Issue 9

THE PIT STOP issue 9

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 22 36 48 62 IN SHORT

short ovals' greatest Mark Paulson explores the career of 10-time stockcar champion Rob Speak

LEAVING ON A HIGH Adam Proud takes a look at the way Casey Stoner ended his MotoGP career

MORENO'S FESTIVAL Ida Wood explores ex-F1 driver Roberto Moreno's return to the Formula Ford Festival

LEAVING A LEGACY Martin Donnelly explains how his horror F1 crash left him wanting to leave a legacy of safety

VETTEL'S GREATEST DRIVE Reviewing Sebastian Vettel's race at the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE DTM?

STEWART'S SWANSONG Looking back at Jackie Stewart's final F1 season in 1973

MAKING A STATEMENT Hayden Paddon explains how he's managed to revive his rallying career, starting from home

TAMBAY FINISHED THE JOB VILLENEUVE COULDN'T Tambay's time at Ferrari might not have been the most successful, but he achieved something Villeneuve didn't

DOING IT ALONE Stephen Brunsdon reviews how Barwell Motorsport is succeeding despite only being a one car team

NEXT GEN KARTING The karting programme created by ex-F1 engineer Rob Smedley

F1'S POWER BATTLE ISN'T A BAD THING

76 100 114 126 138 GROSJEAN SWITCHES TO LAMBORGHINI THE PIT STOP 5

LEGACY

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otorsport can be a cruel mistress. Drivers and riders know every time they don their overalls and start their event that there’s every chance they could meet their maker. Fortunately, those occasions are getting less and less, but it still happens from time to time, and when it does, it’s not entirely unexpected no matter how sad it is. However, in many ways, that’s why these competitors are there in the first place. For many, it’s the very fact that they are dodging death that gives them the adrenaline buzz that makes them want to go back for more.

But when it happens completely outside of competition and unexpectedly, shock instantly hits. And that was truly the case with Ken Block, who sadly passed away in January.

Famed for his Hoonigan series and various car stunts that drape over his YouTube page, Block changed the perception of off-road competition for a whole new generation.

He may not have won any major rallying titles, but he didn’t need to. The way he went about his work, and the way he presented himself to the public and his fans won everyone over. Everyone wanted to see what Block would do next.

Those stunts were mightily impressive too. It wasn’t just about doing a donut or powerslide, it was about taking it to a new level, from dodging moving trams to dodging terrifying cliff drops.

But don’t assume that Block was just a showman. Of course, he was - one of the greatest in within the world of motorsport, but he was also an incredibly talented driver.

Last year, Block competed in the American Rally Association championship, missing out on winning the title by a mere seven points. 2023 was meant to be the year he remedied that. He was gearing up for another shot, with many expecting him to finally clinch it. But then the news hit that he was gone.

Totally out of the blue, completely by surprise.

With drivers like Block, you believe they are almost invincible, no matter what they are doing, but unfortunately that will never be the case - for anyone.

He was taken far too soon, and our thoughts and condolences from everyone here at The Pit Stop are with his family and friends.

Another driver to have recently passed is Patrick Tambay, a driver who stepped in at Ferrari after the passing of Gilles Villeneuve. To an extent Tambay was an underrated driver, but as you can read within this issue, he was a force to be reckoned with on his day.

You may have guessed from the front cover of Issue 9 that the cover article is all about Jackie Stewart. Well, you’d be right. This issue focuses on his swansong season. A final year that was full of highs and lows, but one that will long be remembered by many an Formula 1 fan.

It’s crazy to think that 2022 has already passed us by, and those of you that have renewed your annual subscription for another year, thank you. Your support really does mean a lot, and without you, we wouldn’t be able to continue to bring you so many great and wonderful stories from all corners of the motorsport world.

And if it’s your first time reading The Pit Stop, welcome. We hope you enjoy it as so many others have, and we welcome you on what we hope to be a great journey in 2023.

EDITORIAL Editor Rob Hansford Photography Editor Brian Smith Contributors Ash Miller, Adam Proud, Garet Kenardington, Ian Page, Ida Wood, Stephen Brunsdon Photography Contributors PHD Photo, Ed Waplington, Matt Widdowson, Grand Prix Photo, Anthony Jenkins, PRG Media THANKS TO Louie Cotton, Matt Beer, Peter Nygaard, Anthony Jenkins, Hayden Paddon, Toby Moody, Toby Trice, Ant Harrold

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

IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

short ovals'

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greatest

WORDS BY MARK PAULSON IMAGES BY ANTHONY JENKINS THE PIT STOP | 9

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oo many cars on too small a track. It’s a phrase used to describe the actionpacked nature of short oval racing in the UK. With 30-odd cars on ovals measuring no more than a quarter of a mile, it’s not an unfair depiction but perhaps also sells the racing short.

The British form of stock car racing has been around since 1954 and shouldn’t be confused with its American counterpart headed by NASCAR. In the UK, the discipline features full-contact racing among purposebuilt single-seater specials on both Tarmac and loosesurface shale raceways.

Rob Speak is one of the most successful stock car

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racers of all time, with a CV topped by 10 world titles in Formula 1 and Formula 2 stock cars. While ostensibly similar, F2 cars are powered by two-litre Ford engines whereas ‘Big League’ BriSCA F1 engine rules are largely unrestricted. In practice, that means 1350kg cars are powered by massive Chevrolet V8s, both big blocks and small blocks, generating over 650bhp.

Since retiring from regular racing in 2016, Speak has taken over Skegness Raceway, one of the sport’s leading venues. The Lincolnshire track has hosted two Formula 1 and four Formula 2 World Finals and boasts impressive facilities following a significant programme of investment by Speak. He believes the discipline has untapped potential.

“For me, it’s the best form of motorsport there is,” says Speak. “But I do think it’s been undersold for a few years. I want to try different things, and just try and put back into the sport as much as I’ve had out of it.”

Speak was introduced to short oval racing by his father Billy, who ran a scrapyard in Manchester and had raced bangers. Billy took his son to watch Formula 1 stock cars and, after a couple of years of being nagged, let him start competing in the junior Ministox formula aged 12. There, Speak raced against the likes of future multiple world champions Frankie Wainman Jr and Andy Smith, with whom he would rekindle his rivalries later in his career.

When Speak turned 16, following Wainman into

F1 stock cars was out of reach financially, so Speak graduated instead to BriSCA F2. Initially driving a second-hand car powered by an engine straight from a Ford Cortina, the teenager took to the formula with aplomb. He rapidly rose through the grades, from the novice white-tops who start each race from the front of the grid through to the red-top star grade and superstars who have to fight their way through from the very back.

Racing whenever and wherever he could, Speak clocked up 70-80 meetings per year and won the first of 11 consecutive national points titles in 1989, only his second season in the formula. “I just took to it really,” he says, modestly. “I found it quite... I wouldn’t say easy to win but I just loved the job as we got into it.”

Aged 19, Speak became the formula’s youngest world champion (at the time) when he won the big race in 1991. The World Final is the focal point of each stock car racing season, with the winner able to sport a gold roof for the following 12 months. British drivers qualify via rounds held at each track around the country, with the top 56 reaching the World Championship SemiFinals. The first 10 in each semi are then joined by international qualifiers in the one-off World Final race.

Speak successfully retained the title the following year at a wet Skegness, in one of the most impressive performances of his career. In a mesmerising display, the youngster demonstrated an exquisite feel as he lapped all but two other cars, driving the closing stages one-handed.

“Through the ’90s, we just sort of dominated everything,” Speak recalls. “I won my first World Final and then won it [again] the year after. Then we had a problem with the car at Crewe [in 1993], a fuel problem, and then won it for the next six years in a row.”

Such domination was unprecedented. Unlike many sports stars who reach the top, Speak had no problem staying motivated – at least for several years. The sheer love of racing – not necessarily winning – as well as some fierce rivalries were enough to keep him coming back for more.

“I just really enjoyed it,” he explains. “We enjoyed it all – working on the car, doing things. You just enjoy it, so you have to keep going. I loved the racing. Some of my best races I enjoyed I didn’t win. It’s the racing I enjoy, the bashing and crashing.”

The contact side of stock car racing can be misunderstood by those less familiar with the discipline.

This isn’t banger racing but nor is it for the fainthearted. When Speak first graduated into senior racing, he knew he had to show the established stars that he meant business and could give as good as he got.

“Bill Batten, Mick Sworder, Paul Broatch, John Thompson, there was a lot of hard drivers,” he recalls.

“You had to come in and try and dominate it at a young age which nobody really wanted you to do, did they? Nobody wants a young lad coming out of Minis and doing well, so we had to prove a point.”

The crowds loved Speak’s aggressive style, but

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not everyone was enamoured with his decade of dominance in Formula 2. Increasingly getting into scrapes – on track and with the authorities – Speak’s time in F2 was coming to an end. He hadn’t planned a full-time switch to BriSCA F1 stock cars but just two years after taking his sixth F2 world title he lifted the Formula 1 World Championship, only the second man in history to win both.

“I was probably winning too much and it was spoiling it,” reflects Speak. “Spoiling it for me, probably spoiling it for all the fans and all the other competitors. I was packing in, and then I got talked into Formula 1s by a few different people.”

Speak had won his last two F2 world titles in Elite chassis built by Terry George in Surrey. George was keen to break into F1 so built Speak a car incorporating experimental ideas, backed by Hyundai and Northampton International Raceway owner John Haynes.

“I struggled with it for a little bit because we built it a little bit different,” recalls Speak. “It wasn’t so much I was struggling with the racing side of it, [but] because we built the car differently, we had a lot of problems at first, breaking gearboxes, breaking different things.

“The racing side of it, I got winning pretty quick, and I do enjoy the crashing and the bashing of the racing. So we got stuck into that straight away, me and Frankie Wainman and Andy Smith. We had some good years.”

More than a decade after the trio crossed swords in Ministox, they were now lighting up the F1 stock car scene with some spectacular action in what many consider a golden era for the formula.

After Speak got the better of Wainman to win the world title on the fast oval at Hednesford in 2001, their rivalry culminated in a memorable night at Wimbledon Stadium when each felt the full force of the other into the track’s unforgiving post-and-cable safety fence.

Meantime, Speak had already made the first steps towards taking his racing career in another direction.

Rockingham Motor Speedway, Britain’s first full-size oval since Brooklands, had recently opened and launched its ASCAR series of American-style stock car racing. Speak was offered a one-off drive in Colin Blower’s Chevrolet and raced it to a fourth-place finish on the 1.5-mile oval just three days later! Speak returned for the full season in 2002, placing ninth in the championship. He then switched to Gavin Wills’ Team West-Tec squad, which would go on to twice win the title, and took his first win before a bit-part season in 2004 preceded a break from racing altogether.

“It was completely different,” says Speak, who remembers the events being much more drawn out than the short, sharp action of short oval racing. “It was not my sort of discipline but I enjoyed it. You turned up on the Friday, you’d do your qualifying, but I had to come home and work then on the Saturday. I didn’t just stay

down there. It was a bit difficult but it was good, I did enjoy it.

“I packed in and I bought a business – a farm, a livery yard – and I just concentrated on that.”

Off-track life took Speak’s focus over the next few years with just the occasional banger racing outing alongside brother Wilf. But he soon got tempted back into stock cars.

“When I was racing Formula 2s or anything, whenever I could fit banger racing in I did,” he says. “I always used to think it kept you sharp. You have to be so alert with banger racing, watching what every car’s doing, not just the ones you’re racing with.

“Then I got tempted back into Formula 2s by Terry George. Terry wanted to build a Formula 2 car; he hadn’t built one for a while. I wasn’t overly keen on racing, but you’ve got to do something, haven’t you? I was working all the time. I’d just built a new house, so that was finished and I wanted to get back into doing something rather than just working all the time.”

Focusing mainly on World Championship qualifying rounds, Speak was soon winning again. In addition to Tarmac outings in George’s Elite car, Speak raced Darren Bingley’s shale chassis, taking it to British Championship success at King’s Lynn in 2013 at the age of 41.

He was ruffling feathers again too. A new generation of talent was headed by Scotsman Gordon Moodie, then a one-time world champion who had his eyes on Speak’s national points record.

The pair had high-profile clashes on multiple occasions, including the 2009 and 2013 F2 World Finals where they ended each other’s hopes.

“We’ve had some good racing, me and Gordon,” says Speak. “But I was always brought up by my dad, if you’re going to have trouble, you might as well go and have trouble with the big guy, hadn’t you? Not the little guys. Eventually you’re going to have trouble with him so you might as well start with him. When I came into Formula 1s after Formula 2s, it was Frankie and Smithy. You start with those two at the top and you have battles with them and people know you’re serious, don’t they?”

There were no further world titles in F2, but with his British crown and twice qualifying on the front row of the grid for the World Final, Speak had proven he still had it. The F1 scene was keen to see more of the old magic too. Steve Rees, promoter of a number of northern shale tracks, talked Speak into competing in an event for charity, which just happened to be a World Championship qualifying round. Before he knew it, Speak had done enough to make a semi-final grid.

Speak explains: “So then Carl Pickering said to me, ‘Do you want to race my car in the semi-final?’

And I was like, ‘I don’t want to race! I enjoyed doing one meeting but I don’t want to race.’ Anyway, to

"I DO ENJOY THE CRASHING AND BASHING OF THE RACING" - ROB SPEAK

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SPEAK HAS TAKEN OVER THE RUNNING OF SKEGNESS RACEWAY

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cut a long story short, I raced his car. I got a fifth, I think, which put me in the World Final. Then I raced Carl’s car in the World Final meeting; I rolled it over at Skegness, so the car was damaged. And we intended to do Northampton the day after. Luke Davidson wasn’t racing at Northampton so Jamie [Davidson, his father] says, ‘Race Luke’s car at Northampton’. So I did and I think I won my heat, and I enjoyed it.”

Further persuasion on an F2 trip to Holland then convinced Speak to let Davidson Sr have renowned car constructor Stephen ‘Cecil’ Sayers build him a new F1 car for Tarmac racing. What was meant to be occasional racing ended up as every Tarmac meeting.

“And then Jamie says to me, ‘We’ll build a shale car and we’ll do the odd shale meeting,’” continues Speak. “We

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ended up doing every single meeting on Tarmac and shale!

“That’s the trouble, when you love it,” he adds, almost ruefully. “I was back racing full-time again, wasn’t I, and lucky enough to win another World Final, at King’s Lynn.”

Speak won that 2015 F1 world title from pole position despite a scare on the rolling lap when his alternator played up. It meant he briefly held both the gold and silver roofs, having won the Shootout for the national points title a year earlier. A final success in the F1 national points came – almost reluctantly – in 2016 because, by then, Speak had decided to hang up his helmet having agreed a deal to buy the track at Skegness.

“I didn’t want to win the silver roof,” he admits, “because then the sport hasn’t got a silver roof [actively racing], has it? But every time you put your helmet on and every time you get in the car, you want to win, don’t you?”

Speak prevailed in the final round at Belle Vue in Manchester by withstanding the challenge of Nigel Green, brother of former DTM star Jamie. “Nigel Green tried to put me straight through the fence, and it was a real good meeting – I enjoyed it,” remembers Speak.

After being convinced by his dad to buy Skegness Stadium, Speak found the venture entailed more than he had anticipated. Commuting from the Manchester area was not practical so Speak closed his scrapyard and relocated his family to Lincolnshire. He has heavily

invested into the stadium infrastructure, upgrading the track’s safety fence and resiting the pit gate to create an atmospheric tunnel through which the cars enter the arena. He extended the covered terracing and built new bar, catering and toilet blocks, the most recent addition being a restaurant block through which he hopes to entice newcomers to racing. But the feature attracting most attention is a huge new illuminated sign which welcomes visitors to “fabulous Skeg Vegas”. Replicating the famous sign from Las Vegas, it immediately went viral and has created massive publicity for the venue.

