden Racing Team for 2011, a move confirmed the week following his coronation. The thing was, the Walkinshaw family-owned Holden works team already had an established lead driver – 2007 champion Tander. Many wondered how and if two ‘alpha male’ drivers in the same garage…

WEC/IMSA Hyundai will compete at the pinnacle of sportscar racing with a new LMDh car under its premium Genesis brand. That it is developing a hybrid prototype was finally confirmed last week in a perfunctory statement on social media, but where and when has not been confirmed. But it appears increasingly certain that the car will come on stream in both the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship concurrently in 2026. The statement last Thursday from Hyundai Motorsport, headlined ‘Genesis to enter endurance racing’, was short and sweet. “The LMDh programme will add a new pillar to Hyundai Motorsport’s portfolio,” it read. “Since its establishment in 2012, Hyundai Motorsport has been competing in WRC and TCR with Hyundai. Genesis, the premium brand of the Hyundai Motor Group, will…

FORMULA 1 The FIA has announced the introduction of a new Officials Department to start a production line of trained race officials. The governing body is looking to have a wider pool of qualified race stewards to adequately cover F1’s overseas races on an expanded 24-race calendar. The department will cover all levels of officials from the start of the 2025 season and will support the recruitment of officiating talent at a regional level. “It is so important to have it”, said FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. “If you look at our officials and race directors: we have an issue and the issue is that we don’t have [enough] race directors. I said it in one of my tweets: ‘You cannot order them on…

WEC Ferrari is hopeful of a clarification of the rules governing race restarts in the World Endurance Championship. The Italian manufacturer has lost its appeal against its failed protest of the results of the Spa 6 Hours in May, but the FIA International Court of Appeal has called for the consequences of its ruling to be investigated. The results of the Spa race stand after the ICA’s ruling was published last week, confirming victory for the Jota Porsche 963 LMDh driven by Will Stevens and Callum Ilott. But its text stated that the court “orders the relevant sporting authority [meaning the FIA] to draw, as appropriate, the consequences of this ruling”. There has been no further comment from the FIA or the WEC organisation, but Ferrari believes that there will…

FORMULA 4 Only a post-race penalty after the weekend finale denied Freddie Slater a hat-trick of Euro 4 wins at the Red Bull Ring last weekend, but the 16-year-old Briton has moved into the lead of the three-round series. Amid some rain and on slick tyres, Slater mastered the slippery Austrian track and a final-lap restart to lead home Latvian Tomass Stolcermanis and Anglo-Japanese Alpine F1 junior Kean Nakamura-Berta in a 1-2-3 for Prema Racing. In the wet second race, Slater was penalised five seconds for his move for the lead that pushed Stolcermanis off the track, but his 11-second winning margin easily negated that. He headed home Van Amersfoort Racing pair Gustav Jonsson and Hiyu Yamakoshi. Yamakoshi inherited the honours in race three after Slater’s penalty, when he was…

Marina Bay Length 3.070 miles Number of laps 62 UK START TIMES Friday 20 September FP1 1030 FP2 1400 Saturday 21 September FP3 1030 QUALIFYING 1400 Sunday 22 September RACE 1300 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE TV Highlights CHANNEL 4 1730 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers Constructors MARINA BAY STATS Previous winners 2023 POLE POSITION Carlos Sainz 1m30.984s POLE LAP RECORD Carlos Sainz 1m30.984s (2023) RACE LAP RECORD Lewis Hamilton 1m35.867s (2023) Marina Bay podiums…

Race engineer Tom Stallard provided Oscar Piastri with some sage advice at the start of his stint on hard tyres, based on the findings of his discarded medium-compound Pirellis. Piastri, who had been stuck in Charles Leclerc’s wake among the opening quintet of tours around the streets of Baku, was about to find himself behind once again when the Ferrari driver called in a lap later than the Australian’s 15th-lap service. “The first stint, you damaged the tyres attacking Leclerc,” Stallard informed his young charge. “Let’s be smart here.” Let’s leave it to Piastri to pick up the story of his lap 20 overtaking move on the polesitting Monegasque: “It’s what won me the race. I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer because I basically tried to do…

Briton’s most experienced Formula 1 driver led home its newest in the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton also heading Ollie Bearman past a late calamity for Nico Hulkenberg in the other Haas. Hamilton had started from the pitlane after Mercedes changed his engine following his disappointing qualifying performance. He climbed to 14th before pitting, and then Bearman pitted and came out ahead after struggling on the pace Haas had set him based on its pre-race expectations of tyre graining. That had meant Haas ordered the chasing Hulkenberg to be let through while they ran 11th and 12th before the pitstops. As Hulkenberg raced clear following the pitstops, Bearman led Hamilton steadily up the order. Hamilton got past the Haas with a Turn 1 attack on lap 41…

