Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Motor Sport Magazine

It is at this time of year that thoughts turn inevitably to the British Grand Prix, that highlight of our domestic racing calendar. And it is also a good time to take a closer look at Silverstone, which this year will be celebrating its 75th anniversary. A lot has changed since it hosted its first race in October 1948 on its runways and perimeter roads, and as anyone who has been over the past couple of years will know there is a lot more change going on. So I thought I would catch up with the circuit’s managing director Stuart Pringle to get a state-of-thenation view on the home of British racing. He is in upbeat mood when we talk, enthusiastically pointing at a giant map of the circuit behind…

An Aston Martin powered by Honda? Only in Formula 1. At first glance, a partnership that will mate Honda powertrains to Lawrence Stroll’s Aston Martin-badged F1 cars from 2026 could be described as an incongruous marriage of convenience. Yet the alliance is grounded in a logic that makes long-term sense for both parties, while opening up intriguing possibilities for this fast-rising F1 superpower. Honda officially pulled out of F1 at the end of 2021, just as Max Verstappen secured its first F1 title since 1991, citing a need to focus on the electrification of its road cars. Yet the Japanese giant has never really left. Its engines still power Red Bull and even Honda branding has quietly returned. Now its high level of form and F1’s commitment to sustainable fuels…

The most famous shed in motor racing has been saved after Goodwood struck a deal to have the structure renovated and re-homed to a new site adjacent to the world-famous Motor Circuit. The Tyrrell shed currently sits within a small commercial compound located just outside the village of Ockham in Surrey but faced demolition due to the expansion of developments around it, despite Ken Tyrrell building his F1 team there to take on, and eventually beat, the world. Originally a military building moved to the site in 1950, Goodwood has submitted a plan that will have the structure disassembled, transported down to Chichester, renovated and then re-assembled for use as a historic workshop. That will allow it to be used by the Goodwood Estate and enjoyed year-round by the public.…

The lightweight GT version of Aston Martin’s DB4 might be best known for leaving the opposition behind on track, but this one ended up being put to an altogether different use – as the getaway car driven by comedian Peter Sellers in the 1963 film The Wrong Arm of the Law. In his role as cockney villain ‘Pearly’ Gates, Sellers joins forces with both the police and a rival gang in a bid to put an end to the activities of a group of Australian criminals who are causing trouble for everyone by carrying out robberies disguised as officers of the law. The plot includes a high-speed chase across the Uxbridge Moor nature reserve in which the 150mph DB4 is optimistically pursued by a Wolseley squad car (top speed: 95mph).…

Azerbaijan GP Miami GP Monaco GP Four races in – and still Sergio Pérez was hanging in there, not letting team-mate Max Verstappen off the hook as the 2023 world championship apparently distilled into a battle between the Red Bull drivers. This had been against general expectations. But not so dissimilar to the start of 2022, other than this Red Bull has a bigger advantage over the competition. There was a brief period in the first part of last season when Pérez was providing stiff competition for Verstappen. You may recall how it came to a head after Monaco, a race Pérez won, partly because he’d brought out the red flags on his final Q3 run, preventing Verstappen from completing a lap which had looked set to vault him ahead…

Strategically, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix followed a very similar pattern to that of the previous race in Australia in that an early safety car within a one-stop race made for conflicted decisions upon the various team pitwalls. It had a profound effect on the way the race in Baku played out between the two Red Bull drivers at the head of the field, but maybe not the outcome. The crucial safety car this time was for Nyck de Vries’ AlphaTauri. He had glanced the Turn 6 wall with his front-left wheel on the 10th lap. It immediately broke the suspension’s track rod and with no way of steering around the following right-hander, he pulled onto the run-off area between the two corners. All that the teams and race control could…

At last it’s happened! A genuinely fun, affordable electric car has been parked outside my house for the last week. I’ve enjoyed bombing about in it more than any EV I can recall, probably since I last drove a BMW i3. Trust Mini not to let the tedious imperative of changing powertrain get in the way of its owners having a good time. The Mini Electric feels light and exceptionally nimble by EV standards. Turn into a corner while snapping the throttle shut and it will instantly and sharply tighten its line. Briefly, it will even oversteer. It’s fast too. Yet in all other regards, it’s still a Mini, still with that funky premium-feeling interior, those cheeky looks and ride quality which, while scarcely great, is still more than good…

