Innholdsfortegnelse for 21/11/24 i Autosport

Haas and Ollie Bearman have been two of the surprise packages of 2024. The American Formula 1 squad has bounced back from a dismal campaign last season to be a strong contender in the midfield, while former Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award finalist Bearman has shown his mettle on three grand prix appearances despite a tricky second F2 campaign with Prema. Both Haas and Bearman suffered a tough time at the recent Brazilian Grand Prix but, as Alex Kalinauckas shows on page 20, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future. Bearman became the 148th Briton to start a world championship GP when he raced for Ferrari in March’s Saudi Arabian event. How he compares to new team-mate Esteban Ocon at Haas in 2025 will go a…

FORMULA 1 Greg Maffei, the CEO and president of Formula 1 owner Liberty Media, has announced that he will step down from his role by the end of this year. Maffei, who joined the American investment firm in 2005 and became its CEO in February 2006, has opted not to renew his expiring contract. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Liberty Media chairman John Malone, and according to the company will stay on as a senior advisor to help smoothen the management transition. Maffei was a driving force behind the firm’s acquisition of F1 in 2017, helping transform the series into a global and modern entertainment powerhouse. Earlier this year, Liberty announced that it would acquire MotoGP. “The almost 20 years I have spent at the helm…

Rob Huff was out of luck in his bid for an 11th Macau Guia victory – and 12th in Macau in total – last weekend in the TCR World Tour finale. Red flags and traffic in qualifying consigned the 2012 World Touring Car champion and 2024 BTCC returnee to 15th on the grid in his Volcano Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS. He charged through the field in the first race to finish sixth, right on the tail of the works BRC Hyundai of fifth-placed Nestor Girolami. He made the right call for slick tyres in the wet-but-drying second race, but never got a chance to capitalise on the gamble. While slick-shod Hondas went on to finish 1-2-3, Huff was eliminated by damage caused from a clash with the Hyundai of TCR…

WEC It will be business as usual at Toyota in the World Endurance Championship for 2025, with an unchanged driver line-up in its pair of GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercars. The status quo was confirmed when the Japanese manufacturer announced that the #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing entry will be driven by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries for a second year, with Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa (left) remaining together in #8 for a fourth straight season. Kobayashi, who also acts as team principal, stressed the importance of what he described as “a consistent line-up of drivers who understand how to work together”. “We have a top driver line-up in both cars, and I am happy to be part of it again in 2025,” he said.“The…

Egor Orudzhev took victory in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Finals at Jerez last weekend – but only just. The Russian, an ace in Formula Renault 3.5 in the mid 2010s, won the second race of the double-header, and nicked the title from fourth-placed Hampus Ericsson, winner of race one, on a tiebreak of getting fastest lap. Orudzhev also enjoyed a smattering of luck – he was given a drive-through penalty for jumping the start, but a full-course yellow was called while he was in the pits serving it. CORVETTE TEAM IN LMP2 The Pratt Miller team, Chevrolet’s long-time partner in GT racing, will expand into the LMP2 class of the IMSA Sports Car Championship with an ORECA-Gibson 07 next year. It will be its first involvement in prototype racing…

The new-look Autosport Awards will take place at a fresh venue and move from December to January for the next edition, and it’s time for you to vote on some of the major categories. Our writers have had plenty to say about the motorsport events of 2024 and now it’s your turn. Over the following pages you will see the nominees for International Racing Driver of the Year, British Competition Driver of the Year, International Competition Car of the Year, International Rally Driver of the Year and National Driver of the Year. You’ll also find the nominations for Moment of the Year, which for the first time will be decided by Autosport readers instead of a judging panel. You can vote for the candidate you think performed best in each…

It was a good season for me in FIA Formula 3. I went in knowing it was going to be really, really challenging, as F4 to F3 is a big jump, I only did one year of F4 in Italy, and then straight into F3 with Prema. I had to make sure that I was giving my absolute everything on all fronts. It wasn’t even about winning in the beginning; it was just about trying to be in the top 10 and be competitive. We did a really good job over the winter, we prepared well, I worked hard, and I arrived in Bahrain and won my first race. Winning on my debut was a special moment, and that filled me with a lot of confidence, especially after a difficult…

