Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i AUTOSPORT

Just 18 months ago, there was no reason to think that the last two seasons of the ground-effect era in Formula 1 would feature anything other than more Red Bull domination. Twenty-one wins from 22 races in 2023 and four from the first five of 2024 suggested we’d have to wait until the next ruleset before anyone other than Max Verstappen got to shoot for the world title. McLaren’s remarkable turnaround since its poor start to 2023, not to mention strong if inconsistent cameos from Ferrari and Mercedes, has changed all that. The MCL39 has already delivered a second consecutive constructors’ crown for McLaren and Jake Boxall-Legge explains how the car came about, plus its key strengths, on page 24. Great people are required to create great cars, and McLaren…

Four-wide into Turn1 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez at the start of the Mexican Grand Prix, while visually arresting, was never going to resolve itself without at least one car taking to the run-off. And here, alongside the McLaren of Lando Norris and Ferrari team-mates Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton and already sending up a dust cloud on the outside kerb before the impending excursion, it’s the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in full-send mode. As things turned out, it wasn’t going to be the only time during the course of the afternoon that his meticulously crafted RB21 would double as a very expensive lawn-mower, although he escaped sanction, unlike Hamilton following their argy-bargy on lap six, and finished a strong third. Race debrief, page 14. Photographer Clive Rose/Getty Images/Red…

Felipe Massa was awaiting the outcome of a pre-trial hearing in the UK’s Royal Courts of Justice as we went to press, to determine whether his £64million legal claim against the FIA, Formula One Management (FOM) and Bernie Ecclestone can continue. Massa’s legal counsel has asserted that Formula 1’s leadership was involved in the “deliberate concealment” of Nelson Piquet Jr’s 2008 Singapore Grand Prix crash, which Massa argues cost him that year’s world title. His case hinges on a 2023 interview with ex-F1 supremo Ecclestone, who had apparently suggested that he and former FIA president Max Mosley knew enough about the crash plot to expunge the race from the official standings, but chose to avoid drawing attention to a scandal. Ecclestone contends that he does not remember giving the interview,…

Forging a path to the top of any premier-level sporting discipline is an immensely perilous journey, one festooned with setbacks, self-doubt, and sacrifice. Staying there? That’s an arguably greater challenge, one that requires a subtly different skillset. McLaren made the precipitous climb from the back of the field to the summit of Formula 1 through 2023 and 2024, and was ultimately rewarded with its surge to a first constructors’ crown in 26 years. This rise has been underpinned by its not-insignificant reshuffle of staff, as Andrea Stella sought to put his own stamp on the squad after taking over as team principal. While Stella sought to course-correct the team’s fortunes, the troubled MCL60 of 2023 was transformed into a frequent podium finisher. Subsequently, the MCL38 of 2024 racked up wins…

It’s almost time. Formula 1 awaits the auspicious knock at the door from the Grim Reaper, before the hooded harbinger’s collection of its current technical rules. At the end of 2025, it will lead their passing to the great regulatory filing cabinet in the sky, leaving the door open for its all-new 2026 formula. How will the 2022-25 era be remembered? The dust will have to settle first before objectivity enters the debate, and the two opposing strands of opinion largely become entwined. For some, the rules brought back a handful of styling cues that were missed from F1 in more recent times: low noses, ground-effect floors, and simplified wings presented a clear shift in the championship’s aesthetic quality. Despite the strictness of the rules, as F1’s in-house technical group…

2010 ABU DHABI GP JAKE BOXALL-LEGGE Four drivers remained in title contention for the 2010 finale in Abu Dhabi, which ladled further excitement onto a season saturated in championship narrative shifts. Due to the season’s ebb and flow, it was an interesting quirk that the championship leader heading into a race did not win at any point. Fernando Alonso hoped to break that curse going into the last round of the year. He topped the standings with 246 points, although Red Bull’s pairing of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel had closed the gap at the penultimate round in Brazil – Webber had 238 points, Vettel 231. Lewis Hamilton, on 222 points, needed to win, and have Alonso’s Ferrari register no points to have a chance. Everything went smoothly for Vettel.…

