Motorsport News

There is no question that the drive from the UK’s national motorsport authority, Motorsport UK, to simplify the class structure in rallying has the right intentions at its heart. There can be a baffling array of divisions and categories among the com

The German giant Porsche has confirmed that it is no longer considering a Formula 1 entry after flirting with a grand prix powerplant programme last season. The Stuttgart firm had held talks with Red Bull about supplying a hybrid powerplant, but thos

British team owner Sam Hignett says his Jota squad has realised his goal after being confirmed as the crew that will operate the factory Cadillac programme in the World Endurance Championship and IMSA from 2025. Cadillac, which was previously run by

Charles Leclerc says that the impact of team principal Frederic Vasseur at Ferrari is having a positive effect across the entire team. Vasseur took the reins at Ferrari at the start of 2023 when Mattia Binotto stood down. The former Renault and Saube

RB team bosses have backed Japanese racer Yuki Tsunoda’s progress that could lead him into a Red Bull Racing drive in the future. Red Bull is set to keep Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in its main team in 2025 with Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo sched

Sports chiefs in Rwanda are set to meet with Formula 1 bosses next month as the country has shown a desire to host a grand prix. Formula 1 has a record-breaking calendar in 2024 with 24 rounds. It has broadened its reach in America with three races,

The Ginetta Junior Winter Series will return this year and race at the Walter Hayes Trophy meeting for the first time on November 2-3 at Silverstone. Ginetta’s traditional end-of-season championship first ran in 2008 though was not held last season.

TCR UK and its supporting Civic Cup will depart the British Racing and Sports Car Club’s line-up at the end of this year. The tin-top championship, which was organised by BRSCC when the contest was formed in 2018, returned to BRSCC’s portfolio from t

The Lynk & Co 03 TCR returned to the TCR UK grid at its Silverstone meeting last weekend thanks to Civic Cup graduate Owen Hillman making his championship debut. Hillman at Silverstone switched to the headline event from his third season in the TCR U

Ferrari machinery could return to British GT full-time next season as the marque’s stalwart partner FF Corse is applying to enter with the 296 GT3. The successful Ferrari specialist squad last raced in British GT full-time in 2015, while a Ferrari wa

A new low-cost entry-level Suzuki Swift category called the Swift Sport Challenge will join the 750 Motor Club’s line-up from next year. It will use the Suzuki Swift Sport Mk1 1.6-litre engine models from 2006-2011 and will, depending on uptake, eith

Martins Sesks is set to return to the World championship’s big league on Rally Chile next month. According to sources, the Latvian will pilot a non-hybrid Ford Puma Rally1 for British squad M-Sport. The outing comes after Sesks missed out on his

Jari-Matti Latvala has no plans to go flat out when he contests his second rally this month. The factory World championship turned team boss came out of semi-retirement to finish second in WRC2 on Rally Finland at the start of August in a Toyota GR Y

A group of more than 60 competitors and preparation companies in UK rallying have raised major objections to the likely impact of Motorsport UK’s proposed new class structure for 2025 and beyond. As detailed in Motorsport News on July 11, the new cl

With four different leaders in as many stages, Jason Mitchell (VW Polo GTi R5) was the fourth and final incumbent of the role and went on to claim a 10-second victory on the Jim Walsh Memorial Cork Forest Rally. Third-stage leader Niall McGonigle (F

Lydden Hill Race Circuit will host a rallysprint for the first time next month as part of a series of new endeavours for the Kent venue. The LHMC Rallysprint on September 7 will run in a head-to-head format, much like the Race of Champions and as us

British Rallycross title-winner Ollie O’Donovan switched machinery for the penultimate round of the European Rallycross campaign at Mettet in Belgium last weekend. Having raced his Proton Iriz in Sweden and Hungary, an engine problem while testing in

The Swedish national anthem rang out twice over the Mettet circuit in the Belgian doubleheader weekend for the World Rallycross Championship, but for the first time since 2022 the anthem on Saturday was played for 2019 champion Timmy Hansen. Six-tim

Overall BTRDA Clubmans Rallycross champion and British Rallycross Championship Supernational title-winner Jason Bleasdale claimed the biggest spoils as the two series aligned for the first time in over a decade at Lydden Hill. The meeting was the in

With four wins in seven days, Matthew Ryder moved into a small but important lead in the British Hillclimb Championship after double victories at both Shelsley Walsh and Prescott. Though Alex Summers heads the overall standings, Ryder now has a cruc

Euan Thorburn notched up another Scottish Rally Championship victory and with it his fourth series title on the Grampian Forest Rally but was made to work hard for it by local man Scott Beattie. Thorburn travelled north to Aberdeen knowing that a ma

Chris Ingram delivered a mature performance to win the Grampian Forest Rally and hand Toyota its first British Rally Championship win since Jonny Milner’s in 2003 as Osian Pryce and William Creighton were both left to rue what might have been. Ingra

Jan Kopecky is a Zlin winner no more after his bid for a 12th victory – and his ninth in a row – on his country’s round of the European Rally Championship ended with a stage-five puncture. He’d been in the thick of the victory fight – just 0.7 secon

Dan Zelos cemented his reputation as the man to beat in the Mini Challenge championship as he wrapped up a third title in four years with a round to spare at Knockhill. The Excelr8 Motorsport driver took a win and two fourths as a suspected driveshaf

There is a bee in the bonnet of some fans this year about the loss of a few cars from the grid. True, we have lost a couple of teams and some drivers, but the racing at the front is as good, if not better, than in recent seasons. And further back th

In what you’ve achieved compared to what you started with, surely few in motorsport can surpass Howden Ganley. In 1962 he arrived in the UK from his native New Zealand, with only £25 and an ambition to build on his homeland racing achievements by es

Three incredibly tight Ginetta Junior contests were among the highlights of an all-action weekend’s racing on Silverstone’s National circuit. R Racing duo Ethan Jeff-Hall and Chase Fernandez set race one’s early pace but never shook off Elite Motors

Last Saturday broke to blue skies over Oulton Park but the multitude of mainly American V8s evoked the sound of thunder. For those able to tear themselves away from the collection of cars on the infield, there was sufficient action on the track to ke

The British Truck Racing Championship had nail-biting contests throughout as reigning Division 1 champion Ryan Smith fought his way from the midfield in each race. Races one and two were won by David Jenkins who provided a robust defence from Smith,

Benn Simms was the star of Croft as the Historic Sports Car Club returned to Yorkshire for the Croft Historic Festival. Simms bagged three more wins in his exemplary season in his Jomo JMR7 and set the seal on the Classic Formula Ford championship w

The Bentley Drivers Club put on a show at Silverstone earlier this month, with iconic cars and action-packed races making it a day to remember. It’s 100 years since Bentley took its first victory at Le Mans, and a 40-minute John Duff Trophy and Fran

My year in the GT4 European Series with Elite Motorsport, sharing a McLaren Artura with fellow young Briton Tom Lebbon, has been going well. We’ve had a few little down moments, but that’s to be expected in every motorsport season, and we’ve had many

For this week’s Motorsport News we had the pleasure of putting your questions to Howden Ganley. Ganley has achieved plenty in his career but, as he explains to us, he reckons it also perhaps included a Formula 1 podium finish, in the 1973 Canadian Gr