Course de Cote de Sancerre 2015

I think that Sancerre must be one of the most beautiful hillclimb venues in France with the road meandering its way up through the vineyards towards the hilltop town.  Whichever way you look you see vineyards, the old chateau or the Loire valley.  There is even the industrial archeology of the old railway viaduct.

Unfortunately, this year I was only able to attend practice as the lure of Lola T70s and a Ligier JS3 at Dijon-Prenois on Sunday was too much to ignore.  However, practice for this 42nd edition of the Sancerre Hillclimb was a good consolation on a very sunny Saturday afternoon

Hopefully, my photos below will convince you to come along to this beautiful part of the world and its hillclimb next year.

Julien Bure in his Funyo 4 RC races past the Sancerre vineyards. 

Serge Thomas was again the winner in his Norma M20F being the only driver to break the 50 second barrier on Sunday

Adding some variety was this Renault Dauphine of Pascal Guenee.

Pink Lady - Stéphanie Tordeux was the fastest woman up the course in her  Tatuus FR with a time of under 58 seconds.

Nice to see the CG Simca of Pascal Simonot again.

The BMW powered Marcadier Barzoi of Daniel Hennu was new to me.

The Dallara 303 of Jerry Petitot.

The Funyo 6 of Gérard Riffet

The seventh placed Dallara 398 of David Alexandre

Eric Peyrat in his Renault Clio 3 Cup 

In fifth place overall and third in the Sports car class was Eddy Perez in this Norma M20

This lovely Ligier of Bruno Berton added some variety to the sports cars and finished fourth in class and ninth overall

The third placed Norma M20FC of Christophe Lecarpentier negotiates his way between the hay bales at the last corner

Giving some variety amongst the Dallaras in the F3 class was this Martini Mk78 which came eighth overall in the hands of Frederic Chatelain.

Why is there nothing to do some weekends in France and too much to do on others?  Shame I had to miss the Sunday climbs at Sancerre but as my next blogpost will show it was worth missing for what I was to see at Dijon.  In the meantime a few pictures to show some more of the variety on show at Sancerre.

Thanks to the Écurie Jacques Coeur for organising another great event.

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.