Autosport

About Autosport

Few publications can claim to have covered a world championship since the very first race of its existence. Autosport can: founded in 1950, the same year as the Formula One World Championship, it has been in continuous weekly publication since 25 August 1950, reporting on every era of international motorsport from the days of Fangio and Moss to the hybrid-turbo age. Based in Richmond, London, it is a global motorsport publishing brand encompassing a weekly magazine, one of the world's leading motorsport websites, the prestigious Autosport Awards, and the Autosport International exhibition — the curtain-raiser to the international motorsport season.

Owned by Motorsport Network since 2016, Autosport covers Formula One, the World Endurance Championship, MotoGP, the World Rally Championship, NASCAR, IndyCar and national racing series with a depth and authority built over 75 years. Below is a detailed profile of the brand: its history, editorial scope, ownership, formats, signature properties, and its place at the heart of motorsport media.

History and Founding

Autosport was first published on 25 August 1950 by Gregor Grant, appearing immediately prior to the Silverstone International Trophy meeting of that year. Its launch coincided precisely with the origins of the Formula One World Championship, whose inaugural season was also 1950 — a synchronicity that gave the magazine a front-row seat to the entire history of modern grand prix racing. From the outset it was a weekly magazine covering all aspects of international motorsport, and it has maintained that weekly rhythm without interruption ever since.

For most of its life Autosport was published by Haymarket Media Group, becoming the flagship of Haymarket's motorsport portfolio alongside titles such as Motorsport News — described as the voice of British motorsport since the era of Moss and Fangio — and the monthly F1 Racing. In October 2016, Haymarket sold Autosport and the rest of its motorsport portfolio — including Autosport.com, F1 Racing, Motorsport News and the LAT Photographic archive — to Motorsport Network, the Miami-headquartered digital motorsport company behind Motorsport.com and Motor1.com. The acquisition brought together one of the world's largest digital motorsport audiences with one of its most storied print brands.

Editorial Focus and Audience

Autosport covers the full spectrum of international motorsport: Formula One above all, but also MotoGP, the World Endurance Championship, the World Rally Championship, NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula E, junior single-seater series, touring cars, rallying and national championships. Its journalism combines race reporting, news-breaking, technical analysis, long-form features and opinion, aimed at serious motorsport fans who want depth beyond the television coverage.

The magazine's authority rests on its access and expertise: its journalists attend grands prix and major races around the world, its technical team explains the engineering beneath the sport, and its archive — drawing on the Motorsport Images collection, including the Sutton Images, Phipps, Rainer Schlegelmilch archives and Giorgio Piola's technical drawings — gives it an unmatched visual and historical resource. The audience is global, knowledgeable and deeply engaged, spanning casual F1 viewers to paddock insiders.

Ownership and Publishing

Autosport is owned by Motorsport Network, which acquired it from Haymarket Media Group in 2016. Motorsport Network's assets include Motorsport.com, Motor1.com, Motorsport Images (incorporating the LAT Photographic archive of some 13 million images dating back to 1895), Motorsport Tickets (the rebranded BookF1/Motorsport Live ticketing business), and the former Haymarket motorsport titles. The brand is headquartered in Richmond, London, England.

The editorial leadership includes Haydn Cobb as online editor and Kevin Turner as print editor, supported by a team of specialist editors and reporters — including a Grand Prix editor, F1 reporters, an international editor, news editors and a technical editor — reflecting the brand's division between its weekly print magazine and its daily digital operation. The magazine carries the ISSN 0269-946X.

Print Editions and Frequency

Autosport magazine is published weekly, appearing every Thursday, and has been a weekly since its first issue in 1950. It reported a circulation of 18,022 for January–December 2016. The print edition remains the brand's heritage core: a news-and-analysis weekly that lands with race reports, technical insight and photography from the world's circuits each week of the season.

