Quite apart from the unfavourable competitive situation of March Grand Prix in 1982, the year’s dizzying politics and the deaths of two fellow Formula 1 drivers made it a tough baptism for Raul Boesel. Driving the DFV-powered 821 chassis that used three different tyre suppliers during the season, the Brazilian never figured in the points. Starting 17th in Rio and finishing eighth at Zolder were the limited high points.

For Boesel, who clipped the stalled Ferrari of Didier Pironi at Montreal moments before Osella driver Riccardo Paletti fatally rammed it, there is no doubt that what was already “a difficult time” in his rookie season would have been more so without the laid-back Jochen Mass alongside him in the camp.

With any other experienced driver, Boesel anticipates that there would have been “a fight inside the team just to get the better parts” that would have made things “much harder”. But for Mass, a driver who had continued to compete in long-distance touring car and sportscar events alongside F1, the notion of a team-mate automatically being enemy number one never applied.

Boesel observes that the German “was very honest with exchanging information on the cars”, which made a huge impression. “I never forget that,” adds the driver who latterly became a stalwart of Indycar racing and finished runner-up five times in Dick Simon Racing Lolas between 1992-94.

A British Formula 3 graduate in 1982, Boesel admits to feeling star-struck when he arrived in a paddock that contained big beasts Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Gilles Villeneuve. This is perhaps unsurprising given the speed of his ascent; he had been racing Formula Fords just two years beforehand, finishing runner-up in both the 1980 RAC and Townsend Thoresen championships, before placing third in British F3 aboard his Murray Taylor Ralt in 1981.

“When I arrived [in F1], I was very shy,” admits Boesel, who went on to win the World Sportscar Championship with Jaguar in 1987. “And Jochen, he opened his arms and was very good at teaching me a lot of things. He was very experienced, was very welcoming on his side on the team.”

Rookie Boesel had a baptism of fire in 1982, but welcome the generosity of team-mate Mass

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Mass was in a very different position in his career to Boesel; he had made his debut with Surtees back in 1973, and had won the red-flagged 1975 Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuic Park during a three-season stretch with McLaren. Returning to F1 after a year out in 1982, he had little to prove and was happy to assist his young team-mate, offering a preview of the mentor role he would later take on with the Mercedes junior team towards the end of the decade in Group C.

Mass was even supportive on occasions the youngster outqualified him during their 10 Grands Prix together (which would have been 11 had the RAM-run Marches and its fellow FOCA-aligned teams not boycotted the San Marino Grand Prix at the peak of the FISA-FOCA war, following the disqualification of Piquet and Keke Rosberg from the Brazilian GP).

Boesel was quicker in three of the first four races on Pirellis, before a switch to Avon for Monaco swung the needle in the direction of Mass. It was a misstep, as the British manufacturer had announced its intention to withdraw from F1; team boss John Macdonald bought up Avon’s stock, but development was non-existent.

“We had very difficult times at March but a few races that I qualified ahead of him, [Mass] was kind of happy. He would say ‘congratulations on how you did’, he was friendly all the time”
Raul Boesel

Ultimately the qualifying head-to-head stood at 5-5 following the French GP at Paul Ricard, where a scary crash with Mauro Baldi’s Arrows at Signes Curve prompted Mass – still shaken from his involvement in Villeneuve’s fatal accident at Zolder – to call time on F1 and focus exclusively on sportscars. The late Rupert Keegan replaced him for the remainder of a trying campaign which included two races on Michelins.

The 821 was the year’s 15th fastest car by a metric of supertimes, as March fell in behind Toleman, ATS, Osella, Arrows and Ensign. Only Theodore, with its revolving cast of drivers including Derek Daly, Jan Lammers, Geoff Lees and Tommy Byrne, and Fittipaldi (a one-car team for Chico Serra, who came to blows with Boesel in the Montreal pitlane) were slower than the second iteration of Macdonald’s collaboration with March Engineering – which by 1982 was effectively in name only.

Chief engineer Adrian Reynard had made the car stiffer and lighter than its predecessor, the first March-designed F1 car since 1977 which had been derided by Macdonald in public, but even an injection of funds from Rothmans couldn’t transform the normally-aspirated car’s competitive prospects as turbo power became increasingly potent. The cigarette manufacturer eventually terminated its support before the benefits could truly take effect.

“We had very difficult times at March but a few races that I qualified ahead of him, [Mass] was kind of happy in a way,” remembers Boesel. “He would say ‘congratulations on how you did’, and he was very friendly all the time. He spent many years in Formula 1 and everybody respected him, so it wasn’t much difference for him to be outqualified in a few races.”

