1976 IMSA Round 1 – Daytona

The famous Daytona International Speedway in Florida, USA, was the site of the first round of the HSO 1976 IMSA GT Championship. The 2-hour race (with night time finish) saw 24 cars making it to the start, split between the big GTO and smaller GTU categories.

In the GTO class, Carlo Pozzi (Corvette) took an undisputed win : starting from the pole-position, he was faster and more consistent than his rivals and triumphed by more than a minute over fellow Corvette drivers Guillaume Siebert and Tiago Malafaya. These two provided much of the show and their last laps fight under the moon kept the crowd awake ! The fast Daytona layout favoured the more powerful Corvettes, but the BMW CSL and De Tomaso Pantera drivers should soon be able to challenge the big American V8-engined cars.

Best of the non-Vette gang in Daytona was Franck Tripey, who took fourth place with his beautiful Ford-engined Pantera when Jean-François Bovy (also with Pantera) ran out of fuel on the very last lap ! More Panteras followed in the standings, with Philippe Martinelli 6th and Bruno Goujon 7th, while the best of the Porsches was the one driven by Gérard Ryon to 8th place. Fastest of the Porsche RSR drivers was JP Campmajo who did wonders in the infield section but just could not keep with the more powerful GTO cars on the long banking section. His engine eventually expired just a few minutes from the end, leaving JP in 9th place in the final race standings. The BMWs were disappointing, and only Pat Marucco brought his home, in 10th place after a hectic race.

Final Standings – GTO :

1 -Carlo Pozzi (Chevrolet Corvette, 59 laps)
2 - Guillaume Siebert (Chevrolet Corvette, +1mn11s58)
3 - Tiago Malafaya (Chevrolet Corvette, +1mn18s25)
4 - Franck Tripey (De Tomaso Pantera, 58 laps)
5 - Jean François Bovy(De Tomaso Pantera)
6 - Philippe Martinelli(De Tomaso Pantera, 57 laps)
7 - Bruno Goujon(De Tomaso Pantera)
8 - Gérard Ryon (Porsche 911 RSR, 56 laps)
9 - Jean Philippe Campmajo (Porsche 911 RSR, 55 laps)
10 - Patrick Marucco (BMW CSL)

In the GTU class, much of the drama happened before the very start of the race. It was first Timo Vermeersch whose Porsche 911S was stuck in its pits and who was sadly unable to start. Then at the end of the pace lap, a collective wreck took out two of the fastest GTU cars, Frank Verplanken’s Ford Capri and Franck Labédan’s BMW 2800CS.

This unfortunate turn of events left Yannick Lampure (BMW) in the lead and the driver from Toulouse was seemingly on his way to a clear victory. However, Yannick was on a 2-stop strategy, which was the wrong choice, and after realising his error he pushed too hard to catch up with the other GTU cars and eventually retired after crashing out in the night. It was therefore Ben Paulet’s Ford Capri who inherited the lead, and on the strength of a controlled and consistent race Ben went on to win the race – his first simracing victory ever ! Mario Gassner’s Porsche was second, one full minute behind Ben, while Jukka Maattanen took a nice 3rd after losing a lot of time in repairing the damage of an early race collision with Mario. Fourth place went to Thomas Cazorla, while Bernard Jeanmart took the points of 5th place in his Porsche 911S. Another unlucky GTU driver was Franck Mercurio (BMW) who was well in the leaders pace when his rFactor crashed after 10 laps.

Final Standings – GTU

1 - Ben Paulet (Ford Capri, 56 laps)
2 - Mario Gassner (Porsche 911S, +1mn00s23)
3 - Jukka Maattanen (Ford Capri, 55 laps)
4 - Thomas Cazorla (Ford Capri)
5 - Bernard Jeanmart (Porsche 911S, 50 laps)
6 - Yannick Lampure (BMW 2800 CS, 45 laps)
7 - Franck Mercurio (BMW 2800 CS, 16 laps)
8 - Franck Labédan (BMW 2800 CS, 8 laps)
9 - Frank Verplanken (Ford Capri)
10 - Timo Vermeersch (Porsche 911S, 0 laps)

1988 DTM Round 1 – Zolder

The former Grand Prix track in Zolder, Belgium, was once again this year the site of the opening round of the HSO 1988 Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft. Two novelties in this year’s championship : the introduction of weight penalties for the podium finishers and a unique 10-minute qualifying session. Apart from that it’s still the same good old Group A Touring Car classic package as last year, with a full grid of evenly matched cars mixing it along the twelve double-header meetings schedule.