“We went to Vegas, watching Tyson Fury box, and my wife said, ‘We should build one at Skegness’, because everyone calls it Skeg Vegas,” explains Speak.

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More interest was generated last November when Skegness hosted a race in F1 stock cars for British Touring Car Championship drivers, including regular race winner Josh Cook and racer-turned-commentator Paul O’Neill. It was won by Team Hard driver Bobby Thompson after he shoved long-time leader Ricky Collard wide.

“It raised the profile and I think it brought a lot of people to the stock cars,” says Speak. “If you mention stock cars to anybody who’s never been they think it’s a banger car. They don’t realise how much money’s involved and how much time and effort you put into these Formula 1 stock cars and Formula 2 stock cars.

And skill, and how you drive them, how much effort you have to put in. I think the touring car lads really embraced that. They definitely had a respect for it when they left. And the fans that came to watch it, I think they couldn’t believe it either – the facilities at the stadium, the racing, the cars, they were looking round the pits. That’s the thing with stock car racing: it’s never been brought to the bigger audience.”

Very much a hands-on promoter, Speak can regularly be seen performing all manner of jobs on race night.

But working on the other side of the fence isn’t quite enough to quell that competitive spirit. He has made a number of appearances in F1 and F2 stock cars over the

PAUL O'NEIL, BOBBY THOMPSON AND RICKY COLLARD TOOK PART IN A SPECIAL EVENT IN 2022

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past six years, mainly at his own track and to assist in promotion, but also in a Saloon stock car for the sheer fun of it.

“A little bit of fun, a bit of publicity, because the fans do like me to still race,” says the ever-popular Speak, now 50. “I just like having fun,” he adds. “I’m a bit too old for all that crashing into each other but I enjoy it. I always wanted a Saloon stock because it was more the banging and crashing in that. I used to watch them and think it was amazing. So I bought a Saloon stock so I could have a go now and again at Skegness, just keep myself racing fit.”

Nearly 40 years after his Ministox debut, Speak’s enthusiasm remains undiminished. It’s hard to imagine anyone who loves racing more, which is why, although he’s proud of his unmatched achievements, he’s not precious about them.

Reflecting on his return to the short ovals, more than

a decade ago, he says: “Everybody who followed my career kept saying, ‘Don’t come back, don’t come back.

You’ve won everything, you’ve finished at the top.

Don’t come back because you’ll just spoil it.’ And then I was like: ‘I couldn’t care about how many finals I’ve won and how many World Finals, it’s about enjoying it.’ I said, ‘If I come back and do no good, as long as I enjoy it, I’m not bothered.”

Speak’s continued success meant that those loyal supporters needn’t have worried about his legacy being tarnished. And while there won’t be any more full-time comebacks, Speak’s occasional outings continue to prove he can still compete with the best. Finishing third in the final at the 2022 season-closing Gala Night shows there’s plenty of life in the old dog yet.

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IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

CONSISTENCY IS KEY DAN ROWBOTTOM WAS AMONG THE MORE CONSISTENT OF THE BRITISH TOURING CAR DRIVERS IN 2022, BUT A WIN ELUDED HIM. HE ENDED THE YEAR 12TH IN THE STANDINGS WITH 151 POINTS.

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leaving on a

high NOT MANY RIDERS BOW OUT OF RACING WHILE STILL IN THEIR PRIME, BUT IT'S EXACTLY WHAT CASEY STONER DID IN 2012 WORDS BY ADAM PROUD IMAGES BY RED BULL & DUCATI

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he year 2012 was a significant one for many different sports. The London Olympics, Bradley Wiggins becoming the first Briton to win the Tour de France and Lewis Hamilton announcing he’d be moving to Mercedes for the 2013 F1 season were just a few key moments.

MotoGP had its own tale to throw into the mix.

How often does a motorsport figure retire right in the middle of their prime? It’s not a common occurrence for sure. Valentino Rossi left MotoGP 12 years after winning his last championship, Jorge Lorenzo retired four years after winning one.

Casey Stoner? He announced he was retiring at the end of 2012, while still very much in a championship fight and leading the way at the time.

It was news that sent shockwaves through the paddock; a rider who was just coming off the back of winning a second title and still at the peak of his form

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would be hanging up his leathers, just 27 years of age.

The announcement came only four rounds in, at France, and it was only two weeks beforehand in Estoril that the Honda rider dismissed the rumours that began to circulate, with a decision ultimately being made within the time of the two races.

“Everyone seems quite good at stories and making them up for sure. But, you know, I think I've said many times in the past that my career is not going to go for long, you know, I'm not going to keep going and ride until I'm middle of the 30s and things like this,” he told the media in Portugal.

“For me at the moment, I haven't decided what I'm going to be doing. And certainly no one else is going to know what I'm doing.

“So there's, yeah, as usual, it's like my career was finished a few years ago. The rumour mill starts up and everybody starts believing everything they read, so until you hear it out of my mouth, don't listen to anything

you read.”

Come the press conference in Le Mans where the news was delivered from Stoner’s mouth, he made it very clear that his mind was made up in between Portugal and France.

But why now? Still so close to the start of the season, his decision was final. The reasoning for that was made very clear.

“It's [the sport] changed to the point where I'm not enjoying it, I don't have the passion for it. And so at this time it's better if I retire now,” he explained when he announced his retirement.

“There's a lot of things that have disappointed me, and also a lot of things that I've loved about this sport, but unfortunately the balance has gone in the wrong direction.

“And so yeah, basically we won't be continuing anymore. You know it'd be nice if I can say that I would stay just one more year. But then when does it stop?

And so we decided to finish everything as we are now.”

There’s not many riders who would give such a stark and direct reasoning for why they’re leaving, but

Stoner was never one to shy away from the truth. He made it obvious that his love for the premier class had disappeared and he wanted to do other things with his life.

Where did it all go wrong for the now 37-year-old to spark that loss of enjoyment? Let me take you back to 2009, a year that he himself cited as a factor in making his decision.

After the British Grand Prix in the middle of the season, Stoner was forced to miss the next three rounds after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue (initially mistaken to be lactose intolerance), and only returned to his Ducati in Portugal with four rounds remaining.

“Basically we went back to Australia after Donington just to get an understanding of what’s going on, to see some more doctors and hopefully go in the right direction,” he told the media on his comeback weekend.

“We were planning to come back for Brno, and unfortunately we didn’t find any solutions in the short term. And we had nothing but recommendations from

THERE'S NOT MANY RIDERS WHO WOULD GIVE SUCH A STARK AND DIRECT REASONING FOR WHY THEY'RE LEAVING

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STONER HAD TWO STINTS WITH HONDA, THE FIRST IN 2006 AND THE SECOND BETWEEN 2011 & 2012

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STONER'S FIRST SEASON AT DUCATI ENDED WITH HIS FIRST MOTOGP TITLE IN 2007

my doctors, my wife, my father, everybody said you know, that’s enough, you’ve got to have at least a little bit of time out.

“That’s when the decision was made just to spend three races away, there was going to be never any more races away than what there was. Already for me, it was a really tough decision, something that I wasn’t really forced into but highly recommended from everyone.”

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This illness is something that hasn’t gone away for the two-time champion, with it making life difficult even in recent years.

How does this fit into his decision to retire? Stoner laid out his point of view when announcing it.

“2009 to be honest was a big eye opener for me, everyone still to this day says it’s a mystery illness,” he said.

“The fact that no one understands that I have a lactose intolerance that is really critical to me if I do have any. It’s not the type that everyone thinks it is, it basically just takes my energy, it stops me from absorbing nutrients.

“And so the fact that nobody’s listened to me with that, there’s many, many things that have just over its time taken its toll, the way I see the championship

heading, the direction I see it heading, and the fact that like I said, in 2009 I really realised what was important.

“It’s family, it’s happiness, money isn’t everything and I think I’m one of the few riders that can actually say they retired when they stopped enjoying it. My passion has slowly ebbed away from this championship.”

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The cards were placed firmly on the table. It was clear that there would be little love lost when the Queensland-born Australian waved goodbye to the championship come the end of the year.

His final year in the championship perhaps didn’t have the ending he would’ve wanted in the premier class. A mid-season ankle injury curtailed what was turning out to be a three-way fight between Lorenzo, Stoner and Dani Pedrosa for the championship.

It was the Czech Grand Prix where Stoner was ruled out for that race and the following two, but with little knowledge of how severe his injury was, people feared the Indianapolis GP was the last MotoGP had seen of its star rider.

And he too was unsure if he’d be back. “[I have] no idea to be honest,” he said when news broke that he’d be out for at least three rounds.

“I've got a figure in my head and you know, I believe I can be back before Phillip Island, but it really just does depend on the surgery, how they see it, how they see that it went and, you know, hopefully they can get me back on track as soon as possible. And at least I get a few races before the end of the season.

STONER AND PEDROSA CONGRATULATING EACH OTHER POST-RACE IN VALENCIA 32 | THE PIT STOP

“There's no definite [answer when I’ll be back], they said I really have damaged it in a huge, huge way. But like I said, I've got things in my own head so again, it might not depend on what the doctors say.”

Stoner did in fact make a comeback late on in the year at the Japanese Grand Prix, with Malaysia, Australia and Valencia also still on the schedule.

A much more fitting end for the Honda rider rather than ending his season out of action was to come at the Australian Grand Prix, where he won what would be his final MotoGP victory, and doing it in front of his adoring home crowd added to the emotion.

An already impressive return from injury just got a whole lot better.

“My time’s counting down now, and in the last three races we’ve gone front of the third row, front of the second row, on the front row, and the results we’ve went fifth, third and now first,” he said in the post-race press conference.

“So it’s been a fantastic build up, it was very important for me to win a race before I retire. To do it at my home grand prix here was just a fairytale.

“This whole weekend’s gone almost ideally, the

crowd, the people, the fans and everything has just been amazing.”

In his final home race and with a victory under his belt, Stoner made sure to pay homage to his fans.

“I know a big part of that is that people are here to watch me ride,” he said.

“What a great feeling and great pride to be out there as an Aussie and making everybody proud.

“It was just a fantastic day today so we’ve just topped off the end of a difficult year, but I think there’s no better way to do it than in front of your home crowd and a crowd this big and this enthusiastic was really something else.”

One more race to go in Valencia and it ended in a third-place finish for Stoner, both in the race and in the championship.

But an emotional post-race interview after completing his final MotoGP race? Quite the opposite in fact, as he laid bare just how he wouldn’t feel too much emotion at the prospect of departing the championship.

“I'm very good at separating my job, my work away

from other things and unfortunately like I said earlier in the season also that I've lost my passion for this sport,” he said after the race.

“And you know this also doesn't break your heart so much when you stop, so you know for sure tomorrow and the next days, the weeks in the future, it will feel a little strange but today was business, today I was there to do the best job I can and it's very easy for me to separate this in my mind what I what I need to do.

“So maybe tonight after some more time it will sink in, be a little bit different. But for now, it was you know, I have a job to do.”

Since leaving the championship, the 38-time MotoGP winner has still had involvement in the class, serving as a test and development rider between 2016 and 2018 for his former team Ducati.

A decade on and Stoner’s retirement remains one of the most fascinating stories of how one rider made it clear that his love for the sport had disappeared while still in his prime, something that doesn’t come from the paddock all too often.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE DANIEL RICCIARDO'S F1 RACING CAREER APPEARS TO HAVE COME TO AN END FOR NOW. BUT HE WON'T BE GOING FAR. HE IS RETURNING TO RED BULL FOR 2023 AS A RESERVE DRIVER, BUT HE NO DOUBT HAS HIS EYE ON A RACING RETURN FOR 2024.

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MORENO'S

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FESTIVAL

WORDS BY IDA WOOD IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO

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T

he Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch is a rare event in the junior single-seater world that attracts not only a new crop of young drivers every year but also stars of yesteryear who want to see how they compare to the next generation of talent but also to race in what are considered to be some of the most fun open-wheel cars to drive.

With H-pattern stick-shift gearing, all-weather tyres and a lack of wings, Formula Ford cars look like nothing else in single-seater racing these days, but these light and nimble machines were once the starting point for almost all drivers graduating from karts to cars.

One such example of a driver who made the most of starting his car racing career in Formula Ford, and has also been attracted back to the Festival in recent years, is Roberto Moreno.

The 63-year-old US-based Brazilian raced for eight teams in Formula 1, and finished second at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix for Benetton, then later starred in Indycar racing where he won two races and came third in the 2000 CART standings.

In his junior career he won the Formula Ford Festival, Macau GP, Jim Clark Trophy, Mediterranean GP, Pau GP and Birmingham Superprix as well as titles in British Formula Ford, New Zealand Formula Pacific and International Formula 3000.

Moreno returned to the location of his Festival win last October to tackle the event for a third time. He won it as a 21-year-old rookie in 1980 in a Van Diemen

RF80, and used the same model when he made his comeback in 2021 and reached the progression race of the knockout event.

He enjoyed the experience, and at Brands Hatch’s Kentagon cafe on the Sunday night promised he would return if in a modern car.

Moreno arranged to visit the Festival again in 2022 to coach his karting protege Cadu Bonini on his singleseater debut. Once that trip was confirmed just over a week before the event, Formula Ford expert Alan Bowles set about finding a modern car so Moreno could also race. He did it just in time before pre-event testing, landing Moreno a place in Graham Brunton Racing’s line-up in a six-year-old Ray GR16.

Moreno didn’t fly to the UK in time to do the first days of testing, but he got to drive the car on a wet Friday and that evening he spoke to the rest of the paddock in the Kentagon about what had originally drawn him to Formula Ford in 1980.

“I actually came here in 1979, with friends, and they all chipped in $1,000, and eventually I raised $15,000 to come over to the UK,” he said.

“And with that money in those days, you would need $30,000 dollars to do a full season with Van Diemen. And do 25 races.

“I was able to do 22 races, and 22 tests in Formula Ford. And that was the first step from karting. That’s what I love about Formula Fords, because it’s a good training process for go-karters to go into cars. You have to work hard on concentration, on driving skills, you

CARS LINING UP FOR THE START OF ONE OF THE HEATS

have to be focused. I give you an example: I’m used to driving much faster and quicker cars, I’m having a hard time adjusting. Because you have to work harder there.

So I’m pushing hard to try to achieve that, and I admire the young kids that are here kicking my butt, because they are really into it. You can see how much effort they put into it, and that’s what I love about Formula Ford.”

“I still remember this comfortable place [the Kentagon] here, I could never afford to come have a beer here, or have a drink. Because it was offline for me.

I would sleep in the car to save some money, so I could buy another set of tyres. And because I came to the UK and I did that, some people, some factories that used to sell 120 cars a year if they won the championship, they all wanted to hire me for the following year for me to be their driver.

“So I picked Van Diemen at the time. And the only problem is I arrived at Van Diemen the first time to do my first test, and Ralph said ‘we’re all okay, aren’t we?’.

And I said: ‘Ralph, I have a bit of a problem. I’m okay to drive, but I have no money to survive in the UK’.

“And he gave me his van, so I became the Van DIemen van driver. And that would give me enough money to spend the season here, and everything was paid for on the racing side. And that gave me another season here. And then some guy who used to work for Lotus, a guy called Peter Collins, he saw how well I did at the Festival in ‘80, and I was the first driver to come from Formula Ford and to have a testing contract in F1.

