The halo can be considered a godsend in the century-long evolution of safety in motorsport, as years of tragedies have necessitated safety developments in the sport.

Death drives change, and most of the key safety developments from the introduction of the Head and Neck Support device (HANS) to the halo evolved from tragedy.

Whether it’s that fatal weekend in Imola 30 years ago to the tragic day in Suzuka 10 years ago, why must death prompt change?

One of the sport’s biggest controversies was undoubtedly the halo. The big, imposing, bar ruined the traditional look of a Formula 1 car for many fans and drivers alike. 

However, since its introduction, the halo has saved many lives. It may be a bit ugly, but it’s a godsend.

With exclusive interviews from former W Series driver Sarah Moore and aerospace engineer and motorsport enthusiast Bryson Sullivan, we dive into how motorsport safety evolved from the 1960s to the halo.

Is the halo a godsend?

How a century of safety developments in motorsport led to the halo

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The CEO of FIA Formula E, Jeff Dodds, has offered to donate a quarter of a million dollars to charity if Max Verstappen fails to win this year’s Formula 1 World Championship.

In an interview on TNT Sports with its lead FE presenter, Jermaine Jenas, Dodds said that he is “99 per cent” sure that the Red Bull Racing man will claim his fourth consecutive F1 title, adding: “If any one of the other 19 drivers wins it, we’ll give a quarter of a million dollars to the charity of choice of the other driver that wins it.”

Dodds was keen to point out the difference in predictability between FE and F1, telling Jenas how uncertain he is of the winner of the next E-Prix in Sao Paulo.

“I run Formula E, you’re in the presentation team there, neither of us have any idea who’s going to win that race, so I’m quite excited by that,” he said.

“As a Formula 1 fan, the season is about to start and yeah, I’ll watch it and the fanfare and everything that goes with it, but I absolutely already know who’s winning.”

Speaking on the hypothesis of whether Verstappen would ever drive in FE, Dodds praised the Dutchman as “an incredible driver”, but addressed the vast differences in the cars, opining: “He’d have to come into Formula E and learn how to drive a Formula E car – they’re actually very different from Formula 1 cars.

“Every driver who has come from Formula 1 into Formula E, or gone the other way, has said it’s so completely different to drive.”

“Let’s say he became very capable quickly of driving the car, I think he’d definitely win races, and I think he’d be really excited.

“By the way, my phone’s on – if he wants to call, I’ll take the call!”

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Formula 1 has announced a partnership with the global children’s charity Make-A-Wish to grant life-changing wishes and unforgettable experiences to children living with critical illnesses.

In a statement issued by Formula 1 today, the sport announced that it will be inviting eligible children and their families into the F1 paddock throughout the season.

Wish children will be granted ‘unique behind the scenes opportunities’ and the chance to watch action unfold on track.

Formula 1 has long facilitated wishes from fans worldwide, but now with Make-A-Wish as a supported charity, the sport aims to make even more dreams come true at select race weekends.

“Formula 1 is proud to be supporting Make-A-Wish in their mission to grant life-changing wishes to children and their families when they need it most,” said Formula 1 President and CEO Stefano Domenicali.

“We have a long association with the fantastic work that they do, and I have seen first-hand the impact they have, so I am delighted that we can help make many more wishes come true.”

Luciano Manzo, the CEO and President of Make-A-Wish International said: “This transformational collaboration with Formula 1 is a great honour for us and strengthens our global alliance.

“Together, we have the power to unite the world of racing with the driving force of wishes, amplifying the positive impact we have on the lives of children with critical illnesses and their families worldwide.

“We eagerly anticipate deepening our ongoing collaboration with everyone at Formula 1.”

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Sergio Perez took pole position in a dramatic qualifying session for the Miami Grand Prix ahead of Fernando Alonso.

A late crash from Charles Leclerc brought out the red flags before any final laps could be completed.

Max Verstappen was the biggest loser following Leclerc’s incident. The Dutchman abandoned his first lap in Q3 and was unable to complete his second push-lap in time. Verstappen will start the race from ninth.

Results: F1 2023 Miami Grand Prix – Qualifying Results

The Miami International Autodrome had been resurfaced ahead of Formula 1’s return to the venue and combined with an absence of Formula 2 or Formula 3 action, drivers have struggled with the green track throughout the weekend.

