KEEPING THE BALL ROLLING IN 2023
This season will be remembered as a year of some significant benchmarks. Firstly, Kalle Rovanpera ripped up the form book in the World Rally Championship by belying conventional wisdom by winning the title while barely out of his teens, while Max Verstappen put together a season reminiscent of Ferrari and Michael Schumacher in their pomp. In this issue, we reflect on both the World Rally Championship and the grand prix season and our experts answer the big questions of the campaigns just gone.
While those are now committed to the record books, fans are left looking ahead to try and answer the posers that 2023 will inevitably throw up. Will Rovenpera be able to maintain his hot streak? Will Ott Tanak’s return to M-Sport be the boost that the British team needs?
Can new team principal Frederic Vasseur put Ferrari back on the right track in Formula 1? And will Mercedes put the nightmares of 2022 behind it and give Lewis Hamilton the chance to battle for a record-breaking eighth title?
These are the imponderables that keep us all engaged with the sport we love and that is why, as soon as one season is put behind us, we are eagerly awaiting the next one.
Elsewhere in this issue, we are grateful to the Hansen World RX Team for letting our man Hal Ridge loose in a very rare outing for media in the cutting edge of technology that has revolutionised the discipline in
2022. Hal, thankfully, followed all the instructions from the Swedish team and brought the Peugeot 208 RX1e back in one piece, and you can read his thoughts on pages 18-19.
While the World Rallycross Championship underwent something of a revolution in 2022 with its all-electric format, it wasn’t alone in breaking new ground. There was new hybrid technology in the World Rally Championship that went without a hitch, and the electric power boost was also added to the British Touring Car Championship hardware. It also proved a big success and shows that nothing stands still in motorsport. Again this is another reason to enjoy the sport we all love.
In our Christmas special, Tony Jardine gives us the lowdown on his early Xmas present, which was an attack on the truly epic Silver Fern Rally in New Zealand. The broadcaster and pundit’s diary can be found on pages 20-21. David Addison looks back in time and recalls the BMW M1 Procar battles too on pages 22-23.
We hand-pick our personal memories of the year on pages 30-35, and they are accompanied by some of the best photography of the season just gone by our highly skilled snappers. It is all here to enjoy.
We hope you have a happy holiday period and don’t forget to go out and buy your next edition of Motorsport News, which is published on January 5.