Table of contents for April 2025 in AUTOSPORT

Anticipation for the 2025 Formula 1 campaign has been building since it became clear in the second half of last season that the hitherto dominant Red Bull team was beatable – by McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes. Or perhaps even earlier, when Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari was confirmed at the start of 2024. Now we’ve had some on-track action that indicates those storylines do indeed have plenty of mileage. As Alex Kalinauckas shows in our in-depth Bahrain testing analysis on page 24, McLaren probably does have a small advantage, but Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari aren’t far behind, which is encouraging as teams head to Melbourne for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix this week. As in many close championship battles, the results could well be dictated by individual track characteristics,…

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has suggested that Formula 1 should be open to a switch back to V10 engines, running on sustainable fuels. F1 is adopting fully synthetic fuel from next year as part of its change in engine formula, which will feature a near-50/50 split between output from the V6 internal combustion engine and a more powerful MGU-K electric motor, increasing the reliance on electric energy. As part of its goals to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint by 2030, F1’s switch to sustainable fuels should reduce carbon emissions from its on-track product – and in light of that, many would like to see F1 return to screaming V10 engines, last used by the entire grid in 2005. Ben Sulayem believes it should be looked into when the governing…

Representatives of the Democratic Republic of Congo have called upon Formula 1 to deny neighbouring country Rwanda a grand prix in the wake of long-running troubles in the region. Since 2022, the DRC has been embroiled in a bloody conflict with the M23 movement, a military rebel group backed by the Rwandan army, which has taken over swathes of territory in the North Kivu province that borders Rwanda. Against the backdrop of new clashes around key city Goma, which the United Nations reports has left 2900 dead, DRC’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner has urged F1 chief Stefano Domenicali not to entertain talks with Rwanda over a grand prix in the country. “I write to express deep concern over Formula 1’s reported ongoing talks with Rwanda to host…

This is it: after four years of teams designing Formula 1 cars to the ruleset introduced for the 2022 season, the fleet of 10 models penned for 2025 will be the last of this generation before attention shifts to 2026. Since the regulations have been so tight, the eventual convergence in design philosophies was taken as granted, and close performance between cars finally matched that midway through 2024. It was expected that, with 2026 closing in, most teams would opt for a simple evolutionary approach in 2025 and bring largely similar cars to play in the Bahrain season prelude. Thankfully, that’s not entirely the case; engineers have uncovered the final remnants of innovation and performance available in this ruleset and have taken great pains to avoid becoming complacent in their…

CAR MCL39 ENGINE MERCEDES M16 E PERFORMANCE Indubitably 2024’s Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda, despite winning the constructors’ championship for the first time since 1998. Twelve months ago Red Bull opened the season with a seemingly ominous pair of 1-2 finishes; Ferrari was in relatively close attendance, McLaren only there or thereabouts until a major update package arrived in May. Thereafter both Red Bull and Ferrari found that performance upgrades made their cars peakier and less raceable, enabling McLaren and Lando Norris to launch title bids. That was certainly welcome for a team that spent much of the past decade in perma-crisis, but this new-found ascendance came freighted with questions McLaren struggled to answer. How would the season have panned out if the car had been that competitive from the outset? In terms of…

CAR W16 ENGINE MERCEDES M16 E PERFORMANCE Time was when Mercedes would sprint into the new season from a position of dominance and with a new car bristling with innovations that other teams, amid much grumbling, would be forced to copy or lobby to have banned. Since 2022 it’s been more a case of wondering which catastrophe the team will blunder into next. Mercs in the ground-effect era have seldom been race-winningly quick, and have been generally difficult to drive. It’s not the case that Mercedes has ‘forgotten’ how to build a fast car, despite the inevitable brain drain that comes to successful teams when rivals poach their best talent. Rather it has pushed too hard and therefore, perhaps, suffered disproportionately from the variables lurking at the fringes of ground-effect…