The season started with a sensational qualifying lap by Guillaume Siebert (Mercedes) who took the pole with almost a second of margin over Sasha Sosnowski’s BMW. At the start however, the Americano-Polish driver took the lead when his French rival went wide in turn one. But the fastest man in Zolder turned out to be Carlo Pozzi. After an average start, Carlo passed all his rivals one by one and went on to catch up Sasha in the lead. A formidable duel between the two drivers was highlighted by Carlo’s pass on the 13th lap, and the Italian driver was soon followed through by HSO newcomer Jérméy Bouteloup. Carlo went on to win easily, but the fight between Jérémy and Sasha went down to the wire, the Frenchman edging his rival by 3/100th of a second ! Guillaume was 4th, less than a second behind, with JP Campmajo a few car lengths’ back.

These five drivers might very well be the main title contenders, and the rest of the pack was clearly outpaced. Helder Filipe from Portugal took 6th place, 30 seconds behind Carlo, in front of Adam Svoboda. The best Ford driver home was Tiago Malafaya, who took the points of 8th place in front of Gérard Ryon and Yannick Lampure.

Zolder Race 1 (20 laps) :

1 -Carlo Pozzi (Mercedes-Benz, 34mn18s39 – 145.60 km/h)
2 - Jérémy Bouteloup (BMW, +05s24)
3 - Sasha Sosnowski (BMW, +05s27)
4 - Guillaume Siebert (Mercedes-Benz, +05s80)
5 - JP Campmajo (Mercedes, +07s51)
6 - Helder Filipe (BMW, +30s75)
7 - Adam Svoboda (Mercedes-Benz, 36s11)
8 - Tiago Malafaya (Ford, +1mn04s98)
9 - Gérard Ryon (Mercedes-Benz, +1mn08s21)
10 - Yannick Lampure (Mercedes-Benz, +1mn19s75)

Carlo, Jérémy and Sasha were the first ones to try out the new weight penalty system, with 30, 20 and 10 kilos added to their respective cars based on the race 1 standings. Despite this and another poor start off the grid, Carlo was the boss of the race. It only took him four laps to climb back up from 5th to 1st, with some beautiful overtaking manoeuvres on the way. Some of his rivals helped him by doing small mistakes, notably Guillaume who nevertheless managed to finish second in front of Jérémy. Sashs took a distant 4th place, in front of an improving Tiago Malafaya (once again the best Ford driver in the standings).

Another nice improvement was for Gérard Ryon who bettered his race 1 finish by four spots with a nice 6th place. Even better was Thomas Cazorla, who had finished 14th in the first race after starting only 20th and gained another 7 spots in race 2 to gather 7th place – his best ever HSO result so far ! Rounding the top 10 were the promising rookie Benjamin Hartmann, HSO veteran Jieffe Bovy and Adam Svoboda who made too many mistakes to match his race 1 result.

Zolder Race 2 (20 laps)

1 -Carlo Pozzi (Mercedes-Benz, 34mn19s44 – 145.52 km/h)
2 - Guillaume Siebert (Mercedes-Benz, +02s30)
3 - Jérémy Bouteloup (BMW, +14s30)
4 - Sasha Sosnowski (BMW, +37s60)
5 - Tiago Malafaya (Ford, +56s11)
6 - Gérard Ryon (Mercedes-Benz, +1mn08s54)
7 - Thomas Cazorla (Mercedes-Benz, +1mn12s16)
8 - Benjamin Hartmann (Mercedes-Benz, +1mn12s67)
9 - Jean François Bovy (Mercedes-Benz, +1mn20s77)
10 - Adam Svoboda (Mercedes-Benz, +1mn22s21)

BMW M1 Procar – Season’s End

Imola was the site of the final race – and championship decider – in the HSO Procar BMW M1 series. Three drivers were still in the run for the title, although it would take a big amount of chance for Carlo Pozzi (79 points) to beat series leaders Sasha Sosnowski and Guillaume Siebert (98 and 93 points, respectively). The race eventually turned into a no-contest, with Sasha dominating Guillaume and taking the season laurels with a fine third place finish in the race. This was Sasha’s first HSO title.

