Motor Sport is hosting an exclusive readers’ evening with Audi heroes Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish, number one engineer Howden ‘H’ Haynes and the first female engineer to win Le Mans, Leena Gade. Don’t miss out on this one-off UK screening of the documentary Truth in 24 (scroll to the bottom to see the trailer) with the 2008 Le Mans-winning team at the Audi quattro rooms on Saturday October 8, 2011.

Following on from our successful Senna film evening Motor Sport is offering readers the chance to attend another special event, this time in association with Audi UK, following the Audi factory team as it chases the ultimate prize in sports car racing in the thrilling documentary, Truth in 24. You will then have a chance to put questions to Audi team members Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish, Howden ‘H’ Haynes and Leena Gade. Also taking part in the exclusive Q&A session will be Motor Sport Editor-in-Chief Nigel Roebuck and Editor Damien Smith.

The event will take place in the chic Audi quattro rooms on Saturday October 8, from 7-11pm. On arrival there will be a drinks and canapés reception as well as the chance to tour rooms containing Audi competition cars past and present. A short film from this year’s Le Mans will also be shown. All who attend will be entered into a free prize draw to win tickets to the 2012 Motor Sport Hall of Fame and the winner will be announced on the night (please click here for full terms and conditions).

Don’t miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – call Motor Sport magazine on 020 7349 8472 for details and to book your ticket or email readersevents@motorsportmagazine.co.uk for more information. Click here for directions to the Audi Quattro Rooms

Subscribers: £125 (14% off standard ticket price)
Readers: £145 (both prices inclusive of VAT)

This offer closes on Monday September 26. All participants must be 18 or over. Any cancellations before Friday September 30 will be refunded; thereafter there will be no refund. If you subscribe before purchasing the ticket or at the same time you will be eligible for the 14% subscriber discount.

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Audi has taken another stunning victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The R18 TDI of first-time winners Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer crossed the line a mere 13.854 seconds ahead of the second-placed Peugeot 908 of Simon Pagenaud, Sébastien Bourdais and Pedro Lamy. The Peugeot of Franck Montagny, Stéphane Sarrazin and Nicolas Minassian took the final step on the podium.

“The three drivers did a fantastic job,” said Audi Sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich after the race. “We were left with our three least experienced drivers [after the two other Audis had accidents] and we gave them the hardest job of all to do: to go really quickly, but not to take any risks. I am very happy with the result and I must congratulate Peugeot because they pushed us to our limits.”

The 79th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours will go down as one of the great battles at La Sarthe in recent years as Audi were left with just one car only seven hours into the race. Neither Audi nor Peugeot looked to have an advantage during the event and it was only in the final three hours that Audi managed to eek out a 25 second gap to the Peugeot of Pagenaud, Bourdais and Lamy.

“The limit of the car is the speed that we’re going to have to go at for the entire 24 hours,” said Peugeot 908 driver Pedro Lamy before the start of this year’s race. He couldn’t have been more accurate and the speed of the Audis and Peugeots was absolutely blistering throughout the 24 hours. Peugeot may not have been able to lap quite as fast as the German cars, but they could crucially do 12 laps before pitting for fuel. The Audis were ever so slightly less economical and had to dive into the pits every 11.

With all three cars from each manufacturer within just over half a second of each other in qualifying we knew we were in for a nail-biting race. However, nothing could prepare us for what happened when Allan McNish tried to scythe his way into the lead after brilliantly moving up from fifth on the grid. Just after the first stops, and with less than an hour of the race run, the Scot came up behind the sister Audi of Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller at the Dunlop Bridge. He dived down the inside on the exit after Bernhard made a mistake and cleared the car, taking the lead. However, just in front of Bernhard’s Audi there was a pack of slower GTE cars, one of which was the Ferrari 458 Italia of Anthony Beltoise, François Jakubowski and Pierre Thiriet. Beltoise didn’t see McNish fly past the number 1 Audi and shut the door, sending McNish flying into the gravel.

Mercifully the new shark fin – which is now mandatory on all LMP cars – did its job and the car didn’t roll, but the speed at which he was going meant that the car flew towards the barrier on the outside of the track and heavily crashed into it. The car flipped over on the Armco and came to rest upside down, just inside the barrier. There was nothing left of the R18 bar the tub and an eerie silence fell over La Sarthe as the crowd waited for McNish to get out. The marshals arrived in a matter of moments, overturned the R18 TDI and thankfully the Scot emerged dazed, but OK. Such was the force of the impact that debris had flown off the car and peppered various photographers perched on the inside of the catch fencing. Amazingly the only injuries were a broken ankle and a broken phone. “I want to find the guy in charge of chassis construction at Audi and give him a big hug as it withstood the impact amazingly,” McNish said once he was released from care.

“It was a massive shock for everyone”, admitted McNish’s team-mate Dindo Capello following the crash. “So many things happened so quickly and our fingers are crossed for him.” Was the Scot being too aggressive? Should Beltoise have seen him and not closed the door? This one will have to go down as a racing incident as McNish may have been cutting through the field quite aggressively, but he was well over to the inside of the turn to give Beltoise as much chance to see him as possible. The Ferrari? McNish was on it so quickly and unexpectedly that there was little chance that Beltoise could have seen him. Indeed the Ferrari driver admitted afterwards that he had no idea the McNish Audi was there.

After over an hour of safety cars while the marshals fixed the barriers, the race was underway again. The battle at the front resumed and the lead seesawed between the Audis and Peugeots. By now we knew that the Peugeots could go a lap longer and the question everyone was asking themselves was whether or not Audi had the speed to make those extra stops. All questions stopped suddenly at 10.40pm. Mike Rockenfeller in the number 1 Audi had just started his fourth stint in the car and came up behind the AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kauffman, Rui Aguas and Michael Waltrip at the kink after Mulsanne. He started flashing his lights and Kauffman moved over to the left of the road. However, as Rockenfeller came up beside the Ferrari, the car inexplicably edged over to the right and clipped the Audi.

Rockenfeller’s car speared straight into the barriers at high speed and came to a halt sometime later, with only the tub of the car remaining intact. It was another terrifying accident, and it was another huge relief when ‘Rocky’ emerged from the car. He was kept in hospital overnight as a precaution, but is OK according to Audi. Kauffman was reportedly pulled from the Ferrari by the ACO after the incident, but it made little difference to the 458 Italia’s result as it subsequently retired with engine problems.

A lengthy safety car period followed as, once again, the marshals had to tend to more broken Armco. It was another long delay and now Audi was down to just one car – the Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer machine.

Just before midnight 50 of the 56 starters were still running. The six retirements included the two Audis and also both Aston Martins, which expired only three laps into the race. When it became apparent that 007 and 009 were well off the pace in testing, the word from Aston Martin quickly changed to ‘we’re treating Le Mans as a test session’. This was all very well considering how little time the company has had to prepare the all-new, inline six LMP1 car, but little testing was done. “It has been a frustrating week,” confirmed 009 pilot Adrian Fernández. “I’ve only done eight laps all week. It’s a good team, but the engine isn’t very good at the moment. We just haven’t been able to do any running.” Both cars suffered the same problem – a broken water pump driveshaft. Even if the cars had remained intact, they would have made little headway as they were both over 20 seconds off pole and running eight per cent down on power due to the weak inline six.

Following the safety period to clear up the remains of Rockenfeller’s crash the battle at the front continued with renewed vigour. Peugeot still had all three of its works cars in the race and sensed a chance of victory. Several hours passed as the single Audi and Peugeots swapped places over the pitstops with the advantage swaying one way and then the other.

This was shaping up to be an absolutely classic Le Mans 24 Hours as two slightly different strategies went head to head. The 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th hours of the race passed and Audi still held the lead. Peugeot then jumped ahead, but come the 15th and 16th hours, the German car was back in front. Another safety car period to clear up Jan Magnussen’s crash in the GTE Pro class-leading Corvette and Peugeot led once again. The format continued and as the race drew to a close the tension around the circuit mounted.

It looked like the battle would continue in the final three hours much as it had done for the past 21. But, the action wasn’t over at La Sarthe. With just under two hours and 45 minutes left rain arrived and cars started leaving the Tarmac all over the circuit. It wasn’t heavy enough for full wets, but Lotterer wasn’t enjoying the conditions and started to lose time to the second-placed Peugeot with Pagenaud on board. The rain turned out to be no more than a shower though and the race resumed in the same shape as it was before, with the Audi holding a narrow advantage.

Despite all the shaken hands on the grid between the Peugeot and Audi teams, there was no love lost on the track in the final stages as Marc Gene – who was running fourth, four laps down on the leader – drove Lotterer’s Audi off the road. There were cries from the Audi fans, but Peugeot’s reply was simply “well, there weren’t any blue flags…”

The Audi maintained the lead though, despite a dramatic last stop for a dash of fuel and four new tyres. The car emerged only seven seconds in front of the second-placed Peugeot that had also pitted for its final fuel stop. The delight of the entire Audi crew and the three drivers was clear as the car finally took the victory 34 minutes later.

The LMP1 petrol honours went to the Lola B10/60 Coupé-Toyota of Nicolas Prost, Neel Jani and Jeroen Bleekemolen in the end while the LMP2 category was won by the Zytek Z11SN-Nissan of Karim Ojjeh, Tom Kimber-Smith and 20-year-old Olivier Lombard. The Oreca 03-Nissan with Franck Mailleux, Soheil Ayari and Lucas Ordoñez on board took second, while third in class was taken by Christophe Bouchut, Scott Tucker and João Barbosa in the Lola Coupé-HPD.

