Autosport

The new Formula 1 season is upon us, with all the usual questions and excitement that come at the start of a fresh campaign. The big one is, of course, can anyone challenge Red Bull and Max Verstappen? But there are many others that we attempt to ans

Porsche took first blood in the pre-season World Endurance Championship Prologue ahead of this weekend’s Qatar 1812Km. Its 963 LMDh ended up fastest overall as well as topping the times in each of the four sessions of the delayed two-day test on the

The CEO of the Ford Motor Company has written to Red Bull to make plain the manufacturer’s dissatisfaction over the time taken to conduct an investigation into allegations made against Formula 1 team principal Christian Horner by a female employee. A

Sauber Formula 1 figurehead Alessandro Alunni Bravi has yet again had to deny that Audi is getting cold feet about entering the championship in 2026. The Italian lawyer defended the manufacturer after CEO Markus Duesmann, a key advocate for the F1 pr

Ex-FIA sporting director Steve Nielsen has taken on a consultancy role for the Formula 1 organisation. He quit the governing body at the end of 2023, after a year in the job, due to growing concerns about how the organisation was being run and its di

Remember last week, when we showed you a photo of Jules Gounon going well under the Mount Panorama lap record at the wheel of a modified GT3 Mercedes in a demo run at the Bathurst 12 Hour? Well, last weekend Gounon’s compatriot Romain Dumas sliced 0.

Ferrari and BMW have lost their IMSA SportsCar Championship GTD Pro and GTD manufacturers’ points from the Daytona 24 Hours last month. The two marques, which finished first and third in the former class, were also fined as a result of their respecti

Plans for Porsche to introduce a revised engine for its 963 LMDh in time for the Le Mans 24 Hours round of the World Endurance Championship have been pushed back. But the revisions, centred on a new crank for the 4.6-litre twin-turbo V8, are still sc

Long-time British Touring Car Championship independent One Motorsport is taking what it has termed a ‘planned pause’ from racing for 2024. The Brackley squad has won 19 races with Honda Civic Type R machinery dating back to its days as BTC Norlin Rac

Wilson Fittipaldi, who died last Friday aged 80, was a Formula 1 points scorer and constructor in his own right – not just the older brother of double world champion Emerson and father of Indycar race winner Christian. Fittipaldi had been hospitalise

Length 3.363 miles Number of laps 57 Thursday 29 February FP1 1130 FP2 1500 Friday 1 March FP3 1230 QUALIFYING 1600 Saturday 2 March RACE 1500 CATCH THE RACE LIVE SKY SPORTS F1 BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA TV Highlights CHANNEL 4 1950 Max Verstappen

What an exciting season of racing we have coming up, starting with Bahrain this weekend. So many quality drivers, who should, and no doubt will, be duking it out for the championship. No, I am not talking about F1, unless Red Bull has slackened and t

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY motorsport IMAGES; MAUGER ■

Formula 1 testing for 2024 did not end in the way we have come to expect. There was to be little of the final-hour action that had become something worth watching in previous years, as teams finally switched to performance running – with those typica

The fastest time for each driver is marked in bold, with fastest time of the day in red. TOTAL LAPS COMPLETED BY ALL CARS 3695 * Not counting those activated for F1/FIA system checks (three). Both were for lifting drain covers, none for car stoppages

At the launch of its RB20, Red Bull avoided its recent tactic of pushing out an old car in a new livery and instead chose to demonstrate a representative model. The caveat was that the team had taken great pains to keep its sidepod inlets hidden from

Because the development of a suspension layout is so entrenched within the chassis design, it’s very difficult to implement geometry changes without either hacking away at the monocoque or building an entirely new one. Hence it comes as some surprise

Mercedes has not been the only team to experiment with its front wing geometry for 2024, with teams taking more liberties within the letter of the regulations to produce more favourable flow patterns at the front end. The Haas front wing has been sur

There’s no doubt when the new Red Bull RB20 is heading your way. That’s clear from any wander trackside during last week’s pre-season testing in Bahrain. The world champion squad’s latest challenger is notable precisely because the other machines hav

Like Red Bull, McLaren has strayed away from the underbite sidepod inlet structure for 2024, and has introduced a wing section ahead of the apertures to which the mirrors are mounted (1). This is not dissimilar to the sidepod inlet treatments that ma