Yuki Tsunoda suffered his second successive retirement, this time from the lingering effects of a first-lap clash with Lance Stroll at Turn 4. Stroll had attempted to put a move on Tsunoda into the previous corner, but the RB driver successfully held the outside line and got better traction into Turn 4. In response, Stroll backed off and went for a lunge down the inside, just as Tsunoda was turning in, and the Aston Martin punched a hole in the RB’s sidepod. Although Tsunoda continued to circulate, he ultimately retired after just 14 laps; Stroll retired 31 laps later with a brake issue. Naturally, both drivers blamed each other: Tsunoda accused Stroll of taking a “nothing-to-lose approach”, while the Canadian reckoned his rival hadn’t seen him coming and closed the…

INDYCAR NASHVILLE (USA) 15 SEPTEMBER ROUND 15/15 Alex Palou stamped his name among the legends by capturing his third IndyCar Series championship in the season finale at Nashville Superspeedway, while Colton Herta took victory in the wild 206-lap race. A starting spot of 24th for Palou was made all the more ominous when Will Power, the only other driver with a shot at taking the crown, qualified fourth. While it didn’t take long for Palou’s Honda-powered Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara to ascend through the field at the start, Power’s chances faded just 12 laps into the race when he was forced to pit his Chevrolet-engined Team Penske machine after his seatbelt randomly “popped off” and disconnected. The issue, which happened twice throughout the race, ultimately relegated Power down the running…

FORMULA REGIONAL EUROPEAN RED BULL RING (AUT) 14-15 SEPTEMBER ROUND 8/10 The Styrian Alps climate did its worst over the weekend, and so did the title contenders in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine. While Rafael Camara and Tuukka Taponen drew a points blank, glory went to James Wharton and Theophile Nael. Wharton claimed pole in the dry for Saturday’s opening race. And, on a damp track with everyone on wet-weather tyres, the Prema Racing-run Australian converted that into the lead of the race. His initial challenge came from Williams protege Alessandro Giusti, before the sister ART Grand Prix car of Evan Giltaire scythed through from 12th on the grid. Giltaire audaciously swept around the outside of Giusti at Turn 1 with four laps remaining, and took just two…

CTCRC A third edition of the popular Super Touring Power event at Brands Hatch has been officially confirmed for next year. The special fixture that celebrates a halcyon British Touring Car period has been organised in partnership between MotorSport Vision and the Classic Touring Car Racing Club. Next year’s event will run over 28-29 June, with action on both the Indy and Grand Prix layouts, and the Super Tourers competing on both days. “After the hugely positive response to the first two editions, we just had to get the band together [again],” said CTCRC chairman Stuart Caie. “A huge amount of work goes into putting this event together but, when you see the comments from fans and feedback from competitors, it just makes you want to do it all over…

KARTING British drivers were triumphant as the CIK-FIA World Karting Championships returned to the UK for the first time since 2017 at PFi last weekend, as both of the main finals featured unexpected late twists. Former British Formula 4 racer Joe Turney was on course to land the OK class title and the world karting crown having won all five of his heats. He was also leading the wet final, too, until a mistake on the last lap enabled Ginetta Junior title contender Ethan Jeff-Hall to pounce and seal the spoils. Turney had to settle for second, while GT Cup racer Matthew Higgins ensured it was an all-British podium. There was an even more dramatic conclusion to the OK Junior contest when British drivers Noah Baglin and Kenzo Craigie collided…

BRISCA F1 Tom Harris survived a first-corner pile-up and a last-bend hit to successfully defend his BriSCA F1 World Championship crown at Skegness Raceway on Saturday night, driving a new car he had only finished building a few days earlier. Harris started the 25-lap race from pole and was fortunate not to end his defence at the very first bend after main rival Frankie Wainman Jr planted the world champion into the fence. Harris popped a rear tyre in a collision at the same corner a lap later, his race seemingly over, but a multiple pile-up blocked the track and forced the race to be restarted. Harris withstood attacks from both Wainman Jr and fellow front-row starter Mat Newson upon the restart, and was en route to a fifth world…

