Issue 6

THE PIT STOP issue 6

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 PHD PHOTO

CONTENTS

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RALLY TO RESCUE The Valkyrie Racing project that's raising awareness for child trafficking

PANNED AMERICAN HIGHWAY Alex Lawrence takes a look back at McLaren's Can-Am programme and its new replacement

DRIVEN TO EXCESS Ash Miller explores the rivalry between Jaguar and Sauber in the Group C era

CHASING VICTORIES Felipe Nasr explains why he decided to pursue a career in America, and how his plan has succeeded

FULFILLING A MISSED DREAM Dario Franchitti explains what it was like driving at Le Mans for the first time

HOW CONFLICT CAN SHAPE SPORT

FW14 Taking a detailed look at the Williams that was the beginning of F1's most technologically advanced car

BOTTLENECK Luke

Barry

examines the World Rally Championship's talent pool issues

AN ELITE DREAM The story of a Lotus Elite that should have raced in the Le Mans 24 Hours, but never did

NOW AND DENNE Ash Miller takes a look at the people behind Lola cars

IS MARQUEZ MIRRORING LORENZO & PEDROSA?

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AN HONOUR

he first three months of the year have flown by, and in that time the global landscape has also drastically changed. A lot of people might see the conflict in Russia as something that’s got nothing to do them, a political agenda that’s isolated between two countries.

Yes, the fighting might be confined to a small area of the planet, but the consequences are extending far and wide, and motorsport is not immune from it. Not only have Russian drivers been stopped from racing, but Russian events are also no longer taking place.

For state backed events like the Russian Grand Prix, it’s entirely understandable that they would be dropped, due to the fact motorsport cannot be indirectly funding a war. There is no way this conflict can be tolerated by anyone, but it would be naive to believe that there aren’t innocent Russians being penalised because of this conflict, including team members, personnel and drivers within the motorsport community.

I don’t want to get too bogged down discussing a political situation. There will always be long debates about what is right or wrong when it comes to wars, conflicts, just politics in general. The fact of the matter is, on both sides there are innocent lives being needlessly affected, on an unimaginable scale, and that is not right, and motorsport must do its part to help where it can.

But looking on to more positive aspects, it is so good to see so many motorsport seasons kicking off in style. The new Formula 1 regulations seem to be a hit, and it’s created plenty of dramatic moments in a season that is still only two races old. If that momentum keeps up, we are going to be in for one cracking season.

It’s a shame that Mercedes aren’t at the front of the grid right now, as a three-way battle would be brilliant to watch, but I have no doubt it won’t be long before they are there mixing it up with Ferrari and Red Bull.

I’m sure you will have guess by now that our cover article of Issue 6 is all about Dario Franchitti. It was great to sit down with Dario to discuss the realisation of a lifelong dream. He’d always wanted to race at Le Mans, but it never happened. That was until last year, when he was given the chance to drive an Aston Martin DBR9 in a classic event at the circuit on the same weekend as the 24 hour race.

Even now, I can still hear the disappointment and sadness in his voice when talking about the fact he never got to take part in the 24 hour race. It’s a crying shame it was never possible and there’s no doubt he would have contended for an outright victory had he driven LMP1 machinery.

But while we take a detailed look at the sharpest end of sportscar racing, I also have a big soft spot for our Lotus Elite story. A car that should have raced at Le Mans, but never did due to a disaster at the eleventh hour.

For us, it was a very special moment to take the car to Goodwood Motor Circuit, and huge thanks go them for giving us access to the track. It was the first time that car had been on the track, a circuit where it’s original owner learnt to race cars.

This job provides plenty of fantastic moments, but sometimes, it really gives back something very special, playing a very minor part in the history of a story. It’s an honour and a privilege, and something that’s never taken for granted.

Rob Hansford Editor

EDITORIAL Editor Rob Hansford Photography Editor Brian Smith Contributors Ash Miller, Alex Lawrence, Luke Barry Photography Contributors PHD Photo, Rob Overy, Ed Waplington, Matt Widdowson, Tim Glover THANKS TO Ian Cunningham Art, Goodwood Estate, Rob Overy, Moto Historics, Dario Franchitti, Tolman Motorsport, Nick Boaz, Chris McKee, James Platt, Katharine Morgan, Haynes Motor Museum, Chris Copson COMMERCIAL ENQUIRIES Enquiries commercialenquiries@thepitstopmagazine.com 6 | THE PIT STOP

IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

RALLYTO

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RESCUE

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY VALKYRIE RACING

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Warning: Contains some content which you may find upsetting ll drivers have their own reasons for going racing. Some do it purely to feed the competitive urge burning away inside them, some do it for the thrill and excitement, and some do it because racing is all they’ve ever known.

For Renée Brinkerhoff, very different reasons apply.

Of course, she has a competitive nature and she races to win, but she has a much more important reason to race. She’s using the sport to help raise awareness and prevent child trafficking. And unlike many other drivers, she’s not racing in a conventional manner either. She’s tackling some of the greatest and toughest events in the world, all while using a vintage Porsche 356.

Brinkerhoff didn’t grow up with a burning desire to get involved in the world of motorsport. But after she discovered rallying there was no stopping her, and in 2013 she made her rallying debut, competing on the gruelling La Carrera Panamericana. She loved it, but she knew that she could do more than just turning up to race.

“I was an anomaly. I was the only woman driving in the La Carrera and we were always on the podium,” Brinkerhoff told The Pit Stop. “We were always getting either first or second in class and for me, more importantly, we were running cars with 10 horsepower less and that little underpowered 356, we were beating Mustangs and muscle cars, 911s and all sorts of things.

“So for me, it was just a great team effort and because of all that, someone heard about what we

THE 356 AT THE LA CARRERA PANAMERICANA IN 2017

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were doing and our success and we realised there was a voice there. There was a way to take that small notoriety and I thought how can we take that and do something to make change in this world, and do something for better and for children in particular.

“During that time I got exposed to child trafficking. I had a couple of things happen that I don’t believe were a coincidence, being introduced to the whole global problem and then I met an FBI agent and I actually sat next to a man on a bus who had a pornographic image of a child on his phone. Those things happened almost back-to-back and I thought this is really weird. This is coming to me. Here we are thinking who we should be helping and this is knocking on my door.”

It’s fair to say that there is a stigma attached to anything relating to sexual abuse and human trafficking. People know it’s happening, but it can be a tough subject to speak out about. Brinkerhoff was fully aware of this, but she felt using the medium of motorsport could help raise awareness, and break down those barriers so the people who need help can receive it.

“It was an ugly topic and it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about or focus on, but I thought this is knocking on our door so we have to find a way. So we thought how can we take the little success we’ve had in the La Carrera and what can we do on a global platform and realising we could use our car literally for a vehicle to bring awareness and raise money, and give money for kids that are being trafficked around the world. And that’s actually the making of Project 356,

TACKLING THE EAST AFRICAN SAFARI RALLY

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THE MUD PROVED NO MATCH FOR THE 356 IN KENYA

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going back to La Carrera, and that was the root of all that. It was wanting to do something with our racing.

“It wasn’t about all the wonderful experiences we’d get and the life changing experiences one gets when they put themselves in harm's way, and risk themselves on some crazy race in Mexico and all those things. Not for us. What can we do outside of ourselves? And that was the root of all that.”

Having decided that she was going to use motorsport as a way to raise awareness for child trafficking, Brinkerhoff had to plan how she was going to do it.

As she said, she knew that if it was to work then it had to be on a global scale, and it couldn’t be something that had been done before.

In order to get the programme off the ground, Brinkerhoff created Valkyrie Racing, and early on the decision was made that she would continue to use her plucky Porsche 356. The plan developed from there, and it was decided that she would attempt to compete on some of the toughest rallies across seven continents.

Everything began at the La Carrera Panamericana in 2017, before the team headed down under to compete on the Targa Tasmania the following year. The Porsche 356 then faced its toughest test yet, when the team decided to compete on the legendary Peruvian rally,

Caminos del Inca.

Valkyrie’s 356 was the first Porsche to ever compete on the rally, and also became the first non-modern car to compete in the history of the modern event.

The next challenge facing the team was a dualcontinent event - the Peking to Paris Rally. Brinkerhoff faced a 9,000 mile, 36-day journey across Asia and Europe, all in her vintage 356, but despite the challenging conditions, the car made it to the end.

Then in 2019, the 356 faced a legendary classic event, the East African Safari Classic Rally. The field was full of Porsche 911s, but the 356 performed admirably on the tough terrain, with Brinkerhoff finishing 15th overall.

On every event, the team faced totally new challenges, different terrains, and sometimes extreme terrains, but Brinkerhoff knew that if her project was to be a success she had to do something entirely out of the norm. And that’s why those events became part of the plan.

“It was like, let’s look around the world and find events that we could put that little car in, to make firsts because how do you make recognition? You have to do something outside of the box to get people to listen to you. People are doing totally crazy things or even

"IT WASN'T ABOUT ALL THE WONDERFUL EXPERIENCES WE'D GET"

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if they are not, just with social media people are just constantly looking and watching at things, right. So we were like we have to do something extreme.

“If we are going to get people’s attention we have to do something extreme and so we targeted each one of those races specifically to try and challenge the car, and at the same time to do it in such a way that we could sympathetically change the car and do it in a methodical way.”

Let’s be honest, it wouldn’t have been possible to target all of these events with a standard car every time. Before each event, the 356 had to be modified so that it could handle each rally, and so the car was sent to specialists, Tuthill Porsche so it could be prepared properly for each event.

The preparation required also guided the order in which the team would tackle the events. They didn’t want to be chopping and changing from one surface to another, as the car needed to be constantly adapted.

“We thought we want to do this in progression,” Brinkerhoff explained. “We don’t want to go from Tarmac to mud, back to Tarmac. We want to do this in a sequence.”

But the final event would be completely different.

The team was no longer racing on asphalt or gravel. It was racing on snow and ice, but not just anywhere. It was tackling Antarctica.

Although it wasn’t an official rally, Valkyrie wanted to end its challenge in style, and what better way to do that than by driving 356 miles across Antarctica. But the conditions Brinkerhoff would face would be totally different to anything she had faced before. And being on top of a sheet of ice, the Porsche 356 had to be modified dramatically.

Off came the wheels and on went snow tracks and skis. It was a complete overhaul, but was something that had to be done if Brinkerhoff was to complete the challenge. With the wheels now gone, the car was totally different, and yet, despite its major changes, Brinkerhoff went to Antarctica with no experience of her newly modified machine.

“Antarctica was hard because we didn’t get to test the car. I got in that car and our shakedown was right there in that environment and we didn’t have the luxury of if something broke we could re-engineer it.

We had to deal with the problems we had. And I think in Antarctica, the dangers, something my navigator, Jason, he’s a polar explorer and has world records, he said, ‘Renée, this will be the most dangerous event you have ever participated in’, and I’m thinking ‘Jason, you have no idea’.

“On La Carrera, a third of the cars don’t cross the finish line, they catch on fire, I’ve been there when there’s been mortality, I’ve been there when people have been medevaced out in helicopters and all this stuff. It’s a very, very dangerous race and I was thinking ‘he has know idea what we’ve already done and the dangers we’ve already been in’. And then he finally said ‘Renée, here it’s different. Imagine yourself going around that corner in the La Carrera, pushing the envelope, being on the edge, knowing there’s no guardrail, there’s a cliff coming and you’re taking it to the limit. Now you’re doing it blindfolded’.

“So that’s what it’s like in Antarctica. The dangers are there but you just can’t see them. And it’s because there’s hidden crevasses you don’t know are there, and yes, the route you go, they’ve traversed them with their radar imaging to find the crevasses but it’s not 100%.

ANTARCTICA WAS THE FIRST TIM BRINKERHOFF DROVE THE CAR USING SNOWTRACKS AND SKIS

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VALKYRIE COMPLETED ITS 356 MILE CHALLENGE IN ANTARCTICA IN DECEMBER 2021.

And the route is go here, but can you go 10 metres to the left, and you are just following GPS waypoints.

Can you deviate 100 metres? What is that margin of where those crevasses are? There’s also the fact you are driving in those conditions and you are driving in the unseen dangers and now not being able to use your eyes.”

The modified 356 was the first time Brinkerhoff had driven a car that runs on tracks and skis, and naturally she had to completely change her approach when it came to driving the car.

“You have to be more thoughtful and deliberative on making any kind of turn. You can’t just turn and expect it to turn. You have to take wide loose turns and do everything very sympathetically to the car because there was so much stress on the front end of that car, with the suspension and all, and the bolts kept breaking on either side. So definitely a place of weakness.

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“When we were on the snow, it seemed like an absolute dream. It just went where you wanted it to go and I would have loved to see how fast we could go.

But we had guidelines because we hadn’t been able to test the car.

“But it would just fly. Our support vehicle would get stuck, they would have to lower their tyre pressure down to where they were basically running on flat and their gearbox was constantly overheating because of all the stress on the gearbox, being in the deep snow and all those things. But we had none of those kinds of problems.

“You just had to handle it differently and of course, when you are in a car, you are listening to the car. You are listening to everything in that car to hear what’s going on and you are feeling that everything that’s going on to anticipate if something’s going wrong. So it took a bit longer to figure out, but it was definitely a

different kind of driving.”

At the end of 2021 Brinkerhoff completed her 356 mile journey across Antarctica, completing her mission of tackling six events across seven countries. But that doesn’t mean the mission is complete. She’s also been working hard to ensure that child trafficking awareness is at the forefront of everything she’s doing.

Not only has Valkyrie Racing been raising awareness of the devastating problem, but they’ve also been raising money for their partner organisations so that they can combat the trafficking. The team’s target is to raise $1million and so far they have raised $603,189, but that’s not where Brinkerhoff stops. She’s also been working directly with enforcement agencies, tackling the issue head on.

“I do undercover work to find people that are trafficking. I work with an organisation. I work with local law enforcement and local agencies to find the

people that are trafficking, find those children and get the evidence so they can make arrests. It’s difficult to get myself mentally psyched up for it because it’s truly ugly and it’s dicey. You’re dealing with criminals and the underbelly of the world and sick people. But we believe we have three things in your life. You have your time, your talent and your resources. And this is something, as long as I’m able, I want to be able to give all three, and support organisations all over the world.”

The motorsport challenge might be over for now, but the challenges facing fighting the cause behind it aren’t. Brinkerhoff is fully aware of that, and is fighting every day to ensure this devastating issue gets brought to an end. And if her Valkyrie Racing success is anything to go by, she won’t stop fighting until real change has been made.

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IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

RAM RACING BRITISH GT PRODUCES SOME GREAT BATTLES AND BRILLIANT RACING. RAM RACING ENDED UP FINISHING RUNNERS-UP TO BARWELL MOTORSPORT IN LAST YEAR'S CHAMPIONSHIP, WITH IAN LOGGIE AND YELMER BUURMAN BEHIND THE WHEEL, AND THEY'LL BE AIMING TO GO ONE BETTER WHEN THE SEASON KICKS OFF LATER IN 2022.