Couldn’t make it up? Of course you could, if you were writing an overblown novel: wealthy aristocrat backer, dashing driver coming from nowhere, yachts, champagne, parties, and then beating established names with a car they built themselves in the stables of a stately home. No one would really believe it – but it happened. Superbears tells that story, backed by input from Lord Hesketh, co-conspirator Bubbles Horsley and many another, and it’s a great tale. Bunch of playboys messing with our sport, was the Establishment view and of some of the press too, until the team began to show results. Of course, Hunt didn’t come from nowhere as the wider press implied. He’d been through the same struggles as all young drivers, through Formula Ford and Formula 3 where he’d…

My family car as a boy was... An Austin 7. Growing up in the relatively austere ’50s, our first family cars were a series of 20-year-old Austin 7s at £10 a go. We eventually traded up to an Austin A30 before the best of all – the Morris 1000. It was in the Morris that I learned to drive and learned to drift round wet roundabouts. My first ever road car was... A Morris 1000 Traveller, inset, bought from an advert in Exchange & Mart on a wet night, mainly because the price was exactly the £75 I had to spend. Lesson learned, you don’t see the rust in the dark. I was first hooked on racing when... It was all my dad’s fault. He’d been a BARC member at…

BRITISH GP SPECIAL Sixteen years after they first got stuck into each other, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton once again find themselves contesting the same piece of track somewhere close to the front of Formula 1. For British fans, the prospect of witnessing the two drivers in such close proximity at Hamilton’s home race next month, so often the scene of on-track drama, marks a rivalry that has come full circle. The routes they have travelled to return to this point could hardly be more different. Hamilton’s a somewhat unexpected fall from a place of grace that made him the most successful driver in F1 history through eight glorious years with Mercedes; Alonso’s a surprise leap back to competitiveness after a decade of purgatory in the midfield, or worse. The…

Most of us are aware of what is regarded as the greatest ever feat of endurance at Le Mans. It was Pierre Levegh’s attempt to do the entire race alone, sure he could hear something awry in the engine of his Lago-Talbot and convinced that he alone had the mechanical sympathy to make it last the distance. In the end, the irony was that it wasn’t the engine that failed, but the driver trying to look after it when, at or beyond the point of clinical exhaustion while leading by miles with little more than an hour to go, he missed a gear and blew said motor to bits. Of course the race win was duly seized by Mercedes-Benz, and brought Levegh to the attention of Alfred Neubauer who hired…

● While Porsche 956s caused collective jaws to drop with a Le Mans 1-2-3 in 1982, further down the field this PORSCHE 924 CARRERA GTR, inset, was also a winner – of the IMSA GTO class (changing just one tyre in 24 hours). One of 17 GTRs made, it still has its original factory engine and gearbox and has been restored to its ’82 livery. It’s at WILLIAM I’ANSON in Gloucester, £POA. ● From Porsche past to present – PORSCHE CENTRE PRESTON has agreed a sponsorship deal with upcoming Lancs lad ADAM SMALLEY for the BRITISH GP’s PORSCHE MOBIL 1 SUPERCUP support race (July 7-9). “We’re pleased that we’ve been able to back a local driver,” said MD Tom Fox. ● Derbyshire-based dealer TOM HARTLEY celebrated the KING’S CORONATION by…

Motor Sport collection ALL PRODUCTS AVAILABLE AT MOTORSPORTMAGAZINE.COM/SHOP What with the King’s coronation and the British GP, it’s time to show the Union Jack. Find this ‘Nige’ helmet and more at the Motor Sport shop – motorsportmagazine.com/shop SIGNED NIGEL MANSELL REPLICA HELMET The British Grand Prix conjures up many a magical memory: Lewis Hamilton splashing around the outside of pretty much the entire field in 2008, Johnny Herbert’s shock win in 1995, Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell wheel-to-wheel in that turbulent 1987 race… but it’s another moment from the Midlands hero that perhaps sticks out. After his victory in 1991, Mansell spied a stranded Ayrton Senna, who’d run out of fuel on his parade lap. Mansell pulled over, allowing the Brazilian to climb aboard the sidepod of his Williams giving…