Special mention must go to Ordoñez who, having won the PlayStation Academy in 2008, piloted the Oreca admirably. Even though he only started racing cars professionally after winning the Gran Turismo/PlayStation competition he kept out of trouble and lapped very well. He justifiably called his first Le Mans 24 Hours “incredible”.

The GTE Pro class was as hotly contested as always and up until 8am it looked like the Corvette C6 ZRI of Oliver Gavin, Jan Mugnussen and Richard Westbrook was set for victory. However, as mentioned earlier, Magnussen lost control of the car when he was passing the slower GTE Am Porsche of Christian Ried. The BMW M3 GT of Augusto Farfus, Jörg Muller and Dirk Werner looked quick in qualifying and in the race, but suffered various problems that dropped them down the order. In a class of high attrition it was the Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 of Olivier Beretta, Tom Milner and Antonio Garcia that finally emerged victorious ahead of the Ferrari 458 Italia of Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander and the BMW M3 GT of Andy Priaulx, Dirk Müller and Joey Hand.

The GTE Am category was won by the Labre Competition Corvette C6 ZR1 of Patrick Barnhauser, Julien Canal and Gabriele Gardel. The class received some bad press from LMP drivers after quite a few near misses as the faster cars lapped them. In the end, it was a case of staying out of trouble – only four cars were running at the end of the 24 hours. Sadly the CRS Racing Ferrari with amateur drivers Roger Wills, Shaun Lynn and Pierre Ehret at the wheel didn’t finish. Seven hours into the race Lynn lost control of the car at the Ford Chicane. Despite the best efforts of the CRS crew who were shouting directions from behind the barriers, Lynn was unable to restart the car having hit the barrier.

Even though part of this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours was marred by two horrific Audi crashes and several disputes between slower GTE Am crews and the LMP machines, the race will be remembered as an extremely close battle that raged for all 24 hours. Allan McNish openly admits that Le Mans is a 24-hour sprint nowadays and it was certainly that in 2011. It’s a testament to both Peugeot and Audi that all their racers ran with such good reliability considering that both cars are so new. Very big congratulations to Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer. The trio handled the pressure of being the only Audi in the race with 17 hours to go extremely well and fully deserve the hard fought victory.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Rob Widdows and I sit down again to discuss the latest news from the world of motor sport. CVC may be selling the rights to Formula 1, Rupert Murdoch and others may be buying them, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo is threatening to form a breakaway series again and the Formula 1 teams want a larger slice of the action. What, if anything, is going on?

The week in motor sport

As well as putting Rob on the spot about the current political situation in F1, we chat about the forthcoming Spanish Grand Prix and the MotoGP race in France.

We hope you enjoy it. As always, let us know your thoughts.

Next week we will be taking ‘the question of the week’ on the show so anything you want to ask Rob (within reason) please post below…

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Or, if you’d like to download it…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Le Mans 24 Hours

Andy Wallace and James Weaver were special guests at a media dinner hosted by Audi in the splendid surroundings of Goodwood House during April. Fine British sports car aces both, but I wondered to myself: what’s their link to Vorsprung durch Technik?

Then it dawned on me. Ah yes, they were on the driving strength when Audi first took the Le Mans plunge 12 long years ago.

Their chapter at the very beginning of the manufacturer’s remarkable endurance racing story was short and unsuccessful, but Audi is at pains to stress that they haven’t been forgotten. They are still ‘part of the family’ apparently, despite their one and only appearances as four-ringed factory drivers back in 1999.

The link to today, of course, is that Wallace and Weaver – great mates who enjoyed many years of sports car success together in the US – drove the only closed-cockpit Le Mans prototype built by Audi until this year’s all-new R18 which will take on La Sarthe on June 11/12.

How things have changed. In ’99 Audi was so raw at this enduro game that it built two different cars to hedge its bets. The R8R open car would ultimately set the agenda that led directly to the all-conquering R8. But the neat R8C coupé, financed by Audi UK and run by the British-based Richard Lloyd Racing, lacked “about six months of development” according to Wallace. It was produced so late, it’s potential was never close to being tapped at Le Mans, and as the R8R scored a surprise podium as more fancied rivals fell by the wayside, so the closed-concept racer became a development cul-de-sac in Ingolstadt.

Until now. After nine victories, three of which were achieved with groundbreaking turbodiesel power, dramatic rule revisions have forced Audi back down the coupé route. As we discuss in the June issue of Motor Sport, the exciting and striking R18 has been tasked with blasting the company into a new era, in the race Audi counts before all others.

In our preview we tell the inside story behind the stealth-like car, and also delve into the theory behind its two manufacturer rivals in the top prototype class.

Peugeot also has a brand new car, even if it carries the same name as its predecessor and to the untrained eye looks very similar. As for Aston Martin, well, it has chosen a very different path to achieve its aim of winning the race overall for the first time since 1959. Open cockpit, dramatic aerodynamics, a 2-litre straight-six petrol engine… Once again, Le Mans rules have thrown up technical variety and innovation like no other major race on earth – in the modern era.

Since we closed for press on our Le Mans preview issue, the cars have shown their hands at the Le Mans test day, and it’s with some relief that I can say our analysis of where they should stand has so far been borne out!

The R18 set the pace, but lap time has indeed been increased as intended by the new rules, closer to the ACO’s magic mark of 3m 30sec (Tom Kristensen’s benchmark during the test was 3m 27.867sec); the fastest 908 was only two tenths shy of the fastest time, indicating our hopes for a ‘classic’ come June are not in vain; and as we feared, Aston Martin has a mountain to climb. The British cars managed only 12 laps all day.

I guess we must remember that this is only the beginning of what is intended to be a multi-year campaign for the Prodrive-run squad. We have to be patient.

As ever, we’re pumped up about Le Mans, as you’ll gather when you read the issue. But also as ever, our new issue is far from one-dimensional.

Highlights include a lovely story by Nigel Roebuck, who turns the clock back 40 years to recount how he first became a Formula 1 journalist. No Castle Combe clubbies for our editor-in-chief. Oh no. His first race as a working reporter was the 1971 Spanish GP at Montjuich Park!

Nigel also gets his teeth into the current state of Grand Prix racing, explaining in Reflections why his enthusiasm for what was undoubtedly an exciting Chinese GP is well under control. As we’ve seen from the comments on our website, many of you – but not all – will carry some sympathy with his sentiments about the ‘gimmicky’ nature of the entertainment on offer in F1 2011.

Other highlights of the June issue include a wonderful profile of Elio de Angelis, the cultured Italian who died in a senseless testing accident 25 years ago. Mike Doodson, who knew Elio well, has done a fine job of revisiting his career – with the help of his loyal mechanic, one Nigel Stepney. Remember him?

I cannot sign off this month without looking ahead to the July issue and an exciting reader evening that I’m sure many of you won’t want to miss. Next month we’ll be reviewing a new cinematic documentary that is released in the UK on June 3. Senna is probably the most anticipated big-screen motor racing film since Steve McQueen’s Le Mans (no, I haven’t forgotten about Bobby Deerfield…). Having already seen Senna, I’d say for good reason.

To mark the release, we have organised an evening in London during which you can see the film, in company with the writer and producer Mannish Pandey, our own Nigel Roebuck and Rob Widdows – and Senna’s close friend from his McLaren days, the incomparable Jo Ramirez. After the film, Rob will host a forum in which you will have a chance to question Mannish and Jo about the making of the movie, and of course the great man himself.

For any Senna fan, it will be a night not to be missed. To find out more about the evening click here or contact us on readersevents@motorsportmagazine.co.uk. Alternatively you can call +44 (0)20 7349 8472.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

These podcasts are coming pretty thick and fast at the moment, but we didn’t want to hang on to this one for too long, especially since Allan was on such good form.

On Tuesday March 29 when we recorded it he had spent the past nine hours in a film studio recording a three-minute clip for an Audi advert. When he made it to the Motor Sport offices we couldn’t believe he even wanted to do the podcast and we definitely didn’t think he would be as lively as he was. So thank you Allan!

As always, we hope you enjoy it – we certainly did – and do let us know what you think.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The Dario Franchitti podcast may have only just gone live, but we’ve already lined up our next one!

We wanted to record a preview to the Formula 1 season after the Australian Grand Prix (even the most experienced F1 team principals are still guessing who’ll be where following a few test sessions), so we scheduled one for the evening of Tuesday March 29. Editor Damien Smith then visited Sebring for the 12 Hours and bumped into one of his old friends, Allan McNish. I think you can guess where this is going…

Anyway, Allan said he’d be delighted to come to the Motor Sport office and chat about sports cars, Le Mans and even the upcoming/just started Grand Prix season.

The Scot is always great value, and his knowledge and forthright views on everything to do with motor racing is second to none. If you want to ask the two-time Le Mans winner a question then now’s the time… just click here.

We hope you are enjoying the Dario Franchitti podcast and do remember to keep up to date by subscribing to them – for free – on iTunes.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A new era of sports car racing kicks off in Florida on Saturday. The Sebring 12 Hours marks the return of what should be classified as a World Championship of Makes – even if we’re not allowed to officially call it that.

The tough enduro is much more than just the first round of the American Le Mans Series this year. It also counts for something that calls itself the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, a seven-round global series for sports cars which includes the Le Mans 24 Hours itself. Last year’s three-race pilot series was a toe-in-the-water exercise. Now it’s for real – and even though a title with an acronym as meaningless as ILMC will mean little to the world outside the paddock, the manufacturers are taking it very seriously.