One month earlier though, the picture was all different. The early season leader Martin Audran was still in it for the crown, despite having missed a couple of races. But the Austrian GP race on the beautiful Österreichring ended up in tears for Martin, who retired in the 4th lap. Out of motivation, he missed the following race at Zandvoort, thus putting an end to his championship bid. With Martin out of the equation, the fight for the title became a frantic one and the Österreichring race proved the craziest of the year ! Tires were the big issue on this abrasive track, and all the fastest drivers that day had to pit for fresh rubber before the end of the race. Most of the drivers had not practiced their pitstops on this track and this meant a lot of changes in the standings. Once all had stopped, Guillaume Siebert was a clear leader, but a stop-and-go penalty for breaking the pit spit limit dropped him back to second. This handed the lead to Tiago Malafaya, who held until the end to score his first win of the year ! Sasha Sosnowski took third place and advanced to first in the provisional championship standings.

While the leaders all pitted, some drivers were able to do the full race on their initial set of tires, and this enabled Gérard Ryon, Philippe Martinelli and Yannick Lampure to score their best results of the year, taking the 4th, 5th and 6th places, respectively. Gérard even led the race in the closing laps, but his worn out tires prevented him from resisting to the fresh rubber mounted leaders.

Final Standings – Österreichring (25 laps) :

1 - Tiago Malafaya (43mn27s06 – 205.12 km/h)
2 - Guillaume Siebert (+05s71)
3 - Sasha Sosnowski (+19s41)
4 - Gérard Ryon (+27s65)
5 - Philippe Martinelli (+43s16)
6 - Yannick Lampure (+50s43)
7 - Carlo Pozzi (+59s69)
8 - Carl Larrad (+1mn07s07)
9 - Gianluca Desposito (+1mn14s69)
10 - Patrice Gibelin (+1mn42s75)

With Martin absent, the first line of the grid in Zandvoort featured the two main title challengers : Guillaume Siebert and Sasha Sosnowski. Unlike the chaotic race in Austria, the Dutch GP was totally dominated by one man, Guillaume. The HSO ace took the lead at the start and although he never was more than 5 seconds in front of Sasha, he never seemed really challenged either. A controlled race enabling him to head to Imola for the final race with only a 5-point deficit behind Sasha. Carlo Pozzi took 3rd place, which meant his title hopes were still alive, although barely.

Behind the leading trio, the race was much more animated. The knowledgeable Dutch crowd most notably enjoyed the duel for 4th place between Vincent Beretta and Frank Verplanken, the latter having started last on the grid. It was even closer for 6th place, with Carl Larrad eventually nailing his race-long rival Yannick Lampure by a mere 2/10th of a second under the chequered flag !

Final Standings – Zandvoort (20 laps)

1 - Guillaume Siebert (27mn25s15 – 184.95 km/h)
2 - Sasha Sosnowski (+03s22)
3 - Carlo Pozzi (+09s43)
4 - Vincent Beretta (+47s76)
5 - Frank Verplanken (+52s90)
6 - Carl Larrad (+1mn09s42)
7 - Yannick Lampure (+1mn09s62)
8 - Philippe Martinelli (+1mn19s86)
9 - Gérard Ryon (19 laps)
10 - Yves Plaçais

For the season finale on the great Imola autodrome, all the main Procar contestants were present, including Martin Audran. The driver from Le Mans was once again untouchable and lead from start to finish after having started on pole, and made the fastest race lap on his way to his fourth win of the year. A bitter-sweet triumph though, has it clearly demonstrates the dominant year Martin could have had if only his motivation had been on par with his speed.

The Sasha vs. Gui duel was an anti-climax, and the definitive call was made when Gui hit the tires in one of the chicane, losing all hopes to finish in front of Sasha. After this, Sasha just had to nurse his car home, which he did brilliantly after having let local hero Carlo Pozzi through for 2nd place.

Sasha’s title rewarded his consistency at the top of the Procar field, and although he only won the Avus race in Berlin, his streak of six consecutive podium finishes in the last six races speaks for his level of commitment and his race savvy. The last race of the year did not bring any major changes in the final standings, the only notable exception being Gérard Ryon, who nipped the 7th place from Vincent Beretta in the season standings with a fine 6th place in Imola – his eighth points finish of the year.