Lewis Hamilton was caught out on his out lap by a slow-moving Kevin Magnussen in Q1.

Hamilton was forced to take avoiding action and made contact with the outside wall which forced an unscheduled visit to the pits to check for any potential damage. The stewards noted the incident and would investigate it after the session.

Traffic continued to be an issue for Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu who narrowly avoided the walls after a close encounter with an unaware Carlos Sainz.

Norris, Tsunoda, Piastri and Sargeant were all eliminated in Q1. The big shock in the first qualifying session, however, was the elimination of Lance Stroll. The Canadian’s fastest lap was only good enough for 18th.

Verstappen set the early benchmark in Q2. His 1:27.110 was some two-tenths faster than teammate Sergio Perez and four-tenths faster than the first non-Red Bull car in the shape of Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.

Carlos Sainz, running later than the rest of the field, slotted in between the Red Bull duo just 0.038s off the pace at the halfway mark in Q2.

Despite the threat from Ferrari, Verstappen managed to top the timing sheets on used tyres. His 1:26.814 saw him lead Leclerc and Alonso heading into Q3.

Out of Q2 were Albon, Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Zhou and De Vries. With Russell only just scraping through to Q3, Sunday’s Grand Prix looks to be a difficult one for Mercedes who are still looking for an answer to the unparalleled pace of Red Bull this season.

The wind was another challenge for drivers with Verstappen forced to bail on his first lap in Q3. This gave Perez the early advantage in the final qualifying session – The Mexican’s 1:26.841a statement of his intent to challenge Verstappen for the remainder of 2023.

For the second time this weekend, Charles Leclerc crashed at Turn 7, bringing out a red flag before any final runs were completed. The Monagasque driver careered backwards into the barriers, causing more unnecessary damage to his Ferrari.

The red flag meant that the session ended with just over 90 seconds on the clock. There was not enough time for the session to continue.

As a result, Sergio Perez will start the Miami Grand Prix from pole ahead of Fernando Alonso. Carlos Sainz will start the race from third. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen will start fourth.

Pierre Gasly and George Russell occupy the third row ahead of Leclerc and Esteban Ocon.

Having abandoned his first lap, Verstappen will start from ninth in a crucial race that could see the championship lead change hands. Polesitter Perez is currently just 6 points behind Verstappen in the championship standings.

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F1 22 is the first full game under the EA Sports banner and as the new game aims to deliver the definitive experience of the new era of F1, the main new additions to the title feel largely wasted with the feeling that maybe the increased resources could have been focused in another way.

This year Formula one has entered a new era for the sport. A series of regulation changes have given the cars a new look as well as a new way to be driven all with the goal of creating closer racing, however, this isn’t the only aspect of the series that is entering a bold new future.

Codemasters have been bought by Electronic Arts and now run under the EA Sports banner. While F1 2021 was the first game released since the acquisition, EA had very little to do with its development due to the game being very far along the development process at the time of the developers purchase. F1 22 represents the new era for Codemasters and hopes were high if tinged with a bit of pessimism.

F1 22 gets off to a mixed start on first loading up the game. You are presented with a voice-over from SKY F1’s Natalie Pinkham which is a welcome addition. She doesn’t just appear in the opening; Natalie is also one of the select commentators in the game that have been added. No longer is it just David Croft and Anthony Davidson, along with Pinkham they are also joined by Alex Jacques who is now a commentator for Channel 4 as well as some Formula 2 and 3 races.

Unfortunately, the opening content that is being voiced over is the new F1 Life section of the game. F1 Life supposedly allows you to experience the life of an F1 driver outside of the car as well as in it. The reality however is that it is just a fancy new menu background that you can customise. You can furnish your rooms with new sofas, rugs, supercars etc but in terms of any gameplay enhancements, there is nothing there. The furnishings have also been added to the Podium Pass that returns, meaning if you are buying tiers or the VIP option, some of your unlockables are not going to be that great. You will also be able to buy these via the item shop, but they offer no benefit whatsoever, so I’d personally save your in-game currency for the helmets, liveries and suits.

