It’s the first victory for Ford in 13 years at the Daytona 24 Hours race, which celebrated 50y years of existance this year, and today the blue oval collected a fabulous 1-2-3 result thanks to Dalziel / Luhr / McNish / Popow / Potolicchio finishing in second in the Starworks Motorsport / Ford Riley ahead of the second Michael Shank Racing entry with Goncalvez / McDowell / Nasr / Yacaman. Lally / Lietz / Potter / Rast won the GT class for Magnus Racing

During his 40-year career, Stuck scored 411 wins and runner-up finishes, including seven Grands Prix victories, and set numerous land, water and hill-climb speed records. ASide his driving duties, together with engineer Alex von Falkenhausen, he built the famous AFM race car. When the “Bergkönig” (King of the Hills), as he was nicknamed for his innumerous hill climb successes, won his final German hill-climb championship in a BMW 700 at 60 years of age, his son Hans-Joachim Stuck’s career had progressed as far as Formula 1.

Born: 27th of December 1900 in Warsaw, Polonia.
Died: 9th of February 1978 in Grainau, Germany.

Adrian Sutil meanwhile is said to have signed a lucrative deal with MercedesGP as third driver. This leaves only one seat at HRT for the likes of Barrichello, Vitaly Petrov, Sébastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari to try to stay in F1. We hear, the Spaniard might have the best chance and that might also be in for a third river role at Ferrari, too.

For ourselves, we have fulfilled the target to publish a total of 90 issues in 2011. We’ve done that in two languages and covered 122 different motor sport categories. You would be hard pressed to find anyone on the globe who has achieved the same. Despite the English version having just completed its first full season. And we’re not stopping here.

You can download P1Mag issue no. 45, the final issue of 2011, by clicking HERE

Enjoy the read.

Jason won three New Zealand touring car championships prior to moving into V8 Supercars and is best remembered for three times finishing second at the Bathurst 1000 — in 2005 with current V8 Supercar champion Jamie Whincup, in 2008 with fellow Kiwi Greg Murphy and in 2009 with Cameron McConville. It seemed only a matter of time before he’d go ahead and win the ‘‘great race’’.

But his racing career came to an abrupt halt in November last year when doctors told him he had an adrenocortical carcinoma. He immediately stepped down from driving for the Brad Jones Racing team to focus on his health. There were a few guest drives in supporting series, including one memorable day on the streets of Adelaide when JR won the main support race to rapturous applause from Holden and Ford fans alike, briefly united behind a greater cause.

It gave his fans hope that he could beat the tumour or at least keep it in check long enough to return to full-time racing for a while. It wasn’t to be. He is survived by his wife Charlotte and his two young daughters, Sienna and Olivia.

To make the wait a little shorter, we’re giving away five DVDs with the spectacular „24 HOURS“ documentary on the Nürburgring 24 Hours race, produced by Tim and Nick Hahne.

All you have to do is send us an e-mail to info@P1Mag-eZine.com till Sunday night (the 18th of December) and answer the following question correctly: Which team has won the 2011 edition of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring?

We will draw the five lucky winners first thing on Monday morning, the DVDs will be sent out the same day and if you’re not based too remotely, say somewhere in the outback, then you should receive you X-mas present – MADE BY RACERS FOR RACERS – just in time. Good luck!

A proven hill climb specialist, Xavier Perrot had his debut in the Formula 1 World Championship at the 1969 German Grand Prix, but driving his customary Brabham BT23C he used to race in the European F2 Championship finishing in 10th position. His only opportunity to race an F1 March 701 came 1971 at a non-championship event at the Motodrom in Hockenheim. But finishing four laps behind the leading pack gave a clear signal that it would be best to concentrate on hill climbs, duly rewarding his efforts with the European title in 1972. He retired from racing after marrying and had a number of health scares in recent year and passed away in December of 2008.

Born: 1st of February 1932 in Zurich, Switzerland;
Died: 8th of December 2008 in Zurich, Switzerland.

He was a double Formula 5000 champion (1969 and 1970), beat a field of F1 cars in his Chevron F5000 to win the 1973 Race of Champions and took the 1974 Formula 5000 Tasman Series title. After his racing career Gethin became team manager of the Toleman F1 team in 1984. After two years he moved to Formula 3000 to set up Peter Gethin Racing, before later in his career running a driving school at Goodwood.