Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021 i Motor Sport Magazine

THE NEWS THAT THE LAST THREE RACES of 2021 will be played out on circuits in the Middle East has cast a shadow over this most glittering of Formula 1 seasons. Last month it was confirmed that Qatar will stage its first grand prix later in November, filling the slot left by the cancellation of the Australia GP. It will be followed by GPs in Saudi Arabia on December 5 and the season finale in Abu Dhabi on December 12. The 2021 Qatar race is a precursor to 2023 when the emirate will start a 10-year run of hosting grands prix. Motor Sport has written before about the stain of sportswashing on F1. But the argument against hosting races in countries with appalling human rights records and where basic freedoms…

ASTON MARTIN HAS ANNOUNCED THAT former McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh will join the team as CEO of its Performance Technologies division. Whitmarsh was last involved in Formula 1 with McLaren in 2014 but will return with Aston to oversee the team’s “transformation into a World Championship-winning organisation within the next four to five years”. As well as involvement with the manufacturer’s F1 efforts, he will also oversee technologies across key divisions of Aston Martin. In 2014, Whitmarsh was brought in by the FIA as a consultant to inform the regulatory changes around the cost cap, introduced this year. Most recently, Whitmarsh was selected by Lewis Hamilton to join the board of the Hamilton Commission that has been set up to increase diversity and black representation within motor sport. “I…

ON THE AFTERNOON OF November 14 Valentino Rossi will contest his last motorcycle grand prix, 26 years and seven months after his first. It’s difficult to imagine the scenes that will take place at Circuit Ricardo Tormo, outside Valencia, as fans say farewell to the rider who has been as big, or ever bigger, than MotoGP itself for much of the last two decades. It’s also difficult to guess what theatrics Rossi may have planned, because he has long been famous for making grand, crowd-pleasing gestures in celebration of victories and career landmarks. Although, to be honest, the least grand of all his celebrations will always be his best, at least to me. In May 1999, when he was on his way to the 250cc World Championship, Rossi won the…

Russian GP Turkish GP THERE WAS A REMARKABLE synergy about this pair of races out beyond eastern Europe. Each of the two title contenders took grid penalties for power unit changes – Max Verstappen in Russia, Lewis Hamilton in Turkey – defining their tasks in those respective races as points damage limitation. Furthermore, the outcome of each race was randomised by the weather forcing late agonising decisions on pitting or staying out. As that process played out in Sochi, Lando Norris lost out on what was shaping up into his first career victory – and it passed instead to Hamilton, for an historic 100th time. In Turkey, with Hamilton grid- penalised and Red Bull less competitive than usual, Valtteri Bottas took his first victory of the season. Verstappen, second in…

IT’S 30 YEARS SINCE AYRTON SENNA claimed his final F1 drivers’ crown. Snapshots of Senna, written by Mike Doodson for our February 2010 edition, features an intimate account – with incredible rarely seen photography – of grand prix racing’s ultimate gladiator in his early days and then at the height of his powers, revealing both steeliness and vulnerability. Doodson first met Senna in 1983 when the Brazilian was racing for West Surrey Racing in British F3. His pursuit for an interview at a test before the ’84 F1 season eventually led him to staying at the Senna family home, the visit from which most of the pictures originate. The next snapshotted scene is Senna in early ’86, two grand prix wins down but still indulging in his childhood passion of…

There’s plenty to get stuck into with F1’s official game, including the new story mode Braking Point, an over-the-top drama putting you at the centre of the paddock with F2 rookie Aiden Jackson. Its narrative offers an enjoyable few hours but there are still alternative options for those less impressed with the story. The multiplayer experience has been streamlined, Al and graphics improved upon and the usual My Team, Driver and F2 campaigns return. F1 2021 is one of the best racing titles to release this year. FOR THE LATEST MOTORING BOOKS GO TO www.hortonsbooks.co.uk…

A STITCH IN TIME SAVES DRIVE. AN overdramatic paraphrase of an old saying, perhaps, but securing further sponsorship, no matter how small, could help oil the financial wheels of a struggling team at the height of any season four decades ago. This picture from the Österreichring paddock in August 1986 shows Jonathan Palmer’s wife sewing a sponsor’s patch onto her husband’s overalls on the day before practice began. There may have been only four more races to go after this one but, with Mexico and Australia on the schedule, money would have been getting tight, particularly at Zakspeed as the independent German team prepared for the 12th race of what had been a very difficult season. A desperate search for better performance from the four-cylinder Zakspeed had seen a switch…

