Where do we start with the story of the March 761? In true Sound of Music fashion—at the very beginning. In the late 1960s, a band of four guys, Max Mosley (a barrister), Alan Rees (a former racing driver), Grahame Coaker (engineer and racing driver) and lastly, Robin Herd (a designer), came together to form March. Their dream was to design, build and sell competitive “customer” Formula One racing cars, as well as running a “works” team. It seemed so simple; a Cosworth DFV engine, a Hewland gearbox, an in-house chassis, aluminum body and four lumps of rubber courtesy of Dunlop, Goodyear or Firestone at each corner and anyone could go racing. Funding had now become available to Formula One through sponsorship, as the FIA had relaxed rules governing Grand Prix racing teams, which were now on a similar financial road as American racing series where commercial backing and advertising had been the norm for many years.

The 1970 season started incredibly well, of five race starts (two heats at the International Trophy Races, Silverstone) March managed three poles and four wins, a record on a par with the dominant 1954 Mercedes Silver Arrows! So, there was no surprise in Round Three of the championship, when Jackie Stewart again put his March on pole with Chris Amon sharing the front row at the “Jewel in the Crown” Monaco GP. Enter Swedish racing driver Ronnie Peterson, a young, bright, superstar in the making who hit the Formula One grid at Monte Carlo, driving a sixth March entered by Colin Crabbe’s Antique Automobiles racing team. Peterson had given March its racing debut at Cadwell Park, driving the 693 Formula Three car—so he was part of their DNA. He would have been racing earlier in the 1970 season, but his car wasn’t ready. Making the cut for the race was his first hurdle—only 16 cars were allowed to start at Monaco that year—which he did in 13th position. For March, however, the Monaco race showed flaws, only Peterson was classified as a finisher, in 7th place. Siffert and Amon, the works drivers, together with Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell March all retired (Servoz-Gavin, Stewart’s teammate failing to qualify).

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Benetton’s standing in F1 

Like many of today’s Formula One teams, the Benetton outfit morphed from an existing team, Toleman, then itself became Renault and today it is operating under the banner of Lotus F1. Benetton first began competing in its own right beginning in 1986 with the Benetton B186-BMW. The team’s first drivers were Teo Fabi and Gerhard Berger, with the latter giving the team its first win at the Mexican GP, the penultimate race of the year, following a season that had been dominated by the Williams and McLaren teams. Prior to competing under its own name, the Italian clothing brand Benetton had sponsored Tyrrell, Alfa Romeo and Toleman, bringing along a certain vibrancy to the outward appearance of the cars with their striking liveries. This joie de vivre embraced the team as a whole in later years with the charismatic Flavio Briatore at the helm, flamboyant car launches and disco music booming from their pit garages. Benetton portrayed a totally different speed of Formula One, way ahead of its time and with a style that, indeed, is now emulated up and down today’s F1 pit lane. During its history it courted controversy too, as well as changing the team nationality from British to Italian in 1996.

Their first car, the Benetton B186, was simply a Toleman in Benetton clothing—sorry about the pun! It was designed by Rory Byrne, Toleman’s chief engineer, who would become a key component of the future for both Benetton and Ferrari as well as, more importantly, Michael Schumacher. Formula One at that time embraced turbo engine power, and the B186 was fitted with BMW’s version. The following season Benetton turned to Ford for its engine, but “the writing was on the wall” for turbo power as it was to be banned from the start of the 1989 season. The team would become virtually a Ford “works” team with regard to engines during this transitional time, and as such was a force to be reckoned with, regularly finishing right behind the might of Williams and McLaren in the Constructors table.

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Automobiles Martini tasted success in the French Formula Three Championship on a regular basis. Race wins and championship success were commonplace for cars designed and manufactured by “Tico” Martini and his loyal team. Race victories around the streets of Monte Carlo were common too, with the most important Formula Three race in the world being won 10 times by a Martini. The 1982 MK37 is one of those winning designs.

CONTINUING THE WINNING WAYS

Martini Formula Three cars were winners, and everyone involved in French motorsport wanted it to stay that way. Each year, when a new Martini MK chassis was launched, the question asked was, “Can it win at Monaco?” In those days, the Monaco F3 race was the race to win, more important than any single championship success and it was a race that Martini cars were very good at winning.

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The Porsche 356 is really the car that “started it all” for the iconic Porsche marque. Manufactured between 1948 and 1965, the Porsche 356 is the automobile that allowed the company to develop. This car is responsible for starting the world’s love affair with rear-engined machines. These rear-engined cars remain as popular with people today as ever before. The 356 is the car that took the Porsche marque from humble beginnings to that of an iconic manufacturer. Versions of the 356 car competed at Le Mans and started the marque’s love affair with the famous 24-hour race. This love affair will start all over again for the company this year, when two factory-supported LMP1-specification 919 cars will compete at La Sarthe in the 2014 Grand Prix d’Endurance.

A CAR IS BORN

The Type 356 can be regarded as the first real Porsche sports car. Prior to the outbreak of World War ll, Porsche designed and built three Type 64 cars for the Berlin to Roma race—but this event was cancelled due to the outbreak of European hostilities. After the war, Porsche built a mid-engined, tubular-chassis car, called “No. 1”—this car was the prototype 356. The car is considered by the marque, and its enthusiasts, to be the first production example.

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Making its debut in 1963, the Rover P6 was introduced as the new jewel in the crown of the Rover fleet. The car was voted European Car of the Year in 1964 and it revelled in the glow of Britain’s last true motor manufacturing era. By the time the P6 reached the end of its shelf life in 1977, Britain’s motor car industry was in a spiral of decline from which it would never recover.

The Rover P6 in its road-going 2-liter, 2.2-liter or mighty 3.5-liter specification was popular. Built at Solihull in the British West Midlands, the Rover was very much the executive’s car of the era. Used by company managers and by the police as a “Panda” car, the Rover was a car of style and only a Jaguar parked on your driveway allowed the man of middle England to feel he enjoyed a higher social standing.

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It can’t be denied that the world of motor racing, both contemporary and historic, is saturated with egos. Some would say that it’s all really driven by egos, and that is sometimes directly connected to the size of the wallet. Perhaps without such egos we wouldn’t have motor racing at all.

So egos are certainly important, but there is something else that’s behind so many involved in motor racing and, in particular, historic motor sport. I am referring of course to the passion that many have for the sport. A passion that is so strong in some that it outweighs the need for podium finishes and is certainly far stronger than whatever shekels may influence others.

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The early 1950s found Enzo Ferrari’s burgeoning company quickly climbing the steep end of the power curve. His sports and racing cars, powered by the company’s now signature V12 engine in its various displacements, were proving successful not only on the racetracks of the world, but commercially with customers as well. While Ferrari’s 2-liter V12 showed great success in Formula Two, by 1950 competition from four-cylinder power plants like the Alta engine in the HWM was beginning to give the Prancing Stallion a run for its money. Added to this was the decision by the FIA ultimately to do away with the 1.5-liter supercharged or 4.5-liter naturally aspirated formula, but strangely, not until the 1954 season. With almost two intervening years of a “lame duck” formula, it seemed highly unlikely that any manufacturer would invest money in an engine or program with only a one or two year shelf life. With a new 2.5-liter, normally aspirated formula on the horizon for 1954, it made more sense for teams to bide their time and prepare for the new formula.

Four for the Future

During this same period of time, Enzo Ferrari had two primary engine designers in his employ, Gioacchino Colombo and Aurelio Lampredi. Colombo had been the primary architect of the smaller displacement 2-liter V12 engine being utilized in Ferrari’s then current F2 car. However, looking toward the future, Lampredi argued that a 2-liter, four-cylinder engine would benefit from being smaller, having more torque, fewer moving parts and less internal frictional loss. Ultimately, Ferrari agreed to let him prove his hypothesis, and by the beginning of 1951, Lampredi had the first of his 2-liter, four-cylinder power plants on the dyno in Modena. Using a 90-mm bore and 78-mm stroke, Lampredi’s four-banger produced a solid 170-hp right out of the box, giving it a 10-hp advantage over the existing 2-liter, Colombo-designed V12.

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The 1950s and 1960s were a time of rapid change in both the road and racecar world. Technology was advancing quickly and with this advancement, it became increasingly harder and harder for a lone individual—either engineer or visionary—to be solely responsible for a complete automobile. Yet, some amazing vehicles were given birth during this time by some of the last of these automotive prodigies. One such automotive savant was Italian Giotto Bizzarrini. A tenacious and talented engineer and development driver, Bizzarrini either created or played a major role in some of the most iconic cars of the 1960s, including several built under his own name. Any true understanding of Bizzarrini’s cars, however, first requires an understanding of the man, as the two are virtually inseparable.

Born Survivor

Giotto Bizzarrini was born in June 6, 1926, in Quercianella, near Livorno, Italy. Born into a long line of engineers, it is perhaps not surprising that Bizzarrini would gravitate toward things mechanical. However, his early childhood years were more dominated by soccer and hunting, at least until World War II intervened. When the war broke out, Giotto’s father took up arms against the Germans, leaving young Giotto behind to fend for his family. During the war years, times were tough and much of what the Bizzarrini family had to eat ended up coming from Giotto’s hunting prowess. Bizzarrini would look back on these years of deprivation and state, “That period really influenced me for the rest of my life. It made me into a survivor, somewhat of a maverick.”

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If I asked you to pick a brand associated with high performance and motorsport, chances are good the name Volkswagen would not be one of the first names to pop into your head. Known as the “People’s car”—and forever linked to the bulbous but iconic “Bug” nee Beetle—by the 1960s, Volkswagen had built a worldwide reputation for affordable cars, but not necessarily performance.

This lack of breadth was not lost on U.S. Volkswagen dealers, including Jacksonville, Florida-based Hubert Brundage of Brumos fame, who had been experimenting with various Volkswagen-based racing specials. Fortuitously, Brundage made a trip to Italy in 1959 and while there toured the workshops of Enrico Nardi. Impressed with Nardi’s ability to build small, nimble racecars around Fiat’s more pedestrian components, Brundage commissioned Nardi to build him two Volkswagen-powered, open-wheeled prototypes.

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I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, during the research and writing of this profile, that I kept hearing the Lennon/McCartney hit “Come Together” somewhere in the back of my head. I have often used the metaphor of how some of the most interesting motor racing tales are based on an almost accidental “coming together” of a number of threads, people and incidents. But this seemed different.

The 1969 Beatles hit was inspired by the drug-taking Timothy Leary and his campaign against Ronald Reagan to become California governor…Leary went to jail for possession. The song was unlike any other of the period, constructed only of verse and refrains, there were legal battles in America over it, it was considered a radical structure, it was a big hit in the USA, and everyone wanted to copy it….ah, now it’s “coming together.” I hear Max Mosley and Robin Herd “marching” in downstage left, and the Daytona drum and bugle corps strutting their stuff on a warm February morning in 1984. I hear lawyers arguing about which car is which! It’s eerie…even a bit “kreepy.”

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In 1966, the rain in Spain didn’t stay mainly on the plain. It blew eastward to the Ardennes Mountains of Belgium, and hurled itself down onto the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps, one of the regions unfortunately prone to such downpours. One lap into the race, Jackie Stewart and the BRM you see here flew off the road, bringing the Scot to the very edge of a critical accident. It started the Jackie Stewart safety campaign that changed motor racing circuits, cars and drivers, and which continues to this day. Rather like Stewart, who escaped relatively unscathed, the car had used up one of its lives…not its first, and certainly not its last.

BRM in the 1960s

VR regulars will recall that we have done BRMs before…the P25 that was the first from the Lincolnshire firm to win a World Championship race, a V12 P126 that had been driven by Rodriguez, Attwood and McLaren, and an H16, which was another Stewart machine. The P261 also has an Attwood, as well as the Stewart, connection. For those of us who have been around for a while, BRM was symbolic of great hope against the odds, the underdog against a stronger and richer opponent, touches of brilliance, and years of incompetence. BRM attempted to raise the British flag in post-war industrial Europe, but struggled in taking over a dozen years to do it. And, when it nearly got to the top, it was close to giving up. BRM is a great story.

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All right, I suppose I should start off with a confession. I am a mad, keen Austin-Healey enthusiast, and have had one example or another locked away in the garage for over 40 years. In fact, I have been quite taken by anything that was done by the Donald Healey Motor Company (DHMC) from its formation in 1946 right through to the death of Donald Healey in 1988.

That the cars, both Healeys and Austin-Healeys, achieved so much during the 1950s and ’60s is nothing short of amazing, given that they were powered by what were literally heavy, cast iron sedan engines that were really more at home in trucks and taxis.

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With the recent passing of automotive icon Carroll Shelby, it is easy to look at his  amazing life through the lens of his greatest achievements—the revered Cobra and GT350 being but two that will immediately pop to mind for most casual enthusiasts. But Shelby’s career as a constructor and team owner was much more than just snakes and horses. For a brief time, in 1964, Shelby unleashed a tiger, as well.

Alpine Sickness

The story of Shelby’s involvement with the Tiger starts as early as 1956. Like so many European car manufacturers in the ’50s, Britain’s Rootes Group was looking for an economical sports car that would appeal to the seemingly bottomless American market. Since 1953, Rootes Group had been selling the fairly heavy and sedate 2.3-liter Sunbeam Alpine. Based off the Sunbeam-Talbot 90 Saloon, the Alpine looked more like a mini-Bentley than a Ferrari and had performance that set no one’s heart aflutter.

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Like most German industrial companies, World War II left much of Mercedes-Benz’s Stuttgart factory in ruins. However, with time Mercedes rebuilt and returned to what it knew best, manufacturing passenger vehicles. But Mercedes-Benz also had a passion for competition on the world stage and so by 1951 factions within the company were already making noises about a return to racing. Many of the players that contributed to Mercedes’ great prewar success, like team manager Alfred Neubauer and engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut, were still with the company and itching to get back to racing. Another one of these pro-racing voices was Technical Director Dr. Fritz Nallinger, who, when asked about Mercedes intentions, shyly responded that the company was “…just opening a little window on the motor racing scene.” However, Mercedes was never known for doing anything “little.”

Unbendable Rules

Mercedes’ return to racing was fraught with difficult decisions. Beyond the obvious financial cost to the company, the then current F1 rules would only allow 1.5-liter supercharged cars—like the prewar W165—until the 1954 season when the rules would change to either a 750-cc blown or 2500-cc unblown format. The W165 was no longer competitive and Daimler-Benz management couldn’t justify investment in a new, purpose-built racecar that would in reality only be good for one or two seasons before being made obsolete.

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Formula Ford, as unlikely as it may seem now, brought me closer to being on the inside of professional motor racing than anything I experienced before or since. After a 35-year lay-off from that particular single-seater category, it was both an eye opener—and somewhat familiar and reassuring—to go back and do it again. It was also a little bit scary!

This is a long story, so I will try to tell it as quickly and painlessly as possible.

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Fresh off its appearances at the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans and the recent Le Mans Classic, the Mazda 787B will take center stage at the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed. This marks its return to the festival after an absence since 2015. As Goodwood commemorates the centenary of the inaugural running of the world’s most celebrated endurance race, the iconic Mazda 787B will join other esteemed Le Mans contenders and winners.

Highlights

• The 1991 Le Mans-winning Mazda 787B will be in action at the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed*.
• On Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th July, the Mazda 787B will be driven at Goodwood Festival of Speed by Johnny Herbert.
• With victory in 1991, Mazda became the first Japanese manufacturer to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Drivers

The iconic Le Mans-winning car, adorned with the distinctive ‘Renown’ livery, will tackle the Goodwood hill climb throughout the Festival of Speed. Johnny Herbert, one of the triumphant drivers in the 1991 Le Mans race, will once again take the wheel alongside former Grand Prix driver Karun Chandhok and ex-Mazda IMSA factory driver Harry Tincknell, who will also have the opportunity to showcase their skills in the historic vehicle.

Rotary conquers Le Mans

The 1991 Le Mans victory represented a remarkable moment for Mazda’s rotary engine technology, which embodied the company’s relentless pursuit of innovation. When Johnny Herbert crossed the finish line on June 23, 1991, at 4 pm, it marked an extraordinary achievement. Mazda had not only become the first Japanese manufacturer to win the prestigious endurance race but had also captivated fans with the distinctive and ear-catching sound of its unique engine.

During its victorious campaign, the Mazda 787B completed 362 laps of the renowned French circuit with minimal maintenance. Across its 28 pit stops, the winning car only required a single oil top-up, a change of brake discs and pads, and a nose change. The 700bhp four-rotor R26B-powered 787B demonstrated the reliability, efficiency, and performance of Mazda’s rotary engine technology, relying mainly on fuel and tire replacements throughout the race.

