Issue 8

THE PIT STOP issue 8

q u a r t e r l y

m o t o r s p o r t

m a g a z i n e

IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

CONTENTS

8 24 36 52 64 IN SHORT

BOSSING IT Mark Paulson explores Martin Reynolds and Malcolm Harding's world of racing historic Fords

THE FRIENDLY FIGHT Rene Arnoux reminisces about his battle with Gilles Villeneuve in the 1979 French Grand Prix

FUEL OF THE FUTURE The fuel technology being developed by Le Mans' governing body

THE FUTURE Luke Barry examines the UK rally looking to put itself on the map

OLD SCHOOL INDEPENDENCE A deep dive into WEC's leading privateer team

HOW A RACETRACK BECAME A FOOTBALL FIELD

MANSELL'S YEAR Looking back on the 1992 F1 season in which Nigel Mansell claimed the world championship

PEUGEOT'S RADICAL RETURN Ash MIller looks over Peugeot's new WEC hypercar

THE REAL SEBASTIAN VETTEL Edd Straw takes a look back over Sebastian Vettel's F1 career upon his impending retirement

THE ARTURA McLaren's new GT4 racing car

MOTOGP'S 'MR RELIABLE'

78

102

120 134 WHAT NEXT FOR RICCIARDO? THE PIT STOP 5

YOUTH V EXPERIENCE

I

t’s hard to believe that two years of The Pit Stop have already flown by. It still feels like just the beginning and yet here I am writing the editor’s letter for Issue 8. Yes that’s right, eight.

That initial meeting where the idea of The Pit Stop was born still feels like yesterday, and the same goes for receiving the very first issue from the printers. It in no way feels like we are coming to the end of our second year, readying ourselves for the third. It’s simply mind-blowing. And yet, that’s where we are.

As always, I need to thank you, the reader for all of this. Without you going out of your way to purchase a copy of this magazine, it wouldn’t exist. It really does mean a lot that you continually go out and buy a copy and we hope we do it justice by continuing to provide plenty of variety and interest in the stories we supply you with.

And this issue should be no different from any of the last.

Yes, we have stories based around Formula 1, such as our cover article. You will have noticed that our front cover is laden with a Williams FW14B with none other than Nigel Mansell behind the wheel. And that’s for a very good reason.

It was 30 years ago that Mansell took his one and only F1 world championship victory. And it wasn’t just a championship win like any other. After years of near misses, and imminent title victories suddenly being lost at the death, 1992 was the year he won and won in style. It was a season in which Mansell demonstrated just how good he really was. He was more than a fighter, he was a winner.

But beyond the world of F1 we also deep dive into the world of endurance racing, examining privateers Glickenhaus, while also understanding where the World Endurance Championship is heading fuel wise.

And one of our newest contributors, Mark Paulson, takes us to national racing in the UK, looking at two individuals who spend their time racing old Fords, while Luke Barry explains just how much of an impact Rali Ceredigion could have on not only the British Rally Championship, but also the European scene in years to come.

As I write this, Max Verstappen has just clinched his second F1 world title, in bizarre circumstances in Japan.

While Kalle Rovanperä became the youngest ever World Rally Champion in New Zealand the week before at the age of 22 years and 1 day.

There maybe plenty of people questioning grassroots motorsport and how you get young people into racing, and they are valid questions that need discussing and raising, with answers proposed. But for those drivers making it through, age is clearly no issue.

But it does make you wonder, if motorsport could be adapted so it’s more accessible to young drivers who don’t have deep pockets, how successful would Verstappen and Rovanperä really be?

Me, I don’t think the title results would be any different in either category. These two really are in a league of their own right now.

Rob Hansford Editor

EDITORIAL Editor Rob Hansford Photography Editor Brian Smith Contributors Luke Barry, Ash Miller, Mark Paulson, Edd Straw, Adam Dickinson, Adam Proud, Ian Page Photography Contributors PHD Photo, Ed Waplington, Matt Widdowson, Grand Prix Photo, Richard Towler, Jakob Ebrey, Stephen Jackman THANKS TO Louie Cotton, Goodwood Estate, Hannah Corkish, Katharine Morgan, Roger Ormisher, Matt Beer, Peter Nygaard, Jakob Ebrey, François Granet COMMERCIAL ENQUIRIES Enquiries commercialenquiries@thepitstopmagazine.com 6 | THE PIT STOP

IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

BOSSING WORDS BY MARK PAULSON IMAGES BY STEPHEN JACKMAN

8 | THE PIT STOP

IT THE PIT STOP | 9

E

ach weekend from the end of March to the beginning of November, hundreds of club racers are taking to circuits up and down the length and breadth of Britain.

There are championships and series catering for single-seaters, sportscars and saloons, historic and modern. Most categories compete across six to eight race weekends, usually with two races per weekend, sometimes three.

So a typical competitor wouldn’t expect to contest more than 20-odd races over the course of the year.

Martin Reynolds and Malcolm Harding are not your typical racers. They simply can’t get enough on-track action and would probably compete every weekend if they had the opportunity.

Reynolds looks set to clock up more than 50 race starts this year. The Norfolk driver has been running his Group 2-style Ford Escort Mk2 against Harding’s similar car in the Blue Oval Saloon Series, a championship for pre-2011 production-based Fords where he is the reigning champion, as well as a number of other series.

10 | THE PIT STOP

BOSS is one of eight categories run by the Classic Touring Car Racing Club. Five cater for touring cars from the 1950s, through the Group 1 era of the ’70s, to the Super Touring cars of the ’90s, the last-named being a popular new addition for 2022. Further series provide homes for Jaguars and the heavily modified machinery of Classic Thunder.

Reynolds and Harding run their Escorts in the class for slick-shod cars within BOSS. Reynolds switched to the class this year, having taken the 2021 title by winning one of the capacity-based classes in a 1960 Ford Anglia – albeit modified and powered by a more modern 2.5-litre powerplant – running on treaded tyres.

“I just love the Ford Group 2 cars,” says Reynolds, a semi-retired building contractor who only began racing in 2017. “I thought this year I’d use the Escort because I thought it was more adaptable for the Slicks class.”

His Anglia, an original steel shell with fabricated wide wheel arches, has instead been put to use with occasional outings elsewhere, including Special Saloons and Modsports, a series run by the Classic

THE PIT STOP | 11

12 | THE PIT STOP

MARTIN REYNOLDS IS THE REIGNING CHAMPION OF THE BLUE OVAL SALOON SERIES

THE PIT STOP | 13

Sports Car Club. As its name suggests, while catering for a wide variety of machinery, that series is primarily aimed at cars from – or in the spirit of – the heavilymodified special saloons and modsports (modified sportscar) categories that were hugely popular in the 1970s.

As Reynolds’s intended mount for Special Saloons, a Ford Consul Classic V8, awaited an engine, the Anglia and Escort were pressed into service. Outgunned by some of the more outlandish creations, the Anglia, which delivers its power through a five-speed Tractive gearbox, scored a couple of highly creditable fourth-place finishes at Brands Hatch in June.

But it’s his Escort that has been Reynolds’s workhorse this year, making nearly 30 race starts by the end of September. It runs a similar engine, with a block based on the Cosworth YB – from the fearsome Ford Sierra RS500 – in normally-aspirated form and with a

larger capacity.

“I’ve had that since 2020,” says Reynolds. “We’ve changed all the running gear and engine and everything on it. It’s now got an Atlas axle, it’s got a Tractive gearbox – we’ve tried to build them the same.”

Through further appearances in the Classic & Modern Motorsport Club’s Super Saloons series, the Scottish Motor Racing Club’s Classic Sports & Saloons and his local Snetterton Saloons, Reynolds’s season has taken in around 25 different meetings. From Knockhill in Fife, Scotland, to Brands Hatch in Kent, 20 miles southeast of London, he’s clocked up plenty of miles. But he also takes advantage of the CTCRC’s generous entry fee discount for racing in a second category to rack up extra race starts without additional travelling. This year Reynolds has made one-off appearances in an historic-spec Anglia in Pre-’66 Touring Cars and a Pre-’83 Ford Taunus P7.

"WE'VE CHANGED ALL THE RUNNING GEAR AND ENGINE AND EVERYTHING ON IT."

14 | THE PIT STOP

The latter, which had previously raced in South Africa, made its debut at Mallory Park at the end of 2021, but was thwarted by engine problems at Snetterton in September this year.

“I’ve always concentrated on BOSS,” says Reynolds. “[But] because you have the option of taking an extra car, I think with the distance you do, you might as well.

For the small charge for a second car, I’m surprised more people don’t do it, if they’ve got the facility like me.

“BOSS is my passion. You’ve only got to look at my hat,” he adds, pointing to the personalised baseball cap he’s had made adorned with the series logo.

“I love all the camaraderie. There’s a lot of nice people in the sport and I enjoy it. You go round the paddock, there’s always people to talk to and have a chat with, and there’s always a good banter going round the paddock. There is a lot of characters.”

Reynolds himself is one of those characters, along with his regular rival Harding. The latter has generally had the upper hand in BOSS this year, with seven wins to Reynolds’s four ahead of the final round.

Harding built his Escort as a replica of Hans Heyer’s 1975 Deutsche Rennsportmeisterschaft-winning car.

Effectively a forerunner of the DTM, the DRM is perhaps

most famous for its utterly outrageous Group 5 era that began in 1977. But the Group 2 cars from earlier in the decade were also potent machines.

Harding’s Mk2 has a full Zakspeed bodykit supplied

by Essex-based MDV Specialist Engineering and is resplendent in the same evocative Castrol livery as Heyer’s car. Development over the past five years means it’s not an exact replica anymore. It now sports a big rear wing and has a Quaife six-speed sequential gearbox with flat-shift supplied by Aaron Tucker at HT Racing.

In the engine bay, where a two-litre Ford BDG once sat, there is now a 2.6-litre Smith & Jones unit. A fuelinjected aluminium-block development of the Cosworth YB , the motor built from a kit by ex-racer Tim Swadkin is good for some 367bhp and 257lb ft of torque.

“It’s a proper handful,” Harding admits. “There’s no traction control, no aids like that. No ABS. It’s just down to the clot behind the wheel really!

“My passion and why I do BOSS is to obviously win BOSS if I can but, because it races with [Classic] Thunder, also it’s good to see how far up the Thunder grid you can get.”

THE PIT STOP | 15

REYNOLDS PASSING THE VAUXHALL VECTRA JASON PLATO RAN IN THE BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP

Like Reynolds, Harding doesn’t just race in BOSS though. The pair cross swords in Special Saloons as well as the Bernie’s V8s and Historic Outlaws series founded by Bernie Chodosh. Harding also competes in the British Racing & Sports Car Club’s Modified Fords category where he is a multiple race winner.

Sussex-based Harding, who had a background on bikes, in karts, grasstrack and short ovals before

16 | THE PIT STOP

spending nearly three decades on the circuits, further supplements his British-based racing by competing overseas. He is a regular at the Spa Summer Classic, racing in the Youngtimer Touring Car Challenge series, which also visits Brands Hatch. This year he claimed three class wins and was delighted to take a significant chunk out of his previous best lap around the Ardennes circuit on his first return after a pandemic-induced

hiatus.

“We did a 2m44.89 seconds, which is a bus ride better than my [previous] best time there,” he enthuses.

“Before then, 2m52s was the best. It just goes to show how much the car’s come on since I was there last.”

Harding also travels to Portugal for the end-ofseason Algarve Classic Festival featuring longer enduro-style races organised by Motor Racing Legends

and Diogo Ferrao. Next year, he is planning additional visits to continental Europe for Peter Auto’s Heritage Touring Cup, with an historic-specification Escort Mk1 which he has so far raced only once, at Brands last year.

“I do all the work myself on the cars so I’m on them all the time,” he says, before evoking Steve McQueen’s famous maxim: “What we say is: ‘Racing is life, all else

THE PIT STOP | 17

18 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 19

is waiting.’ Life’s too short, isn’t it? You’ve got to do what you enjoy doing. People say: ‘That’s an expensive hobby.’ I say: ‘It isn’t an expensive hobby – it’s a way of life!’”

Both drivers’ enthusiasm for racing is boundless.

They are determined to pursue their passion regardless of the pitfalls they encounter – even mid-race, as Harding demonstrated when his car was tipped into a roll at Silverstone’s Club chicane earlier this year. The Escort bounced onto its roof and then back onto its

20 | THE PIT STOP

wheels, beside the circuit. The damage it sustained in the incident was remarkably light and, after just a few moments to compose himself, Harding was back in the race. While Reynolds streaked to victory, Harding still managed to finish third!

It’s not all about the on-track action. The offtrack camaraderie, among their own entourage and throughout the paddock, is a major part of racing.

Harding’s support crew of Tim Walsh, Tony Brunero and Mark Freemantle, as well as the likes of long-time fellow

racer Tony Paxman with whom he has shared a car on numerous occasions, are like a racing family. And on “engine whisperer” Swadkin, Harding says: “I couldn’t do things without that man. To me, he’s like my dad; he’s just brilliant.”

It’s a similar story for Reynolds, who’s regularly assisted by Neil O’Shea. Back at their Three Holes workshop on the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire border, engineer Dean Moat – himself a short oval racer – works on fabrications, both for Reynolds’s own cars and

others they work on.

“At the end of the day, the reason I do this, is because I enjoy it,” Reynolds concludes. “It’s definitely not about winning [although] we get satisfaction from winning, don’t we, let’s be honest!

“I’ve got a lot of mates in different clubs – so I’m having a catch-up every time I go out. And I am retired now so if I’m not repairing the cars, I’m racing.”

THE PIT STOP | 21

IMAGE BY GRAND PRIX PHOTO

PAST IN A FLASH CHRIS AMON DRIVING HIS FERRARI AROUND THE STREETS OF MONTE CARLO IN THE 1969 MONACO GRAND PRIX

22 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 23

THE FRIENDLY

24 | THE PIT STOP

FIGHT

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO / GRAND PRIX PHOTO THE PIT STOP | 25

T

he 1979 Formula 1 French Grand Prix should have been all about Jean-Pierre Jabouille. A French driver claiming his first F1 victory in a French car on home soil, in what was only his second ever points finish, meant all eyes should have been on him.

It was a remarkable victory, and a remarkable weekend. Having claimed pole position by two and a half tenths of a second, he went on to win the race by over 14 seconds, also claiming Renault’s maiden F1 victory in the process.

On any other occasion, that win would have gone down in the history books as a defining moment.

However, that race is remembered for an entirely different reason - the four lap monumental battle between Renault’s Rene Arnoux and Ferrari’s Gilles Villeneuve.

The beginning of the 1979 F1 season had been a tale of woe for Renault. Then in its third year of grand prix racing, it was expecting to be challenging towards the front of the grid, but results never materialised.

Its RS01 car that it had run with Jabouille since 1977 was simply not cut out for grand prix racing. Over a

26 | THE PIT STOP

single lap it was fast, but it was riddled with reliability issues.

A typical example of Renault's early years was the third round of the 1979 season in South Africa. The two and a bit year old car managed to claim pole position for the race in the hands of Jabouille but 47 laps later he retired with an engine failure, while Arnoux suffered with a tyre explosion on lap 67.

So in order to regain some competitive ground, Renault introduced a new chassis, the RS10.

Arriving in time for Jabouille to race in Spain, the car still featured a single turbocharger like its predecessor, but its pace was improved. And when it introduced twin turbochargers for its next update, the car really set the paddock alight.

All of a sudden, Renault had lost its joke status in the paddock and other teams sat up and took notice.

Reliability was still an issue, but everyone could clearly see that the car was seriously fast, and Arnoux got his first real taste of the car at Dijon.

“This car I ran in Dijon for the first time because I started the season with the old car,” Arnoux explained to The Pit Stop.

“My RS10 was ready for Dijon at the limit because

we had a new car and a new engine, double turbocharger. It was more easy to drive than the first one before. And this car for me is one of the best cars I have driven in my life.

“You have a lot of power, not easy to drive. If you are on a very fast track, it was easy. If you are in Monte Carlo it was very, very exciting, but very difficult.”

The RS10 immediately displayed its potential at Dijon. Both cars lined up on the front row, with Jabouille ahead of Arnoux.

It was a huge surprise to fans and many in the paddock, but not to Renault. Prior to the race it had conducted two fulllength race-distance tests at the circuit with its cars ensuring that the reliability was intact. And naturally it helped in perfecting its set-up.

