How the Spa 24 Hours has been suffocated

By:

Gary Watkins

Aug 3, 2017, 10:21 AM

The Spa 24 Hours is one of motorsport's greatest endurance races, but the traditions of the event are being suffocated by changes made on the grounds of style over substance

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An Audi zigzagging all over the back of a Mercedes at the front of the field with little more than an hour to go certainly made for great TV. But even my limited maths had allowed me to work out that this was a phoney battle.

I knew the Mercedes wasn't going to win the Spa 24 Hours last weekend and had been confident - almost little too confident, as it turned out - of that fact for the better part of four hours. And I wasn't very happy about it.

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Gary Watkins

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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.