Final Standings – Imola (20 laps)

1 - Martin Audran (34mn02s29 – 176.27 km/h)
2 - Carlo Pozzi (+17s36)
3 - Sasha Sosnowski (+21s46)
4 - Tiago Malafaya (+35s96)
5 - Guillaume Siebert (+1mn19s56)
6 - Gérard Ryon (+1mn26s88)
7 - Vincent Beretta (+1mn27s07)
8 - Philippe Martinelli (+1mn43s97)
9 - Yannick Lampure (19 laps)
10 - Franck Tripey

Interserie 1970 – Final Races

The curtain was drawn on the 1970 InterSerie Coupe with an enduro race in Hockenheim two weeks ago. The two main actors of the Super Sports blockbuster performed their final scene in front of an knowledgeable crowd, the last word eventually going to Guillaume Siebert over Carlo Pozzi.

But before this final act, the Silverstone circuit in England had welcomed the great field of InterSerie Sports and Prototypes car. Here, Carlo had kept his title hopes alive by taking his first win of the year, in the absence of then second placed driver in the standings, Sasha Sosnowski. Sasha’s absence could have allowed Guillaume to be crowned one race before the end of the championship, but Carlo’s excellent drive delayed the celebration until the last round. For the first time of the year, Carlo’s 5-litre Ferrari 512S took the pole-position in front of Guillaume’s sister car, but an off-course excursion in the first lap handed the lead to Guillaume. Carlo then embarked on a frantic charge to catch up with his rival, and after 23 laps of sliding his Ferrari around the fast airfield roads, he eventually caught the leader and slingshot past him along Hangar Straight, before cruising to a well deserved victory.

A talented newcomer to the field was Tiago Malafaya from Portugal, who shook the all InterSerie circus with a blindening pace in his 3-litre Porsche 908/02. Despite the obvious handicap in top speed compared to the 5-litre Sportscars, Tiago upset a number of Ferrari 512S and Porsche 917K drivers to finish a superb 3rd overall (and of course first in the 3-litre class). The other noteworthy performances of the day include Roger Pitarque’s excellent 4th place and Stafen Maurischat's (another InterSerie rookie) equally impressive 6th. In between them was the ever consistent Ludovic Tiengou, while Paul Nadeau edged his pal Carl Larrad for 7th place. Yannick Lampure (917K) and Philippe Martinelli rounded the top 10, the latter taking 3rd place in the 3.0 Prototypes class behind Carl Larrad.

Final Standings Silverstone :

1 - Carlo Pozzi (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
2 - Guillaume Siebert (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
3 - Tiago Malafaya (3.0 Porsche 908/02)
4 - Roger Pitarque (5.0 Porsche 917K)
5 - Ludovic Tiengou (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
6 - Stefan Maurischat (5.0 Porsche 917K)
7 - Paul Nadeau (5.0 Lola-Chevy T70 MKIII GT)
8 - Carl Larrad (3.0 ALFA-Romeo Tipo 33/3)
9 - Yannick Lampure (5.0 Porsche 917K)
10 - Philippe Martinelli (3.0 Porsche 908/02)

As the InterSerie circus arrived in Hockenheim for its last show of the year, the championship situation was as follow : 1st Guillaume Siebert (66 pts) 2nd Carlo Pozzi (54). A nice 12 points cushion for the French driver, who could afford to finish only 7th and still be crowned even if Carlo won this 75-lap, two-and-a-half-hours, enduro race.

Despite the odds being high against him, Carlo nevertheless decided to give it his best shot and set the fastest practice time during the first qualifying session. Sasha Sosnowski and Guillaume Siebert were 3/10th of a second behind, both men separated by the slightest of margins… one thousands of a second ! Sasha took the best start and assumed the lead in front of Carlo and Guillaume. Far from being able to attack Sasha, Carlo even had to let Guillaume by on the 7th lap. The championship leader kept pushing and two laps later passed Sasha for the lead, and then gradually pushed away from his two rivals. By lap 30, Guillaume had a 20-second advantage over Sasha, which enabled him to do his first pitstop without taking any risks coming in or out of the pits. The second stint saw no change in the leading order, until around lap 50 when Sasha and Guillaume both made several mistakes. By the time the second round of pitstops was over, the wise Carlo was now leading and was seemingly on his way to his second win of the year. However, despite being faster than Guillaume, Carlo did a slight mistake, than another one, and another one, all of those adding up to enable Guillaume to be back on his rival’s tail five laps from the end of the race ! After more than 2 hours of racing, the two Ferrari drivers “switched off” and offered the crowd one of those classic scraps you only get to see with real racing cars of yesteryear. The frantic battle lasted for three laps, and found an epilogue when Carlo braked too late entering the Stadium and lost a few vital seconds lawn moaning the local infield. Guillaume was through safely and added one more jewel to his 1970 InterSerie crown.