CAR VF-25 ENGINE FERRARI 066/12 The statistics on the opposite page (bottom right) say much, but not everything, about the American-headquartered team’s trajectory over the past two seasons: namely, a lot of bumping along the bottom, followed by a spike. But this wasn’t quite spiky enough for new team boss Ayao Komatsu’s liking: Haas should have finished sixth rather than seventh in 2024 and, as a result, the race operations side of the team has undergone a restructure to avoid the failures in execution that enabled Alpine to slip ahead in the final rounds. Former operations manager Mark Lowe returns in the newly created sporting director role, RB strategy engineer Carine Cridelich joins as head of strategy, while Francesco Nenci takes another newly created role, that of chief race engineer.…

CAR C45 ENGINE FERRARI 066/12 Kick Sauber? Not when it’s already down… For many years the Swiss-based Sauber team was synonymous with a kind of studied Teutonic blandness (surely not if you think of the C11?! - ed), aptly summarised by its choice of the similarly poker-faced Nick Heidfeld as a driver during its brief period of BMW ownership. In the hands of a consortium led by Swedish Tetra Pak heir Finn Rausing, it somehow contrived to become even more anonymous, a status not helped by it being glued to the back end of the grid. That status has gradually changed over the past few seasons as Alfa Romeo took title sponsorship and more Latin flair crept into the team’s communications. In its most recent incarnation – a fluid affair…

Pre-season stress? Tell me about it. The first grand prix was always a worry, even before we got there. In 1987, our Wednesday evening flight from London to Brazil was delayed. Indefinitely. While Nigel Mansell sidestepped the problem by hiring a private jet to Madrid and picking up a commercial flight from there, the rest of us were carted off to a Heathrow hotel. We reached Rio de Janeiro 17 hours late and six hours before practice was due to start – assuming there would be any activity at all. Those of us covering for national newspapers had messages waiting at our hotel receptions (this was before mobile phones). The hand-written notes in mangled English varied in both sense and legibility. But the gist seemed to be that the Formula…

Oliver Rowland stamped his authority on the Formula E season by taking a healthy 17-point lead in the standings after the latest round in Saudi Arabia, which almost yielded a double success for the Briton. Nissan driver Rowland came away from the Jeddah Corniche Circuit last month with his second win of the campaign, the electric championship making its first visit to the Formula 1 venue and using a truncated layout including four temporary chicanes. While Rowland dominated the weekend’s second race, and led 18 ofthe31laps, he had given best to fellow Briton Taylor Barnard in qualifying, the 20-year-old becoming the youngest polesitter in Formula E history. The McLaren driver’s brace of podiums from the event along with his third place at the Sao Paulo season-opener mean he now sits…

Each of the Ferrari 499Ps that flashed past the chequered flag almost line astern in positions one to three at the Qatar World Endurance Championship curtain-raiser would have been a worthy winner. They were separated by less than three seconds after 10 hours of racing, and any one of them might have come out on top in the dash to the finish after the final pitstops. There was one thing that was never in doubt in the desert at the end of February, and that was a Ferrari victory. The Italian manufacturer’s Le Mans Hypercar was dominant around the Lusail International Circuit. So dominant that one of the 499Ps was able to fight back from no new fewer than four penalties to take the final podium spot. No one else…

Wayne Taylor Racing, one of the most successful teams in North American sportscar racing this century, will be crossing the Pond to contest the Le Mans 24 Hours for the first time this June. The winner of the Daytona twice-around-the-clock classic on four occasions has gained a place on the grid as part of a four-car flotilla from Cadillac. Team boss Wayne Taylor was always open about his aspirations to take the operation he founded in 2007 to Le Mans on its return to Cadillac from Acura for this year’s IMSA SportsCar Championship. WTR’s maiden Le Mans assault was confirmed at the start of March when the full 62-car entry for the big race was published. It will be an additional Cadillac entry in the Hypercar class along with Action…

Was Kevin Magnussen going to end up in sportscar racing after the end of his time in Formula 1? Of course he was. It’s in his blood after watching and listening to tales of his father Jan’s exploits over a 20-plus-year career that included four class victories at the Le Mans 24 Hours. It explains why he’s now part of BMW’s Hypercar roster with WRT in the World Endurance Championship and was out racing one of the M Hybrid V8 LMDhs at the Daytona 24 Hours, just six weeks after he drew the curtain once and for all on F1 after nine seasons and 185 grand prix starts. “I always knew that I’d come and do this,” smiles Magnussen. “I grew up with it and had a passion for it.…