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PANNED AME HIGHW WORDS BY ALEX LAWRENCE IMAGES BY ALEX LAWRENCE / BRIAN SMITH 20 | THE PIT STOP

RICAN AY

THE CAN-AM RACING SERIES GAVE RISE TO SOME WONDROUS MACHINES. MCLAREN ENJOYED SUCCESS BUT AS FORMULA ONE BECAME MORE APPEALING, THEY EXITED THE SERIES IN 1972. FIFTY YEARS FOLLOWING THAT EXIT, HERE IS THE CAR THAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

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he world of motorsport, like the wider automotive world, is looking at green alternatives. Synthetic fuel, brake recovery systems and electric motors are the way forward. That may be, who are we to know what will happen, but you only need to visit Goodwood for a Members’ Meeting, the Festival of Speed or Revival to know that there are certain smells and sounds that are simply evocative.

That heady mixture of oil, fuel and lubricants laces the air and the thundering soundtrack increases the

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heart rate of anyone who has ever succumbed to any kind of motorsport event. The current hybrid engined Formula 1 cars have become louder than they first were but outside of a drag strip, bringing the thunder these days is few and far between. It is hard to even conceive that Lewis Hamilton, if asked ‘what kind of engine would you like to run’, would answer ‘a really big one’.

But back in 1966, Masten Gregory gave that exact answer as the Canadian - American Challenge Cup series was unveiled to the world.

The Can-Am series was formed as a professional, International sports car series that would compare

Brian Smith

to the ever popular F1 series of the day, but with the emphasis on all-out racing over endurance. John Bishop, the executive director of the Sports Car Club of America, tasked his competition director, Jim Kaser with the task of looking at what could be done. They knew that in order to bring in the top drivers, it would need to run outside of the F1 season. The autumn following the last F1 race would be the perfect time and it was soon getting the full American marketing treatment.

The Can-Am cars were testing faster than the F1 cars around the same circuits such as Watkins Glen. The interest was growing.

The plan was they would have a five race series across nine weeks that would include the LA Times Grand Prix, the Players 200 in Canada, The Monterey Grand Prix and St Jovite plus another as yet unfinished circuit in Vegas. The minimum prize money would be $20,000 at St. Jovite and $30,000 at all the remaining venues. The venue would also contribute to the championship prize fund but unlike other major series, there would be no appearance money for the drivers.

Not publicly anyway. Any appearance fees had to be kept private so they could not use that as a promotion for the series. This was a sticking point for some drivers

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IT MAY HAVE WELL BEEN CALLED THE 'ANYTHING GOES' RACE SERIES and teams and McLaren stated that without it, they would not compete.

The US press were less than pleased at their approach but Kaser saw the McLaren point as a valid one. He knew that there was only one solution; find more money. He was able to add another race to the calendar at Bridgehampton but luck was about to step in and really aid his cause.

Johnson Wax were consolidating their car care products under one brand and were looking at marketing opportunities. Carl Byoir & Associates, a leading public relations firm, were aiding them with options when their representative Robert T. Henkel brokered meetings between Johnson Company chairman, Sam Johnson and Jim Kaser which led to Johnson Wax becoming Can-Am’s title sponsor. This was a sports marketing first and it turned out to set the standard for branded sports marketing that is still prevalent to the modern era.

The pull from having a title sponsor drew additional funding from brands that saw the prize pot grow to $350,000.00. That caught the eye of Teddy Mayer, who would go on to be one of McLarens Formula 1 championship winning architects. It also turned the head of a certain Englishman by the name of John Surtees.

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While the appearance fees were still lacking, the swelling of the overall prize money would draw in the top teams while grids would also see smaller teams entering at the thought of taking a big pay day.

The inaugural races would see two in Canada (CAN) and four in America (AM) and the cars would officially be classes as Group 7 sports cars. They were not mass produced cars but would instead be built in small quantities or even single units. Unthinkable to today, the FIA Group 7 specification really should read as ‘build what you like’. It only stipulates that the cars need two seats, bodywork which enclosed the wheels and a roll hoop.

No specified engine capacity. Turbochargers allowed. Compressors allowed. That is the complete technical specification handbook right there. It may as well have been called the ‘anything goes’ race series.

It opened the doors to radical thinking in the design department that in turn would lead to some interesting and innovative standards. While the ‘out there’ looks from Jim Hall’s Chaparral Cars was something to behold, the series was dominated by the efficiency of Bruce McLaren Racing.

Speaking to the late Surtees at Goodwood, it was clear that the excitement of the series still lingered.

“Joining forces with Eric (Broadley) at Lola with the T70

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was a mix of luck and timing, it always is. But I’ll take it.” And he did with Team Surtees taking the 1966 CanAm series win six points ahead of Roger Penske Racing and Bruce McLaren Racing in third.

For Bruce, it ignited the torch to refine the designs.

For 1967, McLaren looked to build light, aerodynamic cars that would borrow concepts from the aerospace industry thanks largely to the employment of Robin Herd. He had worked on the Concorde program and understood how to produce downforce without the need for the large rear wings sported by the Chaparral cars. The cars would also change colour from the red of ’66 to orange, similar to their new sponsor, Gulf Oil. The final big change was that they would cease to roll on Firestone rubber, favouring a switch to Goodyear.

They worked closely with the team to assist in the race development side of the car meaning that the resulting McLaren M6A, was an absolute weapon. And so, it came to pass. By the end of the season, Bruce McLaren took the title with the second car of Denny Hulme finishing second. It was nothing short of dominating.

1968 was a consolidation for McLaren with their M8A being an evolution of design over revolution.

Hulme took the title, Bruce in second and Mark Donohue in a modified customer M6B in third. The domination of McLaren, as with any domination in

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sport, created animosity and questions of validity in all corners. Competition will always be wished for and Bruce didn’t win any friends with his comments to complaints about their supremacy during them winning the 1969 series: ‘You don’t feel like going to the circus or a zoo without seeing the elephants, no matter how many monkeys there might happen to be…’

They continued to dominate taking the top two slots of the championship with nearly twice the points haul of the Lola T162 of Chuck Parsons in third and heading into the 1970s, you would be hard pushed to imagine anyone taking their crown.

On June 2, 1970 at Goodwood Circuit, the rear wing failed on the M8D McLaren that Bruce was testing. It caused the bodywork to peel off and sent the car and driver off the track at nearly 170mph. Bruce’s right hand man, Meyer, received the news from the circuit and called the factory together to make an announcement.

Bruce had been killed.

The workforce was sent home. Their world was over.

They had two weeks to recover from the news to going racing again without their illustrious leader.

Although McLaren triumphed in the 1970 season, FIA rule changes came into force in 1971 effectively banning the Chaparral. With Peter Reason and Hulme,

McLaren again took the victory and runner up spots and in 1972, with the Porsche 917 becoming a dominant sports car, McLaren hired world champion Jackie Stewart to partner Hulme.

‘I tested the McLaren and it was like driving a passenger car compared to the nervous, pointy Lola where you were a millisecond away from an accident all the time’ he recently stated.

Johnson Wax, who had continued to be the title sponsor, would end its relationship with the series which resulted in such a small purse, it just about covered the cost of a trophy. It was also to be the last season that McLaren would enter a team directly with the last few years seeing them represented by customer raced cars.

The M20 of Hulme finished the season in second with 65 points, trailing the Roger Penske Racing Porsche 917/10 on 130 points. McLaren turned their attention to the lucrative F1 series and the rest, as they say, is history.

But the idea of rekindling a Can-Am series of the modern era had more than some burning embers of an idea. The McLaren MP4-12C Can-Am was produced with a view to not only celebrating the McLaren years of history but also to go racing.

It never came to pass. The modern world of motorsport rules, homologation, even small side issues such as driver and spectator safety, meant that the cars

selected for race car conversion did not last. They were returned to road car specification. Apart from one. This one.

With its lightweight forged alloy wheels, titanium bolts holding them in place and wearing Pirelli P Zero Cross rubber, this is a very special car indeed. The 3.8 litre twin turbo V8 producing 641bhp and a 0-62 time of three seconds would more than be acceptable were the series to have returned.

The car had been sat in a private collection until the owner had an issue with a broken car in the GT Cup series. For nine years, this car had not turned a wheel.

Yet it was prepared to race by SB Race Engineering and managed to compete in two rounds of last year's GT Cup. So successful has it proven to be, the start of the 2022 season, 50 years since McLaren left the CanAm series, will see what is effectively an unrestricted McLaren GT car, back on the grid.

As the first visit to Goodwood looms large for the 2022 Members’ Meeting, it won’t be lost on many that watching all the classic motorsport cars thundering around that famous circuit still brings so much joy to so many. While you may struggle to imagine what a modern day Can-Am series would be like if it could happen, if you squint, and really listen, you can imagine that McLaren without doubt, would still be striving to dominate it.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

I CAN'T STAND THE RAIN THE RAIN WAS TORRENTIAL AT THE START OF THE LE MANS 24 HOURS IN 2021, AND THE RACE DIDN'T GET OFF TO THE BEST START FOR SEBASTIEN BUEMI. WHEN GREEN FLAG RACING BEGAN AFTER 13 MINUTES, BUEMI WAS HIT BY A GLICKENHAUS CAR, SENDING THE TOYOTA DRIVER INTO A SPIN AT THE DUNLOP CHICANE. BUT DESPITE THAT, THE #8 TOYOTA STILL MANAGED TO RECOVER TO FINISH SECOND IN THE RACE. 32 THE PIT STOP

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dri v to

WORDS BY ASH MILLER IMAGES BY ROB OVERY

ven excess

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mid a swathe of bright colours, aggressively toned synthesisers and hair that could be picked up on most local radars, 1988 signified a peak in the shoulderpad saturated world that typified the 1980s.

Switching on your radios would bring you an assault of Kylie Minogue, INXS and George Michael, melting ears and hearts around the globe with their own unique upbeat brands of synth pop. Turn the dial on the TV on many given weekends, however, and it was a similar soundtrack of excess and a glamorous palette of iconic colours - names like Silk Cut, Rothmans, Martini and AEG brought a similar array of goosebump-eliciting surges among thousands that bore witness to the glory days of World Sportscar’s legendarily iconic Group C era.

As the sportscar world’s film star studded era of the early 1970s melded into the monster era of the Porsche 956-dominated 1980s, the dwindling romance and slowly fading grids were put into accelerated decline with the looming fuel crisis, effectively turning the once strong World Sportscar scene into a convoluted mess largely devoid of any manufacturer support aside from the dominant Porsches.

With a revolution on the horizon, both the Federation Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA, then the FIA’s motor racing arm) and Le Mans organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest agreed on a fuel formula. Power would, in theory, be limited by the

THE SAUBER C9 DRIVEN

BY SCHLESSLER AND MASS

amount of fuel each car could use during endurance events. Crucially, the new category would also be for pure-bred, closed sports-prototypes; having a suitable road car was no longer a requirement for manufacturers to get involved.

This stirring rouse-up of the rules would give birth to what would become a golden age in sports prototype motorsport; a gladiatorial rivalry of flame-spitting, fighter-jet-like race cars that would become just as much a symbol of 1980s culture as a Madonna music video.

By the time the decade was counting down to its climax, the World Sportscar Championship was awash with big-name manufacturers, drivers, teams and technological advancement. It was the go-to sportscar variant of Formula 1, and some would argue in an even healthier place; minnows such as Spice, Tiga, March and Veskanda were pitted against the might of Porsche, Lancia, Mercedes and Jaguar, shod with a raft of different tyre suppliers and pitting the Brundles and Wallaces against the Lavaggis and Schlessers.

As the big-name might assembled together to tackle the start of the 1989 season, few in the sport could predict just how iconic the following two years would become.

Of those names, two arguably stood out, if not for their sheer role in Le Mans history; Jaguar and Mercedes. Two titans of the sport, whose roots stretched all the way back to the very inception of the famed race.

The colourful 1980s were in stark contrast to the

THREE OF THE JAGUAR XJR-9S

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THE SAUBER C9 BREAKING OUT FROM COVER

black-and-white era in which both manufacturers began their Le Mans rivalry. In the first half of the 1950s, the iconic D-Type traded blows with the mercurial W194, each asserting their dominance in the hands of names such as Peter Walker, Peter Whitehead, Tony Ralt and Duncan Hamilton.

Seemingly picking up in a friendlier version of where World War Two had ended just a few years earlier, the two marques engaged in fierce motorsport dog-fighting at ground level, capturing the imaginations of the increasingly

absorbed public, with bravery and speed on display to attract the masses. Mercedes, however, would leave the latter half of the ’50s to its British rivals; Lance Macklin’s tragically fatal accident in the 300 SLR in 1955, in which 80 spectators were killed in what would be the worst motorsportrelated disaster in history, forced the German manufacturer to exit the frame, and very nearly end motorsport as an event entirely.

However, fast forwarding the VHS three decades ahead, and the rivalry was sparked up again; by

MERCEDES, HOWEVER, WOULD LEAVE THE LATTER HALF OF THE '50S TO ITS BRITISH RIVALS

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the time 1988 dawned in all its neon glory, the bold purple-and-yellow ninth product of the XJR programme was itself dawning in ominous shades of pace. Tom Walkinshaw’s investment in the Tony Southgatedesigned low drag, 7.0L V12 monster was finally bearing fruit at the pinnacle of the era’s Sports Prototype hype, and was set to rekindle the Anglo-German battle against the newest 5.0L V8-laden C9 of the Mercedes camp.

Alas, as the 1988 edition of Le Mans peeked into view, the hopes of a famous rivalry were dashed; with concerns over the stability of the Michelin tyres on the pre-chicane Mulsanne Straight-era circuit, the German contingent removed themselves from the race before it

had even gotten underway.

This left the rivalry to be played out in a familiar alternate Anglo-German universe, as the mighty Porsche 962Cs taking up the promising slack of the Saubers to go head-to-head with the British contingent, with the former gunning for an eighth straight Le Mans victory. Despite the all-conquering Porsche 962Cs filling the front three spots on the grid owing to their generous use of turbo boost, The XJR-9’s legendarily ear-pleasing power plant propelled the sleek Sports Prototype to a crushing early lead, leap frogging the de-tuned race-trimmed Porsches’ by lap two.

Despite this, the final laps of the race proved tense; the Andy Wallace/Jan Lammers/Johnny Dumfries

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Jaguar provided the late race action when gearbox issues forced Lammers to hold the car in fourth gear to prevent any further damage, while the chasing 962C of Hans-Joachim Stuck/Klaus Ludwig/Derek Bell draw ever closer to snatching the laurels. It was by sheer uncharacteristic error that, when Stuck’s car was thwarted by running out of fuel close to home, the Jaguar finally snatched its first victory since those monochrome days of the D-Type.

The Jaguar fold would add to the salt-in-the-

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wound trend by taking the 1988 World Sportscar Championship, propelling Martin Brundle into the star-studded-stratosphere of motorsport hot property resurgence following a slightly stalled Formula 1 foray, and beating out the Sauber Mercedes C9s to the overall honours.

