AUTOSPORTの November 2025 の目次

You could make a case arguing that Charles Leclerc is the fastest driver in Formula 1. Max Verstappen fans will now doubtless be reaching for their pens/keyboards/smart phones so, to save us all some time and effort, let’s just say that Leclerc is one of two drivers on the current grid who could perhaps beat the Dutchman in the same car, at least over one lap. Leclerc seems to be committed to staying at Ferrari, but should he? Stuart Codling takes a look at the Monegasque’s situation at the famous Italian team on page 22. We’re not saying he must leave, but he should at least consider other options because he is far too good to have only eight grand prix wins and to not have yet truly fought for…

After a qualifying session that felt like it had lasted longer than every grand prix this season, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix would have to be something special indeed to keep the drama levels simmering. But apart from a burst of intrigue when Oscar Piastri fumbled the start and then smote the wall on the opening lap, the race in Baku panned out remarkably straightforwardly. That suited Max Verstappen’s purposes perfectly, for he had once again made something of a bet in set-up terms. Following the departure of Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing is a more pragmatic and engineering-led team under Laurent Mekies, one less dogmatic about following the outcomes of simulation if the seat of Verstappen’s pants says otherwise. In Monza he had pushed hard for an ultra-low-downforce rear wing,…

Ex-Formula 1 team owner and constructor Enzo Osella has died at the age of 86. Born near Turin, Osella’s route into motorsport emerged through working at his father’s garage, when he was offered the chance to co-drive a rally for a customer. Osella then began to drive himself in rallies and hillclimb events, superseded by a career as test driver for Abarth. He took over Abarth’s racing division when the marque was bought by Fiat, his cars finding success in hillclimbs and endurance events. The initial expansion to single-seaters was not entirely auspicious, but a break-out 1979 F2 campaign with Eddie Cheever led to his eponymous team’s move into F1 in 1980, running a single car for Cheever. Osella scored five points across its 11 years in F1, three of…

They wore matching jumpers. Not, you understand, their official Moto Bianchi attire – unusually, they were team-mates and class rivals on two wheels – but fashionable V-necked Fair Isle sweaters, picked out for their first race together in cars: the Tripoli GP of March 1928. Tazio Nuvolari had purchased four Bugatti Type 35Cs for his new team, keeping two and selling two, one of which Achille Varzi bought. Although Varzi went on to finish third in Tripoli, in only his second race on four wheels – and his first since September 1926 – he was underwhelmed and suspicious. The victorious Nuvolari had gained 13 minutes in 260 miles, passing at will after pitstops. Were some Bugattis more equal than others? After all, it was Nuvolari’s name above the door, and…

VERSTAPPEN IN THE WRC STUART CODLING With due apologies to the legions of gravel fans out there, what the rally world needs right now is a driver with massive talent, commitment and work ethic… but considerably younger than Sebastien Ogier. Let’s face it, the fact that 41-year-old Seb recently took the lead of the 2025 World Rally Championship, despite running a part-time campaign, is a telling indictment. Yes, Kimi Raikkonen didn’t exactly move the dial during his WRC ‘holiday’ in 2010-11. Trundling in towards the back end of the top 10 – or even outside – wasn’t quite what either the Kimster, his fans, or the WRC promoter wanted. But his problem wasn’t want of talent, it was – close your ears, Raikkonen cultists – lack of work ethic and…

While the quest for the Formula 2 title continued to take twists and turns through September at Monza and Baku, the question marks over the composition of the 2026 grid almost matched the on-track stuff for intrigue. The big news is that Colton Herta’s move across the Atlantic from IndyCar to become test driver for the new Cadillac Formula 1 team will also involve him competing in F2 next season. Herta needs superlicence points (see p51), while Cadillac CEO Dan Towriss explained that the Californian also needs to avoid the pitfalls to have hit other IndyCar-turned-F1 drivers. “The entitlement model from the US hasn’t worked out that well in the past, so we really want to build that body of work, the knowledge that’s necessary, to see if he has…

