Dix Mille Tours - Le Castellet

7th-9th October 2011

Great final

The 2011 season of Peter Auto was ended in Provence for the second consecutive year, with the Dix Mille Tours of Castellet, the event reserved to historic cars created last year with the purpose to gather, at least for one weekend, all those cars that have been the Endurance queens for forty years. As expected, the program carried out was of the highest level, showing what valid are the formulas used by the French Manager. Obviously, they didn’t reach the levels of the first edition when, contemporaneously, there were also the celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of Paul Ricard circuit, and neither same levels that could have been obtained in the case of a confirmed presence of FIA Historic Formula 1 and Can Am, as envisaged at the beginning of the year, but certainly, the presence of the unique queens of the Endurance offered a chance to focus a special typology of cars. On the track appeared the Challenge ASVAE, the Trofeo Nastro Rosso, the Sixties’ Endurance, the Group C Racing and as usual the Classic Endurance Racing, divided into two grids like we have already seen this year during Spa Classic. While the last two have been raced on the classic layout of the circuit, as for the other three categories it has been preferred a version less wearying for the engines with the introduction of the Montreal chicane to split Mistral long straight. In addition to the five categories on the track, they have organized some parades of clubs, the introduction of the McLaren MP12-C to the French market with some lucky spectators who had the chance to run some circuit laps, but also an area devoted to Automobilia, where some objects of fans’ veneration didn’t miss. All that to say goodbye to a 2011 that, in spite of what its was feared on the eve, it has been a year to frame for the Patrick Peter’s world of historic cars.

Challenge Asave

After taking part in the Spa Classic of last May, Challenge ASAVE has newly embraced Peter’s formula for the organization of the last round of the championship, in order to settle final classifications of the 1965 Challenge categories and among Gordini engines, while Terriou, the great leader of the season has climbed Le Castellet plateau with the category titles gained before at the wheel of a performing Porsche 911 3.0.RSR. Once again, seen the big number of categories on the track, ASAVE was asked a great sacrifice by the elimination of the free qualifying sessions and one only hour of the race that took place on late Saturday afternoon. For this race the wild card was of Sirgues, as usual in CER with his Chevrolet Corvette 427, at the wheel of which during qualifying sessions he set the three best times, taking pole and with a three seconds lead over Terriou. But the French driver didn’t take part in the race, due a mechanical problem met on the American GT on Saturday afternoon, during CER qualifying sessions. The fight for the supremacy passed to Terriou and Godfroy, also in his Corvette: both drivers left everyone behind by running very fast laps.

After a fine duel fought almost all over the race, the Corvette’s driver got the better of his rival but, a penalty imposed by marshals on the first two made them go back to the mid-group. Thus, the win was of the other Corvette driven by Metzger ahead of the Porsches driven by Martin and Lelandes.

Asave qualifying

Asave race

Sixties' Endurance

Also on Paul Ricard’s the powerful and brawny English cars didn’t fail to take part in the Sixties’ Endurance, a category that gathered the leaders of Endurance produced till the mid-Sixtieths. Beside cars like AC Cobra, Jaguar E Type and Chevrolet Corvette, it didn’t miss the presence of Porsches 911, MG's, Morgan's and Austin Healey's, but certainly we cannot say that the former ones have not played as the leaders: however the monotony of the race was broken by the Swiss crew made by Francioni and Barth at the wheel of an ISO A3C, the makers of a bright pole position on Saturday afternoon in the timed session, before the AC Cobra of a favoured Caron. At the start Francioni was very fast and taking advantage of the power of his Chevrolet engine, passed just along Caron’s and McInerney’s car, at the wheel of his small TVR Griffith.

The initial flight of the Swiss banker was made useless by Barth who, being unable to lap with the same times of his mate, had to surrender to Caron, who made of regularity his winning weapon: but the two drivers didn’t take into account Sean McInerney who, after taking the wheel of the TVR, started a recovery that allowed him to overtake Barth on the second-last lap and Caron even a few meters from the checkered flag. He won for only 151 thousandths of a second!

Sixties' Endurance qualifying

Sixties' Endurance race

Trofeo Nastro Rosso

The category for the Italian cars, even if scaled down in comparison with last year edition and the Spa Classic have seen a fair number of entries, in particular for the Ferrari cars’ owners. There was special expectation for the presence of two of the eleven cars Ferrari 275GTB/C, built and featured by a body made lighter with respect to their ancestress, one of which appeared on the track driven by Gaye, the expert driver who left his 250 SWB for once to take a break. During the session it was just Gaye who managed to set best time, at few tenths before the Bizzarrini 5300GT driven by Elrich while the tandem made by Francioni-Barth had to be satisfied with the last grid place after running only one lap of track. Already in the race1 Francioni looked revived and, thanks to a perfect start, managed to take the lead during the first passage, a position that he held all over the race defending himself against Gaye’s attempts to regain his way.

Elrich was third, the last driver who raced on full laps. In race 2 the ISO car was given to Barth’s drive who, despite his commitment, more than envisaged he worked hard to go up again from the last line-up position, reaching the second place only during the sixth passage, when Gaye, in the lead, had already got a remarkable advantage. However, once more the win favoured the Swiss tandem thanks, in this case, to the engine failure of the Ferrari’s leader at the end of Mistral straight, just during the last lap. Singleton-Frenklin were second in the Ferrari 275 GTB, while Vogele arrived third at the wheel of a splendid Maserati 300S.

Nastro Rosso qualifying

Nastro Rosso race 1

Nastro Rosso race 2

Marco Zanello
Photos taken by Giacomo Zanello

Classic Endurance Racing: for the report about this category click here.

Group C Racing: for the report about this category click here.

Gallery

Challenge Asave

Sixties' Endurance

Trofeo Nastro Rosso