Racing

The 88th running of the mythical 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s most famous endurance race, may not have been the most exciting of the lot. The much-anticipated rain failed to make an appearance and the classes we expected to put on a show for us hardly did.

So, while the race itself can be considered a letdown, the news that dropped on the build-up to Saturday’s and Sunday’s showdown have been particularly interesting. We now know more about Peugeot’s LM Hypercar program, as well as ByKolles’, and more details have emerged about the upcoming LM Daytona Hybrid ruleset. Read on to also find out whether or not a hydrogen-fueled future is still on the cards at Le Mans and also to find out more about Toyota’s upcoming halo hypercar.

We’re in the early noughties. Everyone’s got Walkmans or iPod Nanos, everyone wears slightly oversized pants and shirts, and everyone blends colors that, really, shouldn’t be blended. Then there’s the music people are listening to as hard-edged stuff like metal, alternative, and grunge take a step back allowing electro-pop to take over with all its glitzy overtones. Riding the wave are numerous boy bands and girl bands that end up everywhere on the walls of kids and teens and among the myriad of groups there’s one called ’Atomic Kitten’.

The name is dubious but behind it lay a number of UK and European chart-topping hits that can still be found lurking through many compilations of ’00s British pop. At one time hailed as the "biggest girl group in Europe," Atomic Kitten sold eight million records in less than a decade and traveled the continent jumping from arena to arena. We aren’t interested in all that but what we are interested in is what Atomic Kitten endorsed at one point in the band’s lifespan and that is, oddly enough, motorsports.

Ferrari is one of the world’s most recognizable brands and, as a carmaker, the Prancing Horse is synonymous with some of the world’s finest super sports cars, supercars, and hypercars. The heritage, built over the past seven decades, is intimately linked to the world of racing and, more importantly, with Formula 1. This weekend, the Tuscan hills surrounding the popular Mugello Circuit will be filled by the roar of Formula 1, and as it happens, this will be the Scuderia’s 1,000th World Championship round they will partake in. The Italians had to mark the special moment somehow and chose to do so by unveiling a new livery that’s reminiscent of the first Ferraris to race in F1 back in 1950.

Ken Block needs no introduction by now. The inventor of Gymkhana has gathered a huge fan base on- and off-line, and for good reason: he’s been sitting behind the wheel in cool rides since forever. Speaking of those, this time around, Mr. Block gets to shakedown the living daylight out of the all-electric Ford Fiesta ERX that he actually raced over the last weekend in FIA’s World Rallycross Project E race series. And as usual, some tire slaying ensued.

One of the most successful racing cars ever just got a digital makeover that will make purists cover their eyes and run away screaming. We, however, decided to meet the creation with an open mind, something we advise you to do as well. That said, meet the Bugatti Type 35 that got a hefty American twist.

The British GT is the UK’s own national grand touring series and it’s been going strong for almost three decades. From McLaren’s F1 to the Lister Storm, the Saleen S7, the Dodge Viper, or the Porsche 911 GT3.R, all of them graced the paddock and the grids of the British GT at one time or another and now it’s all about GT3 and GT4 machinery with one 22-year-old gamer battling to win the GT3 title at his first attempt in a team co-owned by a former F1 World Champion. His name is James Baldwin and he is The World’s Fastest Gamer - only he now wants to become The World’s Fastest Racer.

The Porsche 935 is the poster child of the late ’70s and early ’80s in GT racing. Developed by Stuttgart’s wizards and then modified by countless others the world over, Porsche’s Group 5 weapon crushed its opposition with such force that you needed one if you wanted to win on either side of the Atlantic. Robin Hamilton tried to buck the trend by bringing to the table a car of his own from the brand he grew to love, Aston Martin.

Named ’The Muncher’, this 1970 DBS V8 became a twin-turbocharged pseudo-grand-tourer able to go almost 200 mph down Mulsanne and battle prototypes along the way. A success story? Maybe not in the broader sense but it was the foundation stone to Aston Martin’s much-awaited return to sports car endurance racing.

Dodge just announced pricing for the 2021 Challenger Drag Pak and at $143,485, not including destination and taxes, it’s the most expensive vehicle you can buy from the American brand. The Drag Pak makes the Challenger SRT Super Stock, priced from $81,090, seem affordable, but we’re looking at completely different vehicles here. Although they share the same Challenger body and platform, the SRT Super Stock is a street-legal muscle car, while the Drag Pak is a full-fledged race car that you can only drive at the drag strip.

The Chevrolet Corvette has always been a popular sight at Le Mans but none raced in the world’s most famous endurance race for almost 20 years. Reeves Callaway’s team brought America’s Sportscar back to Circuit de la Sarthe but it is this, a red C4 ZR1 built by Doug Rippie Motorsport that remains as probably the biggest Corvette oddball in Le Mans history as it was supposed to take on the likes of Ferrari, McLaren, Venturi, and Porsche in the GT1 class of 1995 but never amounted to anything. Nonetheless, the car, freshly restored in its Le Mans war paint can be yours for the price of a brand-new Ferrari 812 GTS with some optional extras.

Those with an eye for motorsport know who Cyan Racing is. What they didn’t know – us included – was how apt at bringing back an iconic Volvo the racing team really was. That, of course, changed when they introduced the P1800 Cyan.

Legendary automotive designer Gordon Murray promised that his latest supercar, the T.50, will deliver the best driving experience ever. Powered by a bespoke V-12 capable of revving at over 12,000 rpm that sends all the power to the back axle via a manual transmission, the T.50 is a proposition that’s almost impossible to rebuke and that’s before anyone’s got the chance to drive it.