So that’s what Formula Ford meant. It was so good to

me.”

Moreno won a majority of the races in his British Formula Ford campaign as a factory Van Diemen driver, then ended the year by being victorious in the Festival.

He then stepped up to British Formula 3 for two years, also spending 1982 in Formula Pacific where he won the New Zealand title and the Macau GP. “Because of that money that I made with the threeyear contract at Lotus, I was able to come to the UK for three more years, and then there was another team that needed a driver halfway in the season, they gave me a test, I succeeded really well, and I got a drive.

And so it went on and on. I admire so much Formula Fords, I love Brands Hatch for the success I had here in the past, and I’m actually here [this year] not to drive - I came here to bring a young kid from karting from Brazil to race Formula Fords, and to go down that route because I believe so much [in it].

“And then my friend Alan, who got me involved last year to come here, he arranged for me to drive this year as well, so here I am. The young kids are kicking my butt big time.

“I really enjoyed Formula Ford, and when I go in the car, I turn back the clock and I push hard and I make mistakes like I used to do in the old days.”

Fast forwarding to the present, and Moreno makes a comparison of how different his first Formula Ford car was the one he was spending the weekend in.

“The car I drove in the past, it would move a lot and the tyres would bend. So you would chuck the car in,

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MORENO GETTING READY TO HEAD OUT ONTO TRACK AT THE 2022 FESTIVAL

get it sideways, and then go on the throttle. If you do that with this car, you spin.

“So you’ve got to be very delicate, careful, and as I found out, I had a couple of offs today, basically you’ve got to be very gentle, and tight. You’ve got to be braking and throttle very quickly, and carry the speed without too much being sideways. That’s the biggest difference. But I can do more or less in the dry weather, but in the rain I’m going to suck. Just as a reminder, I’m 63!”

Moreno wasn’t just using his time on track to learn, but also the experience of his considerably younger and debuting team-mates: Team Canada scholars Jake Cowden and Kevin Foster.

“Today, after a couple of sessions, I quietly sat down and listened to them, so I could learn something,” he said after testing. “So I was quite impressed, the way they are advanced, and I’ve learned a few things from them today.

“I’m having fun. They’re here to win the race, but I’m here to have fun. But every time I drive, it all comes back to me and I just started to push, so you never know [how it could go].”

It went probably just as well as you could expect for a part-time driver (who spends most of his time driver coaching in the USA) up against teenagers and category stars in their early 20s, and he started Saturday of the event by qualifying 11th for his heat, 2.171 seconds off pole.

"THEY'RE HERE TO WIN THE RACE, BUT I'M HERE TO HAVE FUN"

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“The car is fantastic. The team is really good, I think the driver needs to have maybe 20 years back on the clock, at least!” he beamed after qualifying.

“This car is really different [to the RF80], I love it.

It’s been good. Nothing to complain. This car has much more speed in the corners, you have to be more careful not to slide it. So it’s a different way of driving. It forces a driver to become really sensitive to not lose speed in the corners. Very precise, and fast.

“I’m having trouble to get used to the Formula Ford, because I recently drove a F1 car in Monaco. So the amount of brake pressure, the adaptation for me hasn’t been easy, so I wouldn’t count on me winning the race.”

Bonini, racing for rival team Kevin Mills Racing, was in the same sessions as his coach and qualified ninth for his first ever car race. He had been fifth quickest, but

his fastest lap was deleted for not slowing under yellow flags.

Later in the day, Bonini just came short of fifth place in heat two, with Moreno finishing eighth. “[Cadu has impressed] very much. He’s very sharp, very quickly got used to everything. He’s never changed gear in his life in the past,” was his coach’s assessment of his first day of racing.

On his own return to race action, he added: “I got comfortable as I went all through the race. The new car has a different style of driving, which you probably need more testing to be competitive. So it took me a little while, but I got going towards the end. Very difficult car to drive in the wet, more so than my old car in the ‘80s. In the wet I still have to learn a lot about this car.”

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His semi-final on Sunday was set to be wet too, and Moreno said “the team has provided me with a good car and a good set-up, it’s up to me to actually get used to it and deliver the result”, explaining “re-adapting, bringing yourself down, it’s not as easy as going up [from karts]”.

Moreno faded to 21st place in his semi-final, while Bonini progressed to the final by finishing 10th, and that meant he then had to contest the last chance race.

Although he rose up the order to 12th, it wasn’t enough to reach the final and so his weekend ended early. But on reviewing how the event had gone, Moreno was still

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in good spirits and clearly chuffed to have been able to return to Formula Ford and race against hungry young drivers once again.

“The semi-final, hahaha, it was really tough for me,” he said on Sunday evening. “I struggled in the wet, there’s a technique that I’ve learned during that session and watching some of the videos, but I haven’t used it yet. I would have to learn that to be able to be competitive. So I took it very easy, but I had a lot of enjoyment. I very much enjoyed racing, although I was not very competitive.”

As for the chaotic last chance race, Moreno said “it

looked that way” on if he had successfully avoided the drama going on around him on track as he made up positions. Overall, was he happy with the weekend?

“Very much so. The team gave me a great car, I learned a lot with my team-mates, and it’s always an enjoyable moment to come here.

“I’m not sure if I’ll come back next year. I’m getting too old. Yesterday I had a headache, today I was fine.

But yesterday it was tough. It’s not as easy for me anymore, but I enjoy so much that I’ll [be tempted].

But I’m very competitive, so I don’t want to just do it for the fun. I can see that I need to work hard to be

competitive. It’s still a great event, since 1980 when I did it. Still a great event.”

And even if Moreno doesn’t return once again, there may be room for some other big names to compete. Jan Magnussen raced in 2021, Marc Goosens drove in 2022, and 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button has even posted on social media about trying to get some of the stars of his racing generation to join him in making a Festival appearance.

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IMAGE BY ED WAPLINGTON

AXEL HILDEBRAND DRIFTER AXEL HILDEBRAND GOES FULL SEND INTO PADDOCK HILL BEND AT BRANDS HATCH.

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LEAVING

A LEGACY WORDS BY ASH MILLER IMAGES BY GRAND PRIX PHOTO

A

n icy quagmire engulfs the air hanging silently in the midst of a nondescript car park on the north side of Cambridge; its wintery fingertips seemingly reaching beyond the multiple layers of black apparel adorning a cohort of shivering men, teeth chattering as the fog reveals snippets of the concrete-heavy scenery immediately watching over the freezing foursome.

The debut chills of early December are making their presence felt, as the first truly brisk morning of winter 2022 wraps its clutches around England. Within it, adorning iPads and flanked by a fleet showcasing the latest in electric motoring technology, the quartet make a final pre-event check. Everything is ready to go.

DONNELLY AT THE 1990 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX

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A distinctive voice breaks the eerie early morning silence.

“Ash, come over to the mobile office and help me set up this bluetooth thing.”

The voice navigates the fog slightly muffled - the statement’s source is already travelling with a famously recognisable limp towards a Land Rover Discovery 4.

An urban Cambridge outdoor space in the grip of a dawning winter isn’t usually what you’d call a traditional scene for a former Formula 1 driver, let alone one of particular notoriety. But climbing into the driver's side of his car, Martin Donnelly settles into the seat, handwritten notes for the day’s event in tow, and ready to test his new bluetooth purchase.

32 years earlier, the same man graced the sparse scenery of a sun-blistered southern Spanish circuit in

Jerez, a world away from the bitterly cold confines of our current location. Dressed in the famous Camelemblazoned yellow Lotus overalls that was as much an instantly recognisable sight as anything representing Marlboro or Leyton House, Ulsterman Martin Donnelly was enjoying the limelight in his first full season of F1. Paired with the much revered and experienced Derek Warwick, Donnelly was measuring up well against the man whom Ayrton Senna once vetoed to go against him in that very same team. At the top of the motorsport world after a meteoric rise which saw him additionally compete in that years’s 24 Hour of Le Mans for Nissan, the upward trajectory was unmistakable.

“It was round 13 of the championship,” Donnelly says, in the midst of making conversation as I unbox

the little bluetooth receiver. “I was doing well, and we’d had some good performances through the year despite the reliability issues.”

“The 102 was an update of the previous car.

The chassis was a bit flexible, and although the Lamborghini V12 sounded brilliant, it was snappy on the power and heavy. To pass the ruling on head height out of the cockpit, the team extended the carbon skin up the cockpit upwards to make sure my head wasn’t out of the line between the roll hoop and the top of the cockpit - but that was all it was, thin carbon fibre. I have a picture at home of me at the hairpin at Monaco, my shoulders are all the way out of the cockpit!”

It would be in that very car that Donnelly would have his career trajectory changed forever during Qualifying for the 1990 European Grand Prix.

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DEREK WARWICK LEADING DONNELLY AT MONZA

Turning into the brutally fast penultimate corner of the lap, on the limit at the end of a qualifying run, the 102’s front suspension gave way. Spearing off the track, Donnelly met with the armco barrier at 170mph.

The impact split the car in two - the cockpit tearing away like tin foil off a kitchen roll, so violently it flung its driver tumbling across the track. Horrifying pictures would show the unconscious Donnelly laying sprawled across the middle of the tarmac, seat still strapped to his back, his body a mangled mess of limbs at obscure angles.

The famous footage would feature in the 2011 documentary movie ‘Senna’, introducing the horrific scenes to a whole new generation, and reminding the previous one of the ferocity of the moment.

“I don’t remember anything of the accident. I only remember several weeks afterwards. I was in a medically induced coma for 6 weeks while the doctors worked overtime to keep me alive.”

Senna himself would visit Donnelly in the hospital; the Brazilian, a good friend of Donnelly’s, offering his help and paying for his medical expenses. Warwick, too, would visit the mangled Donnelly.

“Del-boy came to visit me in hospital, and fainted at the sight of me!”, Donnelly quips.

Indeed ‘Del-boy’, as well as Donnelly’s Lotus team-mate, was already a close friend of Donnelly, having crossed paths many times during their rise to F1 stardom. Warwick was a forerunner of the famous British motorsport ‘rat-pack’ making waves on circuits around the world in the late 1980’s; Damon Hill, Mark Blundell, Julian Bailey, Johnny Herbert, Donnelly and

Perry McCarthy all forging their paths upwards towards motorsport’s highest echelon, their rivalry on track as fierce as their mate-ship off it.

The group still frequently meet, and every Christmas period, get together to celebrate another year. I ask whether Donnelly ever wonders about what may have happened, had the accident not happened.

“I do, when the ‘rat-pack’ get together. Most of them went on to become successful; Damon was a world champion and made millions, Johnny was a grand prix winner and has done well also. In fact, twice Johnny filled a space I left, the second of which was the accident in Jerez. Johnny was the test driver at Lotus, so he got the call up to fill my seat.

“The day of my accident, I was in demand in Formula 1 and had four different contracts on offer for 1991/1992. I signed for Lotus again for two seasons £5.6 million was tied up two hours before I got into the car for qualifying in Jerez. It was my first big contract, I’d negotiated it myself, and things were looking rosy.”

The heating in the Land Rover is providing relief from the chill outside. I fiddle with the radio stations, tuning a channel to match up with the new device now plugged into the 12v cigarette lighter of the car.

Conversation turns to the recovery.

“I was hungry. I wanted to get back racing as quickly as possible. I found and got in touch with the same guy that helped Niki Lauda back to racing, and thought, if he could help Niki back in six weeks, he could get me back in two months. But it didn’t quite work like that.”

Eventually leaving hospital on Valentines Day 1991, Donnelly was determined to recover. Physiotherapy,

DONNELLY LYING ON THE TRACK AFTER HIS CRASH AT JEREZ 54 | THE PIT STOP

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multiple operations and recovery sessions would follow.

“I remember being in the hospital in London, and I could hear Pavarotti playing a concert in Hyde Park nearby. The complications from surgery would keep happening - I got 90 degrees of movement, and the skin would tear on the knee and need addressing. I got 120 degrees, and the same happened and yet another setback while they fended off the risk of infection. It took a lot longer than I hoped.”

The dream, however, was still alive, and Donnelly recovered enough to talk to old feeder series team boss Eddie Jordan about a comeback. Come January 1993, Martin arrived at Silverstone to sample a 192, and promptly got to grips with the machinery.

“I wanted to prove that I was still the best, that I deserved to be in Formula 1. The test itself went well; the times were good. However, the major snag was the egress test, which stated you had to evacuate the

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car within five seconds. I could do it within ten, but my limited mobility kept holding me up, so I couldn’t do it in the five required.

“When that became apparent and I was aware that I wasn’t going to be able to be at that level again, it was the first time I broke down and cried.”

The journey post professional sportsman would define the thereafter for Donnelly, who after a period of adjustment decided that there was “no use in moping around, I had to get on with it and make a new set of circumstances work for me.”

A commentary spell with RTE was the first of his forays outside the cockpit; however this proved to be short lived.

“The tubes they put into me after my accident damaged my throat, and made it husky, a little bit like a pack a day smoker. Before my accident, as you can see in YouTube videos, I was well spoken and professional

and clearly understood. The damage to my throat made the commentary a bit difficult to understand.”

Donnelly turned his efforts and attentions to the other side of the pit wall. He established Martin Donnelly Racing in 1992, and entered the Formula Vauxhall and Vauxhall Junior championships as a team owner. It wouldn’t take long for his team to rack up success after success, and MDR expanded into British and European Formula Ford, Formula 3 and Formula Renault as the ’90s progressed, a roster of name drivers finding their footsteps leading straight through Donnelly’s door en-route to further motorsport success.

Names like Jason Plato, Jamie Davies, Luciano Burti and Mario Haberfeld all sat in Donnelly’s increasingly successful race seats, the latter of whom would win the blue-riband F3 race supporting the F1 grand prix at Silverstone in 1997, a not-to-be-sneezed-at feather in the cap of a driver who attributed the success to further

career-vaulting follow up drives into the future. Indeed all of the aforementioned would credit Donnelly’s no-nonsense support, setup, nouse and business savvy approach to the upward rise of their individual careers.

During his 13 years as a successful team owner, Donnelly’s own personal life had flourished, and his three children had arrived on the scene. Life on the road and a constant diary of races to attend would eventually give way to family life, with Donnelly’s family taking precedence.

“I was up and down the A14 twice a week for the team, and eventually I just wanted to spend time with my family, and be there to watch my family grow up, I was away so often that I was missing out on that and I wanted to be there for them.”

The occasional drive in BritCar, International CanAm, and the Lotus on Track Elise Trophy would follow his tenure as a team owner. His savvy approach

DONNELLY AND MODENA BATTLING AT IMOLA

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THE DRIVING STANDARDS ROLE IS ONE HE STILL ACTIVELY ENGAGES IN outside the car and experience within it would find its way to having Donnelly as the FIA Driving Standards official for the latter concern.

It would be around this time that he would also return to the F1 paddock, albeit in a much more revised role. The FIA driving standards role was filled by a number of former F1 drivers over the period, with Donnelly being a consistent name on the billing to keep an eye over the very grid he was once a part of.

As the cold continues to bite outside, Donnelly muses.

“It never really felt like work. I was with all my friends, all the drivers, we all know each other and it’s a great place to be. Being in the paddock always felt like home and it was great to return there and be an active

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part of it again.”

Indeed it was in this role Donnelly would detail several stories on his dealings with the recently former and current F1 grid; many of which include entertaining encounters with Kimi Raikkonen that drew a few chuckles.

