l'endurance, October 2012

LONG

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Jamie Campbell - Walter david heinemeier hansson

STORY Patrick Long on what makes him tick as a driver

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October 2012

Pat Long There aren’t many with as diverse a past as Pat Long oval racer turned Porsche works pilot.

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David Heinemeier Hansson David Heinemeier Hansson on controversy, competition and calling a spade a spade...

Jamie Campbell - Walter We chat with one of Britain’s longest serving professional drivers.

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Spa 24 Hours In Pictures The story of the Belgian classic in 33 pictures.

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l’endurance Editor: Jake Yorath Deputy editor: Dan Bathie Chief staff writer: Stephen Errity Creative Director: Jake Yorath Designers: Dan Bathie Adam Pigott Staff Photographers: Jake Yorath Dan Bathie Nick Busato Adam Pigott Cover Photograph: Nick Busato

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Photo: Jake Yorath

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Spa 24 Hours Dan Bathie used a Nikon D300s and 10-20mm F4 - 5.6 Sigma. Shutter speed 1/40th at F4, ISO200.

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Click with us Looking for high quality motorsport photography? Look no further. editor@lendurance.co.uk

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Spa 24 Hours Dan Bathie used a Nikon D300s and 10-20 F4-5.6 Sigma. Shutter speed 1/320h at F22, ISO1000.

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other competitors,” he remembers, “so I compared myself with the pros. The goal was always to cut the deficit, and I ended the last round in Zuhai about six-tenths behind Mowlem. I really enjoyed those races and couldn’t wait to do more.”

With the 2012 season only weeks away, JetAlliance had a deal in place to provide trackside support to French Ferrari squad Luxury Racing, competing in the GTE class of the new World Endurance Championship.

Hansson was set to share one of the team’s 458s at every round of the series, including the Le Mans 24 Hours in June. Finally, his goal was about to become reality. But it was not to be: just like Luxury’s later arrangement with Pescarolo, the

I ended the season six tenths behind the pro in my car. I really enjoyed it and couldn’t wait to do more

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“I bought my first car three days after I landed in Chicago, when I realised you couldn’t live there without one!” he says in perfect American-accented English, when asked how it all began. “I got my first taste of track driving in 2007, when I did a few races in a local Chicago single-seater series that a friend was taking part in, but after that I didn’t really do much until 2009.” A onemake championship for GT4-spec Porsche Caymans would be Hansson’s first taste of production-based racing, and by the end of 2010 the racing bug had properly taken hold and he knew he wanted to move to a higher level.

“Le Mans is the one thing I’ve always wanted to do – I’d always watch Tom Kristensen on TV and think, yeah, I’d love to be a part of that. I love the concept of multi-class racing. When I did the single-make stuff, I could run a whole race and maybe overtake twice. In multi-class racing, you constantly have to pass and be on the lookout for people passing you. I love being in the middle of that action.”

In 2011, Hansson drove in a brace of Porsche GT3 Cup races, before upgrading his car and taking it to Petit Le Mans. “I was co-driving with Dominik Farnbacher, but pretty much everything went wrong, he says ruefully. “It was the same team I’d used for GT4 and they just weren’t really ready for the ALMS level.” At this point, the internet, focus of Hansson’s day job, threw him a lifeline. “A Danish motorsport website interviewed me, and I talked about how I’d love to do Le Mans one day. The JetAlliance team manager Jan Kalmar read it, called me up and said he had a seat in the team’s Lotus Evora at the next Intercontinental Le Mans Cup round. He told me it wasn’t a fast car, but it was a good learning opportunity and it was cheap, so I thought it would be a good way to finish the season.”

The ILMC’s visit to Silverstone in 2011 would be Hanson’s first taste of the Evora, sharing with Martin Rich and Lucas Lichtner-Hoyer. For the next round at Road Atlanta, he moved over to share the team’s second car with Lotus works drivers Johnny Mowlem and James Rossiter.

