Motorsport News 04/02/21

Hands up, who remembers Egon Kaur? This would make a great pub quiz question. After a six-year gap in his World Rally Championship CV, he returned to top flight competition last year to finish 12th on his home event, Rally Estonia, in a Skoda Fabia R5 Evo. There is very little to shout about there, you might think. But Kaur is also one of the men who made Craig Breen, who is the incumbent in the MN readers’ question-and-answer seat this week. Breen went into Wales Rally GB in 2011 in with a shout of the WRC Academy title, but he was a seemingly impossible 20 points behind his rival. Surely the title was lost? Not a bit of it: the WRC Academy, in those days, offered a bonus point for each…

British Touring Car Championship star Colin Turkington says it is a relief to be able to gun for his history-making title this season after confirming a deal to remain with the WSR team. The 38-year-old will once again handle the rear-wheel-drive works-supported BMW 330i M Sport in the 30-race campaign. He is on the verge of breaking the all-time record for titles. He is currently equal with Andy Rouse on four crowns. Turkington said that getting the deal to remain with WSR into 2021 was far from certain. The Portadown man explained: “It is great to get a deal sorted out. I think some people underestimate how hard it is to put these campaigns together, especially in these difficult days. “I left Brands Hatch at the end of last year slightly nervous about…

McLaren ready to go McLaren has announced that it will launch its new Formula 1 challenger at the McLaren Technology Centre on February 15. The Mercedes Benz-powered MCL35M, which will be driven by Australian Daniel Ricciardo and Brit Lando Norris, will be revealed at 1900hrs and the launch will be broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. F1 on the hour Formula 1 bosses have confirmed that the majority of European grands prix will revert to a local start time of 1500hrs after recent experiments with a later start in an effort to boost TV audiences proved unsuccessful. Bahrain (1800hrs), Singapore (2000hrs) and Saudi Arabia (1900hrs) will all be prime time evening viewing in Europe. Canada, Japan and America will have 1400hrs starts, while it will be 1300hrs for Mexico. Alpine’s WEC line-up Frenchmen Nicolas Lapierre…

Bosses of the Formula E Championship have nailed down the first six meetings of 2021 in a revised schedule, while the remainder of the schedule will be determined in early March. The tweaked roster will include a permanent track, Valencia in Spain, for the first time since the category was created in 2014. Valencia has been the location for Formula E’s traditional pre-season tests. FE will kick off in SaudiArabia in February, before visiting Italy, Spain, Monaco, Morocco and Chile. FE chief championship officer Alberto Longo said: “We continue to work on the last set of races and ensure our first season as an FIA World Championship lives up to our own expectations and those of our fans.” Series chiefs have said that they would like to complete a 15-race calendar, and they…

New Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz says that he could not have had a better first test for the Scuderia after running at the squad’s test track Fiorano last week. The Spaniard drove a 2018-spec SF17H for two days to enable him to familiarise himself with his new environment. “One of the most special moments for me today was when I arrived at the circuit and I saw the Ferrari with my number 55 on it. I was eager to jump in the car and that first installation lap was exciting,” said the former McLaren racer. “We were able to get through an extensive programme and I was able to familiarise myself with the whole set up: the engineers and mechanics, the steering wheel, the procedures which are obviously a bit different to those…

Formula 2 race winner Dan Ticktum has completed the Carlin line-up for this season’s competition The controversial Briton was 11th in the standings last season with the DAMS team, scoring four podiums including a win. He also missed out on a further victory at Monza when his car ran out of fuel after the chequered flag and officials were unable to gather the required fuel sample. Ticktum tested with Carlin at the end of 2020. He said: “Carlin proved they had a race-winning car towards the end of last season and I really want to capitalise on that and mount a strong championship challenge from the start.” In other F2 news, Williams tester Roy Nissany has been confirmed with DAMS while Theo Pourchaire has secured a berth atART Grand Prix. Filipe Albuquerque, Ricky…