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Three late-race red flag stoppages and a flying wheel that almost wrought unspeakable horror could have defined the 107th Indianapolis 500. Instead, a single-lap shoot-out triggered both delirium and consternation as Josef Newgarden drafted past 2022 winner Marcus Ericsson to deliver a 19th Indy 500 victory for his boss Roger Penske – and the first since ‘The Captain’ took ownership of the grand old superspeedway. The consternation was Ericsson’s, but it wasn’t missing out on a $420,000 (£340,000) bonus for what would have been a consecutive win that was upsetting the Swede. It was the call to throw a third red flag with effectively just two laps left instead of finishing under an anti-climactic caution – and thus handing him the win – that made him sour. The decision left…

The cancellation of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola on the eve of the weekend came as the region suffered catastrophic floods, above, in which rivers burst their banks, roads collapsed, landslides brought down trees and at least nine people lost their lives. Around 10,000 were evacuated from their homes and many were rescued by helicopters from rooftops. The Formula 1 teams had already begun constructing their bases there on the preceding Tuesday when the circuit issued an emergency instruction for all personnel to evacuate the track immediately. When the heavy rain continued into Wednesday and the local infrastructure began to collapse under the strain, there was no alternative: the event had to be cancelled. The official confirmation arrived early on Wednesday afternoon: “The decision has been taken because…

GOOD SUPER YUKI Super Yuki Tsunoda was on hand to help clean up after the terrible floods in Italy. Some heroes wear AlphaTauri-branded clothing. ASTON MARTIN LAHONDA Honda announced its Aston engine tie-up for 2026, meaning it’s on schedule to leave F1 in 2029. OCON SUPREME Ocon gets people’s backs up, but a brilliant third in Monaco silenced some doubters. GOD SAVE JYS Nothing summed F1 up like Jackie Stewart being manhandled by security in Miami. Still got hold of Roger Federer for a Martin Brundle interview though. CHANGING OF GUARD Naomi Schiff has proved to be a brilliant addition to the Sky Sports F1 team, along with strategy analyst Bernie Collins. BAD ROSSI RAMPAGE Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi hauling his own promising team over coals in public was bizarre,…

‘DBS’ is one of those strange Aston Martin nameplates that seems to fall both in and out of favour. First seen in 1968, the original DBS was not what was intended, namely a car to replace the longserving DB6. That’s because the V8 motor intended for it had endured a gestation from hell and simply wasn’t ready. So Aston used the old DB6 six-cylinder motor instead, resulting in a new flagship that was slower than the car it was intended to succeed. That finally arrived the following year, the name lasting until the car was facelifted into the Aston Martin V8 in 1973. Then nothing until 2007, when a car looking suspiciously like a hotted up DB9 wore the badge for five years, then nothing again until the current car…

Plenty of watch brands involve themselves with motor sport, but few can claim the loyalty to a single event that Chopard has shown to the celebrated Mille Miglia. This year’s edition (from June 13-17) will mark the watchmaker’s 36th year as its official timekeeper and main sponsor – and the 35th time that Chopard co-president Karl Friedrich-Scheufele will compete in it. He first did so in 1989 accompanied by sixtime Le Mans winner Jacky Ickx. Ickx has since occupied the navigator’s seat on more than a dozen other occasions, alternating between Scheufele’s wife, Christine, and, more recently, his daughter Caroline-Marie. Since brokering the partnership with the Mille Miglia, Chopard has produced 33 different designs of the Mille Miglia wristwatch (a new one is created each year) together with a pendant…