All this excitement at the top of the standings did not overshadow the other numerous fights back in the pack. The first 30 laps were absolutely breath taking, with Tiago Malafaya, Carl Larrad, Ludovic Tiengou, Roger Pitaque, Paul Nadeau and Luigi Bonnati all involved in several Hockenheim fights, complete with late braking intimidation at the chicanes and supersonic drafting sequences in the long straights. As the race progressed, driver fatigue took its toll and after all their rivals had retired or been delayed, the fight for 3rd place narrowed to a duel between the 3.0 Porsches of Tiago and Carl. The Portuguese driver took the best over his British rival, and scored his second consecutive podium in the series as well as his second 3-litre class win. Tiago’s excellent outings with the Porsche gave him 7th place in the final championship standings, while Carl took 5th place and the unofficial 3-litre title. Finally, this endurance type race rewarded the most courageous drivers, with notably Ben Paulet, Franck Tripey and Patrick Marucco scoring their first points of the year.

The sunset over the Hockenheim Motordrom bid farewell to the sportscars of the InterSerie Coupe, which proved to be a beautiful series, full of superb cars, great drivers and entertaining races !

Final Standings Hockenheim 300 Miles :

1 - Guillaume Siebert (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
2 - Carlo Pozzi (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
3 - Tiago Malafaya (3.0 Porsche 908/02)
4 - Carl Larrad (3.0 ALFA-Romeo Tipo 33/3)
5 - Yannick Lampure (5.0 Porsche 917K)
6 - Roger Pitarque (5.0 Porsche 917K)
7 - Ben Paulet (3.0 Porsche 908/02)
8 - Franck Tripey (5.0 Lola-Chevy T70 MKIII GT)
9 - Patrick Marucco (3.0 ALFA-Romeo Tipo 33/3)

BMW M1 Procar Round 6 - Hockenheim

The BMW Procar series was back in its Germany homeland, on the fast Hockenheimring near Heidelberg. This race proved a turning point in the fight for the title, with the undisputed leader Martin Audran suffering his first blow of the year.

It all started badly for Martin who was not in his customary pole-position on the grid, the fastest lap of qualifying having been clocked by Guillaume Siebert. Martin was on the first line though, and he took the best start to assume the lead into turn one, in front of Tiago Malafaya, Guillaume Siebert and Sasha Sosnowski. At the end of the first dash through the woods towards the first chicane, Tiago jumped out of Martin’s slipstream and attacked him under braking. The French driver tried to resist, but overdid it and had to go straight into the off-road, losing half a dozen places in the process. Martin was able to climb back to 4th place, but he would eventually crash out for good on lap 5. Meanwhile, the fight for the lead was raging, with Tiago trying all the tricks in the book to keep Guillaume and Sasha behind. But on lap 3 it was Tiago’s turn to miss the first chicane and he dropped back to third place, where he would stay until the end of the race. Guillaume was now leading and successfully countered all of Sasha’s frantic attempts at passing over the next 10 laps, finally winning with a 2-second margin after the Americano-Polish driver made a few mistakes in the closing stages.

Fourth place went to Carlo Pozzi in front of Frank Verplanken, which gave us the exact same top 5 as at the preceding race in Brands Hatch. The surprise performance of the day was Yannick Lampure’s excellent 6th place (his best Procar result so far), while Franck Tripey (7th) and Patrice Gibelin (8th) also recorded their best Procar finish of the yaer. Having started last, Carl Larrad did a good job to climb up back to 9th, after having spent most of the race battling with Vincent Beretta (who had selected the wrong setup for the race !).

Sasha Sosnowski was the great benefactor of the Hockenheim race, having now come back to just one point behind series leader Martin Audran. And with only 14 points separating the top 5 drivers in the provisional standings , the next race in Österreichring promises to be a crucial one !

