Issue 10

THE PIT STOP issue 10

q u a r t e r l y

m o t o r s p o r t

m a g a z i n e

IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

CONTENTS

8 20 34 46 62 IN SHORT

ITCHY ARMS, COLLUSION AND SWIFT JUSTICE IN A NASCAR SCANDAL Revisiting Clint Bowyer's actions in the 2013 Richmond Cup race

PASTURES NEW Ash Miller examines how Valentino Rossi is keeping his motorsport career alive away from bike racing

RED BULL FORD FIRST TIME AROUND A detailed look at the first time Red Bull and Ford partnered up in Formula 1

REAL POTENTIAL Ian Page examines Linus Lundqvist's career, and the impact he's made in Indy Lights

CROSSROADS Should WRC be looking towards WRC2 as an answer to the future?

COULD FERRARI BE THE REAL DEAL IN WEC?

SOLE SUCCESS Looking back at the only time BMW was truly successful in F1

TURNING HEADS Stephen Brunsdon looks at the impact Sheena Monk is making stateside in IMSA

THE UNHERALDED MODERN INDY 500 GREAT'S FINEST HOUR Examining Takuma Sato's greatest Indy 500 race

THE TIME LAUDA DIDN'T WALK AWAY Garth Kenardington takes a trip down memory lane to Niki Lauda's final F1 season with McLaren

GROWING UP Mark Paulson takes a look at the evolution of TCR

ON THE BACK FOOT

76 100 112 124 136 IS THE BTCC SUCCUMBING TO MONEY? THE PIT STOP 5

GONE TOO SOON

I

was halfway through writing this note when I received a text message saying Craig Breen was gone.

All of a sudden, nothing in the note had meaning. It was time to rip it up and throw it away.

I can't say I knew Breeny. I'd spoken to him on a few occasions, but I didn't really know him. Several of my colleagues did though, and they never had a bad word to say about him, not one.

There are plenty of rally drivers in the world, but few have ever oozed the passion that Breen did. He didn't just love what he did, he was in love with it. You could see it on his face every time he stepped out of the car.

Each and every time he completed a mega run through a lightning fast test, or a tight technical stage, the grin was there. He was never able to contain his excitement. It was a huge buzz for him and he wanted everyone to know it. And when in the car, he was one of the fiercest competitors of all.

He was sublimely fast when he was in the groove. Few drivers possess that raw pace, but Breen was one of them. It wasn't often that he'd complete a stage and not be up towards the top of the timesheet, especially when he was pushing. His only setback was that in recent years, he'd often not only find the limit, but go beyond it, ending in a crash or considerable damage to his car. That's why he ultimately lost his M-Sport drive last year. He just hadn't been able to string together the results that were not only expected of him, but that everyone knew he could achieve.

But now back with Hyundai for 2023, everything was looking so different. He was on fire in Sweden, finishing the rally in second, laying the perfect platform to resurrect his WRC career. Again, his body language said everything.

He was back enjoying his rallying again. He felt comfortable in the i20 N Rally1, and you really started to think that 2023 would be the year he really stepped up. But unfortunately it wasn't to be.

However, putting the competition to one side, Breen was just a down right great guy. He always made time for people even when there wasn't any. He just loved to chat about rallying to anyone that would listen. He wasn't just a competitor, he was a fan.

And what made Breen even more likeable was the simple fact that he never put himself on a pedestal. He never saw himself as the superstar we all did. He was just a bloke that loved rallying, whether it was driving a Rally1 car or his beloved Metro or Sierra. In fact, there were several times where he got more enjoyment from driving historic cars than he did from contemporary machinery. That's just the way Breen was wired.

As time passes, the history books will never show Breen as a WRC event winner or champion. In some ways it's a crying shame, he was definitely good enough and we all felt it was just around the corner. But in other ways it really doesn't matter at all.

His passion for the discipline, his skill, his speed and his cheeky grin at every stage end tells the story far better than any stat could. A brilliant driver, but more importantly a great man, one that will never be forgotten.

The WRC will be a sadder place without its cheeky chappy in the service park. A massive hole will be left, one that can't be filled.

Rest in peace, Craig.

EDITORIAL Editor Rob Hansford Photography Editor Brian Smith Contributors Ash Miller, Adam Proud, Garth Kenardington, Ian Page, Mark Paulson, Stephen Brunsdon Photography Contributors PHD Photo, Ed Waplington, Matt Widdowson, Grand Prix Photo, Jakob Ebrey, Rob Overy THANKS TO Louie Cotton, Matt Beer, Peter Nygaard, Linus Lundqvist, Rob Overy, Goodwood, Dean Faulkner

COMMERCIAL ENQUIRIES Enquiries commercialenquiries@thepitstopmagazine.com 6 | THE PIT STOP

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itchy arms, and swift justice

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collusion in a nascar scandal

WORDS BY GARTH KENARDINGTON IMAGES BY NASCAR THE PIT STOP | 9

"C

ircumstances happen that are unhelpful in the credibility category."

To sceptical - normally European - outsiders, NASCAR's always been the motosport category to be sneered at for its prioritisation of 'the show' over sporting norms. A championship with a constant undercurrent of cheating suspicions, of moves that feel like an insult to driving standards going unpunished, with post-race punch-ups celebrated, and with evermore contrived rules all tripping over each other to stoke races or championship battles into prolonged and controversial denouements.

That's not a totally baseless stance, but it's a largely unfair one. Aside from its fairly brazen approach to (non)-policing collisions and driving standards, there's not a lot that goes on in NASCAR that doesn't go on in other top-level motorsport. It's just that the likes of Formula 1 are a little more po-faced about it.

So what did it take for NASCAR chairman Brian France to come out with that rather lovely 'unhelpful in the credibility category' description 10 years ago?

The events of the September 2013 Richmond Cup round. A race-fixing controversy with an itchy arm at its centre. A scandal where there wasn't enough evidence

BOWYER SPINNING IN THE RICHMOND CUP RACE

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to properly punish the most flagrant wrongdoing, but enough fines, points reallocating and paddock-wide admonishing took place to send a blunt 'stop it, please' message to the protagonists.

It was the final race before the field for the 12-driver Chase for the championship (now the playoffs) was set. Under the system in place at the time, the dozen title contenders would be the top 10 in the points plus the drivers with most wins from 11th to 20th in the points (with points or best finishes sorting any tiebreaks there). Those two were known as the wildcard slots, and one of them already belonged to Hendrick Motorsports' Kasey Kahne - 12th in the points but a double winner.

Dale Earnhardt Jr, Joey Logano, Greg Biffle and Kurt Busch were the four drivers in the top 10 at risk of being bumped out and having to earn a wildcard spot. Series legend Jeff Gordon sat just outside the top 10. Reigning champion Brad Keselowski was only 15th in the points.

But the key people in the storyline about to unfold were the drivers in 13th and 14th in the points: Martin Truex Jr and Ryan Newman. It hadn't been a sparkling season for Newman, and he'd known for two months that he was losing his Stewart-Haas drive at the end of it. Yet heading into the closing stages that night at Richmond, he was leading the race and on course to

claim a surprise Chase spot.

Then Truex's Michael Waltrip Racing team-mate Clint Bowyer spun with seven laps to go. The full course yellow came out, the frontrunners pitted and Newman lost ground with a slow stop. He could only recover to third, and seventh for Truex meant it was the Waltrip driver who got a Chase spot at Newman's expense on a tiebreak.

Gutting for Newman. And a little too convenient for the Waltrip team.

There was immediately widespread suspicion, led

by Earnhardt - who'd been following Bowyer when he spun.

"It's the craziest thing I ever saw," Earnhardt declared. "He was jerking the car around and then just spun."

From there, things got stranger.

Truex's seventh earned him the wildcard spot. But he wouldn't have got it had Logano needed it. And Logano was having a bad night. But Logano didn't need the wildcard spot because he managed to make it up to 22nd place and therefore scored enough points to get a top-10 championship place and free up the wildcard for Truex. And Logano gained the places he needed in part thanks to seemingly unnecessary pitstops by... Bowyer. And Waltrip's third driver Brian Vickers - who seemed conspicuously baffled by being called in to pit when he was, asking in total confusion over team radio whether his crew had spotted a puncture, and getting a fairly unconvincing response.

So it seemed Waltrip had got its man Truex into the Chase by causing a deliberate yellow to stymie his most likely rival's chances, and then choreographing its cars out of the way to help another rival because Truex's Chase status would be firmed up by that rival doing well.

And then it got stranger still when you heard Bowyer's radio traffic.

Bowyer had suggested a deflating tyre caused that suspicious spin. But shortly before it, his crew chief Brian Pattie had made an unusual suggestion.

"Is your arm starting to hurt?" asked Pattie. "I bet it's hot in there. Itch it."

There wasn't any evidence from the in-car camera of Bowyer actually scratching his arm. Pattie insisted it was either playful banter or a reference to a genuine arm rash Bowyer had from poison oak. Pattie's concern for Bowyer's itchiness just came rather conspicuously between another radio message from Bowyer's spotter pointing out that Newman was on course to win the race and that "kinda sucks" (for Waltrip's wider Chase chances) and then Bowyer having that rather odd spin seconds after the idea of scratching an itch was put

into his head.

It only took until the post-race Monday for the repercussions to start landing. The Waltrip team was fined $300,000, its general manager Ty Norris - who made the radio calls around Vickers' pitstop - was suspended indefinitely and all the Waltrip entries were deducted 50 points.

This made no difference to Bowyer - long since locked into the Chase and actually second in the overall championship after Richmond. But it cost Truex his Chase spot to Newman, who had done his best to stay diplomatic while clearly devastated. And in an awkward spot as he had a hunting holiday coming up with Bowyer, who Newman said had privately apologised to him.

NASCAR admitted it couldn't conclusively prove that Bowyer's spin had been a deliberate attempt to manipulate the race. It focused the penalty on the radio calls around the unnecessary pitstops that elevated Logano.

Series president Mike Helton replied carefully when asked why NASCAR felt it could prove the pitstops were effectively dodgy when it didn't feel it could prove the spin was dodgy. But his inference was clear: there was enough dodgy stuff going on around the Waltrip team that night, we were going to get them on something.

"In the preponderance of things that happened

by Michael Waltrip Racing Saturday night, the most clear was the direction that the 55 driver [Vickers] was given and the confusion around it, and then the conversation following that occurrence is the most clear part of that preponderance," he replied.

"Does that make sense? Does that help you? That’s the most clear piece of what we found through looking at all of the detail that led us to make the conclusion."

Or in other words, he was immediately asked, was that the smoking gun? "That’s the most clear piece of evidence," Helton replied.

That allowed Waltrip to focus on the pitstops not the spin in its response.

"What occurred on the #55 radio at the end of Saturday night's race in Richmond was a split-second decision made by team spotter Ty Norris to bring the #55 to pitlane and help a team-mate earn a place in the Chase," said Waltrip. "We regret the decision and its impact. We apologise to NASCAR, our fellow competitors, partners and fans who were disappointed in our actions. We will learn from this and move on."

It was a little ironic given among the various prerace media events stoking up excitement for the Chase field decider there had been plenty of open chat about how teams could use team orders in multi-car line-ups to help drivers in the thick of the battle for the final

NASCAR ADMITTED IT COULDN'T CONCLUSIVELY PROVE THAT BOWYER'S SPIN HAD BEEN A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO MANIPULATE THE RACE

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spots, and no suggestion that doing so would incur a penalty. But, as Helton alluded, that was never really the point.

"We're not immoral, we're not irresponsible," said Waltrip in a later interview. "Decisions were made just based on circumstances.

"As we look back, we would've been smarter and done things differently. We didn't have a complex plan about how we were going to manipulate the race to get Martin in."

There was another twist to come later that week when NASCAR announced it was also investigating

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potential collusion between Logano's Penske team and Front Row Motorsports - whose driver David Gilliland had passed Logano late on in a move that ultimately didn't matter to Logano's Chase status. Radio chatter on the Front Row side about "the big dog" - believed to be a reference to Roger Penske himself - and the message "hopefully we'll get something out of that" after Logano passes Gilliland prompted suspicion of some form of technical help or recompense offer from Penske to Front Row. Both Penske and Front Row were put on probation.

Series chairman Brian France popped this one in the

category of 'can't prove it, but enough was dodgy here to merit a punishment' as well, albeit a much lesser punishment.

"We don't believe that bargain ever happened, and we don't believe anything happened, other than the discussions about it, and that's why we think the probation is an appropriate message there," France explained.

NASCAR also took some what might be termed positive action as well as the punitive moves. After Newman, the next driver who'd missed out on a Chase spot was Gordon, whose eighth place at Richmond

hadn't been enough. There wasn't really a direct line of causation from the Waltrip antics or Logano's move up the order to point to one of those 'smoking guns' that meant Gordon had been unfairly denied a Chase spot.

But again it was that overall weight of suspicion, that cumulative pile of unseemly behaviour that basically meant the way the final Chase places were decided was tarnished and something needed to be done. So the Chase field was increased to 13 drivers, and Gordon allowed in too.

"There were too many things that altered the event and gave an unfair disadvantage to Jeff and his team,

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BOWYER PREPPING TO HEAD OUT ONTO THE TRACK

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who would have qualified," said France.

"I have the authority to do that. It is an unprecedented and extraordinary thing, but it's also an unprecedented and extraordinary set of circumstances that unfolded in multiple different ways on Saturday night.

"We believe this was the right outcome to protect the integrity of NASCAR, which is our number one goal."

And finally, a new rule was instituted saying that "NASCAR requires its competitors to race at 100% of their ability with the goal of achieving their best possible finishing position in an event.

"Any competitor who takes action with the intent to artificially alter the finishing positions of the event or encourages, persuades or induces others to artificially

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alter the finishing position of the event shall be subject to a penalty from NASCAR".

In explaining what might crop up under that rule, Helton suggested "offering a position in exchange for favour or material benefit; offering material benefit in exchange for track position; directing a driver to give up a position to the benefit of another driver and intentionally causing a caution" among the prohibited practices, as well as deliberate crashes or collisions or withdrawing from a race to benefit another competitor.

In other words, basically everything that NASCAR had any suspicion might've happened that night at Richmond, and perhaps hadn't quite been able to prove. All those "circumstances that are unhelpful in the credibility category".

None of the protagonists in the various Richmond

misadventures and corrections really featured in the Chase title fight in the end, as that came down to Jimmie Johnson defeating Matt Kenseth.

Unimpressed sponsor NAPA ended its relationship with Michael Waltrip Racing, costing Truex his seat, and the team itself closed down two years later, ending a pretty eventful Cup stint in which it had been involved in an above average number of controversies even for a NASCAR team.

It all came across as pretty undignified at the time, a classic NASCAR scandal. But was it really?

Deliberately crashing a car to help a team-mate... this was only five years after the Renault F1 team had done just that with Nelson Piquet Jr and Fernando Alonso in Singapore. A small team colluding with a bigger one in exchange for favours... how often has

that been rumoured in F1 when a customer engine runner did something that appeared to benefit its partner manufacturer? Teams adjusting strategies to choreograph outcomes to suit championship positions... the Alfa Romeo F1 team's been rather good at that lately with its successful bid to thwart Aston Martin in the 2022 season finale and then its 'spoiler' effort to stop Alpine getting a fastest lap point in the 2023 opener.

Perhaps the thing that really made this a classic NASCAR scandal was actually that it was dealt with so openly and swiftly, and efforts were made to put things morally right - even when a bit of rules improvisation was required to achieve it.