Porsche and Penske took a clean sweep of the end-of-season GTP silverware on offer after 10 hours of racing at the Petit Le Mans IMSA SportsCar Championship finale. It retained its drivers’, teams’ and manufacturers’ crowns in the regular points and did likewise in the Endurance Cup. To say it was a walk in the park might be overegging it. Yet walking was an essential part of the story in Matt Campbell’s and Mathieu Jaminet’s journey to the drivers’ crown. The Road Atlanta classic in October attracted a record crowd – up by a whopping 20%, said circuit owner NASCAR, though it never puts figures on race attendances – with a resultant increase in race day traffic. That almost caught out the Penske Porsche Motorsport squad. A journey that good…

The prospect of an introduction of success handicaps hangs over the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class for next year. Provision has been left in the 2026 sporting rules for the measure. But the FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, which jointly run the WEC, are stressing that for the moment no decision has been made to extend the reach of success handicaps from the LMGT3 class. As in the secondary division, the handicaps would not be in place for the blue-riband Le Mans 24 Hours round of the championship. “As per the 2026 WEC sporting regulations, the success handicap, already in place in the LMGT3 class in previous years, may also be applied in the Hypercar class, if deemed necessary by WEC’s regulatory bodies before the start of the…

Farewell to a Euro challenge World Rally Championship crews enjoy a brief respite from the challenging Central European Rally stages at a tyre-fitting zone in the centre of Czech town Klatovy. It could be some time before WRC cars once again roar through the Czech Republic’s incredibly taxing asphalt stages, with 2025 being the last scheduled edition of the three-country rally. The concept of rallying across stages in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic was novel, but funding issues have resulted in its demise. It will be remembered for providing plenty of drama over its three-year stint, with Hyundai taking two wins to Toyota’s one. This year’s final iteration provided a pivotal moment in determining the destiny of the world title, thanks to the crash that befell part-timer Sebastien Ogier…

The parent company of Italian constructor Tatuus has acquired some of the leading brands from the karting world. It now brings karting and single-seater categories including Formula 4, GB3 and GB4 under the same umbrella in what has been described as ‘a comprehensive hub for 360-degree racing’. Tatuus, which supplies the spec cars for all three of the UK’s career-ladder single-seater series, plus its sister company, F4 Abarth engine supplier Autotecnica Motori (ATM), now belong among a new conglomerate known as Korus Group. Alongside them, majority acquisitions of leading kart firms BirelArt, IAME and Kart Republic have expanded the portfolio into racing’s early steps. Electronics company Next Solution Technologies, which already supplied to Tatuus, is newly on board too in a group that also includes mechanical parts producer Breda Racing…

FOSTER’S FIRST WIN AS EVENT GROWS The 2003 edition of the Walter Hayes Trophy was a significant one. It was when the seeds for the Formula Ford extravaganza it has now become were really sown as the knockout format of today was first adopted to coincide with the event growing from merely being an historic contest. And that year also marked the first win for a driver who has been a huge part of the WHT story: Joey Foster (left). Considering Foster was at the wheel of an ageing Reynard 92FF, and he dropped to last in his heat after contact with Matt Rivett, the way he dominated the wet final was some turnaround. “Quite amazing, but good fun, despite the difficult conditions,” was the modest summary of the likeable…

FORMULA 1 CARS: THE GREATEST F1 CARS FROM 1950 TO THE PRESENT DAY collins.co.uk RRP £30 From the prolific pen of Autosport columnist Maurice Hamilton comes this compendium of great grand prix cars spanning the history of the world championship. Each one of the selected 50 represents innovation and historic significance as well as great speed. Maurice delivers the inside line on the creative geniuses behind these cars as well as the daring pilots who drove them. IL FASCINO FERRARI taschen.com RRP £125 Originally released in a limited-edition case modelled after Testa Rossa cylinder-head covers, and individually numbered and signed by Piero Ferrari himself, this 700-page epic from luxury publisher Taschen is now available in slightly less rarefied form. What a piece of work it is. Edited by Pino Allievi,…

Taking a turn for the worse Chaos erupts in the first corner of the United States Grand Prix sprint race as the field scatters following the multi-car clash that eliminated theMcLarensof LandoNorris and Oscar Piastri, plus Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, required Nico Hulkenberg to seek a replacement for his Sauber’s smashed front wing, and also forced Alonso’s team-mate Lance Stroll and Alpine driver Franco Colapinto to pit. The safety car was summoned, the stewards declared “no further action”, and once racing resumed Max Verstappen’s Red Bull scooped the win. He followed that with the same result in the next day’s main event, revitalising the Dutchman’s once moribund-appearing title defence. For the full story, see our race debrief on page 12. Photographer Jared C Tilton/Getty Images Where Circuit of The Americas,…