Renault’s homework had paid off and ensured it was going to have the ideal start to its home event, the most important one for it on the calendar.

However, when the race got underway, both cars stuttered ruining that hard work immediately, although Arnoux faltered more than Jabouille. Arnoux fell right down the order, having struggled to get away from the

grid while Jabouille lost the lead to the lightning Ferrari of Villeneuve.

Villeneuve romped away to put himself clear of the chasing Renault, while Arnoux suddenly found himself in a position where he had to enter damage limitation mode and carve his way back through the order.

And that didn’t take long. He was already back up to fourth on the third lap, and on lap 15 he passed Jody Scheckter’s Ferrari on the home straight to move into third.

From there, the positions stabilised, but slowly and surely Jabouille reeled Villeneuve in and on lap 47, as the pair passed a backmarker, Jabouille took his opportunity and claimed the lead.

Villeneuve simply had no answer, and from there Jabouille ran clear asserting his control on the race.

For a while, it looked like that would be the battle of the race, but everyone's assumption was wrong, very wrong. Although the race quietened down for a while, the latter stages of the grand prix provided one of the greatest battles in F1 history to date.

Simmering away in the background, Arnoux was

RENAULT'S HOMEWORK HAD PAID OFF AND ENSURED IT WAS GOING TO HAVE THE IDEAL START TO ITS HOME EVENT

THE PIT STOP | 27

ARNOUX WAS REUINITED WITH THE CAR AT GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED

VILLENEUVE AND ARNOUX BATTLING IN THE CLOSING STAGES AT DIJON

lurking and he had been slowly eating away into Villeneuve's advantage. With four laps to go he was right on the gearbox of his rival.

Like his team-mate, Arnoux made his move for second heading down the start/finish straight, slotting into second as the pair came out of the opening corner.

But this time Villeneuve wasn't having any of it. He was going to lie down and accept his fate, and a lap later - the penultimate one of the race - he fought his way back past the Renault down into Turn 1.

It was eye-popping racing. Two cars dicing within inches refusing to let the other win, but it still wasn't done. As the pair entered the final lap of the race Arnoux made a dive down the inside at the first corner but couldn’t get quite far enough ahead to close the door completely. The pair went in side by side, and continued in that fashion into the left-handed second turn.

Arnoux went wide on the exit of that corner but kept his foot planted in the Renault, allowing him to get the high ground and claim second once again. But going wide cost Arnoux some momentum and Villeneuve immediately came back at the Renault, diving up the

30 | THE PIT STOP

inside into Turn 3.

As Villeneuve got alongside Arnoux the pair banged wheels and it stayed that way until the next corner when Arnoux found himself with the inside line. He committed hard for the corner, forcing Villeneuve out wide. The Ferrari got onto the kerb as a result and Villeneuve nearly lost the front of his car, but he managed to cling on to it and made an audacious lunge up the inside at the next corner.

Arnoux thankfully saw Villeneuve diving in and gave his rival enough room to avoid a collision, but it also allowed Villeneuve to sneak through into second position.

You couldn't call who was going to win the fight, you didn't want to and you certainly didn't want it to end. It was simply magical, mind-blowing and tantalising.

But one driver had to come out on top and on this occasion it was the Ferrari that won the battle and crossed the line just in front.

It was a great fight, but for Arnoux it was more than that. It was a "war". And what made it even more special was the fact it was a fight against one of his greatest friends in motorsport.

"Gilles was my best friend in Formula 1," explained Arnoux. "I knew him and he said the first time 'René, you come to eat the food, the Italian food, in Ferrari' and the next day he came with me to eat the French food in Renault. Each time it was like that, in each Grand Prix."

In the midst of a battle like the one at Dijon, it could have easily become personal between Arnoux and Villeneuve. Tempers could have easily flared and things could have gotten bitter. But no matter how tough the racing got, the respect remained and it's a fight that remains very close to Arnoux's heart.

"When you make the war between him and me in Dijon, for him and for me it was normal because it was really exciting," he said.

"He had some problems with the tyres, with the brakes. I had a problem with my fuel pressure and it was very near at this time. And everybody tried to finish second, I tried to finish second, he finished second, I finished third. But more important is the war. It was exceptional."

In the end, only 0.24s separated the two cars and after the race Villeneuve also described the final four laps as one of his greatest F1 memories.

THE PIT STOP | 31

32 | THE PIT STOP

And for Arnoux, it was the turning point in the competitiveness of his Renault. The next time out at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix he ended up second behind Williams's Clay Regazzoni, and while reliability issues still remained a problem, he still managed to claim another podium at the season's final race of the season at Watkins Glen, finishing second again.

After that race at Watkins Glen, the RS10 was retired for good. It was soon replaced by the RE20 for 1980, which helped Arnoux claim victory at both the Brazilian and South African Grands Prix.

In the grand scheme of things the RS10 isn’t exactly the greatest F1 car of its time or in history. It was never hugely successful, but for Arnoux it was the greatest car he ever raced, and all because of the memories it has given him.

The RS10 was soon confined to the workshops and museums after being decommissioned from Renault’s F1 team, but at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed life was breathed into it again, giving Arnoux the chance to relive those special memories from 1979.

“Well, to drive this car again, it's a really exciting, moving, emotional experience,” Arnoux explained.

“Renault rebuilt completely the car because it was in a bad condition with Renault historic and I am really happy to put my ass in this car again.

“When I see the whole car in a museum, I don't like it. The car is for running. To smell the fuel, brakes, oil

and everything and here in this area you see a lot of cars. I see some cars that I have never seen in my life here, because you have each car in each part of the world and I like this event for that. But not for me only, for all the people which come in to see this event. For me it’s the best event in the world. If you have the same passion like me, like everybody, and you know I said always in Goodwood, one thing is really important, each time we see these people running in this street, everybody has a big smile. This is really important.”

Sitting with Arnoux, it was clear to see how much fondness he has for the RS10, but also that battle with Villeneuve. People say racing is only about winning, but that’s not entirely true and Arnoux is the greatest evidence of that.

He didn’t win that day, he didn’t even win the battle against Villeneuve, but does it matter? To him, not one bit. He loved it. It was the battle itself that generated the joy, the excitement and the adrenaline, not the end result. And to do it with your best friend only took that emotion to an even higher level.

And sometimes that’s all you need. A fight, a battle to experience the racing. And for Arnoux, regardless of the outcome at Dijon, 43 years on he still feels like a winner because he possesses the memories of one of the greatest battles in F1 history. And that is simply priceless.

THE PIT STOP | 33

IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON RICKY COLLARD FOLLOWED IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIS FATHER WHEN HE JOINED THE BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP FULL-TIME IN 2022.

HIS FATHER, ROB PREVIOUSLY RACED IN THE SERIES, WINNING THE INDEPDENT'S TROPHY, WHILE ALSO DRIVING FOR BMW. RICKY MEANWHILE HAS COMPLETED HIS FIRST SEASON WITH TOYOTA.

34 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 35

fuel of GOVERNMENTS MAY WANT TO PUSH ELECTRIC POWER AS THE FUTURE FUEL TO USE, BUT THE ACO HAS A DIFFERENT VIEW

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO 36 | THE PIT STOP

the future

THE PIT STOP | 37

A

n argument is beginning to brew in the automotive world, one that is beginning to tip over into motorsport. And that battle surrounds the future of motorsport in terms of fuel.

Governments around the world have begun to add new laws preventing the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the future, and have flung themselves gung-ho at electric power.

They believe that electricity is the way to power the next generation of cars and have already begun implementing infrastructure to support it. But car makers don’t necessarily agree.

Car manufacturers are arguing that there are different ways to power cars and ways that don’t require huge amounts of mining of precious metals in order to create lithium batteries. Electric cars might be green, but it takes a lot of fossil fuel to create the electrical power in the first place.

Naturally, as is always the case with the automotive industry and motorsport, it’s the motorsport world that is used as the test bed for the future.

Formula E has been an obvious backer of electrical power since it’s an all-electric series, while Formula 1 is showcasing hybrid power and is heading in the direction of synthetic fuel for its future power supply.

But the World Endurance Championship has taken a different tact entirely, and one that is enticing plenty of manufacturers back to the top level of the series for the first time in several years, including Peugeot and Ferrari.

38 | THE PIT STOP

The WEC has already been using hybrid cars for several years, but in 2024 a new class will exist hydrogen. The series organiser has cited hydrogen as a strong alternative method of fuel for a while now and it has started to put its money where its mouth is.

To be frank, it needed to. It couldn’t rest on its laurels, especially given the fact that it is arguably one of the most, if not the most, relevant championships in existence.

Prototype cars might still exist in the series, but the wider championship is predominantly based around cars and chassis that manufacturers already have in production. Therefore any technological gains in the WEC can quickly funnel its way down to the average road car.

The Le Mans 24 Hours organiser, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, has kept a close eye on the future of hydrogen for some time. And in order to establish just how feasible it is to have hydrogen powered cars racing, it enlisted the help of Green GT to build a car of its own.

For those of you that have subscribed to The Pit Stop for some time, you may recall we wrote about the LMP2HG in Issue 5 after my colleague Ash Miller got the opportunity to get behind the wheel.

That car run by the Mission H24 team was the brainchild of the ACO and Green GT. Using a hydrogen fuel cell it has developed a car that doesn’t need fossil fuels to exist and earlier in the year it started its first race on an endurance grid, lining up side by side with its dinosaur fuelled adversaries. But it’s not been a

THE PIT STOP | 39

MISSION H24 PUT THE CAR THROUGH ITS FIRST RACE IN THE BUILD UP TO LE MANS

40 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 41

"IT'S A NEW TECHNOLOGY. YOU HAVE TO MANAGE A LOT OF THINGS PIERRE FILLON straightforward journey, far from it.

“We meet a lot of issues with the cars,” ACO president Pierre Fillon explained to The Pit Stop.

“It’s a new technology. You have to manage a lot of things. You have to manage the refuelling, you have to manage the fuel cell and, and our target was to have this car in the race.

"And now, we had a race in Imola one month ago and Le Mans. We got to Le Mans two weeks ago, but it's a big achievement for this year and GreenGT.” GreenGT president Cristophe Ricard agreed, adding that they were diving into the unknown when they embarked on the project.

"The thing is that, at the beginning, you don't know anything about anything,” he said.

“So you have, evidently, an idea of how you are going to get there, but as long as you progress, you realise the challenge. And I have to say that for GreenGT, if we realised how challenging it was in the beginning, I don't know if we would be here.

"So, fortunately, we didn't realise it and in other words, we tried to climb Everest with tennis shoes. So we have been learning evidently during the time and with all the problems we had in developing the car and the technology.”

And real progress has been made along the way. Initially, the car carried an 18 cell battery, but as GreenGT has learnt more and more about how hydrogen power works, it has managed to reduce that battery down to a mere four cells, allowing the car to be lighter, while ensuring the hybrid power is used more efficiently.

42 | THE PIT STOP

But that’s still not enough. Ricard is still concerned that the H24 car weighs too much, but rather than sitting still and accepting it is an issue with the car, his team is undertaking further research to ensure that its own targets will be met.

“We have some ideas about where we are going to gain more weight, but until we prove it, we have to test it,” Ricard explained when asked where weight gains can be found.

“We have to define that it's the right solution to gaining weight. There are plenty of ideas, but when people are telling you about cutting the end of the screw in order to gain some weight, and if we do that on every screw, we are going to gain three kilos. So we are at that level now.

“I mean, it’s a joke admittedly, but there are some ideas about reducing the weights of the water, the quantity of water in the car, because evidently this is part of the of the weight. And we have been between the H24 and the previous one, we had the radiator which was moved to the back and evidently we have been gaining quite a lot of weight, because all the water in between is counting on the total.”

Between the LMP2HG chassis that Miller drove and the team’s new H24 chassis, GreenGT has shaved off 100kg in weight. That’s a huge amount of weight to be saving and naturally also improves the speed of the car overall, while also aiding handling with an improved balance.

But while weight is one area of improvement that GreenGT is focusing on, efficiency is also another, and this is where energy recovery plays a crucial part in the

FRANCHITTI COMPLETING HIS SEAT FITTING

THE PIT STOP | 43

44 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 45

PIERRE FILLON, PRESIDENT OF THE ACO

process. Like hybrid cars, the H24 is looking to recover energy wherever it can, primarily through kinetic energy.

And improving efficiency in this area will also add to the overall performance of the car.

“By making the performance of the battery better, we can gain speed, we can gain performance in general,” said Ricard. “This is one of the domains and there are a few others. We are always looking for lighter engines, for instance, electrical engines. We have been gaining a lot in the weight of the electrical engines as well.”

It’s an impressive feat to create a car that runs solely on renewable energy and is also capable of racing at incredible speeds, on par with conventional combustion engined cars. It’s also a completely different way of powering a car in comparison to electric cars currently for sale.

But while Fillon is naturally happy and proud that the H24 is proving what hydrogen power is capable of and that it can be a viable power source in the future, he doesn’t believe that it is the sole solution to the world’s problems when it comes to the automotive world.

“I think hydrogen is one of the technologies for the future” Fillon said when asked if hydrogen is the future of motorsport and the automotive industry as a whole.

“It's not the only one. I think there is place for the battery, there is a place for new fuel, renewable fuel, and so on. But for sure, endurance hydrogen is a good, right solution because you have the big range

46 | THE PIT STOP

of autonomy and you can refuel. At this time it's five minutes but our plan in Le Mans in ’25 or ’26 to have refuelling in two minutes. And believe me, refuelling 12 kilos of hydrogen in two minutes, this is a big, big challenge.”

That challenge centres totally around compression.

The hydrogen needs to be pressurised and compressed so that it can quickly be transferred from storage to the fuel cell. It’s something that until recently never needed to be done before, especially not in a time critical situation. But time lost in the pits equates to positions lost in the race, and so it’s been at the forefront of development.

And there’s the practical element too. If it took more than two minutes to complete an average pitstop there’d be uproar amongst WEC teams. Nobody wants to be in the pits for any longer than that, and for the show, there’s a risk of boredom creeping in for casual fans. They want to see cars racing on track, not sat still getting a top up of fuel.

It’s something that GreenGT has been working hard on with its fuel partner Total Energy, but while progress has been made, there’s still very much room for improvement as it is yet to hit its primary goal.

“For Total Energy who is our partner, it's already difficult to get the right pressure because in order to get the right pressure - which should be 700 bars - you need to compress the hydrogen more than 1000 bars,” Ricard explained.

“And the installation you need for that has to be

developed because the one we have at the moment can compress, we get to 420 bars, not yet at 700 which was the goal.

"But in order to get to that point, the installation has to be totally different from the one we have now.

And this is a great, great challenge for, even for a big company like Total Energy.”

Fillon added: “Because when we refuel the tank, you have a big gap in temperature between the beginning of the refuelling and the end of refuelling, because we compresses the gas inside of them. I think it's -40 to -60 degrees, so you have to manage that.”

While the ACO, GreenGT and teams participating in the WEC agree that hydrogen is the future, there is a divide over the type of hydrogen power that should be progressed. As previously mentioned, the ACO and GreenGT are developing hydrogen fuel cells as a way of powering its H24 car. In essence, the hydrogen fuels a battery that delivers electrical power to the car. But manufacturers are pursuing hydrogen power being applied directly to a traditional internal combustion engine.

For manufacturers, an ICE is more in-keeping with the road cars they sell to the general public. It’s more relevant and therefore also a cheaper solution to pursue, bearing in mind standard combustion engines already exist. But while Fillon accepts that, he argues that that method is not as environmentally friendly as a hydrogen fuel cell.

“There is a great interest from the manufacturers about this technology,” said Fillon. “We have a working group with eight manufacturers, big ones in the world, so they are working on that. We had covid, but all of these manufacturers are working on the hydrogen car for the future.

"And the issue now, is there is to work on the technology. We have the fuel cell, and I think you agree with me [Fillon says looking towards Ricard], for me, it's a better one because it's a three zero emission technology. Zero CO2, but zero emission just water, zero NOX. But, you have some manufacturers who are working on the IC with hydrogen. So it's a zero CO2, but you have NOX and it’s not so clean.”

Naturally, Ricard is a huge advocate for hydrogen fuel cells. He wouldn’t be spending so much time, money and energy on developing it otherwise. But he thinks the overall benefits of hydrogen fuel cells completely outweigh the benefits of hydrogen in an internal combustion engine.

