Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Motor Sport Magazine

FORMULA 1 28 Race report Max on record pace in USA and Mexico, before Russell strikes at Interlagos 32 Word on the beat FIA releases its not-so-safety car report, while Alpine rages at both its drivers 34 Tactical analysis How atmospheric pressures acted to trip up Mercedes in Mexico 35 News in brief Partisan booing, octogenarians in F1 cars, Horner has a whinge and lightweight fines 36 Tech insight We uncover why Ferrari’s current engine appears to have a fear of heights 39 Johnny Herbert Our columnist gives his view on Russell’s potential, and that Lewis and Max clash…

Which is Land Rover’s most important car? Well you could argue it’s the Range Rover because it is the big brand builder, or the Discovery Sport because it sells in the highest volumes. But no: now, and as it has been for over 17 years, Land Rover’s most important car is the Range Rover Sport, because selling in volume at high margins, it brings in all the money. For a large swathe of that time, it was also Land Rover’s worst car. The original Range Rover Sport was a re-clothed Discovery 3, complete with its immensely heavy semi-monocque chassis, meaning that while it had off-road ability no one needed, it lacked the sporting feel suggested for it. It also looked awkward. None of which stopped it excelling itself in the…

One of my treasured books as a young lad was The Boys’ Book of Motors (it’s still on the shelf behind me). As well as the various four-wheeled excitements I was gripped by the pictures of pre-war bike racing around the Isle of Man. The machinery seemed so unsophisticated and the open road so dangerous that I might have ended up a bike fan instead of a car devotee, so the early pictures in this history of the Ulster Grand Prix, subtitled A Century of Road Racing, grabbed me immediately. It seems remarkable that this event, which still runs on closed public roads, could have continued for 100 years and it’s even more remarkable that the book’s author Norman Windrum has attended three-quarters of them. His first was 1947, aged…

“Some of these guys [F1 drivers] don’t appreciate where their paycheques come from. The F1 system changes people. Success makes it hard for them to keep their heads straight. They’re spoiled, overpaid kids, and they don’t behave responsibly.” Those were the words of Lee Gaug, flanked in this picture by Ayrton Senna, right, and McLaren’s Ron Dennis. Gaug was quoted in Adelaide’s The Advertiser newspaper on the morning practice began for the 1992 Australian Grand Prix. But here’s the thing. Several of these ‘overpaid kids’ had no hesitation in turning up the next evening at this dinner in downtown Adelaide to mark Gaug’s retirement after 23 years with Goodyear, the final 12 as F1 racing manager. The drivers were not toeing a party line. Along with many F1 luminaries (Ken…

Can George Russell challenge for the world championship next season if Mercedes provides him with a fully competitive car? Given the form he has shown in 2022 with the difficult W13, the answer has to be yes – but to achieve his goal he’ll have to beat team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the same machinery. Following a three-year apprenticeship with Williams, Russell, 24, was promoted to the big time with Mercedes in 2022, and he fully expected to have a car with which he could score race victories. After all he’d already had a taste of the top when he replaced the Covid-struck Hamilton at the 2020 Sakhir GP – arace he could have won, had fortune gone his way. Instead he faced a very different kind of season as his…

Before our trio of Delages meet again on the Brooklands banking, Abba Kogan and Paul-Emile Bessade pore over a miniature marvel: a hand-crafted scale model of the 15-S-8’s 1½-litre straight eight. It’ll run too, once the gearbox has been made and attached. Which is largely why model maker Mike Sayers is here. There’s in-the-metal research at hand. “I’ve been building models of engines for 20 years,” says Sayers. “I started out as an instrument engineer, then worked for Esso before joining the family construction business which gave me time for what I really wanted to do. That was vintage motor racing, building full-sized ones. “But then I got old and crochety and started building these. I’ve made a 3-litre Bentley and a Blower Bentley. I was looking around for something…

There are no prizes in motor sport for resting on your laurels, which is why, three years after its celebrated 1-2 Le Mans performance with the 3-litre DBR1s in 1959, Aston Martin felt the need to get back in the game with a new, competitive racing car. The first attempt, the DP212, combined a DB4GT chassis with lightweight, streamlined bodywork specifically designed for the high speed La Sarthe circuit, where the car briefly led the 1962 race in the hands of Graham Hill (alongside Richie Ginther) before retiring with oil pump failure on the 79th lap. Knowledge gleaned from 212 led to the more streamlined and aerodynamic Kammtailed DP214, two examples of which were built – with the one driven by Innes Ireland during practice for the 1963 event becoming…