The triumphant car was driven by Johnny Herbert, alongside fellow Formula One drivers Volker Weidler and Bertrand Gachot. Their race was relatively uneventful, with Weidler making impressive progress from the 787B’s starting position of 23rd on the grid. By 6 pm, car number 55 had climbed into the top ten, and at the halfway point of the race at 4 am, it was running in third place. With three hours remaining, the Mazda secured second place when the leading Mercedes-Benz encountered engine issues and retired from the race.

Overall victory for Japan

This turn of events left the number 55 Mazda 787B to continue its consistent performance and cross the finish line, clinching the overall victory for Japan. This achievement was particularly significant as Toyota and Nissan had been striving to win the prestigious race throughout the Group C era. However, it was Mazda, a relatively small manufacturer from Hiroshima, and its rotary engine that secured the first outright victory at Le Mans for a Japanese brand. Adding to the triumph, the Mazda 787B, designed by Nigel Stroud, became the first car with carbon brakes to win at Le Mans. The sister car, number 18, finished in sixth place, while the older number 56 Mazda 787 secured eighth place. Nevertheless, it was chassis number 002 of the Mazda 787B that etched its name in history with an exceptional overall victory at Le Mans.

More information HERE

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This Hustler is not an unsavory men’s magazine, nor is it Jackie Gleason playing a pool shark, nor a con artist, or even a hot Lotus Elan for that matter. The Hustler does look sexy like a Lotus Elan on steroids, and it moves right along as a sports car should, so this is no con job. The Hustler is a now scarce American-created sports car built by Ray Caldwell and his legendary race car company Autodynamics.

Today, vintage racer Bob Webber of Fairfield, Connecticut, own’s one of the few surviving Hustlers. Webber’s lemon-yellow Hustler has an interesting tale to tell.

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Caught napping by the Germans, who had been quicker to see the potential of the new rules, Alfa Romeo and Maserati introduced new and faster cars in 1935 that threatened to be sterner rivals in 1936. And the meteoric Bernd Rosemeyer was displaying uncommon skill at the wheel of his Auto Union. Major changes in the Mercedes-Benz equipment for the formula’s third year were clearly needed.

For 1936 the plan was to build an “SSK” version of the W25, a car that would be lower and shorter, especially at the rear. This would make it inherently lighter so it could be equipped with a new and more powerful engine without exceeding the weight limit. Conceived for this purpose by the Albert Heess engine group was a 60-degree V-12 using the same construction techniques as the M25 eight. Cylinder blocks were welded steel with integral four-valve heads. 

The first of these D-series engines was designated DAB because it had the same dimensions as the latest eight, the M25AB, 82 x 88 mm for 5,577 cc. The design office estimated that it would deliver 516 bhp on 2B fuel, the usual racing blend, and 598 bhp on W.W., pure alcohol.

In late summer of 1935 the first DAB engine was found disappointing, not in its power but in its weight. It scaled 650 pounds, almost 250 more than the various M25 eights. This only confirmed that the steel-cylinder construction, so suitable for the straight eights. After this discovery, dynamometer development of the DAB engine was slowed. In 1936 an early test report showed that it developed 570 bhp at 5,500 rpm, close enough for comfort to the design-office forecast.

In spite of the V-12 engine’s heft it was installed in a new 1936 chassis to find out if the resulting racer could be under the weight limit. Engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut said that it could, but it was not well-enough balanced to be a successful road-racer: “Although the new car was within the 750-kilogram limit, it had too much weight at the front end. It was quite good for setting records on a straight road but quite unsuitable for the Nürburgring, for example.”

A straight-eight would have to be the solution. Jumping to the next letter of the alphabet, a decision was taken in mid-September 1935 to build an E-series engine, altering the letter/number sequence of its designation to make it the ME25.

By the end of November the Heess staff had completed work on this final expansion of the size of the original M25 engine within its 95-mm cylinder-bore spacing. Stroke, crankshaft, connecting rods and bottom end generally remained at the maximum to which they had already been stretched in the M25C while the bore was enlarged by 4 mm. Its dimensions were 86 x 102 mm for 4,740 cc. New cylinder forgings for this larger-bore engine allowed a valve-size increase to 37 mm. 

A new supercharger was designed with an enlargement in rotor diameter from 106 to 125 mm. Blowers of both 240-mm and 255-mm rotor lengths were prepared, the smaller one considered the standard size. They continued to use steel rotors while experiments with light-alloy rotors proceeded. New larger 36 mm intake-manifold sets were also readied for the ME25. The blower boosted through two carburetors and manifolds that were available in different diameters to tune the cars to specific circuits.

Orders were issued for the production of six of these new engines with six spare crankshafts, the parts to be ready on January 20, 1936 and dynamometer testing to begin on February 15^th. Though a late effort with a high element of risk, it was the only course open to the team. A later increase by four brought to ten the total of ME25 engines made. As a backup, all the available M25B and M25C engines were also made race ready for 1936.

M25C power units were used in tests to propel the first of the five new racing cars that were built, called the “Model 1936” or, more familiarly, the “short car”. The author prefers and uses the suitable designation of “W25K”. Two chassis were assembled and two were in component form in early October 1935 when testing began.

Ex-Benz man Max Wagner continued to direct the chassis-design side, directly under chief racing engineer Max Sailer and his still-youthful deputy, Fritz Nallinger. Seconded to Alfred Neubauer’s Sports Department to give liaison and technical assistance was an Untertürkheim veteran: ex-riding-mechanic Jakob Krauss.

The W25K incorporated several major changes. Its wheelbase was shortened by more than 10 inches to 97 inches, front and rear track remaining at 58 and 56 inches. This was made possible by a completely new transaxle design that had been in the works since the winter of 1934-35.

The new transaxle further lowered the car’s propeller shaft by placing the two gearbox shafts in a transverse plane below the final drive gears—a radical departure from the normal longitudinal shaft axis. Stacking these shafts one above the other and laterally beneath the differential cleared—for a lower-seated driver—the space ahead of the rear axle that the transmission formerly occupied.

The drive from the propeller shaft entered the gearbox at the center of its bottom shaft through a pair of bevel gears that could be varied one tooth or so either side of a one-to-one ratio. Four speeds and reverse were spaced along the two transmission shafts, to the left and right of the central bevel, still selected by sliding the gears into engagement with each other.

At the center of the upper shaft a pair of spur gears took the drive to the differential. These gears provided the normal ratio reduction, for example 3.69:1. On the W25K the differential choice was between a fully locked rear end, with no differential action at all, and the ZF self-locking cam-action diff.

First runs in the chassis took place in the late summer of 1935 in a W25-based mule at the ‘Ring and Bern circuit. They showed that the transaxle tended to become too warm. Attention was given both to its cooling, by means of ducting, and to its oil capacity, which initially was slightly more than half that of the 1935 transaxle. Monza trials also showed the need for a redesign giving higher torque capacity throughout the gearbox.

No longer were heavy pivots for swing axles attached to the sides of the differential. The W25K had an entirely new rear suspension. Toward the end of 1935 the W25 was finding it increasingly difficult to apply its steadily greater power to the ground. The shorter wheelbase of the W25K was intended to help by shifting more weight rearward.

The added power also aggravated another attribute of the earlier W25: if the rear end broke away in a corner it was extremely difficult to catch. The swing axles, judged at least partially at fault, were given up in favor of a design that worked well enough before: a solid axle.

It was a solid axle with a difference. To these Daimler and Benz men, with roots deep in the origins of motoring, it was an axle like those used on their Grand Prix models of 1908, like the racing Mercedes of 1913 and the Blitzen Benz. It was a dead axle, joining together wheels which were driven not by chains, this time, but by open shafts, each with two universal joints. It was an independent re-invention of what a later generation would come to call “de Dion” rear suspension after the French producer that used it in production models in the early years of the century.

The axle was fabricated of steel tubing in the shape of a broad-topped Y. The upper arms of the Y reached out, in plan view, to the wheel hubs, while the tail extended rearward to a ball pivot anchored to the rear end of the frame. The latter tapered inward to a point at that junction. This pivot was a critically important location point, taking both braking torque and transmission-drive thrust.

This unique de Dion configuration was adopted, said Rudolf Uhlenhaut later, because “Mr. Wagner wanted a good-looking car.” This was achieved so well that the dead axle was completely concealed. Indeed many observers still believe that Mercedes-Benz adopted the de Dion axle for racing in 1937 rather than 1936. It only became visible, in a new configuration, in 1937.

An additional means of guiding the solid axle was needed to cope with the lateral forces experienced in cornering. This guidance was supplied by a vertical fin fixed to the back of the transaxle casing. Within the crotch of the axle Y, riding up and down the sides of this fin, were two rubber-faced rollers attached to the axle tube.

Under the supervision of Dr. Maruhn, a theoretician who ran a general research department at Untertürkheim, a rig was built to test the rollers for durability. Under moderate load the first one lasted only 12 minutes. During tests of the first car at Monza in December they continued to be troublesome, leading to suggestions for armoring the rubber, enlarging the rollers and isolating the guide fin from the heat of the differential.

During the 1936 season the rollers were abandoned in favor of a steel-sided slot in the back of the transaxle, in which slid a bronze block attached to the crotch of the axle Y by a projecting ball pivot. This would set a style for de Dion lateral guidance that would last well into the 1950s.

Quarter-elliptic leaf springs with friction shock absorbers were retained at the rear of the chassis. The latter was founded on an extensively lightened box-section frame like that of the 1935 model. The front suspension was carried over almost unchanged within its tubular crossmember. Thanks to all the changes, especially the new transmission, the car’s center of gravity was lowered a remarkable 5.9 inches.

Brakes, to which screened cooling-air inlets and outlets were added during 1935, were also transferred to the W25K. For better cooling the rear-brake vents were fitted with a coarser mesh screen. Drums were given finer finning. Each brake was equipped with two grades of Iurid lining corresponding to the different workloads of the two shoes.

Designed by Josef Müller, the new body wrapped around this radically lowered car had an almost circular cross section, a long, slim tail and deep fairings concealing the front suspension and the adventurous new rear suspension. It was one of the handsomest racing cars ever built. When the cars first appeared for a presentation at the Berlin Auto Show in February they had a single oval radiator air entry. After testing this was supplemented by two additional grilles in the front fairings.

The left-hand grille was enlarged early in 1936 to accommodate an oil cooler, fitted to a Mercedes-Benz G.P car for the first time. It was judged so successful that oil coolers were added to the 1935 cars that were being carried over to the new season. Exhaust piping was newly positioned down at ground level, sweeping back on the left below the rear axle.

One reason the 1935 W25s were still on hand, apart from their value as training and backup cars, was that the cockpit of the shortened Model 1936 was so tight that Manfred von Brauchitsch couldn’t drive it comfortably. “In a car calculated down to the gram,” said Alfred Neubauer, “additional reserves for an extra-large driver are naturally impossible.” Offered one of the older cars for the season, Manfred instead contrived to squeeze himself into the new one except in the Eifelrennen, in which he drove a modified 1935 car.

After the first trials, changes were made to the body to give the drivers more protection from the wind. One W25K went to the Zeppelin wind tunnel at Friedrichshafen for an aerodynamic evaluation. Monza tests showed the need for an enlargement of both the main grille opening and the radiator itself.

All these early tests were carried out with M25C engines. In late February the first ME25 went on one of Georg Scheerer’s two dynamometers for a durability test. Its uncorrected output was 430 bhp on the normal fuel blend, equal to 449 bhp at 5,000 rpm with the standard corrections applied.

With a compression ratio of 8.65:1 and the 255-mm-long supercharger the ME25 gave its best-ever power of 473 bhp at 5,800 rpm, recorded during the Summer of 1936. Its typical output as prepared for racing with the 240-mm blower and a compression ratio of 8.17:1 was 453 bhp at 5,800 rpm with maximum torque of 465 lb-ft at 3,000 rpm. This was achieved on a boost pressure of 14.5 psi, exactly 1.0 bar.

Output was excellent from an engine that was even lighter than the M25C at 465 pounds. For the first time a Mercedes-Benz racing engine produced more than one horsepower per pound.

To spectators at Monte Carlo on April 13 for the first Grand Prix of 1936 nothing seemed to have changed except the smooth shape of the silver cars on the front row of the grid. Caracciola tiptoed through a rainy race to win after most of his teammates were sidelined by crashed at the chicane.

Not until they arrived at the fast, hot Tripoli circuit in May did the drivers have a chance to extend fully the W25K with its new ME25 engine. Comparing it with the same engine in the 1935 chassis and body, albeit with slightly different gear ratios, both had the same 175-mph maximum speed.

Caracciola complained of understeer, which was reduced by replacing the locked differential with a ZF unit.  The drivers were generally dissatisfied with both the roadholding and the steering, which still mustered a strong steering-wheel kick-back.

Technically the Tripoli race was as inconclusive as Monaco. One of the 255 mm blowers failed in practice so all the cars were switched to the 240 mm unit for the race. One car, that of new man Louis Chiron—a Monegasque and a close friend of Caracciola—suffered minor troubles that retired it.

The uncomfortable Manfred stopped on the circuit when his tank failed to feed all its fuel, a problem noted in the Monza trials but not rectified. And both Fagioli and Caracciola lost their front brakes after a pipe failure caused by the new mounting of the front-circuit master cylinder on the right-rear engine bearer.

The drivers found their cars very sensitive to the windy conditions on race day. Observing out on the course, Jakob Krauss thought they looked less steady on the turns than the Auto Unions. “Perhaps,” mused Neubauer afterward, “the longer chassis is better for fast courses.” 

A victory was achieved in another race in North Africa, at Tunis, when the leading Auto Unions crashed and burned. It was the last win to fall to Rudy Caracciola and the W25K Mercedes Benz.

At Barcelona Nuvolari’s Alfa beat the new cars in a straight fight. Here the sharp pitching tendency of the shorter chassis was especially bothersome. Pitching was also a problem at the subsequent Eifelrennen that saw all but two of the cars retiring and those finishing well back. Engine trouble struck there and in the subsequent race at Budapest, where all the Mercedes-Benzes failed.

The new engine, pushed hard at last, had shown a critical frailty. Cylinders in the forward block were too weak to handle the high specific output and had begun to fail. First the existing parts were strengthened, then completely new cylinders and blocks were made for the all-important German Grand Prix in late July. Before that race several of the engines were switched from 240 mm to 255 mm superchargers, two of which subsequently broke. Chiron crashed and one car limped home sixth.

After such a run of disasters any sporting team determined to be victorious would call a rapid halt and make some changes. So too it was with Daimler-Benz. The organization that had served it so well since automobile racing began was apparently no longer equal to the pace and intensity of Grand Prix racing in the 1930s.

The liaison between Alfred Neubauer’s Sports Department and the engineers in the central design office had always been direct. This changed with the creation of a new technical body that was specifically concerned with the racing cars. An offshoot of the Experimental Separtment, it was called the Rennabteilung, the Racing Department.

Placed in charge of it was a handsome young man who had been with the company only five years. Born of a German father and British mother, he had joined Daimler-Benz directly from engineering school as a carburetion specialist in the Experimental Department. The young man, whose arrival on the scene can only be described as marking a turning point in the racing history of Daimler-Benz, was Rudolf Uhlenhaut.

Uhlenhaut’s new group was made fully responsible for assembling, preparing and testing the cars, then turning them over to Neubauer’s sporting department for racing. Reporting directly to Fritz Nallinger, who headed the main Experimental Department, he was assigned the services of Jakob Krauss in charge of car construction and Georg Scheerer as head of testing and inspection. 

“Naturally we had a good design office,” Uhlenhaut said, “but the people there were cautious and our opinions often differed. However, if I wanted something I said so and they would generally let me have it.” He and his colleagues said what they wanted in their recommendations and requirements, expressed from mid-1936 onward in a blizzard of reports, memos and analyses generated by the new Rennabteilung.

It was too late to do much about the W25K, which Uhlenhaut tested extensively at the Nürburgring. Race entries at Montenero and Pescara were abandoned to try to get the cars ready for the Swiss G.P. on August 23^rd. There Fagioli broke a connecting rod, Caracciola broke the right side of his rear-axle tube and von Brauchitsch had cooling failure initiated by a piece of newspaper caught in front of the grille. Newcomer Hermann Lang eked out a finish in fourth place.

