I’d heard of Jacques Villeneuve. Of course I had. Watching RTE’s Formula 1 coverage in the 1990s, you were never more than a few seconds away from one of Peter Collins’ excited utterings proclaiming the young Canadian as the best thing since sliced bread, his enthusiasm tempered somewhat by David Kennedy’s calming and knowledgeable intonations. I was six years old…
Dear Renault Sport, I didn’t want to write this. I didn’t think I’d ever have to write this, but now I feel that I must make some racket. And I don’t think I’m the only one. There was a time when if someone wanted a hot hatch that prioritised driving enjoyment above all other qualities, they went and bought one…
Modern hot hatches are massively capable, but is that really the point? Maurice Malone drives a legend and finds that pace isn’t everything. Just look at this thing. Has there ever been a more perfectly shaped hot hatch? Or hatchback in general? It’s best viewed in elevation, the stubby overhangs accentuating the wheel-at-each-corner stance, the wheels themselves a piddling (by…
“As the Czech driver was driving, the main thought of the laptop guy was setting up the launch control in second gear or first gear… Second gear…. First gear… And it went on for hours as I stood there. You decide if that is relevant for winning a rally.” It’s 2005, and with Markko Märtin and Francois Duval now driving…
Nerves. They can manifest themselves in many ways. For some, it’s trembling, clammy hands. For others, a marked jump in the frequency of bodily functions signifies the onset of an event that the brain isn’t 100 per cent comfortable with. Me? I’m currently experiencing both, and I can barely zip up my overalls thanks to the useless, quivering sticks that…
In the first of a multi-part series, David Mullen delves into the history of a famous road, aided by an infamous automobile. You don’t realise it when you round the corner at The Yellow House pub in Dublin’s leafy suburb of Rathfarnham that you’re driving onto the oldest section of one of the most ambitious and dramatic engineering projects undertaken…