Amid such Texas staples as cowboy hats and every slow-cooked cut of beef you could imaginably eat, Max Verstappen edged ominously closer to making the unlikely likely. McLaren remains committed to letting its drivers race each other, rather than tipping the scales towards Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris – though Piastri left the United States with his championship lead substantially diminished and no longer benefiting from the “repercussions” placed on Norris after the first-lap incident in Singapore. McLaren’s downward spiral began with a so-so performance by Piastri in sprint qualifying, third fastest but a telling three tenths down on polesitter Max Verstappen, who pipped Norris to the spot by just 0.071 seconds. Verstappen’s lap was all the more remarkable because he had lost time with a snap of oversteer at…

Franco Colapinto is likely to continue with Alpine in 2026, with his improving performances and support from his native Argentina looking sufficient to secure the drive. After a difficult opening period with Alpine, when he was thrown into the line-up six races into the season in place of Jack Doohan, Colapinto has picked up the pace. At recent events, the 22-year-old has begun to match experienced team-mate Pierre Gasly more often over a qualifying lap. Alpine used the opening practice session at the Mexican Grand Prix to run reserve Paul Aron in Gasly’s place, giving it a chance to assess both drivers simultaneously, and Colapinto had a half-second advantage in the final timing charts over the Estonian. Aron has reportedly impressed in Alpine’s Testing of Previous Cars programme, and was…

Slater’s Monza glory Rising single-seater star Freddie Slater’s seemingly inexorable progress continued at the end of October when he clinched his fourth championship title in two years – this time the Formula Regional European crown. The 17-year-old Prema driver, about whom Autosport last year drew parallels with Lando Norris, no less, enjoyed a near-perfect weekend at the Monza season finale, winning race one from second on the grid – which secured the championship, a first for a British driver – and following that up the next day with victory from pole. “Finishing the season with two wins at Monza is pretty special,” said BRDC SuperStar Slater, who will graduate to FIA Formula 3 full-time in 2026. Photographer Alex Galli Where Monza, Italy When Friday 24 October 2025 Details Canon EOS…

The Formula Regional European Championship is to no longer be powered by Alpine, with three-cylinder turbocharged Toyota engines to be installed in the category’s second-generation model, the Tatuus T-326. Tatuus launched the car in late October, with the news that its power will come from the same base TOM’S-supplied engine to be used in the Dallara-equipped Eurocup-3, Euroformula Open and Japanese Super Formula Lights series, albeit prepared by Tatuus sister company Autotecnica Motori. Giovanni Delfino, CEO of Korus Group, the new parent company of Tatuus and ATM, outlined that the T-326 “was co-designed with the FIA technical department because it will be an official FIA championship – for us being chosen for an official FIA championship means a lot”. He added that whereas the Dallara-equipped championships run outside the FIA…

Max Verstappen. Lando Norris. George Russell. Charles Leclerc. Alex Albon. Carlos Sainz. Esteban Ocon. Lance Stroll. Remember the old FIA Formula 3 European Championship that ran from 2012-18? It produced all of these current F1 drivers, before it was killed off and ‘merged’ into what had formerly been known as GP3. F3 traditionalists were heartbroken. But now it’s back… to a degree. And it promises to revolutionise single-seater racing in Europe. Eurocup-3 has not commanded much attention on UK shores, but it has been a success story of the past three years, using a modified version of the same Tatuus chassis found in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine (FRECA). For 2026, the series makes the switch to the Dallara 326 – the Italian constructor’s ‘continuation’ car of the…

Kalle Rovanpera boosted his hopes of a third World Rally Championship crown by taking victory at the Central European Rally, helping Toyota secure a ninth manufacturers’ crown. Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen successfully navigated 17 tricky stages held in the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria to seal a valuable 18th career win by 43.7 seconds from title rival and Toyota colleague Elfyn Evans, who regained the championship lead. Team-mates Sebastien Ogier and Rovanpera quickly pulled clear of the field through Thursday and Friday, with Ogier leading by 3.9s when the crews reached Friday’s midday tyre-fitting zone. Two consecutive stage wins then closed Rovanpera to 0.3s off Ogier, before the Finn ended the day 0.6s adrift. Ogier and Rovanpera were in a league of their own, almost half a minute clear…