Consider also just how light the car is given it had to go through all the tests modern cars go through to be approved for the road and that’s when the potential of the T.50s shines through. Why? Because the T.50s is a T.50 that lacks all the stuff that makes the latter street-legal and on top, you get more go-fast bits to make the package that more likely to turn your brain into toothpaste.

Aston Martin is known for making some of the most sonorous V-12s in the world and, while the Britons are yet to desert the 12-cylinder engine, the current DB11 and DBS Superleggera models are both powered by a 5.2-liter, twin-turbocharged V-12.

With natural aspiration now completely out of the picture, the last Aston to feature an N/A V-12 was the V12 Vantage that bowed out two years ago. Luckily, racing versions of that car can still be seen on the race tracks of the world and, once in a while, the owners are even allowed to run their 600-horsepower beasts without mufflers. Enjoy the straight-piped goodness of a race-prepped N/A V-12!

Acura has been in peak form at the 2020 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The Japanese automaker showed up at Race to the Clouds with a 2019 NSX and a pair of race-spec 2021 TLX sedans to make a statement in a highly competitive field. Consider that mission accomplished as the NSX, with driver James Robinson behind the wheel, set a new record for production hybrid models with a time of 10:01.913. The new record is 0.5 seconds quicker than the old record, which Robinson also set in 2018 with a 2017 NSX. The pair of 2021 TLX sedans also performed well, finishing fifth and sixth in the Exhibition class with drivers Jordan Guitar and Justin Lombard piloting the race-prepped sedans.

Ford surprised a lot of people by entering the Bronco’s prototype at last year’s Baja 100 race. As a marketing strategy, it paid off even if it failed to finish the race. People kept talking about it for a long time, even though they weren’t good things. Ford’s Communications Manager, Mike Levine, had tweeted after the Bronco R’s unsuccessful stint that Ford will be back for next year’s event; and, guess what? The company is staying true to its words.

Ford recently admitted that the automaker is open to selling the Bronco R as a turnkey project truck to race teams as long as people are willing to buy it. Will it be successful in its second attempt?

Alright, there’s no hiding from the fact that Teslas are super fast in a straight line. But taking your Tesla Model 3 to a drag race and enlisting it at Pikes Peak are two very different dishes.

Pikes Peak is one of, if not the most dangerous motorsports competitions. So you don’t just show up in a high-powered, light-as-a-feather car and race up the mountain, but you also need to take the road condition into account (smooth asphalt is a commodity there) as well as the possibility of flying off a cliff.

Thank the coronavirus pandemic for the recent rise to fame of esports. The nasty thing we hate that goes by the name of COVID-19 has acted as a catalyzer for online sim racing, although the movement still existed before the virus.

And it’s about the time when big-name carmakers are joining the fray that you know there’s a lot of potential (money, too) in this form of racing. Yet, perhaps one of the most appealing selling point of esports is the audacity of some race cars. Enter Team Fordzilla’s P1 concept.

The 2018 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was a historic one for a number of reasons, chief among which being Toyota’s first-ever outright victory in a race the Japanese automaker had been trying to conquer for some three-and-a-half decades.

But, lower down the order, it was the GTE-Pro battle that kept us on the edge of our seats as for the first time in a long time no less than six manufacturers battled for glory in a 17-strong field that featured no weak driver pairing. Now, someone recreated that entire field in small-scale Lego models for all of us to enjoy.

The Porsche 911 GT2 RS is, unarguably, the wildest 911-based car that Stuttgart can sell you and, similarly, the R8 is Audi’s hottest street-legal proposition yet, if you are willing to step onto a race track, both manufacturers will gladly sell you even hotter versions of either vehicle.

Sam Dejonghe was lucky enough to sample both the Audi R8 LMS GT2 and the Porsche 911 GT2 RS Clubsport on one of the planet’s best road courses, Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps, and he tells the tale of two different cars that try to breathe life into a brand-new category.

Lotus built its reputation on the track by winning six Drivers’ Championships and seven Constructors’ Championships throughout the ’60s and ’70s and it was the road cars that benefitted the most from all that experience.

Nowadays, Lotus is prepping up the Evija, supposedly the most powerful production car ever, but race-going Lotuses are thin on the ground so it’s up to Jubu Performance and other tuners to get it done. The JP Zero is the latest Lotus-based supercar and, luckily, a 600-horsepower, $600,000 GT2 version will be available as well.

While we’re waiting to see how the Golf 8 GTI really is like, let’s take a moment and appreciate this unique, Golf 7 GTE called the GTE HyRacer. Developed by the members of a Volkswagen Retail Group Germany apprenticeship program, this is the latest in a rather long line of interesting one-off builds and it was supposed to take center stage at the annual Worthersee show in Austria. Sadly, the show’s been canceled due to the pandemic but not the project which did get completed and now we can share with you the result, a stunning prototype that one-ups even the Golf 8 GTI in terms of power.

Pedigree is what sells a racing car and this Ferrari 550 GT1 from the noughties is bathing in pedigree as the last V-12-engined Ferrari to win a high-profile 24-hour race and one of only 12 of its kind to be built by Prodrive in the UK.

No wonder, then, that this car became the most expensive car ever to be sold at an online-only auction after going for just under $4.3 million during the Shift/Monterey RM/Sotheby’s auction that replaced the auction house’s now traditional Monterey Car Week auction.