The understated Le Mans legend who has earned a testimonial

By:

James Newbold

Jul 24, 2021, 3:19 PM

OPINION: After 24 Le Mans 24 Hours participations, 50-year-old Emmanuel Collard will be absent from the grid this year, stuck at the mercy of his gold driver grading. But, while he's not motivated by breaking start records, the French veteran is determined to return to the field next year.

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Motorsport is renowned for its lack of sentiment. Handshake deals are routinely forgotten and binding contracts discarded when a better offer comes along, while savage boardroom budget cuts are made with little regard to imminent technical breakthroughs.

Drivers with an apparently indefinite shelf-life slip away without the fanfare afforded to long-serving footballers at testimonials, years before their actual retirement. Nothing lasts forever in this ruthless, dog-eat-dog world.

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James Newbold

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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, niche or random, he enjoys unearthing little-known stories across all branches of motorsport, but has spent most of his career covering sportscars as Autosport's British GT correspondent and is a regular part of the Le Mans 24 Hours reporting team.

An expert in catching 40 winks on media centre floors, he lives with his wife and son in Plymouth, England.