DONINGTON PARK MSVR 14-15 SEPTEMBER There was drama before the penultimate round of the GT Cup Championship even got under way at Donington Park last weekend, with dominant pairing Richard Neary and Ian Loggie forced to miss the event. This was after the Abba Racing-run Mercedes-AMG GT3 the pair share had suffered damage the previous weekend, when a brake disc failure sent the car into the barriers in the British GT round at the same venue. Their absence swung the narratives of the race outcomes as well as the overall title fight. GTC group leader Topcats Racing pounced and scored an impressive 1-2 finish in the first of four races. Fraser Fenwick led from lights to flag ahead of an almighty recovery by team-mate Tom Rawlings, who suffered driveshaft failure…

MONDELLO PARK MPSC 14-15 SEPTEMBER Ronan Doherty is a well-known sim racing star and has also been very impressive in real-life competition in recent times in Formula Vee and, of late, in Formula Ford 1600. Feeling that he should have won the famous Leinster Trophy in 2023, when he was sidelined with a mechanical problem, he appeared on the FVee entry list for the 2024 event at Mondello Park last weekend and certainly wasn’t there to make up the numbers. Doherty was fastest in testing ahead of the weekend and triumphed in the earlier race, after a stoppage and restart, from fellow sim/FF1600 competitor Jordan Kelly, with class returnee Dan Polley third. Doherty then fought off a first-corner challenge from former Trophy winner Polley in the main race of the…

National racing organisers are always looking at developing fresh ideas to encourage new drivers into the sport and breaking down the barriers to getting involved. And a great example of a club innovating in such a way came with the Caterham Graduates Racing Club’s Friends and Family race at Snetterton last month. This was a 20-minute contest purely open to people who had never raced before, and was intended to give those who may regularly trek around the country helping or watching someone race a chance to experience the action for themselves. By enabling them to borrow equipment and compete against other first-timers, it was all designed to be a low-cost and less daunting way to give these friends and family members a little taste of the sport. “We did…

FORMULA 1 The Sauber Formula 1 team is set for a choice between youth and experience as incumbent Valtteri Bottas and McLaren youngster Gabriel Bortoleto vie for its remaining 2025 seat, while Williams is keen to see its impressive rookie Franco Colapinto in the frame. Bortoleto, the reigning FIA F3 champion who leads the F2 points with two rounds remaining, has emerged as the frontrunner should Sauber decide to partner Nico Hulkenberg with a youngster rather than another experienced hand. The 19-year-old Brazilian’s name first emerged as a Sauber option several weeks ago and, on the back of an impressive F2 feature race victory in Monza, sources have suggested that the team’s management has become more serious about Bortoleto taking the seat as Hulkenberg’s team-mate. New Audi CTO and COO…

WRC The World Rally Championship is set to feature new event formats for selected rounds for 2025, with at least one event to run “quite a bit longer”. The championship has for some time been investigating changes to the length of its events, with Rally Italy Sardinia trialling a condensed 48-hour concept this year. This followed a raft of proposals in February from the FIA’s newly created working group designed to address the future of rallying. The list included a push for event organisers to have more flexibility when determining routes for WRC rounds instead of being prescribed to a set format, although they will continue to finish on Sundays. It is hoped that a variety in event lengths will add extra character to rallies. It is unclear which events…

WEC/IMSA Porsche will revise its LMDh driver line-up across its World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship programmes for 2025. It has confirmed that there will be changes and promised an announcement prior to the WEC finale in Bahrain in November. “There will be changes and we are close to an announcement, which will be before the end of the season,” said Porsche LMDh programme manager Urs Kuratle. “The line-ups will not be the same as this year, but we are not 100% there yet, only 99%.” Asked whether there could be a reshuffle of drivers between the four Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 LMDh machines that race in the two championships, Kuratle answered: “That is part of the missing 1%.” PPM boss Jonathan Diuguid added that the line-ups “will not…

FORMULA 2 Formula 3 star Luke Browning made his F2 debut in Baku last weekend after being given a late call-up to replace Zak O’Sullivan at ART Grand Prix. O’Sullivan, winner of two races in his rookie F2 campaign, announced early last week that he was pulling out due to what he described as funding issues. This opened the door to Browning, his successor as Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award winner and who has long faced budget difficulties himself. The 22-year-old, like O’Sullivan a protege of the Williams F1 team, will also contest the final two rounds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. In Azerbaijan, Browning brought up the rear of a close-knit trio of F3 graduates making their F2 debuts, setting the 11th fastest time behind Gabriele Mini (eighth) and…