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IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

FROM RACING TO TESTING MICK SCHUMACHER'S FINAL YEAR AT HAAS IN 2022 DIDN'T EXACTLY GO TO PLAN, AND IT MEANT HE MISSED OUT ON A SEAT FOR 2023. INSTEAD, HE'S AT MERCEDES AS A RESERVE DRIVER

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PASTURES

NEW WORDS BY ADAM PROUD IMAGES BY MERCEDES / FERRARI / ROB OVERY

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A

dewey freshness hangs over the collective red-clad gaggle-like dressed Italians as the day begins to break in typical early spring fashion; the fog of anticipation dwells almost as thickly as the dawn-tinged air around the Fiorano circuit.

The assembled mechanics, media and engineers have been here many times before - in fact the routine has been very well practised over the years by the plethora of Ferrari ‘garagiste’ that are often tasked with the various roles in rolling out one of their famous scarlet machines onto the famed asphalt adorning the rolling countryside in front of them.

Names like Villeneuve, Schumacher, Alesi, Andretti and Prost have all graced this hallowed ribbon of asphalt, a living, breathing ode to the most famous Formula 1 team of them all.

Today, however, a new name has stirred the excitement among the ordinarily professionally humbled Scuderia. The name is as famous as the starstudded list of previous visitors to Maranello, and even more excitingly, as Italian as the pricing horses’ own glorious heritage. It isn’t a superstar of the rising up or coming from junior formulae, however - nor is it a returnee of high pedigree making a flying visit for media purposes. No, this name is already a world-beater; but on one half the quotient of wheels allocated to him today.

A curly-haired man makes his footsteps purposeful, bedecked in his own famous red overalls, and carrying

a spare helmet more familiar in the hands of an on-form German than this wiry Italian. His globally familiar smile stretched across his face as he readies himself to step into the tub of the Ferrari F2003GA beside him, scarcely hidden as he covers his head with the helmet.

That German, whose helmet is now firmly strapped to the young debutant climbing into his Ferrari, watches on with a concoction of interest and intrigue.

“What advice do you have to give him”, a member of the assembled press fires in his direction.

“I didn’t give him any advice. He doesn’t need it,” came the wry reply.

It’s the opening group test of 2004, and the German in question is as famous as they come in F1 circles going for his fifth straight title in an all-conquering team, Michael Schumacher is in preparations for what would end up being his most dominant season in the sport. However, climbing into his car now is of equal status on a set of two wheels as the bona fide world beater of his generation - an on-form Valentino Rossi who, against the might of some of the best of the era, showed an impressive turn of speed in unfamiliar machinery.

If the rumours by the engineers were to be believed, Rossi would come in at the end of his running a mere 0.7 seconds away from the benchmark time set by a similarly on-form Schumacher - a stat that, given Rossi’s unwavering competitiveness, countered his ‘just for fun’ approach to the test in a way that made the establishment stand up and take notice.

ROSSI TESTING THE FERRARI

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ROSSI AND SCHUMACHER AT MARANELLO

In fact for a man entering the chance of a lifetime to test contemporary F1 machinery in the realm of ‘just for fun’, he flirted several times with the very real possibility of making the switch from two wheels to four, peaking with his involvement in a serious group test in Valencia in pre-season 2006, sharing the track with the rest of the assembled F1 fraternity and, with many still impressed by his willingness to learn more about the car with each respective outing. At this point, no one was to know that Schumacher was entering into his final chapter with the Scuderia, having been denied an eighth world championship title by an upand-coming Fernando Alonso.

Rossi, despite spinning on the only lap of wet weather running he managed, had at this stage accrued well over 1000 kilometres of F1 testing, and was, by all intents and purposes, drawing comparisons to John Surtees, the only man to this day to cross codes and successfully take world titles on two and four wheels.

Rossi, despite claims of being distracted by his alternative pursuits and losing the 2006 title to Honda’s Nicky Hayden, was at this point in his widest window to make the switch to F1 but, by the time Schumacher had announced his retirement, Rossi had already signed on for a further two years with Yamaha and went on to claim two more world titles.

The tantalising alternate reality of having Rossi take

that position alongside Felipe Massa instead of Kimi Raikkonen and make his F1 debut at the same race as a certain Lewis Hamilton makes for fascinating musing.

However, as time drew on and Rossi explored his F1 options thereafter, subsequent tests had more of the ‘just for fun’ flavour than the running in Valencia.

Only one further F1 outing would ever eventuate; taking advantage of a common relationship with Monster Energy and Mercedes F1 team, Valentino would enjoy a swap of machinery with four-wheeled counterpart Lewis Hamilton.

Trading his 2019 Yamaha for Hamilton’s title-winning 2017 Mercedes W08, Rossi lit up; showing off once again why he was considered for a seat at Ferrari many years prior, Valentino was barely oneand-a-half seconds slower than Hamilton.

“They’ve come a long way, it’s a very different car now to what I have driven before,” would be Rossi’s assessment. The team, however, were much more glowing in theirs; “It is really the sign of a true master that he’s not out of control and progressively finding performance. Throughout the day, he had areas of strengths. One of them was braking late and carrying speed into the corner, he’s really good at that”, Mercedes’ James Vowles would glow. Another Rossi fan to add to the books.

As the chips would fall on two-wheeled forays, however, Rossi would enjoy a career in MotoGP that

BY THE TIME SCHUMACHER HAD ANNOUNCED HIS RETIREMENT, ROSSI HAD ALREADY SIGNED ON FOR A FURTHER TWO YEARS WITH YAMAHA

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ROSSI ALSO TESTED THE MERCEDES IN A CAR/BIKE SWAP WITH LEWIS HAMILTON

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TESTING THE MERCEDES

would paint him as one of the all-time greats, if not the greatest, to grace the championship. By the end of his 21-year career at motorcycle racing’s top flight, Rossi would bow out with seven MotoGP World Championships, and a career netting 89 wins from 372 starts. Such was his impact on the sport, the famous number 46 was retired at the top flight in honour of the achievements and legacy that Valentino would leave behind.

As his 2021 MotoGP campaign drew to a close, Rossi was on the hunt to satisfy and quench his competitive desires once more, although a different challenge would have to confront him. Thought began to gather momentum and, in a way the cards fell just wrong for a

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F1 stint, the hand would be one of a luckier guise for the even more renowned Rossi to finally stake his claim and have a shot at four-wheeled stardom.

Although F1 has passed the 44-year-old Italian by, sports cars would beckon. At the twilight of his MotoGP career, Rossi set foot into endurance racing on a more serious level. Dabbling in the Blancpain Endurance Series for Ferrari in 2012, Rossi’s ambitions stepped up a gear as he entered the 2019 Gulf 12 Hour in a Ferrari 488 run by Kessel Racing, alongside longtime friend Uccio Salucci and Moto2 rider, and Rossi's brother, Luca Marini.

After a challenging weekend’s initiation that saw the trio qualify seventh, they mounted a genuine challenge

and began to work their way forward. With most of the race run, the number 46 Ferrari was running in fourth outright, until a late race penalty for the class leading (and overall third placed) Audi meant that Rossi and co. were elevated onto the rostrum, claiming the ProAm class victory to boot. For the first time since the euphoric promise of his F1 testing, we would finally get to see the appearance of the long-awaited promise of Valentino Rossi’s four wheeled forays.

As it would eventuate, this flirtation with cars had arrived at a time when he was suffering a results dip; although the start of his 2019 MotoGP season was strong, as the calendar arrived in Jerez for the start of the European season, Rossi would experience a

deft downfall in performance that went against his traditional expectations.

“It was the first time I would consider retiring,” Rossi would later reveal. “We arrived in Europe and we were just not fast.”

After entering the 2020 edition of the Dubai race, the appetite was whetted sufficiently as he strove for a full-time switch to cars. Already nursing the notion that he was at the tail end of his incredible career, the cogs were turning and, as he entered the final few rounds of his illustrious MotoGP career, the moves were already being put in place to excite every Rossi fan desperate to see the pipe dream of a Valentino four-wheeled campaign take shape.

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In fact, they may have been rewarded a whole year earlier; as it transpired, Rossi was close to walking away from two-wheeled fame as the end of 2020 faded away into the very affected memories of a covid-ravaged world. Although the Italian was ready himself to walk away, the rest of his entourage were not.

“My parents, my friends, they all said to me to do another year. I had a new chief mechanic as well in the team, so they all said, we have to do another year,” Rossi mentioned. Taking on a final MotoGP campaign in 2021 for Petronas Yamaha SRT, his first satellite team since his 2001 World Championship success, Rossi would finally take his final bows, finishing the 2021 season in 18th place and ready to finally hang up his

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leathers. The splinter planted during those early years of F1 forays, however, would finally come to life.

The garage doors had barely come down on his twowheeled successes when, on January 13 2022, it was announced that Rossi would be making his full-time debut in the GT World Challenge Europe for Belgian outfit Team WRT, behind the wheel of their formidable Audi R8 LMS GT3. After testing in a BMW Z4 GT3 in preparation, Rossi landed in the Audi with no lesser expectations than podiums on debut.

“This is a new adventure,” he would say pre-season, “a new world. In particular we need to understand my level, my speed, because we don't know it. I hope to be competitive, to fight for podiums, and I have to see

during the season.”

Alongside GT racing stalwarts and Audi factory drivers Nico Muller and Frederic Vervisch, Rossi made his competitive debut at the Imola 3 Hour race and quickly got up to speed. Finding his niche with the defending GT World Challenge champions, Rossi would bring the car home in 17th position, after a miscommunication with his team meant he overshot his pit box. However, a strong showing on debut and a masterful drive to help bring the car home in one piece highlighted that the Italian’s thirst for competition continued to burn unabated.

As the GT circus rolled into Brand Hatch for the first of the sprint rounds of the championship, you could be forgiven for forgetting any of the other drivers were even present. A sea of fluorescent yellow paraphernalia adorned with the famous number 46 flooded the Kent surrounds, and the little Italian was flanked at all sides by adoring fans clambering to get a glimpse of the world champion rider.

His full debut in the Sprint championship was an uneventful, yet solid affair; in front of the adoring crowds it was the AF Corse Ferrari pairing of Ulysses De Pauw and Pierre-Alexander Jean who took home the laurels, and while Rossi never challenged the established podium runners, including WRT team-mates Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor, his eventual 13th and eighth place finishes with Vervisch among esteemed rivals was a testament to the talent showcased throughout his four wheeled flirting.

Come the second round of the World Challenge endurance rounds, however, the team’s experienced lineup enjoyed a strong showing to a fine 5th place,

one of two top five finishes he would take home in 2022, and a spectacularly strong transition to cars that easily put pay to the very few naysayers that every doubted Rossi’s transition. Those who were critical, clearly never experienced the Italian’s fervour.

The Sprint season, however, would prove to be a more challenging set of circumstances. A season high of fifth at Misano would be precluded by a DNF in race one, his first of only two all season - the second coming at a season-ending Race 2 at Valencia and put a full stop on an impressive, if mixed, year.

Arriving mid season at the team’s home endurance race at Spa, Rossi would struggle with the knife-edge handling of the Audi; 17th was the best Rossi could manage alongside Vervisch.

“The Audi is a tricky car, a particular car,” Valentino would comment. “WRT are doing a great job, and while I’m not quite where my team-mates are, it’s going as I expected it to.”

For those reading the outright stats, you could be forgiven for indulging in raised eyebrows and a furtive head-tilt at the name being only 15th and 16th in the Sprint and Endurance championships respectively; but Rossi is still feisty, eager and continues to display the level of attention to detail you’d expect to find within a nine-time grand prix, and seven-time MotoGP World Champion.

“I’m always very worried about the end of my career,” Rossi would detail as he headed into 2022.

“I don’t want to stop, I want to race because I like it.

Taking a step back is a strange situation, but I feel good. It’s one of the first times I’ve stepped away and thought ‘I’ll survive’ away from it.”

ROSSI RACING IN THE 24 HOURS OF DUBAI

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He’d do more than that, and as 2023 stretches into the spring, Rossi is already knee-deep in the new season. Having done away with the tricky Audi, Team WRT have switched to the BMW Z4 GT3 for the second of Rossi’s GT racing seasons, and with it have come experienced new team-mates in Augusto Farfus and Maxime Martin. Having made the switch to the Bavarian outfit, the added bonus of being drafted into BMW’s roster as a works driver has officially meant the transformation has been completed.

Although the return to the GT World Challenge as a works driver would be exciting news on its own, it was the announcement that Rossi would race at the famed Bathurst 12-Hour race that excited the fans down under; the amalgamation of the MotoGP legend and one of the world’s most spectacular circuits was a tantalising proposition.

Tantalising turned into scintillating; the WRT BMW was up as high as third during the race, impressing the established cohort and glimpsing into a world where the possibility of a Rossi GT racing title challenge would be not too far into the distance. As it transpired, a need to pit for a repaired brake light scuppered the hopes

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of the 43-year-old and his team-mates for a podium, but the eventual sixth place on one of the world’s most gruelling pieces hallowed Tarmac signalled that Rossi could still run with the best.

Many will have their eyes glued to the resurgence of Rossi as the 2023 season grinds on, many of whom could never argue that the Italian would ever have failed at delivering upon his notable car racing prowess.

As his career enters its new phase, however, it makes a fun, and well-fuelled, debate among those who have been on the receiving end of seeing the Valentino Rossi promise as to whether, in a different world, he would have had the momentum and the means to emulate the ethereal John Surtees in modern machinery; a feat that many thought would never happen again.

Yet, if but for a twist in time and circumstances in the summer of 2006, we may have been etching words here comparing the two in a blow-for-blow statistical showdown.

Will the words being etched in time, however, speak of a victorious GT racing rise among the ashes of a MotoGP career?

Don’t bet against it.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

THE WAITING GAME MIKKEL JENSEN IN THE PITLANE AT SEBRING WAITING TO TAKE OVER DRIVING DUTIES OF THE PEUGEOT 9X8.

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RED BULL FIRST TIME

FORD AROUND

WORDS BY GARTH KENARDINGTON IMAGES BY GRAND PRIX PHOTO

T

he announcement of the 2026 Red Bull-Ford partnership had one obvious nod to a quirk of Formula 1 history: Ford was making its works F1 return with the team that had been created from its own disastrous attempt to run a works F1 project, Red Bull Racing having been born from the purchase of Jaguar at the end of 2004.

But that wasn't the only Red Bull/Ford parallel from F1's past. Red Bull's first big F1 foray had actually been as the majority owner and lead sponsor of another Ford works team, albeit a shortlived one: the Sauber-Ford tie-up of 1995 and '96.

KARL WENDLINGER DRIVING THE SAUBER MERCEDES IN 1993 CARS LINING UP FOR THE START OF ONE OF THE HEATS

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Ford's biggest F1 successes of the 1990s came with teams that were trying to get rid of it. McLaren turned to its engines somewhat grudgingly after Honda's departure, paying for a customer deal that had to be a spec behind Benetton's, and Ayrton Senna's 1993 heroics came with the backdrop of his annoyance at this "absurd situation", a key factor in his refusal to compete on anything more solid than a race-by-race deal going into that year. For McLaren, those Fords were only ever a stopgap while it chased a proper new works contract. After considering Lamborghini, it picked Peugeot. That proved to be a fiery disaster (often

literally), which had an impact on what happened to Ford's F1 programme next.

Benetton gave Ford its most recent F1 title via Michael Schumacher in 1994, yet there was never any doubt that year that the Renault in the Williams was the engine to have. So keen was Benetton to get its hands on Renault, its boss Flavio Briatore took a controlling stake in Renault's other team Ligier so its engine deal could be transferred to Benetton - a move that probably made sure of the 1995 title.

So Ford was jilted at the end of the year in which it returned to the top of F1.

At the same time, Sauber was in a degree of crisis.

Its route to F1 had been via its sportscar partner Mercedes, but Mercedes wasn't going through with the original plan of creating its own works team (not yet, at least). It had to bail Sauber out when its planned 1994 title sponsor Broker - an investment magazine - proved to be a sham. McLaren and Peugeot were done with each other after just one season, Sauber wasn't turning out to be what Mercedes wanted in an F1 partner, and a McLaren-Mercedes tie-up became logical.