“Haas is going to be a serious competitor in the years to come…” So says Nico Hulkenberg, and he would know. His two seasons in Formula 1 with the American squad have been stuffed full of potential. In the second, Haas really made good on its promise, the team climbing from dead last in 2023 to running solidly in sixth in the constructors’ championship. Alpine’s smash-and-grab double podium last time out in Brazil means it has snuck in ahead of Haas and the RB squad hitherto engaged in a close fight for that top-six position. But there are still three races left in F1’s longest-ever season and just a three-point gap to close for Haas, which had been on a run of five consecutive points-scoring races ahead of the Interlagos…

Fifty-six drivers raced it in the world championship and 17 made their debuts in it. Both those figures are nearly twice the numbers of the next-highest car on each list. The Maserati 250F was placid enough to introduce more drivers to Formula 1 than any other car, yet good enough to win a title and last throughout an entire regulations cycle. But it’s also something of a contradiction. Often cited as one of the greatest grand prix cars, it was neither particularly groundbreaking nor an F1 dominator. Only Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss won world championship races in it, amassing just eight victories. And it’s probably fair to say that those two 1950s aces would have won in pretty much anything they drove during the period. The 250F is…

Considering there were 26 red flags or safety cars across the Formula Regional World Cup, it was perhaps typical of a chaotic Macau Grand Prix weekend that the main race should finish under caution. The 71st edition of the event certainly was not a classic, and will likely be remembered more for all the crashes than what proved to be a dominant performance by McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu to become the first American winner of the Macau GP since Bob Earl in 1981. But, for all the focus on the somewhat shocking driving standards on display – something the FIA is well aware needs to improve across the junior single-seater scene – it was perhaps unsurprising that the continual top three of Ugochukwu, Red Bull Junior Oliver Goethe and Noel…

TCR WORLD TOUR MACAU (CHN) 16-17 NOVEMBER ROUND 7/7 Norbert Michelisz won his second successive FIA TCR World Tour title with Hyundai at the Macau Guia. That was despite a valiant charge from Lynk & Co Cyan Racing rival Thed Bjork, who secured pole position and the victory in the first race, but in the rain-delayed second heat was unable to score the points needed to topple the 40-year-old Hungarian from his crown. Bjork scored pole position by just 0.023 seconds from the Hyundai of Mikel Azcona, with Bjork’s teammate Yann Ehrlacher handing the Swede a pair of slipstreams to aid his title bid. At the start of the first race, Ehrlacher got too much wheelspin and dropped behind Michelisz, while Honda man Esteban Guerrieri made a daring lunge at…

BRSCC The British Racing & Sports Car Club has launched a new series for the Citroen DS3 next year. The DS3 Cup has been created as an entry-level point above the BRSCC’s CityCar Cup, which was introduced in 2020 for Citroen C1, Toyota Aygo and Peugeot 107 machines. The DS3 will use a 1.6-litre engine with an output of 135bhp via a controlled engine map, air intake and exhaust system to ensure parity throughout the grid. A full build kit from club partner SW Motorsports will cost £7000, with a donor car on top expected to keep overall costs below the £9000 threshold. The new car made its debut at Silverstone last weekend for the BRSCC’s Driven by Racing event, allowing prospective drivers to try it out. “The CityCar Cup…

GB4 Douglas Motorsport will return to racing next season in the GB4 Championship, with the team’s drivers set to be announced in due course. The squad previously raced in Ginetta Junior and GB3, but stepped back from the Ginetta in 2020 and from GB3 last season. Its return in the entry-level GB4 category, a rung below GB3, coincides with the introduction to the series of the previous-spec GB3 car, which has been downgraded and has already been used in testing by Douglas. Team principal Wayne Douglas said: “It’s really GB3 and a half because we’re not having to buy anything, we’re just running what we did before. For us it’s not really a downgrade, it’s just a different front and rear wing, it’s the same thing.”…

BRISCA F1 Bobby Thompson scored his second BriSCA F1 BTCC Challenge Trophy win in three years at Skegness Raceway’s Gala meeting last Saturday, before taking on the BriSCA F1 elite during the rest of the night’s racing. Thompson was competing alongside seven current or former British Touring Car Championship drivers, including Josh Cook, Mikey Doble, Ricky Collard, Jade Edwards and Paul O’Neill, in the 750bhp V8 Chevrolet-powered BriSCA F1 stock cars during the 16-lap event. Thompson hit the front with four laps to go from long-time leader O’Neill to take the flag, with Doble finishing third. The 28-year-old then took up the challenge of driving the multiple championship-winning car owned by J Davidson Scrap during the remainder of the meeting on the quarter-mile oval, where he would go up against…