That’s because they know this is the start of something that should be very big. The series is the brainchild of Le Mans organiser the ACO. The target now is for the FIA to embrace the series and give it the World Championship title it so fully deserves.

Audi Sport boss Dr Wolfgang Ullrich summed up the feelings of everyone in sports car racing this week when he said during a press conference: “The ILMC means nothing outside this room. We need a World Championship and we need it quickly. Not in five years, but in two or three.”

There were nods of agreement from the rest of the panel beside him, which included team bosses representing the interests of Peugeot, BMW, Chevrolet and Ferrari.

It is believed that FIA president Jean Todt – who of course led Peugeot’s Group C campaign in the final days of the old World Sports Car Championship 20 years ago – is open to the idea of bestowing a proper title on the series. Let’s hope he moves on it soon.

At the front of the ILMC, we’re looking forward to another chapter of Audi versus Peugeot, as the two giants renew their intense rivalry on the bumpy concrete runways of the Sebring airfield circuit. Typically, they’re being coy over their chances.

Peugeot comes to this race with its all-new 908 LMP1. Yes, I know, it’s got the same name as the old one that won Le Mans in 2009, and at first glance it looks identical. But trust me, it is a new car. Just wish they’d given it the new name it deserves. A confusing decision.

The 908 conforms to the new 2011 regulations that have been designed to slow Le Mans prototypes, and make them safer. Diesel engine sizes have been slashed from 5.5 to 3.7 litres, while the most significant chassis change is the addition of the ungainly F1-style ‘shark fins’ on the engine cowlings. As featured in Motor Sport last year, these have been added as an attempt to stop the old problem of prototypes flipping during accidents. They look awful, but if it marks the end of cars taking flight, then so be it.

“This is a working session for us,” reckons Peugeot Sport boss Olivier Quesnel, who adds a quite remarkable statement regarding the team’s Sebring aspirations: “We don’t intend to win and I don’t think it will happen.” Well, that’s ambitious…

Of course, Le Mans is the focus for the Pride of France. But Anthony Davidson topped night practice on Thursday, following the team’s time-topping performances in testing earlier in the week. The new car has every chance of scoring a debut victory, whatever the boss might say.

At Audi, the new R18 coupé won’t arrive here until the day after the race, as the team prepares to continue its testing programme on Monday. Instead, the German giant is wheeling out its old R15 ‘spyder’ for one last fling. The car has been dubbed the R15 Plus Plus, to reflect the changes that have been forced upon it to allow the team to race it against new 2011 cars. Internally the team is calling it the R15 Plus Minus, which is more accurate. A power-sapping smaller air restrictor has suffocated the turbodiesel that won Le Mans against the odds last year. “It’s as flat as a fart,” was Allan McNish’s colourful description of the difference it has made, but that did not stop the two cars setting the fastest times in the opening pair of practice sessions.

Where the difference will really tell in the race is how much harder it will be for the prototypes to lap GT cars around the high-downforce circuit. With a field of 56 cars, avoiding trouble in traffic could well decide the outcome of this race between the two giants. There’s little in it for pace. As Dr Ullrich said, “performance is not everything for this race”.

The Sebring 12 Hours is always hard fought, and so it promises to be once again. And its significance, as the kick-off point of a new era, only increases the intensity between the two rival camps. Whatever they might say in press conferences.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

What a start to the year. The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona kicked off the 2011 season in incredible style at the weekend. Chip Ganassi Racing’s ‘super team’ took the spoils with a one-two in their BMW-powered Rileys, but this was no steamroller performance. The race was only decided in the final lap in which we dared to hope that a small miracle could come true for a certain British pair making a racing comeback in Florida.

It’s been a long time since Martin Brundle last donned a crash helmet for a serious motor race – 10 years, to be precise. The 51-year-old needed little convincing by his old mate Mark Blundell to have a crack at the Rolex 24, a race he won 23 years ago with Jaguar.

For Mark too, it was a giant challenge. At 44, he’s younger than Brundle, but race driving has taken a back seat since his last Le Mans start in 2003. However after racing at the Spa 24 Hours last year in an Audi R8 GT3, Blundell accepted the challenge set by United Autosports boss Zak Brown to make his first start at Daytona.

The pair, joined by Brown and Mark Patterson, lined up in a Riley-Ford run on behalf of United Autosports by Michael Shank Racing. Their high profile meant a flurry of media interest, but the biggest pressure came from within. Both wanted to know: could they still do it?

The answer is emphatically yes. Brundle qualified a respectable ninth in what was a truly competitive field featuring Formula 1 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, Indycar ace champions Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon, and NASCAR heroes – including the Sprint Cup’s greatest star Jimmie Johnson. In the race the British pair gradually moved up the field through the night. On Sunday morning, the white Riley had risen to third place and a podium – something they wouldn’t have dared to expect – was within reach.

Sadly, in the final two hours Brundle was powerless to avoid slipping down to fourth. But for these old friends, ex-F1 team-mates and Le Mans winners, it had still been an incredible performance. Brundle and Blundell leave Florida to return to their day jobs at the BBC and in driver management respectively with their heads held high.

The Daytona 24 Hours is a spectacle that is simply unforgettable for anyone lucky enough to witness it. The giant superspeedway looks spectacular as night falls, and the Grand-Am sports cars put on a terrific show. The stats give some insight: 52 lead changes among 12 cars, although the large number of NASCAR-style safety car periods play a large part in keeping the pack together. There were 23 in total, with 125 of the 720 laps run under yellow – including a caution period of nearly three hours early on Sunday morning because of heavy fog.

The final safety car was called right at the end as Sascha Maassen limped back to the pits with a broken right rear wheel, shedding bodywork on the way. It led to a one-lap shoot-out after 24 hours of hard racing. Scott Pruett in Ganassi’s 01 car kept the lead he’d only taken at the final pitstops, but behind him team-mate Scott Dixon withheld a last-ditch challenge from 2010 winner João Barbosa in the Action Express Riley-Porsche.

After a stellar 2010, this was a perfect start for Ganassi and Grand-Am’s pacesetters Pruett and Memo Rojas (above with Montoya). They were joined by team debutants, the impressive BMW ALMS racer Joey Hands and new Indycar signing Graham Rahal, who claimed a Rolex Daytona watch 30 years after his father Bobby’s win at the speedway

Back in the United Autosports motor home after the race, Brundle and Blundell were a little subdued. They’d been so close to an amazing podium, but as Martin said they had to be satisfied with the pace they’d shown. They’re getting on, but old pros don’t forget how to do it.

* You can read more on Brundle and Blundell’s Daytona campaign in the April issue of Motor Sport, on sale on Friday February 25.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Steve Soper never used to be the friendliest of racing drivers. The first time I met him was at the Sebring 12 Hours in 1999, when he was racing a BMW V12 LM sports prototype for wealthy amateur Thomas Bscher. As first encounters go, it wasn’t the best.

As a child of the 1980s, Soper had always been a bit of a hero to me. Here was a Brit who’d been schooled in the rough-and-tumble world of British saloon car racing, taking on – and beating – the cream of Europe in the exotic DTM. We’re used to it these days, thanks to the likes of Gary Paffett and Paul di Resta, but Soper’s exploits abroad back then marked him out as special. Whenever he returned to the BTCC, as trouble-shooting team-mate to Tim Harvey in 1992 and full-time with the crack Schnitzer squad the following year, he carried an air of authority and intimidating quality. Everyone knew Soper was an A-list draw, the man they all wanted to beat.

He continued to carry some of that power into sports cars, but at Sebring in ’99 things had not gone well. The story goes that team manager Dave Price got on the radio to warn him of a full-course yellow, that someone had gone off. “I know,” said Steve. “It’s me.” He’d smacked the BMW into the concrete wall at the final corner.

Now, as Autosport’s race reporter I had to go and ask him what had happened, cursing that I hadn’t introduced myself before the race. I approached him with plenty of trepidation, only too aware of his prickly reputation – plus it’s never a good time to talk to a driver when they’ve just stuffed it.

“Steve,-I’m-Damien-Smith-from-Autosport,-glad-to-see-you’re-OK,-can-you-tell-me-what-happened-please?” I blurted. He didn’t even look at me. “I crashed,” he replied flatly, then turned on his heel and stalked away. Oh dear. So much for bringing the reader that exclusive one-on-one insight.

I told him about our unfortunate encounter recently when we met at a BMW dinner where the marque launched its new UK ‘Classic’ arm. “I’m sorry about that,” he said with a wry smile. “I wasn’t always the easiest of racing drivers to deal with.”

He’s different now. Today, he sells cars for BMW as a respected dealer, and he has definitely mellowed. You can still sense the old intensity below the surface, but he is engaging, friendly and clearly very relaxed with his legacy as one of the great touring car legends. He said he’d be happy to help if we had any feature ideas for the magazine – so we took him up on it!

At a cold and windy Brands Hatch in November, BMW helped us gather three classic racers from three very different eras: the modern 320Si which races in the World Touring Car Championship, a Bigazzi M3 from the heart of Soper-era DTM and a fabulously botoxed CSL ‘Batmobile’ from the 1970s. We then teamed Steve with Britain’s modern-day BMW tin-top hero, triple World Champion Andy Priaulx – who came straight off a plane from Macau – to join him for our test and compare notes.

