Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Motor Sport Magazine

The age of aero has arrived in MotoGP. During testing in Sepang in February it became clear that for the first time all five factory teams now featured the technology on their machines. The adoption of Formula 1-inspired ground-effect aerodynamics will be a key feature of the coming season – with those teams that master it potentially seeing rich rewards. Its appearance has also led to a run on engineers with experience of aerodynamics from other disciplines – notably Formula 1. Aero in itself is not new to MotoGP. Ducati was an early adopter two years ago with a new groundeffect diffuser fairing that increased grip for better turning. Aprilia followed midway through last season with a non-diffuser groundeffect fairing, then Honda added diffusers to its RC213V for the last…

There were echoes of Paddy Hopkirk in 1964 on HERO’s Winter Challenge to Monte Carlo as Kevin Haselden and Ryan Pickering claimed victory in their Mini Cooper S. The pairing, who also won Gold Medals on the Land’s End to John O’Groats LeJog epic in December, prevailed after 26 regularities and three tests over the course of five days and two nights. The highlight of the final day was the last regularity running on the hallowed Col de Turini, world rallying’s most famous special stage. Crews tackled the 34 hairpins to finish under the arch outside the legendary Hôtel Les 3 Vallées. The final day was not without unexpected hurdles for crews hoping to maintain their hard-earned class and podium positions as they approached the first regularity in the hills…

It’s something that happens to me quite a lot: I’m sitting here trying to think of the right word. What I want is a word to describe the sensation of exhilaration, tempered by slight unease that rests with me now, having driven Honda’s new Civic Type R. It’s not the ability it demonstrated despite the limitations of its front-drive, five-door hatch configuration that is the source of my disquiet, though at times it feels like witchcraft. Nor is it, per se, a list price of £46,995, a rise of almost 50% relative to its predecessor (from which it is derived) when it went on sale seven years ago. Option in the carbon pack and you can spend 50 grand on a Honda Civic, and while that price means numbers will…

Regular readers of this page will know that TAG Heuer releases limited editions of its celebrated Carrera chronograph on a frequent basis, but the one here is worthy of mention because it celebrates the 60th anniversary of the launch of the original. In case the oft-told story of the Carrera’s genesis has passed you by, it began life in 1963 after Jack Heuer (great-grandson of Heuer founder Edouard) had attended the previous year’s Sebring 12 Hours. Mexico’s Rodriguez brothers, Ricardo and Pedro, were driving for Ferrari and their parents had gone along to cheer them on. After Heuer struck up a conversation with Mr and Mrs Rodriguez in the pits, talk turned to their country’s famous Carrera Panamericana race, which had been scrapped eight years earlier. Enthralled by the idea…

Joe Dunn: I think we are all looking forward to a mammoth season - 23 races! But what are you particularly hoping for in terms of racing? Mark Hughes: The big hope is that we’ve got at least two teams, preferably three, with nothing between them at the front. It was a season of dominance last year, which I don’t mind really, but each season is different isn’t it? It would be fantastic if we had a competitive Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari that are separated by a tenth of a second. That would be the dream, but let’s see. Johnny Herbert: Yes I agree. Last year we thought we would have a three-way battle and it didn’t quite materialise. It started off with Ferrari doing well, then that sort…

F123 Formula 1 is used to conflict – between drivers, between teams, between the teams and the governing body. One might almost say the sport thrives on it. But not for more than 30 years has there been open warfare between the FIA and the company that makes F1’s money. Until now, that is. The way Mohammed Ben Sulayem has conducted himself as FIA president has been causing disquiet since he took the position in the immediate aftermath of the controversial climax to the 2021 world championship. His second year in office is still young. But over a few short weeks in the new year, disquiet turned to something more severe, to the extent that some in F1 were beginning to wonder whether having Ben Sulayem heading the governing body…