“With the car off the pace, I couldn’t really measure myself against the

deal fell apart before it had really got started. Hansson was fast running out of options. “Having thought I’d be racing a Ferrari all season in WEC, I was without a ride,” he says. “Luckily, I could turn to [Flying Lizards driver] Pat Long, who’d been my driving coach back in my Porsche days. I asked him what to do – I had no programme, Sebring was a month away and I really wanted to race there. Pat knew that OAK had been over testing in December and that [former IndyCar team] Conquest Racing was going to become their US distributor and run an endurance team. He also knew Martin Plowman, who’d raced IndyCars for Conquest in the past and ended up being my codriver. Pat orchestrated the deal that brought the two of us together with [Conquest owner] Eric Bachelart.”

Happy to have a seat for Sebing, Hansson was nonetheless conscious of the fact that Conquest’s 2012 plans concerned the ALMS only, so he had one further request. “I’d started the season thinking I was going to Le Mans, so I made sure that part of the deal with Eric was to find me a team that would take me to Le Mans in an LMP2 car.”

Although OAK Racing was the obvious candidate, Hansson talked to some other squads, but as he admits himself, he didn’t have a great deal of top-level results to show for his efforts so far. “Sebastien [Philippe, OAK team manager] wasn’t very receptive at first,” he recalls. “Because in 2012, they were going for it. In previous years, they had run more gentlemen drivers, but this season they were putting all pros in, with maybe one really fast gentleman. So it took a lot of convincing to get them to take me on for Le Mans. I think it helped that both Conquest and the works team were at Sebring. Our car had good pace and I was very close to the pro drivers. In the end, we extended the deal to include the Spa WEC round, which I got to do with Bas Leinders.”

The pace was there right from the start, but a win eluded Hansson in the early part of the season. Fourth in class at Spa and seventh in class at Le Mans with OAK were backed up with a string of podiums for Conquest in the US: third at Sebring plus

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October second at Long Beach, Laguna Seca and Lime Rock Park. Then came a breakthrough win at Mosport, another second at Mid-Ohio and a second win at Road America. But that last victory was very nearly lost in a late-race incident between Hansson’s car (with co-driver Plowman at the the wheel) and Conquest’s chief LMP2 rival, the Level 5 Racing HPD of Scott Tucker.

“Tucker made contact in a way that Martin certainly didn’t feel was fair,” says Hansson, before adding, “I didn’t see the video, but Martin is one of the cleanest drivers out there. When he tells me somebody just drove into him, I believe him.”

This coming-together was the latest

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in a string of controversial incidents involving Tucker’s Level 5 team, something which made Hansson look at it more seriously. “If it was just a one-off thing and the team had an otherwise-impeccable record, you’d just chalk it up to ‘shit happens’,” he says. “But when you combine it with the stuff they do, like parking cars and playing all those weird games, then you’re inclined to believe that they would try to do stuff like that.

And it wasn’t necessary: even if they’d just let the race finish as it was unfolding, they’d still have been leading the championship.”

Hansson says his issue with Tucker stems from a simple desire for fair

competition, as well as a newcomer’s frustration with the sometimesambivalent nature of others in the paddock to Level 5’s tactics. As he puts it: “I come from the technology industry, and a lot of people in that sector are very vocal: we discuss the issues. But in racing, everyone looks the other way – nobody says anything. Tucker’s running two cars in the ALMS, and cars in all the support races, which he’s entitled to do and it’s great for the series, but that doesn’t absolve him of criticism or having a fair, competitive spirit.

When Level 5 pull these stunts, all people do is snicker. They should call a spade a spade: when stuff like that

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When Level 5 pull these stunts, all people do is snicker. They should call a spade a spade: when stuff like that goes down, call it out!

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goes down, call it out!” Hansson adds: “The problem with Tucker’s setup is that the second car is effectively not competing, because it’s never going to score any points for Scott. He’s not going to put anyone in the car who’s going to hurt his championship hunt. The worst part is that all this is beneath them – it’s not like they’re a second-rate team. Scott himself is a great driver: I’ve had some wonderful battles with him and he’s very fast. They don’t need to do this – it just puts a mark on an otherwise impressive record.”