As you can read in Gordon Cruickshank’s excellent story in the March issue, Soper and Priaulx have a bit of shared history and get on well. They thoroughly enjoyed swapping mounts for the day – and trying something completely different in the form of the Batmobile. So two genuine stars of the touring car world who together span over 30 years of frontline action, three of the finest Munich ‘road rockets’ and Britain’s best-loved race track: it’s a heady mix.

Elsewhere in the March issue, Adam Cooper pays tribute to another touring car ace, Tom Walkinshaw – who of course went on to greater acclaim as the man who made Jaguar a force once again at Le Mans, and helped Michael Schumacher to his first F1 world title at Benetton. Tom died of cancer in December and Adam’s profile of this complex man frames his career in perfect perspective.

Ed Foster meets Dany Bahar and Claudio Berro, the men behind the revolution currently taking place at Lotus; Simon Taylor has lunch with two-time Le Mans winner and, er, BMX World Champion Alex Wurz; Rob Widdows interviews veteran team boss Mike Earle; and I get to meet the charismatic – and eccentric – Italian hero of the 1970s, Arturo Merzario. Reuniting motor racing’s very own ‘Marlboro Man’ with the car he raced for Frank Williams in 1974 and ’75 was a real treat, if a little nerve-wracking…

Finally, if you usually skip over my Matters of Moment editorial (and I don’t blame you if you do!) you might miss the chance to enter a special competition. So allow me to tell you about it here. We’re offering five tickets (plus a guest each) to our exclusive Motor Sport Hall of Fame event, to be held at the Roundhouse in London on February 15. The evening is sure to be one to remember, so click here to answer a simple question and give yourself a chance of being there on the night. Hopefully, I’ll see you there!

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It has become a custom for me to offer some predictions for the season ahead. Actually, it has become a source of much amusement and derision among my colleagues, who are never shy of reminding me how unreliable my predictions are. I will, however, continue the custom for those of you who enjoy a bit of harmless amusement.

So, here’s what may happen as we move through a new season of motor racing in 2011. In no particular order:

1. Sébastien Ogier will be a lot closer to Sébastien Loeb and will challenge for the World Rally Championship title.
2. Valentino Rossi will win a race on a Ducati.
3. Audi will win Le Mans.
4. Red Bull will start the season winning Grands Prix.
5. Paul di Resta will impress in the Force India (if he actually gets to drive one of the cars Rob… Ed).
6. Dario Franchitti will win the Indycar championship.
7. Felipe Massa will be replaced at Ferrari during the year.
8. Rubens Barrichello will retire at the end of 2011.
9. Dean Stoneman will be on the podium in GP2.
10. Ferrari will threaten to leave Grand Prix racing if the rules for 2013 are not changed to accommodate a V6 turbo engine.

All nonsense? Yes, probably, but let’s be bold this year. You will have your own thoughts on the season ahead, or you may decide to keep them to yourselves, which is probably more sensible. But remember, I did predict that Vettel would win the Formula 1 title in 2010

While we’re listing things, here’s 10 events not to miss in 2011. Again, in no particular order:

1. The Monaco Grand Prix – F1 cars are as exciting as ever they were on this circuit. Pure drama, with or without overtaking.
2. Indycars on any of the ovals. Still a thrilling spectacle.
3. IRC Ypres Rally. An easy drive from the UK and a lovely town with the service area in the main square.
4. The Goodwood Revival. Simply the best.
5. MotoGP at Mugello. Take a walk around the circuit and be amazed.
6. BTCC at Brands Hatch. Audi joins the fray this year. Great circuit.
7. WRC Rally New Zealand. Breathtaking scenery.
8. Algarve Historic Festival. Sunshine, beaches and mouth-watering cars.
9. The Brazilian Grand Prix. Crackling atmosphere, always a good race.
10. Midget cars on any dirt oval. You can combine this with the Indy 500.

Go on, treat yourself. It will only be more expensive next year. Whatever you do, wherever you are, let’s look forward to another great season.

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Peugeot swept the American Le Mans Series season-closer at Road Atlanta, with Pedro Lamy/Franck Montagny/Stéphane Sarrazin winning Petit Le Mans by just over a minute from the similar 908 HDI of Marc Gené/Alex Wurz/Anthony Davidson. The Peugeots finished two laps clear of the lead Audi R15 driven by Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish, while Duncan Dayton’s Highcroft HPD ARX-01c was fourth to take the team’s second straight ALMS title with David Brabham/Simon Pagenaud/Marino Franchitti at the wheel. The Highcroft team has won three races this year and its trio of drivers completed the season without damaging a single piece of the car’s bodywork – a superb achievement.

The GT2 championship has been a feature of this year’s ALMS with teams from Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette and BMW fighting for the championship. In fact, Petit Le Mans was a classic as the factory Corvette team came through to score its first win of the year after the leading Risi Ferrari ran out of fuel on the last lap. Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen/Emmanuel Collard drove the winning Corvette, finishing 10th overall.

But the GT2 drivers’ championship was taken by Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Long aboard the Flying Lizard Porsche 911 RSR, while Bobby Rahal’s BMW team took the GT2 team championship with Bill Auberlen/Tommy Milner/Dirk Werner finishing fourth in class and 13th overall.

Porsche’s new 911 GT3R hybrid made its second competition appearance at Petit Le Mans. Driven by Timo Bernhard/Romain Dumas/Mike Rockenfeller the car ran untroubled all the way to finish 18th overall. It races next at the Zuhai Intercontinental Cup in November with ALMS GT2 champions Bergmeister and Long at the wheel.

A bonus to this year’s Petit Le Mans was perfect weather with bright, sunny skies all weekend, a sharp contrast to last year when heavy rain cut the race short and left everyone dissatisfied. But this year the 1000km race ran unimpeded with a record field of 45 starters and a record crowd too of 124,000 spectators over three days – 11,000 more than the previous Petit Le Mans record.

Meanwhile Dario Franchitti qualified on pole and led most of the final IndyCar race of the season at Homestead to beat Will Power to the championship. A late stop for fuel dropped Franchitti to eighth and Ganassi team-mate Scott Dixon came through to win the race. Power had a disappointing race, falling down the field and then slithering into the wall and retirement as Franchitti drove faultlessly to take his second straight IndyCar championship.

Dario won the IndyCar title in 2007 with Andretti-Green Racing before giving NASCAR an abortive try in 2008. Returning to Indycars with Chip Ganassi’s team Franchitti has shown himself to be the class of the field, winning his second Indy 500 this year and relentlessly pursuing and beating Power and Team Penske to the crown. Dario is not only a great racing driver but also a big fan of  Motor Sport magazine, and someone who knows as much about the sport’s history as any driver. Everyone at Motor Sport congratulates Franchitti on an extremely well won championship.

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Last night I had the great privilege of attending Norman Dewis’s 90th birthday party. Held at Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich plant, with C-types parked outside and the prototype D in the room, it was a fitting celebration of one of the most extraordinary figures ever to bless this industry.

Jaguar turned out the big guns, both the CEO and MD gladly giving up their evenings to acknowledge Norman’s incomparable contribution to Jaguar, a company at which he started working nigh on 60 years ago. With Sir Stirling he developed the disc brakes that would transform road and racing cars, he developed the D-type from scratch and, of course, was responsible for road cars such as the E-type and XJ saloon.

As for the star of the show, Norman is clearly built from a different material to the rest of us. This is man who not only survived multiple high speed accidents while testing and, famously, barrel-rolling the XJ13 prototype off the MIRA banking but, less well known but more remarkably still, life as a gunner in Blenheims during the war. And yet today he is undiminished, striding between his guests, eyes twinkling, stories of a lifetime on road and track pouring forth. Inevitably he was asked to pose behind the wheel of Jaguar’s own C-type which he gladly did, but the moment I enjoyed most was when some well meaning individual asked if Norman if he needed any help getting out. The nonagenarian Norman answered by departing the Jaguar like a cork from a champagne bottle.

Later on, after speeches and presentations from Jaguar and Jaguar car clubs, Norman took to the stage himself, working the room without notes, a man clearly as comfortable in his latter day role as roving Jaguar ambassador as he was during over 30 years as its chief test driver.

Every great car company needs a man like Norman. Ferrari had Dario Benuzzi, Lamborghini Valentino Balboni. But if you think of all Norman achieved in both the road and racing arenas – let’s not forget he was a works driver in the ’55 Le Mans as well – over such an extended period, I would contend he is the greatest of the lot, rivalled perhaps only by Mercedes’s Rudi Uhlenhaut.

And now, 25 years after he officially retired, Norman shows no sign of slowing down, his 2011 diary already filling up with lecture tours of America and Europe. If Norman ever felt fortunate to have found Jaguar all those years ago, it must be as nothing compared to how fortunate Jaguar must feel to have Norman today.

He ended his talk by offering a small slice of advice to anyone else in the room wishing to see their 90th birthday. We expected profundity, we got ‘keep breathing’. To gales of laughter and a standing ovation, Norman departed the stage.

Andrew Frankel

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Will Power continued his mid-season domination of Indycar racing with Team Penske at Infineon Raceway (formerly Sears Point) in California last Sunday. Power took his eighth pole and led all the way to score his fifth win of the year. In the last five races the Australian has won three times and finished second twice, and with four rounds to go Power leads the IndyCar Series championship by 59 points from Dario Franchitti, with Scott Dixon another 36 points behind. Dixon and Franchitti finished second and third at Infineon.

