Course de Côte Saint Pierre de Varengeville 2015

Saint Pierre de Varengeville is a small village in the woods a little north of Rouen.  Once a year they hold a regional hillclimb leading up the hill to Saint Pierre.  This year it was held on a sunny Sunday 19th April.  It was the fourteenth occasion that this Course de Côte had been run.  As with almost all French hillclimbs it follows the great tradition of racing on public roads.

The most popular section for viewing is around the hairpin.  Here Olivier Dumont is driving the BRC CM 05 evo.

After the first hairpin the road rises steeply to another.  Here Claude Laurent exits the hairpin in another BRC CM 05.

It was good to see a fellow Brit tackling the hill, John Page coming over regularly to France to speed up their hills in his ex-Gary Brabham F3 Ralt RT32.  I assume this is the car that Gary Brabham drove to four wins in the1988 British F3 Championship to finish second to JJ Lehto..

John Page gains a lot of time in his final run up the hill in his ex-Gary Brabham Ralt RT32 F3 car......

.....and gives us a big smile afterwards!

As usual the majority of the cars were touring cars including this rather nice Nissan Almera driven by Michel Bineau seen here really attacking the first hairpin and generating some understeer.

Romauld Thuillier in his nicely turned out Citroen AX GTI in the popular F2000 class.

Jimmy Burette speeds up the hill in his F2000 class Peugeot 205

Sébastien Dupont round the fast corner before the hairpin in his SEAT Super Cup.

There were a number of nice Grand Touring cars including Alpine Renaults, Porsches and a Lotus.

Léonard Lusardi rounds the hairpin in his Lotus.

Guy Mureau in his Porsche 

Jean Marie Bouhin in an Alpine Renault A110

In the same FC class was Geoffrey Carcref in a Scora Maxi

The sports car class featured a number of interesting cars including the ubiquitous Normas.

A Jema 630GT taking the fast corner with a Normandy château in the background....

.....but the real beauty of Pierre Louis Foullen's Jema can be seen in this shot

Competing in the CM class was Vincent Bertheuil in his unusual GRC proto

Cyril Aubert in the Norma M200

Jean Yves Dore in the pretty little Grac MT145

However, the fastest cars were the D/E class Formula Three cars.

One of the faster cars was Dallara F394 of Anthony Guedry

A wider angle shot of Eddy Ravenel in his Reynard 913

All in all a very nice afternoon's sport and thanks to Gareth for the company.

Gareth talks to John Page's mechanics whilst eyeing up another shot

Eric Lecerf in his Tatuus FR2000

The photographer, John Etherton, asserts his copyright to the photographs in this blog post.  However, you may post them elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the phographer and this blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.