Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2026 i AUTOSPORT

Who would have thought, after the first few Formula 1 races of 2025, that the championship battle would go down to the 24th and final grand prix of the season? Not many, but this roller coaster campaign carried Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri to Abu Dhabi each with a chance of the crown. All three played their part in a tense finale, but it was 26-year-old Norris who did enough to clinch the title by two points, becoming the 35th world champion. In our season review, which starts on page 26, we pick out the key moments and developments that decided the championship, select the star performers and highlight the best individual drives. Jake Boxall-Legge takes a look at the tech battles that were waged in the final…

The final pieces of the Formula 1 2026 driver market jigsaw have been put into place, headlined by Isack Hadjar’s step up to the main Red Bull team to partner Max Verstappen and Arvid Lindblad gaining a place on the grid with Racing Bulls at the age of just 18. Hadjar had long been touted as a replacement for Yuki Tsunoda amid an impressive rookie season, and Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko revealed that the Frenchman’s podium finish at Zandvoort had been the “clincher” in sealing the deal. “It’s a very good moment in my career, that’s for sure; for all the hard work through the years being rewarded now, obviously it’s just the beginning of a new journey,” Hadjar told media at the Abu Dhabi GP season finale. “But…

It’s been a strange old year, hasn’t it? Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Christian Horner lose titles that, in one case, brought television exposure to be avoided and, in the other, coverage to be embraced as an art form. Meanwhile, Felipe Massa seeks recompense for a title he never had. And the titular head of the FIA sinks from president to authoritarian in between handing out medals no one wants. Massa can count himself lucky that his 11 F1 wins were during the reign of Max Mosley, an FIA president who, unlike the present incumbent, made himself scarce when it came to podium ceremonies and the like. Mosley was better at dealing out punishment than serving up platitudes – although Massa would claim that Mosley did not act quickly enough in…

Was there really going to be development over the course of 2025? There was a pervading sense that teams would shut up shop on their technical explorations as soon as the launch specification was punted out of the garage in testing, owing to the complexity of Formula 1’s incoming regulations for 2026. Instead, the limited simulation and financial resources would be spent on next season’s all-new machines, boasting active aerodynamics amid the shift away from ground effect aero. In reality, almost every team expended some effort on refining their 2025 cars, some even taking development later into the season. Others opted for cursory updates in early rounds before calling time on their progress with this year’s models. There was general agreement that F1 was swiftly approaching convergence, with returns fast diminishing; while some…

Andrea Kimi Antonelli Mercedes raised a few eyebrows when it fast-tracked junior phenomenon Antonelli’s F1 debut to replace Lewis Hamilton. For a youngster who had made his first tentative steps in single-seater racing in 2021 and had skipped F3 altogether, the challenge doesn’t get much bigger than representing a top team and stepping into a seven-time world champion’s shoes, even if Mercedes was keen to play down expectations of a driver who was just 18. It did Antonelli and Mercedes a world of good, then, when the Italian took fourth on his Melbourne debut and backed that up with sixth in China and a pole in the Miami sprint. But his inexperience did catch up with him when F1 headed back to Europe and Mercedes introduced an unsuccessful suspension update…

Theo Nael’s impressive Macau Grand Prix double pass was good, but it was not the weekend’s best overtake. That honour fell to Emanuele Olivieri, who triumphed in the inaugural FIA Formula 4 World Cup’s qualification race. The high-speed Mandarin righthander is a bold place to try an overtake. Especially around the outside. And even more so with cold tyres on the first lap. But F4 Middle East conqueror Olivieri defied those factors to sensationally pass Sebastian Wheldon. “I thought it was easy flat also on the outside, but it was not because I ended up quite close to the wall!” Olivieri admitted. The F4 contest was a great 2025 addition, with six F4 champions among a stellar line-up. A poor start dropped Olivieri back in the main event, but there…

IMSA SportsCar Championship GTP title winner Mathieu Jaminet will swap to the World Endurance Championship to drive for Genesis in 2026. The Frenchman was announced along with fellow countryman Paul-Loup Chatin late in November as the fifth and sixth drivers for its pair of new GMR-001 LMDhs. Jaminet is making the move after announcing in the immediate aftermath of winning the IMSA crown with Matt Campbell that he would be leaving Porsche, the marque with which he progressed up the sportscar ladder to become a factory driver in 2020. He has taken the seat originally earmarked for Stoffel Vandoorne, before the Belgian’s desire to continue his Formula E career as Jaguar’s reserve resulted in a rift with Genesis, meaning he will stay with Peugeot. Chatin has been signed after two…