Twelve months ago Power broke his back in a nasty accident during qualifying for this race. The accident brought an end to his year, but he’s bounced back in style this season, his first as a full-time driver for Penske. “It’s unreal,” he said. “What a perfect weekend. A year ago [I was] lying in hospital watching this race. I can’t thank Roger Penske and his team enough for giving me this fantastic opportunity. I’m just so happy.”

Infineon was the last in a run of five road and street circuits. The remaining four races, starting at the Chicagoland Speedway next Saturday night, are all on oval tracks and Power has yet to win a race on an oval. “I’m going for it,” grinned Will. “I want to win this thing. I’m not going to be sitting back. I’m not going to be stupid, but I want to win the championship.”

Veteran Penske crewman Clive Howell calls the shots on Power’s car and he is confident his driver is not only going to score his first oval victory this year, but prevail in the championship battle with defending champion Franchitti and 2008 title winner Dixon. “It’s going to be fun,” said Howell. “He’s going to shake that monkey. He’s going to be fine.”

Congratulations must also go to Brits Johnny Cocker and Paul Drayson on their excellent first American Le Mans Series win aboard Drayson’s Lola B09/80-Judd V10 at Elkhart Lake last Sunday. Cocker put the Lola-Judd on pole for the second time this year, then led the early laps and took over from Drayson for the final stint to win in style. After a late fuel stop Cocker went from fourth to first in the final laps, passing Chris Dyson’s Lola-Mazda, David Brabham’s Highcroft HPD ARX-01a and Klaus Graf’s Porsche RS Spyder.

It was a great performance by Cocker and an exciting finish with four different car/engine combinations fighting it out – a perfect advertisement for the ALMS. “I was flat out,” said Cocker. “That was the first time I went flat through the kink in the race. But it’s worth the risk. It’s unbelievable, just fantastic.”

The ALMS races again at Mosport next weekend, followed five weeks later by the season-closing Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. The Audi and Peugeot teams will add spice to the Petit Le Mans, where the ALMS expects a record field of more than 50 cars.

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Evolution, not revolution. It’s something of a mantra in motor racing circles, as teams refine and improve the breed. In the Motor Sport office this month, I caught myself quietly muttering it too, as the September issue began to take shape (I don’t think anyone heard me, which is probably just as well).

You see, we’ve made another tweak to the magazine as we strive to add greater depth and diversity. Nothing too dramatic, you understand, and certainly not a departure from tradition. In fact, you could describe it as an echo of times past.

Road cars always featured prominently in the ‘Green ’un’, thanks to the road tests and commentaries provided by the, er, independently-minded missives from editor Bill Boddy. He didn’t pull his punches when delivering a verdict. Today, we’ve continued to dip a toe into the industry waters thanks to the columns and tests of another forthright ex-editor, Andrew Frankel. But now we’ve dived back in head-first, with full commitment!

No more token efforts. Now the road car industry has its own section within the magazine, as Andrew guides us through the latest happenings, events and – most importantly – significant cars on the market. Each month, he’ll be cutting through the PR-speak to explain what is going on in the world of road cars: who is doing what, who is saying what – and what you should consider driving.

This month, Andrew kicks off by delivering his verdict on Goodwood’s first Moving Motor Show, finds out whether the new Mercedes-Benz SLS lives up to its classic ‘Gullwing’ forefather and bombards Bentley’s head man Dr Ulrich Eichorn for our new feature ‘20 Questions’.

And that’s not all. He’s been a busy boy. We also sent Andrew to McLaren to uncover exactly how Formula 1 thinking has influenced and shaped the stunning new MP4-12C road car. Want to know how motor racing brilliance can feed into the real world in the 21st century? Look no further than our cover story.

If you’re reading this and wondering what’s happened to the usual mix of racing stories past and present, never fear! Where else can you read about life in a Le Mans team, Ferrari P4 Can-Am cars, what Mika Häkkinen talks about over lunch, how F1 teams hit the track in Abu Dhabi – five days after racing at Interlagos, what Stuart Turner remembers about a colourful career in rallying… and why Nigel Roebuck found a kindred spirit in smokin’ daredevil Patrick Depailler?

You know the answer. So lock the door, turn off the phone and lose yourself in Motor Sport – a world with a proper sense of perspective.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

‘Iconic’ is a much overused word these days, and it’s a particular bugbear for one of my team here at Motor Sport. But sometimes it’s a word that’s hard to avoid. Sometimes it’s the first thing that springs to mind when presented with a certain image. And if anything deserves this hallowed status it has to be the Gulf Porsche 917 on the cover of the August issue, perhaps the greatest racing car ever built – depending on your point of view.

Like everything of the ‘greatest ever’ nature, it is purely subjective, of course. It’ll depend on your age, your bias towards sports cars or Formula 1, and so on. And the same came be said for our assertion that 1970, a year of thrills and turmoil in equal measure, is ‘Year Zero for the Modern Age’.

We thought long and hard about such a tag when we decided to theme an issue around a single season, 40 long years ago. It seemed to fit. Rampant commercialism and concerns about safety really took hold in the final years of the 1960s, but certainly on the point of safety this was the year when people finally started to listen to Jackie Stewart. After 1970, the sport had to change.

As Nigel Roebuck writes in his introduction to our special section, this was the year when F1 drivers managed to change the venue of the German Grand Prix from the Nürburgring to Hockenheim at less than six weeks’ notice – all in the name of safety. The deaths of Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage and, later in the season, Jochen Rindt focused the drivers like never before on their attitudes to the sport. Rindt’s own mixed feelings on racing are captured in this issue with an extract from David Tremayne’s new biography. The Austrian would become F1’s only posthumous World Champion. But had he lived, the dangers and loss of close friends appear to suggest he would have retired anyway.

It went beyond safety. 1970 was the start of a new decade where the whole world changed dramatically – in some respects for the better and in others for the worse. The 1960s are often depicted, rightly or wrongly, as the end of the age of innocence. In a decade that featured the assassination of a US president and the futile war in Vietnam that’s perhaps too trite. Nevertheless, it’s a fact that nostalgia for the ’60s remains stronger than for any other decade. Nostalgia for the ’70s is popular, but it’s also remembered as a tougher, more cynical decade. The colour and extravagances of the world today can be traced back 40 years, to a time when the old values, fashions and expectations were being overtaken by new attitudes – with a harder edge. As usual, motor racing ran in parallel to the world at large. Life would never be the same again.

We chose the Gulf 917 as the image most linked to the year even though the monster was actually born a year earlier. It didn’t even win Le Mans in the blue and orange colours. But it’s so familiar, so of the time and – aided by Steve McQueen – so of that specific year.

Perhaps you might disagree with our ‘Year Zero’ premise. If there were such a thing, maybe you’d care to argue it was 1968, or ’69 or ’71… We’ll be awaiting your comments. But in the meantime, whatever your feelings, I hope you enjoy a group of features that will surely entertain you. Just check out this line-up: Rindt, Stewart, Amon, Rodríguez, March, BRM, Porsche 917s – and of course that man McQueen. With that lot, you can’t go wrong!

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We are fast approaching mid-season. Yes, I know, time flies. And the older you get the faster it flies. As a lad, my elders would tell me that the days and weeks rush by when you get beyond a certain age. They were right. I simply mention this for the benefit of our more youthful contributors.

Anyway, I thought it might be useful, amusing, or vaguely interesting to look back on my predictions for the season to assess the accuracy, or otherwise, of how things might go this year. You may remember that I suggested 10 things which might happen during, or by the close of, the 2010 season. I will take them in their original order, as I laid out the magic cards on January 4.

1. Hamilton and Alonso will tangle with each other – well, not yet they haven’t. Alonso has been too busy making mistakes on his own.

2.  Rossi will win the MotoGP title – no, he won’t, not after his horrendous crash at Mugello last Saturday. Although badly injured, Valentino has – according to the reliable Rick Broadbent in The Times – “discovered a great rapport with morphine”. Blimey.

3. Schumacher will win a race – not yet he hasn’t, but he still can. If only Mercedes could recapture the magic of Brawn GP.

4. Audi will win Le Mans – this time next week we’ll know.

5. Bernie Ecclestone will prepare to retire – no comment.

6. The Renault F1 team will be a shadow of its former self – just plain wrong.

7. Räikkönen will come back to F1 – still think he might. However Red Bull, which had been linked to Kimi, has now signed Webber for another year alongside Vettel.

8. Vettel will move to Mercedes – I think he will eventually.

9. Lotus F1 will be best newcomer – correct so far.

10. Somebody will run out of fuel before the end of a race – well, not yet, but it’s been extremely close on occasion. Virgin should have paid attention here.

OK, not a great result at this juncture you will no doubt be thinking. And you’d be right. But now we’re off to Montréal where anything can happen, and often does. The walls are very close and the grid will be very tight. And then there’s Le Mans  – a close-run thing between Peugeot and Audi for sure.

So, while we’re all stunned by the Rossi accident at Mugello and are suddenly acutely aware – by his absence on Sunday – just what a huge amount of excitement he brings to MotoGP, we have lots of other racing to look forward to.

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Before Allan went to Le Mans we caught up with him at West London Audi to get his thoughts on this year’s race, the races leading up to it and what his plans for the future are.

Can the Audi R15 Plus beat the Peugeots on pace alone at Le Mans?

