Coupe de France des Circuits, Dijon-Prenois 2016

Dark and wet start to the day at Dijon-Prenois during the Group A race with Guillaume Margoux leading this group in a 2 litre Alfa Romeo 147.

For Easter we were due to go to the Netherlands but Jane fell down with the flu and thus Plan B came into operation which included a visit to Dijon-Prenois for me on the Sunday.  The Coupe de France des Circuits was having its second round of the year and with its mix of saloons, GT, sports racing, single seaters and karts it provided me with a good morning's entertainment and photography. There were two races for each category of car but I only stayed for the first races.  All photos published here are copyright - see the message near the bottom of this post.

Group A
Group A is for Touring Cars up to 2 litres.   They provided us a good race under rather tricky conditions.

Stéphane Charrel in a 2 litre Renault Clio Cup 3 leading a similar car.

Grégory Touzalin in a 2 litre Honda Civic R.

The difficult conditions at Dijon early on Sunday can be seen in this picture.

Hervé Cuynet leads Jean-Pierre Romain and a group of Renault Clio Cup 3 cars.

Alfa Romeo 147 and Renault Clio Cup 3.

Group C
This category caters for a wide variety of Sports Racing cars up to 2 litres.  Lots of French Normas outside of their normal hillclimb environment.

Nicolas Gallet leads a group of other Norma M20 drivers.

Close action with Norbert Sauvain in a Norma M20FC ahead of Arnaud Perrin's Norma M20.

The wet conditions continued in this race.  In this group of Normas Alerxandre in car 10 dives inside the car 23 of Quentin Bassora.

There were close battles throughout the field with most drivers in the 2 litre Normas.

Superkarts
These are 250cc karts.  Unfortunately most of the race was run under the safety car and was then red flagged.  So not many pictures.  This was a round of the Championnat de France Open de Superkart.

The Superkart 250s with front row sitter Alexandre Sebastia leading this bunch.  He finished fifth.

René Van Dyk who started from the 10th row of the grid.  He finished 11th.

A mid-field bunch of Superkarts.

Monoplaces
This category is for single seaters including Formula 3, Formula Master, Formula BMW, Formula Renault and Formula Ford Zetec.  Many cars were Tatuus Formula Renault cars but there was some variety of cars,  and a few good battles down the field.

Fabien Lavergne in his Tatuus FR20.  Obviously a Jaguar fan.

Joseph Girardeau in a Tatuus FR20 leads the Renault FR Caparo of Jean-Louis Carponcin.

Alain Chariatte in a Tatuus Master.

Conditions were better for the Monoplace race with less spray.

For a bit of variety here is a Dallara F300 driven by Jean-Luc Neri.

Michel Piroird in a Tatuus FR20 leads a group early in the race

GT
The Groupe GT includes a variety of GT cars, silhouette cars and Touring cars.  This race featured one of the best battles of the day featuring a Porsche and a Caterham Seven.

Battle for the lead early in the race between a Porsche, a 2.3 litre Cateram Seven and a 3.5 litre Renault Megane Trophy.

Further back in the field a Porsche 997 Cup leads a Ginetta G50.

The 3.7 litre Ginetta G50 of Bernard Lebaron

The winner was Dominique Laure in this Renault Megane Trophy.

The battle for second place with Francois Ader's Cateram CSR on the outside of the Porsche.

There was much variety throughout the field as evidenced by this 2.0L Audi 82.

The top three drivers and cars after the race in front of the pits.

Group N
Groupe N includes a variety of Touring Cars plus Mitjet 1300 and Legends cars!   I didn't stay for their race as I was off to Saint Romain for a Montée Historique.

The 3.2 litre BMW M3 of Louis Granjon waiting in the paddock for its first race of the weekend.  He finished seventh in the 2nd race later in the day.

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.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web aussi longtemps que vous créditez le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com et fournissez un lien vers cette page

Links

If you enjoyed these photos click on this link for my other blog site "Auto Vitesse" which a feature on one fast car each day.  Already I have nearly 150 cars featured with an alphabetical search facility.

My two blogs also have a Facebook site "Autovitessephotos", which can visit by clicking here.

If you are a fan of Dijon-Prenois, see my post on last year's GP de l'Age d'Or by clicking on this link.

Here is the official FFSA site that organises the Coupe de France des Circuits.

Here is the Dijon-Prenois official site.

For Brits a circuit where you can easily see the Coupe de France des Circuits close to the Channel ports is Croix en Ternois. Here is their site.   The event their is early September.