IN
MART
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Aston Martin steals the show with Le Mans announcement
It’s not every week that Autosport staffers find themselves (metaphorically!) ripping up magazine pages and starting again on a Monday press day. But the confirmation of Aston Martin’s return to the top class of endurance racing and (let’s be honest, pretty cool) images of the Valkyrie LMH were too good to miss.
This week we bring you news of the exciting project (page 4) and a reminder of Aston Martin’s rich endurance-racing history (p20).
Everyone seems to be getting in on the act, including Lamborghini, which does not have a big motorsport heritage. As Gary Watkins explains on p26, it’s been a long road to Le Mans for the Italian marque but there’s no reason to think it can’t take on Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin et al in the burgeoning Hypercar class.
Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team did a lot to spark interest in the early part of the season, particularly thanks to the podium-finishing performances of the evergreen Fernando Alonso. But the pace of the AMR23 has fallen away in recent races, so Alex Kalinauckas takes a look at what’s going on in our article on p22. Marcus Simmons also brings you the lowdown on British Touring Cars’ unsung star (p32), while Tom Howard reports on Ott Tanak’s Rally Chile success (p36) – and the news that he’s leaving M-Sport (p12).
● It has come to our attention that some of our subscribers did not receive their free Engineering supplement last week. These will be sent out over the next few days. If you don’t receive it and think you should have, please email autosport@autosport.com. We apologise for the error.
Kevin Turner Chief Editor
kevin.turner@autosport.com
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Cover image Aston Martin
PIT & PADDOCK 4 Aston Martin launches Hypercar attack 10 Andretti F1 bid gets OK from FIA 12 Tanak to rejoin Hyundai for 2024 15 New name, big plans for Motorbase 17 Qatar Grand Prix preview 19 Opinion: Matt Kew 20 Opinion: Kevin Turner 21 Feedback: your letters
FEATURES 22 What’s going on with Alonso and Aston? 26 Lamborghini’s long road to Le Mans 32 Bobby Thompson: unsung BTCC star
RACE CENTRE 36 Tanak survives to win rough Rally Chile 42 World of Sport: GT World Challenge Europe; NASCAR Cup; MotoGP
CLUB AUTOSPORT 53 Porsche GB Junior finalists revealed 54 Ingram to join British GT grid in Aston 56 Ward to race restored Ralt RT3 58 MG Trophy joins expanding CSCC 61 Solberg, Meeke and Ingram in R.A.C. entry 62 National reports: Spa;
Silverstone; Kirkistown 66 The challenges of Bonneville
FINISHING STRAIGHT 70 What’s on this week 72 From the archive: 1991 Rally Australia 74 My favourite team-mate: Nick Heidfeld
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5 OCTOBER 2023 AUTOSPORT.COM 3