Where else to begin but Red Bull? The reigning world champion squad did have something of a tricky start to testing when Max Verstappen was regularly having to back out of corners on the opening morning as the team chased an initial set-up. But it’s

That we got to watch Sergio Perez driving at all on our trackside walk was thanks to an unfortunate event with just over 90 minutes remaining in the first session of the second day. With echoes of the 2023 Las Vegas GP FP1 shambles, a drain cover had

Lando Norris was an important reference as we watched from Turn 13 on the second day. This was during a spell late in the first half of the second session on Thursday, when the wind had really started blowing hard from the Arabian Gulf to the east of

Shortly before the drain issue on the second day, we’d been watching the cars descend to the tight Turn 8 right-hand hairpin, checking to see how each package stacked up on braking stability. This is key to providing confidence for the drivers when p

Five wins in five years is hardly the return Charles Leclerc hoped for when he embarked upon his journey with Ferrari in Formula 1. His collection of 23 pole positions has translated into victories only four times, perfectly symbolic of his tenure at

When Lewis Hamilton threw a depth charge into F1’s ‘silly season’ and blew everyone out of the water with his Ferrari move for 2025, it came at Carlos Sainz’s expense. Without any history as a Ferrari junior or the pull of multiple world titles, the

The dust from Lewis Hamilton’s shock move from Mercedes to Ferrari for 2025 had barely had time to settle by the time Formula 1 testing got under way in Bahrain. The seven-time world champion and the two teams all appeared keen to get this winter’s h

Aston Martin and McLaren helped prop up a deeply unspectacular Formula 1 campaign for large parts of last year. Aston’s flying start made it the surprise early package, and Fernando Alonso chased the Red Bulls as it became clear that Mercedes and Fer

OK, so it wasn’t a proper grand prix, but the record still shows that Oscar Piastri is a Formula 1 race winner thanks to his Qatar sprint success. That’s a feat Lando Norris can’t boast. It also earned the Australian’s rookie campaign comparison with

Sakhir 2 March UK start time: 1500 Jeddah 9 March UK start time: 1700 Melbourne 24 March UK start time: 0400 Suzuka 7 April UK start time: 0600 Shanghai 21 April UK start time: 0800 Miami 5 May UK start time: 2100 Imola 19 May UK start time: 1400 Mon

Autosport.com will provide live text commentary from every practice and qualifying session plus all the races in the 2024 Formula 1 season, alongside comprehensive news and opinion from track and paddock. Regular features will include our examination

You’ll find the odd person at Toyota who’ll stand in front of you and tell you with a straight face that the Japanese manufacturer isn’t favourite going into this year’s World Endurance Championship. Most, however, will happily concede that a marque

Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Nyck de Vries Sebastien Buemi Brendon Hartley Ryo Hirakawa It looks like business as usual at Toyota, the acknowledged king of the WEC. There’s been just one change in the line-up of drivers, with the belated arrival of Ny

Antonio Fuoco Miguel Molina Nicklas Nielsen James Calado Antonio Giovinazzi Alessandro Pier Guidi Robert Kubica Robert Shwartzman Yifei Ye The decision to bedeck the pair of factory 499Ps in a shade of Ferrari racing red inspired by that of the F2007

Matt Campbell Michael Christensen Frederic Makowiecki Kevin Estre Andre Lotterer Laurens Vanthoor Callum Ilott Norman Nato Will Stevens Jenson Button Phil Hanson Oliver Rasmussen Julien Andlauer Neel Jani Harry Tincknell Porsche arrives in year two o

Daniel Suarez Trackhouse Racing (Chevrolet Camaro) Race 1 Broc Feeney Triple Eight (Chevrolet Camaro) Race 2 Will Brown (above) Triple Eight (Chevrolet Camaro) POWERED BY For full results visit motorsportstats.com ■

ROUND 2/36 Daniel Suarez experienced a full circle of emotions in last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The race began with the Mexican’s Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet collected in a multi-car wreck on lap two, but by the last of 260

Several elements combine to make sportscar racing difficult for newcomers to follow. But in streamlining the World Endurance Championship’s class structure for 2024, not only should it be more straightforward to grasp for those lured in by the curren

