PITWALK magazine edition No. 75

PITWALK - Racer's finest

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Magazine No. 75

December 2023

Content Edition No. 75:

Two topics are once again dominating the motorsport winter this year, and in the new issue of PITWALK magazine, both are examined exclusively and with an extraordinary amount of depth: the Dakar Rally and the 24 Hours of Daytona.

The cross-country rally in the desert in particular is writing a new chapter in January 2024 that has never been seen before: Nani Roma returns to the cockpit after a long, energy-sapping but successful chemotherapy programme. The 51-year-old Spaniard is driving one of two new Ford Rangers in the premier league, the so-called Ultimate class. In a remarkably open and emotional interview conducted by PITWALK editor-in-chief Norbert Ockenga, Roma reveals a lot about what the cancer diagnosis has done to him, how he has taken up the fight against the insidious disease and what role the trust placed in him by Ford and M-Sport has played. And while Roma and Ockenga were talking so personally and openly, they also touched on two other dramatic moments in Roma's career: a nervous breakdown in the saddle of a KTM at a Dakar in North Africa - and a serious accident in an X-Raid Mini, after which he was unconscious for a long time.

The interview with Nani Roma is certainly one of the highlights of the entire coverage of the 2024 Dakar Rally.

The 24 Hours of Daytona traditionally kicks off the IMSA series and at the same time the major international sports car and circuit racing events. It is the second year of the new LMDh vehicle category, which is called GTP in North America, and after the successful debut of the new premier league of endurance racing, Ockenga analyses in a major essay whether this is a sustainable boom - or whether it was just a coincidence. The long story, which is woven into a 90-page thematic focus on endurance racing, also reveals what Porsche is planning for 2024 in order to catch up with the top, how to work with the new GTP cars and what work still needs to be done by the tyre suppliers and rule-makers in order to be able to compete against the hypercars in the World Championship with the LMDh.

The research for the major essay on the new LMDh or GTP class took Ockenga to Daytona in 2023, to the 12 Hours of Sebring and to the Petit Le Mans in Braselton near Atlanta. It was noticeable everywhere, especially in comparison to the descending branch of the German events, how much not only the pure action of the GTP premier league teams, but above all the organisation of the IMSA races as such are coherent and thrilling. In a further background story, Ockenga therefore set out to find the reasons why the US races work so much better as a total work of art than the German ones - and found reasons that are astonishing and that go back to the supporting programme.

From Daytona onwards, the racing events become even higher quality and denser. Ford is contributing to this. With a new GT3 model of the Mustang, which is even driven by two Germans in Dirk Müller and Mike Rockenfeller - but also with a new one-make cup with a different version of the pony car. The significance of the new Ford programme is also reflected in the new issue of PITWALK, and of course the two new German works drivers also have their say.

A German-speaking driver from the World Endurance Sports Car Championship is at the centre of a very special story: Ockenga accompanied Peugeot works driver Nico Müller on a road trip through France, from the team headquarters near Versailles to test drives at Magny-Cours. The result is a highly exciting and empathetic portrait of the Swiss driver from the Bernese Oberland, which shows Müller as a very special hero of the World Sports Car Championship.

In the Good Old Boys series, author Mark Cole focuses on the US sports car and Formula 1 driver Masten Gregory, who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Ferrari together with Jochen Rindt. Formula 1 driver René Arnoux, who author Achim Schlang recalls in his journey through time, also falls into the category of old warhorses. As Schlang knew Arnoux well and for a long time, the result is a particularly readable story.

Is Fernando Alonso actually already a warhorse? At least the Spaniard is by far the oldest driver of the current Formula 1 generation - and still capable of winning despite his 42 years. Reason enough for Grand Prix reporter Inga Stracke to write an extensive psychogram about Alonso - which, alongside Schlang's story about Arnoux, forms the Formula 1 block within the 180 pages of Germany's biggest motorsport magazine.

Alonso has also raced for Toyota at Le Mans and in the World Endurance Championship, and this part of his career also features in Stracke's extensive personality story, and not too briefly. In the meantime, Toyota has become the most successful brand in international motorsport - and this year successfully defended all of the world championship titles it won in 2022. A major background story by Ockenga, written during several visits by the editor-in-chief to Toyota Gazoo Racing in Cologne - but by no means limited to the Rhineland branch - shows how this has become possible and how this also reflects on the production cars and their technology as well as their registration figures.

A feature on the development of Manthey Racing follows a similar theme. The DTM title win is the reason to take a closer look at the development of the Eifel team from a racing team to a motorsport multinational - and part of the large GT3 block in the new issue. This also includes a portrait of Samantha Tan - a Canadian who, due to her Chinese roots, was repeatedly confronted with prejudice and even racism at school and in the paddocks and who opens up about this in a remarkable way in PITWALK.

A story about Nina Riese, Germany's best rallycross driver, and her sponsor Dietmar Brandt, as well as a very unusual feature on the Essen Motor Show round off the contents of issue 75.