Three-time British Touring Car champion Gordon Shedden is back in the series for this season, and will line up with the Toyota Gazoo Racing UK squad run by Speedworks Motorsport. The return of the 46-year-old Scot is great news for the series, coming soon after four-time title winner Colin Turkington’s announcement that he would not be on the grid for 2025 (see p127). Similar to Turkington, Shedden’s own two-year hiatus was triggered by commercial issues. “Ultimately I stopped because of the Halfords situation at Team Dynamics – it was horrific how late their decision to pull out was,” he said. “By that time it was too late for me to get anything else. “The phone rings every year with a variety of people asking, ‘Would you be interested?’ But this…

The British Touring Car Championship’s favourite bearded bad-luck magnet Dan Rowbottom has landed a new two-year deal to keep him at the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Racing squad until the end of 2026. Rowbottom, who has recovered from long-delayed post-season open heart surgery, will therefore line up alongside Ash Sutton and Dan Cammish in the Northampton team’s Ford Focus STs in 2025, with a switch to a new car planned for next year. The much-improved Sam Osborne, son of team owner Pete, also stays on to pilot the fourth of the team’s Focuses. RACE WINNERS 16 February - 2 March NASCAR CUP SERIES Daytona 500 16 February 1 William Byron (Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) 2 Tyler Reddick (23XI Racing Toyota) 3 Jimmie Johnson (Legacy Motor Club Toyota) Atlanta 23 February Christopher Bell…

Sporting siblings Simon and Patrick Blakeney-Edwards have long been Vintage Sports-Car Club stars. At Silverstone, Simon beat 120 rivals in cars dating from 1913 to 2023 to claim his first Pomeroy Trophy in his 1929 Frazer Nash Super Sports. He claimed the marque’s 13th victory in the multi-discipline event run since 1952 to Laurence Pomeroy Jr’s formula devised to determine “the best touring car”. Four-time ‘Pom’ winner Patrick B-E (1964 Aust-in-Healey 3000, left) scrapped with Duncan Pittaway (1965 Plymouth Barracuda) and feisty debutant Lewis Packham (2017 BMW M140i) in the best of three concluding 40-minute High Speed Trials on the Grand Prix circuit and prevailed. Photographer Steve Hindle Where Silverstone, Northants, UK When Saturday 22 February 2025…

Reigning Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion George Gamble will bid for the title again this year, joined by race winner Andrew Rackstraw in the Century Motorsport line-up. Gamble was victorious in a four-way decider upon his first season back in Porsches in 2024, after spending the previous two years in British Touring Cars. Autosport reported last year that Gamble was considering staying in the series, and he has indeed now decided to attempt to become the first back-to-back champion since Dan Cammish nearly a decade ago. “We had a pretty exciting year last year with it going down to the wire but, coming from the front-wheel-drive Toyota to the Porsche, it did take a few rounds to get back into it,” said Gamble, who added that being the reigning champion…

Honda is the latest manufacturer to return to the British GT Championship this season, with the NSX GT3 set to make its series debut 18 years after the Japanese marque was last represented on the grid. Honda powered the Lotus Exige GT3s of Mackintosh Motorsport and Cadena Motorsport in 2007, while it has not had a car in British GT since the 1990s. It joins Ferrari in being represented in the GT3 ranks once more. The NSX will be run by series debutant Bridger Motorsport, which has contested UK single-seater championships since its inception in 2015, and is supported by Honda development partner JAS Motorsport. “We are very excited to be joining British GT with Honda this year,” said team boss Jay Bridger, whose squad only has sportscar experience at…

Class of 2025 assemble The life of a Formula 1 driver? This is what it’s all about… The class of 2025 look suitably enthusiastic as they prepare to assume their positions for the official start-of-term snap ahead of pre-season testing in Bahrain. Fernando Alonso, taking the weight off as he chats to Lando Norris, appears particularly thrilled by the occasion ahead of what will be his 22nd full season racing in F1. The specially built set and carefully choreographed poses are a far cry from the traditional school photo set-up on a start/finish line that used to be considered sufficient for such occasions. This is F1 in 2025. Photographer Sam Bagnall/Getty Images Where Sakhir, Bahrain When Wednesday 26 February 2025 Details Nikon Z9, 70-200mm lens, 1/100th @ F9 View through…