It’s funny how history finds a way to pay dividends decades after it was made. To this day Jaguar continues to dine out on its rich history at Le Mans despite it being 30 years since it last raced there, not least by charging millions for recreations of its old race cars. Until recently, Aston Martin did the same. Ferrari has just used the word ‘Daytona’ in a car’s name for the very first time to recall its 1967 two-fingered response to the GT40 on Ford home turf at the famed Florida race track. And had Jacky Ickx not been very forceful – and had he not carried an immense amount of clout in Stuttgart in the mid-1980s, you’d never be reading this story and Porsche wouldn’t have come up…

The Type 76 occupies little more than a footnote in the Lotus story. Quietly forgotten by the team back in 1974, it’s overlooked in the history books today. It is remembered as the car deemed not good enough to replace the once-great but ageing 72 over the course of that season. Yet the 76 might just be up there among the most important Formula 1 designs in the Team Lotus narrative. But for the shortcomings of the 76 – real or otherwise – Lotus might never have stolen a march on the rest of the F1 grid in the development of ground-effect aerodynamics. It was the failure to effectively replace the 72 that motivated Lotus boss Colin Chapman to instigate a root-and-branch development programme to re-assess F1 design. The first…

Here’s a challenge: find a rustfree MGB GT road car, then strip it down and have it professionally rebuilt into a competitive V8 racer with all the necessary mods – all for less than £25,000. It would be a tall order on such a budget, which makes this fully sorted example being sold on behalf of its current owner by longestablished Kent-based dealer Anthony Godin seem like a bargain. According to Godin, the car was bought by a former clubman motorcycle competitor after he decided it might be prudent to switch to four wheels – but he only managed three races and a hillclimb in the ‘B’ before blowing the engine. Rather than rectifying the situation with a budget rebuild, he entrusted the broken engine to a specialist and, £15,000…

Back in the mid-1990s, Sir Jackie Stewart convinced Ford to finance the creation of his own Formula 1 team. Following three seasons and one victory – for Motor Sport columnist Johnny Herbert at the Nürburgring in 1999 – he then sold the team back to Ford, which re-branded it as Jaguar Racing. After five seasons of management turmoil and failure, the team was then sold to Red Bull, which within another five seasons won the first of four consecutive world titles with Sebastian Vettel. The new tie-up, confirmed at the launch of the Honda-powered RB19 in New York, draws Ford back to the team it helped create, to challenge for its first world title in what will be 32 years since Michael Schumacher won its last, with Benetton in 1994.…

There can’t be many kinds of car that have not been reviewed within the pages of this title as it moves towards its centenary next year, but there’s a bit of me that’s hoping this is the very first pick-up to earn its place here, if indeed it can be thought of as a car at all. But then this Toyota Hilux is the first to receive the same ‘GR’ badging now found on the phenomenal little GR Yaris, Supra and GR86. It was also a machine calling itself a GR Hilux that I watched bludgeon its way across the Saudi desert in January to successfully defend last year’s Dakar Rally victory, so I guess there’s some sort of connection there too. The Hilux GR Sport differs from lesser Hiluxes…

Sebring 1000 Miles, Sebring Raceway, Florida, March 17 It’s a new era for endurance racing in 2023. For the first time in several decades there is now a level of commonality between European and North American sports car racing. This is the first season in which the Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) and Le Mans Daytona Hybrid (LMDh), will be allowed to compete together for overall victory in both the WEC and IMSA. The reasoning for this merger is to attract more manufacturers to a new top tier of sports car racing. Consequently, the WEC Hypercar category has expanded from four teams to nine with Cadillac, Ferrari and Vanwall all joining this year, as well as Porsche, which has three entrants. Although Alpine has dropped out, Glickenhaus, Peugeot and defending champions…