Caracciola had taken and held the lead—until Rosemeyer motored past him. “The drivers declared themselves as by and large satisfied with the roadholding, with empty as well as with full tanks,” Uhlenhaut recorded. “In this race it was clearly evident that the power of the Auto Union in the middle and upper speed ranges is far superior. To be able to hold the pace to some extent our drivers must constantly strain the engine to the limit and moreover attempt to gain back in the turns what they lose on the straights.

“A further participation in racing with the E motor seems to be useless,” Uhlenhaut concluded. Daimler-Benz management agreed with him. Entries for the Italian Grand Prix, the European season’s final event, were withdrawn. It was a heavy decision for the proud company. But the light shined on the technology of racing by Uhlenhaut’s new group would bring brilliant results in coming years.

The post Disappointing Arrow — 1936 Mercedes-Benz W25K appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

At Watkins Glen they said, “It looks like the box it came in.” Even that harsh judgement of the appearance of the new Chaparral 2J may have been too generous. However, handsome is as handsome does and in its astonishing way the 2J did handsomely.

A World Champion was sufficiently impressed with its concept to drive the Chaparral 2J at Watkins Glen in 1970 and set a fastest lap while running in very fast company. Although the 2J did not last long enough to get close to winning, it showed great potential and restored its developer, Jim Hall, to his well-earned status of the Wizard Technician of Group 7 racing. In the rest of the 1970 Can-Am season it revealed phenomenal pace.

The post The Astonishing Chaparral 2J appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Much like other drivers that suddenly announced their retirements, it seems that Seb, as he’s affectionately known to friends and fans alike, decided to pull the plug while still achieving moderate success and bow out in a dignified fashion after over a decade in the sport to spend more time with his kids and extended family.

As he is one of the winningest champions at the pinnacle of motorsport, it is only appropriate that—as this chapter of his life closes and a future where he can focus on his family and other interests opens—we look back at just what made Seb one of the best ever.

This is a profile filled with examples of natural skill, heated moments with teammates and opponents alike, and some amazing drives that closed out the final years of the V8 era of Formula One with a bang. Quite hotheaded for a German (who are usually seen as calm, collected drivers on the F1 grid), Vettel’s career can be equally defined as explosive and determined, and we will explore all aspects of it.

Sebastian Vettel’s Early Years

Karting

Sebastian Vettel was born on July 3, 1987, in the sleepy countryside town of Heppenheim (Bergstraße), in the Hesse state of what was known then as West Germany, as the second youngest of four, with a younger brother and two olders sisters. While not the most affluent of families, the Vettels realized after putting him in a kart at the age of three in 1990 just for fun that he had a serious natural talent for driving, and they focused on registering Sebastian for local karting events and drop-in races.

By the time he was four, he was winning karting events, and became a fervent fan of what he dubs as the “Three Michaels:” Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, and Michael Schumacher. He was fully intent on becoming a singer like his idol Jackson, until he realized that he enjoyed karting quite a lot (and that he also didn’t quite have a singing voice that would make him a pop star).

Instead, due to his natural talent and raw speed, in 1994, a seven year old Seb won a seriously competitive karting competition, with the grand prize being a meet and greet with Michael Schumacher.

This was his first encounter with one of his heroes, and despite the saying of “never meet your heroes,” 1994 was also the year that Schumacher won his first World Driver’s Championship. To a young Sebastian, he was an inspiration to both push hard for what he wanted—which was to win, but to also remain humble as possible, as Schumacher dedicated his first title to the man that was his main rival, the recently passed Ayrton Senna, for the trophy.

In 1997, at the age of 10, Vettel moved to the professional leagues and won both the DMV Karting Championship and the NRW German Championships back-to-back. Of course, this drew the attention of professional scouts for the newly formed junior academies of major Formula One teams, and in 1998 at age eleven, he was signed to the Red Bull Junior Academy.

With some serious backing behind his name now, Sebastian was able to move up to international karting events, and continued to win races. The highlight of his karting career, however, was his victory in 2001 at the Junior Monaco Kart Cup, racing in the top tier KF3 super karts.

This was a milestone for Vettel, as the kart track uses the entire lower half of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit, and was sanctioned by the Automobile Club de Monaco, who also run the entire Grand Prix weekend for Formula One. It was also an international cup overseen by the FIA, as it was one of the most prestigious karting cups you could win before moving to higher category open wheelers.

Formula BMW, Formula 3, & Formula Renault

In 2003, with support from Red Bull, Vettel was able to enter open-wheeled Formula car competition and joined the German Formula BMW ADAC series. He was placed in the Eifelland Racing Team and partnered with Andreas Wirth, a future endurance car professional racer. Despite Wirth being in his second season of Formula BMW, Vettel outmatched him at almost every event, consistently driving faster and qualifying higher.

In fact, during his rookie season, Vettel finished second in the Formula BMW ADAC Championship with five wins, five poles, and twelve podiums in nineteen races. Maximilian Götz, a future ADAC GT and FIA World Endurance champion, was the only driver to beat him.

2004, however, was the year that Sebastian Vettel made himself known as a seriously fast, destined-for-the-big-show driver. Switching to the Berlin-Brandenburg team, Vettel’s sophomore season was a display of utter domination, leaving every other driver in the field in the dust.

In a twenty race season, he won eighteen, and he was on the podium for the other two that he did not win. At that time in the FIA rankings, Formula BMW ADAC was akin to national Formula 4 series, and as the champion, Vettel had the option of moving up the FIA ladder.

The Next Step: Formula 3

He did so in 2005, signing to the German ASL Mücke Motorsport Formula 3 Euro Series team. As the cars were much faster, much more aero dependent, and much higher tech than the Formula BMW cars, Vettel struggled throughout the first half of the season to produce strong results.

He was consistently in the midfield, however, and after getting to grips with how much more finesse the F3 cars took to drive seriously fast, he was able to return to a front running position, often challenging a young British driver by the name of Lewis Hamilton for race wins. In the end, he scored five podiums from twenty races, while Hamilton went on to be the 2005 F3 Euro Series champion.

A highlight of his 2005 season was being invited to participate in two of the most prestigious F3 races in the world: the Macau Grand Prix and the Masters of Formula 3. At Macau, Vettel showed absolute determination and skill, coming in third behind Lucas di Grassi (2010 Virgin F1 Team driver and 2016 Formula E champion) and a young Polish wunderkind, Robert Kubica. At the Masters of Formula 3 event, however, he got mired in the midfield and finished a respectable, if midfield, eleventh place.

His performance did impress, however, and he was given a test day with the Williams Formula One Team later on in 2005 for his performance in the Formula BMW series, and after he won the Rookie Cup for F3 with 63 total points, the highest scoring rookie, he was invited to test with BMW Sauber Formula One. During both tests, he showed immense natural feel and speed with both cars, and was lapping within a few seconds of the professional F1 drivers for each team by the end of both test days.

This raw speed and feel for the car saw Vettel get his foot in the door in 2006 with BMW Sauber, as he was signed as their official test driver, while also participating in the 2006 Formula 3 championship. Not satisfied with just the test driver position and Formula 3, Sebastian also entered the European Formula Renault 3.5 Series, at that time a direct feeder series to Formula One.

He showed immense pace in Formula 3, trading the points lead in the championship with future F1 driver Paul Di Resta almost every race weekend. When he was put in the more powerful Formula Renault car, however, he blitzed the field, taking the win and second place in the first two races at Misano.

Reality Comes Crashing Down

It was during the 2006 Formula Renault 3.5 Series race at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps, however, that the first bite of the true dangers of racing hit Sebastian full force. In the front half of the pack during the first race of the weekend, Vettel was pushing hard, showing his pace and talent, when an accident happened in front as the cars crested Radillon after the famous Eau Rouge corner.

The crash resulted in shards of carbon fiber being scattered everywhere, and by pure chance, one of the airborne pieces of carbon fiber sliced across his knuckles, nearly severing his right index finger. The injury was serious enough that he was withdrawn from Formula Renault, and it was expected that he would be out of the cockpit for months.

The video of the crash does involve, well, a crash, so viewer discretion is advised—and instead of embedding the video, we’ll simply link to it here: Sebastian Vettel 2006 Injury At Spa.

To everyone’s surprise, seven days later at the Masters of Formula 3 at Zandvoort, the Netherlands, Vettel showed up with his finger wrapped in a flexible cast, and subsequently placed sixth in the race. He continued racing for the remainder of the 2006 F3 season, but due to his injury, was not able to match his pace from the first half of the year, which ultimately saw him come second in the championship.

Formula One: A Rough Start

The Call

2007 started off for Sebastian Vettel like many before him, with him entering a series and showing utter domination from the word “go”. For this season, he elected to participate in Formula Renault 3.5 full time, and won the German round at the Nurburgring. He was steaming ahead of the field in points, easily in command of the championship, when what many F1 drivers simply say is “the call” came.

At the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica went through what was one of the most violent crashes that had been seen in the sport for nearly a decade, getting bumped off the track at nearly 180 MPH, hitting an access road that caused his front wheels to lift into the air, and smashing nose first into the inner barrier before the famous hairpin at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

The car literally shattered into pieces, the only not breaking apart being the extremely robust safety cell that surrounds the driver. After tumbling, spinning, and being exposed to high g-forces, as well as sustaining minor injuries to his feet, Kubica was out of competition for the foreseeable future.

As such, when it came time for BMW Sauber to travel to the next round at Indianapolis, they called Vettel up to the team. Although he had taken part in free practice sessions in 2006 for BMW Sauber, this was his first call up to the top tier of motorsports.

Despite the buzz surrounding his call-up, Vettel remained calm and provided a mature drive for the 2007 US Grand Prix, qualifying seventh and finishing a respectable eighth. This made him, at 19 years and 354 days, the youngest ever points-scoring driver in Formula One—a record he held for many years.

Red Bull/Toro Rosso

This performance showed that Vettel had the ability and skill to handle a Formula One car at race pace for an entire weekend and provide results. Still a member of the Red Bull Junior team, BMW Sauber and Red Bull Formula One came to an agreement shortly after the US Grand Prix, and Sebastian was released from BMW Sauber to be immediately signed to Toro Rosso, Red Bull’s junior and development team. He replaced the American driver Scott Speed, who had been released after the US Grand Prix for not providing expected results and being given all the chances he could have had.

This was it. This was the promotion to a team under the Red Bull banner he had been working towards for nearly a decade, and he finally had made it. But be it from youthful enthusiasm or coming to terms with the fact that his dream was “really happening,” at the rain-soaked 2007 Japanese Grand Prix at the Fuji International Circuit, things nearly came undone for him.

After working his way up to third behind Red Bull’s Mark Webber and the McLaren of race leader Lewis Hamilton, he lost focus for a moment during a safety car period and crashed into Webber, forcing both cars into retirement. This would have been Toro Rosso’s maiden podium, and one of Webber’s up-until-then best finishes—and with one mistake, he wiped out two nearly guaranteed podium finishes for the Red Bull camp.

Vettel’s One Weakness: The Temper Starts to Show

To say that Mark Webber was, in a word, “pissed” about Vettel’s mistake is an understatement. He did not hold back any criticism, and even went as far as to say that he thought that Vettel had been moved into Formula One too early. He was given a ten-place grid penalty for the following round at the Chinese Grand Prix—however that penalty was nullified after eyewitness video showed that Hamilton might have not been following correct safety car procedures, causing Webber to slow down, with the domino effect of the distracted Vettel hitting him.

Despite this, it seemed that Vettel’s confidence was shaken, and he qualified a dismal seventeenth. Yet, once the five red lights went out, the raw talent surged through. In a race of mixed conditions, Vettel moved all the way up the field to finish fourth, which caused Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateshitz to make the ultimately prophetic statement that he thought Sebastian would be a world champion in the next five years.

Despite being billed as intelligent, mature, and extremely involved in the technical side and small details of tuning the car to his driving style, the young German also started to show that he was, at times, quick to anger and that he had a particular temper. It is expected, to say the least, that when you’re one of the twenty best drivers in the world, your ego can be about as big as a hot air balloon, but most drivers keep it under control.

This would come to the fore in the first four races of 2008, where Vettel scored four consecutive DNF’s (Did Not Finish), with retirements in the first lap for three of them. He was shown on TV broadcasts as throwing his fists around after hopping out of the car in frustration, and he was very brusque with the media. This famously got him in a bit of hot water with the Red Bull team, and after a “consultation” with the team bosses, he was much calmer at the Turkish Grand Prix, although again he seemed to lose confidence, finishing fourteenth.

Once again, after a confidence shakeup, Vettel returned to form at the 6th round of 2008, the Monaco Grand Prix. A track that is notoriously difficult to pass on, Vettel qualified seventeenth, yet was able to finish the race in fifth, scoring his first points of the year.

At the following race at Valencia, Spain, it seemed that something had been switched on in Sebastian, causing Toro Rosso’s technical director, Giorgio Ascanelli, to comment that suddenly Vettel had figured out how to drive a Formula One car consistently fast. This would again prove to be a prophetic statement, as the Toro Rosso Miracle was but a few months away.

2008 Italian Grand Prix

Monza. The Temple of Speed. The second fastest circuit that Formula One visits after Spa-Francorchamps. The holy ground of the Ferrari Tifosi, where the prancing horse is venerated and any Italian team that scores a point there is applauded. As Toro Rosso is Italian for Red Bull, and the team was based just down the road from Monza, it was a popular car with a seriously fast young star driver.

Of course, Monza is all of those things listed above when it is dry. However, the 2008 Grand Prix weekend was plagued by rain, and a wet track separates the great drivers from the legendary ones. Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when during a rain soaked qualifying session, at 21 years and 72 days old, Sebastian became the youngest driver to ever achieve pole position, a record he holds to this day.

When it came race time on the Grand Prix Sunday, the torrential rain saw one of the few safety car starts of a Grand Prix. Because of his vantage point of being in pole position and not buried in the rooster tail spray from the extreme wet weather tires, Vettel catapulted away from the field and led the race nearly the entire way through.

In a mature drive that saw speed balanced with exceptional car control in the most challenging of conditions, Vettel crossed the finish line in first, 12.5 seconds ahead of the second place McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen.

At 21 years and 73 days old, Sebastian Vettel was the youngest driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix event, a record he held for 8 years. It was dubbed the Toro Rosso Miracle, “the race that was,” a coming-of-age for both the very young team and the young driver.

In fact, after Toro Rosso boss Gerhard Berger commented that Vettel could not only win races, but was destined to win championships, the German media gave him the nickname of “Baby Schumi,” a name he had no problem accepting as Schumacher was one of his childhood heroes. This race also saw the beginning of one of Vettel’s more controversial celebrations, where he would raise his right index finger—the one that was nearly severed—and emphatically pump his fist around.

At the end of the 2008 season, Toro Rosso had been cemented as a viable team, Vettel had proven to be a natural talent and a race winner, and subsequently he was named the 2008 Rookie of the Year at the Autosport Awards. However, as the saying goes, the story had just begun.

Red Bull & The Rise of the Champion

2009 & Leading the Charge

After David Coulthard retired at the end of the 2008 season, Vettel was promoted to the main Red Bull team—on the back of his 2008 Toro Rosso campaign giving the first win and the first pole position for the junior team since its inception.

The 2009 RB5 was an absolute beast of a car, with a screaming V8 engine revving to 18,000 RPM, and unlike many of the cars that were eligible, it did not run the new KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) hybrid drive. It was as if the car and Sebastian had been made for each other, and he proved to be immediately a front runner the instant he first turned a wheel in anger on a track.

At the first round in Australia, Vettel was on track to place second, a podium in his first outing for the main team, when he crashed out after colliding with Robert Kubica as the two fought over second place. Two races later, at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, he went on to qualify in pole position, the first pole for Red Bull, as well as lead almost all of the race laps, giving Red Bull their first win in F1.

Vettel would go on to win at Silverstone, Red Bull’s home grand prix at the time, to the delight of the team and fans alike. At the Japanese Grand Prix, Vettel scored the second ever Red Bull pole position, and dominated the race, leading every lap to come home in first.

At the first ever final round Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he won that race, and through his efforts across the season, came in second in the driver’s championship to Jenson Button. The Constructors Championship was also very tight, with Brawn GP, which would become Mercedes-AMG GP in 2010, beating Red Bull by just 18.5 points.

2010: The Year It All Came Together

2010 was a banner year for Formula One. With the birth of Mercedes-AMG GP, seven-time world champion and fellow German Michael Schumacher came out of retirement as the highest profile signing in many years to give the team an experienced, albeit older, driver as their lead.