The driving standards role is one he still actively engages in - most notably and recently at the prestigious Goodwood Members’ Meeting in 2022, where he oversaw a good number of his old adversaries in timeless machinery.

Despite this role in its various guises, competitive motorsport would never be far away from Donnelly.

Several more seasons in a Lotus Elise, occasionally alongside his son Stefan, would follow on into the

2010s, as would support category appearances for VW in the DTM, and a British Touring Car Championship debut for Infiniti in 2015 shortly before the Support Our Paras team running the project went into receivership.

Coaching would continue to be an ever-present mainstay however, and Donnelly Track Academy continues to coach successful young up and coming drivers; working with Marco Anastasia and Maurizio Scaglio in 2021, the latter would take the laurels in the Elise Trophy on the final lap of the final race, and both went on to score well in the Ginetta GTA in their 2022 season with the help of Martin’s input.

“I’ve still been coaching successfully, and still working closely with Lotus at the LDA (Lotus Driving Academy), as well as doing milage on the new Emira, so I’m still present in car and enjoying the work. It won’t be the job I’ll do forever though.

“I’m very aware every time I step out my front door that another bad accident, and I’ll lose my leg altogether. The second time I broke it (while on a charity scooter ride in Ireland) nearly saw me lose the leg, and the doctor told me that I have ‘more bone laying on the track in Jerez than I do currently in my body.’”

The enduring reminder of that Jerez qualifying remains.

“When I’m walking around at home, it’s still painful.

It always will be, and I’ve learned to deal with it.

Especially in the winter, the circulation is poor and the nerves are damaged so it gets very cold and hurts a lot.

That in itself makes me aware of the risk of still being in car, exposing myself to another potentially life changing situation and I’m not wanting to do that forever.”

Conversation turns to the recently wrapped filming of a documentary around Donnelly’s story. His phone in hand, he shows me the trailer that’s been freshly edited that week. Among the media, a video of a large box in a workshop, its contents a scattered jumbled of yellow carbon fibre shards, shred and slabs - the fact that the remnants of Donnelly’s 102 still live at Lotus, stored away in a box as opposed to an area of the workshop, says volumes about the ferocity of the impact, both to armco, and the life of the driver it ejected. Seeing the wreckage, the fact that this man survived at all is enough to make you believe in divine intervention.

Indeed it was his accident that greatly changed the design of not only all F1 cars, but also helmets, from that moment onwards - the speaker cups installed in the helmet at the time of his accident were attributed to being a cause for a portion of the injuries Donnelly suffered when his head was subjected to the immense force of the crash, and the in-ear type that’s synonymous with all modern race driver radio pieces was designed as a direct response to the frightening degree of Donnelly’s injuries.

“They replaced the speaker cups with the in-ear design,” Donnelly reflects.

“They also introduced the accelerometers inside them, so data could be obtained so doctors would

know the severity of an impact on the driver and be able to act accordingly.”

His relationship with helmet supplier Arai, whose helmet contributed to saving his life, continues strongly.

A vast majority of drivers henceforth would owe Donnelly a great debt in advancing the safety of F1, as revisions to chassis and car design would render his chassis-vaporising accident as the last of its type in F1 to date.

All these stories, and a million more, are about to be highlighted yet again, as we head into the new year.

“The documentary is already well in the works,” Donnelly says as his attention turns to reading the printed instructions for the new bluetooth device.

“We have already shot all the test footage. It’s coming together well. In addition to that I have a book being written at the moment, called ‘What If’, that’s a no-hold-barred, behind the scenes account of everything in my racing career - a lot of which I usually can’t say to most people!”

Indeed many of Donnelly’s stories, from personal experience, are things you would barely believe, had it not come from the mouth of a bonafide motorsport legend. Lad’s tales involving a number of his rat-pack brethren in their formative years of racing come thick and fast, most of which can only be repeated in selected company, but all of which will be encased in the pages of his book, due in the Summer of 2023.

“I wanted something to leave behind, as a legacy, to tell the stories of where I’ve been, and what I’ve done.

“It’s getting to that point in life where I want to reflect, and leave my kids something as well, to leave behind. If it sells well, that’s fantastic, I’d be thrilled.

But even if it doesn’t, I want to have something that my family and close friends can have as a legacy, something that lives beyond my years and something that they can take with them. Time heals.”

Indeed this legacy is being introduced to an entirely new legion of fans. As his appearance in Senna thrust him into the spotlight once again, his recent interview on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast similarly introduced a new legion of F1 fans to one of the more remarkable stories in grand prix history.

Donnelly connects his phone to the bluetooth, and a call is made to test it. It’s working well, and he is happy with the new addition to his ‘mobile office’. A signal through the windscreen from fellow British motorsport star Rob Barff tells us our event is about to start.

Bluetooth setup, we walk back over.

Jovial, full of positivity and larrikin-ism, Donnelly’s triumph over adversity is every bit worth the legacy he hopes to leave. We walk through the bitterly cold murk as we discuss plans to head to Bedford that evening to attend a Christmas party for the crew of instructors at Palmersport, an old stomping ground of Donnelly’s.

Barff’s jab of ‘you’re not getting in a car with Ash Miller are you?’ is met with a typically upbeat Donnelly response; “I’ve died three times already, what’s a fourth!”

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

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

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VETTEL'S GREATEST

DRIVE WORDS BY GARETH KENARDINGTON IMAGES BY GRAND PRIX PHOTO / RED BULL

S

ebastian Vettel's Formula 1 career was full of paradoxes and contradictions.

Going from the period it looked like he, not Lewis Hamilton, would rewrite F1 history as he dominated for four years when still only in his mid-20s to underwhelming so much at Ferrari that it called into question whether he had ever really been as good as he'd appeared.

Bursting into F1 as a loveable breath of fresh air, then raising questions over his racing ethics mid-career with some very questionable moves and decisions, before leaving F1 as a widely-adored champion of progressive causes.

And clinching the least impressive of his four F1 world titles with the most impressive of his titleclinching drives.

Some drivers seal titles by dominating. Some by just calmly doing what's necessary to get the final points they need. Some by colliding with a rival.

But some by having to scrabble through dramas to pull off a minor miracle just when everything seemed to have swung against them.

The 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix was the day Vettel proved - in epic style - that he could 'win scruffy' when it came to sealing a championship, his equivalent of Brazil 2008 for Hamilton or Japan 2003 for Michael Schumacher. A day he somehow got the points he

needed to deny Fernando Alonso in Alonso's greatest ever season, in a Red Bull that logically should've been parked - probably on fire - after the first few laps. And along the way, though we didn't know it at the time, sowing the seed for one of the biggest controversies of his career that would only unfold five months later.

Vettel's four-season string of titles is often seen as a period of Red Bull domination. Some of it undoubtedly was but it was rarely the case for the full season.

Red Bull was never as far ahead of the opposition as Mercedes would be in the years that followed, and certainly not for any sustained spell - even if Vettel's results in 2011 and '13 in particular might've made it look that way. Really these were years of three-way Red

Bull/McLaren/Ferrari fights with Lotus and Mercedes sticking their noses in regularly too.

One of Red Bull's least dominant spells was early 2012, with a series of rule changes affecting blown exhausts, nose flexibility and (on the eve of the season) the placing of bodywork around the exhaust all chipping away at elements of Adrian Newey's genius on the Red Bull. That didn't mean it was a bad car, far from it, but the slightly limited design wasn't able to be taken to the kind of performance peaks that its predecessor had reached in Vettel's hands - at least until late-season upgrades unlocked some of that magic again.

But it was substantially better than the Ferrari of

Vettel's title rival Fernando Alonso, which was almost laughably off the pace in pre-season testing, largely thanks to windtunnel correlation problems that led to Ferrari switching to Toyota's tunnel so it could properly figure its car out.

Upgrades made it quicker to a degree but even the improved car soon hit a performance ceiling.

And yet - via the greatest season-long performance by any F1 driver in the 21st century so far - Alonso spent most of 2012 leading the championship, by as much as 40 points at one point mid-summer.

Alonso reached a new level of relentlessness that year. Wet races or qualifying sessions were absolutely maximised to get him ahead of faster rivals. Incredible on-the-edge driving meant no possible point was wasted (at least by Alonso, Ferrari let quite a lot slip away with over-cautious strategies). In the middle of the year - between an upgrade package introduced for Spain taking effect and Red Bull and McLaren's improvements taking them another step ahead - the Ferrari was good enough to be a podium regular but certainly not a championship leader. Alonso's tally of three wins and 10 other podiums across the year defies belief. Team-mate Felipe Massa reached the podium just twice.

But by the finale at Interlagos, the miracle seemed over. Red Bull's Singapore upgrade allowed Vettel to fully unleash the driving style he'd deployed with the blown exhaust 2011 car and it was no coincidence that he reeled off four straight wins that put him into the championship lead. Alonso made his only significant mistake of the year with a startline misjudgement at Suzuka that led to contact with Kimi Raikkonen and a zero score. Vettel produced one of his drives of the year to come from a pitlane start to third in Abu Dhabi after his Red Bull ran too low on fuel to give the mandatory sample postqualifying.

It all meant Vettel was 13 points clear by Brazil and despite a mistake in Q3 - three places ahead of Alonso on the grid as they lined up fourth and seventh, with his Ferrari rival needing a podium and Vettel outside the top seven to pull off one last miracle. Given the cars' relative pace by then, that seemed extremely unlikely.

It's often suggested that the fact it rained on race day was what turned everything inside out. That's true to a degree: in a straightforward dry race, Vettel would've probably at worst been third behind the front row starting McLarens and it's unlikely Alonso would've got higher than fifth.

But the chaos began before the rain, and in the end it was Vettel who benefited most from the wet track.

It was drizzling as the cars took off from the grid.

Vettel was a little slow away, slightly cautious, and furious to be squeezed a little by team-mate Mark Webber.

"Mark squeezed me but I didn't want to be stubborn

and fight and lose my front wing," said Vettel. "So I had to back off and everyone went round my outside."

That - and Webber not being over-helpful when Vettel came up behind him on his recovery charge later on - lingered in Vettel's mind all winter. It ended up prompting the 'multi 21' controversy in the following year's Malaysian GP, when Vettel decided in retaliation for Interlagos that he'd ignore the team's request he stay behind leader Webber at Sepang, overtook him for the win, expressed regret when he saw Webber and the team's fury, then took most of that regret back in the following weeks after thinking about it all some more.

It was not his finest hour, and - along with a touch of fatigue with his title run - meant his 2014 defeat by new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo went down rather well among some fans.

All that was months away. The immediate consequence was that Vettel was down to seventh, while Alonso had brilliantly and boldly sailed down the outside of the pack into fifth.

Worse, much worse, was to follow. Vettel was being challenged by Paul di Resta into the Descida do Lago and Bruno Senna threw his Williams into it all too.

Vettel turned in, clouted Senna, was hit by Sergio Perez too, lost a substantial chunk from the side of his car and was spun to the back.

Remarkably, though, the Red Bull was (unlike Senna's Williams and Perez's Sauber) still running.

"I was thinking, 'Just keep believing, stay calm,'" said Vettel.

Things weren't so calm in the Red Bull garage, where Newey and his team were soon studying rapidly-acquired trackside photographs of Vettel's car to see exactly what damage had been done. The sidepod, floor and exhaust were all affected. That had a significant handling impact, cost Vettel straightline speed by making the car more draggy, and also left it eating tyres faster in the dry. A front wing set-up tweak at a pitstop helped but could only do so much.

The biggest concern was a crack in the exhaust - a situation that would usually result in a fire sooner rather than later. Red Bull adjusted the mapping of the Renault engine in a way it hoped would minimise temperatures in that area, which had a further performance impact, and was quite pleased it was raining too.

As well as the drizzle being a cooling aid, it was giving Vettel scope to get around his car's shortcomings by playing with different lines. He drove the laps of his life to get back from 22nd to sixth by lap eight!

Alonso was being just as heroic, passing Webber and Massa in a single move to take third. But he couldn't keep up with the leading McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, and was overtaken by Nico Hulkenberg's flying Force India (the German underdog excelling in the slippery conditions) during one of several trips over a run-off area.

"I WAS THIKING, 'JUST KEEP BELIEVING, STAY CALM'"

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DESPITE CARRYING DAMAGE, VETTEL STILL FINISHED THE RACE IN SIXTH

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So barely more than half a dozen laps after his championship seemed lost, Vettel was back with one hand on the title. But it was far from over. The weather fluctuated all afternoon, and Vettel had the added problem of his radio barely working. Red Bull rarely had any idea when he'd be pitting and had to try to second guess his tyre preference when he did.

Both Alonso and Vettel pitted for intermediate tyres as the rain increased. That was the wrong move, but everyone except Button and Hulkenberg made it. So the title rivals' brief drop to 12th and 17th soon became fourth and fifth, Alonso still ahead on the day but with Vettel set for the title.

The scares continued. Vettel made a tentative safety car restart after debris prompted a pause, and lost a place to Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber and then Massa soon afterwards. No matter though, Alonso was only fourth behind now shock leader Hulkenberg and the McLarens. Vettel was safe.

That changed when the rain got heavier. Hulkenberg spun into Hamilton as they contested the lead, taking the McLaren out and earning himself a penalty. Vettel's stop for inters was poorly timed and very slow (due to the radio angst). It meant Alonso was up to second behind Button and Vettel was down to 10th.

Not for long, though. Pitstops for Jean-Eric Vergne and di Resta, and passes on Kobayashi and poignantly - mentor Michael Schumacher in his last ever F1 race got Vettel back up to sixth as the rain lashed down ever harder in the final laps.

This epic year came to a muted end behind the safety car when di Resta slammed into the wall on the pits straight. As much as Alonso had insisted he'd be satisfied whatever the title income as it was extraordinary that he'd even been in contention (which was true), he looked utterly devastated as he watched Vettel and Red Bull's celebrations.

On the weekend of Vettel's final F1 start in Abu Dhabi last year, he lined up on row five alongside Alonso. Alonso pledged to go easy on Vettel in the opening laps out of respect for his old rival. That was a nice gesture, and perhaps a surprise in a way given Alonso's F1 records might look very different had Vettel not been there - having been the man who narrowly deprived him of titles in both 2010 and '12. Back then, Alonso wasted no opportunity to suggest the Red Bull was the superior car and Vettel was benefiting disproportionately from that. Even at the time he'd have known that was a little disingenuous.

Alonso's 2012 arguably stands as one of the greatest seasons by any driver in modern F1. To beat someone performing at that level, yes a faster car helps. But it's not everything, and when the car's not even faster because it's missing some crucial chunks, then it really is down to the driver. On one of the messiest days of his greatest years in F1, Vettel produced perhaps the best drive of his career - and certainly the most important.

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IMAGE BY MATT WIDDOWSON

THE RACE IS ON IT'S THE BEAUTY OF BRITISH GT. A VARIETY OF CARS, ALL COMPETING FOR THE SAME BIT OF TRACK. IN 2022, RAM RACING TOOK TITLE GLORY, BUT THAT COULD ALL CHANGE IN 2023, FOR NOTHING EVER STAYS THE SAME FOR LONG IN THAT SERIES.

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SWAN STEWART'S

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

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I

t’s an idyllic view to end a career while on top of the world, especially for a Formula 1 driver. Very few drivers who would ever be in a position to achieve such a thing, and with the drug of victory constantly in view, the majority of the drivers miss their moment. They get too hung up on trying to get just one more win that by the time they do decide to retire, competitiveness has got the better of them and they find themselves treading water in the midfield.