As you may have realised, I mentioned supercars above. These are in the game as part of the aforementioned F1 Life and in your career mode as Pirelli Hot Lap challenges. There are 10 cars in total if you count the two Safety Cars, which are also driveable but not in the race, that comes with the Champions edition of the game. In F1 life they just sit in one of 6 designated bays as background props, in career mode though, they are used in challenges before a race weekend to give you extra money or acclaim. The challenges range from Autocross and Checkpoints all the way to drifting. The challenges do not add much to the game at all, and you can’t even race the cars against each other. This means that they could be seen as more bloat that the game doesn’t need.

A few games ago we had classic F1 cars implemented in a similar way and despite being able to race with them, they also fell by the wayside in an average player’s game. In my opinion classic cars should be added but focussing on a particular year or, have at least three from the same year so there is a bit of variety. The addition of supercars from Aston Martin, Mercedes, Ferrari and Mclaren unfortunately gives you less reasons to use them than the classic cars did.

Happily, though when it comes to the actual F1 side of the game, F1 22 really does start to shine. Players of the previous game or even F1 2020 will find that the Driver and My Team career modes are pretty much the same. In a Driver career you choose your avatar, select whether you start in F2 or straight into F1 and away you go. In My Team, you choose your team-name, colours, livery etc as well as choosing a power unit and teammate. There is an extra choice in My Team however, you can choose as to where you start in terms of car performance. If you are someone who had less time on your hands you can start either as a Mid-pack team or as a front runner, in addition to starting from scratch.

The wealth of options that F1 22 offers the player is one of its strong points. Despite a sometimes-confusing tiled menu, anyone can go in an adjust the game to their hearts content. You can do 16 race championships, add sliders to give you a boost or handicap when building your team, choose your racing style and adjust the many assists, all with the goal to help you enjoy the game and focus on driving the new ’22 cars.

It is the driving where the game gets really enjoyable. If you managed to drive the F2 cars in last year’s game, then these years will be very familiar. The cars feel nearly exactly the same but that isn’t a bad thing as they were a lot more controllable, and you could really get stuck into the racing instead of worrying about lighting up the rear and spinning.

But we are here for the 2022 F1 cars. You get a varied feel with the new cars depending on what mode you are using them in as well as how far into your career mode you are. In My Team, the cars feel slow and twitchy at the rear, my first practice session was spent spinning at Turn 1 at Bahrain. You use a version of the FOM car that was used to promote the new regulations and it will take a while before you can really get the best out of it, once you do however, the car is really nice to drive.

In the Online and Time Trial modes, the cars are at their optimum and are a dream to drive. I could feel the improved force feedback allowing me to really to commit to the new Miami circuit despite not having driven it before. The cars allow you to brake later than you may realise at first too, so out-braking an opponent can make you feel like you’ve sent the stamp to end all stamps.

The driving experience goes hand in hand with the changes that have been made to the circuits. A long with Miami, the layout changes in Australia, Spain and Abu Dhabi are all present, surprisingly though all the circuits have been given a pass over. Kerbing has been adjusted in a lot of places such as Singapore and Monaco to the point that instead of jumping over kerbs you now ground out on them and get sent out wide. Singapore’s corners are notorious for this especially in the last sector, but it is not all about punishing the player. Monaco’s Swimming pool section and Monza’s Ascari are now more pleasant to run through if you hit one of the kerbs.

Incremental improvements/changes have been made elsewhere in the game also. You can now manually enter your starting spot from a formation lap, you can also affect your turn into your pitbox, a late button press amounting to a .5s loss from good to bad. Practice sessions give you more telemetry information once completed to let you know your tyre performance. For the first time codemasters have also added VR to the racing experience. Despite being PC only, players can now connect their device of choice and get even more immersed in driving an F1 car. It is a feature that has been along time coming but hopefully it is here to stay.

Unfortunately, there is still no quick pit stop feature for qualifying and personally I’d like to see pre-season testing implemented similar to Milestone’s MotoGP games, but generally the F1 portion of the game has definitely improved.

Multiplayer is also still very much the same, it seems stability was more of the main aim rather than wholesale changes or new additions which considering the experience of frequent connection losses in the previous games, this focus is very much welcomed.

There are few graphical bugs with some clipping in places and team badges, also fellow players have had issues with their Thrustmaster wheels, but as I type, there are fewer problems than there have been in past launches for my experience.