We’ve definitely improved from last year. We’ve improved on those areas where we weren’t so quick, so I think we’ll be able to fight a wee bit better. We also understand the car a lot better than we did. This year we’ve been very focused on the type of testing we’ve done. I’ve never run the car in anything but Le Mans aero, so if you think of all the kilometres we’ve done in that set-up, then we do understand it pretty well, the good and the bad. We know the areas we have to work on and we know the parts of the circuit that we’ve got to focus on to keep the speed up. I think we’ll be able to take the fight to Peugeot and give them something to think about, which wasn’t the case last year.

How much did the Le Mans aerodynamic set-up hamper your chances of fighting for a win at the Spa 1000Kms?

It was hard to do Spa in Le Mans aero because it’s a compromise for that place where you need a load of downforce. For us to be so close to Peugeot – we were only one second off in terms of ultimate pace – meant I came away more encouraged than anything else, even though we finished third. It does give me a bit of confidence that we’re better prepared. We’ve also been… quite Audi in a way, making sure that we understand the detail this year. That was maybe born out of the fact that we got our backsides kicked last year.

Where did it go wrong last year?

It started going wrong the previous December with the testing and we just never recovered from it. The race result was a pretty good indicator, really. But the thing that was good about Le Mans last year was the resolve the Volkswagen Group showed in terms of, ‘we were not good enough on that occasion, but we’ll come back stronger’. Getting that from the advisory board of the Volkswagen Group, never mind the Audi management, was a nice bit of support. There was an element of pressure, no question, because you’ve got to perform, but it certainly meant a lot.

You’re well known for doing triple stints at Le Mans, whereas others drivers don’t do such long periods in the car…

They’re weaklings, just weaklings! Jessies! But really, physically I don’t find Le Mans that difficult. Focus-wise for three hours, yeah… I mean if you were to think about driving round the M25 flat out at a 140mph average, then three hours of doing that is quite hard. That’s a few loops of the M25 – OK maybe you’ll be queued at the Dartford Tunnel for a while, but… If you look at it that way, then yes, it is a long time.

Is Le Mans as physically demanding as other tracks?

Not as much as some – we run double stints at Petit Le Mans, which physically is so much harder than Le Mans. There’s no comfort zone at all, it’s all flat out, maximum attack. That’s what it requires to win. If you take Le Mans in 2008, 15 minutes from the end the gap from our car (the Audi R10 of McNish, Kristensen and Capello) back to the second-placed car (the Peugeot 908 of Minassian, Gené and Villeneuve) was 1min 40sec. If you take Petit Le Mans in 2008, we had a six-second advantage after 10 hours. You just need to look at one second per pitstop and we’d have lost Petit. The difference is that small.

Is this where you want to be for the future? At Le Mans with Audi?

Yes, certainly as far as my eyes can see. What else would I want to do? Would I want to be a test driver in Formula 1 again? I’m not going to be sitting in a Ferrari, McLaren or a Red Bull, so why would I want to be there? I’ve been with Audi now… Well, the first time I drove with them was 2000. I like the way they work, they’re very clean-cut: you either win or you lose, and if you lose you fix it, you go back and try and win again. I enjoy it, I enjoy Le Mans, I enjoy the people I work with and I enjoy the competition, which I think is going to get much harder in the next couple of years.

Will Audi stick with a diesel next year?

Honestly, I don’t know whether it’ll be a diesel or not. I know they’ve got a commitment towards programmes, but we’ll have to wait and see. The regulation changes have been pretty substantial over the past couple of years, and at Paul Ricard [earlier this year] we saw how quick the Aston was on the straight, especially on acceleration. It was, well, a bit disappointing to come out of the corner and lose 50 metres on it. I’m quite happy with the diesel because we’ve worked for four years trying to optimise it with the traction control systems, the driveability and with all the other aspects to it. But if they turn up with something else, then that’s what we’ll race. The good thing is that it’s a new technical challenge. In 2011 there’ll be a big push in the hybrid regulations and that’s another new challenge and something which, 10 years ago, no one would ever have thought of. Diesels and hybrids at Le Mans? No way! It’s quite positive for the long-term future of Le Mans.

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Dario Franchitti was the man to beat at Indianapolis this year. The Scot jumped into the lead on the opening lap and led almost all the way, save for pitstop shuffling. In the end it was all about saving fuel as Dario and most of his remaining challengers tried to make the finish without a last-minute stop. He was helped by a frightening crash on the penultimate lap involving Mike Conway and Ryan Hunter-Reay, which left the Briton with a broken leg and brought out the yellows. That meant Dario cruised across the line with Dan Wheldon on his tail.

“Up until 10 laps to go I was pretty relaxed,” said Dario in Victory Lane. “Then all hell broke loose with fuel saving. I just needed to know what the other guys were doing. If they were saving more than me they were doing something special.”

It was Franchitti’s second win at Indianapolis – the first was with Andretti-Green in 2007 – and team owner Chip Ganassi’s fourth success in the 500. Chip also becomes the first team owner to win both the Daytona 500 (with Jamie McMurray) and Indy 500 in same year. “This tastes just as good a second time,” said Dario. “This means so much. To come back after going away for a year and to win a championship and then the Indy 500.”

British drivers finished first, second and fourth at Indy. Wheldon, the winner in 2005, was second for the second year in a row, while Alex Lloyd finished an excellent fourth in one of Dale Coyne’s cars behind Marco Andretti. A fourth Brit, Justin Wilson, was seventh.

Race favourite and pole-sitter Helio Castroneves ran second or third for much of the way but stalled in the pits on his second-last stop and finished ninth. Nor was luck on the side of Penske team-mates Will Power and Ryan Briscoe. Power tore off part of his refuelling rig on his first pitstop and received a drive-through penalty, eventually finishing eighth. Briscoe was also in the hunt only to crash as he rejoined the race after his penultimate stop, apparently trying too hard on cold tyres.

“In order to be quick here you have to be on edge,” said Franchitti. “My car was a handful, but it was a fast handful. When it’s fast you can hang onto it. When it’s not like that you have to start making adjustments. It was a handful doing 223mph laps when other guys were doing 221s. We made one change. That was it.”

Dario spoke warmly about pulling into Victory Lane and drinking from the traditional bottle of milk. “That feeling when you drive in and see your family… My dad was here and Ashley, and some of my family from Nashville, my friends from Scotland and my team. You get out and you get to drink the milk. That’s what it’s all about.”

Fine fellow that he is, Dario demurred at comparisons with Jim Clark and Sir Jackie Stewart. “I could win races and Indy 500s for the rest of my life, and I still wouldn’t be in the same vein as Jim Clark or Jackie Stewart. Those guys are absolute legends. I’m in awe of both of them.”

Franchitti also talked proudly about the large number of British drivers competing these days at the top of the sport. “It was great to see Lewis and Jenson fighting hard in Turkey, but not taking each other out. And there’s a lot of quick British drivers here [in Indycar]. It’s great fun having four of us in the top 10 and a 1-2-4. I think we’re doing something right in the UK. In the ALMS, F1 and Le Mans we’ve got some pretty good British drivers right now and I’m very proud of that.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The racing cars flashed along the waterfront, the crowds cheered, waving chequered flags and leaning over the barriers to get a glimpse of their heroes. Some climbed lamp posts and traffic lights in search of a better view. The privileged few gazed down from balconies high above the harbour. At the finish drivers performed donuts for the fans before parking up in the waterside paddock. Then we all went to the bars that line the harbour. Can’t remember much else.

Where were we? Monte Carlo? Long Beach? Valencia? None of these. We were in Liverpool.

This week, for one day only, Liverpudlians forgot about the football season – one they’d happily forget anyway – and came to see a promotion for the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, which will be staged in the grounds of Cholmondeley Castle in July. But for now the capital city of the north west of England had its own Pageant of Power, the cars blasting past the famous Albert Dock which houses The Beatles museum and is a World Heritage site.

More than 25,000 people came down to the river to see the kind of cars that will compete at Cholmondeley later this summer. And they must have left wanting more – which is exactly what the organisers had hoped. Seeing the cars again, plus many more, will involve a trip out into the Cheshire countryside on the weekend of July 17-18. Children dressed in the red shirts of Liverpool Football Club begged parents to buy the tickets being proffered by girls who wandered among the crowd dressed in blue Cholmondeley shirts. Well, at least they weren’t Everton blue.

Star of the show was James Walker, who made a lot of noise with his Superleague championship challenger sponsored by – you guessed it – Liverpool FC. There were many who thought this powerful single-seater was a Ferrari – “look Dad, here comes the F1 Ferrari”. But hey, who cares, they were having fun. You don’t see many racing cars in Liverpool.

Outside the Hilton Hotel, recently built as part of the Liverpool One regeneration scheme, was the nerve centre of the Pageant of Power. By the front door was a line of cars that you may never see again in this place. Old and young alike stood gasping and wide-eyed in front of a Lamborghini Gallado, Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari Enzo and a Rolls Royce Phantom coupé. These machines are owned by The Ability Group, a property and investment company whose chairman Andreas Panayiotou started life as a boxer in London’s East End. Not all Greeks are in trouble. Oh yes, and Mr Panayiotou built the hotel before leasing it to Hilton.

Another crowd-pleaser was the talented historic racer Justin Law in his Le Mans-winning Silk Cut-liveried Jaguar. Justin knows better than most how to put on a show, but heading for the Liver Building at over 120mph was a new experience for him. “Yeah, I know roughly where the road goes,” he said, “but I’ll just give it as much as I can and let’s hope it stays dry because we only have slicks. I can’t take this car to Cholmondeley – it’s too wide and low for the humpback bridge there. Shame.”

