Colin McRae will be looking down at the world with a huge grin today. Because his man Kris Meeke has finally triumphed in WRC, winning the Argentina round after a battle of attrition. Remarkably, he was the first Brit to win a WRC round in 13 years; fittingly, the last man to win was McRae himself, in Kenya.
The 35-year-old was quick to recognise the support of the late great straight after the event: "This one's for Colin," he said - who, let's not forget, both mentored and financially supported the Northern Irishman during his early days. He was joined on the virtual WRC podium by another Brit, too - Elfyn 'son of Gwyndaf' Evans scooped third, helped by key runners including Sebastien Ogier, Andreas Mikkelsen and Jari-Matti Latvala all failing (perhaps the Volkswagens were pulling out in support of Quattro rally genius
Ferdinand Piech
It was a timely set of results for both Brits, for which expectations this year have been high but haven't quite been fulfilled. Meeke in particular will be buoyed by the breakthrough, particularly as he topped Citroen team-mate Mads Ostberg. He'll now be hoping it can kick-start his WRC campaign and belatedly begin chasing the Volkswagens.
Michael Schumacher's boy wins
Does it run in the family? Seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Michael Schumacher's son Mick has taken his first race circuit win after triumphing in the third race of Germany's ADAC Formula 4 championship at Oschersleben, northern Germany. The 16-year-old was best of the rookies in the first round too, and took his race victory after nabbing the lead from second on the grid in the final race.
Coming straight from karting (racing another F1 son, Adrian Newey's boy Harrison), Schumacher said the weekend couldn't have gone better. We should say so: how many circuit racing newcomers do you know who win only their third race? He's clearly got talent and, given the success of Verstappen and Sainz Jr so far this year, you'd have to already wonder how long it will be before the great Schumacher name is back in F1...
Britcar is back; Aston Martin wins
This weekend saw a welcome return for the Britcar 24 Hours at Silverstone, with a pretty healthy grid and even the works support of Aston Martin amongst the runners. The brand's factory-based Special Projects engineering team (they built One-77, GT3 GT12 and Vulcan, you know) entered a race for the first time, and impressed their director David King."This is a remarkable achievement for the team that specialises not in racing but in designing and building Aston Martin road and track cars," he said. "They... leave with invaluable data and knowledge for future development."
The factory car, which finished fifth, was actually driven by the boss himself, Dr Andy Palmer, plus his design director Marek Reichman, along with young racer Alice Powell and journo Andrew Frankel. It wasn't a jolly for Palmer either - he wanted to "understand how a race team works as it's so intrinsic to our brand."
They didn't manage the top step, but brand honours were upheld by Andrew Howard's Beechdean team, whose Vantage GT4 won thanks to the talent of Aston factory driver Jonny Adam, GT4/Aston Martin Racing Evolution academy drivers Jamie Chadwick and Ross Gunn, plus AMR account manger Harry Whale. Sir Chris Hoy was also there to finish his first 24-hour race in his Ginetta-Nissan, albeit only after running repairs. With Le Mans in mind, it's a start...
Williams posts a loss - but don't worry...
Williams Grand Prix Holdings, which bundles together all Williams' companies including the F1 team, has posted a £34.5m loss for the full year 2014. Revenue was also down, by £40m. And why? Because Formula 1 cost more and brought in less.
This is how F1 works: the team finished ninth in 2013, and so got less money from Bernie, but also had to spend more for the new hybrid powertrains. Factor in a determination to pull itself out of the midfield, thus requiring more development spend, and it's no wonder the EBIT was negative. Williams Advanced Engineering, incidentally, was revenue-positive, bringing in £3.5m with the potential for much more going forward.
Worrying news for fans of arguably F1's nicest team? Well, no. Because the team has already started work on addressing it, most immediately with that third-place Constructor's Championship finish last year (it'll be interesting comparing this year's full year results with 2014's...). Advanced Engineering now has a shiny new HQ and is bringing in more cash, while the fact Williams F1 is now a bigger player means more cash from sponsorship too. They'll be right.