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B R I TA I N ’ S B E S T M OTO R S P O R T W E E K LY

Why Red Bull is now ready to beat Mercedes Verstappen and Horner on how they will take on Hamilton PLUS

Formula 1 We talk to Red Bull’s next driving superstar Le Mans New rules to bring American cars to Europe Monte Carlo Rally Neuville wins as Tanak survives monster crash

30 JANUARY 2020

COVER IMAGES McKlein; Motorsport Images/Portlock

PIT & PADDOCK GALLOWAY

Can Verstappen and Red Bull finally end Hamilton’s dominance?

There have been plenty of reminders over the past few years of the abilities of Red Bull. Even during the turbulent time with Renault, the team won 12 grands prix during the turbo-hybrid era and it has often made the most astute strategic decisions during races.

While Red Bull’s 2019 season was apparently similar to the year before, it’s probably fair to say that the first year of the Red BullHonda relationship was better than many people expected. And as Scott Mitchell’s piece on page 16 shows, the key players believe that things are looking good to build on that campaign. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes are very much in Max Verstappen’s sights and those years of Red Bull domination haven’t been forgotten.

As well as the now, we also take a look back to the first time Honda conquered four-wheeled European motorsport (p26) – it’s probably earlier than you think – and ahead to the next Red Bull Junior who could make it to the top: Juri Vips (p32).

While one Estonian aims for F1, another is probably counting himself lucky to still be in one piece. Reigning World Rally champion Ott Tanak’s Hyundai debut on the Monte Carlo Rally ended with one of the biggest accidents on the event in years (p7). Toyota newcomers Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans seemed set to pick up the pieces, only for a stunning Thierry Neuville performance to save the day for Hyundai. The drama bodes well for another fine WRC season, though Tanak would probably welcome a more boring run on Rally Sweden – assuming it happens at all (see p11).

A more successful defence was put up by Wayne Taylor Racing, which proved it didn’t need Fernando Alonso to once again win the Daytona 24 Hours for Cadillac, despite a number of setbacks (p44).

NEXT WEEK 6 FEBRUARY Kevin Turner Editor

Karun Chandhok answers the big questions ahead of the 2020 Formula 1 season

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Le Mans to attract IMSA racers Tanak survives monster Monte smash DTM optimistic despite Aston pullout Warm weather threatens Rally Sweden Opinion: David Evans Opinion: Gary Watkins Feedback: your letters

INSIGHT 16 Why Red Bull is ready for the F1 title 26 The first time Honda conquered Europe 32 Red Bull’s next hope: Juri Vips

RACE CENTRE 36 Neuville gets his Monte Carlo revenge 44 Cadillac continues its Daytona run

CLUB AUTOSPORT 62 Sauber C9 to make racing return 64 Meadows to lead Double R in F4 66 Comeback for ex-Dron Porsche

FINISHING STRAIGHT 68 71 72 74

What’s on this week What could have been: Lucas di Grassi From the archive: 1983 British F3 Autosport 70: Michelin’s F1 breakthrough

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N AT I O N A L S U P P L E M E N T In the first of a series of free supplements, we drive three Porsches, take a look at the 750 Motor Club and hear from Motorsport UK.

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CO N T R OV E RSY

SCHLEGELMILCH

US RACERS ALLOWED FOR LE LE MANS 24 HOURS

NEWS

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D E B AT E

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PIT + PADDOCK

O OPINION O FEEDBACK

In pre-Group C days (1981 Le Mans here), cars built to European and IMSA rules fought it out

The next generation of prototypes to race in the IMSA series in North America will be allowed to fight for outright victory in the World Endurance Championship. The new breed of LMP2-based hybrids due to take over from the current Daytona Prototype internationals in 2022 can join the WEC from the start of the 2021-22 season.

The move announced last week ahead of this season’s IMSA SportsCar Championship opener at the Daytona 24 Hours will pitch a third class of car, labelled LMDh, against lookalike prototypes and the road-based machinery built to the LM Hypercar rules that will come on stream one season earlier this September.

The Balance of Performance will be used to ensure equality between the different kinds of machinery.

What was billed as a historic day for sportscar racing

by IMSA and WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l’Ouest represents another major shift in rules for the post-LMP1 era of the WEC and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The hypercar division was originally envisaged for lookalike prototypes before it was opened up last summer to racers developed out of road machinery.

The creation of the LMDh division out of the ideas for what was originally dubbed DPi 2.0 is, according to IMSA and the ACO, the first step towards one set of regulations in the future.

New IMSA president John Doonan explained that there was a will on both sides for the process of convergence to continue beyond the life cycle of the LMDh and LM Hypercar regulations. “I would say

everyone up here today [on the stage during the IMSA/ACO announcement at Daytona] hopes that the ultimate outcome is one, single formula,” he said.

“Obviously there are people who have committed to hypercar and there are manufacturers that are committed to our rules over here. But over the next few years we are going to see a convergence: I think that would be a dream come true.”

ACO president Pierre Fillon explained that “the dream is to have only one category with the same design and the same performance – the target is to have only one class in the end.”

It is unclear when that target might be achievable.

A graphic displayed at the launch suggested that LM Hypercar and LMDh would continue past the middle of the decade. Few details of a class that takes its name from the blue-riband races respectively run by the ACO and IMSA, with the ‘h’ hinting at both hybrid and hypercar, were revealed at Daytona. More has been promised for the ‘Super Sebring’ weekend in March, when IMSA and the WEC come together over the double-header meeting. The idea of a one-make or spec rear-axle system has been carried over from DPi 2.0. It is also planned that the new IMSA cars will incorporate more styling cues than the current DPis. It was confirmed at Daytona last Friday that the existing four LMP2 constructors – ORECA, Ligier, Dallara and Multimatic – are going to have their licences extended to cover the next generation of P2 due to come on stream for the 2022-23 WEC season.

It should also become clear at Sebring whether LM Hypercars from the WEC will be able to run against

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Race teams, including Mercedes F1 here, rely on multi-national staff

SUTTON

P14 OPINION

Brexit fears prompt sport to lobby government UK MOTORSPORT

MANS AND WEC LMDh machinery in the IMSA series as well as vice versa. There was no mention of this at the announcement and Doonan originally ruled it out.

He quickly back-tracked on that when it became clear that Fillon expressed a desire for that to happen on the ACO’s side. “We’re not sure if we are going to see hypercars in IMSA just yet,” said Doonan. “The fact that we have this official alliance as of today means there is a common vision to do the right thing for the industry.

We are studying every aspect of it. Essentially it comes down to the BoP.” He added that there is a desire to make the LMDh cars as close as possible to LM Hypercars in performance from the outset.

Fillon said: “It is too early to know, but why not? You will have to wait until Sebring to have technical details.”

The rules accord was widely welcomed by manufacturers already involved in DPi and those who aren’t. No manufacturer would, however, make anything approaching a firm commitment to LMDh ahead of the rules announcement at Sebring.

Mark Kent, director of motorsport at General Motors, which incorporates the Daytona-winning Cadillac brand, said: “Cadillac congratulates IMSA and the ACO on their announcement of a convergence in the top class of prototype racing. Once we obtain further details, we will evaluate if our participation aligns with our company’s future vision.”

Porsche factory motorsport boss Pascal Zurlinden called the alignment “good news for the industry”. “Does it mean that Porsche is coming?” he said. “We can’t comment because we don’t know the regulations.”

GARY WATKINS

The British government has been urged to help keep the country’s motorsport industry as the ‘best in the world’ by ensuring there is a business-friendly post-Brexit immigration policy.

The influential Motorsport Industry Association has joined more than 30 business groups plus its largest business lobbies in sending a letter to home secretary Priti Patel offering help in coming up with policies that work for the country’s industries.

The UK boasts a massive motorsport industry, with its ‘Motorsport Valley’ business cluster generating revenues of more than £9billion per year.

With many of those companies heavily reliant on freedom of movement to employ highly skilled staff from Europe, the fears are that strict immigration restrictions could become a deterrent for the best talent.

In a tweet linking to the letter from the Confederation of British Industry, the MIA said: “To maintain Motorsport Valley’s position as ‘best in the world’, we need government policies which allow us to attract and retain the best, talented and productive people from anywhere in the world.”

The letter from the CBI states: “Business understands that the

immigration system must change in order to rebuild public confidence. Insight from enterprise can help build a points-based model that provides greater control, whilst providing access to the labour and skills needed to support the economy.

This can go hand in hand with a continued determination to invest in training home grown talent.”

It later added: “The economy needs a simple, streamlined and affordable system that meets business’s needs of all sizes, sectors and across all UK regions and nations. We look forward to working with the new government to inform the detailed design of a new immigration system in a way that commands public confidence and supports the UK’s global ambitions.”

Last year, David Richards, chairman of British motorsport governing body Motorsport UK, warned that there could be negative consequences for UK companies as a result of any restrictions imposed on dealing with Europe.

“Something we should be so proud of is the top F1 teams and world champions based here,” he said. “And we’re going to make their lives difficult [in the event of a complicated Brexit].

We’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

JONATHAN NOBLE 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 5

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Ticktum is star of Williams sim FORMULA 1

Miami GP avoids public roads in face of protests FORMULA 1 The organiser of the putative Miami Grand Prix has released an updated map of the proposed Formula 1 circuit around the Hard Rock Stadium, which now avoids the use of public roads.

It has also promised there will be “no racing during school hours” in direct response to complaints about potential noise and air pollution associated with the event impacting local school children.

The news came ahead of a crucial Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners meeting, when plans for the race – and specifically zoning issues related to the stadium district – were due to be discussed, but this has now been deferred until next month. The map was revealed by Tom Garfinkel, the vice-chairman, president and CEO of both the Miami Dolphins NFL team and the stadium organisation. Garfinkel, who was previously executive vice-president of Chip Ganassi Racing, is also the promoter of the F1 race.

The original version of the stadium track used a half-mile section of 199th Street, which was built as part of the stadium project but is a public road.

By avoiding it and sticking to stadium land, Garfinkel hopes to address one of the major concerns of residents:

access and traffic during race week.

One of the key issues is that the stadium district zoning ordinance includes “automotive races” in the list of allowable uses for the land. The proposal being debated and due to be voted on is to amend this specific section so races “may only be approved in the [Stadium] district as a special exception after a public hearing”.

The memorandum notes that while a race “can have a positive impact on a community in the form of increased publicity, tourism and economic development”, it can also have a detrimental impact on local residents “as the motor vehicles are very loud and may release exhaust fumes”.

Commissioner Barbara Jordan, who proposed the amendment, has suggested any applicant for a race must submit a site plan that shows “safety features to confine accidents and other race impacts to the track itself and away from adjoining or adjacent properties” and “distance of the race track and spectator areas from single-family residential properties”.

Miami-Gardens residents voiced their continued opposition to the race at a recent meeting. Plans have also been made for a protest against the race, to be held outside the Hard Rock Stadium this Sunday.

ADAM COOPER

Williams says development driver Dan Ticktum is “one of the best” it has ever seen in its Formula 1 simulator, and is confident it can harness his potential.

Ticktum endured a difficult 2019, when after three races in Japan’s Super Formula series he was dropped from the Red Bull Junior programme. That decision appeared to make it difficult for him to find his way back in to F1, but late last year Williams announced that it had appointed him as a development driver.

As well as two Macau Grand Prix wins and the 2017 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award, Ticktum’s rollercoaster career also includes a spell in which he was banned from competing, of which he served one year, but Williams has confidence that it can get the best out of him.

Deputy team principal Claire Williams said: “I am looking forward to working with him, and the team is. I know when we put him in our simulator the guys said he’s one of the best drivers they’ve ever seen. He’s got great talent, and I think it needs harnessing. We have experience doing that. He knows what’s expected of him and how he needs to behave.

“He’s one person in a team of 750 and we’ve always had the attitude at Williams that no one is more important than anyone else. Everyone has to roll their sleeves up and do the job in a way that is expected of them, but I think he knows and understands that.”

Ticktum has garnered a reputation for having a forceful personality, but Williams believes he is more mature now and has a much better understanding of what is expected of him. “He’s willing to get his head down and just do the job that we’re asking him to do so,” she said. “He’s a great British talent that shouldn’t be lost in our sport for whatever reason.”

MOTORSPORT IMAGES/TRIENITZ

JONATHAN NOBLE

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McKLEIN

P I T + PA D D O C K

Tanak escapes monster cliff-plunging Monte shunt WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP The days of Ott Tanak crashing frequently are gone. But even now, when the reigning world champion departs the straight and narrow, he does it in the most dramatic fashion. Five years ago he rolled into a Mexican reservoir. Last Friday, he levelled a tree and then fell off the edge of a cliff on the Monte Carlo Rally.

Once again, footage of a Tanak crash went viral, but the Estonian couldn’t have cared less. His only focus in the wake of his brief Hyundai debut was on the lost seat time his fourth-stage Monte shunt caused.

After a night in hospital for observation, Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja were cleared to fly home to Estonia, where they would begin plotting their comeback.

Tanak told Autosport: “The biggest shame is that we couldn’t spend too much time in the car. On Thursday evening I did not feel too good, but we improved the car overnight and already on Friday morning it felt better. But then the ride was cut a bit short. It was a proper accident. When the car was destroyed and it’s not possible to continue, that means it was a good one.

“Now it’s a long break in, let’s say, the Tarmac championship – the next one [asphalt round] is at the end of the year.

Now we have to focus on the dirt.”

Hyundai is now busy building Tanak a new i20 for next month’s Rally Sweden.

Once they’ve done that, the team will need to change the stickers on Sebastien Loeb’s #9 car, because it’s going to become Craig Breen’s #42 i20 for the first time this

season. The Irishman has been pressed into action for a tactical approach to round two.

Breen didn’t start in Monte and, therefore, starts further down the order on the roads around Torsby. Traditionally, the lower the start number, the faster the road. Traditionally, there’s been snow in Sweden (see page 11).

Breen paid tribute to Hyundai Motorsport director Andrea Adamo’s decision, saying: “Andrea made it clear he would look after me, he told me to trust him and I do. I’m over the moon to be back in the car and desperate to be back in the WRC. I really want to move on with my career with this team. It’s a special place to be.”

DAVID EVANS

P36 MONTE CARLO RALLY REPORT

Smart insight published daily 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 7

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TRIENITZ

DTM boss Berger confident despite Aston team pullout

DTM DTM boss Gerhard Berger remains confident of the series’ grid holding at its 2019 level of 18 cars despite last week’s news that R-Motorsport has withdrawn its squad of four Aston Martin Vantages.

The Swiss team’s pullout leaves the DTM with just 14 confirmed cars – six factory machines each from Audi and BMW, and the two Audi privateer entries.

Berger said: “R-Motorsport’s decision comes at a late stage. We expected their involvement in the series would be longer.

On behalf of ITR [the DTM series

promoter], I would like to thank Dr Florian Kamelger and his whole team for their involvement in 2019.

“We are holding productive discussions with a number of manufacturers and teams, and are confident that we will have a full starting grid for this year’s DTM.” Efforts are understood to be under way on three fronts to this effect. One is to resurrect the Aston programme with a new team – the Vantages are now being housed at HWA, which built and developed them, and are believed to be under new ownership.

Another option is to try to encourage Audi and BMW to field more cars. Robert

Kubica is still on the driver market with sponsorship after testing for BMW, while sources suggest that Jonathan Aberdein, who proved a find of 2019 in a WRT Audi, is on the radar of BMW and could fill the manufacturer’s final factory seat for 2020.

The third – and potentially most likely – avenue is to attract new manufacturers: the Japanese Super GT trio of Toyota, Honda and Nissan. The word is that Nissan can be ruled out, but the other two are possible, although JAS, which runs Honda’s European-based tin-top/GT projects, played down any prospect of DTM involvement.

MARCUS SIMMONS

FORMULA 3 Reigning Formula Renault Eurocup champion Oscar Piastri has joined Prema Racing for his step up this season to the FIA Formula 3 Championship.

The Australian, who has also become a member of Renault’s F1 Academy, will race for a team whose drivers locked out the top three positions in the championship last year.

It means that Prema has the two 2019 champions of Europe’s series for FIA Regional F3 cars, as Piastri (right) joins Formula Regional king Frederik Vesti in the line-up. Also on board is Logan Sargeant, who switches from Carlin.

Prema boss Rene Rosin said: “We worked really hard over the winter to secure a competitive line-up and I’m satisfied with how the team has come together.”

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Renault has confirmed a graduation to Formula 2 for FIA F3 race winner Christian Lundgaard, who joins ART Grand Prix. He joins fellow Regie protege Guanyu Zhou, who remains at Virtuosi, in F2, while Jack Aitken is also expected to compete in the series.

Max Fewtrell stays in F3 with Renault colours, but has switched from ART to Hitech GP for 2020.

JACK BENYON

LE MEUR/DPPI

Renault champ Piastri secures Prema F3 seat

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BRITISH ‘BABY’ RED BULL JUNIOR JOINS VAR FOR F4

Lawson wins again down under TOYOTA RACING SERIES Reigning champion Liam Lawson bounced back from a miserable start to the weekend to win again in New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series at Teretonga and maintain his points advantage after two rounds of the 2020 series.

A qualifying red flag, plus traffic on this short circuit, scuppered Lawson (above) on Saturday morning, and he lined up 13th. Caio Collet got a brilliant start from fourth, rounding battling poleman Igor Fraga and Gregoire Saucy at Turn 1 to emerge with the lead.

Brazilian Renault F1 protege Collet, in the R-ace GP-assisted Mtec Motorsport entry, scampered clear to win from Saucy, Fraga and Franco Colapinto. Lawson carved his way up to sixth, but was unable to grab fifth from Ido Cohen, try as he might.

Eighth place in the opener gave French karting graduate Emilien Denner pole for the reversed-grid race. In only his second car-race meeting, Denner showed maturity to convert that into a race-long lead, his M2 Competition car holding off Lirim Zendeli. Lawson this time won his battle with Cohen, and took third.

Lawson got the better of surprise poleman Jackson Walls at the start of the

finale, and the M2-run Red Bull Junior led all the way. That was despite a brief loss of power that allowed the pursuing Fraga to close up, before Lawson’s car chimed in again. Yuki Tsunoda completed an M2 1-2-3, with Walls fourth and Collet the winner of the battle for fifth.

COLLET STAYING IN RENAULT Collet was part of the Renault Sport Academy announcement on Tuesday (see story below left), with confirmation that he will remain in the Formula Renault Eurocup with R-ace GP. Also graduating to Renault colours is 15-year-old reigning French Formula 4 champion Hadrien David, who has joined MP Motorsport.

Victor Martins, 2019 Eurocup runner-up, is off the scheme, but is expected to lead ART Grand Prix’s entrance to the series.

French F4 runner-up Reshad de Gerus will also be on the Eurocup grid. He joins Arden, while Finn William Alatalo will be at JD Motorsport after two seasons in Italian F4, and Xavier Lloveras stays at Global Racing Services. Big news at GRS is the Spanish team’s recruitment of ex-Ferrari F1 engineer Luca Baldisserri. The Italian ran the Ferrari Driver Academy and then oversaw the career of Lance Stroll from his karting days all the way into Formula 1.

British 15-year-old Red Bull Junior Jonny Edgar is to attack the German and Italian Formula 4 championships this year in his second season of car racing.

Edgar, who celebrates his 16th birthday next month, focused on the Italian series in his rookie season with Jenzer Motorsport, but has now joined the crack Van Amersfoort Racing squad – the Dutch team ran Dennis Hauger to the 2019 Italian title and fielded Joey Mawson to German honours in 2016.

“Last year was my first in F4 and I loved every minute of it,” said Edgar. “This year I will have to step up my game competing in two of the toughest F4 championships at the same time. I have great confidence in Van Amersfoort Racing. Already during winter testing they made me feel right at home.”

VAR CEO Rob Niessink added: “We have had our eye on Jonny already for quite some time, so we are extremely happy to have him on board for the upcoming season. We feel he is now ready to compete for the highest step on the podium.”

MARCUS SIMMONS

RED BULL

BRUCE JENKINS

FORMULA 4

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IN THE HEADLINES GAMES MOVE TO RICARD After a successful inaugural running at Vallelunga last November, the FIA Motorsport Games will move to French Grand Prix venue Paul Ricard this year. The six events from 2019 – races in GT3, TCR and Formula 4, slalom karting, drifting and digital – will remain for the 23-25 October event, with additional contests that the FIA says will be revealed later in the year. The host city, which was Rome last year, will be Marseille. SRO Motorsports Group, the ‘parent’ of GT3 racing, will once more coorganise the Games with the FIA.

McKLEIN

‘NO CHINA CRISIS’, SAYS FE

Rally Sweden faces cancellation WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP Next month’s Rally Sweden hangs by a thread, with the coldest of cold snaps needed to get the show on the road.

Event CEO Glenn Olsson has told Autosport that he’s willing to accept a lack of snow – just as well because not a flake has fallen, and recent sunshine has given most of the stages a surreal summer look – but that if a big freeze doesn’t come by early next week the event will be off.

World Rally Championship stakeholders are anxiously waiting on the weather, with a downturn in temperatures predicted for later this week. As Autosport went to press, it was four degrees and raining in the service park in Torsby.

“We have very little snow, but the snow is a visual thing,” said Olsson. “It’s good for the pictures and it helps the tyres, but the main thing we need is frozen roads. Of course we want snow and we have snow in the forecast, but the minus nights is what we really need to make the rally run.”

The mild winter means the permafrost in the ground is a third shallower than normal, at around 30cm. Autosport understands that there are numerous potential solutions to help save the roads, including not running the historic rally, not running the Junior WRC round, and only

including one loop of stages per day.

Another concern for Olsson is getting fans in and out of the car parks.

“Minus temperatures create strength in the grass parking areas,” said Olsson. “If we don’t have this then we can have spectators just getting stuck. Two years ago, we had too much snow and struggled to clear paths to get spectators in. Now we have nothing. I can’t remember conditions like this so late into January. “ One of the primary concerns for a snowless Rally Sweden is the speed.

Without the snowbanks to narrow the roads, the drivers fear average speeds will rocket. Former Rally Sweden winner Sebastien Ogier admitted that would be a concern. “Let’s hope the weather changes, that would be the best for everybody,” said the six-time world champion. “Sweden without snow would be a little bit strange.”

If Rally Sweden doesn’t go ahead, it will be the second WRC round in the past three to have been lost to climate-related issues.

Last November’s Rally Australia was cancelled due to the bushfires close to Coffs Harbour. While bushfires are a regular feature of life in rural New South Wales, the 50-degree temperatures that intensified them are not.

DAVID EVANS

Formula E has said that its Chinese round in Sanya on 21 March is still on the schedule, despite the country’s outbreak of the coronavirus. A subsequently amended statement issued by China’s governing body of motorsport cancelling a rally referred to ‘suspending all sports competitions until April’, but an FE spokesman has since described this as “wrong and misleading information”.

KIMBALL GETS FOYT RIDE IndyCar race winner Charlie Kimball has worked his way back into a full-time race seat for the 2020 series, after contesting just a half-season last year with Carlin. Kimball will line up with AJ Foyt Racing, replacing Matheus Leist. The team’s famed #14 car, meanwhile, will be steered by veteran 2004 IndyCar champion Tony Kanaan in an ovals-only programme.

Sebastien Bourdais is believed to be set to race the car on road and street tracks. Bourdais’s old team, Dale Coyne Racing, has confirmed that Santino Ferrucci will stay for a second full season, alongside Alex Palou.

ZENDELI MOVES TO TRIDENT Lirim Zendeli, the 2018 German Formula 4 champion, will stay in the FIA Formula 3 Championship for a second season. Zendeli, who showed flashes of good form last year with Charouz, has switched to Italian team Trident. He is currently competing in New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series.

JACKSON STAYS IN FOCUS British Touring Car Championship regular Ollie Jackson will remain on board with the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus squad this season. The 35-year-old has one BTCC podium finish to his name so far.

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Finish lines The 2020 Monte Carlo Rally marks M-Sport’s 250th consecutive points-scoring finish, as well as the end of our correspondent’s own special stage DAVID EVANS

or Carlos Sainz it was just another podium; for Colin McRae, a fourth place on an event he’d never particularly cared for. Neither of those titans of the sport were much in the mood for celebrating the 2002 Monte Carlo Rally result.

Little did they know what they’d started. When they drove their Ford Focus RS WRC 02s over the ramp in Monaco, that was the start of an unbroken run of 250 points-scoring finishes for the M-Sport team running the operation.

Granted, the introduction of superally (or Rally2 to use the proper name) regulations in 2005 made it more straightforward to keep cars running and in the points. But still, it’s been 18 years since then and there hasn’t been a World Rally Championship round concluded without Malcolm Wilson and his good folk of Dovenby adding to their tally in the drivers’or manufacturers’title.

In among those 18 years, M-Sport has worn the manufacturers’ crown for three years and taken two drivers’ titles, as well as winning 50 events and registering 185 podiums.

The podiums and wins are all well and good, but what this astonishing record really points to is a quite bewildering run of reliability. Christian Loriaux and Chris Williams have created some of the fastest rally cars in the history of the world championship, but at the same time they’ve crafted some of the toughest and most durable.

F

“We’re proud of our dedication, attention to detail, passion and commitment to the sport” “This is something I’m extremely proud of,” said Wilson,“and something I don’t think will be beaten for a very long time, if ever.

It’s testament to the incredible team we have at Dovenby Hall – especially when you consider that we didn’t have restarts [superally] when the record began.

“Dedication and attention to detail is something we take pride in, alongside our passion and commitment to the sport, and that’s played a big part in our reliability and success over the years.”

In total, 22 drivers and 28 co-drivers contributed, including all three podium dwellers at last week’s Monte Carlo Rally.

Thierry Neuville, Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans have all driven M-Sport motors and all have profited enormously from the Cumbrian squad’s dedication and effort. The second half of Neuville’s sole 2013 season in a Ford Fiesta RS WRC was the

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launchpad for his career. He found some devastating pace as well as incredible consistency as he collected podiums from six of the last eight rounds.