So, a day for Scousers to remember. And they will, because just about every one of them snapped the action on a mobile phone. You may have received a picture. If not, don’t worry, it all happens again – but bigger and better – in Cheshire in July.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport broke new ground last night – for both the magazine and for British racing – when we launched our Hall of Fame event at the Roundhouse in Camden.

It was a star-studded night as some of the biggest names in motor sport joined 400 guests for a celebration that looks set to become an annual highlight of the racing season.

The Hall of Fame format is a popular one in the US, particularly in sport and music. But it’s a new idea for motor racing here in the UK.

Last night our host – and BBC Formula 1 presenter – Jake Humphrey announced the eight ‘founding members’ of the Hall of Fame, a group best described as the most important and successful men from racing history. The eight founders are:

Tazio Nuvolari
Enzo Ferrari
Juan Manuel Fangio
Sir Stirling Moss
Jim Clark
Sir Jackie Stewart
Ayrton Senna
Michael Schumacher.

Moss and Stewart were on hand to mark their inclusion in motor racing’s newest and most exclusive club. Once this ‘virtual’ Hall of Fame had been officially opened, the first four inductees were invited to join them.

The motor racing knights welcomed Moss’s old friend, team-mate and rival Tony Brooks into the Hall of Fame. Brooks has never received the recognition he deserves for his performances with Connaught, Vanwall, Ferrari and Aston Martin during the 1950s, and he was delighted to be presented with a beautiful watch, courtesy of TAG Heuer.

Le Mans legend Jacky Ickx, McLaren boss Ron Dennis and American all-round hero Mario Andretti joined Brooks to complete the line-up of inaugural inductees. They were all there at the Roundhouse to accept the honour.

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Once the formalities were over, the guests were entertained by the fabulous Kyle Eastwood Band. Kyle, son of movie icon Clint Eastwood, is one of the most highly rated young jazz musicians around – and we found out why last night.

To read more about Motor Sport’s special night, don’t miss the April issue of the magazine, which goes on sale on March 5.

Our thanks to: TAG Heuer, Virgin Cargo, Bahrain International Circuit, Mercedes-Benz, NSPCC, the Roundhouse, Hackett, David Weguelin, McLaren, Richard Frankel, DT Performance, Hugo Boss, Sky Sports, Jake Humphrey, LAT Photographic, The Macallan, Lord March, Janet Bradley at Goodwood, Rob Widdows, Sir Paul Vestey, Doug Nye, Stephen Vokins at the National Motor Museum, Richard Gadeselli of Fiat Group Automobiles SpA, Martin Stockham of Gemini Pictures, Renault

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A few days after Christmas I had the pleasure of talking to Jacky Ickx for a book I’m writing about the history of Carl Haas and Newman/Haas Racing. Thirty years ago Ickx won the Can-Am championship driving a Lola for Haas’s team, and I wanted to talk to him about his 1979 season in America. Jacky celebrated his 65th birthday on New Year’s Day and he’s not only one of the most accomplished racing drivers but also a delightful, old school gentleman.

Ickx is proud that, much like Mario Andretti, he won races across a broad range of categories. Jacky won Le Mans six times, of course, but he also won 37 World Championship long-distance sports car races – more than any other driver – and two world sports car titles in 1982-83.

Ickx won sports car races driving Gulf Ford GT40s, factory Porsches, Ferraris and Mirages, and came to be celebrated as a maestro of Le Mans and endurance racing.

He also finished second to Jackie Stewart in the 1969 Formula 1 World Championship and was second again the following year to Jochen Rindt. He won eight Grands Prix between 1968-72 driving for Brabham and Ferrari, and claimed the European F2 championship in 1967 when he was just 22. Jacky retired from racing sports cars in 1985 but continued to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally until 1992, having won the gruelling event in ’83. “I had a career that was similar to Mario in a way because Mario did all kinds of racing successfully,” says Ickx. “He could go from a dirt track, to Indy, to long-distance racing or F1, and whatever he did he could do it well. And that’s what I did, too.”

Jacky says that over the years he’s gained a deeper appreciation for the people and teamwork that makes the sport happen. “When you’re older you don’t see things the way you did when you were a kid,” he says. “It’s a very individual sport and a selfish sport too for the drivers, and it takes time to understand that you don’t do anything without a large number of people – the engineers and mechanics and so on – who are working in the shadows with a lot of motivation and passion. Your success depends on their abilities and goodwill. They do their jobs with pleasure, but the only rewards they receive is when their driver wins.”

Jacky is also aware how lucky he’s been and how much richer his life has been made by racing. “In sport, your career is reasonably short,” he says. “Mine started when I was 16 in 1960 and I stopped in 1992. So it was very long and I was extremely lucky to survive 30 years of motor racing in those days. Today, when I meet Jackie Stewart or Carlos Reutemann or some people from that era, the first thing we say is how lucky we’ve been to survive such a big amount of racing miles in F1, long-distance racing, Can-Am, the Paris-Dakar and everything else without losing a wheel or having a major technical problem. It’s a miracle!

“That is why every day when I wake up I feel lucky. It’s also why I pay more attention to the human side than the score. To me, the score is not important – the fact that I won Le Mans six times, or that I won 50 long-distance races, the F2 championship or Paris-Dakar. What counts are the outstanding people I had the chance to meet.”

Jacky is also a devoted Motor Sport reader. “It’s the only racing magazine I buy,” he says. “You guys are doing a great job. Keep it up!”

Thanks for the compliment Jacky. Keep reading and we’ll keep writing.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The next installment in the ‘Motor Sport podcast series’ is here! Almost ten staff descended on the French circuit last weekend – of course some were doing a little more work than others – and here is the result… The ACO are understandably a little protective over race footage unless you pay for it, but thankfully a car manufacturer came to our rescue.

Our next podcast is in fact one of our new audio recordings with Nigel Roebuck, Rob Widdows, Damien Smith and Ed Foster. Feel free to ask them all a question on the homepage and they’ll try and answer during the session on Tuesday. Watch this space as they say…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Like a bird on the back of a buffalo, I am watching my little world move around me.

Life can be like baseball, or perhaps that should be cricket where I come from. You take what is thrown at you. And just when you think you’re on a home run…

It’s been a funny old week, both in real life and in motor racing. There I was, packing my bags for Sebring, when the family chief mechanic tells me he doesn’t like the look of something and packs me off to the workshop, where a very nice man takes it away and tells me to take it easy. I’m not very good at that.

Not a big deal, but no Sebring. So of course I tried to follow the race on the TV teletext service. Nothing, not a word, and ditto in the Sunday newspapers. But – having removed a sleeping cat from atop the laptop – the excellent Audi website brought news of a great victory for the new R15. That made my weekend, even though I missed a terrific race. Roll on Le Mans. Could be a cracker.

On top of all this both our cars failed the MOT test. My little Renault needs a new rear seat belt “receptor” and her bigger sister needs new brakes. New brakes? Have you ever heard of a modern car needing new brakes after 30,000 miles? No, nor have I. From here on in, Team Widdows is taking its Renaults to the local garage up the road. There we will find friendly mechanics and a lot less creative accounting.

On top of all this a Williams driven by Nakajima goes fastest on the last day of testing at Jerez. Can the car really be this good? Or are the others holding back? Tune in on Saturday to find out. And, just in case you can’t keep up with all the shenanigans, the World Champion this year will be the driver with the most points. And I think that’s a good decision. Meanwhile, how many teams will protest the new Brawn GP car once they get to Melbourne? All of them, probably.

Some things never change.

Hanging on the telephone earlier this week, listening interminably to that dreadful phrase “your call is important to us”, I realised that nearly a quarter of this year has gone by. Before we know it, we’ll have results instead of predictions. We will know what’s what and who, if anyone, has got the jump.

Win or lose, I wager that Fernando Alonso won’t need new discs, pads, hubs and heaven knows what else after a few laps. Oh yes, and they charge for washer fluid these days too. The coffee, taken in a deserted showroom, is free.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

After the success of last year’s Jim Clark Film Festival, Legends Film Festivals is returning this year with ‘Legends of Le Mans’.

The festival, dedicated to the history of the Le Mans 24 Hour race, will take place in Oxfordshire on March 7/8 and will feature three hours of archive footage focusing on the period between 1955-75. As well as celebrating 50 years since Aston Martin’s historic 1-2 finish, 40 years since the JW-Gulf Ford GT40’s 1-2-3 finish and 50 years since the Lotus Elite scored the first of six consecutive class victories the day will be filled with guest speakers.

This year Jackie Oliver, Richard Attwood, David Piper, John Wagstaff and Peter Riley will all be on hand both days. There will also be a dinner on the Saturday night where all the guest speakers will be present. For more information and to book tickets, go to www.legendsfilmfestivals.com.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

It’s official: Aston Martin is heading back to Le Mans in an audacious attempt to take an overall win, exactly 50 years after its one and only victory in the 24-hour classic. In a low-key unveiling of the project in London on Monday night, Aston’s chief executive officer Dr Ulrich Bez and chairman David Richards revealed details of the LMP1 prototype which will carry the livery of arguably the most famous sponsor in motor racing history, Gulf Oil.

An ebullient Dr Bez did not shy away from the ambition to “win Le Mans” this year. “We are brave, we know our skills, we are a great team,” he said. “We have at least a chance to come out with something special.”

Richards was equally enthusiastic, but tempered his ambitions by admitting to the challenge they face. “How can we be so audacious to go to Le Mans and take on the benchmark teams with their turbo-diesels?” he asked. “Well, 50th anniversaries don’t come around very often, and we didn’t want to sit here after the event and say ‘why didn’t we have a go?’.”