F1 22 is a game I would definitely recommend, the experience on track has only improved, especially with yet another improvement in AI, and taking part in a 50% race with Verstappen in the rain at Spa is thrilling. The problem is that the main additions of the supercars and F1 life are largely pointless, and in terms of the latter, may only exist to give another reason for people to partake in microtransactions. F1 Life is where you see EA’s influence coming to the front but thankfully it can easily be ignored as you get your teeth sunk in to a race day at Silverstone.

F1 22 is out now on PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation®4, Xbox One, and PC

This review was carried out on the Xbox Series X with a Fanatec CSL DD

The post F1 22 Review – Enter a new era appeared first on Motorsport Week.

With EA/Codemasters’ latest Formula 1 game offering set to release in just over two weeks time on the 1^st of July, Motorsport Week was given the chance to sample a preview version of the title in order to experience what’s what prior to the finished article being unleashed.

The official Formula 1 game franchise enters a new era in 2022 on multiple fronts, with the new revitalised rule-set the real life machines now follow making its way into the title – while this year’s entry also marks developer’s Codemasters first since being taken over by gaming giant Electronic Arts last year.

EA’s influence is immediately clear with the title being changed to a shorter format more akin to its immensely popular FIFA franchise, while the menu music in F1 22 morphs into the indie/electronic type music seen in FIFA relative to the moody, intense soundtrack heard in previous F1 games.

Highlighting the main changes for this year’s game – alongside native VR implementation for the first time – is the inclusion of the F1 Life feature, which allows you to decorate a form of studio apartment to your own tastes with different kinds of furnishing options such as sofas, wall art and a supercar of your choice to act as a centrepiece to your homespace.

Yep, you read that right, a total of seven supercars – across the four manufacturers that currently compete in F1 – now feature within the game, and yes they do feature as driveable vehicles rather than just outlets for decoration.

The F1 Life feature also allows other players from around the world to visit your space to critique or enjoy your unique sense of style, as well as look on in awe at your personal trophy cabinet filled with cups won throughout career mode.

The game features a total of 40 challenges featuring the cars that cover driving aspects such as drifting, time attacks as well as duels with an AI driver piloting the same machine.

These challenges can be seen as a spiritual successor to the F1 classic challenges seen in previous titles, with the supercar tests also being included throughout career mode as a form of break in between race weekends.

The decision to include these aspects to the official F1 game have proved polarising with fans of the franchise in the run-up to the release of the title, the fact that they come at the cost of the well-received Braking Point story mode featured within F1 2021, which saw players step into the shoes of rookie racer Aiden Jackson as he made his way through the F1 ranks, not helping matters.

The cars are actually pretty fun to hustle around even with the game not in currently in its fully-finished state, with each machine having a good feel of weight transfer, thus allowing you play with it at or over the limit while drifting or attacking the track to maximise laptime. 

F1 22’s career mode will likely be the more populated game mode – especially in the long-term – though for this year’s edition it’s fair to say it’s a case of evolution rather than evolution, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

MyTeam – which allows you to create your own F1 team by signing up sponsors, choosing an engine supplier as well as a team-mate – returns with a vengeance alongside the conventional career mode that allows you to race as any of the official driver and teams involved in the 2022 F1 world championship.  

Changes are restricted to small additions this year such as the new Adaptive AI setting – which slows or speeds up the AI to match the player skill level in real time – as well as the inclusion of immersive and broadcast styles for pit-stops, safety car periods and formation laps.

Immersive allows you to optimise your turn-in to a pit-stop to try and shave several more-crucial tenths from you pit time as well as angle your car how you want in your pit box at the start of a race, while broadcast enables you to sit back and allow the game to take care of things while you enjoy external camera angles that give you a view similar to that of a real F1 broadcast.

The driving model has also been enhanced with an all-new aerodynamic simulation in order to try and capture the behaviour of the new machines in the best way possible, the vehicles featuring significantly more understeer relative to F1 2021, while a light right foot (or finger) is needed with the extra wheelspin induced by the significantly lower grip at slower speeds.

In conclusion – from the unfinished build at least – F1 22 largely sticks to what has made the game successful over the past decade with the long-reaching and engaging career mode, good AI and fun driving mechanics.

