Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Motor Sport Magazine

SOME TIME BEFORE THE BELGIAN Grand Prix, Red Bull submitted a query to the FIA regarding the placement of the heat sensors within the Mercedes power unit’s intake plenum. This was initiated after Red Bull had observed from GPS traces that the Mercedes displayed occasional bursts of enhanced power under acceleration out of corners before then reverting to ‘normal’. Since the pre-season launch of the W12 it has been speculated that the unusually big plenum of the 2021 Mercedes PU (requiring a large blister at the side of the engine cover) has within it a unique cooling system which can be used to make the intake air denser and therefore more combustible. The air enters through the airbox within the engine cover and is directed to the turbo’s compressor (which,…

BMW is exerting upward pressure on the positioning of its M5 super saloon. When the previous model was introduced in 2011, it cost around £73,000. When it replaced the current car in 2018 that price had risen to £89,000. To this was added a Competition version, which was nothing of the sort, but it didn’t take long for the standard car to be quietly deleted from the configurator, meaning today the entry point to M5 ownership is £102,385. But BMW would far rather you bought this new CS (Club Sport) model instead, for which they would like £140,780, all but double the price of the only M5 you could buy a decade ago. It’s a vast sum to spend on a mass-market four-door saloon given that a 520i SE from…

BENTLEY AND BREITLING SET A trend for collaborations between luxury car marques and high-end watchmakers when they teamed up in 2002, just a few months before the launch of the top-selling Continental GT and Bentley’s return to Le Mans glory with the 1-2 finishes of the Speed 8 cars. Drivers Tom Kristensen, Guy Smith and Rinaldo Capello (in winning car No7) and Mark Blundell, David Brabham and Johnny Herbert (in second-placed car No8) were issued with special Le Mans editions of a Breitling watch based on the existing 24-hour dial Navitimer Cosmonaute, originally developed for astronaut Scott Carpenter to wear during the orbital flights of Mercury-Atlas 7 in 1962. The Le Mans special was the first variation on the Breitling for Bentley theme that began with the original Bentley Motors…

The changes to Formula 1 pitstop regulations to reduce the possibility of cars re-joining with a loose wheel are clearly well-intentioned and if effective are to be applauded. However, I believe much greater change is needed in the whole process. For years I have thought that the size of crews is not only potentially dangerous but frankly ludicrous. Why do we need a 20-plus crew swarming over and around a car simply to change four wheels? In the new era of cost caps, what possible justification can there be in spending hundreds of thousands on purchasing and shipping highly specialised equipment and drilling large crews? The six IndyCar mechanics allowed ‘over the wall’ can change tyres, refuel and make wing adjustments in 8sec – and all without excessively expensive paraphernalia.…

WHEN TONY SOUTHGATE saw the engine around which he had to design a new Group C car, he did two things: utter a profanity under his breath and reach for a bandsaw. The swearword was a reaction to the size of the V12 lump in front of him, the bandsaw a tool with which to try to pare it down into a form suitable to go into the back of a pure-bred racing prototype. That car was to be a Jaguar, the first of a line of 12-cylinder machines built by Tom Walkinshaw Racing that would go on to win the Le Mans and Daytona 24-hour classics two times apiece, not to mention a pair of world titles. That’s a pretty decent haul for a car powered by an engine…

GREENLAND LOOKS BOTH familiar and otherworldly. Mountains soar above the green and reddish-brown tundra and crystal-clear lakes, similar to the landscape of the Peak District, the Highlands, or the west coast of Ireland. Pan around, though, and you’re suddenly confronted by a gigantic and sheer wall of ice that looks like it’s been plonked there via a movie director’s CGI. This is the scene for Extreme E’s Arctic X Prix. The nearest settlement is Kangerlussuaq, towards the bottom of this vast country’s west coast. A colourful jumble of low-rises with a population of just 508, built around an airport, this is, in fact, the main transport hub for the whole of Greenland. Between World War II and the end of the Cold War, this was a US Air Force base.…

