Motor Sport track tests

Two rivals brought to perfect pitch in a year-long manufacturer arms race. We let loose in Ford’s secret weapon, and ask what made it great For many - myself included…

As a large and somewhat unconventional executive saloon, the Rover SD1 made an unlikely tin-top hero. Yet in the space of just a handful of years it forged success from…

2017 Williams FW40 All the way through the 2017 season I’ve been going to races and hearing drivers talk about just how amazing this generation of cars is. The bigger…

Which was the last Aston Martin to lead Le Mans? I always thought it was Project DP212, the DB4GT-based prototype whose slippery shape combined with the right foot of Graham…

Welcome to an age where design and detail were sometimes lacking, sometimes just what was needed, and what passed for aerodynamics were just smooth curves. Few realised then that more…

A typical summer's day in England: rain. And talk was of the Northants floods just forded. Then two things happened, almost simultaneously: a transporter carrying three Audis, two Lancias, a…

A damn silly rinky-dink idea in the first place: stick some modern-day road-testing equipment on a 92-year-old grand prix car in a bid to explode a few myths about 'jalopies'.…

Judging by how far the man holding the microphone-on-a-stick jumps back as the car fires up, our fervent hope that this Le Mans-winner's turbo V6 might not bust today's noise…

Blip, blip, buzz — pause — clunk, sputter, sputter. This Lotus 'queerbox' is in perfect condition. But it's still a sod. Next lap, into the first corner, there's a confident…

As his wheezy, knock-kneed steed cantered along Kyalami's main straight at almost 150mph — well, it was downhill! — the 'Cowangie Kid' had plenty of time to mull over his…

John Miles beckons me over with a crook of a gloved index finger. He points to a smear of blue paint on the inside of the monocoque. "See that? This…

John Surtees was always destined to become a constructor. At least that's how it appeared from the outside. For he absolutely knew his own mind – how a team ought…

It took time to squeeze him in, but Andrew Frankel revelled in the Honda RA300 at Motegi know that feeling you get when something quite wonderful isn't going to happen?…

Complacency: a strong word when aimed at brittle motor racing people.  But... "Why change it when we're winnin'?"  Sounds complacent, doesn't it?  Well, at the dawn of the 1960s John…

The last Formula One car I drove was a March 891. It was powered by a 3.5-litre V10 motor built by Ilmor, the people who build the Mercedes engine in…

Ford F3L looked for all the world a winner. The project, however, ended in ignominy after a string of retirements. Paul Fearnley drives it at Spa and explains why it…

I knew immediately. Radio Luxembourg: 'plane crash, Elstree airfield. It could only be them: Graham Hill, driver Tony Brise, our designer Andy Smallman, the team manager Ray Brimble, and fabricators…