But despite these issues, Hansson is thoroughly enjoying his very successful season in the ALMS – and he’s says it’s world apart from racing in Europe with the WEC. “It’s the same format, in the same car, but the racing couldn’t feel more different, in part because there’s relatively few prototypes and a huge field of extremely good GT cars in the States,” he explains. “We get to slice lendurance.co.uk

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and dice with them on tighter, rougher circuits. Over here, it’s all very clean, with neatly painted stripes on the kerbs and so on, whereas in the US, it’s a bit more rough and ready. Not in terms of driving standards – we’re not all running into each other – but just the atmosphere of having 35 cars around a track like Lime Rock, which is less than a mile long – it’s just incredible, like a bullring. When I’m running around [Silverstone] it feels like there’s no traffic, whereas in the ALMS, you’re constantly in traffic. I think the LMP1s were passing about 20 cars per lap at Lime Rock.”

Clearly a man who enjoys his racing, then. But is there more to his involvement – the business angle that many competitors and team bosses talk about, perhaps? “No, it’s purely enjoyment,” he states without hesitation. “I think that anyone who says anything else is aggrandising the effects of splashing your logo on a car. From talking to sponsors, it

seems to me that people are involved in motorsport because they care about motorsport – not because the care about brand exposure or any of that stuff.” He continues: “It’s a very serious hobby for me, but a hobby nonetheless. I’m not trying to be a pro driver, I’m just trying to be the best I can within my class. The LMP2 format is perfect for that, with the requirement for a silver- or bronzerated driver. It’s a top-level class with really high-end cars, but at the same time the amateur drivers can win. If someone like me shows up in LMP1, we’ll be at the back. Whereas in LMP2, we can race with damn good teams and very cool cars, plus have a chance to win. That’s the simple reason the class has been such a success.” And with a stated goal of winning LMP2 outright at Le Mans, David Heinemeier-Hansson looks set to be part of that success for many years to come...

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ALMS Mid-Ohio Nick Busato used a Nikon D3s and 70-200 VR2 F2.8 Nikkor. Shutter speed 1/15h at F11, ISO100.

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Spa 24 Hours Jake Yorath used a Nikon D300s and 10-20 f4-5.6 Sigma. Shutter speed 1/800th at F5.6, ISO6400.

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Enduring Love

Le Mans might be over but there’s still the rest of the World Endurance Championship, American Le Mans Series and European Le Mans series to come. l’endurance, c’est Le Mans...

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World Endurance Championship Silverstone 6 Hours Jake Yorath used a Nikon D300s and 10-20 F4-5.6 Sigma.

Shutter speed 1/2500th at F4.5, ISO800.

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ALMS Mosport Nick Busato used a Nikon D3s and a 300 F2.8 Nikkor + 1.4xTC. Shutter speed 1/800h at F4.5, ISO400.

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Spa 24 Hours Jake Yorath used a Nikon D300s and 80-200 F2.8 Nikkor.

Shutter speed 1/25th at F9, ISO400.

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LONG STORY Words: Jack Evans Photos: Nick Busato

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atrick Long is getting excited.

All he’s doing is calmly discussing racing and technology, but as the conversation turns to his favourite kind of driving, something changes.

“A wide-open piece of brand new flat asphalt is sometimes a driver’s dream,” he begins. “But for me when I get onto a road rally and we come through a section that has no center line, no guard rails, dusty,” and his voice picks up, and his eyes widen, and he leans to the side and grips an imaginary steering wheel.

“Just slippery, old school, raw…” and he relaxes. “It’s just so rare these days that it really excites me.”

Long’s day job as a Porsche factory driver and championship contender in the American Le Mans Series is surely exciting enough in its own right, but it’s interesting to note that he never started to drive an invisible rally car when he was talking about that. No, he is animated by the thought of a twisting country road instead.

Perhaps that’s because racing to Patrick Long is not about the competition; it’s about the challenge, from himself, from the car, and from the environment—the dustier and fewer guard rails the better. So he looks for that kind of challenge everywhere. If it means spending his weekend off at a hillclimb, he takes the time. If it means flying to Australia for the narrow tires and manual gearboxes of V8 Supercars, he gets on a plane. And even in his “home” series, the ALMS, he finds the thrill in refining his style and working the car past the competition.