The bond Ogier forged with Wilson’s extended family through 2017 and 2018 will never be forgotten. Yes, he cost a chunk of cash, but the pair worked superbly together and each will be forever grateful for their alliance, Wilson for the Frenchman reminding him what a potent force Cumbrian engineering can be, and Ogier for the unflinching commitment (sustained long after the bean-counters would have happily called time on the project) to total world domination and the continuation of his own exceptional run of drivers’ titles.

And then there’s ‘Elvis’. Watching the Welshman turn in fastest time after fastest time in the French Alps last weekend for Toyota must have been a source of enormous pride for Wilson. Admittedly, the ride got a little bumpy from time to time, but Evans is very much a product of M-Sport’s dedication to the WRC cause.

Prior to his switch to Toyota Gazoo Racing in time for this year, every one of Evans’s 86 WRC entries had been at the wheel of a rally car crafted within the walls of M-Sport’s HQ. And in the middle of his Monte moment last week, Evans wasn’t about to forget it. Amid a barrage of questions about a bright future in the Yaris WRC, he continually referenced a superb set of Fiestas and unrelenting backing from Wilson.“I have an awful lot to thank Malcom and that whole team for,” said Evans.

I could say precisely the same. Why am I saying that? Well, my friends, it’s the end of the line for me and my journey with Autosport. After 18 years – yes, in an uncanny twist of fate my first report for the mag was that same Monte where M-Sport and Ford began their epic run – I am moving on.

I’ve made some quite extraordinary memories on these pages (including crashing M-Sport’s very first Ford Fiesta R5) and forged friendships that will last a lifetime. But now it’s time for somebody else to take the wheel to guide Autosport’s coverage of the finest championship anywhere in motorsport.

The odd Laurence Foster rollicking aside, I’ve loved every minute of the job and you can rest assured the current team – led by the latest in a long line of ‘Fosterini’ successors, the supremely talented and all-knowing Kevin Turner – will continue to make Thursdays great with the best mag in the world.

So, Malcolm, good on you. Here’s to the next 250. To everybody who’s helped me report those last 18 years, thank you.

Goodnight.

P36 MONTE CARLO RALLY REPORT

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P I T + PA D D O C K O P I N I O N

Time to celebrate or wait and see?

The announcement by the ACO and IMSA that next-generation Daytona Prototypes will be able to race in the WEC and at Le Mans is exciting but raises some questions G A R Y W AT K I N S

’ve been dreaming about this for years: the same cars competing for overall victory at both the Le Mans 24 Hours and the Daytona twicearound-the-clock enduro in North America.

It’s never truly happened during my time on the sportscar beat over the past quarter of a century or so, but that was the vision unveiled last Friday at a joint press conference hosted by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and IMSA. I’m excited about what the two governing bodies told us on the eve of this year’s Daytona 24 Hours. That’s not so much the plans for 2021-22, but what they have in mind in the longer term for ‘my’ branch of the sport.

Like so many dreams, this one was hazy in the detail and left me feeling more than a little confused.

What we do know is that the next generation of Daytona Prototype international contender – now dubbed LMDh – for the IMSA SportsCar Championship will be able to, in American parlance, “go for the overall” in the World Endurance Championship. What we don’t know is whether the LM Hypercars with which they will battle in the WEC will be able to go the other way and join the IMSA ranks.

I

“The claim that last Friday was a historic day for sportscar racing is premature” That’s a bit strange to my mind. If you are equating the performance of LMDh cars and LM Hypercars on one stage, then why can’t you do it on the other?

The confusion over whether we’ll see hypercars racing in IMSA in a couple of years’ time undoubtedly stems from the back story to Friday’s announcement. Allowing a new breed of IMSA contender to compete in the WEC is clearly a pragmatic move on the part of the series management and the promoter, the ACO. It’s the WEC that needs cars at a time when there is still uncertainty over the future of the LM Hypercar division, even if we do now know that Peugeot is coming some time in 2022.

IMSA has three manufacturers in its top class right now and it was already talking up the prospects for

1 4 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

the next generation of car even before it announced the added lure of the chance to race in the WEC and, perhaps more pertinently, at Le Mans. It doesn’t have quite such a pressing need for more marques as the WEC. It was the obvious move once the ACO had changed tack on the original hypercar rules and allowed road-based machinery to race against the lookalike prototypes for which the class was conceived.

If you are going to invoke some kind of Balance of Performance to make sure two types of car can go up against each other on equal terms, then you might as well chuck in a third.

But the ultimate prize at Le Mans shouldn’t be fought over by cars that are artificially balanced. The 24 Hours, and by association the WEC, are far too important for that. These twin peaks are among the highest in motorsport and should – in an ideal world – remain unadulterated by the BoP. That’s why it was the longer-term future talked about at Daytona on Friday that was important to me. There is a will, IMSA and the ACO told us, to create one set of rules that will straddle their respective arenas. My hope is that, when we get there, those rules will be unfettered by the dreaded BoP. The original hypercar prototype rules suggest that it can be done.

That point is clearly some way off, however. We’re about to start a new era for the WEC, now involving multiple types of machinery thrown together, and yet we’re already talking about the next.

New rulebooks have pre-determined lifecycles so that manufacturers and teams can justify their investments.

That means we’re probably looking at some point in the middle of the decade before we finally get the convergence of the rules that I have dreamt about for so long. For all the hullabaloo and self-congratulation on Friday, we’re only at the start of what I’m sure is going to be a long road towards true convergence.

Are the needs of a largely domestic series in North America and a global championship the same? Is there a will on the part of the US manufacturers to race beyond their own shores?

These are questions that will need to be answered before we reach the end of that road.

The claim that last Friday was a historic day for sportscar racing is premature. If the latest accord between the ACO and IMSA leads to one rulebook somewhere down the line, it will be an important milestone. If not, it will probably be nothing more than just a handy patch to ensure the survival of the WEC. P44 DAYTONA 24 HOURS REPORT

O P I N I O N P I T + PA D D O C K

PICTURES O F T HE WEEK

NKP

‘Rowdy’ says howdy NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Busch made his Daytona 24 Hours debut driving an AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3

New WRC star emerges Toyota’s 19-year-old prodigy Kalle Rovanpera took a brilliant fifth place on the Monte Carlo Rally

McKLEIN

NKP

CHRISTMAS QUIZ ANSWERS

9 Jake Hughes, 3.827s. 10 4.

Urrutia, Andreas Backman, Nelson Panciatici, Gilles Magnus, Aurelien

1 Mika Salo. 2 Robert Bell.

3 Gianni Morbidelli. 4 Jordi Gene.

5 Sean Gelael. 6 Steven Richards.

7 John Watson.

Comte, Mato Homola, Luca Engstler, Dan Lloyd, Maxime Potty, Tom Coronel, Luca Filippi, Alex Morgan, Jessica Backman, Daniel Nagy. 9 44.

10 It ran without dive planes.

B

Congratulations to Peter Howarth from Bedford, winner of our Christmas quiz. His prize: Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones II worth £295.95.

1 1991 Japanese GP, Suzuka.

A 2 53. 3 3. 4 Giancarlo Serenelli, Sepang. 5 The first driver to contest a full season and score no points. 6 Ayrton Simmons. 7 14th. 8 Dean Stoneman.

1 Colin Turkington. 2 2 October 2011, Brands Hatch, Porsche Carrera Cup. 3 Norisring, 12. 4 #11 BR Engineering BR1-AER, 350.1km/h.

5 He claimed to have been blinded by the low sun. 6 2. 7 Jordan Pepper.

8 16 – Josh Files, Julien Briche, Santiago

C

1 4. 2 1995. 3 Craig Breen, 21.

4 2. 5 Rally Finland, 2006.

6 Carlos del Barrio. 7 Jesus Puras, Tour de Corse 2001. 8 Kalle Rovanpera, 6th on Rally Portugal. 9 Lukasz Habaj, Pepe Lopez, Oliver Solberg, Alexey Lukyanuk,

D

Giandomenico Basso, Jan Kopecky, Nasser Al-Attiyah, Frigyes Turan. 10 4th.

1 Ash Hand. 2 Liam Lawson.

3 Matt McMurry. 4 Giacomo Altoe.

5 Pierre-Louis Loubet. 6 Theo Pourchaire.

7 Will Brown. 8 Robin Larsson. 9 Sergio Jimenez. 10 Trent Hindman.

E

1 Renaud Kuppens/Bas Leinders, Gillet Vertigo, Potrero de los Funes, 23 November 2008. 2 Tom Walkinshaw, Modus-Ford M5, Oulton Park, 28 March 1975.

F

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RED BULL JUNIOR JURI VIPS H O N D A’ S 1 9 6 6 F 2 D O M I N AT I O N

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INSIGHT

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y improving, tl n a st n co a d n o H d n top form a With Verstappen in ercedes M g in n ro th e d f o s out its chance b a e v ti si o p g n li e fe Red Bull is

. . .

E V O R P M I O T E V A H E W E R E H W W O N K “WE T R A T S E H T M O R F E R E H T E B O T E V A H E WE KNOW W ” P I H S N O I P M A H C E H T R O F T H G I F O T E IF WE’R

Verstappen had his best year in F1 with three wins and third place in the drivers’ title

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RED BULL 2020 INSIGHT

DUNBAR

S BLOXHAM

ormula 1 has a golden opportunity to flip an old adage on its head this year. So much is staying the same that it could be the key to change.

The same drivers, the same carand-engine combinations, the same aerodynamic and engine rules. Yet hopes are higher than ever before that Mercedes’vicelike grip on the drivers’and constructors’championships may finally be coming to an end.

For those hoping for a changing of the guard, Christian Horner’s Red Bull team will join Ferrari as the protagonists.“Unless somebody pulls a rabbit out of a hat, then I think we’re set for a really exciting year between Mercedes, Ferrari, ourselves,”he says.“It could be a real classic season.”

Do not roll your eyes just yet. Yes, you have read similar comments before. And yes, Mercedes has won the title every time. And yes, Lewis Hamilton clinched the 2019 crown with his joint-highest number of victories in a single season, heading Valtteri Bottas in a Mercedes 1-2 as their team became the first to win six consecutive title doubles.

On that evidence, it is understandable if you have doubts about 2020.

But don’t just take Horner’s words for it. Red Bull’s star driver Max Verstappen feels the same. Along with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the Dutch driver goes into 2020 with his shoulders creaking under the weight of expectation from every fan who wants to see something other than another Silver Arrows party by the end of the year.

Verstappen ended 2019 celebrating his best year in F1, and with his sights set firmly on a first title assault this season. Like Horner, it is born from expectation rather than hope.

“There are no real changes in the regulations, so you can just build on what you have,”says Verstappen.“And I think with a second year working with Honda, that should help. We massively improved the performance of the engine. We know where we have to improve, we’ve already improved the car. We know that we have to be there from the start if we want to fight for the championship.”

Red Bull has been in this place before, of course. Although its previous engine partner Renault has lagged well behind Mercedes and Ferrari at times in the turbo-hybrid-engine era, Red Bull has won races almost every season. The package could win, it just couldn’t do it often enough.

In 2017, Red Bull paid the price for a sluggish start, realising too late that there were windtunnel correlation issues that hampered its early form. But it made strong progress through the year and outscored Ferrari after the summer break.

A better start to the year than this – from 2017 testing – is crucial

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INSIGHT RED BULL 2020

In 2018, Red Bull brought its team’s car launch forward by five days, and stable aero regulations boosted hopes of a full-on championship assault. But a combination of what Horner calls the“fundamental” aspects of engine performance and reliability left Red Bull badly disheartened early on, and the team opted to switch to Honda for 2019.

But two of the key players in the fight to dethrone Mercedes insist ‘it is different this time, honest’. If it weren’t, Verstappen almost certainly wouldn’t have put pen to paper on a new deal keeping him with the team until at least 2023 – especially with a potential Mercedes and Ferrari seat up for grabs.

That is a big show of confidence in Red Bull, which a decade ago was about to begin its four-year domination of F1 with Sebastian Vettel. And it says a lot about the optimism around Red Bull for 2020 that Verstappen is willing to reference that era when he talks about what he enjoys about this team.

“Over almost four years, you get to know a lot of people a lot better,”says Verstappen.“It’s just very nice to be in the team, it is really enjoyable, a lot of fun, which I think is also important.

Everybody gets along very well with each other. And we all want to win, we have the winners’mentality. Everybody at the track and back at the factory, they are also motivated to show everyone that we can get back to those winning days of Red Bull dominating.

We just want to try and recreate that.”

Before Red Bull can give itself wings and soar to those heights again, it has had to relearn how to fly. What is commonly referred to by Horner as a“transition”year with Honda ended with broadly similar stats as Red Bull’s final year with Renault – just a little bit worse. Third in the constructors’championship again, two points fewer than 2018, one fewer win. The only net gain in the numbers is Verstappen winning three races and finishing third in the drivers’contest, representing his best year in F1.

But last year Red Bull had a legitimate free pass. As well as the driver changes – from Daniel Ricciardo to Pierre Gasly and then Alex Albon alongside Verstappen – the switch to Honda meant a potential step backwards (or stagnation at best) to make two steps forward. That was largely how reality played out, too. And the feeling inside Red Bull is that the progress made over the year was very real.

“Obviously we saw an awful lot of spreadsheets over the years from Viry [Renault’s engine HQ], but never realised the potential of what was on those sheets,”says Horner.“This is the first year where everything that was promised was absolutely delivered. And it’s just a different environment, it’s a different type of partnership.

“It’s a true partnership, and you can see what it means to Honda when they get a result, when they get a pole position and they get a victory – the emotion, the pride, the satisfaction throughout the whole business.

So I think it’s a very, very different relationship to what we previously had with Renault during this V6-turbo-hybrid era.”

Verstappen’s charge to victory in Austria, despite dropping from second to eighth at the start, earned the emotional first win for Red Bull with Honda, at the team’s home race and in front of key board members.

It was hugely symbolic of where the project was at, what it meant to those involved and the potential that it harboured.

RED BULL IN THE TURBO-HYBRID ERA

Red Bull’s form took a small step back in 2019, as expected during its transition year with Honda, but it will be looking to progress in 2020

1st CHAMPIONSHIP POSITION 405PTS

NUMBER OF WINS

468PTS

2nd

3rd 417PTS

2017

2018

2019

187PTS

5th 2014

2015

2016

Austria was the second race with Honda’s Spec 3 engine, and an even better upgrade followed after the summer break with the Spec 4.

These two developments, allied with Red Bull stabilising its aero platform, made Verstappen almost a constant threat. Without some bad luck, he should have closed out the season with five consecutive podiums and at least one more win.

One reason why Red Bull’s season took a statistical dive last year (aside from the issues with the second car, see panel, page 22) was the upturn in form Ferrari enjoyed after the summer break. An enginelegality saga bubbled away as Ferrari’s sizeable power advantage became more evident in the second half of the season. Ferrari always maintained its engine was legal, but rivals explored potential grey areas in the rules that they feared were being exploited, leading to FIA directives that have not forced power-unit changes for Ferrari or its rivals, but have clarified what would be considered legal/illegal activity and demanded a second fuel-flow sensor be adopted for 2020.

“The power-unit aspect of the car is an incredibly complex piece of kit,”says Horner.“And I think that the FIA don’t have the expertise that the teams have developed. What has been clarified is a lockdown in various areas, which is focused on what’s happening going forward rather than looking behind us.

“For us, what was enormously important was to have absolute clarity going into the 2020 season. We were very grateful for the clarification that came. That’s for the benefit of everybody.”

Honda is equally pleased because it felt it made very good progress through 2019, but other factors were not casting the light on that progress as brightly as they could have been. The Japanese

RED BULL

MAUGER

MAUGER

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419PTS

4th

Verstappen began 2019 with podium in Australia

Red Bull’s first win with Honda came in team’s home Austrian GP

368PTS

RED BULL 2020 INSIGHT

Y R E V G N O L A T E G E “W W E L L W I T H E AC H OT H E R . A N D W E A L L E W , N I W O T T N A W ’ S R E N N I W E H T E V A H MENTALITY”

RED BULL

Verstappen won again in Germany

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RED BULL NEEDS A PROPER NUMBER TWO

ANDRE

S BLOXHAM

Formula 1 teams will almost never label someone a number two driver. There may be a driver who gets called more “experienced”, or who has settled into a “team leader” position.

But a “number two”? That’s derogatory. Look at the needle caused when Valtteri Bottas was called Lewis Hamilton’s “wingman” by Mercedes last year.

There’s a stigma attached to a number two, but the role is vital. Look at how vulnerable Max Verstappen was in the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix. Leading from pole position and having repelled Hamilton’s best efforts, Verstappen should have been set for victory. Instead, there was such a big gap behind the lead two, with Verstappen’s team-mate Pierre Gasly nowhere to be seen, that Mercedes opted to pit Hamilton and give him fresh tyres. It rolled the dice and Hamilton did the rest, stealing victory. All because of Red Bull’s struggles with its number two.

That race was Gasly’s last as Verstappen’s team-mate, with Alex Albon thrust into the hot seat for the next race in Belgium after the summer break. It was a baptism of fire for Albon, who had only made his F1 debut in Australia with Toro Rosso. Such is the need for a proper number two…

The level a driver needs to produce to effectively support their team-mate is not easy to define. But the best drivers will score no fewer than 70-80% of their team-mates’ points. Albon hit 78% at Red Bull. That was helped by Verstappen non-scoring in three of those but it compares favourably to Gasly who, over the first 12 races, managed just 35%.

The challenge Albon faces is maintaining that in 2020, over a full season. He could almost certainly count his year as a success if he does. Red Bull would probably consider it job done too.

Pace-wise, Albon needs to raise his game. Nobody expects him to match Verstappen, but he needs to get closer. There was minimal difference in Albon’s performance, overall, compared to Gasly in terms of raw pace. The points gap can be explained by Red Bull being considerably more competitive in the second half of the year, which meant Albon’s deficit left him sixth, instead of in the midfield. Had Gasly had a similarly competitive car, he’d have had fewer obvious struggles.

Even so, Albon Gasly lost his seat to took his chance Albon after Hungary to earn the seat full-time. Now he needs to grasp the next opportunity. He reckons that pre-season testing, learning the car and fine-tuning it to his needs – compared to jumping into something unknown mid-season – will unlock a fair chunk of pace. Red Bull agrees.

“It’s probably the first time since his karting career that he’s had that continuity,” says team boss Christian Horner. “He’ll only benefit from that. He’s had a lot of adversity to deal with during his career. And, I think, you see people’s make-up in adversity.

“He’s shown that determination, that character, and I’ve got no doubt he’ll benefit from stability now. He shares many of the same virtues that Max has with that ability to cope with pressure.”

The pressure will be higher than ever given Red Bull’s title aspirations. Albon’s qualities will be tested to new limits.

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RED BULL 2020 INSIGHT

R O F T E S E R ’ E W K N I “I TH G N I T I C X E Y L L A E R A A E B D L U O C T I . . .

YEAR ” N O S A E S C I S S A RE AL CL

S BLOXHAM

manufacturer is a stickler for the rules, and thinks poorly of any grey-area exploitation. And when Verstappen went as far as using“cheating”concerning Ferrari after the United States Grand Prix, the tension was clear.

Whether or not the technical directives make any difference to Ferrari in 2020 remains to be seen, but in theory there is no hiding place on the engine front. Honda is happy to consider it a fair and equal fight, boosted by the progress that brought it close to Mercedes’level in 2019. That is key to Red Bull’s hopes, and helped transform its season last year.

Another feather in Red Bull’s cap is that, even before Honda’s progress was evident in Austria, the team was picking up decent results.

Verstappen had already split the Ferraris in the drivers’championship and, if he’d had a team-mate scoring points at the same rate as the other two big teams’second drivers, then Red Bull would have been second in the constructors’contest. That is an encouraging sign for how Red Bull and Verstappen could perform with a strong car from the beginning.

“The season was very positive,”says Verstappen.“The consistency was good. I think as a team, we did a good job as well. Most of the time we maximised the result. It was the only thing we could do, especially in the beginning, when we couldn’t really fight for wins. But we were still overtaking Ferraris, when we were slower, or doing a better strategy, stuff like that. So if we can keep that up, then we can have a strong year.”

As already noted, Red Bull has felt this sort of positivity before, although perhaps never quite had the confidence on the engine side it presently enjoys. But it has not been perfect on the car side either, as indicated by windtunnel issues and technical guru Adrian Newey’s renewed interest in the F1 project.

Despite the positivity of last season, it cannot be overlooked that for the first third of the year the Red Bull was not as good a car as the Mercedes. The front-wing regulation change and the tyre change over the winter seemed to affect Red Bull more than its opponents, which Horner puts down to how Red Bull had previously been manipulating airflow better than anyone else. That was, of course, compounded by the lingering power deficit on Honda’s side.

To give credit where it’s due, Red Bull was well on top of any aero issues by the end of the year. Red Bull’s ability to develop has never been in question, but for two of the past three seasons it has started the year with a car that is not fundamentally flawed, but perhaps undercooked.

And if we arc back to Verstappen’s first comments on these pages: Red Bull has to be in contention from the start.

“If I look back to 2018, we had a fantastic car at the start of the year,” he adds.“We should have been on the front row in Melbourne, we won the third race in China. We had a very, very competitive car the beginning of 2018. And that was with stability of regulations, and we have that again from the 2019 season into 2020.

“You can’t gauge what others are doing. But theoretically, the Melbourne car will be an upgrade of the Abu Dhabi car [from the 2019 season finale].

One would assume all teams will be continuing with their philosophies.”

If we take Horner at his word and Red Bull’s strong season-ending form translates into early 2020, the car is ready to fight, Honda has made further progress and the race team is on the same form as last

HONE

year, then Verstappen finally has the tools to put together a title bid. He thinks as much, anyway.

“I think we are in the right direction,”he says.“There’s no question about that. Now, it’s just about how much development we can push through. I more or less know, I just hope it’s going to be enough.”

But whether Verstappen is ready for a title bid himself is an interesting question. There is no doubt that he has the speed to do that. A championship is a collection of races and Verstappen has the ability to win every individual race. But stringing that together is the challenge. This may seem a little dry, but stick with it…

Over the entire 2018 season Verstappen scored points at a rate of 11.9 per race. An average finishing position of fourth is not the basis of a title challenge, so it’s no wonder he finished fourth in the championship, 159 points behind Hamilton (who averaged 19.4 points per race).

In 2019, both drivers upped their rate slightly and there was a slight reduction in the overall points gap to 135. Hamilton managed 19.7 points per race compared to Verstappen’s 13.2.

On the face of it, that’s not hugely encouraging.

But perhaps the real clues lie in the run-ins of the Red Bull is hungry to 2018 and 2019 seasons. They represent Red Bull’s repeat its dominance most competitive sequence of races and both times that ended after 2013 Verstappen hit a rich vein of form. And that gets a bit more encouraging on the points-per-race scale.

In 2018, Verstappen’s seasonal deficit of 7.6 points per race drops to 4.7 over the final seven grands prix. In 2019, it is reduced from 6.4 points to 5.2 – despite Verstappen getting taken out of the Japanese GP and losing a probable podium and potential victory in Mexico. Hamilton dropped points in Brazil for his collision with Verstappen’s team-mate Albon, but the net loss in that spell is greater for Verstappen.

Even awarding some nominal finishing positions for those races puts Verstappen very close to 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 2 3

RED BULL 2020 INSIGHT

, T N A W S R E V I R D , T N “FANS WA D E N I A T S U S A S D AND F1 NEE ” N O S A E S E H T R E V FIGHT O

HONE

The future promises more exciting battles between Leclerc and Verstappen

ETHERINGTON

Hamilton. Not level, but damn close. If that was extrapolated over 22 grands prix, it would still be the foundation of a proper title battle.

Statistical manipulation does not factor in how the drivers would then react to those changing circumstances, of course, and Verstappen’s critics tend to point to his emotional maturity as a lingering question mark. But there is little evidence of that clouding his judgement inside the car – certainly nowhere near to the extremes of early 2018. In fact, any petulance or arrogance or whatever diminishment you want to throw his way is almost exclusively confined to off-track behaviour.

“If we give him the right tools this year, then I’ve got every confidence that he can take the flight to Lewis and Mercedes and Ferrari,”says Horner.“His form has been fantastic. He’s arguably the most in-form driver currently in Formula 1.

“I think he was there [at a championship-winning level] from the start of the year – really from the second half of 2018. Becoming the clear team leader in experience and pace, he took on that responsibility.

He’s very much a rounded package now.”

That increases the hope that we can savour the prospect of Hamilton

Leclerc and Verstappen look set to challenge Hamilton’s dominance

versus Verstappen over a full season, with a title on the line. More edge than ever before, more to lose than ever before. It did not look like Hamilton was holding back when racing with Verstappen in Hungary, but he was more circumspect than in Brazil, for example, because racing for the championship affects the approach of a mature driver.

“Lewis already said before the race [in Brazil] the title is decided, so he goes gloves off into the fight,”says Verstappen.“So I was like, ‘All right, I like that.’And I think it was just a good battle, we gave each other space. It was tight, but good. I hope that’s how it’s going to be this year, many times.”

We had plenty other hints last season of what is to come in 2020.

Verstappen vs Leclerc in Austria and Britain, Leclerc vs Hamilton in Belgium and Italy. Different races, different contests, different flashpoints and outcomes. What fans want, what the drivers want, what F1 needs, is for this to be a sustained fight across the season.

“Every now and again, you get a wave of drivers coming along and we’ve got that at the moment,”says Horner.“What I think is especially exciting is the Max/Leclerc dynamic, how that’s going to play out over future years, and how Lewis can still go toe to toe with those guys.

Because there’s life in him yet as well and I think he’s keen to gauge himself against the young wave that’s coming through.

“So I think for Formula 1 it’s fantastic to have the dynamics of the young guys, the challengers, coming through and some of the older guys that are the old dogs that know all the tricks.”

If you believe those at the heart of it, a fight between the ageing master and two hungry young challengers is exactly what 2020 should produce.

Red Bull, Honda and Verstappen are part of why there is so much promise, and there can be no excuses for not delivering on that.

Another missed opportunity would be tough to stomach. After all, they say it’s the hope that kills you. But with six ultra-impressive, unprecedented title doubles for Mercedes in the record books and the Hamilton-Mercedes juggernaut not showing any weaknesses, hope is better than nothing.