1958 Drivers’ champion Mike Hawthorn (Ferrari) Constructors’ champion Vanwall Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks won six of the 10 rounds to give Vanwall the inaugural F1 constructors’ title. Despite Moss adding an extra victory with a Rob Walker-run Cooper in Vanwall’s absence, Ferrari driver Mike Hawthorn’s consistency – he was second five times – meant he took the drivers’ crown by one point with a single success. 1973 Drivers’ champion Jackie Stewart (Tyrrell) Constructors’ champion Lotus Mastering the tricky Tyrrell 006 – arguably the third-fastest car by season’s end – Jackie Stewart took five wins to secure a brilliant third crown. He was helped by Lotus pair Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson taking points off each other despite seven wins between them, as the Lotus 72 took its third and…

Lando Norris “would have been happy with eighth” in Baku given his qualifying disaster, but instead took fourth through a combination of his charging drive and the late Sergio Perez/Carlos Sainz crash. Norris’s hopes of getting near the front of the grid were undone with three corners left on his final Q1 run. Approaching the blind, high-speed Turn 18 left, Norris came upon Esteban Ocon’s crash-damaged Alpine crabbing badly far to his left. A marshal – ultimately supported by the FIA – decided the situation warranted a yellow flag and not the white one showing elsewhere as Ocon crawled back to the pits. Norris braked correctly, heeding the Baku drivers’ briefing warning to urgently obey flag orders at this part of the track. His Q1 17th became a 15th-place starting…

Alex Albon didn’t think his alternative strategy of starting on the hard-compound tyre was any quicker than the conventional medium-tyre start, despite running as high as second in Azerbaijan. Albon’s qualifying effort was hampered by a cooling fan being left on the car in Q3 and he started ninth. The Anglo-Thai’s start on the hard tyres carried him to the end of the 31st lap, prior to which he’d briefly interloped in the lead battle between Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri, and subsequently started to hold off the similarly longstinting Lando Norris as the pack behind began to close in. Once he’d stopped, Albon was waved past team-mate Franco Colapinto and subsequently put a move on Nico Hulkenberg to consolidate his place in the top 10, eventually finishing seventh. “I…

Porsche knew it would be in the mix at Fuji. The Japanese circuit did, after all, provide the breakthrough race for its 963 LMDh in 2023. The German manufacturer was far from convinced that it was going to win the penultimate round of the 2024 World Endurance Championship, but points leaders Laurens Vanthoor, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre executed a near-perfect race last Sunday to claim victory and leave the circuit with one hand on the Hypercar drivers’ title. Execute was what the crew of the #6 Porsche did over six incident-packed hours round the 2.84-mile Fuji Speedway – there were three safety cars and a further two Full Course Yellows – and what its rivals failed to do. That included their pursuers for the drivers’ crown and Porsche’s in…

FORMULA 2 BAKU (AZE) 14-15 SEPTEMBER ROUND 12/14 While Richard Verschoor took feature race victory on a dramatic Formula 2 weekend in Baku, Gabriel Bortoleto displaced Isack Hadjar at the top of the standings on what could prove to be a pivotal event. Red Bull Junior Hadjar had a comfortable 36-point lead after the Spa round, but failed to score at Monza. It happened again in Azerbaijan, after a crash in qualifying. Bortoleto, on the other hand, continued his relentless scoring on what was an otherwise quiet weekend for Invicta Racing’s Brazilian McLaren protege, who was fifth in the sprint race and fourth in the feature to take a 4.5-point lead. Qualifying was a bruising affair for Campos Racing as a whole, with Hadjar spearing off at Turn 1 into…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS SANDOWN (AUS) 15 SEPTEMBER ROUND 9/12 Triple Eight has had some great days in Supercars, but not many would match its performance in the Sandown 500. The new combination of Will Brown and Scott Pye edged out 2023 victors Broc Feeney/Jamie Whincup to take a convincing win, the pair of Chevrolet Camaros swapping the lead in the second half of the race. But while Brown, who started from pole position, was delivering a 0.48s winning margin, not that far behind was the team’s wildcard entry in fifth place, veteran Craig Lowndes handing the car over to Super2 star Cooper Murray, who held out many more experienced racers over the closing laps of the time-shortened race. Other teams that may have challenged the flying Chevrolets in the race fell…

PORSCHE A total of 50 modern Porsches are set to compete at a British Touring Car Championship event for the first time at Silverstone this weekend, with both the Carrera Cup GB and Sprint Challenge GB series attracting 25-car entries. Among the additional drivers for the Carrera Cup is Karl Leonard. The Am driver, who took an outright win in the series in 2019, is now back with Team Parker Racing. Meanwhile, numbers in the Cayman-based Sprint Challenge have grown steadily in recent seasons, and Mini frontrunner Jamie Osborne joins this weekend with Parker. Porsche GB motorsport manager James MacNaughton said the organising team is “proud” of the strong grids, especially as they are achieved on the weekend where the manufacturer’s 2025 plans are launched. “Generally, a lot of people…

