Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Motor Sport Magazine

I missed Le Mans’ 100th anniversary in 2023 so I was determined to make the race this year, which it turns out was a classic. Here are 26 things I learnt from Le Mans… in alphabetical order. Always pack a brolly. The rain was promised but held off just long enough for you to feel confident of venturing out without protection. But come nightfall the heavens opened, precipitating a four-hour safety car and ultimately one of the most unpredictable races in living memory. Back-to-back wins. Ferrari answered the critics who had suggested that last year’s victory was something of a stitch-up with the Italian team benefiting from a last-minute change to Balance of Performance and putting reigning champions Toyota at a disadvantage. No such quibbles this year. Crowd control. Or…

Racing cars returned to lap the full Aintree grand prix circuit in May as enthusiasts marked the 70th anniversary of its opening and the 60th of its final race. A cavalcade gathered at the venue near Liverpool, which hosted five British Grands Prix between 1955 and ’62. It was headed by the Willment Ford Galaxie in which Jack Sears won the last race on the full circuit on May 16, 1964, driven this time by Wigan historics ace Andy Middlehurst whose father Philip competed in that race and who in the 1980s raced himself on the Aintree club circuit in Formula Ford. Period contrast was provided by a Mini raced by Anita Taylor, who was also on the grid at the final race, and an ex-Duncan Hamilton Jaguar C-type to mark…

Mention Lancia’s rallying exploits of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s and thoughts turn to the Martini-liveried cars such as the Stratos, the 037 and Deltas S4 and HF that helped to make the marque the most successful in WRC. But what about the Land Rovers? It’s true to say that the British off-roaders weren’t the most memorable aspect of the Italian team’s success but, when time came to compete in the 1991 Safari Rally, its usual Iveco Daily support van wasn’t considered up to tackling the route’s inhospitable terrain. Enter a brace of Land Rover 110s in County trim, finished in heat-reflecting white and fitted with suitably robust, full-length roof-racks for carrying spare wheels, jerrycans and so on. The pair, decorated with the logos of Lancia and Martini, were assigned…

“Are readers as sick of hearing ‘running P3’, ‘in quali’ or ‘Turn 5’ as I am?” Shall I do it? I’ve thought about it for quite a while. It is annoying. Yes, it’s Grumpy Old Man time. Are any readers as heartily sick of hearing “Box – box – box!”, or “He’s running P3”, or “There’s a chance of P1”, or “in quali” pronounced ‘kwally’, or “At Turn 5”, or “In Turn 1”…as I am? Changing times – changing generations of fans and enthusiasts (who are of course often different animals), but changing jargon – well – just stokes one’s pressure pump. The first time I covered a race at the Nürburgring, back in the 1960s, was also my first visit to Germany. Having been raised on the standard ’50s…

Canadian GP Spanish GP Austrian GP As McLaren and Lando Norris established themselves at the front, apparently ready at any track to challenge Red Bull and Max Verstappen on raw performance, so the differences in detail began to assume magnified significance. But for two split-second moments in Canada and Spain respectively Norris could – and should – have won consecutive grands prix. You cannot give such things away to Verstappen and Red Bull and go unpunished, even if theirs is no longer a dominant car, merely a very competitive one. Once Norris and McLaren got those details right, what then? There still remained the immovable object of Max Verstappen in a wheel-to-wheel contest. How might that pan out? At the end of this three-race run, Verstappen had won seven of…

“At the end of the first stint, I caught quite a bit of traffic and we should have just boxed because I gave up free lap time,” complained Max Verstappen of his team’s strategy in the Austrian Grand Prix. He was just getting started. “We basically did a lot of things wrong today. It started with the strategy, then the pitstop was a disaster. The first one already bad, the second one a disaster.” When he says the first stop was bad, he’s talking of a stationary time of 2.7sec. The record is 1.8sec. The second one – in which the left-rear wheel would not come off – took 6.5sec (which was 3.6sec longer than that of his rival for victory Lando Norris). In his 28-lap second stint, he was…

Mercedes-Benz’s fabled AMG division is going through a curious phase. First it decided that for the new C 63 AMG it was going to replace its beloved 4-litre V8 engine under the bonnet of the hottest C Class with a rather less lovely 2-litre four-cylinder motor, with an enormous hybrid drive attached. I’ve not driven one, but it was launched to fairly dismal reviews in 2022 and to date not one has been made available on Mercedes’ otherwise well-supplied press fleet, into which you will read what you will. And then this. The new AMG GT. You’ll remember the old one: two seats, double clutch gearbox between the rear wheels and a no-prisoners approach to the open road and, of course, the car from which it was directly derived, the…