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, his star driver Max Verstappen and the FIA were subjected to booing from some sections of the crowd in attendance at F1’s 75 Live event at the O2 Arena in London, which the governing body felt was a “tribalist” reaction from the mostly British crowd in attendance. The boos towards the FIA, presumably due to president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s divisive leadership, emerged when the organisation’s logo was shown during the launch. Horner and Verstappen then received their own boos during Red Bull’s launch of its 2025 livery. “Great rivalries throughout the history of motorsport have contributed to making it such an exciting experience for fans,” an FIA spokesperson said. “But what underpins sport at all levels is a culture of respect. As such, it…

CAR SF-25 ENGINE FERRARI 066/12 Maranello sucked in all the oxygen of publicity over the winter, thanks to the impending arrival of a certain seven-time world champion. And when Lewis Hamilton swept through the gates, exquisitely styled down to the toes of his red-soled Christian Louboutin boots, the moment did not disappoint. Those versed in assaying the value of social media posts duly reported the sound of virtual cash registers ringing as sponsors enjoyed the warm afterglow of the attention. It would likely be for nought if Ferrari was in the grip of one of its periodic crises, but Hamilton seems to have chosen the right time to make his move. Ferrari’s present management is smoothly carrying on the good work of its predecessors and car development is headed the…

CAR AMR25 ENGINE MERCEDES M16 E PERFORMANCE Despite Lawrence Stroll’s billions, and a bulging portfolio of high-value sponsors, Aston Martin remains a listless presence in Formula 1’s midfield. The team originally known as Jordan, then passed around like a tray of cakes between owners of differing appearance but sharing the character trait of not wanting to spend, used to make a virtue of making a little go a long way. Now it’s making a lot more go not quite so far. Arguably Aston Martin reached its competitive peak in the second year of the ground-effect era, when Fernando Alonso claimed eight podium finishes on the way to finishing fourth in the drivers’ championship. But the signs of its present malaise were already hiding in plain sight as the team struggled…

CAR VCARB 02 ENGINE HONDA RBPTH002 There certainly wasn’t much compound interest in the joyless Visa Cash App RB monicker, so Red Bull’s junior team has undergone yet another identity change ahead of this season. Clearly a change that makes sense on many fronts, because you wouldn’t have described last year as contactless, either, after Yuki Tsunoda’s 68g impact with the barriers during Hungary qualifying and his unfortunate first-lap retirement in Mexico. Along with a minor adjustment to the name comes a change in livery and a welcome departure from the gloomy black palette that predominated in 2024. This is a team now trying – sometimes too hard – to present a ‘fun’ face to the outside world, a mission emphasised by CEO Peter Bayer at the F1 75 livery…

1 AUSTRALIAN GP Melbourne 16 March UK start time: 0400 2 CHINESE GP* Shanghai 23 March UK start time: 0700 3 JAPANESE GP Suzuka 6 April UK start time: 0600 4 BAHRAIN GP Sakhir 13 April UK start time: 1600 5 SAUDI ARABIAN GP Jeddah 20 April UK start time: 1800 6 MIAMI GP* Miami 4 May UK start time: 2100 7 EMILIA ROMAGNA GP Imola 18 May UK start time: 1400 8 MONACO GP Monte Carlo 25 May UK start time: 1400 9 SPANISH GP Barcelona 1 June UK start time: 1400 10 CANADIAN GP Montreal 15 June UK start time: 1900 11 AUSTRIAN GP Red Bull Ring 29 June UK start time: 1400 12 BRITISH GP Silverstone 6 July UK start time: 1500 13 BELGIAN GP* Spa 27…

MAX VERSTAPPEN JAKE BOXALL-LEGGE Let’s assume, for this thought experiment, that we’re going to have four teams that are all pretty evenly matched at the sharp end of the grid: McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. If that is indeed the case, then let’s also assume an equal split of wins: six each for all four teams. In that regard, it’s going to come to this: which drivers from each team will win the lion’s share of races, and how they perform on weekends where they don’t have the fastest car. These are conditions that reward two things: a driver’s skill, and their superiority over a team-mate. At McLaren, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri should be evenly matched, as the Australian continues his progress in F1. Ferrari has its box-office…