“I think both are interesting. Evidently, I'm going to speak about the one I am fighting for, which is the fuel cell. The great advantage of the fuel cell is the yields that you have in terms of energy because it's not only a question of not polluting, it's a question of using the energy available.

"So in order to have the best yields, there is no doubt that fuel cell compared to internal combustion engine using hydrogen. The yields of fuel cells is much,

CRISTOPHE RICARD - GREEN GT PRESIDENT

THE PIT STOP | 47

much better, almost twice.”

The type of hydrogen fuel to use will be an argument that will no doubt last for some time. But regardless of that, Fillon is happy that it is now at the forefront of everyone’s mind as a way of powering cars in the future, and has no doubt that in some way it will trickle down to road cars in the future, just like so many other inventions that have been created with Le Mans 24 Hours initially in mind.

“You know, the DNA of the 24 hours was always to do that,” he said. “And we had a lot of things we were developed in Le Mans.

Like the disk brakes, the lights, a lot of things.

"In ‘12 we introduced the hybrid system remember with Toyota and we gain 50% of fuel consumption.

And now, all our cars are hybrid. And now we want to develop to show that hydrogen is one of the best solutions for road cars."

Of course, as is always the case, the full focus for new technology will be at the front of the field on the prototype LMH cars, and specifically the manufacturers.

That naturally happens due to the cost of developing a new technology. But what about privateers? There’s a risk that they can be left completely in the dark and priced out of being able to afford a hypercar entry.

“No, if you think about hypercar, of course next year, we will have a lot of manufacturers, but we will also have privateers in hypercar,” responded Fillon.

“I know that Porsche and Toyota want to sell cell cars. And now when we work on the regulations, our main concern is the cost and we want to reduce the cost.

"I know between a LMP1 and hypercar we reduced by five[-fold] the costs of the season. The season with LMP1 for manufacturers was a hundred million. For manufacturers now in hypercar it's 25 million for all the championships and 24 Hours of Le Mans. And when we introduce a regulation for hydrogen, we will do the same.

"So we want the manufacturers to spend money about the chassis, or the spine of the car, but also on the fuel cell, on the technology. So I think there is space for privateers in the future.”

Again, as with privateers versus manufacturers, there’s also a risk of GT cars being left behind, but they too are important, arguably more important given the fact they are generally road cars on steroids. At this moment in time, Fillon accepts that hydrogen power is too expensive for the GT categories, but he does have a

"I HOPE IN 2030 AND AFTER THAT IT WILL BE POSSIBLE TO HAVE GT WITH HYDROGEN, HYDROGEN CARS"

target in mind for when hydrogen could be introduced.

“I think it's too expensive for GT at this time, but I hope in 2030 and after that it will be possible to have GT with hydrogen, hydrogen cars,” he said.

One thing that hasn’t been addressed so far is safety. Hydrogen has long been seen as an incredibly dangerous and flammable fuel and that’s likely why it wasn’t initially considered by many as a viable alternative to petrol. When you think of hydrogen, you think of huge fireball explosions, fire and flames. Ricard added that when his team turned up for the first time with the LMP2HG car at Spa it was asked to use the old pitlane, away from everyone else due to the concerns about safety. But both Ricard and Fillon have been at pains to point out that while it is flammable, it’s not any less safe than petrol or even electric vehicles.

“I remember in the beginning, many people were telling me about Hindenburg [airship disaster in the US in 1967]. You know, it stayed in the memory, in the collective memory. Fortunately now, nobody speaks about that and I believe it's due to the fact that we have been showing that it's safe. OK, then some problem might occur one day, somewhere, but we are making everything for it not to occur with us. That's for sure,” Ricard explained.

“But it's the same with fuel,” interjected Fillon. “Fuel is dangerous.”

“And I do believe that the fireman they prefer to extinguish a hydrogen fire than a fuel fire,” added Ricard.

”Because hydrogen fire is just vertical,” said Fillon.

“Yeah, and you just need water to stop the fire.

That's it,” responded Ricard.

And Fillon added that electric tech fires are even harder to put out. ”If you have a fire in a battery, in an electric car you need two or three days to extinguish it,” he said. “The only thing is to put it in the swimming pool and to wait for two days.”

To avoid any safety mishaps Mission H24 has been working with a fire department in France so that everyone can understand exactly what would happen in the event of a fire and have a plan in place to contain it.

And that completely articulates the whole ethos about the Mission H24 project. No stone is being left unturned. Every angle is being thought of and looked into. Of course, there’s still work to be done. With a project like this it will take several years to reach the level of perfection everyone desires.

But even now, in this period, it is proving that hybrid is a viable power source. It could be an even better one than electric. Governments and car manufacturers may quickly come to that realisation as time goes on, but then will come the next argument - which type of hydrogen power should be chosen?

Only time will tell, but one thing is certain. It will all be decided on the racetrack, and it will likely be the race’s victor that will inevitably end up in your car in the future.

THE PIT STOP | 49

IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

FOX MOTORSPORT IN 2022, FOX MOTORSPORT HAS SPENT THE YEAR RACING A MCLAREN 720S GT3 IN BRITISH GT. AND WITH ONE ROUND TO GO, IT'S SIXTH IN THE TEAMS' STANDINGS.

50 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 51

THE

52 | THE PIT STOP

FUTURE

WORDS BY LUKE BARRY IMAGES BY JAKOB EBREY

THE PIT STOP | 53

T

here are some rallies that you simply can't miss. Whether you're a fan wanting to experience the buzz, a competitor striving to have another crack at your favourite stage or if you're me: a journalist keen to see what all the fuss is about. Rali Ceredigion qualified for all three this year, and it will continue to do some for years to come.

Think of Welsh rallying and plenty of images may come to mind. But no matter if it's a Mk2 Escort sliding around, the bark of Colin McRae's Subaru or the sight of Elfyn Evans winning in the World Rally Championship for the first time, I can guarantee the mental image your brain just conjured up was of the forests. Probably a muddy forest at that.

It's a country famed for its iconic gravel roads. Dyfi, Hafren, Sweet Lamb, Dyfnant, Crychan, Penmachno, Myherin, Brening... the list goes on. All absolutely iconic.

All dearly missed from rallying's global tour.

For years, Wales Rally GB relied on financial support from the Welsh government to run - hence the name, Wales Rally GB. But the ever evolving economic landscape has moved the goalposts and another WRC round held in the Welsh, or even British, forests looks about as likely right now as Ferrari nailing its strategy in Formula 1.

However, history is there to be changed. Ask your children, your nieces, your nephews in a generation's time to picture Welsh rallying, and what will they see?

OSIAN PRYCE WON THE EVENT

Quite probably, a hunkered-down car flying through the Welsh moorlands - on Tarmac.

A few years ago, legislation in the UK changed.

The Road Traffic Act was able to be suspended by rally organising teams to enable them to close public roads in order to stage an event. Previously, the Jim Clark Rally in the south of Scotland had been the only closed-road rally held on public roads on the mainland, and that required its very own bespoke Act of Parliament.

Now, the process is far, far simpler, and the team behind Rali Ceredigion spied an opportunity. Led by fellow professional co-drivers Phil Pugh and Andrew Edwards (who have both sat with Elfyn Evans in their careers) as well as former driver Charlie Jukes among others, a meeting was arranged in the pub and the ideas - and inevitably, drinks - began to flow.

But this was no regrettable beer-fuelled plan. The team was onto a winner, and in the space of 12 months, Rali Ceredigion was born and delivered. Wales' first ever closed public road rally was here.

And that's not just an important statement in the context of it being abnormal for Wales - which prior to Rali Ceredigion had only ever been the scene of Tarmac rallies up on the Epynt military ranges. It's the direction the entire of UK rallying is potentially destined to head, as costs to hire and environmental pressures in using forestry land from the Forestry Commission are only increasing with time.

Rali Ceredigion unequivocally proved that that's no

bad thing. First time round, the event certainly made an impact. The four stages (repeated in the afternoon) drew considerable praise from competitors, and an epic tussle developed between three of Wales' best national talents. In the end, after winning stage one Meirion Evans spun off into a lake on stage two and paved the way clear for Osian Pryce - battling with a shoulder injury on his first rally in six months - to edge fellow Hyundai i20 R5 driver Tom Cave to victory.

Two painful years went by with no event as COVID-19 saw about thwarting those plans, and as the anticipation lingered the expectation for the event to usurp what had gone before mounted. But 2022 hit the mark, and then some. The rally literally doubled in length, up from 44 miles to 87 across 12 stages instead of eight. It became a two-day affair with four tests on the Saturday evening, and welcomed four major championships for the first time - including the British Rally Championship, the UK's national Tarmac series and a burgeoning European series: Tour European Rally.

TER brought Hayden Paddon over, which undoubtedly added edge to the battle as he took

on the best of Britain - and ultimately got the job done. Pryce kept him honest, but wrestled with the temptation to defend his Rali Ceredigion honour and beat a WRC winner before ultimately electing to play it safe and bank maximum British championship points with main rival, Keith Cronin, out on his roof in the darkness of Saturday night.

What did Paddon make of it? "I’ve really loved this event," he said in front of a busy crowd on Aberystwyth seafront. "I can honestly say that it’s one of the best rallies of its kind anywhere in the world. The stages are awesome and the atmosphere has been great, especially for the two runs through the town on Saturday night."

Pryce's words were similarly well crafted, and similarly enthused: "If I’m going to lose it to anyone then I’m happy it’s Hayden," he said. "It’s been great to compete alongside him this weekend. The organisers have really stepped-up the event this year. They’ve done a great job all round. Long may it continue and I’m sure that in the future this event will become one of those legendary must-do rallies on the calendar.”

THE PIT STOP | 55

ELLIOT PAYNE TACKLING THE NIGHT STAGE

Big words, and hard to argue against - at least from where I was standing. I wasn't kind enough to myself and didn't take in the stages for myself via a recce, but I saw snippets of them. I've watched the onboards. They are absolutely stunning - and phenomenally demanding too.

That's box one ticked. Then there was the atmosphere.

I've seen my fair share of town stages, and a lot of them are a bit dull. But the Aberystwyth stage was bouncing. OK the route itself wasn't one that got the drivers' jaws dropping, but the town absolutely turned out for the occasion which is what it is ultimately all about.

But beyond all of that, it's the way Rali Ceredigion

was presented - and the ambitious attitude of the team behind it - that made it so compelling. It's an important distinction to make: this wasn't just a rally, it was an event. A voyage across the Irish Sea earlier in the summer for the Donegal International Rally really hammered the point home to me that UK rallying has a real problem in terms of promotion.

You had to know the rally was on to know the rally was on.

But Rali Ceredigion did things differently. A lot of time, effort and expense was poured into making sure this rally captured the heart of the local (and wider) community. Environmental schemes were at its core - dedicated recycling zones,

IT'S THE WAY RALI CEREDIGION WAS PRESENTED - AND THE AMBITIOUS ATTITUDE OF THE TEAM BEHIND IT THAT MADE IT SO COMPELLING

58 | THE PIT STOP

park and ride services to reduce carbon footprint, a real onus on saving paper - and commercial enterprises were everywhere you looked, with big advertising arches in the stages akin to those you'd find in the world championship and dedicated media zones for the press and film crews to get the time they needed with the competitors.

Rali Ceredigion went where no other national rally in the UK has ever gone, and that has to be applauded, respected and embraced. This is a rally that doesn't just want to exist, it wants to break new ground and form a new blueprint for how things should be done. Rallying is in a fairly weak state in the UK at the moment, but Rali Ceredigion was a timely reminder that things don't have to be this way.

"I think the biggest downfall in British rallying at

the moment and why a lot of events have been lost is because, to me, a rally is a business. It's commercial.

So you need a commercial manager," said Phil Pugh, chairman of the Rali Ceredigion organising committee.

"Charlie Jukes - he's done an absolutely fantastic job of bringing the event forward like that you know.

"And other events maybe have stagnated because, I don't want to say it's old school but they haven't thought of the commercial side so much and that's when they'll struggle. Maybe when people look at our books - because it'll all be online because we're limited - they'll think 'Jesus Christ they spent a lot of money.'

But we may have made a bit of money as well, whereas if you go and ask many events, they don't make money.

It's a balance that way, but it is a business. 200% it is a business and you've got to face the fact that that's

THE PIT STOP | 59

how it is."

The governing body - Motorsport UK - was suitably impressed too: "I think it’s a brilliant event. It has a really fresh approach – the close collaboration with Aberystwyth town council and with Ceredigion county council and all the local communities is an exemplar of how that works," said Motorsport UK CEO Hugh Chambers.

"I think it was also a very lean operation and was paving the way for the future in terms of its sustainability credentials, and I think that’s absolutely

60 | THE PIT STOP

crucial. I think we all hope it will get into the ERC and obviously there’s bigger questions around that just in terms of the bids that come from all sorts of other countries, but certainly we’re really supportive of it and it’ll be great if it can grow into a bigger event."

The European Rally Championship is on the radar of the organisers too, but what happens next remains to be seen. There's understandable caution that the event doesn't want to run before it can walk, and very pragmatic realism that the economic climate is sliding and therefore attracting new partners to make the

RALI CEREDIGION HAS A UNIQUE LANDSCAPE BACKDROPPING THE STAGES

ERC possible would be a big ask, as would expecting competitors to cough up more for their chance to compete.

But Rali Ceredigion is already at the required standard. There were some quiet concerns that the rally wasn't too competitor friendly with its commercial nucleus, but Pugh openly admitted there's plenty that can be improved. But the 2022 rally really did not feel like the second edition of the event - and that's the biggest compliment you can pay any organising team.

I personally can't wait to see where this event goes,

but more than that, I'm just absolutely delighted that there's an organising team that's so determined to break the mould, not follow the crowd and grab the bull by the horns in an effort to inject some enthusiasm and some relevance into UK rallying again.

Tarmac's far better than gravel rallying anyway if you ask me, so I'd take an Aberystwyth closed road edition of Wales Rally GB any day of the week...

THE PIT STOP | 61

IMAGE BY GRAND PRIX PHOTO

FLYING START EVERY DRIVER WANTS A FLYING START, BUT NOT IN THE WAY RALF SCHUMACHER EXPERIENCED IN THE 2002 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX.

62 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 63

OLD

INDEPE 64 | THE PIT STOP

SCHOOL

NDENCE WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD / PAUL DAVIDSON IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO THE PIT STOP | 65

M

otorsport has come across as an incredibly masculine discipline. There’s no doubt about it. It’s exactly why it’s been a male dominated sport for so many years. Usually, masculinity is associated with a lack of emotion, for emotion can be a sign of weakness.

But hidden beneath many of the concrete shells are romanticists at heart.

People involved in the industry can deny it as much as they like, but it’s true. Romance and motorsport go hand in hand. There are not many other sports where people have so much love for the tools being used, both in the past but also the present. And Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus’ founder, Jim Glickenhaus is one of the

JIM GLICKENHAUS IS HUGELY ROMANTIC WHEN IT COMES TO MOTORSPORT

66 | THE PIT STOP

biggest romantics of all.

Glickenhaus is a team that shouldn’t exactly belong on a racing grid in this day and age if you really think about it. It’s a team that should have existed in the past, and in some respects has no right being a World Endurance Championship frontrunner today. And that’s what makes its achievement even more remarkable.

The Italian-American team burst on to the top-level international scene in 2021, when it made its WEC debut in Portugal for the 8 Hours of Portimao, and it immediately made an impact. The bright red 007 LMH evoked Ferraris of old, lacking an abundance of sponsorship stickers, while Jim Glickenhaus also set himself apart, entering the paddock in his trademark cowboy hat and shirt.

The result on that weekend didn’t really matter. The

car was never going to be a race winner out of the box, but it was the statement the team made that hit home more than ever. In a paddock where the top class was exclusively highly successful manufacturers, attacking it with the utmost professionalism, to the point where personalities were being extinguished, in walks a privateer ready to do things its way, the old way.

Glickenhaus isn’t a man with vast experience operating a racing team. He started out as a film producer in Hollywood before transitioning to the world of motorsport, but he always had a love of cars, collecting a variety of different machines over the years.

“I was always someone who loved cars, loved how they work, love mechanical objects,” Glickenhaus explained to The Pit Stop just prior to the 2022 Le Mans 24 Hours. “I rode my bike to Mr Chinetti’s Ferrari

dealership when I was very young and peered in the window and met him and learned a lot from him. And as I began directing movies and making money, I would take half the money, give it to my dad to invest in Wall Street and then the rest I’d buy a car with. So that’s how I sort of started my collection.

