Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2021 i AUTOSPORT

@BenAndersonF1 I was only six when Michael Schumacher made his Formula 1 debut in the summer of 1991, and still a few years away from properly understanding grand prix racing, and his place within it. So this particular edition of GP Racing has been a real education for me. Of course, I knew of Schumacher’s stunning debut at Spa for the fledgling Jordan team, his subsequent switch to Benetton and journey to a mid-90s world championship double (by which time I was a fully fledged Damon Hill fan and F1 nerd), but the original story I did not witness first-hand. Mark Gallagher did. He was Jordan’s press officer when Michael began his F1 journey and here, for the first time and 30 years after the fact, Mark gives his personal…

01 TEAM APPEALS REJECTED Red Bull and Aston Martin fail to be heard 02 MERCEDES DRIVER ANNOUNCEMENT IMMINENT 03 NEW SCHUMACHER MOVIE RELEASED FIA SHUTS DOWN TEAM APPEALS 01 Both Red Bull and Aston Martin have been forced to drop requests to review FIA stewards’ decisions at recent grands prix. In Aston Martin’s case this means Sebastian Vettel’s disqualification from second place at the Hungarian Grand Prix stands. Red Bull had requested a reassessment of the 10-second penalty handed to Lewis Hamilton after his collision with Max Verstappen on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix. The stewards at that meeting judged Hamilton “predominantly to blame” for the incident with the Red Bull driver, his chief rival for the world title. But Red Bull felt the 10s penalty –…

@benedwardstv WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON WITH 2022 REGS? The August break has been a crucial opportunity for F1 personnel to draw breath and recentre before it all goes bonkers again. For those heading to the tracks, we’re about to see an incredibly intense period of racing, with travel and jetlag becoming a huge factor in the decisive part of the 2021 season. Back at base, the staff working in factories may avoid jetlag but the challenge of piecing together the all-new aspects of technical rule changes for 2022 is an ongoing maelstrom. Engineers have been flat out since the first day of January, when the teams were allowed to begin windtunnel and computer studies of the all-new aerodynamic regulations, but it’s not only the aero departments that have been working…

There’s always been a market for second-hand Formula 1 cars among high-net-worth collectors. Some even drive or race them, which is why Ferrari and Williams have very successful divisions devoted to maintaining and running their historic cars on track. But this is a game for the very wealthy and very committed: running an old F1 car is an expensive and specialised business. Now there’s another way to reach near-F1 levels of performance on track. The little-known New Zealand car company called Rodin Cars – tagline ‘nothing like it’ – has spent four years developing what it sees as the ultimate trackday car, with input from W Series champion and Williams F1 reserve driver Jamie Chadwick. The Rodin FZED began life in 2010 as the Lotus T125, part of a spurt…

I first met Eddie Jordan when he was racing in Formula 3. In 1980 he bullied [Marlboro parent company] Philip Morris Ireland into a test drive in a Formula 1 McLaren, which took place at a race meeting at Brands Hatch. I was told to get down there, drive the car and then Eddie got five or 10 laps. I showed no interest – it was a fucking nuisance to me. At the back end of the 1980s I was at Silverstone regularly because we had the John Watson Performance Driving Centre. You’d go into the greasy spoon at lunchtime and there was EJ, ‘Bosco’ Quinn [Jordan’s general manager], Trevor Foster [team manager] and others. I built up a rapport. I was living out on a limb in Bognor Regis…

“I STILL AM A MICHAEL FAN,” said Sebastian Vettel after it was announced at the end of last year that the seven-time world champion’s son, Mick Schumacher, was joining the Formula 1 grid. “I’m happy to help where I can, because he [Mick] is a great guy and obviously I have a very special connection to his father. “I think it’s very important for him to find his own path. But surely, as much as it helped when Michael had some things to say when I asked, and gave me advice, I’m trying to do the same to him. “It’s a shame Michael isn’t able to witness Mick’s progression in the past few years and his step now into F1. So, from my side, I really like him [Mick], we…

