J BLOXHAM

F1 driver market shenanigans and Goodwood entertainment

Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull started it. For very different reasons, they have made the Formula 1 driver market silly season far more interesting – and at a much earlier time – than usual this year.

Having hit the paddock hard in recent weeks, Alex Kalinauckas digs through the various possibilities, some likely and some not so much, in this issue’s investigation into what the 2025 grid could look like (page 18). Fernando Alonso re-signing for Aston Martin last week locked one more piece into place (p4) and there are sure to be other announcements over the coming weeks and months. It certainly makes a nice change from not a single driver moving this winter!

On-track, the big event in the UK last weekend was the Goodwood Members’ Meeting. British Touring Car champions Gordon Shedden, Andrew Jordan and Ash Sutton were among those to star, while perhaps a surprise highlight came with the 75th anniversary celebration sidecar world championship shootout. Quite what it must be like to average more than 105mph around Goodwood while clinging on to a sidecar Autosport struggles to imagine. Marcus Pye was there and picks out the highlights on p36.

The Gordon Spice Trophy for Group 1 saloons (above) stood out and, sticking with tin-tops, we select the greatest BTCC cars on p26.

There was plenty of drama in Italy, where a chaotic Formula E opener appeared to have been won by Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa. As Stefan Mackley reports on p32, the Portuguese was controversially excluded hours later, before team-mate Pascal Wehrlein took a last-gasp victory in the second race.

Kevin Turner Chief Editor

kevin.turner@autosport.com

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Cover images Alpine; Will Cornelius/Red Bull Content Pool; Ferrari; Simon Galloway/Motorsport Images; Haas F1 Team; Mercedes-Benz Group AG; Sauber Group; Paul Smith/Unsplash; Sam Todd/ Red Bull Content Pool; Williams Racing

PIT & PADDOCK 4 New Aston Martin contract for Alonso 6 Andretti eyes F2 and F3 presence 8 Abt confirms Lola-Yamaha deal 10 Pirro makes bike racing debut at 62! 11 Chinese Grand Prix preview 13 Opinion: Alex Kalinauckas 15 New guest column: Trevor Carlin 17 Pictures of the week

FEATURES 18 Who is going where for F1 2025? 26 Autosport’s top 10 British Touring Cars

RACE CENTRE 32 Formula E: Porsche wins, loses and wins 36 Mustangs star at Goodwood 42 World of Sport: ELMS; Super GT;

NASCAR Cup; MotoGP

CLUB AUTOSPORT 53 Ferrari to return to British GT 54 Jota’s first Le Mans car back on track 56 Pryce plans full BRC attack after win 58 Nova factory to produce old Avon tyres 59 Opinion: Stephen Lickorish 60 National reports: Brands Hatch;

Silverstone 64 Simon Light’s monster V8 Capri

FINISHING STRAIGHT 68 What’s on this week 71 What could have been: Montagny at Renault 72 From the archive: 2001 Australian GP 74 My favourite team-mate: Marc Surer

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18 APRIL 2024 AUTOSPORT.COM 3