Final Standings :

1 - Guillaume Siebert
2 - Sasha Sosnowski
3 - Tiago Malafaya
4 - Carlo Pozzi
5 - Frank Verplanken
6 - Yannick Lampure
7 - Franck Tripey
8 - Patrice Gibelin
9 - Carl Larrad
10 - Vincent Beretta

Interserie 1970 Round 4 – Keimola

Although a German organised championship, the InterSerie Coupe has several rounds out of Germany. After Donington and before Silverstone, it was the tricky Keimola track in Finland which welcomed the big 3-litre Prototypes and 5-litre Sportscars. A full grid was once again present, with 25-car eventually taking the Indianapolis-style flying start.

As in Donington Park, victory was contested between championship leader Guillaume Siebert (Ferrari 512S) and the young Porsche ace Sasha Sosnowski. The French Ferrari driver took the pole and lead in the early stages, with Sasha and Carlo Pozzi (512S) pressing him hard. On lap 8 Gui made a slight mistake and Sasha gambled on an audacious move in the twisty and narrow part of the track. The gambled paid off and Sasha followed that with a mistake-free race until the end, which could not be said about Gui who made several little mistakes and had to settle for 2nd place. This win could prove one of the turning points of the series, for now Gui only leads Sasha by 12 points in the championship, and the momentum definitely seems to be on the Porsche driver’s side.

The first six places in the standings were for 5-litre Sportscars, with Laurent Duconge (917K) taking 4th place behind the afore mentioned leading trio. Truly a “best of the rest” race for Laurent, who could not match the pace of the leaders but certainly was faster and steadier than anybody else. Ludovic Tiengou (512S) took a nice 5th place which allows him to stand 4th in the provisionnal championship standings, while Roger Pitarque (917K) was 5th, continuing his uninterrupted series of points finishes since the beginning of the InterSerie. In 7th place was the first on 3-litre Sportscars : Iker Estefania’s Porsche 908/02. It was the first Gr.6 win for Iker in only his second start in the series. Sportscar icon Carl Larrad and his gorgeous ALFA-Romeo T33/3 was 2nd in class some seconds behind the Spanish driver, after a collision early in the race had sent him way back in the pack. Paul Nadeau of the USA had yet another excellent outing with his outdated Lola-Chevy T70 and took the points of 9th place, in front of Yannick Lampure’s Porsche 917K. Finally, Philippe Martinelli (908/02) was 3rd in the 3-litre class with an 11th position overall.

Back to Britain for the next InterSerie round, on the famous Silverstone airfield track!

Final Standings :

1 - Sasha Sosnowski (5.0 Porsche 917K)
2 - Guillaume Siebert (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
3 - Carlo Pozzi (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
4 - Laurent Duconge (5.0 Porsche 917K)
5 - Ludovic Tiengou (5.0 Ferrari 512S)
6 - Roger Pitarque (5.0 Porsche 917K)
7 - Iker Estefania (3.0 Porsche 908/02)
8 - Carl Larrad (3.0 ALFA Romeo Tipo 33/3)
9 - Paul Nadeau (5.0 Lola-Chevy T70 MKIII GT)
10 - Yannick Lampure (5.0 Porsche 917K)

1980 Procar BMW M1 Round 5 - Brands Hatch

After the opening round in Donington Park, the Procar series was back on British soil for the British Grand Prix meeting on the superb Brands Hatch circuit in Fawkham.

The first surprise of the meeting happened even before qualifying, when the news spread in the paddock that series points leader Martin Audran had missed the ferry to Britain and was stuck in his beloved Sarthe. This was good news for his championship rivals who had an unexpected opportunity to close the gap on him in the points standings. The second placed Sasha Sosnowski was the bookmakers’ favourite, but eventually it was Guillaume Siebert who stole the show. After earning his first pole-position of the year, Gui took advantage of a rare mistake by Sasha (he stole the start !) to take an undisputed victory. After performing his mandatory drive through penalty, Sasha wounded up in 8th place but he was able to climb back up to 2nd place, delighting the crowd with his tremendous charge through the field. Third man on the podium was Tiago Malafaya who did not have the speed to counter Sasha’s come back but covered a steady race nevertheless.

Not as efficient as in other HSO series, Carlo Pozzi was 4th in Brands Hatch, in front of Frank Verplanken and Vincent Beretta who put up the best show of the day with their race-long fight for 5th place. Ludovic Tiengou was 7th on one of the few tracks he does not hate, and scored his first points since the infamous Avus race. The ever consistent Yves Plaçais took the points of 8th place, with Gérard Ryon and Yannick Lampure rounding up the top 10. The latter had earned his championship point the hard way, after a monumental scrap with Philippe Martinelli.