That kind of versatility is what makes him such an adaptable, articulate, and expert driver, one

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It’s just so rare these d ay s t h at i t r e a l ly e xc i t e s me.

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who’s won Daytona, Le Mans, and multiple ALMS championships.

He considers each new racing experience a possibility to learn and better himself across the motorsports world. And the learning began in his childhood.

“I grew up in Southern California and my grandfather and my uncle were hardcore hotrodders and dirt track sprint and midget type guys.

They had a big passion for not only the modern day equipment but historic cars as well, so I grew up with a lot of exposure to and love for the new and the old.”

Dirt tracks are what sparked his interest in racing, but Long departed from that to something entirely new at age 16, when he took his Californian karting talent to Europe. He caught on there, and instantly began working up the ranks of a European driver. The next few years of his career in singleseaters and sportscars were a world away from the hotrod beginnings, but Long never forgot it, and added it toa long list of racing experiences he has embraced and learned from.

“I think my roots in Southern California in dirt-tracking have kind of been eclipsed by my job in road racing and sportscar racing and open wheel racing and a new technical side, so my career’s sort of a fusion of two very different worlds.”

Armed with those two worlds, the young American quickly became one of Porsche’s few full-time factory drivers, and scored the first of two 24 Hours of Le Mans class victories in his rookie appearance.

By 2008, Long was one of the world’s foremost GT drivers, and had proven that in 911’s many times over,

but Stuttgart decided it was time for a change. The RS Spyder LMP2 program was started to take on Audis from a class below and contest the national series on two continents, as well as Le Mans. To help drive in the American endurance rounds, they chose Patrick Long.

It was a whole new challenge, and the massive amounts of new technology and automation contradicted Long’s ‘purer’ style and preference, but as he himself admits: “to be at the top, you need to progress and move with the times.

You cannot be an “X” type of driver.”

Nevertheless, it was machinery that Long had never experienced the likes of before. Coming from GT cars, he had reason to expect two things: a slightly easier car, and a steep learning curve.

“Driving an automated full-aero car like the RS Spyder with Penske, there was as much technology and resources present than there had ever been in my career—but it didn’t make it easier. It just changed where your emphasis was. Driving the car your emphasis was all about aero, all about how the car worked aerodynamically.

“Plus, in a GT car, you’re mostly working with the mechanical side of tuning. In the Spyder there is less tuning on the mechanical side and more tuning on the aero side, and now you also have to know how to tune traction control, how to tune shifting, and you need to be able to communicate with the engineers on how the reinstate on the electronics of the flatshift work, or how the traction control needs to release sooner, instead of coming in sooner.

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All of that’s a new seat-of-the-pants feeling that you have to adapt to and be able to articulate. It’s a completely different set of skills.

“But aero isn’t my favorite equation in motorsport.”

Aero: a balance bar of speed and cornering. In thirty seconds the setup can be done for you, perfect and ready for the fastest lap, no research on the driver’s part required. Could it be that Long finds it too easy?

That’s the outlook he reflects upon all similar technical components and driver aids. Traction control helps prevents mistakes from pushing too hard, and makes difficult corners easier. ABS takes the physical fear and caution out of late braking. Active suspension pre-corrects gravity.

What’s wrong with them though?

“The biggest thing that scares me about technology and driver aids is removing the driver’s style.”

But Long’s style remains alive and fast even in his current Porsche 997 at ALMS events, and every once in a while he tries to exercise it without driver aids.

“I like driving historic Porsches because the sensation of speed is really high and it’s more of a finesse sport than a brutal, ragged edge sport.

Historic racing tests the mechanics (of the car) whereas modern day racing is sometimes testing purely physics,” he explains. “I’m more enthusiastic about mechanics than about physics” The step back from automation in modern driving is what Long craves when he climbs into an old 935, so his ‘ultimate era’ of racing history must be… well as far back and as raw and

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mechanical as possible, right?