As the final year of the decade crested in a crescendo of vivid colour, Sauber’s disappointment of both losing the title and having to pull their blacklivered C9s out of the previous year’s Le Mans was

met with an audacious new silver hue, bringing the 1950s narrative back to life in a waft of Mercedes silver. Despite the best efforts of Patrick Tambay, Jan Lammers and Andy Wallace to haul the XJR-9 and its successor, the XJR-11, to title glory, the German giants swung back with a vengeance. After the laurel-lifting performance of the 1988 season, the Jaguar camp failed to notch up a single victory, and the updated Sauber Mercedes C9 rumbled its’ way to the 1989 World Sportscar title in the hands of the fancied Jean-

Louis Schlesser, with Jochen Mass, Mauro Baldi and Kenny Acheson completing the C9 whitewash of the top four spots in the Championship. So crushing was Stuttgart’s retaliation that the Saubers failed to win on just one occasion - the second round at Dijon.

However, before the completion of German domination of the 1989 championship, as the fraternity rolled into the summer-kissed paddock of Le Mans in June, there was a distinct air of quiet revenge accompanying the Bratwurst in the pit garages. Having

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fallen at the final hurdle of taking part the previous year, Peter Sauber’s silver bullets were hungry for the jewel in the Sportscar racing crown. Not eager to let that crown slip to their mainland rivals, Tom Walkinshaw was himself pushing the envelopes of the XJR-9.

As the cars began lapping the famous Le Sarthe circuit for the final time without the now trademark chicanes, however, it became clear that Mercedes had kept the upper hand they had been showing all season - and then some. Leaving the nearest Jaguar nearly 3.5 seconds down the road, the all-French line up of Jean-Louis Schlesser, JeanPierre Jabouille and Alain Cudini popped Mercedes power on pole, alongside the sister car of Mauro Baldi, Kenny Acheson and Gianfranco Brancatelli. Jan Lammers, Patrick Tambay and Andrew Gilbert-Scott could only be mesmerised by the might of the retaliating renegades.

Come the race, anyone that wasn’t painted Swissaided silver was effectively out of the running. The Sauber-Mercedes trio streaked into a comprehensive assertion of power from the outset, with Joest Racing’s Porsche 962C’s providing the only real challenge to upsetting a distinctly one-sided trend. However, after battling through 24 hours of what would become one of the most iconic collections of legendary machinery in history, it was the number 63 car of Jochen Mass, Manuel Reuter and Stanley Dickins that would take home the spoils; experience and dogged driving bringing the trio up from a difficult 11th place on the starting grid to affirm the first Mercedes Le Mans victory, 34 years after the tragic events that lead to them pulling out of the sport, and bringing the JaguarMercedes bout full-circle to rekindle the blow-for-blow nature of their 1950s duels. The nearest Jaguar? Fourth, nine laps behind the victors.

With the peak of world sportscars being duked out between Walkinshaw’s warriors and Sauber’s soldiers, the golden years would seemingly become a best-ofthree affair - with the previous two seasons falling one a piece to the rivals, the stage was set for 1990 to reach a fever pitch.

As the season opened in Suzuka, the new carbon-fibre Sauber Mercedes C11 made its debut; unfortunately, its’ much-anticipated impact on the series would be of the physical kind, with Jean-Louis Schlesser crashing the new car in practice and forcing the team to revert to the tried-and-tested C9. Losing none of its speed, however, Schlesser would go on to win the race, and when the C11 officially debuted carrying an updated twin-turbo 5.0L V8 power plant in Monza, it was immediately effective.

By this stage, the XJR-11 had been under heavy development, and yet with its’ twin-turbo V6, struggled to keep up with the Mercedes rockets. Come the midway point in the season, and as Le Mans loomed, the British bulldogs trailed their rivals by a sizeable margin.

With expectations of another Swiss-German whitewash early in the season, Jaguar would need a miracle to add to their 1988 success.

However, prayers it seemed are occasionally answered deciding to favour the World Sportscar Title as a priority over Le Mans victory, the Silver Arrows opted out of defending their immensely popular 1989 victory, and handed the ‘favourite’ firmly over to TWR. Added to this, the XJ project had been ramped up - a brand new XJR-12, complete with 7.0L V12, was developed specifically to make amends for the previous year’s downfall.

Come the traditional weekend in June, few could argue the lack of silver presence was felt - but it was another marque that stepped up to take the reins of the

NOT EAGER TO LET THAT CROWN SLIP, TOM WALKINSHAW WAS HIMSELF PUSHING THE ENVELOPES OF THE XJR-9

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TOM WALKINSHAW RACING RAN THE WORKS JAGUAR OUTFIT

challenger.

Having quietly developed their cars over the previous seasons, the Nissan RC90 burst onto the scene strongly, taking all but one of the top five grid slots in qualifying. Adding to the flavour, it was a Porsche in second and sixth, bringing the first Jaguar in at only seventh.

As the first half of the race got underway, it was an all Nissan affair, save for the privateer Walter-Brun run Porsche swapping positions at the head of the field.

The Jaguars, having made up time early, began to wrestle in the advantage.

The bell would begin to toll for the Nissans as the race progressed, however; the Nissan of Gianfranco Brancatelli collided heavily with Aguri Suzuki’s Toyota, and although the resulting incident made for fairly light repairs on the Nissan, it was the beginning of the team's struggles that would see Jaguar inherit control of the race.

Despite two of the four entries running into engine troubles, the remaining healthy cars went on a charge, with Tom Walkinshaw making the inspired decision to swap Martin Brundle with the yet-to-drive Eliseo Salazar. Brundle and his new teammates Price Cobb and John Nielsen would bring the car home from the sister car of Jan Lammers, Franz Konrad and Andy Wallace, the latter car inheriting the runner up spot from the devastated Brun outfit, who had been running in second until just fifteen minutes remained when they would be forced to retire.

It would mark a two-one score in the revived battle of the old school at Le Mans, and although neither of the marques knew at the time, would signify the last

time either manufacturer would win at Le Mans to date.

The rest of the 1990 season was an all SauberMercedes affair. The choice to concentrate on the Championship came up dividends and the Silver Arrows filled the top three slots in the Driver’s Championship.

The final race of that season, in Mexico, would be won by a young hot-shoe German whose name, ‘Schumacher’, was on the cusp of being in the lips of every motorsport fraternity member. Mercedes would win all but one round once again, with Brundle bringing the Jaguar home, at home at Silverstone.

As the 1990s began in a tonal shift from pad-heavy synthesisers to upbeat techno, so too the landscape of the gladiatorial World Sportscar Championship. The rapid decline into obscurity meant that the previously mighty Group C cars were phased out as a world championship in 1992 due to spiralling costs.

Casting eyes back upon the era brings up visions of wild speeds, fierce competition, brutal sounds and a plethora of machinery that these days looks more like the fever dream of the most enthusiastic motorsport anorak. However; at the peak of motorsport’s equivalent of Roman fisticuffs, two of the sport’s most iconic old rivals channelled their past in a stream of excess only the 1980s could provide, and in the process, wrote an entirely new chapter into the folklore of global motorsport. From black and white, to glorious colour, the two titans of sports prototype racing returned for the briefest, most spectacular tete-e-tete to rival a battle of gods themselves, steered by men who must be at least half way to that status and championed by some of the greatest the sport has ever seen.

If that doesn’t say excess, not a lot will.

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IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

NO LIMITATIONS IF YOU WANT SOMETHING BAD ENOUGH, YOU WILL DO WHAT IT TAKES. IT'S A MOTTO THAT PAUL GOODLAD WORKS BY. HE MIGHT BE AN AMPUTEE, BUT THAT DOESN'T STOP HIM. USING A VW SCIROCCO THAT'S BEEN COVERTED TO HAND CONTROLS, HE COMPETES IN THE BRITCAR TROPHY.

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CHASING VICTORIES

FELIPE NASR WASN'T CONTENT RACING IN THE MIDFIELD. HE HAS TO WIN. AND ALTHOUGH HIS CAREER CHOICES MAY SEEM ODD TO SOME, IT'S PAYING DIVIDENDS FOR HIM.

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY PFAFF MOTORSPORT/ CHRIS LAZENBY/GIRARDO & CO 52 | THE PIT STOP

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W

inning is all any driver wants to achieve. They live and breathe for it. No feeling comes close to standing on the top step of the podium declaring yourself as the best, and while few drivers have the pleasure of experiencing this regularly throughout their careers, for many, they may not get that chance at all.

Felipe Nasr was a driver to temporarily fall into that latter category. After a swift rise through the ranks picking up championship wins along the way, he then endured a couple of years grinding out results in the midfield of Formula 1. For many drivers, achieving a long term F1 career would be the stuff made of dreams.

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Of course, it would be disappointing if they weren’t to eventually win a race or stand on the podium, but they’d settle for a midfield role in motorsport’s most esteemed championship.

But for Nasr that wasn’t enough. He needed to feel competitive, to be in a championship where he could fight at the front and win. And now it’s happened, culminating in a victory in one of motorsport’s most decorated events.

The winning feeling came to Nasr early on in his career. He won several karting titles in Brazil and those results earned him a seat in Formula BMW. It was a big step, especially since he was 16 years of age, but that didn’t pose an issue.

Nasr won Formula BMW Europe at the first time of asking in 2009 before graduating to British Formula 3.

Girardo & Co Archive

Two years later he won the British F3 title and finished runner-up in the highly esteemed Macau Grand Prix.

In a very short period of time Nasr had collated a very impressive CV. He was a driver to watch, oozing with potential as he climbed the ranks up to GP2, F1’s feeder series at the time. Success followed, with Nasr finishing third in the championship in 2014 and it was enough to earn himself his first role in F1, becoming the reserve driver for Williams, before he finally made his race debut with Sauber in 2015.

It was the stuff of dreams. Finally Nasr was in the most prestigious motorsport category in the world, possessing bags of potential. But although there was plenty to be optimistic about when he joined the grid, things quickly fell apart and he departed the series after just two seasons.

NASR ON HIS WAY TO FINISHING NINTH FROM LAST AT THE 2015 BRAZILIAN GRAND PRIX

From the outside, you could come to the initial conclusion that Nasr hadn’t done enough to show that he was worthy of retaining a seat in F1. But while he had few standout results - especially in 2016 - it shouldn’t be forgotten that Sauber was enduring a time of severe financial difficulty. And the now 29-year-old believes that it was the state of the car that ultimately held him back from showing his true potential on a regular basis.

“You know, when the car was competitive I was there to grab the opportunity,” Nasr explained to The Pit Stop. “That’s what counts for me, and looking back, I’m very grateful to have reached the highest level of motorsport when you are talking about single-seater and individual racing.

“So for me as a kid coming from Brazil, obviously the history that we have in this sport and being able to reach Formula 1 was a dream come true.

“I had a phenomenal start in the series, grabbing fifth place in Australia and my first year at Sauber I have to say was the most competitive in terms of the package that we had before the team basically went almost bankrupt at the end of 2015. So there were some really good results if you consider Australia, I scored points in Monaco, and came sixth in the grand prix of Russia.

“I remember I scored 27 points in that first year and then basically everything went south when the team really had no more funding, and then that’s when the Swedish group came over to buy Sauber and they went through a big restructure. And a lot of good people left the team just before they started off in 2016, so we knew already before the year started it was going to be hard.

“You are only as good as your team in F1. You can put whatever driver you want, Senna, Hamilton, whatever in one of the best cars in the grid or the worst cars in the grid, they won’t do anything on the worst cars. So it’s pretty tricky. That’s F1 and that’s how it’s been the last 20-30 years or more. You are only as good as your car or your team.

“But again, I’ve learned a lot. I grew a lot as a driver.

I had such experience of different scenarios, but when it mattered and when it counted, I was there to grab opportunities and did such incredible things with the package.

“The package was not competitive at all, and you know, there were moments we surprisingly made some really good races. If you look back at ’16 when I scored points in Brazil, we were starting last on the grid. Both cars at the beginning of the race, and I came to cross the line ninth. And the ninth place was incredible for what that car could do. That race felt like a victory just for knowing the capabilities of the car and the equipment we had at the time.

“It’s hard, when you are trying to move forward in F1 and trying to get a chance in all the teams, but I’m sure I did all I could in terms of showing the results and being capable of showing my performances in Formula 1.

“But looking back, I’m very satisfied for the things

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that I’ve achieved there and moved on. Life is made of chapters and that one I’ve closed and I know I’ve done the best I could on what I was given.”

It could have been so easy for Nasr to try and grind out a long term career in F1, but despite his young age he had the maturity to accept that with limited options, it was going to be hard to make gains further up the field. And so rather than settling and playing safe, he made a bold decision, bailing on single-seaters and he moved to the US to compete in IMSA, driving a prototype car for Whelen Engineering Racing. It was a bold decision, but Nasr hasn’t looked back.

“As soon as I left F1 at the end of ’16, ’17 was the year I started to look around, but I wanted to do something different. Something that could fulfil me as a driver, fighting for championships, fighting for victories and I just didn’t want to be somewhere midfield again.

I was tired of that. I wanted to go somewhere where I could go and win from the beginning. I wanted to be back feeling competitive and able to win races from the

get-go.

“So when I looked around there were many options out there but the one that I felt like I really needed to try was the IMSA series. So in 2017, by July I believe was when I first tested the DPi from the Whelen Engineering car in the US. And I remember, right away from the first few laps that I did in the car, I was truly connected to it, and I said ‘wow, I’ve never had so much fun in my life in just a few laps’. And that clicked right away. I said I want to be in this championship.

“Within a few days I got a contract from them and that was it. It made me start a new journey in America in 2018, not knowing any of the tracks apart from Daytona, so it was super exciting to just go on this new adventure and being able to win the championship straight away in 2018 was fantastic. It was exactly what I wanted. It was exactly what I was searching for.

“It’s really satisfying as a driver when you make decisions and you know you’re going in the right direction. And later on, winning the big races, won

"WITHIN A FEW DAYS I GOT A CONTRACT FROM THEM AND THAT WAS IT."

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another championship in 2021 and now moving on to a much bigger chapter in my career as well.

“I love the environment in IMSA. I love the racing, the dynamic of racing. It’s so much fun. There’s basically so many variants in the race that plays a factor in whether you can win a race or not, even if you had a huge setback or if you have a flat tyre or something. You can always come back on a yellow flag and change the scenarios of strategies. So as a driver it really put me in another place that I’ve never been before, to be able to adapt to all these new situations, think differently on the strategy.

“Going into IMSA for me felt like why I’ve chosen to be a race driver again because it’s pure racing. You’re always going to have a chance to be fighting for a victory. So I’m really a big fan of the IMSA races as a driver. You are always competing at the highest level that is available in racing and I just love every single minute of it.”

With two IMSA championship titles under his belt and victories in races such as the Grand Prix of Sebring and the Roar before Daytona, in addition to his previous single-seater experience, it was no surprise

that Porsche took an interest in signing Nasr for 2022.

And after three seasons with Whelen, Nasr felt the time was right to move and join Porsche’s ranks, helping them develop their LMDh prototype car.

That deal with Porsche also means that Nasr will race for Porsche Penske Motorsport in both the World Endurance Championship and IMSA in 2023, but it initially left him without a drive for 2022, although that very quickly changed.