Sebastien Ogier pipped World Rally Championship leader Elfyn Evans to victory after an intense Rally Japan battle that ensured the title would be decided in the Saudi Arabian season finale. Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais claimed their sixth win in a partial 2025 campaign by a margin of 11.6 seconds from Toyota teammate Evans after a thrilling battle across 20 challenging asphalt stages. Ogier’s 67th career victory reduced Evans’s championship lead from 13 points to three ahead of the decider. Another Toyota driver, Kalle Rovanpera, remained in the hunt, albeit 24 points adrift after finishing sixth. Rovanpera had led the rally after Thursday night’s superspecial stage before his title hopes suffered a blow in Friday’s stage three. The Finn clipped a barrier, which damaged the left-rear suspension and resulted in…

For five days, 176 competitors battled the elements across the forests of England, Scotland and Wales on the Roger Albert Clark Rally. Snow, ice, fog and rain added to the challenge of this marathon, but fans still turned out in their thousands. Victory ultimately went to Osian Pryce and Dale Furniss in their Ford Escort Mk2, but not before Marty McCormack and Barney Mitchell showed the BMW M3’s gravel pace. Among the other cars to turn heads was this Volvo 262, nicknamed the ‘Orange Brick’, which Arne Radstrom guided to an impressive ninth overall. Photographer Ben Lawrence Where Sweet Lamb, Powys, Wales When Friday 21 November 2025 Details Canon EOS R3, RF100-500mm lens, 1/640th @F7.1…

The British Touring Car Championship has received 26 entries for 2026. That’s a rise from the past two years, and was made public when the series’ TOCA TBL entrants’ licences were revealed in early December. Plato Racing, the new team of BTCC wins record holder Jason Plato, is confirmed with a two-car effort. Motorsport powerhouse RML has confirmed that it is building the cars, but without identifying them, although sources suggest that they will be a Mercedes model. Elsewhere, despite relinquishing its TBLs when it exited mid-2025, Honda team One Motorsport has reapplied and bought two. West Surrey Racing, meanwhile, has returned one of its TBLs to slim to three BMWs, owing to the departure to sportscar racing of Jake Hill and the group that managed him, MB Motorsport, switching…

10 McFie Puntos vs exotic Alfas 750MC Alfa Romeo & Italian Intermarque The 2025 Alfa Romeo & Italian Intermarque grid was full of elegant Alfas, the odd Ferrari and… two Fiat Puntos. Chris and Simon McFie were normally one behind the other at the lower end of the top 10. Simon’s Punto blew up at Brands Hatch, but Chris’s car (left) starred in the Silverstone finale, running second in race two ahead of Jamie Thwaites’s monstrous TCR Giulietta and the 4C of Jack Berry (right). 9 Gordie Mutch vs Shane Stoney 750MC Radical Club Challenge On his switch from British GT, Gordie Mutch was run by Derby University students in the SR1 class of the revamped Radical Club Challenge, reeling off wins and fastest laps all season. Shane Stoney’s similar…

Lando Norris’s expression in the immediate aftermath of clinching the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ world championship, after finishing third in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, encapsulates the maelstrom of emotions experienced by the 26-year-old. “I’ve not cried in a while – I didn’t think I’d cry but I did,” said the McLaren driver. “It’s a long journey. First of all I want to say a big thanks to everyone at McLaren. My parents… My mum, my dad, who supported me since the beginning. It feels amazing. It’s been a long year but we did it.” Photographer Ahmad AlShehab/NurPhoto via Getty Images Where Yas Marina, Abu Dhabi When Sunday 7 December 2025 Details Nikon Z9 125mm, 1/3200th @F2.8…

Lando Norris had a prime opportunity to wrap up the 2025 Formula 1 title in Qatar, but the title race went to the Abu Dhabi finale, largely thanks to McLaren’s dropping of an almighty strategic clanger. Pirelli had imposed a maximum stint length of 25 laps for each set of tyres, mandating a two-stop strategy, although this looked set to be a mere footnote… until the safety car emerged on the seventh lap. Up to that point, Oscar Piastri had come to life after enduring a few weeks of waning form, and looked at his best around the Losail circuit. The blend of medium-high-speed corners and good circuit grip had played to his strengths, leading to a straightforward sprint-race win and a 0.1-second pole margin over team-mate and championship leader…