As well as being motorsport’s happiest racing driver, Nigel Greensall probably has a claim as its most prolific too. A couple of weeks after Silverstone, he headed to Daytona for the classic 24 Hours, drove three sportscars from different eras and, for the second consecutive season, notched up his 100th race start in a calendar year. “I was in a Corvette C6R GT2 and a Chevron B19 with John Emberson, then with Gary Ball in a Ligier LMP3,” he reports. It was in the Corvette that he clocked up his latest ton. “What a track for my 100th race with fastest lap and third place,” he says with glee. Barely a day goes by without Greensall sliding into one car or another, not just on the circuits but also on…

FORMULA 1 The spotlight is back on the FIA after it emerged that the governing body’s Formula 1 race director Niels Wittich has been removed from his role with three races left to run in the 2024 season. The FIA announced last week that Wittich had stepped down with immediate effect to “pursue new opportunities”, with F2 and F3 race director Rui Marques replacing him from this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix onwards. As suggested by the sudden timing of his departure, it soon emerged that Wittich did not step down voluntarily, and senior sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to Autosport that Wittich was removed from his position. Wittich is understood to have had disagreements with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, which came to a head in the…

FORMULA 1 Carlos Sainz will make his first Williams appearance in Formula 1’s Abu Dhabi tyre test next month after securing permission from Ferrari to join up early with his new squad for 2025, but Lewis Hamilton will have to wait for the new year to get his first taste of a Ferrari. While Sainz remains contracted to Ferrari until the end of the calendar year, the Maranello squad has given its blessing for the Spaniard to jump straight into the Williams FW46 for the test on the Yas Marina circuit two days after the season finale, as he begins his preparation for his 2025 campaign alongside Alex Albon. Seven-time world champion Hamilton, who similarly remains contracted to Mercedes for the same period, will not be able to take Sainz’s…

INDYCAR US motorsport titan Roger Penske has added yet another string to his bow, after Penske Entertainment bought the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach from longtime owner Gerald Forsythe. The Grand Prix of Long Beach in Southern California now joins the IndyCar Series, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Detroit Grand Prix as part of the portfolio of Penske Entertainment, a subsidiary of Penske Corporation. Next year’s running of the historic event will be the 50th edition since it started as a Formula 5000 race in 1975. “This is the most historic and prestigious street circuit race in North America, and we’re excited to work with [Grand Prix of Long Beach CEO] Jim Michaelian and his great team in Long Beach to ensure continued success and growth over the long term,”…

DAYTONA 24 HOURS Scott Dixon will return to the Daytona 24 Hours in January for a 22nd consecutive appearance. And for only the second time he will not be driving for Chip Ganassi Racing. The six-time IndyCar title winner has joined the Meyer Shank Racing Acura squad for the IMSA SportsCar Championship long-distance events after the end of Ganassi’s relationship with Cadillac left it without an endurance programme in 2025. Dixon’s deal with the team was announced last week along with those of Alex Palou and Felix Rosenqvist. Dixon, whose only previous Daytona appearance away from his long-time employer in IndyCar came in 2020 with Wayne Taylor Racing, will share one of the two MSR Acura ARX-06 LMDhs with Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun. They will be joined at Daytona…

Formula 1 heads to Las Vegas this week under yet another cloud of bizarre FIA decision-making. The championship’s race director, Niels Wittich, is gone three races from the end of a season that is still mathematically alive for the drivers’ championship, and has the potential for a whopping-sized portion of controversy should any of the remaining players bet big on something novel in Sin City. The track, with its 1.4-mile straight down the city’s Strip, is perfect territory for a cunning understanding of aeroelasticity… The pressure this week is amped up by Formula One Management, too. As the race promoter, it understandably wants this event to grab attention – although that came at the cost of alienating some fans last year. But as the championship rights holder’s most important race,…