Invicta Racing Leonardo Fornaroli hopes to ‘do a Bortoleto’ in joining the Norfolk team as reigning F3 champion. He’d do well to start actually winning some races though. Roman Stanek, in the sister car, is already a race winner in F2. Campos Racing The Spanish squad again runs a brace of Red Bull juniors. Pepe Marti stays on after a good-in-parts rookie year, and the exciting Arvid Lindblad steps into Isack Hadjar’s shoes for his graduation from F3. MP Motorsport Another Red Bull driver here, with Oliver Goethe set for his first full F2 season. Alongside is the veteran Richard Verschoor, who usually has a win or two within him and is back with his Dutch pals. Hitech GP Two of the F3 class of 2024 fly the flag for…

McLaren has given the clearest indication yet that it will soon be competing at the pinnacle of sportscar racing in the World Endurance Championship. Zak Brown, boss of McLaren Racing, hinted on a visit to the Qatar series opener that an announcement could come at the Le Mans 24 Hours in June when McLaren celebrates the 30th anniversary of its victory at the French enduro with the F1 GTR. Brown revealed that he will be in France on the middle weekend in June and not at the clashing Canadian Grand Prix. “That’s a priority for us,” he said. “We will have a nice display there in the Le Mans museum and hopefully we will have some exciting stuff to talk about”. The latest comments about a McLaren return to top-level…

The World Endurance Championship has introduced a new system designed to reduce the advantage of lighter drivers in the series. What is known as compensation ballast was applied to cars across the Hypercar and LMGT3 classes from the opening weekend of the series in Qatar. Its introduction, which has been under discussion since last year, follows criticism that the performance advantage enjoyed by lighter drivers in Hypercar in particular was not mitigated in any way. A so-called reference weight of 82kg has been set under the new rules, which diverge slightly for qualifying and the race and between the Hypercar and LMGT3 classes. In Hypercar, a driver will have to carry ballast in qualifying if they are below 82kg complete with full race kit and seat insert. Ballast will be…

Toyota star Elfyn Evans’s GR Yaris kicks up an icy trail as he maintains position atop the Rally Sweden leaderboard on the opening stage of Saturday morning. Across the four-day event the Welshman demonstrated his mettle under the intense pressure of an unrelenting multi-car fight to claim his 10th career victory, and also the WRC points lead. With this result following his runner-up finish in January’s Monte Carlo Rally, he stated: “Very good start, very early days [in the championship] but I don’t think you could wish for much better than this.” Turn the page to read our rally report. Photographer Marcin Rybak/McKlein Where SS9 Vannas, Sweden When Saturday 15 February 2025 Details Nikon Z 8 Nikkor Z 24-120mm lens, 1/500th @ F/11…

The World Rally Championship last year set out on a bold mission to unearth its next female star. This global talent search wasn’t purely focused on finding a driver who could perhaps one day follow in the footsteps of the great four-time WRC rally winner Michele Mouton; it was also intended to break down the barriers to entry for women in rallying. Relatively speaking, the WRC, compared to other motorsport series, has led the way in female participation. Mouton’s run to finish runner-up in the 1982 WRC title race smashed the glass ceiling, proving women could achieve success at the very top level of motorsport. Four decades later, this level of success is yet to be replicated, but it doesn’t mean the talent isn’t out there. On the co-driver side,…

While champions dropping off the grid or returning have made the headlines at the big teams (see left), there have also been developments at the British Touring Car Championship’s Independent squads. The outlook is gloomy for Power Maxed Racing following the ending of its five-year sponsorship contract by Evans Halshaw parent company Pendragon after three seasons. “The unexpected and late decision poses a significant threat to PMR’s ability to continue competing in the BTCC in the short term should we not find suitable partners,” said team boss Adam Weaver. While Aron Taylor-Smith, who took PMR’s lead Vauxhall Astra to the Indie title in 2024, has landed at Speedworks Motorsport, the management of his former team-mate Mikey Doble are confident that he will find a place on the grid. One Motorsport…