Mass (left, with Adrian Reynard) bowed out of F1 mid-season during the tumultuous 1982

Photo by: David Phipps

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That Mass was content to be his own man and collaborate with his team-mates, a trait that made him such an effective foil to Jacky Ickx in the works Rothmans Porsche Group C team, was evidenced by him not joining the drivers’ strike at Johannesburg’s Sunnyside Park Hotel on the eve of the South African Grand Prix. That he had been staying with friends and was unaware of the details was immaterial.

For Boesel, preparing for his first Grand Prix, the controversy over changes to the superlicence that would prevent drivers from changing teams was an unwelcome distraction.

“Jochen was the only one that didn’t go to the hotel,” points out Boesel, who naturally felt strong peer pressure to join his contemporaries. “I remember John Macdonald was hitting on the bus windscreen on the side where I was sitting and screaming ‘if you don’t come out of this bus, your career is finished’. On the other side of the bus, Gilles Villeneuve was saying, ‘Look, you guys have all the support from us, the more experienced drivers, we will not let this happen’.”

Mass set a standard that Boesel would not experience again during his all-too-brief F1 career, which concluded after just 23 starts following a 1983 season in which neither he nor Ligier team-mate Jean-Pierre Jarier could score in the normally-aspirated JS21. “When I went to Ligier it was very different,” he adds.

After switching to Indycar with Dick Simon for 1985-86, Boesel’s career peaked in 1987 when Mass was in the final year of his Porsche affiliation before the move to Group C rival Mercedes that finally netted him a Le Mans victory in 1989.

Five wins in TWR-run XJR-8s shared with co-drivers including Eddie Cheever, John Nielsen, Martin Brundle and Johnny Dumfries earned Boesel the title, and he was regularly brought back into the fold over the next several years in parallel with Indycar commitments, adding the Daytona 24 Hours in 1988 with Brundle and Nielsen. He also contested the full IMSA schedule in 1991 along with Davy Jones in TWR’s two-car attack.

But the 66-year-old, who saw out his career in the all-oval Indy Racing League following stints racing alongside the likes of Scott Brayton (1992-93), Bobby Rahal (1995) and Scott Pruett (1997) on the other side of ‘the split’, cannot look beyond Mass for his favourite team-mate because of the lasting impression he made in a chaotic season like no other.

“Arriving in F1 with a lot of anxiety, it was a bit easier to have somebody else like that to give you support,” concludes Boesel, who today indulges his passion for electronic music as a DJ.

Boesel later encountered his 1982 team-mate when they raced in Group C

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Murray came through the Crusaders academy in New Zealand and played for Canterbury in the domestic competition before arriving in Wales.

He linked up with Scarlets this summer and has played just six games for his new side but impressed Gatland, as he was named as only one of two uncapped players in the 35-man squad alongside Gloucester lock Freddie Thomas.

Murray, who has has been preferred to Rio Dyer and Tom Rogers, lines up in a back three alongside full-back Cameron Winnett and Mason Grady, who switches to the wing from the inside centre role he occupied in the summer.

It is the first time Dyer has not started a Test match since the World Cup quarter-final defeat against Argentina in October 2023.

Anscombe, 33, will play his first Test for more than a year after missing last season because of a groin injury.

Thomas featured at fly-half in the two losing Tests in Australia but switches to his more familiar inside centre role as Wales try out yet another centre combination.

It will be Thomas’ first international start in the Wales number 12 jersey.

Jaguar’s Mitch Evans finished the final day of pre-season testing at Jarama quickest ahead of Kiro’s Dan Ticktum and reigning Formula E champion Pascal Wehrlein.

Evans topped the final session on Friday morning with a 1m27.461s, the fastest lap recorded by the all-electric championship over the three days of testing, which left him 0.141s clear of Ticktum.

The result is the first time this week that reigning teams’ champions Jaguar has occupied top spot, with Porsche-powered cars finishing fastest in two out of the six sessions that have been held.

David Beckmann posted the fastest lap on Thursday morning for Kiro, the team having been rebranded from ERT last year as well as switching to using a Porsche powertrain as opposed to its own bespoke unit for the upcoming season.

Despite impressive times, neither Ticktum nor Beckmann have been signed by the team yet, but a decision on the driver line-up is expected in the week leading up to the season-opener in Sao Paulo on 7 December.