That left Sauber on the sidelines too. It and Ford hooked up, rather late in the day heading towards 1995.

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SAUBER JOINED FORCES WITH FORD IN 1994

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WENDLINGER DRIVING IN THE RAIN IN PRACTICE FOR THE ARGENTINIAN GRAND PRIX

ON PAPER, GETTING THE ENGINE THAT HAD POWERED THE PREVIOUS YEAR'S WORLD CHAMPION LOOKED LIKE A SPECTACULAR DEAL An engine alone didn't solve all Sauber's problems given how much Mercedes had been contributing beyond that. But two new backers saved the day: Petronas, and then relatively low-profile energy drink Red Bull, which actually took a majority shareholding, although team founder Peter Sauber maintained control given how voting rights were set-up in the alliance's structure.

On paper, getting the engine that had powered the previous year's world champion looked like a spectacular deal for Sauber, which had impressed

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greatly in its F1 debut season in 1993 then stagnated a little in '94 - albeit while dealing with the horrendous head injury suffered by long-time driver Karl Wendlinger in Monaco and the disruption of the Broker deal's collapse. The performances of Wendlinger's rookie team-mate - and fellow sometime Mercedes sportscar protege - Heinz-Harald Frentzen provided the light.

But the engine deal musical chairs came together so late in 1994 that several key 1995 cars were originally designed around the wrong engines, the Sauber C14 particularly affected by this. The Ford Zetec-R V8 was

heavier, taller and longer than the Mercedes Sauber's designers thought they'd be getting, and that was a major packaging headache. The result was an overweight and understeering car.

It was reliable, though, and Frentzen kept getting the best out of it. He notched up more top six finishes than the car really merited on pace, and even ended up on the podium with a little help from attrition at Monza.

He was on for a second place in Adelaide too had his gearbox lasted. Estoril was the best weekend in outright performance terms, as he qualified fifth and finished sixth. It was enough to convince Williams that Frentzen could be its future, eventually at Damon Hill's expense, and Ford contributed to Frentzen's salary to make sure he stuck around for 1996.

All that only resulted in seventh place in the

constructors' championship, though, as Sauber-Ford was effectively a one-car team. Wendlinger was sadly off the pace on his return - both initially and in a second late-season attempt - and it became clear that his accident had basically ended his F1 career. Inbetween, any hope reigning Formula 3000 champion Jean-Christophe Boullion had of a decent F1 stint was destroyed by Frentzen's superiority, which made the form Boullion had showed with his late run to the F3000 title and in testing for Williams pretty irrelevant in the paddock's eyes.

Ford produced a new V10 for Sauber for 1996, yet before the car even hit the track it was known that the partnership was about to end. Long-time Ford man Jackie Stewart had convinced the company to join forces with him for the launch of his new F1 team.

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FRENTZEN RACING IN THE 1996 ARGENTINIAN GRAND PRIX

Stewart Grand Prix would arrive for 1997 as Ford's factory team. Sauber was on the hunt for a new partner again, and its solution of Petronas-badged old Ferraris was a real coup at a time when customer Ferrari deals were rare in the extreme.

Year two of Red Bull-branded Sauber-Fords was therefore something of a lame duck season, with the impression too that Frentzen was rather treading

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water once it was clear he was heading to Williams for 1997. He didn't star nearly as often as he had in 1994 and '95, what would've probably been a Monaco win was thrown away in a tangle with Eddie Irvine, and his new team-mate Johnny Herbert still seemed to be carrying something of a performance hangover from his crushing experience at Benetton alongside Schumacher that he didn't really shake until 1997.

Red Bull-Ford take one ended with a final tally of just one podium finish and a pair of seventh-place finishes in the constructors' championship. Stewart-Ford starred on occasion in 1997, slumped in '98 then soared in '99 as Ford raised its engine game, before being transformed - with mostly embarrassing consequences - into Jaguar for the new century. Red Bull shared lead Sauber branding with Petronas until 2001, when

- in what now seems like a fairly ridiculous turn of events - Sauber upset Red Bull by insisting on running Kimi Raikkonen rather than Red Bull protege Enrique Bernoldi and Red Bull relinquished its shares.

Expectations will be rather higher all round when the Red Bull and Ford logos next share space on the side of an F1 car in 2026.

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IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

WINTER STAGES TONY ROBINSON TACKLING THE BRANDS HATCH WINTER STAGES IN HIS SKODA FABIA R5. UNFORTUNATELY HIS EVENT IN 2023 ENDED IN RETIREMENT ON SS6.

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POTENTIAL WORDS BY IAN PAGE IMAGES COURTESY OF LINUS LUNDQVIST THE PIT STOP | 47

M

otorsport has more than its fair share of glamourous locations. However, Luton Airport isn’t one of them.

Once upon a time, it was the starting point for a great lad’s holiday I took to Budapest. Today it’s where I now find Swedish racing driver Linus Lundqvist, who is happy to waste a bit of his five hour wait to catch a connecting flight to Spain on a European tour of driving to help his 2023 preparations. “I’ve been in Italy for the last three, four days doing some karting,” he explains to The Pit Stop. “Then on to Spain, back to the UK, then to Spain again, Belgium and then back to the US. I haven’t been inside a racing car since September last year [2022]. It can’t be eight months without me being in a car and then jumping into an IndyCar and being expected

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to perform.” It is exactly that commitment that has enabled the Tyresö-born driver arrive on the cusp of IndyCar… For many of you, the name will be familiar. Lundqvist has already tasted success, winning the BRDC British F3 championship in 2018 and finishing fifth in the Euroformula Open series in 2019, before making the decision to pursue IndyCar and winning the Formula Regional Americas Championship in 2020. He also won the much-coveted Indy NXT Series, or Indy Lights as it was known between 2008 and 2022.

Despite the success, a career in the US was never initially on the cards. The decision to pursue IndyCar and a career in the US, away from racing in Europe all came down to budgets.

“That move was entirely motivated by financial

reasons,” Lundqvist said. “We kind of came to a full stop in Europe, the target was always to do FIA F3, but it was never possible, unfortunately.” With no budget to go anywhere by the time the end of 2019 came along, Lundqvist found himself looking for options globally. “Last minute I got in touch with a team over in the US. I’ve always followed the American market and their system, the way that it works with scholarships, it’s something very intriguing for someone like me.”

Despite the lack of a full budget for the year, Lundqvist was able to get something together. “They basically said, ‘alright, come over here and do a couple of races and we'll see how it goes,’” Lundqvist explained. “I went over there, and we won the first eight races together and then it was just a case of ‘alright, we’ll continue then. Let's keep on going.’” It

was those eight wins that helped Lundqvist win the Regional Americas championship and in turn pick up a scholarship to take part in the 2021 Indy Lights.

Although the American market offered a more viable route financially, it was the opportunity to win the Indy Lights scholarship that helped keep Linus’ career online. “If I hadn’t won the championship that year, there would be a high probability that I wouldn't be racing today. So, without the scholarship I probably wouldn't have survived racing.”

For obvious reasons, taking part in a sporting series in 2020 was not an easy feat. Taking part in one in another country was almost impossible, and it presented Lundqvist with some real challenges during his Formula Regional Americas season. “I got into the country 11 days before the first race because I couldn't

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LUNDQVUST RACING AT INDIANAPOLIS IN INDY LIGHTS

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fly directly from Sweden to the US,” he said. “I had to fly from Sweden, quarantine in Mexico for two weeks and then fly from Mexico into the US. I think I had one day, half a day in the car before the first race? There wasn't a lot of preparations.”

Somehow Lundqvist and his team made it work. “I was there on an ESTA [US tourist visa], so I had to be a little bit careful with the days, how much I used, when I used them… so it took a little bit of planning. It was my second time ever in the US, I think. My introduction to the US was maybe not the best in the middle of COVID. You know, you got used to it.”

The whole scenario was very intimidating. “I moved there all by myself, I didn't know anybody! I think I had a phone conversation with the team principal that I was racing for, maybe four or five times on the phone and that was the most contact that I'd been with anybody over in the US. So, it took a couple of weeks before I got into my own routines and got a couple of friends and stuff like that.”

Scholarships differ from championship to championship and can even change within championships, so Lundqvist set about explaining his route. “When I did FR Americas in 2020 it was basically a HPD, Honda Performance Department scholarship, because they provided the engines. It was a $600,000 support package to do Indy Lights.” $600,000 is not the full budget to go racing - but it's a big help in closing the gap. “That made it possible for me to go racing.”

So how do you go from Formula Regional Americas to IndyCar? You take the ‘Road to Indy’, of course.

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The ‘Road to Indy’ is a driver development programme, providing a scholarship-funded path to reach the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis 500, all sanctioned

by IndyCar. Since its launch back in 2010, the ‘Road to Indy’ ladder system has attracted competitors from around the globe, all showcasing their talents at premier venues on a mix of road courses, temporary street circuits and ovals.

“The idea behind it is that you go through all these ladder systems, and they want to promote the champion to take the next step, eventually, you end up in IndyCar. “It’s the same way that over the last few years Formula 1 has reorganised to have a more structural approach to it, with the FIA F3 and the FIA F2, kind of, the road to F1.” The only difference with the US route is that drivers can get big scholarships.

Very much on the ‘Road to Indy’, Lundqvist has now made the US his permanent base, or as permanent as he can be in the circumstances. “For the last three years I've been racing there, so it makes sense to continue my path and the plan was to be in IndyCar this year. That didn't happen but I'm still trying to make that happen and the best way to do that is to base yourself out of the US and Indy.” It was a common friend who put Lundqvist in touch with Swedish drag racer Jonnie Lindberg. “He has a house in Indianapolis,” Lundqvist said, “So I reached out to him, and he said that I could come and stay with him for as long as I need. He helped me quite a lot in the beginning, then I had a Swedish guy to talk to and learn the way of the Americans.”

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There’s no doubt that the profile of singleseater racing in the US is on the rise, but as Lundvist explains, it’s got a very different approach to junior categories that the ones adopted across Europe.

“It's very different on many plains,” Lundqvist explained. “Every car is very different, you know, from every series. I think it was the whole personality of engineers, mechanics, the other drivers, the way that you act and talk and stuff like that. That was a big change, the tracks are very similar to the tracks in the UK, where they're usually not very big with a lot of run offs which is nice, it adds some character to it.” The car was the biggest thing that Lundqvist found he had to get used to, simply because it is so different to anything that he has raced before. It took quite a while for the 23-year-old to get comfortable and learn what he needed from the car in order to be fast in it.

“I think it was the combination of the way that

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the car worked together with the tyre,” Lundqvist continued. “When I raced it was a Cooper tyre and it was a pretty stiff tyre, back in Europe, especially with the Pirellis, we talk about heat surface, and you can't really slide the tyre and you've got to have a slow preparation and build them up from heating the tyre inside.” With the Cooper tyres, Lundqvist explained, it was the complete opposite. “The more sliding you did, the faster you will be, you really had to push the car 110%.

“In theory you drove the perfect lap, hitting your marks, no oversteer moments, nothing like that, you're usually between three and five bends off. Then you go out and push like hell and have a couple of moments and it didn't feel like such a good lap, you'd end up on being on poll because it's just faster to drive that way.”

On track, drivers are just as competitive in the US, but as Lundqvist explains, “the biggest difference was

RACING DOWN INTO THE FIRST CORNER AT LAGUNA SECA

off track.

“In Europe we maintained the same competitiveness or relationship on track we do off track, you know, you’re kind of friends with your team-mate, but it's tricky to spend a lot of time together. “[But in the US] you can be competitors on track but then be friends off track, which is nice. Every team has that same mentality, which was a nice breath of fresh air coming from Europe.”

Sharing the stage with a spectacle as big as IndyCar attracts a bigger media and public interest. Having previously shared race weekends with British GT, British Touring Cars or GT Open, racing on an IndyCar weekend was a big step up for Lundqvist in terms of audience and media attention. A weekend at St. Petersburg, 100,000 people are spectating. “It was a big deal racing together with IndyCar,” he excitedly explains. “It pumps me up even more, the more

people the better I say. The higher the risk the better I'll perform.”

How does one prepare to compete in Indy Lights?

What does it take to be competitive and to push for a seat in the US’ top single seater competition?

“You have to work on your physical strength a lot more because both the Indy Lights and IndyCar are a lot more physical to drive than anything that I've driven here in Europe. You have to spend more time preparing on that side. Other than that, I tried to be the best driver that I could possibly be, no matter what series that is. So, I wouldn't say that really changed anything.”

All that preparation must have worked because Lundqvist took the championship in 2022. “Well, probably the best thing in my life I would say,” Lundqvist said.

“It was emotional because it means so much more

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TAKING THE INDY LIGHTS TITLE IN ONLY HIS SECOND YEAR IS A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT than just winning of a championship. I've been doing this for a long time, there's been so many people behind the scenes making it possible, helping me, supporting me and especially my family that's been there since day one and they're still hard at work”.

Linus has a fantastic support network. His family travel to the majority of his races, and they were there for his final race last year.

“It was very emotional to see them there when crossing the line and coming into the pit lane”.

Taking the Indy Lights title in only his second year is a great achievement. It aIways seems an odd question to ask drivers if they go into new formulas and

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championships as rookies looking to win. Of course, they do - they wouldn’t be racers if they didn’t, and Lundqvist certainly shows the self-belief that a great driver needs to survive and push in a very difficult sport.

“We did well the year prior. I felt like I had taken quite a big step from one year to the next, I expected us to be in the championship fight. We got off to a brilliant start, I think we were up by almost a 100-point lead three quarters of the way in, and I just maintained that all the way to the end”.

It would be fair to describe it as a dream season for Lundqvist and his team, but it was also the first time ever in his career that he spent two years in the same

series.

“I'm always thinking the next step within a year or training to do it within a year,” Lundqvist said. “So, it was interesting to see how I would react to it and how much I would gain. It was interesting to have the Winter to work on your weaknesses and focusing on your strength, what we did well, what we didn't do too well and stuff like that. Which obviously worked out quite well for us.”

There are many factors that play into the decision a driver takes in terms of where they race, but with an IndyCar seat not becoming available, a second season

in IndyLights was really his only choice.

“I tried to go to IndyCar even last year but that didn't happen. I didn't win the championship, so I wasn't at the top of the list.

“I wasn't signed until I think later January [2022].

I only did I think one or two test days before the first race, so, it wasn't like we came in with a whole lot of preparation. It was a last-minute deal, trying to make something happen and then we did quite well of it.”

We all know getting a seat in IndyCar is not a given; Lundqvist is not the first one and certainly won't be the last one in that position. Felipe Drugovich won FIA F2

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and despite having a test seat with Aston Martin F1, is without a full race seat for 2023.

“It doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt,” Lundqvist explains. “I think we deserve a shot to be in IndyCar, show what we got, but we'll see. I'm still hanging in there and the plan and the hope is to do as many races as I can this year in IndyCar, to see what we can make happen.”

But while an IndyCar seat isn’t a possibility right now, Lundqvist is hopeful that an upcoming test could lead into a race deal later in the year.

So what is Lundqvist planning over the next year?

“I've got the question quite a lot, whether having a year not doing a full championship is going to ruin a career,” he began. “I think it can if you just sit on your couch at home waiting for the phone to ring. I think if you're out there on the races, doing a little bit of testing and keep reminding people that you're out there and

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that you've done a good job, I think you can make something happen”.

At the gym five or six days a week, Lundqvist is still very much preparing himself as if doing an IndyCar season. “I'm going to a gym called PitFit in Indy where most of the IndyCar drivers go to. I'm trying to look at these guys, what they're doing and trying to keep myself in the same form and shape.”

