Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i Motor Sport Magazine

PAUL RICARD, SEPTEMBER 5-7 Following three days of testing, it was time for more Peter Auto action, racing four cars with John Emberson: Morgan SLR; Chevron B26 Chocolate Drop (second place and fastest lap); Chevron B19 (won our class and fastest lap); and Corvette C6.R GT2. I love Ricard. It was where Ronnie Peterson got his first grand prix win – 1973 French GP – so it’s always special going down there. GOODWOOD REVIVAL, SEPTEMBER 12-14 It never disappoints, does it? This time I was with John Spiers and his Shelby Cobra in the Stirling Moss Trophy. We were delighted to finish fourth – and it was funny for me that in fifth was six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon. I’ve been a fan of his for many years. CREMONA, SEPTEMBER…

The fundamental philosophy or platform for an Indycar was established in 1979 with the John Barnard-designed Chaparral 2K – in many ways a Lotus 79 clone, strengthened for the high speeds and crashes that are a product of oval racing. Al Unser proved the 2K’s promise and won the last race of the ’79 CART season but left in a fit of pique at the end of the year because he believed Chaparral supremo Jim Hall tried to take credit for the car that Barnard deserved. Johnny Rutherford stepped in and drove the 2K to victory in the 1980 Indianapolis 500 and walked the CART championship. The modern IndyCar Series’ desperate need for a new chassis to replace the 2012-vintage Dallara still in use was documented a couple months ago…

6000 MILES TO CARACAS OCTOBER 2005 I magine a parallel 1950s where Juan Manuel Fangio never travelled to Europe and instead turned his back on motor racing to focus on his garage business in Balcarce. That might have been reality, as Tony Watson relates in the tale of Fangio’s part in an epic South American race that left him traumatised and mourning the loss of a dear friend. The race was the 1948 Gran Premio de la América del Sur, a 14-leg marathon over 20 days that started in Buenos Aires, passing through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, and finished on the Caribbean shores of Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas. Fangio and his friend Daniel Urrutia were among the favourites for victory in a 1939 Chevrolet. But their bid for…

Though the why and the how were hard to fathom, the where and the when were easily pinpointed: Geneva University’s auditorium in 1983. For it was after only a fortnight’s studying that the ‘what’ became clear to him – if to few others: Alain Menu wanted to be a racing driver, not a vet. No matter that Switzerland had forbade circuit racing since 1955, or that his hard-working farming family had neither interest nor connections in motor sport. “I remember sitting there thinking, ‘What are you doing here?’” says the two-time BTCC champion, who today swaps paint in the decorating business. “There is more competition in that field! Motor racing was easier. OK, not for the first seven or eight years of my career perhaps. “I was worried – about…

Claire Williams, who was born in the hot and arid summer of 1976 in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire, has faced both advantage and disadvantage throughout her professional life. The obvious advantage in the world of Formula 1 is her parentage – and the inexorable disadvantage is her gender, for, even now and certainly in the 2000s, when she was cutting her F1 teeth, making career progress was harder for women than it was for men, and significantly so. We will come to that later. First, I ask her about that parentage, and the childhood it served up for her. “We don’t get to choose what world we’re born into, do we?” she begins, smiling broadly. “And I was born into a world where F1 became…

● It isn’t every day that a Formula 1 world champion’s car comes onto the market – especially one for less than six figures. This 2007 FERRARI 599 GTB FIORANO, inset, right, was once owned by JENSON BUTTON and is on sale for £79,950 at SPECIALIZED VEHICLE SOLUTIONS in Worsley. “Right now, these are the best-value supercars on the planet,” says MD Paul Coombes. ● RENAULT has opened its first UK RNLT CONCEPT STORE at London’s Battersea Power Station. Not so much a showroom – although you can check out the new 4 and 5 here – this is more an urban immersive experience. Think: branded clothing, skateboards, table football and scale models. Find it on Electric Boulevard. ● Built in 2008 using a donor vehicle for use by Henry…