“And I always loved Ferraris because they were very beautiful. But I also was very impressed with Ford and their efforts at Le Mans and I brought a very famous Ford Mk4 that finished fourth at Le Mans.”

When Glickenhaus embarked on his project to build cars, he got into racing after being approached by legendary designer Pininfarina. It asked him to build a one-off car, and he did. And then he set about racing it at the Nurburgring.

But racing at the Nordschleife wasn’t enough. The Le Mans 24 Hours had always been Glickenhaus’ favourite race, and so he decided to embark on a dream to take a car bearing his name to the most famous endurance race of all time.

Taking a team to that level is no easy feat. It requires a huge effort both personally and financially, especially when you are running as a privateer. But Glickenhaus was keen to experience the same feelings and emotions that those before him had.

“I think you really walk in the footsteps of others, we all do,” he said. "And I walk in the footsteps of Briggs Cunningham, of Jim Hall, of Caroll Shelby, of Steve McQueen, of Jean Rondeau and Henri Pescarolo.

Absolutely, so I think the history is important. And you know, I love looking at race cars after a race and I love the guys and women who stood in the rain and mud and just watching a car of yours go by with your name on it. It’s just an amazing experience.”

Naturally for Glickenhaus, being a huge fan of Ferrari and with Italian heritage running through his veins, Enzo Ferrari is a huge source of inspiration. He might not say it outright, but it’s very clear that he is trying to emulate what il Commendatore achieved 50 years ago.

Glickenhaus’ ethos has always been that he races to sell cars. It’s the same mantra that Mr Ferrari also lived by. It’s the only reason why Glickenhaus has consistently tackled races at the Nurburgring and why it sends its buggies to the Baja events. But while those events are good for selling cars, Glickenhaus does admit that racing at Le Mans is more of a passion project than a money making endeavour.

“I believe that we sell our 004s because we race at the Nurburgring. I believe that we sell our Boots because we race at Baja. I will be very honest with you, going to Le Mans in the WEC was always a dream of mine, but it makes zero financial sense for our small company. Look, it’s great for branding, it’s great for publicity, but would I sell one fewer car? No. “I’m capacity constrained, I’m not demand constrained. And I never want to be a... I mean I take my hats off to Ferrari making 12,000, selling 12,000 cars here. I never wanted to. I want to be a small little

THE PIT STOP | 67

company, with small groups of people, hand building cars. Frankly, what Ferrari used to be many years ago.

“So, you know, it’s very hard for me to justify the cars to race in Le Mans in the WEC. My shareholders, rightfully so, say ‘Jim, you know, how can you spend this money on this indefinitely?’ I’m not going to.

However, will we get some other teams that want to race one of our cars? That could happen. Will we get some sponsors? It could happen, but sponsorship is very difficult because they look at it and they're all cutting back trying to figure out. But, having said that, you know, is there a tradition of privateers racing at Le Mans? There is.”

Despite having a tough debut at Portimao last year, Glickenhaus went on to field two cars at the Le Mans 24 Hours, finishing fourth and fifth. And in 2022 it managed to perform even better, crossing the line at the end of the 24 Hours third and fourth.

But while he’s getting two cars to Le Mans and finishing in strong positions, it’s not been straightforward for Glickenhaus.

At the end of 2021, the team suggested it was only going to compete in a partial season of the WEC, but the championship organisers were quick to come out and state that it would only be allowed to participate in the championship if it had an entry in every single race of the season.

In the end, Glickenhaus complied, agreeing to field

68 | THE PIT STOP

one car in every round, while having two cars at Le Mans.

But this is where being a privateer can hold you back. As Glickenhaus alluded to, his team lacks sponsorship, and it doesn’t have a huge pit of money to play with. So very real questions remain as to whether it will be back at Le Mans for 2023.

“If the WEC, with the ACO - who I think want to work with us - were to work with us on some basis and make a programme we could afford, we would come back and I remain hopeful that we will,” Glickenhaus explained. “And we are currently attempting to raise some money from private investors to expand our factory, to keep racing and to develop our hydrogen fuel cell pick-up trucks. And that could be a bigger business and then the branding at Le Mans might mean something. So I don’t know where this is going to go.”

A statement like that certainly gives the impression that it’s unlikely the scarlet red Glickenhaus cars will be absent from the WEC next year, and the 72-year-old was quick to correct a suggestion that 2022 might be his cars' last year on the grid.

“No,I’m not saying that. I’m saying it’s possible it is, but I hope it’s not. And I plan for it not to be. But, you know, I also just have to be honest with everyone.

When it was just me, I could do what I want until I ran out of money, which I haven’t yet,” Glickenhaus says with a chuckle. “But, you know, now that I have

employees, and I have shareholders it’s a different thing.

“I mean, my company is going to be very profitable, but it’s not profitable enough to take €15million a year and throw it in the river to go racing in the WEC. “I will race indefinitely at the Nurburgring and the Baja, because it’s a fantastic thing. And listen, I love the WEC and I want to be part of it and I want to be part of Le Mans, but the next two weeks will be very important in determining where that goes.

We will go to Monza and we will stay on track, but we’ll see.”

Glickenhaus did indeed go to Monza, but failed to finish the race after its turbocharger blew up on lap 96. However, when it was time for the 6 Hours of Fuji, Glickenhaus failed to show, citing financial reasons prevented it from making the journey to race in Japan.

As it stands, there’s also still no word as to whether it compete in the championship in 2023, or if the ACO

has given it any concessions over what races it can enter.

Glickenhaus isn’t a man who’s afraid in coming forward, he’s old school like that, which you may have already guessed. He says what’s on his mind and he has no issue bringing others to task, including the race organisers and governing bodies.

He knows what the likely answer will be, but he’s still pursuing a partial WEC season for 2023, citing that it’s the most practical way for him to be able to continue participating, since he doesn’t have the same levels of cash in the bank as the likes of Toyota.

And in true Glickenhaus form, he would like to pick and choose the races he attends, notably ones where he’s likely to at least stand a chance of selling road cars.

“I think that that the powers that be have to look at that and decide: do they want to find a way for me to come? I mean, for example, I could race Sebring and

"MY COMPANY IS GOING TO BE VERY PROFITABLE, BUT IT'S NOT PROFITABLE ENOUGH TO TAKE €15MILLION A YEAR"

GLICKENHAUS IS PURSUING A PARTIAL SEASON FOR 2023

THE PIT STOP | 69

70 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 71

72 | THE PIT STOP

Le Mans. But, you know, there are some places that I don’t sell cars. I don’t know that I will make ever make enough cars to sell in those markets. So I’m just trying to figure it out.

“Look, if another team came in, that would change the situation. If we raise some money and really try to become a bigger company, that could change the situation. And I’m worried about Sunday, you know, where we are on Sunday, where I am a year from now.

You know, a lot of strange things have happened recently in the world, with the pandemic, Ukraine and the economy and the destruction of crypto, which may have been a long time coming frankly.

“I don’t know, you know, there are so many corporate guides. I remember there’s a movie in the museum area you can see of Henry Ford where after ’66 they asked him ‘well, will you be back Mr Ford?’ And he said, ‘I hope so’. And that’s frankly what I’m saying.

I’m not saying I won’t be, but I’m not guaranteeing that I will be. There are bigger forces that I have to deal with.

Do I want to be? Absolutely. Will I try to be? Yes I will.”

But while finances no doubt play a large part in Glickenhaus’ decision making as to whether he will keep the team racing in the WEC beyond 2022, there’s also the fact that hydrogen power is being introduced to the championship. Overall, the introduction of hydrogen power has been a great move for the WEC, since it has attracted the likes of Porsche, Peugeot, Ferrari and even BMW back to top tier endurance racing to compete alongside Glickenhaus, Alpine and Toyota.

A totally new power unit could completely change things for Glickenhaus. It would need to develop a whole new engine from scratch to comply with the LMDH regulations, and although it does have experience creating hydrogen powered cars, the budgets required for an endurance car will be extremely significant. But putting that to one side for a second, Glickenhaus himself doesn’t think that the series is quite ready for hydrogen's introduction.

“Here’s the thing: I think we have to be more sustainable, I think we have to realise this is a changing world,” Glickenhaus said when asked if he believes hydrogen power is the future of motorsport. “I think that in the future of transportation, electric will play a big part, but I also think hydrogen will play a big part.

“I think hydrogen is a much better solution for larger vehicles, large maritime ships, aircraft, big trucks. Our starting off in something like our Boot and our hydrogen pick-up truck, I think is the proper size vehicle.

“To be very honest with you, I am not sure that a hydrogen fuel cell endurance race car is the answer today. We are beginning with liquid hydrogen fuelling ICE engines and there will be almost zero emissions and our goal is to be the first people to run a zero emissions Baja 1000 with a vehicle and a zero emissions 24 Hours of Nurburgring.

“In 2024, the WEC is going to move to allow GT3 cars and we would be prepared to have a GT3 zero emissions hydrogen vehicle. That will not be a fuel cell vehicle, that will be an ICE vehicle. We are making

JIM GLICKENHAUS AT THE 2022 LE MANS 24 HOURS

THE PIT STOP | 73

74 | THE PIT STOP

a hydrogen fuel cell pick-up truck, so look, I admire anyone who tries. I admire them, I wish them the best of luck, I hope it works. Do I think that it is viable today?

No. Do I think it’s viable in 2025? I don’t know.

"But in the future, the question is this: The good thing about liquid hydrogen ICE is it sounds cool still, you get the rush. The other problem with hydrogen fuel cell is refuelling times, which is very serious, versus hydrogen liquid ICE which you can refuel in 15 seconds at Le Mans.

“The other thing is that the systems that might make it quick for endurance, like swappable tanks, add a lot of weight and complexity. I think it could work in some solutions for giant fleets and things like that in remote places. But I personally feel that the chances of that vehicle there, running at the speeds of Toyota and and others in hypercar, is not there.”

The switch to hydrogen will be a major point in Glickenhaus’ decision making process when it makes the final call as to whether to continue to pursue a WEC programme. But that’s the future. Right now, it is still there, forcing through an impressive blast of fresh air.

He may be outspoken and at times brash, but Glickenhaus is a huge character that does change the face of the WEC. He brings an old school gung-ho mentality that’s not been seen since the late 1970s. And it’s not like the team is anything like Hesketh when it made its debut in Formula 1.

Hesketh wasn’t competitive when it started out, but Glickenhaus is. It is now fighting at the very front, against a giant like Toyota no less. Of course, Balance of Performance regulations help remove some of the deficit, but regardless of that, it still requires a strong car to be able to fight for wins and podiums.

There can often be a sense that Jim Glickenhaus is an outsider, since he’s come from the world of Hollywood, and not spent his entire life devoted to racing. But to discount him on that point would not only be disrespectful, it would also be naive.

Yes, he might do things in his own way, but if it works, what’s the problem?

The fact is, he provides spice, colour and an ethos that brings the championship atmosphere to life in a way it hasn’t had for well over a decade. It might not be an orthodox way of racing, but it is one that will attract the purists, given the sense of nostalgia and romance, harking back to the days of Ferrari taking on the world with Mr Ferrari himself at the helm.

And rather than criticising how different the team is from everyone else, the fact that it’s doing it in the original route - the privateer route in the most archaic of fashions, at the very top level of endurance racing no less - is exactly why it should be celebrated and embraced completely, especially since it might not be around forever.

THE PIT STOP | 75

IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

CLASSIC THE SILVERSTONE CLASSIC IS THE PERFECT EVENT FOR ANYONE WANTING TO INDULGE IN NOSTALGIA. AND IN 2022, THERE WERE PLENTY OF F1 CARS TO JOIN IN ON THE ACTION

76 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 77

MANSELL'S

AFTER YEAR'S OF NEAR MISSES, NIGEL MANSELL FINALLY SECURED HIS FIRST F1 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE IN 1992

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO / GRAND PRIX PHOTO 78 | THE PIT STOP

SEASON

THE PIT STOP | 79

L

uck was never a phrase associated with Nigel Mansell during his Formula 1 career.

There were several times he came close to winning a world championship, but - until 1992 - he could never quite see it through, with disaster seeming to strike at the worst possible moment.

By the end of 1991 he had finished runner-up in the championship on three separate occasions and some began to question whether it would ever happen for him.

However, 30 years ago he set that straight, when he refused to let luck have a say in the matter by dominating the 1992 season.

1991 had been something of a false dawn for Mansell and Williams. Both parties expected the Williams FW14 to be quick out of the blocks but it took some time before things began to click. When they did, Mansell couldn't do quite enough to prevent McLaren's Ayrton Senna from taking the glory.

But 1992 was a different ball game altogether. With an updated version of the FW14 - the FW14B - Williams arrived at the opening round of the season in South Africa with a monster.

The FW14B may have retained the overall look of its predecessor, with similar bodywork and retaining the famous blue, white and yellow livery, but underneath it was definitely improved and refined.

Featuring semi-automatic transmission, traction control and active suspension, all now working seamlessly together, Williams had a car that was a clear step ahead of its rivals.

Some of the technology had been introduced in 1991, but the team couldn’t optimise it. It struggled to get everything to work together cohesively, but ahead of the following season it cracked the case and it showed immediately on the championship’s first weekend in South Africa.

Mansell was the quickest driver all weekend at Kyalami and took pole position, but not by a small margin. He was seven tenths of second faster than Senna's McLaren over the single lap, spearing fear into his rivals immediately. His lap almost defied belief.

How could he be that much faster over the reigning champion? As it turned out, that margin would soon look fairly small.

Questions were immediately asked as to whether that single lap pace was a one-off. Could that level of speed be maintained over the course of a full race distance?

To the disappointment of William’s rivals, it turned out that the FW14B could do just that. It was reliable and could cope with being pushed at a blisteringly fast pace lap after lap.

The South African Grand Prix was a very straightforward race for Mansell. The only real job he had to do was get the start right, which he did. From there he disappeared from his rivals, dominating the race entirely and he eventually crossed the finish line

80 | THE PIT STOP

72 laps later 24.360 seconds ahead of his team-mate Riccardo Patrese in second.

The first blow had been dealt. Senna, who had looked before the season as though he’d be Mansell’s closest challenger, had been blown away entirely. He ended up over a half a minute behind Mansell at the end of the race and simply had no answer for his rival’s speed.

Three weeks passed before racing got underway again because the United States Grand Prix in Phoenix was cancelled. But the results were no different when competition restarted at the second round in Mexico.

Williams was fastest of all in qualifying, with Mansell and Patrese both occupying the front row. Michael Schumacher was the fastest non-Williams car, but his Benetton was nine tenths slower than Mansell, while Senna was stuck down in sixth, nearly 2.5 seconds off the pace.

As the lights went out for the start Mansell made a clean break to get himself into the lead and controlled the race from there. With Patrese already in second from the outset, Mansell’s victory didn’t appear as dominant as it was at Kyalami, but he still beat his team-mate by 12.9s.

It was clear very early on that Mansell felt more comfortable and at one with the FW14B than Patrese.

The car was faster than any other on the grid, and while Patrese was still at the front of the action, he couldn’t quite extract as much performance out of the car as his team-mate. It meant Mansell took himself to a new level. There aren’t many drivers who can be that much faster than their team-mate over a single lap, let alone a full race distance, but Mansell could. And what made the feat even more impressive was the fact that Patrese wasn’t exactly a slouch.

In previous years he had been fairly on par with Mansell in terms of pace, often only being a tenth or two slower and having the edge for some of 1991.

But in the FW14B things were different. In the early races especially, Patrese just couldn’t unlock the full potential of the car and it made him look almost inadequate in comparison to his team-mate when that wasn’t exactly the case.

Next time out, racing took place on Senna’s home soil and this time he was prepared to do everything he could to prevent Mansell from claiming a third straight pole position. But unfortunately for him, he couldn’t pull it off.

In the first qualifying session Mansell set an eyebulging laptime to go fastest, with a best effort of 1m15.703s. Nobody could even get close to that time.

Once again, Patrese was the second fastest driver in that session but even he couldn’t break the 1m17s barrier, let alone the 1m16s one.

During the second qualifying session, Mansell’s rivals began to find some pace, but it wasn’t enough. They were still a long way behind Mansell’s benchmark and in frustration Senna forced Mansell into an accident.

