The Dutch oddity that was too niche for its own good
Despite (briefly) having its own F1 arm, Spyker's period in international sportscar racing was spent mostly propping up the grid. Its C8 Laviolette GT2-R stands as one of the last underfunded factory GT efforts that never got a helping hand from BOP
They're the three letters that have come to dominate sportscar racing in the past decade. But in the time before BOP (or Balance of Performance), the mechanism used by governing bodies the world over to incentivise participation by as many manufacturers as possible, there were no leg-ups for smaller manufacturers looking to take on the might of Porsche and Ferrari.
That's not to say that the minnows didn't have their day on occasion. Blackpool manufacturer TVR experienced fleeting success in the Le Mans Series in 2005, while Panoz caused a major upset by winning the GT2 class at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2006.
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