Tough brief – the whole century of the Le Mans 24 Hours in one hit, and not from a publisher you might expect. But while the mainstream format shortchanges us on photos, which are small and fairly few, the advantage is you get an awful lot of hardbacked reading for your £20. Plus of course an authoritative writer. Who is it for? Maybe too detailed for the casual reader and not well enough illustrated? But on the other hand even though you’ve read about the White House crash, the Jacky Ickx grid walk and the McLaren F1 GTR many times Williams has other nuggets to offer. Known for his background research, he’s read widely around the core facts, explaining how and where event inspirers Georges Durand and Charles Faroux met…

According to my notes from 1988, the Benettons in the foreground had several significant technical tweaks in place for this race in Detroit. Having finished third the previous weekend in Montreal, Benetton was in a fight for championship runner-up with pitlane neighbour, Ferrari. And yet here we were with everything exposed for all the world to see. In today’s egotistical F1 ecosphere, the cars would be behind screens with security heavies only too keen to block all sightseers while team principals engage in spats on TV. Thirty-five years ago, the teams didn’t have much choice. With the paddock some distance away in the vast Cobo Hall, every single torque wrench and tyre had to be humped to a pitlane that was without cover of any description. If a team forgot…

BRITISH GP SPECIAL Although it’s 25 years since the television coverage of world championship grand prix races in Britain was purloined by a commercial network, many of the sport’s long-time fans will still fondly remember the previous BBC era with the distinctively strident voice of commentating stalwart Murray Walker, intermittently larded by the refined tones of his celebrity side-kick James Hunt. On summer Sunday afternoons, their banter would be the favoured soundtrack of households across the land. The BBC’s guaranteed coverage of every race, previously a haphazard affair, cemented motor racing into the nation's consciousness, alongside the classic bat and ball sports. The Beeb’s hegemony had begun in 1980, continuing for 18 full seasons, and though Hunt would fall victim to a heart attack at the age of just 45,…

PORTRAITS: RICHARD DAVIES Racing drivers tend to be a selfish breed. Actually, it’s common in most sports: to be the best, at your best in any given field, takes total focus and dedication, sometimes to the detriment of a wider perspective. And the truth is, it’s not always an attractive trait. Yet there are exceptions to the rule. In endurance sports car racing, a delicious tension exists at its heart: to be truly successful the natural ego of the fiercely competitive individual must often be subjugated for the greater good of the team. No matter how quick or experienced you are you don’t always get to qualify, you don’t always get the fresh set of tyres for your stint, you don’t always get to start – or take the glory…

1937 Craig Breedlove is born. 1962 Constructs his first record attempt vehicle using a tricycle design powered by a J47 turbojet engine.  1963 Breedlove achieves 407.447mph to score his first record. 1964 With both Tom Green and Art Arfons challenging, Breedlove ups the record to 468.719mph. Then, just two days later, he achieves 526.227mph. His emergency parachute brake fails and the car slides through a series of telegraph poles and into a lake. Breedlove escapes injury. 1965 Spirit of America – Sonic 1 achieves 555.485mph for Breedlove’s fourth record. Two weeks later he improves to 600.601mph to set his final benchmark. 1997 Breedlove and Richard Noble compete for the record, but Breedlove loses out to ThrustSSC’s incredible 763.035mph. 2023 Breedlove dies at home in Rio Vista, California, due to cancer,…

Classic Car Insurance the Goodwood Way When you think of classic 1960s sports cars it’s very difficult to not snap to thoughts of the Jaguar E-type – one of the prettiest sports cars ever made and a cultural icon to boot. It’s little wonder then that the E-type is currently the most requested subject for cover from Goodwood’s new Classic Solutions service, which aims to take the hassle out of insuring your prized four-wheeled possession. The E-type made headlines from the moment it was launched in 1961. Jaguar founder Sir Williams Lyons was so confident in the model that he ordered PR guru Bob Berry to drive it to the Geneva Motor Show and straight in front of the waiting press and public, arriving with just 20 minutes to spare.…