While the title doesn’t offer a huge amount new – in terms of its F1-focussed content – relative to the previous entry in the series, the fact it features the all-new racers and updated roster – with more to come via planned DLC later on – is enough to offer F1 fans of all shapes and sizes a fun and immersive experience.

The post F1 22 preview – Formula 1 gaming enters a new era appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Red Bull Formula 1 reserve driver Alexander Albon claimed his maiden DTM victory during Race 2 at the Nurburgring on Sunday.

Albon, who contested the 2019 and 2020 Formula 1 seasons, was replaced at Red Bull Racing by Sergio Perez for 2021 but took on a reserve position.

Red Bull moved into DTM for 2021 with Albon and junior Liam Lawson piloting Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020s with AF Corse, dressed in the colours of AlphaTauri and Red Bull respectively.

Albon, who had twice finished on the podium prior to Sunday’s race, controlled proceedings from pole position at a venue where he competed in Formula 1 last October.

However, there was chaos behind, with no less than nine retirements from the 23 finishers.

These included championship leader Kelvin van der Linde, his Audi Abt Sportsline teammate Mike Rockenfeller, and Lawson, third in the championship, who were all involved in the same incident after a safety car restart midway into the race.

Second was Daniel Juncadella, his first DTM podium since 2018, while rounding out the podium finishers was Marco Wittmann, cementing his place as a championship challenger.

Second-placed driver in the championship Maximillian Götz, who moved closer to K. van der Linde to the tune of 12 points.

Fifth was Esteban Muth, while Lucas Auer was sixth, despite putting Maximillian Buhk into the wall at the start of the second lap.

Arjun Maini repeated his inaugural DTM points with seventh, ahead of Timo Glock in eighth, Vincent Abril ninth, while Nico Muller rounded out the top 10.

The post Albon sweeps to maiden DTM victory at Nurburgring appeared first on Motorsport Week.

“Watch this,” author and journalist Brad Spurgeon replies as I ask him what makes his new book unique amongst the vast body of literature done on Formula One in the past.

He ducks out of frame for a moment before hoisting up a gigantic red book, holding it in front of the camera during a digital interview with MotorsportWeek.com last month.

“This is almost ten kilos. Look at this! It’s practically ten kilos, it’s 9.4 or something. When it arrived, it was twelve kilos including the package. There’s this inside of the box, it’s a beautifully padded thing.”

Spurgeon is holding up a copy of his new book: Formula 1: The Impossible Collection, listing the 100 most memorable and important moments in the history of Formula One.

He quickly admits that it is not just the size that makes his new project extraordinary, but that there is another stunning detail: the price.

“They’re selling this for 920 euros, 995 dollars, not sure how much it is in pounds,” he says. “This is an object. It’s not just a book and it’s Assouline Ultimate Collection.

So they’ve a Bentley car book, they’ve got a cigar book, football, American football. A hundred moments of American football. So it’s actually, in a way, Assouline’s look. I mean, it’s my look, I wrote the thing, but it’s packaged in an Assouline Ultimate Collection format. So it’s kind of a work of art.”

“When I saw what this entailed, I said ‘there is no Formula One book, like this book, that exists anywhere. So to start with it’s an objet d’art, so it’s an art object, there’s nothing like that in Formula One.

“But to me that also appealed to my stance of what Formula One is all about. As I said in my beginning, in my introduction [of the book], it’s about excess, it’s about money, it’s about high technology, everything is going to the limit.

“This book, in the Ultimate Collection, just fits hand in glove with that kind of mentality.”

Spurgeon, a Canadian-born veteran writer, journalist, filmmaker and musician based in Paris, was approached by New York-based publisher Assouline to write the book. First attending a Grand Prix in the late 1960s, he began working in Formula One media in the early 1990s.

“First article I ever did about it was 1993, for the International Herald Tribune. So that’s when I started, 1993.”

“Assouline came up with the idea to do such a book, and I was invited to write it. As soon as I saw the idea, I said ‘this is wonderful, I love it, great’. It felt like it was a great way for me to sum up all of my knowledge in one little spot, an overview of Formula One.”

How am I going to do this?