The son of World Champion Keke Rosberg, Nico, was signed as the second driver for the team, forming an all-German ownership and driving team. Another driver named Nico also entered Formula One in 2010, the much loved “Hulk,” Nico Hulkenberg, who would go on to be one of the most successful drivers to never win a race (and a definite fan favorite).

It was also the year that saw the expansion of the points system to its modern style, with 25 points awarded for a win, 18 for second, 15 for third, and so on down to 1 for tenth, which allowed for more drivers to establish themselves as point scoring racers. What most teams had not counted on, however, was the fact that Red Bull Racing, using the award money from coming in second in the Constructors Championship, had developed one of the most dominant and technologically advanced F1 cars seen since the legendary Ferrari F2004, the RB6.

Sebastian immediately put the car on pole at the first round of 2010 in Bahrain, and led most of the race until a spark plug failure caused a misfire, and he dropped back to fourth. At the second round in Australia, Vettel again placed the RB6 on pole, but retired from the race on lap 26 after a brake failure sent him spinning off into a gravel trap. It was also in Australia that he was appointed as director of the newly reformed Grand Prix Drivers Association, as he had no qualms about being outspoken and direct.

His first win of the season came at the third round in Malaysia, where Mark Webber had secured pole with a brilliant and brave switch to slicks as the often rain soaked track was drying near the end of qualifying, with Vettel putting his RB6 in third. At the start of the race, he powered past Nico Rosberg in second, and moved inside Webber at the first turn to take the lead, and there was no looking back from there. With Webber coming in second, this was the first 1-2 finish in Red Bull Racing’s history.

Despite the successes, there was a rift starting to grow between Webber and Vettel, with the older, more experienced Australian, who was technically the primary driver of the team, feeling like the young upstart German was taking unnecessary risks to get to the front of a race, including passing dangerously close to Webber on multiple occasions. Despite the low-boiling animosity, the two were able to still race cleanly at the Spanish GP, with Webber first and Vettel third, and chalking up another 1-2 at the next round in Monaco, with Webber finally winning at the legendary race and performing his now classic backflip into the pool atop Red Bull’s paddock suite.

Despite both drivers being in good spirits about Monaco, the rift was firmly and permanently sealed in place at the next round in Turkey. As Webber had often commented, the two Red Bulls were running comfortably in first and second, with Webber in the lead, when Vettel made a dive-bomb passing move to take the lead of the race… or at least that was his intention. Instead, he crashed into Webber, spinning out of the race with Webber screaming on the team radio to the pit wall about Vettel’s impetuousness and impatience. Mark was able to continue, but would have to nurse home the RB6 with minor damage, dropping down to finish third.

Neither driver took responsibility for the collision, with Webber insistent that Vettel had tried to force a pass that was never going to work. Vettel countered that Webber had moved his car to block him, and the two never truly saw eye to eye after that.

They would trade wins and podiums throughout the rest of the first half of the season, both garnering enough points to be almost even in the top four spots of the drivers championship, mixed in with Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. During the second half of the season, however, a resurgent Ferrari with Alonso and new updates for the McLaren of Hamilton saw both those drivers win multiple races, with the Red Bulls often in second, third, and a couple of times not even on the podium.

By the time the season wound its way to the final race at Abu Dhabi, any one of Webber, Vettel, Alonso, or Hamilton could win the title if they won the race. Red Bull Racing was already the Constructor’s Champions with a solid showing at the previous round in Brazil, but coming into the final race, Vettel was 15 points behind Alonso, 7 points ahead of Webber, and if all three of them retired from the race and Hamilton won, he had a chance to take the title.

The race was a seesaw battle between Button, Webber, Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso, although with some excellent strategy calls from the pit wall, Vettel emerged from his final pit stop outside of any real challenge for the win of the race, with a ten second gap as he crossed the finish line to second place Lewis Hamilton, third place Jensen Button with the two most dangerous challengers, Alonso and Webber, finishing in seventh and eighth respectively.

Once the pit wall had confirmed that Vettel had enough points, firstly, Vettel’s race engineer confirmed the places as they finished, then called out “DU BIST WELTMEISTER!” Christian Horner, team principal at Red Bull, keyed up the radio next and spoke his now famous line, “Sebastian Vettel, you are the world champion!”

All the prophetic statements by all of the personnel over the years at both Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing came true in an instant, and at 23 years and 134 days old, Sebastian Vettel became the youngest World Drivers Champion in the history of F1, a record that has not been broken since 2010.

Title Defense & Three More Years Back-to-Back

Vettel started the 2011 season with strong wins at both Australia and Malaysia, coming in second place at the Chinese Grand Prix third round as his radio was broken and he couldn’t communicate his tire wear to the team effectively. He also won rounds four and five, before his radio failed again at the sixth round in Monaco.

The pit crew were not ready when he entered the pit lane for new tires, which led to him both having a slow stop as well as being sent out on the wrong set of tires. He was able to hold Fernando Alonso and Jensen Button behind him until the race was red flagged near the end, allowing him to change tires under the red flag rules and subsequently win the race.

He came second at the Canadian Grand Prix. At the European Grand Prix at Valencia, the FIA implemented a ban on engine mappings, which many saw as a thinly veiled attempt to reel in Vettel’s massive points lead. Sebastian responded by recording his first hat trick of the season, with pole position, fastest lap, and the race win.

Another rule change at the next round at Silverstone targeted the blown diffuser aerodynamic device, which Red Bull had pioneered for 2011 and was achieving great success with. Despite the change, Vettel was able to hold off teammate Webber, who had ignored team orders and was pushing to take second place off of Seb. That second place marked another entry in the record books where a driver had placed no worse than second in the first nine races in the season, winning six of those races.

Vettel would finish fourth at his home Grand Prix in Germany, second at Hungary, and then was back on the top step at Spa-Francorchamps. He tied Ayrton Senna when he nabbed his tenth pole position in Italy, being only the second driver to have taken ten pole positions in two separate seasons, and he won from pole without much challenge.

A win at the next round in Singapore put him mathematically within reach of securing the title, and with a second place at the following round in Japan, he had accumulated enough points and was declared the champion with a shocking five races left in the season, marking him the youngest back-to-back champion in the sport’s history as well as the youngest to win two titles. With a win at the next race in Korea, he also joined Michael Schumacher as the only other driver at the time to win more than ten races in consecutive seasons.

At the end of 2011, Vettel claimed the record for the most pole positions in a season at fifteen, as well as racking up eleven wins, seventeen podiums from nineteen races, and a record setting 392 points in a season.

2012 was a bit of a different beast, which saw multiple drivers gaining ground and a highly competitive season unfold. At the Malaysian round, Vettel’s temper would once again get frayed after a collision with backmarker Narain Karthikeyan caused him to finish outside of the points. He snapped after the race, calling him “an idiot and a cucumber.”

By the time the season had reached the summer break, he was fifth in the driver’s standings and looking like he might not make it to a third title. It was, in fact, a deficit of 39 points to Ferrari’s Alonso with seven rounds remaining that was making things look grim.

What happened next is one of those second halves of a season drivers dream about. He won at Singapore, took a hat trick at the Japanese Grand Prix, and surged to within 4 points of Alonso as the latter retired during the race. Wins in Korea and India saw him return to the top of the standings, and by the time the season came to the final round at Interlagos in Brazil, he had a 13 point cushion over Alonso.

Things looked bad, however, when a first lap collision with Bruno Senna sent him spinning off the track and to last place. With a heroic drive, he recovered to sixth place to win the title by a scant three points—one of the narrowest margins a title has been decided by.

This placed Sebastian in rarefied air, joining names like Schumacher and Fangio as a triple title winner, as well as being the youngest triple consecutive title winner—a record he still holds to this day.

2013: Multi-21 & The Fall from Grace

By 2013, there was no denying that Sebastian Vettel was one of the best drivers to sit in a Formula One car. Yet, his title defenses and wins had been marred by his often explosive criticisms of other drivers, his single finger fist pumps that had started out innocently but were getting more and more in the face of other drivers as he did them, and his temper sometimes getting the better of him. It was after a third place finish at the opening round in Australia that the now infamous “Multi-21” incident happened at the second round in Malaysia.

Teammate Mark Webber had never won the Malaysian Grand Prix, and as the race unfolded, he held the lead on the road, with a hard charging Vettel closing in on him in second place. Sebastian made several dangerous passing attempts, coming close to contact with Webber on multiple occasions, which caused the Australian to radio the pit wall to literally ask what Vettel was doing.

In a now famous radio message, Red Bull told Vettel to go to engine mode “Multi-21, Multi-Two-One.” There was no such combination of knobs and dials on the steering wheel to set such a mode, however—as it was code for team orders to hold position and to not pressure Webber so that he could go for the win and Red Bull would get a 1-2 finish.

However, Sebastian blatantly defied team orders, to the point that he used KERS deployment and DRS (Drag Reduction System) on the front straight-on lap 46 to slipstream Webber and try to slingshot around him. Webber, incensed, closed the door and pushed Vettel to within a few inches of the pit wall while both were screaming down the road at over 180 MPH.

Four corners later, Vettel was able to cut around the inside of Webber to take the lead. This prompted the team principal, Christian Horner, to cut over the radio in a rare direct order and say “This is silly, Seb. Come on!” in the hopes he would obey team orders and return the place to Webber. Webber famously came on the radio and in a very dark tone reported “That’s good teamwork, yep”, with his rage barely restrained.

Vettel would go on to win the race, and further infuriating Webber, did his typical fists-pumping-in-the-air victory motions from the cockpit. This caused Webber to accelerate and cut across the front of Sebastian with mere inches to spare, which caused Vettel to have to brake hard during his celebrations.

After the two had climbed from their cars and were in the cool-down room before the podium ceremony, a visibly furious Webber looked at Vettel and simply said “Multi-21, Seb. Yeah. Multi-21.” During the post race press interviews, Webber was close to smashing the table every time he put down his water glass, and as soon as the interviews were done, tore from the room and headed straight to Horner.

This single incident permanently soured the already rocky relationship between the teammates, and Horner called an extremely rare sit down with each driver separately that night. He explained to Webber that he had been known to push to the boundaries of team orders, something Webber did have to relent on. The more vicious criticism was reserved for Vettel, though, explaining to him that he had taken a rare win away from Webber, who had been in the sport for a decade and only won a handful of races, and that in doing so he had not only hurt the teams image, he had also acted selfishly and egotistically.

Vettel, properly mollified after the full impact of his actions resonated in that he had done his teammate a serious wrong, flew back to the Red Bull Racing factory in the UK, where Webber was, and offered a full apology, which Webber accepted… barely. Vettel was not reprimanded by the team, albeit his management team had brought in lawyers in case any punishments were administered.

After Webber’s comments about Vettel’s racecraft emerged in the media, by the time the Chinese Grand Prix came around three weeks later, Sebastian would provide the most scathing withdrawal of his apology he could to the media: “Obviously I realized at that moment there was quite a conflict. On the one hand, I am the kind of guy who respects team decisions and on the other hand, probably Mark is not the one who deserved to win at the time. The bottom line is I was racing, I was faster, I passed him, I won.”

This caused such an uproar that Red Bull CEO and founder Dietrich Mateschitz personally called Mark Webber when he was between races back home in Australia to get a first hand oral and written account of what had happened. Rumors began to circulate that Webber might not hold his seat for much longer, which were summarily dismissed by Webber and Red Bull as a whole, with Mark even offering a tiny olive branch stating that he was “not an angel at certain other events here and there.”

This whole incident, including Vettel’s retraction of his apology and the fact that the company CEO was furious at him caused his rapid tumble from grace in the eyes of many. He would still race, and race hard, throughout the rest of the season, and won the last nine races of the season, including two more hat tricks back to back, becoming only the third driver to ever achieve that after Alberto Ascari and Jim Clark.

When the checkered flag fell on the 16th round in India, Vettel had become the youngest ever four-time title winner, including a new record as the youngest to win four titles back to back. Holding four titles also made him one of the top five drivers, ever, in Formula One.

During the remainder of the year after the Multi-21 incident and the subsequent drama, Vettel was very often booed by crowds, an act which the paddock and the other drivers frowned upon. Sebastian would admit to the media in 2020 that during the 2013 season, he had not tempered himself and the booing did get to him, causing to have serious doubts about continuing in the sport. This incident also provoked Mark Webber to retire from Formula One a year earlier than he had expected, and he went on to have a successful run in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

2014 saw Daniel Ricciardo take Webber’s seat after being promoted from Toro Rosso, but the damage to both Vettel’s confidence and image had been done. He struggled to get to grips with the new Turbo Hybrid V6 RB10 car, and when the curtains fell on the season, he earned another record, becoming only the second defending champion since Jaques Villeneuve in 1998 to fail to win a race during a season after their last title.

2014 also saw him released one year early from his Red Bull contract. Things had soured so much that Vettel had expressed interest in—and been accepted for—moving to Scuderia Ferrari to “begin anew” and help take the prancing horse back to the top of the championship like Schumacher had done in the 1990s and 2000s.

2015 to 2020: The Ferrari Years

Sebastian Vettel, like almost any other Formula One driver, had aspirations to race with, and win races with, the Scuderia since he was of a young age. Ferrari was and is a legendary name within the sport—the only manufacturer to still have raced in every race and every season since the formation of the first codified rules of Formula One in 1950. Legendary names had raced in the scarlet racing red machines, such as Fangio, Hill, Lauda, Surtees, Mansell, Prost, and, of course, Schumacher.

Vettel’s first appearance in a Ferrari was in November of 2014, after the final race of the 2014 season had finished, driving the F2012 V8 around Fiorano, Ferrari’s test track behind the main Ferrari road car factory. However, once the spring test arrived, it appeared that Vettel and Ferrari had pulled another Vettel and Red Bull, as the Ferrari SF15-T F1 car was extremely quick, stable, and suited Sebastian’s driving style perfectly.

This was demonstrated with a strong third position at the season opener in Australia, and then steamrolling to a win at the very next round in Malaysia. This was his first race win in over a year, and the first win for Ferrari for two years. A series of podiums followed, and Seb remained a viable championship contender, trailing Lewis Hamilton by only 42 points.

The second half of 2015, however, was when the unraveling of fate occurred. Despite a coming second to the roar of the Tifosi at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and gaining a pole position in Singapore and winning that race after Hamilton retired, Vettel was never able to claw back the deficit to Hamilton, and ended the season with three wins, thirteen podiums and a few pole positions.

Vettel declared it was “a miracle” that he came in third, and much as prophecy seemed to follow Sebastian around, his own words proved to be the curse of his Ferrari years.

2016: The Year of Crashes

2016 was unofficially dubbed the Year of Crashes, due to how many drivers collided with each other or the track furniture. It was also the season that solidified the less-than-amicable nickname for Max Verstappen, “Crashstappen.” Third place in Australia was followed by a very rare Did Not Start at Bahrain as the car died halfway around the formation lap.

At the Russian Grand Prix, Vettel famously gave Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat the nickname of “the Russian Torpedo” after a suicidal pass attempt that saw the Red Bull hit the rear of the Ferrari instead of the planned dive-bomb down the inside. Vettel would later retire after Kvyat crashed into the back of him a second time, this time destroying his diffuser and damaging the rear wing, making the car undriveable.

At Mexico, Vettel went for a bold move to overtake Verstappen, but the Dutch driver weaved and then lost control slightly, going off track but rejoining it right away in a manner that did not give him a lasting advantage. Vettel’s temper flared and he went on a curse laden tirade on the radio about Red Bull, Verstappen, and the race director, Charlie Whiting. A visually mollified Sebastian immediately apologized for his comments during the pit lane interviews, especially as Whiting was seen by many drivers as very strict, but also very fair in a highly politicized sport.

The rest of 2016 followed suit, with Vettel getting two points on his license and a ten-grid place penalty for dangerously blocking Ricciardo during a divebomb pass by the Australian. Despite seven podiums, there were no pole positions and crucially no race wins, and he came in a distant fourth with 212 points to Ricciardo’s 256 points in the championship.

2017: A Return To Form—For A While

2017 started out for Vettel with a race win in Australia, his first win in a year and a half. As the start of the season continued, he led the charge with a win in Bahrain, multiple second place finishes, and crucially winning the Monaco Grand Prix.

This was important, as it seemed the promise of Vettel leading Ferrari to the top step again was coming true, and it was the first Ferrari win in Monaco since Schumacher in 2001. However, Vettel’s now infamous temper reared its head again in Azerbaijan, where during the Baku GP, under the safety car, he ran into the back of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes.