SUBSCRIBE TO ENSURE YOU DON’T MISS OUT ON: ▀ EVERY ISSUE DELIVERED ▀ SAVINGS OF UP TO 66% ▀ THE BEST F1 WRITERS ▀ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS ▀ DETAILED INSIGHT ▀ STUNNING IMAGERY ACCESS EVEN MORE ONLINE Our print + digital bundle option includes Autosport Plus, giving you access to exclusive long-reads, in-depth analysis, technical insight and expert opinion on autosport.com. The print + digital bundle also gives you access to the digital magazine on your devices, so you can enjoy GP Racing anytime, anywhere. GET THIS EXCLUSIVE OFFER HERE: WWW.AUTOSPORTMEDIA.COM/OFFER/GPSEP21 Terms and conditions: Offer valid for UK Direct Debit subscriptions only. For the print and digital bundle package, your subscription will continue at £29.99 every six months. For the print only package, your subscription will continue at £24.99 every six months.…

MARK GALLAGHER This month Mark recalls Michael Schumacher's F1 debut (p34) and the first season of Michael's soon-to-be chief F1 rival Mika Häkkinen (p64) DAMIEN SMITH In addition to wrapping up the story of Lotus in F1 (p74), Damien also recalls Michael Schumacher's six Spa victories (p54) OLEG KARPOV Oleg takes a look at the mentoring relationship between Sebastian Vettel and Mick Schumacher, son of Seb's idol Michael (p68) PAT SYMONDS In his column Pat, Michael Schumacher's race engineer for four years at Benetton, explains the bond between the pair (p26)…

THIS MONTH ★ Download and read it on your PC, M ★ It's identical to the print edition ★ On sale the same day as the print edition Go to WWW.gpracing.com/digital-edition/ NEXT MONTH* VETTEL'S ASTON MARTIN TRANSFORMATION How Seb is helping drive forward the team's evoluation ON SALE > Formula 1 finally returns to Zandvoort > McLaren's Zak Brown on the team's expansion > The story behind Netflix's Schumacher documentary > what's eating Yuki Tsunoda? CONTACT US ON letters@f1racing.com GP Racing, 1 Eton Street, Richmond, London, TW9 1AG…

A CRUCIAL RELATIONSHIP FOR SUCCESS In these columns I generally try to delve into the technical matters that are catching the attention of fans and explain some of the engineering nuance behind them. This month, while keeping the engineering theme, I would like to explain how the race engineer and the driver interact and how the bond between them is an integral part of success. It is a particularly apt subject as in other parts of this issue we reflect on the astonishing debut of Michael Schumacher at Spa 30 years ago. I had the privilege of working with Michael as his race engineer the following year, as he entered his first full season in Formula 1, and was his closest colleague through the next four years, a period that…

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER is sitting on the steps of the Team 7Up Jordan race transporter in Spa-Francorchamps telling me about his brother. “He’s sixteen,” he says. “Very quick, racing in karts, his name is Ralf.” It’s Thursday afternoon, August 22, 1991. In my role as press officer, I’m trying to pull together Michael’s biography in order to give the Formula 1 media information about Jordan’s new signing. We discuss his Formula 3 successes: winning the German F3 title and Macau Grand Prix in 1990 while driving for WTS Racing, the team run by his manager Willi Weber. He tells me about racing in Formula Nippon and his experiences in the World Sportscar Championship with Sauber-Mercedes. Then I ask him about his experience of racing at Spa, a mere 70 miles away…

They’re all worth the same in points, but some grands prix victories carry more intrinsic value than others for F1’s most celebrated drivers. There are certain tracks where wins have a greater meaning: Monaco, Silverstone, Monza, Suzuka – and Spa-Francorchamps. Somehow it always seems fitting and right when the current elite shine at the tough ones, the places where Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart, Prost and Senna strode before them. In such context, Michael Schumacher and Spa made sense like that. It was almost as if he was made to race at the swooping track through Belgium’s Ardennes. It’s where everything all started for him in 1991, parachuted as he was into a pretty little car that had enough about it to let him show what he was made of. After…