Focusing back to the last couple of years, Lundqvist has two main highlights.

“I think one of my first highlights was Detroit, we had two races at Detroit in 2021, and it was my favourite track from that year. We got a pole and two second places in 2021, so I've wanted to come back and win it.”

Come 2022, Lundqvist did just that. “We were absolutely on it, the whole weekend. I think we got pole in both qualifying, one was half a second and then we

won both races, it was one of those dream weekends.”

The second highlight was a pole position at Gateway. “That was my first ever pole on an oval,” Lundqvist explains. “It was nice to show to myself that I can do it on an oval as well.”

Detroit is brutal. A street course to begin with, very uneven, bumpy, with concrete patches, Tarmac, it’s a little bit of everything. And for Lundqvist it’s a track that if you get it right, you get a lot back from it. “It's just awesome. It's one of those places, it's so difficult to get it right but it means that it's so rewarding when you do get it right.”

Something that sets IndyCar aside from other race formulas is banked oval circuits. Iowa and Gateway are tracks that Lundqvist experienced and he quickly learned a few valuable lessons. “It's nice, the banking helps a lot, you can carry a lot of speed. Qualifying and being fast is one thing, the difficult part is the race

craft, learning how to drive and turning, protecting your tyres and pushing what you need to.”

But while Lundqvist is happy about how his year went last year, there’s still one thing getting to him. “I think we were pretty good all year long. One thing that bugs me a little bit, I did a mistake around Iowa and the race that we had there.

“I think we could've held P2 for the rest of the race if I just didn't [make] a mistake. That's probably the only thing that really stands out which is obviously not big but it's something.”

He might be missing a seat for 2023, but having won three races last year, Lundqvist has proven he has real potential. Now he just needs to locate a seat, before his career risks going in a similar direction to that of so many other talented drivers. And if that did happen, it would be a real travesty.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

NITRO IN 2022 JENSON BUTTON TRIED HIS HAND AT RALLYCROSS, COMPETING IN THE INAUGURAL NITRO RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP. AN ALLELECTRIC SERIES THAT'S ALREADY ATTRACTED THE LIKES OF TRAVIS PASTRANA AND KRIS MEEKE.

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R CROSS A D S

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY RED BULL

I

n many ways, the World Rally Championship is one of motorsport’s greatest secrets. As a fan and a spectator, there’s no greater experience than being sat on the side of a rally stage witnessing these brutal cars hurtling past you at insane speeds, just a few metres away.

It’s breathtaking, adrenaline fuelled, and gives you greater respect and admiration for the skill levels of these drivers.

But the issue right now is that rallying and the WRC don’t seem to be anywhere near as popular as they

once did.

In the Group B era, rallying was a household sport, and that continued right into the early 2000s. Most UK households would have quickly recalled Colin McRae or Richard Burns when asked to name a current rally driver at the turn of the millennium. But how many people that aren’t avid WRC fans are able to name a driver in the current line-up? Not that many, I would suspect.

The decline of WRC’s popularity really began when the two Sebastiens – Loeb and Ogier – took a stronghold and dominated the championship. Nobody

else got a look in while these two were competing full-time, Loeb winning the title on nine occasions, and Ogier eight.

But it goes beyond that.

The WRC used to be shown on the weekends on terrestrial TV. You could find action to watch on Grandstand, and when it left the BBC, WRC had its own programme on ITV for several years, as well as Channel 4 for a period of time. But that’s not the case these days. Instead, it’s been hidden behind a paywall, meaning that only true hardcore fans will pay for the

content.

And even when you do go to pay for the content, you’re now left with another hurdle, and probably the most important one of all.

As it stands, there are currently only seven Rally1 drivers competing full-time. That’s not a huge number of people competing in the very top tier of rallying.

There’s an obvious and clear answer as to why so few drivers are there. It’s money. Would it really have been anything else?

The budget required to compete in a Rally1 car

TAKAMOTO KATSUTA TACKLING THE STAGES OF MEXICO

is eye-watering. With hybrid technology and a spaceframe chassis, these cars cannot be built on the cheap. One source has stated that driving a Rally1 car on a single event costs in the region of £250,000, and when there are 13 rounds in a season, you can quickly see why many drivers simply can’t afford a drive in the category.

Last year, drivers such as Gus Greensmith, Adrien Fourmaux and Oliver Solberg were all competing at the top level. Fourmaux and Solberg were essentially junior drivers for M-Sport and Hyundai respectively, but due to several crashes and the inability to string together consistent strong results, both drivers were dropped from driving the Rally1 cars.

That’s not to say they don’t have the talent to compete at the top level, but M-Sport in particular could not afford to keep paying out huge sums of money to repair the cars.

Solberg lost his drive completely with Hyundai, but

for Fourmaux M-Sport took a different approach. The team decided to put him in a Rally2 car for 2023.

That might seem like a step down. It is, we can’t get away from it. But in some ways it’s really not. With Greensmith and Solberg both opting to compete in WRC2 in 2023, it quickly made that class one of the most competitive in the WRC. And it’s also much, much cheaper than competing in Rally1.

As such, it means the drivers know they have adequate budget to not only complete a full season, but also have some cash spare for additional testing, ensuring they get as much seat time as possible.

On Rally Sweden, the second round of the season, there were 23 entries in WRC2. Of course there’s differing levels of ability in that field, but either way, it makes it a lot more competitive than Rally1.

And when it comes to competitiveness, we shouldn’t just get hung up on Fourmaux, Solberg and Greensmith being the class of the field. Of course, they are at the

ONE SOURCE HAS STATED THAT DRIVING A RALLY1 CAR ON A SINGLE EVENT COSTS IN THE REGION OF £250,000 YOHAN ROSSEL ON THE STAGES OF MONTE CARLO

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SOLBERG ON HIS WAY TO VICTORY IN SWEDEN

front, but there are also some incredibly fast drivers in WRC2 who have never had the budget to make the step up to Rally1. Emil Lindholm, Sami Pajari and Yohan Rossel quickly come to mind.

These drivers have already given the former Rally1 drivers a good run for their money, with Rossel winning the opening round of the season in Monte Carlo.

So with cheaper costs and a much bigger entry list, should WRC consider making Rally2 the top tier, and ditching the high tech Rally1 cars altogether?

Well, from a commercial perspective there will be many reasons put forward as to why Rally1 cars should remain, but from a sporting and competition perspective, there’s one easy answer – yes.

Already this year, WRC2 is proving to be a great watch. With so many drivers, there are plenty of battles to keep fans entertained and although the cars are naturally slower than the Rally1 machines, they aren’t significantly slower.

The biggest example of that is the fact that on Rally Mexico, Solberg managed to outpace Rally1 cars on

multiple occasions. The first was on SS14 where he was the fourth fastest car overall, beating the likes of Ogier, Elfyn Evans and Hyundai’s Dani Sordo. Two stages later he was seventh fastest overall, beating Ogier again.

The one caveat to this is the fact that these were shorter stages, and therefore there was less time for Rally1 cars to stretch their legs. But even on the mammoth 35.63km Otates stage, the longest stage of all in Mexico, Solberg still set an identical stage time to M-Sport’s talisman and 2019 WRC champion Ott Tanak.

So while they might not be quite fast enough to set overall stage winning times, they really aren’t that far off the overall pace.

In addition to that, there’s also the fact that it really would save money for the manufacturers. M-Sport, Hyundai and Toyota all have Rally2 cars competing in WRC2. As such, they wouldn’t have to go through any major development programmes in order to remain in the championship. They just simply do away with their Rally1 machines.

But this leads on to another interesting point. Right

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ROSSEL WON MONTE CARLO IN THE CITROEN C3 RALLY2

now, there are only three manufacturers producing Rally1 cars. However, if WRC reverted to Rally2, all of a sudden a whole new load of manufacturers would enter the frame.

Right now, Toksport runs several Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 cars, a car which really does appear to be the class of the field, having won two of the three opening rounds courtesy of Solberg and Greensmith. But that doesn’t mean it’s getting everything completely its own

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way, with Rossel winning Monte Carlo at the wheel of a Citroen C3 Rally2.

And with a handful of Volkswagen Polos competing, a move to making Rally2 cars the top tier would automatically mean that there’s a wide range of manufacturers involved at the very top level of WRC, and that would quickly generate increased interest worldwide.

As you can see from my argument, I am very much

in favour of the switch. Personally, I believe it would be a great move on several levels and would help push rallying back towards the general public, making the championship, drivers and teams recognisable in general households once again.

But as much as I would love to see it, there’s one problem that means it will not become a reality. Well, not in the near future anyway.

The WRC is evaluating new regulations ahead of the

2025 season. Part of the WRC’s ruleset means that the regulations will go through a three-year cycle and as part of that, the FIA and teams are evaluating how rally cars of the future should be powered.

Currently, Rally1 cars compete using hybrid technology. The implementation of hybrid was an important step for the WRC to make in order to show the world that it is trying to go green, and do its part in the battle against climate change.

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GREENSMITH WON THE THIRD ROUND OF THE SEASON IN 2023

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And now there’s pressure to go further, trying to ensure that future rally cars are net zero when it comes to carbon emissions.

This is where the Rally2 cars fall down right now.

They aren’t hybrid, they are standard combustion engines, running on traditional fuels and so right now, they in no way align with the FIA’s and WRC’s vision for the future.

But what is the future? Well, it would appear there’s two options on the table – electric or hydrogen.

Naturally there’s several concerns about pursuing either option, especially since rallying can be remote a lot of the time. So from a refuelling perspective, how can you make it viable?

That’s a bigger challenge for electric powertrains, but at the moment, it would appear that hydrogen is being favoured, and it’s a view that Toyota has been advocating for some time.

If hydrogen were to be the chosen method of fuel and it were to be done using a standard internal combustion engine, then all of a sudden it could open Rally2 cars back up as a potential option for the top tier. It wouldn’t take a huge amount of modifications in order to make that viable, and it would be a great way of ensuring overall costs of running a WRC team are kept to a minimum.

However, if hydrogen fuel cell is deemed to be the future, then that changes the ballgame completely and will no doubt make cars even more expensive than Rally1s.

The reality is the WRC is currently sat at a huge crossroads. It needs to turn the tide on multiple fronts and that’s far from easy.

It needs to be more accessible to casual fans, and a younger audience, it needs a higher level of competition and the cars need to be cheaper. All the while, everything still needs to be heading towards future fuels and technologies.

It’s a balancing act, and the toughest one at that.

With the current state of top level competition, WRC’s next move is one it can ill-afford to get wrong.

Do so and it will confine itself to the hidden corners of the motorsport industry for several more years to come.

But it shouldn’t all be doom and gloom. It should take lessons and learnings from the success of WRC2. If it can take that mould, adapt it slightly to accommodate the main manufacturers currently at the help and put it into action, it can make the WRC a more competitive, more exciting and yet cheaper version of itself and that has to be a great thing all round.

There is real potential for WRC to put itself back in the limelight. It just needs to make the right decisions at the right time, and ensure it keeps focus on the bigger picture. And if it can, no doubt many WRC drivers of the future will once again become household names worldwide.

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IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

LINING UP THE 2023 PORSCHE CARRERA CUP IS A CHAMPIONSHIP WITH AN INCREASINGLY GROWING REPUTATION, AND THE SIZE OF THE GRID FOR 2023 IS THE CLEAREST PROOF OF THAT.

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SOLE

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SUCCESS

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO / GRAND PRIX PHOTO

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T

hroughout the history of Formula 1, manufacturers have had a strange relationship with the championship.

For some, like Ferrari, their whole world centres around F1. It’s the old “race on a Sunday, sell on a Monday” approach, whereby visibility in the world’s greatest racing series will persuade people that they want to own one of the cars.

But not all manufacturers have such a great affiliation with top level motorsport. For some it’s not a priority, but for others they just can’t make it work.

BMW is one of those manufacturers.

It has had several stabs at entering Formula 1, sometimes as an engine supplier and also as a works

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team, but it’s only ever reached the dizzying heights of championship glory on one occasion - in 1983.

Having witnessed Nelson Piquet and Brabham narrowly outwit the Williams of Carlos Reutemann to win in 1981, BMW decided it wanted to make an impact with the championship-winning team for 1982.

Replacing the trusted Cosworth DFV engine that had proved to be so successful for Brabham, BMW joined the team with a whole new way of thinking when it came to engine design.

Rather than using a 3-litre V8, BMW decided to provide the champions with an innovative four cylinder turbocharged powerunit dubbed the M12.

The engine immediately proved to have potential,

helping Piquet power to second on the grid for the first race of the season in South Africa. But while it might have had the necessary power to be consistently putting the car at the front of the field, it had one major drawback in that it was far from reliable.

By the end of the year, Piquet had only finished four of the 16 rounds that season, and ended up 11th in the drivers' standings. His team-mate Ricardo Patrese didn’t fare much better, ending the year 10th in the championship, but there was a glimmer of hope for the following year, with Piquet having won in Montreal (and Patrese in Monaco, but using the old Ford V8 not the BMW).

In essence, there were a few highs, but 1982 was a

season to write off. However, while it might have all seemed doom and gloom, it ended up being the perfect preparation for the following year.

Ahead of the 1983 season, the regulations were changed, banning ground effect. It meant that the cars could no longer generate as much downforce as they once had and as such, the engines once again had a major influence on performance.

Throughout 1982 only a handful of teams had been using turbocharged engines. Brabham was one, along with Renault, Ferrari and Toleman with Hart. It should have been no surprise then that these teams would have the upper hand going into 1983.

During the course of pre-season testing, it was

PATRESE TESTING THE CAR IN 1983

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PIQUET AT THE 1983 AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX

ON RACE DAY, THE CARS WERE UNLEASHED AND BY THE END OF THE FIRST LAP PIQUET AND PATRESE WERE RUNNING THIRD AND FOURTH quickly assumed that turbocharged engines were going to be the way forward, and that the Cosworth DFV engines didn’t appear to have the might to keep up. However, Williams's Keke Rosberg quickly put that theory to bed in qualifying at the opening round of the season in Brazil.

It transpired that the Cosworth powered teams had deliberately been running on high fuel in testing in a bid to catch their rivals unaware when the season got underway. And Williams and Rosberg did that in fantastic fashion when they claimed pole position for the first race of the year.

The Brabham BT52s of Piquet and Patrese were fourth and seventh respectively, but the beauty of the BMW powered cars quickly caught the attention of the paddock. They might not have made it onto the front row in qualifying, but they definitely looked fast, many convinced they were the real deal.

And in the race that proved to be exactly the case.

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Both cars had run conservatively in qualifying for several reasons. In practice both drivers struggled with the handling of the BT52, unhappy with the balance, but the reason for this was quickly established to be as a result of the turbocharger being mounted low down in the car, on the left hand side. And when the turbocharger was kicking in, the heat protruding from it was then causing the left-rear shock absorber to overheat.

The team hurriedly created a makeshift cooling system to negate this issue, but with the gearbox proving to be troublesome and fragile, the pair qualified on Saturday only using partial boost in a bid to protect the car.

However, on race day, the cars were unleashed and by the end of the first lap Piquet and Patrese were running third and fourth. By the end of the following lap Piquet had moved ahead of Alain Prost into second, and he quickly hunted down Rosberg’s Williams for the

lead, eventually passing him on the seventh lap.

From there, Piquet never looked back, but the same could not be said for Patrese who retired on lap seven with an exhaust failure. Piquet though was in total control, crossing the line to win his first race of the season by over 20 seconds to Rosberg (although Rosberg was subsequently disqualified for being push started in the pits after a small fire).

The gauntlet had been laid. The Brabham was clearly the fastest of the field and now it was going to be a case of who could keep up.

But the challengers quickly came. Piquet retired from the next race in the USA with a throttle issue, while Patrese also failed to finish with a distributor problem.