Claiming that he had been brake checked, he furiously drove up on Hamilton’s left side and intentionally turned into him, clashing wheels and being extremely lucky not to cause damage to either car’s wings or barge boards, crucial aerodynamic devices. This incident led to Vettel being issued the maximum in race penalty, a ten second stop-and-go.

The FIA investigation was thorough after the race, and the decision was reached that the penalty applied and served during the race was appropriate. Ferrari, however, felt let down that Vettel’s temper had shown in a scarlet red car, and Vettel issued a full public apology for the incident, taking responsibility and pledging to use personal time over the next 12 months to further educational opportunities at FIA sanctioned events.

By this time, Vettel was well ahead in the points, and looked to be on track to break Lewis Hamilton’s streak of championships. However, the second half of 2017 was a half season that Ferrari would probably like to erase from history. Apart from a pole and win at Hungary, all the other races were plagued by crashes (such as the infamous one at Singapore where the top three cars were wiped out before the first corner), reliability issues (such as his turbo failing during qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix), or simple and pure bad luck.

That last one happened in Mexico, when Vettel became the fourth driver in F1 to claim 50 pole positions, but he collided with Hamilton during the race, damaging his car, and because of the difference in the points standings, it gave Hamilton just enough points to claim the championship. This marked the first time in Vettel’s career that he did not win a championship in a season where he had led it at one point.

2018: The Fight for Five

The 2018 season was one of the most hyped up in the history of Formula One, as the media dubbed it “The Fight For Five.” For the first time since the inception of the sport, two four-time world champions were in competitive machinery on the same grid, Vettel and Hamilton. As before, Vettel took the lead with a win at Australia. That race also marked his 100th podium, and he became only the third driver to have led over 3,000 laps.

A series of pole positions and wins were dotted all over the first half of the season, with victories in Bahrain and Canada, and three back to back pole positions in Bahrain, China, and Baku. At the Canadian Grand Prix, Vettel’s win was his 50th win, and he became one of only four drivers at the time to achieve that milestone.

Then came what many now consider to be the turning point of Sebastian’s career, the moment it all went wrong: The German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

Vettel was comfortably leading the race, and was looking at an easy win. However, a few laps earlier, he had been defending and battling to hold first place, and had done so over multiple sausage kerbs—raised tarmac that is meant to prevent a car from cutting too much of a corner or to direct it back towards the track. He had unknowingly damaged his front wing over a few of them, which resulted in enough of a loss of downforce, causing understeer. On top of that, it was raining and the tarmac was being rapidly cooled by the chilly storm.

So when Vettel came to the stadium hairpin section of the track near the end of the race, the wing finally gave up, which immediately dropped his downforce at the front. He turned the wheel left to go around the hairpin, but his Ferrari speared off the track and hit the wall.

A visibly upset Vettel could be seen pounding the steering wheel in sheer frustration, and was literally in tears on the radio to the pits, repeating “F**k’s sake! F**k’s sake… sorry guys.”

The season spiraled downhill from there. There was a win in Belgium—but contact in Italy (Ferrari’s home race) saw Vettel drop to the back of the field and only manage to recover to fourth. Things got worse in Singapore, where Ferrari’s allowed development upgrades for the car were fitted to both Vettel’s and Raikkonen’s cars, only for them to have the adverse effect of slowing the cars down.

Reverting to the old chassis at the US Grand Prix saw the car return to being competitive, but it was too little, too late. In Mexico, Vettel claimed his first podium at that race, but Hamilton secured his fifth title.

2019: A Changed Man

There were two major developments that marked the start of Vettel’s 2019 season. The first was that he had a new teammate in the massively talented, much younger Charles Leclerc. The second was that the Sebastian Vettel that showed up to race this year was a much calmer man.

It could be that he had a good talking to from the Ferrari management regarding his temper and the public image he was presenting of the Scuderia. It could be that he realized that his temper and bursts of anger caused him to make mistakes. No one really knows.

The Ferrari SF90 F1 was a complete rethink, taking the good from the previous few seasons, meshing it together into a car that many pundits and experts believed would be the car to finally return Vettel to the top step at the end of the year. However, Mercedes, with their W10 F1 car, had not deployed full power like Ferrari had during testing. As such, the speed and stability of the Mercedes cars stunned everyone in Australia, being so fast during the straights and holding so many Gs around the corners that the SF90 simply couldn’t keep up.

Fourth in Australia, third in China and at Baku. Vettel managed to claim pole in Canada, his first in 17 races. During the Canadian race, however, he suffered snap oversteer while defending from a hard charging Lewis Hamilton, crossing a grass median and returning to the track directly in front of Hamilton, effectively cutting him off. For the incident, he received a five-second time penalty for not entering the track in a safe manner, which he disagreed with vocally. He crossed the line first, but the five seconds dropped him to second.

In one of only two real shows of the old Vettel temper, once the top three cars were parked behind their position stands, with his own SF90 parked up at the entrance to the pits in protest, he switched the first and second place stands. He moved the first place stand to the empty spot where his car should have been, did his one finger raised fist pump to say “First place,” and then went off to the podium ceremony.

He was unable to run in qualifying for Germany, however he did manage to recover from the back of the field to second place. Ferrari’s home race at Monza was a disaster, with snap oversteer causing Vettel to spin at the Ascari Chicane, where he clipped Lance Stroll’s Racing Point as he reentered the track, causing the Canadian to spin out.

Vettel received a 10 second stop-and-go penalty for the incident and finished 13th. The only other good moment of the season came when both Ferraris ran extremely well during the Singapore Grand Prix, with Vettel winning, making him a five times winner at the track.

Retirement with an MGU-K issue in Russia and a pole position but a jump start that almost stalled his car in Japan were then overshadowed by the Brazilian Grand Prix. In the second of the only two moments of his old temper, a safety car restart caught him mildly unaware, and both Red Bull’s Alex Albon and his teammate Leclerc were able to pass into the first corner, Leclerc aggressively so.

This caused Sebastian to charge off after his teammate to retake his position, and while running along the right side of Leclerc, he seemed to steer slightly to the left. The cars touched, with Leclerc’s front right tire deflating so violently it broke the suspension, and Vettel’s left rear tire also explosively deflating, damaging his left rear suspension.

Leclerc speared off the course into the runoff area, and Vettel was able to limp the car a few more corners before his suspension completely failed and he had to pull off of the track. His radio spoke to his anger, as he screamed “Mein Gott muss das sein?! So ein bockmist aber auch!!!”

While there is a bit of slang in the radio message, it roughly translates to “My God, does this have to be?! Such bullsh*t too!”

Interestingly, Vettel did not walk back to the pits after he was forced to abandon the race, instead leaning against the tire barrier and rubbing his face forlornly. The mature, calmer Vettel had realized his temper had caused another mistake. He seemingly felt so badly about knocking both Ferraris out of the race, as well as losing any points the team desperately needed for the constructor’s championship, that he stayed at a nearby marshall’s post and watched the race from there, finally walking back after the race finished.

He finished fifth overall in the championship, and was outscored by Leclerc—only the second time that had happened to him in all his years in Formula One.

2020: End of An Era & The Global Pandemic

2020 was set to be a season of redemption for Vettel, having been humbled by the mistakes that had caused two major incidents in 2019. Preseason testing showed that Mercedes had a new steering system called DAS  (Dual Axis Steering), which allowed the driver to change the inward toe angle of the front tires during a race.

Inward toe angle is how much the tire is pointed inwards to the nose of the car, and you want to find the balance between a sharp angle for cornering, and a shallow or even neutral angle for the straights. DAS allowed for the driver to relax the toe angle during the straights, and it would return to the preset angle for cornering, all through an ingenious system that was activated by pulling or pushing the steering wheel to change the angles.

That same preseason testing also showed that the Ferrari SF1000 was a second and a half slower around Barcelona than the 2019 car. This was the cause of some uproar, because most of the other teams had complained in 2019 that the Ferrari team was outpacing Ferrari-powered cars on the grid by a shocking margin.

The FIA investigation was focused on the power unit, and after examining everything, there was no penalty applied to Ferrari. However, the technical regulations for 2020 were changed slightly, mandating that all cars needed to have a second bespoke fuel flow sensor that sent its data not to the teams alone, but also to the FIA and the race stewards.

In Australia, Red Bull was prepared to challenge the investigation’s findings if Ferrari placed on the podium, but that all came to a screeching halt as the Australian Grand Prix was canceled, and the season put on hold, due to the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19. A modified, shortened season, with the return of some tracks that had not been raced at in many years was hammered out so that there would be racing, but no fans would be allowed in the stands, and each team had to maintain extremely strict social bubbles to prevent possible inter-team transmission.

At the Austrian Grand Prix, Vettel placed 10th, and was also given a reprimand on his record for breaching the social bubble rule to chat with members of Red Bull, his old team. Vettel retired with wing damage after being struck by Leclerc during the opening lap of the Styrian Grand Prix, run on the same Red Bull Ring circuit as the Austrian race.

That is pretty much what the rest of the year was like for Vettel. His highest result was third in Turkey, but multiple non-points placings, retirements, and the fact that he felt that Ferrari was placing all their efforts into Leclerc led Sebastian to not negotiate for a renewal of his contract, with Ferrari announcing that his contract would not be renewed for 2021. By this point, Vettel was simply waiting out the days until the season was over, and ended 2020 in 13th place, his lowest ever placement in the championship standings.

He was able to gain a race seat at the newly formed Aston Martin F1 Team, partnering with Canadian Lance Stroll. Lawrence Stroll, Lance’s father and a billionaire, had bought heavily into Aston Martin as both the car maker and to create an F1 team, and he wouldn’t pair his son with anyone that had not won multiple world championships.

Vettel settled into the mentor role comfortably, having put his temper behind him, and helped develop Lance’s skillset, which has since been apparent in a few moments of brilliance by the Canadian.

However, with a car that was a mid-field competitor, and being—at 35—the second oldest driver on the grid behind Hamilton, the calmer, more mature Sebastian Vettel announced his retirement. He stated that he hoped to spend more time with his family, invest more time in his new found passion of championing for sustainable energy and fighting climate change, and quite simply because it felt like the right time.

Will Sebastian Vettel Stay in Motorsports in Some Way?

The answer to that question is a very strong “maybe”.

We say maybe, as Vettel recently confirmed that he will take part in single events during the coming years. These include the Race of Champions and the Formula One Legends races, as he owns a few classic F1 cars. He will also stay somewhat involved in electric and sustainable fuel racing development. However, it is very unlikely that we will see Vettel back in open-wheel Formula racing, as that chapter is closing for him come the end of the 2022 season.

As well, he has three young children with his wife Hanna Prater, with the oldest being 8 years old. With the travel and multiple weeks or months away from home to race in Formula One, he has outright stated that his first priority will be being there to see his kids grow up, as well as spend more time in general with extended family.

Honestly, when you’re a four time world champion, and had your head given a good shake before 2019, even for us, as fans of the sport, it just feels right. He achieved what he set out to do—to be a world champion. He led the charge with Ferrari, a team he always wanted to race for since the famous days of Schumacher, leading the team to 7 titles, four on the run.

Vettel is still young enough that if he wants to dedicate himself to an entirely new career, perhaps as an analyst for the German broadcasts of F1, or joining fellow German world champion and ex-F1 driver Nico Rosberg in his efforts to combat climate change and push sustainable fuels and electrification to new levels, he has the time to do so.

Whatever he ends up doing, we just know that for about 20 of his 35 years, Sebastian Vettel grew up racing, entered the top tier of motorsports, became one of only five drivers to ever win four or more drivers titles, and has more than earned his retirement.

The post Sebastian Vettel: Profile of a Champion appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

On New Year’s Eve in 1950, the first endurance race run at Sebring was won by a very unlikely car, a car with an engine that displaced just 44 cubic inches, put out 26.5 horsepower, and had only been entered the day before the 6-hour race was held. It was a Crosley Hotshot, and it took the overall win in a way that has likely not been repeated since.

Powel Crosley, Jr. and His Radios, Refrigerators, and Cars

The post Sebring’s Forgotten Man—1949 Crosley Hotshot appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

I don’t usually spend too much time on preamble prior to getting into the nitty-gritty of the subject car. However, in this case, I believe it is totally warranted to explore the background as this piece is a, if not the, pivotal point where not only a new marque of car was born, but this is where and when much of the groundwork of British motorsport as we know it today was instituted. The bloodlines, successes and failures of many of our post-war racing cars and teams are built on the foundation stones laid by the individuals responsible for the conception, design and building of ERA GP1.

When asking about those who made the biggest impact on British motor racing there would be many differing views dependant on the age of the person you’re talking to. In the main it’s a generational perception, my youngest son, in his thirties, would offer the likes of Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna, my eldest son, some ten years older, would mention James Hunt and Mario Andretti, for me it would be Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart. Time has that certain characteristic that draws a veil over those who have gone before, no matter their contribution, feat, or particular endeavour they almost become forgotten. Only scholars, or true enthusiasts in the field, can bring to mind many of those stalwart individuals of yesteryear, who have been all but forgotten.

The post Arrested Development—The Story of ERA and GP1 appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Matt Figliola’s dad was much more creative than your average bear. He impressed upon his son the importance of attention to detail. Dad started Matt and his brother on a long list of hobbies: model plane building, RC planes, RC cars, and simple carpentry. If Matt built a model plane, it looked like the picture on the box when it was finished. It wasn’t just releasing the required piece from the armature it came on; it was sanding the edges to make it perfect.

It was that subtlety and nuance that Matt was aware of—even at eight years old. He learned it was all in the details. Matt was also big into electronics; at ten years old, Matt felt his clock radio’s sound was a bit anemic. He scrounged his neighbor’s trash for old HiFi equipment and started making auxiliary speakers for his clock radio. After a few visits to Radio Shack for parts, he was rocking.

Matt’s buddy John was the first in the crew to get a car, a Pontiac Sunbird. John enlisted Matt, and off they went to Crazy Eddies—with John’s hard-earned cash—and picked up some better speakers for his ride. This was how Matt was introduced to car audio.

Matt continued to modify the sounds in his buddy’s cars and then his own. His next step was finding part-time work in car audio shops around his home. He cut his teeth in the install bay and gained a ton of knowledge in a short period of time.

Matt’s parents were putting pressure on him to go to college, but after one semester at Pace University, he headed for the door. His parents were not pleased. “You have to go to school!” They settled on DeVry Technical Institute, where Matt started in the electronics program.

During the slog of a daily commute, he realized he didn’t want to be an electronics engineer. So Matt said goodbye to DeVry and made a plan to work for the top audio shops in New York. Matt finally landed at the pinnacle of car audio: UltraSmith in Manhattan.

UltraSmith was the go-to boutique shop for high-end audio for your high-end ride. The clients were well-heeled, so they could be given the best of everything. From the outside, this was Matt’s idea of the perfect shop.

The only imperfection was the owner—who was not a good person—so Matt was gone after five months. He soon found a great guy with a good shop in a bad part of town—the South Bronx. With his skills, Matt became the top guy doing all the custom installations. The customer base was different than the previous shop, but they had plenty of cash.

It was just as the Hip-Hop craze was landing, so major sound systems were going into cars. Hip-Hop also influenced the style of cars, and the shop got heavily involved in that. Matt feels there would never have been the 20-inch wheel without Hip-Hop.

After a 4th of July weekend, Matt showed up at the shop and was greeted by a sea of NYPD, DEA, ATF, and drug-sniffing dogs. He was interviewed on the spot. The authorities were sure the owner was involved with drugs. In the end, while the owner was clean and soon vindicated, it was guilt by association, destroying the business and leaving Matt out of work.

The Foundation of Audio Intellect

It was time to do something for himself. In the summer of 1991, Matt partnered with two brothers and started working out of their garage in what would soon become Audio Intellect. The trio found a dirt cheap space in a terrible part of Yonkers, NY, and inherited many of the clients from the now-defunct Bronx location.

Unfortunately, things got dangerous—the “perfect storm” type of dangerous. The shop was near the railroad tracks and was partially underground. If a gun went off, no one would hear it.

The shop had a particular client (a Harlem Kingpin) who was becoming increasingly erratic and making unreasonable demands. Matt was trying to ease the client out of the shop, but that was not well received. One day the client arrived with his muscle, pulled out the shop phones, beat the employees, and brandished guns. Not your standard day in the car audio world.

Two weeks later, an ATF agent, a district attorney, and a federal prosecutor walked in. Within days Matt was on the stand as a federal witness, and his client was put away for life. It was time to find a new and safer location ASAP.

