Lewis Hamilton was signed to a Mclaren development programme when he was 12/13 and had already been karting for over 5 years. Most of the top F1 drivers start in karts around 8 or even younger. It’s probably a low cost deal for RCR to fund a bit of his development even at this early stage.

Monza (and indeed other Italian race circuits) have long been known for chaotic organisation so I’m not surprised that first time race goers would be shocked. 

Personally favourite is the F Type Jaguar I own, but if I was going into fantasy garage territory then Eagle’s Lightweight GT restomod Jaguar E Type would be right up there.

There was a replica builder (can’t remember the name) in the UK that made a small number of Daytona coupes along with Spider replicas, until the Armani suited Italian lawyer turned up to close them down. It could be one of those. I also know in Australia there is at least one Daytona competizione replica built on a…

The 95 race also had one of best /worst (depending on your point of view) pieces of Ferrari comedy. Alesi was leading Berger in a 1-2 when Berger retired with suspension failure followed a few laps later by Alesi retiring with an overheated rear brake. It turned out that a TV camera fitted to Alesi’s rear wing had…

NP for me but only because the car is an interesting project. 

I suspect a lot of parts are generic VW / Audi or are the same part without a Bentley stamp and associated premium on them.

I think the next stage for the W series is to move to a slightly faster specification car. They’re are now running on F1 circuits but the 270 hp spec engine means the cars have a lap time some 10 seconds a lap down on FIA F3 (which is using a similar chassis but with 370-400hp engines). In isolation that might not…

Smart motorways are a contradiction in terms and need to go. They don’t take into account basic human nature that everyone will charge down an empty land and then pull in at the last second when it is blocked rather than move over as soon as a variable sign tells you to do so.

I’m biased as I had one but the Jaguar XE is massively underrated as a car and you can get a low miles XES with the 380b hp supercharged V6 for bang on Budget. On a run they should give pretty good MPG as the engine is not working that hard (will be drink more on in town driving). Yes everyone is going to say they’re…

Because the 6.3 was one of those after hours projects of engineers messing around to see what they could do to projects, which is the definition of factory hot-rod to me. The later 6.9 was a planned car after the success of the 6.3.

Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3. Take the 300 SEL which at the time had a 3.0 six as the standard engine and throw in the 6.3 litre V8 from the 600 Grosser. Leave the looks alone and a sleeper that could surprise many of the muscle cars and sports cars of the day.

On the current rules Herta would have 32 points based on the best three out of four seasons Including 2020 rule introduced because of COVID. The rules allow for a granting a license if they driver has 30 plus points if theire circumstances outside their control or reasons of force majeure. The fact that Herta didn’t…

Has Colton Herta really entered the picture as a viable F1 candidate for 2023. I don’t think he has accumulated enough Super License points to race yet (although he may have enough for an FP1 drive), and his current lowly position in the Indycar points standing this year won’t help him get any more points towards that…

For me the Jaguar F Type. When the concept came out I thought it looked great, but when it went into production I thought it was a little too expensive for what it was and was also terrible to drive in Forza Horizon (yes I know that is not a useful metric but still) with almost no traction. I rather lost interest.

True although it should be remembered that in the 50's in particular there was still a culture of risk taking as a hangover from WWII where many of the earlt F1 (world championship) drivers served or where sons / younger brothers of those that did. I guess climbing into an early F1 car was considered no less safe than…

Big check, flashy check. Good MPG probably not but also better than you might think. Bentley Continental Flying Spur. 

Has it really shown that it’s a top tier team in recent years though. They haven’t won an Indycar title since 2012, an Indy 500 since 2017 and are arguably the third best team in Indycar right now. You could even argue that Mclaren SP are nipping at their heels to take that third spot. Their best result in Formula E…

Not that I’m a lawyer but I guess if the deposit is refunded there isn’t really much of a loss to the buyer other than annoyance at missing out on the car.

The Alfa Romeo deal is currently little more than a sponsorship arrangement, and they are a Ferrari customer team (and have Ferrari’s reliability issues). When they were BMW Sauber they were knocking on the door of being a serious world championship contending team before BMW pulled the plug.