“I think the heyday was early in this last decade,” he says. “When we had so much adjustable from the cockpit, rollbars, traction control, and engine mapping and all these things that the driver really had an influence on and an input, while now it’s more remote and pre-logged.”

So that’s his favorite equation in motorsport. Not aero, or any mechanical component, but driver input: a personal challenge; an engineering extension of being a racer, just as difficult and important as shifting or cornering. He explains: “I love the way you can alter how the car behaves and how the car drives so the more things you have to do, the more ingredients you have to put together, the more fun it is.”

Alas, technology has moved past the great early 2000s. So has Patrick Long.

“It’s been a little unnatural for me to progress, but it’s something that’s been part of my job so I’ve become enthusiastic about it in order to understand. The GT3 R Hybrid program I was involved with was so technicallydeep that I found a whole new love for that side. Learning how to communicate and suggest how to get the hybrid management system to interact with the ECU was such a complex leg that it alone captivated and interested me.It was all technically very, very in depth but still required an unusual amount of driver input, and it’s more fun when you get to shape that piece of equipment with your own two hands rather than punching in numbers.”

Input is not lost, then, as long

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I’m more enthusiastic about mechanics than about physics.

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as drivers are the ones who must suggest how to get the hybrid system to interact with the ECU. But Long recognizes that the pre-set driver aids are appearing more and more, and the role of the articulate, analytical driver is less important than ever.

“As racing’s face changes and becomes more technologically advanced,” he explains, “it does remove certain elements and means a different type of driver and a different skill set.

“I’m always trying to craft my skill set and tune it to keep up with the times, but ultimately technology is evolving quicker than some of us would like.”

That’s not to say he isn’t still fast though. Anything but. His ‘old-school, raw’ style learned on H-pattern gearboxes and cultivated around the world and back through racing’s history makes him one of the best GT pilots in the world, and more adept in the cockpit of a Porsche than most, if not all, living drivers.

And who else can get in a NASCAR for the first time and qualify 7th at Road America? Who else can jump in a V8 Supercar and be classified 2nd in ‘guest’ drivers after a weekend of foreign racing on one of Australia’s toughest courses? Long’s skill set can be applied anywhere, but calling him ‘well-rounded’ would imply a lack of specialization. He can still win his ALMS races in between oneoff appearances. And while many

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competitors aspire to the exotic series Long visits, he’s happy where he’s at in America.

“Sportscar racing is sort of between Formula One and stockcars; you can get door-to-door action and incidents and yellow flags but you also have some of the most technologically advanced cars in all of motorsport.

It’s the best of both worlds, kind of a fusion of my childhood, my background, and going to Europe racing single-seaters.

“It’s sort of a mid-point for me,and that’s down to fate and luck and chance rather than me deciding that sportscar racing was what I wanted to do but certainly, sitting here today, I don’t wish to be in NASCAR or Formula One or IndyCar. I really wouldn’t pass the opportunity I have with Porsche for any one of those.

Some people think I’m crazy, other people think I’m a liar but that’s really how I feel.”

So here in the American Le Mans Series Long can find a challenge he enjoys, a balance of interactive technologies and on-track competition, where he can bring all of his worlds of experience together and even keep learning, and where the cars require plenty of driver input. It’s a very exciting place to be for a driver’s driver like Patrick Long. But not as not as much as a road rally, with a section that has no center line, no guard rails, dusty, just slippery, old school, raw!

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World Endurance Championship Silverstone Six Hours Dan Bathie used a Nikon D300s and 300 F4 Nikkor + 1.4x TC. Shutter speed 1/2000th at F5.6 , ISO200.

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Spa 24 Hours Jake Yorath used a Nikon D300s and 80-200mm F2.8 Nikkor. Shutter speed 1/500th at F2.8, ISO400.

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British GT Championships Silverstone Adam Pigott used a Canon EOS 60D and a 18-55 F4/5.6 Shutter speed 1/3200th at F3.5, ISO100.

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Patriot Games

This British GT Championship season we’re going in depth, with live text updates, photo galleries, interviews and blogs all weekend adding up to the most comprehensive coverage around. It’s all part of the service.