In order to ensure that Nasr kept race sharp, they placed him with the Canadian based Pfaff Motorsport team, with Nasr spending the year racing in the GTD Pro class, driving a Porsche 911 GT3 R. Once again, Nasr had to acclimatise himself to a completely new type of car, but it didn’t take him long to get up to speed and he and Pfaff won at the first time of asking in one of the world’s greatest races - the 24 Hours of Daytona.

“It was a great experience. I didn’t expect to win Daytona straight away. Obviously you have the right equipment. Pfaff winning the championship in the GT class the year before, the strengths of the team. But I couldn’t script it better.

TACKLING THE NIGHT IN THE 2022 RUNNING OF THE DAYTONA 24 HOURS

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PFAFF NOT ONLY WON THEIR CLASS AT DAYTONA, BUT ALSO FINISHED 19TH OVERALL

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“Joining Pfaff and joining Porsche, together with very young and talented drivers like Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jamiet, was really impressive to see those guys driving and getting along with them in two weeks at Daytona. I couldn’t really have wished for a better start with Porsche and Pfaff winning the Daytona 24.

“It was a race I really still missed on my CV and it was awesome just the way it all unfolded. The last few laps and being able to drive, really it was my first experience on a GT3 car, so a lot of new challenges going into the race but it was amazing.

“I’m really grateful and I want to credit the team a lot for giving me the right opportunities to get acclimatised to the car in all different scenarios, because for me it was all different. I was driving DPi for so many years that you get so used to the traffic, the passing points, the race strategy. There’s so much you get used to and switching to the GTD Pro class was like ‘wow, this is so different’. And getting used to it so quickly, I have to say, was very challenging but very joyful as well. And hey, it worked out! We came back with a watch and a victory in Daytona.”

Pfaff may have won Daytona, but it wasn’t easy. The track conditions at the circuit were much colder than most were used to and it required a different style of driving to ensure there were no embarrassing moments.

“I’d never seen Daytona that cold,” said Nasr. “So extremely cold, very hard to make the tyres work, especially overnight. When we jumped in the car it was freezing. The super low track temperatures made

it super hard. It was like driving on ice. So just keeping the car on the track as you came out of the pitlane with fresh tyres, that was already super hard to manage.

“There were a lot of drivers that got caught out or got involved in accidents and we were able to go super smooth on that. I’m not saying it was easy from the car, but we really took care of the equipment.

Pfaff managed to avoid any major issues throughout the race, but it almost all fell apart on the final lap. The team had previously been leading, but it went into the final lap of the race second in class, behind the Porsche of KCMG. Jaminet was behind the wheel of the Pfaff Porsche, and in a determined move to capture the win he made a lunge into the International Horseshoe and reclaimed position. But the fight wasn’t over. Just a few corners later both cars exited side by side and by the time they entered the Le Mans chicane the two cars touched.

In dramatic scenes both cars went off the track, but the Pfaff car managed to regain without losing any major time while the KCMG Porsche completely spun around dropping out of contention. Jaminet went on to complete the lap, crossing the line in first place, finishing just a few seconds ahead of the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488. It was tense, it was exhilarating and it culminated in both Pfaff and Nasr winning their first 24 Hours of Daytona. And for Nasr, well he struggled to cope being sat on the sidelines and was wishing he was behind the wheel, but at the same time, he was ecstatic to get the victory.

RACING ALONGSIDE THE #69 G-DRIVE RACING LMP2 CAR

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Chris Lazenby

THE COLD MAKE CONDITIONS TRICKY AT DAYTONA IN 2022

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Chris Lazenby

“I AM SUPER HAPPY WHERE I AM NOW, HAVING MOVED INTO SPORTSCAR RACING” “Funnily enough, it was the only time I did Daytona and the car was in one piece until the end,” laughed Nasr. “You always have parts flying away. It’s either the floor that is gone, you miss some aero parts from the car or you might have some mechanical damage or the gearbox is not running smooth. But this time everything just ran perfectly all race long.

“The pitstops, the race calls, the strategies, the fuel consumption. Everything was spot on and hey, there you go. We won the race. It felt pretty special, I have to say.

“It made me a little nervous in those last few laps.

Watching from the outside is always harder than when you are in the car, but it was a great moment to be involved for the brand itself, for Porsche. For Pfaff as well. They hadn’t won Daytona yet. It was my first Daytona win as well. So a lot of firsts that we were able to accomplish together and I’ve been close to winning Daytona a couple of times but never really got in there, but it was super special.

“I have to say, it is one I will remember for all the challenges, for how hard it was and I think it’s going to be remarkable for the series. People have been talking

for weeks, showing that replay and the racing unfolding on that final lap. So a great moment to be living in and to be a race car driver.”

There’s no doubt that Nasr is flourishing in the world of sportscar racing. He’s rediscovered his mojo, he’s found the winning formula and his career is on an upward trajectory once again. So does he look back and wish he was still racing in F1?

“I’m super happy where I am now having moved into sportscar racing and making that transition very early on, I can really see we’ve capitalised on so much.

“There might be drivers that stay in F1 for 10 years but they never might step on a podium or win a race.

There’s only two teams winning races out there, so if you are not in those two, you can say ‘oh, I’ve raced F1 for so many years’, but what do you have on CV? Have you won any of the big races?

“Right now I’ve already won Daytona, I won Sebring, won Petit [Le Mans], won two championships in IMSA, plus the junior series I won. So I can say I’ve driven a lot of race cars in my life and I’ve been successful in every one of them and I want it to continue.”

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IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

RINALDI RACING RINALDI RACING IS DEFENDING ITS POSITION IN THE IMAGE ABOVE, BUT IT WOULD HAVE HOPED TO HAVE HAD A BETTER SEASON IN 2021.

THE TEAM COMPETED IN THE GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE, BUT FINISHED 16TH OVERALL, SCORING JUST 24.5 POINTS OVER THE DURATION OF THE SEASON.

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FULFILLING A MISSED DREAM DARIO FRANCHITTI NEVER GOT TO RACE AT THE LE MANS 24 HOURS, BUT HE FINALLY REALISED HIS DREAM IN 2021, WHEN HE TOOK TO THE WHEEL OF AN ASTON MARTIN DBR9

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY ROB OVERY

T

here are many great races in this world that drivers want to win, but there are three that stand out above all else. The Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500 and of course, the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Having never raced in Formula 1, it was always going to be inevitable that victory around the principality of Monaco in a grand prix was going to elude Dario Franchitti, but he had proven to be a master of the Indianapolis 500, having won the Indycar race on three separate occasions in 2007, 2010 and 2012. It was an emphatic feat in its own right, but he

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wanted a second jewel in the crown - the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Unfortunately, Franchitti never got to realise that dream of winning the world’s greatest sportscar endurance test. In 2013, whilst racing in Indycar’s Grand Prix of Houston, Franchitti was involved in a major accident on the final lap of the race after colliding with E.J Viso and Takuma Sato. It was a crash that not only injured over a dozen spectators, but it also ended his career, such were the severity of the injuries he sustained.

The dream of racing at Le Mans appeared to be over, that was until he was offered to drive an Aston

Martin DBR9 at the 2021 running of the Peter Tour Auto Endurance Racing Legends event. The race - held on the infamous Le Sarthe circuit on the same weekend as the Le Mans 24 hour race - might not be the same as taking part in the actual 24 hour event, but it was as close as Franchitti was ever going to get to racing in the real thing, and there was no way he was going to let the opportunity pass him by.

“It was pretty special,” Franchitti explained to The Pit Stop when asked what it was like to finally turn a wheel around the Le Sarthe circuit. “I’d thought about and I’d come close to doing the big race at Le Mans when I was still driving, but it didn’t happen. And so

I never thought I’d get the chance to do it. And then when I got the offer of driving in the Aston, it all just sort of fell into place, especially being a support to the big race.

“It was great. The first laps were really special actually. I could see why people love the track. I could definitely see the challenge to it and to do it in that car, such a fantastic car. It’s a car that really talks to you.

Every downshift you’ve got to get it absolutely right.

Every braking zone, if you over commit on the brakes and stay on the brakes a fraction too long it will snap into oversteer. Lift off the brakes too early, it will pull the front up and understeer. You’ve really got to be on

FRANCHITTI IN THE BUGATTI PADDOCK WAITING TO HEAD OUT ON TO THE TRACK

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FRANCHITTI AND DARREN TURNER IN THE PADDOCK

it and it was just wonderful.

“I have some wonderful memories throughout the race, chasing Joe Macari. He was in an [Maserati] MC12. I was chasing him down the Mulsanne, just him and I at one point, and that memory just sits in my head, just one of my favourites. And then racing Emannuel Collard in his [Porsche] GT1 was very special. There was a point earlier in the first race, where there were three or four DBR9s all nose to tail on the first lap, that was also cool.

“Yeah, just one fantastic memory after another and just had so much fun.”

Although Franchitti had adored Le Mans for many years, he didn’t go searching to race in the Peter Auto event. It was Joe Macari, the owner of the DBR9 who approached him, and having the chance to drive one of

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Aston Martin’s most iconic GT Le Mans cars proved too tempting to turn down.

“The owner of the DBR9 said ‘hey, do you want to do it?’ I was like ‘yeah, sure!’”Explained Franchitti. “Joe was in the MC12, so to get to do that with him was fantastic, and Sean Lynn was in his Bentley. Darren Turner was in it. From front to back the grid was full of people I knew and mates of mine. I was going to be there anyway because I manage Alex Lynn, so I was going to be there with the United boys keeping an eye on Alex, so this was just a bonus.”

“We had the most terrific journey down there as well which just added to the whole experience.”

That journey could have fuelled a story on its own. Rather than catching a short flight from the UK to France, enjoying the relaxing life of business

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IN THE PITLANE, READY TO HEAD TO THE GRID

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class, Franchitti decided the race was worthy of a fitting journey to go with it. And so he decided to ride a motorbike down to the track, a bike that had been prepared by Nigel Medcalf, the owner of Moto Historics, the team that was also preparing the DBR9.

Of course, Franchitti has prior experience of Le Mans. Naturally, he has been to the track on a number of occasions, but it’s always been to support drivers he manages, as well as being there for his brother Marino, who competed in the race on six occasions.

And although it wasn’t quite the same scenario, being a driver on the grid at Le Mans on the same weekend as the 24 hour race still gave Franchitti a sense of what being in the main race would have been like.

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“You start from the paddock, from the Bugatti circuit, so you don’t see the crowd building up for the main race on Saturday,” said Franchitti. “So you’re a little bit removed. But the first lap, the first moment I remember driving on to the circuit and just straight away I was like ‘wow! This is special’.

“And I’ve been trained for decades not to let thoughts like that into my head but I just enjoyed it so much. I was just able to have a really great time doing it and there was a bit from the old attitude and the new attitude. I was competing until the very last lap of the race.

“On the last lap of the race I knew I’d done a cracking lap and I knew it was a good lap. I came

“THOSE MOMENTS MAKE ME LAUGH NOW MORE THAN ANYTHING, WHEN I SEE THE OLD ME AND THE NEW ME COMPETING” through the Porsche Curves and I reckon I was two or three seconds up on my best lap. I thought ‘this is a good lap’ and there was a GT2 Ferrari just cruising along and just for a second I thought about lunging him into the first part of the chicane. And then I thought there’s no trophy, it’s just for fun, and I had to back up and look after the car because something like that, such a special car, I was trusted to drive it by a very

kind owner, I just lifted off.

“Those moments make me laugh now more than anything, when I see the old me and the new me competing.”

The weekend at Le Mans was a new racing experience for Franchitti in many ways, not least because there was no major title to win. Primarily, the race was about showcasing iconic cars to the world,

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“WE'D DONE A HANDSHAKE ON THAT TO RACE. I WAS GOING TO RACE THE PORSCHE 919” pitching them against each other to fuel nostalgia and feed the love for these brilliant machines. Unlike the main race, there was no requirement to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the DBR9. In fact, he had to remain reserved to ensure the car arrived back into the paddock still in one piece. But that didn’t mean all of the competitive spirit had gone - far from it - as Franchitti proved in the second of the two races that weekend.

Franchitti qualified 10th overall for the opening race of the weekend, having set a time that was good enough to be third fastest in the GT1B class. By the end of the first 45 minute race Franchitti crossed the line in 11th place overall and fourth in class, but the following day, having had time to adapt to the DBR9, things were different.

Franchitti found the groove and after some great

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battles with many of his old friends, he brought his Aston Martin home seventh overall, and more importantly he won the GT1B class. Not only that, but the Indy 500 winner was also the first GT car to cross the line, having finished two seconds ahead of Macari’s Maserati MC12.

It was an impressive performance, especially since it was Franchitti’s first time ever racing around the Le Sarthe circuit. But while the win was an enjoyable moment, there was also a bittersweet feeling left hanging in the air, as before his horrific crash in 2013, Franchitti had struck a deal to race in the 24 hour event at the highest level.

“We’d done a handshake on that to race. I was going to race the Porsche 919.

“I was introduced to Wolfgang Hatz [former head of R&D at Porsche], and Wolfgang and I became friends.

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But in the meantime we also discussed me doing [Le Mans] and I went and sat down with him and Andreas Seidl. So that was when we planned on doing this in the future. It wasn’t immediate. I was going to do a couple more years in Indycar and then jump in the 919.

That was the plan.”

Having a huge opportunity ripped away from you, through no fault of anyone's, is going to be hard to take, and while it’s something Franchitti has now ultimately come to terms with, taking part in the race did provoke some ‘what could have been’ thoughts, and you could hear a sense of sadness in his voice

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as he explained why he’d been vying for a seat with Porsche.

“It definitely felt a little bit of what I missed, which I actually tried really hard not to think that way since I retired because I was so lucky to get to do all the things that I got to do. But there was a moment of ‘ah, that would have been really amazing to drive that’.

“Especially because the whole thing was to get with my pal [Mark] Webber. Mark and I had been plotting and scheming for a while to try and do that together, but it didn’t happen. It’s one of those life things.

“I got to experience the circuit which as I said, what

a great circuit. A great car. The team at Moto Historics did a really great job and yeah, we were having fun!”

Franchitti is no stranger to racing on some of the greatest circuits the world has to offer, but even he was blown away by some of the characteristics he came across around the 8.467 mile track.

“The Porsche curves were spectacular. There’s no other word for it. But Mulsanne I really enjoyed. I never really got to grips with the first chicane. I never really thought I got to grips with that, but a couple of parts I really felt I started to get into the rhythm of it.

“It’s one of those things, you drive it and you think

full respect to whether it’s the guys currently doing it, the guys that drove the 919 and the Audis and that kind of stuff, and my old pal, Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen. Then you go back all different decades and you think about the absolute lunatics that drove the 917 and stuff like that. You have to take your hat off to them.

Franchitti might claim he was only racing for fun, but like any racing driver worth their salt, there’s still a competitive mindset. And even when talking about the first chicane, it still niggles him that he wasn’t able to master it completely.

TAKING THE CHEQUERED FLAG TO WIN THE GT1B CLASS

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HEADING OUT ON TO THE FAMOUS LE MANS PODIUM

“It was getting the braking done after going quickly through the first kink. Just getting the thing stopped and getting it into the apex properly. Yeah, just struggled a wee bit.”