1951 JAGUAR XK120 SOLD BY BONHAMS, £316,250 This XK120 was bought new by Lancashire cobbler Robert Lawrie whose special boot design led to him becoming the official supplier to the 1953 Everest expedition, the team that accompanied Sir Vivian Fuchs across Antarctica in ’56 and even to the Royal Marines. Lawrie used some of his considerable wealth to compete at Le Mans in 1949 as a total rookie behind the wheel of an Aston Martin. He took part the following year in a Riley, and again in 1951 when he and Ivan Waller drove this XK120 to 11th overall. It was the best Le Mans result ever achieved by the model. 1912 MERCER TYPE 35-C RACEABOUT SOLD BY GOODING CHRISTIE’S, £1M This 113-year-old survivor was discovered in a sorry state…

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown is on the stand at the £15.5m court case between his team and four-time IndyCar champion Álex Palou, seen with hand pensively on chin while Motor Sport’s journalists Dominic Tobin and James Elson can be seen at the bottom right of the scene. The claim is that Palou’s decision to stay at Chip Ganassi in 2024 and renege on his McLaren contract cost the team millions in lost revenue but the Spanish driver believes the figures are inflated. Palou then won the 2024 and 2025 IndyCar titles as well as this year’s Indianapolis 500. The case continues and could have consequences for driver contracts in the future. You can follow the case on our website as it unfolds.…

What’s the whole S thing? Think of S as Aston Martin’s equivalent of BMW’s M. It simply stands for ‘Sport’ and is used to signify a spicier and pricier version. It does have true sporting connotations though, having first been used on the DB3S racing car of 1953 which Peter Collins and co used to finish 1-2 in the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod that year and paved the way for the Le Mans-winning DBR1. This is the latest model to receive the treatment, following the Vantage and DBX SUV. Which makes this car quite special then… Yes, it’s is perhaps the ultimate version of Aston’s signature DB12 production car. Sure, the firm has halo models like the Valkyrie, but those are far from ‘production’ cars. The DB12 arrived in 2023…

Deep-dive volumes on specific chassis of a renowned and successful racing model have become a Porter Press signature. But this one is a little different thanks to its large ‘art-style’ format perhaps best described as ‘Cinerama’. Dimensions of 295mm x 400mm equates to the book equivalent of widescreen. Not suitable for bedtime reading, then – you really need a table rather than your knees upon which to rest it. On the plus side, such breadth on decent paper enhances the expansive qualities of the 260-plus photographs, particularly the evocative black and white archive stuff from Le Mans. This really is a lovely thing. The subject, as the subtitle suggests (The Only Ferrari to Have Won Le Mans Twice), is a very special Ferrari. Chassis 0816 was the last of four…

SICILY SEASON December 1955 Jenks is at the Targa Florio: “A blazing sun and Fangio passing in a 300 SLR. Who wouldn’t be happy?” Editor Bod is having less fun on the Brighton Run in a 1904 Tony Huber. “At Croydon we came across top-hatted hooligans in an Alvis and received squirts from a water pistol.” HILL’S SKILLS December 1968 We offer Graham Hill muted congratulations for his F1 world title: “He has won the honour by the superiority of British engineering technique in the form of the Lotus car.” At the other end of the scale is the Reliant Rebel, of which we note, “It is about the lowest form of motoring life.” ETHICS CHECK December 1997 In response to Michael Schumacher’s ramming of F1 title rival Jacques Villeneuve,…

1. DAVID LAZENBY Chief mechanic/crew chief. Ex-RAF. Worked on Elite’s production line. Thence to Lotus Components. Indy chief mechanic from 1964-66. Founded Hawke, of (mainly) Formula Ford fame, in 1969. 2. GRAHAM CLODE Mechanic. Joined Formula 1 squad in 1964. Swiftly seconded onto Indy programme. Principal task in 1965 was to oversee team’s number two car, driven by NASCAR’s Bobby Johns. 3. PETER JACKSON Upholsterer by trade, his burgeoning Specialised Mouldings company was transforming the sport via its expertise of glass-fibre. Attended Indy as an enthusiast – but got (willingly) roped-in. 4. BILL McCRARY The suited character is something of a mystery – even the man next to him, Bob Sparshott, draws a blank. However we think it is Bill McCrary, an Indianapolis resident and head of the Firestone Racing…