• It seems you’re never far from a car with irrefutable ties to STEVE McQUEEN. This recently reassembled CHEVRON B16, chassis b16-70-26, below right, was bought by the actor’s Solar Productions and raced by Clive Baker/Digby Martland at Le Mans 1970 (DNF), which in turn gave it a role in McQueen’s plot-flimsy ’71 film Le Mans. It’s on sale at LEGENDS AUTOMOTIVE in Bicester for £225,000. • With ‘revenge buying’ all the rage, the used-car market is now sizzling – but which car’s price has risen most? That honour goes to the MERCEDES V-CLASS DIESEL (2014-19) vans. At the three-year/30,000-mile mark its value has rocketed by £11,000 in six months. • In July car production in the UK fell to its lowest level since 1956, says the SOCIETY OF MOTOR…

Eyebrows lifted a couple of years ago when Jaguar Land Rover announced a sale of 140 vehicles, all of them as green as they could be, with not a petrol engine among them – because they were all pedal-powered. The sale was part of the vast James Hull collection which JLR purchased in 2014, including the kiddie-car-parkful of junior transport, items which have an appeal of their own to car fans of all ages. And not for that front lawn grand prix. Many will end up in garages alongside the real thing, or indoors for pure display. Pedal cars have been around almost since the dawn of the real thing, and became popular in the early 1900s. Of course they’re still around, although they’ve long left behind the basic format;…

JOHN KETCHELL ORIGINAL ARTWORK There are few things more special to own than an original painting. Prints are all well and good, but nothing ever beats the story, passion and prestige behind an original work. From the textures of the brushstrokes to the feel of the canvas, it all adds to the magic of them. John Ketchell is a world-renowned motor sport artist and has already created a long line of pieces for both leading companies and individuals, and every now and then some of his work reaches our door. Having studied at art school in Preston, Ketchell opted to devote himself to his passion for speed and initially tried photorealism in his work, but soon became frustrated at how such a style never did quite convey the speed of…

Back in the early 1900s, your automotive options were rather limited, to say the least. On the one hand if you were rich, you were fine: with hefty Ford Model Ts, Panhards, Mercedes and such about. If you weren’t suitably flush, well... you could have a flimsy cycle car, a motorbike – or walk. That was the case until the Austin 7 arrived in the 1920s, the diminutive 700cc wonder that brought private motoring to the people on a scale never seen before, or arguably since. It’s safe to say the Austin 7 will go down as one of the most significant automotive creations in history, with almost 300,000 built worldwide. The 7 sparked new brands, including some minnow called BMW, and broke numerous racing records. Around 10,000 still exist…

In 1979, Ferrari’s 3-litre flat-12 engine, left, sweetly serenaded Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve to a glorious title 1-2 for the Scuderia in Formula 1. But why does it appear in our V12 extravaganza (p66)? Because, as DSJ was always keen to stress, it’s a flattened, 180-degree V12: opposite pistons share a crankpin, each pair moving left or right in tandem. That’s different to a boxer engine, where piston pairs surge towards and away from each other. Now dive into our 34-page paean to the dozen pots.…

THIS YEAR’S BRITISH MOTORCYCLE Grand Prix at Silverstone created MotoGP history: the first six bikes past the chequered flag all came from different manufacturers, the first time that’s happened in 49 years. First over the line was Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha YZR-M1, the Frenchman joined on the podium by Suzuki GSX-RR rider Álex Rins and Aprilia RS-GP rider Áleix Espargaró. A fraction of a second behind the Aprilia came the Ducati Desmosedici of Jack Miller, then the Honda RC213V of Espargaró’s younger brother Pol and the KTM RC16 of Brad Binder. A good mix of machinery is always liked by fans, but what kind of a mix was this? During the last decade MotoGP rights-holder Dorna has created closer, more TV-friendly racing by writing technical regulations that essentially make all the…