While both cars were on track setting flying laps,

THE PIT STOP | 81

Mansell cruised up the rear of Senna’s McLaren. As the pair headed into Turn 11, Mansell took the outside line, planning to run up alongside Senna, but Senna immediately pulled to the left, closing the door. Mansell took evasive action, but it resulted in him spinning off the track on the outside of the corner, preventing him from continuing in the session.

The off didn’t prevent Mansell from claiming pole position, and this time it was his most dominant qualifying performance of the year to date. He ended up 1.191s faster than Paterese and a whopping 2.199s faster than Senna who qualified third.

With the form Mansell was in, and after his performance in qualifying, there was a natural expectation that he would once again cruise to a lights-to-flag victory. But this time, it wasn’t so straightforward. Mansell blundered the start, allowing Patrese through, but he still managed to hang on to second as the cars dived down into the descending lefthanded Turn 1.

From there both Mansell and Patrese scampered clear of the field, and midway through the race he managed to get the leap on Patrese during the pitstop phase, taking advantage of a clear road while Patrese was held up in traffic, to reclaim the lead. And once there, Patrese couldn’t keep up.

Mansell went on to easily secure his third straight win of the season in as many races, having put a buffer

82 | THE PIT STOP

of 29.330s between him and Patrese by the end of the race.

As everyone headed to Spain for the fourth round, Mansell already had a 12 point advantage over Patrese in the drivers' championship and that only extended further after he secured victory once again at Barcelona.

It was becoming something of a habit. Mansell on pole followed by a Mansell victory. Not even the damp conditions of Barcelona on race day could slow the Williams down, proving how versatile the FW14B was.

But while Mansell revelled, Patrese was still not at one with his car, spinning out of the race on lap 19 and gifting another huge haul of points to his championship rival.

San Marino was the same again. Pole position followed by a lights to flag victory, but for the first time that year, things didn’t go Mansell’s way in Monaco, in what featured one of the most memorable battles in F1 history.

Monaco was always a bogey track for Mansell.

He never fully flourished around the streets of the Principality, but 1992 looked set to be his best opportunity to date. As was becoming the normality of the season, Mansell qualified on pole, getting his weekend off to the perfect start, and it still wasn’t by a small margin. He was eight tenths faster than Patrese’s best effort in second and 1.1s faster than Senna in third.

NAKAJIMA AT THE 1987 MONACO GRAND PRIX THE PIT STOP | 83

84 | THE PIT STOP

MANSELL WON THE FIRST FIVE RACES OF THE 1992 SEASON

THE PIT STOP | 85

THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS TITLE WIN WAS CELEBRATED AT THE 2022 GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED

Speaking after qualifying, Mansell couldn’t believe that he’d finally managed to grab a pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix. “I actually got a clear lap, a totally clear lap and I just hung it out everywhere,” he said. “And I put it all together and it popped up 19.4. I mean what can I say, except I’m elated."

With overtaking opportunities so limited, a strong qualifying performance was paramount. It was a race that Mansell had so desperately wanted to win, and now it was within his grasp.

When the race got underway, Mansell got a clear run into Sainte Devote and immediately put a gap between himself and the rest of the field. Patrese had a slow start from second, allowing Senna to move ahead going into the opening corner, but as the McLaren left the exit of the corner, the Williams of Mansell in front was already well clear.

Mansell quickly increased the gap, building it up to over half a minute against Senna. He looked destined to claim his first Monaco victory. It was all so close within his grasp but on lap 71 of 78 he had to dive for the pits.

He felt there was something not quite right with the left rear of the car and assuming it was a puncture he decided to make a pitstop to avoid the tyre exploding

88 | THE PIT STOP

completely. It was a slow stop. It took a while to get the tyres changed with the brakes out of balance and as Mansell emerged from the pitlane, Senna was already halfway up Beau Rivage having now assumed the lead of the race.

On fresher tyres, Mansell quickly reduced the seven second gap to Senna and it wasn’t long before he was hot on the McLaren’s heels. And with three laps remaining, one of the greatest battles unravelled.

Mansell dived this way and that, trying to hustle his way past the McLaren, but Senna wasn’t having any of it. All of a sudden, his McLaren became the widest car on the track, with perfect placement preventing the championship leader from finding a way through.

Mansell tried to force Senna into a mistake, moving from one side to the other going through the Swimming Pool section, while also attempting a wider line into Rascasse, but to no avail.

Senna did enough to hold the Williams at bay and crossed the line to win his first race of the season by a mere two tenths of a second.

Getting out of the car, Mansell was exhausted. He had given it absolutely everything to try to overhaul Senna in those final three laps, and upon exiting the car he struggled to stand. He had to be held as he

waited to go to the podium, completely drained after his biggest effort in a grand prix.

The following race took place on the other side of the Atlantic, in Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix, and with its high speed nature it was expected that Williams would once again romp home to victory. But in what turned out to be an even bigger surprise than the Monaco result, that wasn’t the case at all.

Reliability issues plagued Mansell for much of the weekend. A sticking suspension thwarted his practice on Friday and then engine issues, a lack of grip combined with coming across backmarkers in qualifying prevented him from showing his true pace.

In the end, Mansell could only muster the third fastest time, while Senna claimed his first pole position of the season. Patrese was second, but fewer than two tenths separated all three drivers.

As the race got underway Senna took the lead with Patrese and Mansell in hot pursuit. Knowing that it was difficult to pass around Montreal and that it could pay dividends later on, Patrese allowed Mansell to pass, and immediately Mansell chased after Senna’s McLaren.

Mansell quickly closed the gap to Senna, proving that the FW14B was still the superior car, but the Williams driver couldn’t remain patient. He was

desperate to pass Senna, so much so that on lap 14 he lunged down the inside of Senna into the final chicane when the move wasn’t really on.

It quickly became clear that Mansell wasn’t going to make the apex, but he kept his foot firmly on the throttle, sending all four wheels onto the kerb and into the sandtrap. The momentum helped him avoid getting stuck in the gravel, but the trip through it caused him to lose his front wing. As he returned to the track he immediately spun, leaving his car stranded on the start/ finish straight.

Rather than get his car pointing the right way and making his way round to the pits for a new wing, Mansell sat on the straight in the hope the race would be red flagged. But the stoppage never came.

A lap later he emerged from the car and with the red mist having well and truly descended, he quickly searched for somebody to blame. First on that list was Peter Warr, the race steward at FISA. Warr had no intention of sanctioning anyone and so Mansell then took aim at Ron Dennis. Once again, there was nothing to gain and Mansell quickly vacated the circuit altogether, frustrated by the loss of another potential victory.

In hindsight, a calmer and more patient approach may have played to Mansell’s benefit. But calm and

MANSELL SAT ON THE STRAIGHT IN THE HOPE THE RACE WOULD BE RED FLAGGED. BUT THE STOPPAGE NEVER CAME.

THE PIT STOP | 89

HIS FIRST TIME WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR POLE, BUT HIS SECOND ATTEMPT PUT HIM IN A WHOLE NEW CATEGORY patient didn’t exist in Mansell’s dictionary. He was flat out, 100% of the time, a determined and gritty fighter with an all or nothing approach.

There was some consolation for Mansell in that Senna also failed to win the race. He retired with an electrical issue on lap 37, while Patrese also retired with a gearbox problem on lap 43. In the end, it was Gerhard Berger who emerged as the victor in the other McLaren.

But after two races on the trot where Mansell had failed to win, normal service was resumed in France, where he obliterated the field. However, it was the following race at Silverstone that proved to be one of his best performances that year, primarily his qualifying lap.

Mansell was a different driver on home soil. He fed off the home support. It elevated him and his driving to a new level, and that season it really showed.

His first effort put him in the 1m19s bracket, but he decided to go again, ending up setting a time of 1m18.965s. His first time would have been good enough for pole, but his second attempt put him in a whole new category.

Patrese was second fastest, but he was a massive 1.919s slower than his team-mate, while third placed Senna was 2.741s off the benchmark time.

90 | THE PIT STOP

“I was in two minds whether to go out and try and even beat my time at 19.1s or 19.2s,” said Mansell after the session. “But I felt I’d give it another go. There’s so many people that’s come here today, I think it would be a shame if I just sat in the pits. So to get in the 18s, for me I’ll say for myself, it was sensational.”

Sensational it was. He’d made the rest of the field look like they were competing in a completely different formula and race day was no different.

A botched start allowed Patrese to take the lead of the race on the opening lap, but Mansell soon found a way back past his team-mate and went on to take a commanding victory, winning the race by 39s. It was Mansell’s fifth race win of the season and he left Britain with a monumental 36 point advantage in the championship over Patrese.

Mansell took his sixth win at the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, doing enough to hold Senna at bay and knocking his McLaren rival out of championship contention in the process. That win put him in prime position to clinch his first world championship and he had the chance to sew it all up at the next race in Hungary, despite the fact there were still another five races to go after that event.

The pressure was now on for Mansell. He’d come all so close in the past, but now the fate was in his hands.

THE PIT STOP | 91

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

92 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 93

He was in control. Unlike previous seasons, his FW14B was reliable and fast. It could cope with the demands he was placing on it for full race distances.

But knowing how close he was to securing his title, his speed was hampered. Not to the point of being uncompetitive, he still qualified second for the race, but it was clear he wasn’t taking any risks.

It was Patrese who claimed pole position. Not a total disaster but not ideal. In order to secure the championship Mansell needed to either win the race, or finish third so long as Patrese failed to score a point.

Anything less than that and the title battle would go on.

And when the race started, things became even harder. Uncharacteristically, Mansell got too much wheelspin when pulling away, while Berger and Senna had stronger starts behind. It meant that as the field trailed into the opening corner Mansell was down in fourth while Patrese retained the lead.

However, Mansell wasn’t down and out. He wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip him by and on the eighth lap he had a better run out of the final corner than Berger and made a move to claim third position.

It wasn’t long before he was once again hot on the tail of Senna, but Senna put up a much tougher battle

94 | THE PIT STOP

than his team-mate. He managed to keep Mansell at bay and then lucked in with some assistance from backmarker Pierlugi Martini. Senna quickly made his way past Martini, but Mansell found himself stuck behind the Dallara-Ferrari, losing valuable time on his rivals.

However, luck soon turned back in Mansell’s favour when Patrese spun out of the lead. He was too eager on the throttle, losing the rear of his car and dropping his rear wheels into the gravel. He did manage to return to the track and continued, but by the time he was facing the right way he was down in seventh.

All of a sudden Mansell was in a dream position.

So long as Patrese didn’t climb back into the points, second was enough to secure the title. Things got even sweeter when Patrese subsequently retired with an engine failure, but a few laps later the tables turned once again.

Mansell picked up a suspected puncture and dived into the pits for a fresh set of tyres. Even though Patrese was out of the race, he still needed a podium result.

Emerging from the pits, Mansell found himself on the fringes of the points in sixth position. He was a long way off the podium position he needed. It felt like it was too tall an order to carve his way back through the

order.

But Mansell being Mansell, the fight wasn’t over.

There was no way that he was ready to relinquish the title there and then. Rather than settling for a points finish, he got his head down, determined to get a podium result.

Two laps later he inherited fifth after Schumacher dramatically lost his rear wing, causing him to retire immediately, and on lap 66 he passed Mika Hakkinen's Lotus for fourth position. Martin Brundle was only a second down the road and a lap later he passed the Bennetton to move up into third, a result that would safely secure him the title. However, Mansell wasn’t done yet. Berger wasn’t that far ahead and a lap later Mansell passed him for second down into the first corner.

Senna was too far ahead to catch, but it didn’t matter. Mansell crossed the line in second and secured himself his first F1 drivers' championship. Finally, at the fourth time he'd been in title contention, he had won the title he so desperately wanted, and naturally it was an emotional affair for him after the race.

“Being a driver for almost 30 years and being second twice to Ayrton and once to Alain [Prost], you think that you’re never going to crack it,” Mansell said

in the press conference after the race.

“And I think that race was interesting to say the least wasn’t it? So I don’t think I’ll take it in for a little while, so if you speak to the others I’ll sit here quietly for a minute.”

It was a huge feat, not only for Mansell, but also for British motorsport. He was the first British driver to win the championship since James Hunt in 1976, bringing a 16-year winless drought to an end for Great Britain.

The pressure had been on Mansell’s shoulders for so many years, but in an instant it was all lifted. He could relax knowing he had achieved everything he wanted from the moment he turned a wheel in the series.

But although the championship may have been decided, the season wasn’t over, far from it. There were still five races for him to contest, but naturally, with the title won he didn’t feel the need to push as hard as he had been earlier in the year.

Next time out at Spa, the rain descended and it was Schumacher who took the spoils, having made a perfectly-judged tyre change in the rain, while Mansell ended up half a minute behind in second. And then at the following race in Italy Mansell failed to finish, after his FW14B suffered its first reliability issue with an electronics failure hitting the 'Red 5' car on lap 41.

THE PIT STOP | 95

96 | THE PIT STOP

MANSELL LEADING THE WAY ON THE OPENING LAP OF THE GERMAN GRAND PRIX

THE PIT STOP | 97

Mansell’s final win of the year came in Portugal at Estoril. Just as so often had been the case in his last eight grand prix wins, Mansell led from start to finish, beating Berger by 37.5s. It was another astonishing performance, giving Mansell his ninth win of the season, a record that stood until 2004 when Schumacher won 13 out of the 18 races that year.

The final two races of the season both ended in retirement for Mansell. His engine let go on the 44th lap in Japan and then at the final race, another titanic battle between him and Senna ended in the pair coming together, sending both of them out of the race.

Right from the opening lap Senna was all over the gearbox of Mansell’s Williams. He was hounding and hounding his rival, and on the second lap he dived down the inside going into Turn 11. It was a late lunge

98 | THE PIT STOP

and Senna momentarily went through into the lead, but he couldn’t keep his McLaren fully under control under braking, allowing Mansell to immediately come back at him to retake the position.

But Senna wasn’t done. He closed right back up, trying to pressurise Mansell into an error, but in the same way Senna was in Monaco, Mansell was not a man to be moved. He made his FW14B as wide as possible, closing the door every time Senna thought he had a sniff of a move.

After a few laps Mansell managed to put some air between him and Senna, and it appeared as though he would begin to run away into the distance, but when Mansell came up against some backmarkers on lap 19 he struggled to find a way through.

That allowed Senna to immediately close back up.

He sniffed his chance at grabbing the lead, but he got it all wrong going into the Mistral hairpin.

Mansell braked slightly earlier than Senna expected going into the turn and Senna attempted to lunge up the inside. But as he did so, the rear of his car tried to step out on him and he ran straight into the back of the Williams, sending the pair spinning off the track.

Senna lost his front left wheel, while Mansell suffered considerable damage to the rear of his car forcing both drivers to retire immediately.

It was a bitter way to finish the year, after what had been a tremendous season. In the end, Mansell finished the year on 108 points to Patrese’s 56 in second, illustrating perfectly the level of domination he had.

And for a while, it looked like that Adelaide shunt would be Mansell's final lap in a Williams.

Although the results on the track were stellar and everything seemed harmonious between him and the team, behind the scenes it was a different story.

Friction had begun to fester early on in the season.

Mansell was out of contract at the end of the year and was looking for an early extension, especially since he could quickly see how strong the car was.

Williams offered him a contract extension, but it had also given an offer to Prost for 1993, something that Mansell wasn’t keen on since the pair hadn’t worked well together in the past when they were both at Ferrari.

Senna too came sniffing, allegedly suggesting he would race for free given how competitive the Williams FW14B was.

As ever there’s two sides to every story. Williams claimed that Mansell was given a contract but held back from signing it, and then after winning multiple races consecutively he went back asking for more money.

Mansell alleged that Williams failed to tell him about Prost signing for the team just two races into the year, and then demanded he agree to the original salary offer or they’d replace him with Senna, who was prepared to race for the team. However, Mansell discovered this to be untrue as Prost would not accept Senna as a team-mate, and upon learning this he made the decision to retire from Formula 1, making his announcement at the Italian Grand Prix.

Knowing that Senna wouldn’t be in the car for 1993, Williams did make a last minute offer to Mansell to try to prevent him from retiring, but Mansell dug his heels in and pursued the announcement in any event.

On the one hand, bowing out from Formula 1 because of a contract dispute isn’t the nicest way to leave, but on the other, he left the series (temporarily, as it turned out) while he was on top of the world, as champion.

