Racing History

Whisper it: the United States Grand Prix might at last have found a new spiritual home. The Circuit of the Americas’ difficult birth was eased by the enthusiastic response of…

I always adored Watkins Glen. The circuit itself was one of the best on the World Championship trail, and to go to upstate New York in the autumn – excuse…

Mission Complete in the 2.40 at Chepstow: there could be no better name for AP McCoy’s 4000th winner. Destiny called. Except that the seven-year-old gelding was withdrawn because the going…

Why are we drawn to this sport? Through my 20-odd years as a Grand Prix journalist, I have been repeatedly surprised by the drivers’ lack of childhood enthusiasm for motor…

Christmas is coming fast and Mrs Frankel doesn’t have a clue what to get me. As ever my request for a Lola T70 MkIIIB has fallen on deaf ears so…

Taken from the February 1998 issue of Motor Sport It is 21 years, I realise with some amazement, since I began covering Grand Prix racing for Autosport, and in that…

Sebastian Vettel is a remarkable young man. Not so long ago he was staring adoringly at bedroom posters of Michael Schumacher. Now he’s a four-time world champion, at 26. Like…

The air was ripe with the pop of champagne corks – and the desperate yelps of Kai Ebel, a German TV presenter with a spectacularly lurid wardrobe. Right now he…

Mike Doodson reckoned Nelson Piquet looked “a little haggard” at Goodwood, but I thought the three-time World Champion looked pretty good on his 61 years when he made a star…

The scare stories were manifold, but it’s always best to speak as you find. Obtaining a visa for the inaugural Indian Grand Prix was a masterclass in precision – if…

Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix all but settled the Drivers’ World Championship. Even feisty Fernando Alonso had to concede that his distant fourth at Suzuka would serve only to prolong Ferrari’s…

Taken from the December 1997 issue of Motor Sport No one ever had Enzo Ferrari’s number better than Phil Hill. “The Old Man used to produce these annuals at the…

Few of Formula 1’s host nations are as dependably capricious as Japan. The ground rules were laid at Fuji in 1976, when James Hunt tiptoed through the best part of…

We've been doing these podcasts for four years now and, with one a month (and sometimes more), that adds up to over 50 hours of content. In those four years…

The warnings had been fairly bleak. The circuit, we were told, wasn’t so much in the middle of nowhere as teetering on oblivion’s edge. Restaurants were few and far between……

Late to the party again, I have only just seen Ron Howard’s Hunt-Lauda biopic, Rush. I enjoyed it very much. Even so I walked out of the cinema rather puzzled.…

If there’s one thing most racing fans agree on about motor sport today is that it’s become too specialised, lacking the variety and versatility the sport once enjoyed. One of…