Moto Historics, a UK based historic motorsport preparation and restoration team, ran Franchitti’s DBR9 at Le Mans, but they also went one step further, ensuring the Indy 500 winner wasn’t in the dark when he turned up to race the car..

In order to make sure that the car was fully straightened out before Le Mans, Moto Historics took

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the car to Donington for a shakedown run. The test also proved to be a blessing for Franchitti as it gave him time to acclimatise himself with the DBR9 and some issues with the car were uncovered and fixed, ensuring it could run without issue on the endurance legends event.

Winning the Tour Auto event might not have actually meant anything to Franchitti in terms of a result on his CV, but in many ways its significance is far greater than that. The race allowed him to experience one of the world’s greatest circuits, one that had eluded him for his entire career, and at the same time, he was able to

enjoy the experience, racing alongside several of his friends, all while being able to soak up the atmosphere of a real Le Mans 24 Hours crowd.

“Whether it was the part with Joe, or there was a point when Collard and I went wheel to wheel at the first part of the Porsche Curves and that was magical,” he said. “For me, that was just, it was like ‘wow, ok!’ It was just a phenomenal memory and like I said, that’s what it was all about for me - making memories.

“Collard and I first raced against each other in 1997.

We’ve raced against each other a number of times

since then, but it’s little bits like that. That’s what it was all about. Not about results or any of that stuff, it wasn’t important.

“I obviously wanted to drive as well as I possibly could, do the best job that I could, drive the car as close to the limits as I could and all that sort of stuff, but more importantly, I’ve got to bring the car back in one piece and have fun.

“That whole last lap just brought it all back, that’s what it is all about. Whether that’s at Le Mans or whether that’s at Goodwood, to me those are the rules

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that I make when I’m driving these cars that other people own.

Franchitti might never be able to have a Le Mans 24 Hours winning trophy in his house with his name etched into it, and that’s a crying shame. He had the talent and ability to race at the very front of the grid, and alongside Webber, there’s no doubt he would have claimed at least one victory in the race.

But as consolations go, being able to race on one

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of the most iconic circuits in the world on the same weekend as one of the most special races in existence, all the while doing it with some of your oldest friends in legendary cars, it’s not so bad.

Let’s not dress it up, it isn’t the same, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a special moment in its own right, and Franchitti might just reminisce upon it as fondly as he would have done had he actually won the Le Mans 24 Hours.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME FROM THE OUTSIDE, A COCKPIT MIGHT ONLY LOOK LIKE A TEMPORARY PLACE FOR A DRIVER TO EXPERIENCE SOME JOY. BUT TO DRIVERS, ESPECIALLY ENDURANCE ONES, THE COCKPIT BECOMES A SECOND HOME, GIVEN THE AMOUNT OF TIME THEY SPEND INSIDE THE CAR. THEY KNOW EVERY INCH OF THE COCKPIT INSIDE OUT, AND LONG TO RETURN WHEN AWAY FROM THE WHEEL. 88 THE PIT STOP

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FW

14 THE FW14B MIGHT BE THE MOST TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED F1 CAR OF ALL TIME, BUT IT ALL STARTED WITH ITS PREDECESSOR

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY ROB HANSFORD / GIRARDO & CO

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T

he Williams FW14B is often seen as the most technologically advanced Formula 1 car of all-time. It’s also regarded as one of the greatest F1 cars in history, after Nigel Mansell dominated the championship in 1992 to clinch his first and only title. But while there’s no denying it is one of the greatest cars to have ever graced a racetrack, it would be unfair to lay the credit entirely at the FW14B’s door, for the real work began with its predecessor: the FW14.

Having found its feet in the world of F1 during the late 1970s, Williams moved itself into the forefront of

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F1 in the following decade, winning the championship consecutively in 1980 and 1981 before repeating the feat in 1986 and 1987.

By the late ’80s Williams was finally considered a titan of F1, admired in the same vein as the historic and iconic Ferrari and McLaren outfits. Williams now had a reputation of being a highly competitive, no-nonsense outfit that also possessed loyalty when it came to its driver line-ups. But sentiment doesn’t mean much in the world of motorsport and those highly acclaimed attributes didn’t prevent Honda from dropping Williams for its supply list at the end of 1987.

Honda’s withdrawal of engine supplies meant that

Williams’ options were limited for the following year. In the end it opted to use Judd engines, but that proved to be a mistake. Nigel Mansell managed to claim two podium results that year, finishing second in both the British and Spanish Grands Prix, while team-mate Riccardo Patrese managed to score a best result of fourth at the season’s final round in Australia, but the team retired far more often than it finished. It meant that in one single season Williams fell from being reigning champions to hobbling midfielders who were closer to the back of the grid than the front.

Changes were needed and with a new power supplier in the form of Renault for 1989, a change of

fortune was on the horizon. Williams finished second in the standings that season, before ending up fourth in 1990 behind McLaren, Ferrari and Benetton. The team needed more than just some extra horsepower in the rear of the car. Renault had provided the goods in the form of a strong engine, but now Williams needed a chassis to match.

Frank Williams and Patrick Head knew the chassis was the team’s weak link and they were also aware that the team needed to make a marked improvement in 1991 if they were to keep Renault onboard. They couldn’t end up in the same position as 1988. It would ruin the team. There was no option, Williams had to look outside the organisation, to find someone that could bring forward innovative ideas that would allow them to topple McLaren once again. As it turned out, Williams didn’t need to look too far. There was one standout candidate - Adrian Newey.

Newey had made a big impact on the world of F1, having started out at March in 1988 before it became Leyton House in 1990. Finances at the team were incredibly tight, but despite that, Newey designed some beautiful cars that also possessed some serious pace, none more so than the Leyton House CG901.

The car struggled with reliability, but at the 1990 French Grand Prix, both Ivan Capelli and Maurício Gugelmin showcased the car’s full potential. The pair ran first and second for two thirds of the entire grand prix, before Gugelmin fell back to third and then subsequently retired from the race after the car’s Judd engine expired. However, Capelli retained his lead and looked certain to win the race, all until three laps before the end.

Just like Gugelmin, Capelli’s Judd engine started to give up on him, costing him a significant amount of laptime and it allowed Alain Prost to close up and pass him on lap 77 of 80. It was a crying shame, but while it signalled the last success for Leyton House, it was the first for Newey.

That performance at Paul Ricard demonstrated how effective Newey’s aerodynamic designs were in the right conditions. A car that had failed to qualify for the previous race dominated the majority of the preceding race. It was stuff only ever seen on film.

Shortly after the French Grand Prix, Newey took the job of chief designer at Williams. The Grove-based team knew that with a much bigger budget, Newey’s cars could be perfected, and as Capelli’s performance proved, a Newey car could be unbeatable if everything was executed perfectly.

The move was a gamble for Williams but it was one that ultimately paid off. After joining the team and getting integrated with the staff, Newey got to work designing the FW14 that would compete in the 1991 F1 championship.

The result was a revolutionary car, more technologically advanced than any other on F1 the

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grid and that possessed the pace to fight for wins and championships. Newey had hit his target at the first time of asking.

The aerodynamics of the car were vastly improved from the preceding FW13B that Enrique Scalabroni had designed. The FW14 was sleek, it appeared simplified aesthetically and it looked nothing short of beautiful in the process.

The car looked good, it looked fast, and crucially for Williams, it helped them entice Nigel Mansell back to the team after he previously vacated for Ferrari. Mansell

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had considered retiring at the end of 1990, but the FW14 looked too good to resist.

In all reality it should have teed Williams up for the perfect start to the 1991 world championship. A great car, with a great driver leading the team, but that’s not how it transpired.

At the opening round of the season Ayrton Senna qualified over a second ahead of both Williams cars, before both Mansell and Patrese retired with gearbox issues in the race.

But all was not lost. Williams were much closer

second time out at Brazil, with Patrese managing to finish second to Senna, although gearbox issues still plagued the team after Mansell retired on lap 59 with a transmission issue.

It didn’t get any better in San Marino either. Mansell was slow off the line, having struggled with his gearbox again, and although he managed to get going, he collided with Martin Brundle, causing enough damage for him to retire. Patrese subsequently retired on lap 17 with a faulty camshaft sensor, meaning that after three races Williams were already 34 points behind McLaren

in the constructors’ standings.

It was a damaging start for Williams. The team knew that it needed a strong season if it was going to retain its links with Renault, and that the alternative would mean an uncompetitive future, and although on paper the FW14 should have been the fastest car on track, the gearbox issues that plagued the car were preventing it from showing its full potential. But thankfully for Williams, they managed to get on top of their problems and two races later they started to demonstrate just how fast the FW14 truly was.

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Williams locked out the front row at Mexico, Patrese grabbing pole position with a time that was nearly three tenths faster than that of Mansell. But more interestingly, Patrese’s time was over half a second quicker than Senna’s. The high speed nature of Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez played into the strengths of the FW14 meaning Senna simply had no answer for them in the race.

In stark contrast to before, Williams disappeared off into the distance in that race.

Patrese and Mansell secured their first 1-2 of the season and Senna ended up a distant third, crossing the line 57.3 seconds behind the pair.

Williams had gone from zero to hero in one race. It had demonstrated that on its day the FW14 was the quickest car in the field and by some margin, regaining a large chunk of the trust it had lost in Renault over the first few races. But one result was never going to be enough to convince everyone it had resolved its issues. It had to repeatedly win races, and Mansell stepped up to the plate in convincing style.

As was often the case in 1991, Patrese was faster in qualifying at the French Grand Prix, claiming pole position, while Mansell could only manage fourth.

Unfortunately for Patrese, he had a torrid start, falling back to 10th on the opening lap of the race, but where Patrese failed, Mansell shined.

Mansell got himself up to second on the opening lap, trailing the Ferrari of Alain Prost and on lap 21 he managed to out-brake the Ferrari going into the Adelaide hairpin. Mansell began to run away, but a botched pitstop put him back behind the Ferrari once again, meaning the hard work had to start over.

The Williams driver was clearly quicker than Prost.

He closed up to the Ferrari but struggled to find a way through, that was until lap 54 when Mansell took advantage of backmarkers to pass Prost around the outside at the same hairpin he’d passed him at before.

This time, Mansell wasn’t giving up the position and he won the race, securing his 17th victory in F1, equalling Sir Stirling Moss’ record for most grand prix victories by a British driver, a tally that didn’t remain for very long.

Mansell and Williams had found their groove.

Newey and Head had begun to remove the chinks in the FW14’s armour and it was proving to be a real contender. At the end of the French Grand Prix Williams

IT HAD TO REPEATEDLY WIN RACES, AND MANSELL STEPPED UP TO THE PLATE IN CONVINCING STYLE

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MANSELL ON HIS WAY TO FINISHING SECOND AT THE MONACO GRAND PRIX

Girardo & Co archive

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was second in the constructors’ standings with 45 points to McLaren’s 58, while Mansell was 25 points behind Senna in the driver’s standings. It spurred the outfit on, and Mansell lapped it up, going on a three race unbeaten run.

Williams went into the Hungarian Grand Prix, the 10th round of the season, leading the constructors’ by the most slender of margins with a one point advantage over McLaren, but they weren’t quite quick enough to fend off their main rival around the tight and twisty nature of the Hungaroring.

Senna won the race, with both Williams cars second and third, but Gerhard Berger’s fourth place finish for McLaren ensured that the Woking-based outfit left with a two point advantage in the standings.

The championship battle had become intense. The pressure was building and the stakes were getting higher. McLaren had the upperhand in Belgium, while Patrese’s retirement at his home race in Italy allowed McLaren to extend their lead further, despite Mansell’s victory. Things didn’t get much better in Portugal.

Although Patrese won the race, Mansell was disqualified. Mansell had taken the lead of the race from his teammate on lap 18 and stretched clear, in total control of the race. He looked unbeatable, in his element, that was until lap 29.

Making a routine pitstop, the British driver stopped in his pit box and as soon as the lollipop lifted he was off. Unfortunately for Mansell, he didn’t realise that there had been a mis-communication between the mechanics and he’d been allowed to leave without the rear right wheel being attached to his car properly. The wheel almost immediately came off, leaving Mansell stranded in the pitlane, and in a quick and decisive moment, his pit crew ran to his aid, and fitted a fresh wheel. The issue however was that the wheel was fitted outside of the pit box, an action that breached the regulations. Although Mansell returned to the track in 17th and managed to recover to sixth position, he was shown the black flag on lap 51, disqualifying him from the race altogether.

At arguably one of the most crucial times in the season, Williams tripped and slipped. It wasn’t the car’s doing, it wasn’t a reliability failure or a driver error in the heat of the moment on track. It was the team’s doing. A fairly small mistake from a single mechanic that had a major consequence from the team.

After the race Williams was 11 points behind McLaren in the constructors’ standings, with just three rounds to go. Not an insurmountable tally to reign in, but with the consistency of McLaren it was going to be incredibly difficult.

But Mansell and Patrese weren’t done yet. They had a score to settle and they got the job done to a tee at the Spanish Grand Prix albeit with a little assistance from Berger.

Mansell took yet another victory, his fifth race win of the season, while Patrese claimed the final podium position in third. Senna could only manage fifth, while Berger retired on lap 33 with an electrical issue. The result meant that Williams had regained their deficit and more. What looked like was going to be a tough gap to close before the end of the season had vanished in an instant, and Williams had moved into the lead of the constructors' again, and like before, it had a one point advantage over McLaren.

The stage was therefore set for the final two races of the season. A great battle between two brilliant British teams, fighting at the top of their game for motorsport’s greatest team prize. The championship win was there for the taking. Williams could reclaim their mantle as F1’s greatest teams, completely restoring their reputation. But the fairytale ending never came.

Mansell spun out of the penultimate race at Japan with Patrese finishing nearly a minute behind the McLaren pair in third, and although Williams was more competitive in Australia, McLaren never wavered meaning there was no chance of clinching the championship win.

Senna won the final race of the year, beating Mansell by just over a second, and McLaren won the constructors’ title with 139 points to Williams’ 125.

Naturally disappointment encapsulated every inch of the Williams outfit, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

The team’s instincts were right. Signing Newey had proved to be a masterstroke. Yes, there were gearbox issues at the start of the year, but once those issues were resolved, the car proved to be the fastest on the grid over the course of the whole season. The FW14 was a car full of potential, that was capable of beating any of its rivals, and in the right conditions would wipe the floor with them. The FW14 had restored Renault’s faith in Williams, it had revived Mansell’s career and it set them up for a sublime 1992 season.

Knowing that they had a fundamentally strong car, Williams didn’t need to completely overhaul it’s car for the following year. Instead they perfected it, adding a semi-automatic gearbox and active suspension.

The FW14 evolved, and it evolved in style, generating the FW14B. A car that to this day is the most technologically F1 car ever created, a car that dominated 1992 in a way that Williams and the majority of the F1 grid could have never imagined and firmly placed itself in F1’s hall of fame.

One of the greatest cars ever created, and yet it was born out of a car that is often all too forgotten. Without the FW14, the FW14B would have never existed.