The new TOCA Junior championship will not be held in 2025 and instead is intended to launch next year under a revised format where all cars would be centrally run. The category was set to begin this year and act as a replacement for Ginetta Junior at British Touring Car Championship events after the Yorkshire manufacturer decided to switch its portfolio to the British GT package from 2023. TOCA Junior was due to feature a new, bespoke rear-wheel-drive tin-top – christened the Chevron B1417 – but struggled to attract entries amid the car costing £78,500+VAT. But, despite a wealth of successful teams from across national motorsport attending the championship’s official launch last August, only two – Porsche/Mini squad Graves Motorsport and sportscar operation Toro Verde – officially pledged support. Organisers…

Historic Formula Ford 1600 is set for a transformation in fortunes this year with 31 entries already received for the championship’s Snetterton opener in mid-April, in stark contrast to the 13 cars that competed in Norfolk last season. With multiple newcomers signing up – including promising youngsters chasing the Novice Cup initiative – and others set to join at subsequent rounds, the qualifying races of yesteryear could return. Internal management changes, with former Historic Sports Car Club chairman Chris Sharples taking over the category’s reins, have re-energised racers, largely by driving entry fees down. There was much to do when Sharples voluntarily tried to turn things around. After only 13 cars raced at Snetterton, it fell to 10 at Cadwell Park and was 14 at Donington. Classic FF1600 sponsor SDC’s…

MACAU GRAND PRIX PHOTOGRAPHS 1954-2023 blueflagpress.co.uk RRP £75 As the foremost historian of the Macau Grand Prix, Philip Newsome has already produced tomes about this revered race. This offering from the amiable, formerly Hong Kong-based dentistry professor is, instead, largely pictorial. That said, Newsome can’t avoid giving a potted history of the event in his captioning of the photography, which is spectacular. From latter decades, it’s largely his own beautifully lit, evocative work; from older times, his archive acquisition offers not only fascinating imagery of a special race, but also a social documentary of Macau. Visuals from the 1950s and 1960s, when the background was fishing junks in the harbour and green hillsides rather than the current neon-lit cityscape, never fail to amaze. The book is all the better for…

The Monaco Grand Prix will feature a minimum of two pitstops for each driver, after the FIA World Motor Sport Council introduced a brand new rule exclusive to the race in a bid to inject some unpredictability to a notoriously processional event. The additional stops were first mooted at the latest F1 Commission meeting, and the rule stands regardless of weather conditions. “The FIA World Motor Sport Council reviewed a proposal regarding the implementation of a mandatory two-stop strategy (in both wet and dry conditions) for the Monaco GP, with the primary intent of improving the sporting spectacle of this race given the notable difficulty in overtaking at this circuit,” a statement read. “Following recent discussions in the F1 Commission, a specific requirement for the Monaco GP has been approved…

Cadillac board director Mario Andretti says that F1’s planned 11th team will be ready for its 2026 entry into the series, although concedes it will have to take some risks to take its place on the grid. The Andretti effort to enter Formula 1 finally succeeded after a protracted saga – and struggle between the FIA and FOM – when the team secured a deal with F1 around last November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend. That followed Michael Andretti stepping back from the team, now rebranded Cadillac with full works backing from General Motors and new headquarters in Silverstone. The team is now owned by TWG Global, a group owned by financial services entrepreneur Mark Walter and run by CEO Dan Towriss, who will oversee its fortunes. Despite having its…

The stone flicked off Ollie Bearman’s Haas and smashed the glass panel of the start/finish control gantry overlooking the main straight of the Bahrain International Circuit. This was shortly before lunchbreak on the last of three days of Formula 1 pre-season testing at the desert track, and was just one in a series of bizarre incidents. Day one had been running smoothly ever since Mercedes newboy Andrea Kimi Antonelli was first onto the track for the start of six four-hour sessions. Then, with two hours of the afternoon/evening session remaining, the Sakhir track was suddenly plunged into darkness. A failure at a nearby external substation had caused a power cut, which took over an hour to address. After dramatic scenes of cars circulating when the gigantic spotlights extinguished, there followed…

CAR RB21 ENGINE HONDA RBPTH002 Some will have been relieved to see Red Bull’s grip on both world championships slacken after a dominant showing in the first two seasons of the ground-effect era, particularly the near-full house of wins in 2023. The fact that he and his equipe aren’t universally loved seemed to come as a surprise to team boss Christian Horner when he was jeered by the crowd at the F175 event in London. Still, his whip-crack response – passive-aggressively guilt-tripping them into silence – was demonstrative of the inner steel that has helped him keep Red Bull Racing together over the past 12 months. While Max Verstappen leading 1-2 finishes in the opening rounds of 2024 promised more of the same, off-track revelations surrounding the treatment of a…