Belgian GP Dutch GP Italian GP Only two of these events were actually races. In Belgium, for the first time in the championship’s history, points were paid out essentially on the qualifying order as the unrelenting Spa- Francorchamps rain ensured there wasn’t a single piece of racing, just a total of three laps behind the safety car. Conditions of almost zero visibility on the long straights ensured that at no stage was the track safe to race upon. A great deal of arcane regulation was invoked to distinguish between what did and did not constitute an event having taken place. This of course had commercial implications and determined various pay-outs to F1 as well as the points. Meanwhile the thousands of spectators who had stood around in the rain for…

Mercedes’ attempt at using a two-stopping Lewis Hamilton and a one-stopping Valtteri Bottas to ‘pincer’ Max Verstappen’s faster Red Bull in the Dutch Grand Prix was based around the calculated difficulty of overtaking around the tight Zandvoort track. According to team simulations, a lap time advantage of around 1.8sec would be needed in order to accomplish an on-track pass, which makes it the second-most difficult – after Monaco – on the calendar. Verstappen took off from pole and immediately established an undercut cushion over the following Hamilton – i.e. his gap was big enough that he could pit a lap after Hamilton and still emerge ahead. Both were setting a hard enough pace to make it clear they were intending to two-stop. Bottas in third ran a gentler pace, with…

YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY READ elsewhere some fairly breathless reviews of the new Hyundai i20 N. And if you have, you would be forgiven for concluding that it was the hot hatchback equivalent of the second coming. But what would the reviewers make of it if they, like me, had not just flung this little 201-horsepower shopping car along B-roads and around the track, but actually lived with it for a week? You know what? They’d still love it. As Ford discovered with the Fiesta ST many moons ago, if you take a light, compact and fundamentally well engineered hatchback, give it some shove and put some capable chassis engineers on the case, great things can result. And this is precisely what Hyundai has achieved. A strong motor, a stiffened…

78th Goodwood Members’ Meeting, October 16-17 THE RESCHEDULED 78TH Goodwood Members’ Meeting is now set for mid October and as always there will be a great deal of racing to view. The delay – the weekend was originally scheduled for May – has meant that this year’s edition has been highly anticipated, and after the easing of restrictions fans can now get close to the unsilenced races – that’s if you already have a ticket. Admission is sold out, but you can still see all the action on live stream. Following on from the triumphant returns of the Festival of Speed and Revival, Goodwood sees out the year with the traditional Members’ Meeting after more than a year’s absence from the calendar. Demonstration runs, qualifying heats and races are a…

Ultimately it was the sound. Higher rpm delivered smoothly thanks to smaller, lighter reciprocating parts and an even firing order, plus the cachet of costly complexity, added to its appeal. But only when trusted engineering lieutenant Luigi Bazzi roared off did Enzo Ferrari break into a smile. Just prior to holing his driving career by slinking from the 1924 French Grand Prix, Enzo was beguiled by Delage’s groundbreaking 2-litre; and though no match for the supercharged straight-eight Alfa Romeo P2 that he was meant to drive, that ‘song’ never left him. Now, 23 years later, he had a V12 of his own. That it sat in a rudimentary chassis sans bodywork was of no importance. Only that beating heart mattered. With a chirrup on the cold cobbles of Maranello’s courtyard,…

The V12 had one last hurrah in sports car racing as the noughties drew to a close. Yet the powerplants that won the Le Mans 24 Hours four years on the trot from 2006 to 2009 weren’t ear-tingling screamers. Fans awaiting the arrival of a new breed of prototype were greeted by the rap, tap, tap of the front splitter on the track surface rather than a sonorous engine note. This was the era of the whispering turbodiesel. Audi and Peugeot took up the challenge presented by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest when it opened up Le Mans and its associate series to diesels for 2004. Both opted for the V12 route for their turbodiesel LMP1 challengers in 2006 and ‘07 respectively. The reason? Conservatism. Ulrich Baretzky, Audi Sport’s long-time…