P26 HONDA’S 1966 F2 DOMINANCE 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 2 5

THE FIRST TIME HONDA CO N Q U E R E D E U R O P E No, we’re not talking about Williams and McLaren. Honda’s first big success on four wheels came much earlier – with Brabham BRIAN HARVEY PHOTOGRAPHY

INSIGHT HONDA IN F2

or most motorsport fans, Honda’s first period of sustained success on an international stage – on four wheels at least – came during Formula 1’s first turbo era in the 1980s. But two decades before world titles with Williams and McLaren, Honda had demonstrated its engineering prowess against tough European opposition.

The 1966 season was the third and final year of 1000cc multimarque Formula 2. For two years, British firms Cosworth and BRM had dominated, but up-and-coming constructor Brabham secured exclusive use of Honda S800-based engines for season three.

In its few outings in 1965 Honda’s effort had disappointed so, between November 1965 and March 1966, a new engine was created.

In his autobiography When the Flag Drops, Jack Brabham explained the effort that was put in:“I made several visits to Honda in Japan for at least two years before we started anything between us. We first used their engine in F2 during 1965, but we had quite a few problems with it, so I went back to Japan at the end of the season.

“We went over all the difficulties that we’d encountered and they decided they would build a new engine for us for the 1966 season.

Nothing in that engine was retained from a previous engine. They really impressed me with the way they had done the job.”

The result was formidable, and produced more than 140bhp. It was an all-roller-bearing engine with torsion-bar springs for its 16 valves.

But was it now reliable? Honda’s team of dedicated mechanics were given that task. Despite only four cylinders, the unit had the same relative power as the 12-cylinder F1 engines of the previous year, and matched the output of the 1500cc Climax engine of the previous F2 of 1960. Perhaps, given that Honda had already shocked motorcycle racing with 50bhp from 250cc, this wasn’t that surprising.

It may seem strange now but, before the 1970s, there was an open door to F2 for F1 drivers, to bring in the crowds. A dozen F1 regulars did so in 1966, including most of the F1 elite. Despite the opposition, Brabham and team-mate Denny Hulme used the Honda’s extra 10bhp to steamroller the opposition with the new BT18 chassis.

The revealing of the truth was delayed at Oulton Park for the seasonopening BARC 200 on 2 April as foul weather disguised Honda’s power and pole was taken by Jim Clark’s Lotus-Cosworth. On race day, snow destroyed any chance of racing. So the F2 circus went to Goodwood at Easter expecting a real battle.

F2 took over as the headline event because the new three-litre F1 was thought by owner, the Duke of Richmond, to be too fast for public safety at his circuit. It was Hulme who took pole by a second from Brabham, who was tied with Jackie Stewart’s Matra. Clark and Graham Hill were another second adrift.

In the race the truth was laid bare. Stewart’s challenge faded as Brabham and his team-mate waltzed home 30s ahead. Hulme’s fastest lap was just 2.2% slower than the previous year’s F1 record.

Six days later the Pau Grand Prix presented a very different challenge, Monaco-like to the sweeps of Goodwood. It made no difference as the pair clung together, Brabham leading, just failing

F

Honda’s commitment and people impressed Brabham

2 8 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

Hulme and Brabham dominated F2 in 1966 with Honda power

to lap Hill’s Brabham-BRM, in third, after 80 laps. The 1962 F1 world champion had the older BT16, but everyone knew the chassis wasn’t the main reason for the margin.

Clashing races at Montjuic Park and the Nurburgring the following weekend (!) allowed someone else to win. Rising star Jochen Rindt’s Brabham-Cosworth won in Germany, while Hulme, Brabham and Stewart secured the front row in Spain. Rain changed things in the race, as Stewart and Clark’s new Lotus 44 led the second Matra of JeanPierre Beltoise and Brabham, with rain-hating Hulme following. Clark retired, then Beltoise was nudged by Brabham and dropped out with fuel pump damage. Brabham was now second and led after Stewart had a battery change. So, fortuitously, Brabham-Honda secured its hat-trick.

The Grote Prijs van Limborg at Zolder in Belgium was next. Brabham took pole this time, with Rindt a second adrift. But Rindt pressed the Brabham-Hondas hard in part one and led Hulme for 10 laps, giving the strongest challenge to date, but the final result of the two-parter was still a Brabham-Hulme 1-2. Without Clark, Lotus couldn’t challenge. Neither could Hill, even with a Matra-BRM. Crystal Palace was the venue, on 30 May, of the London Trophy. Clark, Stewart and Hill were busy at the Indianapolis 500 and the Matra team withdrew. Rindt’s Roy Winkelmann-entered Brabham was arguably the most likely challenger, but the Brabham-Honda duo won a heat each and Rindt was off-form, twice beaten by team-mate Alan Rees.

The 190-mile Grand Prix de Reims on 3 July involved 10 F1 drivers, present anyway for the French GP (which Brabham would win in his BT19). Matra was out in force, with three works cars for Jo Schlesser, Beltoise and Pedro Rodriguez, Tyrrell’s two for Jacky Ickx and John Surtees (replacing Stewart, injured in the infamous 1966 Belgian GP), and John Coombs’s example for Hill. The slipstream nature of the circuit meant that drivers could hang on and maybe pull off a surprise.

Hulme took pole from team boss Brabham, who had a new engine and was being cautious, only 0.1s better than Rindt. From the start Brabham was behind Rindt and Hulme. Furious lead-swapping took

Brabham and Hulme first showed their superiority at Goodwood in April

Brabham leads at Reims on his way to another F2 victory in 1966

INSIGHT HONDA IN F2

Rindt prevented Brabham-Honda clean sweep with win at Brands Hatch

BRABHAM-HONDA 1966 RESULTS GOODWOOOD 11 APRIL

1st 2nd

Jack Brabham Denny Hulme

PAU 17 APRIL

1st 2nd

Jack Brabham Denny Hulme

MONTJUIC PARK 24 APRIL

1st 3rd

Jack Brabham Denny Hulme

ZOLDER 8 MAY

1st 2nd

Brabham felt Honda’s 1966 F1 engine was too big and heavy…

Jack Brabham Denny Hulme

III Grand Prix de l’Ile de France, one of nine F1 place between Brabham, Rindt, Surtees and Rees, CRYSTAL PALACE 30 MAY drivers. But he was ninth on the grid. Beltoise put with Hulme’s‘old’Honda engine not performing 1st Jack Brabham his Matra alongside the Brabhams on the front row, as expected. Surtees and Rindt retired, followed 2nd Denny Hulme but in the race it was Clark who split them at first shortly by Hulme – the first Honda failure from and held Hulme off until half-distance, when the 12 race starts. Brabham’s Honda power inevitably REIMS 3 JULY inevitable happened. However, all was not lost for told and he pulled inexorably away.

1st Jack Brabham the Lotus star, as Hulme’s car’s handling deteriorated The second of the annual July French races, a Retired Denny Hulme and Clark secured second. This was the first time week later, was the Grand Prix de Rouen, also over the Brabham-Hondas had been split on a dry track.

190 miles. Surtees was still in Tyrrell’s Matra, but ROUEN 10 JULY Another French event came a week later on wasn’t going to upset the applecart, as Brabham 1st Denny Hulme 18 September, with a new race on the calendar, produced a dubious pole time of 2m10.7s, beating Retired Jack Brabham the Trophee Craven‘A’, run at Le Mans. This used Hulme by 1.9s and being a second faster than his the finishing straight and Dunlop curve of the 1.5-litre F1 record! Rindt’s superb start from the KARLSKOGA 21 AUGUST famous circuit, with a twisting infield. Brabham outside of the front row delayed the inevitable by 1st Jack Brabham was on pole from Hulme, but Rindt was only 0.1s just a mile as Brabham swept past. Then Rindt 2nd Denny Hulme behind him: the closest anyone had got so far. A spun, delaying the whole field, so now a huge lead midfield tangle eliminated four cars. The tide for Brabham preceded Surtees, Beltoise, and Hill, KEIMOLA 24 AUGUST turned a little as Rindt led Brabham for a lap and led with Hulme only fifth. He came through to follow 1st Jack Brabham again as Brabham retired with engine failure after his leader though, which was handy because 2nd Denny Hulme only five laps. A surprising result disappeared when Brabham retired. Rindt carved up to second by Rindt stopped with throttle linkage trouble, but a half distance but retired, leaving the underrated great scrap ensued between Hulme, Beltoise and Rees to inherit the runner-up spot.

MONTLHERY 9 SEPTEMBER Clark. Then Clark had Rindt’s trouble and Beltoise’s The German GP on 7 August had an F2 class but 1st Jack Brabham engine went off song. So Hulme just kept the status the Brabham team was busy with the main race, 3rd Denny Hulme quo going with his second victory of the campaign.

Brabham on his way to winning a third world title.

The last of the September French trio was the Beltoise led the expected Matra 1-2-3.

LE MANS BUGATTI 18 SEPTEMBER 192-mile Grand Prix d’Albi. Hulme was away racing Now for the Kanonloppet at Karlskoga in Sweden 1st Denny Hulme in the new Can-Am, so Chris Irwin was the lucky on 21 August. They always tried to produce Swedish Retired Jack Brabham replacement. Clark split the Brabham-Hondas on representation and this time got 1959 Dutch GP the grid and a great scrap developed, involving winner Jo Bonnier into Rees’s seat alongside Rindt.

ALBI 25 SEPTEMBER Brabham, Clark, Irwin, Beltoise, Schlesser and Brabham had produced the new BT21 car for 1st Jack Brabham Rindt. At last 1966 was getting as competitive himself and was on pole. But after a lap the leader 3rd Chris Irwin as the year before. Beltoise, from row two, led was privateer Frenchman Eric Offenstadt in his Brabham for a lap, clinging on until his throttle Lola-BRM from the third row. Normality resumed BRANDS HATCH 30 OCTOBER cable broke. Clark’s engine went rough and Rindt as Hulme and Brabham passed him. He then got 2nd Jack Brabham retired, leaving Schlesser to have the glory of involved with an impatient Rindt at the hairpin Retired Chris Irwin splitting the Brabhams, well back from winner Jack. and both were out. Clark took up the challenge The final chance to do something about Japanese but the works Brabhams had him covered, with power came on 30 October. The British Automobile Jack ahead. Bonnier finished seventh.

Racing Club ran the Motor Show 200 at Brands Hatch to replace its lost Three days later, virtually the same field decamped to Finland for April event and attracted a great field. Brabham again gave the second the Suomen GP at Keimola, a track new to all. With Bonnier still in car to Irwin but the recently crowned triple world champion had to start Rees’s seat, the Brit found himself the third works Brabham driver but from the back for heat one as a delayed flight meant he missed practice. not Honda-powered. The event was split into unequal parts, with an aggregate result. Hulme secured pole from Brabham, with Rindt almost Heat two was for‘lesser’drivers, with race times deciding the final grid.

Brabham shot through to second behind Rindt within five laps in a second back and Clark heading row two. In both parts the Brabhamheat one and so was flanked by Rindt and Clark for the final. Brabham Honda duo were jumped by Rindt and Clark, but it wasn’t enough. led from the off, with Rindt sticking to him for 26 laps and Clark Clark was just three seconds adrift of the Jack-led Brabham hanging on. Rindt’s moment came when the lapped Chris Lambert’s formation at the finish, as close as anyone had been. gear lever broke, causing him to run wide, baulking Brabham. Rindt was A week after the Italian GP, its winner, Ludovico Scarfiotti, took ahead in a flash and held Brabham off for the remaining 14 laps – Clark Rindt’s Brabham seat in the Winkelmann team at Montlhery for the 3 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

HONDA IN F2 INSIGHT

BRIEF BUT BRILLIANT

…and the two parties went their separate ways

PHIPPS

PHIPPS

1000cc FORMULA 2

“ W E W E R E CO N S I D E R I N G US I N G THEIR F1 ENGINE, BUT THEY WANTED TO MAKE IT ALL ON THEIR OWN” a‘spectator’at 3s distance. Three of the greatest drivers of the time had produced one of the most exciting races of the year with just 1000cc each. The final act in a year-long chase. So the finale went to Cosworth, but in hands 16 years younger than Jack Brabham’s. Remarkably, Brabham’s Honda-powered fastest lap was 1m36.0s, a full second faster than his own F1 record from July’s British GP – with 3000cc!

From their 26 starts in 13 races, the Brabham-Hondas had scored 12 wins, 12 poles, seven seconds and three thirds. There were only four retirements during a season in which the average finishing rate for the rest of the field was around 50%.

“That Honda engine showed fantastic reliability, and we had a Japanese crew working with us at the factory all year,”wrote Brabham in When the Flag Drops.“They were a really dedicated crowd of mechanics.”

Brabham was clearly impressed and there was a chance his team could have switched to Honda power in F1, despite his successful partnership with the simple-but-robust Repco V8.

“At the end of the year we were considering using their F1 engine, and we thought we’d go and discuss the problems and tell them what we wanted and how we wanted to make it suit the chassis,”added Brabham.

“But for some reason they wanted to make this engine all on their own, and at Monza [for the Italian GP] the engine turned up in a chassis that was their own. We felt the engine was too big and heavy, and we decided that there was no point in going on with Honda to do a Formula 1 effort.

“It was a pity our association with Honda finished there and then, because if we could have worked with them their whole effort in F1 might have been a lot better. The Honda for the three-litre formula was a mass of good ideas and brilliant potential that never quite came off. It was so nearly a world-beater that it was a pity they retired from the sport.”

Honda’s conquering of F1 would have to wait. But the one year of F2 domination had hinted at what Honda could achieve.

When the 1500cc Formula 1 began in 1961, it made the 1500cc F2 redundant. Formula Junior took its place as the feeder series but, by 1963, these 1100cc single-carburettor road car-based engines were giving no more than 115bhp. F1 now had 200bhp so some felt another feeder formula was needed.

A new Formula 2 of 1000cc full-race-specification engines was suggested, to take over from FJ and provide greater potential for rising power. Initially, the proposal was derided and 1200cc was demanded, but rejected.

The new machines, sometimes in the hands of F1 drivers, were only 4% slower than the F1 cars of the day. An extra 200cc might have wiped out that differential. The F2 cars were lighter, had less drag, and were very nimble.

For the first season in 1964 all were Cosworth powered. The formula gave great racing and a real opportunity for budding F1 pilots to prove themselves in top company. Future world champions Jackie Stewart, Denny Hulme and Jochen Rindt (below, leading at Crystal Palace) were among those who graduated from this F2 era.

A Honda engine had been supplied for Jack Brabham’s car at the beginning of 1965 but was soon returned. Before its reappearance, the BRM unit arrived and showed itself as a serious competitor to Cosworth. Then the revamped Honda S800 motor arrived for the last two races and momentarily led the final race at Albi, but wasn’t ready to beat the Cosworth and BRM-powered cars. A clutch problem in its previous race meant that reliability wasn’t established.

So at the end of 1965 the Honda was still an unknown quantity.

But Cosworth and BRM were now claiming about 135bhp, a good increase over the two years, so fancied their chances for the new season. Then, in the final year before the arrival of 1.6-litre F2 regulations, the Japanese giant delivered on its potential.

The final year enabled more European drivers to get to the fore as Jacky Ickx, Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Jo Schlesser and Eric Offenstadt impressed, and Matra emerged as a great chassis. This initially derided formula had opened up single-seater racing – and ultimately Formula 1 itself – to a wider territory of participants.

T H E G R E AT A N D G O O D I N F 2 In Brian Harvey’s first book, Formula One – The Real Score?, each chapter began with a diary of single-seater racing open to grand prix drivers in a particular season, showing the vast amount of F1 racing that, contrary to championship-only records, took place over those decades. The diaries also included dates of F2 events open to them. But the pages relating to F2 were omitted for reasons of space and Harvey referenced the idea of a second book from that information. With a theme of The Great and Good in F2, this would cover the years up to 1978 when the last F1 driver, Clay Regazzoni, drove in F2. It would list all F1 stars involved; every race and who they drove for; what their impact on results was; and who were promoted from F2. This book is now nearing completion and this article is based on one of its chapters.

3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 1

INTERVIEW JURI VIPS

Vips does not underestimate the scale of the task of winning in Super Formula

JURI VIPS INTERVIEW

Can Japan make Vips a Formula 1 VIP? He’s been sent by Red Bull into the potential minefield of Super Formula.

But the Estonian superstarlet has the ability, confidence and self-criticism to succeed on what could be his last step before F1 MARCUS SIMMONS

A

next winter under the FIA’s three-year rolling rule, meaning that one of the most exciting young drivers in the pre-F1 firmament could be denied a shot at the big time because of a) his lack of budget before he arrived in the Red Bull stable in October 2018, b) the fact that in F3 he never drove for one of the recognised establishment top teams such as Prema or ART, who seem to plug in champions like lightbulbs, and c) Red Bull sending him to Japan, when it would likely be easier to earn the points he needs in Formula 2.

“Erm, for sure it’s a harder job,” offers Vips. “I’ve got 20 superlicence points – I finished fourth in really, really strong

“I DON’T THINK F2 WAS EVER A N O PT I O N FO R M E . I T CO STS A LOT O F M O N E Y TO G O T H E R E ” championships and you need to get 40 points, which is pretty annoying for me because I’ve never been in the best team, the winning team. The points system is a little bit frustrating – in F2 it would be a lot easier, but I don’t think it was ever an option for me. It costs a lot of money to go there and it would be a big, big commitment from Red Bull. They didn’t want to do it, and our family doesn’t have the money to do it.”

Red Bull came calling in the first place because Vips’s reputation grew rapidly during his rookie Euro F3 season, at Motopark alongside Ticktum. Stunning performances had unexpectedly propelled him into title contention – just before the end-of-season steamroller from Prema pair Mick Schumacher and Robert Shwartzman left the entire paddock scratching their heads.

“I had the least mileage out of anyone on the grid in terms of testing, because we were really limited from the family budget,” he recalls.

“So I knew I was really unprepared compared to everyone else, and I think that’s the reason why I was sort of struggling in the first two rounds. But then I really understood how to drive the car at Norisring [the third round] and that

RED BULL

s Red Bull’s latest Man Most Likely To Make Formula 1, Juri Vips’s opening comment about his impending season in Japan is unsurprising. “If I realistically want to get to F1, I have a big, big job in hand this year,” he reflects. “The jump from Formula 3 to Super Formula is humungous. The car is so much faster.”

You only have to look at the fate that befell Dan Ticktum, his predecessor as Man Most Likely and at the Super Formula Team Mugen squad, to appreciate the task faced in 2020 by the 19-year-old Estonian. The Brit was dumped after three SF starts in 2019, and his replacement Pato O’Ward didn’t do much either. Two years before that, in 2017, Pierre Gasly lined up in the same seat and came close to winning the title, but he did that as reigning GP2 champion and had spent three seasons at GP2/Formula Renault 3.5 level. That’s a big difference in experience level to that of Vips, who since winning the 2017 German Formula 4 title has had one year in the Formula 3 European Championship, and one in FIA F3.

He finished fourth in the championship in both those years of F3, which puts him in a quandary as far as F1 superlicence points are concerned. The points he earned from his F4 success will be wiped clear

helped me for the rest of the season. After that there weren’t many rounds where I didn’t have the potential to win. If I look back now, I made so many mistakes that year. After the second round I was 62 points behind the leader already. Without the first rounds, I think I could have still won the championship without the Schumacher problems if I did a good year. It’s a bit of a shame, but I guess I was still pretty young and immature, and I’ve improved ever since and I’ve learned from that.”

Interesting that he refers to ‘the Schumacher problems’, bearing in mind the discontent that was circulating at the time – particularly at Motopark – about the German’s late-season pace… “Ah, well, yeah,” he muses. “But in the end no one knows, you know? Erm, yeah.”

By the penultimate round of Euro F3’s 2018 season at the Red Bull Ring, Vips had an offer to join the Renault F1 junior programme, while Red Bull’s Helmut Marko dropped in on his home track and, Autosport was told, marched into the HQ of one of the top teams and declared: “I’ve got Vips!” even before a deal was agreed. Turned out he was right, if a bit premature…

Vips came close to joining ART for the new FIA F3 Championship in 2019, before plumping for Hitech Grand Prix. Hitech had got up and running over 2015-16 in European F3 with an engineering collaboration with ART sister company AOTech, and now had ex-ART man Christophe Perrin as engineering chief across the whole team, and another ART old garcon, Pierre-Paul Fery, stepping up from the role of data engineer to look after Vips’s car. With the new FIA F3 Dallara effectively a revamped version of the old car from GP3, which ART had a history of dominating, that looked like a good technical structure.

“For sure it helped,” Vips declares, “but, as we sort of found out throughout the season, on the FIA F3 car the [Pirelli] tyres wouldn’t really behave in the same way as the GP3 tyres did. I don’t know if they changed the compound or not. So the set-ups we were trying that worked really well in GP3 didn’t really work last year. But it helped me get up to speed as soon as possible, because they knew a lot what previous drivers coming from European F3 and the Hankook tyres struggled on.”

Like in Euro F3 in 2018, a mid-season burst of form – wins at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone; pole at Silverstone – brought Vips right into the frame for the title. But a late-summer slump at Spa and Monza cost him, although he brought it home to win the reversed-grid season finale at Sochi. Interestingly for a man whose press-on, spectacular driving style had suited the forgiving Hankooks so well, he adapted nicely to the high-degradation Vips got first taste of Team Mugen Super Formula car in wet FP1

3 4 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

Vips was a revelation during his European F3 season at Motopark

Pirellis. The big difficulty for Vips, used to a relatively wide plateau of peak performance from the Hankooks, was nailing his qualifying effort on the first shot. He blames that – and also, as usual, readily admits to his own mistakes – as reasons for falling short of Prema trio Shwartzman, Marcus Armstrong and Jehan Daruvala, all of whom had also graduated from Euro F3 so had the same things to learn, for his position in the final standings.

“Honestly, I found the step from F4 to European F3 smaller than coming from European F3 to FIA F3,” he admits. “There’s so much to learn. I think the drivers I was fighting for the championship with just did a better job in the beginning of the year. I would say after Paul Ricard [the second round] I was fully comfortable, but each weekend really counts in this high-level championship.”

Vips’s failure to win the end-of-season Macau Grand Prix is well-documented. He was sensational there on his debut visit in the old Euro F3 car in 2018, only to be incredibly unfortunate with red flags while on hot laps in qualifying. In 2019, he won the qualification race and looked on course for victory in the main race, before a safety car allowed Richard Verschoor to tow past on the restart. Vips’s DRS didn’t work in the immediate aftermath, forcing him to try to repass “the old-fashioned way”, but in doing so locked up “at the peak of the brake and the front tyres were ruined. I don’t know how I managed to keep up with him in the last few laps.”

Vips reckons the MP Motorsport team of Verschoor had a set-up that allowed his Dutch rival an advantage: “We were bottoming a

FIA F3/SUER

INTERVIEW JURI VIPS

little bit, and I think the Prema cars were as well. If I look at the qualification race, I remember coming out of the last corner on a restart, and Shwartzman was just as far as Verschoor was [in the main race], and he got nowhere near me on the braking into Lisboa.

Verschoor was already overtaking me after Turn 2 [the Mandarin kink]. The MP car was not bottoming, so I think they had a bit of an advantage on the straight. But that’s Macau – the team did a perfect job, the car was mega and I feel I didn’t make any mistakes. I’m proud of that weekend.”

By then, Vips had already made his Super Formula debut at Suzuka with Team Mugen. With no testing, he was straight in at the deep end – literally. “First lap at Suzuka, first lap in the car in free practice, and it was in heavy rain, so I didn’t get as much track time as I wanted to,” he says. “In qualifying it was still pretty poor [Vips lined up on the back row], but in third free practice on full tanks I was P4. In the race as well we were really fast, but it was my first-ever pitstop. I managed to do the hard part right, so enter with a decent amount of speed and not lose too much time, but then I stalled going off. Without that I would have gone from 19th to finish ninth or 10th.”

By the time the two-day Suzuka test in December had finished, Vips had shown notice of intent. Fastest overall on the first day, he was third on day two. “On the race weekend I never actually got to use a new soft-tyre set,” he explains. “I only got used soft tyres [which can only be used in Q3], which already felt really fast for me.

RED BULL

…and pushing on in Macau GP with Hitech machine

But in the test, the first time I got to use the new soft tyres it was like… unreal. It was so fast! And then when I learned to use them properly it was like… ahhh [he sighs with pleasure]. Amazing.”

As Ticktum did, Vips will line up at the Honda-powered Mugen squad alongside Tomoki Nojiri, fourth in the 2019 points. “He’s really fast, a tough guy with a lot of experience, and that’s only a good thing because I need someone like that next to me,” asserts Vips. “And he seems like a genuinely nice guy. He doesn’t seem political or anything like that.”

There are also the language and cultural differences of racing in Japan. Vips is only racing in Super Formula (no additional Super GT programme), so is flying in for each round. “The racing in Japan is very different to racing in Europe,” he states. “In Europe everything is regulated really heavily, and in Japan they’re pretty laid-back, but they put much more focus on other stuff.

“You just have to learn to work with them properly. It’s tough.

We have briefings in Japanese and I have this data engineer who is translating to me, but not in a really good way. They talk for a minute, and he tells it to me in 10 seconds, and I’m, ‘Woah, woah, be a bit more specific’. But Pierre, Stoffel Vandoorne and Felix Rosenqvist have proved you can go there and do well.”

Of course, as that Red Bull Man Most Likely, the subject of F1 work crops up. Ticktum used to spend a lot of time on raceweekend ‘live’ work in the team’s simulator. “I haven’t done race support yet, but I’ve been in the simulator for a few days now,”

“ T H E R A C I N G I N J A PA N I S V E R Y DIFFERENT TO RACING IN EUROPE. T H E Y ’ R E P R E T TY L A I D - B A C K”

RED BULL

MOTORSPORT IMAGES/PORTLOCK

Celebrating his maiden FIA F3 win with engineer Perrin…

says Vips. “It’s mainly been development of the car.” Any race weekends in the sim coming up? “I don’t know yet. I’m not that good in the simulator actually, so I don’t know if they’re going to want me for race supports. At least, I don’t think I’m that good!” And he’s itching to get into the real thing: “The guys in the simulator say it would be good if I have references of the real car, so I can help them develop better for the correlation.