Taylor Barnard’s move to DS Penske for the forthcoming Formula E season has finally been confirmed. The 21-year-old East Anglian will line up alongside amiable Austro-Bavarian Maximilian Guenther after his old team McLaren’s pull-out. Barnard replaces Jean-Eric Vergne, who has moved over to the now Citroen-branded Stellantis line-up alongside fellow big hitter Nick Cassidy. “He [Barnard] has already demonstrated remarkable speed, composure, and racecraft, rewriting the record books and establishing himself as the most successful rookie in FE history,” said DS Penske chief Jay Penske. That’s not the only intrigue in the world of electric racing. Felipe Drugovich, the 2022 Formula 2 champion, joins Jake Dennis at Andretti in place of Nico Muller, who is likely to step up to the factory Porsche line-up. Joel Eriksson, the Swede who ran…

Sportscars back to Silverstone Forty-four cars graced the grid – and a bumper crowd the grandstands and spectator enclosures – at Silverstone in mid-September as international endurance racing returned to British shores after a six-year absence. Oliver Gray leads the way in his VDS Panis ORECA at the start of an eventful four-hour race that stretched through two red flags and heavy rain. Fittingly there was a British winner: Jamie Chadwick shared the triumphant IDEC ORECA with Daniel Juncadella and Mathys Jaubert that took the flag first by a shade under six seconds. The event increases hopes of a World Endurance return… Photography Jakob Ebrey Photography Where Silverstone, Northants, UK When Sunday 14 September 2025…

Ford is going it alone for its entry into the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar division: it is setting up its own team in the UK to field its pair of LMDh racers from 2027. The team will operate out of a new facility in Banbury, at the same time as Ford leverages its deep technical resource base. Name-checked in its statement announcing its strategy in September were facilities in Dearborn, Michigan and Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as Red Bull Ford Powertrains, which is developing the new Ford-badged Formula 1 engine to come on stream next season. “Breaking from the traditional model of many manufacturers – and often our own model in the past – Ford Racing will oversee and manage every aspect of our prototype sportscar racing project,” said…

Sebastien Ogier edged closer to a record-equalling ninth World Rally Championship crown by defeating Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans to claim a fifth victory of the season in Chile. Ogier, contesting a partial season, leapt ahead of Evans to lead the standings by two points despite sitting out three rallies this year. Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais took the full 35 points by claiming the 10 on Super Sunday after coming through an intense head-to head with Evans and Scott Martin to win by 11 seconds. The 41-year-old’s 66th win from 200 starts was also Toyota’s 103rd success, eclipsing Citroen as the manufacturer with the most victories in WRC history. “Many things have come together,” said Ogier. “Vincent is doing a great job, always perfect. The team give me good tools…

Blast off at Santa Pod There was a double dose of spectacular drag racing action at Santa Pod during September as both the European and British championship campaigns drew to a close at the Northamptonshire venue. First up was the European showdown and Finland’s Jere Rantaniemi sealed the spoils for a second season in a row in his Chevrolet Camaro, defeating Estonia’s Andres Arnover in the final. But it was still a successful year for Arnover (pictured on the right here facing up against Michel Tooren in the Euro semi-final) and his turbocharged Ford Mustang as he wrapped up the British spoils a couple of weeks later. He had entered the deciding event with a comfortable points advantage among the Pro Mod machines and concluded the season with another victory…

The British Touring Car Championship’s wins record holder is back in the series for 2026, although it won’t be behind the steering wheel. Two-time champion Jason Plato is instead at the helm of a two-car team, three years after he bowed out of the series with 97 victories to his credit. Plato, who turns 58 as this magazine hits the shelves, was giving no details away about Jason Plato Motorsport when he met with media at the penultimate round of the 2025 series at Silverstone. “I can’t tell you a great deal but I’m now a team owner, and will be on the grid next year with two cars,” he said. “We’re quite a bit down the road. From the floor upwards we will have the best in the business,…

