MSport Talk: Frank Motorsport Opinions & Debate

Following the tragedy at the Pocono round of the 2015 IndyCar season in which, as I am sure you are well aware, Justin Wilson lost his life the suggestion has again been made to enclose the cockpits of modern single seater racing cars. The question is: Is this the way forward? The answer, In my mind is, Yes, absolutely. In the last year there have been two high profile motorsport deaths as a result of just this, not to mention the incident involving Maria De Villota who would later die in 2013 as a consequence of her 2012 accident or Henry Surtees, hit by an errant wheel in 2009 at Brands Hatch. Many purists would say that open wheel racing and F1 / Indy Car in particular have always and should always be open top and that the drivers know the risks involved, this is to a certain extent true but in reality should there be as much as possible done to ensure maximum driver protection. When Senna was killed, the sides of the cockpits were raised to protect the driver’s heads from ...

2015 marked the 25 anniversary of the Silverstone Classic and, for the first time I spent the Saturday and Sunday at the event, for varying reasons, earlier in the year, at the media day we were informed that: "One day is not enough" and, well yes that is correct, the three day festival of "Rockin' and Racin'" really needs at least 2 days for one to fully appreciate all of the sidelines to the racing going on, on track. I spent the Saturday (fortunately as the weather his year was particularly grotty on the Friday and Sunday) taking in a number of the sidelines previously mentioned  here  when I previewed the event a month or so back.  So, now we shall try and decide what the Silverstone Classic really is, is it a historic race meeting? Or, is it a family friendly event for the car mad with the added bonus of historic racing as a sideline? Lets see if we can decide. Saturday: Saturday had always been marked down as an exploratory day for me to al...

Motorsport can be such a cruel mistress, 9 months after the horrendous accident at Suzuka, Jules Bianchi succumbed to his injuries. The world of motorsport quite rightly paid tribute to a driver who would have gone on to achieve so much more at the top level of world motorsports. There is nothing else left to add that hasn't already been said by others who knew and raced with him during his oh so short career so lets just remember him this way, hustling a uncompetitive Marussia around Monte Carlo and picking up a fantastic 9th place. Rest in Peace Jules #JB17

Thought I would step away from the real world motorsport for a moment and give you all my opinions on this nifty little mobile game from Invictus. Daytona Rush is a fairly basic but none the less fun arcade style "racer" for your phone or tablet device. The aim is simple, overtake many cars on the oval raceway by tapping or swiping the screen left or right to move your car, avoid other cars, make fuel stops when required and pick up repairs when you can if you have experienced contact. The more cars you pass the more money you make, the more money you make the more upgrades to the engine (faster car, better fuel economy), drive train (better lane changing), and bodywork (more resilient to contact) to improve overall performance. There are also various challenges to meet during the races well, I say races you are not scored on a position and as far as I have played you cannot win a race as you seem to just continue around the oval until you hit too many other cars resultin...

Now, maybe you think i'm being premature here but please bear with me. For the last few years Endurance racing has been on the up and at the heart of it has always been the Le Mans 24 Hour race, since the 80th running in 2012 when Toyota stepped up to the plate and ran Audi close endurance racing seemed to change, and change for the better as we now see drivers, teams, squads on it from the green light weather it be a 6 or 24 hour race with no quarter asked or given until the flag falls a minimum of a quarter of a day later. Le Mans 2015, for me, was one of the greats in a line of great Le Mans events, mainly because many thought - me included that Audi would once again triumph as they have done 13 times previous this century. I like many other was wrong, I even shrugged off the Porsche's qualifying pace and, when Audi started setting quick times in Saturday morning warm up I was feeling quite smug. All credit to Porsche though, they have worked very, very hard over the winte...

In July tens of thousands of people head to Silverstone to enjoy a weekend of top class international racing - among other things. No I'm not talking about the British Grand Prix, but the Silverstone Classic, a festival for want of a better word for the petrol head who maybe wishes to see great on track action and maybe a little more, with cars ranging from early 1900s right up to early 2000s there is something for everyone on display - and racing. Racing hard! Sports cars, Touring cars, GTs, Prototypes and F1 all feature in both high speed demonstration runs and proper (and on occasion sanctioned) races. For most the main draws will be the 1970s/80s FIA Historic F1, FIA Historic Group C and the Super Touring BTCC machines of the 90s but the line up will also include: Pre war Sports cars Pre 1966 GT & Pre 1967 Sports cars competing for the Gurads Trophy Sub 2 litre Touring car category (expect plenty of Lotus Cortinas) Historic Formula Juniors (around 60+ cars supposedly...

The weekend of the 16th/17th May I , like many settled down for the evening armed with a small arsenal of technology and proceeded to watch the - excellent I must say - coverage of the Nurburgring 24hr race, live by way of the Radio Le Mans internet page and YouTube. Now, this is not the first time that I and many other people whom I know via the various social media platforms have viewed an event, in fact this year so far I have watched, The Dubai 24 hour (in my lunch break at work!), The Daytona 24 hour, Bathurst 12 hour, Mugello... and so on, not to mention utilising various on boards from the various squads via, yes, you guessed it, the internet or YouTube. Now, I know these series / races are endurance events and so it would be hard to cover these in this much detail on a standard TV broadcast for events that wouldn't bring in the viewers that maybe the Le Mans 24 hr does, but I'm slightly straying from the point i'm trying to make. And that point is: Where will we...