But Jackie Stewart was not one such driver. His mind was made up very early on in the 1973 Formula 1 season, deciding in April of that year that it would be his final one as a racing driver. But he had to make it

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count. There was no option. Having missed out on a third world championship title the year before (partly due to suffering with a stomach ulcer), but knowing his Tyrrell was looking ever-competitive, it was a real possibility that he could end the season and his career well and truly on top of the world. And to cap it off nicely, there would be a little cherry on the top for Stewart, as the final race of the 1973 season would also be Stewart’s 100th grand prix start. What better way could there be to bow out?

Consistency was the key to the start of Stewart’s 1973 season in more ways than one. Remaining with Tyrrell for the fourth straight year, he also had the same team-mate as the year prior, with François Cevert

partnering him once again. The pair also started the season with the same car they ended 1972 with - the 005.

The 005 had been kind to Stewart in 1972, with the then double world champion winning the final two races of the year in Canada and the USA. There was no need to rush out an all-new car with regulations remaining stable for 1973 and the 005 proved to still be a contender when racing began in Argentina in late January.

Stewart lined up fourth for the start of the race, having struggled to get the front end of his car to handle to his liking, while Cevert qualified a further four tenths behind in sixth. But it was Cevert who got

the better start of the pair, launching himself into the lead of the race. Unfortunately, that lead didn’t last for long, with Cevert being overtaken 15 laps later by Clay Regazzoni, but with Stewart only a few positions further down the road.

In the end, the Lotus of Emerson Fittipaldi emerged victorious in the race, but Cevert wasn’t far behind in second, with the pair separated by a mere four seconds. Stewart too would have been in the fight for the win, but he was forced to limp home to finish the race, having picked up a puncture on a rear tyre in the closing stages. However, despite being essentially down to three wheels, he still held on to third, opening his season with a podium.

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STEWART IN PRACTICE AT THE 1973 FRENCH GRAND PRIX

TWO RACES IN, AND STEWART WAS ALREADY FINDING HIMSELF DRIFTING AWAY FROM THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE The second race of the season in Brazil was always going to be a tough place for Stewart and Tyrrell. They knew Fittipaldi was going to be a title contender all season, and on his home turf he was naturally the favourite. It didn’t matter that the Interlagos circuit was new to the world of F1 either.

Tyrrell had some prior knowledge of the track having conducted some tyre testing there for Goodyear during the winter, and its results from that test had dampened its expectations for the grand prix due to the fact the car didn’t exactly perform brilliantly. The 005 didn’t handle the bumpy surface very well and although the team altered the car’s wheelbase by six inches before the race weekend by installing an aluminium distance piece between the engine and chassis to counteract it, that piece was quickly discarded as it didn’t have the desired effect.

But despite the concerns regarding competitiveness, Stewart still managed to grind out a decent result,

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finishing the race on the podium after a lightning start catapulted him from eighth on the grid to third. Soon after, Stewart dispatched Surtees driver Carlos Pace for second and from there spent the rest of the grand prix in isolation, ending up finishing 13.5 seconds behind Fittipaldi, but 1m46s ahead of McLaren’s Denny Hulme in third.

Two races in, and Stewart was already finding himself drifting away from the championship battle, especially as Fittipaldi had won both races. It’s not how the season was supposed to go. But things quickly turned a corner next time out in South Africa, with Stewart armed with a new car - the 006.

The 006 was an evolution of the 005 and Cevert had previously used the chassis for the final two races of 1972, finishing second in the final grand prix of the year at Watkins Glen. And with that revised chassis increasingly looking like an improvement on the 005, Stewart switched to the 006 for South Africa, although

his beginning with the new car didn’t get off to the greatest of starts.

Practice for the South African Grand Prix took place over three days, and on the first two Stewart was running an old wing set. That appeared to be holding him back from reaching the car’s full potential, and so on Friday, a new set was fitted to the car. The times tumbled quickly, and it wasn’t long before he was the fastest driver on the track. But that positivity didn’t last for long. A few laps later, while travelling at over 175mph, Stewart’s brakes failed going into the first corner.

For many drivers, that incident would have resulted in a monumental crash, almost certainly killing them.

But despite the speed he was travelling at, Stewart was able to spin his car around, meaning the rear of his car went into the chain link fencing and not the front end and cockpit. Emerging unharmed, he walked back to the pits and used Cevert’s car for the remainder of the session.

In the end, Stewart could only qualify 16th for the start of the race, and with Fittipaldi second, it looked as though the Brazilian would be extending his championship lead once again. But that turned out not to be the case at all.

Once the race eventually got underway, having been delayed due to heavy downpours, Stewart meticulously picked off his opposition to move through the order.

Everyone looked on in awe as he carved his way through the order and by just lap seven he was leading.

The race was red-flagged early into the grand prix after Regazzoni crashed into an already stricken Surtees of Mike Hailwood. Both cars caught fire, and while Hailwood was able to extract himself swiftly, Regazzoni was trapped.

Without hesitation, Hailwood jumped into the fire, managing to drag Regazzoni from his BRM, and with both drivers largely uninjured bar some burns to Regazzoni’s hands, the race got back underway.

When the race did get going again, Stewart regained full control and never looked back, going on to beat Peter Revson to the chequered flag by 24s.

Stewart’s championship challenge was finally underway. That victory, and with Fittipaldi finishing third, meant that only three points separated the pair as they headed to Spain.

Unfortunately for Stewart, the Spanish Grand Prix was a write off. A brake failure on lap 47 forced him to retire from second, and with Fittipaldi claiming his third win of the season, the margin between the pair grew to 12 points.

But Stewart wasn’t down and out for long.

Once again, Stewart was the slower of the two Tyrrells in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, ending up sixth to Cevert’s fourth. Cevert had a strong start quickly taking the lead, but while Stewart might not

AFTER WINNING THE SOUTH AFRICAN GRAND PRIX

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have been as fast over a single lap, nothing could be taken away from his racecraft and pace over a full race distance.

It wasn’t long before Stewart was in fourth position, hounding Fittipaldi for third place, and with Cevert controlling the race well from the front, it looked as though the final step on the podium would be the best possible result for Stewart. But on lap 19 Fittipaldi and Stewart were both given a gift.

Ronnie Peterson - who had been running second crashed out of the race, and Cevert spun off the road ahead. He managed to remain in the race and got his Tyrrell back onto the track again, but his trip into the gravel allowed both Fittipaldi and Stewart to grab the top two positions.

The victory was in Stewart’s sights, and eventually on lap 25 he made a move on his championship rival going into the first corner, successfully out-braking Fittipaldi for the lead. From there he was gone. Stewart claimed a dominant victory, while Cevert managed to make it a 1-2 for Tyrrell, having also managed to pass Fittipaldi.

Monaco was the next race facing the world’s most elite drivers and Stewart excelled around the tight and twisty street circuit to clinch a second straight win, having taken a lights-to-flag victory, closing the gap to Fittipaldi in the championship to just four points.

The podium would elude Stewart for the next three races, although fourth in France was enough to propel him into the championship lead for the first time that year after Fittipaldi crashed out from the grand prix on lap 41.

But by the eighth round of 13, Stewart was back to winning ways at the Dutch Grand Prix, although the event was marred by the death of Roger Williamson who had violently crashed into the barriers on the eighth lap after a tyre failure. Despite the crash, the race continued due to the fact the stewards wrongly believing Dave Purley had crashed and that he had escaped unharmed. In reality, Purley had stopped at the scene of the crash and had tried to rescue Williamson who was trapped in his car, but when a horrendous fire ensued, Purley was unable to save his colleague and friend.

The following race of the season was at the infamous Nurburgring. Stewart had previously said on multiple occasions that the race around the 14.19 mile circuit was far too dangerous, and it was one that also scared him. But despite the fear, it didn’t stop him from taking pole position for the race, beating Peterson by a mere half a second.

When the lights went out, Stewart retained the lead going into the first corner, despite receiving pressure from Cevert and the Lotus of Peterson. From there, Stewart and Cevert storm clear of the rest of the field to take a commanding lead for Tyrrell. There was nobody else simply capable of keeping up with the pair and after 14 gruelling laps, they crossed the finish line to take another 1-2 victory for Tyrrell, with Stewart the victor.

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It wasn’t just another win for Stewart though. It was his 27th F1 victory, one that made him the record holder of most career grand prix victories. Such was the importance of the victory that the British Automobile Racing Club awarded Stewart with one of its gold medals, which were handed out for outstanding achievement in motor racing by British subjects. Stewart was the 25th recipient of such an award after the BARC started handing them out in 1955.

Stewart’s victory at the Nurburgring also eased pressure slightly in the championship race. Still recovering from his crash in the Dutch Grand Prix, Fittipaldi could only muster a single point in Germany, having finished sixth, leaving him 18 points off the championship leader. But the biggest gainer was

STEWART LEADING CEVERT IN MONACO

THE BATTLE WAS STILL VERY MUCH ON, BUT STEWART KNEW THAT HE WAS EDGING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO A THIRD WORLD TITLE arguably Cevert. His second place finish elevated him to second in the championship, albeit he was 15 points behind his team-mate with five races remaining.

The battle was still very much on, but Stewart knew that he was edging closer and closer to a third world title. Another win or two and the championship would be his. However, unbeknown to Stewart at the time, his win in Germany would be his last grand prix victory.

The next race facing Stewart after Germany was in neighbouring Austria at the Österreichring. Stewart placed his car seventh on the grid, but like so many times that season, when the racing got underway, Stewart was the master magician, seemingly passing his rivals with the utmost ease to close in on the leaders.

Peterson led the race early on, followed in quick

succession by Hulme and Fittipaldi. Fittipaldi soon inherited second when the engine of Hulme’s McLaren let go, promoting Stewart to third. Then, playing the team game and trying to ensure Fittipaldi remained in the championship battle, Peterson waved his teammate through. A win for Fittipaldi would keep him very much in title contention, but with just five laps of the race remaining, the Brazilian was hit with a significant blow in more ways than one.

A fuel pipe on Fittipaldi’s Lotus burst, immediately ending his race. Peterson managed to stay ahead of Stewart, but it was a crucial blow for the retiree. And with Cevert having retired with a suspension issue much earlier in the grand prix, it allowed Stewart to capitalise on the situation and walk away from the weekend with

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a 21-point advantage.

Then came the speedfest of Monza three weeks later. The Tyrrell simply wasn’t capable of matching the speed of the Lotus in a flat-out situation and it showed in qualifying. Peterson claimed pole ahead of Revson, while Stewart was confined to sixth, 1.3s off the pacesetting time. Meanwhile, Cevert was struggling even more than his team-mate, lining up 11th on the grid.

As expected, when it came to the race itself, Lotus simply dominated. Peterson and Fittipaldi were simply too fast for the rest of the field, controlling the race from start to finish. The pair crossed the line separated by just eight tenths of a second, with Revson third, 28.8s further back.

Stewart wasn’t far behind Revson, finishing fourth, but he never stood a chance for victory. However, none of that mattered. Those three points for finishing fourth were enough to clinch Stewart the title.

He’d done it. Not only had he claimed his third world championship title, but he had also achieved what he set out to do when the season began. He was now going to finish his final year of racing well and truly on top of the world.

In his final year of racing, he’d won the championship and set a new record for most career victories, cementing his place in the hall of fame of F1, if it wasn’t there already. But now there was just one achievement left. To end his career with a nice round 100 race starts.

The Canadian Grand Prix was the penultimate race on the calendar, Stewart’s 99th start, and it was as clear as day to see that he wasn’t pushing his Tyrrell to the maximum. After all, he didn’t need to with the title sewn up. Ninth in qualifying was followed by a fifth place finish, and it was the first time that year he’d finished a race a lap down on the winner. He just wanted to get to the end of the year unscathed and sail away nicely into retirement.

Unfortunately for Stewart, that idyllic end to the year didn’t materialise for the most disastrous of reasons.

Before the final grand prix event of the season got underway, only team owner Ken Tyrrell knew of Stewart’s plans to retire at the end of the year. He and Tyrrell knew that bowing out with 100 grand prix starts would be an amazing way to end such a brilliant career, and in Cevert Tyrrell was acutely aware that he had a future star on his hands.

Between the pair, they had decided that Cevert would lead the team into 1974, with Jody Scheckter to join the team as Cevert’s understudy, and Stewart would confirm his retirement after the race. Such was the confidentiality of this agreement, not even Stewart’s wife, Helen, knew of his decision to quit F1.

Stewart knew the team would be in safe hands with Cevert at the helm. After all, he’d given Stewart a great run for his money at several points in the year.

However, that plan never came to fruition. With just a few minutes of qualifying remaining on the Saturday, Cevert violently went off the track at Watkins Glen’s Esses section, up towards the rear of the circuit.

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STEWART IN THE RAIN AT THE CANADIAN GRAND PRIX

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

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Cevert had attacked the kerbs just a bit too much and travelling at high speed he slid into the right-handed guardrail. His Tyrrell was then violently thrown across the track, striking the barrier on the other side at 150mph and sending the car to dig into the ground and then flip upwards.

The force of the impact split Cevert’s car into two, and Cevert himself was tragically killed immediately.

It was a heartbreaking moment for everyone involved, especially Stewart and Tyrrell. Stewart had seen Cevert’s car shortly after the crash and immediately knew that his team-mate had died. There was simply no way any driver could walk away from an accident of that magnitude.

Reflecting years later in his autobiography, Stewart said: “I have sat down and tried to make sense of it all many times and my enduring view is that, as we arrived at Watkins Glen that weekend, everything was almost going too well in my life. After an idyllic week in Bermuda, I was one race away from retirement, and I felt entirely comfortable with that decision. In fourteen years of competitive racing, I had secured a high standard of living, enjoyed many privileges and been able to provide for my young family; and now, without spilling a single drop of blood as a racing driver, I looked forward to a bright and exciting future. Maybe everything seemed just too neat. The US Grand Prix was going to be the hundredth and last of my career,

FRANCOIS CEVERT SAT IN THE PITLANE DURING THE 1973 SEASON

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and I had won twenty-seven F1 world championship races, at that time more than anybody else in the history of the sport., and I had already secured my third world championship in five seasons. The Tyrrell team seemed dominant, Ken and I had resolved a succession plan, Francois had developed into a top-class driver, and I looked forward to watching him win the world championship I felt was within his grasp. My cup was not just full, it was overflowing. Looking back, maybe everything was too good to be true.”

Wanting to understand how the accident could have happened, Stewart took to the track to see if there was anything he could learn. And when he was approaching the narrow bridge complex where Cevert had crashed,

Stewart noticed a bump in the road.

Stewart had attacked that corner in a higher gear, meaning revs were low and the car remained stable through the apex, but he knew that if a driver attacked that corner in a lower gear, revs would have been higher and hitting that bump at speeds of over 130mph would have been enough to make the Tyrrell twitchy and nervous at the front end. And this he believes is how Cevert attacked the corner on that particular lap.

The whole team was naturally devastated by the crash. They had lost a brilliant driver, Stewart and Tyrrell’s succession plan, but more importantly a great person and friend. Everyone was heartbroken.

Given the circumstances, Tyrrell suggested to

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STEWART HITTING THE APEX AT THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX

Stewart that they withdraw the team from the race.

But Stewart was conflicted. He wanted to pay his respects to Cevert, but there was also a very significant milestone right there within his grasp. The dream of ending his career with 100 starts was right there, ready to be accomplished.