As Spurgeon soon discovered, compiling seven decades of Formula One history would prove to be an enormous challenge.

“When I was first offered to do this, I thought ‘ah cool, hundred top moments, no problem, now that’s cool.’ But I didn’t take long for me to realize that we’ve got a seventy-year championship, seventy-one seasons – this was done in the middle of last year, and I thought ‘now how am I going to do this?’

“If I do, for instance, every year’s champion: that’s seventy champions already. One moment from each year: that’s seventy-one moments. So I couldn’t do it by an ordered method like that. I couldn’t say ‘it has to be this, it has to be that, anything that had an order to it.’

“So one of the things I did was, I thought about what this book is supposed to be, which is it’s part of the impossible collection. The Ultimate Collection is their ultimate books, the impossible part of the ultimate books.

“The impossible is supposed to be kind of showing extraordinary achievements. Unbelievable, surprising, weird, etcetera.

“So I thought, looking at Formula One, in a book like this, in a list like this, I’m going to have to come up with several different, like impossible, crazy things that happened in Formula One.  Technology designs that were the most influential during that period, racetracks, people, I had to go through a kind of a broad cross section of exceptional things.

“But I felt I had to choose things by their influence as well, whether it be the image of the sport, or, you know, turns that like, for instance, if I chose an accident, it had, it had to be not just any accident, not just a spectacular one, but one that had something to do there’s something led to something. So Senna’s death was there. I mean, that’s a no brainer, but at the same time, it was because of all the safety things that happened after that.”

The book starts out with forewords from both FIA president Jean Todt and Formula One president Stefano Domenicali, before Spurgeon’s introduction takes the reader through the overview and history of F1 before presenting the 100 moments, from the first Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone all the way to the current era.

Putting together the list was a process that took many months, as he had to frequently take stuff of the list, or compile certain moments into a single one. Spurgeon cites Martin Donnelly’s terrifying crash at Jerez in 1990 as one of the many he ultimately had to cut.

“The other thing is I made a list of maybe 150 moments or more first, and then I had to start reducing it,” he says. “So for instance, I had the accident of Martin Donnelly in 1991, or 1992, I can’t remember what it was. Which impressed me incredibly, it was this horrendous, horrendous thing where the guy was on the track and like a pile of broken bones. And he survived the accident.

“And there was this extraordinary imagery, you know, it was an impressive, impossible moment, but ultimately I had to say, ‘Well, you know, what effect did this have on the whole series, and what was extraordinary beyond the impossibility of this moment?’

“And it didn’t, so eventually, I cut it. You know, I had to put car developments over the years, the first victory by a rear-engined car and all these things.”

“I think that ultimately, what I said to myself: now, lots of people like you, or other Formula One fans or journalists who know the history as well as I do, are going to say ‘what the hell, why didn’t you put this moment?’ ‘How could he do this without putting that moment?’

“And I thought, there has to be an element here where this also has to be Brad Spurgeon’s choice. So you know, I put, of course, Fangio’s greatest race, in Germany in 1957.”

“Then there were things like, I eventually had to kind of combine some moments. So I have, in my original list, the 1989 crash between Senna and Prost at Suzuka pushing each other off.

“And then I also had the 1990 crash, the same crash, you know, because for me they were both extraordinary moments, even if they were linked, etcetera.

“But ultimately, I decided to end up doing only the ‘89 [crash]. And then in the caption ‘putting this also happened, and then one year later it happened.”

Endless fact checking

A book of such size, scale, and most importantly, price, also brought other tremendous challenges. As Spurgeon readily admits, the thought of having mistakes in a book of this magnitude made him very cautious about what he was writing.

“That’s one of the problems and traps of a book like this, or a list like this,” he says. “Counting only on the stuff I really knew could lead to little problems and inaccuracies.

“Writing those captions, right in the moment, was something I vastly underestimated the amount of effort and time and work required, because I thought the big job would be writing the introduction. And so I did the introduction.

“And then I start writing the captions, and I say ‘Oh my god, this is a book that is selling for $1,000. I can’t let through the slightest mistake in these captions, nope, I can’t get anybody to pay $1,000 for this book and find out that there’s mistakes in the captions’.”

