Tabla de contenidos para June 2024 en AUTOSPORT

Never mind the bollards. Whether or not you believe Lando Norris won the Miami Grand Prix as a result of Red Bull making a rare mistake on car setup (Max Verstappen’s view), Max incurring considerable floor damage by taking out a bollard at the chicane on lap 22 (the Red Bull team boss’s view), the Safety Car briefly picking up Max rather than Lando (toxic fandom’s view), or indeed Donald Trump taking a short break from falling asleep and breaking wind in court to act as a “lucky charm” in the McLaren garage (Donald J Trump’s view), F1’s trip to Florida delivered ample proof that, given the right circumstances, Red Bull and Max can be beaten. A race in which uncertainty prevailed all the way through the order, rather than…

01 GENIUSFORSALE Red Bull’s tech talisman exits, pursued by chequebooks 02 SANCHEZ TO ENSTONE McLaren refugee joins Alpine 03 GUENTHER GOES TO COURT 01 A SCRAMBLE FOR NEWEY – AND WHAT NOW FOR MAX? In years to come, when racing historians mull the reasons for Red Bull Racing’s era of dominance in Formula 1 coming to an end, Adrian Newey’s departure from the team may well be regarded as the pivotal moment. Especially if he is followed in the direction of the exit by other key personnel – in particular Max Verstappen. And yet, equally, posterity could come to regard Newey’s departure as just a blip. News of the legendary designer’s impending departure follows a turbulent few months for Red Bull Racing amidst the controversy surrounding Christian Horner – and some…

OPENING THE DOOR TO NEW TALENT As Europe finally becomes part of the current Formula 1 season after six events spread over the world, it’s fitting the venue should be laden with heritage: Imola evolved from public roads in the 1950s into a permanent course. Italy’s multiple Le Mans winner and brief F1 racer Emanuele Pirro feels he never quite cracked the track himself, despite winning there in touring cars, but he does have fond memories. “As a fan,” recalls Emanuele, “before I started racing, I always saw it as a special racetrack with elevation changes and a very peculiar layout that made it different from the others. It’s a circuit where I never really performed very well but I really like it. It’s very technical and the way it’s…

Chris Gowland Co-founder & Managing Director, The Sports Marketing Group GP Racing: When you worked on the commercial side of F1 Racing/GP Racing magazine, what did you learn with regards to sponsorship and marketing in Formula 1?? Chris Gowland: For me, one of the big appeals of F1 was understanding how and why companies have an association with sports. For example, what was the objective of Rothmans to have their branding over a Williams? What did they do with that sponsorship and how did they bring it to life? During my early days working in the F1 paddock with F1 Racing there was starting to be a change in how brands activated. In the old days it was simply a case of putting a sticker on the side of the…

Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Fernando Alonso winning his first world championship. A year later he added a second one to his trophy cabinet but, barring a couple of near misses, he’s been in the wrong car at the wrong time ever since. And all the signs are that Aston Martin isn’t going to give him a car worthy of winning a third world title in the near future, even if owner Lawrence Stroll succeeds in his bid to hire legendary design guru Adrian Newey. Soon to turn 43, Alonso has shown increasing impatience for a top-drawer drive. A smattering of podiums at the beginning of last season got his juices flowing before car-development progress stalled, to his immense frustration. And yet he’s voted for more of…

17-19 May 2024 Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari THE MAIN EVENT Imola has a long motor racing history even though the track by this quaint town didn’t host a world championship grand prix until 1980, when it stood in for Monza as host of the Italian GP. There was a short-lived plan to alternate between the two venues, in a similar fashion to Silverstone and Brands Hatch’s coexistence as British GP hosts. Imola got the nod after a 1979 non-championship event but politics intervened and the national race reverted to Monza – although Imola hosted a race, named after the nearby principality of San Marino, until 2006. In the grand European tradition, the track can trace its origins back to public roads. The narrow, undulating layout has little in common…

@Nauckus facebook.com/gpracingonline IT’S TIME FOR NICO TO RUN RINGS By the time the 2024 season is out, Nico Hülkenberg should be on 227 Formula 1 race starts. Now that he’s set to move to Sauber for next year ahead of its Audi rebrand, he’s on course for 300 – give or take the cash-squeezing whims of the Liberty Media-era calendar. Just 18 months on from his career resurrection with Haas, this is a remarkable turnaround for a driver who had been staring into the F1 abyss with his 2019 Renault exit – and all the TV punditry that dark, soulless chasm offers an ex-racer who can string a chippy sentence together. But Hülk’s story is far more inspiring than semi-regularly broadsiding his former rivals from the sidelines. He never gave…

ANDREW BENSON BBC Sport’s F1 correspondent investigates whether or not Scuderia Ferrari has actually improved since last year (p36) ALEX KALINAUCKAS Autosport’s Grand Prix editor tries to discover how Mercedes managed to get its F1 challenger wrong for the third season running (p48) DAMIEN SMITH Damien delves into the history books to give us the lowdown on the Cooper T53, the car Jack Brabham used to win a second world title (p62) OLEG KARPOV Oleg details what a race weekend entails for Haas team manager Peter Crolla (p74) and took a trip to one of the FIA’s archives (p70)…

FLEXIBLE FIENDS? IT’S A MATTER OF DEGREE… From time to time we hear teams complaining that the bodywork on a rival’s car is too flexible. Often this leads to yet another test imposed by the FIA to ensure the principles of the regulations are being adhered to. But what are those principles and why is there a continual battle to find the limit of acceptability? Article 3 of the Formula 1 technical regulations covers aerodynamic components, and this regulation requires that all aerodynamic components or bodywork influencing the car’s aerodynamic performance must be rigidly secured and immobile with respect to their frame of reference. That, in the case of the majority of the bodywork and wings, is the chassis. Now of course no engineering component is infinitely rigid. In 1987,…

Mumtalakat, the sovereign wealth fund of Bahrain, has owned the McLaren Group since March of this year, completing its takeover of a business which has suffered more than its fair share of difficulties. A look back through the past five years tells a turbulent tale, albeit one through which Mumtalakat, under CEO Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, emerges as the kind of shareholder many businesses would envy. In short, the Group has weathered the storms created by events such as the global pandemic, semiconductor shortages and delays in its automotive business, thanks to shareholders with deep pockets and a steely belief in its future. Meanwhile, the ebb and flow of McLaren’s fortunes in F1 are well known. The decline began during the final years of the Ron Dennis era,…

Fréd, in F1, when the car performs well, it usually means that the team has improved and become better. But sometimes the two aren’t directly connected. Is Ferrari as a team in better shape now – and in as good shape as the car? Yes and no. I’ll give you an example: I think it’s much easier to have a good strategy when you have the pace. If you don’t have the pace, it doesn’t matter what the strategy is, it’s always the wrong one. And the fact that we’re more competitive helps us to have a good strategy. On the other hand, I think what was important for me at the end of last year is that we left too many points on the table. Sure, nobody can have…

Music I play and record sometimes. My dad’s been playing music all his life, so he taught me and my brother guitar – and we’ve basically been playing ever since. I have been playing guitar since I was seven years old, so basically my whole life, and I do a lot of other stuff as well. And, yeah, occasionally I sing. Not on stage though – I used to do it when I was about 10, but not any more! Suits When I’m on a plane, I’m either watching Cars or Suits. That’s my favourite TV show. I’ve watched it four or five times all the way through. I kind of like to compare myself with Harvey Specter. I feel like we have similar lifestyles and similar characters! YouTube It’s…

A Formula 1 team at a grand prix is like a travelling orchestra – except the musicians aren’t all sitting in one place during the performance and the ‘concert’ lasts for more than a week, from the arrival of the first staff to the departure of the last pieces of equipment. Every element of an F1 team’s on-track operation is structured. Each of the nearly 100 team members has a clear understanding of their role, in some cases – such as during a pitstop – down to every step, every second. The team manager’s job is a like a conductor’s – and at Haas it’s Peter Crolla’s job to schedule the many meetings over a race weekend and ensure those 100-odd people work as a united whole. His responsibilities also…

1 Norris overachieves behind imperious Verstappen In an era dominated by one competitor, it’s often easier – particularly for the mainstream media and braying ‘influencers’ among the internet natterati, all straining for a hot take – to focus on the negative and neglect some of the outstanding performances through the field. Max Verstappen was certainly operating in a different class in Shanghai, winning the sprint and Sunday’s grand prix; he’s now triumphed in 21 of the last 23 races and it’s difficult to imagine him not steamrollering to a fourth world title. But in Max’s wheeltracks Lando Norris served up further confirmation that he has the hallmarks of top-tier grand prix driver. To both his and his team’s surprise, Norris finished second to Max at a circuit that hasn’t been…

24-26 May 2024 Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo THE MAIN EVENT Formula 1’s glorious outlier, the race where overtaking is virtually impossible – and yet, despite the occasional moan, the drivers love the Monaco experience. For them it’s a full-on assault on the senses, a merciless exercise in high speed precision where the slightest mistake is punished. Even drivers of the quality of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have come a cropper, misjudging their attack at the exit of the swimming pool section and clipping the apex barrier. Leclerc’s shunt in 2021 came after he’d set a time quick enough for pole position and, in its eagerness to avoid a grid penalty for working on the car in parc fermé conditions, Ferrari failed to spot a cracked driveshaft which failed…

Lando reaches for the stars I’ve been photographing Lando Norris since he was McLaren’s test driver and it was wonderful to be on the grid after he pulled up following his well-deserved first grand prix victory. The team photographer gets to be there as well as the FOM cameramen so it’s a privileged position. You might have seen me scurrying around with my camera in the background of the TV images… We’ve known Lando has the ability to win grands prix – there was that opportunity in Russia that went begging – and he’s a well-liked character, so naturally everybody was as delighted as he when he got this over the line. He absolutely deserves it and there are many more to come. Photographer Steven Tee Where Miami, USA When…

TWO WHEELS BETTER? WHY F1’S OWNER BOUGHT MOTOGP Liberty Media’s acquisition of a controlling 86% stake in MotoGP’s owner Dorna, valuing the business at £3.6bn, is a smart move which will benefit the pinnacle of motorcycle racing and add value to Formula 1. Fresh from a 2023 in which F1 Group revenues grew from £2.08bn to £2.6bn, it’s no surprise that Liberty’s Greg Maffei was on the hunt for fresh targets in global motorsport. Although the deal has to go through the standard competition and investment approvals process which will take up the rest of this year, 2025 will mark a new era for MotoGP as Liberty executes a growth strategy based on the lessons learned in F1. Expect more events, adding to MotoGP’s existing 21 races across 17 countries, along…

FOR A WORLD CHAMPION WHO showed scant sentiment when he was racing, it was no surprise when Jody Scheckter walked away from the sport and completely disappeared twelve months after winning the title in 1979. That seemed in keeping with the surly South African. Jody went racing to do a job – and do it in spectacular fashion. But he had little time for the peripheries. And even less for the motorsport media. In 1975, Scheckter was in his second full F1 season. The mood at Barcelona’s Montjuïc Park that year was edgy following the discovery that barriers on the scarily fast street circuit had been put together in a haphazard fashion. Many bolts had not been tightened; some pieces of Armco had no bolts at all. Having refused to…

1 SafetyCar timing just one factor in Norris’s breakthrough win Lando Norris arrived in sunny South Florida with a cut on his nose, the legacy of excess exuberance on a trip to Amsterdam to celebrate King’s Day on a river boat with his DJ chum Martin Garrix. Come Sunday he’d rubbed shoulders with a former US President and won his first grand prix at the 110th time of asking. It had been quite a week for the 24-year-old. And in anticipation of the partying that would follow on the Sunday evening of the Miami GP, Norris joked: “I might have more than a scratch on my nose tomorrow…” No one could begrudge the McLaren man his long-overdue success. It was a mark of his popularity that so many rivals came to…

7-9 June 2024 Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve THE MAIN EVENT Mosport Park, deep in the countryside east of Toronto, was the first home of the Canadian GP (though the earliest races to carry that name were sportscar events) but in the 1970s the cars outgrew the track. Their performance had already gone beyond what could be considered safe at the alternative venue, Mont-Tremblant in Quebec. The solution lay 80-odd miles to the south of Mont-Tremblant in Quebec’s most populous city, Montréal, on an artificial island built to celebrate Canada’s centennial during Expo 67. The site had subsequently been repurposed to host the rowing events in the 1976 Olympics. Formula 1 arrived in 1978 and, barring the occasional failure to agree terms with Bernie Ecclestone, has remained a fixture on the…