Although it might not have had the same technological advancements of its successor, the FW14 paved the way for the aerodynamic philosophy that followed in 1992 and proved to be a world beater. And that’s what makes it a true hero.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

THE UNDERDOGS THERE'S NO DOUBTING THAT GLICKENHAUS RACING ARE THE UNDERDOGS OF THE HYPERCAR CLASS IN THE WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP, BUT THAT DOESN'T STOP THEM FIGHTING. THE TEAM FINISHED FOURTH AND FIFTH IN THE 2021 RUNNING OF THE LE MANS 24 HOURS, AND THEY WILL BE HOPING TO BATTLE TOYOTA FOR OUTRIGHT VICTORY IN 2022.

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BOTTL E WORDS BY LUKE BARRY IMAGES BY M-SPORT/TOYOTA/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

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O

n the one hand, it's fantastic.

A few years ago, if you'd have peered at the WRC2 entry list you'd have been looking at a full World Rally Championship lineup. But on the other hand, it's a major problem. Why are so many talented drivers unable to sustain a career at the top of the WRC? Welcome to world rallying's ultimate paradox.

There's something of a talent bottleneck forming, with Andreas Mikkelsen, Mads Østberg, Hayden Paddon and Teemu Suninen all more than capable of fighting at the front of the WRC - three are rally winners, all four are podium finishers - but instead plying their trade in the second tier.

It's a fundamental issue. There was once an era where the second tier was reserved for drivers rising up the ranks who were keen to make a point to the factory teams. Indeed, of the top-line drivers in 2022, Sebastiens Loeb and Ogier, Elfyn Evans, Ott Tänak, Thierry Neuville, Craig Breen, Oliver Solberg, Esapekka

MIKKELSEN TACKLING THE SWEDISH STAGES IN 2022

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Lappi and Adrien Fourmaux have all made their mark in the various support categories of the WRC. But now, with just three teams competing at the forefront of rallying, space is at a premium. The driver talent pool is outgrowing the number of factory seats available - and rapidly. Now what we're left with is this intriguing situation where ex Volkswagen, Citroen, Hyundai and M-Sport factory drivers are up against the stars of tomorrow, vying to be the ones that are at the front of the queue if a Rally1 seat is up for grabs.

In some respects, this is the beauty of rallying.

Could you imagine Antonio Giovinazzi stepping back to Formula 2 this year after losing his Formula 1 drive with Alfa Romeo? It just wouldn't happen. But yet here's Mikkelsen - a three-time World Rally winner, double Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion and the victor in WRC2 last season - racing in the second division with plenty to lose, just in the hope that it ultimately turns into a gain.

Mikkelsen's a very good case study into the problem, as the new Rally1 era in 2022 is far from the first time he's been left out in the cold.

Red Bull Content Pool

MIKKELSEN FINISHED SIXTH IN THE WRC2 CLASS ON RALLY SWEDEN

After winning those two IRC titles with Škoda, Mikkelsen was signed to drive a third Volkswagen Polo R WRC alongside Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala from 2013-16, and soon became an established frontrunner in a dominant car.

But the rug was pulled from beneath his feet when, in the wake of the company's emission scandal in late 2016, VW withdrew from the WRC with just one rounds' notice. All the work that had been put in to develop a new Polo for the exciting 2017 regulations? Forget it.

It left Ogier, Latvala and Mikkelsen all fighting for their futures. And given the incredibly late decision, most drives at rivals Hyundai, M-Sport and Citroen were occupied for '17 with newcomers Toyota potentially holding a vacancy. Rally Australia basically became a public audition and Mikkelsen aced it, beating Ogier in a straight fight, but it wasn't enough to secure a seat.

Ogier had the pick of the teams as the reigning and four-time world champion, opting to go to Malcolm Wilson's M-Sport. Tommi Mäkinen therefore had a choice between Latvala and Mikkelsen to drive one of

his Yaris WRCs, but favoured Latvala given his superior experience level.

WRC2 and a return to Škoda therefore beckoned for Mikkelsen and by continuing to drive and continuing to win, he was indeed first in-line when the musical chairs kicked off in the top-class manufacturer teams.

Drafted in to drive for Citroen for both Rally Poland and Germany, he was eventually poached by Hyundai to support Neuville's title bid and duly remained with the team for both 2018 and '19.

But then déjà vu kicked in.

Mikkelsen had struggled to get to grips with the i20 Coupe WRC at times - particularly on asphalt and when Ott Tänak was brought in for 2020, Mikkelsen was kicked to the curb.

The global lockdown perhaps eased that pain a little, but Mikkelsen kept his eye in with a Pirelli testing role and an European Rally Championship return in late 2020 before attacking - and winning - both WRC2 and ERC last year. He can't do anything more than he is doing, but it's like he's trying to knock down a door that just won't budge.

IT LEFT OGIER, LATVALA AND MIKKELSEN ALL FIGHTING FOR THEIR FUTURES

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Toyota

ROVANPERÄ HAS SHONE SINCE HE JOINED TOYOTA'S WORKS TEAM, BUT HE WAS ALWAYS DESTINED TO BE THERE.

Red Bull Content Pool

ERIC CAIS WON THE WRC2 CLASS IN MONTE CARLO, DRIVING A FIESTA RALLY2 CAR

HOWEVER, IT'S IMPORTANT TO STRESS THAT THIS ISN'T A NEW PROBLEM FOR THE WRC Østberg's is a similar tale. Out of the M-Sport fold in 2016, he regressed to running a private car in 2017 before eventually being picked up by Citroen midway through 2018 when Kris Meeke was suddenly sacked. But for 2019 he was pushed down to an WRC2 programme as Ogier and Lappi were signed to drive C3 WRCs. He won the WRC2 title in 2020 but hasn't yet made the step back up.

And that really is the big worry. The champion of the premier support series should be warranted a shot at the big time - whether they've been there before or not - but it simply isn't happening at the moment. The last to graduate was Kalle Rovanperä back in 2019, but truthfully - given his famous exploits behind the wheel of a Toyota Starlet at eight years old - he was destined for this even before his professional career began.

However it's important to stress that this isn't a new problem for the WRC. The heydays of the late 1990s and early 2000s when up to seven manufacturers were in the service park are long gone. But it feels far more exaggerated now because of the machinery that's at

the top of the sport.

Rally1 resembles an exclusive club: entry is limited and the requirements are high. In a sense this is just how it should be; the very upper echelons of a sport should be reserved for the very best, and with elusivity can come razzmatazz. But this isn't Formula 1, rallying has always been more of a people's sport. More relatable, more achievable for the clubman competitor.

Some of the best rallies in history have been where local heroes have taken on the best of the world in their home patch and given the global heroes a run for their money. Such a contest is simply impossible now with the bar to jump into a top-class rally sitting as high as it is.

That's not just a massive shame but an agonising and sore point when you consider that when deciding rallying's future direction, the FIA had a glaring solution to this issue that it chose to ignore.

Although not many manufacturers are throwing full works support behind their programmes, there are currently five different Rally2 cars available to drive,

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HAYDEN PADDON TACKLING THE RALLY GB STAGES IN 2019

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M-Sport

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from Škoda, Ford, Hyundai, Citroen and Volkswagen - with Toyota rumoured to be exploring the build of a Rally2 Yaris as well.

Just imagine for a second if the latest set of hybrid rules were based on these cars. How many cars would suddenly be in the mix for a rally win on every single round of the championship? After all it's more entertaining to watch a clubman spec Vauxhall Nova being driven hard than a Rally1 car being driven

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tentatively, so all you need for a show are several, well-driven cars. And it's not as if Rally2 cars are dull, particularly if they were subtly beefed up a bit.

There's no automatic guarantee that all makes would want to participate and fund a full WRC program - for some manufacturers, a customer-led approach is far preferred - but if Rally2 effectively became Rally1 you'd immediately have far more makes and models potentially available. Install a 34mm restrictor instead

SEBASTIEN LOEB MADE HIS WRC RETURN ON THE 2022 MONTE CARLO RALLY, AND WON THE EVENT

M-Sport

of a 32mm for added power, slot in the 100kW hybrid unit: job done. And better still, you'd have Rally3 sitting there as a four-wheel-drive support class.

Of course it's never that simple, but it's a tantalising thought. Look at Paddon's case. Had he been plotting a WRC comeback (having not competed in the world series since 2019) 10 years ago, he'd have been doing so in a World Rally Car; a top class car. That's precisely what he had plotted in 2020.

But now, with the high cost of Rally1 machines, it's just totally unattainable. His only option was to drive a Rally2 car - a quick and capable car, but it's much harder to prove your point to the bigwigs if you're not competing at the very front.

And the other problem is the sudden lack of relevance past WRC experience now holds. Let's focus on Mikkelsen once more. He has strong experience of the previous two generations of World Rally Car, but

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ØSTBERG TACKLING THE RALLY CROATIA STAGES IN 2021

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Toyota Red Bull Content Pool

Rally1? Nothing. Suddenly he's lost one of his true ace cards as the new hybrid vehicles require an entirely different style of driving and management.

And fundamentally, that scenario applies to anyone competing in a Rally2 car right now. We're yet to see anybody make the transition from Rally2 to Rally1 given the youth of the Rally1 ruleset, but it stands to reason it should be quite a jump given there's more power, more aero and then the hybrid to get on top of. In a utopian universe, you'd hope the top Rally2 drivers would be able to perform in the top class straight away.

But to look at it a bit more positively, at least for the current up-and-comers have a simply superb benchmark at the moment. If they can keep up with the likes of Mikkelsen, Østberg, Suninen and Paddon and even beat them in WRC2, then it's very clear just how good they are. But of course the flipside is it's an even harder task for them to make it to the top as they've got even more competition for those elusive drives.

Think of world rallying's ladder of talent like a

classic chemistry experiment you did in school: putting Mentos into a bottle of cola. What should happen is the pressure builds and the top bursts, with the liquid (in rallying's case, the talent) flowing out. But today's situation is a dud. The experiment hasn't worked.

It can't be denied that the 2022 WRC season promises to be a corker. With a new champion all but guaranteed without Sebastien Ogier's full-time presence and Ott Tänak's frustrating start to the year, a thrilling race is in prospect for somebody to steal a march in this new era. Kalle Rovanperä, Elfyn Evans, Thierry Neuville and maybe even Craig Breen all look capable, while in a season or two Oliver Solberg and Adrien Fourmaux will be in that race too.

It's fantastic, but where's the next generation coming in? None of these drivers are verging on the edge of retirement, leaving a fully-booked in for the foreseeable future. Talent treading water and unable to be promoted to the premier division is never a good place for a championship to be.

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IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

2 SEAS MOTORSPORT THIS MERCEDES-AMG MOTORSPORT CUSTOMER TEAM DOESN'T PULL ANY PUNCHES. IN 2021, 2 SEAS MOTORSPORT WON FOUR MAJOR RACES, INCLUDING THE SILVERSTONE 500 IN THE BRITISH GT CHAMPIONSHIP, AND IN 2022, IT WON THE GULF 12 HOURS FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW. 116 THE PIT STOP

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AN ELITE

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I

n today’s world, the Le Mans 24 Hours is all about producing some of the most professional, state-of–the-art cars ever seen in the world of sportscar racing and pushing them to their limits and beyond.

Even now, all the way down to the GT Class, every team works with absolute professionalism.

It’s no longer an amateur’s game. It’s no longer about part-time club racers being able to test themselves and their car. Those days are long gone. And yet, that’s exactly what it was like in the 1950s, when an RAF

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pilot decided he was going to enter his car into the legendary event.

Flight Lieutenant James Richard Stoop, otherwise known as Dickie Stoop, was not your average character. During World War Two, he joined the RAF and heroically flew spitfires with 610 Squadron. The squadron was based at RAF Westhampnett, which today is more commonly known as the grounds of the Goodwood Estate nestled in the countryside on the outskirts of Chichester in West Sussex. Of course, flying aeroplanes was Stoop’s main priority, but at any

available opportunity he would get into his MG and race his squadron mates around the perimeter road, which now acts as the race track at Goodwood.

The experience racing the MG around the aerodrome lit a bug for Stoop, and after the war ended he decided to get his buzz on the racetrack, entering his first race in 1948 at Silverstone. It was the start of a fledgling career, and over a 20 year period he went on to race many cars, taking part in the Le Mans 24 Hours on no fewer than 10 occasions.

1959 was no different. Stoop competed in the race

driving Triumph TR3S alongside Peter Jopp for Standard Triumph Ltd, but they failed to make it to the end of the race, retiring after 23 gruelling hours, having completed 245 laps, after the TR3S’s oil pump failed.

But his result wasn’t Stoop’s only interest that weekend. He’d also entered his very own Lotus Elite into the race, but unfortunately it never made it to the starting line.

Colin Chapman’s Lotus Elite was a plucky little car that achieved considerable success after its inception in 1957. It became a popular car for several great

endurance races, and many well known drivers got behind the wheel. And having seen the Elites in action, Stoop knew they would make for the perfect car to race at Le Mans, although he left it very late to make the decision.

While most teams would plan their assault on Le Mans many months, even years in advance - especially in an era that was notoriously dangerous - Stoop didn’t go about it in that manner. In a cavalier fashion, he left things right until the very last minute, purchasing his Elite just 11 days before the race was due to get underway.

It would be simply impossible and unthinkable in this day and age that a team could purchase a car less than two weeks before Le Mans gets underway and then not only have it ready to race, but also be able to get it to the track ready to tackle the monstrous event. But that’s exactly what Stoop did.

Stoop purchased chassis 1037 directly from Lotus and then set about choosing drivers, since he’d be racing the Triumph. Naturally, leaving it so late in the day, there was never going to be any possibility that he would attract headline names, but he did manage to

persuade Douglas Graham and Mike McKee to drive the car.

Graham and McKee might not be household names that jump to the tip of your lips when you think about endurance racing, but that’s not to say they weren’t talented racing drivers.

At the time, both drivers only had a few years of racing experience. Graham began his career in 1956 racing a Lotus Mark VI as a privateer, but in 1958 the aspiring and eventual Formula 1 driver, Innes Ireland signed him to race at various UK national events, with Graham managing to make it to the podium on two occasions that year.

In 1959, he took a step forward in his racing career, taking part in larger races, including the Silverstone International non-championship race, where he finished 12th, 10 seconds behind victor Roy Salvadori and six seconds behind runner-up Stirling Moss. He also took part in the Nurburgring 1000km, racing for Fitzwilliam Racing Team, but his race was ended early after retiring just nine laps in.

That race at the Nurburgring was Graham’s first

HE LEFT THINGS RIGHT UNTIL THE VERY LAST MINUTE, PURCHASING HIS ELITE ONLY 11 DAYS BEFORE THE RACE.

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THE CAR HAS BEEN RESTORED BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL GLORY THE PIT STOP | 123

major endurance race, and despite it ending in failure, just two weeks later he arrived in France to get himself ready to tackle Le Mans. But that wasn’t all. Although the race was a major step up in class from what Graham had been racing in previously, not to mention it being the first time he’d ever attempted to tackle a 24 hour race, he also arrived at the track effectively acting as the lead driver, since he held more racing experience than his team-mate McKee. Like Graham, McKee’s racing career was also in its infancy. Being the younger of the two drivers, he made his racing debut in December 1957 at Brands Hatch, but the following year was a patchy season for Graham.