Now for many, that would be a very harsh way of looking at the situation, especially given the fact his friend had just died, but this is what racing was like in that era. Every driver knew the risks, knowing each and every one of them had a high chance of dying whenever they stepped into a grand prix car. It was the nature of the beast in those days. And so wanting to carry on was in fact the natural approach.

But after much consideration, and wanting to do the right thing by Cevert and the team, Stewart agreed that both cars should be withdrawn from the United States Grand Prix.

And that’s how Stewart’s great career ended. He announced his retirement at the end of the year, meaning his time in F1 was over with 99 starts, 27 victories and three world championships firmly cemented in the record books.

In many ways, Stewart had executed his swansong season perfectly. He left F1 undisputedly on top of the world, but Cevert’s fatal accident meant Stewart’s swansong season was very much bittersweet.

It’s certainly not how he envisaged ending the

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season at the start of the year, and it was a devastating way to call time on his time in F1. But although it would have been very easy for Stewart to jump back in a car for 1974 to ensure he had a nice round 100 race starts on his race tally, he never made a return.

But that didn’t mean he removed himself completely from the world of F1. That could never happen. The series runs through his veins. Even now at the age of 83 he’s never far away from the F1 circus as it travels the globe.

He is F1 through and through, and the fact that he didn’t reach 100 grand prix starts means nothing in all reality. People don’t remember that tally. They remember the wins, the championship titles and the unbelievable racecraft.

That’s infinitely worth more than a neat number on a stat sheet. Yes, it would have been nice to have the perfect ending, but what is perfect in the world?

Absolutely nothing. It was more important that full respect was given to Cevert and his family, something that was done in the most beautiful of ways.

99 race starts was still an incredible achievement for the era, and there’s no denying that Stewart is one of the greatest drivers to have ever graced a Formula 1 grid. Does missing that one race make any difference?

Not to anybody else other than Stewart. But that’s what you get with a perfectionist.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

HILL AT THE 2022 GOODWOOD REVIVAL, GRAHAM HILL'S CAREER WAS CELEBRATED, WITH HIS SON, DAMON, LEADING THE TRIBUTE.

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making a

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statement

HAYDEN PADDON'S WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP CAREER IS IN FULL REBOOT MODE, AND IT ALL KICKSTARTED AT HOME

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T

o put it simply, the past three years have been nothing short of interesting.

A new decade brought for some a fresh start, but come March 2020 everyone’s lives were put on hold as quickly as it took Kalle Rovanperä to show his talent in the World Rally Championship.

But this story isn’t about the WRC’s newest champion, it’s about a fellow driver whose career was locked down more so than his rallying counterparts.

That man is Hayden Paddon.

Aside from China - which is only just starting to ease its Covid-19 restrictions - New Zealand had some of the toughest, yet effective, laws in the world and the entire nation was shut away from the rest of civilisation in its beautiful corner of the planet.

And for Paddon that brought quite a drastic change.

The year prior he’d spent most of his time in the AsiaPacific, with one outing in the WRC2 category on Rally GB, but for the following couple of years he was restricted to his home country.

But despite having the chance to head for Europe, Paddon had his mind quickly made up.

“Covid for everyone was strange times, and for us, it meant we got sort of more or less locked up in New

PADDON WORKING ON HIS HYUNDAI IN THE SERVICE AREA

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Zealand,” he told The Pit Stop.

“We could've left but then there were no guarantees we'd get back into New Zealand. And when we’ve got our own team here with a good group of young engineers and technicians, I couldn't turn my back on that.

“So, for me loyalty and everything's a big thing. We stuck with our guns and the projects that we're working on here, that meant that we had to compromise being in Europe.”

To some, giving up the opportunity to go back to Europe might seem like it was a risk, but for Paddon, it allowed him to focus more on his own project. In reality, those two years away really played into his hands.

“But in turn where we are now from what we've been able to build up over the last three years has put us in a good position,” he explained.

“But we're still very young, we're still a very young and small team.

“We've just got to start somewhere and hopefully we can try and build on the international experiences we've shared to try and do even more next year.”

And those international experiences Paddon spoke about will most certainly put him in good stead.

Back in Issue 7, I wrote about the 35-year-old’s comeback to Europe, and at the time of writing that

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TACKLING THE STAGES IN NEW ZEALAND

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PADDON USED THE ERC AS A PRE-CURSOR TO TACKLING WRC EVENTS

"OBJECTIVE ONE WAS TO BRING HOME THE RESULT, SO THAT'S WHAT WE HAD TO FOCUS ON" - HAYDEN PADDON particular article he’d only completed Rally Liepāja in the European Rally Championship. A few months later he’s got two World Rally Championship rounds under his belt.

Let’s dive into one event that he completed, Rally New Zealand.

Back in the WRC service park, back in his home country. An almost perfect combination for the Kiwi who was eager to get a result in front of his adoring home crowd.

And after spending the past two years there, winning the New Zealand Rally Championship, Paddon felt he held the advantage over his rivals as the service park rolled into Auckland.

“Well competing in an international competition for sure you've got [more] experience on the stages, so you use it to your best knowledge, no different to when we go to Europe, they know the stages better than us [there], it goes both ways” he said.

“We just made the most of what we knew and then

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obviously once we had a bit of a lead it was a matter of managing.

“Unfortunately we didn't really get an opportunity to really push at all on the rally because while you know you would have liked to unleash at some point, if you made a mistake and put it off the road or anything like that, you would look quite silly.

“So it was a matter of, you know, objective one was to bring home the result, so that's what we had to focus on.”

Long story short, that’s exactly what he did. A dominant display was on the cards as the Geraldineborn driver took the WRC2 class victory by over two and a half minutes.

He’s still got it on the world stage.

A first WRC win since Rally Argentina in 2016 and what better place to do it than at home, but Paddon’s feeling after the victory was dominated by one emotion.

“Probably relief more than anything,” he admitted.

“That [win] was obviously the goal and expectation.

When you've got a bit of pressure on to deliver the results and once you get it done it's more so relief more than anything.”

“So yeah, we were able to deliver on everything that we promised and got it over the line and yeah it all sort of went to plan.”

But that relief must have come from the fact Paddon hadn’t regularly raced on the international stage for three years or so, right?

Wrong. The opportunity to win a WRC event of course brought its pressure, but to do it at home brought just that bit more.

“We'd obviously done a couple of events in Europe earlier in the year and [it was] probably just more so obviously competing in front of your home crowd,” he said. “[There was] expectations from the fans and the media, from everywhere. So obviously, from myself as well, when it's your home rally you want to perform, it's just the pressure of competing at home.”

He’s back on the world stage and competing amongst the very best in the world. But not everything is as it was for Paddon.

Rather than racing solely as a driver, as he did for five years with Hyundai between 2014 and 2018, the

Kiwi now finds himself at the helm of his own team, Paddon Rallysport, which has been consistently growing since its formation in 2006 by Hayden and his father, Chris.

That understandably brings its own sort of challenges which the seasoned rally driver has learned to take head on and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“At the end of the day it's not something I complain about because before WRC that was how all New Zealand teams run, or a lot of small teams around the world that's how they run,'' he explained.

“You run off the smell of an oily rag, you're doing it yourself, you can't afford to damage things too much.

“And that's the way I've always had to attack things with that mindset of I can't afford to throw this away.”

He no longer has the worry of impressing team bosses, but Paddon’s cool, calm personality is almost perfect for running a team with the approach he takes.

“We’ve always gone about things step-by-step. PreWRC, you often see a lot of young guys come in and just go flat out, but the risk of throwing it into the trees is very high and that's career ending,” he said.

“So we always took a very measured approach, shall we say, it's the same now. We've got nothing to prove to no one, we're doing this for ourselves, running our own

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PADDON WON THE WRC2 CLASS IN NEW ZEALAND

team.

“Obviously, we've got partners in New Zealand that we represent, but ultimately, you know, the decisions are coming from myself and our team.

“I'm my hardest critic at the end of the day, I know what I've got to do. If I'm not going to perform, then I'm going to be the first person to put up a hand and say `look, this is not working out how we want it to.’”

It’s that sort of mindset that is required to run a team and make decisions with so much pressure. Many leaders come and go in the WRC, many perfect their craft, but some don’t.

Take Toyota for example. A dominant 2022 season, taking both the drivers' and manufacturers' titles. The same scenario played out the year before too.

The man in charge for both years? Jari-Matti Latvala.

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It’s clear the 18-time WRC winner is running a tight ship at the Japanese manufacturer, and with the young gun Rovanperä firmly sealing himself as a star of the present and future, there’s no doubt more is to come with the team.

Is that something Paddon wants to go into as he moves away from driving, follow in the footsteps of Latvala and lead a team to glory?

“Yeah I think for sure,” he admitted.

“Firstly I'd love to try and do it with our own team that we're already building here but let's just see where things go. No one's got a crystal ball.

“All I know is that my life revolves around rallying, it always will. I'll be involved in it for my life. So where that takes me after my driving career, who knows.

“But in the meantime, we've still got a pretty big two

or three years ahead especially with utilising this EV technology, I think for us as a small team on the other side of the world it gives us a point of difference and it can help us put us on the map.

“So that's something I'm looking forward to pushing forward as well.”

And in the words of Paddon, “every day is different” when it comes to leading a team.

“We've got a lot of partners on board. So we spend a lot of time working with partners, whether it be PR events, hosting events,” he explained.

“A lot of our partners are based in the opposite end of the country so we spend a lot of time up in Auckland, back down here in Cromwell in the South Island where our team’s based, not here as much as I'd like.

“But when you're here in the workshop, it's obviously keeping up with the boys, we've got the business side of what we're doing here as well with customer cars and things.

“So it's trying to keep everyone here motivated.

We've got a good group of people here sort of keeping things under control.”

There’s no doubt that Paddon Rallysport is a team to keep an eye on in the years to come. Lockdowns are over, the world has reopened, and this outfit is reaching for the stars.

Paddon has got his sights firmly set on the future, who can blame him?

New Zealand’s rallying hero is making an international comeback, and it’s clear to see he’s ready to make a statement.

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

THE FESTIVAL MAX ESTERON WAS THE DRIVER WHO EMERGED VICTORIOUS AT THE 2022 FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL. BUT THE FINAL RACE ENDED EARLY DUE TO HEAVY RAIN.

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TAMBAY FINISHED THE JOB

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P

atrick Tambay's death in late 2022 brought a final end to a legendary Formula 1 tale, one of heroism, betrayal and tragedy.

So many elements of the story of Gilles Villeneuve's life and career now seem mystical and otherworldly, more film script than plausible reality. The way Tambay was entangled in it was a particularly poignant example.

There was far more to Tambay's career than the Villeneuve-related elements. But celebrating his role in the Villeneuve tale doesn't diminish everything else he achieved. It actually enhances it to think of Tambay first and foremost as the man who took the F1 drive that seemed to be Villeneuve's, and who five years later was called up to take Villeneuve's car again after his death - and then won with it on the two days that mattered most.

History now looks on McLaren's decision to take Tambay over Villeneuve for the 1978 season as one of F1's greatest misjudgements. In the years between then and his death, Villeneuve created a legend, marked himself out as perhaps the greatest pure racer of all time, achieved feats in uncompetitive cars no one else could've done and which defy explanation even now.

Tambay could barely hold down a full-time F1 drive in

TAMBAY RACING FOR MCLAREN AT THE 1979 US GRAND PRIX

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that period, and even when he did get a proper chance after Villeneuve's death, it only resulted in two race wins across a season and a half in a championshipcalibre Ferrari.

It's often been said that it was a commercial decision - that McLaren had the possibility of Elf sponsorship and needed a Frenchman, that team boss Teddy Mayer simply felt Tambay was more personable and marketable. Or perhaps cheaper, Mayer saying at the time that Villeneuve was looking potentially "expensive", without specifying if he meant because of the potential fight with other teams for his signature on a contract or through damage bills.

But Mayer's logic was also that "Tambay was showing almost the same promise in the Ensign".

And actually, there's truth in that. It's easy to be swayed with hindsight by the near-mythical tales of just how remarkable Villeneuve's performance on his F1 debut in a third McLaren at the 1977 British Grand Prix actually was, how he found the car's limit with spin after spin, then qualified an astounding ninth - beating team full-timer Jochen Mass. Of how good his race pace was after he pitted to have what turned out to be an errant temperature gauge reading checked. How could McLaren not see what it had under its nose there?

But at the mid-1977 point when McLaren made its

mind up, Mayer's case that Tambay was a safer bet stood up. F1 had very little evidence to go on with Villeneuve - the iconic tale of him embarrassing F1 guests including world champion James Hunt in the Trois-Rivieres Formula Atlantic street race plus what he achieved with McLaren at Silverstone. That aside, he was an absolute unknown quantity, and had seemed something of a fish out of water in the British GP paddock.

The charming Tambay had twice been a top-three finisher in the European Formula 2 championship, was heading for a dominant Can-Am title in a drive he'd hopped into at short notice as a leftfield option after Brian Redman was injured, and - as Mayer said - his performances in the Theodore-run Ensign when he made his F1 debut mid-1977 were superb.

Considering their cars' relative merits, his 16th on the Silverstone grid was just as impressive as fellow debutant Villeneuve's ninth - especially as five-time grand prix winner Clay Regazzoni didn't even manage to qualify the other Ensign in the field.

That was just a hint of what was to come. Tambay was sixth at Hockenheim next time out, qualified seventh and battled the Ferraris at the Osterreichring, would've been third at Zandvoort had he not run low on fuel.

Contrast that to how Villeneuve's full-time F1 career with Ferrari actually began: crash after crash, less initial

evidence of that phenomenal pace than is remembered in hindsight, fears for his Ferrari future early on before everything came together and his unique genius behind the wheel became so obvious that all the mangled cars were forgivable.

None of that is to say that Tambay was actually on a par with Villeneuve. Just that McLaren's decision to spurn Villeneuve for him was not complete madness. It's often forgotten that Ferrari seriously pursued Tambay too and was disappointed he picked McLaren.

While they may have been rivals for their first F1 opportunities, Tambay and Villeneuve were already firm friends by then. They'd crossed paths in Can-Am, where Tambay was unstoppable in the benchmark Lola run by Carl Haas's team and Villeneuve was wrestling with a Wolf-run Dallara that Chris Amon had abandoned as dangerously undriveable. Tambay reflected years later that he had become firm friends not just with Gilles but the whole Villeneuve family "immediately", but that when it came to their antics together whether in road cars, boats, helicopters or on the track "he was doing crazy things, I was just following!"

That friendship meant that however much delight Villeneuve took in reminding the world that Mayer had spurned him, no malice towards Tambay ever featured.

And of course, being rejected by McLaren proved to be a stroke of luck for Villeneuve. While Ferrari was far from its mid-1970s peak during his time there (and

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TAMBAY WAS SIGNED UP TO RACE FOR THEODORE RACING MIDWAY THROUGH 1977

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across 1980 in particular but also into 1981 it was frankly absolutely woeful), it remained a significantly better prospect than a McLaren team that went into utter freefall after 1977 and got ever less competitive and more fractious until Marlboro brought in Ron Dennis and John Barnard to rescue its fortunes into the 1980s.

By then Tambay was gone. Dropped in favour of rookie Alain Prost, he returned to Can-Am and won another title for Haas in 1980. Theodore got him back into F1 as a result and he again starred in the midfield, but the Ligier chance he earned - replacing the retiring Jean-Pierre Jabouille mid-season - was a miserable experience. He didn't finish a single race, his Ligier career ending as he hopped away from a car with its entire front torn off after a Las Vegas accident.