I need to push them to let me do a few days…”

But the main thing is performing in Super Formula. Vips needs to finish in the top two in an incredibly tough championship to be eligible for the F1 grid in 2021. And Red Bull man Marko is notoriously hard to please. “There’s always as much pressure as you can have when you’re a Red Bull Junior driver,” says Vips. “But it’s stupid to have the superlicence in my head; it’s stupid to think of anything else other than: how can I win this championship?” If he does that, he’d be much more than Red Bull’s Man Most Likely To Make Formula 1.

3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 5

M O N T E C A R L O R A L LY

O

DAYTONA 24 HOURS

RACE CENTRE

Neuville gets his Monte revenge Last year, Thierry Neuville was pipped at the post.

This time the Hyundai star was on even better form DAVID EVANS PHOTOGRAPHY MCKLEIN

3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 7

R A C E C E N T R E M O N T E C A R L O R A L LY

ll winter Thierry Neuville had waited – and waited.

Since Rally Spain last October, the Belgian had been forced into the shadows by an incoming World Rally champion. So profound has been the chatter about Ott Tanak joining Hyundai, it felt like the man who made Hyundai his own had been lost.

Harbourside, Monaco, last Sunday afternoon, he was, most definitely, found.

Neuville’s maiden Monte Carlo Rally win couldn’t have contrasted more comprehensively with Tanak’s result. By the time Thierry cracked the champagne open, the Estonian was at home reflecting on the biggest and fastest crash of his life.

Once more, the World Rally Championship held its breath when the #8 Hyundai speared off the road at high speed on Friday’s second stage. The terrifying accident, which lasted an agonising 14 seconds and ended with a 30-metre drop off a cliff, destroyed the i20 – which mercifully and quite brilliantly kept the crew safe.

Last week was the perfect tonic for those troubled by a winter of relative discontent for the WRC. The 2019 season finished a round early, courtesy of the New South Wales bushfires, Chile’s round was lost to political unrest and, of course, Citroen walked away. But last week’s Monte Carlo Rally offered the best possible start to a new decade in the WRC.

Monte scenery always a gamble for crews with tyre choice

A

Tanak and co-driver Jarveoja were lucky to walk away from crash

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A week out from the annual trip to the south of France, the roads threading the peaks inland from the Principality were pretty much bone dry. It was looking like a road race. Then, on the Friday before the recce, the day of Elfyn Evans’s pre-event test north of Gap, things started to change.

In the words of the Toyota newcomer, “it pissed down”. And when day turned to night, it snowed. And when it snowed, it delivered that vital ingredient for a classic Monte: the curveball of unpredictability.

Not to mention opportunity.

Thursday night’s opening two stages provided an immediate conundrum. Earlier on in the sunshine, during the wait for the

cars to cross the start ramp alongside Formula 1’s most famous start-finish straight, Boulevard Albert I had been a world away from the first two stages that sat between Digne and Gap. The first stage may have been new to everybody, but it was dry. The second test, the event’s longest at 16 miles, was the well-trodden route from Bayons to Breziers.

Familiarity in these parts is famous for breeding contempt, and SS2 was that horrible mix of snow, ice and asphalt.

Sebastiens Ogier and Loeb, Neuville and Tanak all went for a mix of soft and supersoft racer tyres. Evans and M-Sport followed suit and then lobbed a couple of

M O N T E C A R L O R A L LY R A C E C E N T R E

Loeb returned, starting well, but finished in sixth after too many mistakes

studded winters in the boot for stage two.

Spying an opportunity to lay down a marker and make a point, new Toyota recruit Ogier hurled his Yaris WRC through the opener 1.8s faster than his nearest rival Tanak, with Evans just a tenth further back.

Consistency worked for those in new colours. But what about the next one?

Neuville took aim at a 6.4s stage one deficit and blew it out of the water with an SS2 drive that was simply breathtaking.

He tore through the dry sections, then tippy-toe-danced the i20 across the ice, heart in mouth, everything on the limit.

Back to the dry and it was hammer down home. The result? A simply mindboggling time. With one of the finest single-stage performances in the modern history of the WRC, he’d whopped the world’s best to the tune of 25.5 seconds.

When the cars reached service in Gap close to midnight, Evans smiled thinly, then blew his cheeks out. “Fair play,” he said. “That’s some time…”

After the on-camera pleasantries about there being a long way to go, Neuville turned to Autosport and did his best to stifle the grin. He’d rolled the dice, taken a punt and got away with it. More than that, he’d had an awful lot of fun.

“It just felt right,” he said. “I was able to read very well the road and the grip and I Ogier was forced to dig deep to mount a challenge

“Neuville took aim at a 6.4s deficit and blew it out of the water with a simply breathtaking drive” used that to optimise the braking. When you get away with a couple of corners, the confidence can come, but then suddenly… bang, it can go so easily as well. You need to keep your confidence, but never try to take too much risk. It’s sure this one can bite much more quickly. This is why the Monte’s not a normal Tarmac rally.

You know what it’s like, we’re all on the same tenth [of a second].”

Now was the time to test all those pre-event theories that there’s no need to panic when you lose a chunk of time.

It can, we were told time and again, all be won back on the very next stage.

It would be harsh to talk of Neuville going from hero to anything like zero, but dropping 20s on Friday’s opener – his cause not helped with a big icy slide and stall – was far from ideal. It proved the point and opened a door.

Evans was fastest through it. Despite far-from-ideal and multi-seasonal conditions at his pre-event test, Evans had found a set-up he was happy with on his first WRC outing in the Yaris and he dominated the morning with fastest time on all three tests. Predictably, the new leader wasn’t letting it go to his head at lunchtime. “It’s not bad,” was as effusive as he was willing to get.

Ogier, for his part, was rattled. It’d been a long time since a team-mate had the better of him in his own backyard. Interviews were dispatched with brevity and a smile the six-time champ has perfected to convey the message that this would be a good time for the interviewer to move on. If Evans ruled the morning, Ogier had the afternoon, or two thirds of it. Both Toyotas were

TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM Recce done, the rest of the week was Dani Sordo’s own. What to do? Maybe take in some skiing, or head down to Monaco and chill by the sea for a while.

Or just head home.

Either way, getting up at four o’clock in the morning and driving all the Monte Carlo Rally stages for a third, then a fourth time, was definitely not part of his plans.

That was before Bruno Thiry got sick and was no longer a viable solution to drive Thierry Neuville’s ice-note car.

Neuville asked his colleague if he was up for it. The first answer wasn’t the one he wanted. “It’s a big responsibility,” said Sordo. “I wasn’t sure to do it.”

Neuville worked on him, convinced him and the Spaniard was in. “Dani is a very nice guy and I’m very happy the way he jumped in,” said Neuville. “This was the only quick solution and he is one of the only guys I put a lot of confidence in. It’s definitely only for this rally, the next time we are competitors again!”

And with that, Sordo committed to three days and one evening of driving the stages and deciding which patches of damp would turn to ice as darkness fell and, when the sun rose, which patches of ice would do the reverse.

It was testament to Sordo the team player that he jumped in and helped Neuville out at the eleventh hour. The responsibility shouldered by the ice-note crews is something that is all too often underplayed. Typically, these unsung heroes are the ones who help carve the wins, but only make the headlines when they get it wrong.

By the end of the event, the early starts, the long days and the burden of prediction had taken its toll on Sordo.

He looked knackered. But he had a very real understanding of what it takes to do one of the toughest and most thankless tasks in motorsport.

Thankfully, for all concerned, Thiry’s flu has passed and he’ll be back on the early starts for the next Tarmac outing in Germany, an event Sordo is very much hoping he’ll be otherwise engaged on.

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R A C E C E N T R E M O N T E C A R L O R A L LY

A NEW ERA FOR THE SOLBERGS

The World Rally Championship has been my life for so many years, but last week I saw it in a really different way for the first time. Hello, I’m Pernilla Solberg.

I’m Oliver’s mom and Petter’s wife. But last week, as well as those two things, I was team manager for Oliver Solberg Motorsport.

Motorsport, rallying, rallycross and autocross are part of our family from such a long way back. My parents both competed and so did Petter’s. I drove a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo in the Production WRC in the late 1990s. Anybody who knows us will know we’ve always been really busy with lots going on, but this time has been really busy. We have been building Oliver’s team and getting the car ready for the Monte, but at the same time we have been working a lot with Skoda Motorsport for the agreement, which was coming together to be announced on Monday.

It’s all so exciting, but I have to be honest, it was really nice to get to Gap, to really focus on this great rally and get ready for the recce.

When I watched Oliver drive over the ramp for the first time in Monaco on Thursday night, it was a completely new beginning for me. I was so proud. Petter and me, we were both so proud of our boy.

As you know, we did Wales Rally GB with Oliver, but that was a little bit different – he had his papa with him, following him on that event. This one was the start of something different.

Monte Carlo was the start of Oliver’s new life, if you like.

It was a great feeling to be back in

Monaco, where we lived for so many years. Oliver went to school there and we have lots of really good friends that all came along to see Oliver in his first ever Monte Carlo Rally.

As I stood on the harbourside, I could see our old apartment block and it brought back many good memories.

And now it’s the start of something else.

As you will know, for Solbergs, running our own team in the WRC is nothing new.

I was team manager with Petter when we started with the Citroen Xsara in 2009. We did that until 2011. Things have changed in the WRC in those years and there were lots of new things for me to read up on, learn and understand when I came back to the championship with Oliver this time.

We moved to rallycross for a few years and had some really nice success – as a team we won six of 10 possible world championship titles with Petter as a driver, Johan Kristoffersson as a driver, and as a team with PSRX Volkswagen Sweden.

This was truly amazing, but rallying has always been our passion and it was super-fantastic to see Oliver and his co-driver Aaron Johnston at the start of a new adventure last weekend. They, and we as a team, really took so much experience from this rally. The experience was the key this time – they set good times in R5. There was some small damage to the suspension, which he had to fix on Saturday morning, but he was running 15th at the time. Oliver really drove with his head to come to the finish.

PERNILLA SOLBERG

A new chapter for the Solberg family: Oliver drives his first Monte

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“If his pace on snow was impressive, Evans’s car control on the dry asphalt was outrageous” forced to give best to Neuville on the final stage of the working week.

The third-placed Hyundai driver admitted he was disappointed with his day, but he remained just 6.4s down on the lead.

And it was Ogier who moved to the top of the table, edging Evans by 1.2s.

“I didn’t have much confidence this morning,” said Ogier, “especially in the bumpy sections. But when you can see your team-mate is beating you then you know there is room for improvement.

There’s room to go faster. We did some small changes at midday service and the car was better in the afternoon.”

“He’s turned the screw a little bit today,” admitted Evans. “I just wanted to keep to my rhythm, I didn’t want to go crazy.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”

Saturday brought ice. And snow. Not fresh snow, but enough of the white stuff to send everybody to studded tyres.

Neuville took the opener, but once again it was Evans who was the talk of the service park for the second lunchtime in succession. His time through La BreoleSelonnet was another landmark Monte moment. Ogier got to within 7.6s of the Brit, but Neuville was 13.8s down.

“I was surprised at my time on Thursday night,” said Neuville, “and this one’s a surprise as well. He’s been more brave in there.”

Brave and full of confidence. No more

Evans was leading Ogier by 4.9s and Neuville by 6.4s going into the final day

of that “not-so-bad nonsense” this time.

“Yeah, it was good,” Evans laughed. “The first stage, I wasn’t completely satisfied, I drove a little bit carefully in just a couple of places. I still drove OK, it wasn’t bad by any means. On the second one, I found a really good rhythm or whatever you want to call it and it worked out OK.” If the pace across the snow was impressive, the car control demonstrated as the studs skated across the top of the dry asphalt between the white bits was outrageous. Kris Meeke’s co-driver Seb Marshall recalled that stage from last Evans impressed with speed through La Breole-Selonnet

season. “There was one long sixth-gear left-hander,” said the Englishman, “where the car went full sideways. I thought, ‘Sliding like this… in sixth gear?’ Keep your head down and keep reading.”

That stage was an absolute demonstration of Evans’s comfort in the car. It also made a total mockery of those who’d ever dared doubt his ability to challenge – especially in changeable conditions on asphalt.

“You’re always a little bit wary, driving on the studs [on dry Tarmac], but the aero on this car is really good and that actually gives quite a lot of grip, even on the stud

in the high speed,” said Evans. “It’s just about trusting in that.”

His trust was not just complete, but it also paved the way back to the rally lead.

After Saturday’s penultimate test, Evans and Ogier were tied at the top. Not even a visit to a ditch on the final Saturday stage could keep Evans off the lead. He would start the final day 6.4s up on Neuville and 4.9s ahead of Ogier.

“We were a bit lucky in that last one,” said Evans. “I was too quick on the throttle and we went straight to the ditch. But you need a bit of luck, don’t you?”

But would that luck last the night? Or would Toyota team principal Tommi Makinen have a word? How could he, with Neuville so close?

The Finn actually looked offended by the question. He was, he assured us, enjoying this battle as much as anybody. “I don’t think anything will stop those two going flat-out tomorrow,” he said. And, fortunately for us, Makinen wasn’t about to try.

So, to Monaco and on to the Alpes Maritimes. And Turini.

Ogier reckoned the weather wasn’t done yet. “Maybe there’s some more coming,” he said, referring to the rumour of rain low down and snow up top. The clouds passed, delivered nothing. The only questions now were how warm would it get and how long would the supersoft rubber last over 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 4 1

R A C E C E N T R E M O N T E C A R L O R A L LY

IN THE HEADLINES

Ogier found just enough grip for second but not to hold off Neuville

M-SPORT’S MONTE The Monte Carlo Rally hasn’t always been the happiest of hunting grounds for Finns, and M-Sport’s Esapekka Lappi and Teemu Suninen appeared to continue the trend. Suninen’s event was spoiled by a transmission problem that left his Ford with no drive on Thursday night (he returned under Rally2 rules and finished eighth), while Lappi’s pace improved through the event, finishing a solid fourth. Gus Greensmith ditched the third car on the opening day.

ROVANPERA BEATS LOEB If you’d told Kalle Rovanpera before the start that his Toyota would lead seventime Monte winner Sebastien Loeb home in fifth place, the 19-year-old would have gone for that on his World Rally Car debut in the WRC. Rovanpera drove a superb event, while Loeb looked a shadow of his former self, with the odd flash of form but too many mistakes.

KATSUTA IMPRESSES Toyota’s resident homegrown hero Takamoto Katsuta delivered a meritworthy drive in seventh. Were it not for a brief argument with a snowbank on Friday morning, he’d have delivered a fault-free drive.

CAMILLI TOPS CLASS… Eric Camilli enjoyed the highlight of his career so far, around the corner from his Nice home, to deliver a start-to-finish WRC 3 win in a Citroen C3 R5. The former M-Sport and Citroen factory driver was untroubled on his way to the top R5 spot – and ninth overall.

…AND SO DOES OSTBERG Mads Ostberg chased hard for that top R5 place, but he finished 10th overall and won WRC 2 for PH Sport Citroen.

Ostberg was forced to stop and change a puncture on the opening morning of the event. He pushed hard for the remaining stages and pulled two minutes back on Camilli.

HARRYMAN ERRS Thirty-five years on from his father Terry Harryman’s Monte misdemeanour (when he checked Ari Vatanen in early and forced the pair to turn in one of the most extraordinary rallying comebacks in history), Allan Harryman’s run with Nikos Pavlidis wasn’t straightforward.

Allan was fined €200 for his balaclava not being tucked into his overalls…

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Sunday’s final four stages?

The top three went with three softs and three supersofts. Neuville’s mind was changed by his ice-noting team-mate Dani Sordo, who persuaded him out of four supersofts, which would have been faster on the first loop, but cooked by the time it came to the powerstage.

“He asked me what I thought and I told him,” said Sordo. “He said, ‘OK, I trust you.’”

Neuville was comfortably the busiest driver at Sunday morning’s tyre zone. Lying beneath his i20, he wrestled with clicks and rideheight adjustors to lower the car for what would be a faster, drier and racier run than anybody expected.

Twelve months ago, Neuville was first or second fastest on the first three stages, but then lost out on the power stage. His intention this time around?

“We’ll cut and paste the first three from last year, then go faster on the last one.”

That wasn’t at all the way it worked. In the end, he delivered his very own super Sunday, produced a clean sweep of all four and romped home to his maiden Monte Ogier sprays the champagne but Neuville occupies top step

“Neuville ended the event as he’d started it – in peerless and very, very powerful form” win. Not even a dinked wheelrim was enough to stop him. Neuville ended the event as he’d started it – in peerless and very, very powerful form.

“I felt a lot of confidence in the car,” he said, “and when we started to catch back some time yesterday, I thought this could be possible today. I’ve chased this result for so long. We came close last year, but this time we delivered. What a fantastic way to start the season.”

One man who couldn’t contain his emotions was Hyundai team principal Andrea Adamo. The Italian had grown up pretending to go to sleep at night while

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RESULTS ROUND 1/13, MONTE CARLO RALLY (MCO), 23-26 JANUARY POS DRIVER / CO-DRIVER

TIME

TEAM / CAR

1 Thierry Neuville (BEL)/Nicolas Gilsoul (BEL)

Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT / Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC

3h10m57.6s

2 Sebastien Ogier (FRA)/Julien Ingrassia (FRA)

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT / Toyota Yaris WRC

+12.6s

3 Elfyn Evans (GBR)/Scott Martin (GBR)

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT / Toyota Yaris WRC

+14.3s

4 Esapekka Lappi (FIN)/Janne Ferm (FIN)

M-Sport Ford WRT / Ford Fiesta WRC

+3m09.0s

5 Kalle Rovanpera (FIN)/Jonne Halttunen (FIN)

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT / Toyota Yaris WRC

+4m17.2s

6 Sebastien Loeb (FRA)/Daniel Elena (MCO)

Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT / Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC

+5m04.7s

7 Takamoto Katsuta (JPN)/Daniel Barritt (GBR)

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT / Toyota Yaris WRC

+11m27.9s

8 Teemu Suninen (FIN)/Jarmo Lehtinen (FIN)

M-Sport Ford WRT / Ford Fiesta WRC

+13m30.4s

9 Eric Camilli (FRA)/Francois-Xavier Buresi (FRA)

Eric Camilli / Citroen C3 R5

+13m42.2s

10 Mads Ostberg (NOR)/Torstein Eriksen (NOR)

PH Sport / Citroen C3 R5

+14m21.8s

M-Sport Ford WRT / Ford Fiesta WRC

+24m19.9s

63 Gus Greensmith (GBR)/Elliott Edmondson (GBR) M-Sport Ford WRT / Ford Fiesta WRC

+1h27m17.5s

OTHERS

17 Deividas Jocius (LTU)/Mindaugas Varza (LTU)

R Ott Tanak (EST)/Martin Jarveoja (EST)

sneaking a radio into his bedroom to listen to Radio Monte Carlo describe, among others, Henri Toivonen’s 1986 win on this very same event.

“For me,” said Adamo, “this one is really special. I had my dad down here with me yesterday. We used to come to this rally to spectate together, this is where my passion began.”

Predictably, there was much jumping on tables and hugging as Neuville crossed the line to register Hyundai’s maiden success on the world’s most famous – and an Italian’s favourite – rally.

For Toyota there was the immediate disappointment of 1-2 turning 2-3. But the squad’s sporting director Kaj Lindstrom was pragmatic. “Of course it stings a little bit,” he said. “But having three cars in the top five here? We have to be happy with that.”

Evans was still chewing on that particular memo. “I’ll go home tomorrow and think about it,” he said, “and, yes, I’ll understand it’s a good start then. Trouble is, when you lead a rally, it raises your expectation.

We could have won this. We could have won the Monte.

“Honestly, I knew it wasn’t really working today. The feeling wasn’t there. I was having to force it and then we were overdriving.”

The voice trailed away and the remainder of a half-eaten Big Mac was far more appealing than another question. Fair enough. Next time.

Ogier’s story was about the same, save for finding just enough grip to ease his way past Evans. The frustration at relinquishing a top step he’s owned since 2014 was writ large. But he was quick to counter.

“Remember what happened last time I finished second?” he asked, referring to his 2013 campaign. “It was my best season ever.”

Fighting talk. But did you expect anything less from Ogier?

Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT / Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC SS4-accident

STAGE TIMES STAGE

FASTEST

LEADER

SS1 Malijai - Puimichel (10.86 miles)

Ogier 9m53.4s

Ogier

Tanak +1.8s

SS2 Bayons - Breziers (15.84 miles)

Neuville 16m23.7s

Neuville

Ogier +19.1s

SS3 Curbans - Venterol 1 (12.44 miles)

Evans 13m22.0s

Neuville

Evans +5.4s

SS4 Saint-Clement-sur-Durance 1 (12.85 miles)

Evans 11m43.3s

Evans

Neuville +3.4s

SS5 Avancon - Notre-Dame-du-Laus 1 (12.79 miles)

Evans 13m00.7s

Evans

Neuville +8.9s

SS6 Curbans - Venterol 2 (12.44 miles)

Ogier 13m20.8s

Evans

Ogier +3.3s

SS7 Saint-Clement-sur-Durance 2 (12.85 miles)

Ogier 11m52.0s

Evans

Ogier +2.7s

SS8 Avancon - Notre-Dame-du-Laus 2 (12.79 miles)

Neuville 13m13.1s

Ogier

Evans +1.2s

SS9 Saint-Leger-les-Melezes - La Batie-Neuve 1 (10.48 miles) Neuville 10m28.8s

Ogier

Evans +2.8s

SS10 La Breole - Selonnet 1 (12.88 miles)

Evans

Ogier +4.8s

Evans 12m34.4s

SECOND

SS11 Saint-Leger-les-Melezes - La Batie-Neuve 2 (10.48 miles) Neuville 9m34.6s

Ogier/Evans Neuville +11.0s

SS12 La Breole - Selonnet 2 (12.88 miles)

Neuville 12m12.0s

Evans

Ogier +4.9s

SS13 La Bollene-Vesubie - Peira-Cava 1 (11.44 miles)

Neuville 11m24.1s

Evans

Neuville +1.4s

SS14 La Cabanette - Col de Braus 1 (8.30 miles)

Neuville 9m47.9s

Neuville

Evans +4.0s

SS15 La Bollene-Vesubie - Peira-Cava 2 (11.44 miles)

Neuville 11m25.1s

Neuville

Evans +11.1s

SS16 La Cabanette - Col de Braus 2 (Powerstage) (8.30 miles)

Neuville/Ogier 9m39.0s Neuville

Ogier +12.6s

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP 1 Neuville 30; 2 Ogier 22; 3 Evans 17; 4 Lappi 13; 5 Rovanpera 10; 6 Loeb 8; 7 Suninen 7; 8 Katsuta 6; 9 Camilli 2; 10 Ostberg 1.

MANUFACTURERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP 1 Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT 35; 2 Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT 33; 3 M-Sport Ford WRT 20.

Monte bodes well for a competitive 2020 WRC season ahead

NEXT EVENT

RALLY SWEDEN 20 FEBRUARY ISSUE Can Tanak bounce back and repeat his 2019 Swedish success?

3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 4 3

RACE CENTRE DAYTONA 24 HOURS

4 4 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

DAYTONA 24 HOURS RACE CENTRE

Cadillac makes Daytona Wayne’s world again No one – not even the other Cadillacs – could prevent the DPi-V.R of Wayne Taylor Racing from taking a second successive victory in the 24 Hours G A R Y W AT K I N S PHOTOGRAPHY

ayne Taylor Racing made it two Daytona 24 Hours triumphs in a row last weekend, and three from four in the Daytona Prototype era. Twelve months ago, its Cadillac led 259 of the 593 laps. This time around WTR drivers Ryan Briscoe, Renger van der Zande, Kamui Kobayashi and Scott Dixon topped the leaderboard for 493 of the record 833 laps. That’s nearly 60% of the race duration compared with just over 40% last year.

What makes that statistic so impressive is that the #10 WTR Cadillac DPi-V.R came back from a series of delays, each time regaining the initiative in double-quick order. It lost time with a drivethrough penalty, a lights issue, a change of brakes, a powersteering glitch and then a one-minute stop/go. It was almost as if it was trying to give the opposition a chance. The reality was that Penske, Mazda and the other Cadillac teams didn’t have much of one of those at the IMSA SportsCar Championship opener. And they knew it.

“They were in a different league,” said Mazda driver Oliver Jarvis, who ended up just over a minute behind in second position in the Mazda RT24-P he shared with Tristan Nunez and Olivier Pla. “They had more pace than everyone. We can’t be disappointed that we didn’t win because we did the maximum today. We had a pretty much perfect race, apart from one penalty, but they were just better than us.”

The Penske Acura squad had its problems last weekend and could only salvage fourth and eighth-place finishes. Yet it knew that its ARX-05s, with or without problems, weren’t a match for the winning Caddy. “Realistically we weren’t going to win it today,” said Juan Pablo Montoya, who shared the first of the ORECAbased Acuras home with Dane Cameron and Simon Pagenaud.

“The WTR car was just faster.”

The Action Express Racing and JDC-Miller Cadillac teams knew that WTR had once again found something they hadn’t with the DPi-V.R. There were times when their examples of the Dallara-based contender were at the very least a match for the race winner, but not consistently so.

The Whelen-sponsored Action Express car ended up an unrepresentative seventh after two delays, but Filipe Albuquerque reckoned the Caddy he shared with Felipe Nasr, Pipo Derani and Mike Conway was only a “second-place car”. Three-time Daytona winner Joao Barbosa, who finished third with Loic Duval and Sebastien Bourdais in the Mustang Sampling-backed JDCMiller machine, summed it up succinctly with the words “the #10 was too fast for everyone today”.

So why was the WTR Cadillac just plain better than its rivals over the course of the 24 Hours last weekend? Probably because once

CANTRELL/NKP

W

3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 4 5

RACE CENTRE DAYTONA 24 HOURS

BMW BEATS PORSCHE IN RACE-LONG BATTLE FOR GTLM

Pitstop for the winning M8 GTE of Krohn, Farfus, Mostert and Edwards

DOLE

BMW prevailed in an ultra-tight battle in GT Le Mans with Porsche that raged right through the race. The winning Bimmer driven by Jesse Krohn, John Edwards, Augusto Farfus and Chaz Mostert and the two cars from its German rival were rarely separated by more than a handful of seconds. But, not for the first time in recent Daytona past, BMW had the pace when required right at the death.

