Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i Motor Sport Magazine

The best part of the summer holidays is getting to grips with the various books I have not had time to read in the previous six months, and this year I alighted on the engaging and witty new book from Bernie Collins, the former race strategist at Aston Martin and subsequently a Sky F1 analyst. In a nod to Adrian Newey’s peerless book How to Build a Car, it is titled How to Win a Grand Prix and it proved a convivial companion to the olives and rosé of France in August. Full disclosure, the book was written with the aid of Maurice Hamilton, our esteemed contributor and author of our wonderful Flashback… series, which you can read on p49 of this month’s magazine. Maurice, like Bernie, hails from Northern…

The apparent battle between supercar manufacturers to make the maddest, baddest, most impractical speedster imaginable already feels as though it happened in a different century. But it was only in 2018 that Ferrari kicked-off the trend for such cars with the Monza SP1 ahead of the SP2 the following year, both street-legal roadsters inspired by historic racers such as the 750 Monza, 250 Testa Rossa and 166MM. McLaren, which rather wonderfully partnered with Mercedes-Benz to produce 75 fully open Stirling Moss SLRs in 2009, followed with its Elva of 2019, leaving Aston Martin to enter the fray in 2021 with its own offering, the V12 Speedster. Aston already had form with this style of car, having produced the CC100 Speedster to mark its centenary in 2013, but just two of those…

It’s been a busy month. But in between the usual bouts of frenzied research and writing, a day spent haring around Goodwood in assorted Caterham Sevens with the company’s chief instructor Alex Read and his team provided wonderful escape… After blazing around the familiar old circuit with my little remaining hair on fire, being urged by the team’s demonstrably nerveless young experts “Aim straight at the middle board! Max brakes! Off! Turn in now! Power!!!”, I wanted to watch a true pro at work. The engaging BTCC driver Jake Hill – a genuine racing-cars-of-all-ages fan – was with us and I asked him to take me round. After a battle to insinuate my unfoldable body through the rollcage and down into a lightweight 360hp-per-ton 2-litre Caterham 360R SV, Jake asked…

There was something symbolic about Lando Norris’s resounding victory over Max Verstappen at the latter’s home ground of Zandvoort. The McLaren driver delivered the sort of crushing performance which has always looked within him but which for various reasons had eluded him and in so doing brought Verstappen’s 100% record here to an end as the modern version of the classic track hosted the event for the fourth time. The McLaren was comfortably the fastest car around the sort of long, interconnected corners which so suit it, just as it had been at the Hungaroring. But this time the advantage was exaggerated by: 1) Red Bull making a couple of key component choices – an oldspec floor and a barn-door full-downforce rear wing – which backfired; 2) the McLaren was…

In the event there was very little strategic variation around Zandvoort. The expectation before the race was that it would be delicately poised between a one and a two-stop as to which was the quickest. It standardised around a one-stop with only Mercedes being the outliers in going for two. But before the race Aston Martin’s performance director Tom McCullough outlined the variables facing the strategists. “We don’t have as much historical data here as a lot of circuits. We’ve not been coming here that long and it’s amazing how much we use historical data. When you don’t have it, it just pushes your current understanding, simulations and models even harder. When you have a weekend like this where it’s wet, dry, wet, dry, this is a race we’re coming…

This might be the most-late review of an important new car that I’ve ever written. And there is perhaps something to be learned in that. This new ultra-high-performance estate with its saloon sibling was announced in September 2022, with the international press launch taking place before the end of that year. But it is only now that cars have started to find their way onto Mercedes’ UK press fleet. And after the slew of not-exactly glowing reports from the original press drive, I can’t say I blame Mercedes for not wanting to rush it out to the rest of the media who’d not yet had the opportunity to drive it. It was always going to be a hard sell. Mercedes could talk all it liked about the car’s vast new…