Tambay nearly returned to replace the injured Marc Surer ar Arrows in 1982 but his debut would've been the Kyalami race that was the scene of the famous drivers' strike. Hating the tension between the governing body and the drivers, the split between warring team factions, the rock-hard cars of the tail end of the ground effect era and how episodic and unfulfilling his F1 career had become, Tambay walked away, declaring "I don't have faith in Formula 1 anymore. I hate the atmosphere these days".

Five months later he was back, in Villeneuve's no.27 Ferrari after Gilles' death.

"I had the impression I was doing it for us, and he was part of the adventure," said Tambay many years later. "I was finishing his job. That's what maybe made me stronger, that I was doing it for someone I cared for."

The friend who'd beaten Villeneuve to an F1 seat at the start of their careers now picking up the supercompetitive Ferrari left vacant by Villeneuve's death was poetic enough in itself.

But it's the races Tambay won in the no.27 Ferrari that take the story firmly into evocative fairytale territory. And the fact they were his only F1 wins.

Hockenheim, August 1982. Exactly three months on from Villeneuve's death, Tambay wins in his fourth race in Villeneuve's car, on the weekend that Ferrari's championship leader Didier Pironi suffers career-ending leg injuries in a horrific practice crash with Prost.

Tambay moves from an effective fourth on the grid (the pole spot Pironi had earned being left vacant) to second in the early going then runaway leader Nelson Piquet is taken out by backmarker Eliseo Salazar (and then lashes out at him with some comically terrible attempted trackside karate). Tambay's unstoppable thereafter.

FIVE MONTHS LATER HE WAS BACK, IN VILLENEUVE'S NO.27 FERRARI AFTER GILLES' DEATH TAMBAY AT THE 1982 BRITISH GRAND PRIX

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Imola, May 1983. It's nearly a year on from Villeneuve's death, and F1's back at the track where Pironi's rejection of a team order to hold position in the second half of the race culminated in him snatching victory from an incensed and betrayed Villeneuve, whose driving when he crashed to his death in qualifying for the next race at Zolder was still full of fury over the incident.

Tambay qualified third, just as Villeneuve had done a year earlier. He found the message 'Patrick, win for Gilles' painted on his grid slot.

Piquet stalling at the start from second on the grid

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removed one rival. Ferrari team-mate Rene Arnoux wearing his tyres out and pitting early delayed another.

But Piquet's Brabham team-mate Riccardo Patrese was the fastest man on the day, passing both Ferraris on track then recovering from a slow pitstop to repass Tambay for the lead with five laps to go.

And then, inexplicably, Patrese crashed out of the lead further around the same lap. Tambay, who'd lost ground to the Brabham with a misfire through Tamburello, the spot where Pironi had got his fateful run on Villeneuve a year earlier, related how he'd felt a blow on his helmet as if Villeneuve had been urging

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

him not to lose focus. He got the message, and won the race his great friend should've done 12 months earlier.

Though Pironi survived his Hockenheim crash, he was killed in a powerboat racing accident five years later. While other key figures in the Villeneuve story such as his 1979/80 Ferrari team-mate Jody Scheckter, and Rene Arnoux, with whom he had his famous Dijon duel - are still with us, Tambay had a unique position in the story, and a key role in keeping it alive ever since.

"No one will ever be able to fill a gap such as Gilles left, not in any way at all," Tambay had said when he accepted the Ferrari seat. And no, in an absolute sense,

Tambay didn't - he was ultimately not on Villeneuve's level as an F1 driver and he couldn't take the championship titles Villeneuve surely would've done had he lived (though he was in the hunt in 1983).

But with that Imola '83 win in particular, Tambay 'finished the job' for Villeneuve and gave this unique and remarkable story the right ending. For that, the millions of F1 fans who still regard Villeneuve as the greatest racer of all time will be forever grateful to Tambay. He may have only won two races, but they were the ones that mattered most.

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IMAGE BY MERCEDES MATT WIDDOWSON AMG F1

THE JUNIORS WINNER GEORGE IT'S NOT AS RUSSELL'S CHEAP NAME AS IT ONCE WAS ADDED WAS TOTO MAKE THEYOUR GRAND WAY PRIX UP THE SINGLE-SEATER WINNERS LIST IN 2022 LADDER. AFTER HE BUTTOOK FORMULA VICTORY 4 ISAT STILL THEABRAZILIAN GREAT TRAINING GRAND PRIX GORUND FOR YOUNG DRIVERS

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DOING IT ALONE WORDS BY STEPHEN BRUNSDON IMAGES BY PHD PHOTO

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W

hat do you do when your reigning champion British GT Championship crew’s title defence falls through on the eve of the new season? It sounds like the start of a bad joke, and, to Barwell Motorsport, it probably felt like one too.

But this was no joke.

The team based in Great Bookham in Surrey had just come off the back of an historic season in 2021.

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Finally, it had secured the championship title courtesy of former Lamborghini Factory Driver Dennis Lind and amateur driver Leo Machitski.

The exaltation at the final round of the year at Donington Park was the culmination of many years of disappointment and near-misses for Barwell.

It was a deserved title, but fast forward through the off-season and into March and things took a turn for the worse, when Machitski was prevented from racing in the UK due to his Russian nationality.

Much like the rest of the team, Barwell Motorsport’s

commercial director Chris Needell had been preparing for the new campaign as usual, before the news came.

“It was a very difficult start to the year,” Needell explains to The Pit Stop.

“Going down to one car, with Leo not being able to defend his title, it was hard on the whole team, even though we are structured to run two cars so in terms of extra workload and everything, it didn’t have a huge impact on how we worked.

“But what it did mean was that we couldn’t fight for the Teams’ title, which was a real shame. We were

immediately resigned to fighting realistically.”

Anyone who knows GT3 racing will appreciate that fighting a title battle with two cars is a difficult ask. Fighting it with a lone crew – of Adam Balon and official Lamborghini driver and 2020 champion Sandy Mitchell – is like climbing Everest in plimsolls.

The task facing the team was practically insurmountable; the #72 car of Balon and Mitchell would realistically have to win the vast majority of races, overcoming success penalties at each round to stand a chance of winning the title.

RACING AT DONINGTON PARK IN 2022

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“We were at a big disadvantage because we were one Pro driver less [in Lind] and therefore less data to share between the cars,” Needell added.

“It was a matter of weeks before the start of the season that we learned that Leo couldn’t drive, and it wasn’t an easy thing to put together a new line-up.

“We thought about having a couple of one-off deals throughout the season, but in the end, we figured it might have taken the focus away from Adam. It definitely was detrimental to the performance we got on track because you always compare and contrast one car with the other to improve them both and we didn’t have that.

“However, Adam did a superb job all year and his driving really came on with Sandy helping him. We were really impressed with the job he did, and he became one of the quickest Am drivers in the championship.”

And that’s perhaps the upshot amidst the obvious disillusion of losing a car on the eve of the new season.

In a championship where the amateur driver counts for a lot, having a strong driver line-up in British GT is increasingly paramount.

“The Am level in British GT has just shot up in recent years,” explains Needell. “They are all driving really well, and teams understand the importance of having quick Ams who are experienced.

“The likes of [James] Cottingham, [Ian] Loggie and Adam are making it more and more competitive, even the madness of Richard Neary too can also make it interesting at times!

“And that’s what it’s all about in the end, it’s Pro-Am and without the Am drivers, it’s hard to go racing, so if they are at a similar level and having a good race, they get out of the car and are buzzing, which makes it all worthwhile.

“Adam has improved his pace and racecraft so much too, especially in qualifying where he’s been really quick. He got up to speed with the faster circuits like Spa, Brands and Silverstone, a lot quicker this year.”

Historically, Barwell had always gone pretty well at Oulton Park in Cheshire, but the start of year was tricky at best for Balon and Mitchell, managing ninth and 12th across the two one-hour Sprint races in round one.

Hardly the start to the season the team would

"ADAM HAS IMPROVED HIS PACE AND RACECRAFT SO MUCH TOO"

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have hoped for, but things turned around nicely for round two, the jewel-in-the-crown endurance event at Silverstone, which the pair won from pole position.

“It was a very tricky start to the season at Oulton and, with the Oulton success penalties being nullified, it was going to be hard work in the Silverstone 500.

“But we made a really good recovery, won that race which means a lot to us; Adam had his best finish in the championship standings at the end of the year and, without some bad luck we actually would have been right in the title mix too.”

Given everything that happened to the team in the spring, that’s some achievement. A second place at Snetterton followed, while fourth place at Spa-Francorchamps added extra momentum to a burgeoning, if not unexpected, surge up the rankings.

Ultimately, luck didn’t quite go their way in the second half of the season but both Balon and Mitchell arrived at the season finale at Donington Park still mathematically in the hunt for the title.

It was a finale where the title-winner Loggie endured a difficult race and Balon/Mitchell had in fact been in a

ADAM BALON AND SANDY MITCHELL IN THE PITLANE AT SILVERSTONE

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championship-winning position at one point.

Loggie eventually held his nerve to take the crown, but Needell and the rest of the Barwell operation ended the year with few regrets.

“We’re really happy with how the season panned out, given where we started,” said Needell.

“It was our fourth season with the Huracán EVO which meant it was quite an old car in terms of the Balance of Performance. So, we were at a bit of a disadvantage there and the BOP wasn’t completely in our favour.”

Barwell Motorsport has been a long-term partner of Lamborghini Squadra Corse – the racing division of

the manufacturer – and will benefit from the brand-new Huracán EVO2 from next year.

The team will also, finally, revert back to two cars for a proper assault on the title once more.

“We’re really looking forward to next season with the new EVO2, which is an amazing car and has some great updates for the next three years.

“We’ll have two cars and I’m confident that we can fight for the overall title with both of our car next year.

We’ve got an exciting pairing in the second car, which will obviously feature Sandy and we’re keen to get started on next year’s programme soon.”

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IMAGE BY M-SPORT

MONTE CARLO IN JANUARY 2023, THE WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP WILL KICK OFF ITS SEASON IN MONTE CARLO. AND WITH OTT TANAK NOW AT THE TEAM, M-SPORT WILL BE HOPING THEY CAN REPEAT LAST YEAR'S RESULT AND WIN THE RALLY AGAIN.

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NEXT GEN KARTING

WORDS BY IAN PAGE IMAGES COURTESY OF TOTAL KARTING ZERO

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I

t’s no great secret that motorsport is expensive, and in many ways, elitist. Even without a costof-living crisis, which is currently gripping the UK, it’s not a sport which lends itself to the masses.

Costs associated with the raw ingredients - a kart, racing suit, helmet and so forth, as well as travel cost, fees to enter competitions… the list goes on.

All this combined with the most popular form of the sport, Formula 1, being predominantly on pay-perview television means attracting young people to take up the sport is a constant challenge. It’s a challenge automotive engineer Rob Smedley is working hard to solve.

Smedley spent time with Jordan, Ferrari, and Williams, in multiple engineering roles, and is the brainchild behind Total Karting Zero engineered

by Rob Smedley, a fairer, faster, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly initiative, offering children aged six to 16 to take part in and experience karting and therefore racing. The all-electric outfit aims to offer young people a more accessible, grassroots level entry to the wider world of motorsport.

Offering an “Arrive & Drive” training programme and competitive nationwide championships, it aims to remove barriers of entry within motorsport and allow a

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more diverse range of young people the chance to be the future talent of F1.

I sat down with sales and marketing manager, Adriana Dzalbe, who took time out from a very cold and windswept karting session to explain a little further about what Rob and the whole team are trying to achieve.

“Essentially, we have four objectives”, Dzalbe began. “To be faster, fairer, cheaper, and cleaner. We always go back to these. Anything we're doing, any big decisions we're making, we think, ‘Okay, how does this fit with faster, fairer, cheaper, cleaner?’ We want to push ourselves and build karts that are for performance that will give drivers the thrill of racing and set them up for professional racing as well.” Bringing the attention back down to the talent of the driver and not so much about the money and who can afford it the most is a key point for the team, Dzalbe explained, “Bringing down those barriers to make it more accessible to more families, which in turn will get us the most talented drivers, we're starting at the grassroots, because that's where any professional racing driver usually starts: when they're kids.” It’s not just about grassroots, the aim is to change talent all the way up to the very top, making sure that the most talented drivers are able to

move their way through that, and not just those who can afford it.

Covering the maintenance and the mechanics, the engineering that goes into competing is opening doors to a generation and a demographic that wouldn’t have ordinarily considered taking up the sport. “At the moment, there's a real barrier that if you or your child says they want to go racing, you either have to pay a race team to set up, maintain, transport your kart, or you have to learn how to do all of that yourself”, said Dzalbe. “There are so many families who just don't have the time or don't have the mechanical or engineering knowledge to be able to do it. We're just trying to make it more accessible.”

Part of motorsport’s cost problem is the raw ingredients needed to take part are expensive. It’s not just a pair of trainers and a football. Running a combustion engine requires a lot of a lot, and that “a lot” is not cheap. Total Karting Zero’s solution is to build and run electric karting which has the added benefit of being cleaner and kinder to the environment as well.

“We've got to do something that's future proof”,

Dzalbe explains. “It provided us a way in which to provide equal equipment across the grid. We've got control over the powertrain, how much power output is going out, so we can provide fair racing across the grid.” Everybody pays the same price, and everybody has the same equipment, which brings it back to talent.

“We're not tied to [electric] forever. If something better for the environment comes along, we're willing to explore it.”

The drive for a fair and inexpensive karting is an ambitious goal, but long overdue. Having spent much of my time as a writer exploring how a sport, which is predominantly set up for the elite, not only sells itself to a larger audience, but allows that audience to participate, it is really refreshing to see. Having spent much of his career in F1, Smedley knows that the 20 drivers on the grid aren’t necessarily the best 20 drivers.

It's just those who could. Those who had the money to be able to make it there. There are exceptions to that of course. Lewis Hamilton got scouted at a young age, but still, somebody had to pay an awful lot of money to get him on the grid…

When Smedley’s children were old enough and

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FORMER F1 ENGINEER ROB SMEDLEY IS THE MAN BEHIND THE PROJECT

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started showing an interest in racing, he took them karting and very quickly realised how expensive it is, and how much money you need to be able to succeed in it. “Just taking part is quite a lot of money,” Dzalbe said. “But to be able to fight for the top positions at the front of the grid, it takes a lot of money, and I think that's where the idea originally grew from. How do we make it more accessible? How do we make it fair?”

It can be quite confusing to those who don’t have any prior connection to the sport to find out how to get involved and where to begin. The information is quite disparate, and you’ve got to look in multiple places to figure that out. Total Karting Zero has set a friendly and welcoming approach to help those looking to get involved right from the off.

“We say just give us a call, send us an email, send us a message on Facebook and we'll just have a chat.” It’s about understanding what the child in question likes, why they want to go racing, what they've done before, and then suggesting which avenues might be the best for them.

“If it turns out that we’re a bit too expensive and you just want to start from something like TeamSport, where it's just like a £30 session a go, we'll always be honest and just say that. We just want more families

racing,” Dzalbe explained.

Dzalbe joked that Smedley likes to call it ‘STEM by stealth’. STEM refers to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and there is a great deal of focus on these subjects, particularly in terms of females, as they can be seen to be unpopular among that demographic. There's so much that children learn STEM-wise that they just don't notice because it's in their everyday racing. “I really do find that drivers who have done karting tend to be a lot more mature and developed than those who didn’t,” said Dzalbe.

“They've had to learn how to win, how to lose, and heartbreak does come with it, there's only one first place.