Kyle Larson’s #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet crosses the line in third place at the conclusion of a dramatic season finale at Phoenix Raceway to claim a surprise second NASCAR Cup title. Denny Hamlin, who had dominated the event in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota until the final caution, leading 208 of 319 laps to Larson’s zero, couldn’t make up lost ground following an overtime restart, having pitted for four new tyres; crucially, Larson took two. Hamlin, in the blue and white car on the furthest left close to the barrier, failed to improve on sixth place in the dash to the flag, stating afterwards he was “numb” at the shock of falling short. Larson, in turn, was stunned by the manner of his success: “I can’t believe it. We didn’t…

Opel Finnishes on Mutton bow The Walter Hayes Trophy event is not solely about Formula Fords, and this year’s fixture featured the return of the Mutton Grand Prix. The Allcomers contest can trace its origins to 1947 when a group of Frazer Nash drivers decided to hold an unofficial race around Silverstone airfield, but one of them struck a sheep… An eclectic mix of 44 cars entered this year’s edition, including Nic Strong’s newly acquired Opel Commodore (above). The car – which has FIA papers – previously tackled Finnish rallies and races (even the switches are still labelled in Finnish), and Strong realised his long-held dream to race one of the machines in the Mutton. He finished 23rd from the back (after qualifying his Marcos) while Charlie Kennedy’s Nissan GTR…

Newly crowned TCR UK champion Adam Shepherd is set to compete in TCR Europe next year. Shepherd sealed the UK title aboard his Capture Motor-sport-run Cupra Leon VZ at Brands Hatch in early November. After taking his eighth win of the season in the weekend’s opening contest, he drove cautiously to secure the crown by finishing sixth in the reversed-grid race. “I don’t think I’ve ever driven a race as slow in my life,” smiled Shepherd. Subject to medical approval, after suffering broken vertebrae last year, Shepherd was due to test at Barcelona with Cupra-backed Spanish squad Monlau Motorsport ahead of contesting the final round of TCR Spain. He said: “It’s a bit of a dry run to see if we can piece together a TCR Europe deal with them…

HISTORIC FINALS ENTERTAIN AT HAYES Callum Grant narrowly missed out on achieving double success at the Formula Ford Festival and Walter Hayes Trophy. While Grant dominated the Historic Final in Kent, the Van Diemen RF91 driver was pipped to Janet Cesar Trophy spoils at Silverstone by James Clarke’s RF90 (77) by just 0.071 seconds after a close contest. The Carl Hamer Trophy final was also a thriller, with Crossle 35F pilot Mark McKenna profiting on a last-lap Brooklands clash between Benn Simms (Jomo) and Joe Ahrens (Royale) to win. CONSISTENCY RULES IN GINETTA JUNIOR Jesse Phillips emerged as Ginetta Junior Winter Series champion after his R Racing team-mates and title rivals Lewis Goff and Jarrett Clark fell victim to a multi-car incident in race three at Silverstone. Goff and Clark…

Starting 13th proved anything but unlucky for Jason Smyth as the Team Dolan driver surged through the field to win one of the most entertaining finals in the Walter Hayes Trophy’s 25-year history. Yet, despite his ultimate success, there was a time when it looked like Smyth might not even contest the final. There was a noticeable gap in the assembly area on the seventh row where his Van Diemen RF00/JL12 was due to be amid anger over a grid penalty from a chaotic semi-final that resulted in his lowly starting position. Smyth was sanctioned for a coming together out of Brooklands as he, last year’s winner Rory Smith and Anthony Amato attempted to run three-abreast. Smyth was in the middle and judged at fault, hence the 10-place penalty. Eventually,…

1991 JORDAN 191 Jordan’s first Formula 1 car was beautiful and competitive, allowing Eddie Jordan’s team to finish fifth in the 1991 constructors’ championship. Chassis 6 was first raced by Andrea de Cesaris, who took it to seventh in the Hungarian Grand Prix, but its most-famous moment came next time out at Spa. Regular driver Bertrand Gachot was unavailable due to an ‘altercation’ with a taxi driver and Mercedes sportscar star Michael Schumacher stepped in for his first F1 race. Schumacher went eighth fastest on the Friday in this car before swapping to chassis 5 and stunning the establishment by qualifying seventh. De Cesaris was running second in chassis 6 when the engine failed. Used as a spare car for the rest of 1991, chassis 6 was driven by Schumacher’s…

