Superleague Formula
To a distant observer, football and motorsport must appear fairly similar. Both typically high paced, competitive and – at a high level – high budget. Superstar names come from the elite series – F1, MotoGP, Nascar, WRC etc. in motorsport, and the Premiership, Serie A, Bundesliga etc. over on the pitch. Both are seeing rapid […]
Homologation Specials
When standard ‘road-going’ spec isn’t enough… The act of homologating a car is a scarce thing in modern racing. Back in the day though, it was a carmakers way of entering a motorsports series while giving designers and engineers a chance to go above and beyond on the wild factor – all with a pair […]
Rise of the Machines : Formula E – Gen 2
Formula E turns five this year. Forget the party hats and balloons: the series has got itself a stupendous new racing car instead. Formula E’s fifth season will get off the line in December in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The sport has come a long way in the past four years – mocked by many in […]
Brazil’s 2008 F1 Championship Decider
The 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix – held on November 2nd – was a fitting conclusion to one of the most fascinating Formula 1 championship battles in recent memory. A year-long battle emerged between McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. Neither had won the title before, with Hamilton falling just short in 2007, while Massa’s […]
Felipe Massa: Never Take The Easy Road
Felipe Massa knows a thing or two about rising above adversity.
He lost the 2008 F1 drivers’ championship to Lewis Hamilton by a single point; a year later, he was severely injured by a piece of flying debris in a horrific freak incident.
In 2016, the much-loved Brazilian racing driver retired from F1, only to be hustled back into a seat at the last minute for the 2017 season.
In a world inhabited by playboys with rich parents and which rewards a certain ruthlessness, Massa has always been seen as the gentleman scrapper, the quietly spoken and shy man who made it to the very top without letting it change him.
Cosworth DFV
“Well, the thing that’s impressive apart from anything else in an engine is that each individual cylinder manages to go ‘suck, squeeze, bang, blow’ 92 times per second. The sparks required at 11,000rpm are 733 per second. The piston weighs five and a quarter tons at 11,000rpm…” explains the Cosworth DFV’s Chief Engineer Keith Duckworth […]
Grand Prix de Monaco Historique
This year’s Grand Prix de Monaco Historique marked the 11th edition of this prestigious event (May 11-13, 2018) and I was fortunate enough to attend. I was there with Discovery Channel, to cover the bi-annual racing live for Quest TV. It was a first for the network and attracted a broad audience. It helped that the […]
Helio Ascari
The name Ascari is one of the most famous in motorsport. The surname of the legendary F1 champion of the 1950s still has global recognition. Today there is a new Ascari, a descendant of the unforgettable racing driver, Alberto. Helio, a nephew of Alberto Ascari, has walked the catwalks of the most famous fashion designers […]
Hermann Tilke: Grand Prix draw-er
The stunning Baku F1 circuit in Azerbaijan, like Monaco, seems like a period classic. It’s a street circuit that is as eye-catching as the cars that race on it – and what racing it inspires. It’s unforgiving, too: if you’re not on your game, Baku bites. It’s not an historic F1 track, though. It first […]
Alain Prost: the Other Edge of Genius?
To many modern Formula One fans, the current crop of turbocharged cars are the work of the devil. They’re too quiet, too driver-friendly, too reliable and even, some say, too safe. But it wasn’t always thus. Time was when turbocharged Formula One cars were fire-spitting monsters with engines that were both spectacularly powerful – by […]