He made a handful of outings but often either failed to qualify for an event, or was unable to start. However, in 1959 the tide started to turn in his favour.

He finished fourth in the Anerley Trophy at Crystal Palace and achieved the same result at a BARC meeting at Goodwood in June. Again, like Graham, despite not winning any major events, Stoop offered McKee to drive the little Elite at that year’s Le Mans 24 Hours. Of course, the opportunity to drive in one of the world’s greatest events was too good to turn down.

Where else was that opportunity going to come from

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at that stage of his career? McKee grabbed the chance with both hands, he readily accepted the offer and made his way to Le Mans.

And so on the 17th June 1959, Graham and McKee stepped out onto the Le Sarthe circuit for the first time in their careers, absorbing every single moment as they got themselves ready to get the Elite through its maiden practice session.

The Elite had never been used competitively before, so Le Mans was its very first outing and what an event to begin with. A total of 97 cars were registered for that year’s event. Only 54 cars would be allowed to take part in the race, with practice being used to establish who would be allowed to take part in qualifying.

With such an inexperienced team and a car that had never been driven in anger, there was no guarantee that Graham and McKee would be allowed to take part in the race. It was down to them to do the talking on track and prove that they had the speed to be fast enough so they weren’t a danger to others, and could at least mix it with their competitors. Of course, an overall race win was never going to be on the records for the duo, even if they were able to make it into the race.

The Elite was effectively running in a class of its own.

It was never going to be a match for the likes of Ferrari and Aston Martin at the very sharp end of the field, with the GT1.5 class being the lowest ranked class in the field, and unlike all the other classes, GT1.5 was made up entirely of Lotus Elites.

Being frank, the GT1.5 class wasn’t exactly made up of a huge field. Only five Elites were entered into the class, but despite that, there was one particular driver who’s name stood out from the rest, and that was none other than Jim Clark.

Clark was yet to make his Formula 1 debut at that point, but he was still a formidable competitor nonetheless, and when it came to the race, he and John Whitmore went on to finish 10th overall, finishing second in class.

But despite all the hopes and dreams Stoop’s crew had, they unfortunately never made it to the start of the race. They didn’t even manage to make it to qualifying. The car managed to pass through scrutineering and Graham and McKee managed to take the car out in practice, gaining valuable experience as

they completed the session, but disaster struck shortly after.

Back in the 1950s, cars had to be driven back to their garages after sessions on public roads. After the practice session had ended, the team sent the Elite away from the track so it could be stored in the garage for the night, ready to return to attempt a qualifying run the following day. But the car never made it to the garage. Whilst driving back from the circuit, the team’s mechanic, Jack Britt was involved in a road accident with another vehicle. It wasn’t a small accident either, with Britt being injured in the incident, while the car itself sustained a considerable amount of damage.

With Britt out of action as a result of his injuries and the little Elite in a significant state of disrepair, there was no way that it could be repaired in time to take part in the qualifying session the following morning.

Just like that, the dream was over. Graham and McKee had their official event entry written into the history books, but where they would have hoped a finish position would have been marked against their name on the results sheet, instead it read “DNS” (did

THE ELITE HAS RETURNED TO THE TRACK WHERE ITS ORIGINAL OWNER LEARNT TO RACE

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not start).

McKee would finally get a chance to take part in the Le Mans 24 Hours properly, in what turned out to be the final race of his career in 1961. Alongside Cliff Allison, McKee qualified 39th for the race, once again driving a Lotus Elite. But although he did get to start the race, he did not manage to make it to the end, with the car letting go 11 hours into the race after the engine gave way.

And for Graham, well another chance at racing at Le Mans eluded him for the rest of his career, although he did take part in some endurance races including the Nurburgring 1000km. But the majority of his racing was spent on UK soil, taking part in a variety of national

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and club events.

Many owners would have written the Elite off after its accident at Le Mans, but Stoop did attempt to get it back into working order. On November 30, 1959 he purchased a replacement body for the car, but it wasn’t enough to turn it back into a racer, and chassis 1037 never got to grace a racing track in anger again.

Instead, Stoop sold it to his friend and Porsche racer, Patrick Guy Godfrey who then registered it for the road. The car subsequently disappeared out of the public eye for a number of years, but it then made a return a few years ago when it came up for auction.

Unfortunately, when it was put up for auction it was in a very different state to the one Stoop had sold it in.

The car was no longer one object, you could barely call it a car. It was in a sorry state of repair and the person that bought the car essentially purchased themselves a set of Lotus parts, such was the state it was in.

The Lotus was Elite no more, but that didn’t mean it was to be confined to the scrapheap. There was still life in the old dog yet as Tolman Motorsport has proven.

In their hands the car has undergone a complete transformation. It’s been completely renovated from the ground up, turning the car back into its original, glorious state. Tolman also put the car back into its original colour, so it now looks exactly like it did when it made its first wheel rotation at Le Mans nearly 63 years ago. It is now worthy of its name, it’s a beautiful

car with history found within every inch of its chassis.

The car may never take part in a race again, but thankfully, new life has been breathed into it and it now lives on, being able to tell its almost unbelievable and yet saddening tale. It so nearly made a multiple of dreams come true, and even though that never quite materialised in full, it is still a wonder that it ever made it to Le Mans in the first place.

Thanks go to Goodwood for use of their track for these images.

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IMAGE BY TIM GLOVER

THE DIRTY BIKES MOTOCROSS DOESN'T GET ATTENTION IN THE SAME WAY AS CIRCUIT BIKES, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT IS ANY LESS EXCITING. BLASTING AROUND DIRT TRACKS, THERE'S PLENTY OF DRAMA ON SHOW. AND MORE OF THAN NOT, THE WORLD TITLE BATTLE GOES RIGHT DOWN TO THE WIRE.

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now denne and

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WORDS AND IMAGES BY ASH MILLER THE PIT STOP | 137

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“I

’m not sure if the connection is working that well, but here we go.”

The pixelated face of Lawrence Denne graces my screen in stuttering starts and fits, as the wifi in rural Cambridgeshire struggles to keep up with the demands of Zoom. It’s half past six in the evening, and the familiar chipper expression on the other end of the call is complimented by a background hum of dinner preparations.

“You’ll have to excuse me mate, I’m making dinner as well as chatting!”

Despite the haphazard appearance of Mr. Denne as he juggles pot and pans, the young Englishman is a calculated, and exceptionally experienced, part of the fading light of modern day craftsmanship within motorsport.

In a motorsport world obsessed with carbon fibre, computer fluid dynamics and nanotechnology, the younger among us could be forgiven for forgetting that long before the cutting edge was a real world application of digital articulation, the legends of yesteryear were conceived from paper, pencil, a keen eye and a razor sharp mind. Added to this, a steady hand and a pursuit of physical perfection creating masterpieces not from space-age materials, but earthy steel and aluminium.

Lawrence muses on his art form over the utensil percussion.

“In my trade of welding and fabrication, my main technique is brazing (oxygen and acetylene with a flame and bronze based rod), which leaves that nice gold looking weld - but it’s a trade not really taught anymore.

“It’s not easy to do! But also, working the ‘old’ way like we do, not relying on machines, relying on the worker (is standard practice). We use techniques from the ’60s and ’70s as well as the original Lola jigs and drawings.”

He adjusts in his seat reflectively.

“I’m glad I’ve learnt to do things the ‘old’ way.

Machines are great, and easy, but the way I do things gives you the job satisfaction and the originality the customer looks for and generally wants.”

With this sentence, Lawrence’s passion and enthusiasm for the dying art of manual material fabrication is all but evident, as his expression lights up unashamedly.

It’s a passion borne of lineage and traditions; his father, Peter Denne, was himself an accomplished fabricator, lending his specialised and skilful labour to the early T70 and T290 days of Lola’s Huntingdon factory. If it was tubular, Denne Sr. was in the thick of it, be it Formula Junior or Formula Three, and later would contribute to the building of the Royale Formula

Ford chassis of the late 1970s. It was thereafter that he landed at Van Diemen, and the Denne legacy ensued, where he would work in association with some of Van Diemen’s brightest names, such as Ayrton Senna, Damon Hill and Roland Ratzenberger.

“Some of my earliest memories were going along with Dad to the Van Diemen workshop. Even on a Saturday, he would only be going in for half an hour but I didn’t care, I’d want to go in with him. I’d watch him on the lathe, and with all the bits of swarf, I’d make little race cars and race drivers out of them. Just seeing all the cars that were in there was fascinating - at the time it would have been Mark Webber’s, Kristian Kolby’s, and Jacky van der Ende’s cars.”

“One that stands out, was when Kristian Kolby was having a seat fit. I remember him climbing into the car, and one of my Dad’s good friends, Indy, assisting in the fitting, saying ‘mind your bollocks, that’ll be hot!’ That’s my earliest memory from being at the workshop.”

The conversation continues to steer through a cavalcade of early memories from Lawrence’s early years, including playing Scalectrix with eventual Formula 1 driver Ralph Firman Jr at one of the Firman family's many Van Diemen parties. He waxes lyrical about the early days with an audible excitement, laced with a tinge of longing, for an era of motorsport seldom found around the paddocks of the current generation of drivers.

“It was a proper family environment. That’s the main thing that’s missing from motorsport at the moment, everyone was in it together.

I wish I was born 20 years earlier sometimes, to really live through those days!”

However, despite his protestations around his birthdate, his own story would continue with Van Diemen - but not before spending time around the burgeoning Formula Palmer Audi category in its’ inception in the late ’90s.

“Dad was responsible for making the show car for the series when it was launched, so I was around race tracks all the time with the series. A lot of people forget the talent that came through that championship, it was a bona fide step up in single seaters. One of my favourite memories is from 1999, and a lot of people don’t know this; but when the current Palmersport location was just being completed, one guy that came and tested one of the cars was Fernando Alonso. He was never down to race, but he did a lot of testing in one of the FPA cars before he stepped up. The profile was that big.”

It was this association with Formula Palmer Audi, and the subsequent time spent with not only ringleader and ex-F1 driver Jonathan Palmer, but his likewise F1journeying son Jolyon (who, according to Lawrence, was also a very talented football player) that brought

"I'M GLAD I'VE LEARNED TO DO THINGS THE 'OLD' WAY."

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Lawrence into his formative years as an race instructor and became an added source to bounce off when he ventured into his own car racing career in 2005.

“Originally I was meant to race T-Cars - the precursor to Ginetta Junior - at 13, and then progress to Formula Palmer Audi but the money was never quite there to do that. I got some good experience testing the T-Cars, as the arrangement we had between Jonathan and Dad meant that I got to drive the cars when others were out testing, but we never made the step into racing them. So Formula Ford was the next thing, and we raced the Formula Ford Festival in 2005.

“My first ever time in a Formula Ford was the first practice session for the Festival, in the main class! We made it all the way to the last chance race but I was a fair way off the pace. I’d never even been around Brands Hatch before in a race car and thought I’d be able to set the world on fire!”

Despite being thrown in the deep end, Lawrence returned to his family’s roots the following year, racing in Formula Ford 2000 in a Van Diemen RF81 - a car that was built by his own father some 25 years earlier.

“That’s where my own driving ties into my childhood - from then on, every car that I raced was built by my Dad, in period, the newest of which was from the year

LAWRENCE DENNE WORKING ON THE LOLA IN THE PITLANE

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I was born, but every other one was from eight or nine years prior.”

Peter Denne had, at this point, started his own company, and cut Lawrence a deal; he could work for his dad wage free, and get to go racing, if he found a little bit extra to contribute to the costs. It was an easy sell.

His initial foray into the category was difficult, and he battled to get to grips with machinery that, in its day, was the subject of revolution with every passing year’s update.

“The car was woefully uncompetitive, and although the RF82 and 83 were only a year later they were massively improved; we had radial shock dampers and the newer ones were on rockers, the chassis were a lot stiffer, even the sidepods were squarer so it created a lot more under car aero. When I went to an RF82 for the next year, it was a second and a half quicker out of the box. It was fascinating, if frustrating, to experience the evolution first hand.”

The step up to the RF82 proved to be the start of his ascension, and after putting the car on the front row for his first race at Donington, claimed a majority of the fastest laps for the 2007 season. However, it wasn’t without an Achilles heel.

“I WORKED AT LOLA BRIEFLY IN 2005, HELPING BUILD THE ORIGINAL A1GP CARS” “I was terrible at starts. We only ended up with one podium all year because although once I was going I was quick, getting going was a nightmare. The joke used to be that I needed to start on pole to make sure I was in the top 10 by turn one!”

The following year, however, was where present day Lawrence began to take shape.

“2008 was the year I really got consistency. I only did eight of the 12 races but ended up with six poles, seven podiums and four wins, and fastest lap in every single race. I missed out on that championship by one race win to my teammate, who won three races that I missed. We got a lap record at Silverstone National, but we had some bad luck so it ended up going the way it did.

“That year though was when I really started learning about fabricating and doing the work on the cars.

I worked at Lola briefly in 2005, helping build the original A1GP cars, but I wanted to go racing. Chris Fox (Lawrence’s current employer) started teaching me how the chassis worked and how they were built and set up, and that helped a lot to know more about how to drive the cars. If you know how they work and their strong points, you can work with them and play with them.”

It was that experience that, at the end of his own career behind the wheel, blossomed into what has become a passionately indulged career crafting the very same components that his father originally

created, from the very same original drawings that now live deep inside the Fox Racing Developments headquarters.

“As a real motorsport anorak, getting to craft brand new pieces from the original drawings from the 1960s and ’70s is really rewarding. There’s a lot of job satisfaction that comes from seeing a car go around the track, working as it should, and knowing that the pieces I created are allowing it to do as they were intended when they were designed 50 years ago. That’s a special feeling.”

Fox Racing Developments, based in the East Midlands, is the modern day parts supplier to a plethora of historic racing machines that still actively compete around the globe. As the official parts source to all the Lola chassis, the workshop is adorned with brand new gleaming steelwork and glossy riveted sheet metal, making a visit to the grounds akin to stepping back in time to the original days of the iconic Lola sports cars. In one corner, a pair of T70’s lay freshly prepared and ready for their next outing. Over in the next, the bare chassis of a brand new Lola, made by hand from original drawings still stacked in filing cabinets just a few metres away. One particular visit to the workshop was made memorable by being shown a parts room containing, among other historic motorsport memorabilia, the original Honda Formula 1 chassis - 001 - from the days of the 1964 Honda RA271. One room

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THIS WORKSHOP COULD TELL PLENTY OF GREAT STORIES.

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over, however, is one project that somehow gets even more of a buzz.

“We are currently building a T70 Mk3B road car with an LS7 engine and six speed sequential gearbox,” says Lawrence effervescently. “It’s modern in technology with air con, but at the same time not taking anything away from the original style or look of this beautiful car.

It has all the rustic looks and feel of the car from 1969.

That’ll be a special thing to see running on the road.