British Touring Car race winner Daryl DeLeon, 2023 GB3 champion Callum Voisin, Porsche Sprint Challenge GB frontrunner Samuel Harvey and Dutch Porsche Cayman racer Joep Breedveld have been selected as the finalists battling to become the next Porsche Carrera Cup GB Junior. The quartet will face a Silverstone shootout next month to determine who will follow in the footsteps of James Wallis and become the next Junior. The chosen one will receive £85,000 towards their budget across each of the next two seasons as well as a wealth of support and opportunities from Porsche. Although DeLeon, 20, has spent the past two and a half seasons racing in the BTCC, he has prior sportscar and Porsche experience. He was a Radical frontrunner in 2023, and also raced the previous generation…

Jenson Brickley has claimed this year’s TCR Europe title, having vaulted from fourth in the points ahead of the Barcelona finale to be crowned in dramatic style. Brickley, who won junior and senior Fiesta titles before switching to TCR machinery, began competing in Europe last year when he was runner-up in TCR Spain as a privateer. “We beat the virtually works-backed SEAT team, Monlau Motorsport, in their own country and then they wanted me to drive for them,” explained Cupra pilot Brickley (below). “It was more relaxed and let me focus on my racing. Last year I had to help mechanic the car and drove the truck to and from the races.” After winning at the Algarve opener, punctures caused a pair of retirements at Spa that threatened to derail…

Two new retro-themed touring car festivals will take place in Britain next year, with north and south editions of Touring Car Rewind being held at Oulton Park and Brands Hatch. Circuit owner MotorSport Vision has teamed up with the Classic Touring Car Racing Club to promote the race meetings on 16 May and 1-2 August 2026. They will build on MSV’s successful Super Touring Power events, staged at Brands for the past three years, while expanding the focus to a broader spectrum of touring car racing. “It’s become more and more apparent that we were swaying towards all touring cars, not just Super Tourers, and we wanted something to reflect that,” explained CTCRC chairman Stuart Caie, who confirmed that the club’s Super Tourers series, for iconic cars from the 1990s,…

UNEXPECTED GLORY IN GB3 AND GB4 Alex Ninovic unexpectedly wrapped up the GB3 crown with a round to spare at Donington Park. The Rodin racer won the first two bouts and, when key rival Patrick Heuzenroeder was involved in a pile-up at the start of race three, Ninovic (12) – runner-up in British Formula 4 last year – sealed the deal. There was an unanticipated outcome in GB4 as well when Elite Motorsport’s Ary Bansal, third in the points heading into the event, walked away with the title after main rivals Isaac Phelps and Dan Guinchard tangled in the opener. MORE RED BULL JUNIOR SUCCESS British Formula 4 and Ginetta Junior have joined the long list of categories that Red Bull Juniors have triumphed in after double success for the…

Monza’s party atmosphere The celebratory spirit of the legion of tifosi packing Monza’s pitstraight may not have reached quite the fever pitch that would have been fired up by a big result at home for their beloved Ferrari, but the sight from the podium greeting Italian Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen, plus Lando Norris (second) and Oscar Piastri (third), as they enjoyed a slug of Moet, was no less impressive. As Verstappen reflected: “It’s super enjoyable to win here.” Race debrief, page eight. Photographer Mario Renzi/2025 Formula One World Championship Limited/Getty Images Where Monza, Italy When Sunday 7 September 2025 Details Nikon Z9, NIKKOR Z 14-24mm lens, 1/5000th @F7.1…

If ever there were a day to prove that crowdsourcing opinions is a waste of time, it was the Sunday of the Singapore Grand Prix, where Fernando Alonso won Formula 1’s increasingly fatuous ‘Driver of the Day’ poll for coming seventh, and the excellence of those who finished first and second was ignored in favour of a torrent of opinion regarding who prevailed in the battle for third place. In part this was because the race was a processional one-stop trudge, as is becoming a trend in the home of F1’s original night race. Time was when you could expect there to be many safety car periods at Marina Bay to disrupt the strategic cosiness: either on the opening lap due to Turn 1 chaos; or around the pitstop window…