The partners found an old gas station in Eastchester, NY, and set up shop. Just when the place was up and running, the brothers decided to go in other directions, so Matt continued on his own. Concurrently, Matt heard about a new trend coming out of the West Coast.

Companies were taking Tahoes and Suburbans and doing a full lux number on them—upgrading suspension, wheels, audio, and seating, adding every creature comfort possible. They were creating a non-limo limo, making the new creation as non-truck as possible while turning it into an elegant driving experience.

This would be a natural progression for Matt. Bruce Canepa was turning out these uber trucks and selling them to East Coast clients. In 1995 Tommy Mottola, the CEO of Sony Music, got wind of Matt and wanted him to take a look at his Canepa-built Suburban and Tahoe. This gave Matt a chance to see up close and personal how these machines were put together. The vehicles had serious quality, and he knew he could do this all day long and do it even better.

At this point, someone new came into his life: Todd Brown. Todd would turn out to be a key component in Matt’s new business growth, as he had connections to the type of customers who could afford the type of work Matt was doing and, more importantly, weren’t packing heat.

New Yorkers learned they didn’t have to go across the country for their custom rides, as the man they needed was right in their backyard. By 1997, Ai Design was well established as the place to go for your custom truck needs. They quickly outgrew the gas station and went in search of a new location.

Growing Ai Design Into a Full-Service Custom Shop

In 1998, Ai moved to its new industrial facility in Tuckahoe, NY. With the extra space, the shop could grow in other directions and deliver a wide range of custom work. With that came more equipment and more staff.

Over the years, new and different projects started rolling in.

A client brought in a 1969 Chevy Camaro pace car. All he wanted was a new engine and drivetrain, but after realizing the capability and creativity of the shop, he gave them free rein to create a one-of-a-kind restomod.

The firewall was shaved with all the wiring hidden. A modern interpretation of the interior was created from scratch. The console, dash (integrating modern audio and GPS,) door panels, and seats (modified Cadillac CTS chairs) were covered using the same colors and style of fabrics as in the original. Under the hood went a beast of a motor that put out 650 hp to keep the car on the road; a whole new front suspension was added with coil-overs. In the back, the Camaro was mini-tubbed to handle extra-wide rubber.

There was more to follow: updated lighting, automatic windows, intermittent wipers, great handling, and a killer audio system. All the things you would expect in a modern luxury car wrapped in the muscular lines of a classic Camaro.

Another client wanted to go even more old school and build a 32 Highboy roadster from the ground up.

A 32 body was ordered from Brookville Roadster, and work began. It was to be an open-wheel design with the stripped-down, clean look of a period hot rod but with modern power from a big block Roush 427R.

This was a hot rodder’s dream, but with the convenience and safety of power steering and power brakes. The interior is as plush as any Bentley with Wilton carpeting and beautifully stitched leather, and an engine-turned dash. The result is a refined rod that still has plenty of attitude.

Ai Design is in business to solve problems. A good client wanted a rare bird indeed—a B5 RS 4 Avant—to add to his growing collection.

The team got a hold of one, but the previous owner had slammed it to the ground and was running a set of 19s on it. Ai Design Sales Manager Ryan Offenhartz knew the client well, and together they decided to go in the opposite direction with the car, getting rid of the boy racer stuff and turning it into a safari-style all-weather capable hot-estate.

Ai installed a modified suspension system containing shocks with elongated bottom tubes. The firmer valving and revised spring rates now deliver proper dampening and road feel while eliminating excess body roll. This allowed the Audi to retain its handling while navigating nasty New England roads.

They reduced the wheel diameter to a more realistic 17-inch OZ  wheel. Ai built up two sets and mounted them with  Falken WildPeak A/T tires and UHP-rated Vredestein Wintrac Pros. For good measure, they added cross-drilled Brembo brakes.

The Über off-roader is wrapped in NATO matte green vinyl, withVisionX lights to cut through the darkest night. The front light bar is a work of art—designed in-house, first mocked up in 3D-printed plastic, and finally CNC-milled from a single huge hunk of aluminum.

After all that attention, the Audi will take on anything mother nature throws at it—and will do it with badass style.

The Ai Design Experience

When a client enters Ai Design, they are like a kid in a candy store. If they can dream it, Matt and his team of craftsmen can make that dream come true.

They might be working on a Lamborghini Countach getting a backup camera so the driver doesn’t have to attempt a full Balboni when they put the car in reverse, or maybe a Ponton Mercedes cabriolet owned by a prominent NY collector getting something it never had before—air-conditioning. And it will be totally invisible.

Invisible, reversible upgrades to rare and valuable cars are an Ai Design specialty. A client may wish to add a modern audio system but not do irreversible damage. Matt and his team will recreate existing parts and carefully box up the originals to be reinstalled if a future owner desires.

A 1954 Bentley R-Type Mulliner Fastback Coupe received painstakingly hand-crafted new dash panels to perfectly match the gorgeous original wood. A period-correct mesh panel was made to hide a bank of small speakers, tuned to create a remarkable sound. For an original 427 Cobra, Ai created a one-off Bluetooth-operated audio system that pressure fits under the dash and, while fully integrated, is also completely removable.

On one side of the shop, you’ll find an FJ60 Land Cruiser being treated to a new drivetrain and suspension while an early Hammer Mercedes awaits a new sound system and Bluetooth integration to the period-correct car phone. Meanwhile, a modified Subaru Crosstrek is getting electronic add-ons for a father-son one-lap tour of New England.

On the other side, Porsches, Ferraris, and Lancias await the special touch that only Ai Design can provide.

Matt Figliola: the Man Behind Ai Design

An interesting fact about Matt Figliola is he doesn’t consider himself a car guy. He is first and foremost an artist. This gives his and Ai’s approach to their work a different direction from other shops. They come with a broader perspective—not just car-centric—resulting in a different outcome than other builders.

Each project is a clean sheet of paper, with no repetition of ideas or design. There is a progression from the initial conversation with the client; Matt gets to know them and understand their motivation and desires, allowing Matt to design for his client, not himself.

From there, the process moves on to sketches and cardboard mock-ups, then 3-D modeling and 3D printed prototypes before the final product is decided upon. It’s all in the service of creating that one-of-a-kind solution to the client’s dreams. In all cases, the quality is uncompromising.

There is a saying. A man who works with his hands is a laborer, a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman. A man who works with his hands, his brain, and his heart is an artist. Matt Figliola is an artist. A very methodical artist whose mission each day is to push the standard of excellence to new heights.

Matt has created an environment that allows each of his artisans to excel at their craft. A level of quality is maintained with no shortcuts or cutting corners in the pursuit of perfection. Each employee is selected with great care so they reflect Matt’s standards and can make Matt’s vision a reality.

He is also a conductor—each build is like a symphony, not a solo piece. Each creation is broken down into specific components and assigned to the individual who will take the greatest interest in that task and then do their best and most exciting work. With this approach, Matt gets the most out of his team.

Ai Design can’t be described by just one aspect of what they do. Their palate is quite broad. They are not just audio, restoration, fabrication, or custom vehicles; there are a wide variety of options when you arrive at Ai. What they do is deliver very specific work from unique requests.

Whether fully restoring a rare supercar, modifying a classic in a stealthy manner, adding horsepower to an exotic, or electrifying a vintage Jeep, every type of machine is welcome at Ai—that is, when you are ready to take a vehicle’s cool factor to the next level.

The post The Unique Vision of AI Design appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Ferrari put the pedal to the metal in 1957 with new racing cars of magnificent four-cam V-12 power. In spite of Maserati’s V-8 response, Ferrari prevailed in what history would declare the final season for sports-racers of unlimited capacity.

The 1956 season of the World Sports-Car Championship saw Ferrari resuming normal service by taking the trophy. Its role as the season points winner since 1953 was interrupted only by Mercedes-Benz in 1955. Fully expecting Mercedes to carry on for another season, Ferrari armed itself with two 3.5-liter weapons for the 1956 season. One was the 860 Monza, a further evolution of Aurelio Lampredi’s four-cylinder 750 Monza. The other was a completely new V-12, the Type 130, displacing 3,491-cc (73 x 69.5 mm). With Aurelio Lampredi leaving in 1955 to join Fiat, the new twelve was designed under his successor, the youthful Andrea Fraschetti.

Assisting Fraschetti were two engineers of great experience. One was Vittorio Bellentani, who crossed Modena’s Via Emilia from Maserati to turn up at Ferrari. Also at Ferrari was Vittorio Jano. The legendary creator of such classic racing Alfa Romeos as the P2 and P3, Jano came to Maranello with the Grand Prix Lancias gifted to Ferrari during 1955. Although 65-years old, in 1956, the gaunt, bespectacled Jano was still a fount of creative ideas.

The post Ferrari’s Fabulous Four-Cam — the 335 S appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

However, throughout the history of motorsports, there have been innumerable amounts of tracks prepared, presented, raced on, and used for all levels of motorsport, yet only a handful are truly remembered as great tracks. In the United States alone, there are over 1,000 race tracks, but when you say COTA, everyone knows that that is Circuit Of The Americas. If you say Brainerd International Raceway, a few of the older folks will nod their heads as they remember the days of Can-Am, but most people will go “where’s that?” It’s in Minnesota, by the way, and is “famous” for having the single longest straight of any track in America.

Going international, you can mention tracks like Silverstone, Paul Ricard, Circuit de la Sarthe, Kyalami, and the like, and a lot of people that watch motorsports will know exactly what and where you’re talking about, and a rough layout of the track itself. Yet the question remains… what makes a track truly a classic, that everyone knows, even if they’re not into motorsports? To answer that, we’re going to look at three of the all-time greats.

Monza: The Temple Of Speed & How It Gained That Name

Officially Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, this historic track was originally built in 1922 just outside of Milan, Italy, and had two different courses that could be joined together to form a massive 10 km (6.2 miles) course. The “speed loop” of the original layout was a 4.5 km (2.8 miles) mostly oval track, with the “road course” running around the outside of it for a length of 5.5 km (3.4 miles). It was immediately popular, as the cars of the time could get up to near their top speeds on the speed loop, and since the automobile was still a relatively new invention, it was exciting to see these machines show just what they could do.

Throughout the years, the track has had multiple reprofilings, each of which unfortunately came about because of fatal accidents. In fact, one of the deadliest days in Italian racing history came in 1928 when 27 spectators and driver Emilio Materassi all died from a high-speed crash, which led to the track having slower speed corners added at the end of the massive back straight. Throughout all these reprofilings, Monza was still known as the place you wanted to go if you wanted to see the cars of the day reach their top speeds.

The track has not changed much since the last major reprofiling in the 1970s, with the only major change being the Variante del Rettifilo, the chicane at the end of the front straight, being made a sharper turn than before. If you watch a race at Monza, you can actually see the two previous layouts of the front straight in that chicane, with the original track being the run-off area that rejoins the track just before the Curva Grande, and the first edition of the Variante del Rettifilo being the run off on the inside of the left hand second corner. It may not seem like that large of a track, but the official track length as of 2022 is 5.793 km, or 3.6 miles on the nose.

The question is, however, why is a track with a grand total of 11 corners considered one of the most classic, one of the greatest, that has ever been laid down? The answer to that comes in two parts, the first of which lies with the name that the track has earned over the years: The Temple of Speed.

From a purely technical point of view, Monza is a brutal test of engine endurance, brakes, tire wear, and balancing aerodynamics. There are three primary straights in a lap, those being the start/finish straight from Curva Parabolica to the Variante del Rerttifilo, from Curve di Lesmo 2 to the Variante Ascari, and from Ascari to the Parabolica. During each of these straights, engines are at full power, wide open throttle, and if you include the Curva Grande as a straight, which is taken at full throttle in many racing series, a modern day racing engine is at full power for just about 75% of a lap.

Balanced against that is the fact that each straight and the Curva Grande all end braking zones where speeds sometimes over 300 KPH (186 MPH) need to scrubbed down to about 100 KPH (62 MPH) in under 200 meters, often under 100 meters in Formula One cars. What this provides for both drivers and spectators are excellent passing zones, where the bravest of the late brakers will either take the inside line of the corner or spear off into the runoff areas.

The other major reason that Monza is one of the most classic tracks of all time is that it is one of the best spectator circuits on the modern day racing calendar. By being, in a word, a “simple” track of straights, heavy braking zones, and amazing corners, there are plenty of areas around the track that grandstands have been set up, and the walking paths between these can also see the course through fences. The only restricted area is around the paddock, for obvious reasons, but otherwise you can watch races from pretty much anywhere around the track.

Of course, with a lot of fans, great views, some of the fastest speeds on a racing calendar, and most racing events being a full weekend of events, the atmosphere around the track is just the icing on the cake of spectator engagement. Adding to the atmosphere even more is the fact that Monza, when Imola is not used in the calendar, is considered the home track of Ferrari. As such, you will often find a large group of fans of the prancing horse grouping together, and collectively, they are known around the world as the Tifosi.

Anyone who has watched any F1 race at Monza on TV in the past few decades has seen one of the signature moments of “tifo,” or a visual display of support for a team by use of colors or flags, that occurs when the cars arrive on the grid before the formation lap. A gigantic Ferrari shield flag is unfurled in the grandstands and waved enthusiastically, often the focus of the opening shot of TV coverage, and can sometimes be accompanied by red smoke flares being set off around the track.

To bring it together, it is actually very simple math that makes Monza one of the greatest tracks of all time. On its own, as shown during the shortened F1 season in 2021, it is a challenging, high speed, technically demanding track that pushes machinery and driver to be committed to the race. Combine that with some of the most rabid fans anywhere in the world of motorsport, literally turning entire grandstands red in support of Ferrari. Add a dash of speed, mix vigorously with history, and bake for one race distance, and you have the perfect recipe for a classic track.

Spa-Francorchamps: Classic Because Of So Many Different Parts Being Perfect

While Monza is not the shortest track on many racing series’ calendars by far, it is a speck of dust next to the longest track that still uses all of its racing surface, Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. Spa, as it is often called, is a monster of a track that is draped over a small mountain in the Ardennes forest of Belgium, and has an official track length of 7.004 km, or 4.352 miles. What surprises people even more is that this distance is half the original track length!

Designed in 1920, the original track layout combined public roads between the towns of Francorchamps, Malmedy, and Stavelot with a dedicated track surface that was located at the crest of a hill between Stavelot and Francorchamps, famous for its almost 170 degree hairpin turn, La Source. The original length of 14.982 km (9.310 miles) was widely regarded by drivers as a dangerous, fast circuit, and as such attracted those that wanted to show their dedication to going around it as fast as possible.

Unlike many other tracks that were reprofiled or redesigned after major accidents or fatalities, Spa was left unchanged until the late 1970s. Running out of money and with safety starting to become a major point in motorsports, the track finally had to acquiesce and the newer 7 KM circuit was drafted, and then built.

The new circuit, however, was still a very demanding course, and is often ranked by drivers of everything from touring cars to Formula One as one of the best courses on the calendar. It has the most elevation changes of any current F1 circuit, it’s the longest by far, and it’s also one of the fastest, with some corners being taken at wide open throttle.

Of course, you cannot talk about Spa-Francorchamps without mentioning the corner. Possibly the most famous complex in all of racing, Eau Rouge/Radillion is a remnant of the dangerous 14.9 km course. After plunging downhill on a straight, drivers need to quickly sweep the car left, then hard right as the car bottoms out due to compression, and then almost immediately turn left again as the car crests a small hill, going light and sometimes causing cars to spin out spectacularly.

A good exit from Radillon is essential because the next kilometer of the course is uphill, along the Kemmel Straight. This straight is a remnant as well of the old course, but instead of continuing out into the countryside, heading for Malmedy, a very fast series of essess called Les Combes slows cars down for the short blast to the constant radius hairpin, Bruxelles. Formula One cars will reach this point, about 2 kilometers (just under a mile) into the track in about 50 seconds after crossing the start/finish line.

From there, one of the two fastest corners on the entire circuit comes after a short left hander and a sprint downhill, the double apex Pouhon. In GT cars, there is a very short braking period and the corner is usually swept through in 3rd or 4th gear. Formula One cars take this corner by lifting ever so slightly off the gas to turn in, and then foot to the floor to scream through the second apex. A series of essess follows shortly in the Campus Complex, before the hard right hander at Stavelot that is the official start of sector three of the course, the back straight.

The fastest part by far of the circuit, as cars exit Courbe Paul Frere, they accelerate to top gear and top speed, taking the gentle curves in the road absolutely flat out, heading for the second most famous corner on the track. Blanchimont is a “gentle” left hand corner, but at over 200 MPH, it’s a sharp, hard left. F1 cars will take this corner absolutely flat, without a hint of a lift, and the driver will experience upwards of 3 to 4 lateral G’s. GT cars can take it almost flat, just needing a minor lift to get the nose turned in.

