Autosport’s memories of 2019

It’s been an emotional year for the Autosport team. We marked 1000 world championship races in epic fashion, some of us got married and others lost a friend

KEVIN TURNER EDITOR

Seeing any Formula 1 car up close is special, but to be able to arrange a track test with four title-winning racers was a career highlight.

Thanks to Classic Team Lotus, Autosport celebrated the 1000th world championship race by putting resident racer Ben Anderson in to a Lotus 25, 49, 72 and a 79.

We’d long wanted to get Ben in an F1 car and the grand prixwinning ex-jim Clark, Graham Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson exotica meant the day at Hethel was better than we could ever have hoped for. Being a racing driver, Ben’s favourite was the quickest – the ground-effect 79 – but there was something even more evocative about the 72.

MARCUS SIMMONS DEPUTY EDITOR

A trip to Japan for the Super Formula round at Sugo has to be the standout memory for me – because it nearly killed me.

No, it wasn’t proximity to a shunt on this stunning circuit. And no, it wasn’t because of the food I ate: I can confirm that sea urchin is… OK. It was because, a few weeks after, I was diagnosed with a severe DVT, brought on by the flight.

Luckily, I had great interviews with Naoki Yamamoto and Kazuyoshi Hoshino (coming your way soon) in the bag. Even more luckily, the symptoms only struck after my honeymoon after I’d married the lady I love even more than Dallara single-seaters. I’d unwittingly carried the illness through our wedding day…

JACK BENYON INTERNATIONAL EDITOR

I’ll remember 2019 as a sad year, as the motorsport world lost a light in Anthoine Hubert. Although I wasn’t there, the Formula 2 organisation inaugurated and gifted the first Anthoine Hubert award to its top rookie Guanyu Zhou at its end of year awards. It was a fine way to conclude the season.

On a happier note, attending Macau for the first time and watching the fastest ever Formula 3 cars thunder around the magical island was spellbinding. Better still, Richard Verschoor proved that every dog has his day. Despite adversity and a lack of cash in his career, the Dutch driver won the Macau Grand Prix in a David v Goliath encounter with Red Bull’s Juri Vips.