Silverstone will host a Formula 1 sprint race for the first time since 2021 as the championship refreshes its roster of shorter races for 2026. The Northamptonshire venue held F1’s inaugural sprint back in 2021, which was won by Max Verstappen, back when these races decided the grid for the Sunday grand prix. While F1’s sprints have been a divisive addition to the weekend format, the series revealed that the 2024 sprint weekends resulted in an average TV viewership increase of 10%, prompting talks to further increase their number. Discussions are ongoing to raise the number from six to around 10 sprints from 2027 onwards. Talks between commercial rightsholder FOM, governing body the FIA and the 11 teams will also include ideas to further refine the format, with F1 CEO…

The 76 is the forgotten Lotus. A car that nestles somewhere between two greats in the pantheon of Team Lotus Formula 1 machinery, the ground-breaking types 72 and 78, doesn’t have a chance of a look-in. Yet if it gets a rum deal in the history books, it was probably also given one by the team over the course of 1974. A chassis that was meant to be a 72 for the modern age was dropped from frontline duty in the middle of the season and quietly forgotten at its end with nothing better than a fourth-placed finish to its name. Lotus opted not to persevere with what was in effect an updated 72, rather the old girl herself. Lotus drivers Ronnie Peterson and Jacky Ickx would continue throughout 1975…

Rain is the great leveller. Without it, Porsche would not have returned to the winner’s circle in the World Endurance Championship at Austin. In the dry, its 963 LMDh was no more than a top-six car, reckoned Kevin Estre. But the triumph for the Frenchman and team-mates Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell over a race that was wet for pretty much its duration had more than a hint of controversy about it. That controversy provided the turning point of the Lone Star Le Mans six-hour race: a coming-together between Estre and Alessandro Pier Guidi aboard the points-leading Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar with an hour and 45 minutes on the clock. Estre moved into the lead as the race went green after the fifth of six safety cars to punctuate…

Porsche will end its factory involvement in the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship at the end of 2025. But the German manufacturer’s 963 LMDh will race on with the Porsche Penske Motorsport works squad in the IMSA SportsCar series next year. The IMSA campaign will be one of two official Porsche motorsport programmes in 2026 along with a continued participation in Formula E. The decision to quit WEC, in which it won the drivers’ title in 2024, announced early in early October was buried in a statement reaffirming its commitment to those two series. “We very much regret that, due to the current circumstances, we will not be continuing our involvement in the WEC after this season,” said Michael Steiner, the board member responsible for motorsport. The only…

Outgoing British Touring Car title holder Jake Hill is off to the world of international sportscar racing for 2026. The 31-year-old is understood to have not yet signed a deal, but stars were sufficiently aligned for a farewell announcement before the Brands Hatch BTCC finale. Not only is Hill relinquishing his seat at the West Surrey Racing BMW team, but he is also parting company with Mark Blundell’s MB management group, which played a large role in providing the commercial back-up to establish him as a BTCC top-liner. Hill is taking advantage of a change in the FIA driver grading scheme – he was the first to take a maiden BTCC title since the governing body stopped giving national tin-top champions a gold grading. His silver status has made him…

GB3 will feature an upgraded car in 2026, with the changes largely well-received among teams as the tweaked machine made its first public appearance ahead of Donington Park’s recent round. A heavily revised engine, as well as chassis and bodywork changes, will be introduced with the aim of improving both performance and reliability after several teams experienced teething troubles with the new Tatuus MSV GB3-025 this season. The alterations coincide with Formula Regional, which sits on the same step of the single-seater ladder, introducing a second-generation car for 2026. “The changes are only going to improve on what we’ve got,” said Hillspeed boss Richard Ollerenshaw. “We’ve probably got the best package that’s available globally for drivers that want to progress to FIA F3.” Hitech’s Phil Blow, meanwhile, was cautiously optimistic:…

Silverstone will host a major historic racing event in 2026, to be called the BRDC Classic. The contract for Nick Wigley’s Goose organisation to promote the Silverstone Festival came to an end after August’s 2025 event and the slot will now be taken by CarFest, which will not include circuit racing. This news led to rumours that there would no longer be a major historic racing extravaganza at the home of the British Grand Prix, but the BRDC Classic will take place on 24-26 July and is on the Motor Racing Legends, Masters Historic Racing and Historic Sports Car Club calendars for 2026. “We’re very excited to announce that, with the Festival becoming CarFest – which we are proud to have and looking forward to developing – we are going…