Alongside the main magazine, the Motorsport Network stable has included related print titles such as GP Racing (originally F1 Racing, established 1996, published in multiple languages and editions), extending the group's print footprint in premium motorsport publishing.

Digital Presence

Autosport launched its website, Autosport.com, in 1997, and it has grown into one of the world's leading motorsport news sites. Distinct from the magazine, the online content is more internationally focused: as well as sports news and race reporting, the site produces video, galleries drawn from the Motorsport Images archive, and in-depth long-form content in its subscriber-only sections.

Autosport Plus is the paywalled section of the website, offering additional premium content — detailed technical analysis, exclusive interviews and long-form features — to subscribers. The site's digital operation publishes around the clock during race weekends, with live coverage, news and analysis serving a global audience far beyond the magazine's print readership.

Iconic Features

Beyond the magazine and website, the Autosport brand lends its name to two major institutions of the motorsport world. The Autosport Awards, presented every year since 1982, honour the drivers, teams and figures who have achieved significant milestones each season, with some categories decided by a public readers' poll; the awards evening is one of the highlights of the motorsport social calendar.

Autosport International, the motorsport-themed exhibition held every January at the NEC in Birmingham since 1991, is recognised as the curtain-raiser to the international motorsport season. Attracting tens of thousands of visitors — around 85,000 at its peak — the trade, technology and live-action show is the pre-eminent motorsport event of its kind anywhere in the world, bringing together teams, manufacturers, suppliers and fans.

Notable Contributors

Over 75 years, Autosport's pages have carried the work of many of the most respected journalists in motorsport. Founder Gregor Grant established the magazine's authority from its first issue in 1950. Its modern editorial team includes online editor Haydn Cobb, print editor Kevin Turner, Plus editor James Newbold, Grand Prix editor Alex Kalinauckas, F1 editor Matt Kew, F1 reporter Luke Smith, international editor Lewis Duncan, news editors Megan White and Tom Howard, and technical editor Jake Boxall-Legge, among others.

The brand's technical coverage has long been a particular strength, with expert analysts explaining the engineering stories behind the racing, supported by the celebrated technical illustrations of Giorgio Piola, whose cutaway drawings of racing cars are among the most famous images in motorsport publishing.

Cultural Impact

Autosport's 75-year archive is, in effect, the written history of modern motorsport. Having covered Formula One since the championship's inception, the magazine chronicled every era: the front-engined 1950s, the British garagiste revolution of the 1960s, the sponsorship and turbo eras, the Schumacher dominance, and the modern hybrid and cost-cap age. Its race reports, technical analyses and photography form an unparalleled record of the sport.

The Autosport Awards have become an institution in their own right, with winners' lists reading as a roll call of motorsport greatness. Autosport International, meanwhile, created the template for the modern motorsport expo, giving fans direct access to the cars, stars and technology of the sport each January. Few media brands are as deeply woven into the fabric of their sport as Autosport is into motorsport.

Awards and Recognition

The Autosport Awards, running since 1982, are among the most prestigious honours in motorsport, recognising achievements across Formula One, rallying, endurance racing, touring cars and junior categories. The brand's journalism and photography have been recognised across the sports-media industry, and its LAT/Motorsport Images archive — 13 million images strong — is the world's richest photographic record of motorsport, used by publications and broadcasters globally.

Recent Developments

Since the 2016 acquisition by Motorsport Network, Autosport has operated as part of a global digital motorsport group, combining its weekly print heritage with a large-scale digital operation. The brand continues to publish its weekly magazine every Thursday from Richmond, run Autosport.com as a daily global news service with its Autosport Plus subscription offering, present the annual Autosport Awards, and stage Autosport International at the NEC each January.

As Formula One's popularity has surged worldwide in the 2020s, Autosport's combination of heritage authority and digital reach has positioned it at the centre of the sport's media boom — 75 years after Gregor Grant launched a weekly magazine on the eve of a Silverstone race meeting, still covering the sport it has chronicled since day one.