Trophee Andros

[7UpJordan]

Just watching a season review of this winter's Trophee Andros on Motors TV. For those of you who haven't heard of it it's an ice racing Championship at various venues throughout France throughout the winter, it's great fun to watch it and especially seeing French F1 legends like Alain Prost, Olivier Panis and co battling it out (even Paul Belmondo was in this year's Championship ).

They have a support series as well where the cars are all electric and some of the regular drivers take part in this too. They don't half make an awful noise but they're pretty good action wise too.

I'd love to go to one of these events one day, it would be perfect to include it in a Skiing weekend as well.

[bud]

i think of this i think of the ep of top gear where they raced without snow tyres on some old bombs and were getting lapped

[7UpJordan]

Aye, it was fun watching Panis and co. just fly around making Clarkson and co look stupid.

[texasmr2]

I wonder if those tracks are the same ones as on Gran Turismo? It always took me along time to get used to them but they are a blast .

[zurich_allan]

Well, thought I'd resurrect this thread as nobody mentions it much these days. This year's championship has IMO been very very good. Some surprise results, some great racing, for those that haven't kept track, this year there are former F1 drivers including:

Alain Prost
Olivier Panis
Romain Grosjean
Jacques Villeneuve
Franck Lagorce

As well as those, there are other top-end guys like:

Jean-Phillipe Deyraut
Jean-Baptiste Dubourg
Bertrand Balas

Currently Prost is leading the championship after four rounds (8 races), and how he is doing it is very impressive, as he probably (in fact definitely) has the worst car on the entire grid (as he had last year too), the Dacia Duster. You can tell from watching it, it is slow (even taking the extra weight he's got to carry as leader), doesn't handle well (ice aside!), and is simply not a patch on the Toyota Auris he drove in his two championship years. Yet through his skill he is still holding off the competition!

Regardless what anybody thinks about him, major respect has to go to Villeneuve as he came into the series and straight away has been competitive, and in a series where overtaking is not easy, many times he's shown he's not afraid to go for an opening and grab it by the throat! A couple of times he's come off worse for it, but mostly he's taken any openings given to him!

More of you should watch it when it's shown on Motors TV (in the UK, not sure where if at all it's shown in the US or anywhere else apart from France!!).

[zurich_allan]

I can't believe nobody else seems to be interested in this! The amount of ex F1 drivers too... I've been hooked on it for about 5 years now...

[texasmr2]

I can't believe nobody else seems to be interested in this! The amount of ex F1 drivers too... I've been hooked on it for about 5 years now...

We have little if no coverage here in the states but I luv it especially Prost Sr. racing with his son.

[zurich_allan]

I can't believe nobody else seems to be interested in this! The amount of ex F1 drivers too... I've been hooked on it for about 5 years now...

We have little if no coverage here in the states but I luv it especially Prost Sr. racing with his son.

Yeah, it's quite intersting - Prost Jnr really was pretty abysmal when he first started racing, but he really has improved greatly in the last two years or so. A shame I don't think we'll ever see him in a really top level competition like F1, Indycar, Nascar, DTM or anything similar, as I think he'd be a lot better now than he was when he first tried to break through...

I want to try and get a ski trip to france sometime next winter and try to get it to coincide with an Andros Trophee race. If I manage it, I'll be sure to take some Photos!!

Looking forward to watching the next two races tomorrow night now!

[zurich_allan]

A couple of videos from youtube for anyone that's interested but might not have seen anything of this before. The first is taken by someone in the crowd of the start and first 4 or 5 laps of the last round - for your info, it's Alain Prost in the lead in the Blue Dacia Duster fighting the car the whole way (I've said it before but I have no idea how he consistently keeps that car at the front end of the grid race after race - it is awful!). Just gives you an idea of the fan perspective when at an event - though this track is not like the majority of others, which are usually a LOT more bumpy and windy.




The second video shows the broadcast perspective of the races at one of the more traditional tracks. It's Motors TV coverage we get in the UK, though with English commentary of course! (The commentary on this video is in french). Grosjean won the race this short video is from, it was just before Christmas, but he was way in the lead at this point, the video is of the battle for 3rd-5th from memory...



Hope you enjoy if you decide to have a look!

[MattMK45]

Saw the skoda team in action at Val Thorens will I was skiing. Absolutley awesome!

[zurich_allan]

One week to go until the new season, so I thought it might be apropriate to resurrect this thread to give a bit of information to those that haven't watched it before, or remind those that have been watching in the past but might not have remembered the new season is coming! Just wish Prost hadn't stayed with Dacia, who in my opinion cost him the title the past two years, but hoping that his new Lodgy is better than the old Duster.

Anyway, hopefully a few people watch the series and post on the thread in the upcoming weeks!

[zurich_allan]

Wow! Talk about controversy! It's not just in F1 people!!

First of all, congratulations to Alain Prost for winning the title (his 3rd in the last 6 years), he was definitely the best driver of the year, not driving the best car (that was the Skoda), and deserved it!

But....

To fill people in, the situation was that going into the last round, there were 3 drivers in contention for the title - Benjamin Riviere who was leading, Prost in 2nd and Jean Philippe Dayraut in 3rd. After an immense qualifying Prost put himself on pole by a huge margin (some 2.5 seconds quicker than 2nd), and after points given in quali he was now leading the title going into his race. And then it got complicated!!

Jacques Villeneuve was starting alongside Prost and basically took him out at the first corner (coincidence that he drives for Skoda, as does Riviere, and if Prost didn't finish then Riviere would be champion?). So for a lap it looked like Riviere was champion... and then the decision was taken to bring the red flag out as Prost's car was deemed to be in a dangerous place. So under the rules of the series, all cars are allowed to take the restart in their original grid positions IF they can be repaired within 10 minutes. Prost's car couldn't be fixed within the 10 minute rule, but they instead allowed a full 45 minutes for his car to eventually be fixed and he was allowed to restart on pole!!

It gets funnier still as Villeneuve was demoted to the back of the grid (the Stewards must have suspected the potentially deliberate team plot as mentioned above), but this then promoted Riviere - Prost's direct rival - to 2nd on the grid beside Prost!

Both got off the line cleanly and Prost managed to hold off Riviere for the whole race - both finishing well clear of the field for Prost to take the title!!

What a drama! I feel sorry for anybody that sadly has missed out by not watching the series and especially that final!!

Again, congratulations to Alain Prost - a champion again only 3 weeks away from his 57th birthday! (And another congratulations to his son Nicolas who won the independent category too!).

[vlad]

The great Prost!

[andrew]

The great Prost!

The chump Villeneuve.

[bud]

The great Prost!

The chump Villeneuve.

He learned from the best