Champion leads

Timerzyanov, Bossard and Enerberg top after day one.

The first day of the French round in the ERC has run late, the first heat taking two hours to complete but, after a set of timed practice results that had the most unusual look about them, things are now a little more as we may expect – although even now there are one or two surprises, such as champion Sverre Isachsen languishing down in 12th place.

Top of the shop at the end of the first day is another champion, last year’s Super1600 title holder Timur Timerzyanov again looking absolutely at ease in a Supercar and beating Davy Jeanney and Marc Laboulle to win the last race of the afternoon and set fastest time. Tanner Foust won the penultimate race and came out with second fastest time while Liam Doran fought his way back into contention. A lowly 14th in timed practice, Doran won his race and emerged in third placed while Frode Holte, Toomas Heikkinen and Michaël De Keersmaecker all won races and  place ahead of Isachsen.

An error by Andreas Bakkerud, and poor use of the Joker Lap option, helped Steven Bossard on his way to fastest time in Super1600, Bakkerud second ahead of David Olivier’s Renault Twingo which fared rather better than Ildar Rakhmatullin’s similar which the Russian limped back to the paddock in the first lap after suffering broken rear suspension in a first corner tag match. Laurent Chartrain got one of the biggest cheers of the day, a great drive and a race win helping him to fifth place.

Lars Øivind Enerberg continued his winning way in TouringCar, not quite five seconds faster than Roman Častoral who inherited a race win when Derek Tohill spun in his Joker Lap.

One reason the day ran so late was the comical efforts of the recovery crew to pick up Mickaël Poirier’s BMW which the Frenchman mashed into the barriers after the compression – after 15 minutes, jovial encouragement from the crowd and more forthright words from a senior event official, the car was eventually lifted clear of the track.

Marc Laboulle and Ulrik Linnemann were later excluded from the heat after being involved in contact incidents. Laboulle’s wife was so dismayed at this that she introduced her own penalty: “Tonight he can sleep under the bus with Alphonse [their Basset hound]. And that dog smells very bad at the moment!” she said.

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