A new national historic racing championship is being launched by Equipe Classic Racing for next season that will incorporate a variety of pre-1966 GTs and tin-tops. The organiser has previously only operated series but believes the time is right to create a top-tier championship to cater for more ambitious historic racers. The Equipe Historic Championship will feature a multi-class structure with six divisions based upon engine size, and the overall champion can come from any of these. The category will be open to one or two-driver teams and there will be seven hourlong races across the year, at venues including the Silverstone and Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuits. “As the historic world has got more competitive and got bigger, I just felt there was a cohort of people that were…

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1989 ARROWS A11 Derek Warwick describes the Arrows A11 as one of the best three racing cars he drove in his long and illustrious career. The Ross Brawn-designed Formula 1 car for the 1989 season showed promise, but insufficient funds and unreliability hampered Arrows’s season, an engine failure notably denying Warwick a possible victory at the wet Canadian Grand Prix. Chassis 04, which has its original 600+bhp 3.5-litre Cosworth DFR engine, was driven by Eddie Cheever in seven grands prix, with a best finish of fifth in Hungary helping Arrows to seventh in the constructors’ table. The car has been fully restored and its engine overhauled by Nicholson McLaren. 1998 SUBARU IMPREZA WRC98 Rally legend Colin McRae belied his spectacular style to win the gruelling Safari Rally three times. He…

Countdown at Goodwood The front-row trio of Bruce McLaren (Cooper-Oldsmobile T53), Jim Clark (Lotus-Ford 30) and Graham Hill (Ferrari 330P) await the start of the 1964 Tourist Trophy at Goodwood. Clark was first to react to the drop of the Union Jack, but McLaren, fastest in practice and favourite for the victory, was ahead before the first lap was completed. Both suffered mechanical woes – a slipping clutch for McLaren ended his afternoon, while a lengthy front-suspension repair and problems restarting in the pits meant a 12th-place finish for Clark. So it was Hill who took the honours after what Autosport described as “a magnificent and intelligently driven race”. Photography LAT Photographic/Getty Images Where Goodwood, Sussex, UK When Saturday 29 August 1964…

While Max Verstappen’s margin of victory at Monza – a hefty 19.2 seconds over Lando Norris – was perhaps inflated by McLaren’s willingness to go long and hang it out for a safety car, the manner of his win demonstrated his superiority. It felt like this year’s race at Monza was picked straight from Formula 1’s 2023 highlights reel, where the weekly exhibitions of dominance from Verstappen only scarcely deviated off-script. That season, even when Verstappen looked like he might be under threat at the start of a race, the subsequent phases were always in thrall. Indeed, at Monza, he faced a brief initial scare from Norris, who coerced Verstappen into cutting the chicane in his move at the start; the four-time champion was asked to give up the lead…

Romain Grosjean returned to the cockpit of a Formula 1 car for the first time since his horrific fireball accident at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix when he drove a 2023 Haas VF-23 during a test event at Mugello. Grosjean had been primed to drive a Mercedes around his return to racing in 2021, but was never able to schedule it around his IndyCar obligations. Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu assumed his former role as Grosjean’s engineer at the test, which featured other former track team members now embedded in Haas’s heritage department reprising their old roles. “The whole thing was a highlight,” Komatsu said of the test, which took place in damp conditions. “We wanted to do it in a proper high-speed circuit; Mugello is one of my favourites,…

As this edition of Autosport hits the shelves, Charles Leclerc will be celebrating his 28th birthday. When he was born on 16 October 1997, Elton John was enjoying his fifth and final week atop the UK singles chart with the AA-side Something About The Way You Look/Candle In The Wind ’97, imminently to be deposed by the Spice Girls with Spice Up Your Life. This is a roundabout, perhaps even overly abstruse, way of expressing an unfortunate fact: Leclerc is no longer the keen young rookie who rocketed onto the Formula 1 scene in 2018 with Alfa Romeo, effectively ending Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari career by earning promotion to Maranello for the following year, where he did the same favour for Sebastian Vettel, a fourtime world champion. He is two years…