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Unless you are building a temporary circuit to host a Formula 1 grand prix, that is. Even before the first practice session had started at this year’s season-opening race in Bahrain, preparations were well under way for this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, with the set-up, installation and dismantling of the 3.8-mile track throwing up unique challenges. With 7.6 miles of track barriers, 3500 track barrier blocks and 1750 temporary light units required, it is a process that began well before the first car takes to the Strip this weekend. “Every year we have the authority to close down what are the most significant streets and avenues in the city,” explains Las Vegas GP general manager Terry Miller. “That 3.8 miles is right…

Porsche swept to victory in the new LMGT3 class that took over from GTE Am. Klaus Bachler, Joel Sturm and Alex Malykhin took the title with a round to spare in their Manthey PureRxcing 911 GT3-R. Those drivers should really be listed in reverse order to reflect their importance in the championship triumph. The bronze-rated driver can make the biggest difference in a pro-am category and Malykhin, a Belarusian who races under a licence issued in Saint Kitts & Nevis and lives in Surrey, certainly did that. The 37-year-old emerged as the new Ben Keating, the benchmark amateur in the field. It was difficult to argue that Sturm wasn’t the best silver in class, so it was always going to be hard for anyone to match them. (Both, it should…

The positioning of a team’s garage in the pitlane is not normally a critical factor in determining a driver’s fortunes. But that proved to be the case in Macau for Alex Dunne and Dino Beganovic. The pair’s Prema squad was second-to-last along the line, determined by the order in which teams placed their entries, and that meant they were first on the scene when Rintaro Sato crashed at Police on the second flying lap of the crucial second qualifying session. With Sato’s TGM machine stranded in the track and no time for the pair to avoid it, both Dunne and Beganovic clattered into the stricken car, ending their session and effectively their victory hopes. Both were likely frontrunners on stepping back from F3, and both had impressed before crashing out…

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS ADELAIDE (AUS) 16-17 NOVEMBER ROUND 12/12 Anyone who doubted that Will Brown was the best Supercars driver of 2024 had those doubts swept away by two fine performances in the final races of the year around the streets of Adelaide that comfortably clinched the crown for the 26-year-old. In Saturday’s 250km opening race, Brown took second place behind team-mate Broc Feeney who, once again, rode a pit-early strategy to seize track position and head a Triple Eight Chevrolet Camaro 1-2. Any such repeat a day later looked doomed within the first 10 laps of the race. Feeney was beaten away from the start by Chaz Mostert and, try as he might, he could not navigate his way around the Walkinshaw Andretti United Ford Mustang. Indeed, when he challenged…

BRITISH F4 Hitech will run Red Bull Academy driver Fionn McLaughlin in the British Formula 4 Championship next season. The 17-year-old joined Red Bull’s junior programme this summer. His success in karting includes finishing sixth in the 2024 FIA Karting World Championship, having won heats the previous year before missing out in the final due to an engine failure. “My goal in racing is to be a Formula 1 world champion and joining Hitech is the next step in my development path,” said the Northern Irishman. “I never give up and work hard until I’m at the top, and this is why Hitech is the perfect step, because watching them over the last few years they are always winning and I look forward to that being me.” Also joining Hitech…

MRL Motor Racing Legends has unveiled its 2025 calendar, with a greater emphasis placed on overseas rounds next year. Seven race meetings have been outlined for the club, four of which are in the UK, including the Donington Park Historic Festival (2-4 May), Snetterton Classic (27-29 June), Silverstone Festival (22-24 August) and end-of-season races at Silverstone (18-19 October). While there will be the traditional trip to the Spa Six Hours on 26-28 September, MRL has also scheduled a race meeting in Portimao (4-6 April) as well as a new Navarra Historic event on 10-12 October. MRL chief executive Pierre-Antoine Lecoutour, who took on the role earlier this month after leaving Peter Auto, said: “2025 will be a transition year and the idea is to get bigger and bigger in the…

CIRCUIT RALLY Victory on last weekend’s Cadwell Park Stages went to 2022-23 Circuit Rally champions John Griffiths and Emma Morrison by 23 seconds. Reigning champions Michael Igoe/Will Atkins led after stage two in their Citroen C3 Rally2 after the opening test was cancelled. But Griffiths’s Skoda Fabia R5 was only one second behind, and from the next stage became the new leader by seven seconds. Igoe had complained of a lack of power and handling issues, but managed to reduce the lead by half distance of the rescheduled seven stages. Kiaran Hankin/James Swallow had already suffered a spectacular off on stage three, their Citroen coming to rest alongside the paddock toilet block, and on stage five Igoe was off too. “I hit standing water flat in fifth, spun twice and…

