Motorsport News 07/01/21

Fairy tales don’t come more emotional than Jenson Button’s Formula 1 world championship victory in 2009. Off the back of a team on the brink of collapse, the British ace helped to galvanise the renamed Brawn squad and take it to motorsport’s highest high. The fact it was Jenson behind the wheel seemed highly appropriate. His career too had been something of a fairy tale. He had already been earmarked as Britain’s next great motorsport hope through his time in Formula Ford and Formula 3 before he impressed the Williams team enough in a shootout in Barcelona to secure his seat in the top flight just three years after he had first stepped into a racing car. There were ebbs and flows along the way, and the biggest hiccup came at Benetton…

The Motorbase Performance British Touring Car Championship team will be under new management for the 2021 season with Shaun Hollamby and businessman Pete Osborne taking the reins. The operation will run four Ford Focus machines in the 2021 contest under the Motorbase name. Former Motorbase boss David Bartrum will remain with the squad for the next few weeks as a consultant to oversee the handover. New managing director Osborne, father of BTCC racer Sam and a former TVR Tuscan and Porsche racer, and Hollamby, who will take the mantle as team principal, will operate from Motorbase’s Kent workshops. Hollamby said: “Motorbase Performance is synonymous with everything that is great about British touring cars and a huge deal of credit must go to David Bartrum and his team for what they have achieved. Their…

Formula 1 star Jenson Button has told Motorsport News he nearly switched from McLaren to Ferrari in the early 2010s, and would have loved to race for the Italian outfit. The 2009 world champion joined McLaren in 2010 and won eight races in his first three seasons there, and remained with the squad until his F1 retirement in 2017. He told MN however that during his McLaren spell negotiations for a Ferrari move reached an advanced stage, with contracts in place. Button signed new McLaren contracts starting in 2012 and ’15 while contemporary reports linked him with a Ferrari move for 2013. “There was a good possibility sort of eight years ago that [a Ferrari move] would have happened but it just didn’t materialise at the end,” Button told MN. “Pretty much…

The opening round of the 2021 Formula E campaign that was due to take place in Chile has been delayed amid the ongoing concerns over the global health pandemic. The event was due to be hosted in Santiago on January 16-17, but growing travel restrictions between countries has meant that series bosses have axed what was due to be a double header. Category chiefs have said that they are planning to reschedule the rounds later on in the season. Astatement on social media read: “The races will no longer take place as a double-header on January 16-17 and we are working with the city to finalise dates on which to stage the races later in Q1 of 2021.” The cancellation means that the all-electric category is now due to kick off with its…

Josh Cook and Michael Crees have re-signed for the BTC Racing British Touring Car Championship team for 2021 and will drive its Honda Civic FK8 machine fitted with Swindon-tuned powerplants. The duo raced for the three-car team in 2020, with Cook winning three races and Crees claiming the Jack Sears Trophy, which was held last year for drivers who had not taken a podium before the start of the campaign. They will drive two of the front-wheel-drive Japanese hatchbacks, and team boss Steve Dudman, who is now in sole charge of the team, has confirmed that a third driver is set to be revealed in the next two weeks. He also revealed that the team would move away from a Honda powerplant and instead use the bespoke TOCABTCC engine. Dudman said: “Everyone knows…

Aston Martin has canned its GTE Pro World Endurance Championship team and will instead concentrate on its customer support programme. The British firm has been involved in top-flight GT racing as a works team, through the Prodrive operation, since the WEC was formed 2012. It first ranAstons in international motorsport in 2005 with the DBR9. Aston, which is now under the stewardship of Lawrence Stroll, will enter Formula 1 this year as part of the rebranded Racing Point attack. Bosses of the firm say it will now switch focus to looking after the customerAston Martin Vantage GT efforts. Prodrive has been contracted to build and sell the GTE, GT3 and GT4 versions of the machine. Aston Martin Racing president David King said: “The year [2020] has been one of unprecedented success for [the] Vantage…