LET’S BE CLEAR: the story of Team Lotus as an active, contemporary Formula 1 team ended sadly but decisively at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix. Everything else after that, at least in terms of cars carrying the Lotus name on to F1 grids, should be considered – to resort to that hateful modern phrase – fake news. Most of what has followed in the past 27 years has little or nothing to do with Colin Chapman’s hallowed F1 legacy, which was guarded and maintained for a dozen more years after his death in 1982 by the three Peters: Warr, Wright and Collins. It’s a pity really that our story couldn’t have been wrapped up in five chapters. But this sixth and final part, picking through the sorry tales of how a…

King of the kerb-hoppers This is a popular and enduring image of Michael Schumacher at work. He was setting out his stall in only his second grand prix, really attacking the Monza circuit from the very first practice session onwards. And in an unfamiliar car too, having been parachuted into Benetton courtesy of some Bernie Ecclestone dealmaking. I stood on the outside of the Roggia chicane to take this shot. Drivers can find laptime by taking kerb at the entry but it needs judgement as well as commitment, because it can spit the car off at all sorts of angles. It could be quite a hairy place to stand – those cars got very close, and they weren’t going slowly… Where Monza, Italy When Sunday 8 September 1991 Details Canon…

@_markgallagher CONTEMPLATING THE COMPLICATED LIFE OF MOSLEY During the run up to the British Grand Prix, London’s May Fair hotel provided the setting for the premiere of Michael Shevloff’s film ‘It’s Complicated’, documenting the life and times of Max Mosley. It was poignant to reflect, in some detail, on the life of the former FIA President a mere seven weeks after his passing. It’s a good film, with plenty of archive footage of Mosley’s early forays in racing, initially as a driver and then as co-founder of March Engineering. The founding of the Formula One Constructors’ Association, Mosley’s partnership with Bernie Ecclestone and subsequent move into the corridors of power at the FIA, remind us of the political powerplay and borderline chaos that marked and marred Formula 1’s growth. Shevloff…

Some races stick in the memory. Phoenix, Arizona, and the 1991 United States Grand Prix is one of them. A hot, sweaty race sponsored by Iceberg, where 34 drivers and 18 teams turned up, the big boys aiming to win, others just hoping to give it a go. Jordan made its debut, Andrea de Cesaris failing to prequalify, while team-mate Bertrand Gachot demonstrated the potential of the 191 by qualifying 14th. Two and a half tenths quicker in 13th was a 22-year-old Finn. Mika Häkkinen was making his F1 debut a few months after clinching the British F3 Championship, then losing out at the Macau Grand Prix following a controversial collision with a certain German. The Schumacher-Häkkinen world championship duels were still years away, but the die had already been…

IT WAS MONACO IN 1958 THAT THE NAME OF LOTUS… first appeared at a grand prix, and when Colin Chapman made the move into F1 one of his drivers was Graham Hill, who had made a name for himself in the company’s sportscars. For Hill, already 29, it had been a long slog to motor racing’s top echelon, and his first two seasons, with unreliable and largely uncompetitive cars, prompted him to accept an offer from BRM for 1960. Although that proved to be the breakthrough year for Lotus, the move to BRM was the right one for Hill. By 1962 the team was right there, and Graham’s first victory, at Zandvoort, was followed by three more, enough to bring his first world championship. Hill would stay with BRM until…

@CoddersF1 facebook.com/gpracingonline RED BULL: DOTH IT PROTEST TOO MUCH? When will Red Bull tire of rabble-rousing – or even grasp that it advances the team’s cause not one jot? Pleasing though it is to see another team finally making a fist of challenging Mercedes for on-track superiority in the hybrid era, in the off-track arena Merc still has all its rivals licked. It’s about time Red Bull engaged with this truism intelligently and strategically, rather than whipping the bellowing buffoons of social media into an abject froth in the hope that a pitchfork mob will do the trick. It’s no secret that Red Bull has lost pretty much every off-track political engagement this year. On the aeroelasticity or otherwise of its rear wings, it lost. Perhaps more costly over the…