Final Standings :

1 - Guillaume Siebert
2 - Sasha Sosnowski
3 - Tiago Malafaya
4 - Carlo Pozzi
5 - Frank Verplanken
6 - Vincent Beretta
7 - Ludovic Tiengou
8 - Yves Plaçais
9 - Gérard Ryon
10 - Yannick Lampure

CFC 1970 Round 5 - Reims

The venerable Reims-Gueux circuit was the host to the jolly pack of 30+ gentlemen simracers making the field of the 1970 Championnat de France des Circuits. The old-school track with its two insanely long straights predictably produced… two unpredictable races and as many surprising results.

In the Touring Car class, the ALFA-Romeo GTAs ruled thanks to their slightly superior top speed. This was obvious after qualifying where three of the Italian cars topped the time sheets. The race went the same way, with top GTA men Martin Audran and Vincent Beretta making a gap over the rest of the field right from the start. The two drivers embarked in a typical Reims waltz, exchanging the lead numerous times along the infinite spaces of this Champagne countryside road. Unfortunately, the ballet had a premature ending when Martin’s rFactor seized and threw him out of the server ! This left Vincent an easy leader and he went on to win his first race of the year, which was also ALFA-Romeo’s long awaited first victory in the series.

When the fight for victory ended in a technical knock-out, the crowd turned its attention towards the fight for second place which featured the fastest Cortinas of the day, those of championship leaders Carlo Pozzi and Guillaume Siebert. On the last sprint to the finish line it seemed that Gui, who was in his rival’s slipstream, was the best placed, but just as he was going to make his move on Carlo, he put a wheel on the dirt and lost all his momentum and thus had to settle for 3rd place.

Camille Spada covered his best race of the year so far and finished 4th, not far behind Carlo and Gui. Yannick Lampure was 5th with his GTA beating the two Cortinas of Gérard Ryon and Franck Tripey. Let’s also note the excellent performances of the Mini specialists, Thomas Cazorla and Carl Larrad both scoring points after finishing in front of many bigger cars.

Final Standings – Touring Cars :

1 - Vincent Beretta(ALFA-Romeo 1600 GTA)
2 - Carlo Pozzi (Ford-Lotus Cortina)
3 - Guillaume Siebert (Ford-Lotus Cortina)
4 - Camille Spada (ALFA-Romeo 1600 GTA)
5 - Yannick Lampure (ALFA-Romeo 1600 GTA)
6 - Gérard Ryon (Ford-Lotus Cortina)
7 - Franck Tripey (Ford-Lotus Cortina )
8 - Thomas Cazorla (Austin Mini-Cooper S)
9 - Carl Larrad (Austin Mini-Cooper S)
10 - Joel Sixou (Ford-Lotus Cortina)

In comparision to the exciting Touring race, the GT event was somehow less spectacular. After a disappointing qualifying performance, Guillaume Siebert took an excellent start (for once !) and shot in the lead with his Lotus Elan. Gui lead for the first few laps, but missed his braking point at the Thillois hairpin and handed first place to Carlo Pozzi’s Porsche 911S. And that was that, really, the two men then clocked in similar lap times until the end of the race, Carlo winning with pretty much the same gap as Gui had made possible by his initial error. Vincent Beretta confirmed his liking for the Reims circuit with a solitary run to 3rd place after an uneventful race.

Fourth home was Tiago Malafaya who made up for an unfair disqualification in the Touring race with a solid run in the GT one. Another Reims virtuoso was Yannick Lampure who added another 5th place to his evening after a most excellent duel with Franck Labédan’s Porsche. The Belgian duo of Jean François Bovy and Bernard Jeanmart were 7th and 8th, respectively, a nice performance for Bernard who scored his first HSO points of the year on the occasion. Same goes to Patrick Marucco who took 10th place, also with a 2-litre Porsche 911S.