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So many memories shared with this guy, this hilarious, eccentric, knowledgeable, clever, enthusiastic friend and colleague. He never did get a proper job, just went straight from university to writing for Motoring News, where he could use his encyclopaedic knowledge of club racing picked up from fanatical attendance at his local track Oulton Park since his early teens. I say local, it’s about 20 miles from where he lived in Altrincham but before passing his test if he couldn’t get a lift up there he’d cycle. A world outside of motor racing was for other people, nothing to do with him, and he didn’t see the need to get involved in it. It was a purist attitude he maintained to the end and he remained absolutely besotted by the sport,…

US GP Mexico GP São Paulo GP The opening of this three-race sequence featured Red Bull reeling from the loss of its inspirational founder Dietrich Mateschitz and having its cost cap breach penalty formalised. But on track the steamroller continued unabated, with Max Verstappen setting a new all-time record for the number of victories during a season and Red Bull sealing its fifth constructors’ title. But even for the most dominant teams, the next banana skin can be just around the corner. Verstappen’s dominance of the season might give the impression that he simply turns up, drives and wins the race. That actually happens quite rarely and despite the sophistication of the simulation tools used by all the top teams, there is almost always a set-up puzzle to work through…

The effects of the high-altitude location of Mexico’s Hermanos Rodriguez track are many and varied – and not always predictable. That extends even to its impact upon race strategy. The temperature is greatly influenced by atmospheric thickness. Because there is less air above the ground surface at higher altitudes, there is less atmospheric absorption of solar energy. This absorption of sunlight is a contributing mechanism to track temperature anywhere, but less so here. So at high altitudes the effect of the sunlight on surface temperatures is much more direct than in lower-altitude places. The track temperature tends to soar much more quickly with relatively modest sunlight and will drop much more suddenly when the sunlight fades. That played a major part in the uncertainty around what was going to be…

In theory a turbocharged engine as used in Formula 1 should be immune to the performance loss suffered by a naturally aspirated engine at high altitudes because the turbo can simply turn faster to make the same boost as would be created by lower turbine speeds at sea level. A turbo engine’s combustion chambers should therefore not experience any difference in the oxygen content between low altitude or high. In reality it’s not quite that simple, and the 7200ft (2200m) altitude of Mexico City – by far the highest on the F1 calendar – where the air is around 25% thinner than sea level presented potential problems for the Ferrari power unit in particular. Ferrari’s turbo arrangement is unique among the four F1 PU manufacturers. Not only is it now…

It may not look like it, but the Super 3 is Morgan’s first modern car, and you know it the instant you set off. It’s far less attractive than the gorgeous 3 Wheeler it replaces, and the engaging thrum of its three-cylinder 1.5-litre Ford engine no substitute whatever for the glorious thump of the old S&S externally mounted Vee twin, but as a thing to drive? There’s no comparison at all. If you ever wanted a lesson in torsional rigidity and how a modern monocoque can provide it in a way a traditional spaceframe never could, there’s none better than this. The Super 3 doesn’t wobble or flop about. It turns in with absolute precision and signals its grip reserves with total clarity. The car feels together like no other…

WORDS: ED HARDY. Dakar Rally, December 31-January 15 Audi made history at Dakar last year by being the first entrant to win a stage with a hybrid power unit. The German manufacturer is looking to take overall victory this time with what its driver Mattias Ekström calls “a Formula 1 car for the desert”. With slimmed-down bodywork, Audi has completely re-sculpted its aerodynamics which they say should increase efficiency by 15%. Joining Ekström in driving the RS Q e-tron E2 will be an unchanged star-studded line-up from last year of Carlos Sainz and Stéphane Peterhansel. Although they have 17 Dakar victories between them, what lies ahead is a different kind of rally with more stages than there’s ever been since Saudi Arabia first started hosting the event. Drivers will begin…

Anthony Peacock’s look back at Group B rally cars [Group B top 10 drives, December] was wonderfully evocative, but the Porsche 959 record needs putting straight; the 1986 Paris-Dakar was not its debut win. I was Rothmans Porsche press officer during the 1980s, principally working in Group C sports car racing, but I was seconded to the Paris-Dakar programme as Porsche gradually developed its fourwheel-drive system for rallying. In 1984 it entered two 911 Carrera 4WD hybrids, known as 953s, one of which won the Dakar with René Metge. The following year the 959 body was first used, with the 953 engine and 4WD, but both Metge and Jackie Ickx retired. The push was now for the 959 to have the twin-turbo flat-six engine in time for the 1986 Dakar,…