Krohn crossed the line in the #24 Rahal-run BMW M8 GTE an unrepresentative 14s ahead of the CORE-run Porsche 911 RSR with Earl Bamber at the wheel. The second of the factory 911s was just four seconds further back in Nick Tandy’s hands.

The turning point of the race came on Sunday morning when the GTLM frontrunners switched back from the soft-compound Michelin used during the night to the medium tyre. The BMW had an advantage on the softs at the beginning of a stint and would regularly make it past its two rivals early doors before falling back behind prior to the next round of pitstops. The roles were reversed on the mediums — the M8 was stronger than the 911 at end of a stint.

The top three were together out on track at the start of the final hour. Krohn got past Tandy just before the final round of stops, in which the three leaders pitted on consecutive laps, Bamber coming in first, then his team-mate and finally the BMW. A couple of super-quick laps from Krohn more or less sealed the deal. One of them was only a tenth off the fastest race lap in class he’d set earlier in the same stint, and was nearly 0.9s quicker than Edwards’s qualifying mark in the car. Krohn, who said he was in “full-attack mode at the end”, came out of the pits with four seconds in hand over Tandy, who on cold tyres quickly lost out to Bamber.

The BMW driver didn’t come under any pressure this time as he stretched his lead over the Porsche Bamber shared with Laurens Vanthoor and Mathieu Jaminet.

Tandy, who was teamed with Frederic

Makowiecki and Matt Campbell, reckoned it was a “bitter-sweet” race for Porsche. “We’d had such a good battle for so long,” he said, “but at the end we had nothing for them.”

Between them, the winning BMW and the two Porsches led around 80% of the 786 laps completed in GTLM. Chevrolet and Ferrari were just about in the mix and hung on to the lead lap for much of the race without looking like race winners at the sharp end.

There was no fairytale debut for Chevy’s new mid-engined Corvette C8.R at Daytona, though fourth place for the #3 entry shared

by Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg was still a strong result for a brand-new car. Taylor reckoned he’d have “signed up for fourth six months ago while the car was in development”, but he admitted to some disappointment that he and his team-mates weren’t in the fight at the end.

“There was a time in the night when we thought we could win it,” he said.

The fourth-placed car ran faultlessly throughout — “a testament to Chevrolet and the Pratt & Miller team”, Taylor added — but the sister Corvette driven by Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler was the last classified finisher after a long delay to fix an oil leak. It spent nearly eight hours in the pits, during which time the engine had to be taken out to effect the repairs.

The solo Ferrari 488 GTE fielded by Risi Competizione was still on the lead lap in the penultimate hour when James Calado had a rear tyre blowout on the back stretch. The resulting damage forced the team to retire a car that wasn’t quite the competitive force it had been at the Roar test after a pre-race Balance of Performance change that took the edge off its straightline speed.

DOLE

Porsches in tandem on the banking. The #912 took second

4 6 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

DAYTONA 24 HOURS RACE CENTRE

LEVITT

Cameron, Montoya and Pagenaud feted. But Penske Acura laboured to fourth

again it got the most out of the spec Michelin tyre. This time last year, that meant keeping the grooved wet in the window in horrendous conditions that eventually brought the event to an early conclusion. This time it was about looking after the latest medium-compound slick tyre.

“I’m not sure everyone else worked out how to make the 2020 tyre work,” said Briscoe, who will contest the full IMSA season alongside van der Zande. “The team did a back-to-back with last year’s and this year’s tyres at Sebring in December and worked out what the car needed from the new rubber. We didn’t have the straightline speed, but we were able to brake deeper and get off the corners better than the rest. And we could turn the same times from the beginning of a stint on the tyres to the end.

The others were hurting a bit more with degradation.”

Team boss Wayne Taylor and his co-owner Max Angelelli also paid tribute to his all-star crew and the depth of knowledge they brought to the WTR operation. Angelelli, who was part of the team’s line-up for its 2017 victory, explained that they called on their drivers’ combined experience across multiple disciplines to try to improve the car. Kobayashi, for example, came up with what van der Zande described as “a really weird set-up change on the traction control” after the pre-event Roar test at the start of the month.

The WTR Caddy had qualified only fifth and didn’t make it to the top of the leaderboard until after the one-hour mark, and then only

LEVITT

The Joest-run Mazda tried to keep up with the Caddy, to no avail

for four laps. The car was back in the lead later in the same hour, but minor delays stopped the team from establishing itself there.

Kobayashi overtook Nunez for the lead late in the third hour, only to lose time at the next round of stops when he was given a drivethrough for pitlane speeding. The Japanese driver was back up to second when the first safety car was called in the sixth hour, only for the car to drop to fifth when WTR had to change the rear body section because one of the lights was malfunctioning.

WTR had a healthy lead of more than 20s early in hour 11 when the safety car came out for a third time. The team opted to make a precautionary change of brake discs and again dropped back.

A protracted period of green-flag running stretching for seven hours and 50 minutes – a modern record at Daytona – allowed WTR to build a comfortable advantage for the first time. Kobayashi took the lead from Barbosa at the end of hour 13, and then pulled away from the Portuguese and later Bourdais.

But a lead of approaching 80s turned into a one-lap deficit shortly after Briscoe took over from van der Zande at 0730. First, the car cut out on the banking. Briscoe recycled the car’s electronics and got going again, though without power-steering. He was in the pitlane when he was told to flick another switch, which cured that problem and meant he was able to drive past his team and continue on his way without losing the lead.

The long-held lead did disappear, however, when the fourth safety car period of the race was called shortly afterwards. Briscoe failed to see the red light at the pit exit and was handed a 60s stop/go penalty for his misdemeanour.

Favour smiled on WTR at this juncture of the race. The Australian dropped off the lead lap as a result of the penalty, but two more caution periods allowed him to get back up with the leaders within an hour or so. Then, from fourth, he was able to work his way back into the lead. Once the WTR car got back to the front, in hour 20, it stayed there for all but one of the remaining 144 laps.

Mazda hadn’t got one of its RT24-Ps based on the Riley/ Multimatic LMP2 chassis to the finish of Daytona in three attempts, so second was still “a major achievement”, according to Jarvis. “The engine never missed a beat,” said the Briton, hinting at the issues with the AER four-cylinder turbo that have blighted its previous Daytona campaigns. “This is a huge step forward for us and a great way to start the season.”

The sister car shared by Harry Tincknell, Jonathan Bomarito and Ryan Hunter-Reay ended up sixth. A boost-pressure issue, 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 4 7

RACE CENTRE DAYTONA 24 HOURS

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which the team suspected was caused by a wastegate or an exhaust problem, held the car back from early in the race.

The second RT24-P progressively lost power, which explains why it was 10 laps down at the finish.

The challenge of the JDC-Miller Motorsports Caddy wilted on Sunday morning. The car had come alive in Duval’s hands during the night, the Frenchman propelling the car into the lead in hour 11. The higher downforce level run by this car at least partially explains its pace in the night and why it faded after sunrise.

But the fact that the car had run over an errant wing mirror, damaging the underfloor, didn’t help the cause of Duval, Bourdais and Barbosa. They had nothing for the Mazda that ultimately took second place, Duval finishing 20s in arrears of Jarvis.

The Action Express DPi-V.R dropped a couple of laps off the lead when Derani sustained a puncture and had to drive almost a complete lap of the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway at reduced pace. The car was also in gearbox problems by this stage, having lost second gear. The team was able to manage the problem for much of the night, before the transmission gave up the ghost.

That resulted in a 21-minute stop for a new gear cluster and the distant seventh-place finish.

Just the three cars finished on the lead lap of a race interrupted by only six safety car periods. The next best car, the Acura Montoya shared with Dane Cameron and Simon Pagenaud, was five laps down after sustaining right-front suspension damage in a collision on Saturday evening with the second-string JDC-Miller Caddy.

Montoya was at the wheel at the time and reckoned the incident undid the race for him and his team-mates: “We had a porpoising in the car that came from there because it damaged the suspension.”

It also resulted in an unscheduled brake change, taken under green flags, that cost the car a couple of laps.

There was inevitably some disquiet in the Acura camp over the Balance of Performance. This team was the loser in the pre-event reshuffle, a reduction in boost pressure robbing it of a handful of horsepower while Cadillac got 10 of the 20kg it had been given for the Roar taken away for the race.

The sister Acura shared by Helio Castroneves, Ricky Taylor and Alexander Rossi brought up the rear of the DPi pack after losing 22 laps to repairs when the first-named was tagged by Tincknell at the Bus Stop and hit the barriers. Taylor reckoned that the car “was as good after the incident as it had been before”, but stressed that still wasn’t good enough to take the fight to his father’s team.

“I told the guys that we shouldn’t be too downbeat, because it’s better to have bad luck when you don’t have a competitive car,” he said. “There’s no way we could have beaten dad’s team today.”

P51 DAYTONA 24 HOURS RESULTS

4 8 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

DAYTONA 24 HOURS RACE CENTRE

CALDARELLI’S MASTERCLASS

DragonSpeed ORECA won LMP2 class

CANTRELL/NKP

Lamborghini made it three GT Daytona wins in three years.

The battle for class honours came down to a straight fight between two of the Italian manufacturer’s Huracan GT3 Evos, though this time it wasn’t one of the Austrian Grasser team’s entries that did the business.

The Grasser Racing Team’s bid for a hat-trick of its own was undone by a late charge from Andrea Caldarelli in the Paul Miller Racing Lambo.

The Italian, who shared with Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Corey Lewis, came from behind at the end to overhaul the car run under the GRT Magnus banner with fellow factory driver Marco Mapelli at the wheel in the final hour.

Caldarelli had taken 15 or so seconds out of the lead of his co-champion in last year’s Blancpain GT Series when the GRT Magnus car ducked into the pits for its final stop. The Miller car needed less fuel when it came in, which enabled Caldarelli to hang on to the lead. He then pulled away to take a 22s victory over the rival car co-driven

by Andy Lally, Spencer Pumpelly and John Potter.

The WRT Audi squad took third place with its R8 LMS GT3 shared by Mirko Bortolotti, Dries Vanthoor, Daniel Morad and Rolf Ineichen. It had been in the mix approaching the

end of the race, but an issue with the rear wing robbed the car of downforce, blunting its performance in the late stages.

DragonSpeed took LMP2 honours with ninth place overall for Ben Hanley, Colin Braun, Harrison Newey and Henrik Hedman. Their ORECA-Gibson 07 looked set for a close battle with the PR1/ Mathiasen ORECA shared by Gabriel Aubry, Simon Trummer, Ben Keating and Nick Boulle until the 18th hour.

Keating had qualified on pole and built up a big lead against his fellow bronze-rated drivers at the start, only to brush the wall at the top of the banking. The incident tweaked both right-side corners, the repairs costing the better part of four laps. The car did briefly make it back onto the lead lap, but a penalty left the PR1/ Mathiasen entry two laps in arrears at the end.

Paul Miller Racing led a 1-2 for the Lambo Huracan

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POWERED BY

RESULTS DAYTONA 24 HOURS, IMSA SPORTSCAR ROUND 1/12, DAYTONA (USA), 25-26 JANUARY, 833 LAPS – 2965.48 MILES POS DRIVERS

TEAM

CAR

CLASS

TIME

GRID

1

Ryan Briscoe/Renger van der Zande/Scott Dixon/Kamui Kobayashi

Wayne Taylor Racing

Cadillac DPi-V.R

DPi

24h00m33.494s

5

2

Oliver Jarvis/Tristan Nunez/Olivier Pla

Mazda Team Joest

Mazda RT24-P

DPi

+1m05.426s

1

3

Joao Barbosa/Sebastien Bourdais/Loic Duval

JDC-Miller Motorsports

Cadillac DPi-V.R

DPi

+1m25.585s

7

4

Juan Pablo Montoya/Dane Cameron/Simon Pagenaud

Acura Team Penske

Acura ARX-05

DPi

-5 laps

2

5

Tristan Vautier/Juan Piedrahita/Matheus Leist/Chris Miller

JDC-Miller Motorsports

Cadillac DPi-V.R

DPi

-8 laps

6

6

Jonathan Bomarito/Harry Tincknell/Ryan Hunter-Reay

Mazda Team Joest

Mazda RT24-P

DPi

-10 laps

3

7

Felipe Nasr/Mike Conway/Pipo Derani/Filipe Albuquerque

Action Express Racing

Cadillac DPi-V.R

DPi

-11 laps

4

8

Ricky Taylor/Helio Castroneves/Alexander Rossi

Acura Team Penske

Acura ARX-05

DPi

-22 laps

8

9

Henrik Hedman/Ben Hanley/Colin Braun/Harrison Newey

DragonSpeed

ORECA-Gibson 07

LMP2 -22 laps

10

10 Ben Keating/Simon Trummer/Nick Boulle/Gabriel Aubry

PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports

ORECA-Gibson 07

LMP2 -24 laps

9

11 Dwight Merriman/Kyle Tilley/Ryan Lewis/Nicolas Minassian

Era Motorsports

ORECA-Gibson 07

LMP2 -33 laps

13

12 John Farano/Ryan Dalziel/David Heinemeier Hansson/Nicolas LapierreTower Motorsport by Starworks

ORECA-Gibson 07

LMP2 -35 laps

11

13 John Edwards/Augusto Farfus/Chaz Mostert/Jesse Krohn

BMW Team RLL

BMW M8 GTE

GTLM -47 laps

19

14 Laurens Vanthoor/Earl Bamber/Mathieu Jaminet

Porsche GT Team (CORE)

Porsche 911 RSR-19

GTLM -47 laps

15

15 Nick Tandy/Matt Campbell/Frederic Makowiecki

Porsche GT Team (CORE)

Porsche 911 RSR-19

GTLM -47 laps

14

16 Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor/Nicky Catsburg

Corvette Racing (Pratt & Miller)

Chevrolet Corvette C8.R

GTLM -48 laps

16

17 Philipp Eng/Connor De Phillippi/Bruno Spengler/Colton Herta

BMW Team RLL

BMW M8 GTE

GTLM -61 laps

18

18 Madison Snow/Bryan Sellers/Corey Lewis/Andrea Caldarelli

Paul Miller Racing

Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo

GTD

-68 laps

28

19 Spencer Pumpelly/John Potter/Andy Lally/Marco Mapelli

GRT Magnus Racing Team

Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo

GTD

-68 laps

36

20 Rolf Ineichen/Mirko Bortolotti/Daniel Morad/Dries Vanthoor

WRT Speedstar Audi Sport

Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo

GTD

-69 laps

26

21 Ryan Hardwick/Patrick Long/Anthony Imperato/Klaus Bachler

Wright Motorsports

Porsche 911 GT3-R

GTD

-69 laps

30

22 Tim Pappas/Jeroen Bleekemolen/Sven Muller/Trenton Estep

Black Swan Racing

Porsche 911 GT3-R

GTD

-70 laps

38

23 Robby Foley/Jens Klingmann/Bill Auberlen/Dillon Machavern

Turner Motorsport

BMW M6 GT3

GTD

-70 laps

24

24 Jeff Westphal/Cooper MacNeil/Toni Vilander/Alessandro Balzan

Scuderia Corsa

Ferrari 488 GT3

GTD

-70 laps

22

25 Trent Hindman/Alvaro Parente/Misha Goikhberg/AJ Allmendinger

Heinricher Racing with Meyer Shank Racing

Acura NSX GT3 Evo

GTD

-71 laps

23

26 Parker Chase/Jack Hawksworth/Michael de Quesada/Kyle Busch

AIM Vasser Sullivan

Lexus RC F GT3

GTD

-76 laps

37

27 Cameron Cassels/Robert Masson/Kyle Masson/Don Yount

Performance Tech Motorsports

ORECA-Gibson 07

LMP2 756 laps-suspension

12

28 Matt McMurry/Mario Farnbacher/Shinya Michimi/Jules Gounon

Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian

Acura NSX GT3 Evo

GTD

-86 laps

29

29 Gar Robinson/Lawson Aschenbach/Ben Keating/Felipe Fraga

Riley Motorsports

Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo

GTD

-93 laps

35

30 Alessandro Pier Guidi/James Calado/Daniel Serra/Davide Rigon

Risi Competizione

Ferrari 488 GTE Evo

GTLM

738 laps-tyre blowout/damage

20

31 Frankie Montecalvo/Shane van Gisbergen/Aaron Telitz/Townsend Bell AIM Vasser Sullivan

Lexus RC F GT3

GTD

-105 laps

27

32 Zacharie Robichon/Dennis Olsen/Lars Kern/Patrick Pilet

Pfaff Motorsports

Porsche 911 GT3-R

GTD

-117 laps

21

33 Steijn Schothorst/Richard Heistand/Franck Perera/Albert Costa

GRT Grasser Racing Team

Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo

GTD

-200 laps

25

34 Brandon Gdovic/Eric Lux/Mark Kvamme/Johnathan Hoggard

Precision Performance Motorsports

Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo

GTD

608 laps-gearbox

31

35 Christina Nielsen/Katherine Legge/Tatiana Calderon/Rahel Frey

GEAR Racing/ GRT Grasser

Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo

GTD

471 laps-fire

34

36 Tommy Milner/Oliver Gavin/Marcel Fassler

Corvette Racing (Pratt & Miller)

Chevrolet Corvette C8.R

GTLM -372 laps

17

37 Mathias Lauda/Pedro Lamy/Ross Gunn/Andrew Watson

Aston Martin Racing

Aston Martin Vantage GT3

GTD

189 laps-acc damage

32

38 Ian James/Nicki Thiim/Roman de Angelis/Alex Riberas

Heart of Racing Team

Aston Martin Vantage GT3

GTD

151 laps-accident

33

In each car, first-named driver started race and set qualifying time. Winners’ average speed 123.514mph. Fastest lap van der Zande 1m34.652s (135.401mph).

LMP2 Lapierre 1m36.043s (133.440mph). GTLM Krohn 1m42.168s (125.440mph). GTD D Vanthoor 1m45.202s (121.822mph).

POINTS DPi 1 Kobayashi/van der Zande/ Briscoe/Dixon 35; 2 Jarvis/Pla/ Nunez 32; 3 Barbosa/Duval/ Bourdais 30; 4 Cameron/Montoya/

LMP2 1 Hanley/Braun/Newey/ Hedman 35; 2 Keating/Aubry/ Boulle/Trummer 32; 3 Merriman/ Tilley/Minassian/Lewis 30;

GTLM 1 Farfus/Mostert/Krohn/ Edwards 35; 2 Bamber/L Vanthoor/ Jaminet 32; 3 Makowiecki/ Campbell/Tandy 30; 4 Garcia/

GTD 1 Caldarelli/Sellers/Lewis/Snow 35; 2 Lally/Potter/Mapelli/Pumpelly 32; 3 Morad/D Vanthoor/Bortolotti/ Ineichen 30; 4 Imperato/Bachler/

Pagenaud 28; 5 Miller/Piedrahita/ Leist/Vautier 26; 6 Tincknell/

4 Heinemeier Hansson/Farano/ Lapierre/Dalziel 28; 5 Cassels/

Taylor/Catsburg 28; 5 Spengler/ Herta/De Phillippi/Eng 26; 6 Pier

Long/Hardwick 28; 5 Bleekemolen/ Muller/Pappas/Estep 26; 6 Auberlen/

Bomarito/Hunter-Reay 25.

Yount/K Masson/R Masson 26.

Guidi/Serra/Rigon/Calado 25.

Machavern/Klingmann/Foley 25.

NEXT EVENT

SEBRING 12H 26 MARCH ISSUE

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2020 Sunoco Challenge winners Johnathan Hoggard and Robbie Dalgleish impressed on their Daytona debuts last weekend, proving why they were the quickest drivers of our 2019 Challenge entrants.

After electrical issues prevented the Fast Track Racing Classic BMW from qualifying, Robbie put on an

overtaking masterclass during the opening stint of the four-hour BMW Endurance Challenge. Faced with an uphill battle from 31st on the grid, the Scot drove brilliantly to overtake 14 cars during the 45-minute stint before handing over to his team-mates. Sadly, two punctures would cost any chance of victory, but

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Robbie showed his class and will be looking to return as soon as possible.

Johnathan had to contend with a number of challenges over the weekend; his first time driving a Lamborghini Huracan GT3, first time racing a car for longer than 25 minutes, first time racing at night, and

the first time right foot braking after injuring his knee practicing driver changes. Despite all of this, he still managed to set the fastest lap time in a car damaged after contact with another competitor. The team were forced to retire the car with six hours to go but Johnathan impressed everyone with his performance and has left an indelible mark on Rolex 24 At Daytona.

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Rohacell Programmer / Operator Racing Point Uk has an exciting opportunity for a Rohacell Machinist to join our dynamic Pattern Shop team.

This role will require experience in running 3 Axis CNC machines. Any CAM programming knowledge will be an advantage.

This position would be well suited to an individual with good hand skills, an eye for quality and a flexible, pro-active attitude towards work.

The job responsibilities will include:

Senior Structural Design and Analysis Engineer This position reports to the Head of Structural Design or his designee; is located in Italy. Responsible for structural design and analysis of F1 Chassis related components. Key responsibilities: • Promote teamwork and effective communications to develop working relationships with all personnel and departments.

• Activity consists of structural analysis and optimization of the car components in order to guarantee solutions with minimum weight, adequate reliability and safety, reaching at the same time the required stiffness targets.

• Offline CAM Programming.

• Operating 3 Axis CNC Machines.

• Hand finishing of Rohacell parts.

The Rohacell department is very fast paced and will require someone that can juggle multiple jobs at once whilst working to tight deadlines.

Whilst this is a day shift role, it will require early / late shift cover from time to time.

• Methods used are hand-calculations, Finite Element Analysis (both linear and non-linear), software Structural Optimization (topological, shape, composite laminate, etc), automation method, analysis and correlation of experimental data through scripting and programming.

• Involved components cover both Mechanical field (wheel groups, inboard suspensions, transmission etc.) and Composite area (chassis, gearbox, wings, bodywork, suspensions etc.)

• Follow all safety regulations in all venues.

Must be a graduate in Mechanical Engineering. Two years of work experience in the industry, one of which must, preferably, be in a professional motorsports environment.

To apply now visit www.motorsportjobs.com

To apply now visit www.motorsportjobs.com

Junior Aerodynamics Engineer The ideal candidate will have an aerodynamics background with some experience within the F1 industry. You will be working within the Red Bull Advanced Technology Aerodynamics Group on the latest concepts for the AM-RB Valkyrie derivative vehicles and other exciting new ventures, generating geometry and conducting detailed analysis of aerodynamic datasets.

To fulfil this position you will need: • A minimum of an Engineering Degree with a specialisation in Aerodynamics.

• 1-2 years’ experience within F1 is desirable but not essential.

• Detailed knowledge of aerodynamic principles and CFD techniques.

• A good understanding of data analysis tools and techniques and other multi-disciplinary engineering skills including CAD and vehicle dynamics.

Want to advertise a motorsport job?

If you are recruiting in motorsport and wish to advertise with Autosport in print and digital please contact James.robinson@motorsport.com or call +44 (0) 20 3405 8105

• An organised and methodical approach to work.

Not only is this a fantastic role, it is also a fantastic team to work for. A good salary is just the start, there are many other benefits too such as health care, company contributed pension, on site gym, constructors’ bonus scheme, child care vouchers, cycle to work and of course Red Bull to see you through those extended stints!

For all current vacancies advertised please visit our website Motorsportjobs.com

To apply now visit www.motorsportjobs.com 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 6 1

MOTORSPORT JOBS

• Other duties as assigned by the Manager.

@AutosportNational @AS_National WALKER

FIRST SAUBER C9 RETURNS TO TRACK AFTER 30 YEARS HISTORIC GROUP C The very first Sauber C9 Group C sportscar built returned to the track for the first time in 30 years last week at Donington Park, after an 18-month restoration.

Eventually developed into a Le Mans 24 Hours and World Sportscar title-winning package for 1989, the C9 struggled when it was introduced two years earlier.

Plagued by unreliability, chassis 87-C9-01 – the first of its type – was raced predominantly by Mike Thackwell and Henri Pescarolo in Kouros colours.

It then wore the prominent ‘circuit-board’ livery in a deal with sponsor AEG Olympia before switching to its current Silver Arrows scheme – adopted when it became the test car for the revised four-valve engine that would appear in the Mercedes C11 successor.

This chassis was then fully rebuilt but retained by Peter Sauber for display, prior to its sale to its current undisclosed owner two years ago.

Following an 18-month restoration at Nigel Medcalf’s Moto Historics, the C9 was shaken down for the first time at Donington by renowned historic racing driver and coach Sam Hancock.

“Mechanically, it ran flawlessly, which I think was quite amazing given how complex it is,” said Hancock. “We had a couple of little electrical issues: basically it’s got lots of safety parameters and alarms and cut-offs all built in. All the tolerances are very tight, so through the day we had to ease them back to let the car run.

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Hancock gave C9, previously raced in Kouros livery (below), a shakedown at Donington

“Then we started to use a few more revs and lean on the car a little bit. It was very wet and greasy and we didn’t get a dry line appearing or anything. I can’t really say it had amazing downforce, it was just a bit too wet and greasy to get to those kind of speeds and keep it pinned down through the Craners. That’s all to come, which I’m excited about.”

The C9 was tested with reduced boost, but Hancock reckoned it was still producing over 700bhp.

“There’s turbo lag,” he added. “It’s literally like you’re walking along the road normally and then you just suddenly step into the path of a tornado.”

Hancock and the owner plan to conduct further testing ahead of competition in the Peter Auto-run historic Group C Racing series.

MATT KEW

N AT I O N A L N E W S C L U B A U T O S P O R T

Howard to focus on Europe over British GT

Double champion Howard shared Aston with Hasse-Clot

CLIO CUP UK

JEP

BRITISH GT Double British GT champion Andrew Howard says he “cannot see” himself entering the series again as a driver, but has left the door open to contesting one-off races in future.