GINETTA Leading Ginetta teams have given a positive reaction to planned changes to the manufacturer’s Junior and GT championships for 2025, with many squads already pledging multi-car entries. It was revealed last month that the G40s used in Ginetta Junior will undergo major bodywork upgrades for the first time since the model replaced the G20 for 2010, while an overseas round will also be introduced. “I think the bodywork upgrade has probably been due!” said Eddie Ives, boss of regular frontrunner Elite Motorsport. “I’m very pleased the updates are all retrofittable and every existing G40 on the planet can be converted to a Ginetta Junior for 2025. “Over the past 10 years there’s been a number of overseas drivers coming to the championship and we’ve always said we need to…

RADICAL Peter Tyler is recovering in hospital having suffered a high-speed crash at Brands Hatch last weekend that left the Radical racer with broken bones. The incident happened on the first lap of the final Radical SR3 Cup race when Tyler and James Pinkerton came together on the climb out of Paddock Hill Bend towards Druids. Tyler’s SR3 XXR collided heavily with the barrier and was sent into a roll, coming to a rest upside down before medical crews attended the scene. A statement from championship organisers and DW Racing, the team running Tyler’s car, confirmed that he “was transferred by ambulance to King’s College Hospital for further checks” and tests revealed that he “sustained a fractured spine, sternum and ribs in the incident, but he is well and already…

CTCRC The Classic Touring Car Racing Club will mark its 50th anniversary with special events and a celebration race at its season finale at Thruxton this weekend. The club was founded in 1974 as the Classic Saloon Car Club and ran its first championship the following year for pre-1957 Classic Saloons, as Mike Hawes won the inaugural title in an MG Magnette. In its 50th year of racing, the CTCRC now runs eight championships, ranging from Pre-’66 Touring Cars to Super Tourers of the 1990s. Celebrations will centre around a Saturday-night party in the Thruxton Centre hospitality building, to which various club luminaries have been invited. “People that were originally involved with the club are coming back,” said club chairman Stuart Caie. “Past committee members have been invited and former…

BRANDS HATCH MSVR FORD POWER LIVE 14-15 SEPTEMBER Porsche Carrera Cup GB star Andrew Rackstraw claimed two superb victories in the United Formula Ford and Champion of Brands double-header at last weekend’s Ford Power Live meeting, as preparations for the upcoming Formula Ford Festival and Walter Hayes Trophy events gathered momentum. The South African took advantage of a slide by polesitter Jason Smyth to move to the front in race one before the contest was halted following a clash at Druids involving Klaus Dieter-Haeckel’s Van Diemen RF91 and the Firman RFR1600 of Bruno van Dyke. Rackstraw continued where he left off at the restart at the wheel of his Spectrum 011C, but Smyth (Van Diemen RF00/JL12) continued to give chase, followed by Josh Smith’s Van Diemen JL13 and the Van…

GT CUP Race 1 Fraser Fenwick (Lamborghini Huracan ST) Races 2 & 3 Shamus Jennings/Greg Caton (Porsche 911 GT3) Race 4 Shamus Jennings (Porsche 911 GT3) FOCUS CUP Races 1 & 2 Lewis Clark CLIO CUP GB Races 1 & 2 Will Orton SPORTS 2000 Races 1 & 2 Michael Gibbins (MCR S2n) PORSCHE CLUB Races 1 & 2 Simon Clark (997 Carrera S) BOXSTER CUP Race 1 Ryan Charters Race 2 Perry Darling MONOPOSTO (F3/M1400/CLASSIC) Races 1 & 2 George Line (Dallara F308) MONOPOSTO (2000/1800/1600/1000) Races 1 & 2 Matthew Haughton (Jedi Mk7, below) MSVR ALLCOMERS Races 1 & 2 Doug Carter (Radical PR6) For full results visit: tsl-timing.com…

MERCEDES LEGO RRP £189.99 While Lego has evolved significantly over time, the core concept of snapping bricks together to create a model that, with a little imagination, resembles something from either the real or fictional world remains. But how much has the product evolved in the last 20-odd years? Rather conveniently, this writer was able to grab a slightly sun-bleached Ferrari F1 Racer (model ID 8386) from the top of the bookshelf to compare it with the recently released Mercedes W14 Technic (model ID 42171). Some housekeeping before we start. The Ferrari was not technically a Technic kit and instead fell under the ‘Racers’ banner. But it you look at the common components – the steering rack, the beams held together by pins and other details – the Ferrari is…