Antonio Felix da Costa posted the fastest time on the opening day for the factory Porsche team, while Wehrlein also led home his team-mate during the 24-lap simulation race.

Dan Ticktum, Kiro Race Co

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Formula E rookie Zane Maloney, who was unable to compete in Thursday’s simulation race due to a technical fault which left his Lola/Yamaha-powered Abt stranded on the grid, headed Friday’s times during the early running before slipping to eighth.

Full-time rookie Taylor Barnard finished Friday’s session in fourth for McLaren, just 0.319s behind Evans’s best, ahead of Beckmann, Nissan’s Oliver Rowland and Maserati MSG’s Stoffel Vandoorne.

The second Maserati MSG of Jake Hughes had finished fastest on Wednesday morning, with Maximilian Guenther (DS Penske) and Nyck de Vries (Mahindra) also ending quickest throughout the week.

Any further improvement in the final five minutes on Friday was denied after Guenther found the gravel at Turn 3, bringing out the only red flag of the session.

An all-female test is due to take place on Friday afternoon with all teams required to run at least one driver and a total of 18 set to compete in the three-hour session.

This includes three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick, who once again tests with Jaguar having done so in 2020, as well as current F1 Academy points leader Abbi Pulling.

The 21-year-old Briton is on the cusp of the title in the all-female series with this year’s champion set to be given a fully funded drive in the UK’s GB3 Championship with Rodin for the 2025 season.

Formula E Jarama pre-season testing – Friday morning results

ENGLAND remain in pole position for an extra Champions League place next term – despite the Prem’s worst European week of the season.

Liverpool were the only Champions League side to taste victory, with Manchester City, Arsenal and Aston Villa all slipping to defeats.

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Spurs then lost for the first time in their Europa League campaign at Galatasaray, although Manchester United and Chelsea recorded home victories.

But since the start of the new league phase in September, the Prem sides have won 18 matches – more than any other nation – and lost the fewest, those four defeats this week.

Italy and Germany, both with eight teams in Europe at the start of the season, have won 16 and 15 respectively, with 13 Spanish victories and 11 for French sides.

The Bundesliga and La Liga sides have lost 11 matches, with Leipzig pointless from four Champions League fixtures and all four Spanish sides in the senior competition having lost at least one game.

It leaves England top of the pile at the half-way stage of the initial phase, with a current coefficient score of 9.428, when the points gained by the Prem’s teams are divided by the seven competitors.

Portugal, who only have two teams in Uefa’s biggest competition, are next with a score of 9.2, followed by last season’s top two, Italy – on 8.75 – and Germany, with 8.375.

France, on 8.071, are fifth, ahead of Spain – 7.857 – and the Czech Republic.

Uefa’s revamp means the two nations with the highest score at the end of the season will earn an extra berth in the Champions League next term.

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All teams earn two points for a win and one for a draw but their club and national tally is also boosted by bonus points accrued through the three competitions.

Each of the 36 clubs in the Champions League starts with six bonus points, with the possibility of earning up to six more if they finish top of the eight-game table, although there are no pre-competition bonuses for either the Europa or Conference Leagues.

The top eight sides in all three competitions at the end of the first stage – the Conference League, with just six matches, ends before Christmas but there are two match rounds in each of the others in January – automatically make the last 16 knockout stage.

Teams ranked ninth to 24th are then drawn in a knock-out round to join them.

Currently, all seven Prem sides are on course to qualify for the knock-out stage, with Liverpool top of the Champions League standings, Villa eighth, City 10th and the Gunners in 12th.

In the Europa League, Spurs slipped from second to seventh with United now up to 15th, while Chelsea are romping away at the top of the Conference standings.

While things are almost certain to change, if all clubs finished in their current positions, England would extend their lead by picking up a 4.036 in bonus coefficients, taking the Prem tally to 13.464.

That would give England an advantage of fractionally under two full points – the equivalent of eight team wins – over Italy, swap places with Portugal, ahead of France, Germany and Spain.

Ruben Amorim leaves Sporting on a high

By Charlie Wyett

RUBEN AMORIM would have preferred to leave Lisbon in a blaze of glory after winning a third Primeira Liga title.

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Yet football does not work like that. And in what was surely his final game before taking charge of Manchester United, Amorim prepared to say his goodbyes at a half-empty Estadio Jose Alvalade in a League Cup quarter-final against Nacional.

Sporting won 3-1 thanks to  second-half goals by captain  Morten Hjulmand and Viktor Gyokeres, who scored two.

Luis Esteves pulled back for Madeira-based Nacional.