Things were more positive in France for the third race of the season, but Renault and Prost displayed that they would be a major force to be reckoned with.

Prost put his turbocharged Renault EF1 on pole at Paul Ricard, setting a time that was 2.3 seconds faster than his team-mate Eddie Cheever. Patrese lined up third, but he was 2.4s off the pace, while Piquet could only manage sixth.

When the race got going, the two Renaults held onto the top two positions, but on lap 18 Piquet, who had quietly been carving his way up the order, managed to pass Cheever for second.

Two laps later Paterese retired after his engine overheated due to a loss of water, but Piquet pushed

on in pursuit of Prost’s Renault. Unfortunately for Piquet, that pursuit was short lived. Prost was simply too quick, and even though he dropped 10s to Piquet in the pits after stalling his car, he still went on to beat the Brabham driver by 29.7s.

Damage limitation was the order of the day for Piquet, and although he didn’t win, he still left France as the championship leader, five points more than Niki Lauda, and six more than Prost.

The following event was San Marino and Piquet had a much stronger qualifying than the previous races, lining up second behind the Ferrari of Rene Arnoux. But when the race got going, Piquet’s Brabham refused to move, leaving him stationary on the grid while 24 other cars hurtled past him. He did eventually get the BT52 going, and impressively started to climb back through the order, but on lap 41 his engine let go, forcing him into retirement.

Patrese meanwhile had been having a better race, spending a significant portion of it in the lead. A botched pitstop allowed Patrick Tambay to move into the lead before Patrese managed to repass him a short while later when Tambay’s engine expired. However, a win was not on the cards, with Patrese throwing victory away when he crashed on the outside of the Acqua Minerale corner. It was a driver error. Patrese had simply taken the chicane before far too fast, dashing any hopes of a second victory for the team that season.

PIQUET AND PATRESE TALKING SHOP WITH GORDON MURRAY

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PATRESE LEADING PIQUET AT THE ITALIAN GRAND PRIX

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It was not the race Brabham had hoped for, and with Prost finishing second, he and Piquet went into Monaco week as joint leaders.

The Monaco Grand Prix proved to be a more fruitful race for Piquet than the event before. He didn’t manage to win, but was second to Rosberg. More importantly, he finished ahead of Prost who was one place further back, meaning Piquet had reclaimed his championship lead, this time with a four point advantage.

Prost was not a driver to be knocked down for long though and he immediately responded, winning the Belgian Grand Prix while Piquet could do no better than fourth. The result immediately propelled Prost back into the lead of the championship, and firmly cemented the fact that these two drivers were going to have to settle in for a monumental fight all season long.

Detroit was the location for the following race, and Piquet had the perfect start, launching from second on the grid straight into the lead. But he didn’t have it all his own way. Arnoux was quickly hounding him, trying to pressure Piquet into a mistake and on lap 10, the Ferrari managed to find a way past Piquet to move into first place.

Arnoux was on softer tyres than Piquet and was also on a different strategy, having started with less fuel and so once he was through he quickly pulled away from the Brabham. Knowing they were on different strategies, Piquet got his head down and stuck to his plan, and was eventually rewarded for that when the electronics on Arnoux’s Ferrari failed, handing Piquet the lead once again.

Piquet was now in total control of the race. He had Michele Alboreto behind fully in check and appeared to be cruising for victory, all until he dramatically picked up a puncture on lap 51. Piquet managed to grapple his BT52 to keep it on the track, but had to nurse his car back to the pits for a new set of tyres and in the process he quickly fell down the order. By the time he re-emerged from the pits, Piquet was fourth and too far behind the leading trio of Alboreto, Rosberg and John Watson to make an impression.

It was a cruel way to end the race, but Piquet had to take some satisfaction in the fact he’d beaten Prost once again, reducing Prost’s championship lead to a single point.

However, while all eyes had been on Prost in the fight for the title, another driver entered the frame at the following race in Canada.

Piquet had yet another retirement when his throttle once again gave up on him around the Montreal-based circuit. With Prost finishing fifth, it allowed the Renault driver to extend his overall lead to three points, but it was Tambay providing the most immediate threat to Piquet.

Tambay finished the Canadian Grand Prix in third for Ferrari, and that moved him onto 27 points, the same tally as Piquet. He might not have been winning races or stealing the limelight, but Tambay was proving to be consistent and would be a thorn in the side for both

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Prost and Piquet in the final run in.

That battle only intensified at the British Grand Prix.

Arnoux claimed pole position, but Tambay lined up second with Prost in third. Piquet could only manage sixth, 1.471s off the pace and he had plenty of work to do once the race got underway.

Piquet took advantage of a couple of retirements ahead of him in the early stages of the race, to move up to fourth behind Arnoux. After several laps, Piquet did eventually find a way past the Ferrari to third, but while that battle was playing out, Prost managed to dispatch Tambay to take the lead of the race. Piquet wasn’t done though. He also closed in on Tambay, eventually passing him coming up to Club.

But while Piquet was able to fend off Tambay, he

PATRESE RACING IN THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX

THE BRABHAM BT52 WAS FAST, AND SO WAS THE TURBOCHARGED BMW, BUT IT STILL HAD ITS FRAGILITIES had no answer for Prost, eventually crossing the line 19s down on his championship rival.

It meant that Prost was able to extend his championship lead once again, something he also did at the following round in Germany, when he finished fourth, while both Piquet and Tambay retired, Piquet in slightly dramatic fashion when his BT52 caught fire despite him still racing flat out.

It meant that with five races remaining, Prost had a nine point advantage over Piquet in the championship battle, while Tambay was only two points further adrift.

Piquet was more competitive in the Austrian Grand Prix, but he still had no answer for Prost’s pace, finishing third and over 27s down on Prost, who was the victor.

That result pushed Prost 14 points ahead of Piquet, and it was looking more and more likely that the championship was going to head in the Renault driver’s direction.

The Brabham BT52 was fast, and so was the turbocharged BMW, but it still had its fragilities, while the Renault was proving to be the more reliable of the two, consistently making it to the end of races.

But on the final run in, the tables quickly turned.

Piquet dominated qualifying at Zandvoort, putting his BT52 on pole, seven tenths ahead of Tambay’s Ferrari in second. Piquet was in the zone, but although Prost had qualified fourth, nearly a second down on Piquet’s effort, he hadn’t given up his hopes on a win either.

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And with both drivers determined to walk away with victory in Zandvoort, it culminated in one dramatic incident.

On lap 41, Cheever retired from the race, but at the front it was Piquet and Prost going head-to-head, battling it out for the lead. Piquet was in front, but Prost was all over the gearbox of the BT52, trying to find any way through possible.

Going into the first corner, Prost thought he found a gap big enough to slot his Renault into, but as he threw

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his car up the inside of Piquet, his Renault got twitchy and the two touched as Prost tried to correct it. The impact sent Piquet off the road and into the barriers, and although Prost continued he too subsequently retired a few corners later.

But although the crash scuppered any hopes Piquet had of closing the gap in the championship, he was surprisingly accepting of the incident.

“Yeah, he already got me,” Piquet said after the race. “He was on the inside and there was nothing to

victory in Zandvoort, it culminated in one dramatic incident.

On lap 41, Cheever retired from the race, but at the front it was Piquet and Prost going head-to-head, battling it out for the lead. Piquet was in front, but Prost was all over the gearbox of the BT52, trying to find any way through possible.

Going into the first corner, Prost thought he found a gap big enough to slot his Renault into, but as he threw his car up the inside of Piquet, his Renault got twitchy

and the two touched as Prost tried to correct it. The impact sent Piquet off the road and into the barriers, and although Prost continued he too subsequently retired a few corners later.

But although the crash scuppered any hopes Piquet had of closing the gap in the championship, he was surprisingly accepting of the incident.

“Yeah, he already got me,” Piquet said after the race. “He was on the inside and there was nothing to do. I left the space for him to up the inside and 100%

PIQUET ON HIS WAY TO FINISHING THIRD AT THE AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX

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MANSELL AT ESTORIL IN 1992. HE WENT ON TO WIN THE RACE BY 37.5 SECONDS

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PIQUET IN THE PITLANE DURING PRACTICE FOR THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX

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do. I left the space for him to up the inside and 100% it was his mistake. I don’t think he did it on purpose because it’s also his championship. But everybody is a human being and everybody can do mistakes.”

The retirement was a crushing blow for Piquet. Not only had he drifted further away from the championship lead, but there was now yet another driver in the mix.

This time it wasn’t Tambay. He had struggled to sustain his championship challenge, but where he had failed, his team-mate Arnoux had taken up the reins, and he had moved up to second, having amassed six points more than Piquet.

The saying goes that what goes around comes around, and that’s certainly how it panned out for Piquet. While the Dutch Grand Prix might have gone against him, the following race at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix definitely didn’t.

Both BT52s took to the lead early on, with Patrese heading Piquet, but on the second lap Piquet inherited the lead after Patrese’s engine gave up on him. And once in first place, Piquet never looked back. He went on to win the race, beating Arnoux by 10s, and crucially he made a huge dent in Prost’s championship lead after the Renault driver retired on lap 26 with a turbo failure.

The pendulum hadn’t totally swung in the other direction, but the tide was definitely turning, with the gap between the pair reduced to five points, and although Arnoux was still second, he only had a three point advantage over Piquet.

The penultimate race of the season was taking place at Brands Hatch for the European Grand Prix, and just as so often had been the case that year, Piquet struggled to find the ultimate pace of the BT52 over a single lap on qualifying. It meant he was forced to start the race from fifth on the grid, but he wasn’t going to let that hold him back.

When the race got underway, Patrese took to the lead with Elio de Angelis in second for Lotus. The pair went on to gap the rest of the field while Piquet, who had been stuck for several laps behind the Lotus of Nigel Mansell eventually managed to carve his way up to third.

But on lap 12, Piquet was handed the lead after de Angelis spun going into Surtees, clipping Patrese in the process. De Angelis retired soon after, but although Patrese was also sent into a spin, he was able to rejoin the track, albeit now behind Piquet in second, and just ahead of Prost who was third.

That order didn’t stay like that for long though, with Prost quickly passing Patrese for second. And the other title challenger Arnoux? Well he had been closing in on the leading drivers, but he subsequently spun, dropping him completely out of the lead battle and crucially out of the points.

Piquet eventually went on to win the race, beating Prost by 6.5s, and with Arnoux out of the points, it meant that Piquet moved up to second in the championship, and now just two seconds behind Prost.

With just one final race in South Africa, everything

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was to play for. It was going to be an out-and-out headto-head, and although Arnoux was still mathematically in with a shout, it was a long shot chance.

Neither Prost or Piquet had it their own way in qualifying with Tambay taking pole position. Piquet fared best claiming second place, while Prost had to settle fifth, but either way, it wasn’t entirely ideal.

However, when the lights went out, Brabham’s plan worked perfectly. Both BT52 got away brilliantly, with Piquet taking the lead from Tambay and Patrese getting up to second. Once in the lead Piquet ran, and ran as quickly as he could. He quickly pulled out a decent gap on Patrese and looked perfectly comfortable in the lead.

On lap nine, Piquet’s task was made even easier when Arnoux retired from the race. The engine failed on his Ferrari, meaning he no longer stood a chance of winning the championship. From here on in, it was a straight fight between Piquet and Prost, and Piquet was sitting in the perfect seat.

The first pitstop went like clockwork for Piquet, getting some more fuel and a new set of tyres in under 10 seconds, but when it was Prost’s turn the drama went up a notch.

Prost dived into the pits for his new set of tyres and the mechanics jumped into action to start refuelling the car, but as they did so, Prost jumped out of the

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car, retiring from the race. The mechanics were in two minds as to whether they should continue servicing the Renault or not, but eventually stopped after it was confirmed the Renault was suffering with a turbo problem.

It meant that as long as Piquet could keep going, he’d win his second world championship title and BMW’s first as an engine supplier.

The pressure seemed to be off. Piquet should have been able to cruise to victory, but as ever in F1, things are never that simple. Piquet slowed down so much that Patrese and Lauda both passed Piquet, dropping him to third. That subsequently became second when Lauda retired on lap 71, but Adreas de Cesaris soon passed the Brabham too.

But none of it mattered. Third was enough to win the world championship title. He did it, crossing the line 21.969s down on team-mate Patrese who was the victor and it meant he ended the season with a mere two points more than the Renault of Prost.

He’d done it, he’d won his second title and also secured BMW its first championship title as an engine supplier. 1982 might have been a painful one while Brabham understood and developed its car, but it all finally paid dividends at the end of 1983.

But for Piquet, in his mind the win wasn’t about the team. He’d won it for himself and himself alone.

PIQUET AT THE AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX

“I tell you it means a lot,” he said after the race. “I really wanted to win this championship for me.

“In 1981 I said I wanted to win for the team, for the mechanics, for everything. But now, I really want to win for myself and for sure, I will try to win several other ones because I think I am just beginning more racing and I think I am very young still, and I still have all the wish to be racing a lot.”

He did however have a short word for BMW though.

“BMW has been doing a fantastic job. In two years it’s the most powerful engine and the most powerful car in a straight line, and I think that’s very good.”

Unfortunately for BMW, that’s as good as it would get. 1984 proved to be a very difficult year, with the Brabham unable to match the pace of the McLaren or Renault and particularly the McLaren's reliability, and its competitiveness got even worse in 1985 with Piquet then leaving for Williams-Honda. Brabham continued to decline until being withdrawn from F1 at the end of 1987 (though it later - and very unsuccessfully - reappeared under new ownership), with BMW departing in official form at the same time, though Arrows used its engines under Megatron branding for 1988.

BMW did return to F1 for the turn of the millennium, when it joined forces with Williams for 2000, and by

2003 it was fully competitive, ending the year second in the constructors’ championship behind Ferrari having had a title tilt with Juan Pablo Montoya.

That partnership was brought to a close in 2005 when BMW purchased a controlling stake in Sauber so it could establish its first full works F1 team. That partnership with Sauber lasted for four years, but it didn’t bring the success either party hoped for.

The team was a regular point scorer, but it only won one grand prix in Canada in 2009. BMW withdrew at the end of 2009, and that’s the last time to date that a BMW badged car or engine has graced the world of F1.

It may not have won a title since 1983, but there’s nothing to take away from the fact that in its heyday of a power driven era, the turbocharged M12 really was the class of the field. And with manufacturer interest rising again amidst F1’s increased popularity, questions about a BMW return will again come to the fore.

Having been an early pioneer of electric sportscars and with its racing pedigree firmly instilled within the brand still, there’s no reason why it couldn’t take the competition in F1 to a whole new level again if it could be tempted to return.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

HYPERFAST FERRARI HAS JOINED THE WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP'S HYPERCAR CLASS FOR 2023, AND IT LOOKS THE REAL DEAL, FINISHING THIRD AT THE OPENING ROUND OF THE SEASON AT SEBRING.

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turning heads SHEENA MONK IS MAKING A REAL IMPACT IN IMSA

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he might not be a household name for a lot of racing fans around the world, but make no mistake, Sheena Monk is turning heads.

There’s an old motorsport adage that says if you’re old enough, you’re good enough.

And while Monk is not a teenage hot shot who has shot up the ranks from karting and catapulted into the main game, she’s proven that talent has no age limit.

At 34 years-old, Monk is something of a late bloomer, currently making waves as one of five female drivers in the US-based WeatherTech IMSA Sports Car Championship.

Alongside the experienced Katherine Legge, Marc Miller and Mario Farnbacher at the wheel of a Gradient Racing Acura, Monk finished a superb fourth in the Daytona 24 Hours in January, her first outing in a GT3 car.

“I didn’t make any mistakes, but in a race like that, I know I’m not the one who is out there fighting at the end for the win, I went in with a very realistic approach,” explains Monk.