The delicate equilibrium at McLaren as the team endeavours to give Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris fair shots at the world title is coming under increasing tension from Max Verstappen’s rampaging run of form in the updated Red Bull. The situation became only more pressured in the opening seconds of the Singapore race when Norris bounced off the back of Verstappen’s car and made contact with Piastri into Turn 3. Both McLarens continued but Piastri was deeply unimpressed and, having pulled aside for Norris under team instruction at Monza after the latter’s pitstop went wrong, clearly felt the team should intervene in a similar manner here. “Are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way? What’s the go to there?” The McLaren pitwall declined to change the…

There were a lot of Finns around in 1985 – including Timo Salonen, here in a 205 T16 in the health-and-safety-lite Portuguese Rally In 1985, the world of rallying unexpectedly collided with that of… indie rock. Having been formed a year earlier (and splitting up, for the first time, only a year later) Half Man Half Biscuit’s Nigel Blackwell wrote Architecture, Morality, Ted and Alice, which would eventually appear on The Trumpton Riots EP (1986). The solemn opening line of this song went: “The wonderful dexterity of Hannu Mikkola/Makes me want to shake hands with the whole of Finland”. A sentiment whose simple truth was surpassed only by the following lyric that snarled: “But the nauseating bashfulness of early Diana/Makes me want to set fire to commemorative tea towels”! Hannu…

Plenty of luxury watch brands have sought to attract wealthy riders from the two-wheeled world by making motorcycle-inspired timepieces. During the early 2000s the now dormant JeanRichard collaborated with MV Agusta while Jaeger-LeCoultre had a single-year partnership with the seven-time MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi. More recently Baume & Mercier got together with Indian, Bulgari signed an ongoing deal with Ducati (previously linked with Tudor) and Breitling stepped aside from Norton to jump into bed with Triumph. But never has a motorcycle manufacturer put a machine into series production that was designed from the ground up to reflect the engineering aesthetic of a specific watchmaker. That changes with the launch of the RMB01, a £210,000, track-only superbike designed and produced by Brough Superior in collaboration with Richard Mille, maker of…

Chronographs are inextricably linked with motor sport these days, but five years after Louis Moinet invented the function in 1816, Louis XVIII’s watchmaker Nicolas Rieussec developed a contraption that enabled his highness to time his favourite racehorses. Housed in a mahogany box, the device featured two rotating paper discs and an ink dropper that marked them in order to record elapsed time down to the nearest second. Since ‘chronograph’ is a contraction of two Greek words meaning ‘time’ and ‘write’, Rieussec’s creation was certainly worthy of the name – and now the Brooklands Watch Company has brought the story full circle with the launch of The Golden Miller, an equine-inspired chronograph for the wrist. Brooklands made the watch at the request of the historic Jockey Club which wanted to celebrate…

For all that there’s been plenty of chat about how much Red Bull’s improved form has come about in the wake of the team listening more to Max Verstappen, there’s another more physical reason behind the competitive upturn, one which has been the subject of some secrecy. Asked post-Singapore on his Viaplay channel if there was any specific change responsible for the improvement from Zandvoort onwards, Verstappen gave a smiling reply of, “Yes. But nobody needs to know that,” before going on to reassure the interviewer, “That’s fine. It doesn’t matter because I’m not going to say anything. The important thing is that we perform better.” What is it? Well, Red Bull – and Mercedes – has been very hard at work reintroducing the extensive front wing flex which was…

For a small nation with precious few circuits, Denmark has produced some great racing drivers, notably ‘Mr Le Mans’ himself Tom Kristensen. As for Formula 1, Tom Belsø was the first of his countrymen to compete in the world championship when he drove for Frank Williams at Kyalami in 1974. One of Denmark’s best-known tracks, Roskilde Ring briefly played its part on the world stage and is fondly remembered by more senior fans. In 1953 local businessman Paul Tholstrup acquired a disused gravel pit in Roskilde, a city just 20 miles from Copenhagen on the island of Zealand. Here he created Denmark’s first permanent circuit, which opened in the summer of 1955. The original layout was less than half a mile and was later extended to almost one mile with…