Richards made it clear that the bid typifies the “British spirit”, but with only five months until the race he admitted the project is a “leap of faith”, that this is a “David versus Goliath” exercise. “We’re not being presumptuous about what we can achieve,” he added. “But we’ve got to give it a go.”

The team has lodged entries for three cars, although so far only the budget for two has been confirmed. The car will be an evolution of the Lola chassis that made its debut under the Charouz Racing banner at Le Mans last year, and will be powered once again by Aston’s emotive V12. Styling work has been key to the development of the prototype to ensure the coupe hints at Aston Martin’s road car range, while taking nothing away from the speed of the car.

Team manager George Howard-Chappell admitted that the 2008 race, in which the Aston-powered Charouz Lola proved the fastest petrol car at Le Mans, had been a “toe-in-the-water exercise”. He explained that successful lobbying of the ACO to adjust the technical regulations had pegged back the advantage of the turbo diesels.

“The diesels have been given a 10 per cent restriction on power output,” he said. “We have also been handicapped three per cent because of our speed last year, but that means we are seven per cent better off than last year in terms of our disadvantage. How that will pan out we don’t know.”

Along with Le Mans, Aston Martin will also run a full programme in the Le Mans Series, starting at Barcelona on April 5, and will have further opportunities to race at the Le Mans Bugatti circuit and Spa before the 24 Hours itself. But with the car only scheduled to run for the first time in early March at the pre-season Paul Ricard test, and with the traditional Le Mans test weekend being cancelled this year, the team is facing a tough challenge to be race-fit for the big enduro.

Aston’s GT1-winning ace Darren Turner (below) heads the driver line-up, joined by Prodrive favourite Tomas Enge. Jan Charouz and Stefan Mucke, who raced the Charouz Lola last year, have also been signed up, along with team newcomer Harold Primat. A sixth driver has yet to be confirmed, and if the team is successful in raising the budget for a third car three more seats will be up for grabs.

So what chance a repeat of Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby’s 1959 victory in DBR1? Well, it’s a long shot to say the least. Audi’s new R15s and Peugeot’s 908s will have to hit trouble for the Astons to really stand a chance. As Richards said, “this is not something any sane group of people would do.” But you have to admire the ambition, and the ‘have a go’ spirit that surrounds Aston Martin in these difficult economic times. And it’s certainly given the 50,000 British Le Mans faithful something to cheer about come June 13-14 this year.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A Pole is leading the Formula One World Championship.

BMW has won a Grand Prix.

A black man looks increasingly likely to become President of the United States.

Some of the world’s biggest banks have lost a great deal of money.

A barrel of oil costs more than ever it has.

The paintings, not the music, of Bob Dylan are on show in London.

Times, they are a-changing, and we must all take shelter from the storm. And that includes the sport with which we are all in love.

The planet on which we live is, it seems, on the cusp of some very major changes. By on the cusp, I mean within the next generation. By very major changes, I mean changes of the kind that we may have imagined but which we never thought we would see.

What, you may ask, has all this to do with our sport? The answer is a very great deal. Motor racing has thrived, raced ahead even, on the back of globalisation. And this globalisation has relied, to some degree, on the availability of cheap energy. Motor sport is a voracious consumer of energy, not simply so it may exist, but also by nature of its increasingly international appeal. I am speaking here of the ‘grandee’ championships.

Travel, as one example, is a significant element of a racing team’s budget, as is the cost of transporting freight. I am not referring here just to Grand Prix teams, but to many other global championships.

Watching Peugeot draw inexorably away from Audi in the opening laps of Le Mans, I thought of these two manufacturers attempts to make more sense of the motor racing game. They are powered by diesel and soon there will be many more racing cars powered by either diesel or one of the new bio-fuels.

Next year Grand Prix racing will look, sound and feel very different, as wide-ranging rule changes take effect. Many of these are designed to make the cars greener, more acceptable to environmental pressures. This is the world we are living in and motor racing cannot exist apart from the rest of the world. So, well done F1 for gradually coming to grips with what must be the most expensive year the teams have had for a very long time. Building new cars for the new rules is a huge task but it’s being done for largely the right reasons.
Not everything is changing. The new world is not yet completely upon us.

Some things just never change. Just take a look at who won Les Vingt Quatre heures du Mans. Yup, good old Audi got it right yet again.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

If you have ever been to Le Mans and spent much of the time running back and forwards trying to find the best place to watch, like I have, you may be interested to hear about Kangaroo TV.

Being far from a regular exerciser, the thought of 24-hour access to real-time telemetry and timing, live footage with on-board cameras, pit cameras and the usual static ones round the circuit, is as exciting as the day I worked out that my 15 minute bicycle ride to work could be cut to 7 on the scooter.

Basically you can rent one of these handheld TV screens for 65 euros a day or 85 for the whole weekend and then worry no more about keeping up with the race.

Having never used one before, I asked Editor Smith whether they were as good as they made themselves out to be. It seems they are: “It changes the whole experience of spectating, because you can go beyond just watching the piece of track where you are standing. It just helps you follow the race, especially one that lasts for 24 hours”.

I guess that settles that one.

To rent a Kangaroo TV contact Sandra Tardiff on +1 (450) 595 2042 or email ktvlemans@kangaroo.tv. They also have a website at www.kangaroo.tv

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

In the pursuit of a clean, user-friendly website, when I am approached by someone to put an advert on the homepage or to give them a mention, I am usually pretty hesitant. However, I just received a call from BP Ultimate and they are doing free English breakfasts for Le Mans ticket holders at the Port of Dover while they are waiting for their ferries between June 11 and 15.

How wonderfully British is that? There is something about a hoard of Brits waiting to board the boats to France and having a full breakfast together that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, and proud to be from the country that has very nearly charged 4×4 drivers £25 a day to use their cars.

Sadly I am going late Friday night from St.Malo so will be unable to go and have my bite-sized mouthful of Britishness before I leave. However, if any of you are going that way then I fully recommend it. Go to the main thoroughfare outside the Passenger Services Building and when passing through the terminal you can pick up your “waitress-served English breakfast”.

While you are there having this very English of English breakfasts there will also be a very German re-engineered Audi fuel-demo car to keep you entertained.

The photo, I am told, is from last year and BP is planning a much larger event in 2008.

See you all at La Sarthe, do come and say hello. I will be the person probably fast asleep on a patch of grass, shattered after riding a motorbike there and back between Friday and Sunday evening. There’s no disguising the enthusiasm.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The beginning of the Grand Prix season in Europe always seems to represent some kind of turning point in the year. It’s Spring time, sunny days are warm enough for sitting in the garden, and even the cats wake up for at least part of the day. Yes, I know there’s lots of other motor racing going on, but somehow the arrival of the transporters in Barcelona seems to mark the end of PREviews, and the beginning of the long stretch before the REviews. Such is the year for those with deadlines.

So, what am I doing to keep myself out of mischief? Writing previews, of course, the last two before the truckies roll across the Pyrenees. There’s Audi versus Peugeot at Le Mans to examine and there’s the Goodwood Festival of Speed to consider, the Earl of March having just held his ‘press day’ at his home in West Sussex.

It’s such a nice day, the Goodwood press day, especially when you’re a guest and not an organiser. I speak from experience. Apart from keeping a hand on the forthcoming TV coverage, and making a short video for the Festival website, I was able to enjoy the special atmosphere of Goodwood Park on a beautiful English Spring day.

The hard work is yet to come. For now there’s time to enjoy a blue sky, the odd fluffy white cloud, and the sound of racing cars warming up in the early morning air. And not just any old racing cars. There’s something very special about a 1906 Mercedes being warmed next to a 1997 Penske-Ilmor, a 1953 Ferrari 375 MM Berlinetta being given its final polish, while a few feet away the oil is warmed within the mighty 12-cylinder engine of a 1990 Le-Mans-winning XJR Jaguar. Fried eggs and bacon are served on a huge barbecue next to the startline on the hillclimb while butlers offer steaming coffee, or Bull Shot, on silver trays. If only every event preview could be like this, but we know that won’t happen.

Anthony Hamilton was there, straight off the plane from Bahrain, and paying close attention to a McLaren F1 GTR parked a few yards from a replica of his son’s 2008 McLaren Mercedes-Benz. Does this mean Lewis will appear at the Festival in July? Nobody knows. Up in the woods Rauno Aaltonen flung a Mini Cooper S around the rally stage while World Champion trials rider Dougie Lampkin did impossible things with his new Beta bike before appearing on the balcony of Goodwood House, still on the bike. Yes, he rode it up the stairs. Only at a Goodwood press day.

Sir Stirling Moss was there, looking as sharp as ever, and giving interview after interview. The man is a star in every sense of the word. Every young driver should aspire to this.

There were James Bond cars, and Bond girls too. A collection of 007’s cars will be a highlight of the Cartier Style et Luxe exhibition – a tribute to the secret agent’s creator Ian Fleming.

None of this is real motor racing, it is not a series or championship, it is not political and it is not under the jurisdiction of a governing body. It is entertainment. My colleague Nigel Roebuck – who spoke at length to the Earl of March – and I will be previewing the event in Motor Sport in June, by which time the season will be well and truly underway.

Spring is here, the lambs are in the fields, and the trees are beginning to flower. Lots to look forward to, certainly, on and off the circuits. Our Prime Minister still looks pretty miserable so maybe it’s time for votes of confidence in the real world too.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine