Tabla de contenidos para January 2025 en AUTOSPORT

Do you believe? The world was very different last time McLaren won the constructors championship (1 November 1998, to be exact). Cher was beginning her second week in the UK number one spot with Believe, while The Truman Show topped the UK box office after a blockbuster summer in which a giant meteorite came off second best to Bruce Willis. The then Prince Charles was getting ready to celebrate his 50th birthday. Following Frank Sinatra’s death in May, there was still an unfilled vacancy for crooners with a penchant for singing slightly off key, though Robbie Williams was understood to be polishing his CV. Neither Lando Norris nor Oscar Piastri were so much as twinkles in their parents’ eyes. Max Verstappen, whose birth had been noted a year earlier in…

Spinning that wheel for me Second time out, the Las Vegas Grand Prix was less of a bunfight than before in terms of accessing various parts of the circuit. Getting to where you needed to go and being certain of getting through various gates once you got there felt like a bit of a lottery (or even a spin of the roulette wheel) last year. For first practice I went up into the Paddock Club to shoot downwards at Turn 1. This is that part of the circuit which runs across the block of land F1 actually bought to construct the pit complex. I’m a big fan of circuits with identity and I like the neat touch of having the suits from playing cards marked on the kerbs. Photographer Zak…

Whether in business or sport, momentum is key. Think about the way in which world champion Max Verstappen built momentum during the first half of 2024, sufficient to survive four winless months before zeroing in on his goal with a single dominant victory in São Paolo. In the end the fourth title seemed almost inevitable. The same can be applied to Formula 1’s much-debated 11th team entry. When news leaked during the Las Vegas weekend that General Motors will join the F1 world championship in 2026, few in the know seemed surprised. For some weeks it appeared the path was being cleared for America’s largest domestic car manufacturer to enter the sport. Suddenly GM was in the driving seat of Andretti Global’s previous efforts to join the fray. It had…

Audi is entering Formula 1 as a works team in 2026. This is not news – it was announced back in August 2022 – but it is worth simply re-stating as a fact because it is a big deal. Audi is a premium brand of the Volkswagen Group, the world’s largest car company, which has never before competed in F1. It is doing so now because of changes made to the sport in recent years – particularly the introduction of budget caps on chassis and now engines, and the adoption of a new style of engine in 2026. So Audi’s entry is a vote of confidence for F1 in both its recent growth and its future trajectory, and a huge development for a car company that has a storied history…

Hitting a century of grand prix starts isn’t quite the landmark it used to be. Calendar expansion in Formula 1’s late-capitalism era requires a driver to stay in the game for just five years to pass it – easier for some than others, of course. Still, it always made one’s eyeballs rotate when team spin doctors insisted on describing Lance Stroll as “a rookie” when he had contested more GPs than Jackie Stewart. Alex Albon concurs. “It’s odd because it’s happened so quickly,” he told reporters at a conference in Austin to celebrate his centenary at the US Grand Prix. “I feel like five years in F1 isn’t that much time… But it’s a nice moment to reflect, see where I’ve come from, see the driver I’ve become, and still…

347 ISSUES OF F1 AND GP RACING FROM MARCH 1996 TO JANUARY 2025 11 WORLD CHAMPIONS during the life of the magazine: Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Häkkinen, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Max Verstappen EIGHT EDITORS Mike Herd Paul Fearnley Matt Bishop Hans Seeberg Anthony Rowlinson Damien Smith Ben Anderson Stuart Codling 6 fully operational offices have housed F1/GP Racing: 38-42 Hampton Road, Teddington; 99 Waldegrave Road, Teddington; Teddington Studios, Teddington; Premier House, London Road, Twickenham; 1 Eton Street, Richmond; 2 Stephen Street, London 84% of F1/GP Racing issues worked on by Stewart ‘Wiggy’ Williams 3 TEAMS HAVE NOT CHANGED THEIR NAMES SINCE THE FIRST ISSUE: FERRARI, WILLIAMS AND MCLAREN A grand total of 44,264 pages across 29 years, with…

1 Verstappen follows in the wheeltracks of Piquet and Rosberg For all the ostentation and ‘nouveau F1’ status of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the final classification offered a neat fragment of historical symmetry. When Max Verstappen crossed the line in fifth place, he mirrored the achievements of Nelson Piquet (his partner’s father) and Keke Rosberg, who also secured their respective championship titles in Las Vegas in 1981 and ‘82 with fifth-place finishes. In a city renowned for its sporting showdowns, it was perhaps fitting that Max secured the title on the famous Strip. All he needed to do was finish ahead of his closest rival, Lando Norris – and he delivered, finishing one place ahead of the McLaren driver. After climbing from his RB20, Verstappen was quickly congratulated by…

Empires fall. Even as it celebrates Max Verstappen’s fourth successive Formula 1 world championship, Red Bull’s previous hegemony is now undoubtedly in decline. The 2024 constructors’ is lost at the time of writing – this campaign set to become only the 12th occasion in 66 contests the drivers’ champion has not been cloaked in team success too. The inner frustration around Sergio Pérez’s awfulness within Red Bull is swelling yet again. Even those that had previously been emotionally attached to the Mexican are said to be reaching their limits. The gratitude he earned in that stout defence against Lewis Hamilton on Verstappen’s behalf in Abu Dhabi in 2021 has ebbed away. But, even if Pérez has been granted another stay of P45 at the Red Bull shareholders’ meeting that will…

ANDREW BENSON The BBC's Formula 1 correspondent traces the ups and downs of Audi's convoluted entry into the sport. And it's still a year away… (p42) OLEG KARPOV Oleg has profiled Brazil's new hope, Gabriel Bortoleto, this month (p48), and also tracked Haas's chief race engineer in Qatar (p50) FRANK FOSTER Art editor Frank has been the genius behind the look of F1/GP Racing since 2005. He makes words come alive and is an absolute legend RONALD VORDING Motorsport.com's Dutch F1 journalist sat in on world champion Max Verstappen's mother-tongue title-winning Las Vegas chat (p30)…

01 PAPA’S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG Michael Andretti out, Mario in for GM F1 entry 02 SAY IT LOUD Drivers and FIA at loggerheads 03 SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED Qatar props up Audi 01 LIVING IN AMERICA: GM GETS GREEN LIGHT FOR F1 It sounds incredible, but it’s reality. One of the most explosive disputes between the FIA and FOM in recent years has ended in a peaceful resolution – and a new team on the Formula 1 grid. After the torturous and unsuccessful attempts of Caterham, Manor and HRT to join the party, and the labours of Haas – an outlier entity whose existence is almost entirely dependent on another team – the barriers to entry seemed too high. So the arrival of a General Motors factory team, via…

When the first issue of F1 Racing, now GP Racing, appeared in 1996 it was very notable to me: I was in my second year as a Formula 1 commentator for Eurosport TV and the extra depth of information and analysis was invaluable. The arrival of a new monthly magazine was evidence of the way media coverage of F1 was evolving – and it’s been changing ever since, on screen and off. At that time our TV production system was straightforward; each programme would begin with me and John Watson speaking from the commentary box with images of the build-up to qualifying or the race. The on-camera gathering of presenters and experts that’s standard nowadays was developing elsewhere, but not on Eurosport. The media world was more compact in the…

There was a bit of a trembling in your voice after the [Las Vegas] race, but what’s your overall feeling now? I’m just glad it’s over. If you look at the season, we had a great start, but after that we struggled for a long time. I am mainly proud of the way we got through that as a team. Before Brazil, you probably couldn’t have imagined securing the title as early as Vegas. No, I really did think we would fight to the last in Abu Dhabi. But then luckily rain came in Brazil, that worked out perfectly for me. In the press conference when we asked about how difficult it was to stay calm with all the off-track stuff happening at the beginning of the season, you were…

YOU’LL REMEMBER, a while back at Interlagos, Fernando Alonso was pictured sitting trackside in a deckchair? Not for the first time in 2015, his McLaren-Honda had broken down and Fernando was sunning himself while waiting for qualifying to finish. That memory came back while watching the recent São Paulo Grand Prix in anything but sunny conditions. Alonso was one of several drivers to lose control. Even if he’d been marooned out on track, there’s no way Fernando or anyone else would have been seeking a deckchair, even though the FIA has yet to get round to writing a rule forbidding the use of leisure equipment trackside and foul language while trying to erect it in the p***ing rain. I was actually recalling another incident in similar atrocious conditions when a…

ULYSSE NARDIN FREAK ONE NAVY BLUE Price £58,750 ulysse-nardin.com If you thought an Ulysse was a bland 1990s Fiat MPV based on a shared platform co-developed with Peugeot-Citroën, you’d be as correct as you would if you believed it to be the French spelling of the mythical figure Ulysses. More germane to this page, though, it’s also half the name of a venerable Swiss watch manufacturer Ulysse Nardin, founded in 1846. The company’s modern range fuses this heritage with more contemporary styling; one of the Freak One collection’s signature features is the absence of conventional hands. Instead it uses the tip of the Calibre UN-240 movement’s flying carousel to indicate the minutes while a blue rotating disc with an engraved sunray pattern demarcating the hours. This new Navy Blue edition…

The current Formula 1 engine is a model of efficiency matched only, and surprisingly, by some huge maritime diesel engines. In terms of small petrol engines, the F1 V6 is significantly ahead of anything found on the road or racetrack. How this is achieved is both innovative and relevant as the future of the internal combustion engine extends beyond some projections of its imminent demise. There has always been a truism in F1 engine design that the secret to performance was to get as much air as possible into the engine in a given time and then adding the appropriate amount of fuel, and burning it fully and efficiently. Getting maximum air into the engine was generally achieved by good gas flow and tuning of the inlet system, increasing engine…

With 24 races on the calendar now, working in Formula 1 is a mental and physical challenge like never before. You may have noticed the drivers expressing some disgruntlement over the packed schedule towards the end of the year – and they’re staying in five-star hotels and flying either first class or private. The reality for the team mechanics is truly brutal. They’re the ones arriving at the venue almost a week before the race and leaving six hours after the chequered flag drops on Sunday. The packing up process begins before the race ends. It’s not just the people who start to show some signs of wear and tear, but the cars themselves. In this era of the budget cap there is less of a throwaway culture. Teams often…