Revered designer Adrian Newey has been handed the team principal role at Aston Martin for 2026, with former incumbent Andy Cowell moving into a new position as chief strategy officer. Newey will retain his role as managing technical partner and will remain involved in defining the team’s design philosophy for the all-new 2026 regulations, plus additional duties as the figurehead of the team. Newey’s long F1 career contains a multitude of accolades, including 12 constructors’ championship crowns and 14 drivers’ championships across his time at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. He joined Aston Martin in early 2025. Cowell’s new role involves coordinating between Aston Martin’s design department, powertrain partner Honda, fuels supplier (and title sponsor) Aramco, and lubricants partner Valvoline. This is not the first time that Aston Martin has…

“I’m happy,” said an emotional Lando Norris after claiming the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ championship in Abu Dhabi. “I just won it my way. I’m happy I could go out and be myself.” What that meant was a journey distinguished by crises of confidence and a nagging sense of self-doubt as well as great speed, tenacity, and outstanding racecraft. Those who placed their bets according to the outcome of the first grand prix of 2025 were in for a turbulent ride. A picture already seemed to be developing of McLaren technical superiority, based on polesitter and winner Norris’s margin over reigning champion Max Verstappen in qualifying. As Norris drove to what seemed like an unruffled victory (but that actually included a similar off to the one that hurt his McLaren…

The #50 and #51 Ferrari 499P Hypercar crews of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen, and Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi celebrate with team personnel under a cascade of confetti cannoned into the Bahrain night sky after securing the World Endurance Championship constructors’ and drivers’ titles – the latter for the second-named trio. While the #50 and #51 finished third and fourth, in formation, at the season finale, the Toyota GR010 HYBRID of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries ended a yearlong victory drought for the Japanese manufacturer. Turn the page for our race debrief. Photographer Jakob Ebrey/LAT/Getty Images Where Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain When Saturday 8 November 2025 Details Canon EOS R3, RF28-70mm lens, 1/400th @F4.5…

Nick Tandy will not defend the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours crowns with which in 2025 he completed his collection of outright victories in the world’s big sportscar enduros. Instead he will compete in the IMSA GT Daytona Pro ranks. Tandy opted to step down from the Porsche Penske Motorsport LMDh line-up after three seasons. He has been placed by his employer at AO Racing and will contest the full season aboard a 911 GT3-R alongside fellow Brit Harry King, with Alessio Picariello staying with the team for the Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans endurance rounds. “My time at PPM had run its course: I wanted a new challenge and asked to do something else,” said Tandy. “I was looking at IMSA and the World Endurance Championship…

Sebastien Ogier overhauled Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans to claim a record-equalling ninth World Rally Championship title at a chaotic Rally Saudi Arabia won by the Hyundai of Thierry Neuville. Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais sealed the crown by finishing third, 1m03.3s behind outgoing champion Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe in one of the most dramatic season finales in WRC history. Evans arrived with a three-point lead over Ogier, with fellow Toyota driver Kalle Rovanpera, contesting his final WRC round before moving to circuit racing, holding a slim chance, 24 points adrift. The unknown nature of conditions at the inaugural Rally Saudi Arabia rendered the final round a lottery. The mixture of sandy desert stages and extremely rocky roads provided a much more exaggerated road-cleaning effect that impacted the title contenders the…

Equipe Classic Racing plans to run a special ‘British Sportscar Weekend’ event at Donington Park next year that will feature a collection of one-make races for British brands. Having attracted 42 cars for a Syd Segal Trophy Austin-Healey contest at Silverstone this year, Equipe will run another similar race at Donington on 5 July. But, in addition to the Healeys, there will also be other encounters for pre-1966 machinery, including MG, Lotus and AC vs Jaguar grids. It is anticipated that MGAs, MGBs, Midgets and possibly Magnettes will populate the MG field, while Elans, Elites and early Sevens will form the Lotus entry. AC Aces, Acecas, 260 and 289 Cobras, along with E-types, XK120s, XK140s and XK150s will be on the AC vs Jaguar grid. “I helped put together the…

Three-time British Touring Car champion Gordon Shedden and fellow Celtic tin-top veteran Aron Taylor-Smith have moved under the Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport banner after the exit of Jake Hill from the series. Scot Shedden and Irishman Taylor-Smith will therefore remain on board at Speedworks Motorsport as the Mark Blundellrun MB organisation reunites with the Cheshire squad, with which it formerly placed its driver Andrew Watson in 2024. After Speedworks had replaced the bespoke Toyota engines in Shedden’s and Taylor-Smith’s Corolla GR Sports with customer M-Sport-built TOCA powerplants, Shedden (below) was the BTCC’s fourth-highest points scorer over the final three race weekends of 2025. “There’s a lot of reasons for doing it,” said Shedden. “Clearly performance in the second half of the year was significantly better and we were…

