Welcome to the Yorath.co slightly-difficult or sometimes fiendishly-hard motorsporting quiz. These are the answers. If you’re looking for the questions, click here first, or you’ll ruin the quiz for yourself. There’s a series of questions, and one answer links all of them. Good luck!
- He’s a pretty decent number 2 driver…
Mark Webber famously quipped, “Not bad for a number two driver!” after winning the British Grand Prix for Red Bull. Earlier in the weekend, much to his chagrin, his freshly-updated front wing was removed and bolted on to team-mate Sebastian Vettel’s car after the German damaged his. The only spare was on Mark’s RB6, and the rest is history.
- This company started out making tractors, then shocked the world by putting an engine the wrong way around, in a beautiful sports car.
Lamborghini. The Miura’s engine was transverse, but it was much prettier than their tractors.
- Seb Vettel predicted that the Miami Grand Prix 2060 would be underwater. But which F1 Grand Prix was abandoned because of flooding in 2023?
The snappily titled “Formula 1 Qatar Airways Gran Premio del Made in Italy e dell’Emilia-Romagna 2023” – Emilia Romagna GP, to you and me – was cancelled for rain.
- From being a long-term Ferrari GT racing stalwart, this Italian switched to Porsche in 2018.
Gianmaria “Gimmi” Bruni. He’ll always be a Ferrari guy in my head, if I’m honest.
- Which university sponsored a trio of Ferraris at the 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans?
European. The cars, three 512BB LM run by Ch. Pozzi, were a beautiful metallic blue, with yellow stars.
- Who crossed the Monza finish line backwards, and in the air, after crashing into his team-mate on the final lap of the 1993 Italian Grand Prix?
Christian Fittipaldi, whose bright yellow helmet was almost certainly full of wonderment. And expletives. His team-mate? Pierluigi Martini, who’d go onto win Le Mans with BMW in 1999.
- If I mention penne all’arrabbiata, French jeans, F1 prequalifying, a friend with a false name, and La Sarthe, whose biography am I writing?
It’s 1985 Le Mans winner Paolo Barilla of course, who is now deputy chairman of the family’s Barilla pasta empire. Wonder how he afforded to go racing?
- Who’s the oldest driver on the 2023 Formula 1 grid?
Fernando Alonso, who’s collar size is “we’re gonna need to order that specially.”
And the link this week? Of course it’s perennial F1 minnows Minardi, whose grand prix team sadly began prequalifying for a place on the grid for the great race in the sky in 2005. Among some true greats of motor racing, Webber, Bruni, Fittipaldi, Barilla and Alonso all drove Minardis at various points in their varied careers; Lamborghini powered them for a short while, and even scored one of the team’s 38 total points at the ’92 Japanese GP; Faenza, in Emilia Romagna, is where the team was based; and European Aviation sponsored the team late in its life. That sponsorship, through Australian Paul Stoddart, links to arguably Minardi’s finest hour when proud Aussie Webber, making his F1 debut, scored fifth place at the 2002 Australian GP, where he was allowed to stand on the podium in front of a very pleased Aussie public, alongside his Aussie team boss!