Yes, it’s a Chanel watch – but don’t panic, you haven’t mistakenly picked up a copy of Vogue. This is the latest horological collaboration between the celebrated couture house and equally historic coachbuilder Touring Superleggera. ‘Collaboration’ might be a strong word. It’s more a case of Chanel being granted permission to use the Superleggera logo in 2003 when it launched its lightweight version of the J12 made from aluminium. Some might be surprised to learn that the J12 has come to be seen as one of the most successful and innovative watch designs of the 21st century, having been penned by Chanel’s long-standing creative director Jacques Helleu, who died in 2007. Launched in 2000, the J12 was the first widely produced watch to feature both a case and bracelet made…

Reading “Unfeasible speed – Disgruntled Nazis – Beautiful heiresses” on the flyleaf here gave me a brief worry that this would be a Boy’s Own pastiche. In fact there was only one beautiful heiress and the Nazis seemed more than gruntled to have Lieutenant-Colonel Goldie Gardner OBE MC doing his stuff at their Record Week trials. But there’s unfeasible speed aplenty: in a succession of cars Gardner dominated the small-capacity end of the record lists for 21 years, breaking 150 of them. Three stand yet. In his time he was seen as one of the speed kings with Malcolm Campbell, George Eyston and John Cobb and received the Segrave Trophy, yet except in MG circles his name has drifted into the mists. I certainly knew little about him beyond those…

In the end it came down to a two-car race between cult heroes. In the red corner was the car many regard as the ultimate expression of 1980s simplicity and grace. In the blue corner an exhaust-popping 1990s off-road bruiser – with gold wheels. And ultimately it was the McLaren MP4/4 that pipped the Subaru Impreza into second-place in our poll of F1 drivers, asking them to choose their favourite car from our shortlist. You’ll find the breakdown of who went for what overleaf. But the fact that the 1988 McLaren MP4/4 in which Ayrton Senna won his first title claimed a majority (eight out of the 18 drivers who responded) proves that 30 years on from his death Senna’s deification resonates with Gen Z as much as it does…

After two painful years, a lot of soul-searching and a fair few blind alleys, Mercedes has finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel in Formula 1. In the end it has all happened quickly. After the Miami Grand Prix, George Russell made a remark that really brought home how far Mercedes had fallen since becoming the most successful team in F1 history and winning eight consecutive constructors’ titles from 2014 to 2021. Russell had finished eighth, two places behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton. At the front of the field, 35sec ahead of Russell and 17sec in front of Hamilton, Lando Norris had just won the race in a McLaren powered by a Mercedes engine. “It shows what’s possible when you get things right,” Russell said, “but for now…

It’s been a feat of endurance. One that’s taken months. But finally renowned motor sport artist Martin Tomlinson has completed the full set of our Race Car of the Century artworks, capturing each of the 10 candidates in unique snapshots, all of which are available to buy through the Motor Sport shop either as prints or the coveted original paintings. Although we know which machine has been crowned Race Car of the Century by Motor Sport readers, it would be remiss of us not to complete the stories behind all 10 artworks here. The final two additions – Audi’s all-conquering R8 sports car and the Red Bull RB9 that dominated the 2013 Formula 1 season – represent the two most modern offerings, and were the hardest to create. “When you…

While at Hethel, taking a special car on the track (see p66), we were shown a wing from the archive that had a profound effect on F1 design. It was first seen attached to a Lotus 49 during practice at the 1968 Tasman Series, inset. This is that very wing, which is, in fact, a section of a helicopter rotor. Colin Chapman was not impressed and had it removed. It was in the possession of Lotus mechanic Leo Wybrott who, several years ago, gave it to Clive Chapman at Classic Team Lotus.…

US motor sport lost one of its key stars this month. Rufus Parnell Jones, who has died aged 90, was one of America’s fastest, most versatile and best-loved racing drivers, who won in everything from sprint cars and midgets to Indycars and NASCAR, sports cars and Trans-Am and even off-road at Pikes Peak and Baja. Parnelli, as he was universally known, broke through as a champion in sprint cars during the early 1960s. He made his Indianapolis 500 debut in 1961, then two years later scored his only Brickyard win as a driver when in an oil-seeping Ol’ Calhoun roadster he avoided a black flag to defeat Jim Clark’s rear-engined Lotus. Further Indy victories slipped away, most notably in 1964 and ’67, for a driver Mario Andretti proclaimed as “the…