“So I had to go through, with a fine tooth comb, many, many times those captions to make sure. I can give you an example of how we as journalists get trapped the most. I think we think we know the best. And so we’ve put them in and maybe we don’t check them as much or as hard as we think that we should.”

This obsessive attention to detail goes down to the tiniest facts. Spurgeon gives a concrete example: the length of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The infamous German track hosted the German Grand Prix from 1951 to 1976, but was reworked multiple times.

“This tiny little instance, you know, each caption often has 10 to 15 different facts that have to be checked.

“Now, going back to Fangio’s 1957 great race. So I say it was on the old Nurburgring Nordschleife. And so I have to put down the length of the Nordschleife. So I know it’s something like 21, 22 kilometers, but I can never remember the exact length.

“So I just do a quick search on the internet and Wikipedia gives me the length. And it was something like, I don’t know what it was, 21.3 [kilometers] or something. And so I put that in.

“Now in the later stages I said ‘Look, you can’t trust yourself or any work that you do. You’ve got to change every single fact in this thing again, again and again, every single one.”

“So I go through and I find the Nordschleife and I say ‘hold up, wait a minute’. Wikipedia gave me the length of the Nordschleife post 1970s. And that thing was reworked, rebuilt in like 1970, or 1971. And his race was 1957.

“So then I went back to several other sources, including the Marlboro guide that I have, the red guide of Formula One statistics. And I found that actually 57, it was something like 22.1 or whatever, not 21.3 kilometers. So I put the 1957 one.

“The thing was full of facts like that, that have to be checked, double checked, triple checked. And I couldn’t, I didn’t want to trust only my knowledge.”

The post Feature: Writing the Impossible Formula One book appeared first on Motorsport Week.

Kevin Magnussen was on-site earlier this week to watch the first day of Indianapolis 500 practice and has expressed his interest in running the famous race one day.

Magnussen competed in F1 for six years, and recently moved over to the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing for the 2021 season.

The Danish driver has seen multiple of his international competitors make the switch to IndyCar in recent years, including Marcus Ericsson and Romain Grosjean, and is beginning to have similar thoughts.

In an interview with IndyCar Radio, Magnussen revealed that he’s always wanted to have a shot at racing in the Indy 500.

“This race has always been right up there, right at the top of my list of races that I want to do.  I got the chance to come here and check it out, have a look for myself, it’s awesome.

“I’ve always said I want to have a go at this before I hang my helmet up one day.  If one day I get an opportunity, I’d grab it for sure.

“I walked out into the middle of the pit lane, the cars running at 220+, it’s fantastic. I need to have a go one day.”

For now, there are no solid plans for Magnussen to actually run in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” but while he contends with building his new home, the fact that he has taken the time to visit the tracks to watch the IndyCar racing in person will mostdefinietly lead to opportunities to get behind the wheel at an oval sometime very soon.

“Maybe I want to do it because it’s nuts,” he added. “I’ve spoken to many F1 guys that don’t really want to do it, and I don’t really understand it.”

In addition to the drivers that have switched from F1 to IndyCar in recent years, some have raced in the Indy 500 as one-off events, including Fernando Alonso who has qualified for the race twice.

Current McLaren driver Lando Norris has also expressed his interest in the Indy 500 in the past, and could potentially use his team’s presence in both series to find an available slot on the entry list.

The post Magnussen on Indy 500 – ‘I want to do it because it’s nuts’ appeared first on Motorsport Week.

The 1990s are generally considered to be one of Formula One’s most beloved eras, producing some of its biggest stars and most famous cars. It was also an era of tremendous loss, incredible rivalries and the imminent arrival of a man that would dominate the sport for years to come.

It was also an era in which F1 went through sweeping changes, just coming off the back of the turbo era and becoming ever more corporate as the smaller privateer outfits began to fall off the grid, with one or two notable exception.

With so much going on in the span of a decade, one would imagine it wouldn’t be easy to capture everything going on in those ten years. That, however, is exactly what writer Peter Higham has done with the latest installment of his Formula One Car by Car series.

Coming in at 304 pages and published by Evro Publishing, it follows up on the previous editions including the 1950-59 edition, which was previously featured.

It chronicles each team on the Formula One grid on a year-by-year basis, displaying the car, naming drivers, technical staff, race results and other interesting stories that happened for that particular team throughout the course of the year.