A tap on the shoulder, nothing more. I opened an eye, which even through its blear could see a large white Ford Falcon parked outside the pit garage. Panic. Where did the time go? I like a snooze before a stint but how did I oversleep this much? Why didn’t someone kick me from my stupor when they gave Louis the ‘In’ board? Or if they were feeling kind, a lap earlier? Above all, why is there still daylight? Realisation. The Falcon is not meant to be there. Louis has brought it in early. Something’s wrong. And now, an all too familiar feeling. It is over before it even started. The Frankel family track record at the Spa Six Hours is perhaps a little patchy. It started well. In 2004…

The fastest street car at the race track.” That’s the goal for the Praga Bohema, the latest entrant into an oddly bustling marketplace: the £1m-plus plaything. But this one is designed to really stand out in an owner’s collection, and not just because of its truly arresting, aerodynamically led design. It’s not the first production car in the Czech company’s storied 115-year history, with the road-legal Praga R1R of recent years described as a ‘proof of concept’ for the Bohema, even if nothing is carried over. While Praga made its first car in 1909, it’s only started building its motor sport reputation in the last three decades, dipping into enduro, karting, Formula 4 and more recently Britcar here in the UK. While not a big-league name just yet, its work…

Could there be more of these than the real thing? They’re die-cast toy cars, and if you no longer have yours, for sure you had some. In this country yours were almost certainly Matchbox, Dinky or Corgi, and there’s a non-stop trade in them. (By the 1980s American Hot Wheels had strangled the UK makes and they have their own collecting world, but that’s beyond my period.) We’ve all heard of the precious rarity that sells for thousands, but what’s in that box in your attic is unlikely to contain one of those gems. For most of us their value lies in transporting us back to the magical days when that Volkswagen camper and Ford Capri on the carpet weren’t toys, they seemed the real thing. Rich in memories, they…

Tom Walkinshaw in the BMW 530i leads the Gordon Spice Ford Capri 3.0S driven by Chris Craft in the Saloon Car Championship – aBritish GP support race. The picture, taken by a 17-year-old fan, was entered into a photo competition for which the first prize was a BMW 316. The image made the final two but when the snapper’s mother told organisers that her son did not yet have a licence, it came second. “I wasn’t too unhappy with runner-up,” he recalled. “I came away with a new Pentax K1000 body, a couple of lenses, a nice camera bag and a certain sense of pride.”…

Francesco Bagnaia claimed the MotoGP world championship after a dramatic duel with out-going champion Fabio Quartararo at Valencia. ‘Pecco’ held a comfortable points lead heading into the season finale in Spain, with Quartararo needing nothing short of a victory to have any hope of defending his title. However, there was early drama when Yamaha rider Quartararo and Ducati man Bagnaia collided while fighting over fourth place heading into Turn 2. The clash ripped a wing off the Ducati, causing Bagnaia to slide back down the order while Quartararo fought his way on to fourth. But, with the Ducati carrying on to finish ninth, it put the title beyond doubt for 25-year-old Bagnaia, who became the first Italian rider to win the world title since his mentor Valentino Rossi back in…

The radical Mercedes-AMG One has already started to make its mark in the history books by obliterating the lap record for a production car at the Nürburgring Nordschleife recently. The 1049bhp machine is powered by a version of the all-conquering EQ Power+ Formula 1 engine that carried Mercedes to an unequalled eight constructors’ titles. It features the familiar 1.6-litre V6 turbo, with four electric motors. Mercedes-AMG factory driver Maro Engel – more commonly found in DTM and GT3 machinery – was tasked with undertaking the record attempt and didn’t waste it, setting a blistering 6min 35.183sec effort, shaving almost 8sec off the former benchmark set by a Manthey Porsche 911 GT2 RS. That’s the difference between a £2.2m car and a £600,000 one… And it could have been more too.…

During the US Grand Prix weekend Red Bull’s breach of the 2021 cost cap was confirmed as was a $7m (£6m) fine and a reduction in its aero simulation of 10%. The team was found to have exceeded the $145m cap by $2.15m but had the team submitted its over-payment of corporation tax (which it would have been permitted to do) the breach would have actually been $436,000 (0.37% of the cap). Red Bull boss Christian Horner called the penalty “draconian” while rivals Mercedes and Ferrari suggested it was too light. “That [aero restriction] represents anywhere between a quarter and half a second’s worth of lap time,” claimed Horner. “That comes in from now and has a direct effect on next year’s car and it will be in place for…