IT’S 3AM ON A SUNDAY AND I’M STANDING NEAR the Mulsanne turn, happily breathing in the smell of burnt rubber, hot oil and exhaust fumes as a Chevron B8 and a Ford GT40 nip at the heels of a Porsche 908 which, once it’s back in a straight line, spits the two rivals out to the tune of a spinetingling howl from its flat-eight engine as its tail lights fade rapidly into the distance. You’ve guessed this is the Le Mans 24 Hours, but what year – 1968, ’69 maybe? Of course not. This was 2018 and those old stagers, beautifully prepared and probably running better than when they were new, were being raced hard and fast at the Le Mans Classic, the (usually) biennial event that celebrates the glory…

THERE IS CERTAINLY NO SHORTAGE OF BRITISH watch brands offering home-grown designs right now, but few can match five-year-old Marloe in the value-for-money stakes. If you’ve never heard of it, here’s some background: launched on Kickstarter in January 2016 by marketing consultant Oliver Goffe and draughtsman Gordon Fraser, it delivered its first watches seven months later in the form of the two-hand Derwent (then £329) and the Lomond chronograph (£450). Both had hand-wound movements from China’s Tianjin Seagull company and, as the months ticked by and sales grew from tens to hundreds to thousands, so the number of satisfied customers steadily increased. Marketing man Goffe says he was moved to set up mechanical-only Marloe after seeing the high margins being achieved by other brands charging similar amounts for quartz-powered models…

COPENHAGEN-BASED REC THIS YEAR MARKED its first decade in the watch business, during which time it has established itself at the forefront of an increasingly popular horological niche – that dedicated to making timepieces that incorporate bits and pieces salvaged from interesting old vehicles. Founders Jonathan Kamstrup and Christian Mygh chose the name REC in order to emphasise the fact that their aim was to ‘recover, recycle and reclaim’ – that REC also alludes to the ‘wrecks’ that often inspire such activities is just happy coincidence. Over the years, we have followed REC’s creations with interest in the Precision pages of Motor Sport, with the April ’21 issue bringing news of models called Little Red and Green Hornet which contained bits salvaged from a pair of important Shelby Mustangs and,…

100 Russia 2018 Is there such a thing as a ‘worst win’? Well, if we had to pick one it would be this 2018 victory, which came courtesy of team orders rather than any innate genius from Hamilton. Mercedes had locked out the front row in Sochi but it was Valtteri Bottas who lined up on pole ahead of his team-mate. Hamilton got a poor getaway but with a co-operative Bottas handing him a tow, he fended off Vettel to secure P2 into Turn 2. Hamilton stuck with Bottas through the first stint to keep the pressure on but couldn’t get in range for an overtake until Mercedes told Bottas to make way for his team-mate to secure the victory. “It is definitely a win on my list that I…

• H&H, SOLIHULL, OCTOBER 27 If you’re reading this issue hot off the press, there’s still time to check out the lots in the latest of H&H’s regular auctions staged at the National Motorcycle Museum. The mix is wide-ranging in terms of eras, categories and price – and there are some particularly tempting no reserve offerings which might (or might not) turn out to be bargains. • RM SOTHEBY’S, ONLINE, OCTOBER 27-NOVEMBER 3 Called ‘Hoods & Hands’, this aims to capitalise on the crossover between car enthusiasts and horophiles with a mixed offering of timepieces and hood ornaments. There are some real oddities, including a Gulf Oil promotional watch in which the logo on the dial comes and goes as the mechanical movement unwinds. • ANGLIA CAR AUCTIONS, KING’S LYNN,…

Auto- or memorabilia? Let’s have a crack at defining what constitutes ‘memorabilia’ and what is considered ‘automobilia’. There’s definitely distinctions to be made. Among football collectibles, items like team shirts, trophies or boots all qualify as memorabilia – they are to do with the living history of the sport. Automobilia means items related to the history of motoring, such as fuel pumps, signage, garage tools or badges. At Signature Store we trade items associated with the sport of motor racing, straddling the two. That can also include collectibles like posters or models that were not used for the actual event, but created because of it. Buyers are almost always fans of the sport, rather than just those out to find something motoring-themed or decorative. Collectors of motor racing automobilia usually…