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JAMIE CAMPBELL-WALTER

Words: Stephen Errity Photos: Jake Yorath, Adam Pigott & FIA GT

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“When the wiper stops working, don’t allow your team boss to let you continue!”

“When the wiper stops working, don’t allow your team boss to let you continue!” JamieCampbell is sitting in the paddock at Spa-Francorchamps, recalling a particularly memorable moment at the track’s famous 24-hour race back in 2003, when he shared a Lister Storm with Tom Coronel, Nathan Kinch, Robert Schirle and Bas Leinders.

“That was a nightmare weekend,” continues Jamie. “Bas crashed on his out lap in the first free practice session and wrote the chassis off. The team did a fantastic job rebuilding the car, but we didn’t make it out for any of the qualifying sessions and had to start from pit lane. We were leading after about four hours, with Tom and I doing the lion’s share of the driving. It started to rain and Tom pitted, saying the wipers weren’t working. Laurence [Pearce, Lister team boss] put me in the car and said I had to go to the six-hour mark when points were awarded, and the wiper would be fixed then. That was two hours away, it was raining heavily and starting to get dark. I couldn’t see a thing, got two wheels on the wet kerbs at the top of Eau Rouge and went off, ending up with the car on its roof – so that was memorable for all the wrong reasons.”

Not a high point of Jamie’s long

association with the British Lister marque, then, but there were plenty of those: the 1999 British GT Championship and 2000 FIA GT Championship titles being the most prominent. Both those successes were achieved with experienced co-driver Julian Bailey, but Jamie says that one of the most satisfying victories of the Lister days came later, when he was paired up with German gentleman driver Nicolaus Springer. “Here was a guy who was five seconds off the pace, and I had to bear that on my shoulders,” recalls Jamie. “His ability was down to me, and the better he could do, the better I could do. In that situation, your attention shifts from being the fastest all the time to getting this guy who’s five seconds off to be 2.5 seconds off – your whole focus and mindset changes.”

The duo’s first race together was the opening round of the 2002 FIA GT Championship, held at Magny-Cours in France. Prospects didn’t look good at first. “Everyone thought we’d be nowhere,” he remembers, “but I qualified the car on pole and did the first hour. Then Nicolaus did his stint, which left us a minute behind the leaders when I got back in the car with an hour and 40 minutes of the race left.” There was only one thing to. “I pushed like a bastard – and we

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won!” laughs Jamie. “I remember Christophe Bouchut standing next to me on the podium having finished second: he just looked at me and said ‘I cannot believe it’.” The win was a reflection both of Jamie’s skill behind the wheel, and as coach and mentor. “That was a really satisfying moment as a driver,” he says, “as I’d managed to get Nicolaus to improve enough that he could do his target laptime, not spin or crash and hand the car back to me in good shape.

The Lister team did a fantastic job, too. Laurence was one of the hardest bosses you could have, but he was also a great boss – tough but fair, and knew how to get the best out of drivers.”

But the next chapter of the Lister story was not a happy one – an LMP car project that is forever destined to be described with the adjective ‘ill-fated’. It was the car in which Jamie suffered perhaps the most serious accident of his career, on practice day for the 2003 Le Mans 24 Hours. It remains something of an enigma, even to him. “Did it have a lot of potential? I don’t really know,” he comments. “It looked ugly, yet it always felt like quite a good car, but we never got to properly find out – we didn’t do any development, as the engine was always breaking.

Laurence made the decision to build his own engine, and at the time it seemed the right thing to do. But I think in hindsight, he should’ve got a 5.0-litre V10 Judd – you just bolt it in and know it will work – then we could have spent all that development money on the car instead.”

The experience didn’t put Jamie

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off driving protoypes, however: following Lister’s withdrawal from sportscar racing in the mid-2000s, he found himself driving a top-level LMP car again, for the Creation Autosportif team that had run the Lister Storm in its final year of competition. The move to Creation also saw the beginning of a strong driver partnership with Frenchman Nicolas Minassian. “Nic was probably one of my favourite team-mates: he’s still a good friend of mine and a fantastic guy, says Jamie. “Our wives are good friends and our kids play together. I shared four fantastic years with him at Creation and we formed a very good partnership.” The Creation years yielded several podium finishes

“That was a really satisfying moment as a driver”

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“It looked ugly, yet it always felt like quite a good car, but we never got to properly find out�

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in European and American Le Mans Series events, but an overall victory eluded them, and with Audi now at the height of its Le Mans pomp, a win there was out the question, too.