There were just 26min left on the clock, the green flag dropped and the four cars on the lead lap raced to the finish. Just 11sec separated them at the chequered flag. This could have been any other Daytona 24 Hours of the past 15 years or so; it probably looked like business as usual to the casual fan unaware of the seismic shifts in sports car racing. Yet it might just have been the most important running of the Florida enduro ever. This year’s edition of the traditional opener to the North American sports car season on the last weekend of January was the first race for the new breed of LMDh hybrid prototypes. That’s where the significance lies, because these cars will race in the US in the…

There were many striking moments from the 2022 Formula 1 season and one, indicative of how the sport still brings out the best, was George Russell leaping from his car at Silverstone. Russell’s first thought was to do anything he could to help fellow driver Zhou Guanyu, trapped in his stricken Alfa Romeo. The image stood in stark contrast to another, that of plumes of black smoke rising over the Saudi Arabian desert as F1 cars lapped the Corniche circuit below. The smoke was the result of a missile strike on an oil refinery carried out by Yemeni Houthis who have been in a seven-year conflict with a Saudi-led coalition. The scenes could not have been further from the slick, Netflix-friendly image F1 is working hard to promote. Yet F1…

2006 MASERATI MC12 CORSE SOLD BY BONHAMS, £3.2M This was one of just a dozen Corse versions of the already rare Maserati MC12 homologation special, 50 of which were built to enable the car to compete in the 2005 FIA GT Championship (which it won). The Corse model was a shamelessly indulgent version built purely for track fun, and since it wasn’t subject to any competition restrictions it was even more powerful than the full-blown racer, producing 755bhp from its 6-litre, V12 engine. But the owner of this one clearly hadn’t explored the outer limits of its performance – in fact, he never drove it. The car had clocked just 123 delivery miles from new. 1966 SHELBY GROUP II MUSTANG SOLD BY BARRETT-JACKSON, £640,000 One of just 16 Shelby Group…

It’s all too easy to look at a set-up like the Vintage Sports-Car Club and immediately think tweed, pipes and slippers – writing it off as not being a scene for younger people – but you’d be totally wrong. Within the VSCC, there’s an ever-growing community of younger enthusiasts, with myself included at the age of 28. I first got involved with the club through my father Steve Smith, who has always had an interest in motor sport. I remember attending many Prescott hillclimbs with my dad, and it became a tradition to grab a tent and head off to enjoy a weekend there with friends. Dad decided to take the leap himself and buy a 1930 Ford Model A to have a go at trialling. He flew to Detroit…

Drive to Survive, the hit Netflix series which has played a significant role in turbocharging Formula 1’s popularity in recent years – especially in the US – is back for a fifth series and available to watch now. The latest instalment shows the docudrama fully settled into its role as the acceptable face of F1. Whilst afficionados might pick holes in the Drive to Survive approach, it still serves up a now-signature rollicking ride of highdefinition glamour shots, slow-motion crashes and over the top sound effects. Previous series showed pedigree in lifting the lid on the secretive grand prix paddock, and the new season centres once more around backstairs intrigue erupting into full-blown inter-team warfare. The bitter feud between Alpine and McLaren over Oscar Piastri’s services – triggered in part…

It is perhaps indicative of the times in which we live that just as plug-in hybrids start to go out of fashion they start to demonstrate their real worth. In the case of this smart but expensive Mercedes SUV, a range of up to 80 miles before needing to prise the petrol engine from its slumber. The electric motor also provides almost half the power and four-wheel-drive capability. Should the trend be pursued, plug-ins will essentially become EVs with small petrol engines required only for long-distance journeys with no easy recharge facilities. And if that sounds familiar it should: it’s exactly the idea BMW had with the range-extender motor for the brilliant but now defunct i3 hatch. Sadly the right idea at the wrong time is no better than the…