“My role is to fight to stay on the lead lap, put in some consistent times and frankly have respectable pace. I’m not a factory driver so to me, I would say I am driving at like 95% in that case, I don’t need to impress everybody because that’s not my role to force it.”

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Monk is at the start of her GT3 career, having spent three seasons in the GT4-based Michelin Pilot Challenge. In GT racing, experience counts.

As a woman, the Pennsylvania local is also acutely aware of the challenges for female drivers in a maledominated sport as well, even if that particular barrier has never been that problematic for her.

“I grew up around cool cars and was always really interested in what you would typically call ‘boys’ things’,” Monk says.

“It wasn’t even that weird for me and I remember as a kid, my friends saying: ‘my parents wanted to get you a Barbie, but I know you don’t like that kind of stuff', that sort of thing, it was mostly cars I was into at a young age.

“Then I started discovering magazines about cars and I would read them cover to cover from about seventh-grade and I would literally be car crazy at that point.”

If the passion was embedded in a young Sheena, it would be many more years before she took the plunge to enter the sport proper.

After going to college – where she was a finance major – Monk finally decided to take the plunge, joining Lamborghini’s talent scouting Corso Piloto programme in 2017.

What started as an inquisitive first step into racing ended with a trip to Italy for her debut race in the onemake Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Finals, at Imola.

Quite the pinch-yourself moment.

“It was always really casual and recreational at the start,” says Monk. “I just got quite fortunate in that I was at an HPDE, and someone let me use their McLaren and they were like: ‘yeah just take it out’ and I was keeping up with a Ferrari race car.

“And they came up to me and said: ‘you know what, you’re kind of good at this, even if you have no formal training’. I mean, it’s not like I was sort of doing this in my backyard or anything.

“They then invested in me as they thought I was quite marketable and then I went into the Corso Piloto programme, passed that and went straight to Imola with zero experience and no wheel-to-wheel experience at all.

“I went into it with no expectations, I just wanted to see if I could do it and if I enjoyed it and where we went from there. So that was pretty crazy!”

Coming from a family that loves its cars – her father owned several Lamborghinis over the years, including a Diablo and the Countach – Monk found her feet at the wheel of a Huracán Super Trofeo EVO at one of the

most famous tracks in Europe.

After finishing third in the amateur class at the World Finals, a full campaign then beckoned in the North American championship in 2018 before Monk’s season came to an abrupt end; one which nearly put a stop to her racing ambitions for good.

A brake failure approaching the Corkscrew chicane at Laguna Seca left Monk helpless as her car crashed head-first into the thin row of tyres and flipped over in the air.

“Now, it’s a forgone thought but it creeps into my mind at weird times,” Monk admits. “Like, sometimes when I’m in my house, it happened a couple of days ago, and I just thought about the rescue team, what I radioed into the team, I remember all of it. All of it like it was yesterday.

“I had all the faith in the rescue team and the car… you have to, otherwise you wouldn’t race. The car itself is really safe and you have to believe in that, your ability, and I have grown a lot since then and I just put it in a place mentally where I can rationalise it as a moment that happened but is over.

“Accidents happen but the severity of that one was so unique.”

The violence of the accident cannot be understated.

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MONK JOINED LAMBORGHINI'S CORSA PILOTO PROGRAMME IN 2017

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MONK IS RACING AN ACURA IN THE 2023 IMSA CHAMPIONSHIP

LOOKING AT HER SURGE UP THE RANKS, IT'S HARDLY A SURPRISE TO SEE MONK IN A GT3 CAR Monk suffered multiple injuries – four pelvic fractures, four broken ribs and a fractured sacrum – leaving her in a race to be fit for the following Super Trofeo season.

A test with her Dream Racing car at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama in April 2019 was her first tentative steps back into a racecar, and while the struggle to regain her previous form was a source of frustration throughout the campaign, a breakthrough

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class win at Virginia International Raceway buried all side effects of the crash.

Following two seasons of one-make racing in Super Trofeo, Monk graduated to the ultra-competitive Michelin Pilot Challenge alongside the experienced Corey Lewis at the wheel of a McLaren. Their partnership yielded a maiden victory at Road America, announcing Monk as a reliable, rapid driver on the

IMSA ladder.

Looking at her surge up the ranks, it’s hardly a surprise to see Monk in a GT3 car, but the rate of progression to IMSA GTD level has shocked many, including Monk herself.

“I had driven the car one time before the Roar [a preparatory weekend at Daytona which includes the qualifying session for the 24 Hours] and frankly, it

was a very small go-kart-like track where we did some procedural tests.

“We went there solely so that I could understand the car operationally; so like, how does the clutch work, what do all the buttons on the wheel do? I had never used a hand clutch before, so I needed to just get a feel for the car.”

“She impressed me, but she impressed everybody,”

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says Legge. “There are people who have been doing this for a lot longer than her, and they haven’t taken to it like Sheena did.

“At the test, she was within a second of us, on her first time in a GT3 car, which is crazy right? She’s got this attitude that she will lean on us and take everything in and then just do it on the track.

“We tell her to do one thing, and she’s like: ‘OK, I’ll do it’ and she works her way up to the level, without overdoing it. There are a lot of drivers who will push it too much, and maybe that’s the best way sometimes, because you can always reign it back in, but her approach is really logical and methodical.”

There’s a lot to be said about taking onboard the advice of those more experienced when you’re sharing a car in one of the biggest races in the world. After all,

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team-mates in this context are working together for the good of the car, rather than being the first rival as is the case in single seaters, for example.

Therefore, in Monk’s case, her ‘sponge-like’ mentality was only ever going to have a positive impact on her ascension to the top of GT3 racing.

“Five years ago, I was around five seconds off the pace, versus now I’m hovering around the one second marker,” Monk says.

“I just feel like, why when something is in black and white and you have someone who is better than you telling you how to go quicker, argue with that? Just go out and do it!

“At the end of the day, when you’re working alongside people that have honed their craft, you have to respect that and take that in yourself. I look at it as

it’s only expediting my progress, so I’m like: ‘just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’”

That approach certainly seemed to work in Monk’s favour as she enjoyed a hugely impressive Daytona 24 Hours, having started the race in the midst of an array of official factory drivers and holding her own in the night stints.

The end result was a fourth place, a remarkable achievement considering the wealth of experience against her, and her own lack of seat time in a top-line GT3 machine.

“She did such an amazing job, keeping her nose

clean and bringing the car home, which wasn’t an easy task,” said Legge.

“You didn’t get to see what she was capable of at Sebring because our car suffered so much contact from other cars, and things didn’t go our way. The team did a great job, but it just wasn’t our day.”

If Daytona was the proverbial job interview, then it’s clear that Monk passed with flying colours. There will be road humps along the way, as exemplified by a tricky 12 Hours of Sebring, but her expedited rise from novice to top-line racer in just over five years is an inspirational story, for drivers male and female, young or old.

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IMAGE BY ASTON MARTIN F1

HE'S BACK AFTER SEVERAL SEASON STUCK WITHIN F1'S MIDFIELD, FERNANDO ALONSO IS BACK AT THE FRONT OF THE PACK FOR 2023, HAVING ALREADY PICKED UP THREE PODIUMS IN AS MANY RACES.

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THE UNHERALDED MODERN INDY 500 GREAT'S

FINEST HOUR

WORDS BY GARTH KENARDINGTON IMAGES BY INDYCAR

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T

akuma Sato: Indianapolis 500 superstar.

Maybe not where you thought the Sato story was heading when he was blitzing British Formula 3 and looking certain to be Japan's greatest Formula 1 driver yet. Surely not where you thought the Sato story was heading when his F1 career turned out to be mostly errors, defeats to teammates, chances wasted and images of smoke billowing from blown Honda engines.

But for an ultra-brave yet inconsistent yet superfast driver, maybe the Indy 500's a natural sweet spot.

SATO LEADS A SPRINT FINISH

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One race where you have to put it all on the line and consistency only matters for the course of 200 laps.

And that's why when Sato's full-time IndyCar career has come to an end at the age of 46, he's rocked up at superteam Ganassi for the first time on an ovals-only deal that really has to be about one thing: winning a third Indy 500 for himself, and giving the team an epic wildcard to deploy.

Sato's IndyCar statistics are pretty ridiculous. He's a six-time race-winner, and two of those wins are Indy 500s. Another is the Long Beach Grand Prix, but -

incredibly - for AJ Foyt Enterprises, a team that has been a backmarker for most of the last three decades bar the barely-competitive early Indy Racing League years. And another win is from 20th on the Portland grid via some strategy contortions in 2018.

If you're signing Sato, you expect to have a shot at some race wins. You also know your car's probably going to be in both the midfield and the wall a lot.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan knew that better than most. Sato had infamously had a shock shot at winning the Indy 500 for it in his first season with the team

in 2012. He boldly passed Scott Dixon then attacked Dixon's Ganassi team-mate and eventual champion Dario Franchitti for the lead at the start of the final lap, only to spin into the wall.

Sato made up for that by winning the 2017 Indy 500 for Andretti Autosport. But as brilliant as that win was, it was perhaps helped by Andretti having a dominant package on that occasion and definitely overshadowed in history by that being the 'Alonso race' - Fernando Alonso's first Indy 500 bid, and the one where he was competitive enough to fight for victory, as opposed to the one where he and McLaren failed to even qualify, or the one where he was anonymous in the midfield.

The latter was 2020. And this time everyone was definitely talking about Sato, not Alonso.

This was COVID season. No fans in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway stands. A 500 happening not in May, but in August. But it's happening at least. And Sato was in the mix from the outset. His and Rahal's season was OK but not standout up to that point - fairly regular top-10 finishes, better on the ovals than the road courses.

At Indianapolis, he qualified on the front row and was a lurking key protagonist in a race controlled by Dixon for most of the distance. As ever in the 500, different strategies kept shuffling the field, and all the main players were biding their time, knowing it's the final laps that really count. Whenever it all settled for a spell, it felt like Dixon/Ganassi vs Sato/Rahal. 2012 all over again, in a way.

Sato had been mindful of fuel consumption all day, yet had to make what he hoped would be his final pitstop earlier than ideal, on lap 167 of 200. Dixon ran one lap further and was pretty certain that gave him the advantage, even when Sato overtook him soon after their stops.

“When we ran the first couple of laps after the last restart, we couldn’t get the fuel mileage we needed to finish the race,” said Dixon. “We went to a leaner mixture, and just kind of sat there. We didn’t think they [Sato and Rahal] were going to make it on fuel."

Dixon felt a run he had on Sato going towards the final dozen laps proved the Rahal car was in fuel woe and having to switch to a leaner mixture, but that the way Sato then edged away proved they'd basically given up on fuel-saving and were now just going for broke. In Dixon's eyes, that basically meant Sato knew he wasn't going to make it and felt he had nothing to lose by just going flat-out if he was destined to have to pit again anyway.

Sato denied that. He said he was playing with Dixon while managing his mileage.

"I knew towards the end of the stint I had very good speed,” said Sato. “However, after the restart, when I got the lead, I got a voice from the pit basically saying I was using too much fuel. I had to back off with a leaner

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SATO HAS BECOME A REAL INDY 500 SPECIALIST IN RECENT YEARS

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SATO TASTING THE VICTORY MILK AFTER WINNING IN 2020

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mixture, which you can see – immediately Scott caught me and tried to give it a go.

“At that point I had to switch back to the maximum power.

"When he was three cars, four car lengths behind, I went with the leaner mixture."

He was sure he was doing enough to keep a safe distance to Dixon and make the finish without another pitstop. "Go as fast as possible, but save my resources," was how Sato described it, as he urged journalists to listen back to his radio transmissions to hear the Rahal team confirming he'd be OK on fuel.

And Sato was also sure he'd done a good enough job with that resource saving that he'd be able to turn the engine back up and respond if Dixon managed to pass him.

"Even we didn't have a yellow in the end, even if maybe he caught me, perhaps he;d overtake me, but I'm confident I'd be fighting back to him," Sato promised.

It all proved to be a moot point when Spencer Pigot had a savage accident with four laps to go and the yellow flags came out, the race finishing behind the pace car rather than being red-flagged for a final dash -

"AT THAT POINT I HAD TO SWITCH BACK TO THE MAXIMUM POWER" - SATO

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a decision that surprised Dixon.

"Because 1) the size of the crash, and 2) where it was, it wasn’t going to be a quick clean-up," he said. "I was kind of surprised they didn’t [red flag it].

“For us, it would have been really good because I think the leader would have been a sitting duck. That’s kind of harsh on Sato. If they got out there and had a dash with three laps to go, I think all is fair in a situation like that.

“It would have been interesting to see how that played out. It would have been much better for us

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rather than Sato.”

Dixon did slightly rue not having gone for the roundthe-outside move he'd lined up when he had a run on Sato at the moment he was sure Sato was easing off his fuel mixture.

“I probably should have been a little more aggressive on that high side there," he mused, though perhaps with memories of 2012 - or maybe many other episodes from Sato's career in mind - he admitted being extra cautious around this particular adversary.

"I think he would have just run me up anyway, which

TAMBAY LEADING NIKI LAUDA, BRUNO GIACOMELLI AND KEKI ROSBERG AT ZANDVOORT IN 1982

maybe would have put both of us in the fence, or maybe just me…”

Dixon's long wait for a second Indy 500 victory would - and still does - go on. Sato's mission to say a proper sorry to Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan for 2012 was resolved, though.

"Of course, you have something back in your mind that is always pulled in that way," he said. "You've got to get it right for 2012. You've got to fix it. I messed up, whatever. Whatever there is, there is a lot of science behind why I can win, but it's no point to talking about

that. Now I know how to do it, right?

"I just wanted to have Bobby and Mike, because Mike helped me a lot, of course David as well, that I just wanted to give them back what they have and they felt on that particular moment. I disappointed them.

"I just wanted to fix it. It took eight years. This is the moment of mission completed that I really wanted, I'd been waiting for eight years for my team owners to give it back."

And now Sato's mission is to end the Indy 500 win drought of the team he defeated that day in 2020.

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IMAGE BY RED MATTBULL WIDDOWSON

THE JUNIORS PAIN AND FRUSTRATION ESAPEKKA IT'S NOT ASLAPPI'S CHEAPCRASH AS IT ONCE ON RALLY WAS TO MEXICO MAKEWAS YOUR PAINFUL WAY UPIN THE SINGLE-SEATER MORE WAYS THAN ONE. LADDER. NOT BUT ONLY FORMULA WAS IT A4BIG IS STILL IMPACT, A GREAT BUT HE TRAINING WAS ALSOGORUND LEADING FOR THE YOUNG RALLY ATDRIVERS THE TIME.

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the time didn't

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lauda walk away

WORDS BY GARTH KENARDINGTON IMAGES BY GRAND PRIX PHOTO

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N

iki Lauda. Synonymous with heroism.

Motorsport has seen nothing else quite like those weeks in 1976 when he went from near death to so nearly winning a second straight Formula 1 title.

Synonymous with raising the bar and confounding expectations - going from pay driver to era-defining dominant champion who led Ferrari from the doldrums to glory, then who returned after a sojourn establishing an airline to win another title with McLaren.

But you might also think of Lauda as a driver

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synonymous with abrupt exits. The man whose relationship with Ferrari declined so much that he walked out (understandably in the circumstances) once the 1977 title was won rather than seeing out the season. Who quit F1 the first time around in the middle of a Canadian Grand Prix practice session in 1979 when he realised his heart was no longer in it.

On paper, his final retirement from driving looks a little abrupt too. One year after beating McLaren teammate Alain Prost to the 1984 championship by just half a point, Lauda called it a day for the second time - even

though McLaren and its TAG Porsche package seemed on top of the world at that point (though given the rise of Williams-Honda and how much hassle Ferrari had given McLaren in 1985 before shooting itself in the foot, the championship table was a little deceptive).