ROUND 1/12 Any thoughts that Triple Eight’s Chevrolet team would take a while to settle in the youngest driving line-up in the Supercars pitlane were swept aside by two convincing victories at Bathurst. Second-year driver Broc Feeney and new recruit

Variety is back in vogue in the World Endurance Championship’s GT class. While there was nothing wrong with GTE Am’s sea of Porsches and Ferraris, with the odd Aston Martin and Corvette mixed in, the new era has plenty of upsides – chiefly, that nine

Tributes have been paid to former British Formula 4 and Ginetta Junior racer Joel Pearson, who died last week after a courageous three-year battle with cancer. He was just 19 years old. Pearson first made the switch from karts to cars partway through

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Former VW Racing Cup champion Phil House turned heads on last weekend’s East Riding Stages when he teamed up with JWB Motorsport boss Nick Beaumont to tackle the closed-roads event in his ex-works Aston Martin Vantage GT Rally. Only four rally versio

The historic Avon brand is set to continue and some of its tyre ranges will still be manufactured, despite the closure of its factory at the end of last year, following an agreement between parent firm Goodyear and the new Nova Motorsport tyre compan

British Touring Car stars Jake Hill and Anthony Reid are due to race Nissan Primeras again at this year’s second edition of Super Touring Power at Brands Hatch. Hill won all four Super Tourers races at the inaugural event last season in a 1999 John D

Erik Evans will defend his British GT4 title this year using one of Academy Motorsport’s new Ford Mustangs, partnering returnee Marco Signoretti. American Evans clinched the 2023 GT4 title alongside Matt Cowley, while Signoretti raced for Academy in

Motorsport South Africa’s junior single-seater racing future has been secured with this week’s launch of a bespoke Formula 4-type car at an accessible price for its next phase, starting in 2025. The initiative of UK-born Ian Schofield, chairman of In

Reigning Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion Adam Smalley will make his British GT Championship debut this season at the wheel of a Garage 59-run McLaren 720S Evo GT3. The 23-year-old, who is also a former Ginetta Junior and GT4 Supercup champion, will p

Steller Motorsport will return to British GT this season, fielding an Audi R8 LMS GT4 for Pro-Am pairing Jordan Albert and Tim Docker. The team spent last year racing in the Le Mans Cup after taking the 2022 British GT4 title with Sennan Fielding and

Former Mini Cooper champion Matt Hammond plans to move to the top JCW class this year and has bought a car to race. Hammond won the 2017 Cooper title before spending a spell on the sidelines working for Excelr8’s Mini squad. He returned to racing in

Pascal Vasselon will remain at Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe and take the reins of the Japanese manufacturer’s programme to put a prototype powered by a hydrogen combustion engine on the grid of the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2027. The 60-year-old Frenchman ha

Every weekend during the thick of the national racing season there are scores of events taking place that feature a stunning array of cars and some brilliant battling. Yet it’s no secret that, at many of these race meetings, very few people are spect

This event embraces all things Americana, and a special Ford vs Chevy muscle car race is joining the regular EuroNASCAR, Legends and Pickups contests and NASCAR demos. There are some impressive cars on and off the track at this Cheshire meeting. The

F1 World Championship Round 1/24 Sakhir, Bahrain 2 March TV Live Sky Sports F1, Fri 1510, Sat 1455 TV Highlights Sky Sports F1, Sat 1830, Channel 4, 1950 Round 1/14 Sakhir, Bahrain 1-2 March TV Live Sky Sports F1, Fri 1410, Sat 1025 Round 1/10 Sakhir

That Kelvin Burt never finished lower than second aboard the Dallara F393 on his way to the 1993 British Formula 3 title makes its selection as his favourite car somewhat self-explanatory. Its vast superiority over the Reynard 933 in which he’d start

The four-wide front row of Juan Manuel Fangio (#1 Maserati 250F), Mike Hawthorn (#8 Ferrari D50), Jean Behra (#2 Maserati) and Peter Collins (#7 Ferrari) heads the field at the start of the 1957 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. What’s about to u

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY: MOTORSPORT IMAGES; GALLOWAY ■