“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” It’s the traditional mantra by which manufacturers justify their involvement in motorsport. But perhaps not what you’d expect to hear in a club racing paddock. But those are the words of Tom Robinson, 2022 Jaguar champion and managing director of marque specialist Swallows Racing. The long-running Jaguar Championship – currently under the auspices of the Classic Sports Car Club, but inaugurated by the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club – splits its classes based primarily on modification rather than cubic capacity. Regulatory freedom allows Swallows to apply the original ethos of racing and use the championship as a proving ground for its products – aimed not only at racing customers but, more significantly, the wider public through its specialist performance parts. The process of constant evolution and…

1976 SHADOW DN5B Back in 2017, Autosport selected the Tony Southgate-designed Shadow DN5 as one of the best Formula 1 cars never to win a world championship grand prix. It really should have won the 1975 Brazilian Grand Prix in the hands of Jean-Pierre Jarier, could have won the Monaco GP, and did win the nonchampionship Brands Hatch Race of Champions, driven by Tom Pryce. DN5-8B was the test and development car during 1976 before being sold to Can-Am and Trans-Am champion George Follmer. It remained undriven until restored by Bahner Engineering and Adkins Racing in 2004. We’d love to see it mixing with other Cosworth DFV F1 machines in historic competition. 2015 AUDI R18 E-TRON QUATTRO Fiskens describes this R18 as “an incredible opportunity to own and race a…

After taking the championship lead in Mexico, Lando Norris extended his advantage over McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri to 24 points with a dominant display across the Sao Paulo weekend, during which he chalked up the sprint and grand prix wins to continue his momentum. In both races, Norris took victory ahead of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who enjoyed his most complete weekend in Formula 1 to this point, although the Mercedes rookie’s lap-six clash with Piastri was not without controversy, with the Australian hit with a 10-second penalty. Norris had made an ebullient getaway to ensure that Antonelli, starting on the soft tyres versus Norris’s mediums (as seen also in the sprint race), could not mount a surprise attack into the opening handful of corners. By the end of the lap,…

What looked all year to be building up to a thrilling Formula 2 season finale ended in anti-climax… unless you happen to be Leonardo Fornaroli or Invicta Racing. Second place in the Qatar feature race wrapped up the crown for the Italian even before the teams headed to the Abu Dhabi finale. It didn’t take long for Fornaroli to be named as a new McLaren junior, which means he adopts a “test and development role within the Formula 1 team’s structure”. He is part of a wholesale restructure of McLaren’s roster of proteges. Also on board is Richard Verschoor, one of Fornaroli’s main rivals in 2025, who after five years in F2 joins “the team’s talent pipeline, which has an overarching aim of helping drivers progress towards Formula 1, IndyCar,…

DOWN 6 10 Carlos Sainz It took a while for Sainz to get going at Williams but, once he did, he demonstrated his class as both a driver and a driving force at the team. It had been an inauspicious start in Australia, where he mistimed an upshift behind the safety car and spun out, but was credited for helping team-mate Alex Albon work his way into fifth with his insight on the pitwall. The points slowly began to trickle in during the early season, but struggles in qualifying and poor luck held him back in the middle part of the campaign. Baku in September was the turning point; Sainz was in the running for pole, and maintained his grid position of second for much of the race. Only George…

Formula 1 trumpeted the 75th anniversary of the world championship with a glitzy season launch at London’s O2. The first and indeed the last of its kind – for, while it was declared an incredible success by the commercial rights holder, there will be no similar events in the foreseeable future. Go figure. To an extent, the F1 75 launch demonstrated how far the category has come since the last attempt to stage such a combined effort, 15 years earlier. In 2010 the Formula One Teams Association, the now-moribund entity set up to fight the corner of the competitors but even then collapsing under the weight of its internal divisions, tried to coordinate a joint launch, but the enterprise came to naught. FOTA had, more or less, been set up…

It was all looking a little ominous on the Saturday of the Macau Grand Prix weekend. When Freddie Slater blasted into the lead at the start of the qualifying race and cantered clear to win by over five seconds, it was abundantly evident that the Prema driver would take some stopping. But the unforgiving streets of Macau’s Guia circuit have a habit of denying victory to the apparent pacesetter – and so it proved again this year. Right from the beginning of the main contest it was clear that recently crowned Formula Regional European champion Slater had a greater challenge on his hands this time. The Briton immediately lost the lead off the line, his car’s jaunty angle on the grid not helping his cause, as Aston Martin Academy member…

