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!
- Which Sébastien has more WRC titles: Loeb or Ogier?
Loeb leads Ogier nine to eight. 17 world titles, one name. Remarkable.
- You know I love a Murray Walker quote. So, finish this one: “Colossally, that’s…”
“…Mansell!” Nigel Mansell suffered a puncture in Adelaide, and lost the World Championship at the end of the 1986 F1 season.
- Which manufacturer partnered with an oil giant, a relationship that had already borne fruit in other projects, to produce a MotoGP bike? They then unceremoniously left the project after its launch, but before it had raced a single lap.
Sauber partnered with Petronas to build a premier-class motorcycle in 2001, part of an existing deal that had seen Sauber Petronas Engineering producing engines for Sauber’s F1 team, based almost entirely on Ferrari units. The GP1 motorbike was unveiled to much excitement, but then disappeared. GP1 would then become FP1, and Foggy Petronas Racing would run them in World Superbike. It looked cool, but it wasn’t enormously successful.
- In 1958, ’59 and ’60, the same rider won both the 350 and 500cc titles, a double-hat-trick of some renown. Who was it?
It’s the somehow-not-a-Sir John Surtees CBE. The Briton was a demon on a motorcycle, winning those titles aboard an MV Augusta. He would, famously, go on to be the only person who won world titles on two wheels and four.
- Which manufacturer initiated a genuinely unique supercar project, using its F1 engine and tandem seating, in the early 1990s?
Yamaha. Quite why they thought a pretty average F1 engine would make a great road engine is anyone’s guess but the road car, the “Yamaha OX99-11 V12” – snappy – was undeniably cool. However, Japan’s financial crisis killed the project in 1994.
- Which driver did Richie Stanaway partner to Bathurst 1000 victory in 2023?
Shane van Gisbergen. It was SVG’s third victory in the event, and Stanaway’s first podium.
- Giacomo Agostini has more premier-class motorcycling titles than anyone else, with eight. But who is second, with seven?
It’s The Doctor, Valentino Rossi, of course. Marc Marquez has six, and Mick Doohan five.
- Which Frenchman scored a hat-trick of Le Mans pole positions in 2007, ’08 and ’09, but never managed to win the race?
Stéphane Sarrazin. Brilliant name, desperately unlucky. He also rallied for Subaru in the WRC, raced in Formula E, Extreme E, FIA GT1, F3000, the ERC and more. If it’s got wheels, Stéphane has probably been pretty fast driving it at some point.
The link: they’re all code-switchers: Sébastien Loeb almost won Le Mans and raced pretty successfully in GT and touring car racing; Our Nige won the 1992 F1 WDC then upped sticks and won the 1993 Indycar series; Sauber, of course, are best known as an F1 team but also built the motorbike, and won Le Mans; somehow-not-a-Sir John Surtees CBE needs no introduction; Yamaha have had most of their success in motorcycling, but did experiment with F1 for a while. And, of course, pianos; SVG is a Supercars legend, and is taking his unique, aggressive style to NASCAR in 2024; VR46 is not just a motorcycling legend – he was on the pace in a Ferrari F1 test, rallied remarkably well, and has taken to GT3 racing like a duck to water; Sarrazin has won in rallying, single seaters and endurance. He event has an F1 start to his name, at the 1999 Brazilian GP with Minardi.