The 56-year-old patron of Beechdean AMR has been a regular in the championship since 2006, and won titles alongside Jonny Adam in 2013 and 2015.

But Howard, who won the 2016 European Le Mans Series GTE crown, has decided to focus his efforts on Europe instead and signed Valentin Hasse-Clot and Alex Toth-Jones to drive Beechdean’s Aston Martin Vantage British GT3 entry.

“Until the foreseeable future I cannot see me entering the British championship,” Howard told Autosport. “I think the days of the true Am having an opportunity of

EX-GT RACER WALLACE IS FIRST CLIO CUP DRIVER

winning it have gone, and I’m not complaining at that, it’s just the way it is. The best way of winning British going forward is as a Silver-Silver pairing and I would like to be the first team to outright win British GT as a genuine Silver-Silver pairing.”

Howard said that one-off entries at big-ticket races such as the Silverstone 500 would be possible for “fun” but added that Beechdean, which won the GT4 Pro-Am title last year, will not be returning to the second-tier category this year.

The 23-year-old Frenchman Hasse-Clot made two appearances alongside Howard at the end of last year. He will be joined by 22-year-old GT4 graduate Toth-Jones, who was on course to win at Brands Hatch until brake failure on his Academy Vantage GT4 put co-driver Will Moore out.

JAMES NEWBOLD

Former British GT Championship racer Ben Wallace is the first driver to be confirmed as competing in the revamped Clio Cup UK series this year after joining Student Motorsport.

The 20-year-old drove a Ginetta G55 for Team Hard in the GT4 class of British GT in 2018 and before that contested the Volkswagen Racing Cup. The relaunched Clio category features a new fifth-generation car and has joined the British GT support bill for 2020, Renault’s first year away from the BTCC-supporting package since it was introduced in 1993.

Student Motorsport is the racing arm of a new membership network that provides students, graduates, educators and professionals with the resources to develop skills and links to the motorsport industry.

Wallace has previously worked with team manager JP Latham when they were both at Hillspeed’s Ginetta Junior team in 2014.

“I’ve been following the Clio Cup for quite a while and always liked the racing in it because it’s quite close,” said Wallace, who added he was keen to race on the British GT bill again. “It’s a very competitive championship and it’s a level playing field so it’s a very good opportunity for me.”

O The

draft regulations for the series have been unveiled and include a new Junior Cup class for drivers aged under 20.

Unlike the main championship, where two dropped scores will apply, Junior Cup drivers can drop four scores, so do not have to commit to the full season.

STEPHEN LICKORISH

‘FORMULA 1’ Engineering team Tour-de-Force is taking orders for its TDF-1 package, which re-purposes either

the 2011 Marussia MVR-02 or 2012 Sauber C31 Formula 1 cars for private circuit use. Each retains the factory carbonfibre tub and suspension, but receives a new 1730cc turbocharged four-cylinder engine that is capable of 600bhp in place of the original 2.4-litre V8. Barcelona and Paul Ricard feature on the designated driving days, in which customers will receive coaching from W Series racer Jessica Hawkins.

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C L U B A U T O S P O R T N AT I O N A L N E W S

Double R Formula 4 role for GT champion Meadows

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Stevenson has joined Double R after testing

BR I TI S H FORMULA 4 Two-time Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion Michael Meadows has become the team manager of top British Formula 4 squad Double R Racing via a new partnership with his karting operation Argenti Motorsport.

Meadows, who claimed the 2018 Blancpain GT Sprint Cup title in a Mercedes, has decided to step away from racing himself to take on the role.

Before switching to GTs, Meadows was a single-seater racer and drove in British Formula 3 in 2007. “I’ve known Double R for a long time because I drove for them in F3 in 2007 and always maintained that relationship,” he explained. “Midway through last year we started speaking. I just felt I wanted to do the next thing – driving is fine but I knew opportunities were fewer and further between.

“At this level, working with young drivers, you can make a big difference. I’ve done

various coaching roles over the years and when the drivers are older it’s harder for people to change. When they’re younger they’re keen to learn.”

Meadows, son of Mercedes F1 sporting director Ron Meadows, aims to create closer links between karting and car racing and believes the partnership between Argenti and Double R can help prepare karters for the next step on the career ladder.

Double R has also announced its first driver for the new F4 season – inaugural Scholarship winner Casper Stevenson.

He finished sixth in the Ginetta Junior standings last year in his maiden car racing campaign. “Off the back of winning the inaugural Scholarship last year, I am very confident and can’t wait for the red lights to go out at round one,” said Stevenson.

Elsewhere, Carlin has completed its four-car line-up by recruiting standout Ginetta Junior rookie Zak O’Sullivan and Australian F4 racer Christian Mansell to partner Jacques Villeneuve’s FEED racing school shootout winner Marijn Kremers and karting graduate Matias Zagazeta.

“I’ve done some testing with Carlin and I already feel very much part of their F4 squad,” said O’Sullivan. “If I perform well there is an opportunity to progress with the team, as they are involved in everything up to and including Formula 2.”

STEPHEN LICKORISH

Melrose moves into Porsches with In2Racing C AR RERA CUP GB Former Scottish Formula Ford 1600 runner-up Sebastian Melrose will move up to the Porsche Carrera Cup GB this season with In2Racing.

The 22-year-old will make his return to the UK after a year racing in the Nurburgring-based VLN Series with the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW GT4 squad.

Melrose got his first taste of the championship’s

machinery at the Porsche taster day held at Silverstone last November, with his initial testing pace enough to impress In2Racing team owner Nick Dudfield.

“I got invited to the Porsche taster day at Silverstone last year – the organiser James MacNaughton got me speaking to In2Racing and I was able to test one of the team’s car there too,” said Melrose.

“The car is very different

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to a GT4, but I can relate a lot more to a Formula Ford car when I’m in the Porsche.

The car slides around a lot more than the GT4, which was a very solid, balanced car. The Porsche is a difficult car to drive fast so it requires a lot more effort.”

Dudfield added: “To be working with Seb is very exciting – we are all very determined to continue our strong pace from the end of last season.”

STEPHEN BRUNSDON

New challenge for Melrose in 2020

N AT I O N A L N E W S C L U B A U T O S P O R T

IN THE HEADLINES CHANGES TO GINETTA SERIES

Grids in the Caterham Graduates are strong

Ginetta has revealed a number of tweaks to its series for 2020.

The GRDC will now be open to experienced racers as well as its previous catchment of drivers completely new to motorsport, but will retain a rookie class. Instead of having a standalone grid, it will now join the back of the G40 Cup field.

Elsewhere, the GT4 Supercup will now have a Pro, Pro Am and Am class format – replicating the system used by the Porsche Carrera Cup GB.

New membership closed after huge interest in Caterhams CATERHAM GRADUATES The Caterham Graduates Racing Club has taken the unusual step of closing to any new members after receiving a significant amount of interest for the 2020 season.

Over 90 drivers have signed up across the four Caterham Graduates classes and membership has increased by a third.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the interest in racing with us in 2020 and have taken the unusual decision to close membership this early, to ensure that our members will have the opportunity to race at as many meetings as possible,” explained club director Andrew Outterside.

“We think our success in retaining existing members and attracting new members is due to a number of reasons.

Firstly, our continued focus on having fun in a sociable environment for racers and their families. Safety and driving standards are taken very seriously, with a dedicated Driving Standards Team, made up of experienced and respected members.

“In addition, this season we’ve introduced two new types of membership, which have proved popular. They cater for those drivers that are short on time but would still like to compete in a limited number of rounds [the CGRC Trophy] or just have the occasional outing with the club during the year.”

Lifeline for former OSS competitors S PORTS PR OTOTY P E CU P The Sports Prototype Cup will add an extra Open class for this season to cater for drivers who had been planning to race in the now-defunct OSS championship.

It was announced earlier this month that the OSS series – open to a wide range of prototype machinery – will not run this season after struggling for entry numbers last year.

Those competitors can now find a new home in the Sports Prototype Cup, which also features the Revolution Trophy – for the prototypes created by ex-Radical boss Phil Abbott – and the Radical SR3 Trophy.

“Our Open class has very simple regulations,” said championship promoter James Bailey. “It caters for any sportscar that doesn’t exceed Radical SR3 pace. This regulation protects our loyal

group of SR3 owners.”

The rules will be relaxed for the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit round in May, where there is more space for cars with greater speed differentials, meaning Bailey expects a “very diverse grid” for that event.

The Sports Prototype Cup was introduced last season as a trial year ahead of a full campaign in 2020. Revolution has committed to 12 entries at each round this year.

The latest batch of drivers to be selected to join the British Racing Drivers’ Club’s Rising Stars scheme has been announced. They include four champions of major national series from last year: Tom Canning (British GT4), Harry King (Ginetta GT4 Supercup), James Hedley (Ginetta Junior) and Scott McKenna (Ginetta GT5 Challenge). Also selected were British GT driver Josh Smith, VLN racer Ben Tuck and Mini Challenge frontrunner Dan Zelos.

TF SPORT FUNDRAISER Double British GT championshipwinning team TF Sport is raising money for the Guide Dogs UK charity with an online auction of signed team memorabilia. The gloves and boots worn by four-time series champion Jonny Adam during his 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours victory and Nicki Thiim’s 2019 British GT racesuit will be available to purchase on the team’s official eBay account. All proceeds will go to Guide Dogs UK.

AMR ACADEMY CONTINUES Aston Martin will continue its AMR Driver Academy this year, but reduce the number of participants to 10.

First run in 2016, the initiative was revived last year and attracted 23 drivers aged between 17 and 25 with a confirmed programme racing an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 or GT4.

British GT4 champion Tom Canning (below) came out on top last year.

JEP

READ

NEW BRDC RISING STARS

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C L U B A U T O S P O R T N AT I O N A L N E W S

The famous Porsche, UCN 201S, was last raced 41 years ago

Dron’s Porsche 924 will return to competition in Monte Carlo The most significant Porsche 924 in British history will return to competition after a 41-year hiatus in this week’s Historic Monte Carlo Rally.

UCN 201S won the club racing championship promoted in 1978 by Porsche Cars GB, which was contested by a host of drivers including 1975 Le Mans 24 Hours winner Derek Bell.

Entered by Gordon Ramsay Limited, it was one of two cars prepared to tight regulations – basically standard 140bhp spec with blueprinted engine, plus safety equipment – by Broadspeed Engineering.

Driven by Tony Dron, the former Unipart F3 and Triumph Dolomite Sprint racer, ‘UCN’ won six of the nine races.

With the series discontinued, the car sat dormant before being re-prepared for the 1979 Brands Hatch 6 Hours round of the World Manufacturers’ Championship.

Future triple British Saloon Car champion Win Percy and Juliette Slaughter finished 22nd and won the GT class.

‘UCN’ had several owners as a road car before John Anderson bought it. Only when he took it to local Porsche specialist Tom Ferguson – who recognised it as the racer he’d prepared at Ramsay’s – did its history emerge.

Current owner Andy Prill bought the car on eBay in 2009. “It was the bargain of the century but I’ve not got round to using it until now,” said the marque authority who set up Prill Porsche Classics, whose co-driver Anjelica Fuentes is a former Carrera Panamericana winner and Mexican rally champion.

“I’d always wanted to do the ‘Monte’ and this was the opportunity. We’re running on skinny tyres and, providing the car gets to the finish [of the five-day competitive section next Wednesday], I’ll take the rally lights off and race it in selected events this season – taking it back to where it started.”

MARCUS PYE

South African journey for title-winning cars HG PCA PR E -’ 66 The cars in which South Africans Syd van der Vyver and Ernest Pieterse won their national drivers’ championships in 1961 and 1962 respectively have returned to the country.

They will be raced in the strongest class within ‘Springbok Series’

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retrospective features at Zwartkops (Johannesburg) and Killarney (Cape Town) over the next two weekends.

Historic Grand Prix Cars Association members have sent a grid of 19 Pre-’66 cars to South Africa for the first time in the organisation’s 40-year history. Seven conform to the 1500cc regulations to which the championship was

run in the period.

American Brad Hoyt drives the Lotus 18 in which former motorcycle speedway star van der Vyver won his second straight title in 1961, having switched from a Cooper.

UK-based Dutchman Eddy Perk drives the Heron, which Pieterse used for part of his 1962 campaign. Both use Alfa Romeo twin-cam engines.

Rivals include the ex-Trevor Blokdyk Cooper-Alfa T56/59 of Geoff Underwood and a pair of LDS-Alfas – built locally by racer Doug Serrurier – in the hands of former FIA Historic F1 champion Greg Thornton and Arnold Herreman. The man to beat, though, may be Chris Drake in his Cooper-Ford T71/73.

MARCUS PYE

HGPCA

HISTORIC MONTE CARLO RALLY

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IN THE HEADLINES

Green light for hillclimb at Yorkshire event

CHRIS CLARKE 1950-2020 South Africa’s motorsport fraternity has been rocked by the death of Chris Clarke, who was shot on his driveway following a social event on Sunday.

A 40-year stalwart of production car, classic car and Historic Single-Seater Association racing, he was also a popular official with the national ASN. Autosport extends sincere condolences to his family and friends.

HILLCLIMB The first competitive speed hillclimb to be run on a closed public road in England this century will be the centrepiece of the Yorkshire Motorsport Festival.

The Wolfstones Hillclimb, which will take place on 26-28 June, is open to Pre-’76 saloons and sportscars.

Competitors will compete on a one-mile course in the moors above Huddersfield, near the picturesque village of Holmfirth, immortalised by the TV series Last of the Summer Wine.

Brainchild of Michael McErlain – remembered for rallying a Ford GT40 in historic events – the multi-faceted festival will be run by the Mid-Derbyshire Motor Club on an 80-acre site. Legal permission and Motorsport UK licensing have been

granted for the hillclimb, at which later competition cars will also be demonstrated.

“We are incredibly excited to be able to announce this ground-breaking motorsport event which represents the realisation of a long-held dream for myself and a group of fellow Yorkshirebased enthusiasts,” said McErlain.

The event, celebrating 100 years of hillclimbing in the county, will be a round of the Jaguar Drivers’ Club’s Four Hills Speed Championship, and organisers are confident of reaching a target of 80 entries.

HISTORIC F3 GOES DUTCH The FIA Historic Formula 3 European Cup will return to the Zandvoort circuit during the Historic Grand Prix on 4-6 September. The third such event in the sequence will allow drivers of F3 cars up to 1984 to tackle the revised venue after the Dutch Grand Prix. The F3 cars will have a double-header weekend.

HSCC LISTS CORE VALUES

O’Brien and Thurston join forces

The Historic Sports Car Club has launched its core values, “10 key reasons to race with the club”. The topics include on and off-track behaviour, scrutineering and value-for-money historic racing. In 2020, the club will promote 18 race categories across nine race meetings.

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KHERA’S 2020 PLANS

been invited to race the car now owned by Historic Grand Prix Cars Association racer Tony Best and his son Charlie.

Neil Fowler’s team is currently re-preparing the Lotus ready for testing ahead of the Goodwood event.

Both O’Brien and Thurston have competed in Historic Formula Ford in the past, while

O’Brien has more recently driven a McLaren in British GT. “We think the car has done less than 10 races in its life,” said Thurston.

“This will be a new experience for me,” added O’Brien. “It’s a brilliant opportunity and I’m really grateful for the chance.”

PAUL LAWRENCE

Perk will use Heron (37) in South Africa where it has won before

Versatile racer Lucky Khera is in line for another busy season’s racing. As well as doing the Porsche Carrera Cup GB with Simon Green Motorsport, he also plans to race in the Ferrari UK Challenge. In addition, he is targeting some outings in GT Cup and Britcar, plus selected rounds of the Kumho BMW Championship.

GREEN EYES GT4 SUPERCUP Teen racer Fin Green (below) is looking at a second year in the Ginetta GT4 Supercup, after finishing eighth in last year’s standings, with one podium finish under his belt.

He had a run in one of Rob Boston’s Ginetta G55s at Donington Park last week, describing the conditions as “very greasy” after an early spin.

JEP

Young lions Michael O’Brien and Ed Thurston will team up to race a Lotus 23C in the Gurney Cup at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting.

It will be the car’s first race since the 1960s, and will be the first time in a period sportsracer for both drivers, who have

MARCUS PYE

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It’s that age-old motor racing story: driver aspires to race in Formula 1, runs out of finance on their way up the single-seater ladder and so adopts a dog that’s voiced by Kevin Costner. Hang on a minute… that’s not right.

This is only the first flight on our way to Chile as Autosport heads to the Santiago E-Prix, but perhaps it’s an early onset of jetlag that has us confused. As for what looked like a cameo appearance from Giancarlo Fisichella – perhaps we spent too much time chasing free spirit samples in duty free… It’s a tough life.

After 109 minutes of in-flight entertainment, we’re still none the wiser as the credits role on The Art of Racing in the Rain – so let’s break it down.

Based on the novel by Garth Stein, viewers follow American racer Denny Swift and his furry golden retriever pal Enzo – no prizes for guessing who he’s named after (Enzo Osella? – Ed) – who spend their evenings studying onboards, telemetry and video footage of Ayrton Senna at Monaco in 1984.

Mongrel: cute pup can’t make up for film’s big failings

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After his backers ran out of money during an F3 campaign, Swift switches over to endurance competition, racing a Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 in the Michelin Pilot Challenge, graduating to a Porsche 911 GT3-R and then taking a curious step backwards into a Carrera Cup car.

Off track, driver meets girl, dog doesn’t warm to her, driver and girl get married, girl gets pregnant, driver misses daughter’s birth – heads up, motorsport is portrayed as being as unstable as the British royal family – wife becomes terminally ill, in-laws sue for child custody.

The dog, presumably fed up with the unfathomable family politics that easily qualify for The Jerry Springer Show, then tries to relate the skills needed to be a great racing driver across to everyday life. We do that too, only in the sense that we try to apex the transition from one aisle to the next with the supermarket trolley.

Anyway, after a surprise call up from Penske to race in the Daytona 24 Hours, Swift is visited by token Italian talent scout Luca Patone (driving the “new” Ferrari 488, even though this scene is set a decade after he’s driving the M4 that’s, in reality, only a year older) and is offered a job as test driver for Ferrari. Curiously, Patone is impressed by Swift’s ability to drift the car, which haemorrhages lap time.

As things begin to look up for Swift, he and Enzo go on a run but the dog gets hit by a car. Here the dog says: “Ayrton Senna didn’t have to die at Imola”, and it’s a tough ask to steady our rolling eyes. This is absolutely not a film for racing fans, but surely that’s too niche a reference for the general public. It’s hugely muddled and irked audience members will be even more aggrieved by the cheek of a montage that features Swift celebrating alongside Alain Prost – he hasn’t earned his place!

Anyway, the dog just about survives and so Swift decides to use his new contacts at Maranello to secure a final treat: giving Enzo a passenger ride in a Ferrari 250TR (probably a cruel move that would deafen the poor old dog).

Cut to eight years later, the dog is dead and Swift and his daughter are at a Ferrari Corse Clienti track day –

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FINISHING STRAIGHT

A DOG’S DINNER

FINISHING STRAIGHT

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HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

HEROES: FULL MOVIE

Watch Autosport’s guide to the Formula 1 teams that have something to prove in 2020 and are surely aiming to defy the critics and climb the pecking order after falling short of lofty expectations.

Go to bit.ly/2020F1watchlist

Heroes tells the story of five legends of motorsport, whose lives are intimately intertwined and interconnected as they all scale the heights of their sport, while contending with profound personal challenges along the way. Go to bit.ly/heroesfilm

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Lead character Swift makes his way to F1 via Turner BMW M4

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W H AT ’ S O N

INTERNATIONAL MOTORSPORT Bathurst 12 Hours

MOTORSPORT IMAGES/TRIENITZ

where owners of the team’s old F1 cars enjoy a whirl in their expensive machinery. This is disguised as Swift having made it to F1. We’ve lost track of how old he’s meant to be at this point along a jagged timeline.

Then comes the closing song: Have You Ever Seen the Rain by the brilliant Creedence Clearwater Revival. Only, that’s the thing. It may have taken a departure from the original source material (we’re not sure, Autosport hasn’t read it) but we count only one rain-hit race. The title is one of many cheques the film can’t cash.

It is cool to see the likes of Juan Pablo Montoya and Tristan Nunez listed as stunt drivers, but that’s not enough to save this flick.

This review is scathing, but the truth is The Art of Racing in the Rain will anger motorsport enthusiasts.

Those who can’t appreciate Le Mans ’66 for its Hollywood liberties have another think coming. Even if you can set the racing to one side, this is a film that drags, is wholly unsubtle and, above all else, confuses.

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W H E N D E A L S F A L L T H R O U G H AT T H E 1 1 T H H O U R

LUCA S DI GRASS I A double denial by micro and macro-level politics M AT T K E W

s two Brazilians faltered in Formula 1, there was a compatriot ready to replace either one. Despite his role in orchestrating a victory for Fernando Alonso in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, the pressure hanging over Nelson Piquet Jr at Renault wouldn’t alleviate. A few garages down the pitlane, and prior to Honda’s withdrawal from F1 amid the global economic crisis, rumour had it that Rubens Barrichello’s seat was in jeopardy. Waiting in the wings for either slot was Lucas di Grassi.

Ahead of finishing third in the 2008 GP2 standings, di Grassi had impressed Renault during a three-day test in September at Jerez aboard the R28. Then, in November, he ran at Barcelona in the outgoing Honda RA108 – battling alongside Bruno Senna to impress Ross Brawn.

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“At the end of 2008 I did quite a good test for Renault,” recalls di Grassi. “But then there was that Singapore scandal.

That was one of the reasons they kept Piquet for the year after so I had no drive.

“I had a test with Honda, which collapsed a few weeks after and came back as Brawn GP. They went and hired Barrichello and [Jenson] Button. It could have been that I had the Renault seat in 2009 or – imagine, even better – the Brawn seat.”

Thanks to the retention of Barrichello and Renault taking on board its other test driver, Romain Grosjean, when Piquet Jr finally got the axe, di Grassi would have to wait for an F1 berth. That came in the guise of a drive alongside Timo Glock at Virgin Racing. Just three races into the 2010 season, di Grassi peaked with 14th in Malaysia before dropping out of traditional single-seaters at the end of the year.

Since then he has established himself as the most active driver ambassador for Formula E – having developed and test driven the season-one car and then lifted the 2016-17 crown. Perhaps that’s why the missed seasons on the F1 grid don’t irk.

“To start F1 with a race-winning car would be an amazing feat,” adds di Grassi.

“But that’s life. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you get unlucky. In the end I drove seven or eight different F1 cars, I had a wonderful year [in 2010] with a car that

“IF YO U KEE P YO UR HE AD HIG H , T RUST YOURSE LF A ND WOR K H ARD , THE LUCK LE VE LS O UT”

was very bad. It was very difficult, very frustrating, but I had my experience. In F1, if you lose the timing it’s very difficult to get back. For example, the only reason I lost my timing from 2008 and 2009 to join F1 was because of external reasons: one team collapsing and the other signing a backdoor deal with the driver. It was hard, mentally tough in 2009.

“I was hired by Race Engineering [back in GP2], which I’m very glad gave me the seat. I raced that year for free. From there I got my seat at Virgin. That led to an Audi test one year later and then I joined endurance racing and LMP1 and the story goes on. The point is, if you keep your head high, trust yourself and you keep working hard, at one point the luck levels out. The problem is that people maybe get too down.

There is an unlucky event and they never recover from it. I think you have to fight back. That’s the only choice.”

3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 AUTOSPORT.COM 7 1

FINISHING STRAIGHT

FRO M THE A RCH I VE Ayrton Senna, in pensive mood, waits for track time in the West Surrey Racing Ralt RT3/83 during British Formula 3 testing at Oulton Park in 1983. It was at Oulton Park that year that he clashed controversially with his title competitor Martin Brundle, while attempting a pass, ending both their races. Senna would go on to win the 1983 championship.

For classic Ayrton Senna DVDs head to dukevideo.com/F1/Ayrton-Senna

For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com

E STA B L I S H E D 1 9 5 0

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A motorsport giant’s crushing maiden victory

Senior Designer Michael Cavalli Origination/Repro David Sternberg

2 February 1978 AUTOSPORT.COM

MAUGER

Tyres are hardly the most engaging topic in motorsport, but they are crucial, and the maiden grand prix triumph for one supplier in its first full season sent the 1978 Formula 1 season into serious intrigue after its second race.

“The tyre war is well and truly on” stated Jeff Hutchinson’s Autosport report, headlined ‘Michelin Man’, for the Brazilian GP – held at Rio Jacarepagua for the first time.

Through the mid-1970s, Goodyear had dominated F1, winning every race and supplying pretty much the entire grid. Michelin had arrived with Renault in 1977 and then struck a deal to supply Ferrari for the following season in addition to the French marque.

The reward was swift – in round two, on a typically hot Brazilian afternoon, Carlos Reutemann stormed away from fourth on the grid to lead the opening lap, passing poleman Ronnie Peterson, James Hunt and Mario Andretti.

From there, Reutemann never looked

back during the 63-lap contest, as the Goodyear-shod runners struggled to keep up in the hot conditions. A surprise second, following Andretti’s late troubles, was Emerson Fittipaldi on a rare good day for Copersucar.

During a season dominated by the ground-effect Lotuses of Andretti and Peterson, Michelin’s ground-breaking radial tyres helped Ferrari score five victories and finish best of the rest. Michelin went on to beat the opposition to win more than 100 world championship GPs before pulling out of F1 at the end of 2006.

Elsewhere in our 2 February issue, Jean-Pierre Nicolas and Vincent Laverne won the Monte Carlo Rally in a privateer Porsche 911 just four days after finding out that they had sufficient budget to start the event.

The pair beat the Renault 5 Alpines and the Fiat Abarths to secure an unlikely victory.

CRAIG WOOLLARD

I N N E XT W E E K’ S I SS U E THE BIG QUESTIONS OF F1 2020

Karun Chandhok tackles the big topics of the season ahead 7 4 AUTOSPORT.COM 3 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0

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I N ASS O C I AT I O N W I T H RYA N M OTO R S P O R T I N S U R A N C E

The success of the 750 Motor Club is explored on page 8

COV E R I MAGE S Porsche UK; Jones; Read; Motorsport Images/JEP

Shining the spotlight on the UK’s grassroots motorsport he UK national motorsport scene is truly incredible.