The Balance of Performance for the Bahrain 8 Hours resulted in a sense of foreboding among Toyota’s rivals ahead of the World Endurance Championship showdown. “Unless they do something wrong they are going to finish 1-2,” reckoned one driver in another camp. The Japanese manufacturer may not have notched up a podium in the first seven races of 2025, but there was good reason for this pessimism. The helping hand it received under the BoP, and the reverse that came the way of some of its competitors in Hypercar, arrived in time for a race that it has made its own over the years. Toyota duly delivered the predicted 1-2 in the Bahrain 8 Hours in November: Mike Conway, Nyck de Vries and Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 GR010 HYBRID…

Olivier Jansonnie has been promoted to become motorsport boss at the Stellantis group that includes Citroen, DS, Maserati and Lancia. The Frenchman moves into the role after heading up the Le Mans Hypercar programme at Peugeot Sport as its vice-president of endurance and technical director. Jansonnie is replacing Jean-Marc Finot, who is retiring after filling the top motorsport job since 2016, initially at Peugeot before the creation of Stellantis on its merger with Fiat Chrysler in 2021. The programmes that will come under his remit include the twin assaults on the Formula E World Championship with DS and Citroen, Maserati’s involvement in the GT2 category, and Lancia’s World Rally Championship assault with the new Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale. After starting his career at Peugeot in 1998, Jansonnie moved to Ralliart…

Takamoto Katsuta carries the weight of a nation as he attempts to deliver what would have been a moment in history – a Japanese driver winning on home soil. The much-loved Toyota star was spurred on by thousands of onlookers who lined the road sections and flooded the Toyota City service park. They had plenty to cheer for – Katsuta took the fight to team-mate Sebastien Ogier and even led the rally after stage three. But, once again, it wasn’t to be, and a mistake on stage 11 ensured the champagne would be on ice for another year. Nevertheless, a maiden World Rally victory for Katsuta does feel like it’s getting closer. Photography Red Bull Content Pool Where Nukata, Japan When Sunday 9 November 2025…

British GT boss Lauren Granville revealed cost-saving measures for 2026 are purely designed to boost grid numbers after a significant drop in GT4 entries. The 2025 campaign had just eight full-season GT4 cars, which was down from 17 in 2024, due to various rising costs, leaving the championship to respond with several changes. These include the removal of the second Donington Park round, meaning there are now six race weekends, while the Spa contest has also been cut from three to two hours. “I would like to have more than eight cars in GT4,” Granville told Autosport. “January, February, we realised that budgets have hit harder, and teams were struggling. “Particularly in GT4, we were finding that they were like £40k short – the prices have really crept up. We…

Formula 3 race winner Callum Voisin has been chosen as the new Porsche Carrera Cup GB Junior for the next two years. The 2023 GB3 champion impressed during a shootout at Silverstone when he battled British Touring Car victor Daryl DeLeon, Porsche Sprint Challenge GB frontrunner Samuel Harvey and Dutch Porsche Cayman racer Joep Breedveld across a series of driving, fitness and media tests to land the prize. The 19-year-old will receive a wealth of opportunities and support from the German manufacturer, including £85,000 towards his Carrera Cup budget for each of the next two seasons. “I’ve been following Porsches for quite some time so it’s great and really exciting to see what it’s all about,” Voisin said. “Being backed by a brand like Porsche is incredible – I want…

10 Dylan Popovic CCRC GT Championship (1st) “Finally,” sighed Dylan Popovic on landing the Castle Combe GT title in the October finale. Finishing second in 2024 strengthened the Bosnian-born Londoner’s resolve and, driving his self-developed seven-litre Ginetta G50, he chased the Lamborghini and Ferrari 488 exotica harder still, achieving personal best laps. The ever-smiling IT guru competes for fun and no champion is more popular among peers. 9 Sam Mitchell HSCC Historic Formula Ford 1600 (1st) In the resurgent Historic Formula Ford Championship, Sam Mitchell set himself towards the title with a mid-season run of five wins on the bounce, which was enough to see off his main rival, three-time conqueror Benn Simms. This was Mitchell’s second title – he also won the crown back in 2013 and followed on…

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Jo Siffert surveys his stricken Cooper-Maserati, parked at the side of the Zandvoort circuit after succumbing to an engine issue in the closing stages of the 1966 Dutch Grand Prix. The Swiss, here appearing to pay little heed to the looming BRM of Graham Hill, had been forced to pit earlier in the race due to overheating, arriving in a cloud of steam. His mechanics wrestled with a filler cap that refused to budge, and when it did, a column of boiling water shot into the air, forcing the crew to take evasive action. Once topped up, he rejoined in 12th and last place and, according to Autosport, “had been going really well”, albeit well shy of a points finish, when his “engine bothers” proved terminal. Photographer Rainer Schlegelmilch/Getty Images…