CAR A525 ENGINE RENAULT E-TECH RE25 Even before rebranding the team as Alpine, Renault had to make significant capital investments in its facilities to compensate for years of neglect at the hands of the previous owners. What it failed to do was install a revolving door, which would have come in handy as the hirings and firings have mounted up over the past few seasons. Last year was a case in point. The exits of technical director Matt Harman and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer were announced the day after the Bahrain season opener, while hangdog ‘interim team principal’ Bruno Famin tried to blame his immediate predecessor, Otmar Szafnauer, for the farrago of the slow, overweight car. Those versed in how F1 actually works – not least Szafnauer himself,…

CAR FW47 ENGINE MERCEDES M16 E PERFORMANCE That Formula 1 is a tough business can be illustrated by tracking the demeanour of Williams junior driver Logan Sargeant, who arrived at the beginning of the 2023 season veritably glowing with confidence and bravura. A little over 18 months later he cut a worn-out and demoralised figure, one who saw the coming axe almost as a blessing. Last month, on the cusp of his maiden appearance in the European Le Mans Series, it was announced he was “stepping away” from motor racing – in his absence, for he had already vanished, perhaps to a yoga retreat. Williams, which sits fifth on F1’s all-time wins list, is not a team satisfied with just turning up and occupying the back row of the grid.…

The difference a day makes Reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou steers through the flat-out Turn 10 kink on the Tampa Bay-skirting Bayshore Drive during qualifying day for the 2025 season opener in the Florida city o f St Petersburg. It wasn’t a resounding success – Palou placed his Honda-powered Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara an underwhelming eighth on the grid. But come race day the Spaniard’s racecraft and savvy, together with CGR’s strategy intuition, all came together. The mild-mannered Catalan beat team-mate Scott Dixon, whose St Pete hoodoo continued on a track that has provided none of his 58 wins, to start his bid for a fourth crown in fine style. Read more on p91. Photographer Joe Skibinski/PEC Where St Petersburg, Florida, USA When 1 March 2025 Details Canon EOS R3…

Chip Ganassi Racing has a multi-champion superstar capable of extracting wins from what seem the most impossible of circumstances. Scratch that: it has two of them, because Alex Palou is a Catalan clone of Scott Dixon. Reigning title holder Palou bobbed around in the mix for over half of the IndyCar season opener on the streets of St Petersburg, then suddenly emerged in the catbird seat with 28 of the 100 laps remaining when he surfaced from his final pitstop. The problem for Dixon was that he should have pitted at the same time, but didn’t… In a race of three different strategies, Dixon looked to be in the prime position as his Honda-powered Ganassi car led Josef Newgarden’s Chevrolet-propelled Penske machine and Palou. The first to bail for their…

Instead of a pre-event group photograph at the track, the World Endurance Championship pack took one car from each team to downtown Lusail for something a bit different following last month’s Prologue. The lights of the Lusail Boulevard mixed with the latest hypercars provided a stunning background and got the series opener under way in style. Porsche’s 963 leads the way here but it was the trio of Ferrari 499Ps that very much came to the fore in the 10-hour contest. Turn to page 102 to read how the famous Italian marque did it before the series moves on to Imola in April. Photographer JEP Where Lusail Boulevard, Qatar When Monday 24 February 2025 Details Canon EOS R3 RF28-70mm lens, 1/60th @ F8 Mode: Manual Metering: Multi-segment ISO: 4000…

Ford is returning to the top flight of sportscar racing for the long haul. That’s the message from the US manufacturer’s motorsport boss Mark Rushbrook in the wake of its January announcement that from 2027 it will attempt to reprise its Le Mans 24 Hours victories of the 1960s as part of a World Endurance Championship campaign. That, for the moment, gives its new LMDh a three-year lifespan up to the end of the current rules cycle, which was extended by two seasons in 2024 up to the end of 2029. But Rushbrook has outlined a vision where Ford remains in the WEC’s Hypercar class beyond that. “All we can commit to at this point is through ’29 because that is what the regulations are good for,” said Rushbrook. “We…

