Motion Captured blog

If you’re sick of the January weather (it’s pretty grey and miserable here anyway!), spare a thought for Martin Stretton in this Tyrrell-Cosworth 012 and his fellow competitors in the Masters Historic F1 series at last July’s Silverstone Classic. I wonder if he’s dried out yet?

On the face of it, this doesn’t seem like a fair fight, but the heavily optioned M4 is almost as expensive as this ‘standard’ GT-R, thanks mainly to the £6k carbon ceramic brakes and £3k DCT gearbox! OK, so the GT-R walks it in terms of performance, but the M4 is definitely easier to live with as a daily driver and is hardly slow. Whatever you’d choose, they were both a joy to shoot. Thanks to Pistonheads for the opportunity!

I shot this awesome ex-BTCC RS500 at the Donington Historic Festival last year. Despite being older than most of it’s competitors in the Supercar Touring Trophy, the extra power allowed in the late ‘80s Group A class made it pretty competitive. Bonus points for the gold centre BBS splitrims!

Although I mainly shoot classic and traditional motorsport, I’ve loved drifting and especially ‘80s Japanese cars (seeds sown probably since the first Granturismo on PS1, then nurtured during numerous trips to Japan). Paul (the man behind the awesome Shakotan Knights tumblr) is an old buddy, but as he lives quite far from me it was the first time I got to check out his S12 project in the metal. It’s still in the WIP phase, but runs great and easily breaks traction despite wearing 9J’s on the rear!

A big highlight of the Masters Historic Festival at Brands Hatch was this ‘96 Benetton B196. It wasn’t racing, but it did a few high-speed demo laps. Hearing the high-revving V10 of the B196 cresting Paddock Hill Bend, before sweeping through the valley, was a real aural treat.

Sadly I missed this year’s Spa Six Hours and the fantastic support races that make up the weekend, but here’s just one of the many cool entrants from last year’s event. I will never get bored of these little Italian terriers, they have so much character in the way they look, sound and move. They also seem to be suited to so many different colours, but this one in yellow just looked perfect against Spa’s yellow and red curbs and barriers.

It’s been a while since the last In The Frame post, so I thought I’d show a few shots from this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed of Swedish superman Kenny Bräck, whose special powers include surviving an incredible 214g impact and manhandling an original GT40 around a wet Goodwood, rally-style. After retiring from a successful career in Indycar (including a World Championship and Indy 500 win), Kenny still gets his horsepower fix driving rally cars (winning the 2009 X-games outright), classic cars (multiple winner at the Goodwood Revival) and - putting the two together - classic rally cars (taking a couple of wins in a mkII Escort). Top guy.

Sadly I missed this year’s AvD Oldtimer GP, but here’s a sweet RSR I shot there last year. Wide-body? Check. Fat wheels? Check. Whale-tail? Check. Super-seventies two-tone paint? Check. Yep, it’s definitely a bona-fide ‘ring monster.

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Apart from being a kind of mecca for any petrolhead, there was an Audi story here too - Hermann Paul Müller won the 1939 Reims Grand Prix in an Auto Union D, before WWII put a temporary stop to Grand Prix racing.

While I was shooting a pair of McLaren F1 GTRs for a Classic Driver feature, I had a little nose around the farmyard where the GTRs were residing. As hard as it was to tear myself away from the McLarens, I knew there could be more racing royalty stashed around the premises. In one of the small barns, I stumbled across this gorgeous find, half buried in junk.....at first glance I thought it was one of the 312 F1 cars, but then found out it was actually a ‘Tasman’ racer (a Tasmanian series with rules similar to F2 but with a larger 2.4l engine). Happy Ferrari Friday! :P

On my way to shoot a round of Super GT at Autopolis in 2013, I saw this ‘Calsonic blue’ R32 beating the mountain pass into submission.....later I caught up with it at the circuit and stopped for a closer look. The white split-rims really set off the late eighties/early nineties look! Sugoi.

While it seems that the 917 gets all the Porsche endurance racer love, I’ve always preferred the pretty 910 (and it’s development the 907). Where the 917 is an awesome, brutal wedge, these earlier cars are more appealing to me; curvacious yet dainty, and super-lightweight. This is from last year’s AvD Oldtimer GP.

I can’t get enough of the Lola T70 Mk3B, so here’s another from Donington earlier this year.

One of the megastars of this year’s Festival of Speed was gymkhana-master Ken Block. Ken brought the one-off ‘Hoonicorn’ Mustang to the hill, and although it was his first time at Goodwood he didn’t hold back, dispersing rubber all the way up the run. He seemed to be on a special mission to kill the tyres at the top staging area, which is where I caught up with him. Awesome car, and genuinely cool guy!

This Ferrari Friday is looking exactly one year back to the 2014 Silverstone Classic. The very un-Ferrari blue and yellow scheme comes courtesy of the Scuderia Ferrari Svezia (Team Ferrari Sweden), with Flygvapnet (the Swedish Air Force) the main sponsor, as it raced in period. As much as I love Rosso Corsa, I have to say the Daytona looks amazing in this Gialloblu paintwork.

Shot at the Silverstone Classic last year.