Over the British Grand Prix weekend the 10 Formula 1 teams working away in the Silverstone pitlane were joined by a fictional 11th outfit as filming for the upcoming Brad Pitt movie continued. The presence of a complete pit garage with two cars and a full hospitality unit in the paddock provided a little Hollywood taster of what F1 could look like should a genuine 11th team, also with a US flavour, finally be admitted. As the world focused on the British GP just a few hundred metres away on the other side of the Dadford Road the Andretti Cadillac outfit’s design team continued to work flat out on the basis that the team will ultimately find a way onto the 2026 grid. Andretti has operated a design base in…

You’ve heard the words of caution. Audi, in advance of its Formula 1 arrival in 2026, is already speaking in hushed tones about needing a couple of seasons to gain a footing, never mind step onto the podium. Andretti Autosport, should it ever make it through the paddock gates, sees the subject of winning as a matter for future discussion. The suggestion of victory first time out is for uninformed optimists. And yet… In 1977, and as comparatively recently as 2009, Wolf and Brawn turned up and savoured their respective national anthems before the debut weekends were over. Jordan came close to winning the Belgian GP in 1991 – its 11th race – only to be let down by an engine failure. Wolf and Jordan used Ford Cosworth V8s produced…

In December 2015 at London’s Shard, soon-to-be Jaguar team principal James Barclay spoke amid a throng of media on a return to international motor sport. The ‘Big Cat’, which was the first pukka manufacturer to sign up to Formula E, ticked off milestones such as first points (at Mexico City in 2017), first pole (Zürich in 2018), podium (Hong Kong, 2018) and win (at Rome, 2019). But a title had been elusive as it entered 2024. Then, on the cusp of last season, it lost one of its key personnel in Phil Charles, a formative figure in building Jaguar’s technical team. He went to rivals DS Penske to work with former Toro Rosso charge Jean-Éric Vergne. It was a testament to the strength of what Jaguar has built at its new HQ in…

Go to Parting Shot (p152) and you’ll see a 1969 photograph of Bruce McLaren posing in his prototype M6GT ‘runaround’ outside a Home Counties Dairy shop in East Horsley, Surrey. Today this purveyor of milk, loaves and detergent is Henshaws — an estate agent. In 2016 McLaren Automotive had a crack at recreating the scene with a modern twist. Amanda McLaren stepped in for her father. The car is a 570GT; the M6GT now resides in a private car collection in Chicago.…

I’m not sure I can remember an important new product from a major car manufacturer receiving a bigger kicking than did the new Ford Capri at its global unveiling at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. And yet what we were looking at was no more or less than another electrically powered crossover SUV, unremarkable both on paper and in appearance. The problem, of course, lay not with the car, but its name. Maybe the barrage of negative comments came only from punters old enough to remember the original Capri, and as the last of those was made 38 years ago, that’s not as big a number as some might think. It’s worth pointing out too that the negative reception I saw came in the main in comments sections and social…

Williams suffered a double nightmare at Zandvoort, with Logan Sargeant’s big accident on Saturday morning destroying the newly updated FW46 followed by Alex Albon being excluded from qualifying, losing his excellent eighth-place grid slot and being obliged to start from the back. The exclusion was for the car’s new floor being found to be 0.3mm oversize at the front. Team principal James Vowles explained afterwards what had happened. “We use scanning techniques now rather than physical measuring techniques because it’s not just one point that you have to be aware of, but it’s heights and widths all across some quite complex shapes. “Before we come here, we have scanned the floor and the car multiple times. It happened back at the factory in isolation with the floor, it happened back at…

GOOD ▴ GREEN GRASS Christian Horner’s Red Bull heir apparent Jonathan Wheatley will jump to Audi as team principal next year. Impressive he managed 18 years in Milton Keynes to be honest. ▴ MERCURIAL FORCE After looking hopeless for two years, Mercedes is a regular winner again. Can it now sneak up on the Red Bull/McLaren fight? ▴ STAID STAND-OFF F1’s most protracted contract saga ever finally ended when Carlos Sainz signed for Williams, F1’s ninth-best team. What will we write about now?! ▴ FULL FLAVIO It appears arch deal-maker Flavio Briatore is ringing the changes at Alpine, with new team boss Oliver Oakes pulled in and the Viry engine department about to be jettisoned. Like he’s never been away… ▴ UNBIASED APPROACH McLaren’s drivers admitted its current team orders…

