Motorsport News 04/11/21

Jamie Sharp was left speechless after beating a host of star names to win a dramatic Formula Ford Festival final in the event’s landmark 50th running. Sharp, who started the final in sixth, benefited from an early-race collision removing three cars ahead, then got the lead when multiple Festival winner Joey Foster hit a damp patch and ran off. Sharp then won out in a frenetic battle with 2020 National FF1600 champion Neil Maclennan, though Maclennan was later disqualified for passing Sharp under a yellow flag. FF1600 regular Sharp, 20, told MN: “I’ve been in some dramatic races but that was by far the craziest race I’ve been in. Not really got much I can think to say. “It is really special, it’s an honour to have won this race. It was obviously meant…

Another win for the Toyota Gazoo Racing team in Bahrain last weekend has helped move Michael Conway – and team-mates Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez – to the verge of a second World championship title. They have a 15-point lead over team-mates Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima as the series heads to its finale on the Sakhir circuit this weekend with an eight-hour competition. In truth, Toyota only had itself to beat this season. The two GR010s are head and shoulders better than anything else out there, and the intra-team rivalry has been the only thing that has injected a bit of excitement into the competition. While Lewis Hamilton might be grabbing the big headlines by fighting for another title in Formula 1, Conway’s achievements in long-distance racing are just…

Toyota secured a third successive teams’trophy – and the first in the Hypercar era – in the World Endurance Championship following a dominant performance in the latest round at the Bahrain International Circuit last weekend. Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez sealed a relatively untroubled victory in the six-hour race at the Sakhir venue. They had a grip advantage over the sister machine of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima and finished 50s clear of the sister TGR010 Hybrid machine. The two Japanese cars were a lap ahead of the Alpine of Andre Negrao, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere. The season will conclude with an eight-hour race at the same circuit this weekend. Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez – who have won the last three races in succession including the…

World champion Lewis Hamilton has given his backing to a third Formula 1 race in the USA if the grand prix calendar expands further. F1 bosses recently announced a record-busting 23-race calendar for the 2022 season that includes a round at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, as well as a new street track in Miami, Florida. Hamilton, who finished second in Austin, said that he would not be against a third round in North America to help spread the global impact of F1. The 36-year-old said: “The US GP is fantastic and [it] is such a huge country, having just one race here isn’t enough to really to be able to tap into the sporting culture here and encapsulate the fans and get them on a journey with us. “I think…

The tooth-and-nail fight between Porsche and Ferrari for GT honours in the World Endurance Championship will go down to the wire after the German firm took another victory in Bahrain last weekend. Kevin Estre and Neel Jani won the race in the desert ahead of the sister Porsche GT entry of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz while theAF Corse Ferrari 488GTEs were hamstrung by a Balance of Performance tweak before the start of the race and could only finish third. The leading car was in the hands of Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado. The result means that Estre and Jani have moved to within one point of table-toppers Calado and Pier Guidi with just this weekend’s eight-hour race at the Bahrain track remaining. Briton Calado hit out at the tweaks to…

W Series battlers Jamie Chadwick and Alice Powell will both test a World Endurance Championship car in Bahrain next week as part of the category’s traditional rookie test. Newly crowned double W Series title winner Chadwick and runner-up in the standings Powell, will share a Signatech-run Richard Mille-backed Oreca 07-Gibson. Richard Mille has run an all-female crew, comprising Sophia Floersch, Beitske Visser and Tatiana Calderon, in this year’s LMP2 competition. Chadwick has a background in GT racing and won the British GT4 crown in 2014. Powell has previously raced a sportscar in the USA. As well as those two, Sebastien Ogier will also take part in the five hours of running at the wheel of a factory Toyota GR010 as he considers his future options. The Frenchman, the World Rally Championship leader, is expected…