Gary Watkins traces GT3’s 20-year journey from Ratel’s idea to global category
Stéphane Ratel’s GT3 concept has grown from a 2006 pro-am championship into a global customer-racing business, and Gary Watkins charts that evolution through its cars, manufacturers, drivers and the people behind the category
Final round double-header in Dubai in 2007 – the Martini Callaway Corvette leading (No18) would nick the title by a single point. Isn’t that right, Gary?
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No writer is better in tune with international sports car racing than Motor Sport contributor Gary Watkins. So who better to tell the story of 20 Years of GT3 Racing? Problem is, while every endurance aficionado knows Watkins’s name from his magazine work, he’d never before been tempted to write a book.
It’s just as well that Stéphane Ratel, the creator of the GT3 category, persuaded Watkins to move out of his comfort zone. In the Frenchman’s mind, there could be only one man to write this book, such is the mutual respect he and Watkins have fostered over the decades. In fact, the author has jested in the past how, when GT3 was launched in Monaco’s Casino Square in December 2005, Ratel called him to rave about the beauty of the cars he was beholding. The response was muted at best: Watkins was on a football terrace, one of the 2462 present to see Woking draw 0-0 with Northwich Victoria in an all-non-league FA Cup Second Round clash!
The first part of the book is broken into six chapters, telling the chronological story of how GT3 exploded into life in 2006 – courtesy of a lot of faith on the part of those involved in a project they believed could not fail to succeed – to the recent era and the category’s adoption for series such as the FIA World Endurance Championship and the DTM. Courtesy of Balance of Performance, it initially pitted lightly modified desirable off-the-peg sports cars against each other, and has evolved so that major manufacturers now have customer racing divisions, including their pools of pro drivers.
20 Years of GT3 Racing: The Story of the World’s Leading GT Sportscar Category
Gary Watkins
Evro, £60
ISBN 9781918070118
While Ratel is a driving force behind this book, GT3’s success speaks for itself and the text never tries to move into PR speak – something its author would have no truck with anyway. Where it really scores is with the profiles of each of the manufacturers to have competed in GT3. Ferrari, Lamborghini, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Mercedes… Chances are you’re familiar with each of their cars but, as regular Watkins readers will know, he really takes delight in travelling down the B-roads and country lanes of motor sport history. In this case, as well as more famous manufacturers, that means forensic stories of the GT3 adventures of marques such as Alpina, Ascari, Jaguar and… Morgan. This review used the word ‘desirable’ earlier, but we can’t apply that to the Morgan Aero SuperSports that took a double in the 2009 Silverstone GT3 round with a line-up that included future superstar Maxime Martin!
The Morgan of Maxime Martin and Gaël Lesoudier – Silverstone winners in 2009
Jean Michel Le Meur/dppi
Martin is one of many voices to appear in first-person accounts of what GT3 has meant for their lives and careers, which covers drivers such as Raffaele Marciello and Maro Engel, and team bosses including AF Corse Ferrari supremo Amato Ferrari and WRT Audi/BMW lynchpin Vincent Vosse – the Belgian one of the nicest guys in motor sport.
Finishing off this book, which is an enjoyable read and will be a handy reference work, is an appendix detailing all the GT3 champions and numbers of cars built of each model. Over 200 Huracáns, anyone?