To say the current generation of VW Golf is doing less well than that which preceded it is putting it mildly. Ten years ago VW was selling a million Golfs a year; last year that figure was 300,000. Sure, people now prefer crossover SUVs and the market was still recovering from Covid, but so too is it undeniable that the eighth-gen Golf simply wasn’t as good as the seventh. And that’s what this, the substantially revised version of that eighth-gen car, is here to fix. Crucially its infotainment system no longer makes you want to drive the car off a cliff. It’s not slow, it doesn’t freeze and you can summon up the air conditioning menu at a single, albeit well-aimed, stab at the screen. It remains a far cry…

Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium, September 25-29 Late September and it’s the first flush of autumn. The nights are drawing in, leaves are turning russet shades, Blackpool’s Illuminations have been switched on and… is that a Christmas ad on the radio? Before the nip properly sets in, grab your gilet and sally forth to the Ardennes Forest for the Spa Six Hours – one of the finest gatherings of historic racing machinery on the planet amid the famous, dare we say ‘iconic’, yellow and red curbs of Spa-Francorchamps. Its categories are typically mouthwatering: F1 Cars 1966-1985; Pre-66 Touring Cars; F2 and F3 Classic Interseries; GT Trophy; Sports Car Legends… oof! There will be several hundred post-war competition cars in attendance, all thundering around the undulating four-and-a-half mile circuit. Wednesday is open practice, allowing…

I was delighted to read of Jenks’s public-road jolly in the Lotus 12 [The time we drove a racing car on public roads, June 2024]. It reminded me of a tale told to me by Derek Rutherford who was interviewed by Bill Boddy many years ago. (See From Ards to Le Mans, July 1988.) John Hindmarsh, who won the 1935 Le Mans for Lagonda, was bored with his family by Boxing Day so telephoned Derek (also bored). They went to the Lagonda works and took the Le Mans team car for a thrash round the countryside. They crashed it into a hedge and had to tow it back to the works and spent half the night repairing and covering up the damage. Nobody found out. I don’t know if this was…

The back straight is quite short, but we’re already running out of revs in top gear. The 100-year-old car is now in a proper hurtle, engine bellowing, tyres singing their approval; by contrast I’m running down my checklist of which pedals and levers to press and pull, in which order and at which exact time required for this not-all-about-to-go-horribly, embarrassingly, expensively and reputation-ruiningly wrong. The entry to the corner ahead is clearly visible but not easy: you need to slow, downshift, turn in and turn some more to accommodate its deceptively tightening radius. The car is priceless, one of two in existence, the men who have spent the last two years restoring it are all watching and you really, really do not want to mess this up. It’s strange that…

BUYING, SELLING, AUCTIONS, MEMORABILIA Ferrari caused quite a stir with the launch of its FF grand tourer in 2011. While it might have been the marque’s first factory-built car in the ‘estate’ format, it certainly wasn’t the first such prancing horse to hit the road. Way back in 1967 American importer Luigi Chinetti commissioned coachbuilder Vignale to create a shooting brake body for a 330 GT, a car that subsequently ended up in the renowned Petersen Automotive Museum before being briefly owned by Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay. In 1972, Chinetti also commissioned the conversion of a 365 GTB/4 Daytona into a high-speed station wagon on behalf of Florida real-estate mogul Bob Gittleman, tasking British firm Panther Westwinds with fabricating the one-off bodywork. Panther was the Surrey-based builder of niche, retro-styled…

The celebration of Ayrton Senna was a predictable highlight of Silverstone Festival, as the annual historic racing get-together gathered what has to be among the most definitive collection of cars associated with the great Brazilian driver ever seen in one place. The accumulation of Ayrton-related machinery at Silverstone capped a year of marking not only the 30th anniversary of the three-time world champion’s death, but also the 40th anniversary of his Formula 1 debut with Toleman in 1984. Three Tolemans that Senna drove were in the display, including the TG183B he tested for the first time at Silverstone in autumn 1983. His first grand prix winner, the Lotus 97T in which he splashed to victory at Estoril in 1985, and six of the Marlboro-sponsored McLarens that came to define his…

