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THOMPSON

Now over to you, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin…

Max Verstappen has led 1003 laps this season on his way to 19 wins out of 22 in the Formula 1 World Championship. That’s an incredible achievement by both him and the Red Bull team, and one we salute.

But let’s go back to 1982… That year, Keke Rosberg led just 84 laps and took a measly one victory out of 16 during his journey to the F1 crown with Williams. That was in the days of jeopardy, unreliability, and 11 different winners in a season. And not one person looks back on Rosberg’s title as undeserving. He had no perceived advantage, although Williams bosses Frank Williams and Patrick Head would have bemoaned the unfair advantage of the French! That was in the form of turbo-boosted Renault pair Alain Prost and Rene Arnoux, who led 259 and 204 laps respectively but had trouble finishing races.

Such is the brilliance of F1 engineering and development these days that we’re never going to see a repeat of such unpredictability. What we can only hope for is that Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin and the rest make big strides over the coming winter – and Red Bull doesn’t! Not because of any desire to see Verstappen and the Milton Keynes brigade fail, but because every sports enthusiast enjoys watching great competition. In decades to come, it will likely be their 2021 victory over Lewis Hamilton that lives longest in the memory, after all.

Such is the nature of the BTCC that Red Bull-type domination can never last there. But before tweaks to the sporting rules kick in for 2024, there was a window of opportunity this year. In this issue, we sit down with Alliance Racing to find out how they did it (page 34).

Marcus Simmons Deputy Editor Marcus.Simmons@autosport.com

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PIT & PADDOCK 4 Star names join Hypercar field 6 Little progress on F1 sprint talks 8 Rossi enters WEC with BMW GT effort 11 Opinion: Alex Kalinauckas 13 Guest column: Harry King

RACE CENTRE 14 Abu Dhabi GP report and analysis 30 World of Sport: Formula 2;

Australian Supercars; MotoGP

FEATURE 34 Alliance’s rise to BTCC domination

YOUNG DRIVER AWARD 42 Luke Browning’s prize F1 test 46 How the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver Award was judged 50 The four finalists for the 2023 Award

CLUB AUTOSPORT 59 Sustainable fuel for Goodwood Revival 60 Pre-’66 tin-tops to support BTCC 62 Equipe to run Lotus Elan 26R race 65 Opinion: Stefan Mackley 66 National report: Roger Albert Clark Rally 68 Behind the wheel on a StreetCar event

FINISHING STRAIGHT 72 What’s on this week 74 My favourite track: Toni Vilander

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30 NOVEMBER 2023 AUTOSPORT.COM 3