How a "fragile s***box" conquered a sportscar classic

It was rare to see anything other than a Ferrari or a Porsche winning GT2 races in the mid-2000s, but TVR's victory in the 2005 Spa 1000km was all the more remarkable given it first had to last the full six hours

Published Apr 22, 2020, 3:07 PM

'To finish first, you first must finish.' It's one of the most tired cliches in endurance racing, used more commonly these days to reference the fact that a driver can't win the day on the opening lap, rather than as a passing comment on the reliability of the cars themselves. It's almost taken for granted that in modern times, it will be the driver and not the car that is more likely to break first.

Yet in the case of the No. 81 TVR Tuscan T400R during the 2005 Le Mans Series, that old adage applied quite literally. Of the five races started by 1997 British Formula 3 champion Jonny Kane and British Touring Car Championship race-winner Warren Hughes that year, only once did their Team LNT-run TVR make the finish as reliability problems persisted.

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Author James Newbold

James Newbold is Autosport's Plus Editor, responsible for coordinating website feature content.

In a sign of things to come, having completed his Politics and International Relations degree at the University of East Anglia in 2015, he left his graduation ceremony early to catch the last train to Brussels for the following day's Spa 24 Hours.

After a period as a freelancer, he joined the Autosport staff in 2018 and won the Motorsport UK young journalist of the year award. He initially edited Autosport magazine's Performance and Engineering supplements before joining the website team in his current role in 2020.

A keen enthusiast of anything that can be categorised unusual or niche, he enjoys unearthing little-known stories across all branches of motorsport, but has spent most of his career covering sportscars and is a regular part of the Le Mans 24 Hours reporting team.

He lives with his wife and children in Plymouth, England.