One of the most famous voices in sport is launching a unique motor racing archive dedicated to bringing forgotten racing footage to a new audience. The venture, Racing Past Media (RPM), aimed in particular at pre-1981 Formula 1 content, will help bring new detail and perspective to the formative years of the sport, as the Formula 1 World Championship prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary. It is being masterminded by Steve Rider who has presented coverage of the British Touring Car Championship since 1988, and for years was the face of BBC Sport as well as anchor for ITV’s F1 coverage. RPM collates and manages content from a wide range of sources in order to assemble an easily accessible body of material for researchers and documentary makers. It has already…

After a very difficult start to the season – its third in the last three years – Mercedes suddenly hit form in Canada as George Russell took pole position and led a significant proportion of the race. Two races later, in Austria, he took the team’s first victory since Brazil 2022. Although the win was a fortunate one, coming after Max Verstappen and Lando Norris had collided and punctured, the Mercedes was still in far better competitive shape than earlier in the season. The breakthrough came with a new front wing, introduced on Russell’s car at Monaco, and used on both cars since. Technical director James Allison explained in Montreal some of the problems they’d been facing with the car and why the new wing was such a powerful upgrade. “The…

GOOD FLAV’S BACK Controversial playboy team boss Flavio Briatore has returned to Alpine as a special adviser – and is already rumoured to be engineering a final-hour Carlos Sainz move to the team. VER-TUOSO DISPLAY Even when struggling with a tricky car – and his Red Bull team-mate is knocking corners off his own RB20 – Verstappen still schooled the rest of the field in Canada and Spain. PIT STRAIGHT TALKING In contrast to most bland pundits Jacques Villeneuve asserted in Canada that Ricciardo is slow, living off his reputation and others could do better. Here’s to more opinions. ROCKETMAN RUSSELL Fabulous start by our George in Spain. How often do you see a car go from fourth to first on a start these days? PIPE DOWN Scuderia sniping as…

Having felt something of a lone voice in my disappointment for the hot Alfa saloon since introduction in 2017, I’d been told by colleagues I respect that the apparently minor revisions brought for 2024 have transformed the car for the better. In particular the replacement of the previous torque-sensing electronically controlled differential with a conventional mechanically locking diff really did make all the difference. Not to me I’m afraid. If you want to hold the car in a drift at the limit of its steering lock, doubtless the locker will allow you to maintain it for longer because the old diff used to get somewhat hot and bothered if treated like that for too long. But that’s not the real world. Out there, when the alternative is a BMW M3,…

Hedingham Castle, Essex, September 15 This September, Porsche Classics at the Castle returns to Essex for the ultimate celebration of all things luxury, high-performance and German. And this year the 911 Turbo turns 50. Steeped in history, the Porsche air-cooled models reigned supreme up until the late 1990s, becoming faster and more powerful, before ceasing production in favour of water-cooled engines. This change brought about a new age for Porsche. Car dimensions stretched in length and breadth but the real revolution was in the back, with the new engine solving issues related to increasingly strict emissions regulations. Among the scenery of Hedingham Castle, with its well-preserved Norman keep, visitors can see the regular feature ‘Totally Aircooled 1948-1998’, which welcomes all air-cooled models, from the 1948 Gmünd 356 – Porsche’s first…

Ask any F1 engine designer for their name these days and chances are the management of the team concerned will need to hold an urgent meeting before giving any consent. As for daring to look at the subject of their automotive creativity, six burly mechanics with tattooed legs are likely to find the need at that moment to stand between you, the power unit and just about anything F1 paranoia might consider to be of interest. I used to find it amusing when, on the rare visit to an F1 factory, I would be instructed not to look too closely at the cars for fear of spotting the latest tweak under development. It was necessary to reassure my hosts that they could have a flashing neon arrow hanging from the…

10 2010s Red Bull RB9 9 1940s Ferrari 166 MM 8 2000s Audi R8 7 1930s Mercedes-Benz W154 6 1950s Jaguar D-type 5 1920s Bentley Speed Six 4 1990s Subaru Impreza WRC 3 1980s McLaren MP4/4 2 1970s Porsche 917 1 1960s Lotus 49…