Finally, at the end of the circuit, there is the famous Bus Stop chicane, which, before the track was fully enclosed in a motorsport park, actually was a bus stop between Francorchamps and Stavelot. It has been reprofiled a few times, from a step out-step in chicane to the current tight-S chicane, but it is still a tricky corner because you are braking from maximum speed, and a lot of race-winning, last-chance passes are made here with some bravery and hard braking. After a quick blast down the start/finish straight, cars then go around the slowest corner on the circuit, La Source hairpin, and start the whole journey again.

So what makes it classic? Apart from two legendary corners, it is one of the most technically demanding courses for a driver, and is very difficult to set a car up for. You have sections where you want to have the minimum amount of drag on the car, but there are corners where you absolutely must have strong downforce or the car will spear off into the barriers. Despite the speed and difficulty, it is also a course with multiple passing zones sprinkled everywhere.

One of the biggest things about Spa is that it is so large, so spread out, that it is not uncommon to have different weather at different parts of the track. It could be sunny and warm at the start/finish straight, but raining heavily at the Campus Complex, and when it rains at Spa, it rains. Team strategists have probably used more Advil and Tylenol for the headaches that the circuit gives them than any other track, as a call into the pit lane is a huge roll of the dice. This is because the pits, at least in the endurance and GT configuration, are about 1.5 kilometers long, with the entrance at the Bus Stop, and the exit just after Raidillon.

Take the speed of Monza, add some wickedly fast corners, some challenging and technical corners, and a couple of moments around the course where you need to take your brave pills, and you have a circuit that will live on for eternity. Just Eau Rouge through Raidillon is enough to put this circuit here, but it was designed by people that knew what they were doing, and they made one hell of a circuit.

Monaco: The Ultimate Classic Track

Monaco. You simply say the name, and depending on who you talk to, they either envision the French Riviera, a city that celebrates and embraces excess, or the famous Monaco circuit layout, which is also sometimes called the Cote d’Azure layout. It’s that third one we’re talking about here, and when people say that Monaco has history, they are not lying.

Monaco, with the exception of 2021, has been a staple of the Formula One calendar since the start of the championship in 1950. While it has had some changes over the years, the basic layout, without the swimming pool complex or La Rascasse hairpin, has remained the same. The race is so popular, so famous that it is one of the races needed to achieve one of the most difficult milestones in motorsports, the Triple Crown.

To date, only one driver, Graham Hill, has been able to achieve the Triple Crown. To put your name beside his, you need to win the Indianapolis 500, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. There are many drivers that have two of the races under their belts, and Fernando Alonso famously came very close in 2018 to achieving an Indy 500 win.

Yet, critics of the race state that it is slow, processional, with very few chances to overtake, and is too tight and too small for modern F1 cars. Being completely fair, every point they are making is absolutely true. The race can sometimes literally be won or lost in qualifying, and once the cars settle into their order, despite a lot of effort, it is nearly impossible to pass as the circuit just never lets up the pressure.

Yet, talk to a fan of F1 that has literally only watched one full season. Say Sainte Devote, the Tunnel, Mirabeau, the Loews Hairpin (formerly the Grand Hotel Hairpin), and that fan will instantly know the corner you’re talking about. It’s the one circuit that no matter how much or how little of a fan of F1 you are, you know the layout.

While both Spa and Monza are technical tracks that combine many elements into one to make a classic track, Monaco is a classic because it celebrates the spectacle of motorsports. Nowhere else in the world will you find a city that effectively shuts down for an entire weekend to watch cars effectively go in a circle around their streets. Sure, the racing might be processional and the overtakes are few and far between, but for the Monegasque, it’s the race.

It’s when you’ll see some of the most expensive yachts in the world tie up at the marina, overlooking the back section of the track. It’s when you will see some of the greatest drivers in the world attend multiple functions that you might just have been lucky enough to get a ticket to. It’s where you can be sitting just a few scant feet away from the most technologically advanced race cars in the world.

Another factor that makes it a classic track is that for many of the drivers, it’s their home grand prix. Once you’ve “made it” as an F1 driver, and you’re earning your multiple millions of dollars per season salary and getting all that sponsor endorsement money, it’s almost expected you’ll buy a condo in the city and live there. More often than not it’s because Monte Carlo, as a principality, has no income tax and is a tax haven for the rich, but it’s also because the city is so vibrant, with a character and personality that only exists in Monaco.

Every driver on the Formula One grid, if they were to only ever win once, want it to be Monaco. You are on it the whole way around, there is barely any time to breathe or adjust settings, and the margin for error is measured in millimeters. Get it wrong, and as the famous saying goes, “You’re going into the wall.” Get it right, and you become immortal. Ayrton Senna’s spectacular 1988 qualifying session, where he earned pole over “The Professor” Alain Prost by a scarcely believable 1.5 seconds, is still considered one of the greatest qualifying laps of all time in F1. Not just Monaco, across the entire history of the sport. He earned the title “The King of Monaco” for good reason.

Sure, the circuit might be classic in and of itself, but it’s the city, the people, the history, and one of the jewels you need for the Triple Crown that makes it a classic.

The post What Makes A Racetrack A Classic? An Investigative Look At Some Of The Best appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

First, there was the über SL, a lineage of front-engined supercars that started with the iconic 300SL Gullwing and continued through the SLR McLaren, the SLS and the AMG GT. The other one, a topic of this article, was a more sensible family of mass produced sports cars carrying the SL badge with pride.

Even though each SL has always been one of the finest roadsters money could buy, not all of them left the same impact and the dynasty has had its highs and lows. In wake of the introduction of the all-new AMG-developed SL which promises to bring new life to the struggling name, we will rank all Mercedes-Benz SL models from worst to best. So, let’s go!

7th Place – R232 SL (2022- ) Exempt From Competing

It’s no secret that the SL has had it rough in the past few years and the 2022 Mercedes-AMG SL is set to spin the wheel of fortune for the long-running dynasty. Officially named R232, this power roadster was developed by AMG, ensuring a much needed injection of fun to the nameplate that has fallen from grace in recent years. Its design follows the vision behind it, with the R232 looking sharper and more dynamic than its predecessor, hinting that the SL wants to restore its former glory of an exclusive, technologically advanced driver’s car.

Upon introduction, purists cheered at the notion of the SL keeping V8 power under its hood while also getting a rag top, yet on the other hand, the internet was quick to boo the entry-level 2023 SL 43 powered by an inline-four. Still, the four-banger has a lot to offer, producing 318 horsepower and 353 lb-ft of torque, in part thanks to using the F1-derived electric exhaust gas turbocharger, for the first time in a production car.

For those inclined towards a more traditional SL experience, the SL 63 and SL 55 both offer a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged AMG V8 tuned to produce 577 and 469 horsepower respectively. The R232 SL has garnered nothing but positive reviews, exactly what Mercedes-Benz needed, but it’s still early to find it the definitive place in history.

6th Place – R231 (2013-2020) – What SL?

First off, let’s say that this Mercedes-Benz SL is not a bad car per se. However, if you can’t remember seeing this car in flesh or if you are completely oblivious to its very existence, we can’t blame you, because the R231 SL was definitely the least present and the least recognizable of them all. But why is that so?

In short, it was a cannibalistic in-house competition that got the SL to its lowest point ever. Stuck in the middle between the ultra-capable AMG GTC roadster and the opulent S-Class Cabriolet, the R231 SL was struggling to get its market share, especially with the younger audience. Moreover, despite all weight reduction compared to the previous generation and regardless of Mercedes-Benz keeping the V12-powered SL65 AMG version, the R231 SL was universally perceived as a sedated cruiser.

So, just like the R107 in the late 1980s, it was a go-to car for well-off retirees, a loyal but hardly ideal clientele. Unlike the R107 though, the R231 never shined as an SL, and as such it occupies the last place on our list.

5th Place – W121 190SL (1955-1963) – The Boulevardier

A baby version of the 300SL Roadster, the W196 190 SL was a cheaper ticket to the Sport Leicht show, but at what cost? Unquestionably, the 190SL was drop-dead gorgeous, sharing many design cues with its bigger sibling, but a glimpse underneath the curvaceous sheet metal soon uncovered that the connection between the two was nothing but skin deep.

To save costs and keep the 190SL somewhat affordable, Mercedes-Benz built it on a W121 sedan platform, a far cry from 300SL’s purpose-built tubular chassis. The twin-carbureted inline-four engine was related to the 300SL’s fuel injected straight-six, yet it produced measly 105 horsepower, sufficient to keep it running in a respectable manner, yet not enough to make it a sports car.

Even when it was fresh on the market, the 190SL was written off as a boulevardier, lacking power to match the stunning looks. Mercedes-Benz eventually experimented with more powerful options, but none of them ever reached production, leaving the 190SL’s full potential unfulfilled.

While it could have been more powerful, the SL is regardless remembered as one of the brand’s icons and is a sought after classic with an everlasting appeal.

4th Place – R107 (1971-1989) – The Dinosaur

After the W113 Pagode wrapped, Mercedes-Benz started transforming the SL into a stately open-top grand tourer by expanding the engine palette to feature V8 engines. That being said, the third generation named R107 was the next big milestone for the SL name.

It was a result of the brand’s growth and a definitive return to the very top of the automotive industry. The R107 headlined the brand’s new design direction, sporting flush horizontal headlights and even more streamlined silhouettes than the Stricht 8 range. With a fresh face and power to match, the R107 was just the right car for the moment, but its misfortune was in what turned to be bad timing for the whole automotive industry.

The R107 might have gotten off on the right foot, but it fell victim to the big oil and safety crisis of the early 1970s. With a then-uncertain future of convertibles, many manufacturers resorted to developing T-tops or simply selling their existing drop tops. So, like many other ragtops from the era, the W107 was out there for just too long.

With chrome-or-federal bumpers in an era where cars were getting sharper and simpler, this SL nurtured the brand’s geriatric appeal all the way to 1989 and no refreshes could hide its early 1970s design. Its omnipresence during the era and a connection to soap opera characters is why the R107 now walks a thin line between an icon and a cliché, hence its place on the list.

3rd Place – R230 (2002-2011) – The New Millenium SL

A successor to the universally acclaimed R129 SL, the W230 had big shoes to fill, and to a certain extent it did. The all-new design language wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea though, and neither was the introduction of a hard retractable top, but still, the SL proudly carried the brand’s new visual identity, more organic and considerably different from previous conservative forms.

A thorough 2008 restyling gave the W230 an extra edge, as the updated fascia was more assertive than the original design, which in turn extended this SL’s market span until it was eventually discontinued in 2011. The update also brought this generation’s ultimate modern classic, the hardcore 670-horsepower twin-turbo V12-powered SL65 AMG Black Series.

Extensively lightened and made more responsive by performance wizards from Affalterbach, the SL65 Black Series blurred the line between the SL and the über-SL range. Alas, the W230 declined the SL nameplate into obscurity.

2nd Place – W113 (1963-1971) The Trailblazer

As previously mentioned, the W121 190SL was more of a shower than a goer, something Mercedes-Benz had to address for its successor in an era where the power-hungry America started demanding more than just the looks. In 1963, Mercedes-Benz presented the Stricht-8, a new, modern and streamlined range designed by Paul Bracq to become a new chapter in the brand’s post-WW2 rebirth. Among them was the second generation SL, a car radically different from the underpowered predecessor.

The Mercedes-Benz W113 got more adequate fuel injected straight-six engines displacing 2.3, 2.5 and 2.8 liters as the Pagode evolved throughout its production span. With an all-new unibody construction, bulletproof engineering and power output ranging from 150 to 170 horsepower, this SL was a capable sports car for the era, whereas Bracq’s design gave it tons of style, both with the top off and a pagoda-shaped removable hard top.

With the W113, Mercedes-Benz set the course for all future SLs and the fact that the Pagode is now a daily drivable, reliable and fun classic all makes it the second greatest SL of all time in our books.

1st Place – R129 (1989-2001) – The Great Rebirth

The R107’s long rein left consequences not only on the SL, but the whole brand’s image. To address this, Mercedes-Benz started replacing its aging line-up throughout the 1980s, rejuvenating it by introducing the W201 baby Benz, a car that aimed at younger buyers. In 1989, an all-new SL joined the ranks, spearheading Mercedes-Benz into a brighter future. The R129 was a quantum leap compared to the R107 both in terms of design, performance and technology and as such it easily set a new industry standard.

Throughout its year production span, the R129 was offered with the most diverse engine palette of all the SLs – inline-six, V6, V8 and for the first time ever, a V12. On top of it all, it has aged gracefully in every manner, from Bruno Sacco’s masterful design to crisp analog driving sensation that originally made it one of the era’s defining automobiles. Of all the SLs, the R129 is considered to be the most versatile and balanced one and the impact it made on when it was originally released defined modern-day Mercedes-Benz

To us, Mercedes-Benz R129 is the very peak of the SL class, but we would like to hear your opinion on both the 2022 Mercedes-Benz SL and all other SL cars that preceded it!

Mercedes-Benz SL Class Collective Shot

The post Ranked: Mercedes-Benz SL Models appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Sometimes a slogan doesn’t mean very much. Take for example Exxon’s “Happy Motoring” or Pontiac’s “We Are Driving Excitement” – given the ever-increasing price of gas and the recent demise of an entire GM brand, these slogans may ring hollow in many ears. However, at Philadelphia’s Simeone Foundation Museum, home of a car collection that was personally selected over the course of 50 years by a man passionate about sports racers; their tag line – “Celebrating the Spirit of Competition” – tells you just everything you need to know about what’s inside.

Birth of the Grand Sport

While love for Corvettes may be one of America’ strongest automotive passions, the marque’s real “Faithful” lose their bearings when it comes to the Grand Sports – especially the original few built in secret in 1962 by Corvette chief engineer, Zora Arkus-Duntov. To the un-initiated, it may be difficult to explain this crazy attraction for racecars that never really won anything important. Even Doctor Simeone, current owner of #002 – the most original of the original Grand Sports – struggled with his decision to buy a car that lacks a serious competition history. But this love for the breed exists and there are none better than our subject GS002 Corvette.

The post The Perfect American Sports Car— 1963 Corvette Grand Sport appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

While it can’t be denied that all-wheel drive adds extra weight to cars, it also has benefits that outweigh this setback. When cars are pushed to their limits, extra torque on the front axle allows for more traction, making drivers feel more control over their automobiles.

In regular driving, having power on both axles also makes sports cars more dependable in suboptimal weather, making them enjoyable throughout the year. Thanks to all-wheel drive, these ten cars you can find on the market offer sublime performance and control in sun, rain and snow.

#1: Subaru WRX

An all-time all-season classic, the Subaru WRX STi has proven itself in every weather condition imaginable—both as a rally superstar and a roadgoing sports car. The secret behind Subaru’s unstoppable performance on all surfaces is its trademark symmetrical all-wheel drive combined with a boxer engine.

While the engine improves handling by having a lower center of gravity, the AWD system continuously sends power to all four wheels, redistributing torque to the opposite side should some of them lose traction. Subaru offers its sublime all-wheel drive as standard across the whole range, but its most famous application is definitely in the WRX range.

The all-new 2022 WRX has just hit the market, and with it, Subaru brought the sad news that it won’t make a STi variant based on it. So, while we’re waiting for what will quite possibly be an all-electric WRX STi sometime in the future, let’s see what the petrol-burning WRX has to offer.

The previous generation departed from the Impreza range, and for 2022, the gap between the two is even bigger—with the WRX now sporting a muscular look with an assertive design underlining its special place in Subaru’s lineup. As for the power, the WRX sports a 271-horsepower turbocharged 2.4-liter four-piston boxer with 6-speed manual.

In addition to symmetrical all-wheel drive, the WRX sports specially-tuned suspension to ensure optimal control regardless of road conditions. Add the starting price of $29,105 to the equation, and the WRX is once again guaranteed to offer a lot of bang for your buck.

#2: Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS

As long as the requirements match, it’s hard to imagine a list of sports cars without a Porsche 911 on it. From the 964 generation up to 2006, Porsche has been offering its quintessential sports car with PSK, an all-wheel drive system from the 959. From the 997 generation, Porsche started using PTM or Porsche Traction Management, a system originally built for the Cayenne SU.

