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It’s News To Me – Daytona and Bathurst

This week in cars and motorsports

After a lazy start to the year, the first motorsport events are like a shot of espresso – I’m suddenly engaged with 2019.

Rolex Daytona 24 hours

After catching scraps of 24 hour Daytona action, I began to feel like life had returned to normal – for me, that means watching motorsport whenever something decent is on. I’m not crazy/dedicated enough to watch the whole race, but I would check it out every hour or so when I was awake.

Luckily, I caught Alonso blitzing through the field like a shark amongst minnows, as he picked off one car after car in his insatiable desire to reach the front. Give him a half decent machine and he’ll just hunt his (very talented) rivals down until they give up/make a mistake. No doubt about it, when Alonso is in the zone he’d still one of the most competitive drivers in the world – still top 3 I’d say. Brilliant to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljQjTDt3JnUx

Liquid-Moly Bathurst 12 hour Bathurst

I can’t believe I didn’t get off my backside to visit the race since it’s now just a 90 minute trip up the road for me. One day I might make the effort be there for the 5.30am start.

So I took the lazy boy option and watched it live on Seven Mate ( Mate! Clearly not aiming for female viewers then). Anyway, it was a great race, totally unpredictable and a fantastic inter-marque battle from beginning to end. For some reason, I wanted to see the new Bentley’s do well and the Aston Martin that was about to be retired from racing. Some bloke I’ve never heard of called Jake Dennis drove his V12 Aston brilliantly all weekend – fastest in qualifying and right up there all race. Pretty good for a small Swiss team against the mighty German teams.

The last few laps featured Mercedes – Benz, Porsche, Aston Martin, Bentley and BMW and, with some luck, any one of them could have won – a proper car race.

Earl Bamber’s Porsche guys grabbed the win, thanks to a late safety car that buggered the chance of those that saved time and stayed on old tyres. The Porsche was a bit pushy on his way to the front and it seemed likely Matt Campbell, the driver, would receive a post-race penalty, but no. Probably for the best,I hate race results that are decided after the event.

Maserati – off the boil

No surprises here – the latest Quattroporte sedan has lost the elegance of the last model, the new Levante SUV looks like something like a Ssangyong with a ‘Maser’ grill slapped on the front. I hate all these pointless sporty SUV’s so I never bothered to read about it. Turns out nobody else did either, so it’s not selling. And the Gran Turismo is just too bloody old – maybe it’ll become a young timer classic while still in production!

Now Maserati is free from the shackles of Ferrari and Alfa Romeo it will be good to see if they show a bit more sparkle.

Chris Harris goes Gaga

Always compelling to watch, Chris Harris gave a slavering dog in a butcher’s shop impression in a new video featuring the R.M Sotheby’s ‘Youngtimer’ Auction – a collection of rare, high-performance cars from the eighties and nineties. Clearly, this was nirvana for Chris and his telltale remarks about the quirks and features of the cars assembled was compelling. For example, “ this M5 E60 doesn’t have a collapsed driver’s seat squab – they all do, but not this one!” He pointed out the manual gear change, too. That got me ‘Googling’ M5 E60 manual’s for sale. However, it looks like they are mainly US market models and aren’t that great (heavy clutch and not slick change), but then the clunky SMG thing is a bit hopeless as well.

Anyway, it was interesting to watch and had me trying to figure out why I wasn’t quite as excited as Chris. The horrible truth is, I was somewhat older than him at that time and those cars looked a bit heavy and boxy after the best of the sixties and seventies. The BMW 3.0CSi coupe vs the 635i, for example.

I quite liked a lot of the cars, especially the Alpina BMW’s, but I I wasn’t drooling over them. And, the Renault R5 Turbo – I remember test driving one in West London. Can’t recall why I didn’t buy it though, possibly lack of money.

Nevertheless, this is a great video for anyone who was still a young person in the eighties and an education for us older enthusiasts. ‘Youngtimer’ classics are going to be massive, or maybe they already are.