From sporting trials to hillclimbs, autograss to circuit racing, the amount of motorsport on offer in this country is matched in very few other places around the world.

And at Autosport we want to celebrate that diversity. As we mark 70 years of Autosport magazine, we plan to make sure the spotlight shines more brightly on the remarkable breadth of national motorsport on offer.

Alongside our regular club coverage at the back of the magazine each week, where we will continue to provide news stories, analysis, opinions and the latest event reports, each month we will also have a national motorsport supplement.

This will explore some of the amazing characters, cars and clubs we have in this country. We will also investigate the many different disciplines that are available to those who want to get involved in motorsport without

T

breaking the bank.

Track tests of various national racing machines will also be a cornerstone of these supplements, and one of the main features of this first edition is Ben Anderson’s experience behind the wheel of three different machines from Porsche (a manufacturer that has long been a supporter of UK motorsport): the Boxster, 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport and 911 GT3 Cup. Plus, we take an in-depth look at the popular 750 Motor Club and speak to Lee Deegan, the driver we chose as Autosport’s top club racer of 2019.

ST EP H EN LI CKOR ISH N ATI ON A L ED ITO R

05

OPI N I ON Hugh Chambers Motorsport UK CEO outlines the changes the governing body is making

06

T EC H FOCUS BRDC British F3 We investigate the changes that are being made to the series’ Tatuus car

08

CLUB I N SI G HT 750 Motor Club An in-depth look at how one of the oldest clubs is still going strong

14

DR I V ER P R OFI LE Lee Deegan How Autosport’s top club driver of 2019 progressed from autograss

18

T RACK T E ST Porsche racers We get behind the wheel of the Cayman, 911 GT3 Cup and Boxster

26

QUE ST I O N AN D AN SWE R Motorsport UK’s plan Detailed investigation of the governing body’s strategy

32

AR CH IV E Gerry Marshall The national racing hero prepares for an outing in Big Bertha

34

CONTACTS Organising clubs The websites and phone numbers for all the major racing clubs

SUB-EDITORS Peter Hodges, Rob Yarham CONTRIBUTORS Ben Anderson, Stephen Lickorish, Stefan Mackley, Marcus Pye ART EDITOR Lynsey Elliott SENIOR DESIGNER Michael Cavalli ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES Don Rupal (email don.rupal@motorsport.com)

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youtube.com/AUTOSPORTdotcom 30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

03

I N ASS O C I AT I O N W I T H RYA N M OTO R S P O R T I N S U R A N C E

OPINION HUGH CH A M B E RS

The Motorsport UK CEO outlines the governing body’s future direction and how it is attempting to grow competitor numbers in this country t certainly has been an interesting past 12 months of positive change at Motorsport UK, with a clear focus on improving the way that we run the organisation, better serve our members and broaden the breadth of activity we cover as a governing body. All of this is to ensure the long-term health of our sport.

We have made a move from dealing almost solely with pure governance to a broader role of promoting the sport more widely and engage more closely with the motorsport community. The changes are in response to the changing landscape in motorsport, with a number of risks to the future of the sport, which have been manifested in a gradual decline in licence numbers in recent years.

Ultimately, a sport’s governing body should be supporting its community and encouraging the public to participate, alongside its obligations to regulate the sport. There are challenges in motorsport that are rarely replicated in other sports, especially in the areas of safety and technology, as well as the sheer diversity, given we have 11 different disciplines that are all unique.

The reality is that, without a strong and positive campaign to address the issues of the sport, we will all be victims of other forces that dictate the outcome. We are stronger together and we need to

I

“We need to promote the sport, to help clubs attract new members and to market their events” be unifying to promote the sport, to help clubs to attract new members, to market their events, to create better learning pathways for our volunteers, officials and competitors and also to innovate for the future. Technology is racing away in the automotive world, and the vast majority of our motorsport vehicles are rapidly becoming an anathema for society. We need a strategy and a plan for how we not only survive but thrive in that new world. And that plan needs funding and it needs resource.

We have created a new economic model that will increase the diversity of our revenue streams and allow us to deliver on our broader objectives as part of a five-year strategic plan, but we will be looking much further to the future with our plans. Motorsport UK is a not-for-profit membership organisation, so any revenues are reinvested back into the sport.

The strategy behind the change to the new economic model is derived from months of careful analysis and planning. It is important to understand the context in which these changes

JEP

N EW DECA DE, NE W ST RATEG Y

are being introduced as they demonstrate that the changes are absolutely essential. Clubs all over the country were concerned that there was not enough grassroots support and that there was little promotion of the sport.

The good news is that, after our first year of renewed activity, we have managed to halt the decline in licence numbers, finishing 2019 with just over 31,000 members – that is slightly up on the previous year. We have made a number of steps to promote the sport more effectively and certainly to engage more effectively with our membership, but there is still a long way to go.

You may have seen us out and about at motorsport events in 2019, engaging with the community and also publicising our new Trackside membership, designed for motorsport fans and therefore broadening our member base. We will be doing a lot more of this in 2020!

The importance of engaging with our 720-strong community of motor clubs cannot be underestimated. They are the beating heart of motorsport. One of the great things about this sport is the sense of community within clubs, at events and online, and the sense of passion throughout our community is fantastic and should always be embraced. We want to have a much stronger relationship with our clubs and help them to achieve their objectives, growing their membership and leading to greater participation in the sport.

To help boost grassroots participation, we will be focusing more on publicising entry points to motorsport, from karting for the younger generation, to trackdays and events such as autotests and autosolos where all you need is a free RS Clubman licence and your own road car. I don’t think people realise how easy it can be to take part in many forms of motorsport – this perception is an important barrier to overcome.

A key driver for participation is the visibility of motorsport in the media. Currently almost all television coverage is hidden behind a paywall. While that is largely out of our control, we will certainly be looking to work more closely with the media, for example Autosport, to promote grassroots participation and ensure the spotlight isn’t solely on the higher profile championships that enjoy television coverage. Thankfully, the British Touring Car Championship is still on free-to-air TV, and produces a stunning entertainment package with all-day coverage of every event.

I look forward to 2020 and beyond with enthusiasm and optimism, and, although we have come a long way now in a short space of time, there are so many more positive changes to be made.

I certainly hope we can work closely with the community, and the media, to achieve our collective goals. Q P26 MOTORSPORT UK Q&A 30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

05

NATIONAL TECH FOCUS

B R I TISH F3 TATUUS The BRDC British Formula 3 car has undergone a number of upgrades for 2020.

Organiser MSV’s engineering manager Giles Butterfield talks us through them

BY ST EFA N M AC KLE Y

FRONTAL PROTECTION With the quest for safety a never-ending journey, many single-seater championships are going down the route of the halo to offer further head protection for the driver.

With the integration of a halo into an existing tub not feasible, this year the carbonfibre Tatuus chassis used in British F3 will

06 NATIONAL 30 JANUARY 2020

incorporate an Advanced Frontal Protection (AFP) fin.

The device, which was used in IndyCar last season, sits directly in front of the driver’s head and can be retrofitted, unlike a halo. It will help deflect debris away from the cockpit opening and act as a secondary roll structure.

“It’s virtually impossible to

reverse-engineer a halo into an existing tub and to swap the entire tub – it forces people to buy a new one which is very costly,” says Butterfield.

“The AFP seemed to be a good option in the right direction that has a clear safety benefit. It’s proved to be very effective and has a double benefit.”

I N ASS O C I AT I O N W I T H RYA N M OTO R S P O R T I N S U R A N C E

AERODYNAMICS The BRDC British Formula 3 Championship will introduce a number of upgrades to its cars – which are highly developed versions of the Tatuus FIA Formula 4 chassis initially built for competition in 2014 – that will change their appearance and the amount of downforce they produce.

The front-wing endplates have been redesigned, which, combined with changes to the wing installation, will allow for greater

set-up variation and an increased downforce level. Bargeboards have also been added to the cars, which again will increase overall downforce and channel the airflow under and around the car more efficiently. The rear wing includes new profiles for the carbonfibre main plane and flap with in-mode angledback endplates, with the

assembly allowing for an overall higher rear-downforce set-up.

“We had in the past a slight aero imbalance in the car – it was slightly lacking in rear downforce,” says Butterfield.

“Generally speaking, teams were running the rear wing at maximum tilt, so we are trying to gain downforce on the car all-round and are running a higher downforce level overall.”

ENGINE Mountune has taken over the building of the two-litre 230bhp engine from Cosworth, which consists of several new features this season. These include revised valve-train components, control systems updates, newly designed wiring looms and a pre-heater system that allows the engine to be brought up to temperature without being run in the garages beforehand. A new slimmer and

tighter engine cover will also be used that includes a fin and will aid the overall aerodynamic efficiency of the car.

Butterfield says: “It’s more of a package of reform. The engine power will be the same but fundamentally we want to stick with the same levels of equality and reliability that we have built our reputation on.

“The engine cover has changed quite

dramatically – the initial car was conformed by the F4 regulations, which compelled you to use a fairly bulky engine cover to accommodate a fairly bulky engine.

“We’re not conformed anymore, though, and we’ve opted to slim it down quite a lot in order to improve the aerodynamic performance of the car and airflow to the rear wing.”

30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

07

NATIONAL 750 MOTOR CLUB

WALKER

The Toyota MR2 Championship is a popular category and averaged grids of 34 cars in 2019

S URVI VIN G AN D THRI VI NG The 750 Motor Club is entering its 81st season in 2020, and is showing no signs of slowing down

BY ST EFA N M AC KLE Y

owhere else in the world is national motorsport as strong as it is in the UK, with a wealth of championships and series on offer, but that wouldn’t be the case without the existence of the various racing clubs throughout the country.

One of the longest running and most successful is the 750 Motor Club, which in 2020 is entering its 81st season. Founded in 1939 by a group of Austin Seven enthusiasts, the club has grown beyond recognition over the decades and now boasts 26 championships/series in its roster and a membership of around 2000.

The club was created with an ethos of affordable racing, which remains part of its DNA, from its membership fee of just £25 to strict regulations within its categories to ensure costs are kept to a minimum.

And it’s a philosophy that is clearly working – last season only the Classic

N

08 NATIONAL 30 JANUARY 2020

Sports Car Club had a higher grid average among the UK’s racing clubs. Leading series for the 750MC include Club Enduro, with 41 cars on average, while the Locost and Toyota MR2 championships regularly attract 34 entries, suggesting that both multi-class and one-make series can thrive within the club.

Giles Groombridge, competitions manager at the 750MC, states that maintaining strong grids is an absolute priority for the club. “It’s quite a challenging environment at the moment – the costs we face are increasing every year in terms of circuit hire and the cost of facilities we have to put in place to run a race meeting,” he says. “So we have to try to balance that with keeping entry fees at affordable, sensible prices, but also all the improvements we try to drive such as the live streaming and better scrutineering.

“Everything has a cost attached and the

only way to keep achieving those goals year on year of delivering a better racing programme and better product is to keep our numbers strong, and to maximise the cars we’re putting out on the grid each time. Very much the ambition is to keep our championships healthy.

“You always have to juggle your portfolio like anything else and manage things that are in decline. We need to always be looking at average grid sizes and entry levels and make sure those numbers are sufficient to keep the club commercially strong and enable us to invest in improving the product.”

With permit and licence fees on the rise, as well as the number of annual meetings, all racing clubs are facing an uphill battle.

And while club motorsport will never be cheap relative to other sports, the 750MC’s approach to making it as affordable and accessible as possible, while also ensuring it puts the competitors first, has placed it

I N ASS O C I AT I O N W I T H RYA N M OTO R S P O R T I N S U R A N C E

JONES

Scott Mittell has been involved with the 750MC since 2008, and is now racing in rapid Bikesports

HAWKINS

NOTABLE CHAMPIONSHIPS AND SERIES

750 FORMULA One of the oldest established championships in the world, having been created in 1950, it was founded to give racing enthusiasts the chance to build their own machines on a low budget. Dubbed the most affordable ‘slicks-and-wings’ racing series in the UK, the 750 Formula’s sportsprototype machines originally used Austin engines before moving to Reliant and more recently Fiat 1100cc powerplants that have proved much more reliable. Former alumni include Marcos co-founder Jem Marsh and Formula 1 designer Tony Southgate. The Historic 750 Formula caters for cars built to earlier regulations, primarily comprising Austin Seven Specials and Reliant-engined cars.

30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

09

NATIONAL 750 MOTOR CLUB

JONES

NOTABLE CHAMPIONSHIPS AND SERIES

LOCOST CHAMPIONSHIP One of the 750 Motor Club’s most popular championships for its close and competitive racing, with grids in 2019 averaging 34 entries across the 16 races. It was created in 2001, and modifications to the engine, suspension, brakes and transmission are all limited, with only one type of tyre permitted. It’s an entry-level championship, and second-hand cars are available from £4000. The Ma7da Series, which uses a Locost chassis but a more powerful 1.8-litre Mazda engine, was introduced last season as a stepping stone for competitors.

in a relatively good position.

This ethos is what attracted Scott Mittell to the club more than a decade ago when he joined the popular Locost Championship, winning the outright title in 2010 and 2011. He moved to RGB Sports 1000 due to the appeal of the bike-engined championship – claiming the outright title in 2015 with his own Mittell MC-52B – and last season moved into Bikesports. With father Ian, he continues to run cars in the Sports 1000 and F1000 championships.

“It [750MC] was and I think still is the cheapest way to get involved in racing properly,” says Mittell Jr. “We were looking around at other championships [after Locost], but we were very happy with the 750MC and we were liking the idea of the bike engines. The 750MC is the place to be if you want to race bike-engined cars, and when they brought the F1000s to the 750MC [at the end of 2018] it was something we needed to get into. They pay attention to the drivers and that’s getting better and better with time. Giles [Groombridge] does a good job, he takes on board what people are saying and people feel valued within the club.”

Mittell’s view that the 750MC is the easiest way to get into circuit racing reflects a trend that the club’s communications manager, James Winstanley, has also noticed as more people are moving away from other 10 NATIONAL 30 JANUARY 2020

“We never want to lose that personal connection. We’re the place for a novice to find their feet” areas of motorsport such as autograss and oval racing. It’s not just affordability that has made it an attractive proposition for prospective drivers, but the fact that the opinions of members are valued.

“What we’ve always tried to do over the years is elevate the quality and do whatever we can to make the club bigger and better on a more professional level,” says Winstanley. “But we don’t want to ever leave behind that personal connection and approachability of the club, which is seen as the easiest place to come as a novice and find your feet, essentially.

“We’re seen as the place where you come in as a racing novice, and it’s the natural home when you’re making the perceived big step up [into circuit racing].

It’s not really a big step, it’s just an admin exercise if you’re already doing something else, but it can be a bit daunting to step into circuit racing. The 750MC likes to be in that position where we’re seen as the place to go.”

There are a number of championships on

offer to suit both novice and experienced racers, whether you want to be part of a one-make series or engineer your own car.

This includes the 750 Formula – one of the oldest championships in the world. It was conceived in 1950 to allow enthusiasts with limited means to create their own self-built machines. Its alumni include motorsport royalty such as Lotus founder Colin Chapman, and over the years it’s moved from using Austin and Reliant engines to the current Fiat powerplants, while sticking to its core principles of low-cost racing.

The 750 Formula and Historic 750 Formula grids averaged 17 and 20 entries respectively last year, and there’s a drive within the club to get cars that are not racing back out on circuit.

Peter Bove, a former 750MC board member and 750 Formula representative, has competed in the category since the late 1980s with his Darvi 88 P and believes that the club is the best place to be for those starting out in motorsport.

“People are starting to build new [750 Formula] cars again and we’re continually trying to persuade people [who don’t use theirs] to sell them or lend them out,” says the four-time 750 Formula outright champion. “With my Darvi I didn’t want to sell it, but I didn’t really intend to carry on racing at that time, so I did eventually sell it. It’s strangely annoying that people have them in their garages, but they’re not being used.

I N ASS O C I AT I O N W I T H RYA N M OTO R S P O R T I N S U R A N C E

JONES

Peter Bove (leading) began racing in the 750 Formula back in the late 1980s

JONES

An MR2 grid gets going at Mallory in 2007. The series is a big success

Bob Simpson started in 750F in black-andwhite days, and is still going strong now!

30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

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NATIONAL 750 MOTOR CLUB

JONES

The Birkett Six-Hour Relay is a popular event in the national motorsport calendar

JONES

JONES

Stock Hatch racing, here at Oulton, has been a success story…

…and here the field tackles the tiny but challenging Lydden track

12 NATIONAL 30 JANUARY 2020

I N ASS O C I AT I O N W I T H RYA N M OTO R S P O R T I N S U R A N C E

STYLES

NOTABLE CHAMPIONSHIPS AND SERIES

CLUB ENDURO Last season it attracted the largest average grids of all the 750 Motor Club’s championships and series, with 41 entries. Multi-class racing split into three classes – class A (300bhp/tonne), class B (240bhp/tonne) and class C (180bhp/tonne) – as well as an invitational class. Races are usually two hours, often with one three-hour race per season, with a mandatory pitstop. Driving duties can be carried out individually or with a team-mate. No slicks helps keep the costs down and the racing competitive.

And the way that lap times are coming down, if they leave it three or four years they’re not going to catch up.

“For those people who won’t get a professional racing career, the 750MC is the natural place to be because it’s something you can do without needing lots of sponsorship.

I think we’re the most successful in the UK at the moment because there’s something for everyone at a reasonable price. Giles and the team have really built on the environment where it’s a friendly club to race with.”

Another well-established event is the Birkett Six-Hour Relay at Silverstone, which dates back to 1951 and remains a popular feature on the national calendar.

It’s not just established formulas that the 750MC is running. Last season it introduced three new series: the Ma7da Series (Locost chassis with 1.8-litre Mazda engine), 116 Trophy (using BMW 1 Series models) and Type-R Trophy (for Hondas).

This is where even the 750MC has found that it’s not easy in the current climate to generate grid numbers and get new series off the ground – the Ma7da Series and Type-R Trophy struggled to get into double figures.

But all three are expected to grow in 2020. And added to the 750MC’s portfolio this year is the well-established Alfa Romeo Championship, which has moved across from the British Racing and Sports Car Club.

“Some things kind of grow organically out of other formulas, the Locost-Mazda being an example of that, where there were people with cars who wanted to progress in their racing but couldn’t really have a cheap and cost-effective mechanism of doing it,” says Groombridge.

“Other fresh ideas like the Type-R Trophy and the 116 Trophy have a place in the market at the moment based on the fact that they are designed to be very accessible, novice-friendly and low-budget.

I think if you stick to those values, you’re not going to go too far wrong.

“Things are getting more expensive and there are more hurdles for potential competitors to get through each year, so the easier and cheaper we can make it for them to take those first steps in proper circuit racing the better. If you can do that then you should have something that can take root.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing national motorsport as a whole is its ageing demographic. Attracting young blood is proving difficult and something that the governing body, Motorsport UK, is keen to address. The 750MC is taking matters into its own hands, expanding its use of social media, as well as livestreaming events, which was introduced last year at six meetings, with seven planned for 2020.

Winstanley adds: “The livestreaming works really well because it kind of works for everybody. It works for us as a promotional tool for the championships,

the club and circuit racing itself, it works for teams, but it also works for the competitors. It’s a way of showcasing what they’re doing, it’s a way of helping a bit towards the odd sponsor here and there and it helps us get the message out there.”

There’s certainly no magic formula when it comes to making a club successful, and it can be harder to maintain competitive grids than create them in the first place as rival racing clubs vie for the same competitors.

But it’s no accident that the 750MC has continued to survive and thrive over the decades, having set itself apart with its low-budget, customer-driven approach.

“Our focus has always been on ensuring that we keep those strong grids, keep the approachable and personal nature of the club and the family-friendly paddock atmosphere,” says Winstanley. “We always try to ramp up the quality of what we’re doing, whether it’s the livestreaming or our publications, like the yearbook we do for competitors – things that make it more of an experience.

We’ll focus on that while maintaining strong grids, and if new opportunities come along then we’d willingly add them, but not for the sake of trying to have more formulas, or for the sake of numbers if that was detrimental to the club overall and the size of our grids.

“It’s not how we would want to evolve. We want full grids all-round and happy customers who come back year after year.” Q 30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

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NATIONAL DRIVER PROFILE: LEE DEEGAN

From autograss to Autosport’s top club driver We selected the two-time Civic Cup champion as last season’s best club racer, but he spent his formative years in a very different discipline

BY STE PH E N L IC KO R IS H

or many aspiring drivers, their formative years are spent in one of the hundreds of karting championships that run across the country. But, for two-time Civic Cup champion Lee Deegan, his early motorsport career was in an entirely different discipline: autograss.

Deegan began competing in a 1000cc Mini, having watched his father race from an early age. He successfully raced a variety of different machinery on dirt ovals, culminating with a campaign in a rearwheel-drive Duratec-engined buggy. But, for 2013, Deegan was persuaded to give circuit racing a go by his autograss engine builder, family friend Tom Bell.

Bell, who now races a historic Mini, had made the move from autograss to Stock Hatch in 2012, and finished runner-up in the points.

“He made the switch to circuit racing and said we needed to have a go at this,” says Deegan, who adds that the increased track time in circuit racing was another reason for making the move. “I still get out there [in autograss] when I can but we just felt the only way I could progress was in circuit racing.”

Deegan believes autograss was the perfect place to start his career and has

Deegan began his career in a Mini

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shaped him into the driver he is today.

“I think the autograss racing really does benefit any driver because you learn so much car control,” he explains. “Some tracks can be really grippy or you can have a downpour and it’s a complete mudbath.

When you come to circuit racing and it rains, having that experience from having to control a car like that on mud, it all happens a little bit slower because you know how to control the car and get out of a slide. There are never any times when I don’t pray for rain!”

Final autograss campaign was in Duratec buggy

Plenty of other circuit racers have a similar background, and Deegan says he sold his last autograss car to Senna Proctor, who has since become a race winner in the British Touring Car Championship, in which he will race a Hyundai this season.

After making that move to circuit racing, Deegan was immediately on the pace.

Alongside Bell, one of his main Stock Hatch rivals was his younger brother Shayne – who had also switched from autograss shortly before Lee – and both competed in Citroen Saxos.

“It was very competitive [between the brothers] – we would help each other off the track and whenever we were trying to improve the car or ourselves,” says Lee. “If one of us was struggling we would help each other and go through the data. But on track we saw each

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It was a dominant display for Deegan in last year’s Civic Cup as he took nine wins

other as two different cars and there were no favours. It was very aggressive, but we only had a couple of bumps. It was good fun and it must’ve been good to watch!”

The brothers fought for the title in both 2014 and 2015, but on both occasions it was Shayne who triumphed – the first in a winner-takes-all finale at Donington Park, which was decided on the opening lap when Lee was eased wide by his brother at Redgate before being further delayed by tangling with another driver at McLeans.

The elder Deegan then took a year out for 2016 as he wanted to move up the racing ladder but was unsure which direction to go in. “It was painful watching the racing, but it helped me financially because I was struggling as circuit racing was more expensive,” he recalls.

In the end, Deegan decided to join what was then another 750 Motor Club category: the Civic Cup. He liked the way the regulations were tightly controlled and a number of top club racers had already been competing in the championship. “They all have a centrally locked ECU, same tyres,

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Deegan battled brother Shayne in Stock Hatch

same chassis, same power and you had the same shocks, so it was all about finding a good set-up and that’s what took me to that championship,” Deegan says. “It was very competitive and, in budget terms, it’s not over the top and it’s got that touring car feel to it.

“We only finished the car at two o’clock in the morning before the first race. But I got a win and it went really well from the start, thanks to the help from a lot of friends and the team.”

A bad round with gearbox woes at Snetterton followed, but Deegan was able to use those two races as his dropped scores as he took the title by 10 points over fellow ex-autograss competitor Mark Grice at the end of the season.

New category tyre supplier MRF was due to provide the champion a race outing in India, but as that could not be organised until the following winter, the company helped Deegan get a drive in the BMW Car Club Racing series for 2018. For Deegan, 30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

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I N ASS O C I AT I O N W I T H RYA N M OTO R S P O R T I N S U R A N C E

“Last year was a really good year – it was my most successful year in terms of results”

Back to rear-wheel drive in 2018

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MRF trip was an interesting adventure

that meant a move back to rear-wheel drive but it did not stop him achieving more success. Although the category did not have official championship status for its inaugural campaign, Deegan took 10 Class 6 wins in a BMW E36 328 from the 12 races.

And that success continued into an impressive 2019, where victories in three different types of machinery led to him being chosen as Autosport’s top club driver of the season.

He began the year by making an eventful trip to India for the MRF 1600 Challenge contests at Chennai. Despite an unforgettable journey to the track (featuring an unlicensed bus belonging to a religious clan and an unusual tuk-tuk ride, see the 13 June 2019 issue of Autosport for the full story), Deegan was still able to take a win on his debut weekend in single-seaters –

MOTORSPORT IMAGES/JEP

Deegan (left) was part of eventful Mini Miglia races on BTCC bill

a car very different to the Cupra TCR machine that he had driven to Birkett Relay victory in his previous race.

“That was totally different racing – it was about grip and aero in the highspeed bends and it was an experience and a challenge having to adapt from racing touring cars,” he says. “It was crazy and I will never forget that.”

Deegan’s main campaign last year was in more familiar machinery, however. He made a return to the Civic Cup and picked up a second title, taking nine wins in a dominant display.

“Last year was a really good year – it was my most successful year in terms of results,” states Deegan. “I had a really good car from SW Motorsports and we’ve been running the car ourselves. We took the data from 2017 and found an even better set-up. I felt a little more comfortable and took it each race at a time.”

Alongside this, Deegan also made several appearances in the competitive Mini Miglia series – including in the

category’s high-profile outing on the BTCC support bill at Thruxton.

“I raced Peter Baldwin’s car in the Miglias and it’s one of the oldest cars but it’s got the most history so it was good to race that in the Thruxton event,” says Deegan, who took third in the second contest after impressively recovering from tangling with Endaf Owens. “I’ve never had that kind of exposure before and I loved it – it would be good to get back onto that package again.”