He knew he was faster than everyone else that year, and in some respects it’s better to leave while you’re on top than hang around too long and walk away when you’ve already discovered you can no longer keep up with the pace.

He’d also set a number of records that year. He became the most successful British driver when he won on home turf at Silverstone, and in addition to his victory record he also claimed the highest percentage of pole positions in a season at 88% and most wins from pole position.

Mansell may have only won a single F1 title throughout his 12-year full-time career, but as the saying goes, quality is better than quantity, and still to this day, it’s one of the greatest F1 championship wins in history.

And although there might be some ifs, buts and maybes about previous years, he can rest easy knowing that he displayed all and more just how great a champion he really was during that 1992 season.

It was an iconic, memorable year, and his performances will never be forgotten, and that’s worth more than anything else.

THE PIT STOP | 99

IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

BUCHAN DANNY BUCHAN LEANING INTO A RIGHT-HANDED BEND IN THE BRITISH SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP. HE ENDED THE 2022 SEASON NINTH OVERALL IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP

100 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 101

PEUGEOT'S RADICAL RETURN

WORDS BY ASH MILLER / PAUL DAVIDSON IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO

“I

f there was a trophy for the most stunning entry, this thing would have it!”

That was the thought ingrained in my mind as I viewed a YouTube video reveal of what appeared to be the real-world execution of every child’s wildest supercar drawings.

Except it’s not; it’s a step further, as all eyes are pulled into the screen towards the muscular, angular

104 | THE PIT STOP

and noticeably rear-wing-less new Peugeot 9X8 Hybrid Hypercar.

A short swim away across the English Channel, the aggressive amalgamation of technology and performance is poised within Peugeot’s headquarters, the final checks being made before the newly built weapon is unleashed upon the Monza round of the World Endurance Championship to launch the next phase of Peugeot’s endurance racing story.

The story itself is punctuated by victorious peaks

and absent spells. What began as a still-unbeaten 405km/h Le Mans top speed record-breaker in the P88 in 1988, developed into the gorgeously successful and stunningly dominant V10-powered 905 in 1992 - a car that took both Le Mans 24 Hours laurels and the final Group C World Sportscar Championship under the guidance of the legendary Jean Todt. In the hands of some of the era’s most celebrated drivers, the French powerhouse swept all before it against tough competition from both Mazda and Toyota - and then,

as the curtains closed on Group C, so did Peugeot's sportscar project, and it turned its efforts to a much less fruitful foray into providing Formula 1 engines.

Success was never forthcoming, and at the end of the 2000 F1 season the ailing relationship with fellow French legend Alain Prost's team concluded. Peugeot departed F1 after seven win-less years.

It would be five years before the Peugeot competitive loins would stir once again, and with the V10 era beginning to enter its death throes, a new

THE PIT STOP | 105

THE LACK OF A REAR WING MAKES THE PEUGEOT DESIGN A RADICAL CONCEPT

CHAOS ENSUES ON THE OPENING LAP AT MONZA SIX HOURS

Peugeot endurance racing project was launched in 2005 amid the German domination of Le Mans with Audi’s devastatingly effective packages.

Touting a revolutionary twin-turbo diesel V12 to take on Audi and then try to raise the bar, the oddly lowrevving 908 would break cover at the Monza 1000km race in 2007, setting a blistering pace and taking the victory - thus ushering in a new era for closed-cockpit

108 | THE PIT STOP

Le Mans prototypes in a realm where open-cockpit Audis had reigned supreme.

After a pair of Le Mans letdowns in 2007 and 2008, in 2009 Peugeot finally reclaimed the Le Mans crown.

Not only this, so devastating was the pace of the 908, it won 20 of the 30 races it started across the era's various precursors to the current World Endurance Championship.

THE TEAM AND ITS UNRACED HYBRID CHALLENGER WERE WHEELED INTO RETIREMENT BEFORE EVEN TURNING A RACING LAP It was on course to conquer further, developing a race-ready hybrid powertrain for the 2012 Championship - and then, suddenly, the project was closed down. The economic situation in Europe being touted as the reason, the Peugeot WEC team and its unraced hybrid challenger were wheeled into retirement before the new car even turned a racing lap.

Like the tides ebb and flow under the moon,

however, so too manufacturers' motorsport involvement, and as we surge into another decade, the tides are once again rising toward a new high-water mark in international endurance competition. The dawn of a new age, the Hypercar era, has brought with it a surge of manufacturer support. LMDh (Le Mans Daytona Hybrid) brings Porsche, BMW and Audi into the fold, with more touted to join a newly affordable

THE PIT STOP | 109

110 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 111

class, whereas the likes of Toyota, Ferrari - and now the resurgent Peugeot - will compete in the ‘purer’ LMH (Le Mans Hypercar) category.

With both categories aimed at severely reducing the costs, this in itself has proved attractive for the returning major players. Both categories feature a 680bhp hybrid system with a Balance of Performance structure being introduced, and LMH’s production cost of $1million makes the premier class come in much more budget-friendly than the previous LMP1 cars, which cost a cool $14million more. Le Mans lap records will be safe for now - the new cars are to be roughly 9 seconds-perlap slower than the previous LMP1 cars.

The new rules also state that there be only one movable aerodynamic device allowed on the cars. Ever one to buck the trend, Peugeot raised eyebrows with its own interpretation of the rule. From the very moment the car broke cover and began its rigorous testing regime, voices around the world could be heard casting doubts over the concept. Despite this, the design team continued to press on - and upon rolling out for its debut at the Monza round of the World Endurance

112 | THE PIT STOP

Championship in July 2022, the car was still starkly free of a rear wing.

“When Peugeot made the choice to return to endurance racing, right from the start we were working closely with the engineers to first express the design so people can recognise it’s a Peugeot, and its feline posture, and then worked with the aerodynamics team to explore that maybe this car will work without a rear wing,” said Peugeot brand design director Matthias Hossann.

“Not many cars at this level carry with it the manufacturers’ brand identity, and we wanted to change that. We felt it had a strong design cue without the rear wing, because it makes a unique silhouette, and it was a dream of mine to return to the ‘long-tail’ design of a racing car - for me, it’s the most elegant.”

He isn’t wrong. Harking back to the glory days of the Peugeot Le Mans dominance, there was no mistaking the wingless wonder lapping Monza was a Peugeot; the striking light cluster and fluorescent accents at the front, and the bold vertically sculptured rear lights make for a very different, very Peugeot presence.

THE PIT STOP | 113

Under the knife-edge visual cues, the car’s midengine, 2.6-litre 680hp twin-turbo V6 is mated to a Total Energies-designed 272hp electric motor, with a seven-speed sequential gearbox linking it all to the 4WD system, signifying the seamless amalgamation of Peugeot’s branding and Sport arms. Performance in testing was impressive; an all-star line up comprising Paul di Resta, Mikkel Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne, Loic Duval, Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter completed the brunt of the car’s testing milage, and as the car rolled out for it’s debut laps of Monza, former Glickenhaus and Rebellion stalwart Menezes in particular was gushing about it.

“It drives like a traditional racer, and the balance is very neutral," he said. "If there was a wing on it, I’d probably have taken it off!

“I love that we have something unique. The goal is 2023 Le Mans victory, but we are going into this event in Monza humble, and as a test. We wouldn’t have those end goals, however, if we didn’t believe it was capable of doing that.

“I think we have the only true hybrid system ready to go that’s not still in prototype stages. It’s a real pleasure to be involved with these guys and I’m learning a lot with every drive of the car.”

114 | THE PIT STOP

Jensen on the other hand had a more downplayed hue of expectations. Amid the clatter of tools and French-tinged background conversations, he mused: “It’s great to finally be at a race weekend amongst all the other cars; feeling the car with the track developing and among the grid of cars it’s when the work really starts.

"Being here with a new team, practicing pit stops and other factors you don’t get without the other cars on track is going to be where we all learn.

“We don’t have any expectations, six hours is a long time, and we will just go out and see where we are leading up gradually towards Le Mans next year.”

When asked how the wingless new car is to drive, Jensen replied simply: “Downforce is downforce, no matter where it’s made on the car, so we don’t feel it, and the balance is there.”

As the curtains opened on the Monza event, the cars rolled out on circuit amid an air of enthused optimism.

The weekend was mixed for the two Peugeot: the #94 of Menezes, Duval and Rossiter would be struck down with issues in opening practice, yet qualified fifth. The #93 of Di Resta, Jensen and Vergne ran well through practice, only to miss out on a time in qualifying.

This trend would continue for the latter car

THE PIT STOP | 115

throughout the weekend, as it retired early with an ‘unspecified problem’ that crippled it after just 46 laps. The other car would encounter its own ream of issues - as it ran on circuit with other cars for the first time, debris found its way into the car’s cooling systems which necessitated two pit stops to address overheating issues. Nevertheless, the car made it home in 33rd position, clocking a much-needed chequered flag on its debut.

Oliver Jansonnie, who leads the LMH programme for Peugeot Sport, took an optimistic slant.

“When the car is running without any trouble, I think we can compete," he said. "With these new homologation rules, if you start with a car that isn’t

116 | THE PIT STOP

competitive it’s very difficult to catch up, so this is a big relief for us.”

Looking optimistically through the issues, the timesheets told a positive story. The fastest lap for the remaining entry was set late in the race, with the average pace from the plucky Duval being within half a second of the pacesetting Alpine car of Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere.

Fast forward to the next round at Fuji, and the car’s revolutionary silhouette fared better against the might of the established teams. The two cars were running strongly among the Alpines, and were on course to claim a first podium until an almost identical oil leak caused the duo to drop down the order. The #94 sat

THE 9X8 DIDN'T COMPLETE MONZA SIX HOURS, RETIRING AFTER 49 LAPS

idle in the pits for over 20 minutes while the issue was resolved, dropping it down to 20th, but with the problem able to be fixed quickly on the sister car, it dropped only seven and a half minutes and claimed fourth place for the team.

Two multi-day tests had brought that car soaring up the grid in between the Monza and Fuji rounds, with the average pace of the lead #93 being only half a tenth off the Toyotas, and even with the Alpines, with the #94 being only a fraction behind. “If we continue progressing at this rate, the final in Bahrain will be extremely positive,” Jansonnie said as the weekend drew to an emphatically positive close.

He has every right to voice optimism. It speaks

volumes of the resurgent Peugeot effort that after just a pair of races upon return to the top tier of endurance, the cars are right where they hoped they would be and fighting for the laurels, fractions behind the other contenders and rectifying issues as quickly as they appear on what has been a largely trouble-free return to the premier endurance class for the French Lions.

Competing against Peugeot's own history will be a far more telling story, and a much harder act to follow.

But maybe more Le Mans glory for France’s most successful Le Mans manufacturer there is only a matter of time away.

THE PIT STOP | 117

IMAGE BY RICHARD TOWLER

DRIVING INTO THE SUNSET THERE AREN'T MANY MORE STUNNING VIEWS TO SEE AT A RACETRACK. AND WITH SO MANY TRACKS BASED AROUND OLD AIRPORTS, RACES CAN OFTEN GENERATE UNIQUE VIEWS

118 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 119

THE REAL SEBASTIAN VETTEL WORDS BY EDD STRAW IMAGES BY RED BULL / FERRARI / ASTON MARTIN / GRANDPRIX PHOTO

120 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 121

W

ho is the real Sebastian Vettel? The driver whose dominance once seemed ever ending as he racked up four world championships and 34 wins from 20102013? The erratic, errorprone Ferrari disappointment whose star only shone in fits and starts during his six seasons in red? The elder statesman who sporadically displays the old magic in limited Aston Martin machinery?

The answer is that he’s a melange of all these things, and many more. As a driver, he leaves a complex legacy to be untangled when he retires from Formula 1 at the end of 2022 after one of the most remarkable grand prix careers there has ever been. Perhaps no other driver in F1 history so infuriating swung from genius to disaster, a man often capable of genuinely breathtaking feats, yet sometimes producing rookie errors. But that’s what makes Vettel so compelling.

No sporting star is a machine, but some get closer to it than others and Vettel is arguably one of the most

122 THE PIT STOP

compellingly human of F1’s elite group of multiple world champions.

The magic was evident from his early days in car racing. He laid waste to the opposition in the 2004 German Formula BMW Championship, winning 18 out of 20 races, then was the star rookie in F3 Euroseries the following season. By now, it was almost inevitable he would make it to the top, having his first experience of F1 machinery with Williams in September 2005 as a prize for winning Formula BMW. Despite missing out on the 2006 F3 title to ASM team-mate Paul di Resta – something team boss Frederic Vasseur attributed to Vettel being distracted by his F1 testing commitments for BMW Sauber – Vettel’s graduation to F1 was inevitable and he abandoned his ’07 Formula Renault 3.5 campaign while leading the championship to take Scott Speed’s place in the Toro Rosso line-up alongside Tonio Liuzzi mid-season. That was after scoring a point on his F1 debut as stand-in for the injured Robert Kubica in the United States Grand Prix.

Speak to anyone involved in Vettel’s career in those early days and the recurring theme is his attention

VETTEL'S FIRST TITLE CAME IN 2010

to detail and level of engagement in the engineering side. That’s perhaps a trait he picked up from his heroturned-mentor Michael Schumacher. To this day, he’s famous for the length and precision of his engineering debriefs and Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost felt this marked him out immediately.

“First, Liuzzi was a little bit faster and beat him at the beginning,” says Tost. “He took a few races, then he had everything under control and was in front. His working method was of talking a lot to the engineers, Ricardo [Adami, later Vettel’s engineer at Ferrari and now working with Carlos Sainz] was his race engineer and Sebastian was calling him all the time with ideas of how to improve the set-up of the car, what is missing.

That was even though he was inexperienced. When a young driver comes to a team, it’s not that he says what the team has to do but he has input. As he got faster and faster, so the more seriously his suggestions were taken.”

The importance of his Toro Rosso experience cannot be underestimated. In 2008, the year he turned 22, he was established as the undisputed team leader and made a series of breakthroughs with his driving that played a key role in extracting the maximum from a car package that proved competitive in the second half of the year. This was the last year when customer cars were permitted, so the Toro Rosso STR03 was the 2008 Red Bull re-engineered for a Ferrari V8 and with a few special tweaks made on the suspension and braking

side under the technical leadership of Giorgio Ascanelli.

That combination proved good enough to win on a rain-hit Monza weekend. Even Tost, a famously tough taskmaster, found he had to do little to spur Vettel on.

“From the very beginning, it was just him [motivating himself],” he says of Vettel’s motivation and how it extended to physical conditioning. “Not only regarding the driving, also the preparation. Seb wanted to know everything and wanted to know where his deficiencies are and then worked very hard to balance him. This work ethic wasn’t only regarding the driving and engineering, he understood as a driver it doesn’t matter if you are very fast, if you are supertalented, if after 10 laps you don’t have the power to drive the car. There are some drivers that don’t understand this.”

The inevitable promotion to Red Bull coincided with the team's breakthrough as a race-winning force.

It was perfect timing for Vettel, who became a regular frontrunner in 2009, winning four times. There were mistakes that year, and in 2010 on the way to his first world championship (McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh famously coining the nickname “crash kid” after Vettel lost control of his Red Bull and hit Jenson Button at Spa), but after an intense battle with teammate Mark Webber he emerged on top. That laid the foundations for the years that to follow, with Webber not a serious threat in 2011 and ’13 – although tellingly there was an extended period in 2012 when he was.

THE PIT STOP | 123

That was all down to Vettel’s mastery of the exhaust-blown aero cars of this era. This was a concept Red Bull introduced in 2010 with the Red Bull RB6, but it wasn’t new in F1. In fact, when Adrian Newey started to consider the idea one of the first things he did was ask engine supplier Renault to dig out the work it had done in the early 90s on this as the iconic Williams FW14B, to cite the most famous example, incorporated what was once a well-established concept.

The FIA launched a series of measure to crack down on this and in ’12 the restrictions on the location of the tailpipe meant that it wasn’t until the 14th race of the season in Singapore that Vettel really clicked with the RB8 – winning four races in a row on his way to the title having managed just four podiums prior to that.

Vettel is at his best when he has a strong front end that allows him to turn in aggressively combined with a rear that rotates but in a controllable way. During the exhaust-blowing era, he adapted his style – in particular the throttle use and gear selection – to ensure he could control the rear end and ensure it had the downforce when he needed it. This allowed him to express himself best.