The greatest racing car? Jackie Oliver is not about to argue with Motor Sport readers, especially given the role the Lotus 49 played in his own racing life. “It’s a very important car in my career,” says the 81-year-old. He was 25 when he took his Formula 1 bow in a 49 – thrown into a maelstrom in place of Jimmy Clark, lost a month earlier in a Formula 2 race. As rookie accounts go, Oliver’s takes some beating… “The 49 was one of the first F1 cars I drove, before Jimmy went to Zandvoort with it,” Jackie Oliver says. Having first shown his hand in a Lotus Elan 26R, Oliver had been signed to Lotus Components as the mid-1960s equivalent of a reserve driver, racing in Formula 3 and…

There’s a cheery “Good morning” from over our shoulders and Ian Sanders, the original chief mechanic of the Richard Lloyd Racing Group C team – or GTi Engineering as it was known in 1983 – walks into the Dawn Treader workshop. A smile breaks out across his face as he paces slowly around Porsche 956 chassis number 106B2, his inquisitive eyes flicking from one detail to the next, mechanic’s fingers caressing the instantly recognisable contours of arguably the greatest sports racing car ever built. It’s been more than 35 years since Ian last saw this car in the Silverstone workshops of Richard Lloyd Racing. The emotive scene is broken by a dose of reality from another former mechanic that’s just wandered in. Wayne Greedy joined Ian at RLR for 1986:…

Examples of Ferrari’s much-loved 246 Dino are not difficult to find – with more than 3500 built, there are plenty in circulation. All the same, we challenge anyone to find one that’s more genuine and original or with such low mileage and impeccable provenance as this Giallo Fly (yellow) example which has come to the market for the first time in 50 years. Back in 1974, owner Terry West was spending his weekdays working as a garage mechanic, his weekends racing a quick and competitive Mark I Ford Escort in stage rallies around the country – and the time in between preparing for the next event. “After doing rallying on a shoestring budget for three or four years, I decided enough was enough,” recalls West. “I had two kids by…

An unprecedented nine cars on the lead lap at the finish. Just 14sec between the winner and runner-up. Just 1.1sec between third and fourth. Yes, it’s safe to say the 92nd Le Mans 24 Hours proved a worthy sequel to the 100th anniversary edition, as Ferrari once again pulled off a narrow defeat of Toyota to prevail for an 11th time. Fine margins dictated the order as two Ferraris, both Toyotas, two Penske-run Porsches, a pair of customer 963s and a Cadillac kept it lit until the chequered flag. Nicklas Nielsen thought “everything was lost” when a flapping right-hand door forced an emergency stop, which left his Ferrari on a marginal fuel strategy in the Dane’s final stint. His 499P was down to just 2% of its energy when he…

The Formula 1 Exhibition, an official show which has proven popular with fans around the world, is coming to T London for the first time next month. The exhibition will open its doors on August 23 at ExCel in the capital’s Docklands, following its visits to Madrid, Vienna and Toronto in the past year. The London show will be themed around a homage to the British Grand Prix through a collaboration with the Silverstone Museum. Among the features will be simulators for visitors to try, an archive exhibit of unseen photographs, films, artefacts and interviews, and a design lab dedicated to technical advances in F1. The charred remains of Romain Grosjean’s Haas VF-20 from his famously fiery 2020 crash in the Bahrain GP will be on show, while an immersive cinematic…

Romain Dumas scored his fifth Pikes Peak victory, despite a technical hitch that forced a mid-race re-set of his Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck EV. The double Le Mans winner pulled up to a dead stop soon after the start, losing 26sec, but then resumed to reach the summit of the 12.42-mile, 156-turn mountain climb in 8min 53.553sec. “Everything about this event is a challenge because it is unlike any other form of racing – you only have one shot,” said Dumas. “We faced a challenge early on but that only gave me more determination to make up the lost time.” World Rally Championship ace Dani Sordo made his Pikes Peak debut, finishing third in Hyundai’s new Bryan Herta-run Ioniq 5 N TA Spec EV. Four-time winner and British expat Robin Shute…

“We’ve missed this feeling – there’s a buzz” As we get over the first third of the 2024 F1 season I think it’s fair to conclude that the chasing pack has started to make inroads into the Red Bull advantage. At the start of the season Max Verstappen was able to rattle off the pole positions with ease. At the opening three weekends he had a gap of about three tenths over the best non-Red Bull with the gap in China growing up to half a second. Since Miami, however, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have all started showing better form and Max wasn’t on pole for three races in a row after sneaking ahead by just eight hundredths in Imola. This trend is perhaps better illustrated in the way that…