The stadium  will be a good deal more lively on Tuesday when Manchester City are here for  a Champions League match — although Amorim should by then have his feet firmly under his desk at Old Trafford.

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Liverpool and Aston Villa were both interested in Europe’s most sought-after coach. Even City could have been a possible destination post-Pep Guardiola.

Yet the United job is one Amorim, 39,  could not turn  down — even if not everyone saw it that way at Sporting last night.

There is clearly a huge split in the Portuguese club’s fan base over their coach leaving at this stage of the season with many believing he should have seen the job through.

Yet Amorim, along with the three-man coaching team who are expected to follow him, leaves a club in a much better state than when he arrived here in 2020.

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Inside the stadium, there was applause — albeit muted — when his name was read out before the game along with the line-ups.

And there did not appear to be any jeers when Amorim shuffled out from the tunnel awkwardly towards the dugout.

So, while his departure is hard to take for some, none of the fans will forget his legacy.

This is a club which is back as the dominant force in Portugal. Even this term, Sporting have won their first nine league games, scoring 30 goals and conceding just two.

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They are also eighth in the Champions League table, which is one hell of an effort.

In contrast, Lisbon was not exactly hit by League Cup fever last night.

Amorim made lots of changes, which saw Sporting’s star man Gyokeres, the former Coventry striker, start on the bench.

There was, however, a first appearance in six weeks for former Tottenham winger Marcus Edwards.

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He is certainly one player who has been transformed by Amorim since arriving at the club from Vitoria in 2022 and will be sorry to see the coach leave.

While he changed his team, Amorim stuck with his tried and trusted formation of a back three.

It will certainly be something Manchester United’s fans will have to get used to over the  coming months.

But looking at the Premier League table, none of them will be complaining about the change.

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Liverpool manager Arne Slot has challenged midfielder Curtis Jones to add consistency to his game because “the best players in the world show up every three days”.

Jones has been in impressive form recently, scoring in a league win against Chelsea and providing a brilliant pass in setting up Luis Diaz for a goal in Tuesday’s 4-0 win against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.

He has again been called up to the England squad for games in November. The uncapped 23-year-old was drafted in as an injury replacement at the last England camp but withdrew because of the birth of his daughter.

“With Curtis maybe it’s not me who did it because he became a father and I had nothing to do with that,” said Slot.

“You never know if that plays a part or not but, since the moment he became a father, he started putting great performances in.

“He did it in pre-season but then his performances dropped a little bit. Since he became a father, he’s outstanding again. It might have to do a bit with that but, in general, I think it has to do with how the team plays.”

In the summer, Jones spoke about how Slot’s style of play suited him “because I can get on the ball more and be free” after the Dutchman replaced Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool manager.

“He has a lot of quality on the ball,” added Slot. “He’s never afraid to do something special with it. Sometimes that leads to situations when, in my opinion, he touched that ball a bit too much because sometimes he’s a bit too over-confident.

“He combines this with an incredibly hard work-rate and we can trust him in defence. He’s quite complete but for him now it’s all about consistency. The best players in the world show up every three days.”

Liverpool are top of the Premier League table, with a two-point lead over champions Manchester City going into Saturday’s game against Aston Villa and, after four wins in four, are also top of the Champions League group in its new format this season.

Slot has guided the Reds to 14 wins in his first 16 games since replacing Slot but insists no-one at the club is getting carried away.

“We are there to do our work and become better players on a daily basis or keep having the same level,” he said.

“It’s not the first time that this club is where it is at the moment. I think for most of these players it is a normal situation and I don’t think they get carried away at all by us being top of the league at the moment.

“They know how small the margins are when it comes to our results and the amount of points we are ahead of the other teams.”

He added: “I’m not trying to manage expectations with the squad because we don’t talk about expectations.

“The only expectations I have is that they put the same effort in on a daily basis. That’s the only thing we focus on.”

Pakistan crushed world champions Australia by nine wickets in Adelaide to set up a one-day international series decider.

The hosts were dismissed for just 163 off 35 overs as fast bowler Haris Rauf ripped through the middle order, taking 5-29.

Saim Ayub smacked 82 off 71 balls, with Abdullah Shafique adding an unbeaten 64 off 69, as Pakistan’s openers put on 137 in reply.

Babar Azam then pulled Adam Zampa for six to take the tourists to their target with 23.3 overs to spare.

The third and final ODI is at Optus Stadium in Perth on Sunday.

The two sides will then face each other in a three-match T20 international series.