Racing at BTCC events more regularly is very much 27xx-old Deegan’s aim.

He has held talks with bosses of the Mini Challenge JCW series as that category joins the BTCC undercard for the first time this year. Although the championship is officially full, there is still the chance for Deegan to compete in selected events. But he is also assessing a move into the Ginetta GT4 Supercup and has tested the G55.

“I have been approached by a Ginetta GT4 Supercup team that have got three cars and are looking for a driver,” says Deegan. “As long as we get the sponsors – and I’m in talks with a lot of sponsors – as long as they commit, I’m confident I can make it work.

“I’ve tested a Supercup car before at Blyton Park and I really liked the car, I like the way it’s designed. It was a great car to be in and it does exactly what you want it to do. I felt comfortable – I didn’t know beforehand if it was going to be too much of a step, but I felt at one with it straight away. The car gives me so much confidence.”

If Deegan does make it onto either the Mini or Ginetta grid, it will be a large jump forwards for the club racer.

But, throughout his career, Deegan has succeeded in whatever car he has competed in. And, if there are any wet races, he could be one to watch as he puts those car-control skills he learned in autograss to good use once more. Q 30 JANUARY 2020 NATIONAL

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NATIONAL PORSCHE TRACK TEST

G N I B S â&#x20AC;&#x2122; M I E L H C RSC AMID PO W PYR NE

and s r u ate m a g ivin cars g e t h a t ed are m p i a m s o vel ec e l W . e e e c s thr rien r e e p f f x wo ng e o i n c a e r ch real s Pors o r ng p i d d ON bu ERS P BY

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71 8 C AYM A N GT 4 C LUBSP ORT 2m14.504s*

*Lap time comparison Silverstone Grand Prix circuit

18 NATIONAL 30 JANUARY 2020

9 1 1 GT 3 CU P 2m03.001s*

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98 6 BOXSTER S 2m28.337s*

he racing driver in me owes much to Porsche. That’s an odd thing to say considering I’ve raced one only once, at Knockhill, way back in 2008, but it was nonetheless utterly transformative, proving key to my progression as a driver.

Driving in the single-make, national-level Carrera Cup with no prior experience of the circuit – or much else other than Formula Jedi and club-level karting – opened my eyes to just how… bad I was.

Rory Butcher wowed crowds at his local track – forging a path that eventually carried him to British Touring Car title contention – while I (then aged 23) spun off repeatedly, broke my car’s clutch, struggled to defeat a couple of gentlemen backmarkers, and sweated buckets merely to lap within a couple of seconds of a then 46-year-old Tim Harvey and his fellow frontrunners.

It was a chastening experience, one that showed me just how good top Carrera Cup drivers are and how difficult the Porsche 911 can be to drive if you don’t treat it with enough respect – and don’t have the necessary experience or ability to dive in at the deep end.

Eleven years on, I find myself back in the cockpit of the latest iteration. Ostensibly we’re here to compare it with the new Cayman GT4 and an entry-level ‘Restoracing’ Boxster, as Porsche trumpets its expanded ‘Motorsport Pyramid’, designed to allow marque enthusiasts to progress from track days all the way to professional GT racing.

Oh, how I needed this education in 2008. Perhaps then I would have left Knockhill with a spring in my step rather than my tail between my legs…

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NATIONAL PORSCHE TRACK TEST

‘R ESTO RACING’ B OXSTER he Boxster is simply a great place to start your Porsche racing journey. It is a superb entry-level club racing car.

No frills, no bells, no whistles. Well, a few tiny bells and whistles – namely tweaked suspension, Mintex racing brake pads and trackday ‘cut-slick’ Pirelli tyres. But from the driver’s perspective this is as basic as it gets: a road car on the race track.

The result, as you’d expect, is minimal technological help (save for basic ABS) and a highly enjoyable driving experience: three pedals, manual six-speed gearbox, 8000rpm red-line on the rev counter; fill ’er up, heel-and-toe and off you go!

My prior experience of Boxster racing was a particularly rambunctious outing in the British Racing and Sports Car Club’s Porsche Championship in 2013. The ethos behind Porsche Club’s Restoracing series is similar, but with an added twist of colour. Our car sports a psychedelic livery reminiscent of the Gerard Larrousse/Gijs van Lennep Porsche 917K that finished ninth in the 1970 Watkins Glen 6 Hours, or the more famous psychedelic long-tailed 917 that placed second at Le Mans in 1970 (with Larrousse/Willi Kauhsen driving).

“It started two years ago to promote the fact that Porsche still provide an awful lot of spare parts for older vehicles,” explains Porsche Motorsport manager James MacNaughton. “The Porsche Centres had to restore a car to the rules and choose a classic Porsche livery – there’s the ‘Pink Pig’, the psychedelic one, there’s all sorts. The cars look great.

“It went very well, so they did it again [in 2019]. It’s been such a success that some

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of the dealers still want to do it, and now it’s being opened out so anyone can do it.

The cars still have to be in a period livery, a historic Porsche livery.”

The category’s growing popularity means the calendar has grown steadily too, from three events in 2018 to five in 2019, to seven this year, as part of Porsche Club Motorsport’s Classic Boxster Cup series.

“Entry fees are not crazy, nor tyre use,” says Porsche’s senior press officer Rob Durrant. “You don’t need to do a crazy amount of testing, the cars are pretty reliable. A donor car can retail for as little as £3-4000. The ‘Pink Pig’ is a 150,000mile driven Boxster, so that wouldn’t have cost them much at all. By the time you’ve fitted a conversion kit, we’re budgeting maybe £10-15,000, then you’re looking at £10-15,000 to run it for a season. It’s a really cost-effective way in.”

“That’s the entry level into what we call ‘the Pyramid’,” adds MacNaughton.

MacNaughton: Boxster is “accessible, affordable”

“You go from doing trackdays into that.

Fundamentally it’s easy, accessible, affordable racing.”

It certainly seems a fun place to begin.

The Boxster slides around all over the place, but not in a way that makes you feel you are wrestling it. The car breaks traction progressively, but the rear tyres quickly overheat (even in cold, wintery conditions) so the Boxster soon becomes quite loose, and tells you pretty quickly when you’re trying to carry too much speed through Abbey.

That’s taken in fourth gear (fifth and sixth aren’t required on Silverstone’s International Circuit) with as small a deceleration as you dare on the way in.

Third is the lowest you need for the other corners. That’s just as well, because the rudimentary technology on this car means you absolutely have to be patient with it.

As successful ex-Porsche GT racer Phil Keen once told me, “driving them well is all about keeping the car settled and pinned to the road. You can’t afford to upset them too much – they’re like fat old ladies!”

The great thing about this car as a learning tool is that you have enough control at speed to place it on multiple different lines as desired, and if you make mistakes you can quickly bring the car back into line without huge penalty. It has those same echoes of quirky rear-biased handling you get with the more powerful porkers, but after driving the Cayman and Carrera Cup cars you feel as though you’re doing 2mph while driving on the limit in this thing!

It’s firmly within my club racing comfort zone, so I know it would be a great place for beginners to start their journey.

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TYPE 986 BOXSTER S FOR PORSCHE CLASSIC BOXSTER CUP Engine size

3179cc

Power

260bhp

Transmission Porsche six-speed manual transmission Tyres

Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R

Driver aids

ABS

Weight

Minimum of 1350kg including driver

Basic controls: three pedals and manual six-speed gearbox

“If you make mistakes you can quickly bring the car back into line without huge penalty”

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NATIONAL PORSCHE TRACK TEST

71 8 C AY MAN GT4 CLUBSPORT his is the newest addition to Porsche’s motorsport pyramid.

It’s a carefully considered and well-executed halfway house between the Boxster and the Carrera Cup, but the look and feel of the 718 undoubtedly places it closer to the Carrera Cup end of the spectrum.

The control panel gives away the Cayman’s road-going roots, but the racing steering wheel, paddleshift system and Michelin slick tyres tell a different story.

The Cayman drives in a similar way to the Carrera Cup car, only easier, because the driver aids – traction control and ABS – allow for much more aggression behind the wheel. You still need to drive it with a modicum of discipline, but you don’t get punished for imperfection in quite the same way. The dash also helpfully lights up whenever you activate the driver aids by overwhelming the brakes or the rear tyres.

“The GT4 is more amateur-friendly, but it’s still fun to drive,” says former Carrera Cup frontrunner Dino Zamparelli, who spent 2019 campaigning a GT4 version of the Cayman in British GT. “I’m not saying you don’t have to be superstar DJ to get it going, but [although] the traction control and ABS are there to help you, it’s not boring, you can still move it around once you start working towards the limit, and you’ve still got to have nice exits and drive with precision.

“I found it really fun to do both. The stepping stone for me is that I drive the Cayman the same as I drive the Cup, in terms of braking and everything – it’s just that it’s got the safety net of the ABS. Because you’ve got the ABS system it’s

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very easy to get lazy with it and let it kick in every corner – and it doesn’t feel as nice when you’re on that sort of driving style, which is on and off like switches. It’s not artistic.”

Lowering the level of ABS – and TC – does make the car feel more dynamic, affording extra freedom to position the car.

Consequently, I lap faster on my second run, finishing up just within a second of Zamparelli’s reference time. This suggests the car is pretty accessible, and Porsche is hoping strict limits on technical freedom – rear-wing angle, roll bars and tyre pressures are the only permitted adjustments – coupled with a £130,000 ‘all-in’ price point for a full season with a team (Carrera Cup budgets can exceed £200k) will make the new series attractive.

“We’ve got six weekends: two of them are on the TOCA package, three of them are with British GT and one of them is with the [Porsche] Club,” explains

Zamparelli: GT4 is “more amateur-friendly”

MacNaughton, who confirms the Sprint Challenge received four confirmed entries within a week of its unveiling. “We’re showcasing the Cayman to people doing Restoracing, or the other club championships, who might want to step up.

“They can see what the platform’s like with TOCA – the razzmatazz that’s involved with that; they can watch themselves on telly and all that lovely stuff – and if they want to stay with Porsche they can do the Carrera Cup. If they like British GT and the endurance side of things they can buy the Manthey Racing pack – carbon bumpers, wings, bonnet, Perspex windows and lighter wheels – and upgrade for British GT4. The pack is about €27,000.”

The Sprint Challenge allows competitors six slick tyres – 1.5 sets of new rubber – per race weekend, which features two 30-minute races. The calendar includes two visits to Donington Park’s GP circuit (supporting British GT), a race on the Silverstone GP circuit (also British GT), Silverstone National (BTCC), Croft (BTCC) and Snetterton (Porsche Club). MacNaugton says there is also a “big saving” on running costs with the Cayman, because the engine and gearbox have “zero-lifing”, which means they require only basic maintenance to run and run: “belts, plugs, filters and fluids”.

“With one-make racing, and it’s a proven formula with Carrera Cup, there’s no point giving people three different sets of springs – just give everyone the same,” adds MacNaughton. “Otherwise people have to go testing for three days to find out what the best set-up is, which makes it expensive. We’re trying not to do that – it’s got to be down to the driver’s skill.”

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718 CAYMAN GT4 CLUBSPORT Engine size

3800cc

Power

425bhp

Transmission Porsche six-speed PDK (dual-clutch) transmission Tyres

Michelin control slicks and wets

Driver aids

Switchable ABS, traction control and electronic stability control

Weight

1320kg excluding driver

Racing steering wheel and paddleshift added to road car cockpit

“The Cayman’s driver aids allow for much more aggression than the Carrera Cup car”

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NATIONAL PORSCHE TRACK TEST

PORSCHE’S JUNIOR RACING LADDER

91 1 GT 3 CU P he Carrera Cup car I love,” enthuses Zamparelli. “It’s my favourite car to drive. It’s pure, it’s got that rawness about it.”

I actually drove the Carrera Cup car first for this test – in at the deep end again, just like Knockhill in 2008. The nerves I felt when I first drove the 997 version are gone but that idiosyncratic rear-biased handling catches me out yet again when I brake too late at Club, pitching the car into a spin.

I also flat-spot my scrubbed set of new tyres by nailing the brakes in a successful attempt to keep the thing out of the gravel.

The vibrations are too severe to continue, so I drive a slow lap back around to the pits with that familiar sheepish feeling…

“I had the same traits as other drivers from single-seaters – hard braking, relying on the aero, but it just doesn’t take it,” says Zamparelli. “You have to drive it with finesse, on the brakes especially. You can’t go hammering it. It’s almost better to have less of a peak [brake pressure reading] than a single-seater. It just gets out of control.

“My team-mate in 2016, Alessandro Latif, was really aggressive, and into Brooklands he was actually braking later than me by five or 10 metres – but really hard, the thing was on its nose, it was all knife-edge stuff. I was earlier, less of a peak, but controlling that right into the corner. Three and a half tenths I was quicker through that corner.

“It took me half a year maybe to get used to that. Some take to it earlier; some take to it not at all. Once I got it, I really enjoyed that feeling of being on the limit with it.”

Porsche kindly allows me out for a second run on a new set of tyres, which take several

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laps to bring up to temperature in the cold weather. The car feels completely disconnected in the meantime! Once we get going again it’s clear to me I’ve gone too far the other way in adjusting my braking technique and am now stopping too gently.

There’s very little you can do with the bias to compensate, because there’s so little base weight over the front. I’m leaving way too much on the table to avoid another spin, but nothing follows on if you don’t get this approach right. It’s why Porsche 911s remain such difficult beasts to tame.

“You can get in a Cayman and drive it very quickly, quite quickly,” says MacNaughton. “The Cup, you can get up to 95% of a good pace quite quickly if you know what you’re doing, but that last bit is bloody difficult! No ABS, no traction control, the balance is unique to a 911.

“Time and time again, whatever people get into after a Carrera Cup car, they can drive it really, really fast. We’re doing some analysis to find out the percentage of people paid to race – in GTE Pro or GTE Am – who started out in Carrera Cup, because I know it’s more than 50%.

That underlines the strength of the programme and, as you’ve found, these are not easy cars to master.”

Some things never change. Q

“That idiosyncratic handling catches me out yet again when I brake too late at Club”

Nineteen-year-old Harry King is the reigning Ginetta GT4 Supercup champion, and follows an illustrious line of competitors who’ve joined Porsche Carrera Cup as junior drivers from Porsche Motorsport GB’s scholarship scheme.

Successful Blancpain GT racer Michael Meadows, Supercup racer Josh Webster and Aston Martin factory GT driver Charlie Eastwood have all used the junior scheme as a springboard to bigger and better things.

King hopes to follow them, but first he must make the most of a two-year programme aimed at developing his racing skills while contributing £85,000 per season to his Carrera Cup GB budget.

“It’s a really big opportunity – one of the biggest in British motorsport,” says King. “I don’t think there are any other junior programmes that offer two years. If I go in with high expectations and don’t meet those expectations, I’ll walk away disappointed. It’s easy to walk in as champion of a previous series and think I’m untouchable but I won’t think that way – it’s good to take it all as it comes.”

King feels he is “gradually getting to grips” with a car that behaves very differently from the Ginetta G55, and knows that proving himself at Carrera Cup level could help his career.

“What makes it such a great championship is it’s all down to the driver,” he adds. “Yes, the cars might fluctuate three, four tenths once you’re down to set-up, but most teams are very good at dialling that in to your driving style. It’s very technical to drive these cars – a bit more technical than the previous cars I’ve driven – but it’s good because it brings out who the better driver is.”

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“You have to drive it with finesse, on the brakes especially. You can’t go hammering it”

911 GT3 CUP Engine size

3996cc

Power

485bhp

Transmission Porsche six-speed sequential dog-type transmission Tyres

Michelin control slicks and wets

Driver aids

none

Weight

minimum of 1305kg including driver

Cockpit is pure racer – nothing you don’t need here, including ABS and traction control

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NATIONAL MOTORSPORT UK Q&A

Motorsport UK is emphasising karting as entry point to racing

M OTORSPO RT U K Q&A The governing body on its plans for 2020 and beyond igher licence fees and permit costs are the changes that have grabbed people’s attention in 2020, but there is far more to Motorsport UK’s plans than that. Here the governing body talks Autosport through the bigger picture.

H

When Motorsport UK’s licences were restructured in November, you announced a new investment strategy.

How would you summarise it?

It has been a year of major changes at Motorsport UK and the investment strategy is part of a new economic model that will allow us to deliver on the new objectives of Motorsport UK, and so it is 26 NATIONAL 30 JANUARY 2020

all geared towards creating a sustainable future for the sport.

The investment strategy focuses on four pillars of investment: member and club development to give our members a better experience and support clubs; sport promotion to maximise the public visibility of motorsport; education and training to ensure competitors, marshals and officials are world-leading in their expertise; and sport innovation to ensure we are looking to the future.

package for members has been a major change that we have focused on over the last two years. It provides enhanced insurance cover for competitors and aims to reduce the costs of competing via discounts with brands such as Pirelli and Halfords. It’s a long list of partners and, while it may not save every single member money, the feedback has broadly been very positive and most members could easily save the cost of their licence by using the benefits.

Do members get anything as well as their race licence when they join Motorsport UK? Introducing a comprehensive benefits

Are steps being taken to reach out to a broader audience?

Absolutely. One of the main steps we’ve taken is to introduce a new membership

called Trackside, which is aimed at motorsport fans rather than competitors.

It is still early days as it launched midway through 2019 but we’re confident that it’s a great product. It offers almost all of the licence holder benefits package, so at £24.99 it’s really easy to recover the membership cost, but the main benefit is an array of behind-the-scenes tours and access that are exclusive to Trackside members. These are proving very popular,

and are right up the street of any motorsports enthusiast, for example the opportunity for factory tours at McLaren or rally team tours at M-Sport or Prodrive.

Our digital magazine, called Revolution, was originally only available to our licensed members, but is now available for anyone to download to broaden the reach of our messaging. Alongside there being more activity on social media and via the Motorsport UK website, we certainly

JEP

You can compete on the cheap in autosolos with your road car

JEP

JEP

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Trackside membership gives fans greater access

have a lot more content being pushed out to engage the motorsport community.

We will also be on the road with a promotional unit to engage the motorsport community, meet members and publicise Trackside membership. We’ve just attended the Autosport show at the NEC with our biggest stand ever and will be at other events through the year such as Race Retro, Silverstone Classic and various British Touring Car Championship events.

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fuelling motorsport participation. It is a large undertaking to run a championship in-house but we have the expertise to do it and can ensure the championships receive the publicity they deserve.

There is also a new karting championship for 2020 which has just been announced. We are partnering with TeamSport to deliver the British Indoor Karting Championship. Teamsport own 35 indoor tracks across the UK and the premise of the championship is that anyone can enter a time in the competition,

SUTTON

“If we are to drive participation in the sport, it is essential that karting gets the attention it deserves”

Chairman David Richards hopes to safeguard the future of motorsport

Motorsport UK introduced a new free licence type in its recent licence restructure. What were the reasons behind this?

The licence you’re referring to is called the RS Clubman licence. In some respects, this was also about broadening Motorsport UK’s membership, in the sense that we need to engage more effectively with the grassroots competitor, to encourage repeat participation and create a closer relationship for the licence holder with the sport.

It was also largely driven by the need to understand who was competing with Motorsport UK insurance – previously competitors at many Motorsport UK club events were competing with our insurance but we had no idea who they were, or their medical status, which of course couldn’t be continued. The RS Clubman licence removes an initial cost of competing, by also replacing a previous paid-for licence, and, as part of our new economic model, it puts the emphasis on pay-as-you-play, where the competitor’s contribution comes from the permit fee.

Does Motorsport UK run any championships itself?

Historically this wasn’t something we managed as a governing body but we recently brought the British Rally Championship ‘in-house’, and last year we did the same with the British Kart championships, which reflects the importance we believe karting has in

JEP

Do you think it is important to engage the younger generation? Does Motorsport UK have a significant role to play in this in your opinion?

While walking around the recent Autosport show we were delighted to see the excitement in the younger generation who’d gone along with their parents. That

sense of inspiration is so important, and if you visited the Motorsport UK stand you will have seen we were showcasing ‘the karting pathway redefined’, and this will be a key focus for us as an organisation.

Karting is not only a sport in its own right, but a key motorsport entry point for all ages, particularly children. If we are to drive participation in the sport, it is essential that karting gets the attention it deserves, all the way from indoor karting to the British Kart championships.

Of course, you can make similar arguments for the most accessible forms of the sport for adults, such as autosolos and autotests. Many people won’t realise that you can turn up with your own car and take part in motorsport, hence one of the barriers we must overcome is the perception of prohibitive costs.

regardless of their standard. The quickest times progress to subsequent rounds but it is a great example of an accessible form of competition that can excite the public.

You are moving your HQ to Bicester later this year. Why? The whole concept of Bicester Motion provides the perfect backdrop for us to deliver on our vision of a nation inspired by the past, present and future of motorsport.

The move to Bicester is a clear symbol of the ambition of Motorsport UK. There are clear synergies between the objectives of Motorsport UK and Bicester Motion, particularly in terms of engaging the public with motorsport. Not only does it make perfect sense geographically, but the relocation is designed to be cost-neutral, so it is a fantastic opportunity for Motorsport UK to make a move that is long overdue.

The location, in the heart of ‘Motorsport Valley’, will allow us greater access to the motorsport talent pool, and enable us to more effectively develop our commercial relationships, as well as being logistically more suitable for the governance of the sport. There are exciting development plans at Bicester Motion and we’re very much looking forward to the move.

British Kart championships now taken in-house

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Increasing public engagement is key aim

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Motorsport UK offers training for marshals

MARSHALLING MOTORSPORT UK’S TALENT DEVELOPMENT PATHWAY AND ACADEMY

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Motorsport UK’s talent pathway exists to enable drivers to follow in the footsteps of McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris or World Rally winner Elfyn Evans, become the next Jamie Chadwick or navigate their way into the world of co-driving.

The Motorsport UK Academy is the pinnacle of Motorsport UK’s talent development pathway and aims to equip the most promising young drivers with the knowledge, skills and attitude needed to maximise their performance. The Academy provides free, independent and informed guidance to help young drivers unlock their full potential as athletes.

While the Academy develops the skills required to be a leading driver or co-driver, it also allows personal development and

The organisation fosters talent in many disciplines

education opportunities. This ensures that athletes are provided with the tools they need to be successful at the top level, whether as a driver, co-driver or in another motorsport role.

Aligning to the competitor’s development pathway, there are plans to design and implement a Motorsport UK Academy coaching development pathway. The aim is to provide a comprehensive approach for developing coaches from grassroots to elite level. The coach education pathway will map the learner journey from an ‘introduction to coaching’ right through to the more advanced qualifications required to develop performance right at the top level.

If you are aged between 15-25 and are serious about pursuing a career in motorsport, you can head to the ‘Academy’ page via ‘The Sport’ tab on the Motorsport UK website. Here you will find information on: • Team UK the pinnacle of the Motorsport UK Academy talent • The ‘Squad’ programme – Developing the UK’s highest potential • The Co-Driver Programme – led by experts in co-driver development • The Enhanced Diploma in Sporting Excellence (DiSE) at Loughborough College – supporting academic and sporting excellence

Volunteer marshals are an integral part of the sport. It’s a cliche, but still true, to say that without them dedicating their time to helping out, motorsport events wouldn’t take place. If you’d like to see what marshalling is all about, you can attend a taster day, where you can experience a day in the life of a marshal. The British Motorsport Marshals Club (BMMC) offers many taster days and is a great point of contact if you’re looking to get involved.

You can also register with Motorsport UK as a marshal in race, specialist, speed, kart, and rally and cross-country disciplines.

Becoming a registered Motorsport UK Marshal not only gives you access to Motorsport UK’s member benefits programme, it also provides the opportunity to work through a grading scheme and develop your skills by attending training days and gaining on-event experience.

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NATIONAL FROM THE ARCHIVE

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Gerry Marshall in Dealer Team Vauxhall’s Ventora FE ‘Big Bertha’ at Thruxton on 27 May 1974, its only Tricentrol Super Saloon series appearance. A five-litre Holden Repco V8 engine from GM’s Australian arm powered Bill Blydenstein/Frank Costin’s design, built by Gerry Johnstone at Shepreth, but its race career spanned barely four months. After three wins from five starts, a dislodged brake pad fired the 1375kg monster into Silverstone’s barriers on 4 August. Surviving parts were recycled into the lighter, nimbler and rarely beaten Firenza ‘Baby Bertha’ in which Marshall won the 1975 and 1976 titles.

For more great photographs, visit motorsportimages.com

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Have we missed something? Let us know: autosport@autosport.com

Interested in competing and want to take the next step?

Here are the details for all the major organising clubs

READ

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CLU B GU I DE

500 Motor Racing Club of Ireland kirkistown.com 028 4277 1325

Castle Combe Racing Club ccracingclub.co.uk 01249 784160

750 Motor Club 750mc.co.uk 01332 814548

Classic & Modern Motorsport Club cmmotorsportclub.com 01225 777606

Aston Martin Owners Club amocracing.com 01865 400400

Classic Sports Car Club classicsportscarclub.co.uk 01225 810655

Historic Racing Drivers Club hrdc.eu

Motor Racing Legends motorracinglegends.com 01379 678101

Bentley Drivers Club bdcl.org 01295 738886

Darlington & District Motor Club darlingtondmc.com 01429 869407

Historic Sports Car Club hscc.org.uk 01327 858400

MotorSport Vision Racing msvracing.com 01474 875263

British Automobile Racing Club barc.net 01264 882200

Equipe Classic Racing equipeclassicracing.com 01279 883292

Lydden Hill Motorsport Club lyddenhill.co.uk 01304 830557

Scottish Motor Racing Club smrc.co.uk 07907 293098

British Racing & Sports Car Club brscc.co.uk 01732 780100

Fifties Sports Car Racing Club fiscar.org

Masters Historic Racing mastershistoricracing.com 01234 713800

Vintage Sports-Car Club vscc.co.uk 01608 644777

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Formula Junior Historic Racing Association formulajunior.com 07871 046031 Goodwood Road Racing Club goodwood.com/grr 01243 755057

MG Car Club mgcc.co.uk/motorsport 01235 555552 Mondello Park Sports Club mondellopark.ie +353 (0)45 860200