Watchmaking and motor racing are intrinsically linked, with leading brands such as Heuer (TAG) and Rolex either born from the sport or inspired to create some of its finest models by it. And that can lead to both wonderful limited-edition timepieces that collectors can go crazy for, but sadly also a lot of slightly tacky mass-produced cashins. Let’s look at a real collectors’ piece. Chopard is a wonderful brand, and we recently had a pair of super-limited watches cross our desk. Chopard’s CEO Karl-Friedrich Scheufele is a huge fan of the modern Mille Miglia (see page 44), so much so that Chopard sponsors the event and each year produces commemorative watches for it, inset. These come in three levels – the retail one for general sale and made in numbers,…

Moto GP legend Valentino Rossi will close on his goal of competing in the world’s biggest endurance race when he makes his four-wheeled competition debut at Le Mans this summer. The Doctor, a nine-time world champion on two wheels, will compete in the two 55-minute Road to Le Mans support races at the 24 Hours, which count toward the Michelin Le Mans Cup series. The grid will feature LMP3 cars mixed with GT3 runners. Rossi will race for the WRT BMW team. Rossi has been a regular in GT World Challenge Europe for the past two years with WRT, first racing an Audi R8 LMS GT3 in 2022 and then switching to the new BMW M4 GT3 for this year. He is also due to test the new M Hybrid…

This June a packed entry of modified and madcap machines will once again reach for the stars in the 101st running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, with a host of fantastic beasts primed to tackle the ascent. First run in 1916, this year 70 crews will tackle the 12.42-mile track in Colorado, which hits 14,115ft at its summit. Such is the appeal of the event that the last three outright winners are all back, with Robin Shute (2019, 2021 and 2022 winner) looking for his fourth victory in the Wolf prototype, while 2020 victor Clint Vahsholtz will drive a KTM X-Bow GT4 Evo. More unusually, outright record holder Romain Dumas swaps the insane Volkswagen ID.R for an even more bizarre all-electric project when he attempts to coax the…

From the ashes of the W Series concept, the new all-female F1 Academy series has begun, however you may not even have noticed... The new championship was founded by Formula 1 back in November and has attracted a grid of 15 drivers across five teams, with all running spec 1.4-litre Tatuus Formula 4 cars. F1 subsidises each chosen driver’s seat by £130,000. However, the first season got off to a quiet start at both the Red Bull Ring in April and Valencia in May due to there not actually being anywhere to follow the live races on TV or streaming services. There are highlights packages available on Sky the week after a race weekend, but for a structure as powerful as F1, it’s a rather surprising omission. F1 Academy will…

The Isle of Man TT lap record hasn’t been broken since 2018, which is a long time in racing. There are a few reasons for this. Unlike Formula 1 and MotoGP, the TT didn’t happen in the Covid years, 2020 and 2021. And although the TT is the world’s longest race circuit, featuring around 250 corners, it needs to be in just the right condition for riders to reach lap-record pace. Current king of the Mountain course is Peter Hickman, who in June 2018 circulated the island’s twisting country roads at a mindboggling 135.452mph. That year’s event was blessed with good weather throughout the two weeks of practice and racing, so there had been plenty of rubber laid down before the final Senior TT, when Hickman set the new lap…

32 Race report Mark Hughes reports from Baku, Miami and Monaco on the driver dynamics at Red Bull 36 Word on the beat Mercedes reshuffles its technical pack and Red Bull moves to secure Adrian Newey 38 Tactical analysis The inexact science of predicting safety cars and how it gave Sergio Perez victory in Baku 40 News in brief Yuki Tsunoda and Naomi Schiff win new fans but Miami fails to win over the crowd 43 Johnny Herbert Our columnist on the reasons why Lewis Hamilton should move to Ferrari…

It’s been over a decade since Porsche last offered a manual gearbox with the powertrain of the Turbo, and nearer 30 since one last came without front drive shafts. But the Sport Classic is both of those things: a car with a 3.8-litre flat six from the 911 Turbo, three pedals in its footwell and rear-wheel drive only. Sounds like we should all be whooping for joy; but hang on for just a minute. This is a Porsche Heritage Design car, limited to 1250 units (1000 more than the previous Sport Classic) and distinguished as much by its styling as its engineering. You’ll have spotted the ducktail ‘burzel’ rear spoiler, the roundels on the door, the houndstooth upholstery and the double bubble roofline. But even though it is the most…

