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1997 brings the British Touring Car Championship its highest profile to date. The Auto Trader RAC Championship is a great series and one of the true success stories of British Motorsport. Both at home and abroad the status and importance of the BTCC continues to spiral, this is reflected in the ever increasing levels of commitment being made by the teams now contesting the series. 1997 also brings for the first time, one-hour highlight programmes on BBC Television and live TV coverage at three events, as they have dropped Formula 1. The BBC is committing even more to the BTCC which will see the Championship as its major motorsport focus until the year 2002. The Touring Car series will be hard fought with exciting on and off track action that will not fail to grab people's attention as the works drivers and Independants alike use bottle and throttle to ensure the best line and position. Bumper to bumper racing is guaranteed! The drivers are an intriguing mixture of ex-Formula 1 racers, touring car champion, thrusting young guns out to topple established aces and Independants racing for the prestigious works drive that bring fame and fortune. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The opening round of the Formula One World Championship season in Melbourne Australia was the scene of an exciting and encouraging start for the new West McLaren Mercedes Team. As the chequered flag heralded the end of the race, David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen came home to first and third positions and the delight of the crowd and team. It was then on to the Brazilian Grand Prix where our race strategy put the team ahead of Schumacher and ensured a return to England with some useful points. The Argentine Grand Prix held disappointment for David who, on the first corner, collided with a Jordan and was resigned to watching the race from the pits. Not so for Mika whose fifth position was the result of a good drive, the right race strategy and the correct tyre choice. Mika secured another point at the San Marino Grand Prix while David was not so lucky and encountered a water leak on lap 38 which lead to engine failure. It was at the fifth round of the Formula One World Championship, the Monaco Grand Prix, where McLaren had one of it's shortest races ever, with both David and Mika crashing out on the second lap, adding to the large number of racing casualties that plagued this Grand Prix. From Monaco it was on to Spain with the team collecting one further World Championship point, which left us lying fifth in the Drivers and third in the Constructors Championship. Canada saw Mika out of the race on the first lap due to a shunt by one of the Prost car's. David meanwhile, looked set for victory but finally came in seventh after a technical problem during his pitstop which denied him a well earned podium finish. Magny-Cours was the scene of another seventh position for David after a misjudged manoeuvre from Jean Alesi pushed him into the gravel. An engine failure on lap 18 brought Mika's race to a premature end. The team showed again their winning potential at Silverstone as Mika Hakkinen led the race and looked set to win until engine failure five laps from the end of the race deprived him of his first Grand Prix win. Not to be overlooked however, David finished in fourth position earning three valuable points for the team. It was at Hockenheim that Mika drove a consistent race, qualifying fourth and finishing third on the podium. This sweetened the disappointment of David's enforced pit stop, caused by Villneuve running over his front wing, and the eventual clutch failure that took him out of the contest. Despite a disappointing result in Hungary, with both Mika and David being forced to retire through technical problems, the team put in an impressive performance throughout the three day race weekend, proving that McLaren were definitely a force to be reckoned with. The Belgian Grand Prix was the scene of great activity for the West McLaren Mercedes team, from driver announcements to Mika's third place on the podium. However, an FIA ruling led to the team being disqualified as a result of a technical problem with Mika's fuel. This was despite the fact the FIA acknowledged there had been no intentional tampering with the fuel. From the disappointment in Belgium came an outstanding win by David at Monza, the fastest ever Grand Prix win for McLaren. At an average speed of 238.036 kph David beat Bruce McLaren's record of 236.797 which Bruce set in Belgium in 1968. Although it was a disappointing weekend for Mika, who crossed the finish line in ninth position after suffering tyre problems, the overall result of the weekend allowed the team as a whole, David in particular, to reap the rewards that were justly deserved. The team were delighted to see David on the podium again when he finished the Austrian Grand Prix in second position, team mate Mika, who started from the front row of the grid and led the field into the first corner, was forced to retire on his first lap as a result of an engine failure. The Luxembourg Grand Prix was the scene of celebrations after qualifying as Mika claimed the first pole position of his career, however, disappointment lay around the corner as both engines failed within a lap of each other in the final third of the race. The team narrowly missed another podium finish at the Suzuka Circuit when Mika finished in fourth position, a little over seven tenths of a second behind Eddie Irvine. David's weekend was beset with a number of technical problems culminating with an engine failure which forced him to retire on the final lap of the race. The penultimate race of the season was the European Grand Prix held at the Jerez de la Fontera circuit in Spain. No-one could have foreseen the fairytale ending that was in store as Mika crossed the finish line to win his first Grand Prix with David in a close second. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Versatility is a word that comes to mind when | discussing NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver John Andretti. With major victories in IndyCar and IMSA, and experience in just about every other kind of race car -- drag cars, midget racers, dirt cars, spring cars, you name it -- Andretti has achieved success in every racing series he's entered. Andretti demonstrated that versatility and talent in his two top-10 finishes in 1996, a ninth in the Winston Select 500 and a fifth at the Mountain Dew Southern 500. The fifth-place represented a standout weekend for Andretti, as he began it with a qualifying run of 15th. He ended the year in 31st place, earning $688,511. Andretti finally broke through to Victory Lane this year, with a win in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. That followed a top-5 in the first race at Talladega, establishing the young driver as a force on the restrictor-plate tracks. Andretti made his NASCAR Winston Cup Series debut in 1993 and committed himself totally to NASCAR's elite series in 1994. After a variety of stops with different owners, it appears Andretti has settled down. He has signed to drive the No. 43 STP Pontiac for Richard Petty in 1998, a team with which he had a short stint in the past. Certainly the names �
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