Top five sportscar moments

Young Briton Jamie Campbell-Walter kept his cool against the advancing Dutch Viper of Tom Coronel to make sure that the works Lister Storm wins the FIA GT Championship finale at Magny-Cours. It ensured JC-W and esteemed team leader Julian Bailey won the drivers' and teams' titles for Lister after the marque's first full international championship campaign.

There was sweet and sour of the greatest extremes for the Rafanelli Lola team at the highly successful Silverstone round of the ALMS. Italian Mimmo Schiattarella showed that true privateers can still be a factor against the factory teams in sportscar racing by putting together a breathtaking lap to win pole in the team's Lola-Judd B2K/10. He then led the first seven laps with some style until a throttle cable, worth around 50 pence, snapped and the dream came crashing down.

Chrysler's factory ORECA team stunned the sportscar world by winning the classic Daytona 24 Hours race outright with its secondary division Viper GTS-R. The French team's stars Olivier Beretta and Karl Wendlinger took over at the head of the field when the last of the prototypes, long-time leader Dyson Racing, hit engine problems. There was still a nail-biting finish, however, because the Viper's great GTS class rival, the Chevrolet Corvette C5-R finished just 31 seconds behind after a frantic chase that set up a year of thrilling battles.

Despite regulations to try and keep the modern wedge-shaped sportscars stuck to the ground, the BMW prototype of American Bill Auberlen launched into a spectacular 120mph back flip on the crest of Road Atlanta's back straight. Just years from where Yannick Dalmas' Porsche managed a similar feat two years earlier, Auberlen had got caught up in the disturbed air of the Rafanelli Lola and was a helpless passenger as his machine whipped high into the air, before crashing down nose first next to the retaining. A cool Auberlen stepped from the wreckage before it had even stopped moving, and simply said afterwards: "I felt I'd been sitting in that car long enough."

Audi's Rinaldo Capello beat the BMW of Jorg Muller by just half a car length to win the Mosport American Le Mans Series race by the closest-ever margin in a competitive sportscar finish. With the Canadian track drying, the slick-shod Muller had been reeling in Capello, whose wet tyres were completely shot, at 10 seconds a lap to set up an extraordinary grandstand finish.