When he’s not at the helm of his Aston Martin specialist garage in Essex, Rikki Cann is tearing up the tracks in one of Newport Pagnell’s finest. Cann’s heavily modified Series 2 V8 Vantage has become a regular sight on circuits over its 15-year racing life and currently competes in Bernie’s V8s, the Classic Sports Car Club’s Special Saloons and Modsports series, and the Classic Touring Car Racing Club’s Historic Thunder championship. Indeed, in one-time Caterham Graduates champion Sam Wilson’s hands, it topped the Historic Thunder standings in 2023, taking three overall wins and falling just one point short of winning Classic Thunder outright. The shell started life as a 1979 Oscar India model, an update of Bill Towns’s original 1977 design that was recognised by Guinness World Records as…

When a Brit called Matt Bell turned up in the LMP3 class of the European Le Mans Series in 2023 there was inevitably some confusion. A presumption was made that it was the same Matt Bell who was racing a P3 in the ELMS-supporting Le Mans Cup, having been a fixture in international sportscars for a dozen or more years. But if there were any aficionados of junior single-seaters around, they would have understood that there were now two drivers of the same name in town. That’s because Bell had raced open-wheelers to some effect in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Yet the confusion could be forgiven because he had pretty much disappeared after one full season in the 2013 BRDC Formula 4 Championship. Two years on, the befuddlement…

He may have driven numerous McLaren Formula 1 machines in his role as the Woking team’s test driver since 2009, but it’s from the world of endurance racing that Oliver Turvey picks his favourite car. Turvey raced the Nissan-powered Zytek Z11SN three times at the Le Mans 24 Hours from 2013-15 with Jota Sport, the last of those after being rebadged as the Gibson 015S, and the open-top LMP2 machine instantly made an impression. “The first time I tested it, I thought, ‘This car is incredible, it’s just so good to drive’,” enthuses Turvey, who alongside his McLaren duties is also DS Penske’s reserve in Formula E. “It was a very stable car, very well-balanced. It inspired you to go faster and you felt you could push it to the…

FORMULA 1 The Aston Martin Formula 1 team has parted with technical director Dan Fallows in the wake of the team’s disappointing form over the past 18 months. Fallows joined Aston Martin in April 2022, taking up the job of technical director after a long stint with Red Bull, where he rose through the ranks to become chief engineer – aerodynamics. Under his watch, Aston Martin enjoyed a brief spurt in 2023, taking eight podiums with Fernando Alonso aboard the AMR23, but Aston’s form then tailed off as rival teams caught up. This year it has been stuck in fifth place in the constructors’ standings as it struggled to develop the AMR24, which led to group CEO Andy Cowell’s call for a change to try to turn around its fortunes.…

FORMULA 1 The Monaco Grand Prix will remain on the Formula 1 calendar for six more years after F1 and the Automobile Club of Monaco (ACM) signed a contract extension up to and including 2031. Monaco’s deal, which is understood to incorporate a significantly higher sanctioning fee, was up for renewal after 2025. The new agreement secures the race’s future on an annual basis amid F1 boss Stefano Domenicali’s recent assurances that European races would be subject to rotation due to the crowded calendar and the extensive interest from potential new venues. As part of the fresh terms the race will move from its traditional end-of-May date to the first weekend of June from 2026 onwards. That helps create space on F1’s congested calendar for the Miami and Montreal rounds…

WEC Jenson Button will extend his career into a second full season in the World Endurance Championship in 2025 – as a factory Cadillac driver. The 2009 Formula 1 title winner is moving across to the American marque with the British Jota team. There were no surprises when Cadillac and Jota took the wraps off their WEC driver roster for the two factory V-Series.R LMDh Hypercar class entries. It is a mixture in equal measure of Jota regulars from its 2024 line-up with a pair of customer Porsche 963 LMDhs, and Caddy stalwarts. Button has switched over to Caddy along with Will Stevens and Norman Nato. Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn continue in the WEC with the General Motors marque after driving Chip Ganassi Racing’s solo entry in 2023 and…