With a significant number of teams to cover each year, it is quite the undertaking, as Higham explained himself when he sat down with MotorsportWeek.com for a recent interview.

“I start by producing all the results tables, because that is like a picture list, so that then tells me who I need to write about and photographs I’ve got to find,” he said. “The second thing is find the photographs for it.”

“And yes, I do write it chronologically, so year by year. What I would do, for 1990, I went back and read what I had written about that team in 1989. So I was trying to take the story forward.”

“When it got to 1991, basically I finished a year, put it aside, went and did my research on the next year, but then for each team I was writing about, I would go back and re-read 1990 and edit it, try and make it [a little bit] shorter and therefore take the story on from the end of 1990 into the ‘91 season.”

“So they were done side-by-side, but yes it was chronological. It just picked the team each day that I felt like writing about.”

It’s an extensive undertaking, with loads of research, that takes up quite a bit of time, as Higham himself points out.

“I’m not exclusively doing these books, I’m doing other things. They’re pretty intensive, but typically, from starting it, in terms of planning and everything else through to it hitting the bookshelves is about a year.”

Never trust my memory

Higham has done four previous books in the series, going from the 1950s through to the 1980s. The 1950s edition was previously featured here, and reading the two side-by-side, the question beckons: was this book an easier undertaking given the author was actually alive to witness the stars of the 1990s in action himself?

“The information is more readily available,” he replies. “There are more sources that are reliable. And there is the benefit that I was actually alive and watch the races, just a small consolation.

“The 50s was great fun, because certainly the stories are untold, whereas doing the 90s, it’s been covered quite a lot, so I really tried to get underneath what has been written in other books, go back to contemporary sources, get new perspective where I could, [purposefully] moving from team to team and so on and get the feel for Formula One.”

“What was much easier was the picture research, because the major agencies and magazines were covering every race in the 90s, which they weren’t in the 1950s.”

Despite witnessing most of the races in person, Higham says he was very careful to base the content of the book on contemporary sources to avoid errors. As he put it when I asked him if I wrote anything from memory:

“I never trust my memory. So the way I would do it, if I was writing a year, I would go and read the contemporary reports from all the magazines and just make notes, week by week, highlighting what the team is and whether, you know, somebody bought the team, or a designer moved, or they were disqualified or whatever it was.

“And then when I am writing that team, doing the draft, just go through that list and try and tell all the best stories and the narrative for that team during the year.

“But it’s not written from memory. Obviously, there are memories. Obviously, there are memories I’ve got of those races and have opinions about them, but that goes for the fifties as well even though I wasn’t there, just from what I’ve read and studied. But I always go back to contemporary reports as a starting point.”

A traumatic summer

The 1990s are also remembered for a new and increased push for driver safety. This was, of course, largely down to the events that occurred during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. While Imola 1994 is seen by some as the most impactful and defining Formula One weekend of the decade, Higham argues it was part of a larger, more troublesome trend of crashes and injuries in the summer months of that year.

“It was in terms of the biggest superstar dying, Roland Ratzenberger dying, the push for safety, the FIA pushing to improve safety once more. I always say it was a defining weekend, but I just remember the whole of that period.

“Because it wasn’t just Imola: Alesi got injured in testing, Wendlinger at Monaco, Montermini at the Spanish Grand Prix, Pedro Lamy got injured in testing at Silverstone.”

“It just felt like every moment, you just wanted it to stop, you know. I always call it a traumatic summer, rather than Senna or Imola, that was just the worst manifestion of a pretty gruesome time.”

That push for safety had an effect on the look of Formula One machinery in the coming years, as is clearly visible as you scroll through the years and look at the pictures in Higham’s book. Noses were raised, and cockpit sides became notably higher in order to increase driver protection.

All of these events and many, many more, are featured in the books, including looks at F1’s lovable (and sometimes not so lovable) minnows like Arrows, Minardi, Scuderia Italia, Forti, Life Racing Engines and Andrea Moda.

If you’re looking for a pretty much definitive history of Formula One through the 1990s, Peter Higham’s Formula One Car By Car 1990-99 is about as good as it is going to get.

The post Feature: Chronicling one of Formula One’s most beloved eras appeared first on Motorsport Week.