Goodwood, July 13-16 The UK summer festivities do not end at the British Grand Prix, with the Goodwood Festival of Speed happening just a few days later. With legendary cars, famous faces and the barbecue smell at the height of summer, Goodwood showcases the best of Britain. And it is a year of anniversaries for the Goodwood estate. Celebrating 75 years of motor sport at the circuit, this will also be the 30th edition of the Festival of Speed. As per usual, the Sunday hillclimb is the headline event which includes a whole range of bikes and cars, from the old grand prix machines to the modern day 21st century supercars. Amid a jam-packed schedule, there will be a fitting tribute to Sebastian Vettel. The four-time Formula 1 world champion…

INTERVIEW: ROB WIDDOWS I’s been 50 years since Jackie Stewart’s last – and for many greatest – season. Since then he has moved from driver to team owner, knight of the realm and latterly charity campaigner. Along the way he’s become one of the first sporting ‘brand ambassadors’ as the face of Rolex, a paddock fixer instrumental in getting F1 commercial deals across the line, TV commentator and most recently bodyguard to Martin Brundle whose honour he defended at the Miami GP and in so doing becoming, at 83, a social media sensation. He is also the oldest living F1 race winner. To celebrate that final 1973 championship year, his best of times worst of times season, JYS sits down with Motor Sport and casts his mind back half a…

I’m excited to have received the June issue, containing articles on two of my favourite motor sport heroes, Hans Stuck [The Motor Sport Interview] and Jarno Saarinen [Motorcycles]. Max Oxley is correct in speculating that motorcycle racing might have been very different had Jarno Saarinen survived his accident. I read an interview with Jarno’s wife, Soeli, in which she stated that Saarinen was contemplating retirement at the end of the season if he lifted the 500cc title – shades of Jochen Rindt, another Monza victim. If Jarno had indeed returned to the family funeral business in Finland, it’s likely Giacomo Agostini would have become Yamaha’s second 500cc world champion. Had he continued, I still believe it’s possible Saarinen and Agostini could have been team-mates in 1974. It’s a matter of…

“I have exactly the same opinion,” says United Autosports co-owner Richard Dean on the question of Oliver Jarvis being underrated. “I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves. Some of that is he’s not naturally pushy, even though he’s always been quick. He doesn’t have an ego. To have made it like he has over a long period, usually you need to self-promote. Olly has done it on merit.” Dean has known Jarvis a long time. Like Johnny Mowlem, he raced against dad Carl in Formula Ford and even ran Olly in the junior category himself (Jarvis finished fourth at the 2003 Formula Ford Festival for Team JLR). “I was keen to get him in,” says Dean. Beyond ability, platinum-graded Jarvis has added value as a guide to the…

Even the most ardent of classic car enthusiasts might struggle to recount the story of Alexis these days – but it was different during the 1960s when the marque was riding high as a leading name in Formula Ford. To discover where Alexis came from, it’s necessary to engage reverse gear and travel back to the early 1950s when Birmingham-based building contractor Alex Francis began creating competitive, Fordengined trials cars for his own use. In 1959 Francis made the acquaintance of an Australian speedway rider and race mechanic called Bill Harris, with whom he teamed up to build the first Alexis track car, a front-engined Formula Junior. This was followed by a rear-engined model dubbed the FJ, which helped bring Alexis to prominence in 1961 after British cycling champion turned…

1999 SUBARU IMPREZA SOLD BY BONHAMS, £488,500 This wasn’t any old ‘Scooby’ – it was the one built to compete in the World Rally Championship with the late Richard Burns at the wheel. Driven by Burns in the 1999 Sanremo Rally and the 2000 Monte Carlo it was subsequently campaigned to a string of victories by French drivers including Armando Pereira and Benoit Rousselot before being converted to gravel specification in 2004 for Michel Sambourg – who used the car to win the French championship. Acquired by the vendor in 2018 and in need of restoration, it was rebuilt from the ground up using rare, original parts. 1974 TRIUMPH STAG SOLD BY H&H, £1800 Bargain or bottomless money pit? The bidder for this 1974 Stag – which has been off…