Sixty years after Richie Ginther drove the Honda RA272 to the Japanese manufacturer’s maiden Formula 1 victory in Mexico, Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda took to the track in the V12-powered machine for a mellifluous and nostalgia-rich Sunday morning jaunt ahead of October’s Mexican Grand Prix. Tsunoda had previously enjoyed a run in the RA272 at last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, relating then how when he “revved the engine… the pleasant vibration seemed to sink into my bones”, and “the directness of the car and the sense of being as one are things that cannot be experienced in modern cars”. Having obviously enjoyed his recent experience, he summarised it as “a very special and proud moment”. Photographer Zak Mauger/LAT Images/Getty Images Where Mexico City, Mexico When Sunday 26 October…

Jacques Villeneuve, himself no stranger to making heavy weather of winning the world championship in the fastest car, reckons Lando Norris’s struggles earlier in the season made Oscar Piastri “complacent”, that Norris has “stepped up” post-Baku in response to Max Verstappen’s competitive renaissance, and that Piastri “is not stepping up [because] he was already at his limit”. Well, that’s one way of reading recent events, culminating in a double-header in the Americas in which Norris overturned Piastri’s championship lead while Verstappen drew ominously close. Rather less sensationalist takes prevail on the McLaren pitwall. Mexico City was another venue where Piastri was unable to take his usual trajectory of starting slightly off his team-mate’s pace, then building to a peak at the right point during the weekend. As with the US…

The MP4/4 is the greatest Formula 1 McLaren, right? It’s a fan favourite, there have been arguments over its design origins and – famously – it won 15 out of 16 races in the hands of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in 1988. It’s undoubtedly one of the finest machines to have graced the championship, but there is another car that can make a case to be the top McLaren. The MP4/2 won more titles and more races – and managed to remain successful for three seasons despite rule tweaks and a change of tyre supplier. The stories of both cars are well known, but a brief reminder seems appropriate. John Barnard brought the carbon-fibre monocoque to F1 with his Cosworth DFV engined MP4/1. The car was a success, winning…

Gamesmanship in Formula 1? Tell me about it. I’ve had my moments. You doubtless saw manoeuvring at the Circuit of The Americas when a public-spirited Red Bull team member kindly removed an untidy piece of tape that someone from McLaren had stuck on the pitwall to assist Lando Norris position his car in the grid box?… The paltry (in F1 terms) £50,000 fine handed down to Red Bull was a clumsy response to what was actually no more than a bit of skullduggery. If I was in charge of Red Bull at the next race, I would have crossed the grid and offered Lando a seat cushion to help the poor wee lad see where he was going. In case officials miss any ‘foul play’, there’s always the radio frequency…

IndyCar star Colton Herta’s move to Formula 2 is to be with Hitech GP – the Silverstone-based team that’s just a six-minute stroll down the Dadford Road from the Cadillac Formula 1 squad with which he is bidding to break into grand prix racing for 2027. Hitech is on course for its best season in F2, with Luke Browning leading the operation to second in the teams’ points with two rounds remaining. “I know it won’t be easy – learning the car, the tyres, the tracks – but I’m approaching this with determination, focus and a lot of motivation,” said Herta. “My goal is to compete at the front, continue developing as a driver, and put myself in the best position for a future in F1.” “He already brings a…

A number of Formula 3 drivers are making the step down to compete in the second running of the Macau Grand Prix for Formula Regional cars. Mari Boya, third in the F3 points this term, has returned to Pinnacle Motorsport – his 2024 Macau team (above) – for a third crack at the race prior to the Spaniard’s anticipated graduation to Formula 2 for 2026. NoahStromstedand Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak – sixth and seventh in the F3 standings – both line up with Trident, while Theophile Nael (eighth) partners Boya at Pinnacle. Meanwhile, Charlie Wurz joins brother Oscar at Evans GP for an event contested by their father Alexander in 1994 and 1995! RACE WINNERS 11 October - 2 November SUPER FORMULA Fuji 11-12 October Race 1 Sacha Fenestraz (TOM’S) Race 2…