Cadillac’s goal of conquering Formula 1 has also become that of IndyCar star Colton Herta and, while there are still plenty of obstacles in his way, there is no questioning his commitment. A nine-time race winner with Andretti Global, Herta has decided to give up his position near the top of the American open-wheel food chain for a test driver role with F1’s newest team. “This is a dream opportunity, and one I’ve been working towards for a long time,” says Herta, who was seventh in this year’s IndyCar standings after taking runner-up in 2024. “To be part of Cadillac F1’s entry at such a pivotal time is something I couldn’t pass up.” As part of his preparation for an eventual F1 seat, Herta will not only conduct private testing…

You could forgive Ollie Bearman for feeling miffed at Monza thanks to the stewards slapping a 10-second penalty on his race time and two penalty points onto his licence. Trouble had arisen on lap 40 when the Williams of Carlos Sainz got alongside and edged marginally ahead of Bearman, the two then colliding as Sainz, on the outside, turned in as normal to the second chicane. The stewards said the Haas driver was at fault because he had ‘defended his position and, instead of giving up the position, had caused the collision’. The crucial bit, when you got down to the letter of a finicky directive, was a failure by Bearman to have the front axle of his Haas ahead of the similar axle on the Williams. It’s a daft…

Lindblad’s Baku comeback Here with the Azerbaijan capital’s striking Flame Towers providing a dramatic backdrop, Red Bull junior and Campos Racing Formula 2 driver Arvid Lindblad looks to find his feet during free practice. Alas, qualifying was “such a mess that we weren’t really able to get a lap at all”, according to the 18-year-old Briton, and a penalty from the previous round at Monza meant he lined up at the back of the field for the sprint race. But he fought back to take the flag in 10th, then followed that up in the feature by finishing in sixth place from 14th on the grid. “I’m happy with how we turned it around,” he concluded. Photographer James Sutton/Formula 1/Formula Motorsport Limited/Getty Images Where Baku, Azerbaijan When Friday 19 September…

With six days of post-season October testing kicking off at Jerez on 7-8 October, it’s no wonder that much of the Formula 3 grid for 2026 has already been confirmed. As we went to press, it stood at 24 out of the 30 seats! British golden boy Freddie Slater, who is neck-and-neck for the Formula Regional European title with Matteo De Palo, will have to get used to the Italian because they are going to be team-mates. De Palo remains at Trident, with Slater transferring from Prema Racing for his step up. Trident has run each of the past three champions, and retains rapid Dane Noah Stromsted in the other seat. Newly crowned British Formula 4 champion Fionn McLaughlin is making the big step to F3. The Irish talent remains…

A Full Course Yellow in the World Endurance Championship has oft been described as akin to the Virtual Safety Car in Formula 1. The WEC from this year, however, has a VSC of its own as distinct froman FCY. And the difference between them went a long way to explaining why Alpine triumphed with the A424 LMDh shared by Ferdinand Habsburg, Paul-Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi at the Fuji 6 Hours. An FCY is generally called when there is a need for a short, sharp neutralisation, perhaps to deal with debris or to collect an errant car, everyone running around at 80km/h. A WEC VSC leads into a full safety car when a longer period of yellow-flag running is required. The speed limit is the same, but there is a…

A second victory of 2025 for the IDEC Sport crew of Daniel Juncadella, Jamie Chadwick and Mathys Jaubert at Silverstone in September has blown the European Le Mans Series title race wide open. Just seven points cover the top three in the championship race ahead of the series finale at the Algarve Circuit. Juncadella held on for a 5.9s victory aboard his IDEC ORECA-Gibson 07 LMP2 from a closing Tom Dillmann, sharing the best of the Inter Europol cars co-driven by Nick Yelloly and Jakub Smiechowski. The result thrust both entries into contention in Portugal on 18 October on a bad day for points leaders Charles Milesi, Esteban Masson and Oliver Gray. They could only finish 11th – although eighth in class, behind three LMP2 pro-am entries – as a…