The dominant victory that Lando Norris secured in Zandvoort has meant that we have some great stories to follow as we head into the second half of the F1 season. The main narrative I’m looking forward to following is whether Red Bull and Max can fight back after a recent run of form which has seen it slip behind McLaren but also occasionally Mercedes. We would never have put money on this at the start of the season and the impressive run that McLaren has had cannot be underestimated. With Rob Marshall joining them from Red Bull at the start of the season, there would have been a wealth of knowledge carried over from Milton Keynes to bolster the impressive work being done by Peter Prodromou and the design team.…

The most fun I’ve ever had driving an electric car was not in the 939bhp Porsche Taycan Turbo S referred to in my column in this issue, but a couple of years back in a Mini boasting just 181bhp. I had a hoot bombing about in that thing. The only drawback was its official range was just 140 miles, and if you drove it like it wanted to be driven, you could near enough cut that in half. Not very practical. So there’s now a new Mini available with both petrol and EV powertrains, but in the latter case if you choose the Cooper SE (where E stands for electric) that range has ballooned up to 244 miles, which is very welcome indeed. It’s also on sale for a modest…

When Jim Hall came to Goodwood he was surprised how much people knew about him and his racing cars. In one way his surprise is understandable: numerically, Chaparral victories don’t approach Porsche, Ferrari or Lotus. But look at what their progenitor brought to racing, driven by his view that “there’s always a better way”: adjustable net downforce, composite chassis, side radiators, onboard telemetry. Yes, others were arriving at these solutions, but Hall, and his fellow kingpin Hap Sharp, worked them out and worked them in with a unique vision of progress. But as Hall admits in this first official biography, maybe he should have worried more about winning than inventing… We’re lucky that Hall is still around to download his life to George Levy for this gives us the background…

A decade ago this month, Formula E was gearing up for its first race in Beijing. Following testing in the summer of 2014 there were serious concerns after mocked-up races had turned to farce at Donington ahead of the big day. Would the cars leave the grid? Could they all finish the race? And even, would they fry their drivers? At best there was scepticism. At worst a kind of hysterical derision of cars that made little noise and were slower than F3 cars. But they did get off the grid, they finished the race (mostly… Nick Heidfeld was pushing for the lead when he crashed on the final corner) and no drivers were fried in the process. It wasn’t exactly a glittering triumph but it proved that all-electric racing…

1986 FORD SIERRA RS COSWORTH SOLD BY BONHAMS, £165,833 Not only was this billed as “the most original surviving Group A Sierra RS Cosworth”, it was driven as a factory entry in the 1988 WRC by none other than Stig Blomqvist. The legendary Swede pedalled this car around the Rallye de Portugal and Italian Rally 1000 Miglia. It was subsequently raced by Dutch star Erwin Doctor in 1989, after when it appears to have entered a time-warp, retaining all its special factory parts, including original window stickers and even a tax disc from 1990. UK road registered, it also featured a Luisi steering wheel engraved with Blomqvist’s name. JIM CLARK FINE ART PRINT SOLD BY HAMPSON AUCTIONS, £575 This life-like image was a fine art print taken from a superb…

ALL PRODUCTS AVAILABLE AT MOTORSPORTMAGAZINE.COM/SHOP STIRLING MOSS SIGNED PRINTS One of the most versatile drivers in history, Sir Stirling Moss left a legacy few will ever match. Although his competition career was cut short, curtailed by his Glover Trophy crash at Goodwood in 1962, Moss racked up a string of enviable accolades including 16 grand prix wins and that historic 1955 Mille Miglia triumph alongside this title’s Denis Jenkinson. Since his death in 2020, Moss collectibles have risen in demand, and this selection of signed prints may be one of the final-ever releases. You can choose from Moss in action (or in the pits, above) aboard Rob Walker’s stunning Ferrari 250 GT SWB at Goodwood, speeding past a Monaco café aboard a Lotus 18, left, or wrangling Mercedes-Benz No722 around…