Enduring Appeal

When an overall Le Mans winner, Sebring class winner and double FIA GT champion tells a series organiser “don’t change a thing” about their championship, the series organiser in question had better listen. That’s exactly the message Monaco man Stéphane Ortelli had for the SRO Motorsports Group, organisers of the Blancpain Endurance Series, at the final round of the series’ inaugural season last September.

Unlike Stephane Ratel’s other current venture, the FIA GT1 World Championship, the Blancpain Endurance Series doesn’t aim for manufacturer-blessed teams, international TV deals and a high public profile. Rather, it was created with the competitor in mind. Wealthy European gentleman racers told SRO that they wanted an endurance series, and so SRO obliged, returning to a format of three-hour races on high-profile Grand Prix tracks that the FIA GT championship had gradually moved away from. A driver categorisation system ensures almost everyone has something to shoot for, with a GT3 Pro Cup on offer for all-pro driver pairings, a GT3 Pro-Am Cup for gentleman/professional partnerships and a GT3 Citation cup for all-amateur line-ups. GT4 machinery and ‘Supersport’ cars such as the Lotus 2-11 are also catered for, although there were no entries in the latter category at Silverstone.

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Six Hours Of Power

Silverstone has been a significant name in Grand Prix circles since the inaugural round of the Formula 1 World Championship was held there in July 1950, but its rise to prominence in the sportscar racing arena came later. In 1976, the British round of the World Sportscar Championship moved from its traditional home at Brands Hatch to the Northamptonshire airfield circuit, and an unbroken run of six-hour or 1,000km races was held there until 1988. There then followed a handful of shorter events in the early ’90s, as well as the third round of the American Le Mans Series in 2000, and since 2004, the annual six-hour/1,000km race tradition has been restored, with rounds of the European Le Mans Series and, latterly, the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (ILMC).

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Test Drive: Porsche 911 GTS Cabriolet

Porsche has constantly improved their venerable 911 over decades of development and for many hardcore car enthusiasts; it’s the only sportscar that really matters. Porsche has also managed to offer a wide range of 911 models to their customers, from the base Carrera coupe to Cabriolet, Targa and all-wheel drive versions, which are all available with the flat-six engine in different states of tune. Porsche also mixes and matches these various iterations, with no less than 18 different 911 models currently available that range from around $82,000 to $172,000 in price and from 350 to 530 horsepower. This is not even considering the hardcore GT3 and GT2 models, which are in-between models and not officially available right now. There’s not a bad one in the bunch, but I grew particularly fond of the GTS version after driving it for a week.

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Rouge et Bleu

There can be no finer combination than GT racing and the South of France in July, so it was onward to the Circuit Paul Ricard at Le Castellet, near Marseille, for a weekend of FIA GT1 World Championship and FIA GT3 European championship action.

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Glorious Goodwood

Last July saw the 19th edition of what has become a sort of case study for motoring event organisers the world over: The Goodwood Festival of Speed. Attendance is capped to prevent overcrowding, admission is by advance-purchased ticket only, and the list of prestigious sponsors and partners looking to get their name associated with the event grows longer by the year. And it’s all down to the festival’s unique formula. Superstar cars and drivers, past and present, in an unusual but very appealing setting, all combined with the sort of relaxed and friendly atmosphere that’s not always found at a racetrack during a high-profile event.

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The Finest Pageantry

Stately homes and motorsport: two great British passions, and two things the British public seems to have an insatiable appetite for. So it’s only logical that these two domains have begun to overlap more and more in recent years. Lord March’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, held near Chichester in the far south-east of England since 1993, was the trail-blazer, but it now has a Northern rival in the form of the Cholmondeley (pronounced in oh-so-English fashion as ‘Chumley’) Pageant of Power.

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Raging Bulls

In this day and age, motorsport would almost appear to be an illegal activity for many, with circuits closing down, being remodelled to make them safer, or being restricted due to noise issues. It was therefore refreshing to visit a circuit that was celebrating its first anniversary – Circuito de Navarra in the Navarre region of Northwestern Spain, an area well known for its winemaking and bull running. The circuit is situated in a very picturesque valley, surrounded by vineyards and solar farms.

The FIA GT1 world championship visited Navarra in 2010 as a replacement for the cancelled street circuit round in Durban, South Africa. Clearly, this outing was judged a success, as the series returned in 2011 for its sixth round, along with the GT3 European Series’ third round. A very healthy and passionate crowd were present over the two days. Fernando Alonso’s success in Formula 1 has revitalised Spanish interest in circuit racing, along with their strong interest in rallying and fanatical interest in all forms of two-wheeled motorsport.

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SCI Interview: Nissan's All-Rounders

UK-based Australian David Brabham has one of the most varied CVs of any racing driver active today. Over the course of a long and successful career, he has driven everything from Formula Ford and Formula 3 single-seaters to Brabham and Simtek Formula 1 cars, Jaguar XJR-14 and Toyota TS010 Group C cars, Panoz and Peugeot prototypes and a whole host of GT machinery. After a long spell racing primarily in the US, in 2011 he has returned to Europe to pilot a Nissan GT-R for the British Sumo Power team in the GT1 World Championship. Over at Sumo’s sister Nissan team JRM, meanwhile, we find Lucas Luhr, who has spent time in Porsche, Audi and Aston Martin prototypes; and Britain’s Richard Westbrook, who, after many years spent exclusively in Porsches, this year drives both a Nissan GT-R and a Chevrolet Corvette. SCI caught up with the three GT-R pilots at Silverstone recently to find out how their seasons are progressing and reflect on their interesting and diverse careers.

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