Magazine: WEC season launch special and engineering supplement

It’s not often that we get to do a non-Formula 1 cover at this stage of the season, but this week seemed a bit different. At last, the new era of sportscar racing is here as Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota et al prepare to go head-to-head for the first time, in the WEC season-opener at Sebring this weekend.

In our 19-page WEC preview, Gary Watkins reports on last weekend’s Prologue test, explains how we got to this point and takes a look at each of the seven teams that will fight it out in the top Hypercar class. We also explain some of the key differences – and similarities – between the LMH and LMDh categories, while pointing out that there should still be some high-quality battling further down the grid in LMP2 and GTE Am.

Sauber graduated to F1 from the world of sportscars three decades ago and almost did so as the Mercedes team. Adam Cooper talks to some of the key figures and explains how Sauber was able to make such a fine start to life in F1 in 1993.

In this busy issue, 2014 WEC champion Anthony Davidson recounts the tale of his CART test two decades ago, while Le Mans winner Hurley Haywood talks about his long-lost favourite team-mate.

The Australian Supercars season and its new Gen3 era kicked off last weekend but, as Andrew van Leeuwen explains, the on-track action was overshadowed by off-track controversy…

In the second part of our focus on the pre-war grand prix era, we take on the tough task of picking out the top 10 drivers.

With international GT3 star Raffaele Marciello joining the British GT grid, Stefan Mackley explains how the UK motorsport is currently experiencing a GT racing boom.

It’s also time for our latest free Engineering supplement. The strengths and weaknesses of hydrogen in motorsport come into focus as James Newbold investigates the latest developments. Marcus Simmons recalls the season when Dallara invaded British F3 with the big players from the 1993 campaign.

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