Acura’s title challenge fades The IMSA SportsCar Championship climaxed in the nighttime at Road Atlanta in October with the 28th running of the Petit Le Mans enduro. Acura went into the race with a realistic chance of beating Porsche to the manufacturers’ title, but it didn’t dazzle. The #93 Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 LMDh shared by Renger van der Zande, Nick Yelloly and Tristan Vautier and run in conjunction with the Honda Racing Corporation USA came home seventh, a lap down on the winning Action Express Racing Cadillac. The Tom Blomqvist/Colin Braun/Scott Dixon #60 MSR entry took the pole but only finished two places higher after an undisclosed technical problem blunted its performance over the second half of the 10-hour race. Turn the page for our race debrief. Photographer Michael…

Porsche has had a phenomenal season in the IMSA SportsCar Championship by any standards. And not just because it swept up all six titles across the regular GTP class championship and the parallel Endurance Cup with the 963 LMDh, as well as claiming victory at the big ones: the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours. The successes for Porsche Penske Motorsport also provided further validation of the German manufacturer’s racing pyramid. Championship winners Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet are very much products of it. Campbell, in particular, has had an unusual route to the pinnacle of endurance racing. There was no karting for him in his native Australia, no international single-seaters, just an understanding that if he was going to make it as a professional racing driver there was…

In one of the most dramatic races ever seen at Mount Panorama, Matt Payne and Garth Tander gave Grove Racing and Ford victory in the Bathurst 1000. After a long day that featured sun and rain, and a race that ended in near-darkness, 23-year-old New Zealander Payne scored his maiden Bathurst win, and Tander his sixth victory in 27 starts in Australia’s great race. Typically, controversy bookended the event. Almost seven hours of action featured favourites leading then falling back, crashes, clashes, seven safety car periods and a finish that was far from what it seemed. The contenders for the win took shape with 26 laps to go. James Golding led in the PremiAir Racing Chevrolet from Ryan Wood (Walkinshaw Andretti United Ford), Payne, David Reynolds (Team 18 Chevrolet), Cooper…

The British Touring Car Championship will feature no fewer than 40 races in 2026. That’s because series organiser TOCA is introducing a qualifying race to run on the Saturday afternoon at each of the 10 race weekends. The normal phases of free practice and qualifying will all continue as before, and the qualifying race will set the grid for the first race of the day on Sundays. Other than that, hard details are in short supply, and that’s because the move was proposed not as normal by TOCA supremo Alan Gow, but by the teams themselves during their traditional post-season meeting. “The reason why we haven’t worked things out yet is because it caught us on the hoof,” said Gow prior to a further meeting on the first weekend of…

2 SEAS RULES THE BRITISH GT3 WAVES Considering there were four cars in mathematical contention for the British GT title on the final day, the 2025 campaign was actually fairly one-sided. Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss were crowned overall champions for the first time with the 2 Seas Mercedes squad, which won all but four races to also seal teams’ spoils. But, ahead of the season, not many would have predicted that outcome. Jewiss was set for his series debut after a 2024 sabbatical, while Dawson was stepping up to GT3 as reigning British GT4 pro-am champion. Not much was expected, Dawson assumed it would be a “learning year” and outsiders instead focused on crews with a factory driver. That all went out of the window after qualifying at the…

Jason Smyth’s Formula Ford Festival glory was a little more straightforward than his Hayes success as, 15 years after witnessing his father win the FF1600 section of the Festival, he became the first second-generation winner in Brands Hatch’s 50th edition of the event. The United Formula Ford champion won his heat, semi-final and the final, where he was followed home by fellow Irishmen Jordan Dempsey and Niall Murray. Smyth was never headed as he converted pole into the lead and set a blistering pace in his Van Diemen RF00/JL12. Without the aid of a tow, Smyth was the only driver to dip under a 50-second lap in a race, making light of two safety-car periods to win by 2s. “I was really, really pushing it,” admitted Smyth, “which I probably…

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Senna sees off Mansell’s charge You might be forgiven for thinking that Nigel Mansell’s two-armed celebration after finishing runner-up in a grand prix he had seemed nailed on to win was a little overegged, but he knows he’s just delivered one of the drives of his life. He had been untouchable in his Williams at Monaco in 1992 – until he pitted with a wheel problem, handing the lead to the McLaren of Ayrton Senna. What followed was a dazzling seven-lap fightback, countered by an equally heroic defence from the Brazilian, who said: “I knew he would try everything, and all I could do was try to stay on the road – and in the right place.” Mansell: “I thought I saw three McLarens in front of me, but no…