Campbell-Walter’s last race for Creation was the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours, and the next stage of his career would see him once again driving a big, brawny and powerful GT car: the Sumo Power Nissan GT-R running in the newly formed GT1 World Championship for the 2010 season. The series’ sprint-race format of short, one-hour races demanded a different approach from the word go: “As a driver, to have wheel-to-wheel, touring-car-style racing for an hour in a big, powerful GT car with about twice the power of your average touring car, was great,” enthuses Jamie. “It’s a different mentality: if you have the odd knock, well, rubbing is racing – you’d never do that in an endurance event.” The GT1 years of 2010 and 2011 also gave Jamie the opportunity to work alongside two highly rated team-mates: Warren Hughes and Le Mans winner David Brabham.

“Warren is good, a very under-rated driver I think,” comments Jamie.

“He did F3 for years, but he’s really a fantastic GT and sportscar driver.

And then you have David: a Le Mans winner and a true pro in and out of the car. I actually learnt some things

from him last year, in terms of how to behave when you’re out of the car and how to conduct yourself with the press and sponsors.”

Championship glory went the way of Sumo’s sister Nissan team JRM in 2011, and 2012 saw the GT1 World Championship switch to GT3-spec cars, forcing the mighty GT-Rs into early retirement. But CampbellWalter has popped up again, this time in the Blancpain Endurance Series (also for GT3 cars) driving a McLaren MP4-12C with Gulf Racing. “It’s gone really good so far,” he said ahead of last weekend’s Spa race. “I’ve done the race at Silverstone and we did a test here at Spa about a month ago.

The team is still in its infancy, but the core of mechanics and engineers are ex-Dave Price Racing, so they’re very good. It’s working well, the car is running well and everything is nicely presented. The McLaren is a very new car compared to the Audi, Porsche and Ferrari, which means it’s not as easy for us, as we’re still developing it, whereas many of the others are fully developed.”

The hi-tech McLaren is certainly a long way from the Harrier GT1 low-volume special in which Jamie started his sportscar career back in the mid-’90s. But, he says, that car was surprisingly similar to the MP4-12C in some ways, and even superior in others. “Those GT1 cars

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were a good deal lighter – about 850kg versus around 1,200kg for today’s GT3s – and they had a lot more power: around 700bhp,” he explains. “Both the Harrier and Lister had carbon tubs like the McLaren, too. We also had expensive stuff like carbon-ceramic brakes and so on, so they were definitely quicker and more challenging cars to drive.

But technology has moved on in some respects, too: the GT3s have ABS and traction control to help out the gentlemen drivers. Although I’m not a huge fan of those systems, as they can mask the gap between a slower and faster driver, at the same time I’m quite grateful for them when it starts bucketing down with rain and I’m still on slicks!”

Although some drivers have commented that the carbonmonocoqued McLaren feels closer to a single-seater car than other GT machinery, Jamie doesn’t agree: “At the end of the day, it’s still a road car, and the Blancpain Series regulations mean the driver is very limited in what they can do with the

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car,” he elaborates. “You get three sets of springs, and you can only use those three sets – you can’t mix springs between sets. The weight is the weight and the ride height is set at a minimum. So you have what you have, really. I wouldn’t say it feels much closer to a single-seater than any other GT I’ve driven.”

Although the McLaren’s early appearances were blighted by poor reliability, recent strong performances – including sprintrace wins for HEXIS Racing in the GT1 World Championship and United Autosports in British GT – show that teams are beginning to unlock the true potential of this ultra-modern race car. And with strong co-drivers and a promising Gulf Racing team around him, Jamie Campbell-Walter is well placed to enjoy some of that success himself, both in the remaining Blancpain Endurance Series races of 2012 and beyond.