COULD ELFYN EVANS BE ABOUT TO join the rally Gods? The likeable Welshman is on the verge of becoming the first British winner of the World Rally Championship since Richard Burns exactly 20 years ago. The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver has put in a storming performance in the closing stages of the 2021 season meaning his title hopes will go down to the wire at the final rally in Monza on November 19-21. Evans put himself into contention for the title after a brilliant win in Finland, where a stunning series of five back-to-back speed test wins on Friday night and Saturday morning propelled the Welshman from fifth to first. He survived intense pressure from Ott Tänak and Craig Breen to win by 14.1sec. The rally, always a highlight for…

HANS-JOACHIM STUCK HAS BEEN reunited with the Shell Porsche 962C which he used to win the 1987 ADAC Würth Supercup, the inaugural German domestic Group C championship. The meeting was made possible after the Porsche Heritage and Museum department undertook work to convert the vehicle from a reference car for the corporate collection back to its racing spec. This included the then-new Porsche dual clutch transmission (PDK) which Stuck was one of the first to test. “This car means a lot to me because it was ‘my car’,” Stuck said at the first running of the restored car. “I was the only driver, with exactly the set-up I wanted. It was very special. When I saw it, it gave me goosebumps. There are some things from the development that weren’t…

IN MY LAST COUPLE OF YEARS AT SCHOOL before motor racing’s lure proved irresistible, I used to cycle at weekends to the rifle ranges at Bisley, where I’d work as a marker, cowering in the target butts. It was pretty good fun, with the supersonic crack of bullets whanging overhead, the buzz of the occasional ricochet, and the frequent bawling-out via the field telephone for not having marked a shot (which usually meant the relevant ‘marksman’ couldn’t hit a barn door and had missed by miles). The big point was that my teenage job paid 30 bob a day, 30 shillings, £1.50 – pretty darned good back in 1961-62. It represents a 2021-22 value of £34.25 – so 68 quid for a weekend’s work, no overheads beyond a packed sandwich…

JUST AS I DID IN 1996, VALTTERI BOTTAS will leave a Championship-winning team next year for Sauber – or Alfa Romeo as it is known today. In that situation you’ve still got the desire, you still want to better yourself. But Valtteri is tired of being the guy who has had to play second fiddle, just as it was for me at Benetton with Flavio Briatore and Michael Schumacher. It’s a frustration that sets in, in contrast to the optimism of when you first joined the team. In my case Flavio had said, “It’s important we have you, we really want you in the team, we want to work together and give you the best chance.” The main thing for him was the Constructors’ title because they hadn’t won it…

GOOD ▲ RAIN DANCE F1 went full Bolshoi in Sochi with several grand prix cars doing their best twirls. Norris and Russell proved their wet-weather skill in Russia qualifying though, while Hamilton did the same in the race – for win 100. ▲ POSITIVE SPIN On the same subject, full marks to the replacement of the Russian national anthem – a ballerina dancing to Tchaikovsky on a spinning piano. Russia is under a sporting ban imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency. ▲ NANDO’S THIRD F1 CROWN Alonso is vying for his third title: the, ahem, Crypto.com Overtake Award, for most passes in a season. Fellow veteran Vettel leads with 96 overtakes, Alonso has 95 after Turkey. ▴RETRO LIVERIES Red Bull did a McLaren and took us all back to those…

Randy Leffingwell I’m told the latest mid-engined Corvette is a terrific drive; a Pantera done well, a fellow scribe described it to me. The only one I ever drove was a ’58 and it was the worst surprise I ever had – a wallowing pudding, yet a sales success. I can’t tell what’s new here, but the book boasts access to unseen GM photo and media files, and I found it absorbing. Noted Corvette expert Leffingwell writes authoritatively, mixing the constructional bones with the visual elements including outside influences, spin-offs and the successful racing variations. He slides between the eras making it a very approachable summary of America’s favourite sports car. Motorbooks, £35 ISBN: 9780760368503…

ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN TO THE Mexican Grand Prix or the Carrera Panamericana will have been infused with the nation’s passion for motor racing. Former McLaren International team co-ordinator Joaquin ‘Jo’ Ramirez dropped out of university in Mexico City to follow his friend Ricardo Rodriguez to Europe, starting as an apprentice mechanic at Scuderia Ferrari in 1962. When Rodriguez was killed at the Mexican Grand Prix, Jo moved to Maserati, and Lamborghini, coming to England in 1964 to work on the Ford GT40 project before joining Dan Gurney’s All American Racers team as Dan’s mechanic on the Eagle-Weslake. During the 1960s and ’70s he went on to work with Ken Tyrrell, John Wyer, Shadow, ATS, Theodore and the Fittipaldi brothers at Copersucar before joining McLaren in 1984. After 40 years…

HE MIGHT ONLY HAVE FOUNDED THE Company six years ago, but it’s fair to say that car-mad Shami Kalra’s Omologato brand has consistently punched above its weight. Omologato majors on selling affordable, automotive watches and has succeeded in making itself known to a global audience of motor sport fans by securing ties with drivers, race teams and major international circuits. And now, three years after being signed up to produce the official chronograph of Monza, Omologato has partnered with that other great Italian track, the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari Imola (better known as plain Imola) to create the distinctive Imola Acque Minerali chronograph pictured here. Anyone familiar with the three-mile circuit – which unusually runs in an anti-clockwise direction – will know about the famously challenging Acque Minerali corner…

ALTHOUGH THERE ARE MYRIAD WATCHES ON the market encompassing every imaginable combination of metals, colours, shapes, sizes and functions, there are few horophiles who have not considered the possibility of commissioning a piece made to their own specific requirements. Perhaps the most renowned British exponent of the bespoke watchmaking craft is the Isle of Man’s Roger Smith - but the fact that his creations command six-figure sums and require new clients to join a seven-year waiting list makes the prospect of owning an RW Smith more of a dream than a reality for most. But more impatient types working with a smaller budget shouldn’t despair, because award-winning jeweller Justin Richardson will happily create a personalised, handmade watch in silver or gold from as little as £1950, with everything from the…

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THE CLASSIC MOTOR SHOW AT Birmingham’s NEC makes a return on November 12-14 after its cancellation in 2020 due to Covid. As our road vehicles are increasingly switching to electric propulsion, the 2021 show has a special ‘Our Friends Electric’ showcase that focuses on battery-powered classics and how they drive. Twice daily a range of electric classics will glide around a purpose-built track within the 24,000sq m Hall 5. Models include a 1912 Baker Electric, one of just three on the DVLA database, a Porsche 356-inspired Chesil E and a Westfield XI, which is a replica of the 1956 Lotus 11. These will be accompanied by converted marques from Electric Classic Cars. “Electric cars may seem like they’re fast becoming our future,” says show director Lee Masters, “but most people…

THE STRESSES AND STRAINS OF a very tight championship battle inevitably expose the personality traits of those in the hot centre of it all. The competitive make-up of top-class athletes is a fascinating subject. The raw desire to win obviously features strongly, but in Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen it’s possible to discern also different levels of the fear of failure. The will to win and a fear of failure are, of course, intimately connected, but they are not the same. Both can be assets or liabilities in the particular demands of a high-pressure moment. Verstappen is a man within the very weave of motor racing. His mother and father were both racers, and his childhood was spent in karting paddocks across Europe. Like a boy born in the circus,…

TO ANYONE OTHER THAN AN extremely well-informed observer, it is just a sparkplug. A Bosch sparkplug, not that you’re asking. It’s a little bit oily and while in obviously perfect condition, has clearly spent at least some time in its originally intended role of igniting a fuel/air mixture within an internal combustion engine before finding its way via registered mail to me. Yes, this month someone really did send me a used sparkplug in the post. And unusual though such an event might be, it would not normally earn itself space in a column such as this. Except this particular sparkplug was one of eight fitted to the Mercedes-Benz SLR better known as ‘722’ on its final journey through London to the home of Sir Stirling Moss, before being retired…