MAKE NO MISTAKE, THE V12 engine is a dead man walking. For over 100 years and on both road and track we have marvelled to the sound of a dozen perfectly balanced cylinders and, when bonnets were lifted, thrilled to their sight too. To me there is no greater expression of what I love about engines than the sight of a Ferrari Testa Rossa V12, with its red cam covers sandwiching a regiment of twin-choke downdraught Webers. But they’re finished. Despite the fact that V12s are still used by Aston Martin, Bentley (if you count its strange W12 formation), BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce and with two more about to go into production – of which more in a minute – their days are numbered. Of course, manufacturers like…

Mention the name Ford Torino to some of a certain age and they will immediately picture an image of the redand-white ‘Striped Tomato’ Torino that featured in the 1970s TV series Starsky & Hutch. Scholars of the historic NASCAR scene, however, are more likely to think of the Torino Talladega, the rare and remarkable muscle car that the mighty Blue Oval produced in just 750 examples during 1969 in order to meet NASCAR homologation requirements. Based on the Fairlane Cobra fastback (or ‘Sportsroof’ as Ford liked to call it), the twodoor Talladega featured a more aerodynamic nose that lost the regular car’s inset grille and headlamps and added a flush-fit bumper fashioned from the standard rear unit and shaped to serve as a crude air dam. The Talladega was also…

DAVID BRABHAM, SPORTS CAR VETERAN “After 16 attempts and two GT1 class wins, standing on the Le Mans podium as a Peugeot Sport driver with the outright winner’s trophy in hand was an amazing feeling. Post-race duties done, I finally got the chance to collect and admire my trophy, only to find there was only one left – and it was the wrong one for P2! I went to Audi and found that Allan McNish had taken mine by mistake! We had a good laugh and I walked away even happier... not only did I have my winner’s trophy, but I’d won it back from Allan!”…

WHAT MAKES A RACING great? And who qualifies as one? These are questions we have all asked ourselves at some point - and probably been the basis of a heated debate with a fellow enthusiast. And since 2010, Motor Sport has been asking you, our readers, to help us decide the answers. Our annual Hall of Fame awards seek to create the definitive list of all-time greats and celebrate their achievements. The list features names from across all the disciplines and eras. It includes Ayrton Senna and Jim Clark, Stirling Moss and Jackie Stewart. Valentino Rossi and John McGuinness, Derek Bell and Tom Kristensen. It also celebrates those people who have given to the sport in ways other than simply winning races. Sid Watkins is there and so too are…

Ferrari was the first to introduce ‘intelligent wheelguns’ around three years ago and many of the other top teams quickly followed. These ‘smart’ guns had software that runs a series of automated checks which, once completed, send an automated signal to the front jack man to release the car. Once the system has detected that all four wheels had been tightened, that signal would go automatically, and in doing so saving the human reaction time of the gun man. To arm the system, the gun man would press a button on the gun, which he would do in one movement, even as he was still tightening the wheel nut. The FIA felt that the super-fast pitstops were becoming too automated and earlier this year decreed that from Spa onward the…

GOOD VOMIT COMET Woking is winning again. Those dark 2015 days of Honda engines letting go every five minutes seem long distant. Ricciardo’s Monza victory meant we were treated to the sight of Norris looking distinctly green around the gills on the podium after accepting the dubious honour of a ‘Shoe-y’ from his teammate. NANDO’S WALL OF DEATH Alonso put all his Indianapolis experience to good use by mounting the outside of the banked Turn 5 at Zandvoort to round his rivals – a move partly made possible by Jarno Zaffelli’s genius reworking of the circuit. It might get even better next year: Ross Brawn wants drivers to use DRS on the banking. RETURN OF FANS Whether it’s the Oranje Army or the tifosi, it warms the cockles of even…

