Ben Collins may have garnered fame through his television work, but he is no stranger to the cockpit of a racing car. Across his career, he has raced everything from Le Mans prototypes to a Citroen 2CV. It will come as no surprise that the machinery Collins looks upon most fondly comes from the more powerful end of this list – not that there is anything wrong at all with 2CV racing! And no, his favourite isn't the BMW330d from Top Gear’s 2007 Britcar 24 Hours adventure either.
Instead, the 2003 ASCAR champion picks out the Ascari A410, later renamed the KZR-1, which was powered by a monstrous 590bph Judd GV4 V10 engine. Posed the question of which car from his back catalogue is his favourite at his long-awaited British GT return last month, Collins tells Autosport: “That’s easy, the Ascari LMP1, or LMP900 it was called.
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“The two years I had then the fastest car in the world almost. It was an F1 engine with huge downforce.
“On a bumpy track in the dry, you had wheelspin in first, second and third from the Judd engine which was a V10 screaming thing. Huge brakes, speeds of 200 miles-per-hour nearly everywhere. We were racing at circuits all around the world like Monza and Le Mans, that was a really special time.”
The A410 had endured a troubled development and failed to prequalify for Le Mans in 2000 with Ascari boss Klaas Zwart joined by Canadian Robbie Stirling and Formula 3000 nearly man Max Wilson. But by 2001, with Collins and Werner Lupberger joining the project, its gearbox woes had been resolved and the car was a more competitive proposition.
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Racing the A410 for Team Ascari in the FIA Sportscar Championship, Collins and Lupberger took fourth in the standings in a season capped by victory at Donington. After retiring from the Barcelona season-opener, the pair bounced back to finish second in the Monza 1000km, taking the chequered flag less than six seconds off the GLV Brums-run Ferrari 333SP of race-winners Giovanni Lavaggi and Christian Vann.
Source: Autosport