● The confirmation of the proposed 2022 F1 calendar shows 23 races in 36 weeks, with an early finish to avoid a clash with the World Cup. This has created some consternation within the teams about human fatigue but AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost was having none of it, commenting in Istanbul, “If there are people who don’t like the calendar, they should just quit.” ● This is the response by Fernando Alonso, Inset, about him using the Sochi Turn 2 escape road on the first lap of the Russian GP for no obvious reason: “It was to see the questions I would get in Istanbul. Just to confirm when I do things, they have a repercussion on the following event. So now, maybe they change the run-off area in…

LOCKDOWN HAS PRODUCED MANY self-starter projects; few of them can have had such impressive outcomes. This is the story of a car, one single car, but of a rare breed and with a very special historical trail behind it. XKD 603 is one of the works long-nose D-types that Jaguar fielded on the track; a mere 11 of these special works cars were assembled in 1955 and ’56, and 603 is one of only five survivors. That in itself is pretty damn good – any D-type is one of the gems in Britain’s motor racing crown, but these works cars not only have a fabulous racing record but also sport what many people see as the prettiest body variant of a stunning-looking car, the extended snout that elevates these Ds…

Andy Constable Dick Crosthwaite, one of the founders of the hugely respected engineering firm, says this was first intended to be a simple snapshot of the work it does. But it grew, and is now on general sale. Readers will know the company from its amazing output, everything from tiny parts to complete cars, most famously Auto Unions for Audi, plus restoring or powering half the grid in historic (and modern) racing. Its history and talents are all here, but it’s nice that the staff get their moment in the sun too. Crosthwaite & Gardiner, £40…

IF YOU’RE AS MUCH A FAN OF BOATS AS CARS, THE name of French watchmaker Michel Herbelin might resonate. Founded by the man himself in 1947 as Impec (for ‘impeccable’), it changed to Michel Herbelin in 1965 and has been going strong ever since – with more than 10 million watches made and sold to date. Despite its land-locked location at Charquement in the heart of the French Jura mountains, Michel Herbelin became inextricably linked with the sea in 1987 as a result of that year’s America’s Cup moving from Newport, Rhode Island – where it had been staged from for more than half a century – to Fremantle, Australia, following the defeat of the American yacht Liberty by Australia II four years earlier. Herbelin’s son Jean-Claude (who was by…

“IT WAS A GREAT CLUB. I’M AMAZED somebody hasn’t restarted it.” That’s Sir Jackie Stewart’s take on the Steering Wheel Club, Mayfair home from home for racing drivers. In the 1960s and into the 1970s everybody went there, including international grand prix drivers when they were over here; with a busy bar and restaurant it was a social hub, and in an area packed with drinking holes it stood out for the decorative feature that gave it its name – racing car steering wheels. Contributed as a matter of pride by drivers and teams, dozens of wheels decorated every wall in the bar; wood and leather rims held by Hawthorn, Fangio, Clark, Hill, Brabham, Brooks, Hunt – not to mention the crumpled one that formed the handle to the phone…

NOT TOO MANY MOTOR SPORT autobiographies begin with the protagonist pointing a gun at his own head with the genuine intention of pulling the trigger. Nothing about A Checkered Past is normal, especially in the context of straight-up and serious racing books. Then again, the same can be said of Al Unser Jr. Born into one of the great American motor sport families, ‘Little Al’ followed in the best traditions of his namesake father and uncle Bobby to become an IndyCar legend. But he also created a few less illustrious traditions all of his own, in a double life that was dominated and almost destroyed by drug addiction and alcoholism. Inside the IndyCar paddock, it was an open secret from early in his stunningly successful racing career that Unser Jr…

Shortly after the death of his father, Rick Jackson was sifting through some old photographs when he came across a few that dad Len – who had raced in the Midwest for decades – had taken at the 1969 Road America Can-Am race. “There’s a De Tomaso Mangusta, one of my favourite cars,” says Rick. “I still have the Corgi version Dad gave me for Christmas that year.” SEND US YOUR IMAGES If you have any images that might be suitable for You Were There, send them to: Motor Sport, 18-20 Rosemont Road, London, NW3 6NE, or email: editorial@motorsport magazine.co.uk. Hi-res digital images preferred. Original images sent at owner’s own risk. We can’t return.…