“At the same time I’m quite grateful for them when it starts bucketing down with rain and I’m still on slicks!”

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in

focus

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World Endurance Championships Silverstone 6 Hours Adam Pigott used a Canon EOS 60D and a 70-200 F2.8 + 1.4x Tele. Shutter speed 1/100th at F16, ISO100.

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in

focus

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ALMS Mid-Ohio Nick Busato used a Nikon D3s and a 500 F4 Nikkor .

Shutter speed 1/1600th at F4, ISO100.

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in

focus

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British GT Championships Snetterton Adam Pigott used a Canon EOS 60D and a 70-200 F2.8 Shutter speed 1/30th at F22, ISO100.

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Spa 2 4 Hours: In Pictures Jake Yorath and Dan Bathie present a visual story of the classic Belgian race.

N端rburgring 2 4 Hours: In Pictures Dan Bathie travels to what is surely the worlds maddest race.

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Spa 2 4 Hours: In Pictures

Photo: Jake Yorath

Jake Yorath and Dan Bathie present a visual story of the classic Belgian race.

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1/ The parade drive in to Spa gives an opportunity to capture the cars in a different way.

(Photo: Dan Bathie) 2/ Spa town centre provides a great background to the cars.

(Photo: Dan Bathie)

4/ The parade allows fans of all ages to get up close with the GT3 machinery.

(Photo: Dan Bathie) 5/ A Ferrari in some grass...

(Photo: Jake Yorath)

3/ The bottom of Eau Rouge is spectacular and fast!

(Photo: Dan Bathie)

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1/ The Aston Martin Brussels V12 Vantage heads towards Rivage in Thursday evening practice.

(Photo: Dan Bathie)

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1/ The #36 DB Motorsports BMW Z4 posted some very quick times during the Pre Qualifying session.

(Photo: Dan Bathie) 2/ Audi’s pit was efficient as (Photo: Dan Bathie)

crew ever.

3/ La Source at night becomes a favourite spot for photographers. (Photo: Dan Bathie)

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1/ The gird awaits the cars.

(Photo: Dan Bathie) 2/ Start. The clouds would later turn a lot darker.

(Photo: Dan Bathie) 3/ Belgium is underrated as a country...(Photo: Dan Bathie)

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1/ Eau Rouge would have been faster with a boat.

(Photo: Jake Yorath) 2/ Welcome to Spa. (Photo: Dan Bathie) 3/ Ardenne forest looms on the exit of Pif Paf. (Photo: Jake Yorath) 4/ The Viper finished 2nd in Gentleman class and a respectable 22nd overall (Photo: Jake Yorath)

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1/ It could only be Spa. (Photo: Dan Bathie)

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1/ One of the Phoenix R8s crests Radillon (Photo: Jake Yorath) 2/ It was hard to find much colour on Saturday evening.

(Photo: Dan Bathie)

4/ Dusk sets in. (Photo: Dan Bathie) 5/ Dealing with traffic in Pouhon .

(Photo: Jake Yorath)

3/ The mist settles in the forests.

(Photo: Jake Yorath)

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1/ The #16 Phoenix Audi pulls away after a routine stop.

(Photo: Jake Yorath) 2/ The British GT3 racing team had a strong run to 14th overall.

(Photo: Dan Bathie) 3/ Refuelling time. (Photo: Dan Bathie) 4/ Activity at Audi.

(Photo: Jake Yorath)

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1/ Paddock wakes to fresh Spa morning. (Photo: Dan Bathie)

4/ Brussels Aston Martin exits Les Combes. (Photo: Dan Bathie)

2/ It’s hard to get away from trees at Spa. (Photo: Dan Bathie)

5/ Black Falcon Merecedes dips a wheel into the dirt on the exit of Les Combes.

(Photo: Dan Bathie)

3/ Morning sun on the Kemmel straight. (Photo: Dan Bathie)

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1/ Celebration as the #16 Phoenix Audi of Andrea Piccini / Rene Rast / Frank Stippler clinch victory. The 3rd Audi 24 hour win this year. (Photo: Jake Yorath)

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