Rating World Sportscars' return year
After Peugeot's withdrawal the new World Endurance Championship could have gone sour in 2012, but Toyota and Audi helped keep it sweet, reckons Gary Watkins
Maybe they were right when they told me as a kid that I was greedy. Toyota emerges as a genuine contender in the FIA World Endurance Championship, and my first thought? Just imagine if Peugeot was still around.
An Audi versus Peugeot versus Toyota battle over most of the WEC season was only going to happen in my greediest dreams. Toyota, of course, wouldn't have ended up winning three WEC rounds had the French manufacturer not withdrawn from sportscar racing before the start of the championship.
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Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.
Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.
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