I don’t want it to be hurtful to anyone,” says Joann Villeneuve in the opening moments of the new feature-length documentary on her husband Gilles and his friend, team-mate and eventual nemesis, Didier Pironi. “But this story is about a very deep betrayal. It is hurtful to a lot of people.” She has never pulled her punches when it comes to Pironi and Imola 1982. But hers is just one side of a famously bitter tale surrounding smudged Ferrari team orders and their tragic consequences. One of the many plus points of this regularly jaw-dropping film is its even-handed treatment of this most combustible of Formula 1 driver rivalries. It’s as much Pironi’s story as it is Villeneuve’s, so the Frenchman isn’t painted as some pantomime villain. In fact, if…

The editorial of the March issue [The Editor] mentions the 1958 Cuban Grand Prix, when Fangio was kidnapped, and the terrible crash in the race. I was watching from an eighth-floor precisely over the spot of the accident. Cuban Armando Garcia Cifuentes was very close to the kerb on the left side and starting to overtake an Argentinian Porsche when this car had a small wiggle of the back – enough to hit the right front wheel of the Testa Rossa throwing it through a five- or six-deep row of spectators and continuing across a park towards the other side of the track where the leaders were already approaching. A parked crane stopped the Ferrari, seriously injuring the driver. Venezuelan Piero Drogo stopped his Ferrari 250 TR, loading an injured…

“In the order of a balanced fun/strong appearance, I’d have to go for the Brabhams first. Then I’d choose the Skoal Bandit RAM livery next – I did a lot for Guy Edwards and RAM, plus a couple of Ultramar ex-F1 cars for Guy. “Third is the Braun-sponsored Tyrrell 020 from 1991. Next up is the Benetton B198, then joint fifth I’d have the Penthouse Rizla and Old Smuggler RAM schemes. The Murjani Jeans Williams FW07 that Desiré Wilson raced was a quick Wednesday evening job for John Macdonald for a race at Brands Hatch the next weekend. Despite the haste, it worked well as a simple message. “I’d also like to include my work on the Williams FW11. I was responsible for the yellow when Guy Edwards landed the…

June 19, 1936 A packed house at the Keppel Hotel in Creg-ny-Baa for the Senior Tourist Trophy. Eager crowds crane for a view of Stanley Woods on his Velocette heading for a new lap record of 87mph and a close secondplace finish just 18sec behind Jimmie Guthrie June 16, 1926 Above: a competitor manoeuvres his machine into place in front of the starter ready to be flagged off for his first lap. Behind, more riders wait for their start times. On the complex scoreboard, the ‘Progress’ line shows each rider’s approximate position on the circuit June 9, 1932 Right: situated just a mile after the start, Quarterbridge remains the riders’ first big challenge, especially on cold tyres on the first lap. Today it is unrecognisable from this 90-year-old shot, having…

What makes a great racer – is it nature or nurture? In the case of NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon, it might well be the former. He began racing quarter midget cars at the age of five and won 35 events and set five track records within the year. At the age of eight he won 51 races and, at 11, all of the 25 kart races he entered. At just 16 he became the youngest person ever granted a USAC licence. To cut short an extremely long story of success, Gordon went on to become the ‘winningest’ driver in the so-called modern era of NASCAR history with a remarkable 93 victories, no fewer than 13 of which he racked-up in a single season (1998). In addition, Gordon – along with…

ALL PRODUCTS AVAILABLE AT MOTORSPORTMAGAZINE.COM/SHOP FULL-SCALE REPLICA HELMETS Remember the days when drivers were actually identifiable by the scheme of their lid? A helmet design was a part of their brand and legacy. That makes classic racing helmet replicas a big market for both collectors and those seeking a focal point. We have three full-scale options in the Motor Sport shop. Ayrton Senna’s colours are unforgettable, as was his first F1 victory at Interlagos in 1991. A replica, left, captures that moment and is complete with all period sponsor logos. A second option is Emerson Fittipaldi’s Café do Brasil design, right, with the correct ‘glow’ paint. Finally, celebrate F1’s Flying Finn with Mika Häkkinen’s trio of stripes, above – areal head-turner. KEVIN McNICHOLAS TOTE BAGS Is your run to the…

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