“Of all the things we work on, though, anything with a DFV gets me excited. The Lola T280 DFV is the standout; the sound is infectious, the engine is legendary and it’s just a stunning car. All the wishbones and bolt on metal and aluminium work was done by me, so seeing it on track and hearing it go around really is something special.”

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One such piece of hand crafted apparatus appears in my mind as a vision of intricately welded suspension components, made at Lawrences hands, laying across a surprisingly clean bench in all its glory. The art of the bygone era of motorsport is truly breathtaking in its simplicity.

An alarm beeps in the background through my laptop speakers. Lawrence Denne cranes his neck to gaze beyond the screen. “That’s my dinner ready mate, it’ll have to go!”

Just before saying fond farewells, I ask one final question - what’s his favourite memory?

“There’s two that stand out above the many other great memories. The first, I have to say, is working on the 1969 Lola Climax F1 car. It was one of the first cars I ever worked on. We were getting ready for Goodwood

in 2006 and it was a complete rebuild. We were working 18 hours a day for a week to get it done, only to find out the day before the fuel tanks leaked when we fired it up! We still got the car there, and it obviously did not run, but that was the first time I saw the effort put into racing from a hands on point of view.

“My favourite though? I was a massive Jan Magnussen fan when I was a kid, and he was driving a Van Diemen in his early career. He absolutely destroyed the Formula Ford series, and had won every race up to that point in the season. I was about five years old, and I decided to give him a lucky teddy at Snetterton.

He strapped it inside the cockpit, and proceeded to crash at the first corner! He gave me the teddy back afterward and said, ‘give it to any other driver!’”

With the sound of the kitchen behind Lawrence

erupting into chaos, a warm but hasty goodbye follows promptly. In the silence that follows the reflection on some of the stories makes for a similarly warm feeling I’ve known Lawrence for 10 years, and yet some of the wonderful stories emerging are only making their debut into my auditory vicinity.

In the afterglow of a thoroughly enjoyed chat cut too short for my liking, I bring up YouTube, type in Lola T70, and enjoy a few moments appreciating what Lawrence does on a daily basis. Watching the iconic sportscar grace the screen amid the sounds of the glorious V8, it brings a whole new perspective knowing the individual pieces that make up such an icon are being handcrafted with just as much passion as they’re being driven, by someone who appreciates the historical significance of the craft they love.

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IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

WINTER STAGES RALLY RALLYING DOESN'T TAKE PLACE JUST ON GRAVEL AND SNOW. SOME ALSO TAKE PLACE ENTIRELY ON ASPHALT. THE WINTER STAGES RALLY IS A CIRCUIT BASED RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP CONSISTING OF SEVEN ROUNDS.

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TOBY’S JOURNEY In his last column, Toby Trice confirmed that he had been crowned the inaugural Ginetta GT Academy champion. In his latest column, he explains what plans lay in store for his 2022 season.

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the responsibilities of being a dad and trying to balance that with work and my race profile. But I suppose that leads me on to 2022 and kind of what we're up to this year.

We’ve been working really, really hard over the Christmas period and through into the early part of this year, getting all kinds of sponsorship deals all signed up and working towards season three of racing for fertility.

So now I can announce that this year I’ll be racing in the Porsche Visit Cayman Islands Sprint Challenge!

It's a hugely proud moment for me because it's been no secret that becoming a Porsche racing driver has been quite an aspiration of mine. The Porsche brand itself really resonates with the Team Trice family and all my sponsors. I just want to give the best commercial opportunity to my partners that have embarked on this journey with me of racing for fertility.

So now we get to join Porsche and hopefully it's the first step onto the Porsche pyramid and will mean that I stay here for some time now. My aim is to hopefully

Jakob Ebrey

i everyone! It’s already been a few months since my last update here and what an eventful few months it’s been!

2021 ended with an almighty high of winning the Ginetta GT Academy championship. But an even bigger success story for me personally was that after years of battling infertility, Katie had fallen pregnant and on December 11, my son Oliver was born into this world. It's been such an emotional and joyful time for me and Katie because it's been something we had both wanted for such a long time!

So last year just couldn't have gone any better because we finished the year having been crowned Ginetta GT Academy champion and becoming a father.

I'm so overwhelmed and I'm pretty excited about what the future holds now because there’s lots to learn and lots of new challenges ahead!

I've now become a dad and I've got to learn all of

Jakob Ebrey

move up the ladder to that ultimate reward and ultimate challenge of racing a Porsche at Le Mans. It's super exciting and I can't wait to get started.

Media day for the season ahead has already been and gone which was the first time I got to see the car's livery properly. It's an awesome car!

It was my first time driving on the slick tyres so I had quite a lot to learn because it was a new vehicle with a lot more power, a lot more grip and a lot more braking performance. I just was completely blown away with the way the car handled. The amount of grip that you get on a slick tyre is quite remarkable!

Previously I've only raced with a Michelin road tyre and now I'm on Michelin slick tyres. So that blew my mind! There's lots to learn but I felt comfortable quite quickly. I had good pace and got within a second of the fastest time which is great as it was my first test day in the car.

I'm just really looking forward to this challenge now of kind of just developing myself as a driver in a kind of proper GT4-spec car and see where things go!

The upcoming schedule this year will be made up of 15 races over six race weekends. We join the British Touring Cars for Thruxton and Croft this year and then we also support the British GT again. So I'm back in the same paddock and really, really excited to have the orange bobble hat army back together!

There are new tracks too which is the best thing to mention. We head off to Thruxton, Oulton Park and Croft! I've never been there and never raced them. I know them a little bit on sim but there's lots to learn this year and I can't wait to visit these tracks, especially Oulton Park because it's an awesome and pretty circuit and I can't wait to drive through the woodland area there!

The walls are very close and there's lots of risk, very high speeds so I can't wait to thrash the Cayman through there!

That’s all from me for now! I cannot wait for this season and this new challenge to start and I hope I will have plenty more good news to bring you in the next issue!

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IN SHORT

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Image credit: Haas F1

HOW CONFLICT CAN SHAPE SPORT

BY IAN PAGE

The war in Ukraine has undoubtedly shocked the world. The images coming out of that part of the world are difficult to look at, let alone understand. It’s a subject that dare I say is “too much” for a sports magazine, but the conflict has affected many parts of our lives, including the sporting world, and motor sport is not immune.

As I write this, I’m careful in commenting on a situation which is both fluid, changing by the day, and indeed very nuanced. I am in no way qualified to comment politically on such things, but I think it’s right to address how sport, and in this case motorsport and Formula 1, has responded to the conflict.

Sport has the power to unite the world in the face of adversity.

It has no political boundaries and doesn’t take sides, but such is the global shock and outrage at the Russian government’s actions that the sporting community has felt it had to act. From athletics to football, Russia has been ostracised from the sporting world and F1 has acted in a similar way.

In a championship which in recent years has run a very visible and well received “we race as one” campaign, focusing on equality and diversity, F1 took swift action in breaking ties with Russia. In a series where money can talk louder than morals, it was - for me - a surprise to see them act so quickly. The termination of the Russian Grand Prix will certainly come with financial and administrative consequences as the event was due to be relocated to St Petersburg in 2023. It is a strong response and a clear indication of how Liberty Media views its social and moral responsibility.

There is of course the issue of drivers, both on a management level and a team level. Haas’ Nikita Mazepin was the only Russian driver on the grid and the action taken against him was, again, swift. Support for Mazepin across the F1 community was in short supply due to his footage that appeared on social media before his F1 career had even begun. Condemnation of such behaviour was absolutely right, and there was a very strong case

for his seat to be taken away, but money talks and he came with a lot of it.

With Russian licenced drivers being banned from racing in the UK, the spotlight was already on Mazepin and you could hear the fat lady clearing her throat. When Haas severed ties with sponsor Uralkali - owned by Nikita’s father, Dmitry - the fat lady was already on the first chorus. Mazepin’s contract was terminated, and he was replaced with the more experienced Kevin Magnussen.

Despite the lack of love for the Mazepin, there is an argument that losing his seat in that fashion was harsh. He had after all agreed to any demands the FIA and Formula 1 had asked of him in regard to his opinion on the conflict. Are we now punishing individuals for their government’s actions? That argument is not something that can be answered on these pages, but it is worth asking the question. With the family business’ close ties to the Russian government, it is understandable that Haas felt they had no other option, and who knows? Maybe it presented a good opportunity to right earlier wrongs and part ways with a driver who possibly didn’t really deserve to be on the grid in the first place. Would the response have been the same for fellow Russian Daniil Kvyat if he were still on the grid?

Sport has to run a fine balancing act between uniting and using its global reach to highlight and campaign for a better world and appearing neutral. When trying to run something that has a global element to it, you have to have a dialogue and agreements with organisations and governments for which you don’t entirely agree with, otherwise you can’t really function.

F1 and its global reach is front and centre, and the conflict has presented a tricky problem for it to solve.

Just how do you solve a problem like Russia…?

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Image credit: Christian Pondella/ Red Bull Content Pool

IS MARQUEZ MIRRORING LORENZO & PEDROSA?

BY ADAM PROUD

Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa. Two of the best riders to ever grace a MotoGP bike, yet found their careers, especially later on, marred by injuries and long periods of recovery. Is this the route Marc Marquez is heading down?

The first season I watched MotoGP was the year Marquez took his first race on a MotoGP bike and instantly, like a vast amount of other people watching, I was hooked on his aggressive, incredible and alien-like riding style.

The Spaniard was throwing his Honda into corners, hanging off the bike like no one had ever seen before in the premier-class and it was fascinating to watch. And just when you think he was losing the front end while tipping the bike into a corner, he would shove his leg into the ground, somehow lift the bike up with his entire body weight riding it and shrug it off like nothing had happened.

This continued from 2013 all the way through until 2020. That year, his luck ran out. The bikes were racing in July for the first time that year after a lengthy break due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And Marquez was racing like a man possessed.

The now 29-year-old pulled off a miraculous save at Turn 4 and fought back through the pack to third. But unlike he had done a few laps earlier, he asked for just that bit too much from his RC213V and he was launched into the air at Turn 3. It was this crash that put him out for the rest of the season with a fractured humerus.

An injury of that extent would not usually be a seasonending one, yet the eight-time World Champion was consistently hindered by infections, slow healing and even a further injury to his shoulder while opening a window at home during his recovery.

Last year the Spaniard returned to MotoGP from the third round onwards at the Portuguese Grand Prix. It was known that 2021 would be a year to purely get back up to full racing fitness and build up muscles that hadn’t been used in almost a year.

2022 was set to be Marquez’s return to being a championship

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contending rider.

But his season came to an abrupt and early end with just a couple of rounds remaining last year. A crash while practising on his motocross bike brought back a problem suffered early in his career, double vision.

It wasn’t long before that crash that he looked back to his pre2020 crash self. Winning two-races back-to-back at the United States and Emilia Romagna Grands Prix. But he once again found himself back on the sideline, missing a crucial final couple of rounds to continue his rebuild back to full fitness.

The trend just keeps getting worse for Marquez too. After just one round in this year’s championship, he once again suffered a double vision return with a crash during warm up of the Indonesian Grand Prix in the second round.

That means there’s been three serious injuries in the space of less than two years for the Honda rider: two of them coming within the past six months. This doesn’t make for pleasant reading for a rider who once looked on course to equal if not pass Valentino Rossi’s tally of nine world championships.

Very quickly, the new generation of MotoGP riders are beginning to form and the new guard is taking over. Fabio Quartararo, Jorge Martin, Enea Bastianini are just three riders that come to mind who are set to be the future of the premierclass.

Marquez is no longer the young, up and coming rider that he once was compared to other riders who now occupy a place on the grid. It is obvious that he still has the readiness to throw the bike around every corner on a racetrack, but the risks are beginning to outweigh the reward in recent times.

This new bout of diplopia may be the calling that Marquez needs to come back with a fight within him that will reduce the likelihood of a potentially career-ending injury, but a fight that can see him back at the top in MotoGP.

Image credit: Chris Lazenby

SHOOTING AT ROLEX 24 HOURS

BY CHRIS LAZENBY

In early 2021, I made my first visit to one of the most famous circuits there is, Daytona International Speedway, to shoot one of the biggest races in GT and sportscar racing: the Rolex 24hrs.

It was an odd event, usually one full of excited fans, huge motorhomes and an atmosphere to match, but this was during COVID. IMSA and Daytona International Speedway worked very hard to get the event running, they did a great job and even a limited number of fans were allowed. Despite the toneddown atmosphere and strict COVID protocols, I enjoyed my first experience of Daytona and appreciated the opportunity to be there, but I was already looking forward to experiencing the “real” Rolex 24hrs.

Move on 12 months and the circus returns to Daytona, the camping fields are full of passionate fans, with their varying levels of homemade, motorhome mounted grandstands, it really is a sight to behold. Don’t forget the near constant smell of BBQ floating in the air. It really does need to be experienced first-hand.

As a relative newbie who has only worked at a few US circuits, shooting the Rolex 24 takes a little getting used to as it’s quite a different set-up to the usual European circuits. One of the big ones, the pitlane is only accessible to a few IMSA regular photographers, but it is still possible to view the pitlane from certain vantage points in between team tents. The main area of the paddock isn’t right behind the pitlane and all the team crews access their pit box via “Gasoline Alley”, the area right behind the pitlane tents. It’s a narrow alleyway and is used by the teams for transporting and storing tyres and fuel; this can get very busy.

With the paddock being separate from pitlane there can be quite a walk to get to the trucks and garages. While there is quite a large area to cover when shooting off-track action, the actual circuit is quite compact and it’s possible to get to lots of good angles in a short amount of time.

As with many a 24 hour race, the most spectacular times to shoot the Rolex 24 can be at sunset and sunrise. This is

only exaggerated by the features at Daytona, those being the banking and the huge grandstands. Another popular shot for photographers is the large wheel just out from the International Horseshoe, with everyone trying to capture their own unique angle.

Being used to shooting in the UK, I was not fazed by the weather or by it being a little cold, it’s all part of the job. Ask anyone who was at the Rolex 24 in 2022 and they’re likely to mention the temperature, -2c (28f for our friends across the pond). It was certainly a little testing overnight and one of the coldest temperatures in Florida for decades.

The pre-race ceremony is on another level. It’s quite the experience and it must be hugely exciting for the drivers, especially those new to it, as they are individually called out on to stage in front of those huge grandstands as their cars are wheels by in front of them. This is also a great time for the photographers to get shots of the teams and drivers, while they are among the crowds and part of the atmosphere.

While it might not be a simple event to cover, it certainly is rewarding and all these challenges make it all the more worthwhile when I create the final images and send them to some very happy clients!

If you’re into GT and sportscar racing and fancy a week in the Florida sun, I highly recommend heading over to experience the Rolex 24 for yourself.

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IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

MONACO THE MONACO HISTORIC HAS BEEN RUNNING SINCE 2009 AND CELEBRATES A VARIETY OF ERAS FROM THE WORLD OF FORMULA 1.

THE 2022 EVENT WILL BE HELD FROM THE 13-15 MAY, WITH THE RACES TAKING PLACE ON THE SAME ICONIC CIRCUIT THAT HAS HOSTED F1 SINCE 1950.

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