Of course, PTM was thoroughly recalibrated for the 911, making the iconic car even more usable—helping their owners drive them throughout the year, even in conditions where rear-biased weight distribution would be more worrisome than fun. Since 2006, the 911 uses PTM or Porsche Traction Management, an active all-wheel drive system with electro-hydraulically controlled multi-plate clutch working in unison with other driving dynamic systems to distribute torque to the front wheels when necessary.

Today, Porsche offers the Carrera 4 in base, S and GTS trims, while PTM comes as standard in Turbo and Turbo S models as well. Our choice goes to the GTS variant for being the most sensible (yet still quite driver-focused) 911 you can drive during the whole year.

The 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged flat-six is good for 480 horsepower, and depending on your personal preference, it can be mated to 8-speed PDK automatic or a 7-speed manual. The GTS sports wider track, while Chrono Pack and lower ride height with adaptive dampers come as standard, underlining the car’s vigorous nature.

At $144,000 for the coupé, $149,500 for the convertible, or $156,800 for the Targa, the 911 4 GTS is not the cheapest ticket for an all-wheel drive Porsche experience, but it is the most balanced blend of engaging performance and daily usability.

#3: Nissan GT-R R35

The outgoing R35 Nissan GT-R was famous for its giant-killer reputation, courtesy of its state of the art twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter VR38DETT V6 and extremely capable all-wheel drive that gave it extra edge around the corners in all conditions. The ATTESA E-TS all-wheel drive is quite unique, as it features two carbon fiber driveshafts, with the main one sending torque to the 6-speed dual clutch rear transaxle and a limited slip differential.

By default, this system is strongly rear biased, with 98 percent of torque on the rear axle, making the GT-R act like a rear-wheel drive car in most driving situations. When complex electronics sense the need, the system diverts up to 50 percent of torque to the auxiliary drive shaft via a wet multi-plate clutch system. That way, the GT-R is under total control in all conditions—slippery roads included.

In its final form on the North American market, the GT-R comes in two guises. Starting at $113,540, the 565 horsepower GT-R Premium is a sensible choice (and the one you’ll find way more usable, considering its original purpose). For almost double the price though, the GT-R Nismo is a domesticated GT3 race car, sporting extensive use of carbon fiber panels, bespoke track-tuned suspension, Brembo carbon ceramic brakes, forged wheels, and a bump to 600 ponies.

While it’s highly unlikely that any of these will ever be daily driver cars, let alone in the colder parts of the year, the very idea that one can do it is downright amazing.

#4: Acura NSX Type S

If the mention of its name got you startled, we can’t really blame you—since the NSX flew under the radar for the better part of its production cycle. Introduced in 2016, the second generation NSX showcased Honda’s hybrid aspirations in the sports car segment, with the rear mid-mounted 3.5-liter V6 and a front Twin Motor Unit.

Needless to say, the NSX Sport Hybrid SH-AWD uses electric motors to independently send torque to each of the front wheels, while the internal combustion unit powers the rear wheels. This way, the NSX benefits during spirited driving, but what makes it weatherproof is how adjustable it is to one’s daily needs. When put in Quiet mode, the NSX can act like a regular commuter, whereas magnetorheological dampers respond accordingly too, offering a soothing ride for two occupants.

Limited to 350 examples worldwide, 300 out of which are in the United States, the Acura NSX Type S enjoyed numerous upgrades over the regular one—if there is any such thing as a “regular” NSX. The engineering team raised the combined power output from 573 to 602 horsepower through fitting the internal combustion engine with bigger GT3 Evo turbos and new fuel injectors, as well as recalibrating the Twin Motor Unit.

The emphasis was put on performance, so the NSX Type S boasts reprogrammed transmission, a retuned chassis and suspension, improved aerodynamics, and lighter forged wheels with Pirelli P-Zero semi slicks. Now, chances are, most of these instant classics will spend their life in garages, but that still doesn’t deny the fact that Acura built these cars to handle unforgiving weather with ease.

#5: Jaguar F-Type AWD

Smaller, sportier and more agile than any 2-door Jag we remember, this feline completely rebranded Jaguar’s sportiest segment, departing from opulent grand tourers into smaller, more agile and fiery sports cars. The F-Type came as just another refreshment that contributed to Jaguar’s rebirth as a modern company in the premium market, but a palette of spirited engines wasn’t the only trick Jag had up its sleeve.

Starting from 2016, the F-Type became available with optional all-wheel drive, and even though the move seemed blasphemous at the beginning, the idea of engaging the front axle turned out well. In the end, what cat uses only its hind legs, right?

For the starting price of $81,500, the AWD F-Type offers a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 with 444 horsepower on tap, while the $105,300 F-Type R with standard AWD will push the output up to 575 horsepower with a 0-60 sprint in 3.6 seconds and a top speed of 186 MPH.

The F-Type is one of the most exciting driver’s cars you can buy in this price range, and its all-wheel drive adds a layer of security without sacrificing much fun by only applying up to 30% of torque to the front wheels when needed.

#6: Audi RS6

Ever since the 1980s, Audi has been renowned for its rally-bred quattro all-wheel drive with a Torsen center differential distributing torque to both axles, providing stability and control in even the most unforgiving conditions. Now standard across the range, quattro was long an option on all but the range-topping models—the famous S and RS cars.

While the R8 could’ve been the obvious choice, our vote goes to the RS6 Avant, because it offers far greater daily usability (and it’s also the first RS longroof offered on the American market). As for the quattro, it’s electronically controlled and 40:60 rear biased, while maximum torque split is 85:15 front or rear, depending on the situation.

With a base price of $116,500, the RS6 sure does not come cheap, but a combination of its 591-horsepower 4.0-liter V8, lightning fast Tiptronic transmission, and RS-tuned adaptive air suspension more than makes up for the cost, offering both an unstoppable all-season mechanical force and a practical family hauler in one car.

#7: BMW G80 M3 Competition xDrive

Now that the public has gotten over the grille issue, the latest BMW M3 turned out to be pretty amazing, hitting all the right go-fast buttons out there. The press and the public unanimously concluded that it offered both sheer power, superb body control, precise steering—and above all, fun and a sense of engagement. For the 2022 model year, BMW brought an upgrade that introduced all-new dynamics to the M3 and M4 duo.

Available on the 503-horsepower Competition model only, xDrive adds power to the front axle for the first time in the M3 range. The xDrive system distributes power from the 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged straight six between the axles via an electronically-controlled multi-plate clutch.

The system is bespoke for the M3 and M4 and is rear-biased, continuously powering the rear axle and distributing torque to the front wheels when other electronic monitoring systems find it appropriate. That way, the traditional M Car experience is still present, but enhanced with minimal compromises.

#8: Bentley Continental GT Speed

The first Bentley released under Volkswagen’s ownership, the 2003 Continental GT brought a lot of refreshing alterations to the conservative brand. Most famously, the grand tourer got a 6.0-liter W12, Volkswagen Group’s idiosyncratic take on a compact high-performance engine. The W12 was originally mated to Torsen-based all-wheel drive, another novelty for the Crewe-based company.

From its introduction to this day, Bentley’s bestseller evolved, getting numerous improvements and performance-focused variants, one of which has actually held an official ice speed record since 2011. Piloted by Juha Kankunnen, the Bentley Continental GT Supersport achieved 205.48 MPH on the frozen Baltic Sea, proving how superlative its all-wheel drive system is in conjunction with the massive engine.

As of now, the Bentley Continental GT Speed is the most driver-oriented model in the range, sporting the latest evolution of the 6.0-liter W12 and active all-wheel drive to make full use of 650 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque. The torque is split equally, but up to 97% of it can be diverted to the rear wheels.

Truth be told, a small bump in horsepower and unchanged torque rating don’t sound like much on paper—but stiffer chassis, electronic limited slip differential, retuned suspension, and the introduction of rear-wheel steering all make the opulent grand tourer more drive-focused (and surprisingly lively for a 5,500 lb car). For those who can shell out at least $274,900, the Bentley Continental GT Speed is a plush grand tourer that can handle more gracefully than any of the numbers suggest.

#9: Lamborghini Huracán EVO

The first time Lamborghini equipped one of its sports cars with all-wheel drive was in the Diablo VT, which got a modified drivetrain from the LM002 Rambo Lambo, but the most widespread use was in the entry level sports car range, namely the Gallardo and its successor, the Huracán. Being related to the Audi R8, the Huracán shares its basic layout with the German supercar, but it’s fine-tuned for a sense of greater exclusivity.

A facelifted and upgraded Huracán EVO is one of the modern wedge wonders, offering way more than the social media clout it’s often associated with. When not going to the Moon, it makes full use of its 640-horsepower 5.2-liter TFSI V10 and 7-speed Doppia Frizione dual-clutch transmission.

The all-wheel drive system is managed by Lamborghini Integrated Vehicle Dynamics or LDVI the torque splits between the axles in 70:30 ratios, but an electronically-controlled multi-clutch system can send all torque to the rear wheels or split it up to 50:50 when necessary.

Thanks to its all-wheel drive system, the Huracán EVO is, in theory, a very forgiving and civilized car—but considering its price tag and aura it radiates, most of them will sadly only be driven around during the sunnier parts of the year.

#10: Toyota GR Corolla

Equipping hot hatchbacks with some form of all-wheel drive is truly nothing new, as many legends—starting from the Lancia Delta Integrale all the way to the Golf R and more recent 3rd generation Ford Focus RS—have all had it in some form. However, the latest pocket rocket with power on all four wheels is something truly special.

While most rear-biased all-wheel drive systems on this list are there to make sports cars livable during the seasons, the all-new GR Corolla has it with the sole purpose of blasting it around on all surfaces.

The GR Corolla was born from Toyota’s motorsport offensive and extensive know-how, which first gave us the GR Yaris. Just like its smaller stablemate, the GR Corolla is a true engineering masterclass showcasing the power of three: three hundred horsepower from a three-cylinder engine and three ways to split torque between the axles. Also, there are three exhausts, but that’s something we’ll just have to get used to.

Anyway, Gazoo Racing upped the turbocharged 1.6-liter 265-horsepower inline-three to 300 horsepower, again mating it mated to six-speed manual transmission, which distributes torque to both axles via GR-Four, a smart all-wheel drive system using two open differentials front and back and electronically controlled multi-clutch pack.

In Normal mode, the torque is split 60:40; Track mode gives it a 50:50 torque split, while Sport mode splits it 30:70. The base Core trim offers Torsen limited slip differentials as an option in the Performance package, while the more focused Circuit Edition will have them as standard (alongside a host of other upgrades, including a carbon fiber roof).

To sum it up, being a bigger, more practical and more powerful sibling of an actual WRC homologation special, the GR Corolla is most probably the ultimate all-season all-wheel drive sports car—and worry not, it will come to the States by the end of 2022.

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In Italy, a country that’s home to numerous small, specialized companies making exotic sports and racing cars, few can compete with SVA in their combination of obscurity with exotic engineering. Turin’s SVA flourished briefly at the end of the 1940s and produced at maximum two cars and a few more chassis. Yet the dazzling design of one of them, a single-seater, well-deserved its presentation by leading publications around the world.

SVA can best be viewed as a spiritual offshoot of Turin’s Cisitalia. That company, brainchild of industrialist and passionate car enthusiast Piero Dusio, created a sensation with its thrusting initiatives at a time when Italy’s major carmakers were struggling to recover from the privations of the wartime years. With its 1,100-cc single-seaters and sports cars Cisitalia was a shining star, attracting the best drivers of the day including Germany’s Hans Stuck and the unforgettable Tazio Nuvolari.

The post Savonuzzi and his Spectacular SVA appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

Despite some people arguing that the BMW lineup might have recently shifted focus from its nimble, fast, and powerful sports cars to more luxurious and eco-friendly ones, that’s hardly fair.

There’s no denying that car manufacturers, in general, have had to pull up their socks to save the environment, but that isn’t necessarily bad news for speed aficionados. Current BMWs are still some of the highest performing machines of all time, and if you look at its pipeline, BMW continues to make fast, fun to drive, powerful machines that every car enthusiast yearns to drive.

So what are the fastest BMWs to hit the roads up to today?

Currently, the fastest street-legal BMW is the 2022 BMW M5 CS, which can sprint from 0–60 mph in an astonishing 2.9 seconds and deliver a top speed of 190 mph.

When tested at the Nürburgring, Auto Sport test driver Christian Gebhardt managed an impressive lap time of 7:29.57, despite the added distraction of the glove box flinging itself open twice during the lap. Now, let’s look at 5 other fast-as-hell Beemers.

• M3 Competition xDrive Sedan
• BMW M4 GTS
• 2021 BMW M5 Competition
• 2022 BMW M8 Competition
• 2022 BMW M5 CS

5. M3 Competition xDrive Sedan

When the G80 M3 Sedan and G82 M4 Coupé debuted in 2020, the duo instantly overthrew Bangle-era cars as the most controversially-designed cars in BMW’s modern history—but nobody dared to question their performance.

As M cars always do, the M3 and its M4 coupé sibling turned out to be ultimate driver’s cars, offering thrilling performance with a 473 hp twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter straight-six and an extensive amount of upgrades compared to non-M variants.

The Competition models brought more distilled performance with the straight-six unit uprated to 503 hp and 479 lb-ft of torque. The final evolution of Competition models (so far) adds xDrive, and despite these cars being around 100 lb heavier than their RWD counterparts, all-wheel drive significantly aids to their overall performance.

In terms of straight line performance, the M3 Competition xDrive can get from a standstill to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds as per BMW’s claims. However, the press concluded that the factory sheet is conservative about this sedan’s acceleration numbers as some journalists recorded times of under 3 seconds.

4. BMW M4 GTS

A proper street-legal track tool, the F82 M4 GTS embraces the M philosophy of utilizing cutting edge motorsport technology to achieve maximum track performance in a car that can still be driven on public roads.

With production officially limited to 700 vehicles (and unofficially to 803 customer cars), the M4 GTS made quite a lot of news in the car world, setting a blisteringly fast 07:28 Nürburgring lap time—and putting all BMW’s claims into measurable, highly impressive numbers.

This car’s secret lies in tremendous weight-saving, getting it as close as practicable to the power-to-weight ratio of a race car.

Furthermore, the 3.0-liter six-cylinder engine borrowed from the M3 and M4 was optimized to squeeze out 493 hp and 443 lb-ft of torque. A 7-speed DCT enables quick shifts, sending torque to the rear wheels.

With just 300 examples officially destined to be sold in the USA, the M4 GTS is going to be a hit on the collector market in years to come—so getting your hands on one is a wise investment move that will yield big returns.

On the other hand, snatching one to blast it around a closed course is a great idea too, since the M4 GTS is one of the greatest modern BMWs ever made.

3. 2021 BMW M5 Competition

The M5 has been a staple M Car since it was first released back in 1985. When it was unveiled, it set a benchmark for family friendly sports cars—and now, after many years of constant development, the sixth generation M5 has maintained its presence at the forefront of high-performance sedans.

The 2021 M5 Competition is not a completely new M5, but actually a midlife facelift in which BMW altered the F90’s appearance by slightly reshaping the grille, installing sharper front and rear bumpers, and revising headlamp and taillamp design.

Under the hood of the F90 M5 is a twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 mated to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. In the M5 Competition, this powerplant generates 617 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque, which can launch the M5 to 60 mph in only 3.3 seconds.

The transmission on the M5 Competition is an advanced eight-speed M-Steptronic unit sending power to both axles via xDrive and an M-Differential aiding in high-speed cornering. The fun bit, though, is that the M5 can be switched from AWD to rear-axle biased with the flick of a switch, resulting in most torque being sent to the rear wheels!

The M5 Competition is 0.3 seconds quicker than the standard M5 and tops out at 190 mph, making this the fastest mass-produced BMW M5 to date.

2. 2022 BMW M8 Competition

Launched initially in May 2019, this one held the mantle for the fastest BMW model available until the #1 car on this list came along. Like the M5, the M8 is another car sending power to all wheels, resulting in phenomenal straight line performance.

The updated 2022 2-door coupe receives the same twin-turbo 4.4 liter V8 as the M5 Competition, though certain tweaks have been made to make it outperform the sedan. The BMW M8 Competition’s engine is mated to the same eight-speed M Steptronic transmission, powering all four wheels with an option to switch all-wheel drive off and let the transmission send all its horses to the rear axle wheels.

The engine produces 617 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque. With this powertrain, the M8 is amazingly fast, reaching 60 mph from a standstill in just 3 seconds flat. The added M Driver’s package also entitles the buyer to a day-long high-speed driving course at a BMW Performance center and raises the speed limiter to 189 mph.

1. 2022 BMW M5 CS

Images courtesy of BMW

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