This is more of an amuse-bouche report prior to the proper review I’ll write later in the year because I only drove the new, heavily revised Continental GT in prototype form, on a race track, its exterior was disguised and I had to promise not to mention the interior, not that there would have been much to discuss if I had. So what do we know? Well, the car I drove is the replacement for the outgoing 6-litre 12-cylinder Speed model, and uses in its place a 771bhp hybrid 4-litre V8, boosting output by 120bhp. But all the electrical paraphernalia has also added 180kg to its mass, bringing total weight uncomfortably close to 2½ tonnes. But… the electric motor alone supplies more torque than a Porsche 911 Carrera motor can…

There’s a cheerful title for you – the same tone that pervades this fun softback. Bob Evans touched the hem of Formula 1, gaining a brief Lotus drive in 1977 that came to nothing, but bitterness and frustration are completely absent from this memoir. In his introduction Evans says he’d been reading another driver’s memoir which seemed “fairly miserable to me despite the fact that he made world champion and had a distinguished career”. He goes on to say that he just remembers how lucky he was to live this extraordinary life. A refreshing approach that makes you think, “I might enjoy this.” I did, too. Evans did it all the hard way, as one chapter heading says “scratching a living” in garages and accessory shops (can you believe there…

The tension’s almost unbearable as a chilling breeze sweeps down the old Silverstone pitlane. Will it, won’t it? Silence descends for a second, and the atmosphere ratchets up one more notch, before being brutally shattered: an 800bhp turbo beast roars into life. The machine in front of us is the Toleman TG183B – Ayrton Senna’s first grand prix car. We’re here to see it run today, as Sky F1 shoots a tribute film signifying 30 years since the F1 legend’s death to air over the Emilia-Romagna race weekend. It’s a precursor to the car joining a bumper Senna demonstration at this summer’s Silverstone Festival. Fears allayed that the 1980s monster might not stir, the man sourced to get behind the wheel is nothing less than a bona fide Senna fanatic…

When Jonathan Palmer careered into the barriers at Spa’s Pouhon corner at the beginning of September 1985, it left the Richard Lloyd Racing team with a problem. Given the bespoke nature of its ‘106B’ 956 it couldn’t simply order a new tub from Porsche like its privateer rivals, and that meant RLR missed the Brands Hatch 1000Kms on September 22. Most team personnel agree the honeycomb tub was disposed of to a local Northamptonshire scrap metal merchant. A replacement tub was built up by Bob Sparshott and the new ‘106B2’ appeared at Fuji for the 1000Kms race in October, but the race weekend was hit by terrible rainstorms, and Lloyd withdrew its precious new car from the race like the rest of the European entrants. As it didn’t travel to…

● Aha!! Known to millions as Alan Partridge, British actor STEVE COOGAN is also a car nut. His 1964 ALFA ROMEO GIULIA SPIDER, inset right, owned since 2017, is one of just 70 surviving RHD Spiders left – not our words, but those of DYLAN MILES in Tunbridge Wells, where the car is on sale. It has had a recent nuts and bolts restoration. Price: £89,995. And on that bombshell… ● In a move that would exasperate Mr Partridge, after almost 70 years ALFA ROMEO is having to ditch its OFF-CENTRE REG PLATES because the tradition clashes with new EU SAFETY RULES. It’s said that side-mounted plates are more of a danger to pedestrians than central. The skewwhiff positioning dates back to the 1955 Giulietta Spider. ● GRANGE MOTORS is…

2006 AUDI RS4 B7 AVANT SOLD BY COLLECTING CARS, £11,350 Whoever bought this will have discovered that practical cars don’t have to be boring. With a 4.2-litre 414bhp V8 engine and four-wheel drive, there are few supercars that could beat this wagon back from the supermarket – or sound as good. Finished in the desirable Sprint Blue it had covered 102,000 miles, throughout which it had been well maintained and lightly modified with Bilstein suspension and a Forge Motorsport oil cooler. The price doesn’t seem much for what is a true driving machine – one that was (justifiably) judged World Performance Car in the 2007 World Car Awards. 2014 LOTUS C-01 SOLD BY RM SOTHEBY’S, £178,260 The C-01 superbike looked futuristic when it was launched 10 years ago – and…