The shorthand for this is as a driver who is uncomfortable when the rear end is nervous. But as with all such descriptions, that is limited. It’s not that he wants an understeering car with all the limitations on

124 | THE PIT STOP

the front axle and the rear following, because he does want the rear end to rotate – and you need a certain level of instability to do that. But what he does want is the ability to control that. He has thrived at other times in a car with a loose car – for example the 2015 Ferrari that he won three races in – but it is dependent on how predictable and controllable it is.

In the Red Bull days, he genuinely could get the car to do exactly what he wanted. That sometimes required Vettel to adopt a counter-intuitive driving style that emerged from his hard work in the simulator and on the engineering side, one Webber struggled to match.

Vettel combined this with a ruthless desire to keep winning, exemplified by his run of nine victories at the end of 2013. At the time, he said he didn’t want to back off on the basis that you can never know how long the good times will last. That was prescient given that his post-2013 F1 career was very different.

During this period, he was cast unfairly as the villain in some quarters. His charm and charisma has shone through in recent times to the wider world, particularly since he moved to Aston Martin, but the chasm between the public perception and the reality was bigger for Vettel in the 2010s than for any other driver. He was always a genuine, likeable and engaged character – one beloved by his team – but there were hints of the problems that became more obvious in the

more difficult environment of Ferrari.

The rivalry with Webber is the obvious one. The seeds of this were sown at Fuji in 2007 when Vettel hit Webber under the safety car in wet conditions. Vettel went on to finish fourth, but Webber was second at the time and could perhaps have won given his prowess in wet conditions. But the blue touchpaper was decisively lit at Istanbul Park in 2010 when Webber was ordered to cede the lead to Vettel. As Vettel went past, Webber squeezed him and although you could argue it was unnecessary, it was Vettel’s imprecision that caused the collision that wiped the pair out. Red Bull – Helmut Marko, to be precise - blames Webber in an interview after being caught on his way out of the paddock by Will Buxton for American TV. The reaction was baffling given the mechanics of the incident. But when talking to one senior figure within the Red Bull organisation at the following race, the way Marko behaved was described as “paternal”, which reflected his relationship with Vettel – the poster child for the whole Red Bull junior scheme. It’s

understandable Webber felt like the number two driver, sometimes justifiably but sometimes in response to shadows.

After a difficult season in 2014, one where he was outperformed by newcomer Daniel Ricciardo, Vettel triggered a release clause to jump ship to Ferrari. It was a logical decision, one that most expected would allow him to emulate Schumacher and become a Ferrari world champion. That Luca di Montezemolo, who was key to recruiting Vettel, was ousted before 2015 even started showed the move was undermined from the start. In a time of changing regimes – from Marco Mattiacci to Maurizio Arrivabene to Mattia Binotto – the instability never allowed Vettel to build the team around him as he hoped.

Yet that does not mean that Vettel didn’t have his own failings. While he’d thrived in a Red Bull environment where he was comfortable, central and able to express himself, that didn’t always seem to be the case at Ferrari. He performed brilliantly in 2015, winning on only his second Ferrari start in Malaysia, but

IT'S UNDERSTANDABLE WEBBER FELT LIKE THE NUMBER TWO DRIVER, SOMETIMES JUSTIFIABLY

THE PIT STOP | 125

with Ferrari struggling in ’16 he was less convincing. But the key seasons of his Ferrari career were really 2017 and ’18, when he was a title threat.

In 2017 the Ferrari’s performance profile was a little unbalanced – stunningly quick on slower tracks but not quite at the level of Mercedes on other tracks. The start crash he triggered in Singapore that also took out team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen was the moment his title hopes turned to dust. And

126 | THE PIT STOP

it was also a fascinating window into his racing mentality, with Vettel refusing to take the blame for a crash that was clearly his fault. But the real missed opportunity was in 2018. Yes, Ferrari had reliability problems but Vettel made too many mistakes. Part of that was down to the red mist that would sometimes engulf him – inexcusably, he hit Hamilton deliberately under the safety car in Baku – and the other down to his tendency not to factor in the aero impact of being

in close proximity to another car. That’s a mistake he made with tiresome repetitiveness.

The coming of Charles Leclerc ultimately brought Vettel’s Ferrari career to an end, with the pendulum swinging in his favour in 2019. Then, Leclerc showed himself to be the faster driver with the team particularly frustrated by the needless collision – again, caused by Vettel – at Interlagos. In particular, Vettel couldn’t live with Leclerc’s livewire car control when dancing on the

limit in a car that didn’t have the most predictable of rear ends.

Even before a poor 2020 season with the underpowered Ferrari got underway, Vettel wasn’t offered a new contract – something that came as a shock to him. But it tells you everything you need to know about his honesty, that he eschewed the team’s official version of events to call it a mutual parting of the ways and tell the truth.

THE PIT STOP | 127

VETTEL'S TIME AT FERRARI WASN'T AS FRUITFUL AS HE HAD HOPED FOR

128 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 129

130 | THE PIT STOP

It took plenty of soul-searching to decide to continue with Aston Martin, but while his two years at the team haven’t produced the results hoped for they have seemingly served as something of a palate cleanser for him. He’s enjoyed working with the team, which speaks highly of his input, and has produced some outstanding drives – notably second place in Baku in 2021 and on his way to eighth at Imola this year in a car that really shouldn’t have been scoring points. Alongside that, he’s also found his voice in campaigning for causes he cares about.

All of this makes Vettel’s career something of a curate’s egg. Study his Red Bull glory years and he produced sustained brilliance that’s the equal of anything the greatest names in grand prix racing have achieved. Look to the Ferrari years and he was a more erratic performer, one you might describe as someone capable of winning on their day but not quite of championship-winning calibre.

That’s at the heart of understanding where Vettel stands. Plenty of drivers have been peaky and capable of great things in the right circumstances and Vettel has to go down as one of those. But he’s unique in that he was able to sit at a peak for several seasons and rack up statistics that put him right up there with the all-time greats. That is, in itself, remarkable.

He couldn’t replicate that elsewhere so has to

be regarded as a driver only capable of sustained greatness at a moment in time. It’s just that the moment in time that he, as much as anyone else, constructed extended to four incredible seasons. His feats in Red Bull colours will go down in history as remarkable testament to his ability, diligence, determination and that extra spark that all champions have. His tally of 53 victories stands as the third-highest in history.

Vettel will go down as a great F1 driver. But his weaknesses mean that he’s not quite in that group of the gamechanging legends that runs through grand prix history – certainly in the world championship era.

That lineage comprises Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, with Verstappen already well on his way to joining that list.

For Vettel to be regarded as in the small group behind those epochal drivers is hardly damning with faint praise and reflects the fact he’s one of the key drivers of 21st century F1. Doubtless, arguments about Vettel’s strengths and weaknesses and claim to greatness will last for as long as F1 matters.

But he will be remembered as a remarkable driver and individual, one whose achievements it has been a privilege to witness close-up over the past 15 years.

THE PIT STOP | 131

IMAGE BY TOYOTA GAZOO RACING

CHANGING OF THE GUARD THERE'S VARYING LEVELS OF RALLYING MACHINERY AND THE FIESTA BEING DRIVEN BY WILLIAM CREIGHTON ABOVE IS A RALLY3 CAR. HE'S CURRENTLY SEVENTH IN THE WRC3 CHAMPIONSHIP WITH 30 POINTS TO HIS NAME.

132 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 133

THE

134 | THE PIT STOP

ARTURA

WORDS BY ROB HANSFORD IMAGES BY BRIAN SMITH / MCLAREN THE PIT STOP | 135

W

hen it comes to racing and designing cars, it’s all about creating the perfect machine. Ordinarily, that means building the fastest, most extreme car possible that can wipe the floor with any of its competitors. It’s about finding every last ounce of performance there is, making sure there’s nothing left on the table.

But when it comes to McLaren’s latest customer racing car, the all-new Artura GT4, that’s not the case at all. Of course, it strives for perfection, but in this instance it isn’t about having to have the outright fastest car. It’s about creating a machine that is simply perfection when it comes to driveability.

Sportscar racing is an area that McLaren has been making considerable strides in in recent years. The

136 | THE PIT STOP

automotive side of McLaren has managed to produce vehicles that are both race and championship-winning for its customers.

The 570S GT4 had been its flagship car, but with the road-going Artura being released to the general public earlier this year to replace the road-going 570S, work quickly began to develop a GT4 equivalent.

That GT4 car has now borne to fruition and aesthetically, it really is a thing of beauty. It’s simplistic yet elegant, quickly lulling you into a false sense of security. It looks fast, but unlike many other sportscars, it doesn’t possess the aggression in the bodywork angles, shouting from the rooftop that it’s an insanely quick race car.

It’s beautifully understated when the engine is off, but once it hits the track it transforms into a beast that’s capable of ripping the limbs off anything that tries to get in its way. It is a predator, have no doubt.

The Artura GT4, might be a totally new car, but it has taken a lot of inspiration from its predecessors, the 570S and 720 GT3. So much was learned in the development of those cars that it would be silly not to transfer the knowledge into the Artura and try to improve upon it.

“Clearly we've taken a lot of learning from the 570 GT4,” chief engineer Malcolm Gerrish explained to The Pit Stop. “The 570 is a massively successful car still, so it's a natural evolutionary step from that. But also, since designing and developing 570, we've done the 720 GT3.

So although obviously the 720 is a higher level of GT3, there’s still a lot of philosophy that we can wind into this car, which is what we've done.”

As you’d expect from a manufacturer like McLaren, a lot of detail has been put into its aerodynamic philosophy, and in the Artura’s case it has implemented something totally unique - a new carbon fibre material.

“A unique thing for us on this car is the use of natural fibres in all of the aero package,” explained Gerrish. “So obviously, as carbon specialists, as McLaren are, natural fibres were required on the splitter, the dive plane and the rear wing. So a new technology to us, a novel technology, but it was very, very exciting to learn about something new that linked to what we specialise in. But it was very new, so something we had to learn an awful lot about.

“So we've taken the learning from 570, the learning from GT3 and brought it together with this within the regulations, because obviously again, with the GT4, a lot of it has to be predominantly road car based. So going to the edge of the envelope of what we can achieve within all of those. So to me, I think what we've got is a very, very strong package.”

Having to work within GT4 regulations does naturally constrain McLaren in what it can create.

THE PIT STOP | 137

138 | THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP | 139

Given a relaxed set of regulations there’s no doubt it would be able to extract plenty more performance out of the aerodynamics on the Arutra. But then again, that’s not the purpose of the car.

The Artura GT4 will be sold to customers to race, and many of them will be amateur drivers. And so if the car is too extreme there will be two issues. The first

140 | THE PIT STOP

will be that those drivers will find it too hard to control the car, and the second will be that even if they can control it, they will find it harder to extract the right performance from the Artura and in turn, they will be less competitive as a result. And that’s something that has been at the forefront of McLaren’s mind when designing and developing the car.

IT CAN SEEM LIKE ORGANISED CHAOS FROM THE PIT GARAGES

“Aero on the road car, there's an advantage; so already the road car produces more downforce than its predecessor, which is a great starting point. But then one thing that we've worked very, very closely with Rob [Bell, McLaren’s development driver] and the other development drivers about, is we have to make sure that the car is comfortable, reassuring, and confidence

inspiring for an amateur.

"So, particularly in things like the aero package, it's for the old phrase, ‘be careful what you wish for’.

You try and focus for big numbers and that's great, but then that's something that Rob can cope with, but potentially an amateur struggles with a little bit more.

So it's knowing when we just calm it down and just

THE PIT STOP | 141

focus so we get it exactly right for the audience.”

For a racing driver like Bell, it’s an unusual position to be in. Like any racer, he’d obviously like the car to go as fast as possible, allowing him to push his own limits right to the very edge, but knowing that this car isn’t being created for him specifically, he’s had to alter his approach to the development.

“Actually it's the other way around,” Bell explained.

“We have to drop our ego, take away what we want all of the time and focus on what's going to work for everyone. So that's why we have different test drivers because everyone's point of view is welcome.

“So actually, when we go away racing, it's like ‘Yeah, okay I really like that set-up, I like that car how it is, but how would other people feel?’ Getting in the car, the first thing we did actually when we started in September [2021] was the seating position. So I get in, it's like ‘oh that's great for me, but what’s it like if you’re six foot four?’ So let's allow for more pedal space. So you’re actually constantly thinking of everyone and that's the key.

“Customers come in all shapes, sizes and abilities and the point is, we want everyone to be able to drive it and enjoy it and we don't scare anyone. It has to be competitive, but it has to be enjoyable. And that's the big thing. If you get in and get out with a smile on your face, that's what our job is. It’s not to find your ultimate last tenth which is going to make it really edgy. It's not that. It's customer first and then that's what we're

142 | THE PIT STOP

aiming for and we’re pleased with where we’ve got to.”

As Bell mentioned, development on the GT4 Artura began back in September 2021. The team received a road-going Artura and immediate had to begin taking it to pieces, especially since several parts on the road car would not comply with GT4 regulations.

The team also found areas of the regulations challenging in that it struggled in some areas to get the level of performance it wanted whilst remaining in the boundaries of what is allowed, especially when it came to the rear wing.

“From our perspective, probably the biggest challenge for us around the regulations and the styling and aero side of the car was the rear wing,” explained Gerrish. “So, clearly we want to move the rear wing as far back as possible, so it just creates the leverage on the car. But there are three prescribed dimensions about the position of the rear wing, and one of the challenges for that was how we mount the rear wing, whilst avoiding cutting through the beautiful clam that we inherit from the road car. But also, that then allowing us to remove the whole of the rear body work of the car for aiding the serviceability.

“So we came up with this pylon design, which again, it just means the wing is as far back as possible, still within the overhang of the rear bumper, so still within regulation. So that was quite a challenge to really optimise that area of the car, which arguably is the single biggest aero part of the car, and really makes a

big difference in balancing the overall aero sensitivity of the car.”

The team really had to go right back to square one and build the car from the ground up, conducting hours and hours of testing to ensure that the Artura was the best possible GT4 car - and that also meant Bell experienced some novel driving moments.

“The road car comes to us with the hybrid system, our regulations don't allow that. So effectively, we have to start by getting rid of a lot of things and then we start again,” said Bell. “So we started in September last year when the car first was out, turned a wheel, and obviously it didn’t look like it did now, which beats me.

"In fact I think it's quite a good story that the first time we drove it, it had no windscreen. It had no doors, it had no rear wing. In fact we didn't have any bodywork whatsoever. So you start from that point.

“Even on that day, we got out and went ‘well, this feels quite good’, and so from day one it felt good. So it wasn't like we've gone, ‘oh, this is a horrible starting point and we've made huge progress as a driving platform’. It's a boring answer we’ve literally just gone to our milestone, tick that off, next milestone. So, it's actually been a nice progression so far. But starting with that good base point, it's just been a natural progression to where we are.

“We do a lot of work initially at the test track in the UK, because it's not far from base and you just do all the calibrations, all of the boring stuff, straight away and then it was only earlier this year where we actually then got to a racetrack and then that was also in the

UK. “So you're looking for cold weather, then we evolved to go to Europe and then recently we've done hot weather testing, at all really serious international racetracks. You do that with a purpose in mind.

“We went to the Red Bull Ring for example, because it's high altitude, higher than most. It's hard on brakes and it's a circuit that our customers will go to. So we went there specifically just to do the brake sign off. We put a lot of weight in the car, we ran around there and that was the worst case scenario for the brake system.

So it's just a natural evolution.

“In terms of hours, we've just put in the necessary amount. Along your journey, you've got certain sort of checkpoints: Have we done the engine sufficiently now? Have we done the braking system? We're just ticking that off. But to give you an example, we actually go from here [Goodwood], both of us on Tuesday, Wednesday next week, we do a 30-hour continuous test in Portimão. So that's the next step.

“So you get this, baby steps first, prove your reliability, get your basic chassis right, and then now it's at a point where, ‘right guys, let's go and really hammer it around the track for 30 hours, and by the way, can you please hit all the kerbs. Let's try and really improve the endurance of it.’

“There’ll be four drivers doing that and then, we haven't finished, then we go to Jerez, and then we go to Sebring. It's relentless.”

The testing might be relentless, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. And as Gerrish was keen to point out,

THE PIT STOP | 143

"WE ARE CUSTOMER RACING, THEREFORE THE CUSTOMER IS AT THE VERY CENTRE OF IT" despite the number of hours Bell and the rest of the drivers have put into developing the car, they still come out with a smile on their faces each time. And that’s the key. That’s exactly what it’s all about and that’s when the team knows it is on the right track.