IMSA Seb Priaulx has joined Ford’s factory line-up for the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship. The Briton, 23, will race one of the Mustang GT3s fielded by Multimatic Motorsports in the GT Daytona Pro class. The son of three-time World Touring Car champion Andy Priaulx moves into a works Ford role after six-years on the books at Multimatic and a half-season campaign in the AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R that went on to win the GTD Pro title with Laurin Heinrich this season. His drive was announced last week when Ford took the wraps off a new-look line-up for its second IMSA campaign with the Mustang. Priaulx (below) will share with Mike Rockenfeller, who retains his place in the GTD Pro roster. Christopher Mies and Frederic Vervisch will be full-season drivers…

Las Vegas Length 3.853 miles Number of laps 50 UK START TIMES Friday 22 November FP1 0230 FP2 0600 Saturday 23 November FP3 0230 QUALIFYING 0600 Sunday 24 November RACE 0600 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Highlights CHANNEL 4 1230 TYRE ALLOCATION CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS Drivers Constructors LAS VEGAS STATS Previous winners 2023 POLE POSITION Charles Leclerc 1m32.726s POLE LAP RECORD Charles Leclerc 1m32.726s (2023) RACE LAP RECORD Oscar Piastri 1m35.490s (2023) Las Vegas podiums Michele Alboreto 1 Alan Jones 1 Max Verstappen 1 Alain Prost 1 John Watson 1 Charles Leclerc 1 Bruno Giacomelli 1 Eddie Cheever 1 Sergio Perez 1…

The contrast could not have been greater. While the FIA GT World Cup race in Macau last weekend was a thriller and ran without stoppage in challenging wet conditions, once the safety car had peeled in after the first five laps, the same could certainly not be said of the 71st Macau Grand Prix itself. Yes, there were a couple of controversial clashes in the GT contest, but nothing more than could be expected when many of the world’s greatest sportscar drivers ferociously battle around the tight and twisty Guia circuit. The Formula Regional World Cup finale, however, was sadly anything but a thriller. Held on a far drier track, there were far more incidents. Five safety cars and a red flag meant the most consecutive proper racing laps achieved…

There were clear winners from Alpine’s shock double podium in the 2024 Brazilian GP. The Enstone squad and its publicity-hungry celebrity farmer neighbour, obviously, plus drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly. But for Haas, its rival’s result meant being shuffled down from sixth in the constructors’ championship. This was just when the American squad looked to have made a decisive shift in its year-long battle for that spot with RB, the team riding a breakthrough on its braking system that had elevated Kevin Magnussen to points-securing form alongside regular scorer Nico Hulkenberg in Mexico. Seventh would still bring a $30million prize money hike for Haas, which finished last in 2023. Alpine stands to gain the same sum if it can hold on to sixth to the end of this year,…

The important silverware was split three ways this year for the first time since the 2012 rebirth of the World Endurance Championship. Porsche won the drivers’ title, Toyota took a last-gasp victory in the manufacturers’ rankings, and Ferrari claimed the big prize at the Le Mans 24 Hours. So was it honours even for three grandee marques, both historically and in the context of the 2024 campaign, competing in Hypercar? That depends on how you assess the relative values of the trophies on offer. In terms of the championship, the drivers’ crown is the one the wider world acknowledges, though the car makers themselves put at least as high a value on the manufacturers’ title (one, perhaps more, pays its driver bonuses based upon it). They are still trumped by…

Remarkably, given the longevity of the most famous Maserati racer, the 250F could have been competitive even longer. Among the many things tried was a V12… Giulio Alfieri had been developing a 12-cylinder engine since 1955. “But such a radical change would have required a thoroughly redesigned chassis, something that was considered to be economically unfeasible,” reckoned Maurizio Tabucchi in Maserati: The Grand Prix, Sports and GT cars model by model, 1926-2003. Maserati’s existence remained precarious even amid on-track success. But a compact 60-degree V12 was tried at the 1957 Italian Grand Prix. This engine produced around 320bhp, but Jean Behra retired at Monza with overheating. “Without doubt, this remarkable development would have prolonged the 250F’s magnificent career had Maserati, sated by its conquest of the world championship but above…