The problem with the Toyota Supra is not that it is now, or ever has been, a poor car, it’s just that it’s up against the very best in the business. How in a test of three cars could it ever hope to come anywhere other than third against the Porsche Cayman and Alpine A110? In an attempt to close the gap to two of the most lauded cars on sale, Toyota has revisited the Supra to see what can be done. It’s come up with two ideas: a manual gearbox (available in a Cayman, but not the Alpine) and a raft of chassis revisions to sharpen up the show. And it all works very well. The manual isn’t some clunky afterthought like that once found in the F-type Jaguar,…

Of course George Russell was brilliantly quick in his first season at Mercedes. Just as he’d been brilliantly quick in his Williams – recall that front row in the wet at Spa – and just as he’d been as Lewis Hamilton’s stand-in at Sakhir 2020 when but for a debris puncture he’d have been joining Mercedes in 2022 already a GP winner. This time around at Mercedes he didn’t have a fast car – and he had Hamilton, not Valtteri Bottas, on the other side of the garage. Altogether a tougher gig. But all he had to do was bring his regular game and he knew he’d be competing. Even at Mercedes, there was never any thought of him being overshadowed by Hamilton. He wasn’t recruited as Hamilton’s new support,…

The three cars poised on the rough concrete banking look right at home – largely because that’s precisely where they are. Strictly speaking, they’re French-minted racing royalty, but nevertheless Brooklands is spiritually fitting, even if it’s been an awful long time since Delage grand prix cars of this particularly fine vintage have been seen in such number on the ancient Surrey speedbowl. No wonder museum vicepresident Allan Winn is quietly beaming, given his work to make this reunion a reality. One of the owners, the spit of Terry Gilliam in incongruous long woollen coat, his spiked grey hair set off by the rings of studs pierced through his ears, is also smiling. “I feel a sense of history,” he says with grandeur. We all do. On September 4, 1927, two…

In a career spanning nearly 40 years, Jacky Ickx proved himself to be one of the true greats of motor racing. Hugely successful and versatile, he raced at the highest level in a wide variety of categories — including Formula 1, sports cars, touring cars and rally raids — winning in all of them. His successes have entered motor racing folklore, not least his unprecedented six victories in the Le Mans 24 Hours (1969, ’75, ’76, ’77, ’81 and ’82) and his two runner-up positions in the Formula 1 World Championship (1969 and ’70). His reputation as an exceptional wetweather driver is virtually unequalled. Choosing 10 key races from a career total of over 570 contests was never going to be an easy task, but equally I wanted to avoid…

If you’re already spooked by the soaring cost of petrol, this one-off is probably not for you – because it’s driven by a 27-litre Rolls-Royce Meteor V12 petrol engine salvaged from a Centurion tank. The remarkable mid-steer monster began to take shape more than 20 years ago after the vendor became enamoured with Robin Beech’s celebrated Handlye Special, the Rolls-Royce Merlin-powered car that has entertained thousands with its tyre-shredding appearances at various UK hillclimbs. Work began on the Handlye ‘homage’ in 2001, with the re-purposed Meteor engine (essentially, an un-supercharged Merlin) being installed in a custom-made ladder chassis and fitted with running gear from a Jaguar XJ12. After the owner brought the car to the UK six years ago, the motor was rebuilt by Leedsbased aero engine specialists Flight Engineering…

ALL PRODUCTS AVAILABLE AT MOTORSPORTMAGAZINE.COM/SHOP ULTIMATE FERRARI 250 GTO – THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY Think you know all there is to know about the world’s most desirable car? We’d wager you’ll still learn a thing or two from this incredible offering from Porter Press, which celebrates all things Ferrari 250 GTO. Produced across two volumes, author James Page – assisted by world-renowned Ferrari expert Keith Bluemel – has dug deeper into the history of the 250 GTO than ever before, with the first volume concentrating on the model’s forebears, development of the 250 GTO, its early racing exploits and its swansong 1964 season. Volume two is even more intricate, with detailed histories of each of the 36 chassis, all of which have survived. Add in hundreds of period images, many that…

And so we come to this, my final events of what has been an incredibly busy season. After two years of disruption and limited travel due to the pandemic, it seemed fitting to bring the curtain down on 2022 with a road trip around Europe. On the schedule were two exciting race events – at Navarra in northern Spain followed by Portimão in southern Portugal. So we were in for quite a journey! We packed up our 1972 Winnebago Brave, hitched the trailer and loaded both my usual Cooper T53 and the new Brabham BT11A and set off: our destination, Navarra! That was a weekend of firsts for me, as I’d never been to Navarra, and it would be my first time driving the new Brabham. Navarra, as it turns…