Cameron Waters scored a hat-trick of victories with his Tickford Racing Ford at Australia’s Supercars season-opener at Sydney Motorsport Park, but the three races couldn’t have been more different. Waters dominated the shorter Friday curtain raiser to head home Chaz Mostert by 17 seconds. On Sunday, heavy rain late in the race (left) meant he dialled things back while reigning champion Will Brown beat Mostert to second. Saturday was a thriller. Waters was down in fourth after the final pitstops but passed Mostert and Brown, then contact with leader Broc Feeney forced Waters to hand the position back, only for Feeney’s Triple Eight Holden team-mate Brown to join the battle. Waters got the run out of the last turn to pip Feeney by 0.03s, with Brown just 0.20s adrift. Photographer…

Twenty-one thousandths of a second. That’s the margin by which, in 2004, James Thompson became a two-time title winner in the British Touring Car Championship during what has become an overlooked era in the series’ history. The BTC Touring rules that followed the halcyon big-budget days of Super Touring are guilty of nothing more than being not as epic as what came before. Like New Order evolving out of the ashes of Joy Division, early 2000s BTCC featured many – if not quite all – of the key players from the previous decade, and did produce some fantastic stuff. Take that 2004 title decider. On its own, third place in the final race at Donington Park would not suffice for Thompson should Yvan Muller, his team-mate in the Triple Eight-run…

Jim Richards’s 1990 Australian Touring Car title-winning Nissan Skyline GTS-R will make its UK debut this summer, with his son Steven taking the wheel at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The HR31 model, replaced by the better known R32 for the title run-in, is among a number of Group A cars based in Australia and New Zealand that will be in action at Goodwood or Brands Hatch’s Super Touring Power 3. Four-time champion Richards Sr took the straight-six turbocharged car to two wins in the first four races of 1990, before adding another after switching to the R32. Now owned by Kiwi Peter Sturgeon, the HR31 still resides at Richards’s Melbourne base. “Jim thinks it’s probably the best balanced car he’s driven,” said Sturgeon. “And Steve [a five-time Bathurst winner]…

Tin-top and sportscar racer Ben Colburn will tackle a new challenge this year when he competes in single-seaters for the first time, with a Historic Formula 3 campaign planned in a Merlyn Mk10/14. Colburn has raced a variety of historic and modern machinery with the family Westbourne squad, including taking the 2015 Junior Saloons title. But he had never driven a single-seater until testing the Merlyn at Brands Hatch in February (above). “I think I’ve definitely got some respect for those drivers who drove single-seaters – the sense of speed is quite phenomenal,” he said. “In terms of cars I’ve driven previously, the only thing I can try to relate it to is the Lenham Sprite because they’re quite light and powerful. I will do a bit more testing and…

BEGINS 5-6 APRIL A CLOSER BRITISH GT FIGHT AND FERRARI REJOINING THE FRAY The 2024 British GT campaign featured one of the most dominant performances from a team in recent history. Barwell Motorsport clinched the title at the penultimate round and the Lamborghini squad won five of the nine races, which even took team boss Mark Lemmer by surprise. But there will be a few changes for this season at Barwell, so it will be very exciting to see how the dynamic plays out. In the #1 Huracan is reigning champion Rob Collard, who is striving to become the first amateur – a so-called ‘amateur’ with 15 British Touring Car race wins, it must be noted – to claim three series titles, yet he will be joined by the inexperienced…

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Autosport’s report on the 1974 British Grand Prix made much of the ferocious spectacle of practice, rendered “shockingly visible” by the very particular topography of the Brands Hatch circuit. But “amidst all the violence”, related Pete Lyons, “Ronnie Peterson’s JPS was slicing across the road at the same startling angles, his hands were flashing across the top of the wheel as dramatically, his engine was blaring as determinedly as all the rest – but somehow he didn’t look as busy. There was a sensation of grace about every movement that made the quickest action almost languid. Nothing he did looked (or sounded) surprised.” In the final session, the total confidence of this “driver in the mould of legends” in “whipping out a quick one at the very last minute” didn’t…