Final Standings – GT :

1 - Carlo Pozzi (Porsche 911S 2.0)
2 - Guillaume Siebert (Lotus Elan 26R)
3 - Vincent Beretta (Lotus Elan 26R)
4 - Tiago Malafaya (Lotus Elan 26R)
5 - Yannick Lampure (Porsche 911S 2.0)
6 - Franck Labédan (Porsche 911S 2.0)
7 - Jean François Bovy (Lotus Elan 26R)
8 - Bernard Jeanmart (Porsche 911S 2.0)
9 - Carl Larrad (Lotus Elan 26R)
10 - Patrick Marucco (Porsche 911S 2.0)

F1 1979 Round 3 - Kyalami

Closing the Southern hemisphere F1 tour, the South African Grand Prix in Kyalami was the site of the third round of the 1979 World Drivers’ Championship. The classic sweeping track is always a popular venue with the drivers and a 25-car field (season’s best so far) was on Sunday’s night starting grid.

Unsurprisingly, the Tyrrell-Ligier duel which highlighted the South American races continued in South Africa, with this Sasha Sosnowski (who was having a one-off drive in the V12 Brabham-ALFA) as the guest star in the contenders’ lot. Pierre Labédan (Tyrrell) took the pole in qualifying, with Sasha second and Carl Larrad in third, far in front of his team mate Frank Verplanken (only 8th on the grid). The superior power of the ALFA-Romeo V12 enabled Sasha Sosnowski to take the lead at the start, but after holding back Pierre for 5 laps the Americano-Polish driver made a slight mistake and the Tyrrell was through. Pierre was from then on unchallenged and cruised to his second win of the year, one that must leave his opponents wondering what will prevent him from being champion this year.

After his intial mishap, the young Sasha was seemingly also cruising to a well deserved 2nd place, but a laps in concentration made him crash out for good on lap 45. This handed 2nd place to Frank Verplanken, who had overcame his poor grid position with a fine start, several overtakings and a solid pace throughout the race. Another super-sub at ALFA-Romeo was Othmane Belmachi, who took 3rd place after having started at the back of the grid. Behind him was Thomas Gatschnegg who gave the new Ferrari 312T4 its first points in its first start. His team mate Olivier Philipps was in the chase for a podium spot in the first part of the race but crashed out on lap 36. Apart from Sosnowki and Philipps, many other drivers crashed and the high attrition rate allowed Ludovic Tiengou (McLaren) and David Conan (Lotus) to score their first points of the year. Only 8 cars saw the chequered flag on this reputadely easy track, with Gianluca Desposito (Shadow) and Patrice Gibelin (Rebaque) rounding up the survivors’ list.

Next round will feature a totally different track, the suburban Monaco wannabe circuit of Long Beach under the sunny Californian fog !

Final Standings :

1 - Pierre Labédan (Tyrrell-Cosworth 009)
2 - Frank Verplanken (Ligier-Cosworth JS11)
3 - Othmane Belmachi (ALFA-Romeo 179)
4 - Thomas Gatschnegg (Ferrari 312T4 )
5 - Ludovic Tiengou (McLaren-Cosworth M28)
6 - David Conan (Lotus-Cosworth 79)
7 - Gianluca Desposito (Shadow-Cosworth DN9)
8 - Patrice Gibelin (Lotus-Cosworth 79)

1980 Procar BMW M1 Round 4 - Norisring

The Procar gang was back in Germany for its fourth round of the year, on the short and intense Norisring circuit in Nürnberg.

Championship leader Martin Audran took his usual pole-position in front of Sasha Sosnowski and Guillaume Siebert, and added a perfect start and race to that to lead from flag to flag without ever being challenged. It was Martin’s third win in four races, and at this point the title seems very much promised to him. Behind him, Sasha and Guillaume had a nice fight until the latter had to retire. Frank Verplanken took over 3rd place, but too short on fuel he had to do a splash and go stop late in the race and let Carlo Pozzi fly away to the third podium spot.

Fifth man home was Gérard Ryon who continued his string of scoring races and now stands in 5th place in the season standings. Another happy man was Carl Larrad, who took 6th place in front of Vincent Beretta (delayed by a first lap collision), Franck Tripey, Philippe Martinelli and Tiago Malafaya.

Next rendez-vous for the Procar cars is in England, on the sublime Brands Hatch circuit !

Final Standings :

1 - Martin Audran
2 - Sasha Sosnowski
3 - Carlo Pozzi
4 - Frank Verplanken
5 - Gérard Ryon
6 - Carl Larrad
7 - Vincent Beretta
8 - Franck Tripey
9 - Philippe Martinelli
10 - Tiago Malafaya