Seeing these kids learn it so early on, it's quite impressive that they can then turn it around and use it as self-development.”

So, having got in contact with Total Karting Zero and deciding it’s for you, what can you expect to get up to? “We have three different types of events”, said Dzalbe. “We've got our training days and those are quite intensive full-on training days. We start from about 08:00 until 16:00.”

Those training days take complete beginners, who have never sat in a kart before, and teach them the very basics of karting. “We do that across two days.

"I REALLY DO FIND THAT DRIVERS WHO HAVE DONE KARTING TEND TO BE MORE MATURE AND DEVELOPED"

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The first is the basics, how to be safe, how to control it, how to steer and pedal, as well as your flags. The second day is more about racing concepts. Getting you ready for racing and being competitive. The more technical aspects, your racing lines and your apexes and cornering. Just getting you introduced to a race weekend.”

These sessions are usually recommended to anyone who hasn't done any karting before at all. Total Karting Zero provides everything that would be needed to get cracking. “If you do want to try karting and outdoor kart racing”, Adriana begins, “you've got to go and buy everything before you even know that your child is going to enjoy it. We provide everything on those training days so that you can literally just have one session and if they really don't like it, that’s fine. But I think we've had two children in our two years who realised that karting’s not for them!”

The second of Total Karting Zero’s products is practice days. These are for children who have done a little bit of karting, maybe a little bit of indoor karting with their friends and they want to move to outdoor, something a bit more competitive and professional, and join a championship. Then they can come and practice in one of the electric karts. “They can just hire the kart and do some laps, see what it's like.”

Dzalbe stated. The final event is Total Karting Zero’s championships, which are held every year. They run for

about six months with one race per month. Explaining further, Dzalbe said, “This summer, we've run a northern championship and a southern championship, and the top-scoring drivers from both of those will then come to a single national race weekend, where it's basically the best of the best coming against each other and battling it out for the title.”

It is clear to see there is something for everyone, with the emphasis on encouraging participation and making the sport accessible. “In everything that we do, we will always provide the race kart, maintain it, transport it,” Dzalbe adds. “If there's any issues, we will be the ones to fix that, so hopefully, parents just come and have a nice, relaxing race weekend where they know everything's taken care of.”

The team is focusing on grassroots because that's the very bottom of the motorsport ladder and in many cases the first step to becoming a racing driver, but the aim over time is to build that full ladder so that participants can go from grassroots go-karting to the very top and eventually even F1. The key aim through all of this is to have a fair pathway to be able to get there that recognises the talent and not the money.

The UK has a strong motorsport and karting infrastructure and I was interested in knowing if Total Karting Zero worked with any other organisation or if they were stand alone.

“At the moment we are a standalone

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championship”, Dzalbe said. “We have done a couple of one-off races, either with clubs or with British kart championships, for example. People can keep their eye out for those if they just want to do a single race, but most commonly, our championship, that's what runs throughout the year, both summer and winter. So, there's always something on!”

Shifting slightly to looking at those who take part in these sessions and championships, I was keen to know what the percentage of boys and girls participating is. Motorsport is very heavily male orientated and although there are lots of very interesting and wellrun initiatives to attract more girls to take part, it is a problem that occurs across the motorsport spectrum.

“It is primarily boys, but we do have girls doing it”, Dzalbe elaborates. “We're seeing more and more girls doing it, which is nice. There are so many girls and women out there who like motorsport, but quite often, they're the only ones in their friend group, so they don't have someone to speak to about it. They don't have someone to explore it with”. One of the positive things Dzalbe points out is that it's nice to see when girls come to the events, and they find a friend or someone like them that they can enjoy it with. “We are seeing a

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lot more [girls] and we'd like to encourage more girls to do it. We're open to ideas and ways to do that”.

Dzalbe also explained that there are plans to explore the possibility of working with schools to help strengthen ties with the sport at a grassroots level.

“There's a lot of unexplored avenues that are definitely there.”

Having met Smedley a while back at the 2020 Autosport show, it’s clear he is a very knowledgeable person who is very driven and motivated to level the playing field and allow a better distribution of talent.

I was interested in knowing how involved he is on a day-to-day level. “You can't get rid of him,” Dzalbe exclaims. “He's at the factory every day. At the very start, he would come to every single event, and be within the team, make sure everything's running smoothly and chat to the kids and to the parents.”

Now that the organisation is a bit more established, Smedley spends his time back in the factory. “Monday to Friday, usually, he'll be in the factory either setting up partnerships or speaking to engineers, making sure the technology is moving forward and just driving the whole series forward. It's good to see him do something like this which is truly for something good.” Where the

team and the business can, they intend to bring down the prices and indeed this year was the first year where they could do just that.

But what are the short term and long-term goals for the organisation? “I think both short- and long-term, we just want to get more families into the sport”, said Dzalbe. “To show to people that you can do it. You don't have to have a mechanical knowledge or an incredibly deep wallet to be able to give your child the opportunity. If your little one has an interest in racing or in cars, it's so nice to see them come through and be able to take part in something that could build a

career.”

The team isn’t stopping there though. “Rob's always been a big advocate that although, right now, the focus is the racing driver and how we develop them forward, we're hoping that by providing our platform to racers, even if they don't become racing drivers, they learn something from it to encourage them into STEM careers. Whether it be motorsport teams or STEM careers elsewhere, but it's just bringing that to life a little bit and making STEM fun.”

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IMAGE BY PHD PHOTO

ROSSI VALENTINO ROSSI MIGHT NOT BE STRUTTING HIS STUFF ON A MOTOGP BIKE ANYMORE, BUT HE'S STILL COMPETING. IN 2022 HE TOOK PART IN THE SPA 24 HOURS, WITH HIS TEAM FINISHING 25TH OVERALL.

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IN SHORT

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Image credit: Audi Sport

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE DTM?

BY STEPHEN BRUNSDON

The writing had been on the wall for months. Maybe even years, depending on who you spoke to. But all the same, the news that the DTM’s parent group ITR had sold up and handed the keys to the German motorsport federation ADAC came as a bit of a sucker punch.

And it is a sucker punch.

The big question now is: what does the future hold for the DTM? According to Gerhard Berger, who took over the reins of the championship in 2020, the takeover by the ADAC will preserve the DTM in the years to come.

“For the huge DTM fan community, this is good news,” Berger said in a statement.

“Now, the time has come to create the basis for DTM’s longterm future. Thus, I have decided to transfer the brand to ADAC.” Berger says he’s “firmly convinced” that the DTM is best served for future years as part of the ADAC, and that suggestion is probably sound enough.

The ADAC has a long history of running successful championships and, more importantly, building strong reputations in Germany. The DTM is a brand which must remain, but the product also needs to be taken back to its roots if it’s to survive this latest chapter in its life.

I’m not going get on my soapbox and scream at the top of my voice that I have all the answers, I don’t. But what is clear to me, is that the DTM has been in a difficult period of denial and something of an identity crisis in recent years.

Faced with an economic downturn in the early 2010s, a surge in low-cost touring car championships rising from the ground in the form of TCR and factory support coming (BMW) and going (Mercedes) before the switch from Class One machinery to GT3 regulations, the DTM has gone through years of chopping and changing without really understanding what it is.

That assessment is probably a little harsh, so I’ll take some of that back. But the idea that the DTM – once regarded as the world’s most desired touring car championship – has slipped down the order so much that it’s simply another GT3

championship among GT3 championships, is a sad reflection of what the DTM actually stands for.

The move to GT3 regulations at the start of 2021 was, I understand, never a permanent long-term solution anyway, but that didn’t make DTM immune to the criticism piled onto it.

It wasn’t touring car racing, that much we know. It was Grand Tourer (GT) racing, and while GT3 is one of the most competitive and equal categories out there, the sheer number of GT3 championships meant that the DTM could only use the brand so much.

Entries were strong in the first year and through the roof in the second, but that only papered over the financial cracks which began to appear. Those cracks, it turned out, could not be papered over indefinitely.

So, a solution had to be found. Has it been found? Only time will tell. What is the nature of the solution? Nobody is really sure.

What we do know is that the ADAC know their stuff.

“Due to the long-term experience, the established structures and the association’s own commitment to motorsport, ADAC is not only able to create the best possible synergies but also consistently develop the DTM further,” explained Berger.

“Thus, the best prerequisites are in place so that we will continue to see successful motorsport at the highest level for many more years.”

Will DTM return to its touring roots? I certainly hope so, but what form will it take? Germany has a production-based touring car series in TCR, which has also gone through the ringer in recent years with poor grids in 2021 and 2022 after 30+ entries in its early days.

If DTM opts to stick with GT3 regulations, then for me there is only one outcome. Another merger. This time with ADAC’s GT Masters championship. Which is a win-win. You take the success of GT Masters add ADAC’s seamless organisation and blend that with the marketing power and iconic prestige of the DTM to give the fans something to hang their partisan hats on.

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F1'S POWER BATTLE ISN'T A BAD THING

Image credit: Mercedes F1

BY ROB HANSFORD

There’s a real power battle going on in the world of Formula 1 right now isn’t there?

That could be interpreted as being a negative issue for the series, but the reality is very different and the subject of the friction is due to the fact that F1 is once again becoming a championship in demand.

For so many years, F1 was stuck on a raft without a paddle.

It had no real direction and was going with the flow, making regulation changes but not attracting any new teams or fans.

It was stagnant. And whether or not you like Liberty Media and the way it has gone about tackling F1 since it’s taken ownership of the championship, the fact is, it has radically changed the landscape of single-seater’s top-tier class.

Moving cars to being greener and cheaper has been a great help, but so has the modification of its financial model. Now teams really do have a chance of operating at a sensible financial level, and won’t be sinking their millions with zero chance of a return.

That’s in large part why new teams have been circling, with Audi going one step further and committing to a team in F1 from 2026, having purchased a majority stake in Sauber. It’s also why Porsche has observed closely with interest alongside Hyundai and why Andretti has put its hat firmly in the ring, repeatedly requesting a space on the grid. And it’s Andretti that has caused the latest butting of heads between F1 and the FIA. F1 has been reluctant to open up the championship to an 11th team, something echoed by many existing teams. The addition of an 11th team means the split of prize money will be diluted, even taking into account the fact that a new team has to pay a hefty sum of money to even get in the gate.

Naturally, all parties on that front are going into protection mode, and the quickest way to bat the application away was to make the assumption that Andretti wouldn’t have the necessary funds to ensure long term longevity. But, not one to back down, Andretti called F1’s bluff, announcing that it is partnering with Cadillac on an F1 project.

Now from the other side of the coin, the FIA is very much pro a new team, especially if it attracts a manufacturer like Cadillac (or its parent company GM). It shows continued growth of the 152 THE PIT STOP

championship and proves it's very much heading in the right direction, helping take the sport to an even higher level globally.

For the FIA, as long as the team can ensure it's in a position to be competitive with other teams in F1 for several years, then why wouldn’t it want a new team? It increases competition, allows space for additional drivers, all the while increasing the championship’s global profile even further. It’s why the FIA announced it will be opening up a process to allow new teams to apply to join the series.

Although publicly F1 hasn’t said anything negatively about the latest developments with Andretti and the FIA’s process, its reaction was lukewarm and in response FIA’s president Mohammed Ben Sulyaem took to Twitter to voice his surprise at the aversion regarding Andretti’s announcement.

Naturally, both the FIA and F1 have their reasons for their thought process, but does Ben Sulyaem have a point? Is there something personal behind the scenes regarding the management at Andretti? After all, would we be having the same conversation if Porsche announced it was applying to enter a brand new team, something that was entirely plausible a few months ago?

We don’t know the answer to that question right now, but the fact that a firm like Cadillac is willing to partner with Andretti on an F1 entry shows how seriously Andretti is taking the project, and that’s exactly why the FIA would like to see it come to fruition. Conversely, there’s a feeling among Andretti’s opponents that the Cadillac deal looks rather bigger and more grandiose than the reality will be, and that Andretti is still underestimating what F1 requires and overestimating its own value to F1 (even with Cadillac attached).

The headaches will rumble on for some time yet, and as long as F1 continues to grow successfully, there will no doubt be more and more.

It might be frustrating to read about constant sagas and butting of heads, but right now we shouldn’t view that as a bad thing. It just shows how in demand the championship is and for now, we should sit back and revel in it because you can guarantee - being F1 - it won’t last forever.

Image credit: Lamborghini

GROSJEAN SWITCHES TO LAMBORGHINI

BY STEPHEN BRUNSDON

Ex-Formula One driver Romain Grosjean will switch to sportscar racing in 2023 after signing a factory deal with Lamborghini.

The Swiss French driver will make his debut with the Sant’Agata Bolognese firm in January’s 24 Hours of Daytona, racing for the Iron Lynx outfit alongside fellow factory drivers Mirko Bortolotti and Andrea Caldarelli.

Grosjean made his F1 debut with Renault in 2009 as a replacement for the ousted Nelson Piquet Jr but was dropped at the end of the year.

He made a comeback with the same team in 2012 after winning the GP2 Series title with DAMS the previous year and recorded nine podium finishes over the next two seasons.

His final F1 podium came in 2015 with the rebadged Lotus team, at Spa-Francorchamps.

Since his F1 career finished at the end of 2020, notable for his huge accident in the Bahrain Grand Prix where his Haas car erupted into flames after crashing through the Armco barrier, Grosjean has plied his trade in IndyCar, taking a pole position at Indianapolis and scoring another three podiums.

Now, Grosjean will make a return to GT racing in 2023, having enjoyed a partial season in the FIA GT1 World Championship following his first exit from F1 in 2010.

“First of all, it’s an honour to be joining Lamborghini, it’s such an iconic brand for everyone who loves cars, including myself and my kids,”said Grosjean.

“On top of that, I am very excited about two things: the first is starting in Daytona with the GT3 which has been very successful in Daytona and a really good team like Iron Lynx and team-mates around me, so that is going to be a nice discovery for myself.”

Grosjean will contest a full season in the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 –which will make its own debut at Daytona after being revealed mid-way through the 2022 season – with the exact programme yet to be determined.

But that’s not all Grosjean will focus on. He will also join Bortolotti and Caldarelli in the development of Lamborghini’s LMDh prototype with which it will contest both the IMSA

WeatherTech Sports Car Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2024.

Grosjean will be one of the official test drivers once the new car rolls out in the spring of next year.

“The new LMDh is a beautiful car – I’m lucky to have seen it – and an incredible project in endurance,” Grosjean added.

“It’s becoming a very exciting category with all the constructors coming. With Lamborghini being such a successful brand, I hope we can do well in the future.”

Lamborghini Head of Motorsport Giorgio Sanna added: “We are very proud to welcome Romain Grosjean to the Lamborghini family, for this new and exciting period in the history of Squadra Corse.

“He’s a driver with a huge amount of experience in various categories over the years and will be able to add a great deal of value to both our GT3 programme but more importantly, the development of our LMDh car as well.

"I am looking forward to seeing Romain out on track in Daytona which will hopefully be the start of a very successful partnership going forward.”

While Grosjean has had relatively little experience at the wheel of a GT car during his career to date, his solitary campaign in FIA GT1 did produce strong results.

Partnering Thomas Mutsch in the Matech Ford GT, Grosjean took victory on his first weekend in the championship, in Abu Dhabi, before taking another win at Brno in the Czech Republic.

He also contested the Spa 24 Hours, a race Grosjean is expected to compete in during 2023 with Iron Lynx, but a return to single seaters in GP2 alongside a title-winning campaign in AutoGP meant he was unable tocomplete the season.

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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.

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