FIA GT WORLD CUP MACAU (CHN) 16-17 NOVEMBER Until the final three laps of this year’s FIA GT World Cup race, it looked like Macau maestro Raffaele Marciello would continue where he left off and score a third successive clean sweep of pole, qualification race win and victory in the main contest. But Antonio Fuoco had not read that particular script and provided a dramatic end to a thrilling encounter. That there would be a race at all looked a little doubtful earlier on Sunday morning when the rain that plagued this year’s event unexpectedly reappeared with greater force than before. Thankfully, it relented enough to allow the race to begin, albeit the first five of the 16 laps were completed behind the safety car. The wet weather had created…

MOTOGP BARCELONA (ESP) 17 NOVEMBER ROUND 20/20 Jorge Martin became the first rider of the MotoGP era to win a world championship on a satellite bike with a pair of third places in the Barcelona finale. The Pramac rider arrived at the Catalan circuit with a healthy 24-point lead in the standings, and took no major risks over the course of the weekend to beat Francesco Bagnaia by 10 points in an all-Ducati battle for the title. In a way, the Barcelona round perfectly encapsulated the essence of the title fight between Bagnaia and Martin. The factory Ducati rider brought his A-game to Spain, something he needed to do in order to have any chance of overcoming the points deficit he faced to Martin. The Spaniard, on the other hand,…

EQUIPE The Sports Prototype Cup and Zeo Prototype series have both been acquired by Equipe Classic Racing and will be merged into one category for next year. While the Sports Prototype Cup has primarily focused on overseas events in recent years, the two series have previously collaborated at a couple of UK club meetings. Now they will be permanently brought together to create a mixed grid of prototypes that Equipe partner Rob Cull says will span “one-offs put together in a garage” through to the likes of Radicals. Revolution and Praga are both set to support the new Equipe Sports Prototypes series, which has a six-event calendar that features rounds at Brands Hatch, both the National and Grand Prix Silverstone layouts, Donington Park, Oulton Park and Snetterton. “We’re excited to…

GB3 United Arab Emirates-based team Xcel Motorsport will join the GB3 Championship next season, with plans to field two of the category’s new Tatuus MSV GB3-025 machines. The squad has had success in karting and has been a mainstay of the UAE F4 scene, claiming the teams’ title between 2019 and 2021, as well as the drivers’ title with Matteo Nannini in 2019 and Francesco Pizzi in 2020. Last season the team joined the British F4 fray, taking a podium in its fourth race with Zack Scoular. Team manager Paul Hardy said: “We’re very pleased to be making the move into GB3 for next season, as we expand our team further into the UK racing scene. “We’re uniquely placed to take talented drivers through from grassroots and international-level karting, through…

“See you at tea-time,” quipped Nigel Greensall to his driving partner John Spiers as they finished lunch one Sunday at Silverstone last month. The duo were about to embark on an epic quadruple stint for the afternoon: four consecutive two-driver races, four cars from three decades, run by three different teams. Spiers started each, they were ships passing at the pitstops, then Greensall finished them. When they did properly meet again it was indeed tea-time, and on the podium’s top step – which Greensall had already occupied alone three times. Yes, they’d won all four races. Spiers only got to experience the celebration for that last one because, for the others, he’d been busy strapping himself in the next car to start another race. For those who witnessed the feat…

TV SERIES SENNA Netflix Release date: 29 November The long-awaited Senna Netflix series is almost here and, after Autosport was granted access to the first three episodes, here are our initial thoughts. Ayrton Senna is one of the few characters of Formula 1 who has truly transcended the sport, with a love for the Brazilian that is possibly greater than anything seen for any other driver before or since. This is reflected to an extreme in the series, with two clear camps of characters – those allied with Senna, and those not. While this divide is perhaps how the man himself would have viewed the world around him, it can sometimes play out as slightly comical, with the pantomime villain of FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre (played by Arnaud Viard) lurking…

Alex Zanardi’s Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard-Honda lifts a wheel into Laguna Seca’s famous Corkscrew during the penultimate round of the 1997 Indycar season. The Italian’s points advantage over nearest rival Gil de Ferran – who would have had to have won the race while Zanardi non-scored to stay in contention – meant a conservative run to third place was enough to lift the first of his two championship crowns. His Ganassi team-mate, and reigning champion, Jimmy Vasser won the race, and in a moment of overexuberance on the cooldown lap Zanardi pulled alongside his good friend to congratulate him on his first victory in 15 months, took both hands off the wheel to clap and tipped him into a spin. “Chip didn’t seem to mind too much,” reckoned Vasser. For…