Remember when life on the road was one of simple pleasures? Of naturally aspirated engines, manual transmissions and cars that felt under no obligation to scold you if you broke a speed limit by 1mph or dared avert your gaze from the road for a fraction of a second to turn up the volume on the radio? To the common-or-garden tester of modern cars, such days feel as distant as they do enchanted. And it’s getting worse. Microphone-equipped cameras are now popping up measuring your exhaust noise, and if it’s any louder than its certification documents say it should be, you’re going to get billed. Someone told me at the Bicester Scramble that they’d been pinged for not turning off their engine at some traffic lights… And it is indicative…

Just like this season’s Formula 1, 60 years ago, in 1965, we saw the swansong of a set of technical regulations, due to be replaced at season’s end. In that case it spelt curtains for the five-year-old 1½-litre F1, to be replaced for 1966 by what was billed as ‘The Return of Power’ 3-litre category. Through that season, Team Lotus performed just brilliantly. Then still Cheshunt-based, they ran their F1, F2, touring car and even Indy programmes to the accompaniment of so much memorable music. Through February The Righteous Brothers had bewailed the fact you’d lost that lovin’ feelin’, while The Beatles had a ticket to ride and The Kinks were tired of waiting. But while such ’65 chart-topping music has survived the test of time, so too have a…

If these two could talk… Most classic cars have a brilliant tale or two to go with them, but the provenance of the duo sat glinting under a silver-grey sky in the Essex countryside would be matched by very, very few. We’re gazing in awe at two Porsches 356s with histories like no other. These beautifully restored Stuttgart machines once belonged respectively to Jim Clark, arguably the greatest racing driver of all time, and Denis Jenkinson, arguably the greatest motor sport journalist of all time. The pair rubbed shoulders regularly as they traversed Europe in the late 1950s during racing’s golden era, Clark taking his early steps on the international scene and ‘Jenks’ being there to report on it in his own inimitable style as Motor Sport’s continental correspondent. On…

Marc Márquez has all the skills required to be an all-time great motorcycle racer, like armies have arsenals of different weapons to unleash in battle. There are a few particular riding skills that separate Marc from the rest: his killer speed in left-handers and his mastery of the front tyre, which allow him to find speed where others can’t. He developed important elements of these skills doing dirt track, because dirt ovals offer so little grip that you can skid the front tyre as easily as you can slide the rear, and because the ovals run anticlockwise. Dirt track originated in the US, which is why most asphalt race tracks in the States – Circuit of the Americas, Laguna Seca, Indianapolis, Daytona and so on – also run anticlockwise. Which…

Well, who’s going to beat you?” was Stirling Moss’s disarming retort when he was asked about the Lister Knobbly’s competitiveness after his decisive victory at Silverstone in the sports car support race before the 1958 British GP. Designed by racing driver and engineer Brian Lister and built at his father’s engineering firm in Cambridge, the ‘Knobbly’ (so called because of its curvaceous bodywork) saw-off competition from the wealthy factory teams of Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar, winning no fewer than 11 of the 14 races it entered during the first year of its production. Powered by either a 3.8-litre Jaguar D-type engine or a Chevrolet V8 cradled in a lightweight, tubular chassis and wrapped in magnesium bodywork, the 180mph Knobbly was a true giant-killer that thrilled the crowds at circuits including…

Exactly two years ago we previewed the Bonhams sale of a Mercedes-Benz 190 E 2.3-16 that Niki Lauda drove to second place in the 1984 Nürburgring Race of Champions organised by the marque to celebrate the opening of the Strecke circuit. The grid was made up of 20 of the world’s top drivers, nine of whom were already Formula 1 world champions and two of whom (Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna) were to go on to claim the title. Never before or since have so many F1 champs taken to the track together, and each one was given a 190 E 2.3-16, the new, high-performance saloon that Mercedes unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September of the previous year. In the event, Senna stormed to a controversial win after…