TEETHING TROUBLE STARTS A NEW ERA
Last weekend’s 24 Hours of Daytona was a watershed for hypercar sportscar racing, with Porsche joining Cadillac, Acura and BMW on the grid in the top-flight of long distance racing. As Chip Ganassi, who is in charge of the Cadillac programme, said: “If nothing else, this has taken the level of interested from fans to another level and we’ve probably had record crowds here at Daytona. There is a buzz around this series like there never has been before.”
He was right. The focus on the twice-around-the-clock race in Florida was more intense than it has been for several seasons and it was, in typical sportscar fashion, a race of attrition. BMW suffered, while Porsche was a leading light until gremlins crept into its cars too. Cadillac performed the best of the new prototypes and two of its cars were right in the hunt for overall victory going into the dying throes of the race.
And, for European fans, this was just an appetiser for the 100th anniversary of the Le Mans 24 Hours, which will take place in June. Alongside the aforementioned marques, Toyota, Peugeot, Ferrari and Alpine will be among the heavy hitters joining the line-up. If the track bosses at Daytona were happy to cope with floods of fans for the Florida showpiece, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest will be licking its lips at the potential for the French classic on June 10-11. If you haven’t booked your travel arrangements and tickets, our advice it to get onto it as soon as possible.
Elsewhere in this issue, we take an in-depth look at the new Renault Clio Rally3 machine and our reporter Luke Barry can rightly claim to have made history in the challenger by being the first scribe to put it off the road. However, he also found out about the ethos behind the car in a class that has been slow on takeup among the manufacturers but could turn out to be a hidden gem in the rallying ladder. Read his report on pages 20-21.
While not quite a gem, it is easy to think that the achievements of the subject of this week’s Q&A Jamie Campbell-Walter have been hidden. He took back-to-back titles for Lister in British GT and in the global FIA series and then went on to forge a long and successful career in prototypes. He has handled some of the most fearsome sportscars around, and our interview starts on page 14.
We would also like to thank everyone who took part in our Motul UK-backed survey to reveal our readers’ favourite American racer. The results, which make fascinating reading, are on page 26.