Toyota’s newest flying Finn Toyota’s Sami Pajari and co-driver Marko Salminen take flight over the Rally Chile Power Stage flying finish. The Finnish rookie has shown flashes of pace this year and in Chile the 23-year-old was on the pace with the frontrunners throughout, finishing fifth, only 4.4 seconds behind reigning world champion Thierry Neuville’s Hyundai. The rally gave Pajari the biggest points haul (14) of his top-flight career to date and included a fifth stage win. “I was on a mission to catch Thierry and we caught him a little bit but not quite enough,” said Pajari. “But we were catching him and that was nice to see.” Photographer Tom Banks/McKlein Where Biobio, Chile When Sunday 14 September 2025 Details Canon EOS R3 RF70-200mm lens, 1/4000th @F4…

The Audi marque is back in the British Touring Car Championship for 2026 thanks to a new project with Power Maxed Racing. PMR, which lost its Vauxhall Astras in August in a devastating fire and completed the season with loaned Cupra Leons, has already begun work on bringing the Audi S3 saloon to the series. “There are two or three cars that are the most aerodynamic really, and one of our other options [Mercedes], Mr Jason Plato’s currently building…” explained PMR boss Adam Weaver. “Audi was the other one that we liked. We’ve got a relationship with TPS, who supply all the aftermarket parts, because of racing things like VW Cup over the years and TCR, so we’ve got some connection there. “And then we’ve got a couple of sponsors…

Plans for a new junior category to support the British Touring Car Championship from 2027 have been revealed, which will feature a rear-wheel-drive car developed by Power Maxed Racing. The bespoke car will be designed by long-time PMR technical director Martin Broadhurst in partnership with PMR engineers and is set to feature a sequential gearbox. PMR chief Adam Weaver said the machine’s exact specification is still being determined and that it could be powered either by a naturally aspirated engine or “it may well be a low-litreage 1.2 or 1.4 turbo”. “Having been closely involved in all levels of British motorsport, we know what is needed for a successful junior programme and PMR obviously possess the high-level of design and engineering expertise to build an outstanding car,” Weaver added. “It…

TCR UK is set to race alongside the British Truck Racing Championship at several of its events next year. Following the Easter Brands Hatch opener, the categories will unite for rounds at Snetterton and Donington Park. TCR UK will skip the Thruxton and Pembrey BTRC meetings, instead visiting Croft and supporting British GT at Donington. Its Maximum Motorsport-run sister series, Civic Cup and the relaunched non-championship VAG Trophy, will however remain on the Truck bill for those events. All three Maximum categories will then take in a standalone round at Oulton Park in October before the Brands season finale. “We’re creating this package that is viable financially for the competitor, but also it’s commercially viable – big crowds and a decent TV package,” said Maximum’s Stewart Lines. Also joining the…

Father-and-son racers John and James Jenkins have taken control of the long-running Mighty Minis championship from its founder Rodger Tello and are seeking to “re-energise” the category. The series was formed in 1996 but for this year the decision was taken to merge the old Super Mighty and Mighty divisions into a single class with a revised 1293cc engine. However, not all preparers were in favour of the move and a rival Classic Mini Racing series has now been created. With Tello looking to step back, the Jenkins family will now take the reins and wants the championship to remain true to its affordable roots, which is considered a perfect fit with the administering 750 Motor Club’s ethos. “We really want to carry on Rodger’s legacy and carry on the…

The Goodwood Revival Meeting, inaugurated in September 1998 – precisely 50 years after car racing was first run on RAF Westhampnett aerodrome’s 2.4-mile perimeter track – is all about celebrating social history through theatre. Far more than just another ‘historic racing’ showcase, it fundamentally charts Great Britain’s post-war regeneration and the lifestyle of the era leading up to July 1966, when the gates closed, ending 19 seasons of motorsport of a style unseen elsewhere. The motor circuit was basic, and fast, but the Duke of Richmond and Gordon’s parties at adjacent Goodwood House were legendary for racing royalty, who entertained “the right crowd” on his playground at the big promoted fixtures. Weekend warriors, some with ambition, enjoyed the venue’s challenges too, at secondtier British Automobile Racing Club Members’ Meetings. Goodwood’s…