THIS ‘NEW’ MACAN IS ACTUALLY the old Macan with some minor cosmetic upgrades, by far the most important being a more modern look to the interior, with far fewer buttons. Yet if you read the brochure you’ll see that its engine has been given another 60bhp – surely that is significant? Well, yes and no. Call it by its Macan GTS name, it’s a genuinely big deal. But actually what you’re looking at here is a car priced and powered like the previous Macan Turbo – dropped from the range – wearing GTS badging. How so? Because the next Macan Turbo is over a year away and, like the Taycan Turbo, won’t be turbocharged at all. It won’t even have an engine, but electric motors. So this facelift of a…

A DAUNTING TASK, DESCRIBING every F1 Ferrari, yet Stuart Codling manages to make his list of every model of grand prix contender (to use a phrase which avoids a definition clash with the Formula 2 years) that Maranello has fielded a much more readable project than you might think from the title. Inevitably only a few pages can be devoted to each model, not a great deal to work with, yet he gets the story and the context of each machine neatly packaged with a decent selection of photos. Bold typography helps you navigate among the model years, and a simple spec table for each sums up the metalwork. The text is necessarily concise yet doesn’t feel cramped, giving the origin of each device, all its drivers and how it…

WE’RE OUT THE BACK now, the chicanes behind us. The oil is warm, the slicks are hot. I can feel the V12 chuntering behind me. It is demanding its release. Third gear, 4000rpm and go. The thrust is almost overwhelming – 750bhp in less than 900kg of car tends to do that for you. No time to listen. Fourth and the madness resumes. Can a single engine really be doing all this? Despite being protected behind plugs, balaclava and helmet, my inner ears start to itch. Fifth, and the whole crazy show begins again, an insane shrieking symphony blasted out by a 12-cylinder orchestra. And the craziest thing of all? Today I am its conductor. Famously Jaguar won Le Mans five times in the 1950s. But how many times in…

BUYING, SELLING, AUCTIONS, MEMORABILIA CAR MANUFACTURERS TRY THEIR best to predict what people want, often going to great lengths to offer all the options anyone could possibly ask for – but, as the old adage goes, ‘You can please some of the people some of the time but...’ In the case of the 360 Modena, launched in 1999, Ferrari offered a regular road car in coupe and open forms, fewer than 200 Challenge versions designed purely for the factory-backed race series of the same name and – for those who wanted a bit of both worlds – the Challenge Stradale, which combined some of the competitionorientated features of the latter with the necessary equipment to make it street legal. As a true ‘driver’s car’ suitable for track days and regular…

1973 FORD ESCORT TWIN-CAM REPLICA SOLD BY COLLECTINGCARS.COM, £24,250 During the two years that I scraped a living buying and selling classic cars in the 1980s (giving up just before the ‘boom’), a dealer friend bought a superb replica of an RS2000 works rally car for £500, sold it for £850 – and was threatened with court action by the buyer when he realised ‘it wasn’t a real one’. Times have changed. Although street legal, this Twin Cam replica was built for competition and was bristling with modifications, at the heart of which was a tuned 2.4-litre Zetec engine. The attention to detail was excellent – and the price it fetched surely represented a fraction of the build cost. Ouch. 1961 DOLPHIN AMERICA SPORTS RACER SOLD BY BONHAMS, £43,855 This…

SOME MAY TRY TO LUMP THE ORIGINAL Lamborghini Super Trophy into the same category as so many other run-of-the-mill single-make racing championships, but you shouldn’t. Porsche’s behemoth Carrera Cup notwithstanding, there isn’t anything else that can touch the Lamborghini Diablo SV-R in terms of the impact it had on global sports car racing. By way of explanation, this is not only the granddaddy of modern GT3 cars, but also of modern GT3 racing. Without the Diablo Super Trophy in the mid-1990s, GT3 might never even have existed and, much like everything else in GT, it took the pioneering spirit of Stephane Ratel to bring it to life. Being only a few years into his career as a race organiser with first the faltering Venturi brand and then the smash-hit BPR…

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