STEPHANE RATEL: THE MAN WITH THE GRAND GT VISION
Frenchman Stephane Ratel is a global powerhouse in long-distance sportscar racing. From humble roots, his SRO firm has moved into country after country to operate endurance racing at the top level and it has proved a success everywhere he has gone.
It all started when he organised a race at Le Mans, and now he has his hand on the tiller of sportscar racing. High-profile brands have bought into his vision and he has learned to evolve along with the fluid landscape of GT racing over the course of the last two-and-a-half decades.
Keeping up with the latest trends has been hard work but, alongside bringing kudos to his SRO firm, it has created an industry which has not only protected the longer term future of some of motorsport’s most classic races, it has also generated a busy industry for GT teams and drivers across the globe.
He took time out of his schedule to tackle the readers’questions, and we are very grateful.
Question: Where did your motor racing interest come from?
Alan Katz Via email Stephane Ratel: “That’s a question I have been asked many times and my answer is always the same: the first race I ever attended was the first one I organised. It is absolutely not my background.
“I was an exotic car enthusiast and then I went to dealing in them and then organising the Cannonball Run and through my clients who became friends I proposed to them a race with their cars. Then I was approached by this little manufacturer called Venturi who said, ‘Ah, you know you have all these friends with money, instead of doing five laps in a Lamborghini Countach and ending up with no brakes or no parts, because it was a different generation of car, why don’t we make a car for you?’That is how I proposed the Venturi