But there wasn't anything abrupt about Lauda's end-of-1985 retirement. This time he hung on for many months of self-doubt and miserable luck, fearing he might repeat what he now felt had been a mistake in 1979 and "get out, walk away, go home" - as he wrote in his autobiography - in what would've been an over-

reaction.

Through little fault of his own, Lauda's final title defence had echoes of Jody Scheckter's in 1980 or Damon Hill's in 1997, albeit with far more competitive machinery. He finished just three races in 1985, only one of them on the podium (the top step, though), and was 10th in a championship won by Prost with a comfortable margin.

McLaren's sweep of the 1984 championship had been achieved through a unique mix of speed and stealth. As F1 tried to tackle the excesses of its first

LAUDA WON THE 1984 F1 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, BEATING PROST BY HALF A POINT

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LAUDA LEADING FABI IN THE 1985 DUTCH GRAND PRIX

turbo era with fuel limits, the gap between explosive qualifying pace and economy-based race tactics was vast, and the Prost, Lauda, McLaren, TAG and Porsche combination hit it just right. It barely mattered where Prost and Lauda qualified, they would always find their way to the front as rivals guzzled their fuel, their tyres or their entire cars trying to stay ahead. And Lauda was even less interested in a high-risk qualifying lap than Prost. He won the title with an average starting position of 7.7 - and that was flattered by a few midseason second-row starts (third at Silverstone was his

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qualifying peak).

Lauda's 1985 looked like it would be a similar script.

Generally nowhere in qualifying (worse still in fact, his average qualifying now 10.6), but always working forwards in the race. The difference was the story kept getting interrupted. Electrical problems in Brazil, a piston failure in Portugal, overheating in Canada, brake problems in the USA, the transmission in France, electrics in Britain, the engine while leading at home in Austria. Even in finishing fourth at Imola he was slowed by more electrical troubles and delayed by a loose

wheel on the way to fifth in Germany. Only sliding off on oil in Monaco could remotely be classed as a driver error.

"It's just been rotten luck," said McLaren designer John Barnard at the time. "In the races it was always on Niki's car, not Alain's."

Was there more to it? Lauda's relationship with McLaren team boss Ron Dennis had always been - unsurprisingly given their respective characters fractious. It was a marriage of convenience when Dennis needed a big name and Lauda needed a route

back into an F1 paddock that might've doubted his commitment given the manner of his previous exit.

Dennis didn't appreciate the hard bargain Lauda had driven contract-wise. Lauda didn't appreciate Dennis's general demeanour towards him.

But Lauda dismissed any thought of Dennis "taking his revenge" as "utter nonsense". He did, however, wonder if something a little spiritual was happening.

Was this bizarre run of problems at the title-winning team the universe's way of telling him it was time to go again?

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"Does this funny old car somehow sense that my heart is no longer in it?" he wondered. "Do the mechanics think that? Have I lost the vital spark that keeps things running properly?"

He admitted thinking more of the dangers of F1, and the conceptual absurdity of the championship especially with the era's ferocious and overpowered cars and their qualifying tyres - more than he had for years, and of having to cajole himself into performing on race weekends. McLaren wasn't unaware of that, Barnard suggesting Lauda's "problems early in the year made him a bit despondent". Was it any wonder though? Three titles won, death cheated, a successful business life outside F1 well-established, much younger and hungrier rivals all around, a team boss who pretty much hates you and a car that never gets to the end of races. The incentives for continuing were few.

Still Lauda didn't hurry that decision. The doubts had really become overwhelming by Monaco in May, yet it wasn't until the Nurburgring (ironically, given the horrific part it played in his career) in August that Lauda was resolved enough to tell Dennis he planned to retire at the end of the season. This time he felt he would have no trouble completing the season to a professional standard rather than giving the team the headache of another mid-season change, though Lauda confessed that deciding to quit then racing on for eight grands prix did jar with his sense of logic a little!

Lauda made the announcement of his impending retirement at home in Austria, where the car broke again as he led the race. Next up was Zandvoort.

Again Lauda found himself moving towards the front, but he was enraged when he pitted and was given hard

LAUDA MADE THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS IMPENDING RETIREMENT AT HOME IN AUSTRIA, WHERE HIS CAR BROKE AGAIN LAUDA ANNOUNCING HIS RETIREMENT FROM FORMULA 1

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LAUDA AT THE DUTCH GRAND PRIX

tyres rather than softs despite a pre-race agreement that an early pitstop would be a request for softs.

Dennis overruled that.

Despite this Lauda ended up in the lead, but Prost was closing fast. At that point, Prost sat tied atop the championship with Ferrari's Michele Alboreto, who was heading for a distant fourth in the Netherlands.

Prost and Lauda's relationship had remained strong through all the wider tension between Lauda and the team hierarchy. The final laps at Zandvoort tested it though, as Prost felt Lauda "slammed the door in my face" as he tried to pass. He gave his team-mate the benefit of the doubt, saying "I suspect he didn’t see me although I just missed his rear wing" after having to take to the grass in the closest of several close calls.

Lauda was unrepentant.

"There was no word of team tactics,” he said.

“I have exactly the same contract as Prost and it stipulates that I can do what I like. That’s exactly what I did today. I was offered the possibility of winning and I grabbed it, why wouldn’t I have?

“I’ve always said that if Alain needs some help at the last race of the season he can rely on me to help him. But until then, I’ve got my own race to concentrate on. If you ask me, he won’t need my help to finish the season ahead of Alboreto.”

He later suggested he quickly told Prost in private at the end of the race that he'd be there to back his title bid for the rest of the season. And his prediction about that title fight was spot on: the three points for fourth at Zandvoort were the last time Alboreto would score all season.

The same was true of Lauda's nine for the win.

Transmission trouble at Monza, a stuck throttle in Spa practice that causes a crash and a wrist injury that rules him out of Brands Hatch too, turbo failure at Kyalami.

And then Adelaide. All of Lauda's 1985 wrapped into one. A miserable trouble-filled practice and a near season-worst 16th on the grid. But a sublime, patient race day drive amid a spectacular and chaotic grand prix. With 26 laps to go, Lauda took the lead and was pulling away from Ayrton Senna's Lotus.

"I felt that surge of excitement that Formula 1 can bring," Lauda wrote. "Marvellous, I thought, just look how you've managed to put one over on the others simply by using a bit of brain power. I was so delighted with myself and my performance and the feeling of tearing round that fabulous circuit that things were beginning to look serious again for a moment."

And then next time around the McLaren's brakes failed and sent him into the wall. And this time, Lauda's F1 driving career really was over.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

WORK TO DO THE PEUGEOT 9X8 LOOKS THE REAL DEAL, BUT THERE'S STILL PLENTY OF WORK TO DO BEFORE IT IS FULLY COMPETITIVE. IT WAS OVER TWO SECONDS OFF THE PACE IN QUALIFYING AT WEC'S 2023 SEASON-OPENER, AND IT FAILED TO FINISH THE RACE.

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GROWING WORDS BY MARK PAULSON IMAGES BY JAKOB EBREY

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UP

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I

n the 1990s, Super Touring became a hugely successful touring car formula that was adopted almost universally around the world. But it died out when budgets spiralled out of control, leading to a manufacturer exodus – an all-too familiar story in motorsport. The cheaper and less high-tech Super 2000 effectively took its place, but never quite achieved the same levels of popularity or universality.

But for nearly a decade now, TCR has filled that void. OK, the cars may not be laden with gizmos but they provide door-handle to door-handle multi-marque racing between cars that the general public can relate to. And, crucially, TCR offers the stable, sustainable platform that Super Touring was unable to.

TCR made its debut in 2015 while international touring car racing was going through a period of flux.

From 2014, the WTCC ran to TC1 regulations which were effectively a beefed-up version of Super 2000, but increased costs and the loss of manufacturers would lead to their demise after just four years.

Initially, there was also a class for TC2, which S2000 had morphed into. National championships tended to be still using Super 2000 machinery or their own bespoke regulations, such as the British Touring Car Championship’s NGTC (Next Generation Touring Car) or Sweden’s silhouette-based formula.

Meanwhile, sportscar racing had been revolutionised in the 21st century by the introduction of Stephane Ratel’s GT3 category. It sought to prevent the

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traditional boom-and-bust of manufacturer-supported categories and create a level playing field for private entrants. They could buy cars designed and built by manufacturers (or specialist tuners) in the knowledge that, without development, they would remain competitive for a number of years and not be rendered obsolete by the latest expensive wizardry.

The time was ripe for a similar concept in touring car racing, and TCR was born. The brainchild of Marcello Lotti, who had been manager of the WTCC, and his World Sporting Consulting organisation, the regulations adopted a similar philosophy to GT3 and used SEAT’s one-make Leon Cup car as a starting point. Envisaged to sit below TC1 and TC2 in the touring car hierarchy, the category was initially known as TC3 before being formalised as TCR. Where GT3 had pioneered the use of Balance of Performance in modern motorsport, TCR followed.

Through parameters of weight, engine power and rideheight, TCR’s BoP is designed to ensure massproduced road cars can spawn competitive track versions without needing heaps of expensive development work or homologation specials.

The process for homologating a new TCR car includes various tests of its aerodynamics, fluency through the air, dissipation of power, torque and boost pressure. Combined with a track test, these are used to set the BoP which can then be further adjusted according to the car’s performance in competition.

FILES LEADING THE PACK AT SNETTERTON IN 2023

The nominated drivers at the track test play a key role in preventing sandbagging, which might otherwise help manufacturers gain an advantageous BoP for their cars.

“You just give the feedback and let them [the TCR technical team] do everything else,” explains Josh Files, who has multiple TCR titles to his name including the European crown in 2019 and TCR Germany – which was then the leading national series – in 2016 and ’17.

“You also tell them whether the manufacturer’s taking the mick on set-up or not, because frequently that happens!

“I was also the development driver of the Honda Civic FK7 when it first came out, so I get how they do it all, and they do genuinely do a very good job.”

The BoP must be adopted by all sanctioned TCR championships, of which there are now dozens worldwide. Each series has its own control tyre supplier which, combined with the nature of circuits in different locations, theoretically could suit some car characteristics better than others. Might the standard BoP therefore not be entirely suitable in some marketplaces?

Files believes that in practice, once a team has dialled its car in to the environment in which it will race, there is little impact. In any case, another mechanism exists to prevent local domination by a particular model or driver: championship-specific compensation weight.

Effectively success ballast, compensation weight is added/removed according to lap times at previous rounds.

“The nature of the tracks here are tight and twisty,” Files says of British circuits. “But ultimately, if BoP works in Europe it will work here. Yes, at round one everyone has the same weight etc, but then round two onwards they have the compensation weight which then balances it out. It always balances itself out.”

He’s won TCR titles in cars built by three different manufacturers but in recent years Files has been a fixture in Hyundai machinery, competing in all three of the Korean marque’s TCR models. His experience illustrates how the BoP equalises performance of cars with inherently different characteristics.

“My favourite car is still probably the i30,” he considers, “because it’s quite agile, it’s quite well balanced, and on tighter tracks it’s probably the best car. The Elantra is very good in places like Europe because it’s so long and sleek that its aerodynamic efficiency is massive.

“Unfortunately, because of that it got wound back on BoP so it doesn’t have the same power as an Audi, for example. So you’ve got aerodynamic efficiency but you haven’t got power so in the end it’s not actually that fast [in a straight line]. But if it was allowed the power it would dominate, so I get why they do it.”

Files has been involved in TCR racing almost from

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LEWIS KENT LEADING THE WAY AT DONINGTON

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the beginning. The 2013 Renault UK Clio Cup and Clio Euroseries champion made his first start in the 2015 International Series finale at Macau in a Campos Racing Opel. He describes it as “a baptism of fire” having been caught up in a huge first-corner accident typical of the fearsome street circuit that wiped out more than half the field. But more importantly, a highly successful relationship with crack Italian squad Target Competition was formed there.

“We got talking at Macau and ended up signing an Opel deal for Germany, and then the Opels fell through,” he recalls. So the team ran its old SEATs for the majority of Files’s first TCR Germany title-winning campaign before “Honda came

in and saved us and it went from there”.

From that first International Series won by Target’s Stefano Comini in 2015, TCR has rapidly expanded, with countless national and regional series adopting the regulations. When the WTCC folded after 2017, TCR provided the opportunity to keep an FIA world championship for touring cars in some form. Effectively merging the WTCC with TCR’s flagship International Series brought about the FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR). It ran from 2018 to 2022 but still wasn’t immune to the global economic situation or manufacturer politics, with dwindling grids leading to its cancellation.

In its place, WSC has launched the TCR World Tour,

TCR PROVIDED THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP AN FIA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FOR TOURING CARS IN SOME FORM

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a nine-round global series that brings together events from regional championships such as TCR Europe and TCR South America, as well as national championship rounds in Italy, Australia and China. Full-season entries will be joined by locals to compete for qualifying places in the TCR World Final.

The end of WTCR was perhaps a rare blip in TCR’s continued success story, although it did take TCR UK some years from its 2018 launch to gain a foothold in a market that already had a very strong domestic touring car scene. Even there, typically close-quarters racing combined with the accessibility of off-the-shelf cars and relatively low budgets eventually enabled the category to thrive.

“The cars are fast, they look good and they’re pretty cheap for what they are,” reckons Files. “Pretty much anyone can run them and they can go anywhere.

“That car,” he gestures towards the Hyundai Elantra

N he was set to drive in the opening round of the 2023 TCR UK season, “tomorrow could go to Italy. It could go on the World Tour; it could get sent to America to do the IMSA Challenge. And that’s the point of it, isn’t it? Whereas a British Touring Car – as cool as they are, as fast as they are – they are absolutely limited to one championship which is the BTCC. We were at Snetterton the other day, for example, doing identical lap times. So they’re on a par.”

BTCC race winner Chris Smiley switched to TCR UK last year with a new team, Restart Racing, set up by his former BTC Racing boss, Bert Taylor. He took the crown in an FK7-model Honda Civic Type R, but there were nine different winners (in four different cars) from 15 races and the title battle between Smiley and Isaac Smith’s Volkswagen Golf GTI went to the wire.

“It’s a touring car with a very, very similar performance, but the costs are managed much better,”

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says Smiley. “The manufacturers are giving support to the teams and it’s a lot more sustainable, and you can give your sponsors a lot more value for money than you can in other championships.

“The main thing is that you want to be in a competitive car. You don’t want to drive a car in 25th place, in and around that area [elsewhere], in an underfunded team and an underfunded car – it’s a waste of time. So for us to do this and have a competitive car and have people that want me to do well, and have the support and the sponsorship that we have now, this for me makes sense.”

Smiley and Restart Racing took advantage of TCR’s global platform to use the same car to represent the UK in the FIA Motorsport Games at Paul Ricard last autumn. However, a lack of prior running on the Pirelli tyre (TCR UK uses Goodyears) restricted him to eighth position.

“I think the biggest difference around the world is the different brands of tyres,” explains Smiley. In theory the cars are very, very similar, but whenever you change a tyre, it makes quite a big difference to a car. So I think the actual platform is very, very good, but moving from championship to championship, with the cars being so close, the tyre is a critical thing that you have to learn.

“We’d never, ever used the Pirelli tyres before, and

it was a completely different angle from set-up and bits and pieces to do with set-up – how to make the car work and how to make the tyre work. We were always on the back foot. It’s something that you need to sit down and do a bit of testing and work your way through.”

It might sound like a typical racing driver’s excuse, but it’s surprising how different each brand’s tyres are.