Of course customers want to be fast, but first of all they want to have fun. They want to have a good time and experience something that few people get the opportunity to do. And if the professional drivers are getting out of the Artura GT4 with a smile on their face, then they all know that the grin beaming across a customer’s face will be even bigger.

“We are aiming at the broad breath of the pyramid

144 | THE PIT STOP

that's our customer,” said Gerrish. “We are customer racing, therefore the customer is at the very centre of it. We've started with a supercar. Let’s face it, remember where, at the beginning of this point it is a supercar.

“It's an incredibly capable car as a beginning point, and as Rob said, even just without any bodywork on it, no anti-roll bars, no aero, nothing, as literally just a tub with an engine and a transmission in the back, it was immensely capable.

“So it's building that up in little baby steps and just making sure that it's always still rewarding to drive, enjoyable to drive.

"I remember one of the tests, Rob pounding round

and round and round in a fairly monotonous way for a long time. And then we’d say, ‘right go onto a different circuit now’ and he just got out with a big smile on his face. It’s like ‘that's mega!’

“And it's that thing as Rob says, it’s about making sure the customer is happy and enjoying themselves because ultimately, if they are happy and enjoying themselves speed will come. Speed will come through confidence, evolving the set-up, working with their team. The respecting fact that generally you've got the customer, then there's a team that they employ to run the car, then there's us in the background making sure that everything works according to plan.

"So, it's putting all of those bits together, which if the customer is happy in the car, feels comfortable,

feels confident and enjoys themselves, then all the rest will naturally come.”

The Artura GT4 is very much the real deal.

Possessing an all-new compact twin-turbo V6 engine partnered with a Bosch Motorsport ECU to fine-tune Balance of Performance management, on power delivery alone it should be right up there amongst its competitors. And the development work put into the car has resulted in one that is far lighter than its predecessor.

The car won’t take to a racetrack in anger in 2022.

Its debut will come in 2023. But when it does, you can fully expect it to be instantly right at the front winning races, all the while giving its drivers and owners one of the best driving experiences they will ever get.

THE PIT STOP | 145

U LT R A - L I G H T E N G I N E E R I N G .

BLISTERING ELECTRIFIED POWER. S U B L I M E A G I L I T Y A N D E N G A G E M E N T. next-generation supercar.

THE FULL FORCE OF McLAREN

IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

THE JUNIORS IT'S NOT AS CHEAP AS IT ONCE WAS TO MAKE YOUR WAY UP THE SINGLE-SEATER LADDER. BUT FORMULA 4 IS STILL A GREAT TRAINING GORUND FOR YOUNG DRIVERS

146 THE PIT STOP

THE PIT STOP 147

TOBY’S JOURNEY Since his last column, Toby Trice has completed another two races in the Porsche Visit Cayman Islands Sprint Challenge, and some changes have allowed him to find improvements.

148 | THE PIT STOP

first points I’ve received on my race licence. You live and you learn and that was completely new territory for me. I didn’t get it right going into the Island hairpin and we came together. I am very gutted about that, but if you don’t go for the gap, you’re not racing, right? So I thought it was on, but that turned out not to be the case. But we move on from that!

The following round was at Brands Hatch and for me, it was a real turning point in the season. Overall, it’s been a really frustrating year being about a second off the pole time and not really being able to push past fifth, despite having a few podiums at Croft. So it’s been a really frustrating year for me on that front because I knew that we were just missing a final link to help everything click into place.

We arrived at Brands Hatch with a fresh head and

Jakob Ebrey

Hi Everyone, Well since we last spoke, a lot has happened and my season in the Visit Cayman Islands Sprint Challenge is now coming to a close.

The first race I visited after my last column was Oulton Park. It’s a track I had never visited before so I was really excited to experience the layout and see how competitive I could be. Oulton was an interesting one for me because over the break we worked really hard as a team to work out how to get the most out of the car because we still hadn’t figured it out. Oulton Park was a really good place because despite very limited running there we had really good pace and I was running towards the front-runners.

I managed to achieve fifth in all of the races that weekend, but I did have a slight incident with Matt Greenwood on track. I’m not proud of it and it was the

Jakob Ebrey

a completely different setup to what I’ve used at any point earlier in the season. And on Friday practice I noticed an immediate difference. The car felt so much more alive, so responsive and I was feeling really happy with the way that ignited this new enthusiasm in me.

I’ve also been working on myself, trying to get the most out of what I can do both physically and mentally. So coming into qualifying we were looking really strong and really hopeful for a great session.

Unfortunately, things went slightly awry when I crashed the car into the wall three or four laps into qualifying, which was really frustrating. It was my first crash into the wall, but I managed to get the car out and back onto the track with not too much damage caused. In the end it was minor bumper damage, so thankfully I was able to complete the session and got away with anything overly disastrous.

But going sideways at 100mph through Sheene Curve, straight onto wet grass is certainly an experience and not one I want to repeat!

But come the races, we were carefully eeking towards a more aggressive setup. It resulted in another trio of fifth places again, however, the real positive to take was that in race three we were only a second of fourth and three seconds off the winner. In previous

races it’s been at least 15 seconds to the winner, so we had gained 12 seconds on the lead car, which is a huge amount of time.

I think the secret for that is with the new setup we’ve been able to switch the car on earlier, get the tyres up to temperature a lot earlier and a combination of what the team has done to the car and what I have been working on personally has certainly accounted for that success.

So fifth this time doesn’t feel as frustrating. I am right now there with the pack and able to fight. So it’s now full focus on Donington, which happens to be may favourite round of the season.

Donington is the best track in the UK in my opinion.

I can’t wait to experience Craner Curves in the Porsche.

It will be epic, I’m sure!

I’ve had great results there in the past, it’s where I landed my very first podium result and hopefully it can be another successful weekend on what will be the final race weekend of the year.

THE PIT STOP 149

IN SHORT

150 THE PIT STOP

Image credit: Bristol Motor Speedway

HOW A RACETRACK BECAME A FOOTBALL FIELD

BY ADAM DICKINSON

What is perfection? In an imperfect world it’s become a corporate buzzword, and motorsports are no different.

Imperfection is what makes motorsport fun - no one has ever driven a perfect race or rode a perfect season. Everyone is beatable and there’s a constant push to get better and better and better.

Except the Bristol Motor Speedway football pitch. In 2013, the venue signed a contract to host a college football game, and set its sights on making that the biggest American football game in history.

It succeeded, despite not even having the pitch installed three weeks out from the match when Kevin Harvick claimed the NASCAR Sprint Cup event held there, and from then it was a race against time to convert the track and infield to an arena fitting of America’s favourite pastime.

When independent certifiers arrived to check the pitch, they were gobsmacked to find it was within one millimetre of perfection. But not content with that, a team of groundsmen went out the next day equipped with scissors and hand-trimmed each blade of grass all in the name of achieving the unachievable perfection.

While there will be more daring tales than grass-trimming elsewhere in this magazine, this story is one of many that shows why the Bristol Motor Speedway team made sure the ‘Battle at Bristol’ couldn’t be anything less than a success.

On Saturday September 10, 2016, 156,990 people packed into the speedway to watch the University of Tennessee Volunteers beat the Virgnia Tech Hokies 45-24. The speedway had hosted an NFL exhibition game in 1961 in front of 8,500 people and as long as those photos remained up, so did the desire to do it again, and do it big.

The game was the culmination of three years’ work to make good on that promise, and for vice president Adam Rust there was one moment that sticks out even now.

“During the national anthem when Jennifer Nettles went up I was able to stand there and take it all in, it was surreal,” Rust reminisces. “And to be able to take that in, she was such a powerful singer, that was the moment that it hit me: 'wow this is huge'.”

The infield, effectively a parking lot designed for transporter trucks, sloped down to a centerline for drainage - the exact opposite of the requirements for a football pitch. Even before they could deal with that, the 100ft timing tower had to be substituted for a hanging screen, and space cleared for changing rooms on each bend. Then 450 truckloads of stone were brought in to fill in the parking lot and the millimetre-perfect pitch was laid.

There was a concert to 60,000 people the night before, and the morning after Tennessee recreated the iconic ‘Vol Walk’ making it the biggest ever. But Rust stresses they didn’t just want to import a football atmosphere into a bigger stadium: “There's so much heritage around not only racing but also football in Bristol so we wanted to make sure we told our story.”

“And that introduced us to a lot of fans who’d never been to Bristol Motor Speedway, but we transformed them into Bristol fans and opened the door to a new racing fanbase.”

“Our property was covered in campers, you don't see a lot of camping for football games but racing is all about community, fellowship, camping out with your friends and family. It was almost like a hybrid, the best of both worlds came together.

Then gameday arrived: Nettles performed a stirring national anthem, Tennessee won, hoisted the trophy and got the t-shirts, and everyone lived happily ever after.

The End. Except maybe not. Remember the hundreds of truckloads of stone brought in to level the pitch? They’re still there. That pesky timing tower was permanently replaced by ‘Colossus’, a suspended scoreboard the size of a three-storey house hanging over the infield.

Most importantly to the BMS team, the desire remains: “We want to do another event, we have folks calling us but we're also calling folks, but I believe we'll get there,” said Rust.

“There's not a week that goes by here in our small town, I don't go to the grocery store or go to our local high school football game where someone says 'hey Adam when's that next football game'.”

And when that day comes, the BMS team is sure to take aim at the high bar of perfection once again.

THE PIT STOP 151

Image credit: RNF Racing

MOTOGP'S 'MR RELIABLE'

BY ADAM PROUD

We see it so often in motorsport, riders or drivers come out of their ‘retirement’ to race again. Look at Sete Gibernau who returned to MotoGP for a brief stint in 2009 despite originally retiring in 2006, or Michael Schumacher whose retirement from Formula 1 (also in 2006), became short lived when he returned to race for Mercedes between 2010 and 2012.

There’s one man currently on the MotoGP grid who’s ‘retired’ more than once from racing in the sport but keeps getting called back up again.

Cal Crutchlow.

Crutchlow, despite no longer racing regularly in the premier class since the 2020 season ended, is still a familiar face in the paddock after signing with Yamaha to become their test rider since the beginning of 2021.

Yet he’s quickly becoming the manufacturer’s ‘Mr Reliable’.

Midway through last year, Crutchlow was called back to the racing scene to fill in for both the factory team and the satellite Sepang Racing Team aboard the Yamaha M1 following an injury to Franco Morbidelli and the termination to Maverick Viñales’ contract.

And this year Crutchlow has found himself again on the grid, racing in the final six rounds for the newly rebranded RNF satellite team after Andrea Dovizioso announced he would retire from MotoGP immediately after the San Marino Grand Prix.

While his appearances on the grid give British fans a rider to follow as there is yet to be another homegrown talent take to the top category, his presence at races will also be a big help to the Yamaha outfit who have struggled thus far in 2022 to get any of its bikes other than Fabio Quartararo into the top-10.

Crutchlow’s results aren’t expected to reach this level, given he is only a test rider for the manufacturer. But having him on the grid racing will allow him to give even more feedback on what needs to change with the M1 if it is to be a consistent front runner alongside Ducati’s powerhouse of seven MotoGP machines.

152 THE PIT STOP

Honda’s Stefan Bradl has played a similar role in the past couple of years, filling in for Marc Marquez who has been battling with a shoulder injury sustained in 2020. Bradl’s not been on the bike to get strong on-track results as such, but more so to help Honda fix their problem of only having one rider which can truly extract the bike’s potential.

This is what Yamaha will, or at least should, be doing with Crutchlow. Put aside the need to get good results in the race and instead focus on how to improve the bike heading to 2023.

After all, Yamaha will find themselves with just two bikes on the grid next year, the first time this will be the case since the top class took on four-stroke engines in 2002.

While the manufacturer takes a hit in having only two bikes on the grid while its rivals, especially Ducati, have multiple, Yamaha can’t let this get in the way of their results.

They have the perfect opportunity now with Crutchlow on the grid to maximise everything they can into making sure next year’s bike can be up there with its rivals, both bikes at that.

Despite Quartararo struggling of late, he still leads the championship. It’s clear Yamaha have the bike to be at the front, but they need both riders up there if they’re to stand a chance in the Constructors’ Standings.

They’re committed to Morbidelli next year, despite his struggles on the bike. So now Yamaha need to keep Crutchlow on hand and arguably use him as a test rider more than they have done since he signed on to the role in 2021.

Crutchlow’s been a reliable rider for the manufacturer up until now, and with just two bikes on the grid full-time next year, his feedback and input will be more important than ever.

Image credit: McLaren

WHAT NEXT FOR RICCIARDO?

BY IAN PAGE

It would be fair to say, the last few years have been difficult for Daniel Ricciardo. Clearly a talented and quick driver, he has found himself in choppy waters after leaving Red Bull in 2018. A spell with Renault yielded very little and the Australian left for McLaren after two seasons with the French outfit. At McLaren, there was renewed optimism, but with McLaren now confirming it will part company with him one year before his contract expires – and any potential return to Alpine blocked by the team’s signing of Pierre Gasly – Ricciardo’s Formula 1 career has never looked so uncertain.

It is a remarkable, if not unexpected, turn of events for one of the grid’s most talented and popular drivers. Since arriving at the Woking-based team, Ricciardo has been dogged with performance issues: a car which does not appear to suit his driving style, a team mate constantly outperforming him, and public criticism of him via team principal Zak Brown. These issues have been teeing-up a parting of ways, as speculated by F1 media, for some time. His win at last year’s Italian Grand Prix, was McLaren’s only race win since 2012 and was a glimpse at what the Australian can do and what he achieved during his Red Bull days. But sadly victories like that have not been forthcoming and race performances have not been enough to convince McLaren to continue to invest in the driver.

It would be disappointing for the series if it were to lose Ricciardo. A hugely popular figure in the paddock. At his best, arguably, unbeatable with a “lick the stamp and send it” approach to overtaking. Off track, his cheeky and open personality have endeared himself to the media and fans alike, not taking himself too seriously and helping demonstrate the lighter side of F1.

However, it has been a long time since we have seen that version of Ricciardo, one who claimed seven of his eight career wins at Red Bull.

The question is: What next? Where will he go? And will a change of scenery help restore the spark? Has the Honey Badger lost his passion?

There are pages of rumours discussing Ricciardo’s next move.

A browse through any motorsport media outlet will mention everything from retirement to Indy Car, but what has been clear is his desire to stay in F1. Any suggestion of a sabbatical has been played down as there is a worry it could turn into a retirement if the right opportunity does not present itself.

His departure from McLaren will have only added to the desire to compete. In any line of employment, if you’ve been “let go”, there is always to wish to “stick it” to your former employer.

The Australian clearly wants to stay put in the championship, but right now his options are looking ever-increasingly limited.

Looking at options, a return to Alpine (where he raced during its Renault incarnation) would have seemed the most logical destination before Gasly’s arrival. So that leaves seats available at just two other teams.

Haas and Williams are yet to confirm who will partner Kevin Magnussen and Alex Albon respectively, and adding the talented Perth-born driver to their books would certainly be a massive plus to either side, but it’s unlikely they’d be able to meet Ricciardo’s financial requirements or be in a position to race at the level he wants to be at.

It’s not impossible that we could see the Aussie crop up elsewhere in the world of motorsport, but Ricciardo has recently ruled this out as an option.

He doesn’t want to be forgotten about. He wants to make sure that he’s still vying for a strong seat in 2024, and right now, he doesn’t believe competing in a different series would help that strategy.

Whatever is next for Ricciardo, it is certainly hard as a fan, not just a journalist, to see such a talent go to waste. Whether it’s been poor decisions from a management perspective or just a case of the monkey on the shoulder being too hard to ignore, I hope – we all hope – we get to see the old Ricciardo. The smiling, shoey Ricciardo. The master at overtaking, emerging from the shadows to show us he still has what it takes. I guess what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.

THE PIT STOP 153

IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

MONACO

IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

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.

154 PIT STOP STOP 154 THE THE PIT

HEAD TO OUR STORE TO PURCHASE PRINTS

www.thepitstopmagazine.com

Although every precaution is taken to ensure accuracy of published content, The Pit Stop cannot be held responsible for opinions expressed, facts supplied by its writers and/or errors of production in any sort.

All material in this magazine may not be reproduced, or distributed in any form without written permission from The Pit Stop.

BUY NOW

www.thepitstopmagazine.com