Having driven on almost all of them, Files explains: “It’s always interesting because all the tyres do behave differently. The Goodyear is a really good tyre – I like the way they behave, I like the rotation they give. The Yokohama and the Kumho seem to have a bit more longitudinal grip but they don’t really rotate as well which is a bit of a shame because it makes the car really weird on set-up to make it rotate. The Michelin is so hard that it rotates [much more] and you’re always trying to dial it back. So they all have their nuances but, ultimately, you can probably start from the base set-up and tweak from there with all of them.”

The likes of Chris Smiley and Aston Martin driver ambassador Jessica Hawkins joining TCR UK last year helped build on the series’ momentum which had already been growing after a couple of difficult years with grids in single figures. Last year it averaged 22 cars and for 2023 it has blossomed even further, with more

SMILEY RACING AT SNETTERTON IN 2023

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new drivers, teams and an influx of second-generation machinery like the Audi RS3 LMS (which Franco Girolami took to last year’s TCR Europe title) and Hyundai Elantra N (WTCR champion in Mikel Azcona’s hands).

The latest next-generation car to hit the tracks is the FL5-version Honda Civic Type R. It is in fact Honda’s third TCR car, following the original FK2 and the FK7 which has seen service for the past five years. Reigning TCR UK champion Smiley was entrusted by Honda to give the JAS Motorsport-developed FL5 its global debut in this year’s opening round at Snetterton.

“It’s a big thing for Honda to trust us to launch the new car,” he said ahead of the event. “We haven’t done a lot of running but, to be honest, with all the running I think we’ve seen most people do, it’s either been very cold or very wet so I don’t really think we’ve missed a whole lot.

“It’s going to be an unknown on the UK circuits and with the Goodyear tyre,” he continued. “And the tracks in the UK are tight and twisty so there’s going to be a few changes we’re probably going to have to make to it. But it’s a quality product.”

Clearly a new model brings with it a new chassis and revised aerodynamics interacting with the new body shape. Italian outfit JAS, which has a long history with Honda in touring car racing, has also upgraded its brakes and transmission, with WTCR runner-up Nestor Girolami serving as the car’s development driver.

“It’s an evolution of the older car, so it’s not a completely new philosophy,” says Smiley. “They’ve improved all the areas that the old car struggled in. And

the new car’s also a lot more aerodynamic as well – it’s a better shape. So I think aero-wise, the car’s in a good place.”

Starting the year placed 27th in the TCR World Rankings, it’s not just a successful defence of the TCR UK title that Smiley is targeting in 2023. He’d like to be on the grid for the World Final alongside those who qualify via the World Tour, and that could lead to him taking in some overseas rounds to boost his ranking.

“Obviously the higher up you get, the better it is,” he says. “I think it’s the top 45 cars that are invited to go and do the big race. That’s your aim, to be going to that. That has to be your aim.

“If we were going to compete elsewhere, we would have to go and do our homework [preparing with the different tyres]. We’ve thought about doing maybe a few European rounds this year but it just depends in what way we’re fixed with the new car and where we are with that. See how it’s going and then we’ll assess that as we go along.”

New cars always create an extra buzz in any championship. As Smiley says, “For the fans looking out to watch the cars, I think there’s nothing better than seeing the latest model cars competing.” But the beauty of BoP means that none of them will move the goalposts and consign all existing machinery to the scrapheap.

Instead, it simply allows for natural evolution, keeping the cars on track aligned with those in the showroom – which of course is the reason why manufacturers compete in motorsport.

THE PIT STOP | 145

IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

RETRO THE D2 LIVERY ON THIS MERCEDES IS HARPING BACK TO THE OLD DTM DAYS. AN ICONIC, MEMORABLE AND LOVEABLE LIVERY, BUT THIS TIME IT'S IN THE BRITISH GT.

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TOBY’S JOURNEY Toby Trice is embarking on a second season in the Porsche Cayman Sprint Challenge in 2023, as he looks to continue his journey raising awareness for makle fertility issues

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The winter period has been an interesting one because it’s been a really big challenge coming into the 2023 season. The economy is obviously a lot different to where it was a year ago and sponsorship conversations are very difficult to have or to get them to come to fruition.

However, I have been doing lots of work with Fertility Network UK and lots of stuff to do with raising awareness for fertility, and talking to lots and lots of companies that are very keen to join the awareness campaign. So hopefully in the not too distant future, we can get a through companies through sponsorship to join the campaign more officially.

But right now, we are all set which is good. We have managed to secure a budget for the 2023 campaign and I am over the moon to announce that we have also

Jakob Ebrey

Hi Everyone! So 2022 was an amazing year. I had so much fun joining the Porsche Cayman Sprint Challenge, just finally becoming a Porsche racing driver. I questioned whether I should be an Am or a Pro pre-season, but quickly it became apparent that I had the pace to be a pro, and I was quite clearly above the Ams. And throughout the season I was working on developing the setup, developing myself, learning how to drive a Porsche and get used to the tyres, and the pace improved throughout the year, which is really great.

We had a crash at the end of the year which was a bit of a setback and unfortunate, but the car’s all repaired and we’ve been working very hard throughout the winter period to ensure we are back on the grid for 2023.

New Page Productions

secured a drive with Redline Racing, one of Porsche’s most prestigious race teams, most successful race teams in the British paddock, with 25 years’ experience racing with Porsche.

I am very excited to announce that I am racing alongside Steve Roberts with them this year for a proper attack on the Pro title. As I will be racing with Steve, we will also be looking to secure the team’s championship, so let’s see how the season goes!

This year’s Porsche Cayman Sprint Challenge GB will consist of 18 races over six weekends, starting at Donington Park. We then head back up to Croft which I am really excited about. This year we race Silverstone National, as well as Snetterton and Brands Hatch, so there’s a real variety of circuits, all of which I’ve been to now, all of which I have experience on so I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in.

I’m feeling really confident ahead of this season. I’m in a very, very good headspace. I’ve been doing a lot of training over the off-season which I didn’t get to do much of last year because I became a new dad, which has been a new challenge of mine, and one that I’ve

gotten used to now. So I’ve been able to get myself quite physically fit, quite mentally prepared and with the testing we’ve done ahead of the championship, that went really well.

We were running very high up on the timesheet in most of the sessions and it just cements the fact that I have made real progress going into the start of the year and it shows I am a contender.

What’s really good about this year is that the grid is slightly bigger. We’ve got I think 19 cars confirmed on the grid already with a possible couple more that might be taking it up a bit more. But the standard of the grid is much higher now. We’ve got more pros, we’ve got a wide variety of experience, including some household names joining the championship, so we know the competition is much higher. However running P3 in testing, before the championship begins has got me feeling really excited and I just can’t wait to get started.

Obviously qualifying and race one at Donington will be the proof in the pudding and we’ll see where we really stack up!

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IN SHORT

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Image credit: PHD Photo

COULD FERRARI BE THE REAL DEAL IN WEC?

BY ROB HANSFORD

The World Endurance Championship has long been a stagnant series. Full of an abundance of great drivers, but missing a real variety of manufacturers capable of producing strong, reliable and fast cars.

That’s exactly why the new hypercar regulations were introduced. WEC wants to make the top class attractive to top-line manufacturers while being cost-effective, and with the planned hydrogen power just down the line, it worked a treat.

The likes of Ferrari, Porsche, and Peugeot have come flooding in their droves, all attempting to give Toyota a run for their money.

But that was the burning question – would Toyota still be just as dominant as it has been for the last several years?

Well, if the opening round of the season at Sebring is anything to go by, then no it isn’t.

Toyota had been setting the pace at Sebring, and naturally so, given its car and driver lineup for 2023 is the same as it has been for the last two years. But one team quickly popped out of the woodwork and caused everybody to sit up and take note.

Toyota was fastest in all three practice sessions and it looked as though it was going to lock out the front row for the race, but in stepped the #50 car Ferrari driven by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen.

The Toyota GR010s had set times within two tenths of each other. The #8 car posting a time of 1m45.281s, while the #7 car’s best effort was 1m45.548s. But the Ferrari had the edge, ending the session fastest of all with an effort of 1m45.067s, a full two tenths faster than the reigning champions.

It was a phenomenal lap, one that caught everyone off guard.

But it also got everyone wondering whether Ferrari could take victory at the first time of asking. Its one lap pace definitely showed potential, and it’s not like it was completely isolated. The sister #51 car lined up fourth on the grid.

Unfortunately though, a famous victory for the Scuderia was not to happen. A botched pitstop in the opening stages of the race, followed by a drive-through penalty for overtaking before the start line under the safety car, followed by an additional fivesecond penalty for a pit infringement meant the #50 Ferrari had

no real shot at the win, allowing Toyota to cruise to a 1-2 yet again.

In the end the #50 Ferrari crossed the line third, two laps down on the two Toyotas. But while Ferrari would no doubt class the result a disappointment, the reality for the championship is that it proved that Toyota are unlikely to completely dominate the series any longer.

Had Ferrari not made mistakes, there’s every possibility it would have been fighting for victory. It could have been in the mix. And we shouldn’t forget that this is just the first race of the season. If Ferrari can do that one race in, what will it achieve later on in the year?

It’s very easy to get carried away by a sublime single lap, but there’s also every reason to optimistically believe that the tide might be turning and that the competition in WEC could be on the verge of opening up.

Cadillac and Porsche weren’t really in the mix at Sebring, but having said that, they weren’t a million miles away either. As first races go, both teams achieved respectable results, finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

Of course, Toyota won’t sit still. It will still be pushing to find additional time, but the initial signs are very positive when it comes to evaluating just how competitive the hypercar class could be this year.

And although Toyota might get a stronghold on circuits such as Portimao and Fuji, it is highly likely that Le Mans especially could be a much tougher affair. And that’s exactly what WEC needs.

It needs a variety of teams, but there’s no point in having them if they can’t fight for wins. It needs battles at every corner.

And while the battles might not have truly commenced yet, it would be no surprise to see a variety of teams going toe to toe for victory in the coming months, pushing WEC right back to the forefront of motorsport once again.

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ON THE BACK FOOT

Image credit: Red Bull

BY ADAM PROUD

A tumultuous three years disrupted by injuries, recovery time, and yet more injuries has left Marc Marquez on the back foot and unable to compete at the level we know he can reach.

But 2023 brought a new horizon, one where he was free of this disruption and had the promise to showcase the talent we’ve been missing. But once again, it looks like that will not be the case.

When I first had the idea to write this article, I had one focus on my mind: will 2023 be make or break for Marquez and Honda?

But then the Portuguese GP came along.

If there was a rider that could have a weekend quite like it, it would only be Marquez. Pole on the Saturday, pushing his Honda to the limit and finishing third in the newly introduced sprint races, then just three laps into Sunday’s main event finding himself on the ground with a broken thumb.

At the time of writing, the 30-year-old has missed two rounds but is expecting to be back for his home race at Jerez.

There’s a common theme starting to form here, and from results of not just Marquez but his fellow Honda riders, there can be a common denominator.

The Honda RC213V. Gone are the days when Marquez seemed to step on the bike and bury his rivals through sheer skill and the comfort of being at one with his machine. It’s becoming a familiar scene where he looks on the limit in every session, and Portugal proved that.

Right from the off in the main race he looked beyond the limit, he very nearly wiped out Jorge Martin on the first lap as he misjudged his braking, before coming away not so lucky shortly after, when he collided with Miguel Oliveira in a violent crash at the same corner.

Following the incident, he made no excuse for what caused the mistake.

“I did a really big mistake today, of course it was not my intention to have this happen, my intention was not even to overtake Martin at that point, but I had a massive lock with the front,” he told media after the race.

“Maybe the hard front was not fully up to temperature, I 152 THE PIT STOP

released the brakes and the bike went inside. I avoided [Jorge] Martin but made contact with Oliveira.”

In Marquez's absence, Honda actually won at Austin with satellite team LCR and Alex Rins. But a proper title challenge of the kind that used to be routine seems no closer.

And after admitting before the Portuguese GP that Honda won’t be title contenders in 2023, where does he go from here?

If we rewind back to that Jerez crash three years ago which ultimately set the road for Marquez’s 2020, 2021 and 2022 campaigns, would he be in this situation now if that high-side hadn’t happened?

To put it in a short answer, it’s highly doubtful.

Honda seemed to lose its way when their star man disappeared for race upon race and the cracks began to show as soon as the results stopped coming in.

Marquez has gone from the premier-class dominator to the forefront of a manufacturer rebuild in the space of three seasons.

He has a contract with the team that has guided him to six top class titles, but with that running out at the end of 2024, questions are starting to loom whether he’ll stick that out or go elsewhere.

But where would he go? I’ve always thought KTM would be a good destination should he ever decide to depart Honda, but if it’s championship-winning machinery he’s after, would Marquez believe firmly in the Austrian outfit’s project to take the jump?

So far he has stayed firm that he’ll be remaining with Honda; whether that opinion changes or not over the course of the next few months, let’s wait and see.

However the Spaniard has proved in his 10 years at Honda that he is a loyal rider, and perhaps the idea of rebuilding them back to their best is something he would cherish given their already triumphant relationship together.

Image credit: BTCC

IS THE BTCC SUCCUMBING TO MONEY?

BY ROB HANSFORD

For the last decade, the British Touring Car Championship has been flooded with entries, grids full to the max, so much so that some teams and drivers have missed out on a chance to race in the series.

It’s long been regarded as one of the healthiest series within UK motorsport when it comes to team survival and competition.

But while the level of competition looks in no danger of changing anytime soon, there are some concerns creeping in that the level of finance required now to compete in the championship could potentially become detrimental to the series.

On the face of it, you look at the BTCC’s grid for 2023 and you immediately question why these concerns are there at all. With a grid of 21 cars, it’s going to be as action-packed as ever.

But look carefully, and you will notice that one team is missing.

Team Dynamics has long been part of the BTCC furniture, having first made its way on to a BTCC grid way back in 1992.

Since then it has gone on to amass 126 wins over 750 race starts, becoming a stalwart of the championship.

Now, it’s not unusual for teams to come and go in the BTCC, especially when so many are run by privateer or family-based businesses. But when an outfit like Team Dynamics announces that it won’t be on the grid this year due to finance issues, it really does catch your attention.

The BTCC’s series boss, Alan Gow has previously made it known that he’d be keen to reduce the grid slightly in the future, but Team Dynamics would not have been one of those outfits he would have considered expendable.

And so it begins to raise questions as to why teams are beginning to struggle to find enough cash to remain on the grid.

After all, Team Dynamics isn’t the only team to have disappeared for this year.

Ciceley Motorsport also decided to withdraw its involvement from the series at the end of 2022.

Right now, there’s no clear answer as to what’s changing in the landscape of BTCC, although one quick glance would have you arguing that hybrid is one problem.

The addition of hybrid power to the BTCC has inevitably

increased the cost of producing the cars each year. It’s a complex system, one that was troublesome at the start of 2022, but although it’s been ironed out, there’s still questions about how much of a difference it actually makes.

One BTCC driver has also advised this writer that with the level of hybrid power made available, it makes no difference to the racing whatsoever, and is essentially a gimmick. Had the output been increased, it would have made a real difference to the racing, but it would have also required additional investment in order to upgrade safety standards.

The budget required for a BTCC drive is now getting up to somewhere in the region of £500,000 a year. That’s not an insignificant amount of money, especially when you consider that the BTCC is a national series. But it also demonstrates just how much cash is required in order to see a season out.

And with the current economic climate, it’s just going to get harder and harder for drivers and teams to find the sponsors, and find the money.

Some will, but many won’t and it’s the many that the series needs to be considering.

Right now, there’s not enough teams suffering with issues to warrant any changes from the BTCC. 21 cars on the grid is still a great championship. There’s no arguments with that.

But while changes might not be needed right now, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t keep a close eye on the financial level required and adjust it if necessary. After all, it’s become one of the greatest touring car championships in the world, and it would be a mighty shame for all the hard work that’s gone in to creating the platform, for it to fall away, all for the sake of everyone getting some extra money in their back pockets.

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